The New Orleans Saints 2024 season wrapped up in pretty poor fashion, and now they look ahead to the 2025 offseason, free agency, and the NFL draft. They have quite a few free agents this offseason, however many are not their top producers, so that makes things a little easier on the pockets considering where they stand with cap space. Restructures will happen, cuts/releases will likely happen as well, and depending on how those go, re-signings and signings may end up being focal points for whoever the new head coach may be.
One of the more notable free agents the Saints have this offseason is tight end Juwan Johnson, who has been with the Saints for five seasons and has been their leading producer at the position for a few years now. With that said, let’s take a look back as his career so far:
Career Stats
Juwan Johnson has never been one of the elite producers at the tight end position, but over the past three seasons he has been solid at racking up yards and has been decent in the redzone, but maybe not as good as you would hope. His rookie year was basically a wash, as he only saw 38% of snaps and 10 targets. In 2021 he was still getting reps as a wide receiver, and only saw 22 targets for 13 receptions, 159 yards, and 4 touchdowns.
From 2022 to 2024 is when he was at his best, across those three years he played in 46 games with 28 starts, had 129 receptions on 190 targets for 14 touchdowns, and caught 67.9% of his targets. 2022 was his best season overall, with 508 receiving yards on 42 receptions and 7 touchdowns, compared to only 3 in 2024.
Snap Counts
The snap counts for Juwan Johnson have been very consistent in his tight end seasons, however in his first two years when he was a wide receiver he only had 182 and 236 snaps in 2020 and 2021 respectively. Since then, he has had 648, 555, and 697 snaps in each season, or 65%, 65%, and 64%. What is worth noting is that in 2024 he only started 5 of the games, compared to 11 in 2023 and 12 in 2022, despite playing all 17 games in 2024 compared to 13 in 2023. Many of his snaps this season came from being healthy, despite Foster Moreau and Taysom Hill getting starts over him.
2024 season review
Juwan Johnson had a very up and down season in 2024, where he had some games in which he was a key contributor, and others in which he was held off the stat sheet. His best game actually came in Week 18 against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when he had 6 receptions on 7 targets for 80 yards (13.3 yards per reception).
The negative on his season was he did end up with 2 fumbles to only 3 touchdowns, both of which are the worst or near the worst of his career (he did have 0 touchdowns his rookie season). With that said, he did lead the team in receiving yards in 2024, with 5 more than Alvin Kamara and 143 more than Foster Moreau. Overall it was an odd season, as yards wise it was a very productive one, but otherwise it was not particularly great.
Future value to Saints
The future value of Juwan Johnson to the Saints is somewhat limited, as he will be 29 years old early in the 2025 season, and has still not really reached the next level of production you would hope for in what is essentially the prime of his career. Foster Moreau ended the season with more touchdowns, more yards per reception, a very similar catch percentage (only 1.4% less), only 6 less first downs, and no fumbles in the process on 23 less targets.
The tight end position is a hard one to get right, but an improvement would definitely be great for the offense of the Saints, and the 2025 NFL Draft class has quite a few quality ones. While it would be nice to have Johnson in a backup role, the room is getting more full by the day.
Stay or go?
Ultimately this signing comes down to price, as keeping Johnson for his ability to get first downs and yards is not a horrible idea, but he is not particularly effective in the redzone. Moreau and Johnson were a nice pairing this season, but one really high quality tight end would make things even more interesting as it could help out the depth deficit at wide receiver. If Johnson is willing to take a deal on the lower end of things with incentives, that would be the best case scenario for New Orleans, however if he receives significant interest elsewhere (presumably from the Denver Broncos and Sean Payton), it would be likely that he will leave.
The likelihood that he stays is almost completely reliant on price tag, but as of now it seems like the Saints may try to find another option to fill out the rotation at tight end.
