It’s Super Bowl week, which means a lot of players around the NFL are in Las Vegas doing their rounds at Radio Row. These are opportunities to hear from players in less formal settings than press conferences after games, and sometimes we get treated to rare premium content.
That was the case yesterday when a Bears podcast hosted Seahawks rookie wide receiver Jaxon-Smith Njigba and asked him what former Seattle offensive coordinator Shane Waldron can do to get Chicago’s offense going. Put on the spot, JSN tried to give an endorsement of Waldron’s playcalling, but it came out really weird. Watch.
The silence was LOUD when we asked Jaxon Smith-Njigba about new Bears OC Shane Waldron😳 pic.twitter.com/r7beJgxEMq
— CHGO Bears (@CHGO_Bears) February 7, 2024
A few thoughts: For one thing, rookies around the league need to be given more media training. Waldron isn’t a terrible playcaller by any means, but there’s a reason why he made a lateral move as an OC rather than getting interest for head coach positions. As for JSN, one can understand some of his frustration. For the first half of the season, he was almost never used anywhere beyond the line of scrimmage.
Whoever the next Seahawks offensive coordinator is, he’ll have a tough task of trying to distribute targets in an offense with so many mouths to feed. However, a bigger role for Smith-Njigba should be a guarantee if the new OC knows what he’s doing.
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