Bear Digest

What DJ Moore Had to Say About Leaving Chicago and Critical Fans

DJ Moore hadn't spoken to media after the Bears' season ended regarding his role in a controversial interception or on returning to Chicago but did so at the Super Bowl.
Gene Chamberlain|
DJ Moore pulls in a 3-yard TD catch against the Rams in the divisional playoffs.
DJ Moore pulls in a 3-yard TD catch against the Rams in the divisional playoffs. | David Banks-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

DJ Moore wasn't made available to media after the Bears season ended partly due to a controversial play involving his pass route.

As a result, no one heard his side of the interception that Caleb Williams threw against the Rams in overtime of the divisional playoffs.

Since then, some of the fans who love complaining have taken to social media and called for his trade or to even be cut, but Moore is taking t all in stride -- as he seems to do with everything.

Walter Payton's son Jarrett caught up with Moore at the Super Bowl and asked him a out the season's finish and in a brief interview posted by WGN he addressed the idea that Moore could be leaving town. Moore more or less laughed it off.

"You know, I can't let the fans get too high or too low on my play and I go from there but I think they'd be mad because they be bettin'," Moore said. "That would be the only reason."

Make no mistake, Moore wants to be back next season.

"Yeah, I want to be in Chicago," he told Payton. "I'm really not looking at it that I'm not going to be in Chicago. That never really crossed my mind. I don't think that ever will.

"I mean, I know where you're getting that, from the fans that want to

attack people, but it is what it is and it comes with the sport.

That's what we signed up for."

Moore isn't a free agent and has the biggest cap hit next year on the team of $28.5 million. They couldn't cut him before June 1 because the cost and dead cap to them combined would be astronomical. They could cut him after June 1 at a savings of $1.015 million according to Overthecap.com, but if they did they would absorb a $27.485 million dead-cap hit. That means they'd lose $27.485 million of their cap space.

A trade before June 1 would mean a net savings of $4.5 million but would also remove $12 million from their cap availability due to dead-cap space. Only a trade after June 1 makes sense cap-wise for the Bears because the lost cap space to dead cap would be $4 million but the savings by losing his salary would be $24.5 million.

A team needs a trading partner for that to happen, though.

Payton did get Moore to talk about his pass route. Williams had described it as a miscommunication and that Moore should have run in front of safety Kam Curl and then toward the sideline but the big criticism of the route on social media was from fans complaining it didn't seem Moore was running hard.

"I always got that it don't look like I'm running, ever since I was little, so I really don't know how I could change that, try to change that," Moore said.

Apparently he tried once.

"It didn't work, so I was just like, all right we just gonna stay running how I run and after that I just let it be," he said, in his usual disarming manner.

Until or if the Bears have a better option than Moore, or a specific target, the talk about him being dealt is so much hot air.

Fans who call for his departure sure forget how he beat the Packers twice in a month after they hadn't won consecutive games over Green Bay since 2007.

That, in and of itself, is reason for forgiveness of a dozen bad routes.

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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.