Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Anthony Herron sees a Caleb Williams/Pete Crow-Armstrong parallel

Episode Date: October 26, 2026

Mark Grote and Dan Wiederer were joined by Score football analyst Anthony Herron to discuss Bears quarterback Caleb Williams’ refinement of his talents and the state of the NFC North.

Yes, sir, as we welcome me back into Rahimi and Grotie on 1043, the score, Leila has the day off today. Dan Weederer is in Dan of the Athletic and the Take the North podcast, which Dan and I co-host, we've always got something up and running for you. Take the North. We appreciate you being a subscriber or a listener to that, and we know that you subscribe to and listen to our next guest. He is Anthony Heron of 104-3, The Score, Big Ten, Ness.

Network, Box 32, and NBC Sports. And this handsome man, Big Ant, is joining us on our video stream to watch Search the Score of Chicago on Twitch and on YouTube. What's going on Big Ann? How are you, my friend? Groats. Weeds in. What's up, fellas? I'm doing well, man.

It does feel a little bit odd having the Thursday game, the full weekend of activities, both college and NFL. and then the Bears don't play again until Monday. So this is kind of a weird space in the Bears' schedule, right, where it's not going to be the Sunday at noon on the regular. Now, we've got to kind of adjust as we go here to make sure we're staying in rhythm. Yeah, I mean, and we had, it's weird because it's like Feast or Famine. We had this flurry of Bears games. We had a Bears Monday and a Bears Friday,

just talking Bears for four straight hours, which we're going to do today probably as well. But it's like, and then now the lights are off. There's no Bears game. You can't get back in. The combination is off. It's very frustrating in that way. But we all get a chance to take a deep breath, which I guess is valuable.

Can you tell them conflicted? Okay, I'm going to be honest with you guys. Like, I get it. We all get to get stuff done in our lives. I hate weekends during the football season where the Bears are not playing. All right? There. I said it.

But the Bears, as we have been discussing, Big Ant, are in a, good place. To be able to sit here and talk about the Bears through seven games at five and two, and as Dan has been saying even before the game was played against the Patriots, you need to win this game because the difference between five and two and four and three just feels massive. Especially because this is not a team that's been able to control their fate within the division. That's why even that Atlanta game to me beyond just the idea of Caleb's return, but just getting a win outside the division until Ben Johnson and the Bears prove that they can take control of competition within the NFC North.

What we saw from evidence last year was they were able to control their fate much better outside the division than these divisional opponents who seem to know Ben Johnson better than anyone else in the league with good reason and are able to perform well against his Bears team. So every chance the Bears get for a non-divisional win, of course, enhances the playoff odds, the division title odds, but it's increased that much more because of the struggles and already starting 0-2 within the division this year. So this space that they're in right here, this now is an opportunity. And it's hard not to draw parallels because we're just not even halfway through our second season of evaluating how Ben Johnson operates as a Bears coach. So you draw parallels to year one. They came out of that embarrassment in week two against the Detroit Lions.

They got their act together for a couple of weeks. Then they had the buy week. And after that buy was when the bears really began to take off and find their form. Yeah. We certainly can't make any assumptions about that this year. And it's not the true buy. But man, this mini buy is legit from Thursday to Monday with the guys who are not only the ones who've been missing, but the ones who've been playing through stuff, which I include DeAndre Swift amongst that list.

So this is an important time away to be able to fine-tune for the bears get as healthy as they can and then face the defending Super Bowl champions. So, Ant, sticking in that neighborhood just for a second, obviously the last time the Bears played a division game, they got embarrassed at Lambeau Field. And yet they summoned the response in the next two performances. When you take the collective of the Atlanta game and what we saw Thursday at Soldier Field, what for you is most notable about the response? We've known that this team has grit.

has some of those intangibles that you hope that teams will be able to showcase. But just the way that Caleb has been driving these guys. And I had a chance, and I know I've talked about it on the midday show here back during the preseason. When I was able to go there and speak to Caleb in training camp, I asked him about his leadership this season and potentially becoming more consistently demonstrative. And not every leader handles every situation exactly the same, but it certainly struck me even back Caleb's rookie year. When he was at the point,

late in some of those games as a rookie, where he started showing that he was willing to push his teammates, he was willing to be demonstrative, yell at his teammates, cycle his fingers to get some tempo going, clap his hands, just showcase more outward energy, exuberance, leadership in that sort of visible manner. His team seemed to respond to it,

and they certainly did last year. And now with Caleb back in the lineup, the refinement, Of his game, we're just coming off of watching PCA, perhaps with the Cubs, have an NL MVP year, certainly a caliber season. And a lot of that was about his refinement with the way he handled himself at the plate. We're watching Caleb going about the same process here, and both very early in their careers.

That's a parallel that really stands out to me. Watching Pete Crow Armstrong with the plate discipline and the control in the batters box. And Caleb, in year two, taking less sacks, was a big part of that journey. And now we're seeing a guy with refinement, precision in the pocket, and accuracy that's just off the charts, starting to realize the full scope

of what he can bring to the table. So I think the tangibles are really fun to discuss, but to me the intangible of Caleb, truly taking control of this team as a leader is what stands out to me most. I love that comp. That's so good. The Pete Crowe-Armstrong one.

We all get to watch it in really, real time. There are some things that felt like with PCA that just felt like they were so far away in terms of his plate discipline. And then you look at like Caleb Williams, things that like the accuracy, it felt like it was so far away. And both were already exciting, right? Like both were electrifying talents.

Right. And really, really good. But this precision that each have been able to infuse into their games in the midst of competition. Yeah. Certainly there's work over the offseason that goes into these things, but Caleb having to leave the lineup for a few weeks with an injury and coming back.

He was exceptional in the season opener against Carolina, but we still saw kind of the younger version of Caleb, I'll call him, you know, the young version of Caleb. Now there's a version of Caleb here in these two games since he's returned to the lineup that is just so in command and so precise. And that throw where he evades a tackler on third and nine from inside his own 10, where he evades a tackler in the pocket, shrugs his shoulder, and then immediately gets his platform, gets his base back under him, reestablishes throwing mechanics,

and then throws that dart to a dunzae. That is just such high-level QB precision that Caleb didn't seem like he really had in his bag. When you start evading people in the pocket, he's like, oh, I'm not the fastest guy on the field. Let me go move the chains with my legs, but that wasn't Caleb in that moment. That was Caleb at pure quarterback level play. All right. So that said, you're right. I mean, there were some marvelous throws. They're like finding Luther Burton all night. Actually, well, first half, basically, Luther Burden. And that's okay. That's all right, man, because Roma Dunesay showed up in the second half. Let's look at these two games, the Atlanta game and the New England game, specifically for Caleb Williams. And just to refresh everybody, the Atlanta game, 30 of 36, 30-5 yards, one TD, zero picks.

and then the New England game with all the throws, 22 of 33, for 308 yards, two TDs, and zero interceptions. If it's possible for you to discern between the two, which game did you like better from Caleb Williams these last couple of weeks? I'd go with the New England game. I think largely because of what the opponent presented to the Bears. The Patriots game was not a game that the Bears were in complete control of, throughout because you had an opposing offense, an opposing quarterback,

that seemed to have some answers for the Bears defense. Now, the Dennis Allen defense, they certainly made it difficult on Drake May and the Pat's offense, and it looked like early when the Bears' offense scored some points that there was a chance to take full control of this game. But then you saw a team that played in the Super Bowl last year. You saw a young quarterback that has every reason and every right to be just as confident in his skills as the Bears quarterback. and Drake May did have this response mechanism that took over.

And that, to me, that duel of QBs where it didn't have that 2018 golf Mahomes thing, where I remember coming on the station when it was like, you know, Rams Chiefs. And I think, you know, whatever the final score, it was like 85 to 78 or something like that. I came on the station the next day and I don't remember which show I was on, but it might have been like Dan and Connor or Dan and Lawrence. I don't remember who was Dan and somebody asking me if defense was a lot of And somebody else. Yeah, right.

Is defense outlawed in the NFL? Is every quarterback showdown going to be like this? Like, just chill? Take a breath. These are two very talented young QBs who dueled their brains out. And yes, someone came out on top. But folks are going to figure out how to play defense. And I would say both defenses in that game on Thursday presented challenges to the QB to those opposing offenses.

But both guys were ready and raring to go. Patriots were banged up. Bears were banged up. And that Slug Fest that was kind of, that played out throughout the game, required the QBs to be an enhanced version of themselves, to make so many plays physically and mentally. That was just as fun of watch as anything because Drake May and the Pats didn't just go out there and lay down.

Like the Bears controlled the game against Atlanta until Ben Johnson decided to sub some guys in and let him back in. It's Rahimi and Grotie on 104. The score, Dan Weider, is in for Layla today. in this segment with Anthony Heron is being sponsored by great clips. It's going to be great. Anth, we'll spin it forward here a little bit because this trip next week to Seattle is a challenge. And I think we're all in agreement that what Seattle showed last night was them at their best defensively.

When you look at this Seattle defense, what strikes you more? Is it the paper printout of the statistics or is it the video of how they get there? They are just so long, athletic. and in attack mode constantly, not schematic attack mode, but there's a ferocity to the attitude that the Seahawks bring to the table. It's a reason why the Bears

went out and made their top free agent acquisition before we're starting safety for the reigning Super Bowl champs because they wanted some of that athleticism and attitude to be infused into this defense where you want a certain temperament out there where the opponent feels you, where the film

speaks to you where you just know these guys are flying around out there. And when you watch Seattle on film, yeah, they're going to give up a chunk play here and there. There's going to be some of that. They've gotten stronger throughout the season, it seems to me. But man, can they run and do they hunt together? There's a swarm to their approach to things. It just feels like the 12th man doesn't seem like it's only in the crowd when you're playing in Seattle. It does feel like they've got 12 or 13 defenders because the space on the field is so,

condensed with how long and athletic they are. And there's a precision to the way they operate. You don't see them getting out flanked in a gap. You don't see them blowing coverages. You need to be able to. And this would be, I think, a fascinating challenge for Caleb, who's gotten back to extending plays and scrambling around. But he hasn't gotten back to running 21 miles an hour and picking up 30 yards at a chunk.

He's extended plays laterally. You looked at that Monday night game, or I'm sorry, the Sunday night game with Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes had to get back into some of that improvisational bag to really get the Chief's offense moving, and that's when he was able to do it. So where's Caleb bad in that regard? We know he can't extend the play, but that balancing act against this defense

is really going to be fascinating just to see how he balances just running the play that Ben called and seeing if it's a good enough play to execute, or does he have to throw that cape on a little more frequently and get this defense in the second reaction mode? Did you also find yourself thinking what I think every single Bears fan was thinking last night watching Jackson Smith and Jigba do his thing

at the highest possible level for nine catches and 150 yards. How are they going to stop JSN? Did that go through your mind, Big Ants? They're not going to stop James. So, yes, it went through my mind, but I feel like the answer is that they're not going to stop them. What they have to do is hope they can force Sam Donald into a mistake, or mistakes, plural.

Because he has always been prone to those mistakes. back in college when he, I called, I believe it was his first career, no, his second career start. No, it was. I called his first career start years ago at USC when he took over for Max Brown. He'd come into the game the previous week and taken over. He was a freshman. Max Brown was the upperclassman QB, five-star recruit, but just wasn't moving the USC offense

that well. And Sam Donald just came in and provided this spark, this playmaking, the willingness to throw into tight windows, extending plays, running all over the place. It was really fun, and he led USC to a bunch of wins. But man, did he turn the ball over a bunch? It's the main reason he was the number three pick instead of the number one pick when he came out because Baker Mayfield did seem to have a more mature sort of precision to the way he played quarterback. He had played it a lot more in college where Donald was three years removed from high school.

Fast forward to this stretch of games, and Jackson Smith and Jigba, what he does as a receiver, the way they constantly move him around, not only just in alignment, but in motion, it's a track me. It's like watching Steph Curry play basketball when you watch JSN play receiver because there is so much constant movement and the conditioning that he has to be in

from a cardiovascular perspective to run such a wide, varied sequence of routes from all these alignments and the way they motioned him all over the place. It's exhausting just looking at him do it, let alone try to be a defecutive, getting a bead on how they're going to utilize his skill. So it'll be a really unique challenge.

Talking to Anthony Haren here on 104.3, the score is Rahimi and Grotie. Dan Weeder is in. We've got so much more to talk about with Dan Weeder about the bears, about the division. We'll see if we can get it all in in the next 10 to 15 minutes or so as Big Ant will join us for another segment next here on Rahimi and Grody with Weedman on 1043, the score.