Heading into the Thanksgiving games, the NFL Playoff picture is beginning to take shape. For many, a strong finish will ensure a postseason berth, while for others, the campaign is already being written off. Away from the team standings, two individuals are threatening to post seasons for the record books.
On the offensive side, the Seattle Seahawks’ Jaxon Smith-Njigba is on course to break the receiving yards record for a single season and become the first player in NFL history to break through the 2,000-yard barrier. Meanwhile, in Cleveland, defensive end Myles Garrett is bludgeoning his way to the all-time single-season sack record. With six games remaining, the hunt for history provides an intriguing subplot on the road to Santa Clara.
Smith-Njigba Scorching Defenses
Seattle’s 8-3 record leaves the Seahawks just one game behind the pacesetting LA Rams. Leading the charge on the offensive side of the ball is third-season wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba. Following a record-setting college career with the Ohio State Buckeyes, the Texas native was taken by the Seahawks with the 20th overall pick in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft.
Appearing in all 17 games during his rookie season, but starting only three, Smith-Njigba caught the eye with 628 receiving yards. In 2024, the wideout cemented himself as a starter, missing only one of 17 regular season games to break through the 100 receptions and 1,000 receiving yards marks. In 2025, he has taken his numbers into the stratosphere.
Smith-Njigba’s 167-yard showing against the Titans in Week 11 took his total to 1,313 yards for the season. With six games remaining, that is already a franchise record, surpassing D.K. Metcalf’s 2020 total of 1,303 yards. That output is the fourth most by any player across the first 11 games of the season – 36 yards behind first-placed Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch, who registered 1,349 yards for the LA Rams back in 1951.
Smith-Njigba’s average of 119.4 yards per game is just shy of the 122.8 posted by Calvin Johnson on his way to his record-setting 1,964-yard season in 2012. However, with the regular season now extended to 17 games, Smith-Njigba will end the campaign with just over 2,029 yards if he keeps up his current pace.
What makes Smith-Njigba’s performance even more impressive is that Seattle are the only side in the NFL to run the ball on more than half of its offensive plays.
Garrett Gunning for Sacks Benchmark
Unlike Smith-Njigba, Myles Garrett almost certainly won’t make the postseason. Limping to a 3-8 record, his Cleveland Browns side sits at rock bottom of the AFC North. However, none of the blame can be placed at the feet of Garrett, who has been nothing short of a menace to opposing quarterbacks across the first eleven weeks.
To see Garrett among the sack leaders is no surprise. Taken by the Browns with the first overall pick in the 2017 NFL Draft, the Texas A&M alumnus posted seven sacks in 11 appearances in his rookie year. He has registered ten or more sacks in every season since, with previous career bests of 16 in 2021 and 2022. That total set a new franchise record for the Browns. This season, Garrett has smashed that franchise record with six games to spare.
A fine example of his efforts not being enough came in the Week 8 clash with the Patriots. Garrett bulldozed his way to a single-game franchise record of five sacks that day, but the Browns lost 32-13.
Garrett’s latest monster outing came when sacking Geno Smith three times in the Week 11 win over the struggling Raiders. He has now registered three or more sacks in three of his past four games, taking his seasonal total to 18. That’s the most ever recorded across the first eleven games of the season, bettering the 17.5 posted by Mark Gastineau in 1984.
With the 11-game and franchise records in the bag, Garrett now has his sights on the all-time single-season record of 22.5, shared by Michael Strahan (2001) and T.J. Watt (2021). Five more sacks in his final six games will take him to the top of the table. One more 3+ sack game will see him join Lawrence Taylor as the only player to record four 3+ sack games in a season.
Garrett’s incredible year looked unlikely at the start of 2025, with the player requesting a trade in February. Unwilling to let their star asset go, the Browns persuaded Garrett to sign a new $160 million, four-year extension. That move hasn’t been enough to turn the Browns into a winning side, but it may have laid the foundations for one of the most remarkable seasons in NFL history for the explosive defensive end.