The Pittsburgh Steelers know what it’s like to watch receiver Diontae Johnson play well and still decide to move on. Just eight games into the season, the Carolina Panthers can now say the same. Carolina traded Johnson and a 2025 sixth-round pick to the Baltimore Ravens on Tuesday for a 2025 fifth-round pick. As the Ravens add a playmaker to a passing offense that’s already firing on all cylinders, Johnson’s early exit prompts questions about his Panthers tenure.
First off, it’s notable that Johnson went for so little. If the Ravens win the Super Bowl and the Panthers pick first – both legitimate possibilities – the trade will be a difference of one selection. Even if things go poorly for Baltimore and well for Carolina, the difference in picks is unlikely to be more than two dozen spots from each other. In the middle of Day 3, that’s negligible.
It makes sense for the Panthers to trade Johnson, a pending free agent, in a lost season. But getting nothing for him is an indictment on Johnson, not Carolina. Nobody wanted him. Albert Breer recently shared his take on why that was the case. “Part of the thing with Diontae Johnson, he has been a problem in the past,” Breer said. “Everybody saw what happened at the end in Pittsburgh and the reason why he was traded in the first place. It wasn’t because he couldn’t play. It was that they had gotten fed up with him.”
Pittsburgh managed to trade Johnson during the offseason for cornerback Donte Jackson, a peculiar trade given the lack of draft capital involved. The team was left with a single viable starter at receiver, a risk they felt acceptable when moving on. In seven games, Johnson has turned 58 targets into 30 receptions for 357 yards and three scores. He’ll suit up for Baltimore on Sunday and hope to bring home a championship. How willing the Ravens are to bring him back could be a referendum on just how true these rumors are.
