ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Sammy Watkins and LeSean McCoy are healthy and making plays, and if both can stay on the field, the Buffalo Bills stand a chance of continuing their late-season winning streak and making a run at a playoff berth.
Yet the success of the Bills' offense shouldn't hinge on Watkins and McCoy providing a spark, as they did in Sunday's back-and-forth, 28-21 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Bills invested a guaranteed $24.5 million in tight end Charles Clay, luring him away from the Miami Dolphins as a transition-tagged free agent in March 2015. Twenty-four games into his Bills career, it is fair to say Clay has underproduced, especially when the Bills' offense has been shorthanded because of numerous injuries to wide receivers and running backs.
The biggest contributions from Clay, who caught 69 passes for 759 yards in his best season in 2013, have come as a run-blocker. Pro Football Focus has graded him as the NFL's second-best run-blocking tight end this season, which is important for an offense that has gained 46.3 percent of its offensive yards from runs -- over seven percentage points more than any other team in the NFL this season.
However, the Bills are not paying Clay to merely block. Former offensive coordinator Greg Roman -- fired after two games this season -- sold Clay as a multidimensional player after Clay signed a risky five-year, $38 million offer sheet the Bills thought would both bolster their offense while dealing a blow to the division-rival Dolphins. Around the same time, coach Rex Ryan nicknamed his new tight end "Cassius Clay" because of the money his team doled out to bring him to Buffalo.
The matchup problems and big-play ability Clay was expected to offer have not materialized. Despite having the NFL's seventh-highest average annual contract value among tight ends, Clay ranks 28th among his position in receiving yards per game and 28th in yards per catch. With 36 catches for 323 yards, Clay is on pace for 469 receiving yards, which would be his least-productive season since 2012. His average of 9.0 yards per catch is the lowest of his career, and Clay has yet to score a touchdown this season. Clay's last touchdown came Week 13 of last season and his last touchdown in the red zone -- and his only with the Bills -- came in Week 2 of last season.
There have been several theories floated by observers of the Bills as to why Clay has underperformed, all with some degree of validity:
Clay has not been getting open.
Quarterback Tyrod Taylor has not been throwing to Clay when he has been getting open.
Clay has been bothered by a long-standing knee condition that has frequently landed him on the injury report and kept him out of Wednesday practices.
Roman and current offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn have not designed plays to get Clay the ball.
While the truth is likely a combination of all of those factors, both Ryan and Taylor have hinted that Clay isn't getting open enough to warrant more passes being thrown his way.
"I can’t pinpoint a specific reason," Taylor said on Nov. 23. "I’ve always said, 'Coverage dictates where the ball goes.' I know he’s excited to come out there and play once he’s given the opportunity for the big game. We’ve been able to give him the football and some touches here and there. We haven’t been able to get him the game that he’s looking for and we want him to have that. Just gotta continue to keep pounding away and hopefully we get that game."
"[We're] not forcing the issue," Ryan said Nov. 21. "We’re not just focused on getting him the football. We’ll look at the matchups. Sometimes it’s more favorable than others. But when you have 480 [total offensive] yards against Seattle [in Week 9], I think that was a positive regardless of how many catches [Clay] has or whatever."
The Bills totaled 425 yards in their 31-25 loss Nov. 7 to the Seahawks partly because of a career-best 162 receiving yards from Robert Woods. Clay has yet to top 73 receiving yards in a game this season, even when the Bills have been without Woods (foot and knee injuries), Watkins (foot), McCoy (hamstring and thumb) and Percy Harvin (migraines) at various points through their first 11 games.
It will be difficult for the Bills if they are unsatisfied with Clay and want to upgrade from him in 2017. In order to create salary-cap space last February, the Bills converted a $10 million roster bonus into a signing bonus, spreading out that guaranteed money over the remaining four years of his deal. That means the Bills would actually lose $4.5 million in salary-cap space if they released Clay before June 1, 2017, making it highly likely that he remains in Buffalo until at least 2018.