Loser No. 1 - Receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba
I don't know if rookie receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba's lack of real productivity through four games is his fault, the fault of the design of the offense, or that he is still basically working his way back from a broken wrist that he suffered in the preseason. It might feel like a safe assumption that Smith-Njigba just isn't getting targeted but that would be false. He is the third most targeted Seahawk at 20 and trails DK Metcalf by only 3.
Possibly the routes that Smith-Njigba is running where he is being targeted simply doesn't allow him to have many explosive plays. He does seem t catch a bunch of swing routes where he does not have good blocking in front of him so where he has the ball in his hands he simply has nowhere to go. He is also second in catches with 20 but he is only sixth is receiving yards. Smith-Njigba has an average yards per reception of only 5.2 which is awful.
Against the New York Giants, Smith-Njigba tied for the team lead in targets with 6 and he caught 3 of them but for just 5 (seriously...5!) yards. That is a 1.7 yard per catch average. Most times he caught the ball, he was near the line of scrimmage and near the sidelines and he immediately got tackled. But all that we seeing doesn't not relate to what we saw in the preseason.
In the preseason, Smith-Njigba was running down the seam of a defense and had a few explosive plays. Now the passes thrown his way don't seem to go downfield very far. Maybe Geno Smith just doesn't know how to use him yet. Or maybe Smith-Njigba doesn't know how to get open versus NFL number one defenders after playing against mostly backups in the preseason.