The Greg Dortch addition already has one obvious lane in Buffalo: punt returner. With 99 career punt returns and an 11.6 yards-per-return average in 2025, he gives the Bills a proven option on special teams, and that alone makes the Monday signing make sense.
But Dortch brings more than return ability, and that’s where the move gets interesting.
Buffalo spent the Joe Brady era trying to upgrade a receiver room that was thin and inconsistent a year ago, then got hit by injuries on top of it. Down the stretch, the Bills were leaning on Tyrell Shavers, Gabe Davis, Mecole Hardman, and Brandin Cooks, with Hardman and Cooks both arriving in November. Josh Allen’s final two targeted throws of Buffalo’s 2025 season went to Hardman and Cooks, and neither was completed.
That context is why Dortch is worth a closer look. The Bills added D.J.
Moore in the first move of the new regime, then followed with fourth-round pick Skyler Bell. Outside of those two, there hasn’t been much new blood at receiver.
Dortch, who has 145 career catches, offers something Buffalo has needed for two seasons now: man-coverage separation.
After the 2024 loss in Houston, when Allen had one of his least productive throwing performances, the postgame talk centered on receivers not getting open. Two weeks later, Amari Cooper was on the roster and caught a touchdown from Allen in a rout of the Tennessee Titans.
Buffalo still finished that year with 525 points, a 13-4 record, an AFC Championship Game trip, and an Allen MVP, but the team didn’t add much more at receiver. In 2025, the separation issue was still there. Palmer was the only Bills receiver above average in man-coverage average separation score in the Fantasy Points film-based metric, and Pro Football Focus’ separation chart told a similar story.
Dortch doesn’t have the same volume as Buffalo’s main receivers from last season, since he didn’t run 300 routes in Arizona. That small sample matters. Still, his 26th-place finish among 149 receivers in man-coverage separation is the kind of number that jumps out for a team that has struggled to create space since the Stefon Diggs era ended.
There’s also a familiar Bills comp here: Isaiah McKenzie. Dortch can function in a similar role, only with more twitch and more juice after the catch.
He forced 25 missed tackles over the past two seasons on 79 targets. McKenzie forced 29 missed tackles on 214 targets across his seven-year NFL career.
Dortch’s usage in Arizona also points to how Buffalo could deploy him. His career average depth of target is 4.8 yards, and last season it was just 1.7 yards, basically making him a designated screen option. That kind of role has worked in Buffalo before; in 2020, Allen posted a 141.9 passer rating on targets to McKenzie.
If the Bills are planning to get Dortch onto the 53-man roster sooner rather than later, they shouldn’t box him in as a returner only. He can handle punts and kickoffs, sure. But Buffalo should also let him do what he does best as a receiver: get open and turn catches into extra yards.
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