Charles Clay: 'It hasn't gone as I planned' | Page 3 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Charles Clay: 'It hasn't gone as I planned'

hooshoops said:
what's the deal with lazors old staple jake mcgee when he was at uva...i havent seen him on the field at florida...i thought he was eligible to play right away...

i don't really consider kelce to be a true tight end in all aspects but god that kids physically gifted and a smooth athlete...moves really well for his size...home run for kc for sure
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McGee got hurt on like the 5th play of the year and is out for the year at UF.
 
Tannenballs said:
Kudos to Hickey for not overpaying for 1 year of production. I'd like him back but at a modest rate. He's a good H-Back but he can't block inline and he isn't a redzone or seam threat. Still need a "true" tight end like Kelce.

I hate to break it to you, but this draft does not possess a strong tight end class.
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IMO Hickey or Lazor isnt big on TEs , what did Hickey have in Tampa ? AND they dont have routes for a TE in his Offence , Its not Clays Fault , Clay is to fast for any LBer to even run with him , we need to get Clay back into the picture , he is to good of a player to just be out there and NOT Target him,and IMO 6ft 5 is plenty tall enough as long as he is athletic and have 4.5 -4.6 speed and knows how to run routes .
 
jason_taylor said:
IMO Hickey or Lazor isnt big on TEs , what did Hickey have in Tampa ? AND they dont have routes for a TE in his Offence , Its not Clays Fault , Clay is to fast for any LBer to even run with him , we need to get Clay back into the picture , he is to good of a player to just be out there and NOT Target him,and IMO 6ft 5 is plenty tall enough as long as he is athletic and have 4.5 -4.6 speed and knows how to run routes .
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Pretty sure Lazor used the TE a lot when he was the OC at Virginia and Philly uses the TE a lot in the red zone.

Clay only runs 4.7...plenty of linebackers in the NFL that can run with him.
 
Clay has clearly been hampered by his knee. Dude doesn't look the same when he gets the ball in his hands. Looks very ginger avoiding contact instead of escaping or dishing it out.
 
datruth55 said:
Pretty sure Lazor used the TE a lot when he was the OC at Virginia and Philly uses the TE a lot in the red zone.

Clay only runs 4.7...plenty of linebackers in the NFL that can run with him.
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Last year we used Clay all over the field ,and none ,not 1 LBer could stay with him ,i havent seen enough this year to see if the injury is the case ,but , with the little use of clay this year , something isnt right with him .
 
Clay is a good player to have, but he`s far from elite status. Alot of his success last year came from breaking 3 tackles at a time and breaking free. The beast mode really makes a lasting impression from a great highlight reel, but fact of the matter is, those plays dont happen on a consistent enough basis to cover for other deficiencies. Sure its nice to have a player like that, but most of his spectacular plays come inept tackling from the opposition more than anything else...
 
LDaniel7 said:
How many times could he not be targeted because he couldn't separate or present himself as a proper target?

it's not just the targets you must look at, to evaluate his play.

And some of those drops were simply horrible, others just smh stuff. When the sure TD pass clanged off his hands in the back of the endzone -- with ONLY A DB contesting it! really?

A real TE goes up and highpoints that, bodies out the DB and makes the catch, making a DB play through his body to contest.

People trying to make Clay's performance so far better than what it is -- better use some of this:

turd_polish_thumb-1.jpg
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Fair point, and I have not watched Clay close enough to have an opinion on plays he was not targeted on. He has not played well, and I think it's for a few different reasons. Have you seen if the D's are paying more attention to him this year?
 
datruth55 said:
Egnew was a huge reach...hated that pick. Sims was a 4th round pick, that's not really placing a high value on the position...that's more like, we need an inline blocker. Keller was a free agent, and an injury prone one at that. Ireland signed him because he knew he could get him cheap and only signed him for a year. Out of all of those I think Egnew was the one that Ireland made an attempt on to "fix" the issue for good. Unfortunately Ireland, being the idiot that he is, failed to grab a TE in 2010 when the draft was overloaded with playmakers. We had a shot at Jermaine Gresham, Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham, Aaron Hernandez and Dennis Pitta...all of which turned out to be pretty good (and one a murderer but that's another story). There were a lot of angry Dolphin fans in the draft forum after that draft because we needed a TE and Ireland failed...again.

And I remember plenty of people wanted us to take Tyler Eifert in 2013 or Zach Ertz and we passed on both of those guys. It was pretty clear that Ireland didn't value skill position players...he valued D-line and O-line and that's usually what he drafted in the first two rounds of the majority of his drafts.
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True but, Ireland did also take a hard run at Jared Cook, with the Rams winning out by overpaying him. I don't believe that it was a lack of interest in getting a good TE, just opportunity.
 
Southbeach 2 said:
Fair point, and I have not watched Clay close enough to have an opinion on plays he was not targeted on. He has not played well, and I think it's for a few different reasons. Have you seen if the D's are paying more attention to him this year?
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The Ds aren't taking him away, if that's what you mean. That's part of the point I'm making: Clay is not like other TEs that affect a gameplan. Nor is he playing to a level where the coverages are mismatched by one on one -- whether LB or DB. Nor is he dominating a redzone by presented a dependable, uncoverable target in the middle of the field -- which is what you really need from your number one TE.

When I mentioned Clay being part of the Miami syndrome of putting players in starting positions simply b.c. of the talent overall not being there, that's really the case. Clay is a good all-around TE of the type that can flourish on an NFL team as a 2 or 3 TE hybrid. But as soon as a team depends on him as the number 1 TE, that tells you a lot about the team's talent level at the position. Not great.

Now, to be fair, do I think that Clay has been hampered by knee stuff? It does seem that way: you take a lower-level talented player and take away even a fraction of his mobility and he can fall off the face of the game pretty quickly. Hopefully he returns to the form of last year. But even last year Clay wasn't making great plays by individual talent or huge mismatches. His most memorable play in Pittsburgh was pure effort and will. That will take you so far, but eventually the high end talent has to be there.

Nothing against him, btw. Just hope that he can be the backup that he should be -- because the position will have been earned by a true number 1 TE.

LD
 
LDaniel7 said:
The Ds aren't taking him away, if that's what you mean. That's part of the point I'm making: Clay is not like other TEs that affect a gameplan. Nor is he playing to a level where the coverages are mismatched by one on one -- whether LB or DB. Nor is he dominating a redzone by presented a dependable, uncoverable target in the middle of the field -- which is what you really need from your number one TE. When I mentioned Clay being part of the Miami syndrome of putting players in starting positions simply b.c. of the talent overall not being there, that's really the case. Clay is a good all-around TE of the type that can flourish on an NFL team as a 2 or 3 TE hybrid. But as soon as a team depends on him as the number 1 TE, that tells you a lot about the team's talent level at the position. Not great. Now, to be fair, do I think that Clay has been hampered by knee stuff? It does seem that way: you take a lower-level talented player and take away even a fraction of his mobility and he can fall off the face of the game pretty quickly. Hopefully he returns to the form of last year. But even last year Clay wasn't making great plays by individual talent or huge mismatches. His most memorable play in Pittsburgh was pure effort and will. That will take you so far, but eventually the high end talent has to be there. Nothing against him, btw. Just hope that he can be the backup that he should be -- because the position will have been earned by a true number 1 TE. LD
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I absolutely agree with what you say.
 
What's all this talk about?

Clay was on a damn bike all of training camp, he's not healthy.

There's nothing else to it, he's a heck of a player when healthy.
 
Southbeach 2 said:
True but, Ireland did also take a hard run at Jared Cook, with the Rams winning out by overpaying him. I don't believe that it was a lack of interest in getting a good TE, just opportunity.
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By not overpaying doesn't that tell you he didn't place enough value on the TE position? Look around the league...every high powered offense has a TE that's a seam threat.
 
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