Glenbard West tight end a solid example of ‘linemen with wings’
Out of nowhere, as it must have felt to Joliet Catholic in Week 2, Glenbard West tight end Brady Johnson scored the game-winning touchdown the first time he was thrown a pass this season.
The 6-foot-3, 220-pound junior slightly bellied out of his stance on the left side of the offensive line, avoiding contact that would have disrupted the play’s timing.
Johnson sprinted straight downfield, then turned his head and shoulders inside while running to locate the football. Johnson cradled Glenbard West quarterback Jack Walti’s pinpoint pass in stride, just over the outstretched hand of a safety who, due to Glenbard West’s play design, closed a millisecond too late to prevent the 58-yard strike in a 27-21 win for the home team.
In practice this week Johnson reflected on what he termed a perfect play call that created his first varsity touchdown.
“We motioned our running back out, the safety is supposed to motion out with him, and then it’s a pop pass up the seam. So it was executed perfectly and it was a perfect play call by our coach,” Johnson said.
It was a testament to drilling the play in practice and also a testament to patience by the Hilltoppers’ coaching staff and by Johnson himself. Because at Glenbard West, the tight end’s main responsibility is to block.
“I feel like that’s the best part of my game,” said Johnson, a two-year starter with scholarship offers from Miami (Ohio) and Eastern Michigan.
“My dad (Rob Johnson) played football at Northwestern, he played center, offensive line. He preached being physical from Day 1, since I started playing football. So I think it’s just in me.”
(Rob Johnson didn’t just play center at Northwestern. He was a co-captain on the Wildcats’ team that reached the 1996 Rose Bowl.)
“I like being physical on the line — I mean, I like pancaking people. It makes me happy,” Brady Johnson said.
And that makes Glenbard West coaches happy.
“First and foremost he brings a physical element to the offensive line,” head coach Chad Hetlet said.
“For us it’s always important to have a physical tight end. He’s also athletic in the passing game, has great hands. It’s very rare you get a full-package guy that’s physical, and athletic as a receiver,” Hetlet said.
The Hilltoppers’ 19-year head coach appreciates Johnson’s toughness and belligerent attitude on the line.
“He’s got heavy hands and when he strikes people he moves them. He gets his pad level low for a kid that’s as big as he is. Like I said, (tight end) is a huge part of our run game,” Hetlet said.
While Hetlet calls these pass-catching blockers hybrids, or even “unicorns,” Glenbard West offensive coordinator John Sigmund calls tight ends “linemen with wings.”
That nickname came from the coaching staff at Wisconsin, where Sigmund was a 6-6, 275-pound tight end whose main job was blocking for Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dayne.
“First and foremost, in our offense our priority is the running game and everything else kind of branches off. And Brady does such a good job, he’s so unselfish,” Sigmund said.
“He knows right now he’s got to be the guy on the edge for us, which he takes advantage of. And then you’ve got to be the guy that we count on in the passing game too.
“He runs a lot of our play-action passes, he’s really good in our three-step pass game, he’s a big body out on the edge right now for us,” Sigmund said.
In Glenbard West’s 26-7 Week 3 win over Oak Park, Hilltoppers coaches saw the possibility of exploiting the defense using a double-tight end set with Johnson on one side of the line and 6-1, 190-pound receiver Chase Cavan on the other.
It paid off when Cavan released deep for Walti’s 23-yard touchdown pass.
Those opportunities may not come often. Thrilled by the physical aspect of playing tight end, Johnson is OK with that.
“I do whatever the coaches ask me to do,” he said. “If it’s blocking, if it’s catching, I’ll do whatever it is.”