- Late-season Johnston surge: The Los Angeles Chargers‘ Quentin Johnston finished his second season strong, notably posting 13 catches for 186 yards in Week 18 and showcasing his potential when given opportunities.
- Chargers add significant competition: Johnston's role and target share are in question due to new additions to the Chargers roster potentially impacting his fantasy production despite prior improvements.
- Subscribe to PFF+: Get access to player grades, PFF Premium Stats, fantasy football rankings, all of the PFF fantasy draft research tools and more!
Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.
Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs
Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, June 18
Player performance
Johnston was a first-round pick by the Los Angeles Chargers in 2023, getting traded directly after Jaxon Smith-Njigba and directly before Zay Flowers and Jordan Addison. Johnston started his career as the fourth wide receiver on the depth chart, behind Keenan Allen, Mike Williams and Joshua Palmer. This wasn’t too concerning at the time, considering all three had significant roles in the past. He caught five passes for 26 yards in those three games.
Williams suffered a season-ending injury in Week 3, which moved Johnston up to third on the depth chart. He started playing around 50% of Los Angeles' offensive snaps, but that didn’t add to his production. He posted a fine game in Week 8, finishing with five receptions for 50 yards. After this game, Johnston generally played ahead of Palmer on the depth chart, playing 82% of the snaps over the rest of the season. He had two games with touchdowns, a game with 52 yards and a game with 91 yards, but he was relatively unproductive in the other games, finishing with a low target rate and low yards per route run on the season.
The Chargers moved on from both Allen and Williams in the offseason, which locked Johnston into the X receiver spot. Johnston’s target rate was much higher, and his play improved, leading his yards per route run to more than double. His fantasy production increased primarily from an increase in touchdowns. From Weeks 2-15, he scored eight times. He wasn’t always a consistent target, but he posted two huge games. In Week 9, he caught four passes for 118 yards, and in Week 18, he caught 13 passes for 186 yards. He averaged 31 yards per game in the other 13 weeks. The two big yardage games and high touchdown total made him a top-36 fantasy wide receiver in half of his games. Week 18 should have left him in a good spot heading into 2025, but he didn’t catch any of his five targets in their playoff loss, including two drops.
Johnston notably did well once he got the ball in his hands, finishing with 0.31 avoided tackles per reception, second among wide receivers last season. While most X receivers play well against man, Johnston was unique in that he played much better against zone. His 2.8% touchdowns per route against zone defense were the best among wide receivers.
Projected role
Johnston’s average depth of target decreased last season, which potentially helped increase his production. Most of his receptions both seasons came on short passes, and he caught 13 of 14 passes thrown behind the line of scrimmage last season. He only caught nine of 37 deep passes over the last two seasons.
The Chargers moved on from Palmer at wide receiver, but brought back Williams, and drafted Tre Harris and KeAndre Lambert-Smith. The most likely scenario is Harris replaces Palmer as the Z receiver in three-receiver sets, while Williams becomes Johnston's backup. Williams failed to impress with the New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers last season, and the current Chargers coaching staff hasn’t worked with Williams. However, if Johnston isn’t playing well or Williams returns to the player he was before his injury, then there is a chance Williams starts.
Johnston is oddly the only one among the top four on the depth chart who is better against zone defense than man. Typically, the X receiver is better against man, and the Z and slot receivers are better against zone, but Johnston, McConkey and Harris were the exception to that rule at Ole Miss. It’s certainly possible we see some three-receiver sets with Williams at X, Johnston at Z and McConkey in the slot.
While Johnston’s playing time should be relatively secure, his place in the target priority order might not be. McConkey has established himself as the top target earner on the team. Both Harris and Williams could disrupt Johnston’s target rate. Los Angeles also added Omarion Hampton and Najee Harris at running back, and Tyler Conklin and Oronde Gadsden II at tight end. This should lead to more targets for their running backs and tight ends compared to last season, leaving fewer targets for the wide receivers.
Impact of teammates
Johnston will be in his second season on Greg Roman’s offense. Roman's offense passed the ball to wide receivers more often than he’s used to. However, the additions to the Chargers' running back and tight end rooms should leave this offense in a similar spot to Roman’s past teams. Johnston’s 711 receiving yards last season were the most a No. 2 receiver has had in Roman’s 11 seasons as an NFL offensive coordinator. His No. 2 wide receiver has averaged 460 receiving yards over the 11 seasons.
Johnston will continue catching passes from Justin Herbert, which is a big bonus for Johnston. Herbert is both one of the most accurate quarterbacks and the highest graded quarterback in the league. He doesn’t get sacked or scrambled relatively as much as most quarterbacks. If Herbert were to get injured, that would likely ruin any fantasy value Johnston has.
Bottom line
Johnston was a WR4 last season, but he’s more likely to decline than improve due to new additions to the Chargers offense that will likely deprioritize Johnston. However, Johnston was a first-round pick for a reason and had substantial improvement in his second season. If he makes similar strides this season, then the Chargers would need to prioritize Johnston in the offense.
Footnotes
- Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
- “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
- Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
- As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
- Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
- Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
- The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
- All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
- Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.
© 2025 PFF - all rights reserved.