DJ Moore’s Bears future up in the air after end-of-season interviews

Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles has a ton of difficult decisions to make this offseason for a roster that, while good enough to make the NFC Divisional Round, both needs improvement in key areas and is facing a salary cap crunch.

One of them could involve a player he just shelled out big money to two offseasons ago: wide receiver DJ Moore.

Not only did Moore have the worst statistical season of his career in 2025-26 in terms of catches (50) and yardage (682), the veteran pass-catcher has also come under fire for questions about effort and attitude—the last of which coming on the overtime interception that doomed the Bears against the Rams.

As such, Moore was unsurprisingly a major point of conversation when Ryan Poles and Ben Johnson took the podium for their end-of-season interviews with Bears media.

For their parts, both Poles and Johnson were complimentary of Moore, downplaying criticisms about his performance.

“We had a really good exit interview,” Johnson told reporters of Moore, deflecting a question about Moore not speaking to the media following Chicago’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams last weekend. “He’s a player that I felt really helped us get to the point where we were this year. We had an opportunity there, a couple of games away from the Super Bowl. I thought he was a huge contributor to getting us there.”

Poles took things a step further, defending Moore amid the most recent criticisms about the playoff loss and his season overall.

“I’ll use his words: he didn’t care about stats. All he cared about was winning. This is the most winning DJ has ever had, probably since high school. That’s all he cares about. In terms of (the) roster, like I said, we got a lot of decisions to make in figuring that out,” the general manager said.

“I think what stood out about DJ this year is the level of toughness rubbed off on our team. Guys if they were dinged up, like they almost had to go because DJ was going. He was able to fight through a lot. Got a lot of respect for him.”

On the surface, those seem like very supportive comments of Moore, with Johnson even saying any miscommunication that happened on that ill-fated overtime play was the head coach’s fault, not the players’.

But one thing missing from both their comments: a committment to Moore heading into next season and beyond.

Obviously, Moore is under contract with the Bears for the foreseeable future, with his four-year, $110 million deal lasting through the 2029 season. But that doesn’t mean they can’t trade him if they felt he didn’t fit their long-term plans. After all, that’s what the Carolina Panthers did with him a year after signing him to a three-year contract extension in 2022. Moore’s cap number will be $28.5 million for the next three years before lessening slightly in 2029—his age-32 season—making him an expensive player to keep around unless he’s performing at an elite level, though he has undoubtedly been durable and physically tough thorughout his time in Chicago.

With Colston Loveland, Luther Burden III, and Rome Odunze now in the fold, one wonders if Moore has become redundant for the Bears, regardless of the other stuff. If the Bears were to move him before next season (after June 1, in particular), they could achieve some massive cap savings as they retool their roster around Caleb Williams and their young pass-catching corps.

Moore deserves credit for his contributions to the Bears and his reliablity in always being out there for his team. But that might not be enough to keep him in town going forward.

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