
The Chicago Bears agreed to a massive trade on Thursday that will send veteran wide receiver DJ Moore to the Buffalo Bills, once it becomes official next week at the start of the new league year.
The full trade details have now been announced between the two teams. The Bears received the Bills' second round pick, which is No. 60 overall, and Buffalo received Moore and the Bears' 2026 fifth-rounder, which is No. 163 overall.
It's already good enough the Bears managed to find a suitor willing to acquire Moore and absorb his remaining contract. Moore was slated to have a $28.5 million cap hit in 2026, which would have been the highest on the team, with ease. By trading Moore, the Bears created $16.5 million in cap space and don't have to worry about the future years of the deal, either.
Given the structure of that deal, the Bears weren't expected to get much in return if the team decided to trade the 28-year-old offensive weapon. Being able to come away with a second-round pick is an absolute steal for general manager Ryan Poles and makes this decision easier to swallow.
The Bears had a lot of personal respect for what Moore brought to Chicago and ideally would have preferred to keep him on the team for years to come. Financials, team needs, and Moore' diminished role in the offense ultimately forced Chicago's hand.
“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.”
Landing that second-round pick was absolutely massive for Chicago. The Bears can use that extra capital to make another big trade or save the pick for the draft to add another young impact rookie (which is always the ideal plan). After adding that pick and losing a fifth-rounder, here's the team's current war chest for the 2026 NFL Draft in April.
The Bears are also still awaiting word on a potential third-round compensatory pick for losing Ian Cunningham and could look to acquire more draft picks by trading LB Tremaine Edmunds and/or QB Tyson Bagent ahead of April's draft.
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