Bear Digest

Weighing Gains From Bears Trading DJ Moore Against What He Provides

DJ Moore obviously can wear many hats in the Bears' offense, but they must decide if one thing he gives them through a trade is more important.
Gene Chamberlain|
DJ Moore can play many roles but the best role for the Bears' future might be playing those elsewhere due to cost.
DJ Moore can play many roles but the best role for the Bears' future might be playing those elsewhere due to cost. | Mike Dinovo-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Replacing DJ Moore seems a ridiculous idea to those attached to him after the game-winning touchdown passes made in Week 16 and in the playoffs against Green Bay.

When the Bears can't beat the Packers and the guy who caught the two game-winning scores that did it is removed from the team via trade or salary cap cut, it seems blindly stupid to those who don't understand the salary cap or don't care to comprehend it.

Moore epitomizes what a football team needs with his willingness to play through pain and do anything asked of him.

"He probably knew all the roles of the receivers better than anybody else we had in that room—the X, the Z, F, it really didn’t matter. He was a guy we knew we could count on," Ben Johnson said. "If guys go down, he can step in."

That's the kind of role player a team can use, but not something they need to devote 9.2% of their salary cap space for next year to, and only a little less than that in future years. The big money is reserved normally for receivers who provide the most indispensable skill set while role players are backups who get less.

That's not even the biggest problem with Moore's contract, though.

Why they need future cap versatilty

The versatility Moore doesn't give the Bears is with their salary cap, because of his $28.5 million cap hit for 2026.

"I have to have conversations to see what, like I said, the best combination of players we can bring in," Poles said. "We want him here. We think highly of him. He's a great teammate.

"He has been productive pretty consistently over the last however many years he’s been here."

The future is the issue, and after what they just went through as a team they seem  better off looking to that than at the past.

"So 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 to see what can allow us to put the best team out there," Poles said. "And I’ve talked about this before. There are relationships there. There’s a lot there that make it really, really difficult.

"He’s a guy we want here. But we have to look at all the different scenarios."

The biggest need

With the Bears needing to get back money to operate in free agency, it's not a mere matter of restructuring the contract Moore already has—one which runs through 2029.

"There's philosophical things that we believe in, in terms of not getting to this place where we're kicking the can down the road on a bunch of guys, and then at some point you got to pay that bill," Poles said.

By that, Poles means they could restructure, but when this is done you could be adding bonus money for a player and that winds up resulting in dead cap if they need to cut him or trade him.

"And you don't want that to be the reason why you're not flexible and able to do  unique things or take advantage of opportunities with your roster," Poles said.

If it was merely a matter of finding enough money for this season or to sign a particular free agent, then it might be more easily worked.

What the Bears are doing is projecting to when they must make a colossal financial commitment to one player, and it definitely is not a receiver. It is Caleb Williams.

It's All About Caleb Williams

After next season, Williams fifth-year option is due and they could get him a contract extension at any point thereafter. They don't need the biggest cap hit coming from a receiver's contract at that point or even eating up their cap space in terms of dead cap.

"I think that’s a balancing act and I think that’s where Ryan and Matt Feinstein, Jeff King, those guys do a great job keeping the big picture in mind of what we’re trying to do short term and long term and balancing act," Johnson said.

It's not so much what Moore can do for them now that they'd miss if he left. It's what he can keep them from doing in the future that can be costly.

It's easy to call them short-sighted for setting up a contract that hurts them this much down the road at receiver but at the time they didn't have other receiver options beyond Rome Odunze. And he hadn't played a down for them as the deal got extended in training camp of 2024.

With the development of Luther Burden III and Colston Loveland as rookies, and Odunze showing he had advanced before his foot injury, the Bears' ability to replace Moore as a receiver is easier than it is to find cap space for the future to pay the biggest contract in team history.

Now, there's always the outside chance Williams regresses in 2026-27 and the team doesn't want to extend him. After wandering through quarterback wilderness forever, success like Williams had last year is something easy to bank on for the future, though. The fact he did that with only one bad experience of a rookie year under his belt only further speaks to the chance he'll improve.

The ideal situation would have been to trade Moore or cut him after 2026 because of his contract's current structure. However, the Bears need cap space for 2026 because of mistakes made in signing defensive help that didn't pan out last year.

It becomes an easy decision, then, to move Moore while he still can bring back value in return. Or, at least it becomes easier for Poles to make that decision.

It is never actually simple when losing a player who meant so much to success is the best way to go, because of the team's emotional attachment and especially for fans.

There are numerous ways to twist and tug salary cap space in the future that they could make it fit better for the future and still retain Johnson. That's  the magic Feinstein would need to work.

However, because of the talent they're seeing among their pass catchers, the simplest route could be for Moore to be paid by another team, with the Bears getting back trade compensation.

All of this depends on finding a taker, but Moore's spectacular and gutsy play late last year, and throughout his career, should take care of this.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.