2023 NFL Breakouts: Second and third-year offensive players ready to explode ft. Desmond Ridder, George Pickens and more

#6, Greg Dulcich, Denver Broncos (TE)

Greg Dulcich will look to improve on his strong showing in the 2022 NFL season

After seeing the field for very limited stretches his first two years at UCLA as a former zero-star recruit, Greg Dulcich caught 68 passes for 1,242 yards and ten touchdowns over the course of 19 games, averaging 18.3 yards per grab.

He ended up going as the 80th overall pick in 2022, as the third tight end off the board in a draft, where teams decided to wait on the position. For comparison, this year there were already seven guys selected at that point.

As a rookie, he missed the first five and the final two games, starting the year on injured reserve and was at least behind Albert Okwuegbunam on the depth chart, with Eric Tomlinson and Eric Saubert also commanding extended playing time thanks to their blocking capabilities.

However, when he was available, he ended up actually playing 75% of offensive snaps and hauled in 33 of 55 targets for 411 yards and two touchdowns, for a top-ten mark at the position in yards per grab (12.5 yards). The 6’4”, 245-pound gliding runner split snaps basically perfectly between in-line and the slot, with the remaining six percent spent out wide.

Among tight-ends with 50+ targets last season, Dulcich finished 17th in yards per route run (1.3) and tied for tenth in target separation (3.5 yards), according to PlayerProfiler.com. The only TEs, who were targeted at least double-digit times, with a higher average depth of target (12.7 yards per) were Darren Waller and Kyle Pitts.

The most impressive nugget here is that the only two tight-ends with double-digit yards of ADOT and at least three yards of separation on average are Mark Andrews and this guy – who actually averaged 0.4 yards more of separation (3.5), according to Next Gen Stats.

UCLA used Dulcich on a ton of seam routes and benders, and that vertical usage translated pretty directly to the next level. A front-seven defender won’t be able to hang with him accelerating down the middle of the field, unless they completely sell out.

Watching Denver’s Week 14 game when they hosted the Chiefs, on the very first offensive snap they took a shot off deep play-action to their rookie TE on a corner-post route 50 yards down the field (even though the hang-corner in cover-three fell off to him and there wasn’t much of a chance for cashing in).

His ability to release cleanly and clear the second level in a couple of steps should allow this team to access a part of the field that typically is open early on in the play clock and that could force defenses to cater their coverages towards it.

Off that, there were a bunch of opportunities for chunk plays that weren’t taken advantage of, as he pushed at the safety to his side and then bent it to the post or broke across the field, with nobody underneath him, who could really do anything against a ball with a little bit of arc to it at least.

The Broncos used Dulcich’s ability to stress defenses down the hashes, curling up in the 15-20 yard range, even when they were on schedule in terms of down-and-distance.

That speed can also be utilized on a horizontal plane, where they ran him open on shallow crossers out of stacks or make it tough for the middle-of-the-field defenders to pick him up on mesh concepts. Yet, he would also be tagged with those big over routes coming in behind a deep post off play-action, which typically is a staple in the Shanahan offenses, working from reduced split or as the tip-man in tight bunch sets.

He’s dynamic in the way he plants and breaks out to the sideline, or when defenders have to worry about carrying him vertically before he throws in a little chicken wing to come open over the middle of the field. Defenses already showed him a ton of respect when he was the single receiver to his side, by regularly bracketing him with a defender in outside press and a safety sitting over him basically.

Particularly on routes out towards the sideline, the trust in his hands really shows up, because he would consistently pluck it at its earliest point, rather than most guys allowing it to get closer to their frame, peaking back at the quarterback at a fairly challenging angle.

Because of how reliable his hands are, Denver designed plays for him on some third-and-short or -mediums, where they threw him passes out of the flats off rubs or legit screens, despite having Courtland Sutton and Jerry Jeudy available.

Dulcich isn’t this elusive make-you-miss type of player in the open field, where most of his YAC come off him striding away from guys catching balls on the run, but he does pull out a nice spin move or jump-cut against the pursuit of defenders trying to barrel down in him. Plus, what I really like to see is him protecting the ball as he navigates around traffic, wrapping it tightly as defenders swipe at it from the side.

Dulcich needs to do a better job of using different speeds and forcing defenders to commit to the initial stem or break on double-moves, such as him not rushing through stick-nod routes in favor of making hook defenders believe they can undercut the out-break. He tips off his routes breaking toward the middle of the field a little bit and overall his intermediate route-running could use some refinement.

At this point, he’s fairly unproven at the NFL level in contested catch situations, of which he hauled in two of five as a rookie and Denver QBs had three interceptions throwing his way. That’s in part due to the fact he could do a better job of mid-pointing the space between zone defenders and not drifting toward traffic.

Physicality certainly is what’s missing the most from Dulcich’s game, where he tends to get hung up way too much by contact when defenses put somebody on him in press or were asked to jam him before bailing out in zone coverage. That reflects itself in a run-blocking grade of just 33.8 by PFF, where he tends to bear-hug defenders charging into him, doesn’t play with enough sink in his hips and therefore struggles to actually take control of reps.

You can’t fault him for missing effort, as he generally is able to get his hands on guys on the edge and not allow them to discard him quickly, whether that’s in the run game or some pass-pro. You’re just not going to be able to worry defenses with running towards him at the point, because he’s getting bent back by guys on the edge and mostly just keeps them from making the tackle.

While run-blocking was clearly the weakness of Dulcich’s game coming out of college, what I do appreciate is his effort in that regard. He takes away the space towards edge defenders and puts his body in the way, to where his man rarely actually makes the tackle.

He also does a nice job of squaring and holding up wide edge rushers on chips before releasing into the flats, where he also caught quite a few balls on leak routes off bootlegs.

We’ll have to see how much he can provide with a defender restricting his ability to cleanly attack the ball in the air, but he certainly provides a vertical component to where his gravity limits how defenses can approach spacing in zone coverage and who they can match him up with.

It would be completely unfair to compare Dulcich to Jimmy Graham, simply because they have certain differences in the profile they present already, but I could see Sean Payton using this guy in a similar light. If he now becomes more proactive with initiating and disengaging from contact as a route-runner, I believe he could turn himself into a real weapon.