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Two Cardinals Who Need More Playing Time After Bye Week

The Arizona Cardinals enter the final stretch of games needing to win out - these two players can help in just that.

Donnie Druin

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The Arizona Cardinals have just a 1% chance to make the postseason, according to FiveThirtyEight. 

Sitting at 4-8, the Cardinals need to win out and have some major help along the way. It's a giant ask, but Arizona can now only control what they control. 

By now, the Cardinals are well established in who is a regular starter and who is merely a rotational player. 

However, there's some hope that Arizona took their bye week and evaluated their play. Will we see any changes moving forward? Potentially. 

Choosing one player on each side of the ball, these two Cardinals should see an increase in playing time the rest of the way:

Two Cardinals Who Need More Playing Time

Cameron Thomas

Defense: Cameron Thomas

With any rookie, Cameron Thomas was slowly introduced to the field at State Farm Stadium. As a third-round pick tasked with playing a part in helping replace Chandler Jones, the shoes to fill were quite large. 

Thankfully, Thomas wasn't asked to solely fill those (pun intended), but over the course of the season his development has been fun to watch. 

In the first four weeks of the year, Thomas played a combined 17 snaps. Since then, he's only played two games where he didn't record at least ten snaps. 

While he's not producing monster numbers, he's demonstrated a consistent effort to get to the quarterback. 

Now, down the final stretch of the season, more playing time for Thomas would not only ensure his development continues on schedule but also provides a boost in the pass-rushing department opposite of Markus Golden.

Greg Dortch

Offense: Greg Dortch

Look, we're not sure how many times this needs to be screamed from the mountain tops: Greg Dortch is a damn good football player. 

The only problem? He's essentially the backup to Rondale Moore, who is tough to replace on the field and in the heart of Kliff Kingsbury. 

But there's really no excuse for Dortch (who has played 40% of snaps) to sit behind A.J. Green (47%) when the two have produced vastly different results when given opportunities.

Often times it feels like Kingsbury gets too caught up and personnel, packages, etc. At the end of your day, you need your best players on the field. 

When he was used in the first three weeks of the year, Dortch averaged 6.6 receptions for 66 yards and also found the end zone once playing as the No. 2 behind Marquise Brown. 

Before suffering a thumb injury, Dortch reeled in nine receptions for 103 yards after Moore went down vs. San Francisco. 

Dortch is not DeAndre Hopkins or Brown, but he sure is a stud when he's on the field. Hopefully the coaching staff is able to notice that, too. 

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Donnie Druin
DONNIE DRUIN

Donnie Druin is the Publisher for All Cardinals and Inside The Suns. Donnie moved to Arizona in 2012 and has been with Fan Nation since 2018. In college he won "Best Sports Column" in the state of Arizona for his section and has previously provided coverage for the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona State Sun Devils. Follow Donnie on Twitter @DonnieDruin for more news, updates, analysis and more!

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