Music City record man: Jaxon Smith-Njigba sets Seahawks mark, leads win at Titans
Calvin Johnson. Jerry Rice.
Name an All-Pro — and, yes, Hall-of-Fame receiver — Jaxon Smith-Njigba is not playing like right now.
“It’s just second nature now. We know it’s going to happen,” teammate Derick Hall said inside a return to the boomin’ bass music roaring inside the Seahawks’ postgame locker room Sunday.
“He’s inevitable. Dude’s always open.” Across the room, AJ Barner shrugged.
“I mean, you have to marvel at it a little bit,” the tight end said.
“Nobody’s done what he’s doing.” The guy throwing him all these passes for all these yards, Sam Darnold said: “It’s unbelievable, man.”
In Music City, Smith-Njigba became Seattle’s record man.
He stayed on track to become an NFL record-setter, too.
Like a deer on a Tennessee prairie, Smith-Njigba freely roamed deep down and all across the field Sunday. He galloped for 63- and 13-yard touchdown passes from Sam Darnold in the first half. In the third quarter he broke DK Metcalf’s team record of 1,303 yards receiving for a season.
Hall’s and coach Mike Macdonald’s Seattle defense missing four starters and losing a fifth, fill-in starter in the first half Sunday did the rest. The Seahawks sacked Titans rookie quarterback Cam Ward four times. They held Tennessee without an offensive touchdown until the game was essentially over late in the third quarter.
The Seahawks mostly cruised to a 30-24 victory over the less-than Titans that really wasn’t that close at sunny Nissan Stadium.
The Seahawks led 30-10 until the final minute of the third quarter. Much of this game of broken plays was like watching recess on a Nashville playground. The Seahawks (8-3) seemed to have won it hours, no, days, before they actually did over the 1-10 Titans. Tennessee’s final score, a touchdown with 43 seconds remaining, was cosmetic.
Smith-Njigba had eight catches on 10 targets for 167 yards and the two touchdown passes for Seattle, which won for the eighth time in 10 games. He said, yes, breaking the mark Metcalf, his mentor his first two seasons after Seattle drafted Smith-Njigba in the first round in 2022 out of Ohio State, has been on his list of goals.
“It means a lot,” Smith-Njigba said, sighing under his black cowboy hat he recently bought online. “This organization is a great organization. Great receivers have (come) through here.
“Honestly, I look at it as a team award, honestly. Without Sam, without the protection, without (fellow wide receivers) Rashid (Shaheed) and ‘Coop’ (Cooper Kupp) this doesn’t happen.
“I’m grateful. I’m thankful, blessed for my team. Blessed to be a Seahawk.”
Smith-Njigba’s sixth 100-yard day in seven games leaves him with 1,313 yards this season. He still has six games left in it, not including playoffs the Seahawks are poised to make. His 167 yards receiving were the second-highest of his three-season, 45-game career, 15 short of his best day from last season.
Teammates roared as Macdonald gave him the game ball in the locker room after this win, for breaking Metcalf’s record.
Macdonald and general manager John Schneider trading Metcalf to Pittsburgh in March to clear the top receiving spot for Smith-Njigba looks rather prescient right now, eh?
Asked how many times he’s given Smith-Njigba a game ball this season, Macdonald smiled and said: “Probably not enough.”
He remained on pace to break Johnson’s NFL record of 1,964 yards receiving for the 2012 Detroit Lions.
“Happy for JSN,” Macdonald said. “I mean, doing an incredible job. Brings it every day. And, he’s a great teammate.”
Darnold rebounded from his four-interception day in Seattle’s loss at the Rams that knocked the Seahawks out of the NFC West lead last weekend. He completed 16 of 26 throws for 244 yards and the two TDs.
Most notable for the NFL’s leading turnover producer entering this weekend: He had no turnovers Sunday — though the Titans could have intercepted three of his passes.
“I should have started with that,” Macdonald said at his press conference postgame of the third game this season Seattle’s offensive did not turn the ball over.
The Seahawks defense? It allowed a 15-play Titans drive to begin the game, but turned them away inside the 5-yard line for only a field goal.
The Titans’ only touchdown of the game’s first 43 minutes was a 90-yard punt return in the third quarter by rookie Chimere Deke. He ran past blocked Seahawks, including last-man punter Michael Dickson. Macdonald was angry about that return, saying his return team failed bigly there.
JSN’s jolt
The Seahawks were sleeping through the first 18 minutes of the game. Smith-Njigba jolted them into it.
A false start by rookie guard Grey Zabel, starting again one week after a scary-looking knee injury, made a third and 1 third and 6, Zabel and his linemates gave Darnold time to wait for Smith-Njigba to run a 40-yard pattern from the left side of the field to the deep-right, empty side of Tennessee’s defense. Darnold lofted a pass that Smith-Njigba was about to out-run. The third-year wide receiver looked like a 13-year veteran, deftly slowing his run and keeping his defender at bay on his back.
Then, like Rice used to do from 1985-2004 on his way into the Hall of Fame, Smith-Njigba accelerated again as Darnold’s pass arrived. With the defender fallen and out of the play after the catch, Smith-Njigba turned to watch the 20 other players on the field watch him finish a 63-yard touchdown. Then he waved at the fans behind the south end zone he just scored in.
It was the first time Darnold had thrown to Smith-Njigba in the game, 18 1/2 minutes in.
A 3-3 slog became a 10-3 lead. Tennessee was behind for good.
He said he and Seahawks wide receivers coach Frisman Jackson work drills to judge passes in flight and adjust the speed of his runs. “Yeah, hold it off. Hold the line. Hold your line and let the ball be out there and break at the last second and catch the ball,” Smith-Njigba said. “It’s a great drill and something that you can see in the game.”
Plus, Smith-Njigba said: “I would say I have better ball tracking skills than a lot of DBs, and I can kind of feel their tenseness and freaking out when the ball is in the air.
“So, just staying relaxed, staying calm.”
The first player in the NFL’s Super Bowl era (post-1967) with at least 75 yards receiving in each of his first 10, now 11, games had 86 in the first half Sunday. He broke Metcalf’s receiving record from 2020.
That was the last season the Seahawks won the NFC West.
On the sideline following the game-breaking score, Darnold got up from his seat starting to look at Tennessee’s defense on his mobile tablet and walked to his offensive linemen a few feet away. He slapped each of their hands to thank them for the time he had to throw his 18th touchdown pass of the season.
As for the increasingly incomparable Smith-Njigba on that catch, Darnold said: “His body control is second to none. He can really go up. No matter if the ball is overthrown, I feel like he has the talent and the speed to speed up and catch it. “Or if it’s underthrown he has the ability to, like you mentioned, put the defender in a tough position and kind of box him out, and get the ball — and not only catch the ball but also try to score with it, as well.”
Nwosu, Pili turn game late 1st half
The Titans were driving, at the Seahawks 40-yard line with 2 minutes left in the first half trying to turn a 13-3 Seattle lead back into a one-score game.
Uchenna Nwosu and Brandon Pili didn’t allow that. Nwosu, usually an edge pass rusher on third downs, ran in step with Titans tight end Gunnar Helm deep down the left sideline to break up a pass. He injured his ankle on the play, though he returned to the game later.
On the ensuing fourth and 1, Pili, the 334-pound nose tackle, blew through the line and stopped Julius Chestnut for no gain with 1:48 left in the half.
After the turnover on downs, Darnold’s first pass of the day to Cooper Kupp was a 12-yard gain and first down at the Titans 13-yard line. That set up Myers’ third field goal of the half and a 16-3 lead for Seattle.
Kenneth Walker’s unsung play
The past week began with Macdonald saying Kenneth Walker was earning more opportunities to be the team’s lead back, over his job share with Zach Charbonnet.
Sunday began with Walker having as many rushing attempts as wide receivers Smith-Njigba and Rashid Shaheed (two) for much of the first half.
His biggest contribution was breaking up Darnold’s late, dangerous pass to him outside right early in the first quarter. Tennessee rookie cornerback Marcus Harris otherwise may have intercepted the pass and returned it with no one behind him for a touchdown.
Instead of a possible 10-0 lead early for a 1-9 team, the Seahawks got an incomplete pass then the first of three field goals by Jason Myers in the first half. That tied the game at 3.
From there, Seattle scored the game’s next 20 points to take command. “Yeah, I saw him undercut the route,” Walker said. “So I reached up and tried to swat the ball down the best I could so he couldn’t catch it.”
The News Tribune asked Walker when the last time was he broke up a pass about to be intercepted. The former Michigan State star running back Seattle drafted in 2022 smiled and said: “In high school.”
“But I’m an athlete,” he said, “so...”
He shrugged.
Walker emerged midway through the third quarter. He left for 19 yards to start the drive after Tennessee’s punt-return touchdown. Then he turned a short, check-down pass by Darnold into a 29-yard catch and run to get Seattle back in the red zone.
Charbonnet replaced him, then ran 5 yards for his team-leading seventh touchdown of the season. Seattle restored its 20-point lead, 30-10.
Another safety hurt
With Julian Love on injured reserve, the Seahawks lost another safety. Ty Okada missed the second half Sunday with an oblique injury.
In the third quarter, D’Anthony Bell became the third safety at that spot next to Coby Bryant. Bell had three tackles in the second half.
This story was originally published November 23, 2025 at 1:19 PM.
