Johnson and Bears looking to improve rushing attack during bye week for 2nd straight year

CHICAGO (AP) — Ben Johnson and the Chicago Bears are looking to improve their sputtering ground game during their bye week.

Just like Johnson's first season in charge.

Chicago's rushing attack has slowed significantly since a fast start, and its declining efficiency is one of the team's biggest concerns going into the last part of its schedule. The Bears rushed for a season-low 72 yards during Sunday's 27-24 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“I think over the course of nine games, there’s only been three of those nine where we’re averaging over 4 yards a carry. Which, simply in our terms, it’s just not good enough right now,” Johnson said. “And those guys know that, particularly as the weather continues to turn into Bear weather, we’re going to need to lean on that run game more and it’s gonna need to come through for us.”

Led by D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai, Chicago averaged 4.9 yards per carry while rushing for 785 yards in its first four games. But Monangai got hurt in Week 4 against the New York Jets and Chicago totaled 493 yards rushing in the next last five games, averaging 3.4 yards per attempt.

The Bears carried a four-game winning streak and a 7-2 record into their bye week, but the team is hoping to return to the rushing results it had at the beginning of the season.

“It always comes down to us making the (running) backs’ read clear and concise so they’re not second-guessing things,” offensive lineman Jonah Jackson said. “We’re excited for the challenge. We got some good defenses (ahead) that know how to attack us, and we’ll figure out ways to get around it.”

Johnson, who was hired in January 2025, faced a similar situation last season. The Bears averaged 2.7 yards per carry while rushing for just 69 yards in their final game before their Week 5 bye last year. They returned from the break and averaged 157.5 yards rushing and 5.2 yards per attempt in their last 13 games.

The improved rushing attack played a major role in the Bears going 11-6 and winning the NFC North for the first time since 2018.

“Schematically I think we’re a little bit different in terms of where we were this year compared to last year,” Johnson said. “You know, there was some things coming out of last year’s bye week that we were able to lean into, and I’m hoping we’re going to be able to find some nuggets like that of just areas that we really can make it more consistent.”

The return of Monangai, a seventh-round draft pick who rushed for 783 yards and five TDs during his rookie season, could provide a major lift. The 24-year-old has been sidelined by thumb and toe injuries.

Swift, 27, has 576 yards and a career-high 10 TDs on 155 attempts. But Johnson has talked about monitoring his usage over the course of the season, and he had just 12 carries against the Bucs.

It looked as if Roschon Johnson might take on a more prominent role after Monangai got hurt. Johnson had 13 carries for 51 yards and a touchdown in Chicago's 31-23 win at Atlanta on Oct. 18. But he had no rushing attempts against Tampa Bay.

“I gotta look at is it the fact that we're not getting as many explosives in the run game right now? Is that why the average is so low?" Ben Johnson said. “Or is it, we're just not moving the line of scrimmage? What are those factors? And so being able to have nine games of sample size at this point is going to be really good for us to look into.”

See AP’s full NFL coverage here

Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson speaks in a press conference after an NFL football game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Chicago, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Chicago Bears running back Roschon Johnson, right, runs with the football as Seattle Seahawks linebacker Drake Thomas (32) defends during the first half of an NFL football game Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Chicago Bears running back D'Andre Swift (4) scores a touchdown ahead of Seattle Seahawks cornerback Josh Jobe (29) during the second half of an NFL football game Monday, Nov. 2, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

Chicago Bears head coach Ben Johnson looks on in the first half against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during an NFL football game in Chicago, Sunday, Nov. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

McALESTER, Okla. (AP) — An Oklahoma man was put to death Thursday for the fatal shooting of his girlfriend’s estranged husband as he arrived to pick up his two young children before Thanksgiving. It was the first in a pair of executions in the U.S. scheduled for Thursday.

James Pavatt, 73, received a lethal injection at the state penitentiary in McAlester. His breathing did not appear labored during the execution, and he was declared unconscious about six minutes before being pronounced dead at 10:12 a.m. CST.

In Texas, John Allen Rubio was set to be put to death later Thursday. The 46-year-old was convicted of beheading three young children he was raising in a 2003 killing that rattled a community along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Although the death penalty is getting renewed attention after the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee in September, the U.S. is on track to surpass 40 executions for a second consecutive year — a pace driven by Florida.

Last week, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced he would commute hundreds of death sentences before leaving office, which experts say would be the largest mass clemency in American history.

On Thursday, former Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of being an accessory in a 1997 murder and awaits sentencing in December. Glossip, who had been on the brink of execution three times, was released on bond in May after spending nearly 30 years in prison. The U.S. Supreme Court had overturned his conviction and he was awaiting a retrial.

When Pavatt was asked if he had any last words, he shook his head no. As a chaplain read to him from a Bible, he appeared to be mouthing some words, but they could not be heard.

Pavatt was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in the 2001 death of Rob Andrew, a 39-year-old advertising executive. Pavatt attended the same church as the Andrew family and had been having an affair with Rob Andrew's wife, Brenda Andrew. She was convicted at a separate trial and is currently the only woman on death row in Oklahoma.

Weeks before the shooting, Rob Andrew told police someone was trying to kill him after the brake lines on his car were cut. Brenda Andrew told police after her husband was killed that masked intruders shot her in the arm and fatally shot him.

Pavatt and Brenda Andrew went to Mexico with her two children after the shooting and were arrested three months later while reentering the U.S.

At a clemency hearing last month, Pavatt said he was “not guilty of shooting anyone,” and that he'd fallen in love with Brenda Andrew and believed “everything she told me.”

“It was not until my trial that I began to see the extent to which I had been manipulated by Brenda,” Pavatt told the board. “I can see why the jury believed that we were both involved in Rob’s murder.”

Prosecutors have said that Pavatt and Brenda Andrew plotted to kill her husband, and that no matter who fired the shots, both were equally guilty.

No family members of Rob Andrew or Pavatt witnessed the execution, although his daughter and her husband visited him the night before, a prison spokesperson said.

Rubio and his girlfriend, Angela Camacho, were accused in the killings of 3-year-old Julissa Quesada, 14-month-old John E. Rubio and 2-month-old Mary Jane Rubio in the squalid, windowless apartment they shared in Brownsville, located on Texas’ border with Mexico.

Camacho pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence.

Rubio’s first capital murder conviction in the killings was overturned by an appeals court, which ruled that statements by Camacho were wrongly allowed as evidence in his trial. Rubio again pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity for his second trial but he was once again convicted and sentenced to death.

Rubio, according to court records, wasn’t the biological father of the two older children but treated them as if they were his own.

At various points, Rubio claimed the children were possessed and that he was the “chosen one” intended to save the world. Defense experts diagnosed Rubio as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, a determination rejected by prosecution experts.

Defense experts testified his childhood — filled with violence at home, “toxic” parents, drug use and prostitution — damaged him developmentally.

The apartment building where the children were killed was later demolished and the land was turned into a park and a community garden.

Rubio was set to be executed Thursday evening at the state prison in Huntsville.

This photo provided by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections shows James Pavatt in Feb. 2023. (Oklahoma Department of Corrections via AP)

This photo provided by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows John Allen Rubio on Oct. 31, 2022. (Texas Department of Criminal Justice via AP).