Quentin Johnston Camp Update — August 31: A Highlight, Not a Verdict
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
Johnston caught a sixty-five-yard play-action touchdown from Justin Herbert in the finale, the one skill-position event of the starters' four-play night, and made the fifty-three as a listed starter. One explosive play is a highlight; the scoring-rate and target-share questions from June remain unanswered by it.
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The one skill-position event of the Chargers' preseason finale belonged to Quentin Johnston. On a night where the starters ran four offensive plays, Justin Herbert hit him on a 65-yard play-action touchdown, per Eric Smith at chargers.com — Johnston beating two defenders downfield and catching it in stride, per Smith's takeaways piece. The box score reads two targets, one catch, 65 yards and the score, per CBS Sports, which means two of Herbert's three attempts went his way. Jim Harbaugh, per Smith: "Wow. Double wow. The throw, the catch, the protection."
Now the calibration, because it matters. The August 20-third episode's watch item asked for the receiver distribution with the starters and any red-zone work, since the scoring rate is the whole question on Johnston. The distribution came back in his favor on a four-play sample — Johnston two targets, Charlie Kolar one, no reported line for Ladd McConkey or Tre' Harris — and the red-zone half came back empty. A 65-yard strike is the opposite of red-zone evidence; one explosive on a two-series exhibition is a highlight, not proof of a repeatable scoring rate or a target share. It goes in the file as exactly that.
The roster questions closed cleanly. Johnston made the 53, per Smith, and the team's August 20-fourth depth chart lists him as a starter alongside McConkey, with six receivers kept. Last season he caught 51 balls for 735 yards and eight touchdowns in 13 games, per our own numbers — and the team's site credits him with leading the Bolts in touchdown catches with eight in each of the past two seasons.
The June thread granted the third-year climb as real and questioned the fuel: a scoring history that tends not to repeat, on a complement's target volume, behind McConkey in an offense built for McConkey. Four plays cannot move that arithmetic, so it stands — with one flashbulb note in his favor attached. We'll see what a full game's worth of targets says once the season opens.
_Data via nflverse._
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