Daunting task ahead of Chicago Bears seventh-rounder Kyle Monangai

There were 25 backs selected, the most since 2019.

The logic: With so much talent available at this one position, there seems to be more chancs for success stories even as late as the seventh round.

The numbers against Monangai's success are staggering, though.

Seventh-round numbers game

Only six running backs of the 34 selected in the seventh round during the last 10 years have even made it to 100 career rushing attempts. Making 100 carries is not exactly anyone's idea of a successful career. This goes to show how little seventh-round backs actually ever accomplish.

Chris Carson and Isiah Pacheco are the post boys for seventh-round success—Carson with 3,502 yards on 769 carries and 24 touchdowns and 804 yards receiving on 107 catches with seven TDS, Pacheco with 2,075 yards on 458 carries and 13 TDs, 69 catches for 453 yards and two TDs.

Of the 34 seventh-rounders, 13 never even made an NFL carry. Comparatively, Bears 2019 seventh-round pick Kerrith Whyte was smashing success because he got in 24 rushes before his career ended on a practice squad following a stint in Pittsburgh.

Still, six out of 34 making 100 carries or more isn't much to base their hopes on. Pacheco, with 458 carries, is the only seventh-round back in the 2020s to get past 96 attempts for his career.

Inexperience

Despite all the praise heaped on Monangai for his performance during the last two years at Rutgers, he is relatively inexperienced for what the Bears need from a back.

Johnson has said his rushing offense is not based on one particular type of blocking scheme, yet only one of the backs drafted in that group of 25 had less exposure to running behind gap blocking schemes. According to Football Insights, Monangai ran 79% of the time in a zone blocking scheme. That's fine for plays when the Bears are using a zone scheme, but the gap scheme has been important to Johnson's attack and Monangai lacks reps in this.

All the backs, Johnson and even GM Ryan Poles have bent over backwards offering up praise for the coaching of running backs coach Eric Bieniemy.

This is good for Monangai because he'll need the top level coaching with his lack of gap scheme experience.

The positive, sort of

Monangai has been lauded for his blocking and willingness to block and for now there isn't much to go on until he can actually put on pads.

However, in college he had the fifth-most pass blocking reps of drafted backs and last season only nine of them had higher Pro Football Focus pass blocking grades than the 51.2 Monangai scored.

On the other hand, a 51.2 really isn't that high. The Bears will need Monangai's blocking to improve just like they need him to improve as  a runner and gain experience executing behind a gap scheme.

If they can get all of this in preseason and training camp, then, perhaps Johnson offering up high praise would be a better reason to get excited about a running back from Round 7 than it is at this point.