{"id":868549,"date":"2026-04-17T17:52:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T17:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/868549\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T17:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T17:52:17","slug":"seahawks-gave-jaxon-smith-njigba-smaller-shoes-to-fix-injury-issues-and-it-worked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/868549\/","title":{"rendered":"Seahawks gave Jaxon Smith-Njigba smaller shoes to fix injury issues – and it worked"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Seattle Seahawks<\/a> had a magical 2025 season, winning the Super Bowl and seeing multiple players break out, including Sam Darnold.<\/p>\n

But the most notable individual season came from Jaxon Smith-Njigba, who put together one of the best WR seasons in NFL history, winning Offensive Player of the Year, and being the leader of the offense for Seattle in 2025.<\/p>\n

While not directly what led to his breakout, the Seahawks Director of Equipment, Erik Kennedy, revealed on Seattle Sports 710<\/a> that Smith-Njigba’s cleat size went down a good bit from college to the pros, and it helped cut down on his injury issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seahawks changed JSN’s cleat size for health reasons, and it worked<\/p>\n

“In college, he was wearing a size 12 and had hamstring issues,” Kennedy said. “Gets here, he’s a 10 and a half, wears a 10 and a half… It’s helped him; he hasn’t missed time, it’s done things like that.”<\/p>\n

Smith-Njigba was wearing size 12 cleats during his collegiate days at Ohio State. But when he came to the NFL, the Seahawks used foot-scanning technology to get him fitted with a better-sized shoe.<\/p>\n

Despite having hamstring issues in college, Smith-Njigba has put those problems behind him, thanks in part to the change in shoe size.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0Seahawks extend Jaxon Smith-Njigba to record-setting $168.6 million deal<\/a><\/p>\n

JSN recorded 119 receptions for 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns in a 17-game season. While Sam Darnold, Klint Kubiak, and the offensive line and other weapons are a big reason for his success, Kennedy and the new cleats played a part as well.<\/p>\n

The Seahawks saw Smith-Njigba break out in a major way this past season, as he was named an All-Pro and the Offensive Player of the Year after a breakout season.<\/p>\n

Kennedy’s help with finding Smith-Njigba’s right shoe size, downsizing him 1.5 sizes, helped him put the hamstring issues behind him and play all 17 games this past season.<\/p>\n

More Seahawks news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Seattle Seahawks had a magical 2025 season, winning the Super Bowl and seeing multiple players break out,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":712054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2081],"tags":[7,6,238,237,261,2635],"class_list":{"0":"post-868549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-seahawks","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-seahawks","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-seahawks","13":"tag-seattleseahawks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116421325172229943","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=868549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/712054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}