Is OSU Receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba's Draft Stock Falling?
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As we head into the final days before the draft, the rumor mill continues picking up steam frantically. And one rumor making the rounds of late is that Ohio State receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba, whom many thought might go in the top half of the draft, is seeing his stock fall.
Such is the report by FMIA’s Peter King, who writes that the falling stock is due to a left hamstring injury he had last year.
He had a gigantic 2021 season at Ohio State, then played only 60 snaps in 2022, and I’m hearing some reticence about taking a guy 12th or 18th in the first round when, in a 4.5-month season, he managed to play the equivalent of one football game with a hamstring injury.
King is as well connected around the league as anyone, so there is no reason to doubt what he's been told. That said, Smith-Njigba is hardly the only college prospect coming off an injury at some point in his college career.
Teams, in their scouting process, look at the entire body of work, not just one game or one season, which in this case would be his impressive 2021 season in which he recorded 1,606 yards on 95 receptions (both ranking first in the Big Ten and in the top 10 in all of college football).
Smith-Njigba, ranked as the third-best receiver prospect in this year's draft by NFL Draft Bible, also set numerous school records, including the single-game record for most receiving yards with 347 in the 2022 Rose Bowl, most catches in a single game with 15 (twice), and most receiving yards in a single season with 1,606 (2021).
There is also the possibility that the rumors King is hearing could be by team personnel looking to cause Smith-Njigba’s stock to fall so that they have a chance of drafting him.
King added, “This is not an overriding negative on Jaxon Smith-Njigba, an excellent receiver prospect. But the Ohio State football season was five months long last year, including practice, and Smith-Njigba got a left hamstring injury early ... and never got on the field in the last ten weeks."
Either way, it just seems incredulous to think that teams are backing off a potential first-round talent due to a hamstring injury that, by now, should be fully healed—and if it’s not, it should be, one would think, by the time training camp begins.
If anything, the bigger concern is whether Smith-Njigba's entire body of work and fit within an offense is worthy of a first-round draft grade.
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