Justin
Shorter.
Justin
Shorter.
Florida· 6'4"· 229 lb· 4.55s 40
"A five-star frame that never learned to uncover: Justin Shorter won the catch point at Florida and spent three NFL seasons proving that a receiver who cannot separate has to be perfect everywhere else."Pre-draft read
Big-bodied outside receiver who spent most of his Florida snaps at X, working from a tight split against press and using a long, gliding stride to eat cushion. He builds to speed rather than exploding into it, so separation comes from length and body positioning — a high-point target who tracks the deep ball over either shoulder and boxes defenders out on fades.
The secondary trait is contact balance after the catch: he falls forward through arm tackles rather than making anyone miss. He is a willing stalk blocker, which keeps him on the field on early downs. The signature is the 19.9 yards-per-catch season in 2022 — a vertical, low-volume role where nearly every target was a leverage or ball-tracking win.
Vertical play-action offense with heavy 11-personnel that asks its X-receiver to win isolated on the boundary and finish in the red zone.
Year 1 as a WR5 and gunner/jammer who earns a package of fades and back-shoulder shots; ceiling is a WR3 boundary starter who wins on radius and blocking.
A West Coast timing attack built on option routes and slot-motion, where the receiver has to create separation out of tight breaks against off coverage.
His blocking makes him a plus fit for a run-first team that wants a perimeter enforcer, but he needs a quarterback willing to throw him open.
Justin Shorter Florida Highlights
Contested catches and vertical wins from his Florida tape.
Justin Shorter 2022 Season Highlights
Senior-year explosives that produced a 19.9 yards-per-catch average.
Justin Shorter WR Draft Film
Pre-draft cut-up focused on catch radius, blocking and route tree.
A fifth-year, two-school prospect who arrived at Penn State as a five-star recruit and left Florida as a projection rather than a finished product. The identity was never in doubt — a 6-4, 229-pound perimeter receiver with rare catch radius, plus-strength at the line and the frame teams want on the boundary in the red zone. The questions were about everything that happens between the snap and the catch point.
Production told the story of both the traits and the ceiling. He never cleared 41 receptions or 600 yards in a season, and his best year came on nine games and 29 catches — but at 19.9 yards per grab, with tape full of contested wins against SEC corners. The flags were consistent across five years: a route tree that lived on verticals, comebacks and slants, tightness out of breaks, and a drop rate that spiked when he had to adjust to off-target throws over the middle.
The board treated him as a Day 3 traits swing. Most public evaluations had him in the fourth-to-fifth-round range as a developmental Z/X with special-teams value, and Buffalo took him at 150 as exactly that: a size-and-radius bet behind an established top of the depth chart, with time to develop rather than a mandate to produce.
- 01
Catch radius
a genuine 6-4 frame with long arms and strong hands that lets him win throws outside his body, above coverage and on the back shoulder.
- 02
Ball tracking
locates and adjusts to the deep ball over either shoulder without breaking stride, a trait that showed up on nearly every explosive he produced at Florida.
- 03
Contested-catch strength
plays through contact at the catch point and finishes through the hit, which is what made his 19.9 yards-per-catch senior season possible.
- 04
Run blocking
willing, physical stalk blocker on the perimeter who sustains and finishes, and a real reason he stayed on the field on early downs.
- 05
Red-zone value
the frame, leverage and high-point ability translate directly to fades, back-shoulder throws and boundary jump balls inside the 20.
- 01
Separation
long-strider who builds speed instead of exploding, so he rarely uncovers cleanly against off coverage and needs the throw to be on time.
- 02
Route nuance
a limited tree at both schools, with tight, gathered breaks that telegraph the stem and give corners time to close.
- 03
Timed speed
the 4.55 forty and 1.59 ten-yard split confirmed the tape: he is a vertical threat by length and tracking, not by pure gear.
- 04
Concentration drops
the ball skills that shine on contested throws desert him on some routine targets over the middle when he has to reset his eyes.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.55sp50
- Vertical
- 35.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 126inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 18repp50
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Penn State | 4 | 3 | 20 | 0 |
| 2019 | Penn State | 10 | 12 | 137 | 0 |
| 2020 | Florida | 12 | 25 | 268 | 3 |
| 2021 | Florida | 13 | 41 | 550 | 3 |
| 2022 | Florida | 9 | 29 | 577 | 2 |
| Career | — | 48 | 110 | 1552 | 8 |
Florida seasons (2020-2022) verified against cfbstats player page 1096535; Penn State 2018-2019 from official program records. Rushing/return figures omitted rather than zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Same body type and same problem — big frame, willing blocker, never enough separation to hold a real target share.
The best version of the archetype: a long boundary X who ate on contested verticals despite ordinary timed speed.
Traits receiver who bounced between practice squads because the route tree and roster value never came together.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Buffalo drafted him behind Stefon Diggs and Gabe Davis and never got him onto the field: he spent the entire 2023 rookie season on injured reserve without a regular-season snap. The Bills waived him on August 27, 2024, and Las Vegas claimed him for the practice squad two days later, elevating him to the active roster on November 1. The Raiders listed him at tight end that year, playing him in 10 games — 25 offensive snaps against 126 on special teams — before moving him back to receiver in 2025, when he appeared in seven games with five offensive snaps and finished the season on injured reserve. Three years in, his NFL ledger is 17 games, zero receptions and three special-teams tackles.
In hindsight the evaluation was right about the player and optimistic about the path. Buffalo bought the traits, but a fifth-round receiver who cannot separate has to win the roster on special teams first and on contested targets second, and injuries erased the two camps that would have decided it. The position flip to tight end says the league saw the same thing the tape did: a big body without the route craft to earn perimeter snaps. It is not a wasted pick in cost, only in outcome — Day 3 size bets fail this way more often than they pay off.