When the Chicago Bears made their blockbuster trade with the Carolina Panthers last March, most felt it was good for both parties. Carolina got to select their preferred quarterback at #1 overall while the Bears secured a proven receiver in D.J. Moore and future 1st and 2nd round picks. Certain experts liked the trade for Chicago because there was a decent possibility that 1st in 2024 could be a top-10 pick. However, there was no way it would be anywhere close to the top 5. However, D’Onta Foreman and Moore himself felt differently.
Both of them were with Carolina last season. Much of the optimism around the team’s 2023 prospects came from their strong finish to 2022. The Panthers won five of their last eight games and looked to be a quarterback away from getting back into the NFC South mix. There was one problem. Carolina let two of the key contributors who made that happen, Foreman and Moore, out of the build. They also fired the coach who engineered it, Steve Wilks. Foreman told Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune that he kind of saw the team’s plummet coming.
“But the struggles, I would say no, it’s not a surprise,” Foreman continued. “Because I just feel like the group we had last year, to finish the year off with the head coach and where he was going and the way we were going, the camaraderie that we built, when you break that up and try to start it all over again … it’s tough. That was tough.”
Moore echoed the same sentiment.
“I won’t say I am surprised by it either,” said wide receiver DJ Moore, who spent the first five years of his career in Carolina. “Because what do you expect when you let most of the guys, most of the offense for last season, you let them go?
“I’m not really surprised by their record only because it was a topsy-turvy thing over there with the whole new coach situation.”
D’Onta Foreman has kind of proven that point this year.
He and Moore have been instrumental in helping the Bears play some winning football over the past two months. Foreman leads the team in rushing touchdowns, while Moore is just shy of 1200 yards receiving. Chicago has won four of its last six games, eerily mirroring Carolina’s late-season surge last year. It is another reminder that when a formula is working, maybe the best thing to do is not change it. The Panthers did that. They had good offensive pieces. They had a head coach that seemed to command the locker room. All they needed to do was find a QB they liked. Unfortunately, to get it, they sacrificed everything else.
Now the Bears stand to reap the benefits. One more loss by Carolina ensures they will have the #1 pick in the draft for a second straight year. From there, GM Ryan Poles will have tons of options. He could opt to go after a quarterback of his own without having to pay the same ridiculously high price the Panthers did. Or he could trade the pick a second time and look to keep stacking assets. D’Onta Foreman seems sympathetic to what’s happening in Carolina. It was avoidable. At the same time, he seems happy to be out of there.
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