Week 11 of the 2025 NFL season saw Africa’s standout offensive and defensive players of the campaign so far respectively – Jaxon Smith-Njigba<\/a> and Nate Landman<\/a> – go head-to-head as the Seattle Seahawks<\/a> faced the Los Angeles Rams<\/a>.<\/p>\n Both players impressed in a battle which ultimately saw the Rams emerge victorious. Meanwhile, there were important contributions elsewhere in the league from Malik Mustapha<\/a>, Kyle Monangai<\/a>, Chidobe Awuzie<\/a>, John Metchie III<\/a> and Osa Odighizuwa<\/a>.<\/p>\n African Player of the Week: Jaxon Smith-Njigba<\/p>\n It is only on rare occasions that we award Player of the Week to one who ended up on the losing side, but Smith-Njigba so clearly set the standard for African players this week that it is impossible to overlook him.<\/p>\n Of Sierra Leonean descent through his grandparents, the wide receiver continues to smash NFL records. In the Seattle Seahawks’ 21-19 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, he made nine catches for 105 yards and made another 11 up off a carry for a total of 116 yards.<\/p>\n In doing so, he became the first player in NFL history to record 75+ receiving yards in the first 10 games of a season. His targets were impactful, too, as he got seven first downs.<\/p>\n The pick of the bunch was a beautiful one-handed catch on the edge of the sideline, which he had to get around Darious Williams<\/a> to make.<\/p>\n Smith-Njigba remains on course to hit 2,000 total yards for the regular season and potentially even scoop the NFL MVP prize at the age of 23.<\/p>\n Mustapha showed why he is known as the ‘Nigerian Missile,’ putting his body on the line for an interception in the San Francisco 49ers<\/a>‘ 41-22 win over the Arizona Cardinals<\/a>.<\/p>\n The safety clattered into teammate Renardo Green<\/a>, but still held onto the pick off Jacoby Brissett<\/a>‘s pass – which, if completed, would have moved the Cardinals almost from one thirty-yard line to another.<\/p>\n The interception came shortly before half-time with the Niners 22-10 up. A field goal from Eddy Pineiro<\/a> off the back of Mustapha’s pick stretched the lead to 15 heading into the break, leaving the Cardinals with an ultimately insurmountable climb to get back in the game.<\/p>\n The 49ers went 7-4 for the season and kept the pressure at the top of the NFC West on the Rams and Seahawks.<\/p>\n Honorable mentions<\/p>\n Nate Landman picked up his fourth forced fumble of the NFL season in the Rams’ win over the Seahawks. He also picked up seven tackles – six of which were solo tackles.<\/p>\n Osa Odighizuwa – a first-generation Nigerian-American – had a huge performance for the Dallas Cowboys<\/a> in their 33-16 win over the Las Vegas Raiders<\/a>. The defensive tackle picked up a sack and three quarterback hits.<\/p>\n Kyle Monangai – a son of Cameroonian immigrants – scored a vital touchdown in the Chicago Bears<\/a>‘ 19-17 win over the Minnesota Vikings<\/a>.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, the Baltimore Ravens<\/a> continued their resurgence as cornerback Chidobe Awuzie – another first generation Nigerian-American – masterfully broke up plays with three passes defended in a 23-16 win over the Cleveland Browns<\/a>.<\/p>\n John Metchie III scored a touchdown for the New York Jets<\/a> against the New England Patriots<\/a>. Born in Taiwan to a Nigerian father and Taiwanese mother, his family moved to Accra, Ghana, when he was one – and then on to Brampton, Ontario, Canada, while his father stayed in Ghana. Unfortunately, Metchie’s contribution this week was ultimately in vain as the Jets lost 27-14.<\/p>\n Africa-born Player Watch<\/p>\n As far as players born on the continent go, Landman continues to be the pick of the bunch this season with the Rams owing their 8-2 start to the season largely to his defensive efforts.<\/p>\n The win over NFC West rivals the Seahawks (7-3) at SoFi Stadium was particularly significant to their Super Bowl ambitions.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Nigerian-born IPP product Basil Chijioke ‘CJ’ Okoye remains the fairytale story of the season as he made a seventh regular season appearance for the Ravens – the last four of which have resulted in victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leonard Solms CloseJack of all sporting trades. Author of my 11-year-old self’s fantasy story about his road to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-292875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Jaxon Smith-Njigba out here making one handed catches look easy.\u00a0Brooke Sutton\/Getty ImagesAfrican Moment of the Week: Malik Mustapha<\/p>\n