Featured NFL Player: D.J Moore

Written By SueJo @SJ_ent

THIS WEEK’S FEATURED NFL PLAYER: CHICAGO BEAR #30, D.J. MOORE

CHICAGO—If you live anywhere outside of Illinois, you might know our home team as the Chicago Bears. Now, if you’re FROM here, we think of our Bears as more than JUST a football team. To Chicago, not only are they a way of life, but these Bears are our very own “Monsters of the Midway.”

Contributing every Sunday to help keep that name alive is cornerback D.J. Moore. At 5’9 and weighing in at only 183 lbs, Moore has done more for the Bears under pressure than the big names, the best paid and the big boys of the team. Back in August, as the Bears were entered training camp, Moore wasn’t considered to make the Bears’ 53-man roster. Moore battled against veteran Corey Graham until he could show coach Lovie Smith that he was the man for the job. After going head to head fighting for the spot, Moore, a fourth-round draft pick in 2009 out of Vanderbilt, won the starting nickelback spot over Graham a little before the season began.

So far, Moore has shown Smith that he was, indeed the perfect man for the job as he has shown up to work and made key plays when it was needed.On October 24, a game played against Donovan McNabb’s Redskins, Moore caught the ball deflected by teammate, defensive end Israel Idonije and returned it 54 yards for his first NFL touchdown. It was a big play not only for Moore but for the Bears as it was the first defensive touchdown for the team since Nov. 1, 2009 by Charles Tillman.  But that certainly wasn’t the last time other teams would see of him as Moore made a critical play against the Detroit Lions on Sunday, Dec. 5.  Moore had four tackles against the Lions that game and had his first sack as a Bear on a corner blitz in which it led the Bears to leave Detroit with a victory. But even with his success, Moore says that the best thing about being an NFL player is, “The money because it means being able to take care of your family and your friends.”

After interviewing Moore, it was clear he had one quality that most NFL players did not: a sense of humbleness. When asked how it felt to have made those big crucial plays, Moore responded by saying, “It feels good, I’m just happy to make plays.”

“It’s a dog eat dog world out there and you know, it’s either you play football or you’re sitting at home.”

But if there is one thing that should bother Moore, it should be that the critics rarely compliment the Bears as they are often told that they are ranked first in their division purely because of luck. But surprisingly, even something like that, doesn’t phase him. “I don’t pay attention to the media,” he says. “Not everyone’s going to love you and so you just can’t pay attention to that.”

But because Moore is very humble and is always working, don’t think that he doesn’t have a fun side either. At one point during the interview (we were at a basketball game), Moore turned to me and made a comment about the cheerleaders on the sideline saying, “I don’t think they had tryouts because there’s only five girls on the squad.”  When asked if there was one thing that nobody really knew about him, he replied, “I rap too much, and I write poetry,” he says. “Oh and I’m a nice guy.”

One other great quality about this great football player is the way he gives back by interacting with his fans. There aren’t many players out there that will interact with their fans the way Moore has been. The first step he took was by setting up his Twitter page. After doing so, Moore started interacting with his fans by just talking to them as if he was a normal guy and just listening to what they had to say. Moore would then every once in a while, have his fans send him his phone number in which he would call these fans up to say hey and see how they were doing. And as if that weren’t enough, he would have his fans join him to watch football games at local restaurants with him.

“They’re the ones that support you and pay money to come see you,” he says. “They’re the ones that come to the game so it’s just something I do for them.”

So what will Moore do when he’s done with football?

“I want to teach high school P.E.,” he says.

Well, considering he’s the guy making big plays and putting a hurt on the quarterbacks, those future high school P.E. students better be on his good side! Be sure to catch D.J. #30, and the Bears fight to keep their #1 NFC ranking against four other great teams looking to break them down.

D.J.’s Twitter: http://twitter.com/dJMoore30