Jahan Dotson was brought here at a high cost to be the third receiver behind A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith. Except circumstance dictated he be the No. 1 receiver on Sunday when either Brown or Smith could play.
That plan didn’t work out well, and that is probably more of an indictment on the coaches for not figuring out how to do that.
Head coach Nick Sirianni took a stab at explaining it when asked by Eagles on SI on Monday, a day after the Eagles fell to 2-2 with a 33-16 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
"It's hard to force-feed someone the football,” he said. “As an offensive coach, you always wanna be on the attack. There's being on the attack and there's taking what the defense gives you. The ball went to him when it was supposed to go to him.
"There were sometimes when the ball could have went to him, where something might have happened that took that away. Sometimes you're the product of how the defense has played as a wide receiver. It's a little different at wide receiver of how the ball gets itself to you.”
Maybe the Bucs knew the Eagles would try to find Doston and take him away, but, again, that’s on the coaches, particularly offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, to scheme a way to help him beat whatever the Bucs are doing during the game.
That’s part of the chess match, part of the in-game adjustments that need to be fine-tuned, evidently.
It would be different if this was a one-off, but the same thing happened against the Falcons. The Eagles didn’t have A.J. Brown in that game and tight end Dallas Goedert was targeted just for times and finished with three catches for 38 yards.
Again, Eagles on SI asked Sirianni why he wasn’t more involved two days after the Eagles lost 22-21.
“It's not that simple,” Sirianni said then. “Because the quarterback goes – we can't tell the quarterback just throw it to this guy.”
They must have done that after Sirianni was asked because Goedert had a career day with 10 catches and 170 yards in a 15-12 win over the Saints.
The Eagles can only hope now that Brown and Smith will return after the bye week fully healthy and ready to play for 13 straight weeks, starting with a home game against the Cleveland Browns on Oct. 13.
It's a long stretch without a break, and Dotson may be ne needed again, otherwise the third-round pick and two sevenths general manager Howie Roseman sent to their upstart rivals in the NFC East, the Washington Commanders, for Dotson and a fifth-round selection on Aug. 22 will have been in vain.
“The ball didn't find him as much (Sunday) and it hasn't these first couple weeks,” said Sirianni. “That doesn't mean we're not as high on him as we were when we first got him. I think he's got great playmaking ability, great potential. We just have to find ways to figure out how to use that potential.”
That is the coaches' job, after all.
