John
Hightower.
John
Hightower.
Boise St.· 6'1"· 189 lb· 4.43s 40
"A national-class hurdler who learned to play receiver in two FBS seasons, drafted on the theory that the speed would buy him enough time to finish the job."Pre-draft read
Hightower is a straight-line weapon. A USA Track and Field 400-meter hurdles champion in high school and a national-level hurdler at Hinds Community College, he ran past Mountain West secondaries for 18.5 yards a catch as a senior and doubled as the conference's best kick returner, piling up 1,736 all-purpose yards.
The rest of the position was unfinished. At 6-2 and 190 he is thin, he loses physical battles at the line and at the catch point, and his route tree was essentially verticals plus screens. Two years of FBS football after two at junior college left him with real gaps in technique, release work and ball tracking on anything but a straight line.
Vertical play-action offense with a dedicated field-stretching Z role and heavy special teams usage
Year 1 kick returner and four-to-six snap deep threat; ceiling is a No. 3 receiver who wins the vertical shot and returns kicks
A possession offense that needs receivers to win contested catches and run a full route tree from the slot
Philadelphia used him correctly as a rookie; the role never expanded because the hands did not.
Most Explosive Playmaker in the MWC: Boise State WR John Hightower Highlights
Pre-draft cut-up of his vertical speed, deep tracking and return work.
John Hightower Senior Highlights
His 943-yard, eight-touchdown senior season at 18.5 yards a catch.
The BEST WR in the Mountain West: John Hightower Boise State Highlights
Extended reel covering both Boise State seasons and his kick return production.
Hightower took the long road: Riverdale Baptist in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, then two years at Hinds Community College in Mississippi, where he also ran track and placed sixth in the 400-meter hurdles at the NJCAA outdoor national championships. He arrived at Boise State in 2018 and caught 32 passes for 512 yards and six touchdowns in his first FBS season.
The senior year made him a draft pick. He caught 51 passes for 943 yards and eight touchdowns, led the Mountain West at 18.5 yards a reception among qualifiers, added kick return work and finished with a career-high 1,736 all-purpose yards and All-Mountain West honors at both receiver and returner. Across two Boise State seasons he totaled 83 catches for 1,455 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Boards treated him as a developmental speed specialist. The traits were legitimate and the return value gave him a fifth phase, but 25 games of FBS tape, a slight frame and a narrow route tree made him a project rather than a plug-in contributor. Philadelphia, chasing speed after a season of drops and separation problems, took him 168th.
- 01
Vertical speed
Genuine track speed as a USA Track and Field 400-meter hurdles champion, and it translated to 18.5 yards a catch as a senior.
- 02
Return ability
All-Mountain West kick returner with 1,736 all-purpose yards in 2019, giving him a legitimate fifth phase on a roster.
- 03
Big-play production
14 touchdowns on 83 career FBS catches, a rate that reflects how often he turned a single target into a score.
- 04
Field stretching
Forces safeties to play deeper and opens the intermediate game for teammates simply by aligning outside.
- 05
Ball tracking down the field
Comfortable adjusting to deep throws over his shoulder, which produced his signature plays at Boise State.
- 01
Frame and strength
At 6-2 and 190 he is slight, gets rerouted by press corners and loses nearly every contested rep at the catch point.
- 02
Route tree
Essentially verticals and screens at Boise State, with little evidence he could win on option or intermediate breaking routes.
- 03
Hands
Inconsistent catch rate and concentration drops, a fatal flaw for a player whose targets are low-volume and high-leverage.
- 04
Experience
Only two seasons and 25 games of FBS football after two years at junior college, leaving significant technical development undone.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.43sp50
- Vertical
- 38.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 122inp50
- Three-cone
- 7.07sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.21sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Boise State | 11 | 32 | 512 | 6 |
| 2019 | Boise State | 14 | 51 | 943 | 8 |
| Career | — | 25 | 83 | 1455 | 14 |
Boise State career totals of 83 catches for 1,455 yards and 14 touchdowns across 25 games come from StatMuse, with the 2019 line published separately; the 2018 line is the exact remainder. He played 2016-17 at Hinds Community College, and those junior college numbers are excluded here (the Eagles list his combined collegiate totals as 113 receptions for 1,956 yards and 21 touchdowns). Games started are not published per season and are left unset.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Slight, fast deep threat whose value depended entirely on the vertical shot and who faded once the drops mounted.
Track-speed receiver who carved out a long NFL career as a vertical specialist and gadget threat.
Late-round receiver who flashed briefly as a rookie and then spent years bouncing between practice squads.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
He got real rookie snaps, 346 of them, 31 percent of Philadelphia's offensive total, and flashed exactly what he was drafted for: 50-yard catches in back-to-back weeks against Baltimore and the Giants, the first Eagles rookie to do that since 1944. The problem was everything around the deep shot. He finished with 10 catches on 29 targets for 167 yards and no touchdowns, a catch rate that reflected drops and inconsistent tracking as much as difficult throws. In 2021 he played one game, lost a fumble on his only kick return, and that was effectively the end. He has not appeared in an NFL regular-season game since, cycling through camp and practice squad stops.
The pre-draft read was accurate in both directions. The speed was NFL speed, and it showed up immediately on the two big plays. The unfinished parts, the release work, the hands under pressure, the route detail, never got finished, and a receiver whose entire value is the vertical shot has no margin when he cannot be trusted to catch it.