Bear Digest

Chase Claypool Leaves Room for Improvement

A film circulating on social media of Chase Claypool's play and Pro Football Focus' first grades show the Bears receiver has some improvement to make.
Gene Chamberlain|
Chase Claypool Leaves Room for Improvement
Chase Claypool Leaves Room for Improvement

In this story:

Chicago Bears

In all fairness to Chase Claypool, Pro Football Focus grades are not the end all, be all.

The fact PFF has Justin Fields graded higher for Sunday's 38-20 loss against Green Bay than they graded winning Packers QB Jordan Love pretty much says this.

Then again, the tape doesn't lie, as they say. And when both the tape and PFF's grading system are saying you've had a bad game, then perhaps it's time to look in the mirror.

A tape of some plays involving Claypool made it's way around social media on Tuesday and showed some half-hearted attempts to block. 

When PFF came out with it's first weekly grades, Claypool was ranked 104th out of 105 wide receivers. Part of the reason for this was a grade of 31.0 as a run blocker, last among all receivers at No. 105. The bottom line for his position is catches and targets, though, and he had no receptions and two targets. PFF gave him a 39.6 passer rating when targeted for those two targets.

The Bears had trouble getting their wide receiver screens to work and kept using them because it was "the game plan," according to Fields.

Perhaps they needed to get off the game plan quicker then, because they didn't work and weren't going to work with blocking from receivers like the Bears had from Claypool. What's unusual about this is PFF had actually gave him solid grades last year as a blocker for his small role in the Bears offense after coming over from Pittsburgh.

Claypool spent the off-season watching after practicing for one week of OTAs, then went out with what has been widely reported as a hamstring injury in training camp before preseason games began. He didn't return until the final two weeks before the opening game with Green Bay.

Tight end Cole Kmet didn't exactly win high praise from PFF for his blocking, either, and he had been among the top 10 blocking tight ends in the league last year according to PFF's grades.

There were positives in the grades. One was the way Ryan Poles' rookie class came out of it.

First-round pick Darnell Wright was graded 12th of all NFL tackles at 72.1. Tyrique Stevenson was 24th of 86 cornerbacks at 67.2 on a day when there were numerous blown coverages in the Bears secondary. He was graded higher than both Jaylon Johnson (29th) and Kyler Gordon (46th). Also, running back Roschon Johnson was 11th among all 54 NFL running backs who were graded at 71.5. Because the game was a blowout, Johnson had plenty of playing time.

The best Bears performance grade-wise according to PFF? Nose tackle Andrew Billings came in sixth out of 120 NFL interior defensive linemen at 88.1.

Claypool had company. Rasheem Green was graded 95th of 98 edge players in the league for his 25 plays and starting three technique Justin Jones was 104th of 120 NFL interior defensive linemen. Jones was in on 39 plays and didn't break onto the stat sheet from a playmaker position in the defensive scheme.

Again, it's not the end all, be all. Left tackle Braxton Jones committed four penalties according to NFLGSIS.com statistics, which are based on the official game stat books. Yet, PFF scored him 89.9 as a pass blocker, tied for No. 1 in the entire NFL.

 Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

Loading recommendations... Please wait while we load personalized content recommendations

Published
Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

Home/News