Theo Johnson enters his third season coming off career highs across the board: 74 targets, 45 receptions, 528 yards, five touchdowns, and 11.7 yards per catch in 2025. The 6-foot-6 athletic marvel looked like he was next in line to become Big Blue’s next star tight end.
So how did the New York Giants reward the 25-year-old budding star? By signing Isaiah Likely to a three-year, $40 million deal in free agency to become the team’s de facto No. 1 tight end.
Ouch.
Likely followed new head coach John Harbaugh from Baltimore, where the soon-to-be 26-year-old is looking for a more prominent role after sitting behind Mark Andrews the past four seasons. The former Coastal Carolina standout is all but guaranteed to eat into Johnson's target share, which makes his spot on the roster more vulnerable than fans realize.
In a recent Sportsnaut article, Matt Johnson suggested the Giants’ 2024 fourth-round pick could benefit from a change of scenery, naming the Denver Broncos, New England Patriots, and Philadelphia Eagles as possible landing spots. So much for a promising future in Giants blue.
Giants' Isaiah Likely signing could put Theo Johnson on shaky ground
Matt Johnson sees what a lot of football fans see: an inevitability. Likely wasn't signed for nearly $13 million per season to sit behind the third-year tight end and wait for him to develop. He’s here to help replace the production the Giants lost when Wan’Dale Robinson left for the Tennessee Titans.
In the article, Matt made the case that the Giants’ young tight end might be better off somewhere else:
"Unfortunately for tight end Theo Johnson Jr., the new Giants coaching staff does not seem interested in giving him much of a chance to build off his improvement in 2025. ... Johnson needs a fresh start, and his contract—with under a $1.4 million cap hit in each of the next two seasons—makes him even more appealing to other teams."
He's not necessarily wrong. Likely does present a major hurdle in Johnson's TE1 campaign. And if the Giants did make him available, there would be plenty of suitors -- probably more than the three teams that were listed.
But let's be real, Harby wanted to reunite with Likely to pair with Theo, not to drive him out.
If anything, the move probably says more about what Harbs wants the offense to look like moving forward. His teams have always leaned on multiple tight ends, and pairing Johnson’s size with Likely’s versatility and athleticism could give Big Blue a much more dynamic look. From Jaxson Dart’s perspective, it could actually be a huge benefit too. Young quarterbacks tend to thrive when they have big-bodied, reliable targets they can trust over the middle, and New York now has two of them.
Anyone who watched a game last year could see that Johnson was a favorite target for Dart, so why take that away from him during his formative years? They're already short on offensive weapons, so why take one away? That doesn't make much sense to me.
Let's give the Likely-Johnson duo at least a season together to see how it looks. If it's an abject failure, then the G-Men can look to offload him in 2027, when he'll be entering a contract year anyway. But for now, I think they should stay put and embrace the new-look offense.