Steelers 2-a-days: Devin Bush, Chase Claypool each aim for bounce-back season
Editor’s note: From now until the first practice of training camp at Saint Vincent College, the Trib will be running through the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 90-man roster, assessing each player’s outlook for the 2022 season. The breakdown will go through the roster in mostly-alphabetical order, two per day, between June 11 and July 25. Contract data courtesy spotrac.com.
ILB DEVIN BUSH
Experience: 4th season
Contract status: $6.005 million cap hit in 2022, after which scheduled for unrestricted free agency
2022 outlook: The Steelers declined Bush’s fifth-year contract option last month, surely not what they had in mind when they made the uncharacteristic move of trading up 10 spots in the 2019 draft to select him at No. 10 overall. He was supposed to be a dynamic, sideline-to-sideline playmaker in the middle of the Steelers’ defense. And to a degree, over the first 21 games of his career, Bush was — he finished third in AP defensive rookie of the year voting, and during the first third of the 2020 season, Bush had the look of a possible Pro Bowl berth.
But a torn ACL suffered during an October win against the Cleveland Browns that autumn ended Bush’s 2020. And when he returned last season, he didn’t appear as comfortable or confident. The company line from Bush and the team is that a further year removed from reconstructive knee surgery should allow for a 2022 performance more commensurate with the level of player the Steelers thought they were getting when they submitted so many assets during Draft Day 2019. But will it play out that way? After all, if the Steelers were truly confident in that they probably would have exercised the $10.89 million option on Bush for 2023.
Devin Bush ready for 'whole new slate' in 2022 thanks to knee that is fully healthy.https://t.co/TRrtNKz9jn
— Joe Rutter (@tribjoerutter) June 1, 2022
WR CHASE CLAYPOOL
Experience: 3rd season
Contract status: $1.8 million cap hit in 2022, signed through 2023
2022 outlook: Claypool would seem to have done the opposite of coach Mike Tomlin’s oft-repeated credo that the biggest jump a player makes during his career is between years 1-2. Claypool followed up a 2020 rookie season in which he had 11 touchdowns by scoring just twice last season. Still, if you take away trips to the end zone, his production in 2021 was eerily similar to the numbers he’d put up as a rookie. In 2020, Claypool had 62 catches on 109 targets for 873 yards; last season, he had 59 catches on 105 targets for 860 yards.
After the offseason free-agent departures of JuJu Smith-Schuster, Ray-Ray McCloud and James Washington, Claypool joins Diontae Johnson as the only significant holdovers among the wide receivers corps. Then again, the intriguing additions of George Pickens and Calvin Austin III among the first four rounds of the draft suggest Claypool can’t be complacent in believing he has a role of WR2 assured for the full season. With Johnson in the final year of his contract, Claypool showing he could be a WR1 also would be a welcome development for the Steelers.
Claypool has shown he has all the tools to do that. But he hasn’t yet shown he can be mentally and physically consistent through a full season.
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Chris Adamski is a TribLive reporter who has covered primarily the Pittsburgh Steelers since 2014 following two seasons on the Penn State football beat. A Western Pennsylvania native, he joined the Trib in 2012 after spending a decade covering Pittsburgh sports for other outlets. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
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