Now a Buffalo Bill, But DJ Moore Remains Bearish in 2026

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All offseason, it's been a deluge of glowing reports about the Buffalo Bills and their March swap with the Chicago Bears that sent DJ Moore and a fifth-round pick over to the Bills in exchange for Buffalo’s second-round pick.

The reports during training camp are that Moore looks energized. Have you ever heard of a training camp report that WASN'T positive? When have you heard a head coach say a player looks terrible or out of shape? This is glorified state media we are talking about, where people make sure positive reports come out about every player being in the best shape of their life.

Positive reports about players are great! But what about when that is all you hear? It is a little sus, as the kids say. Is the DJ Moore buzz warranted? Let's dive into it.

Setting the Table for DJ Moore

I have spent the better part of this decade talking about Moore being one of the most underrated wide receivers in fantasy, and he has absolutely been that from his 2018 rookie season in Carolina through his first season in Chicago in 2023. Those seasons are documented; they are all well and good.

Here's the proof:

Pretty much from the start, Moore has been a target-earner and was put into many roles during his five-season stint as a Carolina Panther. In 2019, we saw a true breakout for Moore, with 9.0 yards per target, a YPRR above 2.00 and 22.4% TPRR. The man is a target earner! Under offensive coordinator Joe Brady in 2020, Moore was utilized more downfield, as evidenced by an increased average depth of target to 13.7 yards, allowing players like Curtis Samuel (7.5-yard aDOT) and Robbie Chosen (9.8-yard aDOT) to earn more of the short and intermediate targets, respectively. All three of Moore, Samuel and Chosen were top-25 fantasy wide receivers that season, but seeing what we saw from Moore the previous season, we were hoping for more from Moore and knew he could DO more.

In 2021, Samuel signed a three-year deal with Washington, and Chosen’s production fell off a cliff. Moore kept chugging along with his best target-earning season to date, with 156 targets and a 25% TPRR; that is Moore earning a target on one of every four routes run. We love to see it! Unfortunately, Brady was fired more than halfway into 2021, and head coach Matt Rhule was not long for the job either, lasting just five games into 2022 before getting canned himself.

The 2022 season was a lost one for Moore, as uneven quarterbacking from Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold and P.J. Walker doomed the entire offense from the start. Moore still led all pass-catchers by a wide margin in every statistical category but was back to a deeper 14.0-yard aDOT.

In one of the most famous trades in recent NFL history, Moore was traded from the Carolina Panthers to the Chicago Bears ‐ along with two first-round picks ‐ for the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, which ended up being quarterback Bryce Young. One of those first-round picks Carolina sent turned into the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 NFL Draft as the Panthers finished 2-15 the previous season. That pick for the Bears ended up being current Bears quarterback Caleb Williams.

The consensus opinion on Moore heading into 2023 with Chicago was that he has run every route on the route tree, he is adept at short-area targets, intermediate work and can function as a deep threat. If we put it all together, we can get one of the best receivers in the NFL!

Moore entered 2023 with a lot of buzz, and a recurring theme (even said by me a LOT) was that “Justin Fields is the best quarterback Moore has ever played with!” That year ended up being the best statistical and fantasy season of Moore’s career to this point, with a WR6 finish (96 catches for 1,364 yards and eight touchdowns). Fantasy managers also got the best YPRR (2.31) and first-read target rate (38.1%) of his career, too. Heading into 2024, with #1 pick Williams in tow, Moore was set up in his prime seasons to deliver fantasy goodness.

**record scratch**

And this is where it gets a bit murky in Chicago.

Moore’s Final Two Seasons in Chicago

In 2024, Moore was more of a short-area target with a 7.4-yard average depth of target with the Bears in Williams’ first season. While Moore was still WR15 on the campaign, it was a very weird season for the Bears, as offensive coordinator Shane Waldron was fired in early November and head coach Matt Eberflus was fired a little over two weeks later.

Last season ‐ the first under new head coach Ben Johnson and offensive coordinator Declan Doyle ‐ Moore’s per-route metrics fell off in a huge way, cratering to a career-low 1.22 yards per route run and a rock-bottom 14.3% targets per route run. Those are precipitous drops from somebody who over the previous five seasons had been a very good-to-great wide receiver. Granted, a lot of that was rookie quarterbacking gone off the rails with Williams, but it is hard to ignore.

In those two seasons, Moore was plenty usable for fantasy in 2024, but the wheels came off in 2025, leading to his worst fantasy finish since his 2018 rookie season. Moore was clearly prioritized less with Rome Odunze, Colston Loveland, Luther Burden and even D’Andre Swift in the running game taking a lot of opportunity away. Moore’s target share cratered to 15.6%, and his total opportunity share sank to under 10%. Last year also broke a streak of six straight 100-target seasons (falling to 80 targets), while running 87% of routes per dropback. Williams STILL had a ton of accuracy issues even though he was much better for fantasy, as his completion percentage actually dropped to 58.1% ‐ an almost unfathomable number in today’s NFL.

This past March, with the Bears looking to provide more routes to Luther Burden and consolidate their offense around their young trio of Burden, Odunze and Loveland, Chicago traded Moore and a 2026 fifth-round pick to the Buffalo Bills for a 2026 second-round pick. It was a move that brought Moore back with former Panthers offensive coordinator and now Bills head coach Joe Brady.

Moore’s Outlook With the Buffalo Bills in 2026

The immediate reaction to the trade for Moore is that he probably stands above all of the other receivers in the Buffalo offense, as they have been missing a top receiver for quarterback Josh Allen ever since they traded Stefon Diggs to Houston in 2024.

In theory, that is plausible.

Last season, we saw the lowest pass rate that we have seen from the Bills under Josh Allen (56%, third-lowest in the NFL), and the second-lowest pass rate over expected at -3.5%. Allen also had the lowest target distribution to wide receivers that he has had in his career at 56%, which ranked 22nd in the NFL.

I also think it is fair to question how general manager Brandon Beane and the Bills’ brass evaluate wide receivers. Why do we give them the benefit of the doubt?

Since 2017, the season Beane stepped into his current position, his track record with bringing in wide receiver talent has been dubious at best, including bringing in Kelvin Benjamin, Stefon Diggs, Amari Cooper and now Moore via the trade market. Beane also signed free-agent deals with Andre Holmes, Cole Beasley, John Brown, Emmanuel Sanders, Jamison Crowder, Deonte Harty, Curtis Samuel, Mack Hollins, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Joshua Palmer and Elijah Moore.

Even worse is Beane’s record in the NFL Draft, where he has used zero first-round picks and just two Day 2 picks at the position: Zay Jones in 2017 and Keon Coleman in 2024. Other than that, Buffalo has selected the likes of Ray-Ray McCloud, Gabe Davis, Isaiah Hodgins, Marquez Stevenson, Khalil Shakir, Justin Shorter and Skyler Bell (this season’s entry in the fourth round).

The entire pool of trade acquisitions, free-agent signings and draft picks made by Beane has netted the Buffalo Bills exactly five top-20 fantasy seasons at wide receiver since 2017. Four of those were from Diggs from 2020 to 2023. The other was John Brown in 2019, who finished as WR20 that season. The record is dubious for Beane, even with an obvious hit in Diggs.

The main question we have to ask about Moore this season, is that with the factors laid out that the Bills are a very unconcentrated offense with multiple pass-catchers, the fact that they prefer to run the ball more than letting Allen sling it, and that the Bills are pretty inept at scouting wide receiver talent, why should we believe in Moore to be some sort of “alpha” wide receiver? You would think Beane could do better than to trade a second-round pick on a wide receiver who will be 29 years old and is coming off the worst season of his career, right?

If Moore can rediscover the 2023 (or earlier) version of himself, he can justify being a top-24 fantasy wide receiver. The hope is that Moore can be something close to what they got when Diggs came to Buffalo in 2020, which is a target-earning alpha that can rise above what has been a largely pedestrian pass-catching unit. At least when Diggs came to the Bills, he was 27 years old. Moore heads to Buffalo in his age-29 season.

At this stage of his career, Moore's likelihood of having the Diggs-like impact in his first season in Buffalo is very low. Even the fact of being any sort of "alpha" in the Buffalo Bills offense at his current skill level and per-route metrics is low. The most likely outcome is that Moore leads the Bills in targets, but it is not a meaningful amount for fantasy football, and there are games where Moore blends in with other targets or the passing game is not a priority in that particular week. Moore is probably a better real-life wide receiver than a fantasy one right now, and there is nothing wrong with that! We just have to be very realistic with what we have here with Moore, as it pertains to the half-dozen other targets in the Bills offense that Moore has to compete with for targets.