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WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba, SEA (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Bracie Smathers
- Start date
JohnnyU
Footballguy
I would love for the Colts to get him at #35.
A lot of stuff about his career trajectory so far, and a little bit about his style of play, kind of reminds me of JuJu.
Both had massive statistical seasons their second to last year and both of them were players that a lot of the dynasty community went into their last seasons thinking was a 1.1-1.3 type candidate. Both of course end up with disappointing final seasons. JuJu's a bigger guy and I think JSN is a better route runner but I do view them both as basically slot possession WR's so similar in that regard.
JuJu ended up getting drafted in mid to early second round of my leagues. Could JSN's fall be that big? I tend to think not but I do think he's more likely to be the third WR drafted in NFL draft then the first and I'd also add to me the odds are he won't be very close to that 1.2-1.3 type of range a few people perceive him as right now either.
Both had massive statistical seasons their second to last year and both of them were players that a lot of the dynasty community went into their last seasons thinking was a 1.1-1.3 type candidate. Both of course end up with disappointing final seasons. JuJu's a bigger guy and I think JSN is a better route runner but I do view them both as basically slot possession WR's so similar in that regard.
JuJu ended up getting drafted in mid to early second round of my leagues. Could JSN's fall be that big? I tend to think not but I do think he's more likely to be the third WR drafted in NFL draft then the first and I'd also add to me the odds are he won't be very close to that 1.2-1.3 type of range a few people perceive him as right now either.
socrates
Footballguy
Interesting observation. JSS fell to the 2nd round. If JSN disappoints this spring and drops out of the first, I think we have to consider the very real similarities. JSN is being most commonly mocked as the WR3, but still within the first, but time will tell. I personally believe JSN has the ability to separate that JSS lacks, and I have him as my WR1 in this class.
I am in agreement with this. I feel like he runs routes a lot better then JuJu, is not as strong but route running is more preferred trait to me. May sound like I'm bagging on JSN with my post and some others but right now he's my WR1.
But I do view JSS as one of the weaker WR1's candidates I've seen in years and far from a lock to hold onto that spot, and with the quality of the RB's I'm just expecting him to be more of a middle to later first round player in dynasty drafts then top 2/3. Though to be fair I only view Gibbs and Bijan as basic locks to be at the top of the drafts. To add some more clarity to that comment I don't think Gibbs is a lock at 2, I think he's a lock to be very high however. Those are the only two players I can comfortably say that about in a non super flex type league. Everyone else seems like they could be all over the place once the dust settles.
ghostguy123
Footballguy
Sounds like last year
Ilov80s
Footballguy
He is in the ARSB, Juju, Keenan Allen "phylum" (nod to Chris Harris). I can see how that is perceived as a knock since that isn't the outside alpha who seems to hit the highest ceilings for fantasy. That said, Keenan Allen has been a longtime fantasy stalwart. Even with some bad injury luck during his prime years he has 6 seasons as a WR1 or 2. Juju had 2500 yards and 14 TDs after his first 2 seasons. If you moved off of him at the right time, you got a kings ransom. I think what has hurt him the most is his mindset. On the other hand, you have Amon Ra. He's built totally different. He would rather lift and hit the jug machine than post on TikTok. I think most people would be very happy right now if they had used the 1.2 in 2021 on Amon Ra.
The question for me, is JSN more Amon Ra or more Juju in his mindset and approach to the game? Based on what Olave and Wilson have said about him, I am optimistic he's a dog.
The question for me, is JSN more Amon Ra or more Juju in his mindset and approach to the game? Based on what Olave and Wilson have said about him, I am optimistic he's a dog.
Faust
MVP
NFL Rookie Watch @NFLRookieWatxh
Jaxon Smith-Njigba is DANGEROUS in the open field
The Ohio State WR is currently projected to be taken in the first round of the NFL Draft.
smbkrypt24
Footballguy
Haven’t looked much, but Jaxon five original team name if you were to add JSN?
titusbramble
Footballguy
Would probably go with the Will Smith angle and go for Get Njiggy With It
Ilov80s
Footballguy
I did a damn triple take when I skimmed past this post. Whoa.
JetMaxx
Footballguy
Jarvis Landry v2
TheFatKid
Footballguy
According to 50 Cent, our greatest love is cake.Love him like a fat kid loves ice cream.
(it’s me. I’m the fat kid. IIce cream)
Its distinctly possible that I’ll have picks 1-2-3-4 in 2023. In SF it’s hard not to take the top 2 QB & Bijan is a lock.
I may take JSN over Gibbs. It feels crazy since I need RBs. But man is this kid good.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
He’s right, it’s just that I’m not a big icing guy.
socrates
Footballguy
. . . said no fat kid ever!
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
Me & hockey fans. What’re ya gonna do.
rockaction
Footballguy
I love radar guns and watches, and this guy seems to fail those tests.
Stinky bait at the 1.3
Combine rules. I'll update when appropriate.
Stinky bait at the 1.3
Combine rules. I'll update when appropriate.
smbkrypt24
Footballguy
Are you saying you don't like him because of his speed? You will wait for the combine to confirm that?I love radar guns and watches, and this guy seems to fail those tests.
Stinky bait at the 1.3
Combine rules. I'll update when appropriate.
rockaction
Footballguy
Yep. It's purely a speed thing and explosiveness thing. If he runs a sub 4.5, then I'll back off that and judge him accordingly. Really, he only needs to run a sub 4.55 to be effective in the NFL. I suspect he'll clock in right around there from what the guys who measure frames and MPH were saying.
We'll see. Don't forget, I'm making fun of my own tendency to value the watch. You can miss some guys when you do that, Amon- Ra St. Brown being one of those guys.
Yeah 4.5+ would seem kinda slow for a smaller guy
rockaction
Footballguy
We shall see. jetPackGalileo (from Fantasy Football Astronauts) was positing realistic 40 times today and he guessed a 4.52 for Njigba. At least that's what I think I saw on my Twitter feed. I may be misattributing the source, but I don't think so.
St. Brown ran a 4.61 on his pro day. That's usually about .5 lower than the combine, so we're talking he could have run about a 4.65, which is almost a death knell for guys. So the watch isn't always determinative of play speed and stuff like that. It's a good measure, but not the end-all be-all. Unless you're like David Bell from last year, who IMO, people shouldn't have even touched.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Woof on David Bell. I don't even want to think about that name right now.
One thing Amon Ra had that Bell didn't was a lot of explosion. The Sun God is a very well trained athlete: 85th % broad, 84th % vert, 89th % bench. He might be slow but he's powerful and packs a ton of burst.
rockaction
Footballguy
That's huge and probably the reason he operates like he does. Because by all measurements, he's slow for an NFL WR. I think the cutoff point for where speed begins to really factor into production is around 4.55. Cynthia Frelund did some work on that recently (a year or two ago) and found that to be the cutoff point for fantasy production, anyway.
According to her, though, for slot receivers they're looking at the 10-yard split, short shuttle, and vertical jump. She says ideally guys will have a 1.50-1.69 10-yard and a vert between 32.5 and 36.5.
eta* I didn't know this before today. So that's good to know, I think. That's what you're really looking at for Smith-Njigba due to the probability of him operating out of the slot in the pros.
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I think this is the correct ballpark for comps in terms of slower, possession type slot WR's.
And while in hindsight most of them should have been drafted higher I don't think any of them went in round one of my leagues, Allen is only one I'd need to double check as he might have gone 11 or 12. Just a lot to me to say that JSN is similar to these players and feel good taking him at like 3.
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Yeah doesn't feel very good taking that archetype at 1.03.
I doubt Allen was picked that high, he was a 3rd round NFL draft, ran a 4.71. Kind of the David Bell of his year.
That was the draft I think for most people fell off a cliff, or at least that's what we thought, at like pick 9. Turned out to be some good players later but things were all over the board after like player 9. I remember this draft well because I was fairly new to dynasty and in fact this was the first year I had a first round pick in a rookie draft. Those big 9 were Tavon Austin, Hopkins, Cordarelle the WR, Eifert(TE premium leagues) and Gio, Bell, Ball and Lacy. Then things went all over the place with exception of Johnathan Franklin who did not always go 10 but always in the 10-12 range.
So reason I wondered if Allen had gone round 1 in some leagues was the draft falling off the cliff at pick 9 and I had pick 10 in a league. I did not try and trade the pick until those top 9 were officially gone. When they were I tried hard to move the pick for a future first and had to pay with some later round picks to pull it off but I did(and the guy drafted Franklin). But what I recall was narrowing my list down to 4 players to choose at 10 if I could not pull off a trade. Franklin, Allen, Justin Hunter or Kelce. And as a sign of how all over the draft was that year I actually saw someone in another league of mine take Kelce at 1.11 and in this league I'm referencing I ended up drafting him in the early third.(and cut him later in the year when my IR was full
) But my point was I could not be sure on where Allen went because variance was high that year and I was mulling him at 10 and had him inside my top 14.Long story short, was a weak looking draft. Got saved somewhat hindsight, especially in TE premium leagues, by guys like Kelce and Ertz but I guess also by Allen.
ghostguy123
Footballguy
Bijan at 10 and Njigba at 30. Who needs defense.
JetMaxx
Footballguy
Did you watch the Super Bowl?
ghostguy123
Footballguy
Yeah. They are gonna lose a bunch of guys. The rooks won't do much. Go score 50 a game!!!!
It was a joke BTW
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
Yeah, this reeks of a set-up for conformation bias, but you know that.
“If he’s as slow as I think (and as everyone has said for 3 years) he’s going to be terrible!”
Stopwatch confirms
“Yep! He’s going to be terrible!”
For me it’s landing spot. Chiefs, Giants, Ravens (they’re desperate for another short to intermediate route runner), LAC, maybe a few other jackpot landing spots.
JSN has played at this same speed for years. What matters is his ability to create separation and catch the ball. He passes both of those tests in spades.
Careful with that Radar gun - you’ll put an eye out.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
Doubtful. He’s run this speed his entire career. He had 1600+ yards with two 1st round picks in the WR room. When they weren’t he went stratospheric for a game.
At this point literally every team knows what his speed is. They aren’t going to not draft a premium slot receiver because he ran a 4.5 40.
They know what JSN is at this point.
- Averaged 192 receiving yards per game in last five contests of 2021 season.
- Plays tough in the teeth of the defense as a zone-beater.
- Elevates his catch focus when contested.
- Leverages his intermediate break points.
- Softens and extends his hands to meet the throw.
- Tracks deep throws with poise and accuracy.
- Athletic and smooth catching on the move.
- Plays to his top speed throughout the route.
To me, landing spot dictates FF value.
rockaction
Footballguy
I am careful about the gun. The only thing about the gun is that it gives one a necessary but sufficient test that doesn't fail very often (Cooper Kupp, St. Brown, Jakobi Meyers) when it comes to determining who will have success on the outside in the NFL. I mean that it doesn't mean that if a guy runs fast he's good, more the reverse -- that if a guy runs slow, he's going to have trouble in the NFL on the outside. Of course there are notable exceptions to a pure speed score or clock timing even among guys that are in the top ten of fantasy receiving points scored. But most of those guys operate out of the slot -- see: Brown and Meyers, Kupp lines up all over, but he was GPS tracked and tracked a very good MPH speed before the Rams took him -- and it used to be in fantasy (pre-PPR) you'd covet those traditional size/speed guys. Now it's a little different with a point per reception scoring setup.
So yeah, I'm careful with the gun, but I don't think when it's used correctly as an approach writ large that it's doomed to failure. In fact, it's given me a bunch of successes in acquiring talent. Not on the positive end of the gun, but in the screening guys out who don't pass the test.
I think we (those of us on the board) have this debate often, so I'm not looking to draw this one out in this thread, but just by way of clarification, there ya go.
Circling back to JSN, if he runs under a 4.55, he'll be fine. It's the short burst and vert they'll look for, apparently.
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
That, and you said it in your post - success on the outside.
See my last post - IMO JSN will he used primarily out of the slot. In the past this was seen as a negative, but these days you get PPR beasts out of the slot.
Can he occasionally shift to the outside? I believe he can & will. But I expect him to be a slot machine.
rockaction
Footballguy
Oh yeah. I wasn't disagreeing with him being a monster out of the slot. I'm really not pooh-poohing him at all. I just don't think he's going to a prototypical outside guy. That's really all. He will line up wide at times, I'm sure.
We're not really in disagreement here.
Birdie048
Footballguy
And when you consider his OSU WR Field-partners, Chris Olave & G Willson in 2021 you can also compare his performance against them and their early success in NFL.
Added , Marvin Harrison Jr & Emeka Egbuka in 2022 shows JSN is no slouch. He would not see the field if he was with these talented WR competing against him for playing time.
Penguin
Footballguy
40 yard dash time is the most over rated combine metric. Keenan Allen ran 4.71 or even higher, same with Jerry Rice. You want to pass up on Jerry Rice because he was a quarter second slower in his 40, ok, hope that works out for you. Route running, being able to create separation, that's what matters most. Who would you rather have, a WR that's 6'4" and has a contested catch rate of 35% or a 5'11" WR that has an 80% contested catch rate? Size doesn't always matter, regardless of what your girlfriend/wife says. How's 6'4" Chase Claypool doing?
Wigglytuff's Gruff
Footballguy
He's far and away my WR1. Addison a fairly distant 2nd.
Faust
MVP
Steve Smith Sr. @SteveSmithSr89
Not sure what @jaxon_smith1’s college major is, but he definitely has his PHD in route running
Stay tune for more break downs on #CutToIt
JSN @jaxon_smith1
Thanks Og! one of my favorite players of all time!!!...but I'm more than a "slot" I'm a playmaker from whatever spot on the field you put me at. You'll see..Much love
Ilov80s
Footballguy
Yeah I can see that angle. I just look at him and am struggling with top 5 dynasty pick which is he is going to go (1QB).
Hot Sauce Guy
Footballguy
It’s a tough call. I have 1-4 in a 12-team full rebuild.
I have only ZWilson so likely going BIJAN, Young, Stroud
My struggle is at 1.04, but I’m becoming more comfortable selecting the WR1 over Gibbs. If that’s JSN, then there it is. Keep-trade-cut has JSN worth more, which is some consolation that I’m not leaving value on the table. But WR fits my build better there - and there’s a ton of RB depth in this draft and I have 8, 10, and 13 as well.
I have more RB depth than WR depth.
I could deal 8+13 for 5, but I need more, not fewer players. Might see if 1.05 wants to move up for Gibbs’s, but they’re also rebuilding.
So to your point in the quoted post, I am possibly going to make JSN a top 4 dynasty pick.
Landing spot matters. Maybe it’s Addison by the time all is said & done. He’s the more dynamic receiver. If he goes to the Giants and JSN to the Pats, for example, I’ll probably flip them in my rankings.
And I still might take Gibbs, depending on his BMI/landing spot.
Wigglytuff's Gruff
Footballguy
I have 3-4-6 and I'll be making a point to take JSN at 1.03 unless there is some sort of catastrophe between now and when we draft.
I already know that Bijan and Gibbs are top 2, the guys picking there have said as much.
JSN just looks the best WR to me and I'm not seeing any RB after those two who would deserve to be taken so high. Just gotta take the premium player, and that 2021 JSN season is about as premium as it gets.
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