Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Bears are in a race to improve defense as they prepare to face Vikings

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote discussed whether the Bears can improve their defensive performance against the Vikings on Sunday after its rough performance in the season opener.

I got two words for you. Yes. There are actually two words. It's, it's, uh, it's game week. It's Friday. Game week. It's a football Friday. Oh, feels so good.

Specifically, you are listening to a four seasons heating, air conditioning, plumbing, sewer, and electric football Friday presented by your local four dealers and advent, along with Layla Rahimi. I am Mark Grody. We are Rahimi and Grody. How are you, Layla? I can't stop laughing at this. Was it yesterday that I said you start to wear the same colors as your partner?

And then we come into work like this? Yeah, we were both wearing Rojo yesterday. That'd be red. And Layla said that. I'm like, okay, Layla, whatever. And then we both come in today wearing some form of mauve and or pink or violet. I would say you have salmon on. Salmon, yes.

I'm wearing my salmon polo and you are wearing. How would you characterize the color of the hoodie that you are wearing right now? Hot pink. That's right. Lela is a hot pink. So a Peloton hoodie. I still do my Peloton. I love it. We're open. If you need a card for 100 bucks off, I got you.

Layla, do you feel better about the Bears' defense at all this week as they prepare to go up against the Minnesota Vikings? A Vikings team, which last week did only have the Minnesota offense, even though they had a big number scoring-wise. They had 239 total yards from things that you have heard. heard this week the way you feel from what you saw from the Bears last week. Do you feel any better heading into this game about the Bears defense than maybe you did last week? I don't know how to feel about it. That's the thing. I don't know if what we saw was a mirage or if it's a actual proof. And then the other part of this is, does the quarterback matter for Minnesota? Because Kyler Murray got upgraded on the practice report. So what are we

led to believe there. To limited? Yeah, does it, does it matter? You know, that's the other part of this. I feel like I get what Brad Biggs was doing because as much as we and the hot take machine, as Danny likes to call it, the take industrial complex, the NFL watchers, as much as we've been excited about Ben Johnson versus Brian Flores, the other side of it is Kevin O'Connell, who was coach of the year in 24 against Dennis Allen, who's the former head coach, long time with the Saints, and he has been the Bears D.C. now. And that battle matters too. The concern is, does it matter more than the Bears offense overcoming whatever Brian Flores is throwing at them? And I think that that's a very valid question in all of this, so much so that I wonder if the quarterback even matters if it's

Wins or Kyler Murray. Murray is more mobile. We know that. But we saw Wince execute the offense to a very nice level in their comeback win last week over the Packers. There is an area that I will continue to be concerned about this week, and it's pretty obvious, the secondary. Jalen Johnson and Tyreek Stevenson and the matchups that they will have this week against the very talented Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, who was their version of Colson Loveland last week, because I think he was just targeted a couple times. I don't think he got his hand on a football, but we know he's had some huge games against

the Bears. We know how talented he is. So I think it is probably obvious that that's still going to be an area of concern. We'll get to that to Jalen here in a second. The area that I do feel like will improve is the linebackers, for a couple of reasons. The linebackers were bad last week for the Bears, specifically T.J. Edwards and Devin Bush. Yeah, they weren't making enough tackles at all. I mean, you said it.

Like when you look at the numbers, when Dylan Thineman, God bless him, has double-digit tackles. That's not a good sign. In his debut. Right. His NFL debut. And I love the sound tackling of Dylan Theoneman. I thought that that was really good.

And I have high hopes for Dylan Theanman. It was nice that he made the plays that came his way. You had to do that. But these are two good linebackers. Like T.J. Edwards and Devin Bush both had good camps. I thought they both had good pre-season. So I think that there is enough evidence to suggest that those two guys will have a better game. I have not lost faith in those two linebackers at this point. But let's get to

the Jaylon Johnson part of this. Because we've been asking the questions all week. One of the questions that I've been asking, I know you as well, Leila, is for Jalen Johnson, is this a physical thing or is it a mental thing or just guessing wrong? And most of the experts that we had on and that I'd read about said when they looked at the tape, Patrick Manley, Clay Harbor, that it was more of not a physical thing necessarily, that it was guessing wrong or being in the wrong spot, the mental part of the game. Take a listen to what Jalen Johnson said earlier this week when he discussed the defensive performance from week one against the Panthers. I would just say not sharp. Just started with myself as well. I know I was I wasn't on my game.

I wasn't into it how I needed to be mentally physically, and I think it kind of just trickled throughout the defense. I think at times we showed up and made plays, but I think overall we left a lot of plays out there to be made. We weren't clean and precise, I would say, in the run game, gave them too many explosives in the passing game. But just overall, I think we just weren't on our game, but I know I'm confident that we'll get back to it.

It was funny. In the pre-show meeting, when we listened to that, Ray Diaz popped up and he was alerted about the mental part of the game, and he should be that he said he wasn't ready mentally. I was more freaked out when he said that he didn't feel good physically out there. And I don't know if there was a follow-up to it, but that's what I heard from him almost every time I was in the locker room post game last year. I didn't feel good physically.

Well, that's it. That's exactly what you didn't want to hear. Also, we were hoping for a healthy Jalen Johnson. So if that's the case, this doesn't work as well as they wanted it to. They're already injured. they already decided to trade away Jervon Dexter off the defensive line they're depending on their

secondary to help encourage some sack production out of the defensive line here you can't afford to have this happen what you really can't afford to have happen are question marks like this what is anybody going to do if you have Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison on the other side

you're going to go after Jalen Johnson right you're going to go after who you think might be the weakest link Are you going to run a bunch of crossing patterns and make them run all over the field? Are you going to make Tyreek Stevenson guess again and put a double move on them and watch them fall down? These are concerning questions out of veterans. Jalen Coker had 138 yards. And Jalen Coker might be maybe he's poised for a breakout season.

Justin Jefferson greater than Jalen Coker. Jordan Addison, greater than Jalen Coker, I would argue. And the combination is greater than Jalen Coker and Teteroa McMillan. And I know that that was the plan. It was pretty obvious, at least through the first three quarters, that the goal was to limit Tetaroa McMillan's targets. But that left open another dude. And we've seen that happen with the Vikings,

where Addison becomes the guy. That's the whole point of having that one-two punch. If you're a cover corner and you're taking away half of the field, what's the other half that's left? Does somebody eat off of that? But when you're a cover corner who's supposed to take away half of the field, and you can't, what are we working with here? And this is a question that needs to be answered.

Or at least addressed. And you don't have necessarily the amount of personnel you want to to fully be able to. It was interesting, too, listening to Herb Howard during his Bears hit. I think he talked about it with us yesterday. Yeah, he did. He talked about the possibility. Like maybe eventually we see Malik Mohamed step in on the outside for Tyreek Stevenson. So there are some things that are in the mix in terms of like real maneuver.

to help make this defense better. Dennis Allen also meeting with the media yesterday, and he addressed, as difficult it was, to get answers out of him yesterday, the number of miss tackles from week one. I think, you know, if you go throughout the National Football League in week one, the tackling usually is not up to standard. You know, as I saw some of these other games throughout the league. You know, you see a lot of mistackles. I think part of that is a product of, you know, not very much tackling going on in the preseason. And so you look at like you do everything else, all right, why does a mistackle occur? And more often, it is a fundamental technique flaw. You know, guys, you know, not taking proper angles.

guys not doing a good job of coming to balance, guys lunging and leaving their feet instead of running through the tackle. I mean, I think those are things that you see, you know, early on in the season. I was a little surprised at some of the tackling and that, you know, that really, I thought we were a pretty good tackling team throughout the course of the preseason. It didn't show up as well as I would have liked to against Carolina.

So that's, again, another one of those things that we're looking to improve. Bears defense coordinator, Dennis Allen, right there. They were, they were a pretty good tackling team from what I saw in the preseason and the times that I was out at camp and they were actually allowed to tackle. But it was alarming, especially early in the game. There was a play early on where Dylan Thineman and Tyreek Stevenson whiffed on back-to-back attempts to tackle. And there's nothing more frustrating than that when you have a guy, unless it's a high degree of difficulty tackle, which they were not. That's very frustrating. It is. And I do wonder,

allowed how much the weather in Carolina played into that. Well, we see a different version more crisp with the weather being more crisp. Yeah. You're going to be okay with that crisp, cool weather? I felt that walking into it. I don't like it. But the football players do, and that's what matters here. So will that be affected?

What was it like a hundred and, it kept on going up, I felt like from the Christina Pink report that it was 160 degrees on the turf and it was like 400 degrees by the fourth quarter on the turf. But I will say, as somebody who's had shoes melt on a turf, like, it's, it's not fun to be on an artificial surface. Yeah, they get gummy. The souls get gummy. And you're like, what the heck happened? We've had, like, we've had, especially in Austin, when we had like 100 days over 100, that, yeah, your, your shoes will suffer. You will pay the price. You got to be ready. They're doing sidelines, man. Nobody's looking out for you. You got, you got to have your own. You got to be prepared. I remember, I mean, I was filming. I had like a big ass TV camera and stuff.

You're doing the all for one. The big boy camera. Yeah, my job is to film practice. But the point is, the temperature is measured in the shade. And it's an ambient temperature. It's not radiating off of an artificial surface. So I do think that might have played into it. It doesn't really matter, though.

The other team is expected to tackle two. And neither team did well. That's true. You're talking about a team that gave up 478 yards in the Bears and 552 in the Panthers. Thank goodness for the Colts who gave up 506 or else 31 and 32, would be Bears and Panthers. Defenses are not quite locked in yet. I mean, while we're at the Minnesota defense allowed 419 last week, in a win.

Yes, your NFC North is well represented at the bottom of the defensive yards allowed. Yeah, it is truly sorting itself out, man. I love that we're getting into the division this early, though. Like at NFC North, important game. By the way, against a Vikings team. which has won six in a row at Soldier Field. Just something to think about kids when we're doing our picks here. That means that the Vikings or the Bears have not beaten the Vikings.

Would that make it 2019? Would that make my math right? That they haven't won? The Bears have not beaten the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier since 2019. What in the hell is going on with the Bears against the Vikings? I'm just saying... Well, I mean, part of it was they had a bad team. And then last year, that was the J.J. McCarthy comeback that led to him getting offensive player of the week.

21 points in the fourth quarter they scored. And you're excited about it starting in week two. Well, that year it started in week one. That's true. It did. We got a text here. Yes. 312-644-67 is our number, 417. The two of you must have talked ahead of time about your choice and colors that you're going to wear shirts today. I can assure you we did not.

Our goal is to look cute on the daily. Mine isn't. Not anymore. I did that for years. I'm done. Nope. Okay. All right. I will carry the mantle of cuteness. Yeah, it's your job to look hot now. That is true. Should I pop my collar? Do you think that would be hot? No, no. Please no. No. I know we're going to see the All-American Rejects later, but that doesn't mean we bring it all back. I'm not putting on a double polo again. I'm not popping my collar with said double polo. I'm not pairing it with American Eagle khakis again, okay? I've been through that in my life. Do I need to, by the way, what, okay, while we're doing, because we'll talk more Riot Fest in our closing segment of the show today. What should I, should, do I need to bring an umbrella, a slicker? Do I need a jacket tonight? I don't think, I don't think umbrellas that are allowed. Like, you can't always bring umbrellas into weapons, right?

Correct, yeah. Okay, so is it going to get chilly? Do I need to, should I wear shorts? I need help, Leila, you're my life coach. So there's this app on your phone that says weather. Yeah, but there's this Leila sitting right here who could just tell me these things Why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you want to see? Welcome to Movie Phone.

Also, yeah, if you look at the weather app, more importantly on Sunday, right now, mine says 90% chance of rain. Tonight? Sunday. Oh, Sunday. Oh, okay. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Wake up!

Yes. Wake up! Wake up! Thank you. Thank you. I needed that. It does say that the rain is subsiding, though, around the noon hour. So that's good friends.

Yeah. Okay. On call. But, you know, it also said originally. originally they were supposed to rate a bunch today. I could go for a fun rain game at Solderfield. I'll be in the press box. I'll be protected.

Fun rain game, like slide on your belly into the end zone like Superman? How about, yeah, like Justin Fields in the first game against San Francisco, the Matt Eberflus. Did you forget about those moments that we had together, guys? With the Matt Eberfluse moments. Yeah, and remember how we're, oh my God, the TV reports. Oh, everybody's like, the hits principle is valid.

It's coming into focus. It's all good. I'm going to repeat the team talking points. Here's how they won this game. It felt good that day. I'll tell you what, man. I'm a reporter. Can't come up with my own idea.

I lost a phone. I lost a phone. I lost a phone that day. You did? Yeah, because it was like, it was pouring. Like, I was the side. I was there on the sidelines. I was there.

You weren't. And I lost a phone. Didn't lose it. It got damaged by the rain. Yeah. You lost a lot of good men out there. The company was nice enough to find me a new phone. If I can give you any advice, it is to manually back up your phone.

I know. the cloud claims to work. I'm here to tell you. And this is why... Manually back up your phone. Layla is a life coach. And sometimes she accepts that for me and sometimes she just, you look it up. I lost four years of information because I didn't manually back up because the cloud didn't work. And I'm not here for you to tell me why it didn't work.

I come from a long line of electrical engineers. Just manually back up your phone. And then you have to be like, hey, sorry, lost your number. Who is this texting me right now? Thank you to our producers. Ray Teap. Radio Teas and Tyler Buterbaugh. The cloud doesn't always work.

Our video producers are Connor O'Donnell, Max Curtis, Jacob Stutz, and the scorechicago.com editor is Cody Westerland. She's Laila Rahimi. I'm Mark Grody. Coming up next, we'll talk about Kyler Gordon because there were some Bears players testimonials on the North Shore yesterday that we must discuss next on Rahimi and Grody on 1043, the score. Look how hot I look.

here.