Jaxon Smith-Njigba broke the single season record today. You've been side-by-side with him during this breakout year. What have you seen from him? What stands out about the way he plays?
He's done an incredible job making the most of his opportunities. Over and over again there's been games where we're not throwing the ball a ton. But every opportunity he has to make a play, he's doing it. That's hard to do in this league. Everyone knows the passing game is obviously going to be going through him and he just continues to make plays and it's a pretty impressive to watch.
Coach Macdonald was talking about how difficult it is for defenders when he's got a ball that maybe isn't thrown in stride. He seems to box somebody out like a basketball player. It seems like very few guys are able to do that consistently. What do you see from him in that regard and how much pressure that puts on defensive backs?
I think he does a great job tracking the football. Great body control and he catches the ball. He puts his hands on the ball; he's going to catch it. Definitely as a DB when you're turned and running and you don't see the ball and as a receiver we do, we know we have the advantage. Sam's (Darnold) done a great job, too, just giving him opportunity balls to make those plays. And like I said, Jax has done it over and over again and opportunities multiply and he's done a great job of that.
Sam Darnold's reaction to that first big touchdown got everybody fired up. Was it good to see that after a tough game?
Yeah, he's going to be Sam Darnold. Do his little fist pump thing back there. It was great to see. No one's surprised that he came out firing, being aggressively smart. But regardless of whatever last week was, I mean come out here and play football, and we knew Sam was going to do that.
No turnovers for you guys. How big was that to have zero today?
Yeah, that's huge. We obviously can't continue to do what we've been doing. That's not a sustainable process. It's not a sustainable model for us and we definitely have to do better than that. So, it's good to see.
