Giants TE Theo Johnson faces a year-three test after the Isaiah Likely signing

Giants TE Theo Johnson caught 45 passes for 528 yards and five touchdowns in his second season, finishing as the team’s only tight end to clear 300 receiving yards and emerging as one of Jaxson Dart’s steadiest targets down the stretch. The production read like an ascending starter.

Then the Giants handed Isaiah Likely a three-year, $40 million deal that can reach $47.5 million with incentives, and the math on Johnson’s third season changed overnight.

A Real Step Forward in Year Two

As a 2024 fourth-round pick out of Penn State, Johnson managed just 29 catches for 331 yards and one touchdown in 12 games, a developmental line for a developmental rookie. In 2025, he played 15 games, hauled in 45 of 74 targets, and became Dart’s go-to inside the 20, with all five of his touchdowns coming in the red zone. The jump was substantial.

He averaged 11.7 yards per reception alongside 192 yards after the catch, numbers that put him among the more dangerous young tight ends with the ball in his hands. The receiving profile is exactly what a run-first John Harbaugh offense wants from the position.

The Drops Problem That Won’t Go Away

Johnson was charged with seven drops in 2025, and PFF has him leading all NFL tight ends in drops across his first two seasons combined. For a player whose value is built on volume and contested grabs over the middle, that is the flaw that caps his ceiling. The targets are there; the catch rate keeps undercutting the yardage.

Johnson ranked 32nd among 42 tight ends with at least 260 blocking snaps last season, posting a 51.0 run-block grade and a 41.0 pass-block grade per PFF. In an offense that wants to pound the ball, a tight end who can neither finish catches cleanly nor anchor as an in-line blocker is a tight end with a narrow role.

What the Isaiah Likely Money Means

Baltimore’s former weapon arrives on $20.5 million fully guaranteed, reunited with Harbaugh, who coached him from 2022 through 2025. Likely’s 2024 line of 42 catches for 477 yards and six touchdowns shows the move-tight-end upside the Giants are paying for, and his arrival gives Dart the versatile seam threat the offense lacked.

Set that against Johnson’s rookie-scale contract, and the front-office picture is clear. The Giants invested starter money at a position where Johnson was the incumbent, which tells him the targets he earned in 2025 are no longer guaranteed in 2026. Two-tight-end sets keep both on the field, but the higher-leverage routes now run through the man making eight figures.

The Year That Decides His Role

Johnson still owns traits the Giants value; he is a core piece of a tight end room that suddenly runs deep. The path to keeping a featured role is straightforward and entirely on him: cut the drops, lift the blocking grade off the floor, and force Harbaugh to keep feeding him even with Likely commanding the premium snaps. The talent has never been the question. The hands have. Year three is where Theo Johnson answers for them.

By Anthony Rivardo

Anthony Rivardo is the COO of Empire Sports Media and the host of Fireside Giants, a New York Giants ... More about Anthony Rivardo