Throughout the NFL offseason, The Touchback will uncover some of the best fantasy football seasons you don’t remember. Today, we are looking at Dallas Clark riding Peyton Manning’s coattails to an impressive 2009 season. Click here to read about the other best fantasy football seasons you don’t remember.
Dallas Clark looked stupid. Not wearing gloves was stupid. A tight end sporting number 44 was stupid. It was stupid that defenses seemed completely unable to cover a guy with no discernible athletic ability.
The stupidity reached new heights when Dallas Clark put together a monstrous season in 2009 thanks to Peyton Manning who won the MVP that year. His usage tree was comically small. Clark and Reggie Wayne caught 100 passes and 10 touchdowns each. That accounted for more than 50 percent of the Nationwide pitchman’s completions and almost two-thirds of his passing scores.
What Clark did in 2009 was just as good as any season Antonio Gates ever had. It wasn’t quite a Rob Gronkowski level of statistical dominance, but Manning’s tight end was a league winner for a lot of fantasy football managers.
He finished the year with 100 receptions, 1106 yards and 10 touchdowns which was good enough to finish as the 18thranked player in PPR. And while Clark would have only been TE3 in 2020, his 271.2 fantasy points were nearly 100 more than Robert Tonyan, last season’s TE4.
| Position Finish (PPR) | Overall Finish (Standard/PPR) | |
| 2009 | TE1 | 44/18 |
| 2020 | TE3 | 49/24 |
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No bad games for Dallas Clark in 2009
Dallas Clark was remarkably consistent in 2009, at least when it came to PPR formats. He never finished a game with less than five points and recorded sub-10-point games only four times during the fantasy season.
The key to Clark’s success was the fact dude was almost always open on passes thrown between five and 15 yards. If you saw the Indianapolis Colts play in 2009, you already understand this. And if you didn’t watch them, well it’s kind of impossible to explain. Basically, Peyton Manning had a cheat code that ensured his tight end would be unguarded over the middle of the field.
All things considered, 2009 was an outlier for Clark. The tight end was good but never looked closed to being a 1,000-yard receiver. In fact, he only caught more than 60 passes in a season twice during an 11-year career.
Clark’s 2009 campaign would be his last as a meaningful fantasy football contributor. He was injured in 2010 and 2011 before bouncing around the NFL for a couple of years after that. The former Iowa Hawkeye never managed more than 500 yards or five touchdowns in a season again.
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Present day comparison
Tight ends like Dallas Clark don’t make it to the NFL anymore. It’s impossible to find a present day comparison because no team would let him run routes. He wasn’t particularly tall, fast or athletic. But he could sure play football and 2009 is proof of that. However, that doesn’t change the fact he looked stupid doing it.
