By this time next week, Super Bowl LVIII will be a distant memory and we’ll all be looking ahead to an NFL offseason that could make itself felt for years to come.
The team at the center of it all is the Chicago Bears. Armed with the first overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft thanks to last year’s pre-draft trade with the Carolina Panthers, the Bears have to decide if they want to keep the first pick and draft a quarterback, presumably USC Trojan and 2022 Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, or if they want to trade down for the second straight year and continue with Justin Fields, who will be in his fourth season.
No one knows quite what the Bears will do at this point, but wide receiver DJ Moore, one of the other pieces that came to Chicago in the trade with Carolina, told Pro Football Talk Thursday that he’d love to see Fields stick around.
“His growth has been phenomenal,” Moore said. “If you look at the games where he came back off of injury, he’s been everything you could ask out of a quarterback. Puts us in a position to win, getting the ball to his playmakers and if he’s gotta do it himself he does it himself and takes it like 50, 60 yards and does his thing. That’s all you can ask, is just steady growth and that’s what he did.”
Moore went on to call Fields “a great leader” and said he doesn’t get tired of voicing his support for the 24-year-old quarterback.
Although Fields missed a month of action with a thumb injury, it’s easy to see why Moore supports him so much. The wide receiver had a career-best 1,367 receiving yards and eight touchdowns in his first season in Chicago to go along with a career-high 96 receptions.