Player
Darnell Mooney
WR · ATL
Mooney's year-to-year line is unusually bimodal for a WR with steady targets — one elite season anchors the whole career and everything else has been a rebuild. The shape tells you whether to count on a rebound or accept the role-player ceiling. With 2025 mirroring his 2022-2023 trough, the question heading into 2026 is whether 2024 was the new baseline or a one-off.
Career arc: the 2021 Bears WR1 has been chasing that 1,055-yard season for four years.
TrendMooney regular-season production by year
| Year | Team | Targets | Rec | Yards | TDs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | CHI | 98 | 61 | 631 | 4 |
| 2021 | CHI | 140 | 81 | 1,055 | 4 |
| 2022 | CHI | 61 | 40 | 493 | 2 |
| 2023 | CHI | 61 | 31 | 414 | 1 |
| 2024 | ATL | 106 | 64 | 992 | 5 |
| 2025 | ATL | 72 | 32 | 443 | 1 |
Receiving yards by season
| Season | Yards |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 631 |
| 2021 | 1055 |
| 2022 | 493 |
| 2023 | 414 |
| 2024 | 992 |
| 2025 | 443 |
The 2021 line — 140 targets, 81 catches, 1,055 yards — was elite WR1 volume for a 5th-round rookie in his Year 2. He hasn’t matched it since, and Chicago’s 2022-2023 QB rotation (Justin Fields era) had him drifting to under 500 yards twice.
The 2024 Atlanta reset got him back to 992 yards. Then 2025 collapsed again: 443 yards, just 32 catches, one TD. The career has become a sine wave.
Why it matters. Mooney's year-to-year line is unusually bimodal for a WR with steady targets — one elite season anchors the whole career and everything else has been a rebuild. The shape tells you whether to count on a rebound or accept the role-player ceiling. With 2025 mirroring his 2022-2023 trough, the question heading into 2026 is whether 2024 was the new baseline or a one-off.
He’s averaged 2.7 yards-per-catch MORE in Atlanta than in Chicago.
SplitCareer splits — Bears years vs Falcons years
| Team | Targets | Rec | Yards | TDs | YPR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bears (2020-23) | 360 | 213 | 2,593 | 11 | 12.18 |
| Falcons (2024-25) | 178 | 96 | 1,435 | 6 | 14.95 |
Four years in Chicago: 12.18 yards per catch. Two years in Atlanta: 14.95. Same player, same body, more aggressive route tree (Kirk Cousins / Michael Penix throwing deep) and a complementary role next to Drake London.
The Atlanta version is the more efficient one, even if the raw production is flatter — the bulk of the yardage comes from longer plays, not target volume.
Why it matters. A 2.7-yard-per-catch jump on a 200-catch sample is a real efficiency shift, not noise — it shows Mooney's role changed when he moved, not just his uniform. In Atlanta, he's been deployed as a vertical complement instead of a high-volume underneath option, which reframes his fantasy and trade value. It also explains why his raw catch totals fell even though his big-play impact rose.
His 2024 deep-ball catch rate was the best of his career — by a mile.
SplitTargets of 20+ air yards by season
| Year | Deep Tgts | Catches | Yards | Catch % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 23 | 4 | 158 | 17.4% |
| 2021 | 23 | 7 | 241 | 30.4% |
| 2022 | 14 | 3 | 121 | 21.4% |
| 2023 | 12 | 3 | 84 | 25.0% |
| 2024 | 23 | 14 | 377 | 60.9% |
| 2025 | 18 | 3 | 108 | 16.7% |
14 of 23 deep balls caught (60.9%) in 2024 — almost double his prior career best, and 4x his 2020 rate. That’s the entire engine of the Falcons reset: Cousins finding him on the over routes and back-shoulder fades that never connected with Fields or Trubisky.
Then 2025 reverted to 16.7% on 18 deep tries — closer to his Bears baseline than his 2024 peak. With Penix throwing more of the deep balls, the rapport-loss is the cleanest single explanation for the year falling apart.
Why it matters. Deep-ball catch rate above 60% is a top-of-league outlier for any WR — for Mooney to do it on 23 attempts is the single best evidence that 2024 wasn't volume luck. The fact that the number collapsed in 2025 when the QB changed is also the cleanest mechanical story for the entire 2025 yardage drop. Deep-ball connection is QB-dependent, and his trajectory is following his QB room more than his own skill.
He’s been the deep-shot guy his whole career — but never been the red-zone guy.
AnomalyRed-zone targets and TDs by season
| Year | RZ Targets | RZ TDs | RZ TD % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 11 | 4 | 36.4% |
| 2021 | 12 | 3 | 25.0% |
| 2022 | 8 | 2 | 25.0% |
| 2023 | 8 | 1 | 12.5% |
| 2024 | 6 | 1 | 16.7% |
| 2025 | 8 | 0 | 0.0% |
The pattern is striking: as he’s gotten older and the role has tightened, the red-zone TD rate has steadily declined — from 36.4% as a rookie to 0.0% in 2025 (8 targets, 0 scores).
Mooney has never had the kind of physical profile that wins jump-balls in the end zone, and as the league has gotten more analytically-driven about red-zone target distribution, he’s been the natural one to lose those reps to bigger-bodied teammates (Drake London, Kyle Pitts in Atlanta).
Why it matters. The monotonic decline in RZ TD% (36.4% to 0.0% in six straight years) is rare enough that it's almost certainly not random — it reflects how offenses ration goal-line looks by body type, not just talent. For fantasy and contract value, this means his TD upside is structurally capped by his frame and the teammates around him. 2025's 0-for-8 inside the 20 is the cleanest statistical signal that Atlanta has moved his deployment away from the end zone entirely.
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