When wide receiver DK Metcalf asked the Seattle Seahawks to trade him last offseason, he reportedly wanted to go to a team with a better chance of winning a Super Bowl, which had a more stable quarterback situation and played home games in warmer weather. What Metcalf really wanted was to get paid.
Seattle ultimately didn't want to pay the mercurial receiver, who had a bombastic temper on the field (as proven by his league-leading 15-yard penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct since 2019) and might not have been the positive influence in the locker room the team wanted. Trading him made more sense.
The money Seattle might have paid Metcalf instead went to wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba this week, as it was reported that Seattle has signed JSN to a four-year extension that will pay him as much as $168.6 million. That averages out to $42.15 million a season, the richest contract ever for a receiver.
Former Seattle Seahawks wide receiver DK Metcalf can't be happy with Jaxon Smith-Njigba's new deal
Metcalf did get an extension once he was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he gets a healthy $33 million a season on his deal, but he simply isn't worth what JSN will be paid.
Smith-Njigba is a far more positive person and player, and a much better fit for the culture that general manager John Schneider and head coach Mike Macdonald want to cultivate. Smith-Njigba is also more productive. Metcalf, for instance, has never come close to the NFL-leading 1,793 Smith-Njigba produced this season.
Metcalf never will. He isn't as good a route-runner as JSN is, and doesn't have the catch rate (60.2 percent for Metcalf and 71.9 percent for JSN) that Smith-Njigba can produce. Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the better receiver, and he is paid as much now, too.
For DK Metcalf, the irony must be brutal. Smith-Njigba is the player who is on a team that was closer to winning a title than Metcalf's Steelers (the Seattle Seahawks obviously won the Super Bowl this past season), and with Sam Darnold, Smith-Njigba plays on a team with a far better long-time quarterback situation than Pittsburgh.
Had Metcalf been a good teammate and good employee, maybe he would have won a title with Seattle. Instead, he wasn't and wanted to go somewhere to make money. Hopefully, he is happy with that because Jaxon Smith-Njigba has everything Metcalf wanted and will likely never have.