I’ll admit it. I was mad.
In the immediate aftermath of the Chicago Bears’ playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams and the game-losing interception on which DJ Moore seemed to run a poor route, I decided I’d had enough.
All the effort questions, the statistical regression, the ducking of the questions about it after it happened. Yeah, I was ready to see Moore traded pretty much as soon as it could be done.
It actually only took about a week for me to change my mind, or at least to back off the more aggressive part of my take.
After all, any debate about his effort should also include the fact that it’s probably a wonder he’s even on the field most weeks. We’ve seen him stick around after taking crushing blows to his back, turning his angle 90 degrees, and pulling up lame. (He’d already come back from the blue tent in that Rams game, as people have noted since then.) Ryan Poles has also praised his toughness and the way it carries over to his teammates.
Does he need to be better? Yeah. I’m sure he’d be the first to tell you that. Is he still a good player? Also yes.
Which brings me to where I am now with Moore.
The Bears should listen to phone calls on Moore’s availability, as they should for most players not named Caleb Williams. And, unless a team offers something Poles can’t refuse, they should politely hang up the phone and let Moore redeem himself next season. Because I can already feel it: his 2026 campaign is aligning perfectly with the Bears’ overall tear-stuff-up arc I’m seeing develop.
You could hear it from Moore himself when he and Williams won the NFL Honors award for Moment of the Year on that walk-off TD catch against the Packers in Week 16: “We can look forward to causing havoc to the league next year,” he said on stage while accepting the award.
We. Doesn’t sound like a guy who wants to be anywhere else.
Then, you have head coach Ben Johnson getting snubbed for Coach of the Year in the most egregious way possible, earning just one vote for the turnaround job he just pulled off in Chicago.
You have people regularly saying Drake Maye would be a Chicago Bear right now if you were to re-draft the 2024 class.
You can only imagine how motivated these guys are going to be to prove everyone wrong. That especially goes for Moore, who just failed to reach 1,000 receiving yards two seasons in a row for the first time in his career. He’s been too good a player in his career to go out like that, and he still has more in the tank.
Moore just got his first taste of being on a winning team, and it didn’t end quite the way he or the Bears wanted. But more than just about any player on the roster aside from Williams, he now had something to prove in the most desperate way. And we’ve seen what he can be when he’s at his best.
So you know what? I’m invested. I love a good comeback story. Don’t trade Moore. Let him stew on this frustration. Let’s see if it drives him, and the Bears, to new heights. If going through this rough patch means we get 1,300-yard DJ Moore back, a little pain might’ve been worth it.