6 October 2023
The Chicago Bears traded wide receiver Chase Claypool to the Miami Dolphins on Friday, ending the 25-year-old’s short and rocky tenure with the franchise.
The Bears are sending a 2025 seventh-round pick to the Dolphins with Claypool and will receive a 2025 sixth-round pick in exchange, the teams announced. The deal is pending a physical.
In need of more help for quarterback Justin Fields last season, Bears general manager Ryan Poles acquired Claypool from the Pittsburgh Steelers on Nov. 1 for a 2023 second-round pick that ended up being the No. 32 pick in the draft.
Claypool took a long time to assimilate to the offense in 2022 and totaled just 14 catches for 140 yards in seven games. He had four catches on 14 targets for 51 yards and a touchdown in three games this season.
But the Bears parting with him had to do with more than his lack of production on the field.
The Bears made Claypool a healthy scratch for their Weeks 4 and 5 games, going so far as to ask him to stay away from Soldier Field for Sunday’s loss to the Denver Broncos and to stay home from Halas Hall this week leading up to Thursday’s 40-20 victory over the Washington Commanders.
Coach Matt Eberflus said the Bears thought Claypool staying home was “best for the team.”
“When you’re evaluating players in meetings, in practice, in walk-throughs, all those things, it’s important that you evaluate the entire body of work, right?” Eberflus said when asked why Claypool was benched. “And we just feel that right now Chase is going to be out of the building. It’s best for our football team.”
The Bears benching Claypool came after he told reporters that he didn’t feel like coaches were using him in the best way to highlight his strengths.
“Every situation has the ability to be ideal and I think we’re just working toward that,” Claypool said then. “I wouldn’t say it’s not an ideal place for me. Obviously there’s other places — you can say, ‘Oh, I want to be on the best offense with the highest passing yards.’ But that doesn’t happen in football. You just have to make do with what you’ve got.”
The Dolphins in fact have the best passing offense in the NFL. Whether Claypool shapes up enough to make a difference there remains to be seen.
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