ClutchPoints
By hiring Ben Johnson as the team’s next head coach, the Chicago Bears are intent on turning their offense around in 2025. The Bears maintained that focus in the 2025 NFL Draft, where they spent five of their eight picks on offense, capped off by running back Kyle Monangai in the seventh round.
One year after taking Caleb Williams with the No. 1 overall pick, the Bears clearly focused their 2025 offseason on giving him the best chance to succeed. Between Johnson’s hiring and the three-day draft, Chicago executed momentous trades for offensive linemen Joe Thuney and Jonah Jackson. The moves were blatantly necessary after Williams took a league-high 68 sacks in 2024.
The additions of Colston Loveland and Luther Burden III headlined Chicago’s 2025 draft class. However, ending the process with Monangai was arguably the team’s best value pick. As a seventh-round selection, Monangai will not have the prestige of any of his fellow Bears rookies, but he has a uniquely clear path to immediate success. Nobody is betting on him to thrive out of the gates, but the former Rutgers star could not have landed in a better situation.
The Bears’ entire offense struggled in 2024, but few teams ran the ball as poorly as they did. D’Andre Swift fell just 41 yards shy of his second consecutive 1,000-yard season, but did so on a dreadful 3.8 yards per carry. Backup Roschon Johnson was somehow even worse, taking his 55 carries for just 150 yards, averaging a mere 2.7 yards per attempt. Williams and D.J. Moore were the only players to average more than 4.0 yards per carry on over 10 attempts.
With how they conducted the offseason, the Bears are preparing to be one of the league’s most pass-dominant offenses in 2025. Ben Johnson operated a run-dominant offense with the Detroit Lions. Yet, as a former quarterback, his bread and butter has always been in the passing game. Chicago hired him for the sole purpose of getting the most out of Williams. However, the former prodigy will have nothing to build on without an adequate run game.
Swift and Roschon Johnson return in 2025, with Monangai thrown into the mix. Swift reunites with Ben Johnson, under whom he started his career in Detroit. His three-year stint with the Lions gave him the start he needed, but his career truly took off with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2023. Coach Johnson’s preference for inside run schemes rather than outside zone sets kept him in more of a change-of-pace role than a true workhorse lead back. Swift will still open the year as the starter, but with a much shorter leash than in 2024.
To Swift and Roschon Johnson’s credit, few running backs would have been able to thrive behind the offensive line they had to work with. The team’s improved blockers in 2025 will be light years better than what they had in 2024. Still, blocking did not have much to do...
