Before Jahan Dotson got traded to Philly last week from Washington, he already knew Eagles superstar A.J. Brown.
And Brown knew him.
In fact, the two trained together in the offseason. And, as you might imagine, Brown is extremely serious about his training.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
“I don’t let people train with me, honestly. And I let him train with me,” Brown said with a smile. “So that should tell you everything you need to know.”
With how seriously Brown takes his workouts with longtime trainer Joey Guarascio, the head trainer at FAU, it takes a special kind of player to join. That player better have talent and he better work hard. Dotson fit the description.
“He’s a great route runner, a hard worker,” Brown said. “That’s honestly all I care about. He’s a hard worker.”
Dotson said he first worked with Guarascio a couple years ago but knew that Brown had a relationship with the trainer dating back to their days together at Ole Miss. So he presumably didn’t want to overstep.
NFL
“He reached out to my trainer and my trainer asked me,” Brown said. “It’s a 1-on-1 thing with me and my trainer. He reached out to my trainer. Like I said, he’s a great person and he works extremely hard.”
At the time, Brown was with the Eagles and Dotson was with the Commanders but there was a mutual respect. Brown liked a lot of things he saw in Dotson and Dotson obviously admired Brown after back-to-back Pro Bowl seasons.
They helped each other get better during these workouts.
“I would say the biggest thing is competing with him,” Dotson said. “I can’t do some of the things that A.J. can do, obviously. He’s physically gifted. But any chance I get to push myself competing against him, it was fun. And it’s good because he’s one of the best to do it in this league. Competing with him and stepping up to the plate every single day I come into work, training-wise, it was fun. I looked forward to it every day. He pushed me, I pushed him. So it was cool.”
And Brown didn’t take it easy.
Brown has always pushed himself hard in offseason workouts and he certainly wasn’t about to get outdone by a younger counterpart joining in.
“It was always competitive,” Brown said. “He works hard so …. That’s my training sessions, so of course I’m trying to outdo him just to get better most importantly.”
After last Thursday, Brown and Dotson are now pushing in the same direction as members of what could become an elite Eagles offense. This is an offense that includes Brown, DeVonta Smith, Saquon Barkley, Dallas Goedert, Jalen Hurts and what should still be a really good offensive line.
While Dotson has played alongside good receivers like Terry McLaurin and Curtis Samuel, he hasn’t played on an offense with this much firepower.
Dotson could get lost in the shuffle as defenses prepare to face this Eagles offense. That could be a good thing for the third-year receiver.
“He has a big opportunity in front of him,” Brown said. “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.”
Subscribe to Eagle Eye anywhere you get your podcasts:
Apple Podcasts | YouTube Music | Spotify | Stitcher | Art19 | RSS | Watch on YouTube