Explaining Jahan Dotson’s lack of production so far

Taking a closer look at why WR Jahan Dotson hasn’t quite produced the numbers we expected so far this season

Jahan Dotson has grabbed the attention of Washington Commanders fans and media this week due to his lack of production so far this season. Much was expected from the 2022 first-round pick entering his second year in the NFL after a promising rookie season and encouraging signs of a strong relationship developing between him and Sam Howell during training camp and preseason. Some even went as far as suggesting he could catch more passes than star receiver Terry McLaurin this year.

However, through six games so far this season, Dotson has just 17 catches for 140 yards and a touchdown. That puts him closer to running backs Antonio Gibson and Brian Robinson in terms of pure production than his fellow receivers Terry McLaurin and Curtis Samuel. This was further highlighted by the fact he had zero catches and only one target in the Commanders victory over the Falcons this week. So what exactly is going on with Dotson? Let’s take a closer look. 

No, he hasn’t regressed

Let’s start by debunking the myth that Dotson has regressed and is suddenly a poor route runner. This is not true at all. I’m sure this is only a very vocal minority of fans suggesting this, but it’s something I’ve seen doing the rounds on twitter so I wanted to just prove that it’s nonsense. He’s still very much a strong route runner capable of winning routes with quickness or with techinque.

This play comes from the Commanders loss to the Bears a few weeks ago. Dotson begins the play lined up as part of a trips set to the right of the formation. Before the snap, he motions to the left and stacks behind tight end Logan Thomas. Jay Gruden and Sean McVay used to run this play all the time with Jordan Reed and Jamison Crowder and they called it quick seam. Kyle Shanahan calls it arches. I don’t know what the Andy Reid coaching tree calls it, but it’s a classic concept that every team in the league runs. Thomas releases inside first and runs a shallow cross, designed to grab the attention of any inside zone defender and vacate space. 

That creates room for Dotson to work into. Dotson takes an outside release, angling his path outside towards the numbers in order to take his defender towards the sideline and open up the middle of the field. As soon as the defender opens his hips towards the sidelines, Dotson makes a sharp cut across his face and gets inside of him. Dotson is wide open for what could be a potentially huge gain after the catch, but unfortunately the pass is batted down at the line of scrimmage by a defensive lineman.

But while Dotson didn’t end up getting the ball there, you can see that he’s still a sharp route runner that is capable of creating separation and winning quickly. Need more proof? How about this route from the most recent game against the Falcons. 

Here, Dotson’s job is to be the one that occupies defenders by running deep and vacating space behind him for his teammates. Dotson is never likely to get the ball on this play, he’s simply taking his turn in opening things up for others, which each receiver on this team has to do their share of. But forget the concept for a moment and just focus on the route he runs and what it does to the defender in coverage. 

At the snap, Dotson angles his path inside towards the hashmarks. He takes six strides and sells a hard fake on a potential deep crossing route. At that sixth step, you can see the corner covering him has opened his hips inside and is prepared to follow Dotson across the field on a deep over route. However, Dotson then adjusts his path to angle back outside. This suddenly starts to look like a sail route to the defender in coverage, who commits to a speed turn back outside as he assumes Dotson is going to break off his route towards the sideline. 

Dotson doesn’t do what the defender anticipated. In fact, after a few steps back outside, Dotson once again adjusts his path, angling back inside towards the goal post. He does this while the defender has his back turned to Dotson, causing the defender to not only completely lose track of Dotson, but also end up running into Dyami Brown and the cornerback trailing him. Unfortunately for Dotson the deep safety was there to pick him up, but again it shows that Dotson’s route running prowess hasn’t dropped off at all. 

Matchups and leverage

While Dotson might not have had many targets against the Falcons, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t getting open. Often matchups can dictate where the quarterback goes with the ball, so while the team backs Dotson to beat most defenders he faces, other matchups could potentially be more favorable. Perhaps they think there is a particular defender one week that can really be attacked and look to target him even when Dotson is capable of winning his matchup too. Maybe it’s a case of the leverage pre-snap looking favorable to one receiver more than Dotson.

On this play, Dotson lines up split out to the right with former third overall pick Jeff Okudah opposite him. Okudah lines up in press coverage and you’ll notice that he’s aligned with quite heavy outside leverage. He clearly wants to prevent Dotson from releasing outside and instead wants to funnel him inside towards his help. However, Dotson is tasked with running a go route down the sideline, so he wants to release outside regardless of Okudah’s leverage. 

That leverage in itself could be a red flag for the quarterback that he can see pre-snap. But on top of that, perhaps the Commanders were targeting the corner on the opposite side of Okudah. They get him isolated in a one-on-one with Dyami Brown to the left of the formation, which makes it a much simpler read for the quarterback. 

At the snap of the ball, Dotson does a nice job beating that outside leverage and still managing to release outside. Not only does he get his outside release, but he gets a step on Okudah which allows him to angle his route back inside towards the numbers, creating extra space outside for the quarterback to potentially throw into. So Dotson actually wins his matchup, but by that point the ball had been thrown to the other side of the field where the quarterback obviously just happened to favor that matchup. It’s unfortunate for Dotson, but when you have a bunch of talented receivers, there’s going to be times when certain matchups are picked over others.

Coverage dictates reads

When you have the luxury of having a group of weapons like the Commanders have, the play-caller doesn’t have to focus purely on forcing the ball to just one or two players. Instead, they can call route combinations that put defenders in binds where they have two receivers to cover and can only really commit to covering one of them.

In these situations, the Commanders don’t really care who the ball goes to because they know all of their receivers can make big plays for them, so they let the defense pick their poison and give the quarterback the simplest of reads by just throwing to the receiver the defender picks not to cover. Here’s an example:

This is actually a play that ends up going to Dotson, but it should show you why it could easily not have gone to him. The Commanders run a smash concept here with Jahan Dotson and Curtis Samuel stacked tight together to the right of the formation. Dotson runs an out route underneath while Samuel runs a deeper corner route. The intent of this type of play is to give Howell an easy read by isolating a single defender and putting him in a bind. In this case, that defender is the outside cornerback. 

The defense is in zone coverage and the cornerback has to be aware of both routes potentially threatening his zone. You can see how he sinks back at the snap and plays almost in between Dotson and Samuel, trying to account for both but not really attaching to either route. But by sinking back and trying to play both routes, he’s done enough for Howell to know he can just hit Dotson underneath for a relatively simple throw and catch. 

Now in this case Dotson is the beneficiary of this type of concept because the defender sank back to prevent Samuel’s deeper route, but you should hopefully be able to see just how easily it could have gone the opposite way with the defender biting up to Dotson in the flat and leaving Samuel open deeper. The Commanders run a lot of these types of concepts and Dotson moves all over the place, sometimes running the deeper route and sometimes running the shallower route. 

So really it’s just a case of luck for the receivers involved over who gets the ball thrown to them and who gets covered. This goes for McLaurin and Samuel as well. Because Washington has so many talented receivers, they don’t have to force feed one the ball, meaning they can use concepts like these where they can stress a single defender, make the read easier for Howell and be happy knowing that whoever gets the ball has the potential to make a play after the catch. 

Quarterback mistakes

Another reason Dotson hasn’t quite had as many catches as you might expect is because Sam Howell is still a young developing quarterback that occasionally misses some reads. 

This play from the Falcons game is actually another example of the type of concept above. This time though, Dotson is running the deeper corner route while Antonio Gibson works to the flat out of the backfield. They’re looking to isolate that outside corner between Dotson and Gibson and put him in a situation that he can’t win.

The Falcons are in a Cover-2 shell, meaning that the outside cornerback the Commanders are looking to isolate and attack is responsible for the flat with a safety over the top protecting him deep. You’ll notice at the snap of the ball that cornerback instantly steps forward towards the flat. This should be an easy indicator to Howell straight away that he should have space behind that cornerback to throw the deeper route to Dotson. 

However, for whatever reason, Howell doesn’t quite like the look of the play. Perhaps he felt the safety was too close by, maybe he was concerned about that cornerback sinking back underneath Dotson’s route. Whatever the reason, he opts against what should have been a relatively easy read and a throw he’s very much capable of making to Dotson. He then proceeds to miss open reads on the back side of the play and scramble into a sack.

It wasn’t a good rep for Howell, it was actually probably one of his worst of the season if I’m being honest. But as a young quarterback, he’s always going to be prone to making mistakes like that, it just so happens that Dotson was the receiver on this occasion to miss out when he should have been getting the ball. It’s a shame but it’s part of the lumps you take when playing a young quarterback. 

Conclusion

So I’ve laid out a list of reasons why there’s no need to panic about Dotson’s lack of production so far. He hasn’t regressed, his route running is still strong and he’s able to create separation when he needs to. Sometimes he’s just not the first read in the progression. Sometimes he’s winning routes but Howell looked to McLaurin or Samuel first because he liked their matchup slightly more. 

We’ve seen Dotson win routes only for the pass to get deflected at the line of scrimmage or for Howell to make a mistake and not throw it to him. There are times where Dotson is just unlucky that an isolated defender opts to cover him instead of the other receiver in the area and sometimes it’s just Dotson’s turn to be occupying coverage and opening things up for others. 

Ultimately there’s a ton of factors that go into why a receiver may or may not get the ball on any given play. When you have a group of receivers like McLaurin, Samuel, Dotson and Brown, alongside other weapons like Logan Thomas, Antonio Gibson and Brian Robinson, there’s only so many passes to go around each week. Earlier in the season everyone was complaining McLaurin wasn’t getting enough targets, but he was just suffering from the same stuff that Dotson is dealing with now.

I’m sure in a few weeks we’ll see Dotson get his share of the targets and Samuel will be the one missing out. With so many weapons the offense doesn’t have to force it to just one or two guys because they’re all capable of making big plays. Dotson’s turn will come and I’m sure it will be sooner rather than later.