Top Seahawks trade target gushes over Jaxon Smith-Njigba: 'He's been unreal'

There are no guarantees in the NFL. That said, it would come as a surprise if we didn't wake up 10 days from now with the Seattle Seahawks as Super Bowl champions once again for the first time in 12 years. The question then will be if the Seahawks can do it again.

Answering that question will require a lot of hard work, and keeping together Seattle's young core will be the most-important part of the equation. However, it would be a mistake not to try to upgrade the roster this coming offseason.

Offensively, the holes are obvious. The Seahawks need better long-term options at center and right guard and could use another weapon for Sam Darnold.

Defensively, it's far more difficult to say how this group could get any better. You can never have too many pass-rush threats, though - and the Seahawks finished the season without any of their defenders finishing with eight or more sacks. That's why trading for Las Vegas Raiders edge Maxx Crosby should be the most-ambitious item on their to-do list for 2026.

Crosby already sounds like a Seahawk, for what it's worth. Here's what he said about Jaxon Smith-Njigba earlier this week on The Rush podcast.

Maxx Crosby on Jaxon Smith-Njigba

“I feel that JSN is unreal... He’s had a crazy year, bro. He’s been going nuclear, and clearly they knew in that front office how good he was by letting DK go and Tyler Lockett go, and just seeing him explode into being that number one receiver that clearly they saw him being. You got to give them a lot of credit, too.”

Right now JSN appears to be the best player on Seattle's roster - and given the sheer volume of potential All-Pro players that's quite a distinction.

Adding Crosby to the mix would give Smith-Njigba even more competition for that title. As incredible as the Seahawks pass rush has been, they don't have anybody who can hang with Crosby's production.

Since entering the league seven years ago, Crosby has appeared in 110 regular season games, racking up 69.5 sacks, 164 quarterback hits, 133 tackles for a loss, 266 pressures and 24 passes batted down at the line of scrimmage.

That's a remarkable body of work in any context, but especially considering Crosby has done all this without another A-list threat on the Raiders to take opponents' attention.

Trading for Crosby won't come cheap. His contract comes with cap hits averaging around $30 million over the next four years and it may take a first-round draft pick to get him in the first place.

Then again, the last time the Seahawks were contenders they had no problem trading away first-rounders in order to land high-impact players they believed could keep them in contention. That didn't always work out. An aggressive method is the right way to go about it, though.

It will take more than one bold move, but trading for Crosby would be one big step towards building a dynasty.

Maxx Crosby on Jaxon Smith-Njigba

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