The first day of the NFL draft was a fun one for fantasy purposes as we saw the snow globe of the wide receiver position continue to shake this offseason. We had six wide receivers selected in the first round on Thursday, with another two young stars changing teams as part of the evening.
With that, we are going to walk through the fantasy-centric selections and trades of the opening night.
After trading back from pick No. 11, which ended up being a wide receiver, Washington selected another wideout in Jahan Dotson.
Dotson continuously improved at Penn State. He closed with a sturdy 91-1,182-12 line, tasked to do some heavy lifting this past season, accounting for 31.3% of the receptions (fifth in this class), 48% of the receiving touchdowns (second), and 24.5% of the yards from scrimmage (fourth).
No receiver in this class may have a better catalog of impressive catches on their resume, but at 5’10” and 178 pounds, Dotson is not a physically dominant receiver while he was not as clean in production per route as some of the previous wideouts selected.
Quarterback play did him no favors at Penn State, now Dotson joins a Washington team that was once again at the bottom of the league in production from their passing game, exiting 2021 23rd in the league in EPA gained via passing (22.6 points). They ranked 22nd in yards per pass attempt (6.8 Y/A) and 22nd in team passing rating (85.8).
Their initial plan at improving things was to acquire Carson Wentz from the Colts.
Wentz threw for just 6.3 yards per attempt over the final 11 games of the season, failing to recapture the production that he had early in his career paired with Frank Reich.
Playing alongside Terry McLaurin with Wentz, Dotson will be handled as a splash-play dependent WR5 in drafts for 2022.
