Welp, that was short-lived. The Chicago Bears announced that Chase Claypool is being traded to the Miami Dolphins for essentially a tuna salad sandwich. Alright, that might be a bit insensitive to the tuna. The actual trade is Chase Claypool and a 2025 seventh-round pick for the Dolphins' 2025 sixth-round pick. This trade is just a way for Ryan Poles to recoup anything for what might go down as the worst trade in Chicago Bears history. That's saying something seeing they sent Greg Olsen to the Carolina Panthers for a third-round pick. Olsen went on to have a Hall of Fame career.
When we look at the swap, it gets even worse if these two teams remain on a similar path to what we are seeing now. The Miami Dolphins are currently 3-1 on the year and have looked dominant outside of their one loss to the Buffalo Bills. Will bringing in a player like Chase Claypool cause the Dolphins' season to go downhill? The Steelers went 2-6 before trading Chase Claypool in 2022. After the trade, Pittsburgh went 7-2. Chicago didn't win a single game with Chase Claypool. The offense had a huge shift during the two games he was benched and the team snapped its 14-game losing streak. Not a good sign for the Dolphins.
The Chicago Bears fell in love with Chase Claypool for wrong reasons
As someone who tends to cheer for Notre Dame, I am usually biased toward players who come out of South Bend. It's one reason why I'm a bigger Cole Kmet fan than most. It's another reason why I thought Chase Claypool was worth a second-round pick when he was selected by the Steelers in 2020. It's also why I was excited when Ryan Poles made the trade for Claypool last season. I was hopeful that with a change of scenery, he could recapture the production he saw in his rookie season. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case. Now, he finds himself on the move again.
Let's take a look at the trade that brought Claypool into Chicago.
Just how bad was the Chicago Bears trade for Chase Claypool?
We need to set the stage here because I think too many Chicago Bears fans forget exactly how last season was going when Ryan Poles made the trade for Chase Claypool. The team was 3-5 on the year and it felt like they could have easily been 5-3 instead. The Bears lost a very close game to Washington that honestly should have been a win. They were also in a close matchup vs. the Vikings that ended in a 29-22 loss but was 19-21 at the end of the third.
Justin Fields was throwing to Darnell Mooney, but also had Equanimeous St. Brown and Dante Pettis as his other primary receivers. Ryan Poles and the Chicago Bears staff clearly wanted to get a better look at Fields and give him more weapons to help him develop. The 2023 free-agent wide receiver class was not great and knowing that the team would have Claypool for about half of last season plus all of this season made sense based on the other receivers who were going to be available.
The trade itself did not work out. However, the process behind why Ryan Poles made the trade made sense. Chase Claypool was coming off back-to-back 850+-yard seasons. Fans need to understand that general managers are going to strike out at times. Poles swung and missed on this one. There is no denying that. Even if you are a big Poles supporter, you have to admit he got this one wrong — even if his process wasn't bad.
At the time of the trade, there was no way to know that the Chicago Bears would end with the top pick in the draft. This is how the Steelers ended up with the 32nd-overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. The hope at the time was that Chicago was sending the second-round pick they received from Baltimore in the Roquan Smith. That wasn't the case because in order to make the trade work, the Bears had to send their own pick. Why? Because the Packers were also offering a second-rounder for Claypool.
It turns out, the Chicago Bears should have been happy to lose to the Packers on this one. That didn't happen, and now Ryan Poles has to account for his mistake.
Ryan Poles moves on from his mistake
The Chicago Bears finally ended their massive drought by beating the Commanders on Thursday. Justin Fields and DJ Moore were dominant. This marks two weeks in a row that Justin Fields has looked like the player most thought he could be. Over the last two weeks, Fields has averaged 308 passing yards, 4 touchdowns and 0.5 an interception. He's also averaged just over 40 yards per game rushing. It's probably a coincidence or the fact that Chicago faced two of the worst defenses in the league, but it's telling just how different the offense looks without Claypool.
It's frustrating that a mistake of this magnitude took place to begin with, but I love that Ryan Poles admits when he makes mistakes. Rather than just holding onto Claypool, Ryan Poles finds a way to move on from Chase Claypool. Trading a seventh-round pick in 2025 in order to move into the sixth-round means very little, but it's better than just cutting him.
Now, the question is, will Ryan Poles learn from his mistake regarding the head coach? Does this mean that the Chicago Bears are more likely to move on from Matt Eberflus this year than we thought? Even if it's at the end of the season, I have to think that Poles has shown the ability to move on from mistakes he's made. We saw it with the release of P.J. Walker. We saw it with the release of Alex Leatherwood. Now, we might need to see it again with Matt Eberflus. Will he do it?
All-in-all though, this new trade was nothing more than meh. Or as I originally said, a tuna salad sandwich.