Will the New Orleans Saints bring back one of their most important pass-catchers from the 2024 National Football League season?
New Orleans got a career year out of tight end Juwan Johnson and now he's heading to free agency. Johnson had a career-high 50 receptions and 548 receiving yards in 17 games. Johnson also had three touchdowns.
Johnson has been a big piece of the Saints' offense over the last five years, but it's too early to know if he will be back. Free agency will be here next month and Johnson is going to be one of the better tight ends on the open market. He had a two-year, $12 million deal with New Orleans but surely will get more now.
Spotrac currently is projecting Johnson to land a three-year, $30 million deal in free agency. That seems like a pretty fair price for Johnson. In comparison, David Njoku of the Cleveland Browns landed a four-year, $54 million deal.
The Saints unfortunately may not be able to bring Johnson to town. New Orleans has plenty of cap issues and it will be tough to afford to keep Johnson. They surely could find a way to get a deal done if they can clear up cap space elsewhere, but it may be tough. He has been a great member of the organization but at this point it wouldn't be a big shock to see him playing elsewhere by the time the 2025 season gets here.
Saints Advised To Swing Pre-NFL Draft Blockbuster Trade
The New Orleans Saints have a lot of work to do.
New Orleans finished the 2024 season with a 5-12 record and now have a new head coach in Kellen Moore. It’s a new era in New Orleans and now the Saints will need to make some moves.
The Saints need to address its cap situation this offseason and currently are scheduled to have the No. 9 pick in the upcoming NFL Draft.
It’s going to be a long offseason full of tough decisions and The 33rd Team’s Ian Valentino suggested that the Saints should trade down ahead of the NFL Draft to recoup assets.
"Direction: Trade Down," Valentino said. "It's time for the New Orleans Saints to finally pay the piper after so many years of dodging the salary cap's limitations. Projected to be over the cap by $54 million with one of the league's oldest and least-talented rosters, there aren't many productive moves the team can make to help new head coach Kellen Moore. Another batch of restructures is coming, but this roster will get worse before it gets better. The key to breaking the endless cycle of bringing back aging, expensive veterans who aren't contributing to wins is to draft better. New Orleans has eight picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, and five of those are within the top 111 selections.
"Hitting on three would be a massive boost for the franchise but having more chances to unearth quality starters on rookie deals is helpful...A trade down from the ninth overall pick makes sense in almost every scenario. Unless there's an unexpected falling quarterback, the Saints should get a relatively similar prospect much later in the first round than what they would at No. 9, especially considering they're not operating under a win-now mindset. The first-year returns could be lower if they move down into the twenties, but the difference between someone like Shemar Stewart and James Pearce Jr. is negligible for a rebuilding roster."
New Orleans certainly is going to have tough decisions to make.
