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COSTA MESA, Calif. — On the day after receiver Mike Williams tore his ACL in the Los Angeles Chargers’ Week 3 win at the Minnesota Vikings, coach Brandon Staley was clear about what the injury meant for rookie first-round pick Quentin Johnston.
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“He’s going to get more opportunities,” Staley said Sept. 25.
The Chargers have played two games since — a Week 4 win over the Las Vegas Raiders and a loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night. Johnston has certainly gotten his opportunities, setting career highs in snaps in each respective game, 33 against Las Vegas and 35 against Dallas. However, the increased playing time has not translated into production. Quarterback Justin Herbert targeted Johnston just five times in the past two games, and Johnston only has one catch, an 18-yarder against the Raiders.
On the season, Johnston — who the Chargers drafted No. 21 in April — has six catches for 44 yards. Zay Flowers went one pick after Johnston to the Baltimore Ravens at No. 22. Flowers has 35 catches for 367 yards and a touchdown. The Vikings took Jordan Addison with the next pick at No. 23. Addison has 22 catches for 277 yards and four touchdowns.
Early on, Johnston was buried behind Keenan Allen, Williams and Joshua Palmer on the depth chart. Flowers and Addison, meanwhile, had much easier and defined pathways to playing time. That should be factored into Johnston’s production. And the Chargers drafted Johnston knowing he was a raw prospect who needed time to develop. They viewed adding him to a room with three established receivers as a positive.
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Circumstances change, though. And now Johnston is the Chargers’ No. 3 receiver.
He has mostly been a non-factor.
Why?
After digging into the film from the past two weeks, I think there are three primary reasons.
1. Johnston has not been a focal point of the offense over the past two weeks. Allen and Palmer are the top two options, and the vast majority of play designs are feeding targets to them. Herbert also, naturally, has more trust and rapport with both Allen and Palmer.
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2. Johnston does not create separation consistently. He is still early in the process of his development as a route-runner — both in terms of the variety of routes he is capable of running and the quality of the routes he runs. When the Chargers have schemed up plays for Johnston over the past two weeks, he has lacked some of the nuance and polish necessary to separate against NFL defensive backs.
3. The Chargers are utilizing Johnston mostly as a deep-field threat. This part is curious. Because on the night the Chargers drafted Johnston in April, both Staley and general manager Tom Telesco specifically mentioned Johnston’s yards-after-catch ability as a motivating factor in the pick. And yet through six weeks, 38.7 percent of Johnston’s 81 routes have been either go routes or posts, according to TruMedia. That number is corroborated on film. Among receivers with at least 75 routes run this season, only four — the New York Giants’ Jalin Hyatt, the Tennessee Titans’ Chris Moore, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ George Pickens and the New Orleans Saints’ Rashid Shaheed — have run a higher percentage of gos and posts.
The Chargers, to this point, have not been implementing the type of YAC touches for Johnston that would allow him to create with the ball in his hands. He ran one slant in the past two games, according to TruMedia. He ran four crossing routes. His one catch came on an out-of-structure scramble drill.
I asked Staley and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore this week why they have not been designing more of these touches for Johnston over the past two games.
“It just hasn’t happened yet,” Staley said. “There’s plenty of design for that. Again, it’s just so early, but he needs to stay on track.”
“We’re really close,” Moore said. “We certainly got to give him some more opportunities, and that’s on me. We got to find those.”
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This second-and-8 play from late in the third quarter of Monday’s game is a good example of what Johnston’s role has been.
The Chargers set up in a 3×1 formation with all three of their receivers to the left side. Johnston is the outside receiver, circled in yellow. Palmer is the middle receiver, circled in red. And Allen is the inside receiver, circled in green.
The route combination: Johnston on a go route, Palmer on a hitch and Allen on an out route.
Herbert took the shotgun snap. As he hit the bottom of his drop, his eyes were on Palmer. Two Cowboys defenders had Palmer’s shallow route covered.
Herbert then looked to Allen. He, too, was covered.
Herbert continued on his progression and shifted his eyes to the right side of the field. By this point, Johnston was one-on-one downfield. But Herbert had already moved off that side of the concept.
Herbert checked it down to running back Joshua Kelley in the flat.
Defenses do have to respect Johnston’s explosiveness downfield, and these deep routes are still providing value to the offense. They might not be resulting in catches for Johnston, but they are opening up plays to other receivers thanks to the threat.
Like on this completion to Palmer late in the first half against the Cowboys.
The Chargers lined up in a 2×2 formation. Johnston was to the outside left, circled in yellow. Palmer, circled in red, was in the slot to the inside of Johnston. Allen was the lone wide receiver to the left side, circled in green.
Allen came in short motion from left to right.
The route combination: Johnston on a go, Palmer on an over and Allen on a dig.
Herbert took the snap and faked a handoff to Kelley.
As Herbert hit the bottom of his drop, Allen was fighting through a double-team jam at the line of scrimmage. Palmer, meanwhile, had leverage on his primary defender, with a single-high safety over the top.
Palmer started to come out of his break, and Herbert looked off the single high safety as Johnston surged down the sideline on his go route. You can see the safety, No. 28 Malik Hooker, turn his hips and commit himself to covering Johnston over the top.
Herbert then shifted his vision, and Palmer had an open space to run into with no help over the top.
Herbert delivered an accurate throw for the Chargers’ second-longest completion of the game. (The longest was a screen to running back Austin Ekeler in the first quarter.)
So these routes are not useless. Far from it. But field-stretching speed is not that difficult to find in the NFL. Using a first-round pick on a player who is making his biggest contributions as a deep-threat decoy is not a great allocation of resources.
The Chargers have attempted to scheme up some plays for Johnston, like on this red-zone pass attempt in the second quarter against the Raiders.
Herbert was in shotgun formation and Johnston, circled in yellow, was isolated to the right side.
As Herbert faked the handoff to running back Isaiah Spiller, Johnston tried to bait Raiders cornerback Marcus Peters by acting like he was run blocking.
Herbert pulled the ball back, and Johnston attempted to slip past Peters. But he did not sell the blocking fake well enough. Peters was not fooled. Again, just lacking some of the nuance and deception that creates separation in the NFL.
As Herbert prepared to throw, Peters was all over Johnston.
And Peters deflected the pass for an incompletion.
None of these limitations for Johnston are a surprise. They were on tape in college and part of the reason he was a relatively divisive prospect coming out — explosive traits but raw in some of the finer details of the position.
The solution moving forward: Put Johnston in a position to succeed with the type of YAC concepts that will get the ball in his hands in space and allow those traits to take over.
(Top photo: Michael Owens / Getty Images; screenshots vs. NFL+)
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