Miami Dolphins rookie tight end Charles Clay starting to catch on in hybrid role

The Palm Beach Post

By Brian Biggane

Nov. 11, 2011

Dolphin linebacker Kevin Burnett equates rookie tight end Charles Clay to a young offensive lineman so raw he hasn’t learned how to hold and get away with it.

“You just have to do it for one second, which is all you need,” Burnett said. “Once (Clay) learns the game, once he figures out how to use all his tools, he’ll go from being a good player to a great player.”

The Dolphins’ sixth-round pick out of Tulsa, Clay made his biggest splash in last week’s 31-3 rout of Kansas City, catching three passes, including back-to-back receptions of 21 and 22 yards on the second-quarter drive that gave Miami a 14-3 lead.

“He’s been maturing into his role,” said tight end Anthony Fasano, who capped that three-play drive with a 35-yard touchdown catch. “That position is a lot mentally, but he’s been feeling a lot more comfortable in it.”

The role that the 6-foot-3, 239-pound Clay has been assigned is complex. As an H-back, running back and tight end he’s lined up on the line, in the slot and in the backfield. It helps that he did pretty much the same thing in college.

“We moved him around, and in his junior and senior years he really developed into a complete player,” Tulsa coach Bill Blankenship said. “He’s a football player. He created a lot of matchup problems for us.”

A tailback at Central High School in his native Little Rock, Ark., Clay was used as a tight end at Tulsa “because we really didn’t have one on the team,” he said. He caught a career-high 69 passes for 1,024 yards and seven TDs as a freshman.

As his career progressed, his multi-purpose skills were a great help to his team but not so much to his pro prospects, as pro scouts continually questioned where he’d play at the next level.

“That was the toughest thing for him, not having a definitive role,” Blankenship said. “Most (NFL personnel types) wanted him to be either a tight end or fullback, but Charles is a hybrid guy. It limited some of his options in terms of how teams wanted to utilize him, but I kept telling myself the guy can play.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way,” Clay said. “(The versatility) helps more than it hurts.”

Maybe, but offensive coordinator Brian Daboll struggled to find a spot for him in the offense early on. He was targeted only once and didn’t have a catch in the first three games, and had only two catches in the first five.

A nifty one-handed grab for a 29-yard gain against Denver may have been a turning point. In the last three games he’s caught all five passes thrown his way and leads the team in average yards per catch at 18.4.

“You don’t see many tight ends leading their teams in that statistic,” Burnett said. “When you do, they’re great ones.”

Burnett, who often winds up covering Clay in practice, sees that kind of potential.

“Once he gets another year in the league, once he has a full year of lifting, running, catching, all that stuff, he’ll be so much better. Right now he’s just dangerous, because he doesn’t know how good he can be.”

Clay understands that he still needs to improve his blocking. Perhaps that’s why he got so excited when his downfield block took out the last defender on Reggie Bush’s 28-yard TD run last week.

“That was a huge play,” coach Tony Sparano said. “You make winner plays, and that was a winner play. He has (tight ends coach) Dan Johnson working with him, and he’s one of the best blocking tight ends I’ve been around. So he’s learning leverage, he’s learning footwork.

“If he ever figures that part of it out with some of the other things he does well you’ve got a pretty good player.”