It's clear how much Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst likes Chase Claypool. Or at least how much the executive liked him one year ago. Last year, right before the trade deadline, the Packers were willing to give up a second-round pick to the Pittsburgh Steelers for the wide receiver, according to Tom Silverstein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. 

As we all know, the Steelers eventually accepted the Chicago Bears offer thinking, rightfully so, that the pick would be higher. That was draft capital the Packers didn't want to part ways to acquire Brandin Cooks or Jerry Jeudy, for example. Now, it's been reported that Claypool is available again, and the price tag is much lower.

According to NFL insider Jordan Schultz, the Bears are asking for a fifth or sixth-round pick to get rid of Claypool, as the situation between the team and the player has gotten messy over the last couple of weeks. It included Claypool being a healthy scratch for the game against the Denver Broncos, and the player being excused from the team activities this week. It's unlikely there's a way back from that.

But now, after such a disappointing series of performances by Chase Claypool in Chicago, does he still make sense for the Packers?

What changed in one year?

Besides Chase Claypool's value, more changes have happened since last year's trade deadline. First, the Packers roster-building timeline. In 2022, Green Bay was still trying to extract everything they could during Aaron Rodgers' twilight years. Months after trading away Davante Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders, Gutekunst explored the wide receiver market to see if he could improve the room, even though they had drafted Christian Watson, Romeo Doubs, and Samori Toure. They needed immediate contributors, and Claypool could theoretically be that.

Now, the situation is much different. It's Jordan Love's first year as a full-time starting quarterback, Rodgers is gone, and the Packers have the second youngest pass catching group, combining wide receivers and tight ends, of the last 30 years — the only younger was the 2017 Cleveland Browns. On one hand, the Packers could certainly use a more veteran presence. On the other, Gutekunst wants to give reps and time together for the players he drafted.

"You can't get those young guys to that speed unless they get to play," the GM said during training camp.

And, well, the Packers invested a lot of draft capital in pass catchers. This year, they draft three receivers (Jayden Reed, Dontayvion Wicks, and Grant DuBose, who's know on the practice squad), and two tight ends (Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft). With those factors combined, it's obvious that Claypool makes much less sense now than he did one year ago.

Moreover, the Bears probably wouldn't like to trade Claypool to their rival. Even though he didn't work out in Chicago, he was talented enough to be a second-round pick and to be traded for another second-rounder years later. He had a couple of productive years in Pittsburgh, and he has the physical profile the Packers like. If the Bears liked him enough to trade for him, they wouldn't want to face him twice a year.

For all those reasons, an intra-divisional trade is highly unlikely. However, if the Bears can't find a trade partner and decide to cut Claypool, there's a decent chance the Packers would look at the situation with different eyes.

They could claim him from waivers, absorbing the remainder of his salary (a proration of the full-season $ 2.993 million base), or hoping that he goes unclaimed. If this is the case, the Packers could add him to the 53-man roster under a new deal or even to the practice squad.

Brian Gutekunst likes Chase Claypool, and the Packers could probably extract more from him than what the Bears did. But a series of factors make the union unlikely at this point.

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