Philadelphia Eagles roster: 3 Reasonable expectations for John Hightower

This second-year Philadelphia Eagles star needs to eliminate the drops.

In his first season as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles, John Hightower was targeted 29 times. Only ten of those wound up being catches, but if you poll any Birds fan, they’ll probably tell you that they remember two things about 82 in 2020.

He caught that bomb from Carson Wentz in Week 7 versus the New York Giants at a critical point in the game, and he dropped a bomb on what looked like the same play one week earlier versus the Baltimore Ravens in Week 6.

While acting like Hightower is the second-coming of Nelson Agholor in 2016 is a bit too extreme of a claim to make (Hightower is only credited with three drops in 2020), those drops all seemed to come at the wrong time.

No, three drops isn’t a lot, but the goal should still be to eliminate all of them. The reason why is obvious. Once they come, they seemingly sometimes come in bunches sometimes. If you’re a fan watching from home, there’s a high chance that you hold your breath every time the ball is thrown in Hightower’s direction. If that’s true, how do you think he feels?

Mastering his craft will only make him much better much faster, and only hauling in 34.5 percent of the passes thrown in his direction isn’t going to cut it for a six-foot-one receiver now entering his second season in the National Football League.