D’Andre Swift Keeps Beating His Fantasy Football Reputation

D'Andre Swift has become one of fantasy football’s more reliable, annoying players. Every offseason seems to bring a new reason to question his role, workload, efficiency, or fit with the coaching staff, and yet he keeps finding his way back into the RB2 mix. After surviving the arrival of Ben Johnson and holding off Kyle Monangai long enough to finish as a top-16 back in half-PPR points per game, Swift once again enters draft season as a less exciting but very useful mid-round running back target.

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D'Andre Swift’s Career

Despite just now entering his age-27 season, it feels like D’Andre Swift has been part of the fantasy landscape for a very, very long time. From a satellite back who rarely handled 10+ carries to a modern-day workhorse who approaches 300+ opportunities per year, his usage has been all over the place during his six-year career. Yet, his fantasy viability has been remarkably consistent, averaging between 11.2 and 13.7 half-PPR points when we look at his year-end stat sheet in spite of his wildly fluctuating role within his offense(s).

The projected demise of D’Andre Swift was, in hindsight, pretty poor foresight. Given that Ben Johnson was potentially instrumental in letting Swift walk in free agency back in 2022, it was assumed he would move away from featuring him in a workhorse capacity when he took the reins in Chicago, with Roschon Johnson and/or Kyle Monangai getting involved early and often. Instead, Swift handled 268 regular-season opportunities, ranking 18th in snap rate (57.8%) and 16th in half-PPR points per game (13.2). This is an incredible return on the three-year $24M contract he signed back in 2024, an $8M AAV that ranks 20th at the position.

Swift is entering his seventh NFL season, but his heavy early-career rotation, combined with the fact that he doesn’t turn 28 until January, means he doesn’t have the typical wear-and-tear/age-curve concerns that other backs would be facing. On his one-year “prove it” deal with the Eagles back in 2023, he nearly doubled his previous career high in yardage by breaking the 1,000-yard mark, and he’s got a fantastic offensive infrastructure to squeeze out one more strong payday.

The Bears’ Offense in 2026

Ben Johnson’s first season with the Bears was indeed all it was cracked up to be, as he proved his time with Detroit was no fluke. He instantly transformed what was a near-disaster offense during Caleb Williams’ rookie campaign into a top-10 operation in nearly every meaningful metric.

It certainly helps when you can drop Colston Loveland, Luther Burden, Ozzy Trapilo, and Kyle Monangai into very meaningful work all from the same rookie draft class, but it would be hard to argue that Johnson didn’t have a huge hand in turning this thing around.

Right off the bat, Johnson made it a point to add another variable to what had been a stagnant offense, adding both motion and a ton of play-action looks to give defenses something else to think about. In 2024, Caleb Williams had the second-most raw dropbacks in the league (680), but ranked 9th in dropbacks with motion (358) and 14th in play-action rate (17.3%). Last year, his dropbacks fell to 635, yet his dropbacks with motion climbed to the fifth-highest in the league (394), nearly doubling his play-action rate (33.2%) and finishing behind only Matthew Stafford and Daniel Jones.

This intuitively seems like it would be a net-negative for running backs (play action, in and of itself, means the team is “faking” a handoff, after all), but not if you’re in a Ben Johnson offense: they would lead the league by targeting players out of the backfield 37 times over the season’s play-action calls. Care to guess who led the league in 2024? Ben Johnson’s Lions, with 50 such targets.

The running back love doesn’t end there, either. The 2025 Bears had only 35 dropbacks within the opponent’s 10-yard line, which ranked 19th, but had the seventh-most rush attempts (52). Johnson proved that this will remain an RB-friendly ecosystem, regardless of which team he’s calling plays for or how much perceived pass-catching talent the team has. So let’s take a look at how much D’Andre Swift will continue to benefit.

Projecting the Bears’ Backfield in Fantasy

The (relative) good news for the Swift/Monangai tandem is that the team doesn’t seem bothered with mixing in a third option. Roschon Johnson was essentially phased out of the offense after missing most of the pre-season ramp-up period (and eventually landing on the IR in November), while Brittain Brown plugged in sparingly as a pass-blocker and notched exactly five rushing attempts over the entire regular season.

This mimics the Jahmyr Gibbs/David Montgomery usage of Johnson’s Lions over the previous two seasons; players like Craig Reynolds and Sione Vaki became complete afterthoughts once the main guys were locked in. In a game where RBBC used to be a dirty word, it’s actually good news nowadays when we can guarantee a two-headed backfield as opposed to a three-headed approach, or whatever the hell the Arizona Cardinals are doing.

There is still fantasy goodness that we can spread between Swift and Monangai.

Leading playcallers by total backfield fantasy volume (XFP/G) over the past 3 seasons



[min. 20 games]



1. Kyle Shanahan - 26.4

2. Mike McDaniel - 26.2

3. Ben Johnson - 25.6

4. Zac Robinson - 25.2

5. Arthur Smith - 25.2

6. Sean Payton - 24.0

7. Liam Coen - 23.3@FantasyPtsData

— Ryan Heath (@RyanJ_Heath) May 19, 2026

But, with so many mouths to feed across this ascending offense, we do have to consider the ceiling here. And that means there are few roads to an RB1 season for Swift, and even RB1 weeks can be hard to come by. Though he did hit 20+ half-PPR points on five occasions last season, he only eclipsed 60% of the team’s snaps once after their Week 5 bye, hitting 20+ opportunities (carries + targets) in three of those twelve games.

While Swift easily has the leg-up on his sophomore counterpart in the receiving game, Monangai took a massive bite out of the early-down apple after the team’s bye, nearly matching him in first- and second-down carries (134-to-143), as well as goal-line carries (inside the opponents’ five-yard line), 12-to-10. Heading into 2026, there’s no reason not to expect more of the same. This makes Swift more than “viable” in fantasy; he’s a slam-dunk mid-round asset, not someone we should talk ourselves into if you’re deciding between positions. A roster’s third running back? Full send. An RB2 you have to depend on? There’s some more trepidation there. Monangai is also worth rostering, but his lack of receiving profile puts him in more of a desperation-FLEX bucket as a fine low-end RB3.

Bottom Line

• D’Andre Swift has been more reliable than his fantasy reputation suggests. His role has changed several times across three teams, but he has continued to settle into the RB2 range while offering enough receiving work to avoid being purely touchdown-dependent.
• The Bears’ offensive environment is a major part of the appeal. Ben Johnson’s offense created more motion, more play-action, more scoring chances, and enough backfield volume to keep both Swift and Kyle Monangai fantasy-relevant. Monangai’s early-down and goal-line involvement does cap Swift’s ceiling, but it does not erase the weekly role.
• According to current Underdop ADP, Swift is coming off boards as the RB21 at the 4/5 turn, right behind David Montgomery and directly before TreVeyon Henderson/Bucky Irving. I fully understand the appeal but it’s just a little too early for me. There are very few roads to Swift becoming an RB1, which isn’t quite so true for the other backs in this range. If I’m taking him in this range, I want him to be my team’s RB3 with a “Bully RB” approach, given the unlikelihood that he becomes a true workhorse in Year 7.