The 2025 Chicago Bears' Biggest Hole. By Far.
Fantasy football analyst Andy Behrens addresses what might become the Midway Monster's offensive downfall.
SIMILAR TO yours truly, Andy Behrens is a lifelong Chicago sports fan, dating back to the days of Dave Kingman, Walter Payton, and Artis Gilmore. Chances are quite good that when Andy and I were kids, we sat near each other at Wrigley Field.
My pseudo-neighbor has lived in the city for over 30 years, the last 20 of which have been spent writing and analyzing fantasy sports. His work has appeared on ESPN and Yahoo Sports.
And now his thoughts will have appeared in Chicago Sports Stuff, which, frankly, is way cooler than ESPN or Yahoo.
In the final part of our four-part chat about what the 2025 Chicago Bears might look like both on the turf and in the box score, Andy broke down why Bears’ running back group could mess up the team’s 2025 groove.
ALAN GOLDSHER: I've written about this here on Chicago Sports Stuff, and in Sports Illustrated, and in bathroom stalls throughout the city: I'm not a D’Andre Swift truther. He seems like a perfectly fine young man, but I don't think he’s an NFL RB1—a perfectly good RB2, mind you, but not top-shelf starter.
Like most Bears watchers, I'm disappointed GM Ryan Poles didn’t address the position in a more meaningful way during the offseason. If you have Super Bowl aspirations, Swift ain't gonna get it done.
How much of a problem is this going to be in the Bears offense? Or do you even think it's going to be problem?
ANDY BEHRENS: I've read much of what you've written in the bathroom stalls at Twin Anchors on Sedgwick. Good stuff.
Seriously, I do think it's going to be a problem. D’Andre Swift came into the league—especially in fantasy—with a lot of hype. He was initially advertised a Christian McCaffrey-type. He certainly has receiving ability, but he’s not McCaffrey.
He's also always been a yards before contact guy, which sounds like an insult, because we're always chasing the yards after contact guys who can get it all on their own. But yards before contact, it’s just a different type of skill, and it usually has a lot to do with the quality of an offensive line.
A.G.: The 2024 Bears most definitely did not have a quality offensive line.
A.B.: No, they didn’t. But Swift’s Detroit years were really good, and his Philadelphia season was spectacular—he was a yards before contact monster. But it also reflects that he's good in a way that a committee-back should be good. You can imagine him complimenting somebody else.
It's fair to look at the Bears’ draft and say that running back was the one major whiff. It was a talent-loaded draft class [at the position] and they didn't get one of those guys until Kyle Monangai out of Rutgers in the final round…who might be good but doesn't really have the physical characteristics that you look for. He's a little small, and he's a little slow, but he was productive in school. And the Bears’ running back group is unimpressive enough that he might be able to force his way into the mix. But that's not really a ringing endorsement.
You can play the game with a Ben Johnson offense and say, Colston Loveland parallels Sam LaPorta, or Caleb Williams could be better than Jared Goff. But you can't do it in the backfield. There's nobody on the Bears’ roster like David Montgomery, and there's nobody like Jahmyr Gibbs.
A.G.: Roschon Johnson is great from inside the one-yard line, but he hasn't proven himself on the other 99 yards of the field. Do you feel that if Roschon has a good camp and preseason, Ben would give him, say, one-third of the snaps at RB? Does he have the juice to make anything happen on your fantasy team, or is he the Roschon Johnson we’ve come to know and be ambivalent about?
A.B.: Well, I will say that there are people in fantasy community who hope Swift and Johnson become Gibbs and Montgomery.
A.G.: Man, those are some optimistic people—some might even say delusional. But I guess it’s understandable: If you’re paying close attention, you know that while Ben Johnson has a reputation for being a wild, pass-first play caller, he actually relies on the run a whole lot, which makes any RB in his backfield at least somewhat intriguing.
A.B.: Yeah, absolutely, and this is going to be one of those situations where the smartest play in the Bears backfield for your fantasy draft is whoever's going latest, because I don't think there's a star.
I'm not going to get too bullish about either of these guys. I don't think that Roschon or D’Andre is an unusually creative runner; I don't think of either one of them is getting a ton of it on their own.
The system is going to be good, and this team is going to score points, but I don't think the Bears are ready to be the kind of team that averages 28, or 32, or 35 points per game. That's the sort of environment in which we could get interested in Roschon and I don't think that's going to happen this year.
A.G.: In a 12-man or 14-man fantasty league, both of them are probably going to get drafted. In an eight-man league, I’d consider leaving both of them on the waiver wire. But what about in a ten-man league ? Does Roschon make it onto a team? Should D’Andre make it onto a team?
A.B.: In a ten-man league—which is the most popular format out there—I think D’Andre Swift is somebody you're taking in the middle of drafts. He'll almost always be rostered everywhere.
As for Johnson, unless he becomes the guy who gets all the buzz in camp—and unless he's the best shape of his life—I would guess that he ends up a 50%-rostered sort of player.
A.G.: When Ben Johnson had Jamaal Williams in Detroit, Williams led the league in touchdowns. It could be said that Williams isn’t a terrible comp for Roschon. Could Ben turn Roschon into Jamaal?
A.B.: Roschon has a little bit of receiving juice so you don't have to think of him as only as an early-down thumper. He could play every other series and end up the season with 40 or 50 receptions.
A.G.: Let’s hand out some grade predictions.
A.B.: If there’s somebody who can actually tilt a few weeks in your direction, it might be Johnson because [could have] a couple of multi-touchdown games. But I more-or-less agree with you on D’Andre Swift. I don't see much of a path to a 1,600-yard-from-scrimmage season, which is what you'd be hoping for from your RB1.
I want to give them all Cs. I don't think there's a league-winner here.
Visit Andy on Twitter (we’ll never call it X) at https://x.com/andybehrens.