Fans and media have a habit of talking about trade speculation as part of the general routine. It takes on a bit more urgency when you have a team that’s certainly not going anywhere anytime soon, so they need to be classified as potential “sellers” by the close of trading.
Not only does it appear that there are no signs that the Pittsburgh Steelers will want to be sellers ahead of the upcoming trading deadline, but there is real reason to question whether they have any commodities that are worth relative to what what they would get for it could be traded. Based on what NFL reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala has heard, it doesn’t sound like it.
Appearing on 93.7 The Fan today, she told Andrew Fillipponi that contacts have given her the feeling that the Steelers are not buying third-year receiver Chase Claypool or that he is even open to offers.
“I’ve actually spoken to two different general managers in the past few days and they both told me they don’t hear Chase Claypool’s name as available at all,” she said. And she added that there doesn’t seem to be a market anyway.
“I’ll tell you. I spoke to one about what he would give for Chase Claypool and I wouldn’t trade him for that,” she said, who, when asked, offered that it was a “very low pick” in the last two rounds area. “It’s not necessarily a statement of who Chase Claypool is; that’s a statement of what the wide receiver market is right now,” she added.
And it’s true that the wide receiver position continues to flourish. It seems that new stars join the league every year, although not all of them endure. Claypool was one of the star rookies of the 2020 season but he has yet to reach that same potential. This year, the same team is hoping for another new star in rookie second-round pick George Pickens.
When it comes to Claypool, you have to keep in mind that he is under contract until the 2023 season. And Pickens is under contract until 2025. And Diontae Johnson is under contract until 2024.
And they have a rookie franchise quarterback that they know they need to surround with talent. It’s something head coach Mike Tomlin has talked about repeatedly. It would be one thing if Claypool was on his final season, but he’ll still be here for Kenny Pickett in 2023. Swapping it now will just create another need for you to fill next year.
And you can’t reasonably expect to get much trading value for a player like Claypool. A very late pick sounds like what I think a team would be willing to pay for him. He has three touchdowns in his last 22 games, 1,277 yards from scrimmage. Nobody trades for their rookie season, not for more than one aviator.