Four games is not enough to fully write any narrative, but the Chicago Bears' ground game has not been what head coach Ben Johnson (or anyone else) hoped it'd be thus far. The bye week came at a good time to find some answers, but late last month Johnson acknowledged the work in progress the run game is.
"It can be better all over the place right now", Johnson said...."I've alluded to it in the past it can take a little time before this all meshes, and it all gels together. We've got some new faces up front that haven't played a ton of ball together yet."
Johnson took his share of accountability as the play caller. Turning the Bears' ground game into a juggernaut is surely personal for him, since that was a core part of his successful Detroit Lions' offenses over the last three seasons.
The Bears are unlikely to make a significant trade for a running back. Johnson basically confirmed that on Tuesday when he was asked if the team would be looking to upgrade.
"Our guys are going to be fine," Johnson said, via SI.com. "It's not always the runners. It's everybody. It's the quarterback carrying out his fake, it's the receivers blocking down the field, it's the tight ends doing their job and the same thing with the offensive line."
"I think there's a lot of times on that tape we're not giving our runners a chance. I think we're going to be fine there."
Johnson has been clear that blame for the Bears' struggles on the ground does not rest with any one player. Deeper data seems to take away some blame from the offensive line, while applicable deeper data is not kind to D'Andre Swift.
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When he spoke to reporters again on Wednesday, Johnson said it's hard to fairly evaluate the Bears' running backs.
"It's hard to evaluate any of our running backs right now,” Johnson said. “When you turn on the tape and there's some free runners in the hole where the play is designed to go. And so I take it personally, because I actually spend more time on the run game than I do on the passing game. And not only trying to create explosives in the running game but being sound and take a lot of pride in our execution of the fundamentals."
Johnson has been consistently complimentary of Swift publicly. But he also spent the offseason praising rookie Kyle Monangai, and it's worth wondering when he might get more playing time if the run game doesn't improve soon.
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Johnson is giving his current group of running backs plenty of leeway, in deference to the Bears' run game struggles, not just because of them. So any fans who have dreams of a notable trade, in particular to supplant Swift, will have to set aside that idea unless something dramatically changes.