Before the 2025 NFL draft, the Chicago Bears running back room was one of their biggest questions.
Leaving the 2025 NFL draft, the running back room remained their biggest question. The preseason has now come and gone, and the biggest question is still what the running back room will look like. We are just two weeks away from the start of the season, but it is starting to look like the Bears did not do enough to improve this room.
Chicago Bears needed to do more at running back this offseason
The Bears appear to be leaning on D’Andre Swift. That appears to be the case despite Ben Johnson being on a team that traded Swift the last time he was a coach. Beyond that, Swift is coming off a down year and has never been able to carry the load on his own.
The question of who joins him in the committee was not answered at all during the preseason. Chicago was expected to lean on Roschon Johnson and Kyle Monangai to fill that void. Both had significant questions, but the thought was that the competition would cause one to stand apart. That was not the case.
Neither has been healthy for a large portion of the offseason. For Johnson, this is now the third season in which a role has been nearly handed to him, but his inability to stay on the field has crushed his chances. In a make-or-break offseason, he hardly practiced and did not play in the preseason.
The rookie seventh-round pick needed preseason work to get up to game speed. Monangai had six rushes for 30 yards in the first preseason game and has not been able to suit up since.
So, not only can Chicago not trust either of them on the field, but they also do not know when either of them will even be on the field. This was the risk they took when they bet on such unproven commodities at running back.
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Things can change, and time will tell how much this hurts them. However, so many expected the team to add a running back much earlier in the offseason are looking back now and questioning what happened.