D'Onta Foreman Wants Starting Job

D'Onta Foreman has news for anyone who assumed Khalil Herbert took over Bears starting running back duties with David Montgomery now in Detroit.

"I can't really speak for the coaches and the plan that they have," Foreman said Friday. "I came here to try to be the guy.

"I think if I didn't come here with that mentality, I would be doing myself a disservice. I think I would be doing the team a disservice."

The newly acquired Bears free agent then explained his determination without backing down.

"All due respect, humble confidence, not trying to make it seem like anything other than just exactly what it is, that's just me being confident in myself and feeling like I could come in and be the guy and be a guy that people count on and I can help us win," Foreman said. "I didn't come here to take a backseat to anybody.

"I'm a team guy. I want to do anything I can do to help in any role that they put me in, but coming here with the mindset of wanting to be the guy, wanting to be a person who can help this team and make a lot of plays for this team. I know that's my mentality and I plan on doing that."

Call it a training battle.

Herbert has impressive credentials as NFL leader in yards per carry among backs with at least 100 carries. Foreman isn't exactly a pretender. He took over when Christian McCaffery was traded by Carolina and ran for 118 yards in a 21-3 win over Tampa Bay, then 118 more the next week in a 37-34 loss to Atlanta.

"I didn't come here to take a back seat to anybody."

In all, Foreman rolled for five 100-yard games in the final 11 games. Foreman has eight 100-yard games, all in his last two seaons. Montgomery had eight 100-yard games in four Bears seasons.

A third-round draft pick by Houston from Texas in 2017, Foreman is a downhill runner if ever there was one. When he gets going, he's tough to stop at 6-foot-1, 236 pounds with 4.45-second speed in the 40 (pro day).

The way to keep him ineffective is to prevent him from ever getting momentum. It was feast of famine for him last year as he had four games in that stretch with 35 yards or less. When he got rolling, though, he couldn't be stopped and had the 100-yard games.

In 2021 with Tennessee, he took over for injured Derrick Henry and had three 100-yard games in the final nine weeks. The same sort of thing happened then. He either got 100 yards or shut down completely.

"I think I'm a tough runner, hard-nosed runner," Foreman said. "I also feel like I've got a little finesse. I can make some guys miss.

"That's another part of my game that I want to instill is getting better in the open field, making guys miss in the open fields, but I think breaking tackles, setting up my runs, setting up the blocks, getting really what I want is the big part of my game. And also, what people don’t give me credit for because I haven’t been able to show it a lot with the teams I’ve been on is how well I can catch the ball and what I can do in the backfield as far as being a receiver. That’s something that I really want to showcase."

D’Onta Foreman was better in 2022 than David Montgomery.

We’ll see if that’s sustainable, but the fact the #Bears got Foreman for $3M AAV less than Monty got seems like a total steal.
— Jacob Infante (@jacobinfante24) March 17, 2023

Foreman suffered an Achilles tear as a rookie in the middle of the 2017 season and as a result missed almost all the following season, then wound up in Tennessee where he was a teammate of current Bears guard Nate Davis and ran behind Bears fullback Khari Blasingame. Titans running game analyst and offensive assistant Luke Steckel this year has become Bears assistant offensive line coach.

So Foreman is familiar with plenty of people associated with his new team, since his Carolina teammates PJ Walker and DJ Moore are in Chicago, as well.

"I enjoyed my time in Carolina," Foreman said. "I enjoyed my time with that team and everything that we battled through. The ups and the downs, trades, everything that kinda came with that.

"You know, I think my mentality was just to go out there and be as productive as I can be. When I knew that I had the opportunity to kind of be the guy and take over, I tried to make some plays, you know, try to do something to help that team win. I just tried to do it to the best of my ability."

Let the camp battle begin.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven