The 6’3” and 248 lbs. Jonnu Smith has signed a four-year deal with the New England Patriots. The deal is for $50 million with $31.25 million of it guaranteed. Smith becomes the third-highest paid tight end in NFL history.
PRODUCTION PROFILE
In college Smith broke out as a true freshman for FIU with 388 yards and two TDs, earning a dominator rating of 23.8%. A 710 yard and eight TD sophomore season was Smith’s most productive, as he earned a 42.6% dominator rating. However, injuries slowed down Smith in the latter half of his collegiate career.
Smith was a piece of the 2016 Jared Goff trade that landed the Titans a litany of draft capital. Smith was selected in the third round of the 2017 NFL Draft by the Tennessee Titans at the 100th overall pick. In his four seasons with the Titans, Smith amassed 114 catches for 1,302 yards and 16 TDs. He is coming off his most productive season in which he turned 65 targets into 41 catches, 448 yards, and eight TDs along with one rushing TD. He finished as the TE20 in fantasy football, underperforming based on his TE16 dynasty ADP.
THE FIT WITH THE PATRIOTS
The Patriots have certainly had their eye on Jonnu Smith for a while. In January of 2020 head coach and general manager, Bill Belichick had the following things to say about the fourth-year player, “He’s just a really good tight end. He can do a lot of things: blocks well, runs well, is a good receiver. I mean, hell, they played him at tailback. He looked pretty good back there. So, he’s a very athletic player, hard to tackle, catches the ball well. He’s great after the catch – probably the best in the league. I mean, I can’t imagine anybody better than him after the catch. No, he looks like a tight end to me. And a good one,” said Belichick.
The Patriots with Cam Newton as the starting quarterback ran 1-1 personnel on 53% of their offensive snaps. They ran 2-1 personnel on 37% of their plays. On only 6% of their offensive plays was there no tight ends on the field. However, the Patriots only ran two tight ends onto the field on just 3% of their offensive plays.
The Patriots had one of the worst tight end rooms in the league in 2020, lead by Ryan Izzo,
Devin Asiasi, and Dalton Keene. Izzo led the Patriots with 494 snaps played for the season, but there was little production from the position group. The three players combined for just 32 targets in the Cam Newton offense. In the Patriots offense, the tight end ran pass routes on only 35% of their offensive snaps and was targeted on just 12% of those routes. Smith offers upside at a position of dire need.
2021 OUTLOOK
Jonnu Smith will most likely be on the field for the vast majority of the time he is healthy based on the premium they paid to acquire him. However, we can certainly contest that New England is a bad landing spot for Jonnu Smith. The Patriots starting quarterback, Cam Newton threw for only 2,657 yards in his 15 starts and had just eight passing TDs versus 10 interceptions. There were nine games in which Newton had zero passing TDs, compiled by four games with under 100 passing yards. Newton failed to surpass the 200-yard mark in 10 of his 15 starts, and his TD rate on passes was hardly over 2%.
A case can be made for Newton that contracting COVID-19 after week three that he never made a full recovery. Newton’s averages over the first three games were more productive, but could just be a product of one big game against Seattle. Before contracting the disease, Newton was averaging five more completions, on seven more throws for 76 more passing yards. If we play “what if” and extrapolate that across a full season, Newton would have completed 330 passes for 3,800 yards and 10 TDs. A slight improvement.
Jonnu Smith will look to improve the Patriot’s passing efficiency and production with his 88th percentile speed from the tight end position to go along with his 94th percentile burst. Overall Smith’s athleticism can be measured by his 127 SPARQ-score a 93rd percentile among the position. We can project Smith to outproduce all of New England’s pass-catcher on the roster and be used similar to the Aaron Hernandez role, being utilized from many different positions.
Before signing with the Patriots, Smith was being valued as a top 15 tight end in dynasty leagues. Becoming the top pass catcher for the Patriots, combined with the poor inefficiency of the Patriots passing attack makes Smith a sell-high candidate if a league mate is willing to give up valuable rookie draft capital to acquire him. Otherwise, it may be best to hold Smith and bet on him commanding a large target share in the New England offense. A 25% target share in the Patriots offense would lead to over 7.5 targets per game, over the past two seasons Smith was targeted seven-plus times in only four games.
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