Bears receiver DJ Moore just went through a season best described as a setback considering he failed to crack 1,000 yards for the second time in three years, although getting close had to be considered a major accomplishment in last year's offense.
His somewhat quiet start at camp so far doesn't worry the Bears or Moore about the possibility it could simply be that a Caleb Williams-to-Moore connection is a difficult one to achieve. After all, Moore did have 1,364 yards receiving with the Bears, but with Justin Fields at quarterback.
"DJ is a player that you can do a lot with," offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said. "As we get going here, you’ll start to see some things that are a little bit different in the way we’re going to use him, but that’s where we’re at right now."
They're still installing offense and fitting pieces, even though the clock to the Sept. 8 opener is ticking.
It might be a plan for a balanced offense but Moore is always going to be a key to getting it to work properly. He will be for Johnson now what Amon-Ra St. Brown was in Detroit even if he isn't a slot receiver per se.
"We’re just at the beginning of the playbook so everything is not on the table," Moore said. "Probably later on in camp we’ll probably start seeing it but right now we’re just getting the basics down."
Doyle sees them getting around to Moore eventually. At Thursday's practice, they seemed set on getting the ball to the slot receiver more and Olamide Zaccheaus made several catches but also one bad drop.
"I think it's being intentional about the plays that we're putting in," Doyle said. "Early on in the spring we wanted to give them a ton of volume with a bunch of different concepts, introduce them to the terminology and the language.
"Now, it's kind of narrowing in on you know specific players. All right, hey, this is DJ Moore. What do we want to do with him? How are we going to feed him the ball? He's got a different skill set than Rome or (Zaccheaus) or any of the tight ends or the backs. So, just trying to take all of the different infomation we have gathered through the spring and then as we go in training camp and try to make sure we are intentional with the reps that we take."
Another part of the Bears' passing game struggles for the first three days grew out of what their defense is doing, as tight end Cole Kmet addressed earlier. Much like with pitchers in relation to hitters to start of spring, in the NFL the defense seems to start ahead of the offense at training camp.
At least it's always that way with the Bears. Their problem has always been how it never seems to even out.
Three days of training camp and the defense is celebrating a lot, as usual. This time, though, both sides have new schemes in place.
It's Dennis Allen's defensive scheme winning all the praise.
"It's not one thing that looks the same on that defense," wide receiver DJ Moore said. "Everything is different every play.
"It’s good for us but I’m glad we don’t have to go against it on Sundays."
Moore regularly saw Allen's defenses at their peak before the Bears defensive coordinator became Saints head coach so he's not unfamiliar with this.
"Yeah. It’s always something different, though," he said. "They’re always playing man, they’re always blitzing. But it’s just always a different way to get to it."
At some point, Williams, Moore and the Bears offense figure to step up if not catch up with the defense.
"In general, it's been a good three days," Moore said. "We had a few hiccups, defense getting the better of us with the picks, but it all comes with the days of training camp."
He's been through enough of these to know the offense always picks it up late.
"You just know that you’ve got to get through the day," Moore said. "Whatever happens, you can just teach off of it and just get better from there."
It's a process and it's barely begun but baseball catching great Yogi Berra once reminded, "It gets late early out there."
In Chicago, the offense is always under the gun to get something done and even though their top receiver is a proven commodity, the quarterback is not.
