Of all the things the Seahawks’ Jaxon Smith-Njigba has done to become the best wide receiver in the NFL, one stands out to Bears receiver Rome Odunze.
Smith-Njigba’s body stays in the same position, whether he’s about to run a slant, a corner route or a fly route. That makes it hard, if not impossible, for cornerbacks to guess which route he’s running.
‘‘A lot of people right now are talking about his posture in his routes and how he doesn’t give any indicators, and it’s very true,’’ Odunze told the Sun-Times. ‘‘When you can keep that pad level through all those routes and accelerations, it’s hard to gauge what you’re doing.’’
It’s artful, sure, but it’s also physically demanding.
‘‘It takes a lot of strength,’’ Odunze said.
It will take even more strength for the Bears to stop him Monday. A secondary that has struggled this season — veteran Jaylon Johnson has given up a whopping 113.1 passer rating on balls thrown in his direction — is facing its toughest cover of the season. Consider:
• Smith-Njigba leads the NFL with 867 receiving yards and eight receiving touchdowns. Nobody in the Super Bowl era has had more than 850 receiving yards and eight receiving scores through seven games.
• He’s on pace to finish the season with 2,106 receiving yards, which would be the most in NFL history by 142 yards.
• He has posted at least 100 receiving yards in all but one game so far this season. If he does it again Monday, he’ll be only the fifth receiver in NFL history to hit triple digits in seven of his first eight games in a season.
‘‘That’s kind of the engine that gets [the Seahawks’ offense] going,’’ Bears coach Ben Johnson said.
Smith-Njigba is targeted on his routes — and on the highest percentage of his team’s passes — more than any receiver in the game.
‘‘You try to do what you can to stop him, but it’s a part of the game,’’ Bears safety Cam Lewis said. ‘‘You just can’t give up big plays. . . . Just try to contain him. Just try not to look up and see he has [freaking] five catches for a buck-fifty.’’
Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen was quick to rattle off the traits that concern him — Smith-Njigba’s ability to beat press coverage at the line of scrimmage, to create space at the top of his route and having a knack for winning contested catches — before settling on what makes him exceptional: Smith-Njigba’s 274 yards after catch ranks third among receivers.
The Seahawks were trailing the Patriots by seven points in the fourth quarter of their game in Week 1 when, on fourth-and-one, they threw a hitch pass to Smith-Njigba. He caught the ball at the Patriots’ 41 and knifed his way up the field, being touched only once, before tying the score.
‘‘He can take a short throw, and it’s 40 or 50 yards later before somebody is finally getting him down on the ground,’’ Allen said.
That’s particularly concerning to a secondary that couldn’t tackle Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson on a 48-yard touchdown at the end of the first half Oct. 22. Jaylon Johnson was the only player to touch Stevenson, but he just grazed his undershirt.
Allen acknowledged Johnson’s inconsistency, saying Johnson ‘‘would say himself there’s some things that he has to improve on.’’ The entire secondary could say the same about that touchdown by the Patriots.
‘‘That was a bad play by the defense,’’ safety Dillon Thieneman said. ‘‘It wasn’t who we are, but we definitely need to learn from it.’’
The Bears bottling up Smith-Njigba would
