Bear Digest

Trade With Panthers Just Keeps on Giving for Bears and Ryan Poles

Caleb Williams, DJ Moore, Darnell Wright, Tyrique Stevenson, Tory Taylor and a second-round pick next year is what the Bears have received for trading with Carolina.

Gene Chamberlain

DJ Moore was just one of many gains the Bears realized from their massive March, 2023 trade with Carolina, this week's opponent.
DJ Moore was just one of many gains the Bears realized from their massive March, 2023 trade with Carolina, this week's opponent. / Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images
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The trade remains the gift that keeps on giving to the Bears, just like Clark Griswold's Jelly of the Month Club membership.

It will provide for the Bears one more year still.

When the Bears beat the Carolina Panthers at Soldier Field last year 16-13, they did so with DJ Moore playing against his old Panthers teammates, with Darnell Wright playing right tackle and Tyrique Stevenson playing cornerback after they made the famed trade for picks with the Panthers.

It was probably the biggest trade in Bears history and GM Ryan Poles engineered it in March of 2023.

"It's really remarkable when you think about it—how it all fell together like that," Bears coach Matt Eberflus said. "A lot of that is luck, a lot of it you can’t predict, but it’s also putting yourself in position. (General Manager) Ryan Poles and his staff did a great job of that. There are a couple of players we could have been going for at the time and I am sure glad we got (WR) DJ (Moore). It worked out well and we have to keep working and getting better as a football team.”

This time starting Bears quarterback Caleb Williams and punter Tory Taylor will join the group of Bears facing the Panthers as players who were selected with picks supplied in the trade.

There will be one more pick next year for the Bears coming from the deal.

"I know about it, a little bit," said Williams, to some media laughter when asked about the trade. "Not too much."

He's aware enough to know he's in Chicago because of Poles being able to fleece former Panthers GM Scott Fitterer. With the first pick overall that the Panthers got from the Bears, they drafted quarterback Bryce Young. And when they come to Chicago Sunday Andy Dalton will start at quarterback and Young has been benched.

"Grateful that it happened, to be able to be a Chicago Bear," Williams said. "I'm not too deep into the history of what happened but I do know it got us a bunch of different things, DJ and picks and myself included."

His summation even though he didn't recall the terms: "It's a good collection of players we have here."

The terms were the Bears sent the first overall pick in 2023 to the Panthers for Moore the draft's ninth pick and the 61st pick overall in Round 2; then in 2024 a first-round pick that turned out to be No. 1 because of the Panthers' poor record. The Bears used it to select Williams. With the 61st pick in 2023, they made another trade and acquired the 56th pick in order to take Stevenson. They sent that 61st pick to Jacksonville along with a fifth-rounder to move up five spots and select their cornerback from Miami.

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When they had the ninth pick in 2023 after the trade, they dealt down with the Eagles one spot rather than draft defensive tackle Jalen Carter, and they used the 10th pick on Wright but also received an Eagles fourth-round pick this year and used it for their punter, this week's NFC Special Teams Player of the Week, Tory Taylor from Iowa. Taylor made Sunday's Bears win possible with three punts downed inside the 9-yard line, including one after a 66-yard fourth-quarter punt. The final punt of 35 yards was killed at the 8 and the Bears' Jaquan Brisker then icked off Matthew Stafford to lock up the win.

The other trade benefit the Bears still have coming is a second-round pick from Carolina next year. It could wind up being very early in Round 2 because the Panthers don't appear to have turned any corners yet with one of the league's worst defense.

Eberflus recalls the discussions going on between Poles and Fitterer.

"A lot of back and forth between the two clubs, there was a lot of back and forth there," Eberflus said. "They were willing and able so it was a good point for us and it just worked out. It was a lot of back and forth.

"I wasn't involved in all of the conversations, but certainly back and forth with Ryan and I, him informing me about what was going on. And when it worked out it was awesome.”

Not to be forgotten are how former Bears coach Lovie Smith coached Houston to a remarkable unwanted season-ending win in 2022 to get the Bears that first pick in the draft so they could trade it to Carolina, and also the side to this whole thing. That is Poles had once been incontention to be the Panthers GM but didn't get the job.

The young players were fine for the Bears,, but Moore turned out to be a 1,364-yard receiver with 96 catches. Then to get a franchise quarterback, whose future is still entirely open after only four games, a starting and effective young cornerback who has been NFC Defensive Player of the Week twice, one of the top graded tackles of last year's draft according to Pro Football Focus, and a member of the All-Rookie team.

And also a masterful punter.

Moore got to enjoy beating his former team last year, although he didn't have a big game with five catches for 58 yards. There's nothing to prove here for him beyond winning Sunday's game and advancing the offense with Williams.

"Nah, not this year. I think it was enough last year," Moore said. "I don't really care this year."

Moore said he's not about the "what if?" game and hasn't even reflected on all the Bears got along with him from Carolina.

But he has now.

 “I mean, you can see it, but not to really go and think about and (think) like, 'damn, we really made an impact," he said. "But we really did.

"Shout out to Poles for that. That was a good trade."

It's one that keeps on giving.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.