The Chase Claypool fiasco will go down in Chicago Bears history as one of the most frustrating. Here was a 6’4, 220-lb mammoth receiver with 4.4 speed. He had more talent in half of his body than most receivers could wish for. By all rights, he should be among the NFL’s best. The fact it hasn’t happened speaks to two possibilities. Either he’s battled injuries or failed to embrace the necessary work required to be great. It wasn’t the former. Two teams didn’t trade him inside a calendar year because he kept getting hurt.
Claypool finds himself down in Miami, trying to pick up the shattered pieces of his reputation that had already been falling apart in Pittsburgh, and his disastrous time in Chicago only hastened it. Claypool blamed his struggles on the Bears coaches not putting him in the best position to succeed. When wide receivers coach Tyke Tolbert was finally asked about everything that happened, it was clear he did everything in his power to avoid saying something he shouldn’t.
“I’m gonna leave it at this: We wish Chase well,” Tolbert said Thursday. “I hope he does well in Miami with his new team and I think he will. I really want to talk about the guys who are here.”
Tolbert was then asked what he learned from the frustrating past few months.
“That every situation is different,” Tolbert said. “You look at the, I go back to the Kurt Warner story. It didn’t work out for him for a long time, bagging groceries and all of a sudden now he’s in the Hall of Fame. It’s just right place, right time and maybe he’ll be better off where he is now than he was at his previous two places.”
While it’s not a direct shot, Tolbert indicates that somebody like Warner succeeded because he took advantage of his first opportunity. He worked his tail off to do so. Claypool has already had multiple and done almost nothing with them.
Chase Claypool is a sequel to a story the NFL knows well.
That story is an uber-talented player who comes into the league thinking he’ll dominate here as he did in college. Said player realizes everybody is also talented in the NFL, but rather than work hard to get better, he decides to coast on his natural ability. Teams soon pick up on this mentality and realize it’s a waste of time and resources. So they ship him out to another sucker. It won’t be surprising when the Dolphins reach the same conclusions in a few months.
Subscribe to the BFR Youtube channel and ride shotgun with Dave and Ficky as they break down Bears football like nobody else.
There is no doubt Chase Claypool can be great. He’s way too gifted not to be. He doesn’t have the singular mindset and toughness required to thrive at this level. It is why he is constantly beaten on blocks and can’t seem to win many 50-50 opportunities on passes thrown to him. Tolbert’s frustration is understandable. He’s coached several great receivers in his time. Some of them were unique personalities like Claypool. The key difference is they were willing to put in the work. He wasn’t.
