Comedian, influencer, and actor Druski drew plenty of criticism for his mispronunciation of “Jaxon Smith-Njigba” at the NFL Honors during Super Bowl week.
While announcing the Seahawks' wide receiver as the winner of the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year award for the 2025 season, the well-known social media presence blatantly botched his last name in what was ultimately an insensitive joke that failed to land. JSN has since responded—telling people to put respect on his name—while Druski now seems to be doing some damage control regarding the incident.
“I like to mess around,” the comedian said while speaking with Nate Burleson and crew on CBS Mornings. “And you know sometimes you can go too far. I even hit him up ... I reached out and [said] congratulations to him, the team, on the Super Bowl. I think that was an amazing thing. I didn’t get no response back, but I did reach out. I tried.”
Druski says he reached out to JSN after botching his name while presenting the Offensive Player of the Year award at NFL Honors. JSN never responded, Druski says pic.twitter.com/kCDctLFTgC
— Dugar, Michael-Shawn (@MikeDugar) February 19, 2026
“When we talk about walking the line of comedy, you know sometimes you do have to take that chance,” he continued. “It’s not all going to be a successful hit, nothing you do in anything when you try to pursue greatness is going to be success, success, success.
Druski then added, again rather insensitively, that, “if most people pronounce that name, I think they will fumble up,”—even though it's pretty clear that he knows he did it on purpose. Sigh.
Smith-Njigba led the NFL in receiving yards (1,793) while hauling in 119 receptions and 10 touchdowns while helping Seattle to a Super Bowl LX win over the Patriots.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Druski Responds to Backlash After Mispronouncing Jaxon Smith-Njigba at NFL Honors.
