D'Andre Swift Camp Update — August 31: Primed for a Big Year, Per His Coach
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 31
Ben Johnson called this the best he has seen Swift at this time of year and said he is primed for a big year if he gets to Week One healthy — the coach's words, and the strongest of the summer. Cut day then thinned the room behind him: Salvon Ahmed released, Brittain Brown to injured reserve, and Kyle Monangai still without a reported return to practice.
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Ben Johnson spent part of his week making the case for D'Andre Swift. "This is the best I've seen him at this time of the year," the head coach said Thursday, per Patrick K. Flowers at Bleacher Nation, and on the season ahead: "We've just gotta get him to that first week nice and healthy; I think he's primed for a big year, though." Johnson credited the work Swift has done with running backs coach Eric Studesville on his reads and on knowing where the offense is trying to hit things, per Larry Mayer at the team's website. That is a coach's expectation, not our projection — but it landed in the same week Kole Noble at A to Z Sports described Swift's camp as phenomenal and noted strong runs against Tennessee in Thursday's joint practice. That practice turned out to be his last competitive work of the summer: Williams and most starters sat Saturday's finale in Nashville, per Patrick Finley at the Chicago Sun-Times, a 24 to 15 Bears win, per Larry Mayer at the team's website.
Cut day then reshaped the room behind him, twice. Salvon Ahmed, a vested veteran who scored in the preseason opener, was released after losing the third running back job to Roschon Johnson, per Alan Rubenstein at Yardbarker, and Brittain Brown went to injured reserve with a concussion from the finale, per Josh Alper at Pro Football Talk. Roschon Johnson took the finale workload — 15 carries, 52 yards and a touchdown, against Titans backups with the starters out, per Lester A. Wiltfong Jr. at Windy City Gridiron. And Kyle Monangai appears as the number-two back on SI Bear Digest's post-cuts chart, per Jerry Markarian, without any beat report placing him back at practice since his knee injury — so the backfield math resolved in Swift's favor by default rather than by decision.
Back in June we defended Swift's career year — a thousand 87 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in 20 25 — against his boom-bust reputation, and camp ended with the head coach making a version of the same argument in stronger words than we would use. Three weeks of intact burst, a thinned room, no live setback: the prior holds, and the boldest claim attached to it belongs to Johnson, not to us. Last week's watch items both came back: Swift did not play before cutdown, and Monangai's practice status went unreported. We'll pick this up again as Week One takes shape.
_Data via nflverse._
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