Cole Kmet shares why he believes Chase Claypool succeeded at Notre Dame, but struggled with Bears
Cole Kmet shares why he believes Chase Claypool succeeded at Notre Dame, but struggled with Bears originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
Early this summer, when we got our first look at Chase Claypool in Bears practice, it became clear that Claypool brought a lot of passion to the field. He was extremely competitive and talked a ton of trash. When channeled properly that type of energy can fuel tough practices where iron sharpens iron and all those football clichés you’ve heard before. When not channeled properly, that type of hot-headedness can be counter productive.
It’s become clear Claypool’s presence has trended toward the latter with the Bears.
“Chase is an emotional guy and an emotional player and things tend to come out with him like that,” said tight end Cole Kmet.
Kmet is one of the guys who knows Claypool best inside Halas Hall. The two played for three seasons together at Notre Dame, from 2017-2019, and Kmet considers Claypool a close friend. Kmet said he couldn’t point to a big blow up in practice that led to Claypool’s benching, or some other outburst. Others have hinted, however, that Claypool wasn’t meeting the standard in the week up to the Broncos game.
“Really, it comes down to this: 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?” said head coach Matt Eberflus. “And we just feel that right now Chase is going to be out of the building, it’s best for our football team.”
So why has Claypool gone from a guy who racked up 150 catches for 2,159 yards, 19 touchdowns, and zero soap-opera level dramas with the Fighting Irish to a guy who can’t get on the field– seemingly because of his attitude– let alone produce consistently on the field with the Bears? Kmet said Notre Dame coaches or teammates didn’t need to do anything special or different to help Claypool channel his passion and emotions properly.
“Look, I think at the end of the day things are– we were winning a lot, you know?” Kmet said. “Things are alright when you’re winning and it’s frustrating when you’re losing, so that’s kind of what I’ll leave it to with that. When you’re winning everything’s fine and all things are good.
“I think losing can be hard for guys to deal with. It’s been hard for me to manage but you’ve got to find ways to get back to work, clear your mind, every day. It’s hard– look I haven’t won a game in almost a year now and trust me I take it home with me and it hurts, man, it hurts. It’s hard to deal with it, but we’ve all gotta be adults about it and be able to move on and be able to trust the process set. That can be hard to do sometimes when things aren’t going your way and maybe you’re not getting the targets you want, and you’re not winning, all those things kinda add up and you get frustrated, but you have to be a man about it, be an adult about it and be able to reset your mind each and every week and just look to improve yourself individually, each and every day.”
Claypool’s time in Chicago seems to be done. It would be hard to imagine a team making a player inactive, asking that player to stay away for the game, asking that player to continue staying away from the team for the following week of practice, then finding a way to work that player back into the fold to repair whatever is wrong in the relationship. One would imagine the Bears keep Claypool isolated from the rest of the group until they either trade him, or cut him, so he can’t poison whatever water is left in the well at Halas Hall.
Question is, what team would want a player who’s liable to self-destruct whenever he, or his team, faces a little adversity? If GM Ryan Poles can convince a team to take a chance on Claypool's talent for a sixth-round pick or seventh-round pick, great. If not, it's time to cut bait. There’s no sense in falling victim to the sunken cost fallacy just because the Bears invested what ended up being the No. 32 overall pick in the 2023 draft to bring Claypool to Chicago. And if the Bears can't trust Claypool to simply hang out on the sidelines during a game, they shouldn't have any faith that they can fix whatever went wrong to lead to this point.
Click here to follow the Under Center Podcast.
