What recent receiver boon signals about Bears’ WR plans

It’s a good time to be a good wide receiver in the NFL.

On Thursday, Miami Dolphins receiver Jaylen Waddle, who just put up his third straight 1,000 season to start his career, inked a new three-year, $84.75 deal to make him one of the NFL’s highest paid receivers.

Waddle’s new deal puts him fourth in annual value behind the Eagles’ A.J. Brown ($32 million), Detroit’s Amon-Ra St. Brown ($30.02 million) and Waddle’s own teammate Tyreek Hill ($30 million) and third in guaranteed money behind Brown ($84 million) and St. Brown ($77 million).

While not even the top threat on his own team, Waddle certainly is one of the league’s most explosive players and is being rewarded like it.

If you’ve reached this point and are asking yourself this matters for the Bears, here’s your payoff:

Why are Ryan Poles and the Chicago Bears avidly watching these receiver price tags? Because they have two star receivers who need paydays in the very near future if they’re to remain in Chicago: DJ Moore and Keenan Allen.

Moore is in the second year of a $61.88 million extension he signed with the Carolina Panthers back in 2022. That extension kicked in last season, which was his first with the Bears.

That means he’ll be up for an extension after next year, and it might well behoove the Bears to get something done with him before his price tag gets another year to balloon. As it is, there are a few big fish right now, namely Justin Jefferson, Ja’Marr Chase and CeeDee Lamb, whose contracts could reset the receiver market and push that number up this year (even if Moore doesn’t get paid in that record-breaking realm).

At the least, Moore is on the level of (if not better than) St. Brown and Waddle and should command something in their league — probably even a tough higher — at 27 years old coming off a career-high 1,364 receiving yards.

Then, there’s Allen, who is playing out the last season of his four-year, $80 million extension with the Chargers here in Chicago. He’s set to make $18.1 million in base salary for 2024.

Though Allen made a point to say a contract extension with the Bears was a possibility, the calculus has changed a bit since he came to the Bears via trade.

The big money fellow receivers like St. Brown and Waddle have gotten and what Moore may yet receive may coax the veteran pass-catcher, who will be 33 next season, into testing the free agent market for one more solid payday.

Furthermore, the Bears drafted rookie receiver Rome Odunze in the 2024 NFL Draft, which could be seen as a replacement plan for Allen following this season. Allowing Allen to walk, paying Moore and then rolling with Odunze on a cheap rookie deal for up to four more years feels like the play Ryan Poles will make, unless Allen were willing for some reason to accept a major discount to stick around.

Every dollar the Bears don’t plan to spend on Allen is another they could use to secure the younger, more durable Moore and load up on other free agents for a potential deep playoff run next season.

While it’s too early to say for certain what Ryan Poles will do, this recent receiver contract boom (and the major players yet to be paid) sure makes it seem as if only one of the Bears’ veteran receivers will be around after this year.

Odunze had better get up to speed quickly. And who knows, maybe we’ll be talking about his second Bears contract here soon, too.