Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Does former Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan make sense for the Bears?

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote discussed if the Bears should pursue defensive end Cameron Jordan in free agency.

Rahimi Harrison Grody. I'm not a fan of any team. I'm just a fan of being right. Midday's 10 to 2 on 1043, the score. There it is. Thank you, Tyler. This is born too slow by the Crystal Method because I'm a million years old.

And you love Crystal Meth. If I did, wouldn't I be more productive? It's a joke. That's true. It is a joke. It is me talking about myself. And you wouldn't have such nice teeth either. Or skin.

Or skin. Or a job. Or a future. all the stuff, but you might be a millionaire. I don't think so. I don't think so. No, then I'd be in jail. That's how that usually works.

Do you know what they call Crystal Bathmark where I'm from? Bath tub Crank. Bathtub Crank. Where are you from? Texas. That's amazing. Bathtub Crank. I was a great word.

I was a news reporter in East Texas because it was at a time where they weren't exactly keen on hiring women to do sports. The concept, not like them in. particular. And I can't tell you how many stories I would do on somebody's house getting, like meth fires and stuff. It's terrible. And Walter White is a hero for the world. I am the one you fear. Heisenberg. Just stop throwing pizzas on the roof of that house in New Mexico. Say my name. But the moral of the story is the Crystal Method, which is a very popular techno band around the 1997s or so. Do I know them? Would I know them? Yeah. Okay. I am not in danger. I am the danger.

I am the danger. Yes. Very good, Marshall. Marshall. We're just talking about Marshall. Marshall is not in today. He's doing the state championship games for the kids. He missed you. So he misses you, Clay, but we're happy to have you in studio. Another personal color in the center seat here, you know, might as well just call me Marshall.

I do. So my problem is I file the names by your betterness. Oh, I always call Lawrence always last because he's like, my mom calls me Braxton and you call me Marshall. And I was like, terrible. Marshall, Clay, whatever. It's the L's for me that throws me off.

LL. Okay, so speaking of names, everybody and their dog on our text line has always mentioned Cam Jordan. And I know that that makes a lot of sense because Cam Jordan, Dennis Allen, reunion, happiness, fireworks. Do you think it's reasonable?

Clay Harbor? to think that that might be somebody you guys, you and Mark Rody, are talking about when it comes to defensive player who may still have an impact, who you might be able to get at a discount because of his age. First off, I love Cam Jordan, and I know this was many, many moons ago. You know, I have something like your grandpa telling war stories back in my day when I used to practice against Cam Jordan. No, I did. He's playing against Cam Jordan.

I'm telling you, this guy brought the juice. He's probably one of the hardest defensive ends I've ever tried to block in my life. I remember just staying up at night thinking, how am I going to block this man? He was just so tough against the run, and I think that still shows up. And you look at pro football focus, fourth overall run grade among 115 edge rushers.

You need to stop the run. To be able to rush the passer, he still had 10 sacks last year, 24th overall graded player per pro football focus. I think he is a guy that still has some juice in the tank. Obviously, Dennis Allen knows him. Dennis Allen loves him. Dennis Allen was a defensive coordinator

when I was with the Saints, Tring Hendrickson, was an edge rusher there. We had a number of Dan Campbell tight-end coach. So obviously a lot of players there are Sean Payton was our head coach. But I think Cam Jordan could be a smart one-year deal. He gets to reunite with Dennis Allen, a coach that he knows. He's still got some juice. You watch him on film. He's got 10 sacks.

He's got a bunch of hits, hurries, two-bedded passes. And like I said, one of the best run stoppers at that edge position in the league. and guess what? He's got that versatility. Dennis Allen guy has become this term that we all use when you're trying to describe somebody. Somebody that's versatile that can move inside that can slide down if you need him in a pastro situation. Say all that to say, yes, I wouldn't mind it. I know people are going to say he's old, he's washed, why is New Orleans letting go after 75 years playing there? The guy can still play.

I turn it on the film. One of the best run stuff is still and still got 10 sacks last year. I'll take your word for it. I mean, and 36 is the part that scares people, but on a one-year reasonable deal. Yeah, I could see that. By the way, I should clear this up. Yes, Javon Hargrave did sign with the Packers on a two-year deal. I brought his name up because he had been released.

That one I missed. He is with at least an agreement in place with the Green Bay Packers. Yeah. Well, that just shows we were thinking like NFL GMs, Grotie, you know, because he did get signed to the Green Bay Packers after having a down year for a reasonable contract. You know, glass half full. Yeah. That was good thought.

He earned it. Two year 23 million, yeah. Also, did you know that Mark keeps saying mildo for million now? Yeah, that's not pretty cool. Have you heard that before? I've never heard it, but I can adopt it. I can run with it. Had you guys ever?

Two years 23, mildo. Mildo. I mean, people know what it means. Yeah. Like, mildew, maybe, but like Mildo. By the way, you know who's going to be getting the Mildos soon? Here's a guy we haven't talked about today, name that we haven't mentioned on the Chicago Bears. darn all right.

Darnel right is going to get paid at some point in time. Are you ready to say Clay Harbor that that man deserves his $100 million contract to be the Bears' right tackle for the next five to seven years? If I was Denneville executive, I would take, most of the time, I would take all the time I had to gather as much information as possible. What's wrong with gathering information? So wait until year 5. Obviously you sign his offer sheet for a fifth year option.

So in this case, darn all right, I think the sooner you do it, the better. Because this guy is just trending up. He seems to be getting better and better. I don't have any questions when I watched this man on film. He had an elbow injury. He's still moving, ejecting defensive players from the box last year. He's gotten better in past pro. he's everything you want in the right tackle.

The sooner you get this done, the cheaper will be for you long term. So I am under the impression that as soon as he's up, as soon as you can, I would like to extend Darnell Wright. He fits the scheme perfectly. Athletic, you can pull him. You can do everything you want for a tackle. He's good out in space. So yes, Darnell Wright, lock him up.

We want this guy here for a very long time. I do agree with that. I think he's, especially to the right side. I think the Bears got away from this a couple of times in the playoff games and they shouldn't have. Like they would start with it and then they would go away from it. Maybe it was something the defense was giving them. But if there was one truth, it was knowing their success on running the ball to the right side behind Jonah Jackson and Darnell Wright. And how well that worked.

And especially right now, I don't care that teams know it's coming. Try to stop it. Yeah. Try to stop it. And if Donnell Wright has a season where he can prove that again, which I think he can't because both of his arms, will theoretically be working this year. He played with essentially one arm last year. So because of that, I feel like that's where, if I'm calling plays,

I start with that and then kind of go out from there because you know what you're getting on that side of the field. Then the other part, let's go to the other side because the common theory for most people, including me, I've said it, that, okay, you have Bracton Jones as your stopgap guy this year. Maybe it's Theo Benedict. And then the assumption is that Ozzie Tripillo is just going to step in and be the left tackle. Is that realistic? Like, did he do enough last year in the games that he played to say, yeah, there's no doubt about it. That's a perfect one year with somebody, and then

Trappillo will be here to save the day and be your left tackle for the next, again, five to seven years. I liked Ozzie. Early on in camp, I said, I thought he was looking good. Next thing you know, he hit a rookie wall in training camp. I've never heard of a wall being that close to the driveway when you just pull out the car and start to drive. It was training camp, but he hit the rookie wall, he comes in, and I thought he played well. I'm not ready to say he was going to be your long-term left tackle. I thought it was trending that way. If he could continue to improve another offseason with Dan Rochard and Ben Johnson's system, this guy could be the guy. But now, a Patelor tendon injury as an NFL football player, ACL, yeah, you cringe a little bit,

you go, he'll be back. You know, Achilles, oh, man, that's, that's tough, but we think he's going to be back. It's going to take a little bit longer than you'd hoped. But teller tendon's one of those in an NFL player, you're like, oh man, we hope he's back. So you don't know as much as we've advanced in medical science. When you're a big guy like that, 300 pounds, you're putting a lot of pressure on that leg, that knee, that's tough. In my opinion, you have to proceed like he is not going to be on your roster. He's not going to be your guy. I know you want to give an opportunity if he can come back. But at this point, with that injury, you got to say, hey, okay, we got Braxton this year. We got Theo Benedict here in this competition. And

Maybe you take someone in the draft that you could possibly develop over the next year, so you have someone else there waiting instead of just hoping that Ozzie Tripillo is back. Yeah, and I know that they've got some backups that, and the reason I don't count any of them out is because when Theo Benedict got a fair shot at this, I can't count any of the backups out. You know, even reciting guards if they want to try them a left tackle, whatever they want to do, if there's a swing tackle. Jedrick Willis Jr. Yeah, that's who I'm thinking of, especially because, you know, they like that pedigree. Have you noticed that? It's not just a relative athletic score for them.

It's a traits. It's were you a five-star recruit in high school? That's a big one for the bears, whether or not you want to admit it. And then, for example, the first round pick, or the first rounder pedigree, they really like that a lot too. Now, granted, I also asked why wasn't Alex Leatherwood consider more times when I shouldn't? Thought about Alex Leatherwood, too. I just wanted to give him a chance. So I feel like that falls into this category a bit. Not Alex Leatherwood. It feels like Leatherwood.

Former first round pair. I believed in him. Jedrick Willis Jr. was the number 10 pick in the year 2020 with Cleveland, right? Yeah. If you look at some of his numbers at the combine, I mean, this guy checks every box. He had a 611 wingspan, 34-5-inch arm. Big hands? I mean, big every.

But the arm's span does matter. The arm length does matter to polls. Andy ran a 540, jumped 34 inches, 9-6 broad jump. Like, this guy's a freak athlete, but then you watch his tape. You look at all the grades, the analytics. on this guy. He's never been successful at tackle. So I think, I mean, this is a little bit of token competition. Karana Magaji, I'm going to say something crazy.

You ready for something crazy? Yes. Okay. Goody, you were probably there too. I was at every day of training camp practice with the Bears last year. I thought he improved a ton before he got hurt. I was impressed with Karan Amagaji. When he first got drafted here and I saw before he got injured, I go, I don't think this guy can play.

And obviously, he was put in a couple bad situations. Braxton Jones had the one concussion that he goes through the week, and then he starts getting symptoms the day before the game. And now Kronomagasy is starting against Minnesota Vikings on one day of knowing without going through any practice with the first team. Of course, he's going to give up a couple, two, three sacks. But in training camp last year, he took a big jump. I don't think it's outside the realm of possibilities of him to be in this competition.

I love hearing this, man. He's athletic, the freak arms. Now you're blowing me away. well. He got better in camp. I remember watching this guy. I've played with Jason Beaters. I've played with Lane Johnson. I've played with Ryan Ramcheck. I've played with Toronto Armstead. I've played with a ton of tackles in my day, and I know when a guy has some tackle ability. He has some ability. I'm not saying he's going to for sure put it together, but he has some traits that you want to see from a big time tackle.

Listen, I know he's gotten a lot of hell on this station, and he was putting a bad position that night in Minnesota. I would love, I would love to see Corona. Omagaji get a real shot and earn a real possibility. Amen. That's why I love hearing what you just said. You're the first person I've heard say anything good about this man. He deserves that. I was hyping him up all last training camp and then obviously got hurt and fell off and, you know, the people on Twitter, oh, Clay, what happened to Karana Amagaji? Even I was saying Ozzie Tripillo was looking good. Oh, so much for the Ozzie Tro pillow. He can't even get on the field. The end of the

year he starts playing. But these tackles do look like they have the traits. I've seen a lot of these guys. We have to block next to them, these big monsters, and these guys do have traits. If they can put together, I feel like they've all improved, then this will be a fun competition to watch. I'm just going to present this, and I know we're up against a rape, but I just want to throw this out there. I feel like Ryan Poles definitely is on the all-trates team when it comes to his drafts and who he wants to pick. When the traits actually match the tape, it's Darnel Wright. Yes. Like Darnall Wright actually, so please consider tape. Just please, I don't know who's listening right now, and Ryan Poles is at the Oklahoma Pro Day before he goes to

Hallis Hall of All. But whoever is, one of you, please consider some tape to match the traits. Like, please actually watch the games and not just look at the relative athletic scores. As into your diet. Even as a guy that came out of the combine with a 4-5, a 40-inch vertical, 30 reps of bench press and all that 10-5 broad jump, watch the tape. Watch the tape. Watch the tape.

It's the hardest thing to do. As a combine kid, watch the tape. It takes the longest amount of time. But like your combine, but your traits is, what got you to the combine. Your tape is what kept you in the NFL. That's the difference. I'm a big believer in if a guy's a football player, he's

a football player. I don't care what he ran. I don't care what he jumped. If he can play football, put that guy next to me, put him on the line, put them out there at wide receiver. Obviously, there are some outliers that they're to a point, right? I think it all matters if you can play football. I don't really care what you're running or jumping.

Go watch some player. I want you get out of here and go watch some tape. I'll do that. That sounds good. That is Clay Harbor. Coming up next. Oh, yeah, big pro football shows on tonight at 530. Yeah, 530 tonight. 530, Clay Harbor, Ruthie Polinsky, David Haw on CHSN. They will be at Hallis Hall.

And Lawrence is telling us we have to go to break. I mean, I was getting there, Lawrence. Do you know why? Lawrence is making room for Russell Dorsey. That's Russ's music. Oh, yeah. We keep the cool kids coming in, man. Just hang out with us.

It's Rahimi Harris and Grotie.