Bear Digest

Team MVP Candidate for Bears? Why a Repeat Looks Unlikely

Analysis: The Chicago Bears team dynamic has changed too much to think of DJ Moore as the favorite to be the team MVP again.

Gene Chamberlain

DJ Moore's 2023 season in a struggling passing game easily made him the Bears team MVP but as they say, things have changed.
DJ Moore's 2023 season in a struggling passing game easily made him the Bears team MVP but as they say, things have changed. / Jamie Sabau-USA TODAY Sports
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The concept of MVP is always a matter of semantics.

The term always requires definition. Is it the player who makes a championship possible or simply the most dominant player on a team for a given year. For instance, in the NBA Bill Russell's great team contribution always made him a player who determined championships, but there was absolutely no doubt Wilt Chamberlain was the league's dominant player.

In the NFL, is it the running back who runs for 2,000 yards or the quarterback who might finish third or fourth in passing yards or rating but leads a team to the Lombardi Trophy?

Then you have to measure what it is they contribute. Is a touchdown pass worth more than a touchdown catch or run?

Erik Edholm of NFL.com brought up the topic as it relates to each team, as in possible team MVP candidates and arrived at a conclusion for the Bears who almost everyone would have voted for last year.

Edholm foresees DJ Moore being Bears MVP again this year but acknowledge some strong competition from Jaylon Johnson, Montez Sweat and rookie quarterback Caleb Williams.

Bears team MVP history reveals why they have struggled to field winning teams the past 11 years since Lovie Smith's firing, and why they've only been to the Super Bowl once since their 1985 season of total dominance.

How many seasons can you go back and track a quarterback being the Bears team MVP? When they last won the division, in 2018, hands down Khalil Mack was MVP.

Mitchell Trubisky was never a team MVP. The closest he came was 2018. He had a career-best 93.5 quarterback rating in 2020 and they made the playoffs, but he started only nine games with 2,055 yards.

Justin Fields' only season to consider was 2022, but he ran for 1,000 yards, only threw for 2,242 with an 85.2 passer rating. He probably did rate No. 1 here but it was only due to putrid nature of the rest of their 3-14, gutted team.

Jay Cutler really only had one statistical season when he should have been MVP. In 2015 under coordinator Adam Gase, he reached a career-high passer rating (92.3) and matched his best at yards per attempt (7.6) with a team in the midst of rebuilding the defense and offense. So it wasn't exactly difficult for him to stand out. Earlier, he had Julius Peppers' play from 2010-12 making a bigger difference, and in 2012 and 2013 his old buddy Brandon Marshall was more impactful.

In 2014, Matt Forte had a 1,000-yard rushing and caught 102 passes. That's not easy to top on a team that won five games and got both the coach and GM fired.

There were any number of MVPS on defense or in the running game who were better and more dominant than any quarterback during the earlier portion of Lovie Smith's coaching era. The same with his coaching predecessor, Dick Jauron. Probably only in 1995 did a quarterback rate a steam MVP for the Bears under Dave Wannstedt, with Erik Kramer. 

Edholm's choice for this year probably can't happen and here's why: It's either going to be Caleb Williams or it's going to be a defensive player if Williams is a first-year failure.

The Bears have put too many receivers on the roster for Moore to stand out above all of them the way he did last year when Fields looked at him, then Cole Kmet and then ran. If Moore catches a huge number of passes again, something close to his 96 receptions of a year ago, then with the other great receivers he has on the team it will most likely be the first 4,000-yard passing season in franchise history.

In that case, Williams obviously should be the MVP.

When Moore played in Carolina, he was on a team with multiple receiver targets for two seasons and he knows how to be part of the group without being the stand alone.

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It's harder for a receiver to be an MVP if the quarterback is getting everyone in the offense the football the way he should. And Williams' history says he's more likely to do try to do this even at the NFL level. He didn't have a receiver with more than 59 receptions at USC and had none with more than 39 at Oklahoma. He disperses the ball to all open parties and did it well enough to win a Heisman.

With multiple players capable of being open, it's going to come down to the quarterback. And MVP will come down to the QB.

If Williams busts and the offense struggles greatly, MVP will come down to how many times Sweat violently throws a quarterback to the ground or Johnson can pick off the ball to give it back to Williams.

If that happens, no one will care anyway.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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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.