The most obvious thing was how much DJ Moore was smiling during his introductory press conference after being the first wide receiver selected in the 2018 Draft, plucked at 24 by the Carolina Panthers to play wide receiver next to Devin Funchess and catch passes from Cam Newton. Every question resulted in a huge smile – why didn’t he wear the #1 jersey like he did in college? Big smile. “Receivers can’t wear one.” The smile grows. “Plus, Cam!” What does DJ stand for? Big smile. “Denniston Moore, Junior.” Where do you like lining up on the field? Big smile. “It don’t matter to me.” What’s your favorite route to run? Huge smile and a laugh. “It doesn’t matter!”
There’s been a lot of smiling the last 18 hours or so, but when he heard his name being called, there were tears of joy.
“Just stay calm,” Moore said about his reaction after he saw his name flash on television while surrounded by his family. “But I couldn’t stay calm because my whole family was crying – when I looked to my right, my mom and my sister were crying, when I looked to my left, my brother was crying, so I just shed a few tears.”
In an interesting twist, if scouts on the NFL College Advisory Committee had their way, Moore wouldn’t have even been in the draft at all after being offered a “Go Back To School” grade from the group, which is made up of high-level personnel evaluators from NFL clubs and directors from the league’s two sanctioned scouting organizations (National Football Scouting and BLESTO); the ratings offered to players are as follows: potential first round, potential second round, or neither, which is effectively a recommendation to stay in school. After talking to his family and his coaches at Maryland, where he set the single-season record for receptions in his junior season, he decided to enter the draft early, ignoring the fact that he had received the ‘neither’ rating.
According to the NFL, in 2017, 59 players (35.3 percent) elected to declare early for the Draft. The CAC evaluated 167 underclassmen, 27 of whom received either a first or a second-round evaluation. Of those 27, 22 declared to enter the Draft early and 20 were drafted in the first two rounds. Statistics on how many players were told to stay in school and eventually became the first player selected at their position were not available.
It turns out Moore made the right decision.
“I didn’t really think about it too much,” Moore said about the committee’s decision. “I knew I wanted to come out and I talked to the staff at Maryland and made the decision from there. It was all on me, I made the decision to come out early – with the staff, I just asked them for advice, I knew I was going to come out regardless of what the committee said.”
“The growth that I had over the three seasons with this past season being the biggest one, I didn’t want to go back my senior year and have a dropoff.”
The Panthers are hoping he won’t have one either.
