The Chicago Bears will host the New York Giants for an NFC showdown in Week 10 as they seek to pick up their sixth win in their last seven games.
Running back D'Andre Swift missed last week's matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals with a groin injury, but he seems ready to return to action as he practiced on Wednesday. Head coach Ben Johnson added that he hopes to see some competition among these players on the team, which can be viewed as a warning to Swift after Kyle Monangai's monster game in Week 9.
"I've got a lot of confidence in all the runners and the pass catchers," Johnson said on Wednesday, via CHGO_Bears on X. "Hopefully, they feel a little competition amongst themselves saying you've got to get the ball in my hands."
Ben Johnson Wants Competition Among Bears Players to Continue
This statement is certainly intriguing since Swift was the starter for the first seven games in Chicago, posting 464 rushing yards and four touchdowns. While he started picking things up, logging two 100-plus rushing yards in two of his last three games, what Monangai did can't go unnoticed.
In his first start, the Rutgers product racked up 176 rushing yards, averaging 6.8 yards per rush in Chicago's win over the Bengals. Cincinnati does rank 32nd in the NFL in run defense (166.4 yards per game), but theoretically being able to do something based on a unit's ranking against the run is different than going out there and executing the game plan with a backup leading the charge.
During Johnson's time with the Detroit Lions, they had a duo of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery sharing the workload in the backfield. This is something he would definitely want to bring to Chicago. Leading up to the Week 9 contest, Monangai never played in more than 46% of the offensive snaps.
He's still just a rookie, so maybe they didn't want to throw too much on his plate, but with what he did against the Bengals, there's no reason to hold him back.
The fact that Johnson came out and said he has confidence in all his playmakers is certainly coach speak, but there's a lot of truth to that. Running the ball is an obvious but major key to having a successful offense. Fans shouldn't be surprised if they see more of an even split in the backfield going forward. That could be more beneficial, as both running backs will be able to stay fresh throughout the entire game.
Having two quality running backs is a nice problem to have, and that seems to be what Chicago has on their hands with Swift and Monangai.