Jonnu Smith was an interesting story last year.
Point #1
2024 was far and away his best year as a pro. Prior to that he'd spent 7 seasons as an unremarkable player averaging 31 catches and 346 yards per season. He was good in a TE rotation which is what he did in Tennessee, NE and Atlanta playing alongside Delanie Walker, Hunter Henry and Kyle Pitts, respectively.
Smith's sudden leap to being the NFL's 4th most productive TE in 2024 was definitely a story of 'right place, right time' wherein he found himself within an offense that (1) needed to throw some short passes underneath and (2) had little competition at TE.
I think anyone who knows football can appreciate that we likely got the maximum possible from Jonnu Smith.
Point #2
If the Dolphins passing offense is going to flourish once again, it needs to find a way to lean on it's best players, namely Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, both of whom had horrible seasons last year compared with expectation. Not only will they be looking to bounce back but there will likely be pressure on the Dolphins coaches to make sure that happens...which means fewer targets aimed at TEs.
Point #3
The Dolphins obviously need to improve their run game which has a multitude of deleterious effects on overall passing production. While the efficiency is likely to be there in the pass game, the presence of a more consistent, reliable rushing attack will limit the overall volume of passes and the yardage that can be broken up among the receiving targets.
Point #4
There's actually a good comparison for Jonnu Smith in the 2024 NFL statistics and that's Mike Gesicki who averaged basically the same production on a per-target basis with the Bengals. Gesicki also had a career year with essentially 75% the yardage of Jonnu Smith on 75% the targets.
It's therefore somewhat nice that we can go back to the peak of the Dolphins success (2022) and look at what Mike Gesicki meant to the offense. Well, that year he had 32 receptions for 362 yards. While he was clearly the best receiving TE on the team, the focus of the offense was the speed...namely Hill, Waddle and Mostert.
In short, throwing to Gesicki wasn't terrible but it wasn't nearly as productive. I suspect that if the '25 Miami Dolphins are a great passing offense, we'll see Jonnu's role decline. I wouldn't be surprised to see his 111 targets drop to something like the 56 we saw Gesicki get in '22.
Projection
Let's imagine Tua has a good year with 540 passing attempts (an average extrapolated from his '22 and '23 seasons) and let's combine that with a strong 8.0 ypa average. That's gives us 4,320 passing yards.
If we assume Tyreek and Waddle steal 2,320 that leaves us with 2,000 yards passing to spread among RBs, TEs and WR depth.
Achane (whose receiving role isn't likely to decrease) will account for at least 600 yards of that leaving 1,400.
Anyone watching last year should've noticed that Malik Washington basically put together his entire season in the 2nd half of the year. In fact, 170 of Malik's 223 yards came in the final four games of the season! If we assume that Malik's 45 yds/gm average holds through this season, he'd account for some 700+ yards. So, I think it's safe to say that of that 1,400 yards, at least 1,000 of those would come from Malik Washington alongside the other WR depth...namely Westbrook-Ikhine. I wouldn't be surprised if Tahj makes it into the mix a little.
That leaves 400 yards for the TE. Let's round that up to 500 to be nice. Well, that's pretty much what Mike Gesicki & Durham Smythe put up in 2022...362- and 129-yds, respectively.
I understand that it'd be great to have the best TE possible but the difference between Jonnu Smith producing those 400-500 yards versus having the other guys put up a bit less may not be worth the pick being put on the table or the price Smith is asking for.
All that said, would I be okay losing Jonnu Smith?
No, there's a strong correlation between being a high-scoring offense and having a TE who is some appreciable part of that operation.
While it may be true that the better the 2025 Miami Dolphins passing offense is, the less it may feature Jonnu Smith...that doesn't mean I don't think having a solid TE option available when we do need it isn't a good thing we should hang onto.
Moreover...losing Jonnu Smith literally means Julian Hill and Pharoah Brown would be your options. Those guys are unlikely to combine for more than 300-yds based on their history.
Personally, I'd rather keep Jonnu Smith in Miami and have a good player to root for when we happen to need a TE to go and win us a game.
Reminder, we don't beat the Baltimore Ravens in wk-2 of 2022 without Mike Gesicki...and we may not beat the NYJ last year without an OT drive that consisted more or less entirely of throws to Jonnu Smith including the game-winning TD.
I'm sure we'll end up badly needing Jonnu at some point in 2025 and personally I'd much rather have him stay.
