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15 hours ago
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The Buffalo Bills took a big swing this offseason to add a veteran wide receiver for Josh Allen.
They pulled off a trade with the Chicago Bears for DJ Moore, a deal that involved sending a second-round pick the other way.
Even at the time, the price looked a little steep, and now in a new article on Thursday, ESPN's Bill Barnwell has called it further into question. He called the Moore maneuver the Bills' "worst move" of this offseason.
"Every step of the Moore process felt like a franchise acting out of desperation," Barnwell writes.
The Bills clearly felt they needed to improve on a wide receiver group on the perimeter that otherwise would've been led by Keon Coleman and Joshua Palmer (with the solid Khalil Shakir in the slot).
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It's just not clear, as Barnwell breaks down, that the Bills went about this in the best way.
"Moore is coming off what was comfortably his worst season as a pro, one in which he seemingly fell out of favor with Ben Johnson in the Chicago offense," Barnwell writes. "The Bears had little leverage in dealing with Moore, given that they were about to be on the hook for $49 million over the next two seasons for a guy who might have been their fourth option in the passing game heading into 2026. This should have essentially been a salary dump scenario for Ryan Poles. Instead, the Bills sent a second-round pick to the Bears for Moore."
The Bills then moved some things around with Moore's contract that added guaranteed money to it as far down the road as 2028.
"Even more inexplicably, the Bills ate all of the salary that was already owed to Moore and then guaranteed their new wideout $13.5 million in 2028, committing money three years down the line to a player who had no leverage as part of this trade," Barnwell writes. "If Moore had a no-trade clause or was about to become a free agent, making that sort of move might have made more sense."
Moore can make all of this a moot point if he has a Pro Bowl season for the Bills.
But if he looks like a wideout in decline, this cost is going to look rough in a hurry for Buffalo's front office.
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