Jaxon Smith-Njigba said his Offensive Player of the Year trophy was engraved with the wrong award name, turning an NFL honor into an awkward typo.
Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s NFL Offensive Player of the Year trophy arrived with a mistake big enough for the Seattle Seahawks receiver to call it out publicly: The engraving identified him as the 2025 “Defensive Player of Theyear.”
The apparent error surfaced in a video Smith-Njigba posted to Instagram Stories, according to Fox News Digital. The trophy reportedly includes his name but lists the wrong award category and runs “Theyear” together as one word.
“I really want to expose them. It’s getting disrespectful, guys,” Smith-Njigba said in the video, according to the report. “Defense? Come on bro. One word? Man.”
Smith-Njigba later posted a selfie with a caption saying, “Its getting disrespectful at this point. Just keep the award at this point. Leave it in the history books tho,” Fox reported.
The mistake landed oddly because Smith-Njigba’s award followed a standout offensive season. The former Ohio State wide receiver led the NFL with 1,793 receiving yards, caught 119 passes and scored 10 touchdowns, according to the report. His 14.5 yards per touch also led the league, and his production helped Seattle’s offense during a season that ended with the Seahawks bringing the Lombardi Trophy back to Seattle.
The trophy’s wording also created an obvious mismatch with the league’s actual Defensive Player of the Year honor, which Fox reported went to Myles Garrett. The report noted that Smith-Njigba’s name is on the trophy, leaving the issue as an engraving mistake rather than a simple case of the wrong player receiving someone else’s award.
It was not immediately clear from the supplied report whether the NFL had responded publicly or whether a corrected trophy had been issued. For now, the public record of the mix-up is Smith-Njigba’s own social-media complaint after one of the biggest seasons of his career.
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