Tez
Johnson.
Tez
Johnson.
Oregon· 5'10"· 154 lb· 4.51s 40
"At 154 pounds he was the lightest player at the Combine in a generation, and the tape's only real question was whether a slot receiver that productive could survive being touched by NFL defenders."Pre-draft read
A full-time slot receiver in Oregon's spread offense, Johnson is a separation specialist who wins before the ball arrives. He stems defenders off balance, sinks his hips out of breaks with almost no gather step and turns option routes into automatic completions on third down. His release package against press is built on angles and feet, not strength.
After the catch he is a threat to house it: sudden lateral cuts, real long speed once he clears the second level, and the instincts to find the seam in zone coverage. He was Oregon's most reliable target on money downs. The signature is that he never plays scared for a 154-pound receiver — he works the middle of the field and takes hits to finish plays.
Spread passing offense with a defined slot role: option routes, mesh and motion touches that get him the ball with a runway in front of him.
Year 1: third receiver on passing downs plus return work. Ceiling: high-volume starting slot in a quick-game offense.
Heavy-personnel, run-first offense that asks the third receiver to block nickels in the run game and win contested throws on the boundary.
The closer his touches come to the line of scrimmage with space in front, the more his weight stops mattering.
Tez Johnson (Oregon) — Full 2024 Highlights
Senior season at Oregon: 83 catches, 898 yards and 10 touchdowns working almost exclusively from the slot.
Tez Johnson (Oregon) — 2023 Highlights
Breakout 1,182-yard, 10-touchdown junior year with Bo Nix, showing the option routes and YAC burst.
Tez Johnson — 2023-24 Highlights
Two-year Oregon reel covering the release package against press and the third-down separation.
Johnson is a pure slot technician: five years of production, two schools, and a route tree he ran with a professional's timing. He came to Oregon from Troy alongside quarterback Bo Nix's supporting cast and immediately became the Ducks' most targeted receiver, logging nearly 80 percent of his 2024 snaps inside.
The output is unusual for a player his size. He posted 86 catches for 1,182 yards and 10 touchdowns in 2023 and followed it with 83 catches for 898 yards and 10 more in 2024, finishing with 310 receptions and 3,889 receiving yards across five seasons. The Big Ten Championship Game — 11 catches, 181 yards, a touchdown against Penn State — was the signature performance. But the frame was the flag: he weighed 154 pounds at the Combine, the lightest player measured there in decades, and his 4.51 forty did not offset the durability and contested-catch concerns.
Boards had him graded in the fourth-to-fifth-round range on production and separation, then let the weight push him down the sheet. Tampa Bay took the discount at 235, betting that a quarterback-friendly slot with return value would justify a seventh-round ticket.
- 01
Separation quickness
Sinks his hips and breaks without a gather step, creating throwing windows against man coverage from the slot on every level of the route tree.
- 02
Route detail
Stems defenders off leverage and times his breaks to the quarterback's drop, which made him Oregon's default third-down and option-route target.
- 03
Yards after catch
Sudden laterally and genuinely fast in the open field, with the vision to turn a short completion into an explosive gain through the second level.
- 04
Elite production
310 career catches for 3,889 yards and 28 touchdowns across Troy and Oregon, including back-to-back double-digit touchdown seasons in 2023 and 2024.
- 05
Toughness for size
Willingly works the middle of the field, absorbs contact over the ball and never showed alligator arms despite a frame far under the position standard.
- 01
Extreme lack of mass
He weighed 154 pounds at the Combine, the lightest player measured there in decades, which raises real questions about surviving a 17-game NFL season.
- 02
Contested catches
He has no chance to win jump balls or box out NFL defensive backs, so his production is tied entirely to creating clean separation.
- 03
Press vulnerability
Physical corners who get hands on him at the line can reroute or stall him, limiting how many snaps he can play outside the slot.
- 04
Blocking limitations
He is willing but simply cannot sustain against NFL nickels and safeties, which restricts his snaps in heavier run-first personnel groupings.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.51sp50
- Vertical
- 37inp50
- Broad jump
- 131inp50
- Three-cone
- 6.65sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.15sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Troy | 11 | 18 | 211 | 0 |
| 2021 | Troy | 12 | 67 | 735 | 4 |
| 2022 | Troy | 13 | 56 | 863 | 4 |
| 2023 | Oregon | 14 | 86 | 1182 | 10 |
| 2024 | Oregon | 12 | 83 | 898 | 10 |
| Career | — | 62 | 310 | 3889 | 28 |
Verified against Sports-Reference/CFB. Season receptions (18+67+56+86+83) sum exactly to 310, receiving yards to 3,889 and touchdowns to 28 across 62 career games. Rushing totals are real attempts, not zero-fill; 2023 had no carries.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
- Dillon GabrielQB28%
- Jordan JamesRB11%
- Evan StewartWR9%
#2 of 18 tracked contributors · Produced in line with his snap share · Offense explosiveness 1.21 (p22) · CFBD — usage x PPA per tracked player
Speed-and-quickness slot with a real role but a hard ceiling on volume.
Undersized slot whose separation and touchdown production outrun the frame.
Rotational fourth receiver who lives on special teams and situational snaps.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Tampa Bay found a rotational contributor almost immediately. Johnson made the roster out of camp, worked into the slot rotation by Week 4 and finished his rookie year with 28 catches on 42 targets for 322 yards and five touchdowns in 16 games with eight starts, adding seven carries on jet motion. The touchdown rate was the story: five scores on 28 receptions, including a two-touchdown afternoon against New England in Week 10 and a 45-yard score against San Francisco. Injuries in the Buccaneers' receiver room opened the door and he did not give the snaps back.
In hindsight the weight scared the league into a bargain. Nobody was wrong about the frame — he is still listed at 165 pounds and still cannot win a contested throw — but the separation and the football instincts translated exactly as the tape suggested, and the durability concern did not materialize in year one. Five touchdowns from pick 235 is already a return most seventh-rounders never deliver. The remaining question is whether the volume grows as the receiver room gets healthy, or whether this is his permanent ceiling as a designed-touch third option.
Data note: Verified against Sports-Reference/CFB. Season receptions (18+67+56+86+83) sum exactly to 310, receiving yards to 3,889 and touchdowns to 28 across 62 career games. Rushing totals are real attempts, not zero-fill; 2023 had no carries.