D'Andre Swift Camp Update — August 23: The Burst Traveled to Cincinnati

D'Andre Swift took his camp burst on the road this week and it held up. In Thursday's joint practice against the Bengals, he broke a long run behind a Braxton Jones block, per Michal Dwojak at Shaw Local, and scored a touchdown run in red-zone work, per Jason Lieser at the Chicago Sun-Times — this time against Cincinnati's defense rather than Chicago's second unit, which was the honest footnote on last week's 62-yard scrimmage score. On a day when the Bears' offense mostly got shoved around by the Bengals' pass rush, the run game was the part that functioned.

The week also moved the room around him, in his favor and through nobody's design. Kyle Monangai hurt his knee in a non-padded Sunday drill when he got tangled with defensive tackle Grady Jarrett, and Ben Johnson called him week-to-week, with Roschon Johnson and Salvon Ahmed absorbing the backup work in the meantime, per Patrick Finley at the Sun-Times. Swift's own usage in Saturday's 27 to nine loss went unreported in the game coverage — the starters played roughly two series and the recap's touches belonged to others, per Larry Mayer at the team's website — which for a veteran lead back in late August is the normal shape of things.

Back in June we defended Swift's career year — the thousand 87 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in this offense — against his boom-bust reputation, and camp keeps siding with the tape: burst intact two weeks running, the one competitor for touches rehabbing instead of stacking reps.

What to watch: whether Swift plays at all before cutdown on Sunday, August thirtieth, and Monangai's practice status, which sets the backfield math behind him either way. We'll check after cut day.

_Data via nflverse._