But Isn’t Moore A Wide Receiver?
Moore only saw four targets on routes where he wasn’t engineered the ball by some form of option or run fake; while it would be nice to see him develop to allow that number to grow, his impact as a pure receiver shouldn’t be dismissed. Of course, not all receptions require much skill, and on the following play the Panthers run Moore on a jet sweep with the play being designed to be a simple RPO on the near side of the field; however, the Ravens’ corner does an excellent job of undercutting Funchess’s route and forces Newton to read the back side of the play, where he finds Moore in the flat who was then able to pick up a healthy gain.
Moore did, however, come up with a good reception against man coverage prior to the half on a deep in-breaking route – he’s at the bottom of your screen here on the outside:
This isn’t the easiest route to get separation with against man coverage but Moore does a good job of turning his man around at the head of the route, having gotten deep enough to prevent the corner from being able to break back to the catch point directly; he actually gets a reasonable amount of separation inside here, and when the pass is slightly behind him, he does a great job of coming back to the ball slightly and getting low to prevent the corner from being able to knock the ball free. While Moore did benefit from some scheme work on Sunday, this play was all him in terms of getting separation, adjusting to the ball and making a tough catch.
He also made a nice catch against zone on the following play, using his strength to get through some early contact before tracking the ball and even adding some extra yards after the catch. Newton does a really nice job on this play of looking off the safety to create space for Moore and gets rewarded with a chunk play that got the Panthers rolling on their long touchdown drive:
Moore’s only failed target of the day also came against zone, as his slip on the following play nearly led to an interception:
This is bad luck, as Moore slips just as Newton releases the ball, but the DB was always in decent position to stop this throw – Newton might have done better to work back across the field to Olsen.
Moore might not have set the league on fire to this point, and while Sunday’s game was by far his most impressive of the season, the biggest thing holding him back continues to be opportunity – while he already ranks third among rookie wide receivers in yards-from-scrimmage, if he continues to get playing time in Smith’s absence, he is likely to only get higher on that list.
