The Seattle Seahawks are fresh off a victory in Super Bowl LX, and the celebration is likely to last until the new season begins in September. Before we get there, however, there is a period of free agency to work through, and the NFL draft. There might also be a Jaxon Smith-Njigba question that needs to be answered.
In a recent interview with WFAA in Dallas, the star wide receiver delivered what he expects when it comes time to sign his next contract. Likely, that will happen with Seattle as the team already holds a fifth-year option on JSN and could franchise tag him beyond that, which wouldn't happen sooner than 2028.
Eventually, though, Smith-Njigba is going to want a long-term deal, and when that offer happens, he expects the number to be the highest for any wideout in the NFL. He wants to be the highest-paid player at his position in the NFL, and the question is whether he will be worthy of that.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba wants the Seattle Seahawks to make him the highest-paid wide receiver
That isn't to say that Smith-Njigba isn't a great player and human being. He certainly appears to be the latter and is definitely the former. He led the league in receiving yards in 2025 with 1,793, and he had the highest percentage of being targeted on his team than any other wideout had on theirs.
To state it plainly, the Seahawks do not win the Super Bowl if they do not have Jaxon Smith-Njigba this season. If he ever leaves, the chance Seattle will win another title is greatly diminished. He deserves to get paid, but his annual salary would be at least $40 million a season if he gets his wish.
The current highest-paid wide receiver is Ja'Marr Chase of the Cincinnati Bengals. His contract pays him a total of $161 million over four years, or $40,250,000 a season. JSN's cap hit in 2026, as he is still on his rookie deal, is nearly $4.6 million. He is expecting, and should get, a substantial raise whenever he gets a new contract.
But will he continue to be the highest-producing wide receiver in the league? That is the difficult part to tell. In his last nine games of this season, he had only two games with more than 100 yards receiving. He had three games with 27 or fewer. Defenses adjusted to what the Seattle Seahawks were doing, and that meant throwing to Smith-Njigba a lot.
His future asking price might be heavily determined by what happens in 2026. The Seahawks have a May 1 deadline to pick up his fifth-year option, which the team is almost certain to do. But if Jaxon Smith-Njigba's receiving yards drop to 1,200 next season, will the team want to pay him $40 million a season beginning in 2028?