Batman, Robin ... and Jahan Dotson: Do the Eagles now have the NFL’s best WR trio?

Earlier this summer, when the Eagles returned to the NovaCare Complex for organized team activities and a mandatory minicamp, wide receiver A.J. Brown, fresh off of signing a mega contract extension, hinted that he might be in the best shape of his career. It’s a phrase athletes throw around often, but Brown at least looked the part.

An offseason training regimen that subtly strayed from past versions was the reason, he said. Brown has long worked with Joey Guarascio, now the head strength and conditioning coach at Florida Atlantic University, since Guarascio was on the training staff when Brown attended Mississippi.

The sessions with Guarascio usually are pretty private, Brown said, but this year, Brown sometimes had a fellow NFL wide receiver working out with him: Jahan Dotson, whom the Eagles acquired last week in a trade with Washington.

Dotson had reached out to Guarascio, Brown said, and Brown gave the OK, having liked what he saw from the young receiver out of Penn State while watching his first two seasons with the Commanders.

What did Brown learn about the newest Eagle during those sessions?

“I don’t let people train with me, honestly, and I let him train with me,” Brown said with a smile. “That should tell you everything you need to know.”

» READ MORE: Eagles wideout Jahan Dotson holds his football future in his hands. Quite literally, in fact

Brown mentioned Thursday that Dotson is a great route runner and works hard. Right now, Dotson is working hard to master the Eagles’ new offensive playbook to try to get up to speed ahead of next week’s season opener in Brazil. Dotson said he’s spending extra time at the facility with wide receivers coach Aaron Moorehead before and after practices and diving into the playbook at home.

“It can be challenging going through all of preseason, camp, and OTAs and learning a whole different kind of language and then coming here and picking up a completely different language,” Dotson said. “But I look at challenges, and I attack them.”

In Dotson, the Eagles acquired a player just two drafts removed from being the 16th overall pick, one who has flashed his blend of speed and inside-out versatility with Washington, where he compiled 84 catches for 1,041 yards and 11 scores over two seasons.

He also has at least two years left on his rookie contract with a base salary of $1.57 million this season and $2.76 million in 2025, an important part of the equation, considering Brown and DeVonta Smith recently signed big-money extensions and the Eagles need to be reliant on lower-cost players around them providing value.

It’s unclear what Dotson’s role with the offense will be, something he said he’s still figuring out himself. But with Brown, Smith, and Dotson, the Eagles have three players with the versatility to line up anywhere on the field and present matchup problems for opposing defenses.

The Eagles already had arguably the NFL’s best wide receiver duo with Brown and Smith, and with Dotson they could have the best 1-through-3 combination in the league.

Miami has an argument for the top 1-2 punch with Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. So do San Francisco, with Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk (assuming his contract dispute gets resolved) and Cincinnati, with Ja’Marr Chase (also in a contract dispute) and Tee Higgins. But besides maybe Miami, which has Braxton Berrios as its No. 3, there’s mostly a bigger drop-off to the third spot than the Eagles have with Dotson, at least on paper.

What does that mean? Maybe a lot, or maybe nothing at all.

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Brown at least knows that Dotson may be able to run free at times. He often looks up and sees bracket coverages designed to slow him down, an occurrence that’s “not fun in my world,” Brown said. With a player of Dotson’s caliber, however, the Eagles might be able to exploit other weaknesses.

“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, I know they’re yelling out, ‘11 in the slot, 11 outside,’ and most of the time I’m getting coverage rotated to me.

“They can only do so much. It’s very rare that certain teams probably have three really, really good DBs, so he has a big opportunity in front of him. He has mismatches all day, and I hope he maximizes those mismatches.”

All of this is without mentioning that the Eagles also have a major pass-catching option out of the backfield in Saquon Barkley, plus tight end Dallas Goedert, who will command plenty of attention from opposing defenses.

Smith said it will be hard for Eagles opponents to “zero in on one person” with Barkley and Dotson around. Like Brown, Smith had some familiarity with Dotson before the deal. When Smith’s Alabama team was preparing to play Ohio State in the national championship game in 2021, Smith said Dotson “popped” on film when he was studying the Ohio State corners against Penn State. He noticed Dotson’s route-running skills and his quick release.

Brown got an up-close look at those skills this summer and knows how useful they can be to the Eagles. Dotson was brought in because the Eagles had a glaring hole behind their top guys and needed insurance in case of an injury. But with all of them healthy? Dotson has the capacity to open things up.

“He’s not the focal point, and that’s not a bad thing. It’s a perception thing,” Brown said. “You can look at it two ways: ‘I’m not the focal point,’ or, ‘I have a huge opportunity. … They’re not worried about me. I can make them worried about me.’ I think he’s taking that approach.”