Steelers receiver Chase Claypool was not at his best when it came to situational awareness in Pittsburgh’s 36-28 loss to the Vikings on Thursday night. Claypool was benched for a time by head coach Mike Tomlin after an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty (which Tomlin tersely confirmed after the game), and then, on the Steelers’ final drive in a furious comeback from a 28-0 deficit, Claypool cost his team precious seconds when they were most needed.
With 42 second left in the game, and the Steelers out of timeouts, Claypool caught a short pass from Ben Roethlisberger and moved for a nine-yard gain. The catch was for a first down, which Claypool decided to celebrate when time was of the essence.
Chase Claypool made some big grabs tonight, but the situational awareness here is so bad. Pittsburgh had no timeouts left. Claypool makes the catch, decides to celebrate, an offensive lineman tries to get the ball but it rolls away. Clock ticks, ticks…pic.twitter.com/w3IBaQacjV
— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) December 10, 2021
You can see guard Trai Turner trying to rip the ball away from Claypool so that the Steelers could run another play, but between the delay and the difficulty in getting lined up as Claypool decided that this was a great time to yell at his teammate, the clock ticked down to 25 seconds, and Roethlisberger had to spike the ball to stop the clock.
Roethlisberger was able to get the ball down to the Minnesota 12-yard line, throwing a last-second pass in the end zone to tight end Pat Freiermuth that was knocked away by safety Harrison Smith.
But what if the Steelers had a few more seconds to run at least one more play? Evidently, that only occurred to Claypool after the fact.
Chase Claypool explaining the first-down celebration:
"I got tackled near the hash. Did my little first down point. Went to hand the ball to the ref. He just got there. … The ball got knocked out of my hands. That’s what cost us time. But I definitely do have to be better." pic.twitter.com/60KskZoyrD
— Brooke Pryor (@bepryor) December 10, 2021
We’ll never know how the game would have ended had Claypool had his wits about him in the moment, but it was an unnecessary way to end an amazing near-comeback. Had the Steelers been able to pull this off, it would have been the biggest regular-season comeback in NFL history.
