Chicago Bears: Running back by committee rushing breakdown

The Chicago Bears look to be using a three-headed attack from the running back position. What does that mean in regards to rushing attempts though?

Matt Nagy did not like the limitations Jordan Howard brought to the Chicago Bears offense in 2018. Ryan Pace and he shipped Howard to the Philadelphia Eagles before the 2019 draft for a fifth-round (somewhat conditional) pick.

The Bears then moved up in Round 3 to draft David Montgomery. This came after the fact they already added Mike Davis to the group. Now the team has its own version of Run DMC. Davis, Montgomery and Tarik Cohen form what should be a potent running back by committee (RBBC).

The term RBBC is considered by many fantasy players as a death sentence to fantasy production. It means not one player will stand out compared to higher volume (and very talented) running backs like Saquan Barkley or Ezekiel Elliott. Fantasy football aside, this group will be hard to defend, and I am excited to see how Nagy uses each back’s skill set.

What should we expect to see though in regards to rushing attempts and production? In 2018, the Bears ran the ball 468 times. Of those carries, Jordan Howard saw 250. With him shipped off to Philadelphia, one must wonder who will see the bulk of those carries? The correct answer is, no one.

Unless one of the three backs goes down with an injury, not one of the three will come close to 250 carries. Tarik Cohen was on the team last year and he saw 99 of the 468 rushing attempts. That number will likely go up slightly this season, but I would not expect it to be more than 115. That would be one more attempt per game.

Benny Cunningham was the third option for the Bears last year. He saw 11 rushing attempts. Taquan Mizzell was given nine carries, and the rest went to other positions outside of the running back group. This means the running backs received 369 of the 468 rushes for the Chicago Bears last year.

Even though Matt Nagy did not coach the Bears in 2017, I did a quick look at the attempts that year too. I wanted to make sure the numbers were not too skewed. In 2017, John Fox handed the ball off to running backs 372 times. Almost identical to Matt Nagy’s offense in 2018.

Now, if Cohen receives 115 carries this season, that will leave 254 carries for Mike Davis and David Montgomery. We should not expect Davis to only see 11 carries as Cunningham received. He will see more than 20 too if you give him Mizzell’s carries too. I am predicting  Davis to see around 65 carries this season.

This would mean David Montgomery should see around 190 rushing attempts his rookie season. That would mean the Chicago Bears Run DMC group should see a split of 51 percent going to Montgomery, 31 percent going to Cohen and 18 percent going to Davis.

From a production standpoint, I am expecting to see Montgomery with around 800 rushing yards and eight rushing touchdowns. That would be just above 4.2 yards-per-carry. Cohen should see around 500 yards if his attempts increase to 115 as I am projecting. And Davis will be closer to 250.  This means the backs would combine for over 1500 rushing yards, roughly 200 more than in 2018.

Unfortunately, this also means Run DMC does not quite work. Unless DM stands for David Montgomery and the C stands for Cohen, while Davis is left in the wind. This breakdown is also not taking into account the passing game. Maybe that sways things back a little towards Davis? Probably not, but we will see once I project what I expect from these backs in the passing game.