After DJ Moore trade, it’s on GM Ryan Poles to get Bears to the next level

Posted March 06, 2026 8:24 am

By Jon Greenberg

DJ Moore turns 29 next month, but in his three seasons with the Bears, he always felt older, more seasoned than he really was. Some people just carry it like that.

With that in mind, before Chicago’s first playoff game in January, Moore was asked about advising the younger players on the team about handling the moment.

Moore responded by making a sound that illustrated he was the wrong guy to ask.

“It’s my first time in this thing too,” he said, adding, “It took me eight years to get here, so I’m loving every moment of it.”

Moore, who hadn’t been on a winning team since high school, wound up catching the winning touchdown pass in the Bears’ first playoff victory in 15 years — against the Packers, no less. It was his second game-winner against Green Bay in three weeks, following an over-the-shoulders walk-off touchdown in overtime that was later named the NFL’s moment of the year.

As if that weren’t enough to endear him forever to the locals, Moore put a foam cheese grater on his head and said on live TV, “At the end of the day, it’s F the Packers, always.”

The Bears can only hope that Moore’s Packer-killing touchdowns will resonate years down the road as the start of a dynastic run that includes Super Bowls and parades. No matter what, in 10 years, he’ll be signing autographed photos of the dagger touchdown at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center and Bergie’s Dugout until his hand hurts.

But for now, he heads to Buffalo with a little playoff experience.

On Thursday, Moore was traded, along with a fifth-round pick, to the Bills, who sent over a second-rounder in this April’s draft.

Three years ago, Moore was traded to Chicago in what was, and still is, general manager Ryan Poles’ signature deal. Poles lucked into the No. 1 overall pick — thanks, Lovie Smith — and sent it to Carolina for a massive haul that included Moore and the future No. 1 pick that would become Caleb Williams, the guy who completed those winning passes to Moore.

But despite his contributions to the revival of a faded brand, Moore was now expendable. It happens fast, but it happens to everyone in the NFL.

“I have nothing but great things to say about him,” Poles said last week at the NFL combine. “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.”

In the current world of the Chicago Bears, team president Kevin Warren is taking heat for a protracted stadium saga that introduced the possibility of the team playing near an oil refinery in Hammond, Ind. At the same time, head coach Ben Johnson and Williams are being feted as maybe the league’s next great coach-QB combo.

But as we head into free agency and the draft, no one person is more important to the future of the Bears right now than Poles, the spotlight-averse GM who has made enough good moves to put the Bears on the precipice of being great and enough bad ones for me to have serious qualms about whether he can get the job done.

The Bears are at a crossroads, and Poles needs to shepherd them on the right path. He’ll get help from Johnson — who has to be a better draft counsel than Matt Eberflus — but it’s Poles’ show.

Free agency begins Monday, and the GM has a lot of work to do with a more limited budget than last year. The Moore trade, the announced release of linebacker Tremaine Edmunds and center Drew Dalman’s just-announced retirement — man, it’s been a busy week for Bears news — has added significant breathing room to the team’s salary cap situation, but it has also subtracted three reliable veterans from the roster.

The Bears need a new left tackle and a replacement for Dalman. The safeties are free agents. Defensive coordinator Dennis Allen needs a pass rusher and probably another defensive tackle. The linebacking unit needs bodies.

With the Bills’ second-round pick now in hand, Poles has picks 25, 57, 60, 89 and 129 in the top four rounds to help fill out the roster. I could see him trading down from 25 if a needy team wants a quarterback there. I’d avoid trading up or packaging these picks for a veteran.

As Poles reminded us at the combine, it’s his job to strike a balance between winning now and focusing on sustainability. With Williams on a rookie deal surrounded by young talent, it sure seems like the time is now to go for it. And yet …

“I’ve got a head coach that wants to sustain success and win for a long period of time,” Poles said. “I have a quarterback who continues to progress, and he wants to be one of the best to ever do it and win a lot of championships. So with that model, we have to be very conscious of how we put this team together. But we want to win championships now. We want to be able to have that flexibility to continue to win down the road.”

A perfect example of this balancing act is trading Moore. Williams never really leaned on Moore, but he also knew he could count on him in must-have spots. I know some fans have a sour taste with how Moore attacked that last play of the season, but he also set a standard for toughness that transcended his position group.

Now, with him gone, the Bears offense depends on young players like Rome Odunze, Luther Burden III and Colston Loveland. They are very talented and capable, but they have to be available and productive, just like Moore. Still, drafting three talented pass catchers in successive drafts was a coup for Poles that made the expensive Moore expendable. That’s how it should work, I suppose.

Poles is also still looking for another pass rusher despite paying Montez Sweat and Dayo Odeyingbo in recent years. While Sweat was productive enough last season, Odeyingbo, signed last offseason to a sizable contract, had one sack in eight games and tore his Achilles in November, making him a question mark going forward. It was a bad signing because it didn’t work.

Everyone has wanted Poles to trade for unhappy Oakland pass rusher Maxx Crosby since last season and that’s still a possibility, I suppose, but the cost might be prohibitive, especially because Poles also has to replace Dalman and add a tackle because Ozzy Trapilo is likely out for the season after knee surgery and, well, this just isn’t an easy job.

Before he landed Johnson, Poles looked like another doomed Bears GM. But one great season later, he has a chance to write his legacy as the guy who built the next great Bears team.

If he does that, we’ll look at the deal that landed Moore as the start of it all, we’ll remember Moore as the guy who helped slay the Packers, and perhaps we’ll consider the deal that sent Moore away as a critical moment that took the Bears to the next level.

Though Johnson, Williams and Moore were stars at the end of the season, now it’s Poles’ time to shine.