One of the worst-kept secrets of the Chicago Bears offseason was the inevitability that wide receiver DJ Moore would be traded. Before the league year officially started they agreed to a deal with the Buffalo Bills, sending Moore and a 2026 fifth-round pick to Buffalo for a 2026 second-round pick.
Getting a second-round pick for Moore is easily seen as a huge win for the Bears. The Bills had to do something to add a legit wide receiver for Josh Allen, and Ryan Poles took advantage. Other potential suitors for Moore, and there was a case for quite a few as time went along, were unlikely to give up that kind of draft pick.
This past week, the Denver Broncos acquired wide receiver Jaylen Waddle from the Miami Dolphins. Waddle and a 2026 fourth-round pick (11th overall) headed to Denver, while the Dolphins received the Broncos' first-round pick this year (30th overall) as well as third and fourth-round picks (94th and 130th overall) this year.
Waddles' fairly friendly multi-year contract was a key factor in the Dolphins being able to get that kind of haul for him. Moore's contract is not quite as friendly, but the Bears' contract extension provided some stability and predictability for an acquiring team.
Analyst wonders if Bears could've gotten a little more for DJ Moore
On theTake The North podcast with Dan Wiederer of The Athletic, Bears' analyst, and 104.3 The Score show co-host Mark Grote wondered, in the wake of what they gave up for Waddle, if the Bears should've engaged the Broncos regarding a trade for Moore.
"It made me think, should the Bears have done business with DJ Moore and Denver, and did they try?", Grote said. "Because these two players...at first off the top of my head, I'm thinking 'Jaylen Waddle's better than DJ Moore."
"But as we were discussing before the show started, 'is he'? I mean, they're both about the same age right now, DJ Moore is 28 and Jaylen Waddle is 27. They've had similar numbers. Jaylen Waddle, three 1,000-yard years out of the five years that he's been in the NFL. DJ Moore has had four 1,000-yard seasons, heading into his ninth season."
"(The) Bears got a second-round pick, which I thought was great. But it made me think..could they have gotten more, and should they have done business with the Broncos, and did they try?"
On Friday's edition of "Rahimi, Harris and Grote" on 104.3 The Score, Grote repeated those thoughts about the Moore trade when prompted by co-host Leila Rahimi. "Should the Bears have?" "Could the Bears have?" and "did the Bears try?" to do business with the Broncos.
It's also fair to say, as Rahimi suggested, that Moore going to the Bills might've spurred the Broncos to take action to add a wide receiver and keep pace in the AFC. So they ponied up big to get Waddle from Miami, knowing the Dolphins' situation, and perhaps they went a little overboard to make sure they got him.
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When moving, Moore became inevitable, Poles surely fielded calls from multiple teams, and he probably made some unsolicited calls. We'll probably never know if the Broncos were anywhere in that mix, or what they offered if it got that far. But if they were a legit suitor and they offered what they did to Miami for Waddle, or even somewhere close (say first and fourth-round picks), Moore would undoubtedly be a Bronco today.