Jermaine
Burton.
Jermaine
Burton.
Alabama· 6'0"· 196 lb· 4.45s 40
"Jermaine Burton arrived in the league with the deep speed of a first-round receiver and the character file of a fifth-round flier, and the two years that followed proved the NFL had priced that file exactly right."Pre-draft read
Burton is a boundary X who lives on the vertical stem. He wins with a smooth release package and true 4.45 long speed, eating cushion without gearing down and tracking the ball over either shoulder as well as anyone in the class. Alabama used him as the shot-play answer: nine-routes, posts, back-shoulder fades on the sideline, and he averaged 20.5 yards a catch as a senior on that diet.
The intermediate game is real but narrower. He can sink into a comeback and dig out of the same vertical stem, which is what separates him from pure track receivers. He is not a volume target or a contested-catch bully at 196 pounds, and he does almost nothing after the catch. The signature is the ball in the air with 30 yards of grass behind the corner.
Vertical play-action offense that manufactures one-on-one shots on the boundary — Shanahan-tree or Air Raid derivatives that call three or four deep isolation throws a game rather than asking the X to work the middle.
Year 1: designated field-stretcher on 20 to 25 snaps a game who moves the safety and cashes two or three explosives a month. Ceiling: a No. 2 receiver on a downfield offense in the 55-catch, 900-yard, 16-yards-per-catch range.
A quick-game, YAC-first passing attack that lives on slants, screens and option routes underneath, where his lack of creation after the catch and his frame inside the numbers erase the trait that makes him worth a roster spot.
Cincinnati was close to the right scheme and the worst possible depth chart: the offense throws deep, but Chase and Higgins already own every shot on the call sheet.
Jermaine Burton (Alabama) WR Scouting Report - Bengals Draft Pick
Full film breakdown of his Georgia and Alabama tape after Cincinnati took him at 80.
Jermaine Burton 2023 Alabama Highlights
Senior-season reel built around the deep shots that produced 20.5 yards per catch.
Jermaine Burton Alabama Highlights
Career Alabama cutup covering his two years leading the Tide in receiving yards.
Burton is a four-year SEC receiver who was productive at two blueblood programs on two very different offenses. He caught 27 balls as a Georgia freshman, won a national title there in 2021, then transferred to Alabama and led the Tide in receiving yards in both 2022 and 2023. That is a rare resume line, and the tape backs the box score: he is a genuine field-stretcher with the tracking skill and long speed to change the geometry of a defense on one snap.
The production is efficient rather than heavy — 132 catches across 50 games, but 18.0 yards per reception for a career and 20.5 as a senior. The signature performance is the 2023 comeback at Tennessee, the exact stadium where his 2024 draft slot was decided. In October 2022, after Tennessee ended the streak and fans stormed the field, video showed Burton striking at a female fan on his way off. Alabama investigated and never disciplined him, but every NFL building watched that clip, and it landed on top of pre-existing maturity questions.
Talent boards had him as a top-60 receiver. Character boards had him much lower, and character won. Cincinnati took him at 80 with Zac Taylor publicly saying the team was comfortable after doing the work — a low-cost bet on speed behind two established stars.
- 01
Deep speed
A 4.45 forty that shows up on tape as true stacking speed, eating a corner's cushion without a gear change and threatening the top of any coverage.
- 02
Ball tracking
Locates and adjusts to the deep ball over either shoulder as well as any receiver in the class, which is why he averaged 20.5 yards a catch as a senior.
- 03
Explosive testing
A 38.5-inch vertical and an 11-foot-1 broad jump confirm the lower-body pop the tape shows on fades and contested vertical throws.
- 04
Release package
Smooth, varied and patient off the line against press, with the footwork to win inside or outside without wasting the stem.
- 05
Two-program production
Led Alabama in receiving yards in both of his seasons there after two years of SEC snaps at Georgia, so nothing about the level was new to him.
- 01
Off-field file
The 2022 Tennessee field-storming video, in which he struck at a fan, plus broader maturity reports, is the reason a top-60 talent was still available at 80.
- 02
Play strength
At 196 pounds with 31-inch arms he loses too many contested reps and can be rerouted by physical corners inside the numbers.
- 03
After the catch
Almost no creation once the ball is in his hands; he is a catch-and-fall receiver rather than a threat to turn a slant into a score.
- 04
Route tree
The win column is heavily vertical, and the underneath and option portions of his route tree were rarely asked for or proven at Alabama.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.45sp50
- Vertical
- 38.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 133inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Rec | Yds | TD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Georgia | 10 | 27 | 404 | 3 |
| 2021 | Georgia | 14 | 26 | 497 | 5 |
| 2022 | Alabama | 13 | 40 | 677 | 7 |
| 2023 | Alabama | 13 | 39 | 798 | 8 |
| Career | — | 50 | 132 | 2376 | 23 |
Cross-checked against cfbstats season pages for Georgia (2020-21) and Alabama (2022-23). Season rows sum exactly to the career line: 27+26+40+39 = 132 receptions, 404+497+677+798 = 2,376 yards, 3+5+7+8 = 23 touchdowns, 10+14+13+13 = 50 games. Career average of 18.0 yards per catch, 20.5 as a senior. Rushing production exists only in 2020, so the other seasons carry no rushing keys rather than zeros.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Technically clean vertical WR3 who bounces between rosters and produces in short bursts without ever locking down a job.
Long-striding boundary burner who carved out a decade of work purely by taking the top off and cashing a handful of explosives.
Explosive Day 2 receiver whose off-field file, not his talent, ended the NFL portion of the story early.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Jermaine Burton was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the 3rd round of the 2024 NFL Draft. He has not yet played in an NFL regular season game.
The NFL part went badly from the start. As a rookie in 2024 he appeared in 14 games but was a healthy scratch multiple times, finishing with 4 catches on 14 targets for 107 yards and no touchdowns behind Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins and Andrei Iosivas. Preseason broadcast chatter about him sleeping in meetings, which he denied, set a tone the season never escaped. In 2025 he essentially disappeared from the field, was suspended for the Week 14 trip to Buffalo, and Cincinnati waived him on December 8, 2025. He cleared waivers unclaimed. By spring 2026 the only reported opportunity was a rookie-minicamp tryout invitation from Buffalo.
In hindsight, the board was right about both halves of the evaluation. The speed was legitimate and it never got a runway, because a team with two star receivers has no incentive to spend patience on a fourth option who isn't earning it off the field. This is what happens when a player with a thin margin for error lands somewhere he can be replaced instantly. Pick 80 on a receiver who produced 107 career yards before being waived mid-contract is a miss, and the reasons were all on file before the pick was made.
Data note: Cross-checked against cfbstats season pages for Georgia (2020-21) and Alabama (2022-23). Season rows sum exactly to the career line: 27+26+40+39 = 132 receptions, 404+497+677+798 = 2,376 yards, 3+5+7+8 = 23 touchdowns, 10+14+13+13 = 50 games. Career average of 18.0 yards per catch, 20.5 as a senior. Rushing production exists only in 2020, so the other seasons carry no rushing keys rather than zeros.