Los Angeles Chargers: WR Guru Advocates Wholesale Changes to Save Quentin Johnston’s Career

Even at the time of the pick, Quentin Johnston raised eyebrows. And not in a good way. The Los Angeles Chargers had two big-bodied targets in Keenan Allen and Mike Williams but lacked high-end speed. Johnston didn’t offer that. And it turned out to be much worse. He wasn’t an elite route runner or a man beater or even a sure-handed contested catch guy. He was bad last year. Plain and simple. He didn’t even offer much for a fan to hang their hat on in the way of small sample sized ‘flashes’ of greatness

But looking at the Chargers season, not much went right. Even good players looked mediocre under the 2023 Chargers coaching staff. So many are expecting the new coaching staff to work its magic and turn Johnston into something other than one of the bigger first-round busts in modern history.

Quentin Johnston’s Year in Review

Matt Harmon of Reception Perception gave his take on the situation and laid out what he thinks needs to happen and gave a realistic view of what Johnston could be going forward.

Johnston’s success rate vs. coverage scores are nothing short of abysmal. There’s just no way around it. He wasn’t just one of the worst separators in the NFL last season, he is one of the worst separators in Reception Perception history (2014 to 2024).

The lack of nuance in his route running is alarming but not surprising given how he won in college. Johnston was a raw technician at TCU. He wasn’t ready for this role where he saw high rates of press and man coverage at the X-receiver position while running a vertical, low-percentage route tree. I have no idea what player the Chargers thought they were getting but this is an all-time misjudging a prospect’s path to success in the league.

WR Guru Identifies Ideal Scenario For Los Angeles Chargers Reclamation Project

It is easy to say that Johnston was bad and even easier once the numbers are spelling it out for you. But Harmon goes the extra step to identify a useful role for him on the Chargers (Or for another team. The Chargers added four new receivers this year)

Changing up the deployment can help Johnston in the future to get him away from difficult coverage and working in the open field. Again, the problem is, in the very brief glimpses we saw of Johnston in the run after catch game, his dominance from TCU didn’t translate. He was only “in space” on 3.1% of his sampled routes and he went down on first contact on 87.5% of those plays.

Quentin Johnston is a full-scale tear down and rebuild project for a new Chargers coaching staff. History shows it’s not an impossible task for him to reclaim some viability as a pro and become a useful player but it’s an unlikely one and will be a long road to pull it off.

While separation is a pass catcher’s duty, creating space isn’t fully on a receiver. There are several head coaches that are masters at doing this. Greg Roman isn’t thought of in the realm of offensive coordinators and the college game is notoriously space-friendly compared to the NFL, but that is the area that set Quentin Johnston up for success while at TCU. If the Chargers want to get anything out of him, that is what they will have to try to replicate, in addition to refining his very raw separation techniques.

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