The 2025 NFL offseason is upon us, and free agency is not much further away as fans sit and wait through the “dead period” of the offseason. The New Orleans Saints have been busy however which is refreshing, with the hiring of new head coach Kellen Moore, and now working towards adding additional coaches to fill out his staff.
With this, we have plenty of time to look back at the 2024 offseason and figure out whether or not the Saints made the right decisions when it came to signings, and who they let walk. One of the players they moved on from was defensive back Lonnie Johnson Jr., who would move on to the Carolina Panthers.
Here is how that went down, and how he performed during the 2024 season:
Free agent contract
The contract for Johnson was pretty simple all things considered, it was a one-year deal worth up to $1.125 million, with none of it fully guaranteed as it mostly came in as a base salary. Of the safeties with a contract in the NFL, Johnson’s deal was 106th in value of 198.
Snap counts
The snap counts for Johnson have been slowly going downwards each year of his career in recent seasons, as he has struggled to find playing time for multiple franchises since leaving the Houston Texans. Here are his defensive snap counts for each season, only including games in which he played:
- 2019: 56% (529)
- 2020: 65% (703)
- 2021: 57% (541)
- 2022: 20% (165)
- 2023: 15% (122)
- 2024: 1% (13)
His special teams utilization has gone up significantly as his defensive snaps have gone down, playing 76% and 81% of special teams plays in the last two seasons respectively. This is where most of his value comes from as a player in recent years.
2024 season review
2024 was one of the lower productivity seasons that Johnson has ever had, as he barely saw the field on defense at any point throughout the year, even after moving to safety to find a role. His 339 snaps on special teams were the most of his career by a longshot, and he did somewhat well there.
Over the course of the year, he only had 7 tackles (6 solo, 1 assisted), and was not targeted in his 13 defensive snaps across 15 games, one of which he started. Ultimately, it seems to be the start of a new phase of his career, as he transitions to special teams instead of defensive utilization.
Report card grade
Overall, the departure of Johnson did not have a negative impact on the Saints defensively, and despite having a strong special teams impact on his new team, the Saints found a similar level replacement…
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