Jaxon Smith-Njigba headlines Seattle’s presence on NFL Top 100 Players of 2026 list

The NFL’s Top 100 Players of 2026 list is already reflecting a split view of Seattle’s roster. According to Yahoo Sports, Jaxon Smith-Njigba is one of the players to break into the top tier, landing in the Top 10, while the overall Seahawks representation on the list is limited to three players. The same write-up also says two of Seattle’s top defensive stars did not make the cut.

The offensive case for Smith-Njigba has been strengthened by what he did last season. The Yahoo Sports item points to an eye-popping receiving production, including a league-leading 1,793 receiving yards, and notes that he earned the NFL Offensive Player of the Year award. That combination, in practice, is the kind of season that voters tend to carry forward when they build preseason and offseason projections into a single ranking.

Seattle’s presence, at least by this accounting, suggests that the team’s recognition is more concentrated than it might be if its defense were being viewed as one of the league’s defining units. The report does not name the defensive players who missed the Top 100, but it emphasizes that the omission includes two of Seattle’s best-known defensive contributors.

For Smith-Njigba, being in the Top 10 is more than a personal milestone. It reinforces how the Seahawks are likely to think about his role as a centerpiece rather than as a one-year standout. Even with year-to-year volatility in quarterback play and defensive adjustments around a star receiver, Top 10 placement indicates the perception that his impact is repeatable, not a flash in the pan.

The Seahawks’ smaller footprint on the list also creates a storyline for training camp and the early part of the season. If voters overlooked key defenders, the opening weeks become an opportunity for Seattle to force the public narrative back toward the team as a whole, rather than toward a single elite offensive player.

What to watch next is how the Seahawks’ top performers respond to the league’s attention. If Smith-Njigba continues to draw game-planning focus, Seattle’s offensive design will almost certainly be built to exploit the secondary consequences of that attention. On the defensive side, the same logic works in reverse, with the players left out of the Top 100 cut now carrying an implied challenge: prove the voters wrong quickly.

Because this story is based on a Top 100 ranking report rather than an official league data sheet in the material provided here, some roster and player-identification details may require confirmation from the full list or from the NFL’s own release when it is available. Still, the core takeaway is clear, Smith-Njigba is being treated as one of the league’s premier talents entering 2026, while Seattle’s defense is, at least in this ranking snapshot, being seen as less settled or less dominant than its reputation could suggest.