CLEVELAND, Ohio — Pro Bowl receiver Diontae Johnson finally admitted that he was humbled by the fact that no one but the Browns called him in the offseason after four teams showed him the door last season.
That’s good news for the Browns, because that’s exactly what it will take for Johnson to stick around and make it work here after he admittedly “mentally checked out” from the Ravens and Texans last season and grumbled at every stop. If he can’t get it together here, it’s doubtful a sixth team will give him a chance.
During a Sports and Suits podcast episode that aired this week but was taped in May, Johnson acknowledged that four months of radio silence from NFL teams after he got released by the Texans in January. It was the fourth team that gave up on him last year after the Steelers, Panthers and Ravens. The first two traded him, and the last two couldn’t release him fast enough.
“I had been home ever since and I was just hoping that I got something,” Johnson said. “Cleveland called and I was thankful. They’re the only team that called the whole offseason. It humbled me though.”
If the crickets weren’t enough to knock him down a few pegs, the veteran minimum contract of $1.17 million for 2025 with no guarantees finished the job. It’s a far cry from the $25 million or so he might’ve gotten this season had he kept his head down, his mouth shut and played good ball.
In fact, he was putting up Pro Bowl-caliber numbers in Carolina last season before he asked to be traded when they were 1-6 after seven games and going nowhere. In three of his seven outings, he had 123, 83 and 78 yards. But after a 40-7 loss to the Commanders in which he caught 1 of 3 targets for 17 yards, he expressed frustration and then was inactive the following week with an oblique injury. He asked to be traded, and the Panthers obliged, shipping him to the Ravens.
“I come from an environment (in Pittsburgh) where we used to win and so I wasn’t kind of used to it, and stuff kind of went left,” Johnson said. “It was always one thing after another.”
But things went from bad to worse in Baltimore, where Johnson, a third-round pick of the Steelers in 2019 out of Toledo, served as the sixth or seventh receiver with only five targets and one catch for 6 yards in four games, and expressed his dismay. The last straw came in Week 13 against the Eagles when he refused to enter a Week 13 game in the fourth quarter.
“Baltimore, that was a tough situation for me,” Johnson said on the podcast. “ I loved the players and stuff. I loved the organization, but it just wasn’t for me. Just going in, I checked out mentally. I wasn’t getting used. I wouldn’t say used as being selfish, just as feeling a part of the team. And I just checked out, and that one game I told them I wasn’t going in.”
A 2021 Pro Bowler when he caught 107 passes for 1,161 yards and 8 TDs, Johnson explained that he was ignored the first three quarters before they called his number.
“I wasn’t getting into no run plays, no passing plays or nothing,” he said. “It was cold. So I’m on the sidelines just standing there, going to the heater back and forth, just waiting to hear my name called. End of the third going into the fourth, they were like, ‘Tae, we need you.’ I’m like, ‘Nah.’ To me, I’m thinking ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for me.’ Because I was thinking about like my legs … I don’t wanna go out there and put bad stuff on film.
“It’s not like I didn’t wanna go in the game, but leading up to this point, I had been through so much… I was checked out mentally. I was like ‘whatever happens, happens.’ I was just rolling with the punches at that time, so I told them I wasn’t going in. I was like ‘I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not going to go in. So I just sat on the bench, and that’s when they suspended me.”
After the suspension, the Ravens excused him from team activities, and “I already knew if I went back I was going to be in the doghouse even more, so I just asked to get released and I got picked up by Houston.”
But his second straight stint with a playoff team also ended badly. In the season finale against the Titans, he caught 2 of 4 targets for 12 yards, and then got one ball thrown his way in a playoff victory over the Chargers, catching it for 12 yards.
Johnson lost his cool in the locker room after the game, and the Texans waived him.
“I got to Houston, and things were going smooth,” Johnson explained. “They made it seem like I was going to be playing a lot. ‘We want you to learn this, learn this,’ so I learned the playbook so fast, and then come gametime, they were putting the younger guys in. But I understand, it’s the guys they drafted, so I gotta wait my turn… But it’s like they were telling me, you’re going to be …..but I checked out mentally. It was bad timing. I went and talked to the head coach right after the game … After that, they said I was a distraction and they released me."
The Ravens claimed him the next day, in part to factor him into their compensatory pick formula, and in part to possibly keep him from being picked up by another team such as the Chiefs, where he could’ve hurt them in the playoffs. But he was ineligible to play the rest of the season, and became a free agent four days later after the Ravens lost to the Bills in the divisional round.
It was an ugly chapter in Johnson’s career full of griping, trade demands, release requests and attitude problems.
But he say he’s ready to put it behind him and his the reset button.
“I’m excited,” he said. “You know, new opportunity, Fresh start for me. So just go in there and be myself and do what I’ve got to do.”
During his minicamp podium interview two weeks ago, Johnson said it was “one bad year. I had five great seasons in Pittsburgh. I had one year, that doesn’t define me as a player, my character or none of that. Everybody’s going to say what they want to say about me, but I know who I am as a person deep down and that’s all that matters to me.”
He said he he knows what he has to do to get his career back on track.
“Just be myself and prove everybody wrong,” he said. “That’s my mindset. Keep going. Don’t worry about the outside noise. Worry about what goes on between these gates. That’s it.”
He stopped short that day of saying he was humbled, and also didn’t think he needed to take extra measures to keep his head on straight.
“No. Just come in here with a great attitude,” he said. “Be a great teammate. Be on time and stuff. Do what I got to do and, like I said, the rest is going to take care of itself. Football is football end of the day. Once we get in between the lines, that’s all it’s about.”
He raised some eyebrows by not attending the two weeks of voluntary organized team activities, but worked out on his own with a coach and looked good during mandatory minicamp. The Browns publicly downplayed the OTAs absences and remain committed to seeing what he’s got.
With so many young players in the receiving room, it will probably be hard for Johnson to swallow his pride and accept a backup role. His 28 touchdown catches over six seasons are by far the most in the room, 13 more than fellow Pro Bowler Jeudy’s 15 in five seasons, and his elite route-running rivals Jeudy’s. If he takes a back seat in camp to the Cedric Tillmans and Jamari Thrashes on the team, he’ll have to bite his lip and take what he can get. If he makes the most of those opportunities, he’ll get more. The chances for receivers also won’t be as plentiful this season with the Browns playing for two tight end sets.
But the marching orders for Johnson are clear: button his lip, cash his relatively small paychecks, catch the ball, be coachable and be a good teammate. Most of all, don’t be a jerk. The admission that he’s been humbled is the first step toward that endeavor.
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