As it turns out, Chase Claypool won’t be taking his talents to Canada.
Although, Buffalo is close enough.
The former Chicago Bears wide receiver is among the signings announced by the Buffalo Bills on Friday. Claypool joins defensive end Dawuane Smoot and linebacker Deion Jones as the newest members of the defending AFC East champs. All three players are going to Buffalo on one-year deals.
Nothing says officially official like the contract-signing image from the team:
Another receiver in Buffalo: Bills signed former Bears and Steelers WR Chase Claypool. pic.twitter.com/UHdYeNhdg3
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) May 3, 2024
Earlier in the offseason, the Canadian Football League’s Saskatchewan Roughriders put Chase Claypool on their exclusive negotiation list. Meaning that the Roughriders would have had the first crack at Claypool had he chosen to play in Canada. Instead, Claypool packs his things and heads to Buffalo, which is an estimated 48-minute drive to the Canadian border. Buffalo is close enough to Canada, I guess.
We’ve come a long way since the Chase Claypool trade
One of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me is that they admired my ability to make the best out of every situation. So while I’m still not sure if it was a backhanded compliment when they first delivered it, I take it as a full-on, no-strings attached compliment. And I am going to use that energy to spin how I’m choosing to look at the Chase Claypool trade.
Make no mistake: The results of the Chase Claypool trade were a big, fat F. A complete failure by the Bears. Was it a good idea in theory? Certainly. A receiver-needy team trading a second-round pick for a receiver who was coming off consecutive seasons with 850 receiving yards made sense. The move was seen as a full-on investment in quarterback Justin Fields. Why wouldn’t it be? Fields needed a second reliable wideout to target and Claypool was in his age 24 season at the time. Plus, that 2020 season in which he collected 889 scrimmage yards and 11 touchdowns was still fresh in everyone’s minds. I get it. It just didn’t work.
Not only did Claypool not live up to the hype, he became a distraction, too. Injuries and sub-par play just scratch the surface of the shortcomings that came with the Chase Claypool experience.
It was messy. And while I’m glad it is over, the thing I take away from this as a silver lining in an otherwise dark cloud is that it essentially forced Bears General Manager Ryan Poles to shoot for the moon when it came to addressing the wide receiver spot in the future. The Chase Claypool experiment being an undeniable failure led Poles to trade for an honest to goodness WR1 (DJ Moore) in 2022, swing another deal for Pro Bowl wideout (Keenan Allen) in 2023, and draft a tremendous receiver prospect (Rome Odunze) in 2024. Sometimes, in life, you need to fail spectacularly before getting your act together. The failed Claypool trade feels like one of those times.
As for Claypool, I wish him the best of luck. Just because it didn’t work here (or in Pittsburgh … or Miami, for that matter) for him, it doesn’t mean that it can’t work out elsewhere for the Notre Dame product. If all else fails, perhaps there is a future for Claypool in the CFL. If there is, then it’ll have to wait after Buffalo rides out the Chase Claypool experience.
written by
Luis C. Medina
Luis C. Medina, who you can find on Twitter at lcm1986, has been covering the Chicago Bears at Bleacher Nation since 2017. Since then, he has written about 3 head coaches, 5 play-callers, and 11 starting quarterbacks. Previously, Luis wrote about the Cubs and MLB at BN (2015-16) and worked in the Chicago Tribune sports department (2011-16). He also co-hosted a Cubs postgame show, Outside the Ivy, in 2019.
