2025 Draft Guide: Chicago Bears

Coaching History: Last Three Years

Head Coach: Ben Johnson (DET ’22-24)
Offensive Coordinator: Declan Doyle (DEN ’23-24, NO ’22)
2024 Record: 5-12

Team Summary

The 2024 Chicago Bears… bottomed out, for lack of a better phrase. Other than passing more frequently, their offensive measures dropped significantly from 2023. This explains why the regime was fired, and the team hired offensive guru Ben Johnson from the Lions. Johnson is an immediate upgrade for every single fantasy relevant player on the Bears’ roster, especially second-year QB Caleb Williams.

Johnson is the type of coach that focuses on ‘the little things’. You’ll likely hear phrases like ‘details matter’ tossed about in interviews throughout the season. The reason for this, is that with extra attention to details, you can put players in better positions to succeed. It allows the coaching staff to provide a framework to understand the entire offense, so that they can delve into the minutia of an individual play, and the entire team should still understand the concept.

Johnson isn’t just working with replacement level players that he’ll need to squeeze every ounce of talent from to be competitive. He’s got two 2024 1st round picks in QB Caleb Williams and WR Rome Odunze. He has veteran WR D.J. Moore who has finished as a fantasy WR2 or better in every season since 2019 (including seasons on some BAD teams). He even added TE Colston Loveland with the 10th Pick in the 2025 NFL Draft and followed up with WR Luther Burden III in the 2nd Round. That is to say, the talent is there.

You should expect the Bears’ offense to at least regain the effectiveness of 2023, although given the weapons in the passing game, it likely won’t be as run heavy (2nd in Rush Attempts and Rush Yards). Johnson likes to use “11” personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WRs) at a high rate. The saying goes, “a rising tide lifts all boats,” but in fantasy, we’d prefer if the Bears’ would just pick a “boat” or two to hog the targets. With the talent they have, this is unlikely, so 2025 may not be an awesome year for Bears players in fantasy, but they should at least be depth options and bye-week fillers at worst.

2024 Ranks (2023 Rank)

• Points: 28th (18th)
• Yards: 32nd (20th)
• Passing Attempts: 13th (27th)
• Passing Yards: 31st (27th)
• Passing TDs: 25th (23rd)
• Rushing Attempts: 23rd (2nd)
• Rushing Yards: 25th (2nd)
• Rushing TDs: 20th (11th)

2024 Positional Market Share

D’Andre Swift dominated carries for the Bears in 2024, out-touching Roschon Johnson at a 4:1 clip. With the inefficiency, the expectation was that there would be an addition to the RB room. However, to everyone’s surprise, Swift escaped Free Agency and the NFL Draft without adding anyone of note as competition. The only negative for D’Andre Swift is his history with Ben Johnson, who was with the Lions when Swift was trade to Philadelphia.

Since there was a coaching change, we should also consider the Detroit Lions’ rushing distribution. Detroit used a pair of backs with complementary skill-sets: Jahmyr Gibbs as the explosive big play threat and receiving back and David Montgomery as the between the tackles grinder and short-yardage specialist. This may sound bad to suggest Johnson may bring a Running Back By Committee (RBBC) approach to Chicago, but it didn’t seem to hurt the Lions as Gibbs finished as the overall RB1 and Montgomery finished as RB18.

Chicago had a clear Top-3 rotation at WR between D.J. Moore, Keenan Allen, and Rome Odunze. Odunze had the lowest target share of the three at 19.2%, to give you an idea of how evenly spread targets were. The target consolidation also allowed Cole Kmet and D’Andre Swift to each garner a solid target share (10.4% and 9.9% respectively).

From a passing perspective, Detroit was also fairly condensed, with only two WRs getting more than a 10% target share. With the weapons in Chicago, I’d expect the 3 top WRs and their TE to be above 15%, with a healthy dose of targets left for the RB as well.

Depth Chart:

• QB: Caleb Williams, Tyson Bagent
• RB: D’Andre Swift, Roschon Johnson, Kyle Monangai
• WR: Rome Odunze (X), D.J. Moore (Z), Luther Burden III (Slot), Olamide Zaccheaus
• TE: Colston Loveland, Cole Kmet

Player Breakdowns

Caleb Williams, the 2024 1st Overall NFL Draft Pick, wasn’t able to seamlessly transition his talents from college to the NFL. However, few QBs can, and the blame doesn’t fall squarely on his shoulders either. Matt Eberflus and his staff did not put Williams in a position to succeed, so let’s just call it a lost year and start fresh. Williams has plenty of talent; he’s able to make all the throws, has adequate arm strength, and even makes plays off script when necessary. Now that he’s got Ben Johnson running the show, expect to see significant statistical improvement. If Jared Goff can put together three consecutive Top 10 QB finishes, it is fair to expect approximately that from Caleb Williams.

Swift is a polarizing player for 2025. His 2024 usage was near elite: 253 carries and 52 targets. He dominated his backfield, and there were no significant additions during the offseason. The question is, (I’m clearing my throat to give my best Ted Lasso impression) “Do you believe?” If Swift can maintain the stranglehold he has had on the rushing workload, he very well could be a league-winner. Being drafted as RB21, he would be a near-lock for at Top 10 finish. However, Roschon Johnson is lurking, and you shouldn’t ignore Kyle Monangai out of Rutgers either. So, do you believe?

Johnson will start the year as the RB2. He will be a boom-or-bust pick this year. Either he will fill the David Montgomery role and greatly exceed his ADP expectation… or… he won’t. If he can’t lock down a significant role, he’ll be a roster clogger all season as a true handcuff-only player.

Monangai is worth mentioning and monitoring, as any RB that can earn the main role in a Ben Johnson offense is valuable. You likely won’t need to draft him, except in the deepest leagues, but pay very close attention to how Chicago uses its RBs in preseason and Week 1. If the signs are there, you’ll want to pounce quickly.

Moore comes into the year as the Bears’ WR1. In 2024, he was asked to play out of position frequently taking snaps as the X receiver. This year, expect Moore to slide back into his position as the Z. The move should improve his efficiency (as will Ben Johnson’s offensive scheme in general). The only limiting factor is truly going to be target share – with so many mouths to feed, it will be difficult to earn more than 22-23% target share, and we don’t have a great idea of how much the Bears will pass in 2025 as Ben Johnson installs his system.

The 2024 10 Overall Pick had a disappointing season statistically, but he played at a high level. Odunze is a budding star who should take a big step forward this year. As with D.J. Moore, the question is how big is the receiving pie, and how big a slice can he earn? The future is extremely bright, and he is absolutely a “buy” in dynasty as the WR21 on KeepTradeCut, even if 2025 won’t be a banner year statistically.

Luther Burden III was one of the top NFL Draft prospects heading into his senior year at Mizzou. A disappointing year dropped his draft stock a bit, but the player hasn’t changed. Landing in Chicago is a fantastic match for Burden, as he can slide into the Slot role where he was used at Mizzou. He is more than just a Slot WR, though, and I would expect him to move to Flanker eventually in his career. For 2025 expect Flex production with weekly upside in favorable matchups.

More Draft Guides