Usa news

After disappointing 2024, Bears wideouts get second chance to make a leap

No matter what Caleb Williams’ dad says, Chicago isn’t where quarterbacks go to die.

It’s where wide receivers go to die.

That was the declaration made by former Bears receiver Mushin Muhammad in 2008.

Last season was the year it was supposed to change. Maybe this year it actually will.

The Bears return wideouts DJ Moore and Rome Odunze and are replacing veteran Keenan Allen, who had by far the worst season of his career in his only year with the Bears, with second-round pick Luther Burden III and former Commanders receiver Olamide Zaccheaus.

Zaccheaus, who signed a one-year deal in March, caught 45 passes last year. Burden, the No. 39 pick, was the seventh-highest receiver ever drafted by the Bears. He was a luxury pick after the team watched two running backs be picked in the three spots ahead of them in Round 2.

The potential is there — Burden is still only 21, Odunze 23.

“They’re keeping me young,” said Moore, who is 28. “Even though I’m not that old in the room. …

“I was young in some rooms, I was in the middle — and now I’m the oldest. It’s kinda weird.”

Combine the receivers with new head coach Ben Johnson, one of the NFL’s elite play-callers the past few seasons, and the Bears believe their wideouts will be better than last season. It will be hard to be worse. The play of the receivers was as disappointing as any aspect of the Bears’ 2024 disaster, and that’s saying something.

General manager Ryan Poles picked Odunze ninth overall, making him the fourth-highest receiver the team had ever drafted. He traded for Allen and paid him $24 million for one season. One year ago this month, he gave Moore a four-year, $110 million contract extension, making him the highest-paid receiver in franchise history.

The result was a mess. Moore was mopey at times and couldn’t match his production the previous season, when he posted a career-high 1,364 receiving yards. His body language was so bad that Johnson made him focus on fixing it this offseason.

Odunze was inconsistent, in sync with rookie quarterback Caleb Williams one week and not the next. He had two or fewer catches in eight of his 17 games as a rookie.

Allen struggled to adjust his next-level route-running to Williams’ rookie Rolodex and had to adjust to living outside of California for the first time since high school. His 49.6 receiving yards were a career low. He remains a free agent.

Pro Football Focus ranked the Bears’ pass-catchers No. 4 in the NFL before last season began. By the end of the year, they were graded 27th.

This year, PFF projects them ninth. The Bears need them to finish in the top 10 to have a chance to keep up in the NFC North, which boasts Justin Jefferson and Amon-Ra St. Brown.

Improvement needs to start with Williams learning from last year’s performance. It’s a two-way street, though.

“I think [Williams] is going to play on time,” Johnson said, “when the receivers present themselves that way.”

Johnson’s presence will help the offense. During the Eberflus era, the Bears had exactly one receiver who totaled 1,000 yards in a season — Moore in 2023. No NFL team had fewer from 2022-24.

Williams was particularly ineffective throwing deep last year, finishing with a 59.6 passer rating on balls that flew 20 yards or further. That ranked 37th in a league with 32 starters.

When he worked for the Dolphins a decade ago, Johnson helped quarterback Ryan Tannehill, who was a rookie in 2012, work on his deep passes.

“You just keep focusing on it,” Johnson said. “You get close with your receivers. It doesn’t matter if you’re the ball deep, throwing it short, but it takes some time to develop chemistry and once you get that done then it usually becomes clockwork after that. So it’s just the more repetitions we get as a unit, the better off we’re going to be.”

This year’s corps doesn’t have the resume of last season’s. But it has a greater upside.

“As good as we want to be,” Zaccheaus said. “I think. It could be a thing where we all push each other to be better. And I feel like there are things that we all do very well that we can help each other with.”

During rookie minicamp, Burden made a prediction about the wide receiver room.

“It’s gonna be a huge year for the Chicago Bears,” he said.

After last season, merely being good would be an upgrade.

Latest on the Bears
Exit mobile version