2023 Dynasty Riser, Faller and Longshot Predictions: Washington Commanders

Jahan Dotson

Aaron St Denis Posted On August 1, 2023

Summer is the best time to evaluate dynasty assets and their place in the dynasty market. In this brand-new series, we will bring you a riser, faller, and longshot from each NFL team. We’ll cover dynasty values, potential trades, and overall team outlooks.

Let’s jump into the Washington Commanders!

Riser: Jahan Dotson, WR

Dotson was one of the lower-key receivers to come out of the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft. He received nowhere near as much hype as Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson, Drake London or even Treylon Burks. Dotson wrapped up his rookie season finishing ahead of only Burks in receiving yards out of that group, due in large part to injuries and poor quarterback play. He played in only 12 games and finished as WR51 with 35 receptions for 523 yards – by no means a monster rookie season, but one that showed flashes of his potentially elite skillset.

Dotson will go into 2023 with Sam Howell at quarterback and while he has limited experience, he is certainly an upgrade on the quarterbacks Dotson played with for much of 2022. The combination of great route-runner Terry McLaurin and Dotson should form an electric 1-2 punch this season and with any level of competent play by Howell, Dotson should find himself climbing up the wide receiver ranks.

As mentioned previously, the other rookies in the 2022 first round all saw their fantasy stock skyrocket this off-season, even Burks whom Dotson outperformed. Dotson seems to be the forgotten man in this receiver class and is a great value at his current price.

Current Market Value

Right now, Dotson is the WR30 and 59.50 overall in July’s DLF ADP.

He finds himself in no man’s land as far as wide receiver ADP goes. This range is a mix of aging veterans and young, high-upside plays. Dotson does not have the safe floor of players like Chris Godwin and McLaurin, but there are few, if any, receivers in this range who offers his ceiling should he make that typical year two leap forward.

Zay Flowers is a rookie in a run-first offense and George Pickens is a highlight machine who offers no real consistency for fantasy. If I had to choose a youngster on this list, it would be Dotson without question. This time next season, expect him to be closer to the tier of Olave and Wilson and well above this group of players.

Future Outlook

The Commanders have an offense filled with question marks. The foundation of this potentially up-and-coming attack is a solid receiver duo of McLaurin and Dotson. If the Commanders have any chance of making noise in the NFC, it will require career years from both. We’ve seen the floor from Dotson in 2022. Injuries and bad quarterback play showed us what he can do in the absolute worst-case scenario. If he gets even close to an average-case scenario, he should easily break 1,000 receiving yards and will be a steal at his current ADP.

The most notable thing on Dotson’s stat line, aside from him missing extensive time, is his catch rate of 57.4%. He came into the 2022 NFL Draft known for his elite hands and catching ability. He was frequently among the NCAA leaders in catch rate as well as yards per catch, to see such a low catch rate shows you just how bad his quarterback play was in 2022. Howell has had an entire off-season to acclimate to the NFL game and for a quarterback who showed great ability to make money throws in his only start as a rookie, he should be more than sufficient to send Dotson into the stratosphere.

As you can see above, Dotson’s value has had its share of peaks and valleys, the highest peak centering around the final month of the 2023 season. This off-season he has been forgotten with the hype around the other 2022 rookie receivers and with the new class of 2023 receivers to worry about. This overcrowding of young receivers has caused him to lose a bit of steam and has led to a small decrease in his value. He is still holding firm in the middle rounds of drafts, but this should easily be the lowest point his price ever sees for the next five years. The time to buy low on the next big breakout stud receiver is now. Get him while you can!

Trade Options/Conclusion

Let’s use the DLF Trade Finder to look at Dotson trades.

These trades perfectly illustrate how lukewarm the market is on Dotson. Trade one sees him being packaged with two first-round picks in exchange for Terry McLaurin and Kenneth Walker. By the end of this season, Dotson will be a more valuable asset than McLaurin, and getting two first-round picks for Walker is a smash accept. Give me the Dotson side all day.

The second trade is a confusing one. If we ignore the swapping of first-round picks and the useless third-round picks, the deal essentially breakdown to Dotson and Robert Tonyan for Skyy Moore and Greg Dulcich. Tonyan has no value for me in this deal, but I would still smash the Dotson side as he has far more value than Dulcich and Moore combined.

The final trade sees Dotson and a second-round pick for Josh Jacobs. I like Jacobs’ outlook for 2023, but with so much uncertainty surrounding him, I would prefer the Dotson side unless I have a wealth of receivers to trade away and am completely desperate for running back help.

Faller: Brian Robinson, RB

Robinson has already begun his descent into fantasy irrelevance. Coming out of college the talent was never really there. He profiled best as just a between-the-tackles plodder. Throughout his rookie season, his ADP was sustained by being a former Alabama player, and the warm fuzzy feeling surrounding him and his feel-good comeback story.

oming into 2023, the Commanders have given every indication that they plan to turn the backfield over to Antonio Gibson, who is a far more explosive rusher and pass-catcher. While Robinson’s ADP has already seen a dip, it will fall right off a cliff once we get through a few games and managers see that Gibson is indeed the lead back in Washington. It won’t take long for this crash to hit, so trade away the warm and fuzzy feeling he gave everyone now before it’s a distant memory.

Current Market Value (ADP/Rankings)

He checks in at RB38 in DLF’s July ADP and there isn’t a player on this ADP list who I have ranked below him. We see some aging veterans who will still have more value in their Swan Songs than Robinson will have for the remainder of his career, and there are even a few rookies who have significantly more upside than him, most notably Roschon Johnson and Tank Bigsby.

If these are the running backs who are truly being drafted in his range, I will have no shares of him in 2023 drafts, in any format. Sell high on that vaunted Crimson Tide logo before managers forget about it entirely.

Future Outlook

Running back future outlooks are always a dicey proposition. Typically, it is best to view running back’s long-term outlook in a one- or two-year window as too much can happen to drastically change their value. So, with that in mind, and remembering my previous outlook for Robinson this season, the future outlook I have for him is that of waiver wire fodder. He is going to plummet in value very soon and will be relegated to fantasy football bench depth before becoming nothing more than a waiver wire add in the event of injury.

He finished his rookie season with 797 rushing yards on 205 carries – that’s 3.89 yards per carry. That number is far less than ideal and perfectly highlights the grinder nature of Robinson, add in the drafting of rookie Chris Rodriguez who possesses a nearly identical skillset to that of Robinson, and this is going to be a very disappointing sophomore season for him.

Trade Options/Conclusion

Once again, let’s look at the DLF Trade Finder for trade options.

There is not much to see here. Robinson is quickly becoming an afterthought and is little more than a throw-in piece in trades. The scary part is his value is going to go down much further. If you can get Jameson Williams from a manager who has given up on him you should do so, immediately! Even a second-round pick at this point is probably more likely to hit than Robinson.

If the above graphic is an accurate representation of his current value, you should be running to your league mates to trade him for anything on this list. Pick 1.12, Tua Tagovailoa, DeAndre Hopkins, every single asset on this graphic is considerably more valuable than Robinson, and it’s not even close.

Longshot: Sam Howell, QB

Path to Relevance

Thomas’ path to relevance is simple. Pull a Michael Jordan and rekindle your glory days at North Carolina.

This is going to sound crazy, and admittedly is only applicable to superflex leagues, but Howell is a quarterback I am targeting everywhere. I had the presence of mind to add him before his lone start as a rookie in several leagues and have been patient enough to hold him all off-season, but even if you have to draft him, his current cost makes him a sure bet when compared to his upside. Howell could have easily been the most talented of the quarterbacks drafted in 2022 (not exactly a high bar to exceed) and given his strong arm and accuracy, combined with the best-rushing upside of the class outside of Malik Willis, Howell could easily be the sophomore quarterback who takes the biggest leap in 2022. He could easily find himself as a mid to high-end QB2 by season’s end and is currently going off the board in drafts as a QB3.

Case Against Him

The case against him is easy: the Commanders’ offense remains stuck in the bottom third of the league and none of them take it to the next level. Howell could easily be a bust as well and is certainly anything but a sure thing. In his only start of 2022, he looked every bit capable of being an NFL starter, but who is the real Sam Howell? Is it the quarterback who scorched the earth in 2021 at UNC or the guy who fell apart once his weapons were left in 2022? Will the real Sam Howell please stand up?

Verdict

In the end, Howell is simply a low-risk and high-reward gamble. In superflex leagues, quarterbacks are king. So, if I can use a waiver claim or late-round pick on a potentially useful quarterback, it’s a bet worth making every time, even if it misses this time.