DJ Moore 2023 Fantasy Football Outlook – Are You In Or Out?

D.J. Moore’s trade to Chicago has elicited many vastly different opinions on what his fantasy football value is for the 2023 NFL season. There are questions about the team passing volume and if Justin Fields can throw the ball consistently. On the other hand, Fields showed a lot of potential last season — albeit a lot of which came via rushing — and Moore has been one of the better receivers in the NFL.

You can find previous editions of the "Are You In or Out?" series here:

• Travis Etienne: In or Out Series Edition
• J.K. Dobbins: In or Out Series Edition
• Kyle Pitts: In or Out Series Edition
• George Pickens: In or Out Series Edition

Theoretically, the upside in Chicago should be higher. Of course, we did this same old song and dance when Sam Darnold was traded to Carolina. What should fantasy managers make of DJ Moore’s fantasy value and is he worth the price of admission? Don't forget, as draft season approaches, use the promo code "BOOM" at checkout for a 10% discount on any premium purchase.

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History Tends to Repeat Itself

Let’s just be frank here before we get too far, DJ Moore needs two things to happen for him to pay off at his current WR26 ranking, and 47.9 Underdog ADP — Justin Fields needs to take a step (or two forward) and the Chicago offense needs to drastically increase their passing volume. Just one of them will not be enough.

Let me explain. Chicago averaged 22.1 pass attempts per game in 2022. If that only increases to 25, the Bears will finish with 425 total attempts and if Moore has a 27% target share, that’s just 6.7 targets per game. Last year, that would’ve been 39th respectively among receivers. That just isn’t going to get it done if we expect him to pay off at his current WR26 price, especially if Fields is no more consistent than he was last year.

While it’s easy to say that the Bears will pass more in 2023 — that much is obvious — will the increase be enough? You have to go all the way back to 1990 to find the last time a team passed fewer times per game than the 2022 Chicago Bears!

In the table above, you’ll find the team with the fewest pass attempts per game in each of the last 11 years. As you can see, even against the previous 10 teams who finished last in pass attempts per game, Chicago still looks like the outlier. The closest team to the 2022 Bears was the 2013 Seahawks, who still threw it 3.5 times more per game. Over 17 games that’s 60 attempts, almost three full games worth of Chicago’s average. The 11-year average is 27.07. Chicago’s 2022 average would need to increase by 21.9% to get to 27.07. Maybe what’s more important than where Chicago’s 2022 club ranks historically is how much these other teams increased their passing the following year.

Looking at the table above you can see that nine of the 10 teams increased their pass attempt per game average, while one stayed exactly the same. Only two teams increased their pass attempts by more than 20%. The average was just 15.0%. Using this 15.0% increase for Chicago, we’d expect the Bears’ offense to finish with around 434 pass attempts. This would’ve finished 31st in the NFL last year. The median is 11.5%. Using that as our increase, the Bears would finish with 421 attempts and finish just barely ahead of Atlanta in 31st.

While the 38.6% increase we saw from Baltimore in 2021, we need to remember that J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards tore their ACLs and Justice Hill tore his Achilles. Whenever a team loses quite literally their whole backfield, they’re going to pass more, so that season’s increase should be taken with a grain of salt.

Just to get Chicago to 30 pass attempts per game, they’d need a 35% increase on last season’s pass attempts, which would be an enormous outlier compared to what we’ve seen from the past 10 years. It’s easy to say the Bears are going to pass more. That much is a given, but figuring out just exactly what that means is a different discussion altogether. History tends to repeat itself and based on what we’ve seen historically, expecting an increase of more than 20% seems unlikely, but that’s just one requirement.

Can We Trust Justin Fields?

The second issue in regards to Moore and his fantasy value is Justin Fields. If you’re a DJ Moore fan, then you’re no stranger to quarterback play tanking his value, like it did most recently in 2022. While he’s been able to overcome that issue in previous years (2019–2021), he had passing volume on his side.

In 2019, Moore finished with 135 targets and Carolina averaged 39.6 pass attempts per game, the second-most in the NFL. Carolina averaged 34.4 attempts per game in 2020, the 22nd-most, and he finished with 118 targets. Then in 2021, they averaged 35.2 attempts per game and he finished with 163 targets. For Chicago to get to 34.4, the lowest pass attempt per game average in three of Moore’s good seasons in Carolina, they’d have to increase their passing volume by 54.9% or 12.2 attempts per game, which is completely unprecedented.

The numbers above are based on a 33 quarterback sample and they certainly do not generate much confidence. However, it should be noted Fields was throwing to the worst group of pass-catchers in the NFL last season in a brand-new offensive scheme. There’s no denying the numbers are bad. There’s also no denying Fields had very little to no help. How each fantasy manager weighs those two facts will be up to them.

According to Football Outsiders, Fields had a DVOA of -34.05%. This was 34th among 34 qualifying QBs. In fact, the next closest QB wasn’t even all that close, -22.5%. Per Football Outsiders, “DVOA or Defense-adjusted Value Over Average, represents value, per play, over an average quarterback in the same game situations.”

Fields was given a 54.4 passing grade via PFF. This ranked 31st out of 34 quarterbacks with at least 250 dropbacks. He also had the third-highest turnover-worth play rate at 4.4% in this sample. So, can we trust Fields as a passer? If anyone says yes, they’re lying. The only two answers are no, based on the stats and film from 2022 or we don’t know yet because the environment last year was so unfavorable, it wouldn’t be fair to judge him off of it.

Last year, the Panthers attempted 26.9 passes per game, 4.7 more than the Bears, and Moore finished with just 118 targets despite an elite, 27.7% target share. An increase to 26.9 attempts per game for Chicago would consist of a 21.1% increase, more than six percentage points higher than the 10-year increase average noted earlier. Even if that happens, will Moore’s results be any different in Chicago than they were last year in Carolina? Not if Fields doesn’t dramatically improve.

Looking at the table above, there’s very little difference between Fields last season and the array of Panther quarterbacks, which brings us back to the very beginning. We don’t need just one thing to happen — Fields improving or more team passing volume — we need both.

What DJ Moore Brings

The fantasy football community has long been pounding the table for Moore to get to play with a real quarterback. Based on what we’ve already covered, the jury is still very much out on that one, but it’s hard to dispute the talent Moore brings to the field. The following chart is courtesy of Reception Perception and you can find his free profile here.

Pretty self-explanatory here — green is good and there is quite a bit of green above. Matt Harmon of Reception Perception wrote in his profile, 

“Moore has hovered between 70 and 71.9% success rate vs. man coverage in each of the last three seasons and has cleared 80% success rate vs. zone in three of the last four. His 72.2% success rate vs. press coverage from 2022 is the best mark of his career… Despite long stretches of poor production, you could argue that 2022 was one of D.J. Moore’s best seasons. He showed consistent separation across the route tree, something he hadn’t always strung together in previous seasons. In addition, teams knew Moore was the only game in town for the Panthers. He was doubled on a whopping 17.5% of his routes (more than double his previous career-high) and still posted some of his best success rate vs. coverage scores.”

Unfortunately, for as good of a player as Moore is, it hasn’t translated to fantasy football success, especially in the past two seasons.

There’s no denying the talent, but due to poor quarterback play and bad team offenses, we haven’t seen Moore become a true impact player in the fantasy world. Unfortunately, a lot of those same concerns — poor quarterback play and bad team offense — exist in Chicago. You’d have to go back all the way to 2020 to find the last time Moore would’ve provided plus value at his current WR26 price tag, which isn’t to say he should be avoided, just that there may not be as much upside.

While some are quick to look at the Stefon Diggs trade to Buffalo and what it meant for Josh Allen, as well as Tyreek Hill to Miami for Tua Tagovailoa, and A.J. Brown to Philadelphia for Jalen Hurts, the difference here, as noted by Reception Perception is that Moore is not on their level. All of those receivers were elite while Moore is merely just very good. That's not a shot at him at all, but if you're making that comparison and expecting the same results, you're going to get in trouble. Not only is Moore not as good, but the volume these original teams were working with, was much higher than Chicago's.

So… Are You In or Out?

The answer to that question likely falls on how optimistic you are about the Chicago offense and Justin Fields. We know who DJ Moore is as a player, but what we don’t know is how much the team passing volume increases and if Fields improves as a passer.

While Moore is undoubtedly very good, there’s also more target competition in Chicago than he’s had to deal with in Carolina. Darnell Mooney, Chase Claypool, and Cole Kmet are significantly better than the secondary pass-catchers that have played behind him in Carolina, which is just one more concern to be cognizant of.

In 2022, the three leading target-earners behind Moore were Terrace Marshall Jr., Christian McCaffrey (only six games), and Shi Smith. In 2021, the three highest target-earning players behind him were Chosen Anderson and two running backs, Ameer Abdullah (11 games) and CMC (seven games). I think we can all appreciate that the threesome in Chicago is significantly better than that lot.

If we give the Bears a 20% increase on their 2022 pass attempts (a very generous projection based on historical trends) they’d finish with around 450 total attempts. If we give Moore a 26% target share, a slight decrease from his 2022 mark of 27.7% due to the increased target competition, which seems fair, he’d finish with 117 targets. He finished as the WR29 last year on 118 targets.

Moore’s price tag isn’t high enough where fantasy managers need to avoid him, but it’s fair to wonder just how much upside there is at his price. If you’re in or out really comes down to how much you think the Bears increase their pass attempts per game and how much you think Fields increases. Moore’s price tag at this time feels like fair market value considering the things that need to go right for him to exceed his cost and how quickly things could unravel if the passing volume stays low or Fields continues to struggle.

He's best valued as a high-end WR3, which is exactly where the market currently has him. If you’re more bullish on the Bears’ increasing their volume and Fields’ improvement as a passer, you could target Moore as a backend WR2. However, anything higher than that and you’re most certainly overpaying and getting into a situation where it’ll be difficult for him to provide surplus value, if at all.

As a reminder, please use promo code "BOOM" at checkout for 10% off any premium purchase.

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