It's been a big offseason for Bears' skill players. Over the past few seasons, the team's steadily built themselves a respectable offense, and the addition of Colston Loveland and Luther Burden in this year's draft has them looking – if you squint hard enough – like one of the highest-upside groups in the NFC.
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A guy that has, notably enough, not gotten a ton of attention this offseason is starting running back D'Andre Swift. Swift, who was the Bears' big free agent addition before last season, didn't have the most memorable season of his career, and with Ben Johnson running the show (along with some pesky Nick Chubb rumors) it wouldn't be all that surprising to see Swift's role change in some way, shape, or form.
Given all that's happened this offseason, it was refreshing to hear Swift talk about his (potentially much smaller) role in the offense this season with a sense of optimism and enthusiasm.
D'Andre Swift is saying all the right things about his role in the Bears' offense this season
"Whenever the opportunity presents itself, just make the most of it," he said. "Whatever I've got to do. I'll block, for DJ to get the ball, for Cole to get the ball. You know, just team success. Whatever the play call is, just execute and do your job. The ball will find you. [Having so many new skill players] It's a good thing. It's a good thing, to be honest with you. It's a long season, too. We want to win. At the end of the day, we want to stack wins. Whoever goes off one game, it can change week after week. So I don't look at it like that. The ball will find you if you do your job."
It's easy to be fine with the plan in early June, so take this for what it's worth. Still, I wouldn't totally blame Swift for feeling like the Bears pulled a bit of a bait-and-switch on him, but that's life in the NFL. Plus, I imagine he's ultimately much happier with Johnson in charge than he was with Matt Eberflus, but that's just pure conjecture. The Johnson-era Lions ran the ball like their game checks depended on it, so I imagine that even the additions of Loveland/Burden and a new offensive scheme don't get *that* far in the way of a running back who almost ran for 1,000 yards last season without, you know, a serious offensive coordinator for most of it.
And while I kinda hate playing the Ben Johnson Card about this, we're in that wonderful time of year when you can still get away with that, over and over again. So: Ben Johnson.