Druski, the comedian who hosted the NFL Honors show on Feb. 5, said he reached out to Jaxon Smith-Njigba after intentionally butchering the Seahawks star receiver’s name on stage while presenting his Offensive Player of the Year award.
“I like to mess around and sometimes you can go too far,” Druski said in an interview on CBS about the incident. “I even hit him up. I reached out … I didn’t get no response back, but I tried.”
After leading the league with 1,793 receiving yards in 17 games, Smith-Njigba was named the 2025 NFL Offensive Player of the Year.
The tribute, however, was quickly overshadowed when Druski, one of the evening’s presenters at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, Calif., mispronounced Smith-Njigba’s last name several times with a smirk, before being corrected by co-presenter and Hall of Famer Barry Sanders.
“Njigba (en-JIG-buh),” Sanders said, putting a stop to Druski’s inaccuracies on stage.
Druski quickly came under fire online and from the Seahawks organization itself.
“Hall of Famer Barry Sanders drew the short straw getting stuck with Druski’s big whiff tonight,” Seahawks PR posted that night on X. “Put some respect on Seahawks WR Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s name.”
“Druski lame,” Seahawks linebacker Uchenna Nwosu also posted.
“Put some respect on that man’s name,” Seahawks head coach Mike Macdonald added during the Super Bowl trophy ceremony on Feb. 11.
After admitting to messaging Smith-Njigba, however, Druski then appeared to defend his mispronunciations to CBS Mornings.
“When we talk about walking the line of comedy, you know, sometimes, you do have to take that chance,” he quickly added. “I think it’s not all going to be a successful hit. Nothing you do in anything when you try to pursue greatness is going to be success, success, success.”
Up until high school, the star receiver went by Jaxon Smith, as reported by FOX Sports in 2022. His grandfather, John, came to the United States from Sierra Leone in the 1970s with the surname Njigba, but adopted the last name of his sponsor and went by John Smith. The next generation also went by Smith.
When John Smith, with whom Jaxon had a close relationship, died in 2014, Jaxon said he wanted to represent his grandfather’s name correctly, putting Smith-Njigba on the back of his high school football jersey. He has done so ever since.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com ’
