“So that’s who’s going to be the Buffalo Bills punt returner this season,“ the thoughts of many fans after the report and subsequent team announcement of the Greg Dortch signing on Monday.
With 99 career punt returns in the NFL, which includes a hefty 11.6 yards-per-return average in 2025, Dortch’s presence on the Bills (practice squad) roster does in fact mean Buffalo now has an experienced punt returner.
And for as much as this signing feels like a savvy move born from special-teams desperation, I’m sneaky into Dortch as a supplemental receiving weapon within the Bills offense this season.
The first move of the Joe Brady era was trading for D.J. Moore. Clearly, the new regime deemed it most vital to upgrade a receiver room that, frankly, was one of the least dynamic in football last year. Couple the original relative lack of premier talent with an unusually high amount of injuries… and the Bills were forced to lean on Tyrell Shavers, Gabe Davis, Mecole Hardman, and Brandin Cooks, the latter two signed in November, down the stretch. And it just so happened that Josh Allen’s final two targeted throws of Buffalo’s 2025 season were to Hardman and Cooks, neither of which were completed, of course.
Because Moore and fourth-round pick Skyler Bell were the only two receivers of genuine importance added to the Bills receiver contingent this offseason… heck yeah I’m intrigued by the possibilities of a newly signed veteran wideout with 145 career catches on his NFL resume to date.
And I believe Dortch can help to provide the Bills receiver room with what it has collectively needed for the past two seasons — man-coverage separation ability.
Remember after the 2024 loss in Houston to the Texans — one of Allen’s least-productive throwing performances — when all anyone could talk about afterward was his receivers’ inability to get open? Two weeks later, Amari Cooper was on the team and caught a touchdown from Allen in a throttling of the Tennessee Titans.
Incredible team ball security and ridiculous play from Allen anchored Buffalo’s highest-scoring units in team history that year, and the Bills got the ever-so-close to reaching a Super Bowl.
But the 525 points, 13-4 record, AFC Championship Game appearance, and Allen MVP hardware didn’t exactly push the Bills to add more to the receiver position, and in 2025, the separation problem continued. Look for the Bills logos in the bottom left (see: the undesired portion) of this visual:
Palmer’s man-coverage average separation score (hilariously referred to as ASS), represented the only Bills receiver to be above average in this Fantasy Points (film-based) metric. Pro Football Focus’ separation visual looks very similar.
And Dortch can get open… against man coverage, he just doesn’t appear in the above picture because he didn’t run 300 routes last season in Arizona. Yes, therefore, his small sample size needs to be considered.
Here’s how Dortch compared to the Bills main receivers from a season ago in average separation score, among the 149 receivers who ran at least 200 routes:
*quickly, on ASS, from the Fantasy Points site:“it’s film-based metric that measures how well a pass catcher (wide receiver, tight end, or running back) creates space from defenders using their own route-running skill on a play-by-route basis.” At Fantasy Points, they also explain their -2 to +2 grading scale and provide examples of what constitutes each individual grade when tabulating average separation score.
If you’re wondering whether ASS correlates to success whatsoever, the Top 10, in order, in 2025 were Davante Adams, Mike Evans, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, KeVontae Turpin, Zay Flowers, Puka Nacua, DeMario Douglas, Ricky Pearsall, Ja’Marr Chase, and Amon-Ra St. Brown. Goodness. The 2024 and 2023 Top 10s in average separation score were just as star-loaded.
While skeptics would have ground to stand on suggesting a dip in ASS production from Dortch if he ran more than 206 routes in 2025, his 26th-place finish among 149 receivers in man-coverage separation should leap off that graphic, particularly for a team that has been as separation-challenged as the Bills in the post Stefon Diggs era.
From summoning one past Bills receiver to another — Dortch has the skill set to become Isaiah McKenzie 2.0 in this offense. Plus, he’s a twitchier athlete and unquestionably better after the catch. Dortch has forced 25 missed tackles the past two seasons on 79 targets. McKenzie forced 29 missed tackles on 214 targets in his seven-year NFL career.
To date, Dortch’s average depth of target (aDOT) in the NFL is a paltry 4.8 yards. Heck, last season it was on 1.7 yards — in essence he was Arizona’s designated screen weapon. In 2020, when Allen had a 141.9 passer rating on targets for McKenzie, the gadget receiver’s aDOT was 4.4 yards downfield.
If we’re to expect Dortch on the 53-man roster sooner than later, and the club wasn’t too keen on keeping a “returner-only” on the initial roster, the Bills should allow Dortch to provide them everything he has to offer, which includes, of course, returning punts and kickoffs but also getting open — and creating post-catch — as a receiver.