NFL Apologizes After Making ‘Disrespectful’ Mistake on Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s OPOY Trophy

The NFL committed a couple errors on Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s Offensive Player of the Year trophy.

Seattle wideout Jaxon Smith-Njigba called out the NFL for making a mistake on his Offensive Player of the Year trophy. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

The NFL has done a poor job recognizing Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s Offensive Player of the Year victory.

The 24-year-old Seahawks receiver won the prestigious award after a breakout campaign which saw him catch a career-high 119 receptions for 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2025. He led the league in receiving yards, earned first-team All-Pro honors for the first time in his young career while helping Seattle earn the No. 1 seed and win the Super Bowl. As a result, he beat out 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey and Rams receiver Puka Nacua for Offensive Player of the Year, which has practically become the top honor in the league for non-quarterbacks.

Smith-Njigba revealed on social media Monday that when he received his trophy, there was a spelling error. The trophy read “2025 Defensive Player of TheYear” instead of “2025 Offensive Player of The Year” and also did not include a space between the words “The” and “Year.” Browns star Myles Garrett, who set the single-season sack record, was the 2025 Defensive Player of the Year.

Smith-Njigba wrote on his post of the trophy, “Its getting disrespectful at this point.” He also said, “Just keep the award at this point. Leave it in the history books tho.”

The #NFL gave #Seahawks Jaxon Smith-Njigba "2025 Defensive Player of the Year." This was his response on his Instagram story:

Photo credit: JSN/IG pic.twitter.com/asKqdTD2gr

— HawkMania (@hawkmania4) May 19, 2026

NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy has since told The Athletic of the error, “The league made the mistake. We sincerely apologize to Jaxon for the error and are in the process of creating and shipping him a new trophy. Of course, like the teams he played against this year, we know how great an offensive player he is. We just had a problem spelling it.”

The Seahawks have since poked fun at the typos on social media by posting a video of Smith-Njigba with the caption, “So good, he's the OPOY & the DPOY.”

So good, he's the OPOY & the DPOY. @jaxon_smith1 pic.twitter.com/wDvCAnPhVz

— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) May 19, 2026

Three months ago, Smith-Njigba was unable to attend the NFL Honors ceremony and receive his award in person since he was preparing for Super Bowl LX, which he and the Seahawks won as they defeated the Patriots 29-13. The NFL had Druski announce Smith-Njigba won Offensive Player of the Year, but Druski pronounced his name wrong, an attempted joke that did not roll over well.

Druski later addressed the mispronunciation, but made excuses instead of taking accountability for the “joke.” He told CBS Mornings in February, “I like to mess around. 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.”

“When we talk about walking the line of comedy, you know sometimes you do have to take that chance,” Druski 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.”

Smith-Njigba has ultimately come out on top, winning his first Super Bowl and saying of his name after the victory: “Jaxon Smith-Njigba, put respect on it!”

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