The Bears have less than two weeks to finalize their roster for the regular season, but the cuts to get from 90 players to 53 and the shuffling of the depth chart won’t matter nearly as much as where coach Ben Johnson slots his top players in the offensive game plan. Those are the decisions that will have enormous influence on how his first season with quarterback Caleb Williams goes.
Figuring out the pecking order for skill players is far from an exact science. Johnson’s three seasons as offensive coordinator for the Lions, when they were top five in the NFL in scoring throughout, offer a rough sketch. But the Bears don’t have the Lions’ personnel, and he has to work with what he’s got rather than what he wishes he had.
That plan likely will start crystalizing next weekend, after the Bears finish their preseason schedule with a visit to the Chiefs on Aug. 22. Before that, players still have an opportunity to campaign for roles, especially in the joint practice with the Bills on Friday and the preseason game against them Sunday.
Among the Bears’ first-string wide receivers, tight ends and running backs, no individual is better at his job than DJ Moore. He has played seven seasons in some awful offenses with the Panthers and Bears and still averaged 80 catches, 1,076 yards and five touchdowns for his career.
However, it’s typically a running back that leads any team in usage — combining rushes and targets as a receiver — and that puts D’Andre Swift at the top of the list.
Not only did he lead the Bears in rushes plus targets last season at 305, but Johnson got running backs very involved in the passing game as Lions offensive coordinator. Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery combined for 101 passing targets last season, Gibbs had 71 targets the season before and Swift got 70 as Johnson’s running back in 2022 and 78 in 2-21 when Johnson was the Lions’ passing game coordinator.
That will be a big change for the Bears, who haven’t had a running back get even 60 targets in a season since Montgomery in 2020.
Swift’s struggle to run north-south between the tackles was problematic last season, and he averaged a career-low 3.8 yards per carry. Johnson and running backs coach Eric Bieniemy are steering him toward an approach of taking the yards in front of him, then looking for a big play.
But he was the same threat as ever in the passing game, raising even more questions about former offensive coordinator Shane Waldron misusing him. Swift caught 81% of the passes thrown to him and averaged 9.2 yards per catch.
He might not be Johnson’s prototype at the position, and the Lions traded Swift while Johnson was running their offense, but there’s so much talent there with which to work.
With no proven backs behind Swift, Moore could be next in line thanks to his versatility. He ran a career-high 14 times last season and was a real weapon at 5.4 yards per carry, and Johnson seems interested in expanding that. Moore has gotten considerable work lining up in the backfield, whether it be as a runner or receiver.
With the Lions, Johnson worked wide receivers Amon-Ra St. Brown, Kalif Raymond and Jameson Williams into the running game.
The thinking with Moore is that getting him the ball any way possible is a good thing. He’s close behind Swift when it comes to making plays in the open field.
When Johnson was evaluating job openings this year and looked at long-term assets on each team, he was drawn to the chance to work with Williams more than anything. But he also liked the possibilities for wide receiver Rome Odunze, who was the No. 9 overall pick last year.
Teams expect to get perennial All-Pro game changers when they draft a receiver that high, and while Odunze didn’t dominate to that degree last season, he flashed high-end potential. He had six catches for 112 yards and a touchdown in just his third NFL game and had solid overall numbers — 54 catches for 734 yards and three touchdowns — considering he was a rookie and the Bears’ offense was a disaster.
The tight ends come after those three. While Johnson loves playing two tight ends together, it’s rare for two to be productive in the passing game at the same time. While Sam LaPorta had a big season under Johnson, No. 2 tight end Brock Wright totaled 16 targets in 17 games.
With Bears veteran Cole Kmet and rookie Colston Loveland, it’ll probably evolve throughout the season.
Kmet had a really strong season in 2023, then dipped last season. Johnson immediately listed him among the players he trusts, though, and has been experimenting with lining him up out wide — a sure sign of what he thinks of his ability as a receiving threat.
That said, Loveland was the Bears’ first draft pick after Johnson came aboard. While most looked at the roster and thought the top needs in the draft would be offensive tackle, pass rusher or defensive tackle, Johnson and general manager Ryan Poles pulled a stunner by taking Loveland No. 10 overall.
There’s no doubt, then, that Johnson has huge plans for him. It might take time, though, because tight end is one of the toughest positions for a player to make the jump from college to the NFL. That means Kmet likely will be more of a factor early, then Loveland will get a chance to carve out a piece of the passing game later in the season as he develops.
That blueprint for the offense would relegate veteran receivers Olamide Zaccheaus and Devin Duvernay, as well as rookie Luther Burden III, to bit parts, but the good news for them and everyone else is that there will be plenty of opportunities to go around if this works.
When Johnson was Lions offensive coordinator in 2022, they ran the 12th-most plays in the NFL, then were second in 2023 and first last season. And he might take a creative route to get there, but he’s a balanced play caller. The Lions passed 56% of the time his first two seasons and 52% last season.
Everybody will get a chance to eat. The next two weeks will show Johnson who’s ready for a full plate.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
