Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Clay Harbor: Fixing Bears' run defense should be a 'massive' priority

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris were joined by Chicago Sports Network analyst Clay Harbor to discuss what the Bears need to improve this offseason.

Rahimi Harrison Grody The great Kevin Harlan I just pulled through the Taco Bell Drive-thru and I've got a couple of big nasty Supreme Burritos right here waiting to beat. You know the first thing they ask you now is all you using the app.

The app, no, I just want my burrito. I don't want to use an app. Bring a lot of mild sauce because I'm going to squirt it all over the plate. Put some hot sauce on my burrito, baby. Rahimi Harris and Grody, Midday's 10 a.m. To 2. On the score. Time consumed.

We're only one. They just snap at 52. And now they've got them. It's Hendrickson. One play after nearly getting to him. This time he completes the deal. I don't know, Jim. I got Ray Deasman.

You got me. Did you spill your drink? Almost. A little bit. It's been worse. It's CBS in case you were wondering. That's Jim Nance. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 1043, the score.

And that is a call. of Trey Hendrickson, and I keep laughing the whole time because of Kevin Harlan into the Trey Hendrickson into, I don't know, Jen. Story of my life. I want to ask you, Clay Harbor, who is in studio with us, the reason you picked her top three free agents, each time you said something about run fits, how much is fixing the Bears run defense a priority to you this offseason? Oh, it's massive. I think when you look at the Bears, they're not going to survive another year. with the defense they had like they did last. You can't count on 33 turnovers.

As much as you think, yeah, where does a team that turns over, gets turnover, takeaways. Every team I've been on, everybody's saying takeaways, takeaways, takeaways, I know you emphasize it, I know you practice it, everybody does. They're fickle. You can have guys that can intercept the football like Kevin Byard. You help you out a little bit more, guys that go after the ball, force and fumbles, but usually there's some regression to the mean in the takeaways.

So how do you win football games? And you look at the Seattle Seahawks. I don't want to keep going back to the Seahawks, the Eagles. These teams that are able to stop the run without having eight guys in the box, you can sit there and play cover two at times, stop the run. That makes your defense so hard to beat. It's almost like an unfair advantage when you see what the Seahawks are able to do than versatile pieces.

So you're Mike McDonald, you're able to really see his genius because he has Nick Eman Worry, because you have Devin Weatherspoon, because you have all these guys in the defensive line that can move around and do all these different things, it makes it hard for an offense to really pick up who these guys are as far as your rule set goes. So Devin Weatherspoon or Nickyman-Wore can be a safety. He can also be a Sam linebacker. He can be anywhere. So it just makes it really hard for identification. You put your mic point, find your linebackers. Okay, is that a DB?

Is that the lineback? It's just very difficult when you have these versatile pieces. Is that why Kyler Gordon is so important when you talk about next season? Is that enough a healthy Kyler Gordon or do they need more in terms of the run fit in your opinion than what's actually current on the roster? How much can we expect to bounce back from the guys they already have? Kyler Gordon is going to be huge. If he can stay healthy, obviously he hasn't shown that he can do that yet. But once again, that's one of those guys to where you don't want to have to go base defense to stop the run when they come out with two tight ends.

You want to be able to stay nickel like the Seahawks did. That's just going to be my core of the day like the Seahawks did. They go dime, they go nickel, they never play base. If you can still stay out there and Kyler Gordon's a guy that's physical enough that he can take on a tight end and still get to his run fit, he can still tackle the ball carry. He's really good at that. That changes things for offenses. If you don't have that matchup problem where you can motion your wide receiver and get them on a backer,

or motion your running back, get them on a backer, motion your tight end, get them on a backer. That changes things. match isn't there. And now you're going to have to scheme up different ways to try to find advantages for your offense. The nine-year NFL veteran Clay Harbor is in studio with us on Rahimi Harrison Grady. And I talked about this after the Super Bowl. Like we spent our whole show on it on Monday. I feel like I went to school when it came to not just the way they utilized their offense, but what we saw on the defensive side of the ball. Like field position mattered. Mark Grady kept talking about how you could argue kicker or punter could have been

VP in that game. But they really did teach a defensive clinic. Like it was waves of pass rush. It was everything a defensive coordinator talks about. There was also a key aspect of it that I thought was so important and contradictory to what Ben Johnson says. He talks about the pass rush insurance that you get, you know, when you want to sack guys when you have a lead. That is not what Seattle did, man. They were, they were, I think coming away with sacks at will. And when you saw that the way they were able to get the stops from the interior like you talked about, I just kept being out. I'm like, oh, early sack. Love it. Another early sack. Another early sack. And that's what really just impressed me so much about what they did. And you know what's also interesting when you look at Seattle

and you look at Philadelphia, right? I think these two last Super Bowl shows you, you go back and it was the era of Tom Brady, Mahomes, superstar quarterback. That's how you win the championships, right? then you see Jalen Hertz, then you see Sam Darnold win these championships, when these Super Bowls. What does that tell you? These guys, minus the Super Bowl, their performance in the playoffs, both of them maybe in the top 10? I mean, they're not top-level quarterbacks we're talking about here. So getting a defense like they have, that's becoming a run game. You saw what Kenneth Walker was able to do.

Run game and defense matters, and I think the Bears got a good, solid run game, offensive line. Obviously, we see left tackle matters too with how Will Campbell was bullied. But defensively, being able to pressure without blitzing is the best way to beat any quarterback. In Seattle, the stunts, the games that are playing, they have double-mug pressures with the linebackers. The linebackers back out. They jump out to their zone coverages. Then you're sending defensive backs. Devin Wetherspoon, Eamon-Whori, you're blitzing.

So there's becoming this change, this shift to trying to find a group of guys that can just get pressure, not so much just focus on having the Brady, the Mahomes. Now you're seeing teams win the last two Super Bowls with defensive lines that are just big and can pressure the passer. Which one was more impressive to you, the defensive performances in the last two Super Bowls? Was it the Eagles or the Seahawks? I would say probably the Eagles, and I think that was because they didn't blitz Patrick Mahomes one time.

They sat back, Vic Fangio in the cover two shell, and just got after Mahomes. And the best quarterback of this generation, they made them look pedestrian. Obviously, the Seahawks defense did great. But you look, the Patriots were stumbling into this game. They played a lot of good defenses, and I'm not going to hate on Drake May. I would still take Caleb over Drake May.

Thank you very much. But he is not the same caliber guy as Patrick Mahomes. I'm sorry. No, I think that's fair. And there's been some talk about whether or not Vic was going to come back. You know, because he's at, if he wanted to, he could retire comfortably financially, Vic. I'm sure. What about his defense do you like so much?

I feel like that's not a topic we've gotten into you, into with you. How do you feel about his defense and what makes it so deceptive? As far as Vic Fangio? Yeah. His defense isn't really deceptive. Like that's the thing. He's going to give you a lot of cover too. He's going to sit back.

The problem with his defense is they got good players and he knows how to play him. Howie. Yeah, how he drafts good players. I mean, you got Jalen Carter in the inside. You got Jordan Davis. Jailix Humming. was a guy that came on this year, and obviously they weren't the defense they were last year. But they just do such a good job of playing their roles and their keys.

And obviously, we saw how the Bears ran on them. That typically doesn't happen. They draft well Nicoby Dean, a guy that's a free agent linebacker this year. If you do get rid of Terrell Edmins, Tremaine Edmins, excuse me, he's a guy that you could probably get for less. But they just did a good job of drafting. Jad Campbell. They have players that play well in their system, and they put them in places where they can have success. You're not playing these guys out of place.

It seems like Vic Fangio always has this guy in the right spot where he can make the most plays and you can get the most out of them. I think it's a fair assessment. When you get closer to the draft and we're just starting, you're going to have narrowed down who you think the bears can take. But you already have an out of the gate. Can we call this? Out of the gate.

Mach 1.0 for Clay Harbor? Yeah, 25, right? And this is obviously we haven't seen the combine. We haven't seen the pro days. But from watching tape, from gathering info, I just think these two guys would be really good fits. And these are two options at 25. Some people have this guy mocked before. Some people have this guy mocked after.

But I found the left tackle for the Bears. His name is Caden Proctor from Alabama. This dude is 6'7, 366 pounds. He makes the mountain from Game of Thrones look small. He's got 35 and a half inch arms. He can tie his shoe standing up. This guy was a Feldman freak. He's a freak athlete.

There's a list that they put out of the best athletes in college football. At 366 pounds, this guy benched over 500 pounds. He power cleaned 450 and he squatted 800 pounds. I turn on the tape. I go, how can a 6-7, 370-pound man move? He can move. He's not the most fleet of foot. But if you put him in darn all right as your tackles, your left-and-right tackles,

you got two beasts. This guy's nasty in the run game. He's powerful in the past game. I think if you give him an off-season with Dan Rochar, he can turn him into somebody that can just eject players from that line of scrimmage and really build on that run game and is a strong, strong defender as far as his pass rush is concerned. Interesting, you would use a first rounder on a left tackle after they used a second round

or, yeah, that was a second rounder. Ozzie Tripillo is missing the entire season. Go take a look at the free agents in at left tackle. There's not one. Braxton Jones might be your best opportunity. Rashad Walker from the Packers, who was a former seventh round pick, is a solid pass blocker. He's going to get paid way too much because he's the only left tackle. There

is no one in for agency. You've got to get a left tackle in the draft unless you think that Theo Bennett is your option for next year. Yeah, there's no such thing as a left tackle store. Unless you're Trent Williams and he is the store. So are you guys ready for number two? It's got to be quick, but yes.

Real quick, Ed Rush. You guys have seen Miami, Rubin Bain, Ed Rush, there's another Ed Rushner on this team. His name is Akeem Mesidor. This guy had five and a half sacks in the college football playoffs. He's extremely agile. He's a big guy. He can stop the run, but he's a really good

pass rusher that just got overshadowed a little bit by Bain. Akeemezador is a guy to keep your eye on at the combine when you start looking at him. He's a guy that I think would be a really good ed rusher to put on the opposite side of Montes sweat, and you don't have to give up any draft picks. But if both those guys are there, you're taking the tackle. I'm taking the tackle.

We need the left tackle. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. Clay Harbor, this is always fun. Thank you for joining us all season long. We're going to miss you, Clay. No, let's get together, guys. Let's go out and glitch in the Matrix. Glitch in the Matrix. Yeah, let's do it. Okay. Glitch in the Matrix is fun.

I'm just going to go ahead and hang in. It's being at a casino. Let's get a workout. Let's see what you got, man. Oh, dear. I'll work out with you. All right, let's see. I know you can't do much.

Okay. Bad knees. Perfect timing. You can catch Clay on the big pro football show on CHSN. It's usually at 530. Yesterday it was earlier. It was at 5. but that's usually the time between 5 and 530 for the big pro football show.

Clay, thanks as always. Appreciate it, guys. And coming up next here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie, we have Portage, Indiana Mayor Austin Bonta, to talk about the pitch, and also just how the money for the Bears Stadium that they want to finance and really Bear City. Hallis Harbor is the name. No relation to Clay. No relation.

Next.