Theo Johnson, New York Giants Tight End: Career Breakdown and What to Expect in 2026
From Windsor, Ontario to the NFL
Theodore Joseph Johnson was born February 26, 2001 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and grew up in Windsor, Ontario – not exactly the traditional pipeline to the NFL. He attended Holy Names High School, where he played Canadian football, not the American game. His father, Nate, played football and ran track at Hillsdale College. His older brother, Dominic, played at the University of Buffalo. Five brothers total in the Johnson household. He majored in psychology at Penn State and has talked about eventually getting into coaching. His Instagram bio reads “Proverbs 3:5-6 | 🇨🇦” and has 47,000 followers – not huge, but not nothing for a second-year tight end on a losing team.
He was a four-star recruit out of Holy Names. He chose Penn State over Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and Michigan. He was selected to play in the 2020 Under Armour All-America Game and got hurt in pre-game warmups before a single snap. That injury preview would become a recurring theme.
Penn State: Good Player, Wrong Read on the Box Score
The college stat line doesn’t tell you much. As a freshman, Johnson caught four passes for 56 yards. Sophomore year: 19 receptions, 213 yards, one touchdown. Junior year behind Brenton Strange: 20 catches, 328 yards, four touchdowns. Senior year he shared the room with Tyler Warren, who became a top-10 pick in the 2025 draft. Johnson never had the field to himself, and Penn State’s offense wasn’t built around either of them as a clear TE1. Anyone who dismissed him based on raw catch totals missed the point.
The 2024 NFL Combine was what actually mattered. Johnson ran 4.57 seconds in the 40-yard dash and jumped 39.5 inches vertically. At 6-foot-6 and 264 pounds, that combination doesn’t exist at that position. His short shuttle time was the best among all tight ends at the combine that year. Teams had been hunting for a big-bodied tight end who could also threaten over the middle for years. Johnson checked every box on paper. The Giants knew it. That’s why when he slid to pick 107 in the fourth round, Joe Schoen was openly thrilled.
2024 Rookie Year: Thrust In Too Fast, Still Produced
Darren Waller retired less than two months after the draft. That timing left the Giants without a clear veteran presence at tight end, and instead of developing Johnson in limited packages behind Daniel Bellinger – which made logical sense – Brian Daboll’s staff handed him starter snaps from week one. Bellinger, a third-year player, saw his snap share collapse from 72% in his rookie year down to 32% with Johnson in the lineup.
The early results were rough. Johnson had 11 catches in his first seven games. Then something clicked. Over his final eight games played, he caught 26 passes for 294 yards – nearly all his production crammed into the back half of the season. He finished with 29 receptions, 331 yards, and one touchdown in 12 games. That 331-yard total ranked fifth in franchise history for a rookie tight end. He caught his first career touchdown on a 35-yard reception against Washington on November 3. Three weeks later against Dallas, he gained a season-best 54 yards – then went down with a Lisfranc fracture in his foot. IR for the rest of the season, Lisfranc surgery that winter.
The Giants also selected Johnson in the eighth round of the 2024 CFL Draft, 71st overall, by the BC Lions. He didn’t sign. He didn’t need to.
2025: The Numbers Were Better Than His Reputation
Coming back from Lisfranc surgery, Johnson was named by Pro Football Focus as the most improved tight end heading into 2025. PFF’s Thomas Valentine wrote at the time that the offensive environment around him in 2025 would be “far greater” than what he’d had as a rookie, with a more consistent quarterback and better supporting cast. That prediction was partially right.
Johnson finished with 45 receptions on 72 targets for 528 yards and five touchdowns across 15 games, logging 872 snaps. His contested target rate was 63.2% – he won 12 of 19 contested catches – which is genuinely good by any positional standard. He generated 192 yards after the catch. He averaged 11.7 yards per reception and his average depth of target sat at 8.9 yards, indicating consistent use up the seam rather than short dump-offs.
Now the complication: PFF graded him 58.0 overall, 33rd among 37 qualified tight ends. His receiving grade was 62.0, 30th at the position. Seven drops on the year – some of them on catchable balls in critical situations. Big Blue View’s positional review noted he “doesn’t play at that speed” relative to his combine testing, and called him “still a work in progress as a route runner.” Both things are true simultaneously. He won contested targets at an above-average rate and also dropped seven passes. That contradiction isn’t resolved by explaining one side away – it’s just where he is as a player right now.
He missed the final two games of 2025 with an infection, not a football injury. The Giants went 3-14 that season. None of it was on Johnson.
What He Does Well and Where He Still Loses Reps
His in-line blocking is real. At 6-foot-6 and 265 pounds with legitimate athleticism, Johnson gave the Giants a tight end who could handle DUO run concepts – placing the TE in a one-on-one situation against the end man on the line of scrimmage. That’s Chris Manhertz’s specialty, but Johnson can do it too, which gives the offense flexibility that Daniel Bellinger couldn’t provide. He played 47.5% of his snaps in-line.
The 192 yards after catch shows what happens when he holds on. He’s not a tight end who falls down on contact – he runs through arm tackles, turns short gains into medium ones. His red zone presence showed up in the touchdown total: five scores in 15 games is legitimate production for a TE1.
The route running problem is harder to quantify but real. His breaks out of cuts are slow to develop. Defensive backs who are late on assignment still recover because Johnson doesn’t accelerate cleanly out of his break the way his straight-line speed suggests he should. That gap between combine athleticism and in-game quickness is the central question about his ceiling – not whether he can grow, but whether the improvement will come in the next year or two or never fully arrive.
Seven drops in a season where he saw 72 targets is a 9.7% drop rate. League average for tight ends in 2025 was around 5-6%. His drops weren’t all concentration lapses – a few came on difficult catches – but several were routine, catchable balls. That number has to come down.
The Isaiah Likely Signing and What It Actually Means
In March 2026, the Giants signed Isaiah Likely to a three-year deal worth $40 million. John Harbaugh, newly hired as Giants head coach, coached Likely for all four of his seasons in Baltimore. The relationship is real and so is the money.
Here’s the piece most fantasy coverage buried: Likely and Johnson are not the same type of tight end, and the Giants aren’t replacing one with the other. Likely ran 73.2% of his Baltimore routes from the slot and only 14.5% as an in-line tight end. Johnson is the opposite – a bigger, physical in-line blocker who works the seam. Footballguys made the comparison plainly: Johnson can do what Mark Andrews did in Baltimore (physical, contested-catch receiver working in-line and up the seam), while Likely steps into the Andrews receiving role in spread sets. The Giants appear to be building the same two-tight-end infrastructure Harbaugh ran in Baltimore for years, using Jaxson Dart’s mobility the way that offense used Lamar Jackson’s.
Whether that means Johnson stays relevant in the passing game is the open question. FantasyPros dropped him to TE35 in redraft after the Likely signing. Athlon Sports was more measured, calling it “a timeshare rather than a true featured role” and noting that both could regularly be involved given the Giants’ lack of wide receiver depth outside Malik Nabers. Nabers is coming back from a knee injury sustained in Week 4 of 2025, and his target share will be significant when healthy. Wan’Dale Robinson left for Tennessee in free agency. The receiving corps behind Nabers is thin.
Johnson figures to block more, catch fewer passes in obvious passing situations, and see his red zone usage remain meaningful given his size. That’s a real role. It’s just not the role he had in 2025 when Nabers went down and the offense had almost nowhere else to throw.
2026 Fantasy Value: Dynasty vs. Redraft
In dynasty formats, Johnson’s value hasn’t changed as much as the redraft market suggests. He’s 25 years old. He plays in a system under Harbaugh and tight end coach Tim Kelly – who is staying on staff – that is considered one of the best developmental environments for tight ends in the league. His athleticism is genuine. His contested catch rate is above average. The drops and route running are fixable problems, not permanent ones. Sell him now in dynasty and you’re likely selling a TE1 at a discount because of a short-term target competition that may sort itself out quickly.
Redraft is harder. FantasyPros has him TE35. That’s probably about right for standard 12-team leagues. Likely’s contract and Harbaugh’s familiarity with him make Likely the presumed target leader among the tight ends. If Nabers is healthy and commanding 25-30% of targets, there aren’t enough left for two tight ends to both be fantasy-relevant every week. In two-TE or superflex formats with thinner pools, Johnson has streaming weeks when Nabers is covered by two defenders and the Giants lean on 12 personnel. Those weeks will exist. They just won’t be predictable enough for weekly lineup decisions in standard formats.
One thing that could change the calculus: Nabers struggling to return to form after the knee injury. If Nabers is limited or misses time again in 2026, the target distribution in New York shifts significantly and Johnson becomes relevant fast.
Career Stats at a Glance
2024 NFL season: 12 games, 11 starts, 29 receptions, 46 targets, 331 yards, 1 touchdown. Placed on IR in December with a Lisfranc fracture. His 331 yards ranked fifth in Giants franchise history for a rookie tight end.
2025 NFL season: 15 games, 45 receptions, 72 targets, 528 yards, 5 touchdowns, 7 drops, 192 yards after catch, 58.0 PFF overall grade, 62.0 receiving grade, 33rd of 37 qualified tight ends.
Career totals through two NFL seasons: 27 games, 74 receptions, 118 targets, 859 yards, 6 touchdowns.
College at Penn State: 57 career receptions for 627 yards and 9 touchdowns across four seasons, sharing snaps throughout with Brenton Strange and then Tyler Warren. He was never the featured tight end in a Penn State offense not built to feature tight ends.
Where Johnson Sits Among His Peers
The 58.0 PFF overall grade is not a number to be proud of – 33rd of 37 qualifiers is a below-average finish by strict positional rank. But PFF grades are punitive on drops, and Johnson’s seven drops compressed his grade below what the counting stats reflect. His 63.2% contested target rate would rank among the better tight ends in the league. His 192 yards after catch shows functional open-field ability. The grade and the underlying skills are not in agreement, which is why analysts land all over the map when projecting him.
The honest comparison class for Johnson right now is ascending TE2 with legitimate TE1 upside – not an established starter, not a fringe player. He’s somewhere between those, trending toward the former if the drops tighten and the route running develops. Players in that class have broken out as late as their third or fourth seasons. He has every physical tool to get there. The Harbaugh hire is probably the single best thing that could have happened to his development trajectory, though whether that shows up in his 2026 stat line or his 2027 one is genuinely unclear.
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