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Camp Storylines
JSN Broke the Record, Won the Ring, and Says He’s Not Done
Seahawks.com dropped its Jaxon Smith-Njigba training camp storyline overnight, and the framing is the fun kind of problem: what does a receiver do for an encore after a season like that? Because the season was absurd. JSN broke DK Metcalf’s single-season franchise record of 1,303 receiving yards, and he did it in his 11th game, not his 16th.
1,303
DK Metcalf’s old single-season franchise receiving record, which JSN broke in his 11th game.
Here’s the part that should keep the rest of the division up at night. Told he’d just authored an all-time year, JSN’s response was to talk about the stuff he still can’t do yet. “It’s always attacking, getting bigger, faster, stronger,” he told Seahawks.com. “That second year of growth with Sam (Darnold) and the team and playing off ‘Shid and Coop, just evolving in that way.” A guy who led the team in receiving in every single game before the record fell, and his takeaway is the margins.
The interesting wrinkle is that the raw numbers might actually dip, and nobody in the building would blink. Seattle expects Rashid Shaheed to be far more involved in his first full season here, and Cooper Kupp led the team in receiving in two of three playoff games. That’s a receiving room deep enough that JSN doesn’t have to be the whole show every Sunday. Which, of course, is exactly when he tends to become the whole show anyway.
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A guy who led the team in receiving in every single game before the record fell, and his takeaway is the margins.
He’s tied to Seattle through 2031 on the biggest receiver contract in football. He set the standard last year. Now the assignment is to raise it while the offense around him gets deeper. If he actually pulls off “better,” the record he just set won’t survive the year he’s about to have.
SOURCES →
AROUND THE COOP
Around the Coop
SI ran three storylines for the rookie class as the youngsters report ahead of the veterans this week. The class that produced zero edge rushers now has to prove it produced somebody. No pressure, gentlemen. SI
Seahawks.com’s camp countdown also asked whether a loaded defensive front can somehow be even better in 2026. When your Super Bowl D-line returns nearly whole and the question is ‘can it improve,’ you’re allowed to be smug about the premise. Seahawks.com
Full-squad camp opens July 25, but rookies report first and the calendar is finally real. Nine public practices, Football Fest at Lumen on August 8, and HBO’s cameras rolling shortly after. The offseason is almost over. Behave accordingly. Seahawks.com
NFC WEST SCHADENFREUDE REPORT
RAMS
The Aaron Donald reunion fantasy picked up a real detail this week, and it’s a doozy. On The Pat McAfee Show, Peter Schrager said the Rams and Donald haven’t even discussed money yet, and that if the 35-year-old comes back, he wants to play the entire season, not cameo down the stretch. So the plan to avenge a conference title loss to Seattle is: unretire a Hall of Famer, don’t talk salary, and let him set the terms. Bold negotiating posture from the betting Super Bowl favorite.
NINERS
San Francisco spent big to rebuild the receiving room around Mike Evans, and then ESPN’s annual survey of executives, coaches, and scouts left him off the top 10 entirely. He landed among the honorable mentions, with one NFC scout calling him declining but timeless. Nothing steadies a Super Bowl window like a boundary receiver the league’s evaluators just politely declined to rank. Enjoy the honorable mention, Faithful.
SEACHICKENS TRIVIA
This wide receiver caught 87 passes in 2004 to set the Seahawks’ single-season reception record at the time, and topped 1,000 yards three times as Matt Hasselbeck’s go-to target in the mid-2000s. Who is he?
Tap to Reveal the Answer
Darrell Jackson. A third-round pick in 2000, he played seven seasons in Seattle through 2006 and was Hasselbeck’s most reliable weapon during the run to Super Bowl XL.
Got a Question for the Mailbag?
Camp is nine days out and the questions are piling up. Fire away on the roster, the record chase, or whatever’s keeping you up at night, and I’ll answer the best one in an upcoming issue.
Nine days to camp, and the scariest thing about our best player is that he thinks he can still get better. — The Rooster