Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Full Show — March 12, 2026

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote discussed the state of the Bears' roster with the first wave of NFL free agency completed.

The score. This hour is brought to you by Cars for Kids. The views and opinions of Laila Rahimi, Marshall Harris, and Mark Grody should not be taken too seriously. Especially when they give advice. Do not take Marshall's analogies, literally. Especially when it comes to Russell Dorsey. The sports thoughts of Rahimi Harrison Grotie may change at any time. It's just sports.

Okay, thanks. Bye. Rahimi Harrison Grody. 10 to 2 on 1043, The Score. We talk to our friend Danny Parkins. Hey, Danny, how are you? I absolutely think the bears are live for Max Crosby as we sit here today. But I guarantee Ryan Poles made that call last night.

I guarantee it. We all said yesterday's price is not today's price. If you like watching the NFL. Yesterday's price is not today's price. I don't know if that means Caleb Williams is interested or not. I think the podcast, there was definitely some flirting going on. It reminded me, Danny, of when Bryce Harper was flirting with the Cubs. I will show you.

well I flirt. In fact, I will get her phone number. Do you make the pizzas in one of those wood burning ovens? No, actually, I think they're gas. Gas? Wow. Intense. That wasn't flirting. That was heavy petting.

Like, they, that was, they were... Nah, no, it wasn't heavy petting. Some articles of clothing had already been removed because Bryce Harper told us after the fact I wanted to be a cub. This is totally going to get aggregated the wrong way. I happen to be very proud of my big ears. I mean, a lot of women consider them erogenous zones during a heavy pedig.

It was, you know, like a snowball at a bar mitzvah, but when they say snowball, you're not going to any other partners. You're just staying there with your one boo-thang. Like, yeah, they were absolutely, that's a Jewish reference there that maybe flew right over over. It's okay. I just wanted to see boo-thing again. I don't think I've ever heard anyone say boo-thing ever. I've heard Boothang, but not Boothang.

thing, but I like it. That's, yeah, that's the difference right there. I'm not going to totally appropriate. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, I'm not going to totally appropriate it. Appreciate you for that. Yeah, no problem. No, no problem.

Ain't no thing. No, it is a thing. Lela Rahini, Marshall Harris, Mark Grody, Midday's 10 a.m.2 on Chicago Sports Radio 104. The score. As it usually does, our show takes some twists and turns, and, and, and, you know, perhaps more left turns when it comes to some of our discussions. This is Rahimi Harrison Brody on 104-3 The Score. It is Mark Grody and Layla Rahimi in with you today on this Thursday.

And we haven't heard from Mark, our intrepid Bears reporter, on the deal involving Max Crosby, dying, not going to Baltimore after all. And then I think Mark he cemented it when he decided to post an Undertaker gift and say he's back. It made it, I don't know if Undertaker gifts are official, but it sure felt like Max Crosby was letting everybody know

that was the end of that. He wants to be in Las Vegas. Or so it seems, I do remember a pretty dramatic post that he put up going to his new team as well. So I don't trust anything right now. Everything still feels a little bit fragile until it doesn't

and maybe I won't be saying that by the end of the day. Congratulations to Max Crosby, too, on being sober for six years. He put that up as well. He is into sobriety. So good for him. Some people were fiddling in the comments because apparently he smokes a little weed every once in a while. But if drinking

was his DOC, as we call it in the business, drug of choice, and he's not doing it anymore. Good for him, but if he smokes a little weed on the side, he wants to be California sober, that's good. Layla, the whole thing to me, I'm going to use two words to describe what I've been hearing and the reaction that I've had.

To everybody in the NFL world. The whole thing is this big mind bleep is what it is for obviously the two teams involved, for the rest of the NFL, for the teams that were thinking about Max Crosby. And you know who I thought about? I thought about your average, let's say, 11-year-old fan that is in Baltimore. That's when your emotions are at their highest as a sports fan, I think. You're not really developed. You're a huge fan of the team.

Hey, Max Crosby's coming to the team. Crosby is coming. And then the next day you find out that Max Crosby is not coming to the team. So the whole thing has been this huge mind bleep for every single person involved in it, for everybody that covers it for people like us. It's just mind blown in a really bad way. Was it Chris Angel speaking of Las Vegas who called himself mind freak or something like that? Wasn't that a thing? Mind freak. Are you using freak instead of the other word? or because, you know, there's a word that I'm, okay. Chris Angel Mind Freak was a television series.

Oh, very good. You know where you can watch it? Tube. I heard you guys talking about Tube yesterday. Let it be known that you can watch it on Tubey. Did you say you watched the Super Bowl on Tube or something like that? Yeah, a couple years ago I watched the Super Bowl on Tube because I was in Thailand. It's like it was a missing Super Bowl.

Oh, okay. It's a flex. So the whole thing is a mind bleep and it all sucks and there's nothing good about it for anybody, including the awkward Max Crosby having to go back into the Raiders locker room. Yeah, and Max Crosby did post about his sobriety at 3-11-20, six years sober.

That doesn't make mistakes. I thought that was great. Amen. And I'm not here to gatekeep how somebody wants to live their life and when they want to call themselves sober. He also then posted everything happens for a reason. Believe nothing you hear and half of what you see. I'm a

Raider. I'm back. Run that Blake. And then there was an eagle and a pirate flag. And then there was an Undertaker gift of him walking through a coffin that was on fire. He busts out of the coffin on fire, kicks down the door. And surprise, surprise, the Undertaker is alive. That was what I heard when I saw the little pirate flag with the skull and crossbones. That's exactly what I heard.

Except here's the thing. That's kind of the Undertaker's bit too, isn't it? I'm going to Baltimore. bong. No, never mind. And then once you thought you had the Undertaker figured out, no, you didn't, he'd come back yet again and again. And that was the point. Okay, you're teaching me. You know, you know I don't speak wrestling. I appreciate that you do. And I think Marshall does as well. So I am taking it all. At least the man. And Lawrence. Yeah, absolutely. Lawrence for long, long time talking wrestling here on the score. But yeah. At least he has a sense of humor about the whole thing. He's not. not depressed in a dark room. Not drinking. Here's the other thing to Mark is that he was very definitive, as you pointed out in his

comments and speaking perhaps through agents when it came to like Jason Lockenfora, oh, this is, I've played my last down in Las Vegas. But I think the bigger picture here is that the actions make us all question, well, wait a second. How bad is that physical? Because as we understand, there were other teams, verbally the cowboys who were out there talking about how they didn't want to give up two first round picks from Max Crosby. Danny said he didn't want to give up two first rounders in a player. That was the Micah Parsons deal.

Notably, the two first rounders seemed to be the real big talking point here and the point of dissension when it came to the price. And on top of that, Mark, I think, was the fact that there were other teams who were concerned about the medicals. don't necessarily think it's the medicals of, do you think Max Crosby can play next season? It's the how much are you going to get next season? And does that quantify with a two first round pick return? Yeah, how much are you going to get next season? How much do you get the season after that? Let's say, here's the problem, I think, with anybody, but I'll keep it bear-centric.

Here's why the bears are not going to land Max Crosby. I know that's not exactly. Mark has killed the dream on three-one-two day. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Chicago, I am sorry. No, I'm not. Here's the truth about the whole thing. Let's say Max Crosby did make his way to Hallis and to the doctors there, or whomever performs the physical. And they think, let's just say their doctors, like, actually we think he's okay. Like we would do this. If something

was to happen and he was to get injured, the bears would go back to being, that's so bears. Can you believe what the bears just did? Of course, the bear. bears were the team to fall for the banana in the tailpipe. The bears were the team to fall for it. So here's the thing. It's just way to, even if, because I hear the conspiracy theories out there. I heard Marshall yesterday talking about saying he doesn't think it's a fail physical and that there's more to it and that they just got cold feet and they didn't really want to give up the buyer's remorse, all of that. My God, what have we done? And I get all that. I'm here to hear conspiracy theories even if I don't believe in them.

But if this was to happen and he was okay, good to go, and then he gets injured, the bears look terrible. And it's like a regression from all the positivity that the bears have had and specifically a guy that I've been hard on that you've been hard on. And that's Ryan Poles. You know what I mean? Like he seems to be getting better at his job over the last year. Plus, that would be a huge setback.

And I think any team has to look at it like that. at this point, even if Baltimore was a little off on their physical, you can't afford to take that chance because it would be egg in your face if he was to get injured. Well, and it's one thing when it's one team, and you're right, Mark, there are circumstances surrounding the Ravens that are historical. Mike Florio talked about the concept of trading a first round pick for them and how that was something that they hadn't previously done. Then there's audio that we had from our sister station 1053, the fan in Dallas, Shand Sheriff. Yes. He said the Baltimore Ravens ultimately failed him on their physical,

and that Shand Sheriff is speaking here. His understanding is that there were multiple doctors that reviewed his MRI scans. There were doctors who examined him, including Dr. Daniel Cooper, the Cowboys doctor, who have performed surgery on Patrick Mahomes and Malik Davis. Many teams and players rely on Dr. Cooper's expertise, and Dr. Cooper was one of the doctors who reviewed the images where the Ravens then felt compelled to back out of the trade. Now the Cowboys had been on the record, at least they had sourced on the record with

Jane Slater of NFL Network, their reporter, saying multiple times that they did not think that two first round picks was the price that they wanted to pay in a trade like this. However, this does make me wonder if that could still be a possibility. I know what Max Crosby said.

I know that he pointed out the Undertaker GIF. I know that he posted the pirate flag. But I also know that there many a player who have said they're back or that they have decided to go elsewhere. And it doesn't always work that way when you've got a contract with another team. I think considering what just happened, anything is possible, including that. And I will say this, too, about the Ravens organization.

We're talking about it in transition a little bit with Mullen Hawn. He asked the question, you know, would you do business with Baltimore right now? And I get the question. People's answers would be, I don't know about that. But before this occurred, Baltimore, for the last two decades or so, that's an organization that you would probably have pointed to and said, that's one of the best organizations in the NFL. With the GM they have now, Eric DeCosta, the guy that they had previously, Ozzie Newsom, right, the tight end turned g, he was terrific at his job. Steady. Playing as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, he was. And then, you know, John Harbaugh is gone. now the head coach of the New York Giants. John Harbaugh was considered one of the top five best coaches in the league. So it's not like this is some disaster of a franchise that this is going on. So I do think that they survive this. And I do think that we are being a little bit harsh in our overall assessment of the Baltimore Ravens, even if this was not a good look in the moment for the Baltimore Ravens.

Our segment here on Rahimi Harrison Grady talking about whether or not the dream for the bear. is dead for Max Crosby, is brought to you by almost free teeth.com, save on dental implants today. Here's the funniest part about all of this. Because the Raiders had so much cap space, signing Tyler Linderbaum to that ridiculously high contract. I'm not saying he's not worth it, just relative to the position. It really was ridiculously high. 27 million a year. Mildo. Mildo in Mark's measurement scale. That is three. years at 27 million a year for 81. You thought that that was ridiculously high compared to the center before him, Creed Humphrey, who had set the market. Even with all of that, even with

Max Crosby's wildly high cap hit, they still have cap space. They still have 37.9 million dollars to spend under the cap. It's crazy. That's the craziest part. It really is, especially considering what has been going on here. And that has been our, I'll say my, obsession with, because I don't want to just necessarily put everybody else into it, but we have all been talking about the Bears cap room, and how could we get that cap to how can we get more money for the Bears? All of the money in the NFL has been with the Raiders. So there's a floor that they have had to get to that's part of why the Linderbom got the

27 million per year. But man, that is going into next year, the Raiders, good or bad or ugly, is going to be a fascinating team to watch on a week-to-week basis. Well, and that's it, is that this is continued as the soap opera of the NFL. And having, frankly, disgruntled pass rushers specifically on teams who struggle, like, say, the Raiders or Miles Garrett with the Browns or Trey Hendrickson prior to him leaving, then going to Baltimore, there was an issue. You know, this isn't new.

This isn't something that's rare. And they have their agency and they have the right to say, this isn't good enough for me. look at how I'm playing for you. This is what I'm doing. Are people participating in the same way? Max Crosby asked that question. Perhaps you want to be on an organization where you can win. But I think lesser than the concept of whether or not there was buyer's remorse on the side of Baltimore,

I think there was a market that Max Crosby set. And once that domino fell, everybody else made moves. And I do think that Baltimore told you the priority was, after they addressed hiring Declan Doyle, after they addressed hiring a new head coach, after they decided to adjust their offense to better suit Lamar Jackson, make the changes they did, that they were going to get a pass rusher, a bona fide top name in the league pass rusher. And that's exactly what they set out to do.

Their plan B was still incredible in Trey Hendrickson. And it cost them nothing pick-wise. That's what you get to do when you've made the flexibility, when you've got the money, and then you decided that this was the priority. you were going to set. We want one of those guys. We're going to get one of those guys. They still did. So I think that that's the most important thing here is there was a market that supplied enough of these elite pass rushers to still make that a possibility for them. To make sense that it was actually on the up and up, that their first choice was Crosby.

And if Crosby hadn't worked out, it would be Hendrickson. Textor here, 312, 644, 67, 67 is the number. moving quickly. So here it is. Here it is. Grody is so lots of O's. So wrong. He does understand. This is football in my best Doug Bafone voice. The texture says anyone healthy or coming off injury can be hurt at any time. Of course that's the case. But can you imagine if the Chicago Bears did what they have done twice in the last two decades and that is to give up two draft picks for a player once upon a time. Jay Cutler, the other was

Khalil Mack. Can you imagine if the Chicago Bears who are coming off in 11 and 6th season, their first playoff win in 15 years, were to get this man and then he injures the same knee again. That would be egg on the face in a big way of a, I would say, a recovering GM, a general manager for the Bears who has gotten a second life and he's doing good things with his second life.

At this point, I don't think the Bears are in a position to take that risk. Other teams might be, I don't think Ryan Poles is. Well, he's got the extension, so it is what it is. You're right. We would be eviscerating the bears if they were in this position. Oh, and Poles would get run out of town for it. Let's not forget the Larry Ogun Joby example. I never forget the Larry Ogun Joby example. Poles will probably be asked about that today in some way, shape, or form,

or at least a preface to a question because he can obviously relate to the pain. Because Poles was genuinely hurt by having to do that. He said at the time, because I remember being there, that it was one of the hardest things he had to do was tell Larry Ogun Joby, sorry we're going to pull that, what, three-year deal? I don't remember what the actual numbers were, but it was a pretty good number. We were all pretty excited that he was going to be the three technique for the Bears. He wasn't.

It was Justin Jones, who still has been their best three technique since Ryan Bulls took over, in my opinion. Well, and I think the other part of this is really important is that the Bears made their big swings last offseason. I've maintained that. And the reason I feel that way is because we saw the contracts that went to them. and for everybody who says, well, the salary cap isn't real. I think that might be true for some teams. I don't think it's true for all of them. And the bears are acting like a team that the salary cap still very much defines a lot of their budget.

Can you make some wiggle room? Can you restructure contracts? Yes. But can you do it to the extent of, say, the Philadelphia Eagles? I don't think the bears have that kind of wiggle room or they don't want to do that. And Poles even said that at the combine. there's got to be a level of acceptance and understanding that they signed Dio Dengbo and Grady Jarrett and extended Montez sweat to these contracts with the expressed intent that they knew that those were going to be their guys.

Have they produced enough? Not in the first year of that combination. But you can't argue with the money that they put on those efforts. That was the money they decided. They're telling you with a contract how important they think those guys are. So for two years in a row, Dio Dengbo is a projection. when they signed him. It was a total projection because of the lack of...

Now it's the same thing. And Dan and I always say, I take the north of the bears are kind of hiring from within that they can't make the big splash because they are still depending on Dio O'Dango to be productive and to be the player that they seem to have projected. Shamar Turner, the second round pick, they still have high hopes for him. But you're right. The money they spent on the D-line and the interior of the O line last year were great. splashes, but it has hurt them in terms of their spending this year and what they think they can do.

I owe the dangbo. Oh, yeah, that was a caller yesterday. Grotty, you didn't hear that. What was it? I owe the dangbo. I owe the dangbo. Close enough. We got what he was saying.

We accept it. Yeah, so there's that. But that's Mark Grotie. I'm Laila Rahimi. Our producers, as you heard them speak through our audio earlier, Ray Diaz, Tyler Bueterbaugh, Brandon Friar helps us out as well. You can join us through our text line, as we mentioned. call us because we do want to know what you think. Is that dream over? Are you okay to say goodbye to the

Max Crosby idea for this year? 312-644-67 is our number here at the score. You can join us on Twitch. Our Twitch mob is chatting away. Twitch.tv slash the score Chicago is our address. We are also at YouTube and we are at the score Chicago on YouTube as well. So you can join us there if you like. We broadcast live through our scores Hyundai Studios brought to you by local Hyundai dealers, and Wildfire has joined us back for the breaking news sponsor. Breaking news on the score when we have it, and you know we'll tell you, is brought to you by Wildfire. Enjoy a delicious meal at Wildfire restaurants with five Chicago land locations.

I have enjoyed a glass of Sauvignon Blanc or two at a wildfire. I will say that. That looks good on you. Leila, just hanging out, having herself a nice glass of what? Savon Yon. Savon Blanc. Okay. Yes.

I don't know my wine. Sorry. That's good, though. Bangbo? Who is it again? Diode. Diode. Diode.

Here's what scares me. The more we say it, the more we're likely to mess it up. It's a slippery slope. It's Zipillo. As all I have to say. Savon Blanc. What did you say? I don't know how to say those wine words.

Savvy. Savvy B. Savvy Blanc? Savvy. Savian. Savian. Savian. Savian.

Savian. Savian Blanc. Correct. Got it. Also just wat wine. There you go. White wine? White wine.

Well, white wine. It's a little easier. Is white wine for the daytime? Is white wine more summer? Or where do the white wine, more of a white meat thing, fish, chicken? They say you're supposed to drink white wine with fish, but those rules are kind of antiquated. Okay. You know, like, they don't recommend you drink red wine with fish.

I don't necessarily think it matters. I don't care. I did use to enjoy it. I'm not going to criticize. Beef and red wine. Like steak and, like, that's delicious. Or if you're Seinfeld and you're trying to steal your dates to. toys in you're at her house, more turkey and red wine, and then she falls asleep so you can play

with all the vintage toys. Oh, yeah. The exciting whites. I mean, there's that as well. Yeah, you missed Danny Parkings yesterday. Well, I heard him talking about a boo thing there. It's your one boo thing. Yeah, that that was pretty good. Okay, so coming up next here on Rahimi Harrison Grady, since Mark is here, I think now that free agency has has died down a little bit, we expect to hear from the Bears later today at Hallis Hall. We've got to ask the question, given how many one-score games, the Bears were in and they won, and I know you remember because you were stressed out watching them too. It came down to a lot of playmakers, and a couple of them we know are no longer with the team.

So, do you feel like enough was done in free agency to replace some people who really did matter last season? We'll talk about that next. Can you imagine Lovey Smith doing the whole good, better, best thing? and saying bleep the Packers. Come on, guys, good, better best. Never let rest. I'll see you on Tuesday. Middays 10 to 2 on 104 3, the score.

This is Rahimi Harrison Grody on 1043 The Score. Mark Grody and Layla Rahimi are in with you on this Thursday. And we are awaiting later today to hear from the Bears front office. Ryan Poles is speaking, and I think that that's important because We haven't heard from him a lot, which is really, really good to know. So we'll hear from him. I think we're also expecting to hear from some of the Bears' new acquisitions. So that'll be really helpful to help fill in our gaps over at Hallis Hall.

But in the meantime, Marshall and I were talking about this yesterday, Mark, the waves of free agency and how you kind of time them. I feel like this is the close of the first major wave of free agency. When the league tampering window opens on Monday, you get all the smattering of free agent news. the first day and then it kind of closes out and then the GM speaks because it's a new league year and then we'll get like the details guys signing like Nashan Wright did last year you know that was the

the Bears have also added these guys and it's like 10 guys who they've signed or something so now that this first wave of free agency is closed do you Mark feel like the bears have done enough in replacing the players who left with guys who can help

this team improve on the record they had last year I think it's a good start to what they have done with, you know, specifically the signing of Kobe Bryant was a good signing. The fact that Kevin Byrd is not coming back to the Bears is bad. So there's another hole. And I don't think Jaquan Brisker is walking through that door either. I'm okay with Devin Bush as well to be paired with DeMarco Jackson and T.J. Edwards. and maybe, maybe the speedy Ruben Hippolyte as well.

You added a little depth on the line with Neville Gallimore. You went out and got your center and then you got a bunch of depth pieces as well. To me, it's a good start, but there's still lots of holes as we sit here right now. There's no way I can say that this Bears team is better on paper than what they had than what they won 11 games for them last year. And that's where I sit with this is when I consider how many one-score games the Bears won and how we talk about so much, how we discuss the plays that a guy like, yeah, Tremaine Edmonds may have not been what you wanted him to be in the totality of his career with the Bears.

He got released in the last year of his contract. But he still led the team and tackles in the regular season despite missing four games. He had 112 tackles. He had four interceptions. That was near the top of the league. Thankfully, Kobe Bryant also had four interceptions in the regular season, so that puts him in familiar territory. But Kevin Byrd was an outright playmaker last year.

He obviously helped win you a couple games. And then there's the play of Nashan Wright, who helped you out in some close games, especially against the Vikings as well. Like I think about that interception in the end zone. Well, when it's a two-point win, Mark, how can you tell me taking a touchdown away, it doesn't matter. So then when you try to put into place those performances and how they actually affected points on the board and wins and losses,

it's really hard for me to see right now based on who they've signed, how that's going to help the team because when playmakers go away, do you have enough playmakers in their places at the prices you need them to be under a salary cap? The Bears had 33 takeaways last year, and you just mentioned the two key guys. Kevin Byard and Nashon Wright were responsible for, including fumbles, at least 12 interceptions and at least, what, three fumble recovery? So let's just say. And then add in Tremaine's four interceptions.

Oh, yeah, and Tramane's. And didn't he have a fumble too, I believe, like a recovery. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he had a scoop and nearly score, I think. Yeah. So, okay. So, so how. So that's how many.

17? 17. 17 of the 33 takeaways. Those guys are gone. And if you want to even. narrow it down a little bit more just to the interceptions? The Bears had 23 picks last year.

So 12, I guess that'd be more than half. Oh, and then add in to Edmonds' what was it for? Edmonds. So seven for Byrd, five for Nashan Wright, that's 12. Another four for Edmonds. 16. The 23 picks are gone. And that's, and

that's what I'm trying to figure out. That is the part that I try to quantify. And then without those, Leila, real quick, without the takeaways, which I think we could all agree that to some degree, takeaways are fortunate. Right place, right time. I'm not saying that some of them aren't schemed and some of them aren't from watching tape

and knowing what the other team is doing. I would be insulting people's sensibilities if that wasn't part of it. But let's face it, there's a luck factor. The Bears, without the take-o-with-all-the-takeaways they had last year, Bears passing defense, 22nd, the rush defense, 27th in the league. Total defense, 29th. Sacks for the Bears. They had 35 of them.

tied for 22nd. So even with all of, that's how dependent the Bears' defense was on takeaways last year. And teams, they're nice. And maybe the Bears will have another 33 takeaways next year. But you cannot depend on that going into a season. As a matter of fact, you have to look at it as if maybe this guy will have two or three or four interceptions, but not seven to ten. That's seven interceptions led the NFL this year.

Well, and that's it. is I know that it was a stroke of luck. We talk about that. We all knew that it wasn't sustainable, at least not for multiple seasons. We knew that. The fact that it was sustainable for a season is wild. And then do you know who's behind on

who also left and is behind those guys on interceptions? He's two. C.D. Garner Johnson. So everybody who had multiple interceptions for you last year is gone. Is there anybody who had multiple interceptions or fumble recoveries or force fumbles that is left on this team. Yes, DeMarco Jackson.

Thank you, DeMarco. Welcome back, buddy. 7.5 million. This is a long table. Tyreek Stevenson, two forced fumbles. And they don't really like Tyreek Stevenson. So that doesn't really help us. Montes-Wet had three force-form.

Okay, that's legit. That's legit. He had 10 sacks too. And listen, that's the thing. Montes-Wet performed better last year than he did the year before. He came on strong. Do I still have some residual issue with what happened the year before? Yes.

Well, you should, and even the beginning of the season. There were times, remember when I had that interview with him, the interview, I think he had had a sack, but I had to ask him about, like, where has the production been? And he told me, look, it's a new defense. People don't realize that. Dennis Allen's defense, and we're all learning. And then he slowly progressed and got to 10 sacks on the season.

And that's slow and steady won his race. It did. It did. But when you watch the Super Bowl and you see the exemplary defense in the league, and that's the last game I watched. I'm like, oh, man. Yeah, sticks near. But we got there, Kobe Bryant.

And I'm happy about that. I thought that that was a good pickup. It's a good pickup, yeah. When you consider the way the bear season went last year, and you just name off how many people we told you made significant impact, significant to the point where the previous head coach, not as much Ben Johnson, but Maddie Rufluz told you how much turnovers determine wins and losses to lose your seven.

You're five interception guy with three fumble recoveries. You're four interception guy with a fumble recovery and you're two interception guy. That leaves a big hole. And is it enough to ask yourself a question with a harder schedule, can you get us from point A to B and get us back in the playoffs? Doesn't mean the bears won't get back in the playoffs, but they are not as good right now at this moment, just looking through it. And part of it is because they're literally missing starters. Right now. And Leila, we just talked about the defense for the last 12, 13 minutes.

We didn't even get into the offense and the fact that maybe their most important offensive linemen is not on this team in Drew Dalman. The patchwork is coming for the left tackle spot. Can they do it too? I know they put it together last year with Braxton Jones and Theo Benedet and Ozzie Tripillo when he was healthy. But that was hard. That was maximum effort for the Bears to.

make left tackle work last year. Yeah, that's not the max that we want to talk about. I mean, it is. But it wasn't the max of the day that we wanted to prioritize. 312, 644, 67, 67 is our number. We've gotten a lot of texts. We're getting some calls. So we will talk about this more coming up next here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 1043,

the score. Rahimi Harrison Grody. I don't want to break time. I want to yell at Marshall. Can we handle more? Anthony Herron. Middays 10 to 2 on 104.3, the score. I think when you see it across the day all the time, you panic and you want to do crazy things that everybody else wants you to do, it leads to some situations that you can't get out of. So we want to stay flexible. We want to stay open-minded. We want to stay committed to building this team the right way because I think that's the best way to sustain success.

We're always going to be opportunities. We're going to go through opportunities that pop up and talk through them. Is this best for us short term? Is it best for us long term? And then we move from there. That is Ryan Poles. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 104-3, the score. And we're asking the question,

whether or not you think the bears have done enough so far in free agency to replace some guys who really made some big plays for this team. And that's the hard part. Now, Mark, I did think about this. I know we want to talk offense, but I wanted to think about the defensive side of the ball. Two of the main playmakers for this team, two of the other highest paid dudes,

were largely unavailable for much of the season in Jalen Johnson and Kyler Gordon. Kylo Gordon was slightly more available, but not by much. So can they make up some of this ground? I'm assuming the bears are betting that happens. But when you consider what happened last year, it's hard to kind of understand how they fit in the Dennis Allen defense, how you visualize it,

when we didn't get to see a lot of it. last year. Well, and the other part two is, like in theory, that's correct, but Kyler Gordon has had some issues staying healthy in general. So can you just say, yep, they're getting Kyler Gordon back, they're going to be fine. And I need to see Jalen Johnson healthy as well, because, like, I give that guy a ton of credit for gutting it out. A lot of people thought, remember when he got injured, there was a lot of consternation on whether he would be back or not. Initially, he was out for the season. then he said he would be back.

He did come back. He wasn't particularly effective when he came back. And Jalen Johnson admitted it. Like after every game, he would, anytime I would ask or any other reporters would ask, he'd say, that ain't me. That's not me out there. I assume he's going to return to being him, but I still need to see that. There were times where, especially in that first game back against the Packers,

the playoff game, and he just, he looked slow. Yes, yes. He looked slow. And the body language where, you're, you're, you know how it is when you're slightly hunched over and you're running because you're trying to make up ground and you need to be closer to who you're defending. There were times where the pursuit just was not as as effective. And I think the Rams game, he looked faster. He looked a bit more where he was supposed to be also in the defensive formation. Dan Weiderer brought that up.

The time, yeah, weed man, there's a time where when you're thinking about where you need to be, That lag time, how does that show up? You know, if the defense is new to you? Was that part of it? Was that part of why he maybe looks slow at first to us? It wasn't competitive at times. Which was weird to see. And again, I believe it was the injury and not Jalen Johnson, like nothing mental or anything like that.

But I need to see it. I need to see him being back to number one. And this isn't his fault. And I believe he can get back there. Yes. But I just can't shake the fact that I feel like defenses in the NFL, especially when you pay for really good ones and you reward people, how quickly sometimes they can turn into older and slower than they need to be. Like the step slow, suddenly it becomes a very expensive defense, slower defense. Think about just the criticism on Montez swept from a lot of scouts.

Brad Biggs wrote about this. again going from last year into this season. He had 10 sacks this season. But they talked about how that that explosiveness that the line wasn't there. And it just, I just keep it in mind. Well, there's two players that in the name of what you are saying that do improve the speed.

Kobe Bryant faster than Kevin Byrd and Jaquan Bristker. Devin Bush, faster than for sure, T.J. Edwards, probably Tremaine Edmonds as well. DeMarco Jackson pretty fast. But Devin Bush, 27 years old, he's got the speed. So that's another reason I can't wait

to hear what Ryan Poles has to say as it pertains to Kevin Byrd and how hard they went after him. I believe that they loved him, but did they say, oh, we can get Kobe Bryant. That's an upgrade, just in terms of the age and the speed and the type of player

that Dennis Allen wants. And that's a part of it, too. He didn't have a lot of his prototypical guys. Now, he got some when Al Harris got to help recommend to Sean, right? When they got to get CD Gardner Johnson, CJ Gardner Johnson, whichever he is. Well, he says call him CD, so I go with him. Oh, yeah, I always asked him every time I interview him, what are we calling you today? Who would you like to be today?

And he always gave a different answer. Maybe he knew the bit. If you said today, maybe he knew it was conceptual. It could be. That was, too, Weedsie and I, we took a walk up to him one day. It was like early on in the tenure of, if you want to call it that, of C.J. Gardner Johnson. And we're like, what are we going to get? What are we going to get? And we got some good stuff from him on one of our episodes earlier this year.

I feel like he was very informative all season long. He was. And he was another challenging interview subject because he'd throw it back at us. When he got tired of questions and didn't like what we were saying, he would challenge us, which I always embrace as long as I'm ready. Yeah, when somebody asks you a question and you have a certain answer, I mean, AJ Pierzinski does that in conversations. Amen. That's a great example.

And we was a player. I covered AJ as a player because I covered the whole 2005 White Sock World Series. AJ could be difficult. But that's, hey, man, that's what we have to deal with as reporters. It's not on AJ. That's on us. And when we talk about this free agency state, that we're in, the state of Bears free agency.

State of Bearsness. Yes. Trying to fill your positions for need. You know, trying to fill the gaps that your salary cap and contracts created and retirement created. You're right. We've heard one of the criticisms on Garrett Bradbury was Anchor, that he was overdrafted in Minnesota.

Did he do a great job in New England? Yes. And now they get to slide over their guard slash center prospect over to center. But it does make you wonder, is this a bridge or is this somebody who they want to rely on for the same time window? Is it a two-year thing? And when I think about guys who can't anchor, you know Braxton Jones comes up because that was always a criticism of him, Mark. And now he's likely your left tackle by default going into at least game one and for how long? Yeah, I mean, going back to what you're saying about Bradbury, Bradbury's fine.

He's not as good as Drew Dalman. Very simple. I don't think I need to go beyond that. And then Braxton Jones, let's see what he does in a year where, again, in theory, I need to see it. He had a very injury riddled season last year. And I remember talking to him. And this was during the competition for left tackle. And him being just a little bit frustrated with everything that was going on, like kind of pleading with us to say, look, man, I am still recovering, essentially.

I am still trying to get back to being 100% healthy. So I guess this is just maybe I'm grasping at straws with the hope that him being healthy this year, that he will be better. And when he has played left tackle, again, I'll use the word again, he's fine, not special, not a guy that is obviously replaceable or the Bears wouldn't have been trying to replace him. But they hopefully will have a couple of other options, one of those being Theo Benedict, who knows what goes on in the draft, who knows how versatile Jedrick will. Julius Jr. is the offensive lineman who missed all of last year, who the Bears have on their roster. Jordan McFadden, who I know played guard for the Bears down the end of the season. We'll see what that sort of depth and versatility can do for the offensive line as well. But it's going to be maximum effort again, I think, at left tackle. Not the max you want, though.

No, no, not. Maximum effort is important. Max effort is absolutely critical. Yes. And Max Crosby today would have been better. Two X's. Two X is always better than one, right? When we're talking about Max, Max's? Indeed. It's only Max I know with two Xs. Or there's the Vin Diesel movie, Triple X. Oh, yeah.

I have no idea what that movie was about. Did he wear a white t-shirt in it? I was just going to ask if you're a Vin Diesel fan, but you just answered the question. I like his voice. I admire how he's made a ridiculous amount of money. Yeah, I guess that is admirable. It is because you're like, how'd you do all this? How'd you make all these movies, man?

Yeah, it's the jokes on us. Those of us who don't like it, jokes on us. If actors want to pick Elaine and just be themselves and have fun at their jobs, I think he's gotten it figured out. I said that on Take the North the other day. I gave a lesson to all of our listeners on the podcast. Once you accept who you are and what your limitations might be, what your strengths are, you become a very happy and made person. I've not personally reached that spot yet, but that's a good, that's, if you can get to that place where you just know who you are, you know what you're best at. And Rod Marinelli, Rod Marinelli.

once lost 17 games back in the old 16 game schedule days. He lost 16 games. He was only 16. He realized, you know what? I'm just a defensive coordinator. Vic Fangio, same thing. One of the greatest DC got a chance, got a big bite at the apple to be a head coach. Didn't work out. I was like, you know what? This is who I am.

I'm a defensive coordinator and I'm one of the best. So just be that. Be you. Be you. That's Mark Rodi. I'm Lela Rihimi. Coming up next, former Packers Executive and podcast host, He's just a good guy to talk to you when it comes to GM stuff, both free agency, physicals, that type of thing.

Andrew Brandt joins us next here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie. This hour is brought to you by Joel Osco. I've got a responsibility to the Ravens, to this community, to our fans and to Steve Beshotti, to do what we think is best for the club. And that's what we always try to do. Every decision we make is based on this idea. Is this the best thing for the Ravens? Very, very challenging. Again, I understand how people might maybe from a far would feel that way.

Nobody's more upset about this than me. That is Eric Dacosta from his press conference yesterday. He is the GM for the Baltimore Ravens. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 104-3 The Score. We broadcast live through the Scores Hyundai Studios, brought to you by your local Hyundai dealers, and we go to our hotline. That is where we find a guy who I think can help us out

with a lot of these questions when it comes to Max Crosby and what happened in Baltimore, what the process is with the salary cap for a lot of teams right now, how guys are creating space. Andrew Brandt, he is the executive director of sports law at Villanova. He's an NIL consultant, the author of the Sunday 7 newsletter, host of the Business of Sports Podcast, and the former Packers executive and player agent.

Thank you so much for joining us, Andrew. Yeah, happy to be with you. It's always a busy time, this time of year. you know, for people in the business of sports, whether it's agents, whether it's team executives, now on the college side, which I'm doing for negotiating player contracts, the busy time of years when there are no games. So it's counterintuitive to coaches and players, but this is where it all happens where front offices in the NFL massage architect mold their teams for 26 and it's the busiest week of the year for them.

Well, Andrew, the reason I also thought about asking to have you on, and we thank you again for joining us, was sometimes we just need the nuts and the bolts and the process of how something like this would happen, say, with Max Crosby, where we know he had a menisical repair injury that he tended to. We know that there was a surgery. We know that he wanted out. We know that there was a process as to whether or not he was worth two first round picks and a player and then obviously the physical. So from an executive standpoint, how does this process go where it gets to the point where it does where Baltimore decides to pick a different lane? Well, there's agreed upon trade parameters. They go out through it. I mean, I'm sure the Raiders were talking to a bunch of different teams and they got the best offer from the Ravens. But any trade, and this is something that so many people don't truly understand, any trade is contingent on a physical and every physical is subjective. there's no standard NFL physical.

There's no physical that say the Raiders do and everybody has to abide by it. So every team does its own physical. And this has happened many times. Maybe not so much a trade of this magnitude, but players are signed. They think in free agency, go take a physical and it's not a pass. We saw this in the NBA last year when the Hornets traded Mark Williams to the Lakers. Lakers sent them back. So it happens.

So the Baltimore physical was a fail, and that's kind of the end of story. And then all the, you know, all the media attention on what really happened or they get cold feet or, you know, I just think in these situations you have to take people for their word, which is we're giving up two first round picks. It's going to be a very intense and comprehensive physical. And the report back to the GM was it's a fail. and obviously it gets a lot of attention, but these kind of things happen all the time in sports. Well, Andrew, I think you're saying then what I have been thinking, and I do like Eric DeCost.

I think he's been a good GM with what you said. The physicals are subjective. Trades are always contingent upon a physical. Even though Baltimore is getting hammered for this, and there are conspiracy theories out there, did Baltimore do anything wrong? I mean, we don't know all the deal. details, and we don't know the, you know, some of these things are not black and white.

There could be some gray there. And maybe if this was a trade for a six-round pick, you pass them. You know, it's all related. Like the magnitude of the trade is related to the importance of the physical. And maybe if it's a fifth-round pick, you're like, okay, we know he's not ready until July. or whatever it's going to be, yeah, for that risk, we'll do it. But it's all related. You know, so would Eric DeKosda be doing this if it was a low-level player for a future

seventh-round pick? Probably not. But I don't think they're sitting there saying, Jesus, you know, two first-round picks, we really want to get rid of those, even if the players is healthy, no, I don't think that. So they're getting some slam out there. But I think if I'm in the Ravens front office, I'm saying, okay, we can go through with this and keep our reputation clean out there, but maybe have thrown away two first round pick for damaged goods. Or we can take whatever PR hit it's going to be and feel good about failing the physical on them. Well, Andrew, I think that's part of it, too, is Mark and I were just talking.

about how we were trying to quantify the Bears playmakers who left the building, for example, with the one score wins that they had, how many interceptions that just left the team, how does that translate into wins and losses, right? Which I feel like is a massive part of your job as a former executive. And if you're on the agency side, you're trying to sell wins and losses, points on the scoreboard. When it comes to quantifying this, for example, I think any insight you can give us on the concept of how much does a failed physical cost you in a two first round price? How much does that physical matter? Any sort of exchange there or mental process that you can enlighten us with really helps us understand how this would go.

Well, it's a massive investment. And we've seen two this year already, Micah Parsons and Soss Gardner, unfortunately, both got hurt. Micah got hurt late in the year when he was on the way to being the defensive player of the year. I think that's still looking like a win for the Packers. Saus Gardner got hurt right away. We don't know. I said at the time, that looks like a real win for the Jets. I don't think you trade two ones for a cornerback unless he's a certain Hall of Famer.

For a pass rusher, you know, it's probably more of a sell. You can trade two number ones, but it's a massive investment. And as we've been saying, it's all part of the investment. You're not going to do anything that you're entirely sure. And this is not even a rookie player where you're going to be limited on the financials. side because of the rookie pool. This is a player making top end money in addition to the two number ones. So I think that all goes into it. And the reports I saw were not only the Ravens medical staff, but they brought in some other medical staff. So obviously there was concern and they bring in an

outside doctor to basically, I would think say to them, like, are we seeing this the right way? And it's all these terms that you and I don't know about conjural defects or whatever is going to be inside that knee. This is some heavy medical talk. You know, the one thing at the Packers, I told our coaches, we've got to empower our medical staff. Like, if our medical staff says he's out, Sunday, he's out. Like, we're not living in these days in the 1960s anymore, or 70s or 80s. where the coach overrules the doctor. So, you know, medical is something people don't know about running a team in any sport

is how much time is devoted to medical. Yeah, sorry, Andrew. Yeah, just too much money involved, right? Yeah, and I think that the one thing I always say, in sports, especially football, hey, listen, I'm old. I've been a triathletal. I've been a triathletal, a lot of years, and I'm, I'm a little bit beat up.

So if you're injured, you're going to be more injured later. Like if you're injured and you're earlier in your career, you're going to be more injured later. It's just a fact. And I don't know age and I don't think Max Crosby's aging, but this is a long-term play. You're not giving up two number ones for like two years of play. You're giving up two number ones for a long term. And I think that went into it. It's not about now.

He's probably going to be a good player in 26. But this is about the future. Yeah, I was reading. I love the tweet that you. If I may read one of your tweets back to you, Andrew, that's what I think I'm going to do right now. Raiders, you write, colon, quote, we're now not trading Crosby, close quote.

And your translation, this is from Andrew Brandt, offers have dried up. Is that would you think is going on, obviously, because everybody trusts the Baltimore doctor? Well, I do think it's interesting that, you know, these sources are kind of slamming the Ravens, but no one steps enough to get Max Crosby. So whatever the Ravens came up with, people are like, you know, if the reports were true that the Ravens outbid all these teams,

you know, you hear about the Cowboys, you hear about the Packers, you hear about Eagles, like they don't seem to be wanting to get Max Crosby now. So maybe later, I mean, I'm looking at, I didn't even know about this, guys. I didn't know he had a surgery in January. So to me, this is a trade that's made after a couple more months of rehab. Well, and that's a good point that you make, too, Andrew. And when we're talking to Andrew Brandt about this, if you guys are just joining us,

Andrew Brandt, NFL executive, NIL guy for Villanova, executive director of sports law there as well. I think that's the part that makes this hard is, number one, there's a couple things play here. Trey Hendrickson was available at a free agency price, so you don't have to pay any first rounders for him or any draft pick. Number two, Max Crosby set the market. It seems like nothing really moved after that,

but then when it did, everybody moved so quickly. I wonder if there are some teams who, had they known, Crosby might have been available for a cheaper price, like you mentioned based on the physical, if they would have still gone in the direction they did. Yeah, you never know. I mean, I think there's also a lot of questions

I get all the past couple days about are the Raiders now taking on this $30 million that they have back going to get out of any of these deals they've signed? No. I mean, listen, people figure out a way around the cap. It happens. So I think people get too caught up in like, oh, my God, what are we going to do? No. They understand it. If you make a trade in the NFL, it's subject to physical. If you're trading a guy who's had surgery a month ago, it's got to be something. something the Raiders thought was a risk. You know, how do you, and I'm sure in the conversations between DeCosta and the Raiders,

like, tell me about the knee. Yeah. And there's a reason he flew out to Baltimore, you know, other than to celebrate. This was something that had to be looked at. Yeah, and he, and this is part of why he's great, but he plays with a ferocious motor, too, then that has to be taken into account all the snaps that he's taken as well. I love what you're saying about the cap and anything can essentially be manipulated. And the bears have been in this situation that their cap number grew in the offseason.

They were able to, you know, by waving players, trading players, things like that. My specific question is about restructuring contracts. What's the percentage of players, Andrew, that when they are approached for restructure, just flat out say, no thing. Thank you. Well, very few, but, you know, it depends what restructure means. The pure cap restructure is a paper transaction. If a restructure includes a pay cut, then you're having a different discussion.

And I've done a lot of both. When you're going to a player for a restructure that has no cash impact, and this would people understand cash and cap, they're very different things. If the cash is the same, you're just trying to move around cap, players will usually do that. Sometimes they may hold you up for, hey, if I'm going to do this for you, kind of get better payment terms. So if you're converting a, you know, salary of $10 million to bonus so you can

prorate it out, a player agent may say, hey, you know, instead of paying that through the season, can we get some of that now in March? So cash flow usually can be an issue. But I've never had, you know, I never think a player would. say I'm not going to do a paper transaction. But if you're talking about a pay cut, that's a deeper discussion. We're talking to Andrew Brandt. He is, I feel like you're our cap guy. You know more about it than we do, that's for sure. And when I thought about what you said on a previous interview with us, you said when you were at Green Bay, your cap was your budget. Like the

end. That was it. And it really made me think because you've talked to us about teams who can do the whole kick the can down the road thing. But it's my understanding, and you know this better than we do, that there are some teams where they're more fluid to be able to do that, like I think of the Eagles, for example, who come to mind. And maybe there are teams like the Bears who don't want to get in that position. What dictates whether or not a team does that and gets into these long restructures? You know the New Orleans and Drew Brees, for example, as opposed to other teams who don't?

Yeah, I mean, it's each organization. and have to decide it, and sometimes they talk about windows and, you know, eagles in a window of a dominant team and pushing out with all these voids. And voids are just like creating these dummy years at the end of the contracts you can per rate further out. In other words, you can reload more cash now and push out cap. It always comes back to bite you. You know, the feeling is the cap's going to be going up so you can take pushouts now. I just looked at it on a cash perspective. I was with a team without an owner.

We had to set how we're going to spend. And I just looked at the cap. So this year's cap's $300 million. And I wanted to be true to our fans in Packer Nation. Like, yeah, we're going to spend the cap. And the cap is accounting. So I think for fans, what you want to know is your team spending the cap. As to what they do on the accounting side, that's really up to them.

I always told agents, you know, agents will always tell you, hey, I can make it cap-friendly for you. And I'm like, I don't need your help. It's my job. Like, you worry about your player. I'll worry about our cap. The issue is what's the cold, hard money going out in a contract? Cap is just for teams to figure out on their own.

I get a little, I smile sometimes when people are all crazy about teams cap or not. They'll figure it out. Okay, that's good to know. Well, and Andrew, there's some... They may figure it out by barring from the future, but that's okay. I mean, this is what team have three, four people in their offices doing all day. So it's just accounting. It's not...

The key is, what are they spending? Well, and it's funny because we have... We even have, and I'm sure you've probably seated, too, the discussion among NFL fans, some say, well, the cap isn't real, or you can always... restructure under the cap, or they have a more fluid concept of what the cap is. But I think in practice, we haven't always seen that out of teams. So that's why I ask the question, because I feel like for some, yeah, that's probably the case.

But to apply that theory to every NFL team, I don't think it's the truth. Well, I get the question all the time, is the cap real? And I think the answer is this. If the world's going to end in a couple years, well, the cap's not real. So it's kind of like individual debt is basically what you're saying. Yeah. You can't just hit file delete in three years. So, you know, you've got a heart, you've got Tua Taga Lavova, however he says his last name.

Taga Vila. It's going to count 99 million on the, 99 million on the cap. Like that's a third of the cap. And he's not, he's going to be playing in Atlanta. So that's real. I mean, if people don't think the cap's real, the Miami Dolphins are playing with two-thirds of a deck this year because of that one contract. Now, you add on Tyree Kill, you add on Bradley Chubb. You know, the Dolphins may have playing with half a deck this year.

Half a deck. So that's real. So you're saying I have to pay my credit card, Bill? Unless you die. Eventually. Fair enough. Unless the world counts. I tend to, I'm kind of like you.

I tend to believe, you know, the cap is the number. But when you've got cap guys like this, I think it is a fair question to ask. Yeah. Andrew, this is always informative. Thank you so much for joining us. And if you want more of Andrew's work, you can check out the Business of Sports Podcast and the Sunday 7 newsletter. And what's the latest at Villanova?

What are you guys working on for this semester? Well, I do my teaching, but I'm now obviously doing all the NIL deals. so the transfer portal would be hot and heavy in a couple weeks. And you think that NFL players have it good. These college players, oh, my God, they're free agents every year, unlike NFL and NBA players that have contracts because we have an unregulated transfer portal. The college situation has some tough negotiations compared to the pros,

I even. Well, hopefully at least somebody's making some money. of the thing. And we also hope that you have a somewhat peaceful offseason ahead. Thanks so much. And I'm doing all those things, the newsletter for people who are tweeting at me. It's at My Sunday 7.com. And then I do these reels on Instagram at Andrew Brandt, too, if you want to check them out. Thanks, guys. Thanks for coming on with us, Andrew. We appreciate it. Love a good reel. Thank you so much. Andrew Brandt, too, on Instagram. Sunday 7 is the newsletter. So that is Andrew Brandt.

I feel like he's our cap guy. Can we call him that? Oh, absolutely. I'm certainly not the cap guy. He's a Packers exec, though. Yeah, I was almost going to say to him, as we were talking about Villanova, the farther you get away from Packers'ness, the better. So stay where you are.

Don't worry about Green Bay. I understand that you're the base of knowledge and you need to allude to it. I almost also asked him what his greatest cap manipulation was when he was with the Green Bay Packers. But there's just not enough time to ask all the questions. That would have been an excellent question. Yeah, they're just the time they're telling us to stop out. asking questions. So I stopped asking questions. And the other thing, too, is that a lot of this really is, tell us how this works. And it's like every time I think I have a hold on it and

understand it, part of me, like I take two steps forward, one step back when it comes to understanding all of the intricacies of the cap and what it means and what it doesn't mean. But he always helps. I know more. I just took two steps forward. For the record, I like paying my credit card off every month. Oh, I enjoy doing that too. I don't like having extra. stress in my life. I assume as, like for instance, my parking that I pay for in the city of Chicago goes right on the card. As soon as I see that, I'm paying it off right away. Gotcha, credit card. You're not going to get me. Not anymore. You used to get me. You did. Not anymore.

Now, is that always possible? No. No, it's not. But that is where I stand with it. I'm with you. Lales. But it sounds like according to the Eagles, the cap in sometime in 2098. So we've got that going for us. That's good. Coming up next year on Rahimi Harrison Grotie, something completely different. Number one, as much as I didn't enjoy cheering for Bryce Terang,

I kind of enjoyed cheering for Vinnie Pasquintino. Even though he's a socks killer, even though. Team Italy comes through for Team USA at the World Baseball Classic. We will listen to an interview that I want to play specifically because I think it will entertain Mark. So we'll do that next. Rahimi Harris and Grody. That sounds so crazy.

104.3 the score. Wow, I like that. Midday's 10 to 2 on 104 3, the score. Rosereda hits it hard. Fisher throws across. Ballgame. Italy, 4 and O, into the quarterfinals, and Mexico has been eliminated.

Zipu'll be. Mexico and 2-2. United States in. They get Canada on Friday. Italy. It's 1.30 goal on Saturday afternoon. That is courtesy of Fox Sports 1.

It was supposed to be on Tooby, our favorite network. Your favorite. But I've changed to Fox Sports. Raise in my favorite. Yeah, that's right. I'm a tubier. Oh, yeah, I did hear you talking about that.

Yeah. Yeah. Get on board with Tooby. Come on, bro. Tubey, bro. We're not getting paid to say this. Pulling tubes, yo. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, take it easy. sounds inappropriate. It's legal, but anyway. This is Rahimi, in some states, this is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 104-3, the score. And that was Italy's 9-to-1 winner for Mexico at Dikin Park in Houston for the World Baseball Classic. And why was it important that we kept an eye on this game or why did it get moved from 2B to Fox Sports 1 and why did we all watch it?

Because Team Italy needed to help Team USA in order for them to advance. Italy needed to beat Mexico by at least four runs, and that's what happened. So they were able to advance. They got the run differential in their favor. And Team Italy firing up the espresso, four and oh wins pool B. Team USA was three and one, and they both advanced in the world baseball classic. And Vinnie Pasquintino, who of course I know from watching a billion socks and royals games, it's not great baseball typically.

How dare you? You just farted on it. It's been good for Vinny. It just hasn't been as good for the socks recently. Vinnie Pasquantino had struggled in the World Baseball Classic. He was due, and he ends up paying three home runs in the win, and had quite the interview with Friend of the Score, John Paul Barrosi, after the game. Three espresso shots in.

How you feeling? I'm caffeinated. I'm beamed up right now, so just, just, Yeah, we're in a good spot. So how many more boxes of those espresso pods are now on order? As many as we need. As many as we need, we'll make it happen. So that was unbelievable, huh?

You're welcome, USA. We were thinking of you guys over at your hotel. We were thinking of you guys. So I'm glad you guys could join us in the party. So when you get back to your phone, Vinnie, what's that text message going to say from Bobby Witt Jr.? I'm hoping he's got a room key for me. out his hotel. That's what I'm hoping for. That's it. I'm just joking around, but I don't know. I don't

know. I don't even know what I'm feeling right now. I've never felt this before. Like I know we didn't win anything. We won the pool and we've advanced, but just we weren't supposed to, right? I mean, we had expectations that we could, but we did. We knew what we needed to do tonight. And once we scored four runs, it was like, all right, we better win this thing. So it's, I don't know, it's pretty special. This is a really cool group. Whatever happens next, we're going to be ready for it. And I'm honored to just be a part of this.

Sometimes when someone who's hit as many home runs as you have, Vinnie, you know when it's going to be a special day. I saw you bunt on your first pitch. So what were your thoughts, your emotions heading into this one? I'm pretty sure everybody knew how I had been hitting so far in this tournament. I knew. Any way you can get a hit, you just try to get on base and help the team. And I've never hit three home runs in a game before, so that's kind of cool. But more importantly, we were able to put some runs on the board early.

And we scored more than them tonight, and that's the goal. And I'm super proud of this team. I know how much pride you take in your defense, Vinny, as well. What did that mean to you to? Woo! Hey, thank you. Gatorade dump, I assume. For the captain, for the captain.

Celebratory. Your defense, Vinnie, all over the place last night, doing the splits last night, and then again today. What is the results, what is that the result of terms of all the work that you put in? It's just hard work. I mean, it's just getting out there and doing the work. Jose Agucile with the Royals, our infield coach, Vance Wilson, who's helped me out over the years. Those two guys just pushing me every day to try to get better and to, you know, do what I can to not be a job. designated hitter because I really don't want to be that right now.

So we're just happy. I'm glad I was able to help contribute, especially when I wasn't doing anything offensively. And I'm just really happy. Finally, Vinnie, you're one of the many Italian Americans on this team, but I thought it was very poignant that it began with Aldegeri on the mound and ends with Quatrini. Right. What have you learned about the Italians who have come over and join this team and now wear the same jersey as you?

They're not scared. I mean, that's the loudest environment. I've ever played in. I can only imagine. So for those guys tonight, I mean, it couldn't be better. I know this game was on national TV in Italy, which doesn't happen very often. And for the Italians who were able to stay awake or wake up early to be with us, those are your guys, right? I mean, we're your guys, but those are your guys. Just a bunch of special, I mean, Andreas, Gabriela, Claudio, Mateo's here. Ram, Sam, San Martini, Sam Aldegari.

I mean, these guys are awesome. And like I, I'm just so proud of this group. Well, it's always a joy to watch to play Vinny. And Italy is lucky to have you as the captain. Congratulations. We'll see you in the quarterfinal. Thank you. I appreciate it.

I like Vinny. I'm glad you played that for me, Leila. He's got a place right here on this microphone anytime he wants. It was the right amount of incredulous and then also not quite understanding that they won. And then I feel like their only, their only concept, was to get enough runs for Team USA. You're welcome, USA. And then he made the joke.

We were thinking of you guys. You're welcome to Rosa. Troll's Team USA at their hotel that is like, hey, can I stay with you? Like that took some twists and turns. And then it's just also beamed up, which I had never heard. He's talking about espresso beans. I'm beamed up right now. You're welcome, USA.

And then the headline said, beaned up, Vinnie Pasquintino, blast three homers in historic WBC effort for Italy. You're welcome, USA. Oh, yeah, the Dorocha got bailed out, ladies and gentlemen. Those four runs to get the four runs for Italy, the bailout has occurred. And he was over 12. Oh, is that what he was coming in? When he says not doing anything offensively, he meant it.

He was bunting. Now, I know. I know that I'm being hypocritical here. I know that I'm being hypocritical because I told you that I can't cheer for Bryce Terang. noted P-I-T-A award winner here on the show. Pain in the ass. Because that's what he is for the Brewers

whenever they face the Couch. You and I are on same page of that one. And Vinnie Pascentino is definitely that for the Royals when they face the White Sox. But he never hit three home runs in a game before. And I just had a laugh because you could tell in watching it, Mark, that he really didn't believe they won. I don't even know what I'm feeling right now.

I don't know what the hell happened here. That's why it made me laugh so much on Rahimi Harris and Grotie. and I'm glad I got to play that for you. Thank you. That was great. Can I bring up a few other things from watching? I watched the majority of the game last. I obviously did not see that the post game, but Italy wins 9 to 1. Stayed for the whole deal, I did. Good for you. I was flipping around.

But Javier Assad started the game. He gave up two home rounds. I'm sorry, Ray. I know this is a sensitive topic for you. But I did notice this about Javier Assad. Maybe this has been brought up and I haven't been paying enough attention. He has slimmed down a little bit, and he wasn't wearing the glasses. He was not wearing the signature Javier Saad black glasses last night.

He looked good, but it just felt a little bit empty that that was going on. I also have a beef with something that was going on in the game. I don't know if you notice this. An Italian beef, absolutely. We should have an Italian beef with something going on. Baptized. Baptized. With some Jardinara. That sounds lovely right now.

That does. It's 3-1-2 day. Oh, my. Oh, yeah, spot on. They kept showing an Italian fan. I assume it was an Italian fan wearing a Pope uniform. So they think they still have ownership of the Pope in Italy? I don't think so.

I don't think so. That is for us. It is for Chicagoans to dress up as the Pope until further notice. Wait a second. The Pope is a socks fan. Yeah. Can he cheer for Vinie Pasquinsino? Bobby Wood Jr.?

That's what I'm saying. The whole Pope and the stands thing, you think that's cute. No, no, we get to do that here. We are the Pope, okay? Chicago is the Pope. America is the Pope. Not Italy. Sorry.

Not even the Cubs. The White Sox. Yeah. Yeah, I'll allow for that. Yes, White Sox, you are the Pope. So what happens if somebody asks Pope Leo, hey, did you watch Team Italy? And he's like, well,

I can't be cheering for Bobby Wood Jr. And Vinie Pasquitinino. It's true. Kyle Teal, Sam Antanachi, my guys. Shout out to John Birdie. Once a Cub. Hitting a home run last night for Team Italy. Don't know how the Pope feels about John Birdie at this point in time.

I can tell you how I feel. How you feel about it. Team Italy, you can keep John Bertie. You know who else is on Team Italy, Ray? Your favorite. Your favorite. Miles Master Pony. Oh, yeah.

Team Italy, you can keep both of those guys. Thanks. Oh, Miles Master Boney. Why do you hate Miles Master Boney? What did he ever do? He was a time. Just not enough. Tries hard.

I mean, isn't that what you want, Ray? Tried hard is not good enough, Mark Grody. I think you should know that as a long-time Cubs fan. But we just talked about Max Effer. Yeah, with two X's baby. And then USA versus Canada, it could be the ex-Cubs slash socks pitcher Michael Soroka getting the start for the Canadians. Well, don't forget Jameson Tile.

Or Jameson Tile. And apparently Owen Casey has had himself a heck of a series for Team Canada. Yeah. Big Red looking good. Although he did in the last WBC 2. He hit a home run to Straightaway Center in the 2023 WBC that looked like it went about 25 million miles.

I forget who it was against. But if you know what I'm talking about, you probably remember. We all liked Owen Casey more than the Cubs did. I mean, like, they liked them, but they liked them that much. Oh, Owen Casey. I like the way the ball. I like the way the ball came off his bat.

He had good opposite field power and the that's he had with the Cubs. Yeah, yeah, they may have, well, this happens, right? They had a pitching and they had a trainer for pitching. I'm not sitting here saying the Cubs are going to regret it. I just like them. I'm curious to see what he does in his career. And that's, yeah, you're right.

That's what you do with prospects. You got to flip them and make your team better. I think the Cubs are, I'm not going to say it. I'm not making any Cubs predictions right now. No. I was hurt before. I'm not going to get hurt again. I'm not going through another year of that.

Uh-uh, Ray. You know what I'm talking about. I know. You guys are getting ready to press that button. The Grosite condescending. The season is over. The Cubs have won the division. 847 is making me laugh.

When Pasquintino started listing the names he wanted to acknowledge, I thought he was reading Mike North's Christmas card list. My guy! Yeah, I think victory beef for team, you know, the Italian beef for Team USA and for and for us and for Team Italy may be the move here. Do you take? I don't even have any espresso today. I had just coffee.

I made it on my espresso machine. Yeah, and your vat of oatmeal. Yes, I made a vat of oatmeal. I like the way you operate. I do. Yeah, let's see the vat. Show everybody. It's a nice vat, actually.

The container that you have is beautiful. It's beautiful. Yeah, look at that. Look at that. Look at the vat. What else have you used that vat? I bet you can put some chili in that vat. I haven't done that yet.

If you're going out to a tailgate, you could have your little chili out there. You know. Yes. So, yeah, I get, I have oatmeal that I bring for my breakfast because I'm a very exciting individual. The Pope loves Sam Antonacci. Yes, that is true. All right, we're going to parse this through.

Halftime is next on Rahimi Harrison Grotie. What time is it? It's halftime here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie, and we have some breaking news. Breaking news on the score is brought to you by Wildfire. Enjoyed a delicious meal at Wildfire Restaurant with five Chicago land locations. This happened while we were chatting about

other things, the World Baseball Classic and whether or not I need an Italian beef and mostly espresso. According to Marquis Sports Network, Matthew Boyd announced as the Cubs opening day starter. Hey, go Matthew Boyd. You know what? He earned it.

I know he fizzled out towards the end of the season, which was, which you could say, the entire Cubs team did. Looking at you, show to Aminaaga as well. 14 is he got to take a side swipe on. Do it 14 and 8 with a 321 ERA. last year. Game one of the DS was catastrophic. Yeah, 31 starts last year was the most starts or at least the most innings. I don't know that right in front of me here, but the most

innings he had pitched last year. So that's interesting. I'm now interested in how the rest of the rotation will set up. It was the second most. Second most in his career? Yes. Yeah. Was it? Okay, I thought. He had a really robust years with Detroit. Yeah, oh, I know. I just for some reason, I thought, I thought last year was his most, but I'm willing to be incorrect. I'm always Yeah, 2019, Detroit, when he led Major League Baseball with strikeouts at the break, he had 185 in a third innings that year. Okay. He had 179.2 last year.

But the point is he had 179 in two-thirds innings. That was a lot of work he did. Yeah, he did. Also, as many of our listeners like to say, Matthew Boyd isn't the stepdad. He's the dad who stepped up. That's right. You and Marshall started that. I love that.

According to our text line, Matthew Boyd taught a lot of people how to tie their tie. Okay. Told them not to let the air conditioning out of the front door, you better shut it. Told them to leave lights off whenever they turn the light off when you leave a room. Put an extra $20 bill in your shoe when you go out. Yeah, walk outside and put your hands on your hips when the storm is rolling up. Oh, yeah. Yeah, look around.

Smoking a pipe. I'm not top by the regular pipe, like with cherry tobacco. So what do you think, Kate Horton? Kate Horton is probably. That's what I would assume. then you go Tyone, third, or Edward Cabrera? Yeah, it's got to be, okay, let's do this.

You want to do this? Let's do this. All right. Number one, it's got to be Matthew Boyd, now that we know he's the opening day starter. Number two, probably Cade Horton. 11 and 4 with a 267 ERA last year. I don't sound super confident in that,

but it just makes sense because a lot of us thought Kate Horton might be the A or the opening day starting. Right, right. Number three, I think it's probably James and Tyo. Over Cabrera. Oh, Cabrera. You forgot about.

Cabrera. I got to go Cabrera. Like, you know what I mean? In that case, maybe it goes Boyd Cabrera, Horton, Tyone, and then Shoda. I think you got to have Horton. Unless they're still trying to be conservative with him and not put the pressure on him. Because he was on an innings watch limit. How would you put it last year? But that was last year. And he did give up three home runs the other day.

Everybody gave up home runs. I know. It's Mesa. We're told it's just spring training. Some have been more. Some have been more stressful than others. James and Tyre might be working on his 12th pitch. Shoddy Minaga, I'm a little more concerned.

We know he's the fifth, he's five, right? Shoda? I would assume so, yes. And then Justin Steele is not back, yeah. I don't think Justin Steele probably comes back based on how he was talking. When he said June, I would assume June. Because it's never before schedule. It just isn't.

And then who's the first guy that starts when there's an injury where they want to sit a guy. Is it, does Ben Brown get another nibble at the apple? Colin Rhea. Javier Assad? Yeah. Wix, not going to be Wix.

He's hurt. Also, Raya is a nod to the morning show. That's a dust. Oh, I was going to say, I didn't want to correct you. No, that's a dustinism. I don't know why he started saying it, but I caught on. That's hilarious. I did Boyd, I did old school pitching, but he is such a quintessential Cubs soft

tosser. Can we get one guy who throws nasty stuff? Might I introduce you to everyone. Cabrera. That is a plus plus fastball and that change up is insane. I think it has a north-south, east-west break at the same time. Hell yeah. Owen Casey, who? Well, see, here's the thing. Good point, right. He's having a lovely little world baseball classic. Yeah. Plus he seems like a likable guy who got some thunder in that bat. Big red. We've taken care of the Cub starters. So yeah, I think that that's, that's, now we have to suss this out in probably a larger segment. Probably. That is the breaking news. And as we

mentioned, it is courtesy of wildfire. Enjoy a delicious meal at wildfire restaurants with five Chicago land locations. I watch some college basketball. Welcome to Mark's College Basketball Corner, starring Mark Rodi. This won't last that long, but

I enjoyed watching a 15-seed Northwestern beat a 10-seed Indiana yesterday. 74-61. Great job. Shout out to Chris Collins and the Northwestern Wildcats moving on advancing.

One of the things that I really enjoyed seeing yesterday, and I don't know, maybe he's been doing this and I didn't notice. Sorry, not sorry. Bruce Weber! I saw Bruce Weber out there doing analysis on the pregame show. I am always just so happy when I see that, man, Bruce Weber, back from, of course, famously with the 2005 Alignite, another team that I got to cover the. their entire run here in the Midwest. And Bruce Weber, I am just happy when I see him. He just

makes me smile. And I know like, like he did, he had the benefit of Bill Self's players when he adopted that, that Aligni team, all those guys. Indeed. Darren Williams and Dee Brown and James Augustine and that whole crew, they were all guys that were his. But I love Bruce Weber. He's a delightful man. And then I did watch, man, oh, I've got to talk to Lawrence about this, but DePaul, DePaul, a six seed. They get the highest seed they've ever had in the Big East tournament, a six seed. And they lose to the 11 seed, Georgetown 63 to 56. DePaul seemed to be controlling the ball or

controlling the game in the first half. And then they decided to do nothing in the second half. So this is what happens when I, when I invest back in my DePaul Blue D. and I'm allowed to say that because I did grow up loving DePaul. Yeah, you also claim Notre Dame on occasion. Well, don't worry about that. Mark Aloysius, Grote, Dave the Cat's dad. I'm a frontrunner.

I am a frontrunner, too, when it comes to college sports. Bears. I'll drop some Notre Dame knowledge on you later. Emma, send me something quickly. Chris Emma. I was sad to see DePaul lose last night. That's it. We have more hope for a DePaul basketball program.

than we've had in a while with Chris Holden. They were over 500. They did get the sixth seed, and they did split the regular season 1-1 with Georgetown, but Georgetown just took it to him in the second half. So I was disappointed. I was disappointed, but I will root through them in the future. I will be on the wagon, the bandwagon, if they're good again someday. I'm also laughing at the tournament schedule for the Big Ten, which you can check out at the United Center.

I hear it's been a lot of fun for everybody who's gotten to go. You know, there's triple buys because the Big Ten is so big now. The Big Ten tournament lasts like two and a half weeks. So the Aligni don't even play until tomorrow. Yeah. Michigan gets a triple buy. Aligni got a triple buy. And so the winners of in this order, Penn State Northwestern, Northwestern, Indiana, Northwestern Purdue, for example,

the winner of that Northwestern Purdue game gets to face Nebraska. That's the 530 game. tomorrow. The Hoybergs. Aligni, that is a midday game. Don't be listening to that game instead of us now tomorrow. Yeah. Don't be doing that. Don't worry about it. You could, well,

I was going to say we'll update you on the game, but we probably won't. But when the top four seeds get a triple buy, that just kind of lets you understand how large the conference is. That tells you what's up. By the way, the Vikings officially released Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave yesterday and Kyler Murray seems to be

visiting Minnesota. Yeah, they had to release a lot of people because they were insanely over the cap. Yeah, they were. Also, I hate to inform you guys, but Jire Franklin is always entertaining on his podcast and informative. And the Packers posted officially that they have him. And then he posted a really funny Photoshop or edit of him holding Culver's bag and shake and then drew a Packers uniform on him. And there's somebody tubing in a snow tube on his leg. It's going to go a long way to our friends.

in Green Bay. We can't have those guys being funny too. We don't want to like you, but it's hard not to like that. I've already used his podcast for a lot of information. Yeah, about Matt Iberfluse. Remember that? The guy knows what he's talking about. Yeah, he said he sucked. Let's take care of all of this hot gossip and more with a man who can also spray to all fields. Clay Harbor from Chesson is in studio

with us for five on it next. It's time for five on it. Rahini Harrison Rooney. Bring you five topics on their minds today. Number one. This is Five on it with Laylorheamy, Mark Rody, and special guest in studio with us. Clay Harbor, nine-year NFL veteran, co-host of the big pro football show on CHSN

alongside our guy, David Hall and Ruthie Polinski. Here's question, number one. Have the Bears improved? That's what we were trying to figure out earlier today, Clay, because, number one, you know that interceptions are not always sustainable, But then number two, you have to figure out that every single player on the Bears last season who had multiple interceptions is no longer with the team. Kevin Byrd had seven. He gone.

Nashan Wright, five, gone. Tremaine Edmonds, four, gone. C.J. Garner Johnson, too, he's gone. But you also know that you're probably getting, most likely. I'm looking at some God right now, the fates or something knocking on wood. Lord, maybe Jesus, Oprah. hopefully a healthy Kyler Gordon, hopefully a healthy Jalen Johnson enough to fill in those gaps. I assume the bears were thinking that as well.

They improve with speed with Devin Bush, but I don't know yet if they've replaced to a sufficient level of the playmakers that they lost. That's where I sit with this. And the answer is I don't know. I don't know if they've improved or not. Yeah, let's look at these positions. Wide receiver, better or worse, Grotie. Right now, worse. Yes, offensive line, better or worse.

Worse. Let's go to defensive line. Better, worse, or the same? Yeah, I guess same. Lineback and crew. Better worse or the same. Same. I'm going to say same. I like Devin Bush. Defensive backfield, better, worse or the same? Right, not worse. Right, not worse. So, yes, they have changed some names around, and there are some new players here.

I'm high on Devin Bush, but can you say right now he's going to be better on Tremaine Edmins. Tremaine Edmins is a guy that's probably performed at a higher level for a longer time than he has. I have faith that he'll get better. I hope he'll get better. They both had good years last year. Exactly.

Both Tremant Edmonds and Devin Bush had, it depends on which one you trust going forward. I didn't think like Tremaine Edmonds' his previous years with the Bears were that impactful. Last year was, though. Yeah, he was. Absolutely. And Kobe Bryant, high on him. I think he's a guy that can fit the system. Is he better than Kevin Byard having seven interceptions?

Are you swapping a guy out? I think he has more speed. He has more versatility. He might play better in the run game. He's younger for sure. Long-term better play. For this season, I'm not certain that that's a raise of the bar, so to speak. So I might say that's a wash and you lost Nashon Wright,

who also had five interceptions second in the NFL last year and eight total takeaways. So yes, right now, I said they even got worse there. So right now, as it stands, early in free agency, there's still some players out there. I wouldn't mind seem to go get AJ Epinessa, Joey Bosa for something. Even an old Christian Kirk for number three receiver. But right now today, I do not think they have gotten better. Is that a chant? Better worse the same? No matter how you train.

Better worse, same. Better worse the same. No matter how you train. I've got to come up with other words. Well, I think you help me out in going through the exercise just now to give my answer. And I think two things can be true. You can like some of the moves that the Bears made, but you can look at the roster as a whole relative to last year and say, No. At this moment, at this moment, they have not improved.

Now, there are still moves that can be made in this offseason. The draft has not occurred yet. So there's still plenty of time for the bears to be better, to be better in those spots. But you challenging me with all those questions you just asked, I think I answered it. The answer for now is no, for now. For now. Better worse the same, no matter how you train until your worst gets the same, but then it breaks your brain. You know what?

Addendum to the question, too, now that you're going through that, Layla? Yeah, I just have making up stuff. No, I appreciate that because Weeter and I talked about this several weeks ago. Do they bring back good, better, best next year or not? Because if Ben Johnson's going to do this whole, like, every year is different and the bears are a completely different team, to me that would connote that you don't do it again this year.

No, no, you can't do that because the coach remains the same. The coach, yeah, yeah, that's true. And if that's, like, in him, like, if that's, That's what he takes with him wherever he goes. Then I suppose that that would be the case. Plus, I think the bears would probably step in to be like, can you just do it? Because everybody loves it. Everybody wears the t-shirts.

It's like a thing that every, like, I think he would, people would be very angry if they didn't do it. Yeah, it's become a thing now. You have to keep going. I think you're probably right, but. You guys don't like my new riff that I built off of Clay's phrasing. What the hell? Say it again. Do you have it straight?

So you can't do it. I don't know if I can remember it again. Better is the same. no matter how you train until your better gets worse, but then it breaks your brain? I don't know. I'll work on it. Did you write that down?

You want to be my write that down guy. You better to write that down. Don't write that down. You're never going to be my write that down guy. Eminem, I am not. I'm putting in my notes. No. Strike it from the record.

It'd be a long t-shirt. It's just my life. Better, worse the same. We are having a robust Bears conversation on five on it. Lawrence Holmes and Matt Spiegel will continue the Bears discussion. on their show coming up at 2 p.m. NFL Draft analyst Todd McShay will join the show at 5. Spegel and Holmes can

be heard from 2 to 6 right here on 104 3, the score, and the Odyssey app. Watch live on YouTube and Twitch. What up, Twitchers? Number 2. If you could summarize the Bears week in free agency, in one word, what would it be?

Productive. I would say it's productive. They made a lot of moves. We knew they had a lot of holes to fill. And I feel like the Bears did a really good job of trying to act quickly with guys like Kobe Bryant and also Devin Bush. And then they also re-signed people who I think we wanted to see remain with the team. Daniel Hardy, I'm looking at you. That needs to happen.

Thankfully, it did to Marco Jackson. And then getting Khalif Raymond on special teams, I think is going to be helpful for him on the offense and on special teams. So I would say it's productive. They made a lot of transactions over the past few days. Okay, I'll go with, uh, practical. You know, they address some needs, not headlines. Not sexy, but respectable. You know, they brought in some pieces that they needed, some of the depth pieces on the defensive line there that you signed.

Obviously, you went linebacker. You needed to get a safety. Obviously, there's reports that Kevin Byard was offered back to Chicago. He wanted to go back with Vrabel. I don't blame him for that. That's the guy he played with when he was in Tennessee. So, you know, it was solid. You know, not sexy but respectable. So that's what I'm going with. I am going to go with. I know you guys over at CHSN, you guys write stuff down sometimes and share it.

I went with reasonable. So you and I are kind of in the same category. I think what the Bears have done so far, if not splashy, reasonable. And I would say the most splashy thing that they have done is the safety Kobe Bryant. I loved that signing. Would I love to have seen Kevin Byrd back and even Jaquan Brisker? Yes, but this was a good signing three years and four. $40 million.

I love the versatility. So I think that's a good and reasonable thing to do. It was reasonable to bring back to Marco Jackson, to add him to obviously to hopefully Devin Bush and a healthy T.J. Edwards. That seemed pretty reasonable to me. The Neville Gallimore, like to have depth on your defensive line, as Pat Hughes would say, that never goes out of style, things like that. So I like that.

You know what the most reasonable thing that they did probably? and reasonable is not necessarily a good word here. Braxton Jones, it's reasonable to bring back Braxton Jones, whether or not he starts at left tackle for 17 games or not. I don't know. It's a reasonable move to have made. So I can go through all these players, but reasonable is the word that comes to my head.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, the other, I just have the issue with, like, for example, I think the Lions had a really decent free agent period. Yeah, you were saying that. Larry Borum is now a lion, by the way. Cade Mays, the Free Agent Center, like Isaiah Pacheco.

Sue out to left tackle, though. That's interesting. Is that what they're doing? They might have to remix it a bit, but I feel like Isaiah Pacheco was a savvy little pickup. Cade Mays at Center will be good for them. He's a mauler. He's not great in past pro, but I think Cade Mays is a guy that gives Dan Campbell what he wants.

He wants gritty guys. We're going to bite the kneecaps, man. I used to be my tight-in coach when I was in New Orleans. All right, guys, here's what we're going to do. We're going to go out there and we're going to play hard. I know you guys are veterans. You know that. Is he a goofball?

I feel like he's a bit of a goofball. Our whole challenge during meetings was to get Dan on some rant that we would not have to cover anything in meetings. And then he'd be like, all right, man, you guys know. You guys are veterans. You know what you got going. Let me know if you have any questions on the script. And then we just don't meet about anything and get him in a tangent, talking about his days of playing. We go out on the field.

So that said, when you heard, forget the press conference. So you had no idea what the police were. And he's like, you know what you're doing. We were all veterans, so we knew it. A lot of those meetings. Yeah, it probably wasn't the most productive thing we could have done. But it was just funny to us. We all look at each other, like give each other a nod when Dan's going off on something the old days.

And he's just sitting there going crazy. So when he got that coaching gig, what was your, like, initial reaction? Not the press conference. Forget all that. Where you're like, oh, wow. I thought the players were going to absolutely love him because he is a player's coach. You'd love playing for this guy. He's so genuine.

He brings juice. You heard his coffee order before. That's real. He's drinking like four large venti. extra shot coffees. Oh, Mitch Rosen-style. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, we keep talking about espresso today because of Team Italy. And Mitch also has an espresso order. Eight, eight shots now? Eight shots over ice. In the morning. Is that what it is? Yeah. Yeah.

That's our guy. His heart is made of steel. And he does have energy, man. Mitch does that. So it's working. He gets on to us for not having enough in promos. And then you'll hear a promo where we've had suitable amounts of energy. That is an Easter egg to you to listen.

Well, now I would like to bring that up really quick. While we're improvising here, there is a promo that is playing right now that we just played for the Spiegel and Holmes show. And I was told, you were in their room with me. We were told, guys, lots of energy. And if you listen to the promo, I sound ridiculous because I'm shouting, basically. I overcompensated. We kept making fun of how much energy they told us to have. Yes, too much grody.

And you'd jump it around and like swinging hats and stuff. Spigel at Holmes. That's just not how I normally see. sound. So I was like, what? I think we've unlocked the key, though. When we record these station promos, we have to, before recording, do some shots of

espresso. Uh, yeah, that apparently I did, or was it cocaine the way I sounded? My God. You just, you sounded like you're, like if you listen, you can tell Grody's making fun of it while I'm not really, though, because they told us to and I didn't want to not have the proper

energy. Now, before we did it, I did do one very exaggerated one, which is probably might still, Tyler, do we have the outtake of this? I was going to say, Grody, I may or may not have just saved these just for fun. Oh, well, you have? I still have them. Is this our 145? Oh, no, our 145 is different. Our 145 is Pat Hughes. Just going to have to bleep out one. Maybe it's our 1225.

Yeah. We have, well, Clay had a question for you. I know. We have to do that 2025. All right. All right. Okay. Next question, number three. We're running behind. Number three. It's five-minded out 104 three. The score with Lailorhamy, Mark, Grody, and CHSN's Clay Harbor in the House. here's question number three. Former Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray is currently a free agent, and that might not last very long. John Gambadoro of 98.7 FM in Phoenix reported that Murray will visit the Vikings today. Could you see Murray making a positive impact in Minnesota?

Yes, and I think this also is done, you know, from being in a locker room. This is not a veteran. This is not Kirk Cousins. It's not Case Cana. This isn't exactly your job is safe. This is your job is not safe guy. And I feel like that's where we can see inherently competition builds competition in these ways. It's very much a life you know, Clay being in the NFL. That's what I got when I thought about that effect of what Kyler Murray would bring.

Yeah, I'm worried about it. I think Kyler Murray is a better quarterback than people give him credit for. You look at it over his career, 67% of his passes, 120 touchdown, 60 interceptions. That's a 2-1 touchdown interception ratio. 92 rating. Okay, when he was with the, Cardinals. They were 38 and 48

with them, okay? That's not great, you say. But without them, guess what? Five and 25. That's much better. So then you look at what Minnesota's quarterbacks did last year. They had 3,208 passing yards, 18 touchdowns, 21 interceptions, a 75 team passer

rating, 188 passing yards per game. They rank 30th or lower in every statistical category in the NFL. So yes, bringing Kyler Gordon in is going to help Kyler Murray in is going to help the Minnesota Vikings. They don't need a superhero.

They need an adult. And Kyler Murray is a veteran. He's an adult, and he will help that team that went 9 and 8 last year with the worst quarterback play in the NFL, arguably. I'm a little worried. Like if this does work with Kyle and Murray, I don't want to see, as you were giving some of the statistics on Murray, not as bad as people think. I don't want his career revival.

Because we've seen this happen with many quarterback, Sam Darnold, Gino Smith for a little while. Poor Gino Smith. He's going back to the Jets. Interesting. But I don't want to see his quarterback revival occur in Minnesota with the Vikings. It also strikes me how far away things feel from J.J. McCarthy all of a sudden. And I'm not saying that he's not going to end up being their quarterback in the future, but it is wild to think about the guy that so many GMs fell in love with at the Combine a couple of years ago. And I talked to some of them, that how far away they are from J.J. McCarthy right now. Number four.

During his press conference Wednesday, Ravens General Manager, Eric DeCosta, told reporters that after losing their starting center, Tyler Linderbaum, to the Raiders. They were interested in pairing together past rushers, Trey Hendrickson and Max Crosby. But Crosby's medical exam put an end to that discussion. On a scale of 1 to 10 on the BS meter, trademark, where would you rate your level of belief

that the Ravens were actually interested in pairing Crosby and Hendrickson together. 9.9 just because it stands out. 9.9. To all BS. Max Crosby's cap hit this year for the Raiders is 35.79 million. So if that's the case, and Trey Hendrickson wanted 30 and his has incentives at the 412,

come on. What are you going to do? Restructure Lamar's contract into 2190. Like, there's no way that makes sense. If you want any talent left on your team and you're playing with an MVP and Lamar as we know, monetarily, sure, sure. Just follow the money and that'll tell you that wasn't the case.

Yeah, I'm sure the Bears wanted Trent Brown, they wanted Max Crosby, and they wanted Trey Hendrickson. Okay, guess what? That's not going to happen. There's a whole salary cap thing you have to deal with and money. Whole thing seems fishy to me. When it comes to the medical records, you have those records. You know exactly what he got done to his knee. You can't tell me they,

they didn't know the exact procedure. They had the images. They had everything before he came to the building. And then you go into the building. I've been a free agent. I've taken visits before. You go in the building, your stuff gets sent over beforehand. So to me, this is Baltimore.

They knew the car had mileage before they got there. When they asked for the keys, they said, I don't want to know more. It's like they agreed to the price, and then they get to the checkout counter, and they flinched. So it's something that is fishy. I think they saw what Max Crosby was. was what they had to give up for him, the two first round picks. Trey Hendrickson, plus those first round picks? How much better does Max Crosby have to be than Trey Hendrickson

to validate him getting paid more and giving up two first round picks? I think that's what it comes down to. This was smarter play to go with Trey. But they already agreed to it. They got cold feet at the altar and didn't want to say I do. See, I don't know if I believe, or maybe I believe in Baltimore a little bit more. as I was talking about at the beginning of the show, this was a reputable franchise for years.

Like people would talk about Baltimore being one of the top 10 best run franchises. Now all of a sudden, nobody's going to believe that Baltimore actually got the guy in the medical tent and did a closer examination and made a determination that this is not worth the two first-round picks considering what they are seeing with him. I can't go that direction with him. And I don't, and I know why he would say,

that they were going to have both Trey Hendrickson and Max Crosby. I get it because people would want to hear that. And that's like, I just don't think, like, that's a whopper. Like, if he's not, if he's, like, lying about that is a whopper of a lie. I just don't believe that that GM, and maybe I'm too supportive of him, because I always enjoy his press conferences at the combine, and people seem to, in NFL circles, respect him a ton. I don't think he was lying.

My BS meter is only at a two. I am sorry, BS people. I don't think he was lying about it, but I don't think it was that high in his radar. If he could get Trey Hendrickson for this deal, okay, maybe we end up with Trey, maybe it's a 15% chance. Oh, let's back out here on Max Crosby

because of the knee. And now because we do that, we're going to give Trey this deal. I feel like it's like parents having an eldest daughter, but then also a youngest son. Oh, I love both my kids equally. No, you don't. Eldest daughters stand up.

We know. We know. Is that you? Yeah. So you're the favorite. No, no, quite the opposite. Layla's a favorite. The meme is, are you happier?

Were you the eldest and a girl? Number five. Final question here on five on it. So I asked the question, what are the top three songs that get you guys pumped up? Mine rotate, but here's what I'm working with right now. And it doesn't make a lot of sense. Number one does, because it's till I collapsed by Eminem. Oh, great one.

Number two right now is, been what you know about me by Glorilla because it is a riff off of Boosie and the sky came out to it last year and I liked it. And number three has been a flashback for me. Go back to like, I forget what year it came out, but born too slow by the Crystal Method has been up there for me recently. That's a 90s dance. That's a techno, techno. So that's been my mix lately to pump up my cardio intervals. I don't really listen to music during. workouts to put me up. You and Marshall, man.

But what I do listen to is like David Goggins YouTube videos or Jocko Wilnick. It's like these hardcore like former Navy SEALs or like some Kobe Bryant Black Mamba. And I will listen to like some old Rocky like going the distance or no easy way out to get me going there on the weight room

Grody. Nice. I like it. I have on my list, I have many too, but I try to narrow it down to three. Kesha Blow, the song Blow, the buildup to that. Oh! See, I like that. You're going to see that theme in my songs because my next one is Rage Against the Machine,

Gorilla Radio, where it like slowly builds up and it just explodes. So I need that. And then my last song is this song. You and Anthony Rizzo. Yeah, that's right. I don't think this is the Rizzo song, though. He had a variety. Don't you remember?

he'd have like bad blood at times Oh yeah no it is the Rizzo I'm sorry Yeah yeah yeah It's one of them no it's not the main one for him But it was one of the array Actually it is the main one and he did he did do Taylor Swift Bad Blood occasionally Yeah like if they were trailing in a game

I think he would use it to like I'm not kidding She's right she's right Honorable mention the Allison chains them bones Because it just explodes off the plate Boom This is a binger I agree Good stuff Grody Thank you man

You know what you want to stay for a couple more segments You got a question for me. You have to work something out. I guess. Yeah. If you're, seriously, if you're in the mood for something old school, Vegas by the Crystal Method hits right now for some particular reason. All right, coming up next, Clay asked to ask Mark Rodi a question.

So we'll do it next. I'm scared. Clay Harbor, former NFL play. Clay Harbor, slot to the left. Here's a big pass. And it's caught touchdown by Harbor. That's a touchdown. Clay Harbor makes that catch.

And they've got Harbor for the touchdown. Football analyst for Chicago Sports Network. If you saw how far you took the Rams in the NFC division round, if you have a chance to add a couple more players there, this guy didn't play, and your quarterback doesn't miss games. If you have a quarterback that's missing games and you say, hey, we probably need this guy. Caleb's still young. Caleb takes care of his body, and he never misses a game.

You can get players that are playing that are going to help you win, and you never know if Tyson might not even see the field once. Play Harbor with Rahimi Harrison Grody on 1043, The Score. See, I for sure thought that with Play Harbor and Studio, the former Philadelphia Eagle, as he mentioned, played for Dan Campbell in New Orleans, which I think is hilarious. And the nine-year NFL veteran, big pro football show host, I for sure thought dreams and nightmares would be part of your pump-up song. I just want to say thanks to the production team, I mean, to find my highlights, they had to do some digging. Okay, we're not just talking about, you know, six foot. I mean, they were digging deep, Grody, to find those highlights.

The four touchdowns it actually had, so good job, T. That's why we call him the Butte, Tyler Buterbaugh. He is a but. Coming through, huge. Clay Harbor in studio. Yeah, I for sure thought that Dreams and Nightmares would have been part of the mix. Well, I was after, I was before Dreams and Nightmares. That became a thing during the Eagles Super Bowl run, which I do get confused with

Trey Burton from time to time. I see that. Yeah. They're like a mixed tight end. Okay. Yeah. He was the U tight end that the Bears wanted badly. If that's the case, you're probably getting free drinks at least, so that's good.

They're like, Philly, Philly. I'm like, yeah, Philly special over here. But drink, meek Mill being from Philly, yes, that was created as a 2018 vibe. But the song came out before then. Oh, man. Now you got me thinking about Trey Burton. Had such high expectations for Trey Burton. Just didn't quite work out with the Bears.

Nagy Guy couldn't stay healthy. but a really good dude. I liked him a lot, too. I had a lot of great conversations with him, but people don't care about that. I just want to know if the guy produces, right? So Grody, are you ready? I'm ready.

I have a question for you. Yes. And this is something that, to me, I've just been thinking about. What is the biggest hole on the roster right now even after free agency? And do you think the bears will be able to fill it? Because a lot of the top free agents are gone. They picked 25th in the draft. I know they obviously got the 60th pick for DJ,

57, 60, and then 89. So can they fill it? What's the biggest hole? All right. They filled the hole at center. They filled the hole at left tackle. They filled one hole at safety. So safety, a little bit of a hole there still.

The linebackers are, I think, that they're set. So my inclination is that I'm thinking safety. But I'm also thinking about something we talked about earlier on the show, and that is the fact that the Bears' rush defense was 27th last year in the league. They were 22nd in sacks last year with 35 overall. Is the defensive line set? Is the defensive line? And maybe there's not a hole there, literally,

because they have everybody in place, and Dio Dangbo is coming back, and Shamar Turner is going to be back, and he did get 10 sacks out of Montez Sweat. I guess I'll go, with a safety spot as the biggest hole on the Bears right now. That's what I would have said. Safety, just because

they don't have a complete room. Yeah, they need another safety. Elijah Hicks was a good safety. They needed to sign him. Yeah, he's a special teamer and he can play. Yeah, plug and play occasionally. And I'm confident with safety that if they take one in one of the top four picks, they will be some

good safety still on the draft board there. Mine would be an edge rusher. You're 29th and past rush win rate. You know, I thought pressure, obviously stopping the run as well. Defensive line as a whole, you haven't touched it yet. And to me, when we watched last year,

that was the biggest position of need, in my opinion. And I know there were some high contracts flying up the board, maybe overvalued. So now you put a lot of pressure on the draft. And there's a couple guys out there. I was talking about Joey Bosa, AJ Eponessa. You can go with a

Cam Jordan one year deal. Don't, listen, ready for this name? Yeah, Bosa. DeVian Clowny. We talked about him yesterday. He's a guy that actually had, look, turn on some film. He actually had a solid year last year, and he's a guy that could come in for a year. He's a mercenary.

Whatever. There are some names you could bring in for an edge rusher. But to me, the biggest position in need, you haven't touched. That puts a lot of pressure on your draft, and that tells you, hey, you want to say we're going to draft best available, best available, best available. I think it is a deep edge class. But I think that kinds of pigeonholes you into drafting on defensive line,

whether that's a defensive tackle or ed rush or for grabs, but it kind of makes you think that's the direction they need to go in the draft. Well, they signed Contavius Street, and then they also signed Neville Gallimore, which I understand is probably depth. But the thing is, I don't think it was cheap debt. You know, Neville Gallimore, what, is $6 million per? That's two years 12, so that's not cheap.

Seven career sacks. Right, and then Street, I don't have terms yet on that one, because even like NFL.com doesn't have Contavia Street on the Bears list. Because they thought he was going to be on the streets. Neville Gallimore, I turned on some film of him. And, I mean, this guy was a plug-in guy. He wasn't really a starter. He started a few games.

His run game is not good. I mean, Pro Football Focus has him ranked 97th out of 100-graded defensive tackles against the run. He's decent against some pass-rest situations. You get him in there. But to me, Andrew Billings was better at stopping the run than Gallimore. I don't disagree with that. So that's something that was interesting to me that you would pay him so much. And this is high upside guy.

He's an Indianapolis colt reminds me a lot of somebody that we already have on the roster. That's it. I mean, did they just scout a lot of these former cults? Like, I assume there are still guys that Ryan Poles really liked as a scout. And I wonder about like a Gallimore or say, like, does he know a scout he trusts? where Dio Dengbo and Galimore are two former Colts, and he believes in them as well. I think that this shows me that Poles is putting a lot of faith

in Dio Dengbo coming back and being a weapon. He thinks the Achilles, he can come back, he can work his way into his shape, and hey, he's seeing the guy trained. That's a guy that they obviously thought was going to be a difference maker with how they paid him. Grady Jarrett's going to be more healthy. I think they're putting a lot of stock into him

upping the way that he played, to be more active, to get some interior pressure there, And then, like you said, Lela, Shamar Turner. He's a guy who's coming off on ACL. He didn't really pan out on the inside. At edge, he showed he can stop the run a little bit. And then Austin Booker, I think he's a guy that I'm most convinced will take a step. To me, I would not be shocked if he led the Bears in Sacks next year.

He's a guy in training camp when he was healthy. I know he missed those games. I'm going, man, I'm a tight-in. I don't want to block that guy. This guy's got a ton of pass-rush moves. He's got a long arm. He's got a motor. He's got a spin move.

he's doing a lot of different things. He's good at games, loop. So I think that Austin Booker is a guy that can have a big year, but I still think they haven't really done much to improve from the outside, at least, that position group. Do you think there are too many projects on the defensive line? Like too many, we're moving Shemar Turner to end. Jervon Dexter was a bit of a, we're going to change his role when they drafted him.

We're hoping Dio is this guy. Are there not enough tried and true products on the defensive line? Daya was like a projection guy, like I guess which is similar to project. Can't spell projection without project. So like, and like hopefully there is something there. But Shamar Turner, I mean, like, that was a good product right there. I think he was worthy of a second round pick. So I don't know if he's necessarily a project.

But they're moving him to end though. So how do you categorize that? And he's coming. He was a guy that didn't look great. And obviously he's a rookie. People make the biggest jump. Players make the biggest jump from year one to year two. And that's not just coach speak.

That is real. I've been in there. And the first year you're in there. You're kind of swimming. You don't know what to expect. You're kind of just focused on your job. Year two, it slows down for you a little bit. Even from year two to year three, I think you make a jump here.

So for Samar Turner, I would be excited to see what he could bring in year two. But the fact that he's going to spend most of this year rehabbing his ACL trying to get back to where he was instead of getting stronger. It's like Braxton Jones last year. He wasn't getting stronger. I do need to do some squats. I may offer a couple of names here. You're right about that on Braxton, by the way.

The triangle is not wide enough. His legs don't. He doesn't, for his hide, he doesn't stand wide enough. He needs a better base. The Vikings released Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave. What do you think about those two guys? Especially Jonathan Allen. Like we're talking about needing an adult in the room on the defensive line,

which is what it sounds like. Maybe Grady Jarrett is that guy this year. What about Jonathan Allen? I like both those guys if you could get them for a short-term deal. You already got, obviously, you already got some interior guys there. We talked about Grady. You got Jervon Dexter. But if you could get one of those guys,

and he didn't have a great year in Minnesota, but you go back to the past, these were productive players. In Minnesota, it's not the best place for interior defensive linemen to play. They run so many blitzes, so many schemes. They're trying to mess with you so much with the double mug looks. They're dropping these guys into coverage. Any defensive tackle will talk to you.

Guys I know from the league, guys I've talked to in the past, they really don't like playing in Minnesota. Because Brian Flores is doing so many things. They don't have many opportunities to really just run straight pass rush. Wow, I never thought about that. They're trying to trick you. They're trying to fake. It's a good defense, but you're not getting great numbers.

It doesn't seem like you're getting production out of these guys. So I think maybe those are some players. you get a discount on because when you look at their numbers, they're not jumping off the page at you, but that's because they're in a scheme to where they're not allowed to get up field. They're not allowed to do a lot of different things. There's a lot of double A gap. There's a lot of tricky things.

They're dropping into coverage. These zone blitzes at Brian Flores is, I don't know, he's dreaming them up. Some of them are, I'm like, I'm like watching the tape. I'm like, what is this guy doing. I don't even know what coverage that is. But I think you're right, Grody. Those are two guys. You could sign and probably get a little bit of value from.

Obviously, end of their career. that the last part of the runway, so to speak, but not great numbers last year, but I think in a good system, they can still play. That is Clay Harbor, Mark Grody, Lailah Rahimi, with you today. And I also want to let you know you can join me next Thursday, March 19th, from 7 to 9 p.m. at Old Crow Smokehouse in Wrigleyville for the finals of Budlite's official Midi Hoops Mania.

Hang out with Bud Light and the score. As one Chicago winner heads to Vegas for a chance of $10,000, that is Thursday. March 19th, starting at 7 at Old Crow in Wrigleyville. There's a name that keeps popping up, not just among our text line listeners, but among people who ask us the question. So I'll pose it to you as a possibility for somebody

that could be available at a discount defensively. That's next with Clay Harbor on Rahimi Harrison Grody. Rahimi Harrison Grody. I'm not a fan of any team. I'm just a fan of being right. Middays 10 to 2 on 1043, the score. Oh, there it is. Thank you, Tyler.

This is a, 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. It's a joke. It is me talking about myself. And you wouldn't have such nice teeth either. Or skinned.

Or skinned. Or a job. Or 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 meth, Mark, where I'm from. Bathtub crank. Bath tub 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. Oh, my God. Like meth fires and stuff. It's terrible.

And Walter White is a hero for the world. world. I am the one you fear. Heisenberg. Just stop throwing pizzas on the roof of that house in New Mexico. Say my name. Jesse! 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 were just talking about it. Marshall. We were Marshall is not in today. He's doing the state championship games for the kids. He missed you though. So he misses you, Clay, but we're happy to have you in studio. Another personal color in the center seat here is, you know, might as well just call me Marshall. I do. So my problem is I file the names by your letters. Oh, I, 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 sound like your grandpa telling war stories back in my day when I used to practice against Cam Jordan.

No, I did. He used to play 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. But you look at Pro Football Focus, fourth overall run grade, among us. 115 edge rushers. You need to stop the run.

To be able to rush the pastor, 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. Frank Hendrickson was an edge rusher there. We had a number, Dan Campbell, tight-end coach. So obviously a lot of players there, 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. It can move inside that can slide down if you need him in a pastoral 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 was still and still got 10 sacks last year. I'll take your word for it. I mean, you know, 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, 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 before, but I can adopt it. I can run with it. 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 Al Wright. Darn El 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 five, 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 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. Try to stop it.

And if Donald 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 from most people, including me, I've said it, that, okay, you have Braxton 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 Tripillo 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 one. wall in training camp. I've never heard of a wall being that close. It was a big wall, too. 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, be back. You know, Achilles, oh, man, that's, 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 tell our tendons, one of those 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. You know, I know, I know you want to give an opportunity if he can come back. But at this point, with that injury, you've 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 they like that pedigree. Have you noticed that?

It's not just the 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, the first rounder pedigree. They really like that a lot, too. Now, granted, I also asked why wasn't Alex Leatherwood considered more times when I shouldn't.

But 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. Jedrick Willis Jr. was the number 10 pick in the year 2020 with Cleveland, right? Yeah. If you look at some of his numbers of the Combine, I mean, this guy checks every box.

He had a 611 wingspan, 34 and a half inch arm. Big hands? I mean, big everything. But the arm span does matter. The arm length does matter to polls. Andy ran a 540, jumped 34 inches, 9-6 broad jump. Like, this guy is 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. thought he improved a ton before he got hurt. I was impressed with Kuran 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 of 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 Krona Maggi started 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 blown me away. He got better in camp. I remember watching this guy.

I played with Jason Beaters. I played with Lane Johnson. I played with Ryan Ramcheck. I played with Toronto Armset. 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 Karan Obagaji get a real shot and earn a real possibility. Amen. That's why I loved hearing what you just said. You're the first person I've heard saying 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 Magagaji? Even I was saying Ozzie Trapillo was looking good. Oh, so much for the Ozzy Trapillow. 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 him, 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 rape.

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 Darnell 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 Halis Hall. 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. And 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 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 him 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 football player. Once 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 Show is 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 Harrison Grotie. Russell Dorsey, National MLB Insider for Yahoo Sports. My eye is on which version of Pete do you get in 26? Because if you can get, we'll call it 65%, even 70% of the first half, Pete Coramstrong offensively, with that same high-quality defense that we saw from him

since he's gotten to the big leagues, to be honest. then you still have a high quality player. Insider and analyst for Friday night baseball on Apple TV Plus. Hey man, postseason, we're a show hey. And in the biggest moment, on the biggest stage, the best player to walk the face of the earth showed us exactly where he was. Russell Dorsey.

On 1043, the score. The score. The only thing we're missing is Marshall with all of his crew in here. We had Clay Harbor. Now we have Russell Dorsey, the noted baseball insider. He's an insider and analyst for MLB Network, Friday night baseball on Apple TV Plus.

There's a lot of gym talk that went on between the Russell Dorsey and Clay Harbor transition. You know, I feel like there was a lot of... Clay was a professional athlete, though. The workout tips are strong. You were a college athlete. I was not. But you practically were.

The only thing that stopped you from being an actual college baseball player was the injury sustained. I can't. I can't say it. It's, I can't allow myself to say it. Because you were, you were, knowing college. You were a college baseball player. Nah, man, I can't do it. I think I'm, they're Division I,

in fairness, yeah. I think I'm a way better athlete right now than I've ever been in my life. He said that, Clay said that too. Yeah. Clay has talked about how if he were in the same shape that playing that he is in now, he thinks his career would have lasted longer. 100%. Like, and that's a good thing.

Like, you want to get to 30 and you're like, damn, I'm in good. shape. And I think for everybody out there, you don't have to look like Clay Harbor to be in good shape, right? To work on your leg muscles, longevity in life is tied to leg strength and

having muscle in your lower limbs. It's also mobility. Mobility, moving around and keeping some muscle in your legs. And your knees hurt. A lot of people think that their knees are hurting because they're older and your knees are probably hurting because of mobility issues. You know what's funny? It's like, yeah, you guys were talking to gym and talking

workout and then when I got a hold of you we're talking about it you're at bad at yeah although I'm trying now it's one o'clock this is the lunchtime show that sounded great though a burger a big sloppy cheeseburger with some fresh fries fresh cut french fries

oh man the vat of oatmeal did the job today of Layla's special oatmeal that's a lot of oatmeal well I don't use this is just the container I don't I don't actually fill it up to the top there's no way in hell my oatmeal bill every week would be a billion dollars.

I'm like, damn, that's a lot of oatmeal. No, this is a 24 ounce. She's half a gallon. She's feeding. She's feeding. She's feeding. Three cups of oatmeal. It's time for Layla's feeding.

Jeez. I'm randomly running at Arlington. Like, come in at 10 o'clock so full. Like, oh, I've had three cups of oatmeal. It's like horse oats. Just sitting there like concrete. Oh my gosh. Yeah, I would just, I just end up like wanting to run like a race horse

then. time. One day at work, I did bring oats, apple, and a carrot to work, and then I realized what I had done. What type of oatmeal? This is the rolled oats, just the traditional quaker. You have like, there's all these different, like, steel cut. I just want the plain ones, but I don't like the quick cook. I like the ones you have to actually cook. They just taste better to me. And that is enough of oatmeal talk on the score. Yeah. Shout out to the oatmeal eaters out. Shout out to oatmeal. We did have, whoso talk. We did have nisprosso talk, so that was big for Team Italy. We'll get into Team Italy in a little bit.

We had Italian beef talk too. Yeah, we had Italian beef talk in order of celebrating Team Italy. And it's 312 day people. Chicago. Do what you like on 312 day. That's what I say. We also have some Cubs news. So this is new. They just sent out a media release. I consider it breaking whether or not you do is not my problem. So guess what? Wildfire. You're hearing from me again. Breaking news on the score is brought to you by Wildfire. enjoy a delicious meal, or if you're me, a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, at Wildfire Restaurants with five Chicagoland locations.

The Cubs have trimmed their roster. It is now at 46 players. Left-handed pitchers Luke Little and Ryan Rawlison and outfielder Justin Dean have been optioned to AAA Iowa. Right-handed pitcher Vince Velasquez, catchers, Ariel Armas and Casey Optiz, and outfielder Brett Bateman have returned to minor league camp. I don't think that's a surprise. Who, who, who, and who?

Well, Vince Velasca is older. Chicago's spring training roster of 46 players consisted of 25 pitchers, five non-raster invitees, four catchers, one non-raster invitees, 10 infielders, that's four non-raster invitees, and seven outfielders, who are three of them, non-raster invitees.

So, that is the latest when it comes to the Cubs roster as they continue to trim here and there. Anything stick out to you, Russell, as far as trying to figure out who this team is going to be once everybody's back from the World Baseball Classic. We got the news today that Matthew Boyd is going to be the opening day starter. Yeah. I think that's the one you could say, okay, that makes a lot of sense based off of what he

was able to do last year, probably how stretched out he is right now. Yeah, that makes sense. I think the thing when it comes to the Cubs that I'm curious to find out is with the Tyler Austin injury. Like that was a guy that was supposed to come over, hit against left-handed pitching and be that force off the bench for you. And with him not in there, does this allow Matt Shaw to play a bigger role than maybe he would have played had Austin not gotten hurt?

And so I think you saw the lineup with, you know, Matt Shaw playing a little bit of first base yesterday and like him getting work there. And increasing his versatility is only going to help him. and help the Cubs because, look, if you have a guy that can play a million positions, that's really valuable. So I think for Matt Shaw, him being able to be versatile defensively, but also be able to be a guy that's strong against left-handed pitching, like you find ways to – that's how you find ways to get guys in the lineup, right? What can you do? You're a right-handed hitter and you can bang against left-handed pitching. There's going to be a spot for you on the roster.

That's the thing, though, with Matt Shaw. we think he could play all these positions. Like we, like, I don't, I mean, he's been fine so far. Yeah. But can he really consistently play the outfield? Can he play the, I don't know they're going to use him at shortstop. We know we can play third base, but is he, is he going, like, we always think about Ben Zobrist, right? Ben Zobrist excelled at those positions. I think that we're just assuming he's going to be good.

We don't know that yet about Shaw. Right. And, and, and he's going to. going to get his opportunities to. Like, everything we've seen is that they are going to give him opportunities to. I think the other thing when it comes to Matt Shaw playing all these positions is they have a lot of guys that play every day at short. Obviously, Danesby is going to play between 155 and 160 games a season.

Nico is going to play between 150, 160 games a season. So you're not going to have them there. Now you bring in Alex Bregman. It's not like he's going to take that's way from Alex. Bruegman who he just brought in as a free agent. And Alex is probably going to play between 145 games and 150 games at third base. The one thing with Bregman is there could be some days where maybe you dh him, right? But he is also a good defender at third base.

So it's not like you have that situation where nobody's a good defender and say, ah, well, he's above average there so we could just plug him. So, yeah, they're going to have to do some work to find him at bats. But for him, it behooves. him to play all these positions or at least attempt to play all these positions to get himself in the lineup. I think we had the interview. The morning show played the discussion with Matt Shaw talking about him trying to adjust to

all these different positions. And I think you're right, Mark. We don't know that this is going to work out. Good teams need a player like this. Ideally, it's not your previously top prospect. You know, in the organization, ideally that guy's probably got a regular. spot every day. But I see why they're trying to make it work. I think of a guy like Kike Hernandez who has made a career at whatever Dave Roberts needs him

to do that day, he's going to do it. Hey, I need you to play left today. He's going to play the left. I need you to play center. He plays center. I need you to come in and play third base defensively and come in for Max Muncie late in games. He'll do it. If Mookie Betts needs a day off and McGorohas isn't playing like, hey, play short, play second base. It's a blowout. I need somebody to jump on the mound and save the bullpen. Like, he's done that and made a lot of money in the big leagues doing that. Also, he hits against the left-handed pitching, right?

And when the postseason gets there, he takes his game to another level. So there's a benefit of having guys that not only have the ability to do that, but also provide value in other ways. But, you know, the real find on Kiki was that he was not this Ballyhooed prospect coming up in the Astro system. He was a gift, and I think he was somebody who also came into the organization on the big league level in that way. They needed him to step up from the minor leagues. He got his opportunity and made it impossible to go away. Yeah, I think for with Shaw, the draft positioning is always going to be a part of his story while he is in Chicago. Now, I'm not saying they're just

going to move him for nothing. But while he is a member of the Chicago Cubs, that's always going to be part of, well, he was a first round draft pick and you want a first round draft pick to be a utility guy? Well, that's the situation him and the Cubs find themselves in. So for all parties involved, you want to make the best of the situation, hit against left-handed pitching, be willing to play all these positions, which he seems like he is, and thrive at them, right? Like, if I had to say at the end of the season, how many at-bats does Matt Shaw have, what would you guys say? Oh man, that's a good question.

$400? Is that reasonable? I mean, that's like below, like last year, Michael Bushhead. Bush had the seventh most at-bats. He had like 600-something, so I'm just like taking it from the end of the least amount of bats for the starters. I put that in air quotes because Bush didn't start a lot of times against lefties. So I'm going to say I'm going to go for Hyundai. Is that Hondo?

See? There I go again. I was going to say between 300 or 400, so I'll split the difference and say 350. And the only reason I'd say that. See, I would have said higher if it's gone. The only reason I just don't know how many, because we listed off all the guys that play every day. So I just don't know in my mind where the at-bats are. Yeah.

And so it's, okay, there's going to be some tough left-handed at-bats for Michael Bush. Even though I think Michael Bush might get more opportunities. Seems like they really would like. I mean, they're letting them plow through obviously in spring training. There are going to be some matchups where it's beneficial for Michael Bush to be in the lineup. There's also going to be somewhere that's like, hey, man, Chris Hale on the Mountain Night. Don't even worry about it. We're going to put Shaw in there.

Enjoy your day off. I think those situations will arise. I think there are going to be some situations where tough left-hander out of the bullpen comes in and you say, all right, let's go to Shaw late. Yeah. The other thing, too, is like, his name did pop up in trade talk, so you want to make him more of it. I mean, he still might be a tradable asset. Do you think he is at this point? Or do you think that they need that guy on this team that is in must-win mode, I think?

Because of the Austin injury, I think you need him on the roster right now. Now, that changes if different things happen. He's not thriving against left-handed pitching, but also that makes him less valuable. So, like, I think there are a lot of things that you have to try to balance. Is there a young kid in the minor leagues? that's tearing it up and it's like maybe we want to get this kid a look. I don't think you're going to banish him to Siberia this short into his career. Like I just don't think they're going to do that.

I'm a never-say-never guy when it comes to transactions because I've seen a lot of guys get moved that I didn't think would get moved. You know what I mean? So it's not like he's costing you anything financially. But he just might look valuable to other teams. Like you said with the pedigree, being a first-round person. He could potentially start somewhere else. Yeah.

That might be other scouts and GMs. You're right on the club control portion of it where it's like he has five and a half years of club control left. They have time to try to figure this out with him. Correct. And I think that that probably means more to them than it does to anybody else. Also, they don't have a ton of dudes under club control after the 2026 season. They're also up there in average age of team. Yeah.

Aren't they in the top five and eight average age? I think they are maybe top seven. It's somewhere higher than 10. But yeah, Nico comes off. Swanson done after this year? No, or did you get two more years? Ian Hap's last year is a year on his contract. He has three more years after this year.

Oh, man, he's that guy. He signed in December of 22. Yeah, so that's seven. That was a seven year deal. Yeah, 7177. He's that guy that's always got three more years left on his contract. So, yeah, Ian Hap, Nico, look, Sayya. Say ya.

Like, they have guys on the roster that will be free agents very, very soon. So it's not like you can just abandon him. And it's like, oh, shoot, I wish we had that guy with five years of club control on the roster still. And I think that probably means more to, that value is perhaps, I don't think it's his greatest value to the team right now, but maybe it's one A. The club control? Yeah. portion of it. Yeah.

I mean, I think it changes the calculation. And who say there isn't a point in the year where he has to get the bats in Iowa? But also, you just don't know. I guess the trade deadline is probably not going to be as active as in years past because last year's wasn't either. Right. But I wonder if they keep that in mind

just in case it can be. It's just we just don't know what their needs will be in July. Yeah, which is why it's hard to say. Like, you hope knock on wood, everybody's healthy, but we know baseball, and that's just not how it is. So I think it behooves everybody involved to keep options open. Yeah, and I feel like the years of control of nothing else, you're still at five after this year.

You know, that's what makes this, well, four and a half, but still, that's what makes this such a big deal. Yeah. We talked about it a little bit, but Matthew Boyd gets the opening day started. we could all agree. Like, hey, he earned it from last year. He's the veteran. I have no beef with that whatsoever. How do you line up the rest of the rotation? Is Kate Horton got to be your slam dunk number two? Where does Edward Cabrera fit in? What's your kind of rough draft, Russ, as you look at the starting five for the Cubs this year? That is a good question. Do we want to say, like,

from opening day two weeks from today, or like by the middle of the season, what's the Because then we got to add the Justin Steele component in there, too. When do you think he's coming back, by the way? June, because there's no reason to rush them because they have decent death. Why don't we avoid lefty-righty-lefty thing right now to say who their best pitchers are? Okay, so if Boyd's their open, okay, go ahead. Like your top five starting pitchers. You go Boyd, Kate Horton, Edward Cabrero.

Yep, yep. That's probably three. That's what we were working with. And then whomew. And then whoever you want. Shoda. Oh, you say whoever you want. So you're saying like maybe a sod, sprinkle a dash of Ben Brown.

That's the benefit of depth. Yeah. It's like. They don't have to have that. You don't have to. And at some point, you might have to go six-man when Justin Steele returns. That was the concept. That's what they thought that the discussion was going to be.

Craig Counsel touched on it a few weeks ago. And we talked about it a couple weeks ago when I was here of like the benefit of depth is you could have three guys have 25 starts. You can have three guys have 10 to 15 starts. You can have a handful of guys that have five to seven starts. And if the goal is to get yourself to October as healthy as possible in your rotation, right? Like that's what the Dodgers were able to do last year. And then their starting rotation was very strong going into the postseason.

The goal is to avoid the ever-loving hell that was the starting pitching situation in the playoffs. Yeah. Yes. That's the goal Running out of gas. That is the goal. Well, I don't know who's going to pitch tonight. And then you're like trying to avoid starting Shoda and that whole thing.

We will have you pitch two thirds of an inning when we feel like it. To begin the game, maybe or maybe we'll just. Can I? No, I want none of that next season. Field bar, feel bar, feel bar. He's back. Yeah, he is. They, that game where they finally say, all right,

Shoda's going to start in Milwaukee. And you just knew what was going to happen. And then it happens. And then you're just like, man. And then they win the off season. They're like, no, depth. I have to have it. And that's the thing is that I can't tell if Craig Counsel is more flexible than I give him credit

for or if he's sneaky stubborn sometimes. Because I feel like he is flexible, but then I also feel like he's sneaky stubborn. I do like the idea of potluck fifth starter. You know what I mean? Yeah. You like the idea of a wild. Goda. I guess so.

Colin Ray. Yeah. Rodi makes a dash of unpredictability. A dash. Yeah. Colin came up earlier. Yeah. I always mentioned a rotation. You could have made the argument.

We tried to for Colin Ray during some of those playoff conundrums. Oh, don't get Marshall going. No, Marshall and I were on the same page with that. James and Tyone could be their fifth starter by the end of the season. He was the one guy you could depend on in the playoffs. And that's not a knock to Jamo. that's just like they're going to have Cade and Matthew Boyd and Edward Cabrera and Jamo and Justin Steele if all are healthy by the end of the season. And that's a really good problem to have.

Yeah, it is. I really. I love that. Let's just save this feeling. Let's save it. Okay, so now we've got to talk to you about the World Baseball Classic because I want to hear your reaction to the misstep to say the very least by. I mean, yeah, Dero. Do you speak Italian, by the way?

I don't. It's not one of the languages of speech. And then, yeah, the game last night was pretty entertaining. I'm not J.P. Morosi. Yeah, he's amazing, man. He does speak Italian. I know, and he does all the access. There's a guy who's tearing it up in the World Baseball Classic for Team Italy that I talked about the last time I was here.

And I got some smoke for the morning show, too. Oh, let's do it. We got a lot. Rahimi Harrison Grody. We are the best show in this town to have the coach and or quarterback sit right here. here. Because we're here for a good time. We are here for a good time. We're fun. We're funny. We're serious sometimes. Sometimes we cry. Sometimes we laugh. Like, this is perfect. If you wanted a high chance of a drink spilled all over the studio, we are definitely repeated.

Middays 10 to 2. Maybe we're the show for you. On 104 3, the score. That one, there it is. Let's see. It's deep. He's hip. That's the Rizzo song. Why isn't he on the Italian team? He was once. Yeah. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 104. The score, Russell Dorsey is in with us today on this Thursday.

And the World Baseball Classic was a lot of fun. That highlight courtesy of Fox. It was supposed to be on Tooby, but they switched it over to that FS1. Yeah, can we talk about that? Are you on board with Tooby? I'm not on board with the fact that the better game got bounced to Tooby for some game that people potentially could watch. because Team USA had implications.

That's whack. As somebody who lives in America and was born here, I did watch the Team USA game or the Italy game, curious about what was going to happen to Team USA. I was a self-centered American in those moments. The Dominican versus Venezuela game was elite baseball and elite baseball atmosphere. That game should have gotten the better treatment.

But, oh, yeah, you did Instagram post, didn't you on that? Yeah. Your three observations. Yeah. The number two was that the Dominican Republic and Team Venezuela had the best vibes of any teams. And who had the better? You had one's vibe was better than the others. No, I said that.

Or maybe there was something to music. Well, Cardi B called out Venezuela on one of the social media as it was like, you don't want this smoke. No, Venezuela had drums before the game, like every game. And Team Dominican Republic has like choreography and dances. and everybody got a handshake, which is crazy because none of these dudes play together. And then in two weeks, you've come up with handshakes and stuff. It was great.

But, like, that game was amazing. Fernando Tatis Jr., bombs away. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit a bomb. Junior Camerro didn't homer in the game. Juan Soto, like, Junior Camerro is 22 years old and hit 45 home runs for the Tampa Bay Rays last year. Like, get to know that name. It's just the environment of pure joy of

baseball and country pride in Lone Depot Park in Miami. And I think seeing that ballpark, which to me, I actually like covering games there and seeing games that matter in that building is so awesome. And seeing, you know, the crowd rocking in that stadium was great. It is an innately baseball. Like the fallacy of Miami is that there is. a huge baseball-loving audience in South Florida. It's just that the Marlins are sometimes good and sometimes not. Sometimes they'll win a world series. Sometimes they'll tank. And Yasmati-Grandall

and I talked about this because I go, it's interesting to me that this is such an epicenter at a place where Latin players love to play. Yasma is from Hialeah, South Florida, Miami suburb. Mani Machado, captain of Team Dominican Republic from Miami. Yonner Alonso at the time was a teammate when I talk to who called the game last night too. Bingo. And so, and these guys talk to me

about this. I said, let me get this straight. Because as Texan who loves football where football is the thing, you would think the equivalent would be the same at the pro level in Miami and it's not.

So I was thrilled to see the crowd actually fill up that ballpark like they do. And I agree with you. It is an easy place to do our jobs. It's a fun place to work, which says a lot. They built a wonderful ballpark there.

Yeah. And then to have it fill, with the crowd of like the OG baseball fans who absolutely just love the game for the love of the game. The ballpark is in Little Havana. Like it has a neighborhood feel outside. And then I'm a big crowd pop guy. Like it's football. Like I think of the DJ Moore touchdown against the Packers or the Colcomette touchdown and you just hear the crowd like erupt. After the Fernando Tocci's junior homer yesterday, like you get that type of feel where you're It's like, I know the building is shaking right now. Yeah, yeah.

It's like, I wish I was in there in that environment. Yeah. It just seemed really cool. And I think for people who love baseball, it's just, there's no team, blinders of team. It's just like, no, this is really cool, high-level baseball. Well, and it's fun. Like, Cardi B talk a noise about team Venezuela saying you don't want the Dominican Republic smoke. Like, that's what it, that's fun.

Right. Like, you have people who are fans of, who are just, I'm Dominican, or I'm Venezuelan and it's just like I don't even watch baseball but I want the Dominican Republic to win you know what I mean I know a lot of people like that

but that's why we love the Caribbean series right like the Caribbean series if you don't know has the exact same type of vibe I was talking crap with Ray because I'm like yo team Mexico gotta do their thing because team I selfishly wanted to see what

the fallout from Team USA getting bounced right and then Team Mexico DeRosa got bailed out they blanked the bed bailed out And got, got rocked against Team Italy. He was playing really well. Sorry, Javier Sade was fine, Ray.

It was fine. Until he wasn't fine. Two home runs, four to third. And think about the world baseball classic Javier Assad had three years ago. That's when he really bust onto the seat. No, no glasses, though. Did you notice that? He went into context.

Is that what he did? I don't know for a fact. Yeah. But like the logical conclusion is he either got LASIC or. Yeah, I'm disappointed, man. That's like his signature piece. right there. The glasses.

He also looks slimmer. Maybe it's because he doesn't have the glasses. That part is good. Yeah, that's very good. I will say I did tune in. I confess. I tuned in to the Fox Sports 1 game because I wanted to see what was going to happen to Team USA over Venezuela and Dominican Republic.

I'm sorry. I was the one. I was the self-centered. You wanted to see Vinnie Pasquantino hit home runs. No, I had seen enough of those watching White Sox baseball. I've been up right now. I'd seen enough of those watching the socks.

But I did want to see what was going to happen. if they were going to hit enough runs. And Pasquitino actually acknowledged it after the game. He knew it was very much on team Italy's mind that they had to score a certain amount of runs and win by that. You're welcome, USA. Yeah, there it is. We were thinking of you guys.

All right, what did you think about the DeRosa thing? I feel like you got a mouthful for us on Dero. I think it's easy for people. Let me start here. My guy Dero messed up. Right? Like, I love Dero. We all do.

Dero. Oh, okay. We work together at MLB Network. He knows baseball. Like I think there are a lot of people out there like, he don't know blank about it. Dero knows baseball and guys respect him. I think he definitely got caught up in the moment.

Oh, hey, we clinched already. The problem is they didn't clinch. Then they lost. And then they needed somebody else's help to get in. And then today he was asked about it. and said, hey, that's my fault. I shouldn't have said that on the network. But then he doubled down and said, but I knew we hadn't clinched it.

I'm like, ah, Dero, come on, man. You just got to say, hey, I messed up. But my issue is, number one, how about Team USA just doesn't lose to Italy? That's the thing. Okay. Right? I think you'd start there. There was a point in that game where you're like, is Team USA about to get run ruled by Team Italy?

Like, that was going to happen. Until PCA hit two homers and kind of kept Team USA in the game, that's one. Number two, Dero isn't the only person who's supposed to know that they hadn't clinched on that staff. They should all be embarrassed. He has a whole coaching staff, including a former Cubs manager. They have a GM, don't they? There is a, the PR staff, somebody has to tell Dero. So, media relations.

Hey, man, we actually have to win three games and go three and O in, in, or four and oh is right yeah you got a four and on group a to move on for sure for sure or be one of the top two you know and somebody has to tell him hey man we didn't clinch nothing yet so that's i i can't put it a hundred percent he plays a role in it because he's the figurehead but it to say it was just his fault is unfair to the other people who were supposed to know that they hadn't clinched yet all right speaking of team medley amen you got the floor There's a guy who's been playing shortstop for Team Italy My name is Sam Antinacci

And people are tweeting about him He's having multi-hit games And you know his IQ is on display And catching people off guard on the bases getting out And a couple weeks ago Here on this show Here on this very show Right here

I told a story About a scout that two years ago told me Hey People need to keep an eye on this kid because he's going to be good and then the next day I'm scrolling on Instagram and I see I hear my voice but the figures on the screen weren't of me or the two of you guys it was of a the morning show Molly and Hall Mullian Hall and there was a lot of laughter after our clip there and I'm like what's going on here so I made sure

I listened back and there was the, they were taken aback by my story. Now, a couple things. Number one, my main point of telling that story was that people outside of the Chicago White Sox years ago identified Sam Antanachi and said, this guy has tons of tools and tools like this keep a guy in the big leagues for a long time, right? The average career of a player in the major leagues is five years, maybe a little bit less these days. And so for a scout who's been doing it for a while to say, this guy has the tools to play in the big leagues for a long time, I think that matters. And if you want to say, oh, 12 to 15, it's crazy.

He's going to be better than Braden Montgomery. He wasn't saying that he's going to be the best prospect of the ones that they had. he was just saying with his skill set that guy you can say he's going to play in the big leagues for a long time that's it that's the only smoke I have for Molian Hall like there's no beef

nothing like that I'm trying to do that we're not doing radio wars here no radio wars I just wanted to let a little pushback yeah it's okay that's what we do that's the essence it's okay the other part of that story that you told of your favorite scout who loved to Sam Antinacci You said he hustles everywhere. Yes, and you're seeing it on display on the biggest stage.

Like, hey, man. Shout out to Springfield Sacred Heart Griffin. And really, Sam Antanachi and Kyle Teal, go get him, White Sox. Poor Kyle Teals now hurts. I was watching the game and saw him hit. And true White Sox fashion. We have a soft tissue injury. Saw him hit the back.

And then just, I'm like, oh, no. And my dad texts me, who's a notorious White Sox fan. And he's like, yeah, man, that's probably going to be six weeks. And the White Sox next day, he's going to be out there at least four to six weeks. On the scale of, on the newly created White Sox, White Sox, So White Sox. Scale of Soft Tissue Injuries. Where do you rank Kyle Teals? Listen, it didn't, he didn't rip the hamstring off the bone, like happened with, that's what happened with Luis Robert. Remember what was like his leg exploded and run down the line? That was bad.

That was a he missed like half the season with that one. And then there was the Eloy Humana's smattering of hands. Aloy. Jumping in the nets and whatnot. Okay. I think the worst Alloy injury for me is, it was one of his first spring trainings with the White Sox when we knew he'd be on the team where he tried to rob a Homer and hung on the wall and his shoulder popped out the socket. I should laugh. And it was just like, brother, not only were you not robbing that Homer.

That was like 20. feet over the wall. What are you doing? Yeah. It is like in a spring training game, we shouldn't be trying to rob homers. And you know, you should know your body enough. But yeah, like he hangs on the wall, shoulder pops, and it's like, he had a torn pectoral muscle. You know he's only 29? Eloy? He feels like he should be 33 right now.

He's been swinging it for the, he's a Baltimore. He's on the Blue Jays. He had a son of minor league deal with the Blue Jays. Oh, okay. He was with Baltimore last year. And he's been swinging the bat will. might make the team. Okay. All right.

The Blue Jays? No reason to not root for Eloy. I mean, it's not a nice guy. He was very popular. He plays with the joy of life. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes it doesn't happen in your first stop.

That was a guy who was a top five prospect of major league baseball. I was very excited about him. Some notable soft tissue injuries in recent White Sox history. Hamstring. Didn't he injure Charlie Tilsen back in the day? Like he ran into Charlie Tilsen? Don't you hurt Charlie Tillson? Wilson.

Poor Charlie Tillson. Charlie's doing fine. He's doing fine. He's doing fine. Yeah, he's got a beautiful family. Charlie Tilson, I think. Shout out to Charlie Tilson. That was like bad white socks, good story.

Charlie Tilson. Yeah. I hung out with him weirdly enough at a birthday party two years ago. We love a good person that's from the area. He was very happy. Of course he wanted to go better with the White Sox. But he's enjoying his life. And I haven't checked back with him for a little while.

But he seems to be a very happy. man. And he could always say that he played for the white socks. As a kid who grew up in the North suburbs, like, shout out to Chuck Tilson, man. Pretty sure we created a graphic at one point that said. Charlie Tilson. I'm glad we got to Charlie Tilson. That's great. We had a graphic one time that had his war just so we can have the graphic that said Charlie Tilson's war. Oh, very good. Charlie Wilson's war. Charlie Tillson's war. It was his actual, you know, war measurement. Yeah, yeah.

That made it make sense. Coming up next. Let me tell you about Charlie Tilson. Coming up next on Rahimi Harrison Grody, let me show you a trick. Hey, Grody, when did you get in? Oh, I'm excited. Next. I'm beamed up right now.

When's you get in? This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie with Russell Dorsey in on this Thursday. And Russ, you are now going to be present for a tradition we like to call, when did you get in AKA a when did you get into spring training Pat Hughes Ron Coomer take it away seventh inning

Ron I've been in Arizona now for a few days I know you've been out here for a couple of weeks but you always hear the similar questions when you first arrive and it becomes kind of comical after a while you anticipate hearing them and then you just smile when you do but it doesn't take long.

Do you remember the four questions that we have informed our audience that you invariably will hear over and over and over again? Every single spring, you'll hear four questions. Do you remember what the first couple were? I remember them. Go ahead. No, I do. I know.

This is... Well, the first one, they see you. Usually they've forgotten your name. That's A. And then B, when did you get in? Here's the ground ball to short. And the throw to first is going to be in time. It's a one, two, three inning.

Bottom of the eighth inning gets underway. We were chuckling about the four questions that you hear when you arrive at spring training every year. The first one is, when did you get in? And that's exactly the way you hear it many times, too, especially if the person hails from. the southern portion of our great country. When did you get in? So in other words, when did you arrive?

Then the next one, where are you staying? That one always kind of puzzles me. Where are you staying? Do you really care where anybody else in the entire traveling party is staying during the spring? No, nor do I really care to share where I'm staying.

Exactly. I'm in the state of Arizona. How's that? Yeah. I sometimes think that that question is put to you only so that they can then tell you where they are staying. Yeah, yeah, good guy, I go with that. Yeah, we're staying over in Scottsdale, a real fancy place. Uh-huh.

Well, good for you. Yeah. I'm staying over in the mudflats. Yeah. Oh, solid. The old mudflats. Yeah, the mudflats section of the Valley of the Sun. Glad I haven't been over there lately.

You wouldn't want to be. And then those of us that arrive in spring training. Did you have a good winter? And I'll tell you why it confuses me. How much detail do you want? There's the pitch on the way, a swing, and a chop foul. Most of the time you just say, yeah, great. Good.

Yeah. Sometimes you feel like discussing things in detail. Do you ever go into detail? about your winter? Well, our dog got sick and had to put a bandage patch on him for a while. The last one is always, well, have you lost some weight? You look good. Have you lost some weight? I like to say, no, but I've gotten a little taller. I have. I'm working with a trainer and some real good stretching. And as a result, I'm actually much taller than I was a year ago. Thanks for asking. I didn't know at our age we could get taller. It's a lot of stretching.

Yeah, a lot of stretch. That's what it is. Yeah. I need to get one of those machines for the house. Very first day I got into camp. You know, I wasn't thinking about your four questions, to be honest with you, but I got blasted with the first one really before I even got out of my car. When did you get in? Right now. Because I pulled into the lot, saw somebody in it.

That was the first quarter. question and I'm like well you know I still got stuff in the back if you want to help sure right now yeah yeah and next year I'll send you my itinerary so you'll be waiting for me he's not wrong about the questions it's not at all right like as somebody who's been to Arizona those are generally and they might be different variations of those four questions uh that's great uh would you get in is the best and did you notice pat tried to be formal about it the first time. He said like, when did you get in?

And I'm like, nah, Pat. When did you get in? But then it became, where'd you get in? I don't necessarily ever remember it always being the southern accent with the when to get in part. I love that that's what it is because that really makes the whole bit. But I don't necessarily remember in my three years of covering spring training full time having an extra amount of southern accents.

What did you get in? The underrated question in there. was how was your winner? And it's usually how is your off season. But that's a big question that people ask when I haven't seen you since the postseason. Yeah, the weight loss thing too is real. I definitely ask about the off season.

See? I ask how people's off season. That was your off season. Where are you staying? That's a safety concern. I don't know if I like that one. Yeah. Don't tell them.

I think Kuhn was on to something. I really don't want to tell you. By that was Pat's last spring training game of the year before the real stuff. start. So I also think, like, he, he was hilarious throughout that whole game. I think it's because that was like his Friday. Yeah, he's like, I'm letting it fly for the weekend. Exactly. I'm on all the know. We're going to do. We'll be on a flight here soon. I guess. I'm playing the hits. That was Saturday and then Sunday he was funny too. So we may play that for you tomorrow.

I don't know yet. But always, always, always loved listening to Pat and Rod. And yeah, we all had, we had points where we were laughing at what they were saying over the weekend. Coming up next, It is time for our afternoon show. Lauren Solis, Matt Spie, Russell Dorsey, thanks for coming in today. Thank you guys. Happy to see you.