Windy City Gridiron
Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar will write about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment, we focus on Bears running back D’Andre Swift, who has blown up in Ben Johnson’s run concepts over Chicago’s last two games. Johnson may have a new Sonic and Knuckles in Swift and rookie Kyle Monangai.
Obviously, when the Chicago Bears hired Ben Johnson to be their new head coach, the main reason was Johnson’s radical success with Jared Goff in Detroit when Johnson was the Detroit Lions’ offensive coordinator, and the hope that Johnson could perform the same miracles with Caleb Williams.
That process is still in progress, but when I used to watch the Lions and the Ben Johnson offense, I had as much or more fun watching the run game as the aerial show. As a run designer, Johnson will throw anything and everything at you, and with David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs, he had the perfect Thunder and Lightning (or in their case, Sonic and Knuckles) duo to make it all go.
It took a second for the Bears to get the hang of those run concepts, but over the last two games — wins over the Washington Commanders and New Orleans Saints that took the Bears to 4-2 on the season — veteran D’Andre Swift has been the NFL’s second-most productive running back behind only Rico Dowdle of the Carolina Panthers, another Secret Superstar. In that stretch, Swift has 232 rushing yards and a touchdown on 33 carries for a 7.0 yards-per-carry average, three forced missed tackles, and five runs of 15 or more yards.
Johnson and Swift have worked together, of course — the Lions selected Swift in the second round of the 2020 draft out of Georgia, and Johnson became the Lions’ offensive coordinator in 2022, Swift’s final season in Detroit before the Philadelphia Eagles traded for him in 2023. Swift gained over 1,000 yards and made the Pro Bowl at (Jeff) Stoutland University, which had the Bears signing him to a three-year, $24 million contract with $14 million guaranteed on March 13, 2024.
Anyhoo, back to the Ben Johnson run game, and Swift’s role in it. In both 2022 and 2025, Swift was/is Johnson’s designated headbanger in gap and outside zone concepts, and it’s pretty easy to overlay the fit.
“Yeah, so I was with Swifty when we first drafted him in Detroit a number of years ago, and I followed his career even after he left Detroit,“ Johnson, who was the Lions’ tight ends coach in 2020, said at the 2025 scouting combine. ”I think very highly of him. He’s an explosive athlete. There’s a number of things that he can do both in the running game and the passing game. I do think he can help ignite an offense because he’s got that playmaking ability. So it’ll be fun to start to work together again here this springtime...
