Chase Claypool had everything in front of him. He was an absurdly gifted wide receiver at Notre Dame, boasting 6’4″ size and 4.4 speed. The Pittsburgh Steelers drafted him in the 2nd round, one of the best wide receiver development teams in the NFL. He even got to play with Ben Roethlisberger towards the tail end of his Hall of Fame career. It started great. Claypool finished his rookie year with 879 yards and nine touchdowns. The sky was the limit. Then things kind of just crumbled.
He got progressively worse each season, failing to take the next step. Rumors persisted about maturity issues and a lack of work ethic. Eventually, the Steelers saw the writing on the wall and flipped Claypool to the Chicago Bears for a 2nd round pick. It was easily Ryan Poles’ worst move as general manager. Claypool spent less than a year with the team, looked terrible, and was traded again, this time to Miami. He was cut after the end of the 2023 season and hasn’t seen the field since. He was 25 years old.
Then something happened. The receiver appeared out of nowhere, accepting an invitation from the Green Bay Packers to their rookie minicamps for a tryout.
Perhaps this was the Chase Claypool redemption arc.
Green Bay needed depth after losing some of its prominent receivers this offseason, including Romeo Dobbs and Dontayvion Wicks. All he had to do was showcase his ability with some strong practices, and it would be easy to get onto their training camp roster.
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No such luck. Following the end of minicamps, the Packers chose not to sign anybody.
Think about that. Claypool, a former 2nd round pick, was so uninspiring in practice that Green Bay didn’t want to take away a roster spot from names like Jakobi James-Keeney, Will Sheppard, Isaiah Neyor, and J. Michael Sturdivant to accommodate him. Nothing could possibly sum up Claypool better than that. He was so forgettable in a minicamp practice against mostly scrubs that he couldn’t even get invited back for the summer as a camp body. This serves as the best possible confirmation that the NFL is not a league dominated by talent alone. If you’re not prepared to work really hard, it will chew you up and spit you out.
Claypool did serve a purpose.
He taught Poles a valuable lesson. Don’t trade for a player unless you’re certain the information on him is reliable. Chicago was so desperate to get wide receiver help for Justin Fields in 2022 that they didn’t do enough homework on Chase Claypool the person. All they saw was a freakish talent who’d played well in previous years that maybe just needed a fresh start. They didn’t stop to wonder why Mike Tomlin, one of the best head coaches in the NFL, was phasing him out of the offense.
Since then, the Bears have been far more cautious about who they acquire. They either went after established, highly-respected veterans like Montez Sweat, D.J. Moore, and Joe Thuney or cheap rotational backups for depth. They haven’t taken a swing anywhere close to as reckless as Claypool was. That may not be the legacy he wanted to leave behind, but it is what it is.
