Of all the wide receivers playing this weekend, Phillip Dorsett to me looks like the most underrated. When they’ve used him, he’s been surprisingly decent.
Dorsett hardly got on the field, recall, when the Patriots had Josh Gordon in the starting lineup. In the 10-game stretch starting in Week 6, Dorsett caught only 6 passes for 48 yards, with no touchdowns.
But when Dorsett has been given a chance to play, he’s been reasonably productive. In his other seven games, he’s caught 28 passes for 265 yards and 4 TDs – an average of 4 catches for 36 yards, with touchdowns in over half of those games.
Dorsett was on the field for over 45 percent of the team’s plays in each of those games (which appear in bold below). He was on the field for under 40 percent of their snaps in all of their other games (under 20 percent in most of them).
| DORSETT / MEANINGFUL PLAYING TIME | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Opp | Score | Snap% | No | Yds | Avg | TD |
| Hou. | W 27-20 | 76% | 7 | 66 | 9.4 | 1 |
| at Jac. | L 20-31 | 92% | 5 | 44 | 8.8 | 0 |
| at Det. | L 10-26 | 94% | 0 | 0 | -- | 0 |
| Mia. | W 38-7 | 70% | 4 | 55 | 13.8 | 1 |
| Ind. | W 38-24 | 61% | 3 | 25 | 8.3 | 0 |
| K.C. | W 43-40 | 4% | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| at Chi. | W 38-31 | 12% | 1 | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| at Buf. | W 25-6 | 7% | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| G.B. | W 31-17 | 17% | 3 | 30 | 10 | 0 |
| at Ten. | L 10-34 | 23% | 2 | 18 | 9 | 0 |
| at NYJ | W 27-13 | 13% | 2 | 10 | 5 | 0 |
| Minn. | W 24-10 | 22% | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| at Mia. | L 33-34 | 9% | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| at Pit. | L 10-17 | 3% | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| Buff. | W 24-12 | 36% | -- | -- | -- | -- |
| NYJ | W 38-3 | 57% | 5 | 34 | 6.8 | 1 |
| LAC | W 41-28 | 46% | 4 | 41 | 10.3 | 1 |
Basically, when Dorsett has gotten a chance to actually play, he’s been OK, catching touchdowns in three of his last four games.
On the field, Dorsett in his first season was mostly a field-stretching decoy. This year they’re more comfortable using him on more of their short routes; they trust him more in crucial situations.
Certainly, nobody should be counting on Dorsett to outperform guys like Michael Thomas, Tyreek Hill, Julian Edelman, Brandin Cooks and Robert Woods. I think I’d slot Sammy Watkins, Josh Reynolds and probably Ted Ginn ahead of him as well. But I think I’d put Dorsett above all the others for this week. I like him more than guys like TreQuan Smith, Keith Kirkwood, Chris Conley, Demarcus Robinson, Chris Hogan and Cordarrelle Patterson.
—Ian Allan