Former Steelers safety Ryan Clark rips Chase Claypool a new one

Ryan Clark was very emotional on “Get Up” this morning. Here’s what the former Steelers safety had to say about the foolishness of Chase Claypool. 

If you know Ryan Clark, then you are already well aware of how much respect he has for the Pittsburgh Steelers organization. When players fail to uphold that standard of what it means to be a Steeler, he will let them hear it.

Clark didn’t hold back when talking about Chase Claypool and the stunts that he pulled on Thursday Night Football. In fact, he ripped the young wide receiver a new one for his foolish decisions in Pittsburgh’s disheartening loss — a game that could have potentially had a different outcome if just one or two minor things go their way.

Here’s what Clark had to say on “Get Up” on Friday morning following the loss to the Vikings:

Clark was livid in his response — calling Chase Claypool mentally ‘underdeveloped.’ He also claimed that Claypool has a remedial level mental understanding of what it is to be a football player, teammate, and winner.

Even the biggest Chase Claypool fans have to understand how foolish his behavior was in this contest and that his actions spoke clearly that he put himself above the team. This is not what fans like to see. Sadly, his response to his celebration at the end of the game was… well, let’s just say it’s not what we were hoping to hear from him:

Here’s Claypool’s response to why he chose to celebrate late in the game with under 40 seconds left and no timeouts, according to Dejan Kovacevic:

Where do the Steelers go from here with Claypool?

Obviously, something has to change before Chase Claypool’s actions continue to get more out of hand. While we don’t know what type of conversations Claypool has had with the coaching staff behind the scenes, we have to assume that there’s an ugly talk with Coach Tomlin coming in his near future.

In just his second season, the talented wide receiver is becoming a bit of a character problem — something I had my concerns about dating back to the bar fight he was involved with in March. Here are some of the head-scratching decisions he has made so far that cause us to question his character:

Obviously, nobody is rooting against Claypool. We want to see him turn things around, reach the ceiling of his untapped potential, and become a great wide receiver for this team. However, if the trend continues, the Steelers are eventually going to have to say that enough is enough.

Through his first 27 career games in the NFL, Claypool has compiled 109 receptions for 1,626 yards and 12 total touchdowns while averaging 14.9 yards per reception and a respectable 8.6 yards per target, via Pro Football Reference. The production is there, but the attitude is not.

We hope that some serious talks with Mike Tomlin (and perhaps even the Rooney’s) will help this talented receiver get back on track and set his focus on the team and winning football games. As of now, we can all agree that Chase Claypool’s foolishness during the Vikings game was inexcusable and that this cannot happen again in the future.