A player disappears from camp practice, no one explains why, and fantasy football managers start spiraling. Training camp carries no official injury report, so teams are not obligated to tell you anything, and the silence does the scaring. That is exactly how the past week went for Kyle Monangai enthusiasts.
Do not downgrade Kyle Monangai. The Bears running back went missing from practice for days with no explanation, but Monday brought the update everyone wanted, and it is good news. Keep drafting him right where you had him.
What Ben Johnson Said About Kyle Monangai’s Injury
Monangai had been absent since the first day of camp, sitting out three straight practices. With no injury report in camp, no one, not even the beat reporters, could say what was wrong, and that silence let the worry build. Then, Bears coach Ben Johnson cleared it up Monday. It is a soft-tissue injury, and he is not sweating it.
“We’re taking it day-by-day,” Johnson told reporters. “It should be on the shorter side.”
Bears HC Ben Johnson told reporters that RB Kyle Monangai is dealing with a soft tissue injury. “We’re taking it day-by-day,” Johnson said. “It should be on the shorter side.”
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 3, 2026
The phrasing does a lot of work. Johnson called Monangai day-to-day, and Bears beat reporters noted he was already back in pads and practicing. Soft-tissue issues can occasionally nag, but every signal here points the other way, and the calendar handles the rest. It is early August, more than a month from Week 1, so there is runway to spare for a minor injury to clear up long before it matters.
Why Kyle Monangai’s Fantasy Value Doesn’t Change
None of this touches his draft profile. Monangai is going around pick 93 as an RB31 to RB33, a late-round flex with the best kind of handcuff appeal behind D’Andre Swift. He earned that in Year 1.
As a seventh-round rookie he piled up 783 rushing yards and five touchdowns on the way to 947 scrimmage yards, and by the second half of the season he and Swift were splitting drives close to one-to-one.
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His ceiling showed up whenever the workload did. Monangai posted a 176-yard game on 26 carries filling in for an injured Swift in Week 9. In both games where he cleared 15 carries, he finished as a top-five back. Monangai is the downhill, chain-moving runner a Ben Johnson offense is built to feed.
That upside is the reason he is worth the pick, and it is fully intact. Swift is on an expiring contract, and if he misses any time, Monangai steps into a lead role with a top-five weekly ceiling. A day-to-day soft-tissue issue in the first week of August does nothing to change that outlook.
Draft Monangai exactly where you planned, and if a leaguemate saw the missed practices and got spooked, let that be your discount. Keep an eye out for the full-practice confirmation over the next few days, but the projection holds. There was never a reason to move him down.
