Max Klare

● Athletic in his releases and quickly enters routes ● Swift, long strides to eat up grass on seams and crossers ● Able to throttle down and make sharp, fluid cuts as both a route runner and ball carrier ● Shows basic understanding of how to sell defenders with his hips and eyes ● Tracks the ball naturally and makes adjustments to snare mid-stride ● Uses late, well-timed hands to finish tight-window catches ● Will drop his pads and finish strong when the sticks are in sight ● Competitive blocker who can wall off lanes or run his feet once he engages ● NFL scouts say he works hard behind the scenes (weighed just 215 pounds when he got to college)

● Lean frame, with marginal mass and tapered lowers ● Needs to continue to develop upper- and lower-body strength ● Can be jolted off his spot when trying to seal defensive ends ● Consistency can improve as a stalk blocker in space ● Needs to get better with finer points of route running ● Can make a defender miss with his burst but often goes down at first contact ● Fumbled three times over past two seasons — needs to pay close attention to ball security ● Missed second half of redshirt freshman season because of right ankle injury (Oct. 2023) ● Averaged fewer than four targets per game in 2025

A one-year starter at Ohio State (and two-and-a-half-year starter overall), Klare was used across the formation in head coach Ryan Day’s offense, alternating between the slot, backfield, wing and inline. After a breakout 2024 season at Purdue, he transferred to Columbus and had high expectations in the Buckeyes’ offense. However, he was underutilized in the passing game, in large part because of all the mouths Ohio State had to feed (his percentage of catches that went for 10-plus yards dropped from 60.8 in 2024 to 39.5 in ‘25). Klare is a good-looking athlete and shows speed and urgency that suggest he has yet to play his best football. He needs to improve with some of the pacing and subtleties of getting open, but his route movements are crisp and fluid. He has the body control to play the ball well in the air and flashes a burst after the catch. The foundation is there to be a serviceable positional blocker, although it will likely never be a strength of his game. Overall, Klare has a low ceiling as a blocker and needs to continue adding refinement as a route runner, but his combination of athleticism, toughness and ball skills gives him a modern-day skill set. He projects as an F tight end, similar in ways to Dalton Kincaid. 174 Back to table of contents -- 178 of 629 --