The True Justin Fields Enabler

The Bears sought to provide Justin Fields with weapons necessary to determine whether he can be their long-term future.

They seem convinced he is at this time, yet much can change in the future.

The way they could be sure of whether Fields can do this is to provide him with the best possible receiver talent to see if he can take advantage. They did exactly this with the acquisition of DJ Moore.

If Fields can't improve his passing statistics and upgrade the offense with Moore playing, he probably won't be able to do it.

Moore might not have past production on a level with Justin Jefferson or A.J. Brown, but his consistency and ability as an all-around receiver put him in the class of a No. 1.

He has had the top overall production of any receiver in the 2018 draft class, has averaged more catches than Brown and Cincinnati's Tee Higgins and more yards gained than Higgins and Pittsburgh's Diontae Johnson.

Moore has done this playing over five years with quarterbacks as bad or even worse than those the Bears have welcomed in and then sent out the door over the same time period.

None of this is why the Bears can expect he'll be the best possible addition to both test Fields' abilities and add explosiveness to the air attack overall.

Moore is ideal because he is good at every aspect of being a receiver and has operated as both the only real target in the passing game and as part of a deeper receiver group. He runs knockout routes, he makes big plays downfield and at the start of his career he was a high-level guy with running after the catch.

The Panthers' offensive problems dragged down his catch-and-run ability after Year 2 in 2019. It's an area the Bears badly need to explore because they've been last at it in the NFL for the last two years, but they should find he is a weapon here, as well. He was 11th in the league among wide receivers at this with 384 yards in 2019, one spot behind DeAndre Hopkins.

The website Receptionperception.com tracks players for fantasy football purposes but has some of the better breakdowns of overall receiving skills and Matt Harmon's evaluation of Moore based on 2022 leaves little doubt the Bears have a true No. 1.

Possibly the most impressive thing Moore did was succeed 68.3% of the time when facing true double coverage, which he saw a career-high 17.5% of the time last year. The amount of double-teams Moore faced was reported by Harmon to be double what he'd faced in any previous season. Moore beat zone coverage 81.7% of the time and man coverage 71.2%.

Maybe the best thing for Fields is Moore has enjoyed tremendous success at contested catches. The website's database goes back as far as 2014 and in that span Moore has the second-best contested catch rate in that database at 93.3%.

Since Allen Robinson's third Bears season in 2020, they've lacked someone who provided this skill set.

Because Moore has had high success rates at virtually every route tree level and made contested catches at such a high proficiency, he is a true go-to receiver.

The one X-factor at bringing in Moore is whether he can adapt to entirely new conditions.

When he was with Carolina, they shuffled quarterbacks in and out and he remained the constant. Now Moore is the one placed into an entirely new situation and he needs to not only adjust to a new passer but new offense, new teammates, new city.

"What's cool is DJ's experiences that he's had," Bears offensive coordinator Luke Getsy said. "He's had to play with a few different quarterbacks and a few different systems, so you can tell he doesn't really get fazed by the new, which is gonna be really good."

Getsy expects that connection to flourish "...once those two can communicate with each other—body language, quick communication verbally and stuff."

It's part of what they've been working on during the offseason program so far, but next week they'll begin trying to build this on the field against coverage in non-contact work at OTAs for the first time.

It could be the start of something Fields has drastically needed to be a better passer and to be fairly judged as a passer regarding his future with the team.

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