What to Expect from Andre Johnson's 2nd Act of His Career

After 12 seasons in Houston, the question that needs to be asked is: What will Andre Johnson's second act look like?

Determining the answer is something that may go beyond the scope of what we can look at on film or statistically show. But here's what we can say for sure: Thirty-seven different receiver seasons reached the 1,000-yard plateau at age 34 (Johnson's age as of July) or older. Only Jerry Rice, Jimmy Smith and Joey Galloway have done it after 35.

In all likelihood, Johnson's new team is looking at his next deal as a two-year max investment. Given Johnson's huge statistical decline last season, there's likely no way that he should be looked at as a No. 1 receiver.

From what I watched last season, particularly because of his inability to separate downfield without double moves, "good No. 2 receiver" is the optimistic role for Johnson here. Johnson has also played through a number of dings in recent years and probably can't be relied on for 16 full games at this point.

In that sense, Johnson's role is going to be "reduced" practically anywhere he goes. As CBS' Jason La Canfora opined, this is already a crowded wideout market. (And we haven't even seen all the resolutions to potential pay-cut situations yet.) The Texans probably took that into account when they informed Johnson of the limited role they had planned for him. Johnson, like many athletes, carries that belief in himself and his abilities to the extent that he believes he was wronged. I think he may be in for a rude awakening from the market.

On an advanced statistical level, Johnson was one of the worst wideouts in the league last season. Johnson finished second to last among all qualifying receivers in Football Outsiders' DYAR. He was merely 81st in DVOA.

Now, the inputs and context are similar to a few other recent situations of star wideouts performing poorly in advanced statistics. Reggie Wayne's 2011 season was lost to Curtis Painter. Steve Smith spent his 2010 season with Matt Moore on a train to 2-14. The difference is that Wayne and Smith were younger and playing in worse overall environments than Johnson.

Player	Year	DVOA -- Worst Year	Team Passing DVOA -- Worst Year	Next Year
Steve Smith	2010	-32.4%	-40.1%	12.2%
Reggie Wayne	2011	1.2%	-16.5%	-6.8%
Andre Johnson	2014	-20.1%	7.9%	??

This doesn't necessarily lead me to believe that Johnson is done. Motivation matters a lot for players, and Johnson clearly pouted as the Texans changed head coaches and offenses prior to the 2014 season. But it does show that Johnson's decline puts his future in a more precarious situation.

The other thing I did was pull up all Johnson's most similar players on his pro-football-reference page. Here are how those players averaged out in their age-34, -35 and -36 seasons.

Age	Total Seasons	Receptions	Yards	Touchdowns
34	7	62.5	830.8	5.7
35	5	60.8	846.4	4.8
36	3	44.6	586.6	4.3

Those aren't encouraging at all. The one that stood out most for me was actually Keyshawn Johnson. Keyshawn, like Andre, was not a deep threat at this stage of his career. And if Andre's decline in making contested catches is real, he's essentially relying purely on zone coverage and route running to make his game work. Anquan Boldin is also a similar player who's still around (and hey, he might be a free agent, shocker!), but his entire game is contested catches at this point.

So it's easy to say that Johnson should just have his pick of the No. 2 slots on the contending teams, but is he going to take the ego hit? Are they going to want him over, say, Jeremy Maclin? Or Michael Crabtree? Or a player like Brandon Marshall or Marques Colston who hasn't hit the market yet, but might?

Team	Projected Cap Space	Current Receiver Depth Chart
Seattle	$24.3 million	Doug Baldwin, Jermaine Kearse, Paul Richardson
Carolina	$16.0 million	Kelvin Benjamin, Jerricho Cotchery
Indianapolis	$43.8 million	T.Y. Hilton, Donte Moncrief

I think the ideal team for Johnson utilizes a lot of stacked formations to get him into zone coverage and also is in need of a player to soak up targets.

The two teams I tend to see mentioned most are New England and Seattle. New England needs to get its house in order with cornerback Darrelle Revis a potential free agent and safety Devin McCourty likely to join him after evading the franchise tag. I think they'll wait until that's settled before shaking out the bones of free agency at wide receiver.

Seattle is a nice fit if it's interested in Johnson. Another good fit would be (holds nose) Indianapolis, where Johnson would essentially replace Wayne in a move that would be incredibly weird for both fanbases. Finally, my favorite fit for Johnson is in Carolina. That receiving corps was a receiving corpse last season, and they tend to operate out of the bunch sets that I think Johnson can still do well with.

If Johnson just wants as much money as possible, there will probably be teams willing to pay him more. If he wants to wait on a contender, I think some of those one-year offers will be on the table as well. But those three teams offer the best combination of cap space and motivation.

I think purely on tape and cap number, you can make a case that Houston's decision to let Johnson go was a layup. Johnson's future employer, who will have to weigh the film and statistics against Johnson's motivation and ego, probably won't sign him to a long enough deal to regret it. But my personal opinion is that there's more downside than upside here.

All DYAR and DVOA numbers cited are courtesy of Football Outsiders. Learn more about DVOA here.

Rivers McCown is the AFC South lead writer for Bleacher Report and the co-host of the Three-Cone Drill podcast. His work has also appeared on Football Outsiders and ESPN.com. Follow him on Twitter at @riversmccown.