Should I Start Juwan Johnson?

Wednesday, September 2, 8:12 PM

New Orleans Saints tight end Juwan Johnson should see an uptick in targets early this season as he helps to fill the void of wide receiver Jordyn Tyson (hamstring). Johnson was a wide receiver in college, so even though he's a tight end now, he remains a legitimate receiving threat with impressive size and athleticism. While the coaching staff is high on Devaughn Vele, there's a very legitimate chance that Johnson ranks second on the team in targets (behind Chris Olave) for the duration of Tyson's absence. Tyson is expected to be sidelined through late October, setting up Johnson to see enough targets for him to rank as a low-end TE1. There's certainly precedent here, as Johnson was the overall TE8 while playing in a similar-looking offense last year. It's also encouraging that he performed better with Tyler Shough as his quarterback (11.5 PPR points per game) than with Spencer Rattler (9.5 PPR points per game). Johnson currently has an ADP of 146.3, which corresponds to the 13th round and makes him the 16th tight end off the board.