The key to the Bears’ upcoming season is the development of Bears quarterback Caleb Williams, and certainly that has been Ben Johnson’s chief task over his year and a half as head coach, but, quietly, the best part of the offense last season was the rushing attack.
The Bears were third in the NFL at 144.5 yards per game and did it with a pair of wayward running backs in D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai. Swift was coming off of a down season and looked like a bad contract, while Monangai was the 22nd running back drafted in his class and drifted to the seventh round.
Both of them were resurgent, though, and thrived thanks to three key elements: Johnson’s offense, a thoroughly revamped offensive line that was one of the league’s best and the hiring of fiery, vastly overqualified running backs coach Eric Bieniemy.
Recapturing, or perhaps exceeding, that tenacious ground game is crucial.
They made no moves at running back, opting to keep Swift at close to $9 million rather than cut him for a dead salary-cap hit of about $1 million. They’re down starting center Drew Dalman (retired) and left tackle Ozzy Trapilo (injured). And the Chiefs hired Bieniemy as offensive coordinator, though the Bears recovered nicely by replacing him with longtime running backs guru Eric Studesville.
Johnson’s priority is getting the offensive line on the same page as trade pickup Garrett Bradbury steps in at center and the Bears go back to Braxton Jones at left tackle along with returning left guard Joe Thuney, right guard Jonah Jackson and right tackle Darnell Wright.
“One of the bigger challenges in our sport is getting five guys to play as one,” Johnson said Thursday before a light practice as part of organized team activities. “It’s a race for us to get to know each other a little bit more, and you saw a year ago it took us a minute before that run game started to get going and clicking, so there’s a challenge that comes along with that.”
Once that snaps into place, it’s up to Swift and Monangai to take a step forward as Johnson’s version of the “Sonic and Knuckles” backfield he had with the Lions in Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery.
Bieniemy was instrumental in getting Swift back on track — “You can’t replace somebody like that,” he said while also expressing enthusiasm about Studesville — by emphasizing a forceful, vertical running style rather than shifting and roving laterally looking for big plays. The running backs heard, “Just get me four and a half yards,” constantly, and Swift ran for a career-high 1,087 yards at a strong rate of 4.9 per carry. That was up from a career-low 3.8 per carry in 2024.
Monangai, meanwhile, fit in beautifully and was fifth in his draft class at 783 yards as a rookie. No other team had two players rush for 750 or more yards apiece.
“There’s no dropoff at all,” Swift said. “He’s able to do everything; I’m able to do everything. It’s tough on defenses when I make something happen, [then] he makes something happen. Like, what are you going to do? It’s a lot for a defense to account for four quarters.”
Even still, Swift felt last season could’ve been better, and Johnson acknowledged, “Is he capable of more? He absolutely is.”
Swift said he’s working this offseason to sharpen his details in his running “tracks,” essentially a rusher’s version of a route, and being disciplined to avoid “veering off” them. Johnson’s ground game, especially with a veteran, reliable offensive line, is built for clockwork precision.
There also was some untapped production in Swift’s ability as a pass catcher, a role in which he shined under Johnson in Detroit. Swift had career lows in targets (48) and catches (34) and finished with his second-lowest yardage total (299). By contrast, he got 78 targets in 2021 and 70 in ’22 when Johnson was on the Lions’ staff.
Swift said his best receiving seasons were merely a matter of “just the quarterback finding me … really just getting the ball in my hands.” While that’s boastful, it’s probably true. He’s the Bears’ most electric runner, and one of his highlights last season was a play against the Commanders in which Williams hit him just past the line of scrimmage, and Swift slipped two defenders and ran 55 yards for a touchdown.
That’s a weapon. The Bears have a lot of talented pass catchers, but they certainly could go to Swift more.
It all starts with the rushing attack, though. When that’s rocking, it puts defenses in a constant guessing game, and that opens up everything. The pass rush pauses, the coverage spreads thin, and then the Bears can do virtually anything they want.
