Trade grades: Who won Diontae Johnson deal between Ravens, Panthers?

The ongoing flurry of activity ahead of next week’s NFL trade deadline continued Tuesday as teams, specifically those in the AFC, continue trying to keep up with the Joneses – or Johnsons, or Adamses, or Coopers or Hopkinses – by upgrading at wide receiver.
The latest move was executed by the Baltimore Ravens, who brought wideout Diontae Johnson back to the AFC North for the mere price of a late-round pick swap with the Carolina Panthers.
How does this move affect the balance of power in the conference? Perhaps in more ways than you might realize.
Here the winners, losers and grades for this month’s latest significant trade, which drops exactly one week before the Nov. 5 cutoff:
They add yet another weapon to what is probably the league’s most dangerous and multi-dimensional offense. Want to load the box to try and stop the running threat of QB Lamar and/or RB Derrick Henry? Cool. Jackson is just going to pick you apart by throwing to the league’s best tight end combo (Mark Andrews and Isaiah Likely) or a corps of wideouts with first-round pedigree (Zay Flowers, Rashod Bateman and Nelson Agholor), a group that now counts former third-rounder Johnson among its ranks. Yet if defenses fret over all the quality pass catchers … welp, hardly seems like a viable option there when you’d have to pull resources from combatting the NFL’s No. 1 rushing attack. Pick your poison? A quick death might be preferable.
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One of the league’s top general managers, he learned quite well during a decades-long apprenticeship under predecessor and Hall of Famer Ozzie Newsome. DeCosta snagged Johnson for less than a song, making him the latest substantive acquisition in what’s become a tradition over the years in Baltimore – players like LB Roquan Smith, CB Marcus Peters, OLB Yannick Ngakoue and LT Eugene Monroe among the significant types who have joined the Ravens midway through a season.
He switches sides from perhaps the league’s worst team in Carolina to maybe its best in Baltimore. Johnson will be a free agent after this season and could eventually be rewarded by the fact that there’s nearly always a premium attached when signing players fresh off winning a ring … if he can indeed help put the Ravens over the top in their quest to win the franchise’s first Lombardi Trophy in 12 years.
It will be virtually impossible to get No. 1 receiver compensation – or even a high-end WR2 paycheck – when you’re facing the prospect of joining your fourth team in the span of a year next March. And the downside of coming to such a diversified offense from an individual perspective is all the mouths to feed. Johnson, who missed last weekend’s game, was on pace for roughly 70 receptions and 800 yards with Carolina’s highly limiting situation. But it will likely be tough to reach even those modest benchmarks in Baltimore, where Flowers (5.1) is the lone player averaging more than three grabs a week.
You can’t blame the Panthers’ rookie general – much – for the state of affairs for a franchise hurtling toward the top spot of yet another NFL draft. But if Morgan is looking at the long-term health of his organization, getting an upgraded Day 3 pick for a player of Johnson’s caliber sure doesn’t feel like much return. And don’t forget he cashed out Pro Bowl OLB Brian Burns in the offseason, basically for a second-rounder from the New York Giants. That also felt light at the time, and it’s worth wondering if Carolina could’ve gotten at least as much for Burns by holding onto him and trying to create something of a bidding war now given the premium position he plays. Maybe Morgan is making the best of a bad hand. And maybe he’s not playing his cards quite right.
While also swapping late-round picks, they sent Johnson to the Panthers in March for CB Donte Jackson, who hasn’t provided very much defensively for a Steelers team that could really use another receiver at the moment. Pittsburgh exported Johnson for more than performance issues but, in retrospect, might wind up doubly hurt by his offensive absence and presence with the archrival Ravens (5-3), who are currently one game back of the first-place Steelers in the AFC North.
The No. 1 objective in Carolina right now should be rehabilitating the quarterback taken with the top pick of the 2023 draft … which currently seems like a monumental mistake, even if many of the unfavorable circumstances are beyond Young’s control. Only the Panthers know if Johnson’s presence wasn’t doing anything to accelerate Young’s development. And his departure will definitely create more snaps for young receivers Xavier Legette, Jonathan Mingo and Jalen Coker … though it’s a tough sell to suggest very green pass catchers are going to elevate a 23-year-old signal-caller who really needs a security blanket, especially with Adam Thielen still on injured reserve.
They announced Tuesday that WR Stefon Diggs, whose contact was adjusted to expire after this year when he was obtained last spring, will not return this year due to a season-ending ACL injury. Johnson would have been quite a nifty backfill – Nico Collins isn’t eligible to return from a hamstring injury until Week 10 – particularly given the low payout. But GM Nick Caserio apparently didn’t try or want to pull the trigger for Johnson.
Maybe there are more tricks in DeCosta’s bag, but shouldn’t he be focused on attempting to buttress a 25th-ranked defense rather than an offense that’s already operating at a historically good level – just the fourth with at least 20 points and 375 yards in each of the first eight games of a season? Stay tuned.
They got Johnson and a sixth-rounder for a Round 5 choice in next year’s draft. Baltimore’s depth is bolstered, its offense is even scarier and – not for nothing – Johnson won’t wind up on the roster of another team like Houston, the Los Angeles Chargers or otherwise and potentially give the Ravens an unnecessary problem to deal with in January.
At the very least they got something (barely) instead of letting Johnson walk away for nothing in 2025. And, perhaps, there was some addition-by-subtraction element in the locker room. But if improving a Day 3 draft choice was the best thing on the table for Morgan … why not walk away from the table temporarily or until next week and see how Week 9 might have further altered the market?
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Follow USA TODAY Sports’ Nate Davis on X, formerly Twitter, @ByNateDavis.