The Green Bay Packers tried their best to acquire wide receiver Chase Claypool from the Pittsburgh Steelers, but they lost out.
The Green Bay Packers were expected to have growing pains with their relatively new wide receivers corps, and that has turned out to be the case through their first eight games of the season. The NFL trade deadline presented the best chance to make a move for a pass-catcher. They, unfortunately, came up empty.
By 4:00 p.m. ET on Tuesday, Nov. 1, the Packers watched as the Minnesota Vikings acquired tight end T.J. Hockenson from the Detroit Lions, and the Chicago Bears bring in wide receiver Chase Claypool from the Pittsburgh Steelers.
That doesn’t mean Green Bay didn’t try to bring in a pass-catcher.
Packers lose out to Bears for Chase Claypool
A variety of reports indicated that the Packers were interested in Claypool leading up to the deadline. According to Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Packers offered a second-round draft pick for Claypool. That was the same compensation that the Bears offered the Steelers. Chicago ultimately won out, as Pittsburgh believed that their second-round pick would be higher than Green Bay’s.
As Silverstein mentions in his tweet, both the Packers and Bears sit at 3-5 entering Week 9. On paper, fans would expect Chicago to finish with a worse record. Hence, they would hold higher draft positions in every round.
There were three other wide receivers besides Claypool that were dealt ahead of the trade deadline, and they were Robbie Anderson to the Arizona Cardinals, Kadarius Toney to the Kansas City Chiefs, and Calvin Ridley to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Packers obviously had their price set on Claypool, and that was a second-round pick. The issue was, they were outbid by their division rivals. It may sting, but you can’t say that they didn’t try. Their final chance to bring in a wide receiver could be in the form of signing free agent Odell Beckham Jr., but there are expected to be plenty of other teams they will have to try and outbid.
