Chase Claypool committed an embarrassing mental mistake near the end of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ loss to the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday night, but the receiver stopped short of taking all the blame when asked about the play.
Pittsburgh was trailing by eight and trying to tie the game when Claypool caught a pass at the Vikings 43-yard line with 42 seconds left. Rather than hurrying back to the line of scrimmage, Claypool celebrated the accomplishment. The Steelers had no timeouts, so the selfish decision cost them valuable seconds. You can see the video here.
A reporter asked Claypool about the play after Pittsburgh’s 36-28 loss. The 23-year-old admitted he has to be better, but he also said time would not have been wasted if the ball were not knocked out of his hands.
I just asked Chase Claypool about that ill-advised first-down pose on the final drive: pic.twitter.com/eRnoVKaP9O
— Dejan Kovacevic (@Dejan_Kovacevic) December 10, 2021
“I went to hand the ball to the ref. He had just gotten there, so even if I got up and looked for him, he wasn’t there,” Claypool said. “He ran down the field to come get the ball and the ball got knocked out of my hands. That’s what cost us time.”
Claypool didn’t specify who knocked the ball out of his hands. One line of thinking is that he was calling out Steelers offensive lineman Trai Turner, who rushed over to pull Claypool toward the line. However, a closer look at the play appeared to show that Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks swatted the ball out of Claypool’s hand.
Claypool does have to grow up, but he does have a point. He said that the ball getting knocked out of his hand should have been a penalty. Well. He is right about that. Refs missed this one bad. Eric Kendricks clearly reached for and knocks the ball out of Chase’s hand.#Steelers pic.twitter.com/6ihNhd1Q8x
— Eddie P (Mildy Attractive & Slightly Intelligent) (@eddie_p_412) December 10, 2021
Even if Kendricks did play a role in the confusion, Claypool has no one to blame but himself. He probably didn’t like the way he was roasted on Twitter, but it was all warranted. There’s no way he should have been celebrating a first down in a situation like that. Blaming someone else — even partially — is a bad look.
