Steelers Chase Claypool on pace with some great NFL wide receivers

Chase Claypool had a very impressive rookie season. Here’s why the Steelers receiver is on pace with some NFL greats early in his career. 

It’s not hard to see why the Steelers had so much interest in wide receiver Chase Claypool in the 2020 NFL Draft. However, at the time, this was a selection that caught us off guard. Pittsburgh seemed to have clear and obvious interest in the running back position and both Cam Akers and J.K. Dobbins were ripe for the picking when the 49th overall pick rolled around.

Though Akers and Dobbins both looked impressive as rookies, I certainly don’t feel like the Steelers made a mistake drafting Claypool. In fact, there may not have been another player that would have been better for this team.

As a rookie in 2020, Claypool was quite impressive. Because of his size (6’4”, 238 pounds) many incorrectly thought that he would transition to more of a “move” tight end role in the NFL, but that wasn’t the case at all. Early in his NFL career, Claypool proved to be a threat at every level and a matchup problem down the field.

While there’s no doubt the former Notre Dame star had his inconsistencies as a rookie, his efficiency numbers actually show that he was very much on par with some very good big-bodied receivers over the past twenty years. Here’s how he compared statistically to Andre Johnson, Calvin Johnson, and Larry Fitzgerald during their rookie seasons, according to Pro Football Reference:

Is a comparison to some NFL greats fair for Steelers receiver?

While some of you may be thinking that it’s terribly unreasonable to include Chase Claypool in a statistical comparison with some of the best wide receivers of the 2000s, we don’t know what the future holds. All I can say is that, from a statistical standpoint, Claypool’s rookie season was clearly on par with some of these remarkable receivers.

Of the group, Andre Johnson was arguably the most impressive as a rookie – leading the group in receiving yards, receptions per game, and yards per target. However, his four total touchdowns were the lowest of the four big receivers in this comparison.

Though it seemed like Ben Roethlisberger and Chase Claypool were not on the same page far too often last season, Claypool remarkably had the highest catch percentage of the star receivers listed. This was despite the fact that Roethlisberger ranked 31st in deep-ball completion percentage, 34th in red zone completion percentage, and 33rd in clean pocket completion percentage last season, according to PlayerProfiler.com.

It’s also worth noting that Claypool led all NFL wide receivers in penalty yards drawn last season. While this doesn’t get counted towards his statistical production, he caused many positive plays for the Steelers that didn’t go down in the stat sheets. Had Ben and Chase been able to connect on a few more of these deep balls, he could have had a chance to lead these great receivers in every department as a rookie.

Clearly, I’m not expecting Chase Claypool to be as great as the players on this statistical comparison; that would be unfair. However, it’s impressive to note that his rookie campaign was on par with some terrific wide receivers. I’m excited to see what he will bring in year two.