NEWSLETTER
DJ Moore won’t be a free agent until *AFTER* the 2025 season. But it’s never too early to explore a potential extension.
In case you missed it, the Houston Texans signed wide receiver Nico Collins to an extension. Patrick wrote about it in this morning’s Around The NFL post. And after reading the news, my brain went to a very specific place.
“A DJ Moore extension is going to spicy and pricy,” is what I told myself.
“That would make a good headline … and post,” is what followed.
I’m glad no one was on the train while I had this conversation with myself. That would’ve just been too weird. But I digress. Let’s explore what the latest receiver extension could mean for Chicago Bears wide receiver DJ Moore.
NFL wide receiver extensions are coming in bunches
The Nico Collins deal is just the latest high-profile receiver extension to make NFL headlines this offseason. Here are some other notable ones to refresh your memory:
Collins’ deal ranks 10th in total value ($72.5M), 11th in total guarantees ($52M), and seventh in average per year ($24.16M). The 25-year-old University of Michigan product is coming off of a breakout year in which he caught 80 passes, racked up 1,297 receiving yards, and scored 8 touchdowns in 15 games. What a time for a breakout season. In two seasons before C.J. Stroud’s arrival in 2023, Collins totaled 70 catches, 927 receiving yards, and 3 touchdowns in 24 games. I hope some of that signing bonus Collins was given by the Texans went into sending his quarterback a gift basket.
Given this wave of extensions, it is impossible to come away anything other than “Welp, that next DJ Moore extension is going to be expensive.” But that’s cool. I’m all about paying good players what they are worth on the open market. What does that look like for Moore and the Bears? Let’s discuss.
This is what a DJ Moore extension might look like
Over at Pro Football Talk, Mike Florio has an inside look at the Nico Collins extension. Here are some highlights, which could help us hash out a potential DJ Moore deal in Chicago:
To be clear, the extension DJ Moore signs won’t look like what Nico Collins just got from Houston. Moore is older and has more of an established track record. And because his next deal will likely come after stars such as Ja’Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Brandon Aiyuk, and CeeDee Lamb get new deals, the market should look drastically different than it does now. But with that being said, a DJ Moore extension probably land somewhere in this range:
By the time the DJ Moore contract goes in the books, those numbers should still be in a range where he still lands as a top-10 highest-paid wide receivers. It could be the kind of deal that threads the needle of rewarding a player for what they’ve done and paying him for what you think he can do in the coming years of the contract. Those types of deals aren’t easy to draw up, but the way Bears General Manager Ryan Poles has drawn up contract extensions for TE1 (Cole Kmet) and CB1 (Jaylon Johnson), I have some confidence the same can be done for WR1 when the time comes.
DJ Moore has made it abundantly clear that Chicago is where he wants to be. So I hope the feeling is mutual from the Bears’ side of things and the two can iron out a deal. And if Moore hits it off quickly with Caleb Williams (they already are … and there is no reason to think it won’t continue), then I hope Chicago’s football team wastes no time in making an extension happen.
