Kyle Monangai fever has swarmed through the city of Chicago after his stellar performance in the Bears' win over the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 9.
Monangai finished with a career-high 176 rushing yards on 26 carries with an average of 6.8 yards per carry in his first career start in the NFL. He replaced the injured D'Andre Swift and proved that he can be an every-down running back.
While speaking with the media, Bears offensive coordinator Declan Doyle joined in on praising his rookie seventh-round pick. Doyle focused more on Monangai's preparation during the week and how he is working on every detail of his game.
"With Kyle, he's a really physical runner. He does everything that we ask of him and he tries to do it exactly the way we coach it. That's the number one thing about Kyle is how coachable he is, how willing he is to work through corrections and things like that. EB does a great job of staying on him all the time. That physicality, that dimension of being able to drop his pads and run through somebody, is really what we've enjoyed about having him here."
Monangai is looking like the future of the backfield in Chicago
Even going into the season, there were high hopes for Monangai to be the man in the backfield, but no one thought it was going to happen as quickly as it did. This season, he has run for 362 yards and one touchdown, averaging 5.3 yards per carry. He's also caught nine passes for 83 yards.
There have been questions about Swift's future with the Bears, despite his impressive run of games over his last three outings. The talk now is that Monangai could either be the number one back for the future or at least split carries with a rookie next year. All signs seem to point towards Swift's time ending in Chicago soon enough.
It's hard to argue against the Swift and Monangai combo as the two have dominated over the last month. Chicago went from a bottom-10 team in rushing through the first four games to now being the second-best rushing attack in the NFL, averaging 144.4 yards per game.
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The future in Chicago has never looked better, as not only does the team have its franchise quarterback with a young star receiver, but it also has its top back to lead them in the next five to 10 years.