The Bears traded DJ Moore to Buffalo on Thursday, freeing up targets for younger players in Chicago while giving Josh Allen a reliable wideout. These are the fantasy implications of the move on both sides.

Chicago Bears Fantasy Fallout

The Bears are making their plan for 2026 fairly clear. It’s time for younger players to step up. Colston Loveland started that process in the second half of his rookie season. From Week 9 through the Divisional Round, Loveland averaged 65.8 yards on 4.9 catches per game. He was targeted on 25 percent of his routes and his 89 targets easily led the team. Of all the Chicago pass-catchers, Loveland looks most likely to be the team’s “WR1” this year.

Rome Odunze’s role shouldn’t change as a direct result of Moore’s departure. Odunze had no issues racking up routes last year, taking the field for 88 percent of Caleb Williams’ dropbacks when healthy. He could get a slight boost by taking on some of Moore’s underneath looks. Odunze’s 14.9 aDOT was the seventh-highest among qualified wideouts. Because Williams’ deep ball is still a work in progress, Pro Football Focus charted just 57 percent of Odunze’s targets as catchable. A few more layups in his opportunity diet would go a long way in stabilizing his fantasy floor.

The big winner in Chicago is Luther Burden. Chicago’s No. 39 pick often looked like the team’s most explosive wideout as a rookie. Burden was responsible for Chicago’s longest passing play of the year, a 65-yard flea-flicker.

He also had gains of 40, 37, and 35 yards. Burden easily led the Bears with 2.3 yards per route run. He had the opposite problem as Odunze and simply couldn’t get on the field despite showing elite efficiency, resulting in a route rate just under 50 percent. With Olamide Zaccheaus — an unrestricted free agent — not guaranteed to return for 2026, the Bears are making a massive bet on Burden taking the next step. From a fantasy perspective, this is what a second-year breakout looks like.

Buffalo Bills Fantasy Fallout

Just looking at the spreadsheets: DJ Moore is washed. He is coming off career-lows in:

• Yards per route run - 1.2 (68th among qualified wideouts)
• Target rate - 15 percent (75th)
• PFF receiving grade - 67.9 (55th)

He approached low-water marks in several other key metrics. We could have said similar things last offseason, and they would have led you away from Moore at almost any cost. On the other hand, it’s safe to say Moore’s decline isn’t purely physical. Moore has put several poor effort plays on tape over the past two seasons. Ben Johnson even called out his behavior last offseason. With the Bears slowly stripping away his role amidst turnover at quarterback and head coach, Moore seemed to concede that his time in Chicago was over two years ago. He then played 36 games with that mindset creeping into his performance.

It’s entirely possible that Moore simply tries harder in Buffalo, especially after the team chose to guarantee $15.5 million of his 2028 salary. His 2027 salary will be fully guaranteed in a week and the team handed over a second-round pick to give Moore those many millions of dollars. The Bills are fully invested in a DJM resurgence. That belief will come with routes and targets. Khalil Shakir was the only Bills pass-catcher with a route rate over 67 percent. His 75 percent route rate was the lowest in the NFL for a team leader, tied with Kayshon Boutte in New England. Buffalo’s No. 2 receiver by targets was Keon Coleman, a player they made a healthy scratch on multiple occasions. If Moore is going to revive his career, this is the place to do it.

For now, Shakir and Dalton Kincaid round out the team’s fantasy-relevant pass-catchers. The combination of money and draft capital spent on Moore is a pretty clear indictment of Shakir. The Bills put even more on his plate in 2025 and he turned in a worse season by overall yards and yards per route run than in 2024. Shakir’s aDOT tumbled to an absurd mark of 3.5 last year and has been on the decline since he entered the NFL. The Bills view him as a short-area YAC guy who has been in over his head for the past two years. His efficiency should rise with Moore taking some attention from defenses, but a likely dip in targets will more than offset any gains in the nerd metrics.

Kincaid’s fantasy outlook hinges on whether or not the team keeps Dawson Knox around. Joe Brady is doing everything he can to get Kincaid the ball when he is on the field, but Knox has been a constant hurdle in Kincaid’s path toward a starter-level route rate. The new league year starts in a week, so this question should have an answer rather soon.