The Chicago Bears are riding a five-game winning streak after their Black Friday road win over the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, and appear on their way to their best season since 2018 when they won the NFC North with a 12-4 record.
In fact, if the Bears can win four of their last five games, they will equal their 13-win total of 2006, the last time the Bears played in the Super Bowl. So perhaps if some players show a tendency to get overenthusiastic, it would be understandable.
Not for the NFL, however.
Taunting Penalty Called on Moore
In the Bears Week 11 game against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Soldier Field, wide receiver D.J. Moore â whose $110 million, four-year contract makes him the 13th-highest paid wide receiver in the NFL â displayed a bit too much enthusiasm, or perhaps just poor judgment, after a third-quarter catch on a five-yard pass from quarterback Caleb Williams.
“After a quick, 5-yard gain, Moore flipped the football to Steelers defensive back James Pierre. But he did it in a manner that resulted in the wide receiver getting called for a taunting penalty,” recounted Fansided Bears correspondent Ryan Heckman. “Now, it was a relatively soft call on Moore. But it was a taunting penalty nonetheless. He had not been called for such a penalty since his time with the Carolina Panthers, where he removed his helmet late in a game after a huge score.”
The NFL Operations Department clearly did not agree that the taunting call on Moore was a “soft” one. On Saturday, the league announced that the 28-year-old would be punished further by assessing him a fine of $11,593.
2nd Fine of Moore’s Career
Asked after the game if he felt the taunting penalty was justified, Moore himself demurred, saying only, “I plead the fifth,” as quoted by Chicago Tribune Bears beat writer Sean Hammond.
That amount was predetermined by the NFL’s collective bargaining agreement, and is the designated fine for a first offense of the season in the taunting category.
The NFL says it reviews all plays from each week to independently determine which deserve to be fined. The league can levy the fines whether a specific play was called as a penalty in real time by game officials or not.
In Week 12, according to totals compiled by the league, NFL teams ran 2,265 plays. Just 13, or 0.57 percent, resulted in further punishment in the form of fines.
The fine was only the second of Moore’s career. In December of 2020, the season that the NFL played under strict health protocols due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Moore was fined $10,000 for violating those protocols.
21st Penalty in 8 Years for Moore
The taunting penalty was only Moore’s third flag of the season, though his previous two were for minor offenses, namely a false start and an offensive offsides call.
In Moore’s entire, eight-year career he has now been called for 21 penalties.
Moore was the Panthers’ first-round draft pick in 2018. Moore was a piece of the Panthers’ 2023 trade that got them Chicago’s first-round pick that year, a pick they used to take Alabama quarterback Bryce Young.
In the same trade, the Panthers sent the Bears the 2024 first-round pick that Chicago used to take their own quarterback, Williams, from USC.
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