Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Bears put on offensive display in win over Panthers | Take The North

Episode Date: September 15, 2026

The Bears went into Carolina and beat the Panthers, 59-37! Dan Wiederer and Mark Grote catch their collective breath enough to talk through what we witnessed. The Bears put up 552 yards of offense and still felt like they left some points on the field.

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Let's Chumba. New purchase necessary. VGW group. Void were prohibited by long. CTs and Zs, 21 Plus, sponsored by Chumba Casino. Bears fans, this is Take the North. What's the reason? Duck. It's here with your hosts. Oh, these guys. Dan Weiderer and Mark Grody.

We're going to take the North and never give it back. Hello again, everybody, and welcome back into the Take the North podcast, along with Dan Weederer, who is standing back. by in Carolina. I am Mark Grody of 104.3, the score. I am in the Fox 32 studios, getting ready to do some television right after we record this podcast. And this one, Danny Boy, ought be a doozy.

The Chicago Bears, this is not going to get old. Chicago Bears beat the Carolina Panthers, 59 to 37, featuring 552 total yards, featuring 291 rushing yards, including six touchdowns, about 26 first downs in the game. Dan, your initial reaction to this offensive domination for the Chicago Bears today. Hold on one second.

Bears just scored again, right back around this field. I think they just scored again. 59 points, Grady, and sort of the sentiment coming out of the locker room, which is kind of how I felt at halftime was that they left meat on the bone, that it wasn't this crisp, flawless performance

that they had today. It went first that you just read off and you look at the scoreboard and at the end of the day, they've got 59 points. That is a big, big deal, right? And it just so many of the things that you and I had talked about where we're like, okay, we want to see if this is for real in a game setting. It had been months of talking about this, that. The other thing is DeAndre Swift really looking good in camp?

Is that going to translate the games? It translated. Have the bears gotten better with their scramble drill? Is it going to translate it? It translated. Are they going to be able to score at the end of half? half, which Ben Johnson has emphasized for the last four months, we've got to be better at the end of half. Not only do they score a touchdown with Caleb Williams on an all too easy scramble,

29 yards, but then they get a pick from the rookie, Malik Mohamed, to make sure there's not what Ben calls a retaliatory score before the half. So it was all on display here. And I just felt like leaving the locker room today, you felt like those guys had true belief in what they had worked on, what their potential is, and the fact that they got 59 points without playing their best is mind-blowing. As a matter of fact, starting the game off horrifically, to be honest with you. Like DeAndre Swift ended up with 18 carries, 124 yards, and three TDs. This with having two big runs. Holding penalties, right? Negated early, the first play of the game for the Bears from Scrimmit. Roma Dunzee with a hold that negates what was a big run by DeAndre Swift to start the game,

which pissed me off, honestly, because I picked DeAndre Swift to be the MVP. you and I have been on the DeAndre Swift bandwagon. He was my well-oiled machine for this game, too. I said he was going to get to 100 yards and score a touchdown. I underestimated him by two touchdowns. Well, it's unbelievable what he was able to do. The Luther Burden catch. He starts to run.

And then he fumbles on that screen. Penalties by Dio Dengbo and Montez Sweat. Bryce Young on the 26-yard play to Jalen Coker. Jalen Johnson is burned on that play. Tyreek and Thinemann missing tackles. I'm like, wow, what kind of clown show is going on here for the Chicago Bears? But then after that, they just took off. How about after that, seven touchdowns on their next 12 drive,

specifically after the Luther Bergen fumble? This is where it gets crazy to me. And it's why every question that I've fielded from neighbors, friends, relatives over the last few months, it's always come back to this like security blanket of one they have Ben Johnson and you know he's proven right you know he knows how to call a game and utilize his talent and you know that's going to give them a very very high floor and then you just see the talent that they have and Colson level and I think he goes without a catch today right imagine what this offense can do when this weapon that they have at tight end starts to go crazy right like Khalif Raymond ends up being your leading receiver today with eight catches for 84 yards no one would have said that was going to translate into a 59 point explosion here. And yet Caleb, again, like I don't feel like the sharpest performance.

And he throws two touchdown passes. He runs for two more touchdowns. He has four completions of at least 20 yards. We talk about the big one to Adunzee down the sideline and scramble drill, which to me felt like that was like inside the building here. That felt like, oh, okay, we're going to be able to answer just about anything today because we've got this in our back pocket. Right. Well, and just being overly critical on that play, if you go back and look at it, Roma Dunesay had about three steps on the defender.

Was it Will Lee? Yeah, we'll Lee the third. Yeah. It was like he was throwing his arm up. Come on, Caleb. Come on, Caleb. So it didn't necessarily have to be a jump ball play. But I'm kind of glad it was because it was straight up highlight reel. An important play in the grand scheme of things for Roma Dunesay to do what he, we all thought he was. capable of doing and to go up and get those 50-50 balls, which he doesn't even like that terminology. He thinks those balls are his balls.

And that's about as good of a catch as we've seen Roma Dunezay make in that circumstance going over the defender and kind of the underhand grab over him. It was something to see. So of course, Caleb had to make the play and the throw. And that's what you do. You put your position to make a play. And 47 yards later, Roma Dunesay did do that. So that's his longest completion of the day.

what was probably his most impressive completion of the day is the touchdown to Cole Combat in the end zone on the left side. And you see Colcomette create just a little bit of separation from Devin Lloyd. And Caleb sees it and he says, I'm going to give him a chance to make a play here. I'm going to trust him. And not only he's going to trust Cole, he's going to trust his own arm talent, we talked about ball location for, you know, eight months since last season ended. That's as precise of the football as you can throw in the NFL game. And it's on target. Cole said after the game that he would give it an A plus in terms of where that ball was low.

okay, didn't he brings it in, and you're just like, okay, like, again, there's just so many plays from within this game where you're like, man, this team has the ability to overcome mistakes. You mentioned it. Five offensive penalties today. A fumble early in the game. Ben Johnson letting it hang for a minute on fourth and one from his own 21 and failing, right, at a point that gives Carolina an easy answer touchdown to tie the game. And you're like, is this what we're going to be writing about it, you know, four o'clock this afternoon? And lo and behold, it's not because they were going to score. 38 more points from that point forward. Yeah, the Bears had 12 penalties for 57 yards on the day. Carolina 11 for 84, which is not uncommon for teams early in NFL seasons as the referees sort of every year. There's a lot of penalties I feel like early in the season.

There's precedence set on certain calls. That's got to be cleaned up. And I'm sure that's something that they will discuss as the week goes on at Hallis Hall. Five on offense, four on defense, three on special teams. Wow. equal opportunity. And two of those special teams penalties are Cairo Santos, is usually so reliable at those dirty kicks,

dropping two footballs, you know, outside the landing zone and getting, you know, bad, bad penalties that gives a pre-position out at the 40s. So, yeah, there's a lot to clean up. Obviously, they're going to love cleaning it up going through a 59-point performance in which they didn't need the last four minutes of the game to rescue themselves. It was like, you know, I'm actually capable of typing and writing some things without worrying about what's happening with who came in there at the end. Kenny Pickett for the Panthers.

Whatever the hell Kenny Pickett was doing. I didn't see any of it. Because we were working on some things for the athletic. Well, there were four thousands of consequence for both teams. We talked about the Ben Johnson, which I think all of us were kind of holding our breaths in the second quarter when it's 21 14 bears, fourth and one on their own 20. And the sneak is no good. I was a fourth in one or fourth and two, but the sneak was no good by Caleb Williams. Bryce Young turned that into a touchdown 21 to 21.

I don't know how you felt about that in real time, Dan. I was like, whoa, I don't know, man, on your own 20, early in the game. And I guess you live by it and you die by it with Ben Johnson. Well, that's it. And Chicago was just going to have to get used to that being part of the identity. And Ben said after the game looked like it's going to be dependent on expected game flow within a game. It's going to be dependent on who the opponent is.

There's going to be situations where he would punt there. but he just felt really good about what they had there. They felt really confident in their ability to convert. And they didn't. I mean, Caleb's got to work on the QB sneak here. We saw that down near the goal line later in the game where it's like, yikes. I mean, we just need a half yard. By the way, the bears were on the half yard line many, many times today, Mark Grotie.

That was a talking point up here in the booth that the bears were at the half yard line, just like the stadium efforts were with Indiana a few months ago. But this time the bears were able to get it in from the half yard line a handful of times. But in a couple of cases, including the quarterback's, sneak down there. Like Caleb wasn't able to get the push that he needs. And you're like, you know, especially on that fourth down, you didn't feel great about it given, given the fact that this felt like it was going to be a bit of a pinball game. Okay. So you like doing your own oil changes. It's got to be cheaper at home, right? But is it really cheaper than the $50

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As smooth as he usually is with the ball in his hands, he looked a little bit clutzy on some of those goal line opportunities there. And, you know, obviously the offensive line plays a part in that as well. The crucial point in the third quarter, it's Bears 3831, Carolina's fourth down. They go for it on fourth and three on the Bears 39. The Bears stop it. Kyle Munn Guy, then with a 61-yard touchdown run. Did you know he was that fast? Because that's what stood out to me.

That was a breakaway by Kyle Freakin' Manung guy. So I've watched that play about eight or nine times now because after the game, both Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams highlighted it as their favorite play of the day, which is very notable from the head coach and the quarterback. And it's for several reasons. Both of them highlighted blocking. that plane. We'll get to Monongai in a second. But Ben Johnson singled out

Jade Walker for getting out there in the open field with Kyle Menungay, turning his head back and just doing enough to get in the way. I can't pronounce the name of the the Panthers linebacker, Prince Uman Mielan. Amukamara. There you go. Umar Allen.

But Jaday Walker just gets in his way, throws his butt out, you know, allows that, as Cleef said, to be not only be a first down, but to be a touchdown. Caleb also singled out the offensive line. We're also including Luther Burton, who comes inside on there and clears out of safety. But the blocking was there, and Caleb said he went to the offensive line on the sideline and said, you guys didn't have as good a view of that as I did.

But we're going to love watching that on film because that was a thing of beauty with what was there. And as you mentioned, all of a sudden, Menungi turns on the jets. And from the overhead view that we have here on the press box, it felt like, even though that was late third quarter, that felt like the knockout punch in real time, where you were just like, they finally got the two score advantage. And just because it was a one play touchdown drive after a fourth down stopped by the defense, it just felt like that momentum crash that just ends a game. And in theory, it did.

We do have to talk about the defense. And look, this is a mini microcosm of what we all suspected, that the Bears' offense could go to a new level. I don't know if we should expect 59 points every week. But we were all concerned about easily about the defense. I don't know that the defense is going to give up 37 points every week. But they did allow Carolina. Well, we're talking about the Bears 552 total yards.

Carolina had 478 and passing specifically stands out. Bryce Young with 353. Big plays being loud. Jalen Johnson had some early issues. Tyreek Stevenson as well. I felt like Dylan Thineman got himself together, but he had at one point in time, although the touchdown was negated.

He was a little bit exposed in coverage. but his tackling, I thought, was on. I thought on the overall theme of it had a pretty good game, but it did feel like the secondary, and you could even say the linebackers, didn't quite have it together yet in week one for the bears. Wait until we get to our three-word reviews because a former colleague and friend of mine chimed in

with something that's going to raise your antenna a little bit as we talk about this type of game. But look, I mean, similar to a year ago, you're looking at a situation where they kind of rescued themselves with some takeaways, you know, and it is the Malik Mohamed. interception late in the first half. Get a fumble recovery from

Devin Bush on a ball. I think that one was punched out by Jalen Johnson there, which came at a big moment. And so for all the deficiencies they had, there were some moments where you felt like, okay, they're making a timely play. This might be who they are this year, right? And I think we were all

bracing for the possibility that they were going to have to be in shootouts. The great news about that is you have an offense capable of winning shootouts. And it's like, it is this weird, weird feeling. And Grady, I looked this stat up because I was talking to Cole Kmet after the game. And you've lived this as I have. There were seasons where it felt like it took everything the Bears had on offense to get to 30 points, right? It was like,

holy cow, they squeezed every last drop out of the orange today and they got 29 points, right? Like they had 31 at halftime today without playing all that well. And so Cole was like, is this wild? It's wild to be a part of where you feel like you weren't all that great, but you look up at the scoreboard on the way into halftime, and you've got 30. I looked it up before Ben Johnson and Cole Commets' first five seasons, the Bears failed to reach 22 points in 58% of the games in Cole Commets' first five seasons, right? Like, it's staggering. You're going through these games, and you're like, oh, my God, 17, 13, 19, 10, 26, 17, 13,

13, 90. Right. Like, you know, and now it's like, wait, 59? wait, 31 and half? Like, what is this? What is this world? And I think this world is, look, like, we're not going to overreact. I don't want to say they're going to do this every week,

but I do think that this world of prolific offense is permanently unlocked as long as Ben Johnson is here, as long as Caleb Williams is his quarterback. Right. And Dan, it's like, you're right. We're not going to expect 50 every week or that many yards, but it does need to be celebrated. There have been too many times, right? Like, where we're talking about the numbers that you just gave and the fact that 50, Burger when that starts getting tweeted out by people, it's typically against the bears last year

against Detroit. Like on the melt on Mel Tucker's watch back in the day, usually it is not the bears that are scoring the 50 points. It is quite the opposite. So these things need to be continued to be celebrated when they occur. And it's, so I did the post game show with Olin Crutes and Patrick Manley on the score. And even Olin Crutes, who we know the kind of offense that he was a part of under. lovey Smith. It was a grinded out

offense. There was some pop to it at times, but he said his thing was I guess I'm going to have to get used to this. I'm going to have to get used to talking about games like this and talking about the offense being the most important part of the team. And although you don't want to see what

you saw for the Bears defense, it's something I could get used to, man. It's a revelation. It really is. So here's a little peek behind the curtain late in the game. Jada Walker scores on a one-yard touchdown catch. He did. that pushes the bears over 50.

It's 52 to 37. There's, I guess, 627 left is when that touchdown was scored. Ryan Poles sitting in the row behind the media, as you know, kind of the setup in these road press boxes. He kind of leans back in his chair, and I think he was talking to his staff, but sort of anyone that was listening, and he said out loud, if you think Ben's done, you're crazy.

Right? Like, he knows the personality of his head coach, and he knew that 52 wasn't going to be the end destination for this team. And lo and behold, they get the ball another time. They end up breaking up another explosive run, and it's DeAndre Swift at the exclamation point. And it's like, you know, like it just incredible, right? Like to be able to call your shots like that and to be able to have the bat strength to go and hit that home run. Going up, bet MGM is odds flash.

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Gambling problem. Call 1-800 My Reset. See BetmGM.com for terms. 21 plus only, Virginia only. Oh, man. All right, let's get to some other things here like we like to do. I don't know if you have your three-word reviews. Dan Weeder of the Athletic with his famous three-word reviews. He puts it on Twitter.

You give a three-word review of the Bears game. We'll do it all season long. And then Dan will read some of them. I don't know if there's any particular order in which you read them or if you pick through them. But what do you have for us on three-word reviews this way? In real time, we're just going to go Blitzkrieg here and read probably five that I find to be notable. I did mention a former colleague and friend. Rich Campbell. He chimed in and said, trust and Mel, which is an indication of our first

season on the beat together when the Bears' offense was potent and the defense couldn't stop anyone. Did I not mention Mel Tucker. Shout out Rich Campbell. You and I, man, we're on the same page, buddy. You're seeing that. Not Stephen A. Smith. He chimes in with, did that happen? Exclamation point, question mark, exclamation point, which I think is what a lot of Chicago is going to be asking later Sunday night and early Monday morning. Did that happen? Did the Bears really just score 59 points. At Shevizzle, belt to ass.

I like that one. It was just beat down by the bears on the Panthers here. It's pretty good here. We'll give you two more. There's an offense, no defense one. It is what it is. Jim Henigan, upset about one thing. I'm guessing this might be a fantasy owner.

He says, what? No Loveland, question mark? Poor Colston Loveland. Shut out in the fireworks show today. Last one here from Jeremy Kramer. Caleb spreads wealth, which is true. There was a lot of wealth to be spread around today. Make no mistake, five players visited the end zone today for the Chicago Bears.

DeAndre Swift got there three times. Well, and they played a whole game in the first half. The bears were up 31, 24 at the half. And again, we've seen some awful rancid first halves in our lives, Dan. So 315 total yards in the first half, 125 rushing yards in the first half. It was nine penalties, by the way, in the first half. Yeah, for 42 yards. but a whole game was played in the first half.

So that needed to be pointed out as well. Can I bring up one more thing? Because this circles back to something from a year ago. And it came up on Friday from Ben Johnson. And you remember this because Ben brought this up on Friday. You remember in 2025 when Ben said early in the season, I think it may have been after their first loss, we are not practicing at a championship level, right?

You remember that? Yeah. Caught your ears. And you were like, oh, God. And then he said on Friday, he said, I made that common a year ago. I'm not saying that this year. These guys are working their tails off. Every single day we come in, we get our work done.

There's an investment here. There's an understanding of what's expected. Guys are meeting the standard every day. And I bring that up because a lot of the sentiments out of the locker room today was this didn't happen today. This happened on Wednesday. It happened on Tuesday. It happened on Monday. It happened in OTAs.

It happened during training camp. This was a reflection of preparation and investment. And when you get the results, it's just positive reinforcement for everything that the standard is about. And so I think that's cool stuff because this is. is a real time elevation of the bar, and it's an indication that these bears are capable of getting over a very high bar that the coach has set for them. Now, as you mentioned, the defense has got to get a lot better if we're going to be talking about really good things against better opponents later in the season. And we'll progressively discuss that as the week goes on here on Take the North.

All right, game balls, Dan, you have Take the North seniority, so I'm going to let you go first here on the game balls, and there are many candidates. Many, many candidates. I'm going to veer off course just a little, I don't want to echo my sentiment for my well-oiled machine, but I'm going to go with Caleb today because you've got you got a guy 21 for 29, throws for 269. The passer rating is 124.1 with two touchdowns, adds the two rushing touchdowns. I thought the rushing touchdown at the end of the half was another one of those soul crushers for the Panthers. You know, Caleb gets out of a noisy pocket, sees nothing but greengrass ahead.

Off he goes. And it's trouble, right? And so just the kind of game you wanted from Caleb Williams in the opener, right? He's just great in some areas. There's some left to be desired in other areas, but didn't turn the football over, played really, really well. And this is certainly a building block effort. You got exactly what you wanted on it, for sure.

Somebody's got to take DeAndre Swift, so I will take DeAndre Swift. He gets my game ball, 18 carries, 124 yards, three touchdowns, runs of 32, and the sweet put-away touchdown to make it 59. points with the 28-yard or deserved it. Got his $33 million this week. He was on the Take the North podcast, so he gets all the game balls in the world. Dan, anything else before we get out of here on this first game of the season, Take the North podcast.

Yeah, I mean, it's just going to be a different week for us going forward, right? Like, I mean, I don't know of a time that I saw a bear's defense give up 37 points and look really feeble in spots where you're going to leave the stadium feeling great about the state of the team. And you're going to leave Bank of America Stadium tonight. I will in a few minutes when we close down. Feeling great about the direction of this group. Again, it's one game.

You don't want to overemphasize what happened here today. But it just, I mean, again, you and I wanted proof. You know, right? Like you just wanted proof that all the things that we thought we were seeing with our own eyes were real. And there was a lot today that that certainly indicated that it was real. Absolutely. It bears most points in an opener since 1948 when the bear scored 45 against Green Bay at Wrigley Field. fourth most points period in bears history.

73 nothing against Washington in 1940 is still the high water mark. We'll see if maybe the bears get there at some point in time this year. That is going to do it for this episode of Take the North for Dan Weeder of the Athletic and of the score and from Carolina. I am Mark Grody of 104. The score and the Rahimi Harrison Grody shall be on the air with you at 10 a.m. Shout out to our executive producer, Adam Zitzinski, as well. Thank you for watching and listening to The Mighty Take the North podcast. Great talk. See out there.

Thank you, everybody.