Before the 2020 season began, Panthers coach Matt Rhule said he wanted DJ Moore to take another step forward in his career.
Moore, a third-year pro, was coming off a big year in 2019 where he had 87 catches for 1,175 yards and four touchdowns.
But Rhule, who was beginning his first season with the Panthers, wanted to see Moore become a "dominant No. 1 wide receiver."
At times this season, Moore has looked the part. He has one 100-yard game this season and three games with 93 yards.
But he's also had games where he hasn't looked in sync with quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.
In Sunday's 33-31 loss to the Chiefs, Bridgewater threw 49 passes, yet Moore was targeted only three times, and one of those occurred on the final drive with eight seconds left.
Moore's stats Sunday: Two catches for 18 yards.
"I don't think that that was planned," Rhule said. "I'm sure he's frustrated by it. A couple of times on the headset I heard Joe (Brady) say, 'alert, alert, alert the go-ball to DJ,' and (the Chiefs) played Cover 2.
"So at times we tried to get the ball down field to him, it didn't break his way."
Moore's three targets were a season-low, and it follows a trend of inconsistency between Bridgewater and Moore.
Even in games when Bridgewater targeted Moore sufficiently, the two haven't always looked like they were on the same page. Against Atlanta in Week 8, Moore finished with two catches for 55 yards and was targeted six times. However, both catches occurred on the game's final drive, including half of his targets.
Bridgewater has thrown plenty of inaccurate passes to Moore. Other times when balls were on target, Moore has dropped passes.
Moore has caught only 56.4% of the passes thrown his way, 8 percentage points lower than his 2019 numbers. Of the 88 players with at least 25 catches this season, Moore is ranked 84th in catch percentage. He has been credited with six drops.
By comparison, teammate Curtis Samuel has caught 88.4% of his targets, and wide receiver Robby Anderson has caught 75%.
Moore has 35 catches this season, fourth-most on the team behind Anderson, who has 60 receptions, Mike Davis (44) and Samuel (38).
Moore, a University of Maryland product, is on pace to finish the 2020 season with 62 catches and 1,137 yards receiving — marks that would be below his 2019 production. His 640 receiving yards through nine games rank second on the team.
Bridgewater dismissed the notion that Moore's lack of targets in Sunday's game were a problem. He pointed to the variety of weapons the Panthers have on offense, and said each week a different player tends to step up.
"It's only one football," Bridgewater said. "So those guys, they are out there, they are competing at a high level. At the end of the day, the only stat that matters to those guys is wins and losses."
The Panthers are 3-6 heading into their Week 10 matchup with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (6-3). In their Week 2 matchup, a 31-17 Bucs victory, Moore had a season-high 8 catches for 120 yards and was targeted 13 times.
With so many weapons at Bridgewater's disposal — including last week's return of Christian McCaffrey (10 catches, 82 yards) — a more spread-out distribution of who's being targeted isn't unexpected compared to years past. Teams are no longer able to focus solely on Moore, which should work in the Panthers' favor.
The emergence of Anderson as a Pro Bowl-caliber player has also hindered Moore's status as a No. 1 wide receiver. When the COVID-19 pandemic shortened the NFL's offseason and kept many players in their hometowns, Bridgewater and Anderson, who are both from the Miami area, worked out together. This season, Anderson has been Bridgewater's go-to option.
Bridgewater has targeted Anderson 80 times, and he ranks fifth in the league in receptions and fourth in receiving yards.
But Moore has that ability, too. He's arguably the Panthers' second-best playmaker behind McCaffrey. He showed that in Week 5 against the Falcons, when he caught a short pass, shook his defender and took it 57 yards for a touchdown.
This season, though, Moore has been used more on vertical routes, as opposed to the primarily slants and intermediate routes in 2019. Offensive coordinator Joe Brady should find ways to get one of the Panthers' best playmakers more touches moving forward, even if includes jet sweeps, bubble screens and slants.
"He's a big part of our offense," Rhule said of Moore on Monday. "We need to have him involved and we were not able to do that yesterday."
