Bear Digest

Even Green Bay fans can't begrudge DJ Moore his 'grate' moment

Veteran rceiver's TD catch made the Bears' division title possible and now DJ Moore puts aside his cheese grater hat to take part in his first playoff game.
Gene Chamberlain|
The dramatic overtime close to the last Bears and Packers game with DJ Moore winning it on a 46-yarder.
The dramatic overtime close to the last Bears and Packers game with DJ Moore winning it on a 46-yarder. | Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

It wasn't DJ Moore's idea. He just went with it after years of losing.

Even people in Wisconsin can't begrudge DJ Moore his moment in the spotlight, when he made the cheese grater hats famous. He spent most of his career as one flickering candle in the darkness of losing, and fun is fun.

Long-suffering Bears fans can relate to Moore because of his lack of victories in the NFL despite individual success. He is like many recent Bears players who haven't experienced many victories as he heads to the playoffs for the first time Saturday night against Green Bay.

"It's amazing," Moore said of being in the playoffs. "It took me eight years to get here, so I'm loving every moment of it."

The only team Moore has played for in the postseason since high school was his second year at Maryland in 2016, and it was still a losing team. They lost the Quick Lane Bowl at Ford Field against Boston College to finish 6-7. His other two college seasons were 3-9 and 4-8, before he came to the NFL with Carolina. The Panthers, in his rookie year of 2018, were 6-2 and then lost all but one of their games. In 2019 they started 5-3 and lost every single remaining game.

"Yeah, I thought I was going to get it one year where we had seven wins in the NFC South, but we didn't get it done," Moore said. "So now I'm glad we did it here, and it's been fun with these guys."

The Bears, of course, were 7-10 and 5-12 in his first two Chicago seasons and haven't had a winning season since Moore's first year in the NFL of 2018. Moore had three losing college seasons and seven losing NFL seasons until now.

"I mean, it's great when you look at it," Moore said. "Really, no winning seasons since high school is crazy.

"But to be in this locker room, like I said, with all the guys, especially my rookies, they make it, make the game young again, and go out there and just have fun with them."

After living through all of that and producing prodigious receiving statistics anyway, it was understandable when Moore was openly wearing the cheese grater hat after his game-winning 46-yard touchdown catch in overtime, setting the Bears up to clinch the division.

Who cares if they might run up against the Packers again in a few weeks, at that point?

"Yeah, I got that from Roschon (Johnson)," Moore said of the hat. "They put it on my head when I was going up there for the (game) ball. So that's how that came about."

Moore enjoyed the success against Green Bay and didn't mind admitting it.

"Why? Because they always tripping," he said of the Packers. "It's always like some talking going on somewhere, somehow, during the game, before the game, always."

It’s no different this week, as a lot of talk and chest beating came from north of the Cheese wall about how they're mad about Austin Booker giving Jordan Love a concussion. Even cornerback Trevon Diggs was mouthing off, and the last time the Bears saw him he was laying on the ground in a Dallas uniform as Rome Odunze raced by him for a long touchdown catch in a rout of the Cowboys.

"I mean, the rivalry speaks for itself, but the players that's on both sides of it, on both teams right now, I think are pretty amped about this third matchup and just getting out there," Moore said.

The catch to beat the Packers in Week 16 was a defining moment in this season for the Bears.

"I don’t know, I guess it's been shared a lot (video)," Moore said. "After it happened, I haven't really gone back and watched it. But, I know a lot of people love it, and I've been seeing (pictures of) it on a lot of clothes lately.

"So, I mean, it's going to be exciting to see what people wear this game."

Cheese grater hats with DJ Moore TD catch sweatshirts? Probably not. There might be 30-mph wind and snow.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.