Brandon
Hill.
Brandon
Hill.
Pittsburgh· 5'10"· 193 lb· 4.43s 40
"Hill ran 4.43 with a 1.50 ten-yard split and tackled like a man who had something to prove, which is the standard profile of a safety who lives entirely on special teams."Pre-draft read
Hill plays fast in a straight line. A 4.43 forty and a 1.50 ten-yard split put him in the 90th percentile of safeties for speed and acceleration, and he uses it downhill: he triggers hard on run fits, closes on flat routes from depth and covers ground on kickoffs the way a coordinator wants. The motor never turns off in pursuit.
The finish is where the reps go wrong. At 5-10 and 193 pounds he arrives with speed but not much mass, and his tackling technique is inconsistent enough that ball carriers slip through. He is also over-aggressive against play-action, biting on the run fake and leaving the middle of the field behind him, which is the specific error that keeps a fast safety off the field.
Single-high defense that keeps him near the line of scrimmage in a robber or box role while special teams carries the roster spot
Year 1: kickoff and punt coverage core; ceiling: sub-package box safety in a run-heavy matchup
Two-high scheme requiring a deep-third defender to erase ground and contest jump balls
The production at Pitt was real. After a four-game redshirt year in 2019, Hill started as a sophomore with 27 tackles and two interceptions, then exploded in 2021 with 79 tackles, an interception and six pass breakups on the way to second-team All-ACC honors. His senior year brought 67 tackles, two fumble recoveries and a defensive touchdown across 12 games, finishing with 177 career tackles and three interceptions.
The testing matched. A 9.38 Relative Athletic Score, elite in speed and near-elite in explosion, with a 35.5-inch vertical and a 10-3 broad jump. Nothing about his athleticism was going to be the reason he fell.
His size was. Under 5-11 and 193 pounds with 15 bench reps, no coverage length, and tackling that missed too often for a player whose entire projected value was hitting people. Every board had him in the sixth or seventh round as a special teams athlete first, and Houston took him 248th with exactly that job description in mind.
- 01
Elite linear speed
A 4.43 forty and a 1.50 ten-yard split rank in the 90th percentile among safeties and translate directly to coverage units.
- 02
Aggressive downhill trigger
Reads run keys quickly and attacks the line of scrimmage without hesitation from a deep alignment.
- 03
Explosive lower half
A 35.5-inch vertical and 10-3 broad jump inside a 9.38 RAS profile mean he is genuinely twitchy, not just fast.
- 04
Proven ACC production
Seventy-nine tackles and second-team All-ACC honors in 2021 across a full 14-game workload.
- 05
Ball-disruption knack
Three career interceptions, two forced fumbles, two recoveries and a defensive touchdown as a senior.
- 01
Undersized frame
Under 5-11 and 193 pounds with 15 bench reps, which limits him against NFL tight ends and in the run fit.
- 02
Inconsistent tackling technique
He arrives fast but does not always finish, and the missed attempts show up on tape every game.
- 03
Over-aggressive versus play-action
Bites on run fakes from depth and vacates the middle of the field behind him.
- 04
No coverage length
Cannot contest at the catch point against bigger receivers, so he has to win before the ball arrives.
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
- 35.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 123inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 15repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Pittsburgh | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Pittsburgh | 10 | 27 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | Pittsburgh | 14 | 79 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 1 |
| 2022 | Pittsburgh | 12 | 67 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Career | — | 40 | 177 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 0 |
Season lines verified against cfbstats and Pittsburgh official records. Pass breakup totals for 2019 and 2020 are unverified and omitted rather than zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- Second-team All-ACC (2021)
- 177 career tackles at Pittsburgh
- Defensive touchdown on a fumble recovery (2022)
Pure special teams safety whose roster value never extends to defensive snaps.
Undersized defensive back who converts speed and toughness into a long rotational NFL career.
Elite tester who cycles through waiver wires once the coverage-unit job is taken.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Hill signed a four-year deal with Houston, spent most of 2023 on the practice squad with two game-day elevations, and served as a core special teams contributor in 2024. Las Vegas signed him to its practice squad on December 30, 2025 and released him on January 12, 2026; Houston re-signed him on January 14 and released him on January 26; Chicago waived him on August 11, 2026. He was a free agent in September 2026.
It never became more than the job description. Hill signed a four-year deal with Houston, spent most of his rookie season on the practice squad and was elevated for two games, then settled into 2024 as a core special teams contributor. That is the realistic ceiling for a 193-pound safety who was drafted for his speed, and for two seasons he held it.
The end came fast. Las Vegas signed him to its practice squad on December 30, 2025 and released him on January 12; Houston brought him back on January 14 and released him on January 26; Chicago waived him on August 11, 2026 to make room for an offensive lineman. He was a free agent in September 2026. The speed was always real and the frame was always the problem, and once the special teams snaps dried up there was no defensive role underneath them to fall back on. He is 25 years old with elite testing numbers and two years of coverage-unit tape, so another camp invitation is likely, but the league has already told him what it thinks his ceiling is.