With Jahan Dotson traded to Philadelphia, a Commanders wide receiver room that was already “Terry McLaurin and what now?” has one less of the top options to be more than that question mark.
So how does Santana Moss see this shaking out, assuming the Commanders don’t make any other blockbuster moves to acquire a starting-level wideout?
“I think we’re all waiting to see it, because we really don’t know, but obviously these coaches have seen enough of the guys they have around – and who knows, man, I leave that door wide open for something down the road,” Moss said. “I’m very optimistic about the fact that anything and everything, until the fat lady sings and it's said and done, is possible. I’m gonna leave that door open that maybe we might stretch our arms – we got the money, you know what I'm saying?”
Read between the lines and maybe Moss was advocating for Brandon Aiyuk without saying his name, but if Aiyuk or someone else isn’t in the cards…
“I do believe that this staff has been doing their due diligence enough to know that they trust in something they're seeing from some of these other guys, especially a guy like Zaccheaus coming over, the way he's played in this league for five or six years now having one of those slot roles.
He might be a guy that they lean on to play that slot area,” Moss said. “Dyami Brown, we've been waiting for him to surface, and I think some people don’t understand that this league is nothing that you can just take for granted, you have to really come in and let the game slow down for you sometime. A lot of times they don't give you time to do that, but fortunately for him, this is Year 4, and it seems from what I'm seeing from preseason games that things are slowing down for Dyami, so I would hope he’s one of the guys to take advantage of that role.”
Oh, yeah, and there’s a pretty good rookie in that mix, too.
“Luke McCaffrey, we know the tree he comes from, and when you got a guy that's out there making the plays that I saw him make a week ago as a rookie, that’s not a lot of room,” Moss said. “And then you got a guy in Jamison Crowder, he's a veteran that can go out there and we know we can get production from him in the slot and outside if we need be, and also as a punt returner.”
So just because they traded the second biggest name in the room and didn’t have many to begin with, don’t sleep on the Commanders’ receiving corps.
“We look at it because it's not a lot of big names, but when you're trying to build a football team, you're trying to get the best for your buck,” Moss said. “If you can stretch one or two players because these guys play multiple positions, whether it's special teams or multiple wide receiver positions, then I might have to take a chance on losing a guy who I think has enough potential but not enough to go out here and beat out these guys, because I can get more out of these guys than I can get out of him.”