Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Bears’ most productive linebacker will likely be a cap casualty

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris discussed how Bears linebacker Tremaine Edmunds could get let go this offseason as a salary cap casualty.

Laila Rahimi, Marshall Harris, Mark Grody, Rahimi Harris and Grody on 1043, The Score. He had his third interception of the year last week. His fourth put six on the board and gives the Bears the lead. That is courtesy of Fox. This is Rahimi Harris and Grody on 104.3, the score. And Tremaine Edmins, despite being on injured reserve, still did work. still had the most tackles of any bear this season in the regular season, despite being on injured reserve.

112 combined tackles, hit 61 solo tackles, 51 assists. That's how you get to the number. The four interceptions, as we've mentioned, Tremaine Edmonds had the season that I think a lot of us thought the Bears would get out of him with the Matt Eberfluse defense. It ended up happening with Dennis Allen. I want to say,

Tremaine had been surprised me this year. Yeah. Because I kind of cast him off as a guy who's just, you know, underperforming based on the contract. And then obviously you connect him directly with Roquan Smith and understand this is an all-pro player in Baltimore that you're comparing him to. And at some point you're like, well, why didn't they just give Roquan the money to stay?

We're not going to move up to draft and all the off-ball linebackers. Yeah, but to see him actually come through and look like the guy for the 13. I know he missed four, he missed four games. But for the 13 games to look like the guy that you thought that they were acquiring, that was good news for the Bears and a stabilizing force. Remember, on a Bears team that had a secondary in serious flux. And not just a secondary in serious flux. Like, there's a reason we're calling him one of the most productive bears

and the most productive linebacker for sure. T.J. Edwards was plagued by injury this year. Unfortunately, the most scary looking one happened during the playoffs as we saw with the broken leg. Noah Sewell ended up going out for the rest of the year with the Achilles. There were so many bad injuries that the linebackers suffered as well.

And for Tremaine Edmins to step up and also have the season that again, I think that's why the bears wanted him. You know, he flourished and he didn't say much when it came to why he wasn't producing before. But alluded, I think, in very subtle ways to being put in a better position to succeed this time around.

And Kevin Fishbane, our friend from the athletic, did a story on the Bears tough spot that they're in under the salary cap. I know it's more flexible now. And I know it's going north of $300 million, which is a great thing for everyone.

But the Bears still have so much money committed to players that there are very likely some cap casualties that are going to have to occur. Edmonds is possibly one of them. According to over the cap, the Bears ranked 24th in available cap space and are $5 million currently in the red. So they're going to have to be some tough decisions that are made.

Edmonds making $17.44 million in the cap hit just this last season. And it makes you wonder what's going to happen. It's the fact that you look at where he is compared to other linebackers at his specific position. He's the fourth highest paid one. And so you have to weigh what you got to. out of Tremaine Edmonds this season against the value of what you're paying compared to what other teams are paying that same position. I know the salaries are going to go up, as you mentioned, because of the salary cap, but you

still have to look at what are our priorities as an organization position-wise? Because we know what's going on with the secondary, specifically the safety position, and where can we shave some money off? And I'm sorry, but he's the most obvious candidate just because of where we are in his contract, the timing, and the structure of the contract. Yeah, it's the difference between that cap savings and the dead money. That's the key here. And as we see in Kevin's article, and he included a lot of nice graphics, too, on the

athletic if you want to check it out. It's $15 million for Tremaine, as we mentioned, in cap savings, $2.437 million in dead money. That ratio is high. It's a low amount of dead money for the amount of savings that you can get. Two other names that deserve to be mentioned here on this list. Cole Commet is an $8.4 million cap hit. That's $3.2 million in dead money, so more than Edmonds. And then DeAndre Swift, I don't know why they would want to do this necessarily

unless they see a clear upgrade at the position. 7.47 million in cap savings that would lead to only $1.33 million in dead money. And that's when this gets hard. You know, we knew at some point that would happen. think about the fact that Kevin Byard is up for free agency, the league leader in interceptions in 2025's regular season, Nashad Wright is a free agent, Jaquan Brisker is a free agent,

all four of the safeties are. So throw Jonathan Owens in there as well. There are some very tough decisions on the defensive side of the ball that have to be made, and as we've mentioned before, because of all the money you're giving to your line right now. So my first question is, what do you think the conversation is like right now specifically between Ryan Poles

and obviously C.C. Ben Johnson, but Dennis Allen. Yeah. And Dennis Allen getting what he needs. He's a guy who moved, switched those guys position-wise. We talk about Tremaine Edmonds, switching his linebacker position from what we had seen with T.J. Edwards. And clearly, when they were both healthy, and it was limited, they were more effective in whatever,

Dennis Allen drew up systematically. But I want to know after seeing a season of him and really only a flash, a burst of some of the other guys like Tyreek, what does he think about the way the Bears' defense looks, especially since Shemar Turner? Like the draft guys he even got didn't really contribute. Yeah, Shemar Turner out for the year, as we know. Zay Frazier. Ruben Hippolyte He was a healthy scratch many times And when he did play

He got injured in the game he played in Right So that didn't help And he was far down the list Yeah it's not good Which is why I wouldn't necessarily give the draft And hey that that's another segment We're doing later today

I think it comes down to knowing That you can extend some people Right like you can extend a restructure The more years you have left on the deal The more you can kick that money out So that's the concept that we heard Mike Floreo talk about. Does Kyler Gordon fit into that? Do you want to commit to more years for Kyler Gordon?

Do you want to restructure some of that salary as a signing bonus? That's a possibility. We saw them do that with Joe Tuny on the other side. He gets an extension and they're able to move somebody around for him. So you go with the players that you can. T.J. Edwards, maybe you can do that with his as well if you want to. Dio O'Dingbo I don't think you'd do much with

Dio right about now He's one year in Yeah but no that's what I'm saying So the years left on the deal You can do more when it comes to restructuring and freeing up money But you're gonna have to have some odd man out You know somebody's

There's a bunch of people on this team who Were deals You know like Nashan Wright was a deal Tremaine Edmins ends up being more of a deal Because of the performance he just had And as we mentioned that cap money hit is not much So Dennis Allen, I guess you have to start with, I start with a line of scrimmage and then you move backwards. But when your secondary was the most productive unit you had, it's a very tough thing to do.

The Bears made the playoffs not just because of Caleb Williams and the offense is an ascension, but because of the turnovers they created. And when you talk about the secondary being the most productive unit you have, what you're not saying is that front was the least productive unit they, had, and that's on both sides of the ball. That's on special teams. I'm sorry, Amontes what got to double-digit sacks?

Austin Booker... But to the price of $25.0.085 million next season? Like, that's the issue. Jalen Johnson, by the way, at 25 million. But at least Jailin Johnson was hurt and came back, and that was more understandable based on track record, the path that Jalen Johnson took this particular season. Dio Dio Dainbo, 20 and a half million for next.

year. Grady Jarrett 18.9. Jonah Jackson, 19.5. I'm not mad about that. And when you look at the positional rank for some of these guys, like DiO Dingbo getting the 14th most salary, like 14 is not high. 14 is about league average if you think about it.

But what I'll say is you got to get that type of production from those players when you pay them the money. You got to be at least getting the money that you're paying them that value in comparison to what other guys are getting paid. paid around the league. 630. This is Adrian and Oceanside. He's a, he's a texter who texts regularly.

Wouldn't a restructure for Edmonds make more sense? Cutting him would create a need for two linebackers because that Edwards is hurt. Oh, I'm aware, but he doesn't have the years to work with here. So that's what makes it so tough. You've got to think about it in terms of restructuring for the years remaining on the deal. So that's why this is tricky.

Yeah, and trying to figure it out, I like that we have Mike Floreo on because he explained how they try to maybe over-dramatize the restructuring of contracts because the clause is there we can restructure your contract to suit salary cap purposes. It's less about the actual idea of restructuring and maybe even about waiving. It's more about can you evaluate the talent if you were to waive a Tremaine Edmonds to say that you're going to get that level of production from someone else. And to be clear, that is the last. this next season is the last year of Tremaine Edmonds's contract. That's why this is hard.

And usually you get to the last year of a contract, it's like, well, are you going to extend him or are you going to let him walk or are you going to cut him? Those are like, that's a specific heading into the last year of a contract thing in the NFL because you'd rather cut a guy early than late, and you'd rather get something for him than not. Yeah, that's the other piece of this. The hard part too is also, as much as we've talked about the fungibility, of say the running back position or the safety position. It's also a linebacker in a way.

The Bears thought that Roquan Smith was replaceable. Definitely expendable almost. They tried. They tried. They did not do a good job of... They did not replicate. Yeah. The performances are two different things.

Granted, Baltimore has a better front, but how many teams don't have a better front than the Bears? Let's be honest. How many teams don't have a better front? Yeah, that's a good question. Or at least more effective, right? More consistently effective. On a team that you expect, like if you're going to have 11 wins,

if we go through all the teams that have at least 11 wins, where do you think the bear's front ranks? Oh, man. That's the equation. Yeah, that's what makes us hard. Because the ultimate lesson learned from this past Super Bowl, and really the last two is how important line play is, you've got to be able to protect on an offensive line,

but also you have to absolute monsters on defense. That's how the last two Super Bowls were won, with absolute monsters on defense. Well, and building from the trenches out, you know, and they thought that they had. They thought they had at least paid a lot for their trenches, and that's why this is so tricky, too. You know, when you've got guys on rookie deals

who are cornerstones and they're on the line, that makes your life a lot easier. At least you've got Darnell right on one side. But he's going to get really expensive quickly, too. Yeah, he's going to get expensive. Caleb's going to, this window is so important right now. This is one of those years. This is one of two years in which you can do more than you're going to be able to do after the next two seasons, a whole lot more because of the flexibility of the rookie contract of the quarterback.

The other part of this, too, is you know what I'd really like to have if I have all these tough questions facing my salary cap? An assistant general manager, Phil Ian Cunningham's spot. They need one of those? Yeah. You think you need more eyes on scouting, especially when your draft board is going to. have to be a lot different now that you pick lower in the draft, for example? I'll be surprised. Wow.

I'll be seriously. I'll be seriously surprised if they don't have a new assistant GM by the end of next week, before the combine. Don't make that bet with Mark Grody. He doesn't know if they're going to fill the job. At all? Yes, for the career. I can't see them not filling the job unless they're just going to redistribute titles in

another way. You've got to have a certain number of people doing a certain number of jobs because that's the way front offices work. They do have a cap dude at the Bears. Like, don't look up Bears' cap dude. I don't think you're going to get the result you want. But you're saying they have a dude. They do have a dude, yeah.

So it will be interesting to see what they do to get their front office hole and their coaching staff hole for that matter. I understand it's Matt Feinstein. So he's the vice president of football administration. And he spent his last five years as director of football administration. And now he's been promoted. I don't know that cap dude is part of the title there, but everybody's got a cap guy. Yeah.

And sometimes the cap guy has wield more power than some situations than others. And then that guy has to leave when it's time to go home, see Minnesota Vikings. Yeah. Play the buzzer. And lives in my head rent free most of the time. Coming up next, it is halftime. and boy, do we have something for you? The Seahawks Parade and their social media posting were both really entertaining.

And we might have to play some other sound effects too. Next.