The Seattle Seahawks are now ready to stack wins on their way back to the Super Bowl. On a team stacked with great players, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Nick Emmanwori stand out. Read on to see how they've taken two very different approaches to the game's highest level of play.
The Seahawks finally looked like the team all 12s have been waiting to see when they demolished the Chiefs. They'll have to step right into another challenge in Week 8 when they take on the Bears on Monday Night Football. The ManningCast will doubtless be full of references to Ditka, SNL sketches of Da Bears, and Chicago-style pizza versus...real pizza.
Don't hurt me; I love Chicago style. Yes, I meant hurt, not hate. North Side or South, Chicagoans agree on direct and immediate retribution for insults directed at their culture. I'm not about to get into the whole Giordano's vs. Malnati's thing. Anyway, we were talking about football and the Seahawks. Seattle has two of the game's biggest stars, but their games could not be more different.
Seattle Seahawks' Nick Emmanwori and Jaxon Smith-Njigba are opposites in style
Indulge me for a bit here, 12s. Picture the elements - the classic four elements of ancient civilizations, not the periodic table. I'm not that sadistic. We have Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. For fans of Maurice White, it's not my fault he didn't have a single Water sign in his birth chart.
Now let's focus on two of those elements: Water and Fire. Yeah, I know it sounds out of order, and you can blame James Taylor for that. I promise, we'll get to football soon. Okay, so water flows easily; it may simply glide along for a while, then suddenly turn into a torrent. You can try to channel it or even stop it, but at its most dangerous surges, it will simply overwhelm your best efforts.
And that, of course, is Jaxon Smith-Njigba. He glides effortlessly over the turf and never seems to be moving that fast. But he always finds that open channel - and then he's gone. No less an authority than Devon Witherspoon said that, unlike any other receiver, you simply cannot tell where JSN is going. He leads the league by over 20 yards per game, which attests to his greatness.
Then you have the inferno that is Nick Emmanwori. The destructive power of fire is nearly limitless. That's an excellent description of Emmanwori's impact on a game. In just one moment, a tiny spark can burst into a conflagration. That is Emmanwori.
A momentary lapse of concentration, and this blaze bursts through the line and swallows quarterbacks whole. Wide receivers don't burn him; he torches them with 4.38 speed. Starting at the line of scrimmage, he may blitz, drop back to read blocking schemes, or fly into coverage. Wherever he goes, he's going to burn the opposition.
Next week: Earth and Air. Kidding. Probably.
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