The Chicago Bears‘ RB depth chart might be even murkier heading into 2024 than in 2023. While an abundance of talent can be a bit of a non-issue in real life, it very much is in the world of fantasy football.
The Bears made D’Andre Swift a priority add in free agency, making him one of the first players to put pen to paper in the offseason. Last year’s leading rusher (QB Justin Fields, 657 yards) is out of town, as is the backfield member with the second most starts in 2023 (D’Onta Foreman, eight).
Khalil Herbert (second in yards, first in attempts) remains, and Roschon Johnson (first among Chicago RBs in receptions and receiving yards) figures to get even better after a solid but low-volume rookie campaign.
Can anyone in Chicago be useful for fantasy managers this season with so much talent to feed? Let’s examine the fantasy outlooks for Swift, Johnson, and Herbert in 2024.
D’Andre Swift’s Fantasy Outlook and Projections
- PPR fantasy Points: 245.4 (183.7 Non-PPR)
- Rushing Yards: 880.1
- Rushing Touchdowns: 6.1
- Receptions: 61.7
- Receiving Yards: 440.4
- Receiving Touchdowns: 2.5
On the surface, Swift’s career year on the ground with 1,049 rushing yards and six total scores on 268 total touches (229 carries) proves he can be an effective leading ball carrier for an NFL team.
Yet, Swift’s RB20 finish in full-PPR formats in 2023 was actually just one spot higher than his RB21 finish in 2022. This is despite seeing 121 more total touches in the seventh-highest-scoring offense in the league.
How exactly did this happen? Well, for starters, Philadelphia Eagles QB Jalen Hurts vulturing 15 rushing touchdowns away from Swift certainly didn’t do him any fantasy favors. Hurts saw 16 carries from inside the five-yard line last year to Swift’s 10, with the former scoring 13 times to the latter’s two in 2023.
In addition to his goal-line work being stunted for a second straight season, Swift’s production as a pass catcher dropped significantly last year. His 49 targets, 39 receptions, 214 receiving yards, and one receiving score were all career-low marks, despite him playing a career-high 16 regular season games in 2023.
Swift’s move to Chicago may come with an offensive line downgrade, but it does still position him to be the leading ball carrier of an ascending offense devoid of an elite short-yardage option. The great pass-catching options in this offense — DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, and Rome Odunze — could limit his receiving upside, but Swift is still positioned to be the leading ball carrier in an ascending offense.
This ultimately makes Swift’s ADP of No. 58 overall as the RB21 off the board a properly priced option as your fantasy RB2 in the fifth round on draft day.
Swift enters another season as a productive player whose RB2 fantasy floor has been well-established, but he does have some legitimate RB1 upside if he sees a similar rushing workload, an increased target share, and an expanded role in goal-to-go situations heading into 2024.
Swift’s upside makes him a great draft-day value for your fantasy team.
– Derek Tate, Fantasy Football Analyst
Roschon Johnson’s Fantasy Outlook and Projections
- PPR fantasy Points: 129.5 (86.4 Non-PPR)
- Rushing Yards: 446.5
- Rushing Touchdowns: 2.5
- Receptions: 43.1
- Receiving Yards: 265.1
- Receiving Touchdowns: 0.1
Johnson is a very interesting player to evaluate because you can sort of see what you want to see. If you are pro-Johnson, he’s someone who averaged 4.9 yards per touch (20th in the NFL), averaged 4.4 yards per carry, and was involved more than you’d expect a rookie in a crowded backfield to be in the passing game, with a 9.5% target share.
In his lone game with a 70% snap share, Johnson posted 12.5 fantasy points, finishing inside the top 24 on the week. Now entering his second season, he should be able to improve and will have every chance to earn the RB2 role behind Swift.
If you are anti-Johnson, you could point to his 36th-ranked 16.5% evaded tackles per touch rate and 2.5% rate of carries for 15+ yards, which is 45th in the league. Johnson’s film also shows some concerning issues, such as his tendency to be indecisive and not get up the field when the opportunity presents itself.
Furthermore, the Bears didn’t exactly have any established stars last season. Yet, even when Herbert went down, Foreman was the feature back. Johnson was a pretty distant third, finishing the season with a total of four games with double-digit fantasy points.
The Bears didn’t pay Swift to be the backup. While it’s unlikely he’s a three-down back, Swift will be the lead RB. Ideally, Johnson would serve as the RB2, potentially giving him standalone RB4 value with RB2 upside if Swift were to get hurt. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that’s the case.
Herbert is still on the team. He played ahead of Johnson last season and would be better suited for a heavy workload if something were to happen to Swift. Plus, we saw what happened last season when Chicago sustained injuries to its backfield — it wasn’t Johnson who was given the opportunity.
Johnson’s ADP sits at RB61 and is right on the precipice of being drafted in most fantasy leagues. I have him ranked as my RB66, which is a meaningless difference this far down the rankings.
Johnson is not someone I’m looking to target. When drafting handcuff running backs, we want players reasonably likely to take over if the starter gets hurt, as well as those capable of producing reasonably close to what the main back can do. I’m not confident Johnson stands to meaningfully benefit from a Swift injury, nor am I confident he can produce at a fantasy-relevant level in a timeshare.
– Jason Katz, Fantasy Football Analyst
Khalil Herbert’s Fantasy Outlook and Projections
- PPR fantasy Points: 113.7 (98.0 Non-PPR)
- Rushing Yards: 653.2
- Rushing Touchdowns: 2.9
- Receptions: 15.7
- Receiving Yards: 104.4
- Receiving Touchdowns: 0.8
Swift was great last season with Philadelphia. He flirted with 1,300 total yards and, for the third time in four seasons, picked up over 4.5 yards per carry. He was brought in to lead Chicago’s backfield, and I have no doubt that he’ll open the season with such a role.
But let’s not completely overlook the fact that Swift has been somewhat fragile in the past and is coming off of a season in which he saw 51.7% more carries than he had ever seen in a season before.
The tipping point here is that Herbert and Swift do similar things. That can be viewed as a negative (why put a lesser version of Swift on the field when you have the real version on your roster?) or a positive (if Swift goes down, Herbert’s role is pretty clear).
I lean toward the latter because I’ll be comfortable starting him if the opportunity presents itself and never really tempted to Flex him otherwise. Elijah Mitchell isn’t stepping into 90% of Christian McCaffrey’s role if an injury happens, and I don’t think Braelon Allen becomes a cheap version of Hall if the New York Jets catch the injury bug again.
Those are just two cherry-picked examples, but the point remains. As I fill out my bench in August, I want players who project favorably role-wise should they be given the chance to rise up the depth chart in November.
Look elsewhere (Tyler Allgeier and Ty Chandler types) if you want a weekly floor — that’s just not how I build out the back end of my running back room.
– Khalil Herbert, Fantasy Football Analyst
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