D'Andre Swift Camp Update — August 16: A Sixty-Two-Yard Answer in Ben Johnson's Scrimmage
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 17
D'Andre Swift ripped a sixty-two-yard touchdown down the right sideline in Tuesday's controlled scrimmage. The June case was that his career year was real and the doubters were reading an old scouting report. Camp agrees.
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D'Andre Swift ripped a 62-yard touchdown run down the right sideline in Tuesday's controlled scrimmage, the play of the day in the Bears' Day 12 camp practice, per Patrick Finley at the Chicago Sun-Times, whose report was headlined by Swift shining. It came against the second-team defense, which is the honest footnote, but 62 yards of untouched burst is not a thing aging backs typically fake.
The June read on Swift was a defense of his tape against his reputation. The reputation says boom-bust committee back; the 20-25 season said otherwise: career highs of a thousand 87 rushing yards and nine rushing touchdowns on 223 carries, +34 catches, in Ben Johnson's first Chicago year. And the yardage wasn't hollow — he ran a hundred 28 yards over expectation, twentieth of 49 qualified backs. We said the volume and the receiving role were the durable parts, that the nine touchdowns carried no obvious luck to give back, and that the honest caveats were his age band and the possibility of Kyle Monangai's share growing behind him. Johnson had called him "a vital part of what we do" and mused about targeting him more.
This week checked the boxes available in August. Swift was one of the two standout names, alongside Caleb Williams, from Johnson's "big-time" scrimmage practice, per the CHGO Sports notebook with the detail verified through Finley's Sun-Times report. He sat Saturday's preseason opener with the rest of the starters, per Larry Mayer at chicagobears dot com, which for a veteran lead back in August is the treatment you want. And the one threat to his workload took a hit through no one's design: Monangai left Sunday's practice with a right knee scare, initial signs encouraging but testing still pending, per Finley.
Does the June read hold? CONFIRMED — the burst that powered the career year is visibly intact, the coach is featuring him, and nothing in camp suggests the role is shrinking.
Two things for next week: whether Swift's passing-game usage shows up in the Bengals joint practice on Thursday, and Monangai's test results, which shape the backfield math either way. We'll check next Sunday.
_Data via nflverse._
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