Yahoo Fantasy Football on Jaxon Smith-Njigba

JSN projects top-five WR despite play-caller change; Fleury's Shanahan pedigree reassuring.

Smith-Njigba is ranked WR3 and arrived in a huge way without DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett in his way, finishing as the WR2 on WR7 usage with a 35% target share that dwarfed the next closest (Amon-Ra St. Brown at 32%), averaging 99.6 receiving yards per game including the postseason. Only 8% of his targets were screens. His explosion was entirely tied to being a better downfield threat; his average depth of target jumped from 6.1 yards (rookie) to 8.6 (sophomore) to 11.1 (last year), with 20 yards per game more than 2023-24 on targets 15+ yards downfield. Sam Darnold deserves credit for being second in completion percentage over expected (+10.0%) on deep targets, and Darnold is back with the same OL. OC Klint Kubiak also deserves credit for calling an offense 10th in play action rate and third-fastest pace in neutral situations. The hard part is baking in the new play-caller after Kubiak took the Raiders' head coaching gig. New OC Brian Fleury hasn't been a play-caller before but comes from the Shanahan tree, coached with Kyle Shanahan on the Browns in 2014 and for the past seven seasons with the 49ers. Former QB Brock Huard said: 'I know he crushed the whiteboard. I can say that confidently ... I know in the interview process it was pretty overwhelming to everybody in the room that his years under Kyle, and his understanding of situational ball, and the level and the depth and the detail was pretty overwhelming.' This makes David Montgomery feel better about the Seahawks offense in 2026, even if JSN's yards per target (10.5) and completion percentage over expected (+10.2) are bound to regress. Smith-Njigba still projects as a top-five fantasy WR with regression baked in.

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