Andrew Catalon called every single one of the Bills’ three preseason games this summer. He’s spoken to coaches behind the scenes every week. That’s not a scouting report from someone parachuting in for one practice. That’s someone who’s watched this offense evolve in real time, week over week, and his read on DJ Moore is about as bullish as it gets heading into the regular season.
“I think everything I’ve heard, it’s better than expected,” Catalon told us. “I think DJ Moore is gonna have a big year in Buffalo. He and Josh Allen see the game the same way.”
Buffalo didn’t trade for Moore just to add a name. It traded a second-round pick because it needed a receiver who could actually think the game at Allen’s speed, someone who could turn a broken play or an off-schedule read into a connection instead of an incompletion. If Catalon’s hearing that the two already see the field the same way this early, that’s exactly the kind of chemistry that took years to develop with some of Allen’s past targets, if it ever fully did.
The path to this point wasn’t instant. Josh Allen admitted on the first day of training camp that he’d actually been pressing too hard trying to force the ball to Moore, overthinking throws in an effort to impress his new receiver rather than just playing within the offense. “I felt myself trying to be perfect when I’m throwing to him,” Allen said. Once he let that go, the on-field reports started shifting fast, ESPN’s Ben Solak described Moore “roasting anyone Buffalo puts across from him” by the middle of camp.
The scheme fit is the real story here, and it explains why so many people around the building are optimistic. Moore’s numbers dipped with the Bears the last two seasons, dropping from 1,364 yards in 2023 down to 628 in 2025, but that decline tracks closely with how shallow his route tree became in Chicago’s offense, averaging just 9.7 air yards per target over three seasons there. Compare that to his first year under Joe Brady in Carolina back in 2020, when he averaged 13.2 air yards per target and posted the best season of his career. Brady is now Buffalo’s head coach, and by Solak’s own reporting from inside the building, the plan is to send Moore downfield and into intermediate breaking routes far more often than Chicago ever did, paired with play-action off one of the league’s most dominant running games.
That’s the bet Buffalo made in March, and it’s the same bet Catalon is hearing paying off through three preseason games. Moore isn’t walking into Buffalo as a finished product needing to prove himself. He’s walking into the exact role and the exact play-caller that produced his best football five years ago, next to a quarterback who, by every account out of camp, already trusts him.
If Catalon’s right, and Moore genuinely does have a big year, Buffalo’s offense stops being defined by “what if Allen had a real WR1” and starts being defined by what Allen can do with one. That’s the version of this offense the rest of the AFC has to be nervous about.
