Juwan Johnson Camp Update — August 23: No Targets Yet, More Room Inside
2026 NFL Season · Sunday, Aug 23
Juwan Johnson sat out Saturday's game with the rest of the starters, so another week passed without a counted target. Around him, Jordyn Tyson's two-month timeline and an injury to Moliki Matavao thinned the competition for inside work.
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Another week, still no counted targets. Juwan Johnson sat Saturday's game in Los Angeles along with every Saints starter — Kellen Moore held the entire first team out and called Thursday's joint practice their real game-speed work, per Pankti Parmar at Heavy — and Johnson's name did not surface in the attributable charting from that Rams practice either. Quiet week, by design.
The room around him moved, though, and mostly in his direction. Jordyn Tyson, the rookie receiver, will now miss around two months, per Ian Rapoport at NFL Network — an absence that stands to leave more early-season volume on the inside of the field, where Johnson works. And Moliki Matavao, the young tight end behind him, left Saturday's game with a lower-leg injury after a sideline catch, per Ross Jackson at Louisiana Sports, with no diagnosis reported yet. Fewer healthy bodies at the position, more open air in the middle.
Our June preview asked whether Johnson's career year — third among tight ends in receiving yards — was his, or just unclaimed volume in a depleted room, with the Tyler Shough connection as the tell. That question still waits on a September target log, and none of August's managed weeks have supplied one. What to watch: whether Johnson plays with Shough in the preseason finale against Dallas, and where the first reads go if he does. We'll check after cut day.
_Data via nflverse._
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