Last season was arguably the best Bears running back D’Andre Swift has run in his career, though he doesn’t believe it’s the best he’ll ever run.
For as good of a career as he’s already had with the Bears, Eagles and Lions, he’s still just 27 and might not have peaked yet. The Bears have few weapons as capable of converting a seemingly simple play into a huge gain, and Swift has the potential to be the engine of their offense as a do-it-all back.
“There’s a lot more out there for me,” he said.
Good, because Bears coach Ben Johnson was thinking the same thing.
Swift took a major step last season by showing he can be a reliable north-south runner between the tackles in his reunion with Johnson, who was on staff with the Lions when they drafted him and traded him away. His numbers jumped across the board, especially a spike from 3.8 to 4.9 yards per carry, and he ran for a career-high 1,087 yards and nine touchdowns.
He was a big factor in the team going from 25th in rushing in 2024 to third last season. There was more to it than him, of course, as the Bears overhauled their offensive line, drafted a solid No. 2 running back in Kyle Monangai, installed a smarter offense under Johnson and hired an incredibly overqualified running backs coach in Eric Bieniemy.
But there still was some untapped potential.
The first area Swift pointed to was explosive runs, defined as 20-plus yards, and he was 17th in the NFL with five. Some quarterbacks had that many.
Johnson thinks big anyway, so he embraces that ambition. In his mind, every play he calls could be a touchdown.
The balance for Swift, however, is to find those explosives without losing sight of how important it is to steadily plow forward. The side-to-side running hurt him in 2024, and Bieniemy established a guiding principle of “get 4 1/2 yards” first, then get greedy.
Bieniemy went back to the Chiefs as offensive coordinator in the offseason, and the Bears running backs don’t use that motto anymore under new coach Eric Studesville. It must remain ingrained in their mindset, though, and Studesville has more than two decades experience coaching NFL backs and worked on staff with Johnson under coach Adam Gase with the Dolphins, so he likely has his own way of implementing that approach.
“That’s something that will stick with me for sure,” Swift assured.
Can he do both? Swift credited himself for doing “a good job of putting the ball where I was supposed to, for the most part” last season, and wants to keep doing so. The big-play hunting starts when he gets to the second or third level of the defense, the territory in which “it’s my job to take it the rest of the way.”
Johnson and Swift both mentioned the passing attack as the other aspect of the offense where Swift can make more impact.
He had a career-low 34 catches last season, totaling 299 yards and a touchdown, but three of those receptions went for 25 or more yards. While Swift doesn’t get as much attention as wide receivers Rome Odunze and Luther Burden and tight end Colston Loveland, he’s probably the most low-risk, high-reward option quarterback Caleb Williams has.
The play that lingers in everyone’s minds, especially Johnson’s, was in the Week 6 victory over the Commanders on Monday Night Football. Williams threw to Swift just past the line of scrimmage with no one near him. Swift slipped two defenders on his way to a 55-yard touchdown.
ESPN broadcaster and Hall of Famer Troy Aikman called it “just luck,” which riled up Johnson and Williams and simply wasn’t true. There’s nothing lucky about the Bears getting the ball to Swift in space. It’s savvy.
Johnson has known that for a long time, and Swift got 148 targets over the 2021 and ’22 seasons with the Lions when Johnson was passing-game coordinator and offensive coordinator.
He said this week he loves where Swift is at as a runner and he wants to “continue to look at and challenge him on” opportunities as a receiver.
That idea is partly Johnson’s seemingly limitless creativity, but also setting up the offense for contingencies. Having plenty of backup plans was a hallmark of his first season as head coach.
Do the Bears really need Swift to do more damage as a receiver when they have Odunze, Burden, Loveland, Cole Kmet, Khalif Raymond and rookie speedster Zavion Thomas? Probably not. But that list of options could be cut in half any given week because of injuries or an opponent stacked with elite defenders who can negate them.
It’s all about coming to the line of scrimmage with as many pieces and as much versatility as possible. Then the offense becomes overwhelming.
