Should We All Be (D'Andre) Swifties in 2025?

Imagine, if you would, a totally hypothetical scenario. Picture a fantasy running back who finished top-20 at the position last year. Now picture everything — and I mean everything — improving around him this offseason. Where would you draft him? How excited would you be if his ADP — even after climbing 34 spots since the NFL Draft — was still just RB25 at the 6-7 turn?

Spoiler alert: this is not a hypothetical. It's D'Andre Swift. And he's one of my favorite values in 2025 fantasy drafts. Here's why.

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RB2 Lemonade Out of Chicago Lemons

Last season — Caleb Williams' first and Matt Eberflus and Shane Waldron's last — the Bears offense was ... poor. To put it kindly. They ranked 28th in scoring and dead last in total yards. No team made fewer trips to the red zone, and their 4.5 yards per play average was the lowest by a Chicago offense in two decades. Both the head coach and the OC were fired midway through the season, and their replacements proceeded to lose every remaining game (until a Week 18 squeaker over Packers backups).

Despite all of this, D'Andre Swift finished as the RB19 in half-PPR, in his first season with the team. He was one of just four backs to log 40+ catches and more than 250 carries (along with Bijan Robinson, Aaron Jones, and Tony Pollard). His 1,345 scrimmage yards were a career high and ranked 16th at the position, less than 10 yards behind both Breece Hall and Chase Brown. He was undeniably inefficient, averaging just 3.8 yards per carry and ranking in the bottom six among qualified RBs in EPA/attempt, success rate, yards after contact per attempt, and avoided tackle rate (all per FTN StatsHub). But in a largely threatless offense with horrid coaching, it's debatable how much of that was Swift's fault.

Consider this: the last time Swift played under Ben Johnson (2022 with the Lions), his 0.204 EPA/attempt would have led all qualified running backs if he had logged one more carry (he finished with 99). He saw just 31% of the running back opportunities in Detroit that year, but still finished as the RB22 in half-PPR (with 48 catches). Last season in Chicago, he saw a monstrous 76% of the RB opportunities. And instead of bringing in competition for their lead back this offseason, the Bears bolstered every other area of their offense heading into 2025.

Daaaa Bears Are Better

It's hard to quickly encapsulate how improved this Bears offense looks versus a year ago, but here's a summary.

Instead of Mr. .304-Career-Win-Percentage, Matt Eberflus, and Mr. Fired-Two-Years-in-a-Row Shane Waldron, Chicago now has the league's brightest young offensive mind in Ben Johnson. Instead of rookie Caleb Williams and his league-high 68 sacks, they should have an improved year two version of the number one overall pick, playing in a functional scheme. Between Thuney and Jackson, they added four Pro Bowls (and four Super Bowl rings) on the offensive line, massively upgrading their interior (which should particularly help Swift and the run game). They replaced an aged and inefficient Keenan Allen with the explosive and versatile second-rounder Luther Burden III. And they straight up added a potentially elite tight end in 10th-overall pick Colston Loveland.

You'd be hard-pressed to find an NFL analyst who wouldn't have this offense as one of, if not the most improved, offense of the offseason. Their win total is set at 8.5 — a number they haven't topped in six straight years. Clearly, the arrow is pointing way up in Chicago. There are quite a few shades of the 2022 Lions, who promoted Ben Johnson to OC, graduated from a bottom-10 offense to a top-five offense, and jumped from three wins to nine, all in a single year. The big difference? That team had Jamaal Williams, who saw 262 carries and scored a league-leading 17 rushing touchdowns. In 2025, most of that work should go to Swift.

What Competition?

A year after Roschon Johnson saw just 55 carries in 14 games, and the next-most voluminous running back in Chicago was Khalil Herbert — with eight total carries — the Bears depth chart still looks pretty bare behind Swift. Herbert is gone, and the most notable replacement is seventh-round rookie Kyle Monangai out of Rutgers ... a 4.60-in-the-40 backup who's more likely to contribute on special teams than see a significant workload on offense. Johnson, by the way, was even worse than Swift as a rusher last year, averaging 2.7 yards per carry. Here's a list of the other guys with 50+ carries and a lower rushing average than Johnson's: *insert cricket noises here* ... yeah, no one.

Given my points about Ben and the offense above, I think Roschon is a sneaky sleeper just for the opportunity he should see in short-yardage and goal-line work (and as a handcuff to Swift). But over his two years in Chicago, he's seen 14% of the team's rush attempts ... it would be utterly shocking if he suddenly assumed a starting role and relegated Swift to change-of-pace status.

Diamond in the Draft

Finally, despite all of the evidence suggesting Swift should crack the top-20 (again) and potentially threaten for RB1 upside in 2025, his ADP remains down at RB25, early in the seventh round. He's going behind rookies with more competition (RJ Harvey, TreVeyon Henderson, Kaleb Johnson), aging studs who are toeing the cliff in 2025 (Alvin Kamara, Joe Mixon), and former Ben Johnson breakout David Montgomery, who could face regression without the wiz-kid calling plays in Detroit. Even the alternatives at other positions are ugly, with guys like Jerry Jeudy and Jakobi Meyers at WR or Sam LaPorta at TE (it's a QB dead zone between Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes).

Honestly, the value on Swift is so good, I wouldn't be opposed to planning your first few rounds around the expectation of grabbing him in the sixth and scoring an incredibly cheap RB2 with designs on an RB1 ceiling. His ADP has steadily risen since April, and will likely continue to do so as analysts like me hype him up, but I can't see the value diminishing much, since I would happily take him two or three rounds earlier.

A Quick Disclaimer

This has been a uniquely glowing player profile. It's hard not to be when Swift is one of fantasy's best values in 2025. But I would be remiss not to spell out the potential downsides, however unlikely they may be. One, despite all the on-paper improvements, the Bears offense could struggle again this year. It's a new system, Caleb Williams might not be ready for the big step forward, the offensive tackles are still questionable, and the whole line might struggle to gel ... you get the picture. Additionally, there is the slim chance that Ben Johnson turns Roschon Johnson into Jamaal Williams, and Swift goes back to being 2022 Detroit Swift (which, as a reminder, was still RB22). Also, realistically, Swift has never properly broken out into RB1 territory, despite several opportunities to do so before. Still, all these "concerns" in conjunction don't get anywhere near tipping the scale away from the 26-year-old's value in drafts.

The Bottom Line

• D'Andre Swift is coming off an RB19 season, and there is little reason to believe he'd be worse in 2025.
• The coaching and offensive personnel around him massively improved this offseason, but Chicago did not bring in any meaningful competition at running back.
• According to Underdog ADP, Swift is being drafted as the RB25 at 73rd overall near the 6-7 turn. That's lower than his 2024 finish in a worse situation, and lower than his RB22 finish as the clear second-fiddle to Jamaal Williams in his last year under Ben Johnson (2022 in Detroit). If his volume remains anywhere close to where it was in 2024, and with improved efficiency and scoring opportunities in Chicago this year, Swift is a lock to return value on this ADP and possibly threaten for RB1 upside.