They're not there yet as one video clip of a pass Monday night showed, but DJ Moore says he and his QB are working at building the connection.
Video of DJ Moore running alone downfield, putting up his hand and being overthrown by Bears quarterback Caleb Williams might not show it, but the two think they are on the same page.At least it seemed this way after Moore and Bears offensive coordinator Declan Doyle described one Monday night play after the loss.
Considering the trouble the two had last year getting on the same page, it seems like little to worry about. "It might have not showed during camp," Moore said. "I don’t really look into ... how do I say it? Camp is camp at the end of the day, and everyone’s learning and growing.The play when Williams didn't see Moore and the Bears receiver put up his hand was a play that needs correction, whether it was an example of them being on different pages or not. "It wasn’t designed," offensive coordinator Declan Doyle said. "He’s running an out cut, he felt himself in space and sometimes guys that are football players and they feel that and they’re putting their hand up."Obviously, people look at it and say ‘hey, they’re not on the same page,’ and we weren’t in that case. But that’s something that we looked at and it’s getting corrected. Obviously we’ll be better for that moving forward."DJ Moore had 4 receptions in tonight’s game. You ruled this a rush when the ball was thrown at the 23 yard line and caught at the 24. HOW IS THIS NOT A DJ MOORE RECEPTION?!"If the quarterback is in his rhythm, he’s expecting you to be in a certain place and so we’re saying, 'hey, that’s where we gotta go,'" he said. "If you end up, 'hey I’m wide open,' early in the route, you can fire that hand up and tell him early in his drop that I’m running to space here. "But that’s one of those things where we’ve just got to get those two guys on the same page. Really, the correction is across the board for the whole offense. It’s good for everybody to see that and how we want to handle that in the future."Another play tested whether the two are on the same page in another sense. It was a play very late on the way to the final TD the Bears scored. Both took a beating on the pass, Williams after throwing it over the middle and Moore after going up to get it in the middle of the secondary. Despite the incompletion, the Bears gained 15 yards on a roughing-the-passer play. Moore showed up on the injury report after the hit but was cleared and participated at practice the last two days. "What did it feel like? It felt like I got hit by a car," Moore said. "In the moment, I couldn’t really breathe. I kinda got up but I couldn’t really get up. I went back down and couldn’t breathe.There was no complaining about being hung out to dry on the pass or by Williams on Moore possibly not being where he needed to be and when. "It was just the safety made a good play from the other side of the field, coming in and jarring the ball loose and torturing my body," Moore said. "But it’s all right. "Me and Caleb talked about it and I said that football is football. You really can’t predict what’s going to happen on stuff like that, so it is what it is." Caleb Williams has faced the Vikings three times in his career this far. Here are some of the images from those games.A year ago when there seemed to be a bit of distance between the two all season, they might not have drawn this conclusion.So they work toward getting on the same words on the same line on the same page. Rome Odunze used some basketball skills to help Caleb Williams get into the end zone on this 9-yard touchdown run.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.
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