We’ve reached our third installment of Chicago Bears rumors and buzz from Super Bowl week. If you’ve missed the previous articles, you can check out the rumors from San Francisco as to what the issues
with the Bears stadium development and you can check out the buzz surrounding the Bears from San Francisco here.
Let’s try to address some rumors surrounding the Bears regarding the roster and what direction they might go. Today, let’s talk about the offense, and we will talk about the defense in the final article tomorrow.
I think if we are going to have a conversation with the Bears’ offense, we need to start with DJ Moore. Forget everything else surrounding DJ Moore; if we just objectively look at his production and his contract extension, he is wildly overpaid.
The Bears know this. Moore has averaged a little over 800 yards and 6 touchdowns per season over the last two years. That’s not to say Moore isn’t a talented player; he absolutely is. But the Bears are paying him to be a surefire WR1, and he simply isn’t. Moore was 2nd on the team in targets this year behind Rome Odunze, and it’s almost a certainty that if he’s on the Bears next year, he will probably be 4th in targets behind Odunze, Luther Burden, and Colston Loveland.
But Moore is wildly talented. There’s a reason that Caleb’s greatest throws of the season, Moore was the recipient of at least 3 of them, and that doesn’t even include the game-winner in the wild card round against Green Bay.
So what do you do with Moore? Obviously, you can trade him, but that’s where the conversation around Moore was interesting at the Super Bowl. Moore’s value is in the tank with his current salary. Nobody is going to be willing to take on Moore’s deal while also giving up significant draft capital (like a day two pick).
Teams will look at Moore for what he’s done the last two years, not for who he was in 2023. I had one insider tell me that he felt if Moore was traded and a team took on his full salary, the Bears would get one of those 7th-round- 6th-round pick swaps.
That’s a big yikes.
So I asked this same insider about the Bears eating part of the contract so the team would be more willing to give up a better pick. His answer here was that it simply isn’t worth it for the Bears. Eating $20 million or whatever it would need to be to drop his AAV down would probably still only net the Bears something like a 5th round pick, and in his estimation, no team is going to eat that much money to get a slightly better day 3 pick.
So if the Bears move Moore, they are going to have to dump him. But he certainly adds value to the offense, so they don’t really want to do that.
The rumor is that the Bears are going to sit down with DJ Moore and his agent and see if Moore is going to be willing to take a pay cut. If we’re being honest, based on production, he should. But if I were him, I would want every dollar of my extension. The Bears could certainly restructure the deal and convert money to bonus money, but all that’s going to do is kick the guarantees and cap hits further down the road, and the Bears are in a situation where they have to ask if they want to pay Moore this much money when they fully expect Burden and Loveland to be stars.
I think the Bears will shop Moore (and we will talk about that more in the next article about what he might bring to the table in a trade for a defensive player) but if they can’t find a taker, they may be more in the camp of trying to restructure his deal, but they want to do that without making his dead cap too big further down the road. It seems to be a tricky situation for Ryan Poles and the Bears.
The bottom line with Moore, the contract extension he received has not aged well at all.
A few other lesser notes on the Bears’ offense.
I think the Bears will want to keep a veteran QB3 around for Caleb Williams again. Case Keenum was absolutely awesome in that role last year, and I think if Keenum wants to return in that role, the Bears would be interested in keeping him. It wouldn’t shock me if Keenum retires and immediately becomes an assistant QB coach in Chicago or elsewhere.
If Keenum isn’t an option in Chicago, if someone like Tyrod Taylor doesn’t get a QB2 role with a team, I could see him or someone similar to his experience being brought in as the team’s QB3. But Caleb and Tyson Bagent seem to be cemented in their roles.
The one thing I’ve heard from a couple of people is that it certainly seems possible that D’Andre Swift won’t be back next year. Now, 12 months ago, I firmly just assumed that Swift would be out after one season, but based on how he ran and how effective he was in this running game, I assumed the Bears would keep him around for at least one more season.
I know Tony Pauline had the rumor that the Bears might be interested in Travis Etienne. I’m not saying that’s wrong, I haven’t heard it, but it also makes no sense to me. I don’t know why you would pay more money for a back who is the same age, with similar styles, and I don’t necessarily see it as an upgrade from Swift.
Swift is someone to keep an eye on. I would be surprised, but it certainly seems to be on the table that they go in a different direction.
Finally, there’s left tackle. Nobody seems to know exactly what the Bears plan is at left tackle, and I think it’s largely because nobody knows exactly what the status of Ozzy Trapilo is, including the Bears. Is this a guy who can be back out on the field by November 1st and be relied on to start? Or is this a guy that, at least for 2026, the Bears shouldn’t be counting on him at all?
I think, based on what I heard, the Bears probably aren’t going to rely on him at all, and hope that he can come back in full for 2027, and if he comes back for any of 2026, that’s going to be a bonus.
If that’s the case, the Bears are going to want to have a stopgap at left tackle for next season. I know fans have wondered if Darnell Wright may swing over to the left side, and I’ve wondered that as well. I did not even hear that as a suggestion in San Francisco.
Some people wonder if Braxton Jones gets a chance at left tackle again, and perhaps he’s healthier for 2026 and can sign a cheap deal. It doesn’t seem like he has a good market coming off this last season. I also heard that some people strongly believe that Joe Thuney could bounce out to left tackle for the season, and they could try Theo Benedet, Luke Newman, Jordan McFadden, or perhaps sign a veteran at left guard.
The consensus seems to be that the Bears are going to try and slap a band aid at left tackle that they think can hold up for the season, so I don’t expect them to invest in a LT in the draft (at least early), or in free agency, and I don’t think Benedet will figure in at starting left tackle, and I don’t think Kiran Amegadjie will either.
I think most of the Bears’ activities this offseason will focus on the defensive side of the ball, and we will discuss that in the final article of the series.
