MIAMI – When Bears tight end Desmond Clark was shopping for a new team in free agency in 2003, one of his former coaches gave him an interesting piece of advice.

“I was talking to him about my decision on where I was going to go and what kind of offers were out there for me,” Clark said. “This coach tells me, ‘Make sure you’re going to go to a team that’s going to win. You can’t go anywhere like Chicago.’ He used Chicago as the example.

Desmond Clark matched a career high and tied for the Bears lead with six TDs in 2006.

“It was funny that he said that and I ended up signing here and look where we’re at today.”

Clark ignored the advice, inking a lucrative contract with the Bears. Three years later, it obviously proved to be the correct decision. The eight-year veteran has played an integral role as a blocker and pass receiver in helping the team reach Super Bowl XLI.

Clark ranked third on the Bears this season with 45 receptions for a career-high 626 yards and tied receiver Bernard Berrian for the team lead with six touchdown catches, the most by a Chicago tight end since Keith Jennings also had six in 1995.

Unlike last year when a leg injury sidelined him during the entire offseason and most of training camp, Clark began developing a rapport with quarterback Rex Grossman in the summer.

“He came in in great shape, had a great offseason, lost some weight and had a chance to work with Rex the entire offseason,” said offensive coordinator Ron Turner. “They established continuity and Rex got confidence in him and then he went on and had a great (training) camp. Everything’s just kind of fed off what he did in the offseason.”

The connection between quarterback and tight end has benefited both players. In the four games this season that Clark had at least five receptions, Grossman completed 71.4 percent of his passes for 1,142 yards with 10 touchdowns, 1 interception and a 122.5 passer rating.

“I think when I’m playing well, he’s helping me play well,” Grossman said. “He’s open and doing things that create mismatches. We’re calling plays and we’re getting good looks on those plays and he’s getting involved in the game, and we definitely want to be able to do that come Super Bowl Sunday.

“He’s a guy that I definitely need to focus on a little bit more. It adds another dimension to it. There’s definitely a correlation between me having success and him playing well.”

Clark’s best performance of the season came in a 34-31 overtime win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Dec. 17 at Soldier Field. He caught seven passes for 125 yards—the first 100-yard game of his career and the first by a Bears tight end since Emery Moorehead in 1985.

Clark’s value to the Bears extends beyond his contributions as a receiver, something he proved in the NFC Championship Game against the Saints when he delivered two key blocks on Thomas Jones’ season-long 33-yard run.

Clark is extremely proud of his ability to block, especially given the fact that he had not played the tight end position until entering the NFL as a sixth-round draft pick with the Denver Broncos in 1999. A wide receiver at Wake Forest, Clark left the school as the ACC’s all-time leading receiver with 216 receptions for 2,834 yards and 20 touchdowns.

“What I do in the run game, I get more satisfaction out of,” Clark said. “I had never played tight end before, so I had to learn a whole different game, and to be where I’m at right now is just a testament to the coaching that I’ve had and just the work that I’ve put in over the years.

“I think I’ve made the greatest jumps in these last three years, and a lot of that really has to do with my coach, Rob Boras, because you just can’t do it on your own. You need somebody there telling you what you’re doing wrong, what you’re doing right, what you need to get better on.

“He’s been a guy who’s helped me do that over these last few years.”

Clark knows that some superstars have turned tight end into somewhat of a glamour position. But the dirty work that’s required in the running game often gets overlooked.

“People like Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates—all the great tight ends that are in this league right now—put up extraordinary reception numbers, so people pay more attention to that and measure a tight end on that, which they should,” Clark said. “But we don’t get a lot of the credit for blocking that we should get.”

While a little recognition would be nice, all Clark is hoping for is to win the Super Bowl Sunday. Asked if he would describe 2006 as a dream season for him, the Bears tight end said: “It will be if we win this game. That will cap it off. But anything besides that is falling just a little bit short.

“We made it here, but the goal is to win it. Personally, it has been a good season for me. But my goals are right there with the rest of the team’s goals to win a championship.”