For the first three years of his NFL career, Kevin Dotson was playing for his childhood favorite team, realizing a lifelong dream of being a Pittsburgh Steeler.
Then, in the blink of an eye before the start of his fourth season, Dotson was on the move, this time to the other side of the country to play for the Los Angeles Rams following a trade.
That trade ultimately worked out for Dotson. He has developed into a solid starting right guard for the Rams in the last two seasons, signing a lucrative extension last offseason before hitting free agency. But that trade from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles still sticks with Dotson.
“I kind of felt blindsided a little bit overall. I didn’t really understand. I didn’t believe that I did bad, production wise, or anything like that,” Dotson said regarding the Aug. 23, 2023, trade on NFL Spotlight with Ari Meirov, which published Tuesday morning on YouTube. “I was told that…this is a competition, you’re going to compete for it, but you can kind of tell when it’s not and once it did that, I just knew that I couldn’t mess my reputation up by being a cancer to the team or anything like that.
“So I just kept it rolling, always kept a good attitude, just waiting for my chance. I knew just if I got a chance to go somewhere else, I was gonna stamp my name on it. So, it’s one of those things where there’s no point in worrying about it. I’m gonna do my thing once I get a chance.”
The trade of Dotson to the Rams came late in preseason when Dotson was a backup guard behind Isaac Seumalo and James Daniels, both of whom the Steelers gave sizable contracts to during free agency ahead of the 2022 and 2023 seasons.
Add that the Steelers had signed veteran interior OL Nate Herbig in free agency, too, and the writing was on the wall for Dotson, who struggled at times as a starter of the Steelers at left guard, despite being a right guard in college.
In the trade, the Steelers swapped 2024 fourth- and fifth-round picks with Los Angeles. The Steelers received the Rams’ fourth while the Rams got the Steelers’ fifth. That fourth-round pick turned out to be Tennessee running back Jaylin Wright to the Miami Dolphins at No. 120 overall after the fourth rounder was dealt by the Steelers to the Eagles along with QB Kenny Pickett, leading to the Eagles trading it to the Dolphins for a 2025 third-round pick.
The Steelers’ fifth rounder to Los Angeles changed hands from the Rams to the Panthers to the Colts to the Eagles, resulting in Philadelphia selecting linebacker Jeremiah Trotter Jr. Quite the whirlwind.
For Dotson, the trade might have been a bit of a blindside, but he seized the opportunity and ran with it. He’s become a solid starting right guard, providing leadership and dependability in the trenches for the Rams under head coach Sean McVay.
That later led to a huge three-year, $48 million deal with the Rams last March. At the time of the signing, Dotson was the fourth-highest paid guard in the NFL. Now, he’s the sixth-highest paid guard in the NFL behind Trey Smith, Chris Lindstrom, Robert Hunt, Samuel Cosmi, and Quinn Meinerz, according to OverTheCap.com.
