Bears running back Kyle Monangai was exhausted. His running mate, D’Andre Swift, was on the bench as punishment for fumbling. His right thumb hurt for some reason.
But he kept plowing forward, time after time after time. The Bears took over with 9:16 left in Sunday’s 23-12 win against the Jets at Soldier Field — and never gave the ball back.
Monangai touched the ball nine times on the drive — eight runs and one pass from fellow backup Tyson Bagent. He finished with 30 carries — the most by a Bears running back since David Montgomery had 32 in 2020 — for 146 yards.
Sunday was a boxing match in which the Bears threw nothing but jabs. Monangai served as Bears coach Ben Johnson’s left hand to bludgeon the Jets. Bagent, who took over this week as the Bears’ quarterback with Caleb Williams out, didn’t provide much of a right hook. He was solid, though, completing 25-of-34 passes — that’s 74% — for 268 yards, one interception and an 83.9 passer rating.
Not bad for a pair of second-stringers.
“We all know that we’re gonna run the football,” Monangai said. “We know it. The other team knows it. The people watching at home and in the stadium know it. … We put the time in to still stick to what we know we’re going to do. We just say, ‘You gotta come stop this.’”
The Jets could not. The Bears finished with a franchise-best 34 first downs to the Jets’ seven. They averaged a first down every 2.6 plays. They held the ball for all but 17 minutes, 15 seconds, and never punted. In the fourth quarter alone, they held the ball for all but 45 seconds.
“That’s just who we are,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “That’s our team. I think our run game and how we are at the line of scrimmage is something that can carry over throughout the entire season. Despite who we have under center, I think it shows we can beat anybody when we’re physical up front.”
Johnson marveled at Monangai’s physicality. On a day in which the Bears struggled in the red zone, he had their only two touchdowns, a one-yard, second-effort plunge on fourth down in the first quarter and a five-yarder in the third.
“That’s just one ball of muscle right there,” defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo said.
Johnson didn’t realize he gave Monangai a career-high 30 carries — it was as many as he’d had all season before Sunday — until he got back into his Soldier Field office.
“He ran really hard,” Johnson said. “He found some creases and turned on the gas. I thought I saw one really, really good stiff arm there as well.
“When you see a guy running like that, you want to feed him as the play caller. And I do think it elevates all of those guys out there and gives them a spark as well, the guy’s blocking for him. And it was good to see. We needed that.”
Whether sparked by Monangai or the below-average play of the opposition, the Bears’ defense dominated, giving up seven first downs on eight possessions. Four of the Jets’ eight drives went for six yards or less. Swift ran inspired, too, totaling 58 yards on 15 carries. His third-quarter fumble at the Bears’ 28 kept the Jets in the game — they’d kick a field goal to pull within seven — and got the running back benched the rest of the way. Roschon Johnson had four carries from then on to fill in for Monangai.
The Bears are the NFL’s best rushing team, and Swift and Monangai the best running back duo. They’re the seventh NFL duo since 1950 — and the first since 1976 — to each have at least 300 rushing yards through the season’s first four games.
“Keep the defense off the field,” right tackle Darnell Wright said. “Control the football. … Put it in our hands. Good results.”
After 38-year-old third-stringer Case Keenum captured the sport’s imagination Monday night, Johnson refused to publicly name a starting quarterback. When Keenum found out it would be Bagent, he wanted to be the one to tell him — and did at Halas Hall on Wednesday morning after asking him to come into work early.
“Tyson’s earned the right to be our No. 2 quarterback,” Johnson said. “I have a lot of confidence in him, thought he played really well today. Efficient with the football.”
The one exception: when he threw a second-quarter interception to Minkah Fitzpatrick, who ended the Jets’ NFL-record 21-game streak without an interception.
Bagent wasn’t technically the starter — Johnson put Keenum at quarterback and split Bagent wide on the first play of the game. Keenum pitched the ball to Swift and left the game for good, with the coach later describing it as akin to the ceremonial first pitch. That was the only detail that kept the Bears from becoming the first team since the 1997 Jaguars to have three starting quarterbacks win a game in the first four weeks of the season.
Barring a quick return from Williams, Bagent lines up to make next week’s start in Green Bay. Whether he’ll have Monangai by his side depends on the running back’s right thumb; he had imaging done after the game, and the Bears figure to give him a diagnosis Monday. Monangai didn’t seem too concerned.
Either way, the Bears’ run game will travel.
“For everybody, it’s pretty easy to get excited and juiced up for that one,” Bagent said. “Which, I’m sure, they will be, too.”