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The role model who made Jaxon Smith-Njigba, whose Seahawks dreams just came true
Maada Smith-Njigba began throwing footballs to his younger son at home in Texas before most kids know how to catch. Or ride a bike.
“He’s been there training me, throwing footballs at me, since I was 3 years old,” Jaxon Smith-Njigba said Wednesday.
Dad was inside Seahawks headquarters sitting a short out route to the left and front of his son, Seattle’s All-Pro wide receiver, Super Bowl champion and NFL offensive player of the year for the 2025 season.
The son said he learned from his father “first and foremost, hard work” from all those years hearing Dad leave the family’s house in Rockwell, Texas, before dawn. Maada worked all hours as a firefighter for the Dallas Fire Department.
“Hard work,” Jaxon said. “Seeing him — like, anything that I’ve wanted, I saw him get up early for us to go get that, to have.
“He is the reason I’m here today. Just the leader, and how strong he is physically and mentally, for us to live out our dreams.”
The younger Smith-Njigba’s dreams came true Wednesday. He signed his four-year extension to stay under contract with the Seahawks in his new home city through at least 2031.
Just one month past his 24th birthday — “still so young,” general manager John Schneider said while announcing the re-signing — Smith-Njigba is guaranteed life-changing money. Generational money.
It’s $120 million guaranteed, more than $60 million of it to him in the next 12 months. That’s inside a total contract value of up to $168.6 million for the Seahawks’ first-round draft choice in 2023 out of Ohio State.
It’s the richest contract in Seahawks history. It’s ahead of the four-year, $140 million deal quarterback Russell Wilson signed in April 2019.
Yes, Smith-Njigba can now repay Dad and Mom, Jami, a high school teacher in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, for all they’ve done for him and his 26-year-old brother Canaan. The former outfielder with Major League Baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates was sitting next to their father watching his Jaxon’s big day at Seahawks headquarters.
“I’ve always had the belief,” Jaxon Smith-Njigba said.
“But, yeah, this proves I’m good — for a long time.”
He and everyone inside the team’s main auditorium full of cheering Seahawks employees laughed.
“It’s a blessing,” Smith-Njigba said.
How it came about
The deal to re-set the market for NFL wide receivers at more than $42 million for Smith-Njigba came months earlier than is the Seahawks’ norm.
In his 17 offseasons as Seattle’s GM, Schneider has typically reached these extensions with foundational players the summer entering the final years of their contracts. That is, at or just after the start of training camp in late July. It’s usually after months of customary back and forth between the team and the star player’s agent on worth relative to other top players at his position around the NFL.
This agreement with Smith-Njigba got done relatively seamlessly. And quickly. It’s been just six weeks since Smith-Njigba was reveling with many of the hundreds of thousands of fans lining the streets of downtown Seattle for the Seahawks’ racous Super Bowl victory parade.
Seahawks, 700k+ fans wild at Super Bowl parade: ‘Crazy! This is beyond belief!’
“We’ve had a great relationship with Jaxon’s agent, Joel Segal (of WIN Sports Group). for a long, long time,” Schneider said.
“We were able to just keep things in house, keep things respectful. And, you know, when you’re on the higher end of these deals, they are actually — I don’t want to say they’re easier, but...we recognize Jax’s talent, his work ethic, the person. ...
“We value people.”
The benefit to the Seahawks of getting Smith-Njigba’s massive contract done now, still four months before training camp, is it sets up the team to do the same, top-of-market extension for Pro Bowl cornerback Devon Witherspoon in the coming months. Schneider and his team have already planned for doing that. At that position it’s likely to cost at least $30 million per season for Seattle’s other first-round pick with Smith-Njigba from that 2023 draft.
Witherspoon was the fifth pick in that draft, a choice Denver traded to Seattle to get...Wilson, in the spring of 2022.
The other benefit for the Seahawks to re-signing Smith-Njigba now is they, and not a rival, set the market at wide receiver. The Los Angeles Rams, whom Seattle beat in the NFC championship game Jan. 25 to reach Super Bowl 60 last month, have All-Pro wide receiver Puka Nacua coming to the end of his contract. Seattle has now set the bar for Nacua’s agents to target to the Rams.
L.A. did the same thing at cornerback to the Seahawks last month when they traded with Kansas City to get All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie, then signed him to an extension that’s worth $31 million per season. That’s the new top mark in the league for cornerbacks that Witherspoon’s agents are targeting in talks with Schneider and the Seahawks.
Smith-Njigba didn’t care about all that. He said he re-signed quickly because to him there was no other choice than Seattle.
“Ever since I got drafted, I just felt the love,” he said.
“It’s an honor to feel that confidence come from your teammates and come from the third floor (where team executives work), and your head coach.”
Mike Macdonald, seated to Smith-Njigba’s immediate right, nodded.
“To get this deal done speaks volumes. Definitely just a little weight off my shoulders,” Smith-Njigba said.
“This is home for me.”
Offensive player of the year.
Super Bowl champion.
All-Pro.
Franchise record for receiving yards (1,793, eighth-most in NFL history) in 2025.
A better season than even Hall of Famer Steve Largent, a Seattle legend Smith-Njibga often gets compared to for his hands, body control and poise, ever had.
What’s next for the 24-year old still just entering his prime? What’s the next level that will fuel him as he earns more than $42 million each year? His answer is already the story for the Seahawks 2026 season that begins in September.
“The only thing better than one Super Bowl,” he said with a grin, “is two.”
