New Orleans Saints: Tight end position continues to be a weakness

Many people focus on the lack of production from the New Orleans Saints‘ wide receivers three games into the season but what’s even worse than the receivers are the tight ends.

Entering the season, Adam Trautman was perceived to be the starter but he’s done next to nothing in three games so far. He caught three passes for 18 yards in Week 1 but since then, he’s been targeted once and had zero receptions. Not good.

Juwan Johnson had a promising training camp and preseason and it was clear that he had chemistry with Jameis Winston. This looked even more evident when Johnson hauled in two of Winston’s five touchdown passes in the season opener and it wasn’t crazy to think that maybe the wide receiver-turned-tight end was going to turn into something special for this offense.

There’s still time for that to happen but it hasn’t been the case over the past two games. Johnson had one catch for 23 yards in the blowout loss to Carolina and didn’t catch the one ball sent his way in Sunday’s win over New England.

The New Orleans Saints have a problem at the tight end position.

Some might wonder why the Saints didn’t address the position further and a big reason as to why they felt content was that they expected Trautman to be that same guy he was at Dayton. He was buried on the depth chart last year but with him being the frontrunner to start this year, it felt like he’d be able to do more and that has not been the case through three games.

New Orleans signed Nick Vannett in free agency, so they did make it a point to address the position, but Vannett is on IR. Even if he was healthy, he probably wouldn’t be doing much more than what Trautman and Johnson have accomplished to this point.

We’re only three games into the season and there’s still plenty of time for the tight ends to prove themselves. For the time being, however, it’s reasonable for fans to view the position as a major weakness on the roster because it’s been just that.