When the Indianapolis Colts signed Houston Texans legend Andre Johnson to a three-year deal worth $21 million with $10 million in guarantees, I thought they were getting a still-great veteran receiver who would effectively move the chains for one of the scariest offenses in the NFL.
None of the above happened for the Indianapolis Colts in 2015, and Andre Johnson finished the year as the most disappointing player on the entire team. Fellow Miami product and 2015 veteran signing Frank Gore became a key part of the Colts offense, but Johnson looked done and was one of the NFL’s least effective wideouts.
Stats can be deceiving sometimes, but there’s no sugar enveloping his bitter 53.2% catch rate. Yes, the Colts passing attack operated at sub-optimal efficiency with Andrew Luck either injured or shockingly struggling, but that didn’t stop young guns T.Y. Hilton and Donte Moncrief from shining. Johnson wasn’t even as efficient as first-round rookie Phillip Dorsett, who didn’t fit Matt Hasselbeck’s playing style and struggled to get involved much in his first season.
As a whole, Johnson averaged just 6.53 yards per target, and his four touchdowns weren’t enough to salvage his poor YPT and underwhelming 41 catches for 503 yards. His fall from grace was rapid, too, because he caught 85 passes for the Houston Texans in 2014 in a quietly strong season, though this was after 112 and 109-catch campaigns.
At 34, a decline season from Johnson was at least somewhat predictable, and even the most ardent of his believers has to be able to fathom a sharp, cliff-like dive in production from a player this old. After all, the Texans were all too willing to give up on him in favor of Cecil Shorts III, who fell out of favor with a different rival in the Jacksonville Jaguars, and another AFC South veteran in journeyman Nate Washington; this was all in the name of force-feeding DeAndre Hopkins, so Bill O’Brien’s decision did prove to be a wise one.
By the same token, Ryan Grigson chose poorly, but the Johnson signing can only be called a mistake under the scope of his bloated contract. Take a look at the Colts upcoming contracts for the 2016 season, courtesy of Over The Cap, and you’ll see what I mean.
Johnson’s $7.5 million cap hit is the fifth-highest on the Colts, and the four players in front of him (Hilton, Luck, Anthony Castonzo, and Vontae Davis) are all elite, franchise players for this organization. All four of them are critical to the team’s success, but Johnson is a luxury player who has been replaced by a younger, more dynamic, and significantly better option in Moncrief.
All of this isn’t to say that we should give up all hope on Johnson going forward, because he really could have something left in the tank. Remember, from 2012-2014, Johnson was still putting up strong numbers, and while he was already showing signs of decline in 2014, it’s possible that his drop from “good” to “horrendous” in 2015 was more strongly related to outside forces than we may think.
The problem is that even if Johnson’s play does pick up in the future, it still isn’t worth it for the Colts to keep him around in 2016. No, Grigson won’t be off the hook for the full $7.5 million, but if he does choose to cut the future Hall of Famer, he’ll only have to swallow a $2.5 million loss in dead cap. That gives him a full $5 million in savings, and, for comparison, that’s the amount of money Eddie Royal and Emmanuel Sanders make per year.
Of course, the Colts wouldn’t go out and get a receiver if they cut Johnson, and therein lies another strong reason for releasing him. See, the Colts don’t need receivers, and they need to save that money on players like offensive linemen, cornerbacks, and pass rushers. Those are marquee positions in this league, and the Colts have gaping holes at all of them; holes that will only get bigger this offseason if they aren’t properly addressed by a GM who is still on the hot seat despite his head-scratching extension.
$5 million is a nice chunk of change, and the Colts have to put it to good use. Paying a 34-year-old receiver coming off of the worst season of his career on a team that already has three better WRs just isn’t a wise allocation of resources. The Colts should return to the playoffs in 2016 with a healthy Luck at the helm, but that’s no guarantee.
Moreoever, Jim Irsay, the fans, and just about everyone else has come to expect more from his team, and this is true whenever you have a QB of Luck’s caliber on your roster.
For the Colts to meet their high expectations as future Super Bowl contenders, they need to shore up their biggest issues, especially the ones that have caused their pass defense to be picked apart.
Due to the myriad of positions that need addressing and Johnson’s price tag, it’s extremely difficult to envision him playing for the Colts in 2016. There’s some hope that he can bounce back to some extent in 2016, but that rebound in form won’t be significant enough to justify keeping him at the expense of saving $5 million.
Johnson, by the way, caught over 60% of his passes in a single game just four times last season, whereas Moncrief did this nine times.
A possession receiver, Johnson just didn’t have the game-to-game consistency to be a viable chain-mover last season, and that’s extremely disconcerting when you remember that the Colts QB in 2015 was a pure game manager in Hasselbeck.
