When Jahan Dotson was targeted only once in the Week 6 win over the Falcons in Atlanta — a ball that he dropped — alarm bells went off. Things weren’t going as expected. Dotson had started off a bit slow in ‘23, and many had expected him to ‘get right’ against the Falcons.
Jahan Dotson started off his rookie career red-hot, with 4 touchdowns and 152 yards in his first 4 NFL games. He had also finished strong, with 3 TDs and 344 yards in his final 5 games. In between, he had been on IR or limited by injury.
Ahead of this season, Dotson was a trendy pick for fantasy football owners, who expected Eric Bieniemy and Sam Howell’s strong right arm to prove a double-boon to the receiver’s production. For the first five weeks, fantasy owners were mostly disappointed as Dotson’s production lagged well behind his rookie season. Through 5 weeks of the ‘23 season, Jahan Dotson had scored only a single touchdown and accounted for only 140 receiving yards.
Getting shut out of the box score in Atlanta last week was too much. The hue and cry went out for the Commanders to do something. Jahan needed more targets; they had to throw him the ball!
It turns out that they have, in fact, already been throwing him the ball more often this season than they did last season; he was targeted 25 times in the first 4 games of this season compared to 22 targets in his first 4 games as a rookie prior to his injury.
The difference is more stark if you look at six games: 31 targets this season compare to 25 targets in his injury-affected rookie year.
Jahan has been targeted, but the targets in Eric Bieniemy’s offense with Sam Howell as the triggerman haven’t turned into the kind of yards and touchdowns that Han Solo produced in Scott Turner’s system with Carson Wentz and Taylor Heinicke throwing to him.
Some have attributed this, at least in part, to Scott Turner seeing Jahan as a red-zone threat, which doesn’t seem to be as true of EB.
Others have suggested that weak offensive line protection this season has meant that the team simply hasn’t been able to effectively target Jahan on longer-developing deep shots. There may be some statistical evidence to support this theory.
Under Eric Bieniemy, Jahan’s average depth of target (ADOT) has dropped from 13.5 yards in 2022 to just 8.1 yards in 2023. Additionally, His yards before catch per reception have fallen from 11.0 last year to 6.3 this year, and his yards after catch per reception have dropped from 3.9 to 1.9.
The fact is, Jahan hasn’t been particularly unsuccessful as a receiver this season, and that may be scheme-related. Still, he’s been getting targets and he’d been contributing to the offense prior to last week.
Honestly, if he’d caught his only target against Atlanta, which hit him in the hands about 25 yards downfield with 2 yards of separation from the chasing defensive back, it seems unlikely that anyone would be questioning Dotson’s usage. But he didn’t catch it, and here we are.
In this week’s Reacts survey, we asked Hogs Haven readers a simple question: should Jahan Dotson be targeted more often?
The fact is, Jahan hasn’t been particularly unsuccessful as a receiver this season, and that may be scheme-related. Still, he’s been getting targets and he’d been contributing to the offense prior to last week.