When zooming out on the Chicago Bears’ 2024 season, people will have plenty of reasons to list for why things went so wrong. One was choosing to retain head coach Matt Eberflus despite clear red flags from the previous year. Another was Hiring Shane Waldron as the new offensive coordinator over other options. Not investing more resources in the offensive line was right near the top as well. However, wide receiver DJ Moore had a different perspective.
While many believe the Bears have been exposed as pretenders, in reality, it came down to two key events. He revealed what they are on 670 The Score with Mully & Haugh.
“It comes down to us having that early bye week and then going to Washington and losing like we did. It was just a trickle-down effect.”
Many haven’t talked about this. The Bears’ bye week arrived in week seven after they reached 4-2 with a win in London over the Jaguars. Momentum was clearly on their side. It appears some inside the building, including Moore, feel that break may have cooled them off at the worst possible time. For it to be immediately followed by the Hail Mary disaster in Washington? It appears all the wind was taken out of their sails.
DJ Moore isn’t the first player to experience this.
There have been several instances where a team started strong, only for a brutal moment in a loss to completely mess with their psyche. A great example is the 1986 Raiders. They’d battled back from a 0-3 start to reach 8-4. Then, as they were driving towards a winning score in overtime, Marcus Allen fumbled. Philadelphia recovered and scored the winning touchdown shortly after. L.A. lost their final three games after that to finish 8-8, admitting later how that fumble completely broke their spirits.
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It feels like the Hail Mary was that moment for the Bears, and one can understand why. They had the game in hand after Caleb Williams had just led a go-ahead touchdown. Just 25 seconds stood between them at 5-2. Then, a baffling series of defensive calls followed by a knucklehead moment from Tyrique Stevenson ruined everything. While DJ Moore and others didn’t admit it right away, there were clear indications everybody in the locker room never got over that loss.
@Arnie — We can have some fun discussing the reality of momentum, mojo and JuJu, later — But I certainly do believe in accepting responsibility for freezing under duress (Bears former HC Matt Eberflus did that deer-in-the-headlights act more than once). And yet, DJ Moore’s lame excuses are just one degree above Nate Davis using the passing of his mother to avoid his responsibility to the team he would later abandon (He certainly failed to honor her memory with his stellar OG play — or even his perfect attendance). The lack of character some of these individuals that GM Ryan… Read more »
@Sam And don’t forget White Zombie. Yes, I’m “More Human than Human” since I can roll my long-braided hair around just like him as you push your booted foot forward. I have all his MUSIC AND MOVIES. Now I just need his little blonde wife.
@carlitopen Exactly. Football is as much of a psychological game as anything and when the entire team sees their coach crap the bed, basically freeze at the most important point of the game, it no doubt has a lasting negative impact and I don’t care how mentally tough players are, it’s almost impassible to recover from that, especially when he doesn’t even own his failure after the fact. At least if he had taken to the podium and owned it, they might have been able to move past it, but when he not only didn’t own it, but defended such… Read more »
In the most important moment in the game Eberflus refused to call a timeout to settle his team down and maybe change his defensive call on that 15 yard pass
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