NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Before Mike Macdonald gave Jaxon Smith-Njigba a game ball Sunday night, the Seattle Seahawks coach asked his team what week it was in the NFL schedule. It was Macdonald's way of bringing context to the historically strong season his team's star receiver is putting together.
It continued in the Seahawks' 30-24 win over the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium, as Smith-Njigba caught eight passes for 167 yards and two touchdowns. With his most productive game of the year, Smith-Njigba broke DK Metcalf's single-season record of 1,303 receiving yards.
Metcalf had topped Steve Largent's old club record in the 16th and final game of the 2020 season. Smith-Njigba, the NFL's leading receiver this season, broke Metcalf's mark before the calendar turned to December.
"Eleventh game, 12th week," Macdonald marveled to reporters. "That's pretty good."
Smith-Njigba has led the Seahawks in receiving in all 11 games. According to ESPN Research, only one other player in NFL history -- the Jacksonville Jaguars' Jimmy Smith in 2004 -- has had that long of a streak as a team's leading receiver to begin a season. This was the eighth time this year that Smith-Njigba has topped 100 yards, and he hasn't finished any game with fewer than 79.
"It's unbelievable, man, just the way that he's been able to play this year, every single game," quarterback Sam Darnold said. "It's tough to be that consistent, but I think it starts with his attitude and his prep that he puts in throughout the week. So, no surprise whatsoever. He's a really good player."
Smith-Njigba now has 1,313 receiving yards on the year, putting him on pace to top the NFL's single-season record of 1,964 that Calvin Johnson set in 2012. He has caught 80 passes on 108 targets, as the Seahawks have run the ball on by far the highest percentage of offensive plays of any team in the league.
"He's done an incredible job of making the most of the opportunities, over and over again," said fellow receiver Cooper Kupp, who made a run at Johnson's record when he won the league's receiving triple crown with the Los Angeles Rams in 2021. "There's been games where it's like, man, we're not throwing the ball a ton. But every opportunity he has to make a play, he's doing it. That's hard to do in this league. Everyone knows that the passing game is obviously going to be going through him, and he just continues to make plays. It's pretty impressive to watch."
Darnold and Smith-Njigba gave the Seahawks a 10-3 lead in the second quarter when they connected on a 63-yard touchdown. Smith-Njigba wasn't Darnold's first read on the play, but he found the receiver open on a deep corner route after pre-snap motion left him matched up against safety Amani Hooker.
"Credit to Sam just seeing it, sticking with me and understanding that I'm going to adjust my route mid-play," Smith-Njigba said. "So, for him to be able to see that and put the ball up and get me a chance, I think that's elite, championship football and something we hope to continue."
They connected again early in the third quarter on a 13-yard throw into the end zone, giving the Seahawks a 23-3 lead. It was Smith-Njigba's first multi-touchdown game of the season and gave him seven TDs of the year, a career high for the 2023 first-round pick. According to ESPN Research, it was his second career game with 150 receiving yards and two receiving scores, tying Largent, Brian Blades and Tyler Lockett for most such games in team history.
Smith-Njigba finished with 100 catches last year to tie Lockett's single-season team record. He's on pace to shatter that mark this year, though he has a way to go to top the team record of 14 touchdown catches that Doug Baldwin set in 2015.
But the receiving yards record is now his.
"It means a lot," he said. "This organization is a great organization, and great receivers have came through here. Honestly, I look at it as a team award ... because without Sam and without the protection and without [Rashid Shaheed] and Coop, this doesn't happen. So, I'm grateful and thankful, blessed for my team and blessed to be a Seahawk."
With their win, the Seahawks improved to 8-3 on the season and 12-2 in road games since Macdonald became head coach in 2024, the best mark in the NFL in that span. They entered Week 12 with a league-high 20 turnovers but did not give the ball away on offense for only the third time this season, though they committed 11 team penalties for 69 yards and went just 2-of-7 on third down and 2-of-4 in the red zone.
They needed every bit of Smith-Njigba's latest big game to hang on for a win despite being double-digit favorites against the league's only one-win team.
"He's got tremendous ability and he's a great talent, and he's an incredible worker, but I would say it's a team thing," Macdonald said. "He's not the only guy running routes out there. He's not the guy protecting. I think our offensive staff does a great job of moving him around, which is not easy to play multiple positions and move around. It's hard for guys to do that. It takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of elegant simplicity to make him get into all these different spots.
"And I think the guys around him are playing at a high level, too, and I think we can be better. I think today we were a little sloppy operationally offensively. We need to clean that up. We've got to be better in the red zone. All these things we want to be able to improve on I think will allow him to even take it to another level."