Chicago Bears 2022 Season Grades: Montgomery, Herbert fueled Bears’ running game

In this series on Bears Talk, we’ll be grading the Chicago Bears’ 2022 season, position by position. We’ve already covered quarterback, and now it’s time to dive into how the Bears’ running backs performed in what ended up a record-setting season on the ground for Chicago.

Justin Fields had a lot to do with that production. He led the Bears in rushing with 1,143 yards. David Montgomery led all running backs with 803 yards, while Khalil Herbert, who missed four games with a hip injury, was third with 731 yards.

Fields won’t be a 1,000-yard rusher every season. At least, he can’t be if the Chicago Bears want him to enjoy a long and productive career. And while the combination of Montgomery and Herbert totaled more than 1,500 rushing yards, neither provided the Bears with a true bell cow throughout the season.

Let’s check out how each running back performed in 2022.

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David Montgomery

Montgomery’s 2022 season was consistent with what we’ve seen throughout his career. He ran hard, he broke tackles and willed his way for extra yards on almost every carry. But he did finish the year averaging just 4.0 yards per carry. It’s adequate efficiency but far from elite. Montgomery failed to reach four yards per run in two of his three other seasons. His best year came in 2020, his only season with more than 1,000 rushing yards when he averaged 4.3 yards per carry, but that year may be an anomaly at this point. Montgomery is who he is, and that’s OK.

But is who Montgomery is enough to warrant a second contract? He’ll be an unrestricted free agent this offseason. While general manager Ryan Poles expressed his affection for Montgomery at the end-of-year press conference, he also said that numbers have to align for Chicago to bring him back.

Herbert’s ascent could be a bigger reason why the Chicago Bears don’t rush to re-sign Montgomery. He was the better running back (when healthy) in 2022. He’s been better than Montgomery in back-to-back seasons now.

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Khalil Herbert

Herbert averaged a rare 5.7 yards per carry and felt like a big play waiting to happen every time he touched the ball in 2022. His blend of patience and straight-line explosion is a perfect fit for Luke Getsy’s offense, and it’s difficult imagining a scenario in which he won’t be the Bears’ RB1 in 2023.

Through his first two years in the NFL, Herbert’s totaled 232 carries for 1,164 yards and six touchdowns (5.0 YPC). Assuming he can shoulder a full-time workload, Herbert will be a popular fantasy football pick next season.

Herbert is entering the third year of his rookie contract. Chicago has two more seasons of control over a starting-level running back at the position’s minimum salary. It’s the ideal way for an NFL team to build an offense, and Herbert’s production in 2022 (731 yards, 4 TDs) has his arrow pointing way up.

Darrynton Evans

Trestan Ebner & Darrynton Evans

Rookie Trestan Ebner didn’t make much of an impact during his first season in the league. He totaled just 54 yards on 24 carries and was eventually surpassed on the depth chart by Darrynton Evans. Evans spent most of the 2022 season on the practice squad but was elevated after Herbert suffered a hip injury in mid-November.

Evans played six games and only had 14 carries for the Bears, but he looked much more comfortable in Getsy’s offense than Ebner did at any point in the year. Still, with Evans an unrestricted free agent and Ebner entering Year 2 after being drafted in the sixth round of the 2022 NFL Draft, the former Baylor standout will get another crack at securing a backup running back job in 2023.

Ebner needs a strong training camp this summer to have a weekly spot on the active roster next fall.

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Chicago Bears Season Grades: RB

So, how do these guys grade out? Here’s our take:

David Montgomery: C+

Khalil Herbert: B+

Trestan Ebner: D+

Darrynton Evans: C

The individual grades may seem low for a historic Chicago Bears rushing season, but the team’s production was the classic “sum being better than the parts.” And there’s that whole Justin Fields guy.