They say, ‘What’s in a name?’ For some, names are just labels, but for others, they carry history, identity, and a connection to something bigger than themselves. The latter is something Seattle Seahawks‘ Jaxon Smith-Njigba understands well after the player, who was supposed to receive the Offensive Player of the Year honors, was given a trophy that read: Defensive Player of the Year.

“It’s getting disrespectful at this point,” the wide receiver wrote on his Instagram story, showing the trophy as well as other mistakes like a space between “the Year.” He had earned the OPOY award after turning into a complete nightmare for opposing defenses. He was impossible to stop during the Super Bowl. It goes without saying that after pouring his blood, sweat, and tears into what he does, the award barely honors what he has done. No wonder his older brother, Canaan Smith-Njigba, is unhappy.

“The NFL quickly collected a fine for the dunk celebration, then used those same images for promotion,” he wrote on X. “The Offensive Player of the Year was turned into a comedy segment with Druski, minimizing an award earned through elite performance and hard work.

“NFL Honors never acknowledged the poor representation of one of the league’s top individual awards. The “prestigious” ceremony didn’t even air the pre-recorded acceptance speech. After months to prepare and ship the award, the only offensive player selected received a Defensive Player of the Year trophy.

“At some point, professionalism, respect, and attention to detail should matter.”

Let us unravel each aspect that Canaan Smith-Njigba mentioned. First, the dunk celebration. In October 2025, Smith-Njigba celebrated a touchdown against the Houston Texans on Monday Night Football by dunking the football over the crossbar. The moment drew a flag as soon as he made contact with the goalpost, and the celebration ended up costing him more than just penalty yards. He was fined $14,491, yet the league allegedly used those images for promotion.

Secondly, the Druski incident left Smith-Njigba and his brother feeling disrespected. During the NFL Honors ceremony held in Super Bowl week back in February, online comedian and personality Druski took the stage to present the Offensive Player of the Year award and stumbled while pronouncing Smith-Njigba’s name, creating an awkward moment that quickly caught fans’ attention online, though the player wasn’t present at the ceremony.

As the backlash intensified, Druski later addressed the situation during an appearance on CBS Mornings.

“I like to mess around, and sometimes you can go too far,” he said. “I reached out and congratulations to him, the team on the Super Bowl. I thought that was an amazing thing. Yeah, I didn’t get no response back, but I did reach out, I tried.”

It also turns out that Smith-Njigba’s acceptance speech was not aired at the ceremony

Here’s the thing: By the end of his third NFL season, Smith-Njigba had turned himself into one of football’s biggest stars. The Seattle Seahawks receiver piled up 119 catches for 1,793 yards and 10 touchdowns, numbers strong enough to earn him the Offensive Player of the Year award with 54.4% of the vote over Christian McCaffrey of the San Francisco 49ers. As if that season wasn’t memorable enough, he also capped it by helping Seattle capture Super Bowl LX. So, despite several achievements in the past season, Smith-Njigba has made it to the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Amid the growing frustration from the brothers, the NFL has finally started taking steps to correct the mistakes that created this entire controversy in the first place.

The NFL is sending a new trophy to Jaxon Smith-Njigba

According to league spokesperson Brian McCarthy, the NFL has already started creating a replacement trophy while also issuing an apology to Smith-Njigba over the mistake.

“The league made the mistake. We sincerely apologize to Jaxon for the error and are in the process of creating and shipping him a new trophy,” league spokesperson Brian McCarthy said on Tuesday. “Of course, like the teams he played against this year, we know how great an offensive player he is. We just had a problem spelling it.”

Meanwhile, Myles Garrett of the Cleveland Browns won Defensive Player of the Year honors after recording a single-season NFL record of 23 sacks during the 2025 season. And while the league later inquired whether Garrett had received the correct trophy, the Browns did not immediately respond to an email inquiry.

That said, the frustration and criticism coming from both Jaxon and Canaan Smith-Njigba clearly seem justified. The NFL, meanwhile, is now trying to correct the mistakes that turned one of the biggest moments of Smith-Njigba’s career into an avoidable controversy.