Why has Jahan Dotson been a complete non-factor so far? originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
A 3rd-round pick? For this?
After watching Parris Campbell and John Ross compete for the 3rd outside receiver spot all summer, Howie Roseman knew it wasn’t enough. So he shipped a 3rd-round pick to Washington for Jahan Dotson in late August.
He gave up a 3rd-round pick for situations exactly like this.
A.J. Brown out? DeVonta Smith out? Now the Eagles have a guy who was a star at Penn State, the 16th pick in the draft just two years and caught 89 passes and 11 touchdowns in two years playing with Taylor Heinicke, Carson Wentz and Sam Howell in Washington.
So far? Disaster.
Like a bunch of Roseman’s offseason moves.
“The ball didn’t find him as much (Sunday), and it hasn’t these first couple weeks,” Nick Sirianni said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re any less high on him than we were when we first got him. I think he’s got great play-making ability, great potential, and we’ve just got to find ways to figure out how to use that potential.”
Dotson has played 200 snaps, started three games and caught five of nine targets for 25 yards.
Heck, backup tight end Grant Calcaterra had more yards on one catch Sunday than Dotson has all year.
Stathead has only been tracking snap counts since 2012, but Dotson is the first Eagles receiver on record to play at least 45 snaps in three straight games without exceeding 12 yards in any of them. He’s also the first Eagles receiver to play 200 snaps over a four-game period without exceeding 25 total yards.
This isn’t all on Dotson. It’s partly on Nick Sirianni, partly on Kellen Moore and partly on Jalen Hurts, who’s only targeted him eight times in three starts since Brown got hurt at practice after the opener in São Paulo.
And it’s another manifestation of an offense that’s averaged just 17 points in three games without Brown. After scoring four touchdowns on opening day, the Eagles have scored just six the last three games.
What the heck is going on? How can a guy with Dotson’s resume be a non-factor in an offense that definitely needs playmaking?
“It’s hard to force feed someone the football,” Nick Sirianni said. “As an offensive coach, you always want to be on the attack. But there is being on the attack and then there’s also taking what the defense gives you.
“The ball went to him when it was supposed to go to him (Sunday). And there were some times where the ball could have gone to him where something might have happened that took that away.
“And so you’re a product sometimes of how the defense is played as a wide receiver. It’s a little different sometimes at wide receiver how the ball gets itself to you.”
In his two seasons with Washington, Dotson never had a three-game stretch where he netted only 25 receiving yards. He averaged 35.9 yards per game, which is hardly elite but certainly better than his current 6.3 yards per game.
And he didn’t become an Eagle until after training camp, but he’s been here for six weeks now, long enough to learn the offense and develop some chemistry with Hurts.
Yet here we are.
Dotson had 15 catches of at least 20 yards and 43 receptions of at least 10 yards in 29 games with the Commanders. His longest catch in four games here has gone for seven yards.
His 2.8 yards per target ranks 99th out of 103 wide receivers who’ve been targeted at least eight times.
It’s not like he’s dropping a bunch of passes. The ball just isn’t going his way.
“Jahan is going about this (with) the right process,” offensive coordinator Kellen Moore said. “He’s done a really nice job as far as coming in here and getting acclimated. Again, like a number of our guys, I think our focus is on how we can give them the best opportunity to be successful, give them more targets, more looks. He had some in there and we just weren’t able to get to him.”
The good news is that by the time the Eagles get back from the bye week A.J. Brown will be healthy enough to play after missing three games and DeVonta Smith will be three weeks removed from his concussion and hopefully able to return to action.
But whether or not Brown and Smith are playing, the Eagles need to get some sort of production out of Dotson.
We thought it was a disaster when Roseman traded a 3rd-round pick to the Lions for Golden Tate at the 2018 trade deadline. Tate averaged 35 yards per game the rest of the season and caught the game-winning touchdown in the playoff win over the Bears.
Dotson is averaging six yards per game.
Is Hurts giving Dotson enough opportunities? Probably not. He doesn’t seem comfortable targeting any of the depth-chart WRs, although he did throw a touchdown pass to Parris Campbell Sunday in Tampa.
But in the three games Brown has missed, Dotson, Campbell, Johnny Wilson and John Ross (who only played in the last game) have combined for just 23 total targets.
“I think Jalen has handled a number of different guys playing in a number of different roles these past few weeks,” Moore said. “Those are situations where the more you spend time around those guys, the more you build that cohesiveness and anticipation and all that fun stuff. That will come.
“We’re excited about these guys. We’ve got great depth in that receiver room, and we are going to need these guys as the season goes on. A lot of the guys are going to have to play and be counted on.”
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