Full House for Bears Backfield

With D'Onta Foreman's return to health for Sunday's game against the Detroit Lions, the Bears face a pleasant dilemma.

Like, who plays and when?

Khalil Herbert has had two games since coming back from his ankle injury and hasn't been overly impressive with 22 carries and 59 yards in those. Foreman was rolling along with Herbert gone but then suffered a foot/ankle injury and missed the last game.

And Roschon Johnson had a career-high 10 carries for a marginal 3.5 yards a carry but did catch five passes for 40 yards against the Vikings.

The Bears haven't had all three healthy for a game since playing Washington Oct. 5, when Herbert suffered his injury. They had all three available against Detroit in their first game, but Foreman came into it with his injury and exited with six carries after aggravating it.

Most likely Herbert will be back in his original role with some kind of rotation but coach Matt Eberflus isn't tipping off exactly how it will work beyond suggesting all three might get involved early on in the game.

"You always go with your first 15 (plays), and your guys are going to get touches during those first 15 or 20 plays," Eberflus said Friday. "And then you look and see where it is. Some guys get certain types of plays, inside, outside, pass plays that are designed to go to them or they're maybe primary on the route and the coverage takes it away and we go somewhere else.

"But we certainly have all those plans. And then you see where it is. A guy rips off a run or he's doing a really good job, you start feeding that guy. That's kind of how it works, but we certainly like having three guys that we can go to."

It's kind of a play it by feel after the first 15 scripted plays.

Johnson had some decent plays against the Vikings, even if his average per carry wasn't impressive.

"Yeah, it's one of those operations where he was pretty hot," Eberflus said. "He did a nice job and we liked his energy and the way he was playing. He certainly looked good in that game."

Just not enough to announce he'll be starting, although they likely wouldn't announce it either way.

Justin Fields leads the Bears in rushing, and not any of the running backs.

He has 400 yards, Foreman 381, Herbert 331 and Johnson 232. Herbert has the only 100-yard game by one of the running backs, 103 yards on 18 attempts against Denver.

Although the Lions are fourth in the NFL against the run, the Bears hit them with their own season high of 183 yards rushing last time. Fields had 104 yards of that total, the third time in three games he's had over 100 yards rushing on Detroit.

"I think the guys, every time we've played them they've done a great job up front blocking," Fields said. "Up front, on the perimeter, allowing me to get yards on the outside. So I think it's just us, to be honest with you.

"But teams are going to play you differently. We'll see how they come out Sunday because they are probably looking at that so they'll probably come out with a change of plan."

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