Fantasy Court: The Case For D’Andre Swift in 2026 (Fantasy Football)
This article is part of the annual Fantasy Court series. Don’t forget to check out “The Case AGAINST D’Andre Swift” for the opposing view.
Opening Statement
Your Honor, I stand before you in The Fantasy Footballers Fantasy Court today to put forward the case for an RB who has, for too long, gone underappreciated- nay, disrespected – by the fantasy football community. A man who, in his six years in the National Football League, has never finished lower than an RB2 for those managers who showed faith in the talent and added him to their rosters. A player whose career average yards per attempt is higher than Javonte Williams, Travis Etienne, Josh Jacobs, and Kenneth Walker III…all of whom are being drafted up to three rounds earlier than my client. I am of course here today representing not just an RB2, but THE RB2…Mr. D’Andre Swift of the Chicago Bears.
A Tale of Two Kings
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we have all heard the famous fables of fantasy football, the lore that echoes the achievements of great warriors of the gridiron; and in these tales one man stands above them all, the one they call “King”…His Royal Highness, King Derrick Lamar Henry II (the second of his name). Yet, whilst the sun is slowly setting on the abominable one’s decade-long reign, there is another monarch in our realm who lurks in the shadows, almost entirely hidden from plain sight were it not for the Illinois moonlight glistening off his own crown. Yes, Derrick Henry may sit on his throne in Baltimore, but some 600 miles to the west, the King of Consistency – D’Andre Tiyon Swift – silently plots his siege of yet another RB2 campaign. If you have been listening to the pod this off-season, you will have heard Andy, Mike, and Jason discuss on several occasions that Swift and Henry are the only RBs to finish inside the top 24 at the position for fantasy over the last six years. Ok, sure – King Henry may have been inside the top eight in five of those seasons, and Swift has never quite broken through that RB1 ceiling; but despite his advancing years, The Yeti is still going to cost you a second-round pick…Swift, on the other hand, is going as late as the five-six turn in some drafts. I am no mathemagician, but I like those numbers.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T; Take Care (T-C-B)
I’ve already evidenced how my client – like the late, great, Aretha Franklin – consistently T-C-B (that’s Taking Care of Business), but whether you are more familiar with the message put out by the Queen of Soul or B.T.O. (that’s Bachman Turner Overdrive for anyone under 40); there is only one acronym I want us to focus on in this case…and that is A-D-P (Average Draft Position).
| Year | ADP | Fantasy Finish |
| 2025 | RB24 | RB14 |
| 2024 | RB21 | RB19 |
| 2023 | RB24 | RB23 |
| 2022 | RB8 | RB22 |
| 2021 | RB19 | RB19 |
| 2020 | RB27 | RB18 |
If we look at Exhibit A. above, we can see that each and every year that King Swift (I’m making this a thing) has been in the National Football League, he has outperformed his ADP…ok, apart from the anomaly that was 2022; but RB8? Seriously? What were we thinking?
That one outlier aside, as a fantasy community, we somehow continue to disrespect a man who we all know has a floor of RB24, but fringe RB1 upside, particularly in this rapidly improving Chicago offense (more on that later). Since leaving Philadelphia after an RB23 season back in 2023, Swift has finished the year as the overall RB19 for fantasy in 2024, and RB14 in 2025; if these trends continue…aayyy! Yet, despite these back-to-back years as a top-20 RB, we once again have our champion rooted firmly in the basement of RB2 territory as the overall RB24 off the board – sandwiched in-between; a sophomore back in Quinshon Judkins who may not even be ready to go Week 1, a near 30-year old David Montgomery who joins a Houston Texans backfield that only outscored the Raiders on the ground last year, and Mr. 19% of snaps Bhayshul Tuten who is slated as a “co-starter” with CROD in Jacksonville. We have to do better here, people.
The Best Predictor of Future Performance…Is Past Performance
When you have been as consistent as King Swift, calling any year a “breakout” season feels a bit of a stretch, but what we can factually state is that 2025 was a career year for the former Georgia Bulldog.
- Career high in rushing yards – check
- Career high in rushing TDs – check
- Career high in overall rush success rate – check
Swift’s 211.6 fantasy points across his 16 games were enough to see him finish as the overall RB14 for fantasy (another career best) – a single TD behind rookie Ashton Jeanty, who ended the year just inside the top 12 at the position with 217.6.
Could 2025 be the year that we saw the needle move for the perennial RB2, edging him slightly closer to that elusive RB1 category? Almost every major metric last season the Bears’ backfield leader within touching distance of shattering that glass ceiling; 13.2 FPPG (T14th with Saquon Barkley), 4.9 Y/A (10th amongst all RBs with 100+ carries), and 299 receiving yards (13th) off of 48 total targets (T16th with Breece Hall)…all suggesting that there may yet be more to come from the seventh-year back in 2026 on this emerging Bears offense.
What is arguably more impressive is that our client managed such a dominant display in the face of the potential threat from a new cub added to the pack, the rookie and seventh-round draft pick Kyle Monangai. Do not let Monangai’s draft capital fool you – this is a day-two caliber RB whose name must have simply been deemed too hard to spell for GMs…it is the only rational reason I can think of why he fell as far as he did. Yet despite the rookie recording the fifth-highest single-game rushing yard total by a debutant in franchise history…there is zero doubt as to who is Yogi, and who is Boo-Boo in this backfield. Even with the emergence of Monangai, and a groin injury that kept him out of the Week 9 trip to Cincinnati, Swift still recorded over 60% of the team’s rushing work and two-thirds of the team’s targets at the position…he was, and remains, the clear bell cow across all three downs for the reigning NFC North Champions.
A King Without an Army is Just a Man in a Funny Hat
Looking back through the annals of history, we can see that every great monarch ever written about had a supporting cast of advisors and trusted aides to help elevate them and bolster their reputation…and the King of Consistency is no different. King Arthur had his trusted Round Table; Aragorn, King of Gondor, had a counsel of wizards, elves, and learned men; Queen Daenerys Targaryen had a man who later turned out to be her nephew and eventual assassin…wait, perhaps that is not the best example. The point being, no man can be truly great without greatness surrounding him, and after several aggressive draft picks by the Chicago front office in recent years, King Swift’s supporting cast in the Windy City makes the collective ensemble of the Marvel Cinematic Universe look like a community improv group.
| Year | Name | Position | Draft Pick | Notes |
| 2025 | Colston Loveland | TE | 1.10 | 1st TE Drafted |
| 2025 | Luther Burden III | WR | 2.07 | 5th WR Drafted |
| 2024 | Caleb Williams | QB | 1.01 | 1st Overall Pick |
| 2024 | Rome Odunze | WR | 1.09 | 3rd WR Drafted |
This offense is loaded with talent, with each and every fantasy-relevant player in Chicago currently being drafted inside the first seven rounds – but it is not just those on the offensive side of the ball that we can add to our rosters that support my client’s case; it is the unheralded heroes of this tale who have truly helped our King ascend to his midwestern throne…I am of course referring to the exponentially improved Bears O-Line.
As fantasy managers, we often overlook those who cannot directly contribute to our points total on a weekly basis, but that does not mean these mountains of men (figuratively and often literally) are not worthy of our recognition. In just one season this Bears’ offensive front skyrocketed from the 24th “best” ranked O-Line in the league up to fifth – in turn helping Caleb Williams and Co. end 2025 as the sixth highest scoring total offense, and the third best rushing offense behind only the Buffalo Bills and the Baltimore Ravens (yes, that is the Bills who have rushing leader James Cook in their ranks, and the Ravens who can boast the presence of King Henry and his 16 TDs on the ground)…not too shabby company for our champion to be keeping.
The improvement of this Bears O-Line under Head Coach Ben Johnson simply cannot be understated as to the impact it has had on the rushing prowess of my client. The single-season jump from 21st to third in overall Rush Success Rate, and 26th to sixth in Yards Before Contact, is reflected in Swift’s mammoth 3.0 YBC numbers – a figure that saw him finish behind only Blake Corum, Jahmyr Gibbs, TreVeyon Henderson, and James Cook. Mix that gift-wrapped head-start in with the natural explosiveness that saw Swift record the seventh most rushes of 10+ yards on the year, and we have the perfect storm for the kind of big plays needed to push our King into the upper echelons of fantasy RBs.
Closing Statement
Ladies and gentlemen of the Fantasy Court, I have laid before you an iron-clad, watertight case for my client’s irrefutable claims to be considered more than just a low-end RB2 for your fantasy team in 2026. We continually hear the rhetoric of the need to draft players on successful teams, and with the Chicago Bears currently favourited in 12 of their 17 games on the year, we can assume this will once again be a franchise sitting at the tippy-top of their division, looking down upon their divisional rivals with the same gleefulI expression I possess when starting lovingly at a Lou Malnati’s deep-dish pizza (#NotASponsor).
A successful culture is manifested and developed through strong leadership, and in Head Coach Ben Johnson, the Bears have a born winner who doesn’t simply want his charges to stop at a Vince Lombardi Trophy:
“I want more than the Super Bowl. I want to have the highest-scoring offense ever, which happens to be the 2013 Denver Broncos. I know how many points per game they scored (37.9), and I want to surpass them. I want shutouts. I want blowouts.“
You and me both, Ben. And if those inspirational words of the Bears commander-in-chief haven’t already convinced you fully, I leave you with the musings of one Jason Randall Moore postulating about my client:
“He isn’t bad.”
The defense rests.