Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Bears' offense explodes in a 59-37 win over Panthers!

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote reveled in the Bears' offensive explosion in a 59-37 win against the Panthers on Sunday in their season opener.

It will not get old for me to say today. Bears 59, Carolina 37. As we welcome you in to Rahimi and Grotie on 104.3, the score. You are absolutely listening to a Plummer's 911 football Monday presented by Busey Bank and great clips. Welcome in. We are open 312, 644, 67. Layla, I'm just going to answer a text message. right away here from the 708.

Groats, how many bears does that bear's performance get from yesterday? 59 bears. They get 59 bears. Shout out to Adam Zensky, because he actually brought that up on Twitter. Shout out to you, Mr. Studs. But 59 bears, I think on this day, is appropriate.

How are you, Layla? I'm hung over. I blacked out what happened yesterday. It's so perfect. And the funniest part is, there were frustrating moments in the game. And it doesn't even matter because they just kept going at their game plan. That second half was a whoopin.

And I'm sorry. I'm not sorry. I'm not sorry. I wanted to go for two. I wanted to see the 60 on the board. I wanted to see it. I wanted to feel it. I wanted to experience it.

And I know that's not the classy thing to do. But neither was Channing Green Bay sucks during the game multiple times. Charlotte. How good is that? All of it was, it was on 10. We knew this day was going to come. We joked about it. I said the game plan was going to be Big 12 after dark. 47, 42 was going to be the outcome of not this particular game, but just joke that that was kind of the mindset we needed to have coming into the season. Didn't stop it from feeling good, though. No, it did not. And in the words of Lawrence Taylor, as it pertains to the defense, You all got to get a whole lot better than that.

Don't worry, we'll get to that. And the 478 yards, the defense allowed 353 passing 125 on the ground. I think it's hilarious listening to the five Butte open that Tyler Bueberbaugh put together and hearing Adam Amin appropriately on Fox, along with Drew Brees, saying, in this game, think about it. Think about a game that the Bears win 59 to 37. and in the opening sequence of the game on offense, he is having to say things like disaster strikes.

Disaster struck in a game for the Chicago Bears where they scored 59 points. And it did feel awfully disastrous early on in the game when there is an explosive run by D'Andre Swift to begin the game. And there's Roma Dunzee with a hole. And then there's the guy, Luther Burden, that we're all buying stock in because Ben Johnson's told us,

told us to buy stock in Luther Burden. He gets the ball. He does his thing. He's running up field, and he fumbles the football. And Stevenson and Thineman are missing tackles. And you're all like, oh, man, is this going to take a little while to get going? And then all they did after that, ladies and gentlemen, it's not going to get old giving out all these tidbits today. Seven of their next 12 drives were touchdowns for the Chicago Bears. Holy bleep, yay bears. That's our segment for the next hour. Yeah, because it is. A Chicago Bears team scored 59 points.

A loud 37 and scored 59. Say it again. A Chicago Bears team scored 59 points. Your Chicago Bears team yesterday. Yes. That doesn't feel real. No, it doesn't. And that's the whole point of this.

We wanted to see what this offense could do. And yeah, I feel like the first three drives still felt like the preseason. But once they got it going, they really got it going. And it was just the way they kept. to the game plan too. There were times where they weren't getting that penetration between the tackles that they wanted from the run game. Doesn't matter. We're going to

keep doing it. And then we see what happens. When you've got Kyle Menungai just running over people for that 61-year touchdown, the receivers who were blocking all day. I'm not saying this game was perfect by any means, but take the dub. Take the dub when you've put the

entire NFL on notice. To score 59 points in a game in the NFL, I don't care who your opponent it is. I don't care how it happens. There's a reason this is such a rarity. And your team did it on Sunday to open the season, no less. Statement has been made. Yeah, and I love hearing things like that. This is a warning to the NFC North. And is this not 5937 necessarily? This is the template that we've all been talking about in this offseason as in we've all expected and assumed that Kayla. William's and this offense would take the next step, that Colston Loveland would take the next

step, that Luther Burden would take the next step, that myriad of guys on this offense would take the next step, and that the defense wouldn't be particularly good. Now, will the bear score 59 points a game? No, they may not score another, well, maybe that's a good question. Will the bear score 50 again this season? Probably, potentially. Potentially. I'm not even going to worry about will right now. I'm just going to live in what I saw yesterday. That's a good place to live because that is not going to get old. But it's amazing that these were, by everybody, essentially, the talking points of the Bears. The offense goes to the next level. Still pretty worried about the defense. A lot of ambiguity in the defense. And one of our

great hopes, I thought, was that maybe there is one person who can make this defense better. Maybe that's Jalen Johnson. Unfortunately, Jalen Johnson did not have a particularly good day yesterday. Nor did Tyreek Stevenson have a very good day yesterday. And I'm not looking at it and say, okay, there's still a problem with Jalen Johnson. He may have just had a bad day. And it's been a while since he has played, obviously, too, except towards the end of last year. But it is amazing how in one game, maybe a microcosm, maybe symbolic of what we're going to see for the rest of the year. But I can tell, I can promise you that that is exactly what you and I were saying. That's what our listeners were saying, that this was, this was the template for the Bears,

59 to 37. Yeah, sadly. And there were moments, yes, everybody talking about the defense, our text line, or you can call us too. We're opening up the phones on this football Monday, 312, 644, 67, because we are getting texts like that. We are hearing from people about that defense. Like A15, scoring 59 points is great, but when are we going to talk about the 37 points allowed? offense is fire, but we can't rely on them scoring 40 points a game. You might have to right now. Sure. And you can look at the box score metrics and you can see when most of the tackles, when your leading tacklers are in the secondary and they're not in the linebacking core to me, that's always a bit of a red flag. And then, you know, I wanted to, like, Cam Lewis ends up with five solo

tackles. But like, for example, you would like to see your linebackers get more tackles. Like Devin Bush had two solo tackles, you know. He did recover the fumble. Got to give him credit for that. But I did see other spots in the defense that did help with this. Montes Sweat got a timely sack when the bears needed a stop. Third and seven. Those things matter to me when I see Montes Sweat at least get a sack when the bears needed

the defense and the line and the pass rush to come through. And I said, Ben, don't break. 37 points on any other day, you're probably saying, well, yeah, this is bend and break. Disaster. But not when your offense is scoring the way it did. And with the run game, that's the part of this that I want people to really focus on, is that to score 59 points in the NFL, just based on how many plays you're running, based on how time of possession would work,

based on the fact that there's a professional team, a playoff team, a division winner on the other side of you at home, you're probably going to have to sling it. Not the case. Caleb Williams only has 29 attempts in this game. He was 21 of 29, 269 yards, and a 124 passer rating. You know, that's the other part.

At one point, he and Bryce Young had perfect passer ratings at the same time in this game. Pretty incredible. Yeah, DeAndre Swift, 18 carries, 124 yards, three touchdowns, and he should have had more. He had two plays taken away due to bad holding penalties early in the game, explosive plays, and then all of a sudden he gets that 32-yard burst.

He says, you ain't taking that one away from me, and they ended up turning that into a touchdown. yet it was Bradbury and Rome with the early holds. Yes, phone lines are open. 312, 64, 64, 67, 67 is the number. The question we're throwing out there to you, and you could take this in any direction that you would like here on Rahimi and Grotia on 104.3, the score.

Are you buying what you saw from the Bears yesterday? Call in 312, 644, 67, 67 is the number. We see your calls coming in right now. We'll see your text messages coming in. Why don't we do a quickie here before we go to a? our first break. Just to keep it real here. Appropriate, but I'll allow it. Brantz is in Jacksonville, Florida.

Brantz, you're on Rahimi and Grotie. What you got on the Bears, buddy? Good morning, y'all. So, you know, my daughter actually trains with Caleb Williams' quarterback trainer. That guy does put in the work. So I think it's definitely showing, continues the work on his footwork. I've seen some of the videos.

So you know he's putting the work in the offseason, which is definitely showing on the field? And then my other statement was just, is the Panthers defense that bad? offense is that good. I don't think so, man. Look, the Panthers were a middle of the pack defense last year, and in theory, they've added a couple of really good players to their defense. They drafted on defense this year. They paid Jalen Phillips 30 million a year. They signed Evan Lloyd. Maybe they're bad early on, but like generally speaking, you look at the

personnel, and Layla just mentioned the two big names right there. I don't think that this is going to end up being a bad Carolina defense. 312, 644, 67, 67 is the number. We will take our first break. Be patient with us. This is a good time to call in, though. Get on hold. You'll talk to Ray Diaz.

We will get to you. We promise 312, 644-67-667. Are you buying what you saw from the Bears yesterday? 312-644-67-67 is the number. Shout out to Ray Diaz, our executive producer, and Tyler Bueberbaugh, on the other side of the glass. Our Twitch producers, log on to Twitch.tv slash the score Chicago. You can watch the show and hang out with the Twitch mob.

What's going on, Twitchers? You can comment in there as well. Connor O'Donnell, Max Curtis, and Jacob Stutz, all making that happen as we broadcast live from the Hyundai Studios, brought to you by your local Hyundai dealers. More Rahimi and Grody coming up next year on 104-3, The Score.