It’s rare to find a player with Leonard Johnson’s youth and experience available as a free agent in early December.
Johnson, 25, played 48 games, starting 17, in his first three NFL seasons and was released from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ injured reserve list Dec. 3. The Patriots worked him out Monday and signed him Tuesday.
He joins Malcolm Butler, Logan Ryan and Justin Coleman in the Patriots’ shallow cornerback corps. The Patriots also have Rashaan Melvin on their practice squad.
“Leonard’s young, played quite a bit of football, started games, played inside, played outside,” Patriots head coach Bill Belichick said. “He has some versatility. We worked against him in our Tampa practices and so forth, played against him. Gives us an opportunity to look at him and it’s not a position we have a ton of depth at, so we’ll see how it goes.”
The Patriots held joint practices against the Buccaneers while Johnson was on the team in 2012 and 2013. The 5-foot-10, 202-pound cornerback played outside as a rookie before becoming the Buccaneers’ primary nickel defensive back in 2013 and 2014.
Johnson was signed as an undrafted free agent out of Iowa State in 2012 by former Buccaneers head coach Greg Schiano. Belichick has a strong relationship with Schiano dating back to when the ex-Bucs coach was at Rutgers. The Patriots currently have four former Rutgers defenders on their 53-man roster in Ryan, safeties Devin McCourty and Duron Harmon and linebacker Jonathan Freeny.
Belichick was asked if there’s a special trait he finds in Schiano-coached defensive backs.
“I haven’t really thought about that,” Belichick said. “I’d say Coach Schiano is a great defensive coach. He’s really coached all of the positions: line, linebackers, DBs. He’s had a lot of extensive work with defensive backs, and I think he does a great job with them. I’d say the overall way he presents his program, the way he runs his program, the way he runs his defense and teaches and so forth and does all — a great part of preparing players either in a similar way that we do it or when he was in college, preparing them to come to our program with some changes but minimal compared to others, other teams.
“We’ve had other players, (defensive end) Justin Francis, (linebacker Steve) Beauharnais, things like that and others. Yeah, right, guys that aren’t DBs. He certainly does a good job with that group, and obviously he likes guys who are disciplined and well-prepared and have good communication skills, good awareness and I would say all of those players we’ve talked about fall into that category: Devin, Duron, Logan. I haven’t spent a lot of time with Leonard, but those guys that we talked about before, they know what the three-technique (defensive tackle) is doing — you know, basically, I’m not saying they — but they know what the three-technique’s doing, which there’s a lot of secondary players that, I’m not sure if they really know what a three-technique is.
“These guys have a good understanding of the overall defense and the concepts, why one thing impacts the other, and that’s a good thing. I’m not saying it’s mandatory, but it definitely helps.”
Perhaps Johnson will be accepted by Ryan, McCourty and Harmon as an honorary Rutgers guy. He’ll likely compete for snaps with Coleman as the Patriots’ slot cornerback. The Patriots signed Johnson to a two-year contract, so he’ll have an opportunity to compete for a role next year, as well.
Thumbnail photo via David Manning/USA TODAY Sports Images
