Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Danny Parkins is finding it hard to ramp up his Bulls optimism

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris were joined by FS1 host Danny Parkins to discuss the Bulls’ direction after they made a pair of trades Tuesday and to preview the Patriots-Seahawks matchup in the Super Bowl.

The score! I could do Stephen A's job, guys. It's not that hard. Danny Parkins. QB1 party. All are invited. Host of Fox Sports Wands, first thing first. I can see paths to Seattle winning

without Sam Darnold having a statement game, but I don't know that I see a path to New England winning the game without Drake May having a statement game. The Bears, plenty of reason to doubt them. Caleb Williams, no. Former host of 677. the score before he abandoned us.

How's the Caleb Williams custom, baby? Jersey number one is going to the Raptors. You guys made it seem like a Chicago Bears fans. We had our guy, Danny Parkins, all these guys. Danny Parkins on 1043 The Score. Ooh, 1043, the score for Danny Parkins.

You know Danny's happy to be in FM today. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 670 The Score and 1043 The Score, and we announced the FM thing with Danny. So let's talk to him now. Danny joins us via the Circa Sports Illinois Hall Line download the Circa Sports app today. He's at Danny Perkins on X. You can check him out on the newly expanded. First thing's first

OT from 4 to 5 on Fox Sports when. Danny, how are you? I'm even more handsome in FM. That's what I found. I don't think it works like that. Yes. Yeah, yeah. If you run faster and jump higher is what I was told. Yeah, I think that I think that's what it does, Marshall. You can take your fancy radio acumen and your television history and your manicured jawline and you say that that's not how it works. But for those of us over here, I'm much more handsome on the FM. Oh, my goodness. And Danny is on Twitch with us at twitch.tv slash the score Chicago.

He's the one wearing a suit and tie. Yeah, you're the dressed up one here. That's true. I just taped an interview with Cooper DeGine. the Philadelphia Eagles. Did you ask him about his love life? You know, she shot it down, so we talked about it a little, but not, no headline there. I just enjoy that his podcast is called Exciting Mikes, and it's him and Reed Blankenship

off of the exciting whites meme, which is my favorite meme on the internet. And so we talked about that for a while. I asked if he saw himself as an inspirational figure to young white people who want to grow up and be cornerback. So you guys can just stay tuned to the OT to hear his answer. It's pretty spectacular. That is a great meme, the wine store meme. It's the greatest. It's the exotic whites over the exciting whites.

But I hear you. I laugh every time I see the exciting whites meme on the internet. Like Cooper Flagg with a dunk, exciting whites. Like it is. Mac McClung. I could have done 10 minutes with Cooper just on excited. Like, why hasn't Riley Moss been on your podcast? Like, is Jason Seahorn a mentor?

I was about to say, shout out to Jason Seahorn and Merrill Hodge. Yeah, exactly. He's the first white defensive back to have a sack in the NFL since Jason Seahorn. I have a research department. They looked that up. It's been over 20 years since a white corner got a sack. They're like, they're like, you want it? You want that to be their first question to Cooper Degine?

I'm like, yes, I do. And so, like, that was like the production meeting that I had this morning was about how many questions I could get off about exciting whites and exciting minds. Hold on a second. Nikki Bella is 20 years older than men? Oh, you didn't know the story? I didn't realize she was 42. Yeah, that's what I asked Danny. Danny knew exactly what I was going to ask before I asked him.

I do my research. Yeah, age is just a number. Until it's your number. Hey, you know, it is what it is. Shots fired. I don't judge. Now, Danny's younger than me. Danny, like, just turned 40.

I have not yet turned 40. Yeah, I love that you said it, though. But I love that she said it because that's a shade. You were conceived during the 85 Super Bowl. So yes, that would mean you haven't turned 40 yet. Born in October of 86. So coming up in eight and a half months or so, I will turn 40 this year, October of this year. turn 40. What are you going to do? I bought myself a trip to Pinehurst.

For me, me and seven guys were going and doing a four-day, four-day golf trip at one of the great golf venues ever. So, yeah, so we're going to go, going to go play a lot of golf at, you know, a place that's in the rotation for the U.S. Open and have some fun with some lifelong friends. It was, I told my boss is out here. I was like, I need it. I need two days. days off, they said when. I said 365 days from today. I booked the trip one year out and said, I'm taking these two days off next August to do the four-day golf trip. So very excited. And then next year when like the younger guys in our grade turned 40, we're going to, we're going to do Ireland for golf. So this year, Pinehurst, next year, Ireland.

Love that. That is a solid plan. Nice planning skills out of you. A year in advance. Thank you. Yeah, Ireland isn't booked yet, but inevitably I'm going to be the one who has to put that together. But thankfully, I only work one hour a day, so I have time. No, because see, even all that research department stuff, that took more than an hour. No, that's true. I had to text them to look up if Riley Moss had been on the exciting Mike's podcast. That's true.

I did have to do this. Yeah, yeah. That's a real conversation that I had today with Troy. I was like, can you find the last way? Actually, this is how good my researcher Troy is. I didn't even have to ask him to find out that Jason Seahorn, That was in my inbox at the time of our 10 a.m. show call that the last white defensive back to have a sack was Jason Seahorn. So yeah, Troy's my man out here. He does great work.

Danny Parkins joining us as he does each and every week here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 1043, the score FM. You can check Danny out and you just told you what he's talking about on first things. First OT from 4 to 5 on FS1. Exciting mics. He wants to be an exciting mic. He's just an exciting Danny. Okay. Also, is Robbie writing things down for you? Robbie's doing great work. Robby's doing excellent work. He's contributing every day. He's learning. He's very ambitious. He's got a nice sweater collection. He does. I just feel like I feel like you stepped up the wardrobe game department a little bit. The hair is always like styled and blow dried here. So like we're getting the best version of Robbie out here, I would say. In terms of the physical appearance. You guys got great. great Robbie as well. But in terms of he's not, you know, he's, he hasn't yet shown up in like a ripped t-shirt or basketball shorts or anything like that.

Not a Josh Giddy jersey that he was gifted on his way out of the door? No Josh Giddy jersey. Yeah. So honestly, he might just, he's lying to all of us. He's doing a great job. Well, I think his main team, the Pistons, I think he may take issue with Jaden Ivy being traded. What do you, I know you talked a little bit about the NBA trade deadline. I saw your clip about James Hardin. So what were your takeaways just in the Bulls at least try. to get out from some of their expiring deals? Yeah, listen, I think it's very unexciting, but it makes sense in terms of if you've come to the decision that you're not going to sign unrestricted free agent, you know, Kobe White or Iodosumu, and then you bring in a restricted free agent,

like Simons or Jaden Ivy, like that's, that's a good use of assets because you can then like let the market dictate it, save some money, audition those guys, and that sort of thing. But it's, they traded Vouch like three years too late. I just can't get excited about like, well, you know, that that second round pick could be a top four pick in the second round. Like I know it's an exciting draft and it's a deep draft, but I would much rather than sacrifice 40 games of basketball or 30. games of basketball, whatever it is, to get as many ping pong balls as possible for the top of this draft, to try to get Boozer's kid or Peterson from Kansas, who might be the best guard

prospect to enter the NBA since Luca, or the kid from BYU, or on and on down the line. And so, you know, I just, it's good that they're making moves. It's good that they're not losing assets for nothing. I do think that Ivy is a totally reasonable gamble of a top five pick with upside and we'll see what the medical show in terms of if they think he can actually play 70 regular season games and 25 playoff games if this team's ever ready to make a run. Like that's a huge question they have to answer. But it's not exciting. It doesn't really move the needle.

You know what I mean? The Wizards have 13 wins and they just, they're going to have a top five pick in the draft, have Trey Young and just traded for Anthony Davis to go along with Trey Johnson and Alex Sar. like that's a big swing. It probably won't work. It might not. But that is a big swing for a bad team and that is at least something that you can really get excited about. I just, it's tough to ramp it up too much with any Bulls optimism these days.

The good news, Danny, is with their current roster, they may be able to satisfy your ping pong once because that roster is not very good. Now, I expect them to try to go out and get some kind of a big, but a guy named Lachlan-Oberg might be getting extended run. and let me tell you something, that will equal a lot more losses. Yeah, you know, like, I hope you're right. I hope you're right. It'd be nice for them not to be the nine seed hosting the second play-in game, right? It would be nice. The chiefs have the Arrowhead invitational of the AFC championship game.

The Bulls have the Bulls invitational of the 9-10 game and the play-in. It'd be nice to shake that. Yeah, very different things. Yeah, very different. It'd be nice to shake that up a little bit. but I just I have to see it before I believe it because there's really, really bad team

I got the standings right here and you guys are talking more Bulls basketball than I am these days but like they have, the Bulls have 24 wins. There are four teams in the East with under 20 and five teams in the West with under 20 and there are five teams in basketball with 13 or fewer.

Like there's just a, there's a huge gap between the Bulls and the truly awful teams. And the truly awful teams are positioning themselves to go get potential superstars. Like, I would just, I don't know, I would much rather be 19 win Dallas with Cooper Flag than 24. win Chicago without. And does one guy completely change everything? No, of course not. But it can be, it can be a building block towards something and the Bulls just seem to be stuck in purgatory. We're talking to Danny Parkins, who is hosting First thing's first OT on Fox Sports One. You can check that out from four to five. And Danny, I also, of course, want to get your Super Bowl pick. You know, we touched on it a little bit when we've had you on, but just now that we're a few

days away from the big game. What do you think of the matchup with Seahawks and Patriots? So I think that the Seahawks are better. Yeah. I just think they're, I think they're a better team. Drake May is a better quarterback than Darnold, but Donald's coming off the best game of his life. And so I think if these teams played 10 times, I think Seattle wins seven of them, maybe eight. So New England obviously can win. And I think like if I'm making the case for New England, it's they've got the better quarterback and the Patriots defense is playing by far their best ball of the season recently. Milton Williams has been an absolute monster. He wrecked last year, Super Bowl. Maybe he wrecks it again. This year, Christian Gonzalez is one of the great

cornerbacks in the NFL. And while the Patriots have gone through Chargers top 10 pass defense, Texans best defense, Broncos top five defense. Now Seattle, you know, number one scoring defense. Seattle, they had the buy, then they played San Francisco, who's a terrible defense, and they played the Rams, who have been a terrible defense since Thanksgiving. So, like, the Rams have, or the Seahawks have not been challenged with a legit defense like New England brings into the game. But I just think if you did top 10 players in the game, seven of them are on Seattle. If you do top 20 players in the game, 13 of them are on Seattle.

So my strong lean is to Seattle and a win in this spot. Well, and I flash back to the conversation that we had, Danny, where you're you said, tell me a team in the NFC and who's left in the playoffs and I'll tell you their flaws. And that was back at the divisional round. And even then I felt like Seattle probably had the fewest of the flaws. What did you think? Yeah, I mean, it depends when we had that conversation because like before, if it was before Thanksgiving, I think the Rams had the fewest flaws.

The Rams defense post- Thanksgiving, you know, just getting worse and worse and worse. And my thing with Seattle, because I had Seattle and the Rams as one or two. two on my like top 10 Tuesday, it was every week since week 11 of the NFL. So like I said that the NFC championship game was the real Super Bowl. I thought those were the two best teams. The, the flaw or the question that everybody had with Seattle that I think is totally fair is like, do you trust Sam Darnold to get it done in a big spot? And then he just had the best game of his life and the biggest game of his life and won a shootout with Matt Stafford in the NFC championship game where down the stretch of that game, they were trusting Sam Darnold to make throw.

It's like they weren't playing the clock, they weren't playing conservative, they weren't running the ball. They were throwing when they easily could have called more conservative run plays and trusting Darnold. And he kept delivering. So again, Patriots, the defense is better. But I do think Darnold at least answered the question of can he do it? Now, will he do it?

Who knows? But can he do it? He now clearly can. Danny Parkins joining us here on Rahimi-Hare. and Grotie, some breaking news, breaking news here on Rahimi and Harris and Grotty, brought to you by the Take the North podcast. Tom Pelliserra reporting. The Cardinals are hiring Nathaniel Hackett as their offensive coordinator. Sources tell the insider, Hackett 46 was the offensive coordinator for three seasons under Matt LaFleur and Green Bay. Now he teams up with Mike LaFleur in Arizona.

21 new offensive coordinators at the end of the day when everything, the dust settles, Danny. How surprised are you that it's been this volatile? And what do you think of this one? I think that, you know, that job was never going to go to hyper in-demand people because they don't have a quarterback, nor do they have a path to get a quarterback, right? Because they're done with Kyler Murray there. So those are good jobs because there are only 32 head coach jobs and there are only 32 offensive coordinator jobs.

But like if you're an offensive coordinator for an offensive head coach, where you're not going to be calling plays, most likely, and you don't have a quarterback attached to it. That's not a great gig from Nathaniel Hackett, right? Like, Matt Nagy has a better gig than Nathaniel Hackett just got because Jackson Dart, Malik, Neighbors, John Harbaugh is not going to call the plays. He's the top offensive mind there. In terms of the volatility, yeah, I mean, 10 is a lot.

And I think that these billionaire owners are getting more and more impulsive because a $10 million salary means absolutely nothing to them when these teams are worth $6, $8, $10 billion. So there's just much more turnover that's going to happen in the league. And, you know, so most likely we sit here three years from now and at least seven of these 10 coaches have already been fired. Like that's where the numbers are trending is this thing going. Danny Parkins, we always appreciate the time.

We look forward to talking about the post-super Bowl world with you next week. Thanks for coming on. Absolutely. Can't wait to do it. And congrats again to the score. FM. It's been years in the making. And I don't know the origin story behind the weiner circle video that Grody did.

But that was like, I don't know who called that in, what favor, how that came about. I haven't asked anybody yet. But that was good work. That was really good work. It was all improv. They told him to show up. He didn't know what he was doing, and he showed up and showed out because that's what,

that's what Mark Grody does. No, yeah, I could tell that there wasn't a script. I meant, like, who, like, put it together to get it on the big board. But, yeah, I mean, do people have a sense of humor about the Mayor Johnson letter, by the way? Because, like, I'm not sure if they do it, I'm not sure if it's going to ruffle any feathers there. But, like, the Weiner Circle, universal approval rating. Like, what a great thing. to be the testament of like the score going to FM.

Mayor Brandon Johnson signing a proclamation. I don't know. He's a P1 apparently, so we'll take it. Yeah, well, I mean, do better. Danny, we look forward to talking to you next week. That is Danny Parkins. Thanks, Danny. Joining us on the Circa Resort and Casino Hotline, Circa, Las Vegas.com.

We keep it rolling here with our guests on Rahimi Harrison Grady on 670, the score. And we'll talk to Kendall Gill. about the Bulls moves next.