Jahan Dotson is tossing a football in the air to himself as he walks across the Lasch practice fields on a sunny afternoon in State College. It’s the first day of spring practice, and for the first time in ages Dotson isn’t in pads for it.
“Aren’t you a little old to be here?” someone quips. Dotson just laughs, ball floating back up into the air and then back down into his hands.
“Yea probably,” he says with a smile.
Dotson is always carrying a football – this one he picked off a gym floor while he was in Arizona working out with a few teammates ahead of Pro Day. An NFL ball is a bit bigger than an NCAA one, a small change but a symbolic one as Dotson’s life changes from one as a student-athlete to that of a professional football player.
The ball goes up, it comes back down, landing softly in a pair of hands that have done the same routine thousands of times before.
Up, down, secure.
There is admittedly a silliness to Dotson working out in front of general managers, scouts and coaches on Thursday. He bench pressed much better, which was his only goal on Thursday – “I definitely want to prove that I’m strong guy,” Dotson said. “I can compete with the best, I’ve pretty much done it on film. So coming out here and bench and throwing up a number was big for me.”
But then he and quarterback Sean Clifford took the field to play catch, Dotson running routes, Clifford delivering throws on the numbers or to outreached hands. The duo hold Penn State’s program record for the most touchdowns between a receiver and quarterback, so the connection is there.
“That’s my guy the past three years,” Dotson said of Clifford. “I felt the most comfortable with him. So I kind of made sure that he was going to be the guy out here throwing to me and it was beautiful.”
Beautiful is the word that you could use to describe a lot of things about how Dotson plays. Some receivers labor through their routes, their catches sound loud, slapping into gloves. Their cuts sound like a machine of muscle twisting and turning, grunts and winces as they execute a route. There is something visceral to it, but for Dotson it’s simply silence.
His cuts, his turns, his catches. It all looks so effortless, it sounds like someone doing exactly what they were born to do.
It turns a brief period of Thursday’s event into a clinic rather than a workout, nobody needed to see Jahan Dotson catch passes because everyone knows that’s what he does. Dotson didn’t need to prove that point to anyone, but he did it again on Thursday because who doesn’t like watching someone make something hard look so easy.
Of course there is still more to go between now and the day Dotson hangs up the jersey. He has to get drafted first, he has to play first, he has to pack up boxes and move and then probably move again and again as he career goes along. And where that first moving truck is headed is anyone’s guess.
“My dad is bringing it up all the time. ‘You’re going to the Chiefs,’” Dotson say mocking his dad. “I don’t know that, and you don’t know either, Dad.”
However it does work out, it’s going to work out. That in and of itself is a relief for a family that has seen Jahan go from a quiet kid busting ankles growing up to perhaps the best receiver in the upcoming NFL Draft. The story isn’t done and neither is the journey, but as Dotson’s family watches him run, watches him glide, watches him catch – all those longs drives and early morning feel like they’ve been worth it.
Because their son is doing exactly what he’s supposed to. And there is joy in that, no matter who calls his name, or when.
“I truly believe I’m the best receiver in the draft.” And he might very well be.
