Darnell Mooney quickly becomes the second option in the offense
I am sure many of us were excited to see what Darnell Mooney could do. That said, I do not believe anyone thought Mooney would succeed this quickly. He not only has made good use of his time on the field, but he has supplanted himself as the second option in the offense behind Allen Robinson. This was supposed to be Anthony Miller‘s job, but Miller has not lived up to expectations at this point. He has made some incredible catches but has been too inconsistent.
Throughout four games, Mooney has seen his targets increase from three in the first two games to five in Week 3 and nine in Week 4. He has 20 targets on the season to Miller’s 19. Maybe even more importantly, Mooney has 13 catches to Miller’s nine. Furthermore, Mooney has not had a drop this season, but Miller already has three. To put that in perspective, Miller only had three drops all of last season and only four in 2018. He is not off to a good start.
The coaching staff clearly has trust in the rookie as his offensive snaps have overtaken Miller’s too. Mooney only saw 32 percent of the Chicago Bears offensive snaps in Week 1. That number has more than doubled by Week 4 when he was in on 74 percent of Bears offensive plays versus the Colts. Miller only saw 69 percent of the Bears offensive snaps in that game.