Charting Darnell Mooney's Path

Darnell Mooney seems like a lost set of keys or missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle to the Bears at this point.

With only 14 catches and 184 yards, he's at a low point in production since coming into the league.

As a result, it's not surprising to see Mooney's name mentioned prominently in speculatory pre-trading deadline articles like one done by Sports Illustrated's Giberto Manzano and Matt Verderame.

The most interesting part of this raw speculation is how they actually found a speculative target for the Bears in such a trade: Matt Nagy and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Dealing Mooney seems unlikely at this point barring someone coming at the Bears with an unrealistic and enticing offer.

Here are the reasons this isn't happening.

1. Receivers Market Glut

Teams in need of a receiver can find them virtually anywhere and it drives down the value, so the Bears are likely to find they'd get little in return for Mooney.

This article itself suggests seven wide receivers who should be traded: DeAndre Hopkins, Kendrick Bourne, Hunter Renfrow, Robert Woods, Jerry Jeudy and Marquise Brown are also recommended as players to trade.

This isn't realistic at all.

Last year there were four wide receivers traded at the deadline and according to league records it was the most since four were dealt in 2004. That was when the Raiders traded Jerry Rice to Seattle. In most years since then there have been two receivers or less traded on deadline.

2. Lack of Replacement

The Bears already traded Mooney's replacement.

Chase Claypool would have been the player to pick up the slack for Mooney. Claypool couldn't pick up his own slack. And he had a lot of it, so he's gone.

The next player down the list from Mooney who would be a Bears No. 2 behind DJ Moore is rookie Tyler Scott.

Scott has only been targeted 12 times all year and has seven catches for 51 yards. This isn't enough production to indicate he's someone capable of outperforming Mooney.

Velus Jones Jr. has become a kick returner and novelty player. He doesn't seem able to run routes well enough to get open and coaches admitted prior to this season he needed to be better picking up the offense. The only other receiver active is Trent Taylor and he's on the roster only because of punt return ability.

They still have Equanimeous St. Brown but he's on injured reserve with a hamstring problem and has never shown the hands to be a consistent part of the offense.

If they traded Mooney and then DJ Moore had a hamstring injury or some other issue, they'd be left with a receiver group far worse even than last year's. And that's pretty bad.

3. Value

If the point is to get a draft pick that actually can mean something and not just sixth- or seventh-round throw-in type compensation, then they've sure picked the wrong time to do it because Mooney's production is way down. It makes his value lower.

Mooney was targeted seven times in the opener and not more than four times again until last week's win, when he had five targets. He has had three games where he didn't catch a pass. He has just 24 targets and his previous low for seven games was 37 as a rookie.

4. Injury

Because Mooney is targeted so rarely and is coming off a season-ending injury that not only required surgery but rehab right up to training camp, teams might be reluctant to consider him. Mooney says he's well past the recovery from tightrope surgery on his ankle. The answer to this can only be: Prove it.

5. Justin Fields

If they've still not decided for certain on Fields' future, they would want to make sure he has the most possible viable targets available in order to reach an accurate conclusion. Giving Fields no receivers and expecting him to prove himself is too much like what they did last year. It's been reported without substantiation that Fields is targeting next week for his return, but Bears coach Matt Eberflus did fix an optimistic label to his QB's recovery Friday. So would they want Fields coming back without one of his main targets and with a rookie stepping into those shoes?

6. Matt Eberflus

If they're trying to keep from finishing with three wins again and getting the whole coaching staff fired, getting rid of one of their best offensive weapons for what might not even be a Day 2 pick seems an awfully strange way to do it.

7. Ryan Poles

He went to the midseason trade window last year and look at what it got him. It's wearing a Dolphins uniform and he gave up the 32nd pick in the draft to do it. Don't expect him to be overly excited about being involved in any dealings for wide receivers during the season for now. Trades of any wide receiver at midseason rarely net immediate desired results for teams, anyway. Players who pay the most dividends in midseason trades are running backs, offensive or defensive linemen or defensive backs because what they need to pick up from their new teams to be effective is fairly universal. Trading for quarterbacks or receivers on trade deadline means bringing someone in at mid-stream and expecting them to both comprehend a totally different offense and offensive language, but get used to a new receiver or quarterback. It takes too much time for this to be done during the middle of a season and it's a reason quarterbacks who are actually playing are rarely dealt in the middle of a season.

8. Waiting Can Pay Off

Mooney's trend is downward at the moment and if they felt the value was there to keep him beyond this season they could always get him a contract after the season but before free agency. If he makes some sort of late, spectacular surge and prices himself out of Chicago, well, there are options elsewhere in the offseason for the Bears, as well.

9. Nice Try

The thought that the Chiefs might be interested in Mooney because of past ties to Matt Nagy is a logical and a creatie thinking. It's a little late, though, because KC traded to get Brandon Mebane back to fill their receiver hole.

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