The Eagles added a significant piece to their offense when they traded for wide receiver Jahan Dotson last week and one member of the team was already pretty familiar with his new teammate.
Wide receiver A.J. Brown worked out with Dotson when Dotson was still a Commander this offseason and Brown told reporters Thursday that he doesn’t generally “let people train with me” by way of letting them know he has a high opinion of Dotson. Brown added that he thinks Dotson has a great chance to make others take notice of what he can do in the coming months.
Brown believes that joining him and Devonta Smith in the receiving corps is going to put Dotson in a lot of advantageous positions.
“He has a big opportunity in front of him,” Brown said, via Dave Zangaro of NBCSportsPhiladelphia.com. “I’m not going to put too much on his plate but he does. I can tell you guys when I line up, they’re yelling out, ’11 in the slot, 11 outside.’ Most of the time, I’m getting coverage rotated to me, most importantly. Smitty has his 1-on-1 matchups. I don’t know how they do with Smitty so I can only speak for myself but I know they’re accounting for Smitty as well. When you look up, I’m not going to say you’re not really worried about him but they’re probably not going to put their best guy over there. They only can do so much. It’s very rare that certain teams probably have three really, really good DBs. So he has a big opportunity, he has mismatches all day and I hope he maximizes those mismatches.”
Brown didn’t mention running back Saquon Barkley or tight end Dallas Goedert, but they only add to the things defenses will have to pay attention to this fall. That should create opportunities for a lot of players and the Eagles will need to make the most of them to avoid the kind of disappointment they experienced late in the 2023 season.