D.J. Moore is down from 80.2 yards per game last year to 55.7 this year. He is also averaging 1.27 yards per route run after being at 2.31 last season, and 1.98 for his career. Some fans expected this with the Chicago Bears adding Keenan Allen and Rome Odunze, but Allen has been out and Odunze was unproductive in the first two weeks. The issue goes far beyond that.

Moore posted 78 yards on Sunday, which looks like he is back on track, but 44 of those yards came off a tipped ball on a Hail Mary just before halftime.

The issue comes down to usage.

Why are the Chicago Bears using D.J. Moore so poorly?

Moore’s average depth of target is 7.6 yards down the field, down from 11.8, his career average. His career low is 9.6. Part of the reason for this regression is that instead of looking for Moore downfield, Williams is targeting Odunze.

This season, only 14.8% of his targets have been 20 yards down the field, compared to 24.2% last year. He averaged 15 yards per route run on those plays, which were high-value targets, but they are essentially non-existent right now.

The issue is that the Bears are using him way too close to the line. 25.9% of his targets have been screen passes this year. That was 16.7% last year. Right now, Caleb Williams is 7-7 targeting Moore in this area, but he has 20 yards to show for it.

Williams has a pretty nice deep ball and Moore has proven to be one of the better deep-ball receivers in the NFL. Shane Waldron taking that information and deciding to use Moore as a screen pass player who lives near the line of scrimmage is quite the decision. The Bears need to try to get Moore down-the-field targets more often.