Does Darnell Mooney Suck?

[Bearly]

Did Fields even throw it to him 17 times?

2024 NFL Free Agency Rankings: Wide receivers | NFL News, Rankings and Statistics | PFF

Tee Higgins is the top-ranked free-agent wide receiver in PFF's 2024 NFL free agency rankings.

www.pff.com

https://www.profootballnetwork.com/nfl-free-agents-by-position/

Top 50 NFL free agents in 2024: Tee Higgins headlines deep receiver crop; pass rushers aplenty!

Which elite NFL players are heading into a contract season? Gregg Rosenthal provides a way-too-early look at the top 50 free agents in 2024. While these rankings will look completely different by next March, they currently include 10 wide receivers.

www.nfl.com

Sure seems the rest of the NFL feels a lot better about Mooney than Fields' apologists do.

 

[DefNextYear]

View attachment 35114
View attachment 35115

where did you get that stat? what does it even mean? the most balls dropped on the season i can find for him is 3. i guess i dont understand how 3 drops in 60 targets totals out to almost 20%

edit - to your first message, nothing ive seen from any reputable source says that is the case. he had 31 receptions on like 60 targets and 3 drops. either there is serious misinformation being posted as stats on legit websites or im missing something here

The % drop they use is drops/(drops+catches). The discrepancy is eye of the beholder I guess.

 

[dennehy]

Spotrac says he's got 12 drops in his career, on 213 catches and 360 targets.

 

[DefNextYear]

how is there a 17 drop discrepancy between every website i looked at and @Calabis drop rate stat? i mean it really varies that much? im guessing the solution would be to watch every mooney target on the year and see for myself. maybe ill do that if i get time later

If you really did want to, the 5 drops he had were in these games:

Packers - Week 1
Chargers - Week 8
Lions - Week 14 (2 drops)
Browns - Week 15 (I assume... the drop)

EDIT: I hope the Browns drop isn't that one I'm thinking of. The definition of drop is: "DRP: Drops - on-target passes dropped by the receiver". I'd have a hard time saying that was an on-target pass.

 

[Bearly]

Lets hope that whatever we do at QB this year finally becomes a win so we can have more serious discussion about other players and without as much bias. Mooney has always had meh hands but works at it all year and doesn't have excessive drops, especially when the ball is there on time/rhythm. Still turns too much instead of running through every deep ball and double clutches a few but hangs on. His actual drop rate is pretty average but he's a threat in the open field if you hit him in stride. Great twitch and plenty of speed. He can juke you out of your cleats. He'd be a great #3. Even if he's back, which I don't think will happen, we still need a big #2 so he'd be the #3.

I like Nabers more than Odunze but it appears that so does the NFL which may work for the Bears needs. I'd take Odunze at 9 without looking back.

 

[Bears Backer 54]

I feel like there were a bunch of contributing factors. I think Mooney never got fully back from injury. I think battling with Claypool knowing it was a contract year for both and likely only one would receive a potential big pay day put a lot of pressure on him. Then when Claypool crashed and burned and Mooney's involvement and numbers didn't instantly benefit, I think Mooney somewhat checked out knowing the damage to his contract year was done at that point. I also think Fields struggled to trust and be on the same page with Mooney. I still go back and think that a lot of Field's trust was lost with Mooney when he failed in the clutch. I think back to this dropped game winner in Washington the previous year:

Then there's the dropped Hail Mary from the Browns this year:

I think there is something to the fact that Fields rightfully gets blamed for not being a 4th quarter QB and a guy that can make the winning play in the clutch, but Fields has to look at two major lost opportunities to be the hero falling on Mooney's inability to simply make the catch when the opportunity came.

 

[NCChiFan]

Spotrac says he's got 12 drops in his career, on 213 catches and 360 targets.

Could be true, but boy, he picked a bad time to drop a game winner.

 

[dennehy]

Could be true, but boy, he picked a bad time to drop a game winner.

I don't think anyone would consider that a drop - if you're referring to the Cleveland play. A tipped hail mary that hit him when he's lying on the ground isn't a drop.

He did drop a game winner at WAS in 2022 though.

 

[Bearly]

LOL at a bouncing ball being a drop.

 

[knoxville7]

Baba remembers. But Baba used to do lots of drugs in the 90's too..... so.....

fucking quitter!

 

[LIBlue]

So Bagent played in five games, and Mooney had 14 receptions on 22 targets (2.8 receptions per game, comp to target percentage of 64%, 43.4 yards per game).

He had no stats in three games, and I cannot remember if he was injured in those games or not. But they were when JF was at QB.

In the remaining 9 games with JF at QB, he had 17 receptions on 39 targets (1.9 receptions per games, a competition to target percentage of 44%, and 21.9 yards per game).

If you took the Bagent stats across a 17 game schedule that would be 48 receptions, for 738 yards.

JF and Mooney lacked chemistry this year, or JF was unable to consistently find the second or third option after Moore and Kmet.

If we keep JF, do not re-sign Mooney. If we draft CW (I am in this camp), then I think Mooney is worth signing again.

 

[Chicago Staleys]

i forgot he played for the bears for 3 games or whatever

Claypool was the last WR not named DJ Moore that caught a TD pass for the Chicago Bears. True story.

 

[DefNextYear]

I don't think anyone would consider that a drop - if you're referring to the Cleveland play. A tipped hail mary that hit him when he's lying on the ground isn't a drop.

He did drop a game winner at WAS in 2022 though.

I see people call that a drop on him almost daily I think... it definitely comes up weekly. Now, I'm not saying I agree... but there are a significantly loud group of fans that call this a drop. Even the video posted in this thread was saying he had to catch that while falling back on his ass and it's deflected into his hands (title even says DROPS).

 

[dennehy]

I see people call that a drop on him almost daily I think... it definitely comes up weekly. Now, I'm not saying I agree... but there are a significantly loud group of fans that call this a drop. Even the video posted in this thread was saying he had to catch that while falling back on his ass and it's deflected into his hands (title even says DROPS).

I'm talking about counting it as a stat. not what fans think.

I totally agree that a lot of fans would think it should have been caught. I was about 100 feet away from it and I thought he had a good chance to catch it.

But if the definition of a drop is a ball that was on target and should have been caught (or something similar) don't think that can count.

 

[DefNextYear]

I'm talking about counting it as a stat. not what fans think.

I totally agree that a lot of fans would think it should have been caught. I was about 100 feet away from it and I thought he had a good chance to catch it.

But if the definition of a drop is a ball that was on target and should have been caught (or something similar) don't think that can count.

We're on the same page. I posted the definition earlier in this thread and I don't think it falls in that definition, but they did count something in that Browns game as a drop.

 

[Lurk McGurk]

This is a great find, thanks for sharing. Thing is it just opens up more questions rather than answer anything. For starters where was this criticism in season? All we heard was getsy is an idiot basically the entire year. And then the other thing is what is going on with the Raiders alleged interest if that is the case? Feels like a lot of people are lying whether intentionally or not. But I guess it is a week from combine so idk what I expected

The criticisms of Fields during the season were definitely few and far between, or at least I didn't think he wasn't openly criticized as much as was warranted. There also seemed to be a ton of pushback when he received criticism, and I'm sure there was a negative viewer/listener response from fans. I have to imagine the incentive to tell fans what they want to hear is real.

Honestly, before about mid season, I wouldn't watch or listen to much that was critical of Fields. I wanted to believe in him. It was a bummer to listen to guys like Kurt Warner have serious concerns about him. Also if I'm being honest, I may have been more reluctant to accept the reality of the situation if the Panthers weren't looking to be giving the Bears a top 3 pick. That escape hatch may have allowed me to be less of a homer and see things for what they were, instead of clinging to hope.

I don't really value this Schrock guys opinion on stuff very much, but what I do look for from these guys is unbiased insight. Since I saw how critical he was of Getsy all season, I think him reporting that the majority of people around the league thought Justin was a bigger issue than Getsy is reliable. I don't know what everything else going on means, like the Raiders supposedly having interest in Fields, but I do think that we will continue to get more info suggesting Fields isn't as highly thought of as we once hoped.

By the way, do you have a link to the odds on Fields next team? I'm trying to stay up to date with that but haven't been able to find it, maybe it's not available in my region?

 

[DaaBears]

Check out the IGT on any given Sunday. Posters seem to think a ball in the general direction of a receiver is a dropped pass. It would have been nice if Mooney caught that ball on his back against Cleveland, but not considered a drop.

As far as Mooney goes, I tend to think that he is a viable #2 or #3, and hope the Bears retain.

 

[vinson555]

The biggest Mooney defense I can give is a lot of balls thrown to him this season were way off from where he was. Some of that is fields and some could be bad routes. But I know I remember seeing balls thrown his way that made me think only someone seven feet could get them. And not all of them. Mooney is still too small and not dynamic enough to be a two and I wanted him to prove people wrong. It's better to give Scott a shot at getting better and signing a ceap slot vet if Scott can't beat him out. Also all for drafting Scott's slot competition.

 

[Sculpt]

Ok so we have all the stats. Does he suck or nah? Because again, it sounds like he was open quite a bit more than anybody gives him credit for and it didn't translate to success

I will say this, in the first part of the year, for the break downs I saw, Mooney was open, and plenty of times waving his arms. So yeah, confirmed.

Last part of the year not so much. Couldn't say why.

I would say I'd prefer Mike Evans to Mooney.

 

[NCChiFan]

I don't think anyone would consider that a drop - if you're referring to the Cleveland play. A tipped hail mary that hit him when he's lying on the ground isn't a drop.

He did drop a game winner at WAS in 2022 though.

Was thinking of this drop.