Bears coach Ben Johnson’s message to wide receiver DJ Moore about his bad body language has been simple.
‘‘Just don’t do it,’’ Moore said Johnson told him. ‘‘Just keep it inside. Talk about it later. Just don’t put it on film. Don’t put it on TV.’’
Moore did that plenty of times last season, most notably when he walked off the field against the Cardinals while a play still was going on. He sat down on the Bears’ bench and stood up when the play ended.
He claimed he tweaked his ankle. Later in the season, however, Packers safety Xavier McKinney told reporters Moore simply had ‘‘walked out on’’ then-rookie quarterback Caleb Williams.
‘‘You’re supposed to be the guy,’’ McKinney said, ‘‘and you’re just walking off the field.’’
There were other cases, too, when Moore showed frustration during a season in which he finished with a career-low 56.8 receiving yards per game and the Bears went 5-12.
Last week, Johnson said the offseason was ‘‘all about educating’’ Bears players about what he expects to see in their body language. Moore said he was reprimanded this offseason, but only once.
‘‘I did it once, and we nipped it in the bud and it never happened again,’’ Moore said after the first of the Bears’ three mandatory minicamp practices Tuesday. ‘‘I just said, ‘I ain’t never gonna do it again.’ ’’
Johnson isn’t sure why Moore fell off statistically last season — ‘‘Your guess is as good as mine on that one,’’ he said — but he has been encouraged by what he has seen this offseason.
‘‘What we’ve seen the last six or seven weeks has been a guy that’s highly motivated,’’ Johnson said. ‘‘He wants to be as complete of a receiver as he can possibly be, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get there.’’
That’s why the Bears gave Moore a four-year, $110 million contract extension last July after he averaged 80.2 receiving yards per game playing alongside Justin Fields in 2023. Moore struggled to jell with Williams in the first half of the season, though. In six of the Bears’ first nine games, Moore had 36 receiving yards or fewer.
If the same thing happens this season, the Bears have more options. They used a first-round pick on receiver Rome Odunze in 2024 and another on pass-catching tight end Colston Loveland this year. They made Missouri receiver Luther Burden a second-round pick in April, one month after they signed slot receiver Olamide Zaccheaus, who had a career-high 45 catches for 506 yards with the Commanders last season.
All that change has made it hard for Moore to identify his individual goals for the coming season.
‘‘Right now I don’t have goals because I’m still learning everything and I don’t even know if I’m going to touch the ball as much as I did some years or if I’m going to be used the same way,’’ he said.
The Bears have tinkered with putting Moore in the slot, something Johnson dismissed as the coaching staff trying to get a feel for what each player can do.
‘‘We’re not necessarily putting guys and plugging them into certain spots and saying, ‘Stick and stay,’ ’’ he said. ‘‘We’re moving guys around. We’re getting a great feel this springtime of what guys can and can’t do. And then once we get into training camp — and certainly further along in training camp — we’ll start honing in and having them master certain routes and their route tree that way.’’
Moore smiled when he was asked whether he was going to be used differently this season.
‘‘You’re going to have to wait for the season to see,’’ he said. ‘‘You can’t give away too much because we’re doing a lot right now.’’
