To Be Tight, You've Got To Be Loose

To the defensive backs he has beaten on a play called Ghost to the Post there is nothing at all friendly about Dave Casper , the Oakland Raiders ' All-Pro tight end. For two seasons he has consistently bewildered NFL defenders and for almost as long he fooled his own coach, although in a different way.

"If you look at the way Casper carries himself," John Madden says, "you think he's dead. Watch him going back to the huddle; he looks worn out. In the first two years he was here, I used him as a spot player because I didn't think he had the stamina for a full game. He should have been a starter in his second year. There's never been a more deceptive athlete in that way than Ghost."

If Madden was wrong about the 6'4", 230-pound Casper , the Raiders ' leading receiver in each of the last two seasons—101 receptions for 1,275 yards and 16 touchdowns—blame it on Casper 's perplexing position as much as on his deceptive bearing. The tight end is an anomaly—half offensive lineman, half receiver. "I call us bastards," says Denver 's Riley Odoms. "We're a combination of every position on the field."

A tight end must be at once large, strong and swift. In a sense he's the football equivalent of a decathlete, whose mastery of, say, the shotput often comes at the expense of, say, the 1,500 meters.

At his best, a tight end is both a drive-blocking lineman who is the key to a strongside rushing attack and a pass receiver who can break a zone defense by running a deep route with speed. Few athletes are so gifted as to excel at these disparate tasks. "A tight end has to take as much pride in his blocking as his receiving," says Russ Francis of New England , who, like Casper , shines in both arts. "Catching a touchdown pass is an obvious, enjoyable thing, the most glorious kind of moment you have in a game; blocking generally goes unnoticed except by your teammates and the coaching staff. But good blocking is the best way to earn respect. I enjoy it and I'm always working on it."

"I really think they are equal aspects of the job," says Casper . "From week to week you have to look at your game to find out exactly what it is you're doing worse and that's what you have to work on. There are guys who get a kick out of practicing only what they do best and making themselves feel good, but I think if you're going to practice seriously, you sometimes have to say, 'Well, I better go hit a few sleds.' It's pretty boring but it's simply got to be done."

Not every tight end is blessed with the all-round skills of Casper and Francis , though Billy Joe DuPree of the world-champion Cowboys and the Redskins ' Jean Fugett, a '77 All-Pro, come close. Pro scouts say that Odoms, Dave Hill of Detroit and Henry Childs of New Orleans (who had nine scoring receptions last year) rank just below those four. Walter White of Kansas City compensates for his run-of-the-mill blocking by excelling as a receiver, much the same as Bob Trumpy did during his career at Cincinnati . Matching Casper with 48 receptions last year, White was the Chiefs ' leading receiver with 674 yards and five touchdowns, certainly more than the club expected in 1975, when White was acquired for the $100 waiver price.

While a tight end's ability often dictates what an offense can do, especially with its running game, not every team fully utilizes the tight end. The Vikings play theirs much the same as teams did in the early '60s, primarily as a blocker and short-yardage receiver. So do the Patriots . The 6'6" Francis , who is the fastest 240-pounder in the NFL , caught only 16 passes last season for 229 yards and four touchdowns. Double-team defenses worked him over, to be sure, but the statistics bear out the notion that Francis ' remarkable talent has yet to be exploited.

Although this is true about the best of these men, the position has gradually become more prominent in the NFL , and this season it should figure even more conspicuously. As receivers, tight ends will bear watching by defenses and fans alike for the simple reason that a new official will be looking at them, too.

In recent seasons, with the exception of Tampa Bay 's Kamikaze quarterbacks, few football players have been battered more than tight ends going out for passes. Working in "blind" areas of the field, they were held, tripped and pummeled with near impunity. Up to now, such violations have gone unnoticed and unpunished by game officials whose attention has been focused on other areas of the field. In one game in Pittsburgh , Casper was held so often and so tenaciously that his jersey was yanked out of his pants a dozen times. Still, no Steelers were penalized, and Casper just kept on tuckin'. A few days later the league office fined the Raiders $250 for Casper 's dangling shirttail, a uniform violation.