Former Penn State football and current New York Giants tight end Theo Johnson suffered a season-ending foot injury as a rookie in 2024-25. As his second season in the NFL nears, he's ready to hit the ground running without limitation.
“I think that I can definitely step into a bigger role this year and add a little bit more value than I did last year,” Johnson said, according to New York Post. “Last year was a lot of growing and kind of just jumping off the deep end.”
The former Nittany Lion was a fourth-round 2024 NFL Draft pick, going 107th overall to the Giants. On Nov. 28 during New York's Thanksgiving game against the Dallas Cowboys, Johnson's TE1 campaign was cut short. In Week 5, the young tight end started playing a more prominent role for the Giants and caught five passes. Before his injury, he took on more blocking responsibilities and ran more difficult routes to improve.
"He’s very smart for a young player, has tremendous size and athletic ability, a catch radius, and can block at the point of attack in both the run game and the pass game," Giants head coach Brian Daboll said of the six-foot-six-inch tight end. "That’s hard to do or hard to find nowadays, particularly coming out of college.”
Daboll categorized Johnson as a "tireless worker" at the tight end position who surpasses just being a pass catcher. Blocking is one of Johnson's strong suits when it comes to the position, and it's the mindset he had when playing at Penn State.
“That’s how I got on the field as a freshman in college is being able to block,” Johnson said. “Blocking first was kind of the mentality of Penn State and that’s something I bring with me here to the next level.”
Now back from injury, healthy, and ready to go for the season, Johnson said he's prepared to get back into the rhythm he was getting before injury struck. As a hopefully healthy season awaits him, he can put his rookie frustrations behind and return to his TE1 role with the Giants.
Johnson played with the Nittany Lions for three seasons, posting 12 career touchdown receptions and making 77 total catch for 938 yards. He was a John Mackey Award semifinalist during his last season at Penn State as a junior and made the watch list as a sophomore.