Getty New Bears wide receiver Collin Johnson.
The Chicago Bears are adding a little more experience to their receiving corps after dealing away disgruntled wide receiver Chase Claypool last week.
According to the team’s official transaction wire for October 10, the Bears signed former Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Collin Johnson to their practice squad on Tuesday and cut loose former All-XFL kicker John Parker Romo to clear a roster spot for him.
Johnson was a fifth-round pick for the Jaguars who came off the draft board eight spots before Darnell Mooney during the 2020 NFL draft. He caught 18 passes for 272 yards and two touchdowns as a rookie and added another 11 receptions for 105 yards in his second season after moving on to the New York Giants. Unfortunately, he missed the entire 2022 season after tearing his Achilles during his third training camp.
The Bears now have two receivers stashed on their practice squad between Johnson and fifth-year Nsimba Webster. They also still have six wide receivers on their active roster following last week’s trade with veteran Equanimeous St. Brown seemingly taking over Claypool’s role in the offense during Week 5’s win over the Washington Commanders.
DJ Moore Among NFL’s Top WRs Through 5 Weeks
The Bears’ decision to trade a second-round pick (No. 32 overall) for Claypool will now go down as one of the biggest blunders of general manager Ryan Poles’ tenure, but his higher-profile receiver trade — the one for D.J. Moore — is working out awfully well.
Moore delivered a historic performance for the Bears in their 40-20 win over the Commanders on Thursday Night Football last week, catching eight passes for 230 yards and three touchdowns in the second-most-productive game ever for a Chicago receiver. His total receiving yards also were the most by an NFL receiver since then-rookie Ja’Marr Chase put up 266 for the Cincinnati Bengals in January 2022.
Through five weeks, Moore is certainly playing like a No. 1 receiver. He has the fifth-most receiving yards (531) and fifth-most yards per catch (19.7) in the league over the first five games of the 2023 season and is tied for the most touchdown catches (five). If he holds his current pace, he will finish with more than 1,800 receiving yards this year and blow past Brandon Marshall’s 2012 single-season franchise record of 1,508 yards.
So, while the deal for Claypool was a massive whiff, it speaks well of Poles that he was so aggressive in his pursuit of Moore. He insisted upon Moore being part of the package when negotiating a trade with the Carolina Panthers for the Bears’ No. 1 overall pick and still managed to pick up a nice collection of draft picks (two seconds and a first).
Not a bad way to support a young quarterback.
Darnell Mooney Has Struggled to Find Consistency
The Bears might have a budding superstar in Moore, but they are going to need more out of their other top receiving target — Mooney — in the coming weeks if they want their high-octane passing offense to avoid hitting another roadblock.
Mooney has struggled with consistency over the first five games of his fourth season despite being the longest-tenured receiver on the Bears’ roster. Since putting up four catches for 53 yards and a touchdown in the season opener against Green Bay, he has finished three of the last four games with zero receptions. To be fair, he was knocked out of Week 2’s game against Tampa Bay with a knee injury, but he was targetted four times in the win over Washington and was unable to come down with a single catch.
For now, the Bears can continue to feed Moore and tight end Cole Kmet — who had five catches for 42 yards and a score against the Commanders — in the passing game, but defenses are going to adapt to take them away if Mooney and the other receivers cannot step things up and prove they can also be dangerous. Especially with the running back room banged up at the moment, the Bears need all the help they can get on offense.