Bears WR DJ Moore: Bad body language only temporary, connection with QB Caleb Williams 'on the right track'

DJ Moore doesn't know how the networks do it, but somehow their cameras capture his every grimace and grin after Caleb Williams misses him in a piece.

From there, it's pretty easy to guess where this is going. Those clips quickly spread across social media and escalated into a firestorm over the Bears' top wide receiver's anger at their prized rookie quarterback.

It looks bad, and Moore knows it, but he also doesn't deny that his expression reflected what he was feeling in those moments.

“The faces and stuff, they’re just faces,” he told the Sun-Times. “I thought to myself, 'Damn, we could have connected,' or something could have been better in this piece.

“I don't worry much about what people publish because I'm never frustrated as a person. If a play doesn’t go the way we wanted, I’m (upset), but after that moment I’m back to normal.”

The Bears place a high value on “normal me.” From the moment Moore arrived at Halas Hall in 2023 as part of a blockbuster trade that sent the No. 1 pick to the Panthers that year and resulted in the Bears getting the No. 1 pick this year Pick landed and signed Williams, he exemplified what they strive to provide excellence on the field and leadership off the field.

Moore was “an incredible teammate” with former quarterback Justin Fields, a source noted, even when the passing game stalled. He is equally behind Williams and can occasionally be annoyed by his increasing acclimatization.

The poor body language examined this week occurred after a breakdown in which Moore was open in the end zone against the Rams late in the first half and Williams assumed he was sprinting to the far corner. He overthrew him and FOX quickly switched to Moore.

Williams said Wednesday that it wasn't necessarily his or Moore's fault, but rather that the two were out of sync. He decided to “let everything settle down” and then sort it out with Moore on the bench so they would “score a big goal” at the next opportunity. Moore declared the disruption “resolved” and said, “We're going to go the Caleb route and do it right.”

It's hardly a crisis that a seventh-year veteran sometimes rolls his eyes at what a rookie doesn't know. The gap between the two — Williams will make his fifth start Sunday against the Panthers, while Moore has played nearly 6,000 snaps — is a chasm by NFL standards.

“It does test your patience, but you have to know that you've been in the same position once and everyone was looking at you like, 'Dude, come on, join me,'” Moore said. “You can’t put any more pressure on him. He's the starting quarterback and the NFL is tough.

“Even though we might be playing faster than him at this point, he’ll get there.”

His belief in this last part is crucial. Moore is under contract until 2029, so he has a lot at stake for Williams' success and looks forward to a bright future. No teammate raved more during training camp than Moore, calling him “elite talent.”

He knows the other end of the spectrum all too well. Moore endured inexperienced and incompetent quarterbacks throughout his career, particularly with the Panthers from 2018 to 2022. Impressively, he averaged nearly 1,100 yards in his first six seasons, no matter who he was with.

He's happy to have Williams. Waiting for him to fully arrive is a challenge for someone capable and eager to be the focal point of a successful passing attack, but Moore expects their cohesion to improve and him to develop into a game-changing quarterback will develop.

“I’m definitely confident it will work out for him,” he said. “We're well on our way to getting connected, but we just need to get the Wi-Fi to three bars.”