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The Chicago Bears have altered the direction of the franchise by trading the first overall selection in the 2023 NFL Draft to the Carolina Panthers for the ninth and sixty-first picks in the 2023 NFL Draft, a 2024 first-round pick, a 2025 second-round pick, and wide receiver D.J. Moore.
Carolina adding Moore to the trade appears to be what Chicago general manager Ryan Poles was holding out for, and once they agreed to Poles’ terms, a deal was struck.
So what are the Bears getting in the soon to be 26 year old?
Moore checks in at 6’, 201 pounds, and he’s only missed two games in his five-year career while averaging 890 offensive snaps a season. He’s compiled 364 receptions, 5,201 yards (14.3 avg), and 21 receiving touchdowns since being the 24th overall pick in the 2017 draft.
For a little perspective, the leading receiver in Chicago history is Johnny Morris with 5,059 yards.
From a fantasy football way of looking at Moore, he’s been a top 20 receiver for the last four seasons.
Athletically speaking, Moore will bring speed and quickness to Chicago’s passing attack.
D.J. Moore was drafted with pick 24 of round 1 in the 2018 draft class. He scored a 9.65 RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 72 out of 2028 WR from 1987 to 2018. #1KReceiverhttps://t.co/o0QQhSzECG #RAS pic.twitter.com/WNNBX1zrKQ
— Kent Lee Platte (@MathBomb) March 26, 2021
The Bears will have Moore under contract through the 2025 season, and since the Panthers are on the hook for most of his bonus money, Chicago’s cap hits are just $20,165,000 in 2023, $16,050,000 in 2024, and $16,050,000 in 2025.
The Bears still have the most salary cap space in 2023 at around $75 million, which leaves them plenty of room to address several more needs in free agency.
Here’s an interesting stat...
A full list of wide receivers with at least 1,200 scrimmage yards in every season from 2019-2021:
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) March 11, 2023
New Bear D.J. Moore pic.twitter.com/b1q90ErL2i
For those wondering, last season, he racked up 941 scrimmage yards while catching passes from Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, P.J. Walker, and Jacob Eason.
DJ Moore since 2019
— Marquee Plus (@MarqueePlus) March 12, 2023
8th in rec yards
8th in yds/rec
8th in targets
7th in all-purpose yardspic.twitter.com/uwIY1tAMSO
Moore joins a Chicago receiving room with Darnell Mooney, Chase Claypool, Velus Jones Jr., and Equanimeous St. Brown, and he’s another weapon for Justin Fields as he looks to bolster his passing in 2023.
D.J. Moore helps Justin Fields attack the intermediate area of the field, an area he did well targeting in 2022:
— Brad Spielberger, Esq. (@PFF_Brad) March 10, 2023
- Fields led NFL with a 66.7% completion percentage on throws 10-19 yards downfield
- D.J. Moore's 172 targets 10-19 yards downfield from 2019-22 is 2nd-most in NFL
Moore, while athletically gifted and able to generate plenty of yards after the catch, is also a threat to get open downfield. He may not be a tall go-up-and-get-it, jump ball receiver, but his quickness and play strength makes him a viable deep ball option.
Per @pfref, DJ Moore has caught 42% of deep targets for 12.3 yards/target. That's despite having CAR QBs who can't throw deep. On all other deep passes, they were 35% completion and 9.3 yards/target.
— Johnathan Wood (@Johnathan_Wood1) March 11, 2023
Justin Fields is 46% completion and 12.8 yards/target. Moore's gonna eat. https://t.co/PjQljZyVcb
The Reception Perception data compiled by Matt Harmon always provides a nice snapshot on how receivers do damage to defenses. This Tweet below, the pics, and the entire thread has some good info.
Yep he's hovered between the mid 60 and low to mid 70th percentile in most of his #ReceptionPerception success rates the last 3 years (need to log a few more 2022 games to finish the sample).
— Matt Harmon (@MattHarmon_BYB) March 11, 2023
His best season as a vertical X receiver was 2020. That's a nice template for Chicago pic.twitter.com/0iYaiI1G04
Josh crunched the trade value numbers yesterday and concluded that this was a fair deal for both parties, but Robert Schmitz used the Pro Football Focus simulator to see how likely this trade was according to their analytics.
Just threw the PFF Mock Draft Simulator into the Wayback Machine to "grade" the #Bears trade...@PFF_Brad Did you guys have this all along? 79%?? pic.twitter.com/eCMH0nNaCF
— Robert Schmitz (@robertkschmitz) March 11, 2023
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