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Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Greg Dortch has been on a tear this season.
The 5-foot-7, 173-pound slot receiver finished third in the ACC in receptions in 2018 and second in receiving yards, but he went undrafted. After bouncing around multiple teams’ practice squads, he found a home in Arizona. He started the final two games of last season and made three catches for 15 yards.
In the first three games of 2022, he has 20 catches for 198 yards and a touchdown, and he ranks as the WR19 in PPR. Talk about a fantasy season.
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What Did Greg Dortch Do In Week 3?
Dortch had his biggest game yet in terms of receptions and yardage against the Rams. He hauled in nine of 10 targets for 80 yards. Lining up almost exclusively in the slot, he made all of his catches from within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage. Five catches came down the center of the field for 35 yards.
Dortch played 67 snaps and ran 53 routes. Both numbers were far and away above every other Arizona receiver except Marquise “Hollywood” Brown. A.J. Green, the usual No. 2 outside WR, missed the second half with a knee injury, but he only had two targets on 22 routes when he was in the game.
Green’s presence in the first two games hasn’t noticeably harmed Dortch’s production, either. Dortch has a higher targets-per-snap rate than Green and has had a higher PFF grade than Green in each game. But what will happen when Rondale Moore returns from injury?
What Is Greg Dortch’s Role In The Cardinals Offense?
Dortch is being used increasingly as a slot-only receiver. He has expanded his role there, from running 78% of his routes out of the slot in 2021 to 82% in Week 1 of 2022 to 89% in Week 2 and now 95% in Week 3. His slot usage seems to be good for his production. He has a higher yards-per-route-run in the slot than out wide and has caught all but one of his passes while operating out of the slot.
The problem could come when Rondale Moore returns from injury (hamstring), which could be this week. Moore, a second-round draft choice in 2021, was the team’s No. 2 slot receiver last season behind Christian Kirk, who left for Jacksonville in the offseason. Moore took 71% of his targets from plays lined up in the slot. He was considered a breakout candidate by some before the season started.
Moore is just about the same size as Dortch, at 5-foot-7, 180 pounds. He commanded the same college target share as him. And Moore has a similar profile as Dortch, in terms of being high agility—but he outscores Dortch in just about every category on Player Profiler.
Is there room for both of them in the same offense?
Will Greg Dortch Lose His Spot?
Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury said he hopes he can find a way to feed both Dortch and Moore. He was quoted by SI’s FanNation All Cardinals blog as saying, “[Moore] is a unique player and we want to be able to utilize all that he can do. But I think Dortch has stepped in and performed as well as we could have hoped. So it'd be nice to have them all back and find a way to utilize all those guys.”
Coaches make so much coach-speak, but given what we’ve seen from both Dortch and last season from Moore, and given how thin the Cardinals are at receiver, it would be foolish not to utilize them. They have both played much better than A.J. Green.
| PFF Grade | Catch Rate | Drop Rate | Yards/Route Run | Lined Up Wide % | |
| Greg Dortch (2022) | 65.1 | 87.0% | 0.0% | 1.46 | 10.5% |
| Rondale Moore (2021) | 71.2 | 84.4% | 3.6% | 1.64 | 19.3% |
| A.J. Green (2022) | 49.3 | 41.7% | 28.6% | 0.30 | 86.8% |
Moore has had more success lining up wide than Dortch has. He actually had a slightly higher yards-per-route-run figure from out wide than from inside. In eight games last season, he lined up out wide for 20% or more of his snaps. So the Cardinals could rotate things around, putting Moore out wide, instead of Green, a little bit more often and sharing time in the slot.
They could also deploy four WR sets. The Cardinals did so last season to great effect in Week 6 against the Browns, with Rondale Moore and Christian Kirk both lining up in the slot on a number of plays.
It’s just speculation now. We don’t know how Kingsbury will run the offense until we see it. But even if Dortch remains fantasy viable for a few more weeks, he faces another hit to his value in Week 7. When DeAndre Hopkins returns from suspension, every receiver will fall one slot down the depth chart.
Should I Add or Keep Greg Dortch On My Fantasy Football Team?
As someone who got a few good weeks out of Greg Dortch on a couple of my fantasy teams, I am sad to say this, but I don’t think Dortch is a good start anymore. I do not think you should add him. And if he is not worth adding, then he is not worth keeping. It might be worth it to keep him on your bench in Week 4 to see what happens. But it is almost guaranteed that he will see less volume than he did before. Then when Hopkins comes back, there won’t be much left after D-Hop, Marquise Brown, and Moore all take their shares.
It was a great ride while it lasted. Hopefully, Dortch can profit from having seized this opportunity and find a team that will give him a sustained role.
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