Jaxon Smith-Njigba predicted he would play a bigger role for the Seattle Seahawks after the bye week

The Seattle Seahawks are coming off a much-needed bye week and if nothing else, they should have fresh legs on Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers. However, the rest of the world won’t help them unless they make some pretty dramatic changes coming out of their hiatus.

The Athletic’s Mike Dugar has released a new column with several predictions for the Seahawks down this stretch. In addition to multiple offensive line changes, he thinks we’re about to see an expanded role for sophomore wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who is coming off a breakout game with a career-high 180 yards and two touchdowns — and he could doing that too would have gotten me another 78 yards if it weren’t for a few holding penalties.

The Athletic on JSN’s role is growing

“But even as an outfield weapon, Smith-Njigba has proven multiple times this season that he can be an outfield threat, with or without DK Metcalf on the field… Smith-Njigba’s big day can loosely be attributed to Seattle faces more single-high coverage, but the remaining schedule suggests there will be similar opportunities… Pass protection plays a role in how often Seattle takes shots down the field, but on Sunday the protection was just as poor as the entire season, and Smith-Njigba had another career day.”

Even though it was only one game, a few things became abundantly clear as JSN fired up the Rams for big play after big play. First, Smith-Njigba is much more capable overall as a receiver than Tyler Lockett at this late stage in his career and therefore deserves a greater share of targets.

Second, JSN is also much more gifted than DK Metcalf in some parts of the game, especially adding yards after the catch. That’s an element Seattle’s offense has been missing for far too long — and if getting ahead also means fewer targets for Metcalf, then so be it.

For the season, Smith-Njigba’s production is as good as any slot receiver in the NFL. According to PFF, he leads all slot receivers in receptions (43), yards (514), first downs (25) and catches of 15 more yards (13).

The hope is that offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb can carve out a bigger piece of the pie for JSN in the second half of the season.