Let’s talk about Jahan Dotson
June 19, 2024
by Steve Thomas
Washington wide receiver Jahan Dotson came to Washington with a boatload of expectations, mostly born from his status as a first round draft pick. At one point in his rookie season, I thought that he might have more natural ability as a wide receiver than Terry McLaurin. That hasn’t exactly panned out, however, in terms of production over the course of two years. What happened? Is it over for Dotson? Today, let’s dive into Dotson’s NFL production so far and make an educated guess about where his career may go from here.
Washington drafted Dotson with the 16th pick in round 1 in 2022, after a trade with the New Orleans Saints in which Washington moved from 11 to 16. Dotson, who stands 5’11” and weighs 178 pounds, spent 4 years at Penn St., playing in a total of 42 games, with 183 receptions for 2757 yards, 15.1 yards per catch, and 25 touchdowns. In 2021, Dotson played in 12 games, and made 91 receptions for 1182 yards, 13.0 yards per catch, and 12 touchdowns. At the NFL Combine, he ran the 40 yard dash in 4.43 seconds, jumped 36 inches in the vertical leap and 10’1” inches in the standing broad jump, and ran the 3 cone drill in 7.28 seconds.
During the 2022 pre-draft season, most analysts believed Dotson had outstanding hands and good speed and burst, and that he was a high-quality route runner. Dotson was viewed as an outside receiver who is more comfortable outside the hashes than he is in the middle of the field. Scouts viewed him as being versatile enough to be able to play a variety of roles in the receiver group, despite the fact that, at 5’11”, he’s a bit shorter than would be ideal. Most scouts had Dotson rated as a later first round or, at worst, a high second round pick.
Over two years, Dotson has played a total of 29 games, including 26 starts, and has 84 receptions in 144 targets, 58.3% catch percentage, 1041 yards, 12.4 yards per reception, and 11 touchdowns. The following are his statistics, broken out by year:
2022: 12 games, 10 starts, 35 receptions in 61 targets, 57.4% catch percentage, 523 yards, 14.9 yards per reception, 7 touchdowns
2023: 17 games, 16 starts, 49 receptions in 83 targets, 59.0% catch percentage, 518 yards, 10.6 yards per reception, 4 touchdowns
I published a column back in February called “How did Jahan Dotson stack up against his rookie class?” In that piece, I concluded that in terms of accumulating statistics, he was in the middle of the pack as compared to his peers drafted in the 2022 draft class. That’s probably a fair assessment, although both his total catch percentage of 58.3% and his drop percentage of 7.6% are lower than average for that group. His drop percentage is ranked 13th of 19 amongst all receivers drafted in rounds 1 through 4 in 2022.
His stats aside, what’s Dotson’s long term future? Certainly, his statistical production has not lived up to his draft status. Furthermore, his impact on the game was more limited last season than it was during his rookie year. As a rookie, Dotson averaged 5.09 targets over the 12 games in which he was active. Last season, he was targeted an average of 4.88 targets per game over the full 17 game season. This is a slight drop, but not a statistically relevant number, as it represents a drop of just 3 over the course of a full season. Dotson’s yards per catch was significant down last year – 14.9 vs 10.6. That’s far more concerning than the number of catches. The question is whether the offensive playcalling was bad or whether Dotson wasn’t getting downfield as much, either before or after the catch. Some of this may have also been a general reflection of the poor play of the offense as well.
As to trying to answer this question, digging through some advanced stats is actually pretty revealing. Dotson was targeted at an average depth of 13.5 yards per target in 2022, whereas that same number dropped to 9.3 in 2023. Even more interesting is that the average target depth for both Terry McLaurin and Dyami Brown dropped in 2023 as compared to 2022. McLaurin went from 12.8 in 2022 to 11.5 in 2023, and Brown dropped from a massive 25.8 in 2022 to 16.8 in 2023. The average yards before catch also dropped in similar fashion for all three receivers. Dotson went from 10.4 to 8.2 from 2022 to 2023, McLaurin dropped from 10.4 to 8.3, and Brown went from 22.4 all the way to 7.7.
All of these statistical drops by multiple players leads me to believe that the problem with Dotson failing to blossom – for lack of a better term – in his second year may have been more of a playcalling problem, and possibly a quarterback problem, than anything else.
However, the biggest strike against Dotson is his drop percentage. In 2022, he dropped 9.8% of his targets. This improved to 6.0% in 2023, but that was still significantly more than that of McLaurin, who dropped 2.5% and 3.8% in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
Dotson’s average yards after catch also dropped from 3.9 to 2.3 between 2022 and 2023. That’s slightly less concerning to me than the other statistics, but that one is more on him than the offense in general. Count that as another strike against Dotson directly, albeit a more minor one.
As a result, I think it’s possible that Dotson rebounds if Washington’s new coaching staff can install a better offensive system that is more capable of opening up the passing game. And of course, Washington needs a quarterback who is good, as opposed to Sam Howell, who was mediocre on a good day. Hopefully Jayden Daniels fills that particular ticket. The point here, though, is that Dotson’s natural talent hasn’t gone away. He’s still a great route runner with natural athletic ability. He needs to improve his hands, but my guess is that the bigger reason why Dotson has failed to develop is more situational than anything else. Last season, Washington had a below average quarterback, running game, coaching staff, and offensive system. Much of a receiver’s performance is often dependent on the situation, and this His numbers tell me that Dotson deserves another year to see whether he can turn things around.
What do you think? Let me know in the comment section.