DJ Moore knew what he was headed when the Bears traded for him in March 2023 — it was where, as Muhsin Muhammad once said, “receivers go to die.”
“I heard that coming here,” he said Wednesday. “I wasn’t paying it no mind. I was like, ‘Shoot, I’m still young. Maybe when they was all older, they was dying off.’”
Moore struck a blow against that narrative in his lone season with the Bears. His 96 catches last year were the Bears’ most since Allen Robinson in 2020. His 1,364 receiving yards were the fourth-most in team history, only 144 shy of Brandon Marshall’s franchise record.
“When I got here, (the narrative) was a thing,” he said. “And then when the season was progressing the way it was, I was just like, ‘Yeah, we can throw that out the window now.'”
Moore said he “outplayed" the contract he signed with the Panthers. The Bears agreed. Tuesday night, they have him a four-year, $110 million extension to keep him with the team through 2029.
The Bears had two years until his original deal ran out but wanted to get ahead of an increasingly expensive wide receiver market. Moore was thrilled to get added stability; his $27.5 million per season salary is the largest the Bears have ever handed out.
The result was a far cry from March 2023, when Moore was taken aback by the Panthers’ decision to package him and future picks — one of which became No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams — for the first pick in the 2023 draft. He and his family had just bought a house in the Charlotte area.
The Bears made Moore an offer over the weekend. His agent Drew Rosenhaus flew to Chicago and attended the Bears’ open practice Tuesday before starting negotiations in person. Moore had to leave the Bears’ walk-through Tuesday evening to sit in on the meetings.
When he signed the deal, his teammates threw an impromptu party in the locker room.
“That was probably the 'turnt'-est locker room I’ve ever been a part of,” he said. “It was going berserk when everybody got back to their phones and seen what happened.”
Moore has already begun recruiting fellow receiver Keenan Allen, who has a year left on his own deal, to work out an extension.
“I was like, ‘Man, listen, what’s your (price)? Let’s get it done,’” Moore said with a smile.
