Winning the Offensive Player of the Year award in the NFL should have been one of the highlights in the early career of Jaxon Smith-Njigba. But it’s been overshadowed by an attempt at humor from comedian Druski, and Emmanuel Acho did not find the humor in it.
Before the Super Bowl, the NFL showcased its annual award winners at the NFL Honors event. And although the headlines were the unveiling of the Hall of Fame class and Matthew Stafford’s narrow MVP victory over Drake Maye, it was Druski’s presentation of the OPOY award that was the most talked about moment of the night.
The comedian is known for his sketch comedy that often pushes the boundaries. But he may have gone too far when announcing Smith-Njigba as the winner and purposely mispronouncing his name and making a joke out of it.
Druski mispronounced Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s name on purpose, right?
This was worse than Mike Verbal pic.twitter.com/ZBBMDDHscP
— Ben Brown 🌻 (@BenBrownPL) February 6, 2026
Jaxon Smith-Njigba took the high road in talking about his family heritage and last name and what it means to him to represent his grandfather who migrated from Sierra Leone to America.
On his Speakeasy show, former FS1 personality and NFL player Emmanuel Acho decided to call out the comedian’s choice in a more forceful way for stealing the spotlight away from one of the NFL’s most deserving young stars.
🗣️ “[DRUSKI] QUIT PLAYING WITH OTHER PEOPLE’S NAME…KNOW THE TIME AND THE PLACE.”
– @EmmanuelAcho goes OFF about acclaimed comedian, Druski, intentionally butchering Jackson Smith-Njigba’s name for OPOY
WE ARE LIVE DISCUSSING BROWNS QB FUTURE ➡️ https://t.co/f4H3dQB55c pic.twitter.com/awKCRMQBs5
— Speakeasy (@speakeasytlkshw) February 10, 2026
“Shoutout to what you’ve done and what you’ve built in your career. I believe you’re the best one doing it right now. But know the time and the place. And when it’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s time and it’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s place, then just say his name right, fix your face, and keep it moving,” Acho said. “Understand when it’s about you and when it’s not about you. And what ran me hot about that is like, Druski, that moment was not about you.”
“And also, names carry weight. Names are significant. Especially family names. Names are powerful. And you want to take the time at the Super Bowl to now decide you know what, I’m gonna get a joke off. I’m gonna have a viral moment. We spent so much more time talking about Druski mispronouncing his name than we spent talking about the actual player who dominated the game. That makes no sense to me,” he added. “And also, you know it was an intentional joke that fell flat because he said his name right first and then proceeded to say his name wrong and get all his hahas and hehes out of the way. This is not a time for a skit. If you want to go do an NFL Honors skit, go do like you did the church skit. But right now it’s NFL honors, not the Druski honors, not the comedian honors.”
Druski has hit a lot of home runs in his comedy, but this was a big miss. And Emmanuel Acho is right in that it took the attention off of who it should have been on in Jaxon Smith-Njigba. JSN had a historic season and added a Super Bowl title as the perfect capstone. He deserves some respect on his name.
About Matt Yoder