Elite NFL analyst evaluates Chicago Bears WR room

In 2024, the Chicago Bears wide receiving corps wasn’t great at football.

Admittedly, it wasn’t entirely their fault—shoddy play calling and a meh offensive line put a major crimp in their style—but heading into the upcoming season, nobody would disagree that some work needed to be done.

And done it has been.

First-year head coach Ben Johnson smacked around D.J. Moore for his iffy body language.

Ben Johnson’s message to DJ Moore about bad body language:

“Just don’t do it." pic.twitter.com/FyKS0BOBfm
— Bears on CHSN (@CHSN_Bears) June 3, 2025

Rome Odunze spent the off-season trying to evolve into the Rome Odunze everybody thought he was after being drafted at the nine-spot in 2024.

"Odunze is somebody that should take a BIG leap next year."@MatthewBerryTMR on what to expect from Rome with Ben Johnson: ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/elOhavGPY0
— CHGO Bears (@CHGO_Bears) February 14, 2025

Keenan Allen’s place on the roster was filled by new draftee, Luther Burden III.

There’s a ton of potential in new #Bears wideout Luther Burden III. One of my favorites in this class… some insight here @nflnetwork pic.twitter.com/wMifoecfZ6
— StaceyDales (@StaceyDales) April 30, 2025

Will this all fix things? A top NFL pundit is cautiously optimistic.

More Than Moore

Former ESPN and Yahoo football analyst Andy Beherns has semi-high hopes for the Bears wide receiver room, telling Chicago Sports Stuff that the starting trio of Moore, Odunze, and Burden has potential galore, both on the field and in the fantasy football box score.

“The best case scenario is all three of [the receivers] are viable fantasy starters very early in the season. If that happens, we're talking about Caleb Williams finishing as a top-five or top-eight fantasy quarterback. You hate to get too ahead of yourself but that's how the math works. It’s very rare that there are three [stud] fantasy receivers on a team and the quarterback is like, Eh.”

That said, Beherns knows there are some glitches that need to be addressed.

“Moore is coming off one of the worst body language seasons you are ever going to see in your entire life—like echoes of Jay Cutler. He was unhappy constantly, and that can't show—you can't be theatrical.”

He also notes that Odunze’s potential sophomore leap isn’t a slam dunk.

“There's real excitement about Odunze, but he’s coming off a complicated rookie season, but in fantasy, there’s still a ton of excitement about him, the argument being, Look at all these vacated targets [that went to Keenan Allen in 2024]. Where are they going to go? They have to go to Odunze. He’ll moonwalk into 150 targets. Well, he’ll have to earn those.

Final Grade

Beherns’s Midway Monsters report card is good but not great, an accurate representation of a unit that needs months, if not a full season to gel.

“I really want to give Odunze an A, and I want Luther Burden to be an A so badly that I can't really envision anything else. As I said, there’s a clear downside to Burden, but if you draft him at a place where if he's not working out, you can cut him and it won't hurt.

Today on Chicago Sports Stuff, I'm joined by @Ihartitz of @MBFantasyLife and @DavidBearmanPFN of @PFN365 for a breakdown of the Bears' wide receivers room.https://t.co/mx7ilWM0X5 pic.twitter.com/o8OPJ4NQgD
— Alan Goldsher (@AlanGoldsher) June 5, 2025

“But I'm gonna assume that we’re looking at a B-level group. Maybe B-plus.”