How Seahawks’ Jaxon Smith-Njigba was sitting a helmetless target on Texans bench
Jaxon Smith-Njigba had his helmet ripped off.
Derek Stingley Jr. had stiff-armed the Seahawks wide receiver at the end of the Houston safety’s return of his interception of Sam Darnold in the fourth quarter of their game Monday night at Lumen Field. Stingleys stiff arm pushed Smith-Njigba’s helmet off his head.
Bare-headed, Smith-Njigba continued to push Stingley through the end of the play until he got Houston’s star out of bounds, into the Texans’ bench.
Stingley didn’t like that. He went at Smith-Njigba on Houston’s sideline.
That’s where and when Texans players realized they had a prime opportunity to gang up on Seattle’s star receiver. They encircled him.
It wasn’t a fair fight. Maybe 15 Texans versus one Seahawk. Yet Smith-Njigba, 6 feet and 202 pounds, showed stones by pushing back. Then linebacker Houston Christian Harris strongly lowered his shoulder and body and drove Smith-Njigba all the way into the Texans’ bench.
And onto it. Teammate Jake Bobo finally arrived to help. But by then, Smith-Njigba found himself seated on the white, plastic, heated bench — the wrong one, opposite his Seahawks sideline.
Then he just sat there, as if he was in a park on a Sunday morning.
The dot of navy blue in a sea of white, enemy uniforms continued just sitting there. Then game official Nathan Jones acted with expert preventative officiating. The field judge ran over, leaned over Smith-Njigba into the bench and formed a human shield the Texans’ players couldn’t get through.
Jones stayed there until eventually cooler heads, even Smith-Njigba’s only one without a helmet, prevailed.
So did the Seahawks, 27-19 over Houston, to improve to 5-2 entering their bye week.
“We had a nice little conversation,” Smith-Njigba said. “And I took a deep breath and then tried to enjoy the moment as much as I could, and run back to my sideline.”
After the game, Smith-Njigba smiled and ran his hands down his face and shoulder-padded chest talking about how he came out of all that unscathed.
“I told them I felt comfortable over there. It’s Monday night,” he said of looking cool in prime time on national television. “Not really worried about anything when it comes to facing all that.”
Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald was not pleased, nor comfortable, seeing his star wide receiver without his helmet on amid a mass of angry Texans on the opposite sideline.
“Didn’t look good over there. I’m glad that he’s OK,” Macdonald said. “And he made a smart decision in that moment.
“That’s a really, really poised, smart decision.”
Officials penalized Stingley for unnecessary roughness, for the action of going into Smith-Njigba well after the initial stiff-arm and tackle out of bounds.
“On me?” Stingley said after the game.
“I didn’t know that was on me.”
JSN on a R-U-N
Monday night was Smith-Njigba’s fifth 100-yard receiving day in seven games this season. He leads the NFL with 819 yards receiving.
He basically shrugged at that late Monday night.
“A pretty good start,” he said.
“Like I said, my motive has always been to win games, get into the playoffs, get a ring, helping this team win. Anything that I can do I’m going to do.”
He caught Darnold’s lone touchdown pass against Houston. Darnold made a brilliant play on that, staring through an imminent hit by defensive tackle Tommy Togiai, who had beaten Seahawks right guard Anthony Bradford’s pass block.
Immediately after his TD catch, Smith-Njigba put the ball in his right hand, extended that arm, leaped and dunked the ball over the crossbar. What he said was a spontaneous celebration earned him a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct.
“That was surprising, because we know that’s a penalty,” Darnold said. “I haven’t really talked to him about that.
“He got up, I know that.
“Yeah, we’d like to maybe not do that next time.”
Darnold laughed.
It was Smith-Njigba’s fourth TD catch this season. When Darnold needs a play, especially on third or fourth day, in sudden-change situations after an opponent’s turnover, 14 is throwing to 11.
Almost every time. Again on Monday, Darnold threw the preponderance of his passes at Smith-Njigba: 14 targets. No other Seahawks had more than five targets (tight end Elijah Arroyo). “It’s not surprising, because I see him come into work every day with the same mindset and the consistency,” Darnold said.
Darnold said the Texans joined the foes who have been trying any and all coverages on Smith-Njigba.
They aren’t working.
“He gets doubled sometimes. We see some cloud coverage,” Darnold said, of a cornerback covering Smith-Njigba short and a safety lurking behind him deep.
“There’s a lot of things that teams do to try to take away players like that. But again, with the guys that we have, other than JSN, all of our skill players, receivers, tight ends, running backs, you got to account for those guys, as well.”
This story was originally published October 21, 2025 at 1:14 AM.
