Should Steelers consider trading WR Chase Claypool after recent bar fight?

Chase Claypool was recently videoed kicking a man in a bar fight. Should the Steelers try to move him before he becomes an issue? 

The Steelers aren’t in a position to be handing away immensely talented skill players in 2021. After Ben Roethlisberger reworked his contract in order to stick around for another season, Pittsburgh is hoping to win now, and they will need all hands on deck to make this happen. However, Chase Claypool has given us more than enough reasons to be concerned about his character moving forward.

Questions about Claypool’s character started to arise about halfway through his rookie season. When his competitive nature got the best of him in a few games (think back to the road matchup against the Cowboys), Claypool took things a little too far and his edginess after the whistle could even be mistaken for dirtiness at times.

After the Steelers blowout playoff loss to the Cleveland Browns, the rookie wide receiver had the audacity to take to Twitter and say that the “Browns are going to get clapped next week…” Instead of issuing an apology, he later doubled down on these statements.

While the combination of his edginess after the whistle and his questionable social media use by themselves weren’t too much to handle, Claypool has recently taken his antics to a whole new level. On Wednesday morning, TMZ Sports released video footage of Claypool getting involved in a bar fight. Though he might not have been the most involved participant, he was clearly seen kicking a man while he was on the ground.

In my opinion, there is no room for this type of behavior – especially from a young man who is representing the Pittsburgh Steelers. Claypool clearly doesn’t keep around the best of company, and after his latest involvement in a bar fight, I must question whether the Steelers should take a proactive approach and look to deal with him.

Steelers should consider trading Claypool

I know this might seem a bit extreme, but this is coming from the same person who begged for the Steelers to trade Antonio Brown months before several more legal incidents sabotaged his trade value. Earlier this month, Bob Labriola of the Steelers official website even had the following to say about Claypool following his impressive rookie season on the field:

"If there was a negative, it was that it seemed as though Claypool’s diva quotient increased consistently over the course of his rookie season. Whether that turns into a problem or comes to be viewed in the future as growing pains will develop over time."

As I mentioned before, Pittsburgh isn’t in a situation where they can really afford to be giving away players as talented as Claypool, but if things are only going to get worse, this is something that should be in the back of their minds – especially knowing how things panned out with Antonio Brown.

If Pittsburgh doesn’t think that Chase Claypool is the type of character they can trust giving a massive second contract to, then perhaps they can trade the 22-year-old receiver while he could still pull in strong compensation. After his rookie season, I could have almost guaranteed he could have been traded for a team’s first-round pick. Now, I’m not so sure, as other organizations are clearly aware of his most recent involvement in a bar fight.

In reality, this is something the Steelers seem very unlikely to do, and I’m sure the team will be reaching out to him regarding his behavior this offseason. Still, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t the least bit concerned about Chase Claypool’s character moving forward.