With Bears pass-catchers down, DJ Moore picked the perfect time to heat up

DJ Moore was surprised Caleb Williams even tried to throw the ball.

The Bears quarterback faked a handoff and rolled right in the third quarter of what would become a 31-3 win against the lowly Browns on Sunday at Soldier Field. One step from the sideline, Williams did a bunny hop and launched a pass off his back foot into the back of the north end zone.

The Bears receiver was blanketed by safety Grant Delpit and cornerback Tyson Campbell to the point where he had to pay special focus on the ball as it flew through the air. It zipped over Delpit’s outstretched arm and past Campbell, and landed in Moore’s arms as he tiptoed through the back of the end zone.

Moore was surprised the ball went his way — it’s not often Williams goes that far down his progression list.

“At the same time, he’s been pinpoint with his accuracy on those things,” Moore said. “It was just, ‘I gotta come down with it.’”

The throw was next-to-impossible.

“Isn’t that an ill-advised throw?” tight end Cole Kmet said with a smile. “That’s unbelievable. … I don’t know how many guys that can make that throw.”

As encouraging as the play — and the day — was for Williams, it was just as promising for Moore. One week after posting one catch for minus-4 yards against the rival Packers, Moore caught four passes for 69 yards and two touchdowns. In the five games before Sunday, Moore had caught nine total passes on 22 targets for 95 yards.

Asked whether he needed a game like Sunday, Moore joked that it would silence the narrative that he wasn’t getting the ball enough.

Maybe.

“Would it shut y’all up?” he joked to the reporters assembled around his locker. “It ain’t going to shut y’all up. It felt good.”

It wasn’t a moment too soon. The Bears, who have bragged about their pass-catching depth all season, are suddenly thin in that department. Receiver Rome Odunze, who has battled chronic foot issues all season, was expected to return for Sunday’s game after missing his first NFL game in Green Bay. The Bears cleared him to play, then he felt pain during warmups and was shut down.

“I really don't know, right now, the extent of it,” coach Ben Johnson said. “Something like that happens right before a game, and you're solely focused on getting the next guy ready to perform at a high level.”

Rookie Luther Burden II was in the process of putting together a career game — he led the team with six catches for 84 yards — when he injured his ankle on a third-quarter screen pass. Johnson said the Bears would examine him further Monday.

Kmet got hurt, too, and was helped off the field by trainers. He returned to the game, though, and said afterward his rolled ankle was just “normal football stuff.”

Rookie tight end Colston Loveland contributed in their absence, catching four passes for 63 yards. It marked his most receiving yards since his game-winning performance in Cincinnati.

“We need all of our weapons,” Loveland said. “We got depth. We got guys that can make plays. It’s cool to see.”

The Bears surprised many around the NFL when they drafted Loveland in Round 1 and Burden with their first of three Round 2 picks. Johnson thought the glut of pass-catchers was a good thing — it would motivate his receivers to stay focused in practice and block in the run game.

That has allowed the Bears not to panic when they need to cycle through their pass-catchers — Kmet, Loveland, Burden and Odunze have all missed at least one game this year.

“You don’t see any hesitation from the coaches, which is really cool,” Kmet said. “They’re on to the next thing. They’ve got faith in all the guys on the roster that whoever’s got to fill in for that role, they’ve got faith in.”

Having the league’s second-best rushing attack helps. Sunday, D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai combined to run 29 times for 131 yards.

“It can kinda help Band-Aid those things really well … ” Kmet said. “When you can just go ‘we got this guy down or that guy down,’ we can start handing it off and trust the offensive line, especially with a lead. That just speaks volumes about where we’re at.”

Sunday, Moore was exactly where he wanted to be.

“He's been playing this way every week — it's just we haven't been able to get the ball in his hands,” Johnson said. “We were able to target him a few more times, and he came through with some big plays for us. Sometimes these things come in bunches. You kind of have a dry spell, and then all of a sudden he could come on hot here over the next three games and just really take off.

“That's the way it tends to happen, which would be a good thing for us.”