The Chicago Bears apparently have some buyer’s remorse when it comes to former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Chase Claypool
The Bears traded their second-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft for Claypool in the middle of last season, and that pick became the No. 32 overall pick and the first pick in the second round after Chicago lost every single game the rest of the season.
That certainly tipped the scales of the trade in favor of Omar Khan, and what has happened since with Claypool hasn’t gone much better for Chicago. Claypool was injured down the stretch and ended up catching just 14 passes for 140 yards for the Bears.
This spring, Claypool has been out again with what head coach Matt Eberflus has called a soft tissue injury, missing the final two weeks of OTAs and all of mandatory minicamp.
“He’s dealing with a few things right now,” Eberflus said this week. “He’s working with the training staff [but] he is here.”
But it seems that some in Chicago are running out of patience with Claypool.
“I have heard from a few people inside that building that he is not somebody who is very self-motivated,” ESPN Chicago host Marc Silverman said on Wednesday. “It isn’t trending in a way that the Bears have wanted it to trend in this offseason. Chase Claypool is a guy that they’ve wanted to see some things from. They have not been able to see those things from him on and off the field. All those things don’t sound great for Claypool going into training camp.”
For the Steelers, the trade seems to have gone much better. Khan replaced Claypool with veteran free agent Allen Robinson II and landed a player with pick No. 32 that many thought the Steelers might target in the first round in Penn State cornerback Joey Porter Jr.