Getty Image / Michael Reaves
When the Pittsburgh Steelers drafted Chase Claypool, he was joining an offense that already featured 2 very talented receivers in Juju Smith-Schuster and Diontae Johnson. Despite that, he was still able to make his mark on the offense pretty quickly.
As a rookie, he caught 62 passes for 873 yards and 9 touchdowns. Year 2 saw Claypool post similar numbers with 59 catches for 860 yards, but he was only able to score 2 touchdowns.
With Juju moving on after last season, there were many expecting big things from Chase Claypool as he assumed the number 2 role for the Steelers. Then the Steelers drafted George Pickens in round 2 and signed Johnson to an extension and Claypool’s future became murkier.
This season, he struggled. Through 8 games for the Steelers, Claypool was on pace for a career-high in receptions, but his 32 catches only turned into 311 yards.
Those struggles and the presence of other options at the position led the Steelers to trade Claypool to the Bears at the deadline.
Today, Claypool revealed to the Chicago Sun Times his thoughts on why things didn’t work out with the Steelers and why he’s optimistic about his future with the Bears.
Chase Claypool reveals his thoughts on why things didn’t work out with the Pittsburgh Steelers
Interesting thoughts from WR Chase Claypool about how things ended with the Steelers and why he sees a brighter future with the Bears–https://t.co/I8xSskRTrd pic.twitter.com/s5D8HuHNx0
— Jason Lieser (@JasonLieser) November 11, 2022
At some point the perspective on me was like, ‘He’s not a red-zone threat,’ for some reason or, ‘He’s not a deep-ball threat,’ for some reason. I’m not sure when that happened, but I started getting ‘formation-ed’ away from those things.
So it was super hard for me to make big plays, because anytime there was a big play drawn up, I was on the other side of it.
It seems the Steelers weren’t really sure what to do with Claypool in their offense despite his early success with the team. It also probably didn’t help that the offense has had issues the past 2 seasons as they entered a transition period at quarterback.
Now he heads to a team with minimal competition at the position and plenty of reason to try and make him work as a target for Justin Fields. He only made 2 catches for 13 yards in his debut with the team, but his 6 targets in the game should indicate the Chicago Bears will be looking his way regularly the rest of the season.