Roschon Johnson sees huge uptick in usage
By Jared Smola |
Updated on Tue, 28 Nov 2023, 3:23 PM EST
Though Week 12's showdown between the Bears and Vikings didn't provide much entertainment, it did shed some light on Chicago's backfield situation. Rookie RB Roschon Johnson ended Monday night with a season-high 75 scrimmage yards on 15 touches. He played on 74.6% of the team's snaps, including all 13 third-down situations. Before this contest, Johnson had never played on over 50% of the Bears' offensive snaps and had just two games with more than 10 touches. His teammate and typical starter Khalil Herbert took a back seat and only played on 15 snaps in the game, seeing 6 carries and 2 catches for a combined 38 yards. Herbert did start but got less than half as many snaps as he played in his Week 11 return from IR -- despite D'Onta Foreman being inactive -- and lost work as a runner and receiver. And there's been no indication of a re-injury or other physical limitation for Herbert. It's just one game, but we'll have to at least enter Week 14 (after the bye) assuming Johnson will now work ahead of Herbert. We'll see about Foreman's availability, after he managed two limited practices ahead of Monday night's game.