Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson showed off his heightened level of accountability last week when he pulled starting running back D’Andre Swift off the field against the New York Jets following his near-costly turnover.

Johnson made it a point going into that game with his players that the only way they would lose that game is if they shot themselves in the foot on offense. That’s nearly what happened when Swift fumbled the ball halfway through the third quarter when the Bears held a 13-3 lead over the Jets.

Fortunately, the Bears held the Jets to a field goal on the following drive and went on to win 23-12, although Swift never saw the field again despite having 15 carries for 58 yards before that fumble. Instead, the Bears turned to Kyle Monangai to carry the load, who rushed for 146 yards and two touchdowns on a career-high 30 carries.

Bears believe D’Andre Swift’s fumble issues are ‘uncharacteristic’ after soft benching in Week 4

Earlier this week, head coach Ben Johnson was asked about his decision to pull Swift from the game and if that decision would linger into the following game. The short answer, no.

“We all have to have short memories,” Johnson explained on Monday. “We’ve got to learn from it, and coaches, players, all of us, we’re going to do some things that we don’t like at times. Could be a bad play call on my end, could be a missed tackle by our defense. All of those things happen. Learn from it and move on.”

Even still, you had to send that message to Swift and the rest of the team after a back-breaking mistake like that. And so, Swift watched the remainder of Sunday’s game from the sidelines and now has had another week to earn that trust back.

The concerning part is that Swift has now fumbled the ball twice this season, matching his total from the entire 2025 regular season. The first was a back-breaking play as well down at the goal line in Week 2 against the Minnesota Vikings, a game the Bears lost by a score of 3-9.

“It’s very uncharacteristic,” Johnson said of Swift’s fumbles. “I give Minnesota a lot of credit. That’s what they do. They do it probably better than anybody in the NFL, just conscious of the ball and looking to punch it out. We cannot allow that to happen. Yet that guy, he hit it right on the head and it came right on out. I think the one last week was one that we can’t have. . .

“There’s too many times where the ball is getting away from our body, and he knows that. He takes a lot of pride in it; hence why it’s never been an issue over the course of his career. So we just got to tighten that up, and he’ll be just fine moving forward.”

Chicago Bears will have to rely a lot more on D’Andre Swift after Kyle Monangai’s latest injury

Now that the message as been sent, Swift understands where he needs to be better moving forward for this offense and it was used as a point of emphasis for the entire unit.

“We bring that to light, we emphasize that with the guys, and we get it corrected,” offensive coordinator Press Taylor explained. “We establish drills that week that are correcting the mistakes that we had.”

And Swift will need to learn from his mistakes quick, because he could have a big role coming up on Sunday.

Kyle Monangai has now missed two days of practice this week with a thumb and a toe injury. Johnson said on Monday that Monangai would be day-to-day due to the thumb injury, but Jeremy Fowler also reported that Monangai suffered a turf toe and will miss one-two weeks but hopes to eventually play through the injury.

Through four games this season, Green Bay has allowed 557 rushing yards (fifth-most in the NFL) and 35 rushing first downs (fourth-most in the NFL). Teams have ran the ball 133 times against the Packers this season, the second-most in the league.

The Bears enter this game as the NFL’s leading rushing offense in total yards and total attempts by a pretty significant margin. It’s a great matchup to continue doing that.

With Monangai now sidelined, Swift will be getting plenty of work on Sunday and he’ll need to make sure he keeps that football protected. The Bears also have Roschon Johnson as an option to mix in and keep Swift fresh if Monangai in fact doesn’t play.