Philadelphia Eagles: John Hightower’s ceiling and floor in 2021

What are John Hightower’s ceiling and floor for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2021?

Are there two things Philadelphia Eagles fans like more than underdogs and speedy wide receivers?

Seriously, if you ran a sub-4.4 and averaged 24ish yards per reception at some random, non-powerhouse university, surely you’d become the second coming of DeSean Jackson, a player the Eagles never should have waived in 2014 and ultimately remedied a half-decade later.

From Chris Givens to T.J. Graham, Bryce Treggs, Mack Hollins, and arguably the most successful of the lot, Torrey Smith, the Eagles cycled through more receivers than they’d like to admit in a fruitless search for a field-stretching deep threat, and yet, when a 33-year-old Jackson became available once more in 2019, Howie Roseman and company jumped on the chance to rejuvenate their offense and finally gave Carson Wentz someone to throw deep to… at least, until he got hurt.

So naturally, when the 2020 NFL Draft rolled around, the Eagles went out of their way to address their receiving corps with not one, not two, but three speedy deep threats who could help to rack up the YAC and add a lil pop to one of the NFL’s least flavorful offenses.

So far, the results haven’t exactly materialized.

While some will be quick to throw shade at how many yards Jalen Reagor recorded versus another first-round wide receiver who was picked one spot later – you know the guy – his season was marred by injury. John Hightower, the Birds’ second receiver selected out of three, garnered similar excitement heading into the regular season, with some calling him a potential steal of the draft, but that didn’t matriculate much either.

But hey, who didn’t perform poorly for the Eagles in 2020? Outside of a few youngsters thrust into action out of nowhere – players like Alex Singleton, Nate Herbig, and Jordan Mailata – numbers were down for pretty much every starter across the board not named Brandon Graham. With Nick Sirianni now in place, and his philosophy of playing to his players’ strengths the team’s new mantra, expect a bit of a statistical resurgence for contributors across the board, if for no other reason than that it can’t really get much worse.

So what does that mean for John Hightower? Does he have a role with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2021, or will he have to fight it out for a few snaps a game as a bench reserve? Let’s try to figure that out.