'I’m still a top receiver in this league:' Is DJ Moore the missing piece in Buffalo?
So far, so good. The 29-year-old wide receiver has been lighting up the Buffalo Bills' practice field. Go Long chats 1 on 1 with DJ Moore... he's eager to reassert himself amongst the NFL's best.
PITTSFORD, NY — Nothing infuriates prideful, testosterone-fueled NFL wide receivers more than seeing your name fade from the public discourse. Cardiac game-winners weren’t enough last season. A dip in statistical production has unequivocally changed how everyone around the NFL views DJ Moore.
NFL execs, coaches and scouts, per ESPN, do not view him as one of the best 26 wide receivers in the league. And when I suggested to one rival defensive coordinator in the AFC that Moore could be a wideout capable of winning 1 on 1, all I heard on the other line was, “Ehh, I don’t know.” The Chicago Bears’ GM declared his team plans on building a “dynasty” and being “championship caliber” for a very long time. Apparently ditching Moore for a draft pick was part of that plan. And even in Western New York, a ravenous half of the fan base loudly protested the decision to swap the 60th pick for the 165th pick for a 29-year-old wideout and inherit his salary.
So maybe it’s fitting that our first conversation with the Buffalo Bills’ new No. 1 wide receiver takes place mid-monsoon at St. John Fisher University. We’re underneath an awning attached to the team’s locker room.
Moore doesn’t world-salad his way around this topic.
All of this absolutely serves as motivation. The only answer is to perform.
“If people don’t know,” Moore says, “when we’re playing, they will know.”
The next morning, Moore cradles a Josh Allen bomb between three defenders for one of the best connections you’ll find in any NFL training camp. It’s been that kind of summer for the team’s new wide receiver — he’s dominating. This isn’t August hyperbole. Moore is far and away the most potent weapon this offense has had at wide receiver since Stefon Diggs circa 2022 and nothing matters more on offense than this development. An “Everyone Eats” mantra fosters genuine selflessness
Another playoff loss, however, supplied another lesson: Buffalo needed a true No. 1. A separator. A playmaker who’ll deliver in January nut-cutting time. When it’s third and 8 and the season’s on the line, you know he’ll win his route. His numbers last season in Chicago — 682 yards, six touchdowns — never reflected the whole story. Moore is a unconventional WR1 with the potential to go off with an unconventional QB1.
He’s a man of few words, but the words he chooses are knifing.