Giants TE Theo Johnson Reflects on Challenging Rookie Season

New York Giants tight end Theo Johnson’s rookie season might not have gone as expected, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t take anything away from it moving forward.
The Canadian-born player who hails from Penn State came to East Rutherford with big shoes to fill after the veteran Darren Waller retired from the NFL one year after the Giants acquired him via trade from the Raiders, leaving behind a brief resume that featured 552 yards that finished second on the team leaderboard last fall.
The Giants' plan would be no different with the switch over to the novice, whom they selected in the fourth round and expected to take a large role in the offense from the jump due to his size and immense ball skills as a near 1,000-yard receiver as a collegiate player.
Johnson was to be a secondary contributor when the defensive attention was focused on the No. 1 option in Malik Nabers, and add an extra intermediate element to the unit that they couldn’t draw from Waller in 2023 with injuries and inconsistent quarterback play limiting their potential.
Just like his predecessor, though, the season-ending injury bug reared its ugly head for Johnson in Week 13 against the Dallas Cowboys. This foot ailment would cut his debut short by five games and leave him with just 29 receptions for 331 yards and one touchdown for a disappointing first stat line.
Even with the early obstacles he faced, it’s all about the big picture for Johnson, who feels the challenging rookie season has helped him learn what it takes to survive in the modern-day NFL and is proud to have made it through the first rodeo stronger than he entered it.
“I've come a long way since the last time we spoke, for sure … a whirlwind. It's been crazy,” Johnson said in a recent interview with CBC from his hometown of Windsor, Ontario.
“They throw the world at you as soon as you walk in the door. I feel like time's really flown by since I came in, but I think all in all, for me personally, it was a good year. I feel like I accomplished a lot.”
Accomplish a lot he did, and it started from the moment he joined the team in camp this past summer. With not much veteran pass-catching talent in their ranks, the Giants entrusted the starting job to Johnson, making him the first Giants rookie tight end to start in their first year since Kevin Boss in the 2007 season.
The Giants were enamored from the beginning with Johnson’s immense physical traits and believed he could become a dynamic weapon for quarterback Daniel Jones to take advantage of when it came to mismatches in coverage and sizing up oncoming defenders as an extra protector.
However, the results weren’t there over the first month of the season as the two players struggled to find a rhythm in their connections, and Johnson adjusted to much more athletically gifted opponents than he was accustomed to playing in the Big 10.
Johnson would secure just three catches in that span as the Giants fought to get their offense humming despite an improved offensive line protecting Jones. It wouldn’t be until his fifth game in Seattle when the rookie made his first real mark in a “big time” football space, notching a single-game high of five balls for 48 yards to help in the team’s 29-20 road victory.
Then, it would culminate with Johnson’s most memorable game of etching his name in Giants’ scoring lore. The 23-year-old, in a 27-22 loss to the Washington Commanders in Week 9, would erupt for 51 yards and take it home on a late fourth-quarter seam route to earn his first NFL touchdown to bring the Giants to the brink of a rare comeback.
It was a moment Johnson will never forget, but one that also reminded him of the important lesson that growing at the professional level is hard and won’t happen unless you put in the work and stay patient for the opportunity to come.
“You hear about it from guys [you] used to play with in college about what to expect or how the league is, but nothing can prepare you for just kind of being out there when the bullets are flying,” Johnson said.
“Every game, I kind of take a moment and just really take it in, where I'm at and what I'm doing. I just feel a lot of gratitude for the situation I'm in, but, you know, it's big-time football, and that's all anyone that plays the sport ever dreams of. I'm more grateful for the position I'm in.”
As the focus shifts towards the 2025 season and building upon his game, Johnson has put himself in a good position to run it back next year as a valuable piece of this Giants offense. He dealt with it all from a lack of targets to a revolving door at the quarterback position that marred the overall output, but still managed to finish as the fourth-most productive player on the team leaderboard.
His numbers were just as abundant if not more than a couple of his campaigns with the Nittany Lions, and he got going right before the injury to start showing flashes of what he can do in the open field with four games holding a double-digit average catch in his last ending on Thanksgiving Day.
It surely wasn’t easy having to make big plays for a lingering offense while being one of the young bucks in the huddle, but Johnson made the most of it and put his best foot forward to gain some positive momentum for his career heading into the second go-around next season.
He feels wiser, hungrier, and more appreciative of what the game of football has brought him since he was a wide-eyed kid from the southern banks of Canada on the other side of the river from a prideful football city in Detroit.
He believes that with further dedication to ironing out his mistakes and sharpening his skills, along with the rest of the team, he will assume an even larger role in the following season, with the goal of turning the Giants franchise around in what will be a pivotal one for so many reasons.
“It's tough coming in every week and trying to put your best foot forward, and falling short is not easy, but it's hard to win games in this league,” Johnson said.”
“I think the struggles that we went through this year gave me a lot of learning opportunities. I'm going to take that into consideration this year and this offseason, because I don't want to ever go through that again.”
“I think I'm going to play a big role, and be able to help turn this organization around and turn this offense around. We know what we do is just a matter about going out there and doing it week in and week out.”