Bear Digest

How Bears bested Packers and Vikings in battle for a speed receiver

How Chicago came out with the better option among often-injured speed receivers Devin Duvernay, Rondale Moore and Mecole Hardman.

Gene Chamberlain

Devin Duvernay tip-toes the sideline after breaking away in a Jaguars game last season.
Devin Duvernay tip-toes the sideline after breaking away in a Jaguars game last season. / Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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Numbers say the Bears not only won the three-way battle with division rivals to come up with an extra speed threat, but they also have a potential receiver threat in Devin Duvernay when many analysts saw him only as a special teams player.

The other aspect not really mentioned much is he is actually their second acquisition during free agency for a similar extra slot receiver role, since they already had signed Olamide Zaccheaus as a slot or third receiver.

The battle was with the Vikings and Packers and the Bears came away with Duvernay after also looking at Rondale Moore and Mecole Hardman. Moore went to the Vikings and Hardman to the Packers, which will make for interesting comparisons throughout the 2025 season.

The interesting aspect of it will be what happens in the return game now if the proposed rule change to put touchbacks at the 35-yard line gets passed and has the anticipated impact. At first glance, it looks like the kind of effect that could benefit Duvernay.

Health

Duvernay has had his share of injuries but is the only player of the three speed receiver threats considered who did not finish last year on injured reserve with a knee surgery, which obviously never helps a player's speed or his ability to be at full strength for the next season. Instead, they're spending the offseason rehabbing and not practicing their skills.

Duvernay spent time on injured reserve, as he has each of the last three seasons. However, it was a mid-season hamstring injury and he returned. Moore missed the full year after a torn ACL, and a late-November knee injury to Moore resulted in surgery and a season finished on injured reserve.

Return Rout

Which team has the better return man out of this three-way scrape isn't in question.

Not only was Duvernay a two-time Pro Bowl return man but he was also an All-Pro. Hardman did make the Pro Bowl as a rookie return man but never after that. Meanwhile, Moore's career hasn't been up to the same level as the other two as a return threat.

Duvernay was one of the league's better punt returners until going to the Jaguars last year and playing on a bad punt return unit. He also didn't get as many chances at punt returns because the Jaguars defense didn't stop anyone, ranking 27th in points allowed.

Duvernay was averaging 12.8 yards per punt return until last season's 8.8 with the Jaguars. As a kick returner, he had two TD returns in his first three seasons and averaged a solid 25.6 yards a return then.

Hardman averages only 9.2 yards per punt return and his 23.8-yard kick return average is deceiving as he hasn't really done this since his first two seasons with 10 total returns in five years.

Moore has no real value as a return man, or at least he hasn't shown any. He has returned one punt since 2021 and has averaged 8.3 yards for his 22 career returns. He hasn't returned a kick since 2021 and averaged 22.4 yards in that season for 13 tries.

There is reason to believe the Bears can get much more out of Duvernay in the return game than he showed with Jacksonville. The Jaguars were only 18th in total returns made even though their defense ranked 27th in scoring. So they were getting kicked off to a lot but weren't getting many returns due to touchbacks.

The rule change proposal to tweak kick returns with a touchback at the 35-yard line might discourage more teams from opting to kick it into the end zone. Last year 32.8 of kickoffs were returned and there were 64.3% touchbacks league-wide, the second-lowest rate of returned kicks this century, behind only 2023.

If the rule works as designed, a return man who is a bit bigger and faster like Duvernay at 5-11, 202, should be an ideal threat to make more and longer returns.

Neither Moore (5-7, 181) nor Hardman (5-10, 187) look to be big enough or physical enough to take advantage of the new style of kick returns with the opposition starting closer to the return man on coverage teams.

Receiving Standoff?

While Duvernay looks at first glance like the loser in some ways compared to the other two as a receiver, he doesn't need to be the winner because of the acquistion of Zaccheaus. Then again, there are also ways he is better or at least comparable to those two receivers as a threat.

Duvernay might have become a bigger factor in Baltimore's receiving game if not for injuries that derailed him in 2022 during his best season as a passing game contributor. He made a career-high 37 catches then for 407 yards and three touchdowns, Duvernay was being looked at then as a rising threat in the passing game.

”Duv's an all-around type player," quarterback Lamar Jackson told Ravens reporters at the time. ”He can catch the ball out of the backfield, run great routes, catch the ball at the receiver position.”

According to the analytic DVOA from the website Football Outsiders, Duvernay ranked as the No. 1 receiver in the entire NFL among those with at least 20 targets up to mid-October of 2022.

Then two injuries—a hamstring that landed Duvernay on injured reserve and a knee injury that put starting QB Lamar Jackson on IR—combined to ruin the momentum the two were building as passer and receiver. Duvernay still finished the year with his career-high numbers.

The next year Duvernay never got into the groove as a receiver and wound up finishing his Ravens career on injured reserve, then went to the Jaguars in free agency and was nothing mroe than a special team with the Jaguars.

Moore's biggest contribution might be as a ball carrier on end arounds because his receiver contribution has only been catches for small gains. He averaged less than 9 yards a catch twice and that was before his knee injury. He has only three career TD catches. Duvernay had that many in one season. Moore has been more of a possession guy than the big threat analysts predicted coming out of the draft, but he's had only three seasons to prove himself.

Hardman is easily the most accomplished receiver of the three with 126 catches for 1,791 yards and 12 TDs in his first three seasons. However, since that third year in 2021, Hardman has only 52 catches for 511 yards, an average of 9.8 yards a catch. He doesn't have a regular-season TD since 2022.

Bears Use

It's unlikely the fourth receiver for the Bears will play much of a role beyond depth and returns, so Duvernay looks like an ideal role player in Chicago. Coach Ben Johnson used 12-personnel with two tight ends more than a third of the time so opps for a fourth wide receiver are limited.

The special teams role, especially, looks like a fit because with DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, Zaccheaus, Cole Kmet, D'Andre Swift and possibly one more tight end and running back, the number of playmakers seems sufficient to make any fourth receiver role only background material.

A 20-catch season would be more along the lines of what they would expecting from this player with good health for other players, but special teams will be the key.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.