Bears do right by DJ Moore by trading him to a contending team with familiarity while getting immediate relief to attack other needs
The Chicago Bears have officially traded away one of their highest-paid players.
The writing was on the wall for the Chicago Bears to make a decision on veteran wide receiver DJ Moore and the team just made the difficult move of pulling off the Band-Aid with a player that had a lot of fans inside the building.
The Bears are expected to trade DJ Moore to the Buffalo Bills so he can reunite with Joe Brady, his former offensive coordinator with the Carolina Panthers and the new head coach in Buffalo, while also giving Josh Allen a top-tier target.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the deal is still in progress as the two teams continue to work through the compensation.
DJ Moore trade was a difficult, but necessary, decision for the Bears to make
Moore was acquired by the Bears in a blockbuster trade that included the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, a trade that blossomed into a defining win for general manager Ryan Poles. In his first season with the Bears, Moore was incredible, recording 1,364 yards and eight touchdowns with Justin Fields at quarterback. Since that season, though, Moore’s stats have steadily declined with quarterback Caleb Williams and two different offensive schemes.
This past season was Moore’s least productive season of his NFL career playing in Ben Johnson’s offense. Moore still made some historic plays, including his overtime touchdown against the Green Bay Packers in Week 16, but the overall production didn’t justify having the highest cap hit on the entire team.
Moving Moore frees up $16 million for the Bears in 2026 and helps clean up the books going into free agency next week, not to mention freeing up the future cap for Chicago. Poles understood tough moves would be needed this offseason, and this was the first major one.
“We want him here,” Poles said of Moore at the NFL Combine. “We think highly of him. He’s a great teammate and been productive consistently over the last couple of years that he’s been here. I have nothing but great things to say about him. But this is the time now where we have to look at all the different scenarios that will allow us to put the best team out there. I’ve talked about this before, there’s relationships there that make it really really difficult. He’s a guy we want here but we have to look at all the scenarios.”
This trade gives Moore the opportunity to have a more defined role as a No. 1 option for an MVP-caliber quarterback and gives the Bears young pass catchers in Rome Odunze, Luther Burden III, and Colston Loveland to step up as primary players for this offense.
It’s as win-win of a trade as you could have for all parties involved and now the Bears can start planning out the course for the rest of the offseason.
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