Say the name Chase Claypool around any Chicago Bears fan, and the look on their face will likely be the same. A blank stare; a quivering lip; a look of confusion.
Claypool represents the biggest blunder of the Ryan Poles era. The now-respected general manager traded a 2023 second-round pick for the 6-foot-4, 238-pound receiver with the hopes that he’d be the missing piece that Justin Fields needed to emerge as a franchise quarterback.
Instead, Claypool played 10 games for the Bears and totaled just 18 catches for 191 yards and one touchdown.
And as hard to believe as it may be, he was even worse than those stats suggest.
The Bears eventually traded Claypool to the Miami Dolphins for pennies on the dollar in October of the 2023 season: a seventh-round pick.
Yikes.
Poles would like to forget Claypool ever existed, but that could become more challenging now that the embattled receiver is embarking on a comeback tour.
“My first season-ending injury in 18 years came at the worst possible time. I felt like God was playing a joke on me,” Claypool wrote in a recent Instagram post. “It’s been a year since I’ve posted on Instagram, and almost nobody knows what actually happened to me. … I tore a ligament and a tendon in my second toe and have been rehabbing, working out, and recovering every day for the past year. I am back to being the strongest and fastest I have ever been and couldn’t be more excited to step back out on the field and let my actions speak for themselves.”
Whether Claypool gets another shot remains to be seen. He eventually signed with the Buffalo Bills in 2024 but was released in August with an injury settlement.
NFL teams will always roll the dice on 6-foot-4 receivers with 4.3 speed. Claypool, 27, is probably still that guy, even if that guy isn’t a schooled pro receiver.
Don’t be surprised to see him ink a one-year deal with a receiver-needy team before training camp and be given one last chance at proving he belongs on an NFL roster.
