There's a lot of hype around late-round tight ends like Vance McDonald, Jared Cook, Virgil Green, and Jesse James. And for good reason. But in this weird area after all the starting tight ends leave the draft board and before these fliers is one Charles Clay.
Last season wasn't fantastic for Clay, but he missed three games and was still able to haul in 51 receptions for well over 500 yards and 3 scores. He saw 5.92 targets per game, which prorates to about 95 over the course of a 16-game season, a number that would've ranked in the top 10 last year at the position.
And that volume should be there in 2016 on this run-first team. The only real competition for targets is Sammy Watkins, and the Bills' injuries on the defensive side of the ball may lead to a little more passing than they saw last year. It's actually kind of hard to run as much as they did last season -- they had a 1.00 drop-back-to-run ratio, when only nine teams over the last five years have seen a lower rate.
It's possible that Clay sees 18% or so of the team's targets this year, which would lead to about 90 targets in a run-heavy team. To get that volume at the tight end position for free is...kind of amazing.