While the Chicago Bears offense has gotten off to a mostly promising start through the first three weeks of the Ben Johnson era, one area where there is still a lot to be desired is on the ground. Heading into Week 4, the Bears are situated in the middle of the pack in terms of total rushing yards and yards per rush, but the traditional rushing attack hasn’t yielded the results Johnson was accustomed to as the offensive coordinator in Detroit.
Running backs D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai have rushed for 193 yards on 53 combined carries, good for just 3.5 yards per rush. Take away all of the Caleb Williams scrambles and the gadgety plays that include DJ Moore lining up in the backfield or wideouts Luther Burden or Olamide Zaccheaus receiving end around carries, that would rank Chicago 28th in the NFL in yards per rush. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but that’s a problem.
While it’s possible that the Bears will explore acquiring another running back ahead of the trade deadline — Breece Hall, De’Von Achane and Alvin Kamara have all been floated as potential targets — there seems to be a belief among Bears players and coaches that eventually the team can turn the corner without doing anything drastic.
“Our whole goal as a coaching staff is to get them up to the third level as much as we can to make these safeties and these corners tackle them one on one,” Ben Johnson said earlier this week, per Courtney Cronin of ESPN. “We haven’t been doing that enough, so as a coaching staff we need a sound plan and then we need to go out there and we need to execute it just a little bit better than what we have been doing. I’m not discouraged at all.”
As far as scheme and run-blocking goes, the numbers say that the Bears actually aren’t that far off from building a successful rushing attack. Per Michael Tsypin of On Tap Sports Net, the Bears rank fourth in the league in yards before contact per carry at 1.99 yards. Additionally, according to ESPN’s analytics, the Bears have a 76% run block win rate, which ranks second in the NFL so far this season.
D’Andre Swift, Bears Continue Searching For Answers
With statistical markers like those, you’d think that D’Andre Swift would be having a standout season and that the Bears would be ranked among the best running teams in the country. However, that’s just not the case. Swift’s success rate running the ball is 35.7% and his average yards after contact (1.76) rank 33rd and 23rd out of 38 qualified running backs respectively.
If there’s a reason for optimism, it likely came in Week 3’s 31-14 win over the Dallas Cowboys. The Bears slammed the door shut on Dallas with a 19-play scoring drive in the 3rd quarter that included an 11-play stretch where Chicago ran the ball on every play. Even still, after re-watching the tape from that game versus Dallas as a team on Monday, the Bears believe that they could’ve exploited the Cowboys defense even more last Sunday.
“It felt like we left meat on the bone a little bit in this last game,” offensive coordinator Declan Doyle noted.
“I feel like what we did on Monday is a great step for us as offense,” Swift added. “Talking through everything together, and us being all in the same room, so everybody can hear different coaching points from different coaches in different positions.”
It’s possible that this Sunday is when we see the Bears rushing attack come alive. The Las Vegas Raiders, just like the Cowboys were, are middle of the pack in rushing yards allowed so far this season, and if the Bears truly have found areas in which they could improve with their rushing attack, it could mean D’Andre Swift is finally going to have the kind of performance many expected he would with Ben Johnson calling the plays.
“We’re close,” Swift promised this week.
Soon enough we’ll see if D’Andre Swift is a man of his word, or if he’s a man who may soon be facing some unexpected competition in the Bears running back room.