What exactly would have to happen for Los Angeles Chargers first-round pick Quentin Johnston to win the 2023 AP Offensive Rookie of the Year award?

At +1600 odds on the FanDuel Sportsbook rookie betting odds market, Johnston is tied for the seventh-best odds in his class to win the award by the end of the season. The 2023 draft class is loaded with talent, which means it is loaded with competition for Johnston in the race for the award.

So, how exactly would the TCU product win the award?

Quentin Johnston’s Resume

Before we describe the difficult path Johnston would need to traverse to win the OROY award, we should explain why he is in contention for the award in the first place.

A three-year player out of TCU, Johnston offers the prototypical “X-receiver” size that is otherwise lacking from other receiving prospects in this class. He boasts a 6’3”, 208-lb frame and posted jumps over the 90th percentile at the NFL combine. He looks the part of an NFL wide receiver.

He also played like one in college. He led TCU in receiving yards and touchdowns as a true freshman, a feat he repeated in each of his next two seasons. The raw numbers won’t pop off the screen due to the Horned Frogs’ underwhelming quarterback play during Johnston’s time there, but the 21-year-old still finished his collegiate tenure with a respectable 115 catches for 2,190 yards and 14 touchdowns in three seasons.

Something about that line might stick out though: Johnston averaged an absurd 19.0 yards per reception in his career at TCU. That’s nearly two first downs per reception.

If that sounds crazy, that’s because it is. He averaged 7.6 yards after the catch per reception in 2021 (seventh-most in the NCAA) while catching passes 12.2 yards down the field on average. His 17 missed tackles forced ranked fifth-most among college football receivers, according to Pro Football Focus.

A beast with the ball in his hands, it’s worth pointing out that Johnston also performed well against both man and zone coverages while playing college ball. His 2.99 yards per route run against zone coverage was the 7th-best rate in the nation, and his 2.97 yards per route run against man coverage ranked 20th.
If you can tell, we’re starting to paint the picture of a do-it-all, WR1 in the NFL. The issue is that the Chargers already kind of have two of those in Keenan Allen and Mike Williams.

Johnston’s Team Context

Allen and Williams have formed one of the best wide receiver duos in the league -- when they’ve been healthy. Johnston will have fierce competition for targets playing with those studs and will need to earn targets away from one of the best pass-catching backs in the league in Austin Ekeler.

As talented as that core group of pass-catchers has been for the Chargers over the years, they have had trouble staying on the field.

Allen will be 31 this year and missed seven games with a hamstring injury at the beginning of last season. Williams missed four games in 2022, and knee injuries during the season sapped some of his explosiveness. If any of those key players missed any time, Johnston would immediately step into a high-volume role in the Chargers’ offense.

Johnston’s ability to make plays after the catch stood out in his three years of college ball, and the Chargers identified that as a component of their offense that was lacking last season. Williams’ 5.1 average yards after the catch ranked 50th in the league last season while Allen’s 4.0 mark ranked him 90th. The pair broke just a single tackle over the course of the 2022 season.

Considering that quarterback Justin Herbert tied for the second-lowest average depth of target on his pass attempts (6.4) in 2022, you would expect their receivers’ YAC numbers to look a lot better. The Chargers clearly came to this realization, too, and drafted Johnston specifically to address that issue.

Did you know that Josh Palmer caught 72 passes on 107 targets for 769 yards and 3 touchdowns for the Chargers last year? It was surprising raw production from the former third-round pick, but anyone watching Chargers games could see that Palmer wasn’t ready to live up to the team’s expectations. He averaged fewer yards after the catch (3.5) than Allen (4.0), broke just a single tackle, and finished the season with an 89.7 passer rating when targeted (121st in the league).

It feels safe to say that Johnston should immediately annex any of the opportunities the team gave to Palmer a season ago.

The talented first-round pick also offers a speed element that has been lacking from either of Allen or Williams in recent seasons; Johnston’s 4.52-second 40-yard dash was more than enough to help him break off a 70-yard touchdown against Michigan in the College Football Playoffs.

Herbert’s cannon of an arm has largely gone to waste throwing deep passes to role-player receivers like Jalen Guyton and Tyron Johnson. Johnston should be able to help stretch the field for the offense and is capable of generating explosive plays through the air in addition to his playmaking expertise after the catch.

An OROY in the Making

So, now we’ve covered what made Johnston great in college and how he’ll fit into the Chargers’ offense in his rookie season. But we haven’t quite figured out how he can turn those into an Offensive Rookie of the Year-winning season.

It probably couldn’t hurt if he helps get the team into the playoffs. Of all the teams that drafted frontrunners to win the Offensive Rookie of the Year award, the Chargers have the best odds to make the Super Bowl (+2500) on the FanDuel Sportsbook’s NFL futures market.

The team squeaked into the playoffs in 2022 before losing to the Jacksonville Jaguars in the wild-card round, and it has made the playoffs just three times over the last 10 seasons.

If Johnston can make the most of his opportunities in 2023 and help convert the Chargers’ offense into a well-tuned machine capable of rivaling that of their division rival Kansas City Chiefs, he may just be able to sway some AP voters his way.

Johnston has a lot of tools in his arsenal. He can generate explosive plays down the field, is shockingly elusive for a player his size, and has the route-running savvy to find soft spots against zone coverage. He may not average 19 yards per reception in the NFL like he did in college, but if he gets 72 receptions like Palmer did a season ago, we could easily be looking at a 1,000-yard season for Johnston as a rookie.

The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author’s advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.