Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Cassie Carlson talks DJ Moore trade, expectations for next Bears No. 1 WR

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote were joined by Fox-32 reporter Cassie Carlson to discuss the latest Bears storylines.

Rahimi Harrison Grody, Midday's 10 to 2 on 1043, The Score. Hello everyone, and welcome into First and North. I'm Cassie Carlson. Hey, everyone. Welcome into Chicago Sports tonight. Tina Lynn and Cassie Carlson with you. How do you prioritize what you want to do with this roster? Do you work from top down or how does that work from your standpoint?

I think the first thing is getting together with my staff, understanding what the landscape looks like. Then the next thing is meeting with our coaches. Make sure that we have alignment with what we need to have success and take our team to the next level. The wide receiver room under Ben Johnson just seemed to be heading in a different direction. And there's so many other needs

that this Bears front office needs to address now in free agency. And it clears up $16.5 million in cap space that they're desperately going to need it. With Rahimi Harrison Grody on 1043 The Score. Love a good Rihanna song for the Cassie Carlson open. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 1043. The score. Cassie Carlson is in studio with us for the hour. Yeah, what do you think of the montage?

I mean, Rihanna, I'm honored. I'm a team Rihanna over team Beyonce, so you guys knew me so well. I'm truly impressed. That was a Tyler Bureball production. I know you like Rihanna Grody. I do. Yeah. Hey, cheers to the freaking weekend, you know?

They play that at every Bears game. And every time I hear them like, they do. Yeah, I noticed these kind of things. I have tuned down the music at Soldier Field. Because a lot of times I'm like, there's no new songs. Like, they're all oldies. That's true. There's no doubt about that.

Like I perk up for the Rihanna song. They play a steady flow of system of a down throughout the game. They do? They do. They do. They do. And then they play, what's there's a bear claw song. That's your deodorant.

Oh yeah, that is my deodorant. But there is a bear, what was it? There was something that I thought was something that had to do with claws or something. I don't pay attention, I guess. But that's a great. Rihanna's got some good stuff. Absolutely. Cheers is the freaking weekend.

Indeed. And shine bright like a diamond. Exactly. That's a real. It's a really nice song. So all of that said, I feel like there was some shining bright like a diamond. When it came to the work you did at the NFL Combine, like you guys put in work at Fox 32.

That was very evident, especially last week. And I was thinking about some of the stuff that Ryan Poles said, both of you heard it, DJ Moore, when he talked about him, not only at the Combine, but at the end of season press conference, and he didn't back off. He said every single time, there are some serious decisions that we have to make. So that was my recollection. I heard the DJ Moore news yesterday.

Having sat down with Ben Johnson, having sat down with Ryan Poles and Jeff King, did you revisit anything that was said immediately when you heard about either Drew Dalman News or DJ Moore, even Tremaine Edmonds? What came back to you thinking about the work you had done? Well, thank you. First off, and shout out to our bosses at Fox 32. For the last three years, I've gone down there for the entire week. And it really is so beneficial to talk to all the national people that are down there, too.

And it was just such a different experience this year because with the 25th pick and who knows if the Bears keep the 25th pick, it was like you could go in a million different directions on who the prospect could be that they're going to draft. So it was more so about the Bears and where they're at right now coming off of last year. The DJ Moore stuff, I thought starting at the end of season press conference when Ryan Poles talked about his toughness and everything that stood out with not missing games, other players around him looking at DJ on the field, playing banged up and saying, well, I better be out. there too. And then what he said at the combine about him having to make some tough decisions and not knowing the different combination of players that they would have on the roster next year, reiterating the toughness and durability that DJ plays with. And then it was Ben Johnson who actually said that DJ probably knew the offense in each wide receiver position better than anyone else on the team. I thought to me, given that in combination with the salary that he was carrying and

knowing he was going to be the highest paid bear next year and that he was in a receiver. And that he was in a receiver room where his production was the down to the least of his career. It was always kind of the obvious answer that he probably wasn't going to be on this team next year. And I felt like the bears were trying to boost his market saying that DJ Moore is, because there are a lot of questions about DJ more nationally, especially coming off of that interception at the end when Chris Collinsworth in real time on national television pointed out that he laid up on his route. And that created this narrative around DJ Moore. And there's other examples of times where people were questioning how he played and if he gave 100% every time he was

on the field. And I thought that was them saying, like, you are going to get a really good teammate and player if you have DJ Moore on your roster. So that's how I read the situation. Just the $28 million was a huge number that they just, they have so many more areas to fill. And now we're, there was no, I didn't hear anything about the Drew Dalman retirement at, at the combine. I think everyone was equally shocked when that news came out this week. But knowing that and knowing that the Bears had been in talks with him about that being a potential opportunity, they equally then knew that, like, it just wasn't a possibility to carry that salary with DJ Moore.

I want to stand a wide receiver with you for a second because Layla and I were kind of debating it and discussing it. Layla said Luther Burden will be their number one wide receiver next year. I think it's going to be Roma Dunzee just because he's got to. This is his, this is kind of his, like he's going to be in the NFL for a long time, but this is the year that will dictate what he, eventually gets in free agency and what his career will really look like. Who do you think is going to be the most productive receiver for the Bears next year?

I keep going back to Colston Loveland and everyone's like, well, he's in the tight ender. I'm like, no, but he's a receiver. He's a receiver. He catches the ball. And Ben Johnson wanted him for that particular reason that he can do it all. And Ben Johnson is going to use him in his scheme every single year. We saw how this offense really emerged post-by week when Colson Loveland started getting the targets and he really started emerging.

And I keep going back to that. Colson Loven had zero off season. He came out of college. He had shoulder surgery, had to rehab it, and then came back in training camp and was like, that was his like inauguration into the NFL. And we saw him get better as the years went on. Roma Dunesday, I think, feels definitely the most pressure to become wide receiver one.

Like what I was saying earlier about, I won't forget just how he looked. He looked distraught at the end of the season, both after the game and the next day in locker, clean out. He was almost inconsolable about the drop he had on that opening drive. And then I just think that he knew he had such a disappointing season, especially the way he started the year. You're like, oh my gosh, he is on track to have a thousand yards receiving. He's going to emerge in year two with Caleb Williams. Then the injury happens. And then the drop off happens. And you just felt like he

knows that he needs to step up. I think he feels all the pressure in the world. Like he's a top 10 pick. Yeah. He came in with this quarterback. Caleb Williams ascended. Roma Dunes equally needs to ascend. And it's all the conversations about the size that he has. And coming out, remember he said, like he doesn't believe in 50, 50 balls. Like he's a, he's like a hundred or nothing. And the aggressiveness, I think, needs to come out. Like a lot of times we see him, I think, waiting for balls to come to him instead of being that more aggressive receiver that goes out and gets it. And so I think that's what I'm waiting to see from Rome. I think he feels all the pressure in the world. Luther, I love Luther. I love his personality. I love his play style. I think he

becomes the DJ more. And so I could equally see him being wide receiver one just based off of the physicality. I think you make a really good point with the catching style of Rome. It's different from what we saw in college. How many times would you see Rome go up and get it in college? Double team, triple team didn't matter. You're facing a different secondary. You know, the University of Washington, in the NFL, but that was what set him apart. Was that Pinnix could throw it up there, and he knew that Rome would do that. And I don't think we've seen that kind of,

even though it's been something they've worked on, I don't think he and Caleb Williams are at that point yet, because a lot of what you're catching is a runner's ball, as you mentioned. Well, the runners ball is equally on Caleb Williams, because I feel like Ben Johnson has vocalized that too. He always said it when referring to Jordan Love, that Jordan Love is so good at a runner's ball, and it's like, you know that he wants Caleb to,

do that next year. Like that is part of the progression of his quarterback is giving his receivers runners balls because there's plenty of times where we saw receivers open or running into open space and it was like throw the ball like throw the ball to the spot and he just didn't release it soon enough. And he always seemed a little timid in that sense too in my opinion. I always love hearing the national perspective on the bears because sometimes it's wildly off and hilarious and sometimes it's spot on. Your time at the combine did you talk to to people on the national level that gave insights on our humble football team here in Chicago. The two quotes that stood out to me most were from Rich Eisen, who, you know, we're trying

to get a feel from what's the national narrative around the Bears, what should their window to compete for a Super Bowl be? And Rich Eisen said something great. He was like back in 2018 with Nagy and Trubisky, like I felt like I needed to see more. He said after watching this past season with Caleb Williams and Ben Johnson, I've seen enough. I don't need to see anything more. Like, these are the guys. These are the ones that are going to bring a Super Bowl back to Chicago. It's the Ben Johnson safety valve is so nice. Because with all this, like, all that is going on right now where you don't have your offensive line intact right now. You just lost maybe your best wide receiver. It's like, oh yeah, but there's Ben Johnson. He makes guys better.

But also Ryan Poles saying like they're going to meet with coaches, see what Ben Johnson wants. I think Ben Johnson's going to be like, for my offense to operate, I need a center. Like that's what he had in Detroit with Frank Ragnow. And we can talk about the, the retirement of Frank Ragnow, which came at a way different point in the offseason or right before the season. But that is such an integral part of how his offense is run is having a center that can handle everything at the line of scrimmage. Remember when Caleb Williams had to handle that all his rookie season? And that was a, everyone was like, why is this rookie being tasked with all of this? Well, he didn't have to do it all in his second year. And it allowed him to play more.

free and allow the protections to just be more accurate and right and read defense is better. And so you need that center position, in my opinion, more than anything. The other good quote that we had was from Mike Florio. And he said the window is unlimited when you have Caleb Williams. So whether or not he's on a rookie contract, whether or not they have to pay him, like you got, you got your quarterback. Some of the stuff that we saw, he believes is more magic than Mahomes. And so really the possibilities are endless when you have your guy at quarterback. The limit does not exist. Yes. We're talking to Cassie Carlson. She hosts a show, by the way, called the offseason with Cassie Carlson. Does that air tonight on Foxx? It does. It airs tonight at 6 o'clock on Fox Local. And you can watch it on the Fox 32 YouTube page. We're having Dan Weider on tonight along with Olin Crutes. I know him. I know both of those guys. So no better person to talk about Drew Dalman's retirement as he's been on the score all week than Olin Croutts. Except our show. Except the midday show. I didn't mean to bring it up. No, we've been laughing about it because we joke that everybody,

we've got to get our time in with Olin at some point because he was on the morning show and the afternoon show. How about Weezy, man? Like he did the morning show today. Apparently he's doing an hour here. He's doing your show. That man needs a break. He's going to us Monday as well. He's not with us,

that's right? Dan Weirer does not get a break and he'll be on the offseason with Cassie Carlson tonight. Weezy. I think we have time for this. So I'm going to make a judgment call. I want to play back the interview you did. with Ryan Poles where you talked to Ryan Poles about, oh, this is DJ Moore.

Okay, I thought it was DJ Moore. It was Darnell Wright. So let's do that next then. Let's talk about Darnell Wright next because I think his position on this line is just as pivotal as everything else that's going on when it comes to trying to figure out who they might sign and where and how.

So Darnell Wright, Cassie Carlson's conversation with him, and then more from just her impressions from the combine and the impressions of a wild weekend bearsland next.