Fourteen years after the Eagles traded quarterback Donovan McNabb to Washington, they traded with Washington for receiver Jahan Dotson. On Tuesday, Eagles G.M. Howie Roseman addressed the decision to make the deal for Jahan Dotson within the division.
“I certainly don’t think they’re trying to help us by any stretch of the imagination,” Roseman said regarding the Commanders. “So, I think that you’re always kind of concerned about trading within the division.”
The Eagles sent a 2025 third-round pick and two seventh-round picks for Dotson and a 2025 fifth-round pick.
“No, we’re not going to get any freebies from anyone, not that we do from anyone in the league,” Roseman said. “But I think just dealing with [Washington G.M.] Adam Peters and knowing him from San Francisco and knowing that he’s got a certain value for his players, and if he gets the value that he feels confident in his decision-making, have a lot of respect for him and dealing with him.
“I think it’s always harder when you do it in your division. You always look at these trades. It’s like a fraternity being a G.M. in this league. There are only 31 others in the whole world that you share that with. So, you always want to make trades that are win-win. Probably a little less so for trades in the NFC East.”
As to Dotson specifically, Roseman called him "[a] player that we did a lot of work within the draft, in the draft process, really liked the player, felt like we knew him really well, brought him into the building, had exposure to him,” and "[w]e felt like we had a vision through the coaching staff of how he could be utilized.”
“There was an opportunity there to get the player, obviously give up a second-day draft compensation, which is important for all of us, but we felt like it was worthwhile based on what we knew, what we thought that we needed, and made the trade,” Roseman added.
The real question when a team is willing to make a trade in the division is whether the team knows the player won’t help his new team, avoiding a situation in which the old team will have the move blow up in their faces. For Dotson, it depends on whether anyone else was offering as much; presumably, no one was.
In addition to the draft compensation, the Commanders unloaded Dotson’s guaranteed pay for 2024 and 2027 of $1.57 million and $2.757 million, respectively.