Brock Huard’s Seahawks Draft Profiles: Penn St’s eye-opening TE

Mar 25, 2024, 12:53 PM | Updated: Mar 27, 2024, 1:12 pm

Editor, Seattle Sports

The Seattle Seahawks are just a month away from the NFL Draft, which means it’s time for the return of Brock Huard‘s annual draft profiles.

Huard: The common theme for Seahawks’ defensive signings

Huard, a FOX college football analyst and former NFL quarterback, will be counting down a list of draft prospects he’d like to see in a Seahawks uniform in 2024 daily at 9 a.m. on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk. That all started Monday with No. 20 on the list: Penn State tight end Theo Johnson.

Here’s what Brock has to say about Johnson.

Huard on potential Seattle Seahawks draft target Theo Johnson

“He is a 6-foot-6, 260-pound tight end out of Penn State University. Penn State has put out a lot of tight ends. Penn State dudes come into this league pretty well equipped, pretty well trained. I was looking at my Penn State board, I had them late in the season (on a FOX broadcast) and I was on the field like, ‘That’s a creature. That’s a creature. That’s a difference maker. That’s an NFL dude.’ And this dude’s body is in every way, shape and form an NFL tight end.

“I mentioned 6-6, 260. He’s got 33-inch arms, but most importantly he ran 4.57 (seconds in the 40-yard dash) and jumped nearly 40 inches at the combine. It is why he was a five-star recruit out of high school. He was a top-75 recruit in America by any position. He was an absolute stud and wanted by everybody in the country out of high school. And while Penn State has been average at quarterback – it’s not as if he’s put up prolific numbers – the dude has been a rock.

“What else I like about Theo Johnson is his short shuttle – that’s five yards one way, then you sprint 10 yards the other and you come back. So you’re just testing that short-area quickness. He ran it in 4.19 seconds. That is receiver-esque. That is off the charts for a big guy.”

Beyond the talent

“Penn State’s been a program over my years, with (head coach) James Franklin and his assistants, that will sit there and give you the time – you get to know their prospects. And on my board, as I’m looking at it, this came from teammates: ‘Who are your vocal leaders? When we’ve got the sky cam that’s flying around, that can pick up sound, who are we gonna hear?’ There wasn’t a hesitation. The vocal leader on that Penn State team last year was Theo Johnson. For a tight end to do that, that’s not easy and that’s not common. Usually it’s a quarterback, usually it’s an eccentric, fun running back, maybe it’s a center, maybe it’s those different guys. It’s not usually a tight end. That resonates with me.”

A Seahawks comp for Johnson

“I’ve seen him just a few times. I don’t know him as well as some of these other prospects we’re going to get to. But you want traits? Check. You want a vocal leader? Check. You want to come in and play a position of need and kind of be Noah Fant-esque in that way with those traits? That’s who he mirrors. I mean, Noah Fant was drafted in the first round out of Iowa, another proud tight end program, because his traits are off the charts. This guy’s probably going to be a mid-rounder, but those traits are unique, they’re different, and I like tight ends that can really, really run.”

Hear Brock Huard’s full Seattle Seahawks draft profile of Penn State tight end Theo Johnson in the podcast at this link, or in either the video or audio player near the top of this post.