Moore With Less In The Bears Offense?

Expectations were extremely lofty for D.J. Moore and the Bears’ offense in 2024, but nothing clicked as the team fired their head coach and offensive coordinator by November, and the offense never really recovered. After bringing in the architect of the Lions’ high-powered offense, will Moore and the Bears rebound in 2025 and make the veteran a fantasy value at WR22?

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2024 Year in Review

Last season will go down as a season to forget for Moore and the Bears' offense. After lofty preseason expectations with headlines like “Best offense ever assembled around a rookie quarterback” thrown around, there was no way they could live up to the billing.

And, unsurprisingly, they did not.

Despite starting 4-2, the offense never really got going with Caleb Williams at the helm. The fears over a Shane Waldron offense were immediately realized, as despite having a ton of talent, the offense ranked 30th in the league by the time Waldron and head coach Matt Eberflus were fired in November.

For Moore, there was also the incident (albeit to me, blown out of proportion) where he walked off the field mid-play, and a general lack of connection with QB Caleb Williams. In 2023, Moore had 96 catches on 136 targets for 1364 yards and 8 touchdowns. Despite two more targets in 2024, Moore only had 98 catches for 966 yards and 6 touchdowns in 2024.

Moore has been outside of the top 12 wide receivers for most of his career, but checking in at WR22 this year in Underdog ADP does feel like a bit of a discount compared to years past and even compared to a few months ago when he was going off the board nine spots higher.

New-Look Offense

How will things look in Chicago this season with Ben Johnson bringing his high-powered offense from Detroit? First off, I think we need to assume efficiency across the board will be better for the Bears this season. Add in the upgrades to the offensive line and the secondary pieces in the offense, and things should be better. I know, I know, how can the offense be better than the best offense ever assembled around a rookie quarterback? I think we’ll just have to trust the offensive maestro here.

A better scheme and better offensive line should help Caleb Williams the most. He won’t be under constant pressure, even if some sacks were his fault, but with things being more “normal” this year, it should lead to better production. I don’t think we can assume a like-for-like role for Moore in Johnson’s offense since he was a bit limited by Jared Goff and the lack of a true outside receiver until Jameson Williams developed.

While Moore said, in a widely circulated interview, that he wasn’t sure what to expect out of his role in the offense, it’s fair to assume he may not see 140 targets again, but the efficiency of said targets should make up for losing 10-20 of them. This is especially true if we start seeing more downfield targets like we saw in 2023, but Moore also excelled in the screen game and out of the slot in 2024. There are certainly reasons to be optimistic about Moore’s role in the offense, even if he isn’t a like-for-like replacement of Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Bounce-Back Season or Too Much Competition?

It does feel like things are looking up for Moore and the Bears’ offense for 2025. And while they do have more mouths to feed, Moore should be the clear lead for targets. As Johnson noted, “‘We’re not necessarily putting guys and plugging them into certain spots and saying, ‘Stick and stay,’ ’’ he said. ‘‘We’re moving guys around. We’re getting a great feel this springtime of what guys can and can’t do. And then once we get into training camp — and certainly further along in training camp — we’ll start honing in and having them master certain routes and their route tree that way.’’

It sounds like the spring was designed to get people accustomed to the new offense and maximize their potential in the offense. Something that Shane Waldron clearly could not do. While people have worried about the part of that interview where Moore noted that Johnson had to talk to him about body language already, the rest of the quotes from Johnson are singing Moore’s praises and calling him an elite receiver.

There are real reasons for concern, though. With first-round draft capital in WR Rome Odunze and TE Colston Loveland and second-round capital on Luther Burden, the Bears simply won’t force-feed Moore 160+ targets. While Moore has been successful out of the slot and we’ve seen what slot receivers can do in a Ben Johnson offense, Moore likely won’t be the primary slot receiver.

That said, Moore has consistently been a guy who has been over 2.0 yards per route run in his career until last year. In fact, everything was about the same from catchable targets to broken tackles, but his aDOT was a career-low 7.3 yards after being above 11.0 for his career. That led to his yards per route run being a paltry 1.5 in 2024.

The Bottom Line

• Posting a career-worst year in 2024 has suppressed Moore’s ADP so far in drafts as he is at WR22 and 41.1 overall in Underdog best ball drafts.

• Moore posted 1.5 YPRR in 2024 after posting over 2.0 his entire career and 2.4 YPRR in 2023.

• The upgrade from Shane Waldron to Ben Johnson is one of the biggest upgrades of the offseason and one of the biggest upgrades in recent memory.

• The upgrades didn’t stop there. The Bears went all-in on Caleb Williams and the offense this year, adding TE Colston Loveland in Round 1 and WR Luther Burden III in Round 2 in the draft.

• While the talk out of OTAs and minicamp is that Moore may not see as many targets, the efficiency should offset that.

• At WR22, Moore has a discounted price compared to earlier in the offseason, and I think he’s a solid buy at this price.