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Dotson Dealt to Eagles
The Eagles acquired Jahan Dotson from the Commanders on Thursday, leaving targets up for grabs in Washington.
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The Commanders traded WR Jahan Dotson and a 2025 fifth-round pick to the Eagles on Thursday for a 2023 third-rounder and a pair of seventh-round selections. It's a trade between divisional rivals with shaky WR depth, albeit with the major difference that the top of Philadelphia's depth chart is among the strongest in the league.
A Dotson trade would've been much more interesting at this time a year ago, when he was a popular breakout candidate with a sixth/seventh-round ADP on a lot of platforms. He was picked 16th overall in the 2022 NFL Draft and then had a promising-but-injury-marred rookie season with a 35-523-7 receiving line in 12 games. He averaged 4.2 catches for 68.8 yards on 7.0 targets over the final five weeks of said rookie campaign, going stride for stride with Terry McLaurin in terms of both production and volume.
Alas, Dotson was a complete failure in 2023 under Commanders offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy, producing 49-518-4 on 83 targets while playing all 17 games. Dotson was among the worst starting wideouts in the league for basically every efficiency metric, including yards per target (6.2) and yards per route (0.79).
What to Expect for Dotson
The short answer here is "not much." Dotson might not have been a good fit for Bieniemy's offense, but the extreme lack of production in his second pro season was nonetheless a terrible sign, and even more so because it came over a huge sample of routes (655, sixth most in the NFL). The low target rate (12.7 percent) alone might be partially explained away by scheme/coaching, but Dotson also had horrible per-target efficiency, with both his catch rate (59.0 percent) and YPT landing well below the baseline of one of the league's least-efficient passing offenses (64.0 completion percentage, 6.6 YPA).
If you care about PFF grades, know that Dotson ranked 98th out of 128 qualified WRs, with the only full-time starters below him being Darnell Mooney, Jonathan Mingo, K.J. Osborn, Rondale Moore, Trey Palmer, Allen Lazard and Marquez Valdes-Scantling. It was a much different story his rookie year, when Dotson placed 40th out of 113.
He had an impressive career at Penn State, recording 203 yards as an 18-year-old true freshman before progressing to 488, 884 (nine games) and 1,182 over the next three years. He basically averaged 100 yards and a TD per game over his final two seasons, without the help of a top QB (Sean Clifford, anyone?) or an extremely pass-heavy scheme. He then ran a 4.43 40 at the 2022 Combine, albeit at just 5-11, 178, and with a mediocre vertical jump (36 inches) and subpar marks in the broad jump (121 in.) and cone drill (7.27). In other words, his profile was elite in terms of production but merely adequate for size-adjusted athleticism.
Most draft analysts had Dotson as a late-first-round or second-round pick, but I thought he was an acceptable selection at 16th overall in light of the fantastic production and film (oops). Drafting him a bunch last year was one of the biggest mistakes I made amidst an otherwise excellent 2023 fantasy season, and I've completely avoided him this summer due to how poorly he played last year (not because of hurt feelings, I swear).
Dotson will now work with his fourth offensive coordinator in three pro years, after playing under Scott Turner, Bieniemy and (briefly) Kliff Kingsbury. Immediate playing time isn't guaranteed, even though the Eagles' other No. 3 receiver options are wholly unexciting (Parris Campbell, Johnny Wilson, John Ross, Ainias Smith) and two of them are currently in concussion protocol (Wilson and Ross).
What to Expect for the Eagles Offense
The Eagles have four excellent skill-position players who have consistently played a huge number of snaps whenever healthy: RB Saquon Barkley, TE Dallas Goedert and WRs A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. The fifth guy on the field with them won't see the ball much, and he'll probably need two of the other guys injured to get enough volume for mainstream fantasy value.
Dotson should get a chance to be that fifth guy, but it might not happen right away given that he was traded just 15 days before Philadelphia's Week 1 game in Brazil. When Dotson does get his shot at the No. 3 receiver, he'll likely take most of his snaps on the perimeter even though the Commanders had been testing him in the slot this preseason.
Current Eagles OC Kellen Moore gave CeeDee Lamb most of the slot work for Dallas in 2020 and 2022, with Keenan Allen deployed similarly for the Chargers in 2023. It was only in 2019 (Randall Cobb) and part of 2021 (Cedrick Wilson) that Moore used his "No. 3 receiver" as the slot guy, and in Cobb's case that decision essentially was made for him by the front office.
Dotson mostly played the slot in Washington's first two preseason games, but he took 61 percent of his snaps on the perimeter last year and 73 percent there as a rookie. Reports of Smith getting more slot work under Moore won't necessarily be impacted by this trade. Dotson will probably be deployed as a low-volume perimeter receiver mostly running deep routes, which is the best role fit for him from a real-life standpoint anyway (it's just not especially promising for fantasy value).
In summary, Dotson's presence shouldn't hurt Brown, Smith, Goedert or Barkley. It's more of a factor for guys we had no business drafting anyway, e.g., Campbell and Ross. Fantasy interest in Dotson should be limited to dynasty leagues, extremely deep formats and the final rounds of best-ball drafts.
What to Expect for the Commanders Offense
The Commanders should probably pursue another trade, preferably for Jayden Daniels' buddy Brandon Aiyuk, but it's not my opinion that counts. Let's work with the assumption that they'll essentially stay put at wide receiver, perhaps settling for a fringe player or two after cutdown day next Tuesday.
Four-wide formations are considered an Air Raid staple, but Kingsbury moved away from those as his Arizona tenure progressed, running just 57 snaps with four WRs on the field in his final season (2022). That was more than any other coach, to be fair, but it accounted for just 5.0 percent of Arizona's overall snaps, down from 14.3 percent in 2021, 20.3 percent in 2020 and 32.9 percent in 2019. Kingsbury's use of four-wide sets declined considerably from each year to the next, even though the plays were pretty successful in 2020 (6.3 yards per play, eight TDs on 220 snaps) and extremely successful in 2021 (8.0 YPP, 12 TDs).
The four-receiver looks are probably still part of his playbook, but we shouldn't expect to see much when the main options behind Terry McLaurin are Dyami Brown, Olamide Zaccheaus and rookie third-round pick Luke McCaffrey. The Commanders otherwise have a bunch of UDFAs and then a funny list of has-beens (Martavis Bryant, Jamison Crowder, Byron Pringle).
Brown and Zaccheaus have been sharing first-team snaps on the perimeter with Dotson mostly in the slot, while McCaffrey strictly worked with second- and third-stringers in the first two preseason games.
Brown is a disappointing 2021 third-round pick who has almost exclusively played the perimeter in Washington and not done much with his chances, typically sitting fourth or fifth on the depth chart. He's on the thin side (6-foot-0, 195), isn't especially physical and probably not quite fast enough (4.46 40) to make up for the other shortcomings. Brown has averaged 16.4 yards per catch in his career, but with only 62 targets and 29 receptions (46.8 percent catch rate).
Zaccheaus is a bit more promising, yet still highly unlikely to achieve mainstream fantasy value. He's a 2019 UDFA who made 23 starts in four seasons with Atlanta and caught 62.3 percent of his targets for 14.1 yards per catch (8.8 YPT), but he's seen more than seven targets in game just twice and wasn't able to hold off Quez Watkins for Philadelphia's No. 3 WR job last season (the role Dotson is now expected to claim. At 5-8, 193, with 4.49 speed (pro day), Zaccheaus has the physical profile of a slot specialist but actually took more snaps on the perimeter during his time in Atlanta. However, the inside/outside snap split was close to 50/50 during his best season, 2022, and the slot work accounted for 64 percent of his targets and 69 percent of his yards.
While Zaccheaus is probably better off playing inside, his role may ultimately depend on McCaffrey's progress and how the Commanders want to use their rookie. At 6-2, 198, and with 4.46 speed, McCaffrey isn't automatically limited to the slot in the way some might assume, but that is where he mostly played at Rice his final two collegiate seasons. There are some reasons to doubt his professional upside, as he's old for a rookie (23), thin for his height and didn't play in a Power 5 conference. Ultimately, though, McCaffrey is the one you want to take a chance on in fantasy, rather than Brown (probably a scrub) or Zaccheaus (decent player, but no history of earning targets at a high rate per route). And it doesn't hurt that McCaffrey's family is NFL royalty.
Looking beyond the wide receivers, Washington's decision to give up on Dotson hints at a few more targets going to McLaurin and/or players at other positions. It may also mean more multi-TE formations, potentially giving rookie second-round pick Ben Sinnott a few extra snaps with which he can make his case for a larger role. Just remember that Sinnott's fantasy value largely depends on when he overtakes Zach Ertz in single-TE formations, not what kind of usage he's getting in multi-TE sets.
Sinnott has been one of my favorite late-round picks all spring/summer, for what it's worth. He had 1,123 yards and 10 TDs over his final two seasons at Kansas State and then ran a 4.68 40 at 250 pounds. Second-round draft capital furthers his cause, and he landed with a team that's badly in need of receiving threats beyond McLaurin and RB Austin Ekeler. I like Sinnott a lot, even though I don't think the Dotson trade really matters for his outlook/projection.
