(*3*)
Ohio State and Penn State had been tied, 17-17, early in the third quarter of the 2021 season when the play name got here by means of: “Henry.” Buckeye sophomore large receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba figured the ball would not come his means. It by no means did in observe.
But Smith-Njigba is not one to waste a chance to make a defensive again look foolish.
He lined up tight to the left deal with, squeezed into the formation with Penn State senior cornerback Tariq Castro-Fields pressed up towards him. Smith-Njigba bought free instantly, a little shimmy to his left earlier than darting proper. At that level, Smith-Njigba had the defender on his hip – proper the place he wished him. Like SGA creating area for a step-back jumper, JSN planted his foot, stopped and left Castro-Fields two yards behind him to complete the route.
Then, immediately, quarterback C.J. Stroud put the ball in his chest. Castro-Fields in all probability tackles most large receivers at that level. Not Smith-Njigba. He sensed Castro-Fields driving from behind and turned the reverse technique to break for daylight.
A six-yard hitch was a 58-yard achieve.
“That’s my favorite part of the route, getting open and using all the tools,” Smith-Njigba advised me in August of 2022.
Smith-Njigba did that repeatedly in highschool, turning into a five-star recruit, and in faculty at Ohio State, turning into a first-round choose. He’s doing the similar in the NFL, the place he will probably be on the world’s largest stage Sunday in Super Bowl LX towards the New England Patriots as arguably the finest receiver in the complete league.
The 23-year-old led the NFL with 1,793 receiving yards this season on the technique to first-team All-Pro honors.
His body doesn’t mean that type of manufacturing ought to be potential. But dominance is available in many varieties.
Is Jaxon Smith-Njigba the finest WR in the NFL? Good luck arguing towards it.
Getty Images
There are these bodily imposing gamers like Calvin Johnson, somebody who overpowers the sport. There are burners like Tyreek Hill, who tilts the subject together with his mere presence. At 6-foot, 197 kilos, Smith-Njigba won’t ever be confused for both sport breaker.
Rodney Webb, who coached Smith-Njigba at Rockwall High School in the suburbs of Dallas, used to make enjoyable of the means Jaxon walked. It’s an virtually off-balance gait as if “he’s got blisters on his feet,” Webb says.
“When Jaxon walks into the door, (he) is a fairly unremarkable kid,” Webb stated.
He’s not tall. He’s not overly robust. He’s not extraordinarily quick (4.53 40-yard sprint at Ohio State’s Pro Day). So how do you clarify what makes Smith-Njigba nice?
One Ohio State coach put it to me this manner: “Words don’t do it justice; you have to see the tape.”
Just a few years in the past, we spoke to a number of individuals who’ve had the full Smith-Njigba expertise to get a sense of precisely how he embarrasses defensive backs week after week.
“He just has a knack for the game,” Smith-Njigba’s highschool offensive coordinator Trey Brooks stated. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Early in Smith-Njigba’s junior 12 months, Rockwall High School traveled two hours east on I-20 to Longview, Texas. The Lobos in 2018 had been atop the state’s highschool meals chain. An East Texas energy led by quarterback Haynes King, who was tenth in 2025 Heisman Trophy voting, Longview completed the season at 16-0 in Texas’ highest classification.
Rockwall misplaced by a possession. But Smith-Njigba by no means misplaced a route that day, ending with 13 catches for 289 yards and two touchdowns. It’s a efficiency that flummoxed even his dad.
“I was like, ‘Oh my god. Who are you? What is this?'” Maada Smith-Njigba stated.
Maada began coaching his son at age two. A highschool instructor and former faculty soccer participant, he’d take Jaxon and his older brother, Canaan, and run them by means of drills after work. A younger divorcee, Maada did not have a lot cash at the time, so the coaching periods served a double goal: Healthy leisure and a low cost technique to exhaust his boys in order that they’d go residence, eat dinner and go to sleep.
That coaching appeared to work. By age three, Jaxon performed up on Canaan’s YMCA basketball group. Jaxon might hardly carry the ball above his head, however he’d at all times harass the opposing group’s finest participant on protection. So Maada had a feeling Jaxon can be an athlete.
But 289 yards towards Longview? That felt completely different.
It would turn into the norm. Jaxon completed his junior season with 1,828 yards and 20 touchdowns. He bested that as a senior with 2,094 yards and 35 scores, the third most in a single season in Texas highschool soccer historical past. His 5,414 profession receiving yards are additionally the third-most ever in Texas historical past.
All of that sounds apparent now. Yeah, the NFL’s finest wideout dominated his highschool competitors. But when Smith-Njigba went loopy towards Longview, he was rated as a 3-star recruit. And the powers in and round Texas weren’t paying him rather more consideration.
The spring following Jaxon’s junior 12 months, then-Texas large receivers coach Drew Mehringer popped into Webb’s workplace on a recruiting go to. When the topic of JSN popped up, Mehringer preemptively stated: “I’m just here to check a box.”
Webb could not consider it. But colleges at all times appeared caught up in the measurables.
Ohio State large receivers coach Brian Hartline noticed issues in a different way. The Buckeyes made their eval and noticed the means Smith-Njigba gained separation on his routes, the means he tracked the soccer and his manufacturing. Hartline provided two weeks earlier than Smith-Njigba went off towards Longview.
Oklahoma and Texas A&M did not provide till months later. It took Texas virtually a 12 months. Smith-Njigba completed the cycle as a five-star recruit and the No. 2 receiver prospect in the nation.
“I really hate that Texas and Oklahoma and Arkansas really just ignored him,” Maada stated. “That’s why I give so much credit to (Ohio State). They were looking for real football players. Now I have to buy flights to Columbus every weekend. I could’ve been driving down to Austin the same day.”
What did Ohio State see? Three intangible traits make Smith-Njigba completely different from everybody else.
Separation
The sofa cushions had been lined up in Jami Smith’s lounge like out-of-bounds paint on a subject. Canaan known as out the routes and Jaxon ran them. A 3-year-old Jaxon would make the catch, however Canaan made him run the play many times. Jaxon could not simply catch the ball. He wanted to pull his toes in bounds for the play to depend. Canaan used to bully Jaxon till he made the play. Jaxon would cry out of frustration at occasions. But he by no means stopped. The brothers had been relentless.
The coaching with dad and the creativeness at mother’s home helped start an more and more coordinated little one. He was a toddler who needed to be strapped to his stroller as a result of he scored so many targets that it ruined his group’s soccer video games.
“He has a knack for anything that involves controlling movement,” Jaxon’s mom, Jami Smith, stated. “It was never awkward.”
Rockwall quarterback Jacob Clark used to marvel at Smith-Njigba’s coordination. Clark, who performed QB at Missouri State, was a 12 months older than Jaxon. Before transferring to Rockwall forward of his junior season, Clark noticed a freshman-age JSN return a punt and turned to his pal and stated, “Who the heck is this?”
Clark by no means performed basketball with Jaxon, who skipped his sophomore 12 months of varsity hoops, however he thinks Jaxon shares a lot of similarities to the means a nice guard comes off a display. Smith-Njigba is at all times establishing a defender to create leverage. He desires to make a defender suppose he is doing one factor earlier than beating him to the spot he desires to go. Great go rushers can bend off the edge. Jaxon, together with his capability to chop straight away and maneuver his physique at full velocity, does a lot of the similar when working his routes.
“He makes cuts and contorts his body better than anyone I’ve ever seen,” Clark stated. “He does that better than 95% of the NFL right now.”
Whether in a route or with the ball, separation has at all times been a defining energy of JSN’s sport.
Getty Images
That’s solely half of Smith-Njigba separation superpower. The different portion of it occurs properly earlier than the ball is snapped. He is a maestro of alternative routes. Rockwall ran them virtually completely when he was in highschool. Ohio State known as many in Ryan Day’s system.
The premise is straightforward: Receivers have route choices pre-snap relying on the means a protection is aligned.
For instance, if a receiver at Rockwall might beat the security over the high, they had been requested to stay their foot in the floor and run a go. If the receiver could not beat the security, they had been advised to stay their different foot in the floor and cross the face of the cornerback for an beneath route.
Two choices and that’s it, proper? Not for JSN.
More than as soon as in his profession, Smith-Njigba would upset the defensive again by beginning the route like he’d run a go, earlier than sticking it once more to cross the defender’s face for a simple completion. Rockwall did not even trouble instructing that to 99% of its gamers, as a result of most of them cannot do it.
“The types of questions he’d ask during video weren’t normal,” Brooks stated. “Most kids don’t see things the way he sees it. … Sometimes he’d suggest things I couldn’t even think about.”
Before each snap Smith-Njigba goes by means of a guidelines of types. He makes an attempt to determine if a group is in man or zone. Man is simple. Usually, the defender is correct in his face. He will doubtless be one on one. Zone is a bit extra sophisticated. He is attempting to learn the protection to see the place the holes are prone to be. Then he appears at the defender’s leverage to totally type his plan of assault.
“I’m just trying to get all the details,” he stated.
That’s a scary factor for defenders. Smith-Njigba was focused 112 occasions as a sophomore at Ohio State and caught 95 passes. That’s an 85% success charge, the finest in the FBS amongst any participant focused at the least 65 occasions. Of the 52 FBS gamers focused 100 occasions, Jaxon was the solely participant with a reception proportion above 80. In reality, his reception proportion is larger than any receiver who’s been focused 100 occasions in the historical past of PFF College, which dates to 2014.
“Jaxon is at his best when he has the ability to create,” Webb stated. “When you give him that — it’s over. You can’t cover him.”
“You just know he’s going to get open,” Clark stated.
Ball-tracking
Jaxon’s brother, Canaan, was a fourth-round Major League Baseball draft choice who performed outfield for the Pittsburgh Pirates. He’s used to monitoring balls hit at excessive speeds and generally a whole bunch of ft in the air. Jaxon likes to suppose a few of that rubs off on his sport. The brothers discuss continuously, and Canaan preaches persistence and studying the ball in flight to successfully full the catch
There’s in all probability a few of that blended in with Jaxon’s uncanny capability to search out a ball in flight. But that would not totally clarify the catch he made in the Rose Bowl. You know the one. Over his shoulder close to the sideline of the finish zone, head turned to date that it is horizontal.
That catch is iconic. It’s been seen tens of millions of occasions, and Brooks can not help however giggle at that reality. It seemed unimaginable, however he is seen JSN make related catches on a whole bunch of events in observe.
So the place does that capability to trace the soccer come from?
“That’s God,” Maada stated. “It’s just like, ‘Bro, how?’ I’m serious. I don’t know.”
Hands
Clark used to observe Smith-Njigba catch passes with out wanting.
“The refs were like, ‘I don’t think someone at this level can do that,'” Clark stated. “So, they’d call it incomplete.”
Unlike his god-given monitoring capability, Smith-Njigba’s arms are a product of labor. They aren’t large. This is not a Kawahi Leonard scenario the place his arms swallow the ball. It took grip energy coaching — and many it.
He began younger. Maada used to have handshake competitions together with his boys. They’d maintain on and squeeze to see who’d cower first. They’d work each arms, too. Maada used to make Jaxon maintain a soccer and he’d swipe at it time and again attempting to knock it away. Ahead of Jaxon’s varsity debut in ninth grade, Brooks remembers watching Smith-Njigba catch passes from the group’s ball boys. Then, one thing odd occurred. Smith-Njigba laid on his again and seemed behind him. He then proceeded to catch go after go with one hand prefer it was the most traditional factor in the world.
“His hands are one of a kind,” Clark stated.
When he was in faculty, Smith-Njigba spoke about a new wave of soccer. He seen the sport skewing towards creativity, an inventive growth that allowed talent gamers to precise themselves freely. Smith-Njigba checked out the means the Kansas City Chiefs function at the top of the Mahomes-Hill-Travis Kelce connection. He stated it takes particular abilities to tug it off, gamers who can thrive in the open subject and constantly get open.
“I feel like that’s what my game is,” Smith-Njigba stated.
It began with these sofa cushions. JSN noticed soccer on TV and imagined a related world in his lounge. In highschool, Jaxon gravitated to the quarterbacks he performed with, creating robust relationships with them, always finding out with them and asking to play catch.
Jami stated Jaxon has at all times been that means. Obsessed with soccer. So a lot so she by no means doubted Jaxon when he stated he’d play in the NFL. It was conviction matched solely by the labor that went towards the objective.
“He’s not a very balanced person,” Jami stated. “He’s just so dedicated to football. … It’s just been his way. I don’t think there’s a time he didn’t think about defenses.”
Inundated with fables of JSN’s soccer thoughts, I attempted to get inside his head: What is he pondering about at the high of a route? So a lot work goes into attending to that level, the place the separation is de facto about to occur, earlier than the ball-tracking after which the arms. So what’s that feeling like, when every thing culminates and JSN is aware of he is about to interrupt freed from a defender?
There is a pause for a few seconds. “I don’t know,” Smith-Njigba says, with a look on his face that tells me we occupy two very completely different worlds of being, that no matter occur in JSN’s moments of greatness are about being, not pondering.
“Sorry.”
Perhaps a story from highschool can finest try to elucidate the unexplainable.
During a district sport towards North Mesquite High School, Smith-Njigba ran a route alongside the sideline however as he minimize, his shoe got here off. Jaxon caught the ball. Then, ever so casually, he scooped up his shoe in the different hand and scooted out of bounds earlier than any of the a number of defenders barreling in his course might contact him.
“The game moves at a different speed for that person than anyone else,” Brooks stated. “That’s Jaxon right there.”
