Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Full Show — September 18, 2026

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote previewed the Bears-Vikings game Sunday at Soldier Field and discussed the state of the Cubs as the playoffs loom.

The hour is being brought to you by Menards. Save big money at Menards. Bears are going to kick ass. Yes, sir. You heard me, Tyler. 50 Burger, baby. On 104 3, the score. I love that both Brian Flores, the defensive coordinator of the Vikings, and Ben Johnson,

the head coach of the Chicago Bears, have sort of accepted the duel that this game is going to be between those two masterminds for the Bears and Vikings this Sunday. Hey, you fired up. Not the usual downplaying, Lela, that we typically get where it's not. No, this is not just another game. These two coaches are both accepting their geniusness. Patrick, your genius is showing. Where?

Babe, wake up. It's Ben Johnson versus Brian Flores. That's it. It's on. That's really what this is. Wake up. Wake up. Wake your ass up.

We better wake our tails up. Wake up. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Hey, can we take that back now that it's not part of the morning show? theme song anymore. System of a down belongs to everyone. Yes, it does. Because Ray is you put that in initially, right?

Yeah, this is true. Every time I hear that I get that jolt that you guys just heard. Like, that just runs through my body. See, that's the point. You've got to understand people's reverse triggers, the things that make them focus. I'm animals court-appointed sponsor. We don't use the D-R-U-M word.

This is trigger word. Is trigger word? Wake up! Oh! This is truly two people at the elite levels of their coordinating game who respect each other's talents, their abilities, and then what they're going to do to make the other one just crumble. And I enjoy this at many levels.

I got two words for you. Ben Johnson. Brian Flores. Must see TV. Layla Rahini. Mark Grody. Midday's 10 a.m. to 2 on Chicago Sports Radio. 104.3.

The score. I got two words for you. Yes. There are actually two words. It's game week. It's Friday. Game week. It's a football Friday.

Oh, feels so good. Specifically, you are listening to a four seasons heating, air conditioning, plumbing, sewer, and electric football Friday presented by your local four dealers and advent, along with Layla Rahimi. I am Mark Grody. We are Rahimi and Grody. How are you, Layla? I can't stop laughing at this.

Was it yesterday that I said you started. to wear the same colors as your partner. And then we come into work like this. Yeah, we were both wearing Rojo yesterday. That'd be red. And Layla said that. I'm like, okay, Layla, whatever. And then we both come in today wearing some form of mauve and or pink or violet.

I would say you have salmon on. Salmon, yes. I'm wearing my salmon polo and you are wearing. How would you characterize the color of the hoodie that you are wearing right now? Hot pink. That's right. Yep. Layla is a hot pink.

It's a peloton hoodie. I still do my peloton. I love it. I love it. We're open. If you need a code for $100 bucks off, I got you. Layla, do you feel better about the Bears' defense at all this week as they prepare to go up against the Minnesota Vikings? A Vikings team, which last week did only have the Minnesota offense, even though they had a big number scoring-wise.

They had 239 total yards. From things that you have heard this week, the way you feel from what you saw from the Bears last week, Do you feel any better heading into this game about the Bears defense than maybe you did last week? I don't know how to feel about it. That's the thing. I don't know if what we saw was a mirage or if it's a actual proof. And then the other part of this is, does the quarterback matter for Minnesota? Because Kyler Murray got upgraded on the practice report.

So what are we led to believe there? Too limited? Yeah. Does it matter? You know, that's the other part of this. I feel like I get what Brad Biggs was doing because as much as we and the hot take machine, as Danny likes to call it, the take industrial complex, the NFL watchers, as much as we've been excited about Ben Johnson versus Brian Flores, the other side of it is Kevin O'Connell, who was coach of the year in 2024, against Dennis Allen, who's the former head coach, longtime with the Saints. has been the Bears D.C. now. And that battle matters too.

The concern is, does it matter more than the Bears' offense overcoming whatever Brian Flores is throwing at them? And I think that that's a very valid question in all of this, so much so that I wonder if the quarterback even matters if it's Wins or Kyler Murray. Murray is more mobile. We know that. But we saw Wince execute the offense to a very nice level in their comeback win last week over the Packers. There is an area that I will continue to be.

concerned about this week. And it's pretty obvious the secondary. Jalen Johnson and Tyreek Stevenson and the matchups that they will have this week against the very talented Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, who was their version of Colson Loveland last week, because I think he was just targeted a couple times. I don't think he got his hand on a football, but we know he's had some huge games against the Bears. We know how talented he is. So I think it is probably obvious that that's still going to be an area of concern. We'll get to that to Jalen here in a second. The area that I do feel like will improve is the linebackers, for a couple of reasons.

The linebackers were bad last week for the Bears, specifically T.J. Edwards and Devin Bush. Yeah, they weren't making enough tackles at all. I mean, you said it. Like, when you look at the numbers, when Dylan Thineman, God bless him, has double-digit tackles, that's not a good sign. In his debut. Right. His NFL debut. I love the sound tackling of Dylan Theanman.

I thought that that was really good, and I have high hopes for Dylan Theanman. It was nice that he made the plays that came his way. You had to do that. But these are two good linebackers. Like T.J. Edwards and Devin Bush both had good camps. I thought they both had good pre-season. So I think that there is enough evidence to suggest that those two guys will have a better game. I have not lost faith in those two linebackers at this point.

but let's get to the Jalen Johnson part of this because we've been asking the questions all week one of the questions that I've been asking and I know you as well Lela is for Jalen Johnson is this a physical thing or is it a mental thing or just guessing wrong and most of the experts that we had on and that I'd read about said when they looked at the tape

Patrick Manley, Clay Harbor that it was more of not a physical thing necessarily that it was guessing wrong or being in the wrong spot, the mental part of the game. Take a listen to what Jalen Johnson said earlier this week when he discussed the defensive performance from week one against the Panthers. I would just say not sharp. Just started with myself as well. I know I wasn't on my game.

I wasn't into it how I needed to be mentally physically. And I think it kind of just trickled throughout the defense. I think at times we showed up and made plays. but I think overall we left a lot of plays out there to be made. We weren't clean and precise. I would say in a run game, gave him too many explosive in the passing game. But just overall, I think we just weren't on our game,

but I know I'm confident that we'll get back to it. It was funny. In the pre-show meeting, when we listened to that, Ray Diaz popped up and he was alerted about the mental part of the game, and he should be that he said he wasn't ready mentally. I was more freaked out when he said that he didn't feel good physically out there. And I don't know if there was a follow-up to it, but that's what I heard from him almost every time I was in the locker room post game last year.

I didn't feel good physically. Well, that's it. That's exactly what you didn't want to hear. Also, we were hoping for a healthy Jalen Johnson. So if that's the case, this doesn't work as well as they wanted it to. They're already injured. They already decided to trade away Jervon Dexter off the defensive line. They're developing on their secondary to help encourage some sack production out of the defensive line here.

You can't afford to have this happen. What you really can't afford to have happen are question marks like this. What is anybody going to do? If you have Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison on the other side, you're going to go after Jalen Johnson. You're going to go

after who you think might be the weakest link. Are you going to run a bunch of crossing patterns and make them run all over the field? Are you going to make Tyreek Stevenson guess again and put a double move on them and watch them fall down? Like these are concerning questions out of veterans. And Jalen Coker had 138 yards. And Jalen Coker might be maybe he's poised for a breakout season.

Justin Jefferson greater than Jalen Coker, Jordan Addison, greater than Jalen Coker, I would argue. And the combination is greater than Jalen Coker and Teteroa McMillan. And I know that that was the plan. It was pretty obvious, at least through the first three quarters, that the goal was to limit Teteroa McMillan's targets. But that left open another dude. and we've seen that happen with the Vikings where Addison becomes the guy that's the whole point of having that one two punch

if you're a cover corner and you're taking away half of the field what's the other half of the left? Does somebody eat off of that? But when you're a cover corner who's supposed to take away half of the field and you can't, what are we working with here? And this is a question that needs to be answered or at least addressed and you don't have necessarily the amount of personnel

you want to to fully be able to. It was interesting too listening to Herb Howard during his Bears hit. I think he talked about it with us yesterday. Yeah, he did. He talked about the possibility. Like, maybe eventually we see Malik Muhammad step in on the outside for Tyreek Stevenson. So there are some things that are in the mix in terms of like real maneuvers to help make this defense better. Dennis Allen also meeting with the media yesterday. And he addressed, as difficult it was, to get answers out of him yesterday, the number of missed tackles from week one. I think, you know, if you go throughout the National Football League in week one, the

tackling usually is not up to standard. You know, as I saw some of these other games throughout the league, you know, you see a lot of mistackles. I think part of that is a product of, you know, not very much tackling going on in the preseason. And so you look at like you do everything else, all right, why does a mistackle occur? And more often, it is a fundamental technique flaw. You know, guys, you know, not taking proper angles, guys not doing a good job of coming to balance,

guys lunging and leaving their feet instead of running through the tackle. I mean, I think those are things that you see, you know, early on in the season. I was a little surprised at some of the tackling and that, you know, that really, I thought we were a pretty good tackling team throughout the course of the preseason. It didn't show up as well as I would have liked to against Carolina. So that's, again, another one of those things that we're looking to improve. Bears Defense Coordinator, Dennis Allen, right there. They were a pretty good tackling team from what I saw in the preseason and the times that I would. was out at camp and they were actually allowed to tackle, but it was alarming, especially

early in the game. There was a play early on where Dylan Thinnaman and Tyrick Stevenson whiffed on back-to-back attempts to tackle, and there's nothing more frustrating than that when you have a guy, unless it's a high degree of difficulty tackle, which they were not. That's very frustrating. It is, and I do wonder aloud how much the weather in Carolina played into that. Well, we see a different version more crisp with the weather being more crisp. Yeah. You're going to be okay with that crisp, cool weather? I felt that walking into it.

I don't like it. But the football players do, and that's what matters here. So will that be affected? What was it like 100? It kept on going up, I felt, like from the Christina Pink report that it was 160 degrees on the turf. And it was like 400 degrees by the fourth quarter on the turf. But I will say, somebody who's had shoes melt on a turf. Like, it's not fun to be on an artificial surface.

Yeah, they get gummy. The souls get gummy. and you're like, what the heck happened? We've had, like, we've had, especially in Austin when we had like 100 days over 100, yeah, your shoes will suffer. You will pay the price. You got to be ready.

They're doing sidelines, man. Nobody's looking out for you. You got to have your own. You got to be prepared. I remember. Well, I mean, I was filming. I had like a big-ass TV camera and stuff. Yeah, I had the all for one.

The big boy camera. Yeah, my job was to film practice. But the point is, there's a, the temperature is measured in the shade. and it's an ambient temperature. It's not radiating off of an artificial surface. So I do think that might have played into it. It doesn't really matter, though. The other team is expected to tackle two, and neither team did well.

That's true. You're talking about a team that gave up 478 yards in the Bears and 552 in the Panthers. Thank goodness for the Colts who gave up 506 or else 31 and 32 would be Bears and Panthers. Defenses are not quite locked in yet. I mean, while we're at the Minnesota defense allowed 419 last week. In a win. Yes, your NFC North is well represented at the bottom of the defensive yards allowed. Yeah, it is truly sorting itself out, man.

I love that we're getting into the division this early, though. Like at NFC North, important game. By the way, against a Vikings team, which has won six in a row at Soldier Field. Just something to think about kids when we're doing our picks here. That means that the Vikings, or the Bears have not beaten the Vikings? Would that make it 2019? Would that make my math right? That they haven't won?

The Bears have not beaten the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier since 2019. What in the hell is going on with the Bears against the Vikings? I'm just saying. Well, I mean, part of it was they had a bad team. And then last year, that was the JJ McCarthy comeback that led to him getting offensive player the week. 21 points in the fourth quarter they scored. And you're excited about it starting a week, too. Well, that year it started in week one.

That's true. It did. We got a text here. Yes. 312-644-67-67 is our number, 417. The two of you must have talked ahead of time about your choice and colors that you're going to wear shirts today. I can assure you we did not. Our goal is to look cute on the daily.

Mine isn't. Not anymore. I did that for years. I'm done. Nope. Okay. All right. I rebel.

I will carry the mantle of cuteness. Yeah, it's your job to look hot now. That is true. Should I pop my collar? Do you think that would be hot? No, no, please no. No. I know we're going to see the All-American Rejects later, but that doesn't mean we bring it all back. I'm not putting on a double polo again. I'm not popping my collar with said double polo. I'm not pairing it with American Eagle khakis again, okay. I've been through that in my life. Do I need to? By the way, what, okay, while we're doing, because we'll talk more Riot Fest and our closing segment of the show today. What should I, should I, should, do I need to bring an umbrella, a slicker? Do I need a jacket tonight? I don't think umbrellas that shows like that are allowed. Like you can't always bring umbrellas into weapons. Correct. Yeah.

Okay. So is it going to get chilly? Do I need to, should I wear shorts? I need help. Leila. You're my life coach. So there's this app on your phone. It says weather.

Yeah, but there's this Leila sitting right here who could just tell me these things. Why don't you just tell me the name of the movie you want to see? Welcome to movie phone. Also, yeah, if you look at the weather app, more importantly on Sunday, right now mine says 90% chance of rain. Tonight? Sunday. Oh, Sunday.

Oh, okay. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Wake up! Yes. Wake up! Thank you. Thank you.

I needed that. It does say that the rain is subsiding, though, around the noon hour. So that's good friends. Yeah. On Sunday. But you know, it also said originally they was supposed to rate a bunch today. I could go for a fun rain game at Solderfield. I'll be in the press box.

I'll be protected. Fun rain game, like, slide on your belly into the end. end zone like Superman? How about, yeah, like Justin Fields in the first game against San Francisco, the Matt Iberflus. Did you forget about those moments that we had together, guys? With the Matt Iberflus moments. Yeah, and remember how we, oh my God, the TV reports. Oh, everybody's like, the hits principle is valid. It's coming into focus. It felt good. I'm going to repeat the team talking points. Here's how they won this game. It felt good that day. I'll tell you what, man. I'm a reporter. Can't come up with my own idea.

I lost a phone. I lost a phone that day. You did? Yeah, because it was like, it was pouring. Like, I was the side. I was there on the sidelines. I was there. You weren't. And I lost the phone.

Didn't lose it. It got damaged by the rain. Yeah. You lost a lot of good men out there. The company was nice enough to buy me a new phone. If I can give you any advice, it is to manually back up your phone. I know the cloud claims to work. I'm here to tell you.

And this is why. manually back up your phone. Layla is a life coach. And sometimes she accepts that for me. And sometimes she just, So you look it up. I lost four years of information because I didn't manually back up because the cloud didn't work. And I'm not here for you to tell me why it didn't work.

I come from a long line of electrical engineers. Just manually back up your phone. And then you have to be like, hey, sorry, lost your number. Who is this texting me right now? Thank you to our producers. Ray Tia's and Tyler Buterbaugh. The cloud doesn't always work. Our video producers are Connor O'Donnell, Max Curtis, Jacob Stubes.

And the scorechicago.com editor is Cody Westerland. She's Laylorah Rahimi. I'm Mark Grody. Coming up next, we'll talk about Kyler Gordon because there was some Bears, players, testimonials on the North Shore yesterday that we must discuss next on Rahimi and Grody on 1043. The score. Look how hot I look here. Rahimi and Grody. Flashback.

What's been your message to Kyler Gordon? Get healthy. Are we just going to all Riot Fest return music today? I'm going to throw a little in here. Yep. Saturday. Tool. Do it in the XRT voice.

Oh, man. It's coming on Saturday. It is Tool. Hell yeah. It's Rehemi and Grody. On 1043, the score. Grody's going to end up in the Mosh Pit. I've been a threat.

I've never seen Tool. I was a threat to see them when they were at the United Center. and then I decided the last second I didn't want to go. So I think I will take in some tool tomorrow. I think I remember you and I are having that conversation. Yeah. Like then you were thinking about it and then you decided against it. Right.

Because I am one of those people who like when I go to concerts that I really want to go to, I either go by myself or I go with somebody who is absolutely completely in line with me who is about the music and wants to watch it and it enjoys it as much as I do because you don't want to have to be distracted during a concert. So I often will go myself. That's why tonight I'm going with you and my guy Fez because you guys are about the music, man. Yeah, and a lot of my concert friends are at other concerts. Like they're either at the Solt Shed or they're at the Vic to see Gary Clark Jr.

Or I'm like, oh, I just got to my concert friends too late. So she's settling for us. That's what's going on here. That's what she just said. I would have brought them as well. And then when my other, my Riafist friend who I went with last year, She also had a phone casualty this week and has to work well into the weekend because she's got like a deadline to hit. Ray, Ray is going to be in the house too.

Hopefully we'll see you stumbling around out there. That'll be great. Let's get into this. There is a new chapter to the Kyler Gordon saga when last we heard about Kyler Gordon through the NFL network and ESPN, I guess, Ian Rappaport was saying that he was working out with a private trainer, was away from the. facility and there were positive vibes. At least that's what Rappaport was providing it. Some optimism here. Some optimism here.

Whatever the hell that meant. Right. Despite him being away from the facility, which clearly has been a controversial hot topic with the Bears and here on the radio and on the score. And I'll add that. Rapaport did say that he would return a few weeks into the season. Where is your source? Yeah.

That was part of that report. Right. So yeah. Michael Rysdorf is always on time with that question. And frankly, is all of us. Let's hear what the latest is, though, because Herb Howard, our Bears reporter, was on the afternoon show yesterday, Spiegel and Holmes, and had this little doozy at the end of his reports. I talked to several guys in the locker room, Roma Dunzei, Jaday Walker, among them,

who without prompt brought up Kyler Gordon. They told me one, he was in the building today. Now, I didn't see him. He said he was in the building earlier today. They all talk about, you know, when he comes back, he's going to be a problem. There is not a single person in their locker on one who doesn't love Kyler Gordon as a teammate. And two, does not think he's coming back to play football for this team. They talked about when he comes back.

Roma Dunesay said he is one of one, absolutely unique in a way that nobody else can kind of replicate the way Kyler is able to play when he's on the field. The health is what it is and they got to get them back. But they all are really, really excited to get them back. and I think when he's able to get back, he's certainly going to be a useful, useful piece and add to that secondary. Also saw Kobe Bryant in the locker room today.

It's the first time I've personally seen him in the locker room since he was hurt. He was still on his cruises and not quite ready to go yet, but I joke with him, it looked like you're ready to get out on the field, man. He had a smile and he seems to be in good spirit, but that was the first time I saw him today. This is good news, to be honest with you,

that if the players are giving unprompted testimonials about Kyler Gordon, and I'm not saying this means Kyler Gordon's coming back and he's going to play in week three, but to apparently have the support of your team is massive because that was questionable, I thought, that they could have been like, what the hell is this guy doing? Why does this guy get to stay out of the buildings? Does he love football?

Does he not? And to have the play, like, it's checking a box. It's not, I'm not going to, like, read into this and celebrate the return of Kyler Gordon, but I am going to check a box. and say that is terrific to hear, especially since they offered that to Herb Howard. And I understand that, but here's the other side of it. And we didn't get into this because Brad Biggs has more information than we can possibly have

to discuss even in four and a half hour radio shows every day because that's Brad Biggs. He's elite. But this was a red flag to me when I was reading his 10 things on Monday. Point number five, maybe it's overstating things to say the bears have turned to a last resort in allowing Kyler Gordon to rehabilitate his calf injury away from the team. So that's how much can change in a few days. But here's where I'm concerned about who he's working with. So Biggs says he reached out to Montel Fleming,

known as Foot Dr. Mo on Instagram, who is working with Gordon on body alignment and injury prevention in order for the cornerback to be activated from the Pupp list so he can get on to the field after missing the offseason program, training camp, and preseason. Fleming answers the phone saying, Dr. Moe. And he goes by foot, Dr. By the way, he's not a medical doctor.

What? So the branding, and I'm saying this respecting actual orthopedic doctors that I've worked with when I've gotten injured, and the ones we talk to, like Brian Cole, who works over at Rush. You know, he's the team doctor for the bears, or for the Bulls, rather, and the White Sox. So he says he's foot, Dr. Moe. He was introduced to Gordon by Jalen Johnson, with whom Fleming his work since the 21st. 2021 season. Jalen Johnson, who still talks about how he's not completely healthy. Jalen Johnson, who had a groin tear off of his body last year, that Jalen Johnson? Oh, you guys have been working together since 2021? Quote, it was Fleming who reached out to Johnson after viewing his Instagram account.

I noticed some disfunctions that were going on with Jalen just by looking at pictures based off how he stands, how his foot angle was, and how I was placed in the picture, seeing how he was leaning on one side of his body overcompensating. What? I reached out to him through Instagram, and the rest is history. We had one session, and I became a full-time specialist for six years. All I've had in my life is right knee bursitis. And when I went to team rehab, and I definitely paid for them, this is not an ad. Versidus.

Which is common. It happens, especially, you know, the older you get. and if you've been working out on a regular basis, they didn't care about how I stood. They cared about how I moved. And when I worked with the Cubs orthopedic doctor at the time, they took x-rays to make sure something wasn't wrong. And then they told me about how I had a strength imbalance

and I needed to work other muscles so that way the movement was more form aligned. If your knee collapses in, should you be working more quad and glute to compensate for your IT and hamstring working more? that type of thing. You know, we've talked a lot about Jalen Brunson, who his wife is a physical therapist. The University of Illinois, by the way, is an incredibly good physical therapy school.

Like, we are blessed to have as many of those people in our city working right now. And I say this understanding, like, for example, Ozzie Tripillo, if you believe that he's been at the facility following the Bears' instructions, you know, is ahead of schedule. Standing is one thing. Moving is another.

I mean, football is another. How many of us have been standing one way or another, that doesn't mean you're stuck in that position for a long time. It's a still frame. Like, guys roll up into my DMs all the time giving me advice. Do you think I take it? Oh, yeah. So Johnson says the work he does with Fleming focuses on maintaining explosive movements.

That's really the biggest thing Johnson said. Once your body's aligned and powerful, everything else kind of takes place. I do a lot of body alignment and then body activation and make sure everything is firing and make sure there's not anything that's overcompensating or firing and everything is primed to go. So that part sounds a lot like what I said. Really, it is just learning how to activate before practice, how to activate before games to get your body ready to go. A lot of times that's where injuries come in for guys not prepping their body beforehand and not being ready for their bodies overcompensating.

That's where soft as you injuries come from. Perhaps, but that doesn't mean that this guy who says he's a doctor and has maybe had some luck with people. And also says he works with a chiropractor, by the way. And that's another discussion that I think is a lightning rod for point, counterpoint, for debate. All of this comes together in a way that makes me wonder, is this the best advice? Especially when we just heard the quote from Jalen in our previous segment. Yeah, and we don't know that he necessarily, Jalen Johnson was saying he's still injured. And we'll just take it for what it is.

He said he didn't feel good mentally or physically. And that could just mean he was out physicaled by the opponent. So I don't know if he was saying. I don't know if there was a follow-up necessarily. Does it help at all that Fleming said he is working in tantal. with an actual doctor, Dr. Michael Risher, a chiropractor to get Gordon cleared to return. I'll just read a few more lines here.

This is again from Biggs's point number five. And Biggs quotes a lot more. So if you want to read it, there's a lot there. Yeah, there's a lot here that we're not going to get to, obviously. But Fleming said his work with Gordon began March 12th of this year. And they'll be continuing through the season as he travels from Kansas City, Missouri weekly to work with Johnson. also defensive back. Cam Lewis, by the way.

Cam Lewis on Tuesdays through Thursdays. And the final thing, I guess, is the optimistic one. Kyler right now, for Dr. Moe, has been very, has a very strong support system around him. Again, this is from Biggs, making sure that his head is staying on straight, as he is still staying disciplined and focused for this season, Fleming said. He's not in a depressed state. He's joyful. He's happy. He's really happy now because he doesn't feel some of the pains that he did just a few weeks ago.

Michael and I are really doing our very best, very best to make sure that Kyler gets back as expeditiously as possible. How far out is Gordon from actual football activity? Kyler will be back very soon, Fleming said. And again, all of this written by Biggs in the tribune. Fleming isn't a doctor. No, he is not. But he's working with a doctor with a chiropractor. But you're right.

The skepticism is warranted for somebody like him and the results haven't been there for any of the players that we know he's worked with, at least the ones that you pointed out. And I'm sorry Jalen isn't the resume here. Jalen has also had a lot of injury problems. We have not seen him back yet. If they're working with somebody who isn't helping,

when there are so many other qualified people in the city who can't, and Brad is right. It's pretty common for this to take place. But what's not common is for you to be chronically injured over things that are not chronicic injuries. and that's where the problem is. It's all a problem. It is all a problem.

Brad did quote John Fox in one of his hits on Peyton and Ha. Did you guys hear that? I did hear that. I don't remember what it was in regard. Oh, no, he said that. He said it's all a problem. Right, but I don't remember what was all of the things.

Well, they asked something about the defense probably, and then he quoted John Fox very jovially, which was awesome. It was spot on by Brad Biggs, who will be on our pregame show this Sunday as he will be each, in every week, which is absolutely awesome. All includes Patrick Manley and Gabe Ramirez. She is Leila Rahimi, hot pink Leila. I am just merely salmon Mark Grody, but I am cute as hell.

Coming up next, Mutataka Murakami breaks out of his slump to power the White Sox past the Tigers, putting them back in first place in the American League Central. Let's talk about the White Sox next on Rahimi and Grotie on 1043, the score. Rahimi and Grotie, midday, 10 a.m. to 2 on the score. Last to the same field as Clark goes back at the war. Last night was about relief for the White Sox in many different ways as we'll welcome you back into Rahimi and Grotie on 104.3, the score. Relief that Munitaka Morikami hit a three-run homer in the first inning

with two outs, traveled 423 feet on a 904. mile per hour sinker that didn't sink his first hit in five games. A relief that the White Sox won the game three to one, magic number seven, back in first place. A tie for first place, but they own the tie breaker. So you can add on to that. And a relief because you got great relief last night out of the bullpen. Grant Taylor, a seven out save. Hudson and Hicks were good enough.

Hudson getting four outs in the game. Hicks was good as well. So deep breath for the White Sox in a lot of ways last night, Leila. Yeah, the way they lost those other two games to Cleveland were definitely a concern. The 7 to 6 ball game was bad and then losing the third game of that rubber match where you really could have put things away. You could have won that series and that would have made this a lot better. And it's not easy and you mentioned this when the previous series with these two teams has resulted in a bunch of sweeps in the Tigers and the White Sox. history would dictate that that might not be a good thing for the socks right now,

given how they've played. But in the meantime, what we needed to see more than anything in the last month and a half outside of just wins was production out of Mune. And for him to get a home run, that's absolutely huge. The splits are still not great. His splits against lefties right now, 1.85. That's what he's batting. That's the average.

Pretty bad. You'd think it would be remarkably better against righties. Yeah. Not really. 2-13. Ooh. That's just the way it's been for him lately, man. I mean, like, he did get back to striking out after the whole run.

The league adjusted him, but it was still enough to make a difference. It was still the deciding hit in the ball game. And the Sox defense pleasantly surprisingly, held on enough. And Eric Fetty did enough, got the job done in order for them to get the win. Yeah, defense was really good except for Luis Anhele Acuna in the ninth inning when his error allowed a couple of runners on, but they end up getting out of it. And it was like, the Sox were playing a dangerous game throughout that game. Really, the Tigers were as well.

The Sox ended up one for 12 with runners in scoring positions. So this weird offensive slump thing that's been going on for the White Sox persists. And good on the, again, on Fetty and the White Sox bullpen. Like every time you looked up watching the game last night, there's runners on first and second, runners on second and third. The Tigers themselves were 0 for nine with runners in scoring position. But perhaps the biggest news that came out of the ball game yesterday, and it's not shocking news, but it is jarring from a perspective of what you were hoping for. Louise Castillo is going to the bullpen, ladies and gentlemen, and that is a bomb for the

White Sox at the trade deadline. And yeah, you have to do something different with him. You give him the old Edward Cabrera treatment. You invest. in this guy. You brought him in as the star piece at the trade deadline, and he's at one good game, and now they're going to expect them to go out there and pitch out of the bullpen. So that, that I thought was the biggest news to come out of the day. Well, aside from the win. Well, yeah, I guess that would probably qualify as the biggest news. But those haven't come in a premium recently.

And also, I did think it was, I do think it's cool. And I understand why people, if you didn't observe this time or you weren't. watching as many games as a lot of us during the Tim Anderson era. You might not see why it was important to a lot of people. But Taney and Herber at the game last night, I know they had a great time. I went to the Sky Game. I was there for a soundoff event. They do really cool custom sweaters, cardigans, knitwear, that type of thing.

Is that what you're wearing right now? This is an Adidas Peloton. I wore my Sky Cardigan last night. Gotcha. But I would have gone if I hadn't had the Sound Off event, which I had a lot of fun at. but I know those guys were having a really good time. And it meant a lot for people that we know, like Ryan McGuffie, for example, fills in on our shows a lot to support Tim Anderson.

He was a big part of my career being here. His career arc and how he came up and then him earning the batting title. And I do think it's important to say earn rather than win. I do think that matters. Rick Rintoria had a message for him. You know, poor Ricky's been through a lot with Chicago baseball and how many times he's been let go for other managers. in this town, but he still cared enough to record a message.

And I think it was the right thing to do, bring back the Southside Jersey and for Tim Anderson, who I feel like was part of the, he was the face of this team for a long time. And it wasn't a time that relatively speaking looked like a major point of White Sox history, but he still mattered to the people who cared in that ballpark. And that's a special relationship. It was a great job by the White Sox to do something like that. I mean, obviously this is not a guy who is going to, like go down in any Hall of Fames or anything like that.

But he was a good White Sox and the Sox did the right thing with him. And he was true. I don't think we're going to have time to get to it today. But I took in the entire pregame with him, the before the game, the scrum with the reporters. And he was just terrific. Great questions from the White Sox beat about his time here. Some real questions to him, you know, in regards to just feeling looser now and not having to feel that intensity of actually being a player.

I love when teams do stuff like that with guys like Tim Anderson. So yeah, great on the White Sox to do what they did yesterday. They get the win. And now we score, I mean, the White Sox will be looking at the Toronto, Texas game tonight. The Sox own the tiebreaker over both of those teams. Houston and Baltimore in the picture, the White Sox do not own the tiebreaker against those. But just keep on winning games, the White Sox should. And they do own the tiebreaker against.

against the Cleveland Guardian. And David Sandlin going again tonight. Let's see if he can be perfect again for five plus innings. I mean, that's more than any other expectation for the White Sox starters right now. It seems like if you can get through four and change, you're good to go. And amen, let's get back to some bears. And specifically, coming up next, our first official appearance with our guy, Adam Hogue of the Hogan John's podcast out of CHGO. We'll talk Bears and Vikings with him next here on Rahimi and Grody on 1043,

the score. The score. This hour is brought to you by four seasons heating, air conditioning, plumbing, sewer, and electric for all the right reasons. Call 8664 seasons. Adam Hogg says, Adam Hoag, Bears Insider.

What's up, everyone? My name's Adam Hoag. Host of the Hogan John's podcast. If you wanted Ben Johnson, you're going to have to live with some of this. You get to live with some of these four down calls that seem a little crazy. But guess what the reward is? 59 points in the opening.

You know what I mean? Like, this is the Ben Johnson. an experience. You signed up for it. Now, try to enjoy it as much as you can. Adam Hogue. Adam Hogi or Hogg, excuse me, I don't know how to pronounce the last name. With Rahimi and Grody on 1043, the score. And you are

listening to a football four seasons heating, air conditioning, plumbing, sewer, and electric football Friday presented by your local Ford dealers and Advent. It is indeed, Rahimi and Grotie on 1043, the score. Adam Hogue is the

host of CHGO Bears and the Hogue and John's podcast. Adam is joining us on our video stream to watch Search the Score Chicago on Twitch and YouTube. We are thrilled that he agreed to be back with us for another season here on the score. Adam, welcome back. What's going on, man? Another football Friday. Good to be talking to you guys again. Thanks for having me.

Hell yes, man. Bears and Vikings coming up on Sunday. And I have to start with this, kind of serious. It's kind of fun too, but I got to ask you, do you think that when your CHGO teammate and everybody's friend, Mark Carmen, brought up the 59 points to Ben Johnson, that Ben Johnson wanted that question, that he was waiting for that question to just shoot it down for everybody once and for all? 100% come on you know that's the message that he's trying to get across to his team this week I know a lot of people out there like to take their shots at Carm I mean Gordy and I like to do that too um but like that wasn't him I didn't view that as him dunking on carm I viewed that as him taking the opportunity to get a message across that he very much wants to get across we've scored zero points this week or we haven't put up a point this week whatever he said

It's a new week. 59 points last week. Great. Moving on to week two. That's a good message for your team. And yes, I think he was prepared for that. The best part, though, was the look away, right? Like the, as soon as he got it, he got done with his sentence, he quickly was like, all right, who's over here?

Like, it was almost disrespectful, but it wasn't disrespectful. I enjoyed it. Oh, but let's play it really quick here for people who maybe didn't hear it. Put up 59. Like guys might feel like, you know, we're in a great place we got this. Do you sort of feel like you have to guard against any level? We haven't put up any points this week. Okay.

A likely story when you want to also be the highest scoring offense of all time. So I'm pretty sure you need that 59 to get your tally, Ben. You know, Dennis Allen, Adam, did this in a little bit more of a diplomatic way yesterday, actually. When he talked about how every week is different, you basically hit reset. that you start from the beginning and you're trying to address the concerns of that week, which I also understand. But if you didn't learn anything about your personnel last week, I don't know what we're doing here.

Yeah, I mean, look, but that's a Ben Johnson mantra. I mean, he's been saying that too since he got here, that every week, you know, is its own entity. That's honestly, that's, that's, that's Belichickian. I mean, that's what made Bill Belichick so great is that he was, he was not just married to one way of doing things and saying, hey, this is our identity and this is what we're going to do no matter what. When that trickles in the scheme and your game plans, that's a problem.

Your identity can be established and you do that every single week. So the bears have established that. We're going to be tough physical and come at you all the time. But if you're not willing to adapt what you're doing, what you're doing from a game planning standpoint based on your opponent, then that's where you get into trouble. and I do think Ben Johnson has that in him where he's and he's gotten that I think to Richard Heitzauer and Dennis Allen, his other coordinators

saying, hey look, we got to be willing to adapt each and every week and whatever we did last week, fine, it doesn't matter anymore. This is what we're doing this week to win this specific game and this specific matchup. And I understand that, but it's tape. And tape is tape and they teach with it and Minnesota's going to use it and the bears are going to use it to their advantage. I understand their philosophy.

but at the same time this isn't Matt Nagy saying Personnel a Scheme, which he never said but we all knew because any time you asked him about personnel he said he didn't want to talk scheme. In this case, I wonder how much of it they do at least draw from in order to work with

what they're seeing out of Minnesota on Sunday. I guess I'm a little confused. In what regard? I mean, like they're acting like they don't get anything from Sunday. But they do build on this. Unless your personnel dictates your scheme, which we it doesn't with that. Yeah, look, I just think Ben's talking about a motivational thing with his,

with his team. That's all. Like, just don't rest on your laurels. Don't get complacent. And I honestly, I think he was probably maybe a slightly defensive because I don't think he believes his team is going to do that. So I think, I think we're kind of talking about two different things here, just in terms of the, you know, the amount of points that were put up last week. And it's just more of a motivational mentality type of thing more than anything else. Yeah, this is a guy who told us after the ramp. game to stop thinking about this Bears team that you just watched. It's over. It's done. You're never going to see this team again. And we all kind of took our cues from there. As we talked to Adam Hogue

here on Rahimi and Grotie on 104.3, the score. We were trying to figure it out in our first segment, Adam, where we might be able to count on the Bears defense being better this week against the Vikings relative to the breakdowns last week. Where do you think the Bears' defense will be better this week if you think they'll be better at all this? week. Well, look, there's a, maybe I'm relying too much. This is where you can fall into a trap, admittedly, and falling too much on past performance. But like, I've never seen T.J. Edwards struggle to tackle that much.

Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like, you know, if you want to make an argument that T.J. Edwards is getting up there in his career and he might be slowing down a tick. Like, I'm not even sure I'm on board with that, but I can at least listen to that because he's getting to that point in his career. right, but he still knows how to tackle. And he looked good in the priest.

Like he looked good in the last preseason game he played. I was like he looked like T.J. Edwards in that game. Multiple games he did. Yeah. Yeah. So I just, I think that that's one area where they'll be better. We all watch Devin Bush look good all of camp.

Now, getting in the live bullets in the regular season and you got to be physical. Like that's always kind of been the question mark with him. We know he's fast. But like he's going to make a bigger impact this week. I would think. And then the same thing with Jalen Johnson and Tyrick Stevenson

on the outside. Like you know, if you want to debate where they're at, where Jalen's at in his career, still coming off the injury, is he 100%. Like certainly, I think those are all relevant conversations. But like as he answered a question to me

yesterday outside the locker room and went through the three specific plays where he felt like he screwed up, it was like a technique. It was eyes. It was just the way he flipped his hips. Like all of those, like, they're all correctable. I didn't see a guy who can't play anymore because he's still recovering from this injury he had last year.

And I also think Ben Johnson's been pretty honest with the way he evaluates players publicly. He's not afraid to call these guys out when they're not, like, when he asked, when he was asked about Tyrick Stevenson, you got to be more consistent. When he was asked about Geron Dexter, got to be more consistent. They traded them a few days later, right? like Jalen Johnson last week he said Jalen Johnson could have the best year of his career. So I just

I just think when those specific players they'll be better this week. Now is it being that the defense is going to suddenly like be transformational and great? Probably not. I think like best case scenario, this is probably a middle of the road defense this season. But I think for those specific players

they're going to be better to this week than they were last week. Well, and that's part of it is we're, I was asking this to, Mark Adam because what I'm still trying to figure out a schematic goal and fit when it comes to Devin Bush for example I know what the traits were when they got him

I know they probably like the fact that he had had two pick sixes last year you know that I understand the aspect of having a nose for the ball and then flying around the field but as far as practical use you know I don't think that we saw his best game on Sunday no

because you know if you know, they got to get him in a situation more where he's, he's unblocked and running sideline to sideline in situations where he has space to use that speed. Otherwise, if he is going to be in a situation where he's taking on offensive linemen at or near the line of scrimmage more north-south, then as a smaller linebacker, that's going to be, that's going to be a tough situation for you. So that, you know, and that, some of that is on him and that, you know, you got to be physical and you got to find a way to get off your blocks because you're not going to go a whole game without getting blocked, obviously.

But it's also on Dennis Allen and the teammates around him too. So I just think, but they went out and specifically got him for his speed. And we just saw too many good things from him in training camp that like bad games are going to happen. Quiet games are going to happen. I just expect these linebackers to play better this week. I do. I agree with you. I agree with that. That was the first thing that I brought up as well is this segment with Adam Hogue is brought to you by Advent, breathe well, live better. Visit advent knows.com. And obviously the, I guess the most dominant storyline this week, Adam has been Ben Johnson versus Brian Flores, who we know from last year can be wholly unpredictable with the blitz packages and that's just the way he is.

what are you expecting in this matchup and what kind of activity are you expecting from the Vikings and how the Bears will counter this time around? Well, look, the numbers suggest that he should not blitz as much against Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson's 5 and 1 against Flores in his career and, you know, as a play caller in the NFC North. And the EPA numbers show that actually when Flores has brought the blitz, and this goes against both his Lions offenses and the Bears, last year. His teams, Ben Johnson's teams,

have had more success than when actually Flores has rushed four. On top of that, the Vikings blitzed the Packers last week, 73% of the time. I mean, think of that. Like, three out of four plays, essentially, they blitzed last week.

And what's great about Flores is common sense, what the stats I just gave you, would be, okay, well, they're certainly not going to do that to that rate. But he's crazy enough that he might. He is. Like he might blitz 75% of the time again.

And that's why you got that soundbite for Ben Johnson on Wednesday with him basically going to be like, I don't, you know, I'm thinking about this and staying awake at night, not knowing exactly what Flores is going to do. That's part of what makes Flora's great. On the other hand,

you know, you talk to actual, you know, players at times and they'll tell you like what Flora runs is actually unsound, like coverage-wise on the back end. No defense is perfect. There's always a weakness somewhere in your defense, but if you can figure out those blitzes and figure out where and when the pressure is coming from, which is not easy, you're actually going to have a ton of success because they're leaving guys running wide open. And honestly, you go back and watch that tape last week,

and Jordan Love took advantage of that at times. He also missed some wide open guys because he had somebody in his lap, but you had Tucker Kraft running wide open or Christian Watson running wide open or Matthew Golden running wide open and they weren't able to hook up. So I just, I look at Ben Johnson's history here. I look at the fact most importantly

that the Packers might have one of the worst offensive lines in football. The Bears probably have one of the top three best. And I just think that they're going to have more success. blocking things up. Plus, you have Caleb Williams elusiveness. They should be able to handle this better and have more answers to the test with Ben Johnson calling the place. Our segment with Adam Hogue is brought to you by four seasons,

heating, air conditioning, plumbing, sewer and electric for all the right reasons. Call 8664 seasons. Adam, I also am reminded of how there are teams who have said the best strategy for Caleb Williams is to keep him in the pocket. That you try to rush him as much in the pocket because then he's somewhat contained and then you let your pass rush ideally do the work. How much do you think that could come into play on Sunday?

Well, I think you saw the Panthers try to adjust to that and that game on Sunday. As that game went along, they blitzed a lot less. But also, and I'll give credit to Pete Bersich on this one, because he's the Vikings radio analyst, and he brought this to my attention this week and mentioned it on Hogan Johns, if you watch even just the linemen on the Panthers as the game went along in the second half, especially they were basically just taking like three steps forward and then stopping and becoming more of a reed attack just to make sure that they,

because it's like a natural reaction. Wait, where is this guy going? Where is like we can't lose him? We can't lose Caleb. And that was something the teams used to have to do with Aaron Rogers all the time. So that is a credit, I think, to what Caleb Williams has become in being able to be so lusive, but also being able to beat you with his arm at the same time and maybe get some throws off faster. If you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you, if you,

if you, if you, uh, you don't think you're going to get home on him, then you got to actually slow things down and hope you can just contain them and maybe knock some of those passes down at the line of scrimmage. Uh, so then, you know, you know, an adjustment from the offensive line is you got to make sure that you're, uh, punishing the jumpers. If they're going to try to jump up, then you got, you know, stab them in the chest when they, when they, when they jump up to start knocking those balls down. So it's, it's a fun, uh, I think it's going to be a fun storyline storyline all season long, how each and every one of these defenses try to contain and confused still Caleb Williams because we're living

in a world, guys, where the Bears have the quarterback that everybody's fearing that, you know, they're going into their game planning every week being like, we got to figure out this quarterback. And that's just not a world we've really lived in here in Chicago very much in the past. None of us has truly adjusted yet, but it is beautiful. And I'm willing to try as we talk to Adam Hogue, host of the CHO Bears. the Hogue and John's podcast. I feel like, Adam, the Kyler Gordon situation is like the stadium situation.

Every once in a while, it intermittently pops up, and we all go crazy over it. What do you think about Kyler Gordon? Herb Howard was reporting on the score yesterday that he talked to some of the Bears players who said he was in the facility and that they love him and they can't wait for him to come back, and then he's going to come back soon.

Where do you stand with everything regarding Kyler Gordon? And do you think he will play soon for the Chicago Bears? I mean, I don't know what to think. I think that this continues to be a very bizarre situation. And I haven't necessarily heard anybody question. Tyler Gordon is a teammate. So I'm sure Herb is, you know, correct about that. The part I would, I would question a little bit is I do know there are people in that locker

wondering why he hasn't come back. I mean, how can you not? Right. Yeah. If you're a teammate and you're seeing Ozzie Tripillo back on the field, already. And you're seeing, like I noticed after practice as I was walking in the locker room, Shemar Turner was out there getting some work in as he tries to get back from his injury. Now, if he's really back in the building, I haven't seen Kyler Gordon, but at least that would

be one step in the right direction because I found that to be an enormous red flag that he was around during training camp and then all of a sudden wasn't. But yeah, there are people asking questions. I mean, heck, the general manager said on the record he wasn't sure if Kyler Gordon was going to play for them. So like, let's not forget that part of this too. I just find the whole situation confusing and unfortunate. I mean, I guess the one difference between Kyler Gordon and the stadium is that you actually could see Kyler Gordon on a football field in 2026.

I mean, you're definitely not going to see the stadium starting getting built in 226. Oh, man, not Adam Hogue. Are you serious? Wait, what did it for you? What stopped your progress on this? what the shovels in the ground? Yeah. Oh, I've never thought there's,

I still don't know that there'll ever be a shovel in the ground. I mean, go soldier field. You were a little bit more under, like I feel like you were leaning Hammond for a bit. No, I told you what was going to happen, which was that they were going to pivot to Hammond.

That's what they've done. But in terms of, go back and listen to your own interview. I said in that same interview that I won't believe a single thing. until there's actually a shovel in the ground. And we're nowhere near that still. Listen, I'm not mad about it. Now you got me talking stadium and week two of the NFL season.

I'm not mad about it. I'm not mad about it. I just want to know like what the moment was for you where you were just like, what about the white socks, what about the white socks? Oh, don't do it, Grotie. No, your white socks takes have been very fiery on Twitter this week.

That is also another thing. We talked about that in our meeting, actually. Oh, wow. Okay, so am I right? They have to wear the south side. jerseys tonight. I have no idea if they are or they probably won't, but like you can't win a game yesterday after what just

happened in Cleveland and not bring the jerseys back tonight. You have to do that. If you don't, if they wear those hideous red jerseys tonight and lose, like I will turn into Greg Braggs Jr. So fast on the white socks. Everybody will be

exhausted with me in two seconds. Hey, if they could, Greg, Greg rescued a dog this week. You are allowed to have socks opinions. And you're allowed to speak your mind in the stadium. And if you need to update people, then that's good too. All of these things are possible. I also think if they're going to have Mike Vassel waving a wand around in the dugout, they could just stick Tim Anderson in the dugout too every night, right? Just have him, just have T.A. be there every day. I kind of think that was a coyote that Greg rescued.

Oh, really? Are we sure that that was a domesticated dog? It kind of looked like a coyote. Do you know what one of the keys is? This is going to sound not scientific at all. How fluffy the tail is. Cowardies typically have like really full. fluffy tails. And they're fast. They're super fast and have longer legs. All right. Well, congratulations. CHGO has a coyote. Congratulations, Adam. This is what it's come down to. It's a miracle. Buddy, thank you so much for joining us. Look forward to talking to you all season long here on Rehemi and Grotie. Thanks, buddy. Yeah, this was fun, guys. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you for your patience, Adam. It is Adam. Adam Hogue. I forgot that that was with you guys. I was not there the day that you and Marshall apparently interviewed Hogue.

Right. And I'm not, listen, I'm not trying to like, make him eat words is not a gotcha moment. I think he took it that way. Yeah, I was just trying to figure out when did you get annoyed by this? This is really the question. When did you make the turn? Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Right, I think we all sort of made it.

We've all had our moments where we took the turn. Or you just never took it to begin with. Right, right. Hey, man, I'm the guy who fell for the Kevin Warren downtown stadium project because I was there and I got seduced and sucked into the whole thing. So I got my own issues. That's for sure. Frankly, part of the reason we're talking about this.

is because there is a report from Capital Facts who covers Springfield saying that Illinois lawmakers have met about the Bears Stadium. There's stadium stuff, guys. So I hate to be the bearer of some news, but, you know, Capital Facts did it. We talked about it. There, it's done. I don't have the bandwidth. There's always five on it.

Because Adam Hogue and I were on the same wavelength. Yeah, we will. Yeah, we were not trying to gotcha, Adam Hogue. If I need a text to him, I will. No, but when I thought Kyler Gordon timeline, I thought, how about that state? timeline. We'll get back into that in five. It'll happen in five on it. I just don't have the bandwidth for this kind of talk. Coming up next, the Minnesota defense may try to attack Garrett Bradbury and the interior of the Bears' offensive line. There is some evidence of that coming

out of Minnesota. We'll discuss that next on Rahimi and Grotie on 104. The score. Rahimi and Grotie. Hey, Mark and Lela. I just want to tell you first off that I really enjoy your show. You guys cover all those sports I love. And you do it with Kimmer, so keep up to good work. Oh, my God, my friends, my friends. I look forward to talk to you guys, listen every day, love you guys so much. Middays. Man, love is in the air.

10 a.m. to 2 on the score. We're going to have to do a great job really across the board, starting with a great week of preparation and try to put ourselves in position to, you know, handle the run game, handle the past game, handle the quarterback, you know, who's an up-and-coming superstar, not even up-and-coming. He is a superstar in our league. And, you know, we talk about the run game, but there's a lot of issues in the past game as well.

So, again, big, big challenge. Brian Flores is the defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings, and case you didn't know, talking about Caleb Williams and the challenges that the Bears' offense might provide for the Vikings D. As we welcome you back to Rahimi and Grotie on 104.3, the score. All-American Rejects! We're playing all Riot Fest music today because it's Riot Fest weekend. and Layla and I are both going to be hopping at the fest. Yeah, we're excited to go.

Absolutely. And we got a nice day for it too, which is a pleasant surprise. Very nice. At least for now. I don't know what happens, but we'll try. Yeah, I might sport a slicker out there tonight. I look good in a slicker. I think most people know that.

I'm a slicker guy. I'm a slicker guy. The slicker really brings out your eyes. It really does. Do you do like Paddington Bear? Do you get the yellow slicker? Ooh, I haven't done the yellow slicker in a while. That might be an idea.

I might get myself a slicker cap too. Well, don't you have a salmon slicker to go? with your salmon follow? Oh, I should, man. Just be thinking about these things. You know, I like to be gifted things. It's been a while since anybody has gifted me anything. It's been a week. Well, the show is on until two. If you can transition to 20-ish, can somebody get a salmon slicker to Mark? Actually, no, it hasn't been a week. It's been three days. This one... Mitch gave Mark a Chicago Bulls sweatshirt. That's true. But this coming from the person who got the picnic blanket, okay? You have been gifted more than I this week, and I don't appreciate it. I haven't, actually.

because we were gifted evenly. Do you want the picnic blanket? Should we take it to Ryefest? It might be appropriate. The village of Bedford Park gave me a blanket because I'm constantly cold. It might be a little chilly tonight. I mean, I saw 60s. You never know in the city of Chicago.

I have to wear pants. Yeah, that's right. No nakedness for you tonight. This is not Lollapalooza, okay? You have to dress. There's a little bit of nakedness at Ritefest. Those kids have more body positivity than I had when I was 15 pounds lighter. It's unbelievable.

When I was in wedding shape, I still did not have as much self-confidence. Good on the kids. Wedding shape. That is a real thing, though. You're right about that. Everybody wants to look good at weddings. And even then, I did not have the confidence of a Lollapalooza goer. I thought this was really interesting.

On the Take the North podcast, which I host with Dan Weederer of the Athletic, we had on Alec Lewis from the Athletic. He is their Dan Weederer or their Kevin Fishbane, Fishy Business. We'll join us a little bit later on. on the show. But he joined Take the North, and I thought this was really interesting. He discussed the approach that he believes Brian Flores will have against the Bears' O line.

This is a little different from maybe what you've been hearing this week. I went back and watched really most of the pregame between these two interviews that Ben did, even in Detroit. And one of the things he said was like a hallmark of Brian Flores' defense, and it goes back to the Patriots times. when Ben was obviously in Miami and would see the Patriots defense on the opposite sideline is like they are going to throw a curve ball at you. And it's just an ability as, you know, to keep the metaphor going.

Like as you're a hitter in the box, like you have to know that something that you're not expecting and a certain count is coming. And it then becomes on you as a play caller and you as an offensive staff and you as an offensive unit to adapt. Now, I do think it really helps compared to what the Packers, being at U.S. Bank Stadium in that officer line. Like the fact they're at home, I think that helps the communication aspect on the field.

But I do think this is a really interesting test for Garrett Bradbury. I mean, because, you know, not only from a communication aspect, but also, I mean, Brian Flores has shown a willingness in the past to throw multiple cross dog stunts at you on the interior. He did that to Detroit last year and really ate up that pass protection group, including Jemir Gibbs. So I expect them to test the interior of that offensive line, specifically Garrett Bradbury. And I think if Chicago is able to handle that and Caleb Williams is able to decipher a process in real time,

like Bears fans probably can get even more excited about what they're seeing on that side of the football. It's really interesting, Leila, for a couple of reasons. He did use to play in Minnesota. They know Garrett Bradbury there. The other part of this, too, is Garrett Bradbury did not have a great game in the first game. So if you're going to get to Garrett Bradbury and the communication, interrupt the communication

or alter the communication between quarterback and center early in the season is the way to do that. And I know you love a good cross dog stunt in your life. Well, I love defensive line stunts in general. I know you do. I think the Bears D-line should do more of them. And I was happy to see that change a little bit this past season. They seem to have been showing that a little bit more this year already.

I think the hard part is, Clay and I were talking. You were here yesterday. Clay kept showing us these still frames of Garrett Bradbury ending up on the ground. There were enough plays where you don't want to see that happen with your center. You don't want to ever see the film. Lucas Patrick came to mind. He got a deal, by the way, yesterday. He ended up with the team, yeah. Oh, I did not know that. But that's the last thing you want is for the guy in front of your quarterback, fall down, go boom. And I do think we saw the Panthers at times take advantage of some of the gaps in the run scheme for the, the bears and I would I would assume that that's something that Flores is looking at and trying to

take advantage of as well. There were some places we saw where DeAndre Swift was the one left blocking in front of Caleb Williams. There was a huge gap between center and right guard. So how can you fix that? Yeah. How can you, and do you slide of protection? You know, how are you doing that? Because we've seen that too where guys will chip and then run out into the pattern. Well, do you need to stay at the line of scrimmage and help block? Like that's going to be a big concern of fine. Right. And that's where you lean on Joe Tuny and Jonah Jackson as well. One more thing from Alec Lewis as he continued on Take the North. This is interesting because he was talking about, you know, he watches the tape and he gets prepared, watches the Vikings opponents and he's just

watching the Bears tape from a studious point of view. And somebody got taken in by Caleb Williams. Take a listen to this. As the first half is playing out and I'm watching, I mean, first and foremost, like some of the personnel groupings, I'm just curious what I'm seeing. I'm obviously watching Garrett Bradbury because of the familiarity that I had covering him here, just wanting to see how that looks. And then at one point, like just that there was this shift from like some hardcore evaluation to just like, what am I watching with Caleb Williams over the course of the end of the first half? I mean, there was the sequence of plays, and I'm not going to remember it specifically,

but there was one anticipatory throw with like 30 seconds left in the first half to Luther Burden like 25 yards down the field. And it just like stopped me in my tracks where he releases the ball and where Luther Burden is out of his cut. And I'm like, man, that's impressive. And then you go to the very next play. And I think it was the 28 yard scramble touchdown with unbelievable speed. And at that point, yes, I told you, Dan, like, I'm sending screen grabs to Kevin

Fishbane. He's probably putting his kids to sleep. I'm just blowing him up about what I'm seeing, but it was highly impressive in almost every capacity. I love the Kevin Fishbane name drop. Yeah. That was a fun wrinkle in all of this. But yeah, it's, it's, uh,

Fishpain of 1225, by the way. Yeah, and I think we should ask him about this. And if you want to see the article, and I'm perusing it now on my phone, it is by Alec Lewis of the Athletic. And the headline says, analysis. Brian Flores,

Ben Johnson Showdown takes center stage in Vikings, Bears Week to match up. And he does go back to the years of how this has evolved. Ben Johnson, though, still five and one in games against Brian Flores. Right. And he's five and one. And as Clay Harbor laid out to us very well, it's a legitimate five and one because he went through just about all of the big categories on offense.

And since 2023, really no offensive coordinator or now head coaches had more success like relative to the rest of the league average than Ben Johnson has had. And yeah, I get it. Ben Johnson, I'm sure, has been agonizing, studying, working his ass off to try to prepare for Minnesota. But at the same time, Ben Johnson loves every single bit of what he is doing this week. I don't care what he says about how stressful it might be to be going up against Brian Flores. He loves this stuff.

Oh, yeah, these two are humble bragging into quite the ballgame. that's such a good way to put it. Like they, like I said earlier, this is a week where two coaches have accepted, even though it's the media asking the questions. And I'd be asking the questions, too, if I was out there, who've allowed this to be about them? You know what I mean? Like, rarely do you see like just accepting, yeah, it's kind of about us. And poor Kevin O'Connell, what about me?

What about me? I'm a pretty good head coach here too. He also likes Caleb Williams. Don't forget that aspect of it. Yeah, he does. Yes, he does. Yes, he does. There was an aspect where Caleb Williams wanted to work with Kevin O'Connell.

Oh, Carl. And who wouldn't understand that, by the way? Who wouldn't? After last week being yet another example, who wouldn't understand that if you were a quarterback, how Kevin O'Connell is good with working with QBs? Yeah, absolutely. Like, yeah, who wouldn't want to go there? So there's going to be a whole lot of good coaching going on at Soldier Field on Sunday, folks.

And the thing is, a lot of coordinators think they're Brian Flores or they think they're Ben Johnson. And they think their strategy is so good that the actual thought process and the chess match of it outweighs your athletic ability on the field. And the difference is these two actually understand how to coach for their players' respective athletic abilities. And that's what makes us so good. I got distracted by a text, sorry.

What does it say? Well, it says, pulling Grotie Man card back because of saying he is cute and yellow slicker will help Layla throw him in many volcanoes. I'm thinking about getting some yellow boots to go with it as well. The yellow slicker, yellow boots. That's what I'm going with for Rye Fest.

To be fair, it is a music festival. So, you know, you can dress a little more avant-garde. Is that going to stop me from wearing black and a flannel? Nope. Bro. Heck yeah. I don't have any combat boots because I don't buy things for just a one-time use in a year. Okay.

But if I had my hand on a pair of Doc Martins, this would be the time. some flannel, let's smoke a Marlborough Light. I think. Yes. Yes. You down. You're down. Yes. Pes brought a fresh pack. Every now and then I like a really ridiculous, rebellious cigarette. Same. And just one. I don't need more. All right. All right. Halftime is coming up next.

This, I love this version of halftime. We did this last year. The new food at Soldiers Field, the cuisine. We must go through it and evaluate it and talk about food because it's. lunchtime. So let's do that next on halftime on Rahimi and Grotie on 104 3, the score. See you slick. What time is it? It's halftime. On Rahimi and Grotie on 104

3, the score. Hope you guys are doing great on a Friday. So far on the program today, we talked about the Bears' defense and where they might realistically be better this week against Minnesota. There was Kyler Gordon talk in the first hour. There was White Sox relief talk

in the first hour. They won. I'm going to Takamura Kami hit a home run. The bullpen was good. That's relief. And somebody on the text line even said the biggest relief was the announcement that Luis Castillo is going to the bullpen for the Chicago White Sox. I thought that was pretty good. And we had a great conversation with Adam Hogue of C.HGO. And we just had that talk about Minnesota and how they might potentially attack the interior of the Bears' offensive line, specifically Garrett Bradbury's name coming up while he's still figuring it out with Caleb Williams. It's halftime. The Bears release their stadium food for the, you know, because it's a home game Sunday. So they had the famous, it's the roughest assignment in news and sports, the stadium taste test. Yeah. Where you get to sample some of the best of what the stadium has to offer if it's United Center, if it's Wrigley, if it's White Sox, if it's Bears before the season. Those are the luckiest reporters in our field.

We had our guy, Dan Levy, as our correspondent last year. I guess we kind of dropped the ball this year. We did not get him the press pass, but we'll go through these. It's my fault. Sorry, Dan. I let you down. Also credit to our friend Joe Flam of Rosemary, Bartuto, El Cartiovo. We love Joe.

Joe is the celebrity guest chef coming up for game one with the Bears and Vikings. Of course he is. Yeah. And apparently, according to Adam Hogue, the socks were in the South Side uniforms, too. Oh, that's right. A huge development. Yeah. Thanks, Adam Hogg.

Nice job, buddy. Maybe he was the influencer on that. He did tweet that. They should have never gotten rid of those. I love them. They're sick. All right, so are we going to go around the room here? You had suggested that we do that.

Everybody pick your favorite one. All right. You want to start, Leila? What stands out to you? What's down to me? Number one, the bears have a sushi push pop, which I think should be the way of all sporting events. I love this concept. It's an easy way to childproof yourself from making sushi messy.

I'm all for the sushi push pop In fact, Tanny, with the big flex last night at the Sox game, got one. And I'm like, okay, muddy bags, Tanny with your sushi push pop. But in this case, that wasn't my number one. My number one was the Beria burrito. You get it?

Like biria? Bear. Tender beeria, shredded beef, chihuahua cheese, cilantro and onion with a consummate available in the 300-level Northwest Food Plaza. And beeria is so messy. If you can make something messy, not messy for me a messy person,

then I will be interested every time. Did you childproof everybody from this and make it into burrito form, which is easier? And the bears did. So that's my number one. All right. My number one is I am staring at the barbecue

shy fries available apparently at Tavernberger in Section 126 are loaded with. All right, here we go. Chard Polish sausage. Uh-oh. Carmelized onions.

Did you say carm? Carmelized, I love a caramelized onion. What a carm. Love it. Cheese curds. Yeah. It's a little green bearish, I don't know. And then Drew's barbecue sauce and seasoning.

I do love loaded fries in any form, but these sound particularly good. Kids? So I'm also intrigued by the sushi push pops because I've never had those before. I love sushi. I'm not adjusted to sushi. sushi at ball games yet, guys. We need to talk about this because the Giants have been doing this for years. Well, that's exactly.

That's a San Francisco thing. Why do we need sushi at ball games in Chicago? No. Because of Taka Morikami is why they brought it to the south side. That makes sense. The Cubs had it at 1.2. The Cubs had a sushi push pop this year. Yeah, they switch them out.

You know, they don't always do the same stuff. So they had one. I wasn't even aware of it. I like sushi. I'm a threat to have sushi tonight before Riot Fest. I feel like sushi tonight. Like sushi tonight. It doesn't have the same ring to it.

Sorry. No, no, you're okay. I'm very intrigued by this trend of the push pops, but I'm got my eyes on the smoked prime rib sandwich. Oh, yeah, you do. With house-made Jardenera, which I can find in the Miller Light midway. But, I mean, I love myself a good smoked prime rib. And I just love homemade Jardinera.

Homemade Jardinera is so good. Hello. It's the spot. You eat it out of your shoes. You like it so much. Every day. Put it on the shoes. Even I know that one.

I wasn't even here at the time. Well, you know, me. I'm not going to get most things correct. I'm going to get three quarters of what I say correct. I'm sure Mike appreciated the intent. Northy, shout out to Mike North. As I looked at the new food items of Soldier Field

for this season, number one on my draft board was the Beria Burrito. Hell yeah, Ray. And Layla took that number one. So I'm going to take, I'm going to go with my number two overall pick on the Soldier Field menu. Izzy's Buttercup Italiano Sandwich, because I have for anyone that's been listening to the show for

while, into the station for a while, and doesn't know, I'm no longer vegan, no longer vegetarian. I'm eating whatever in 2026. He went surf and turf at Circa, man. I sure did, man. Yeah, that's where it all ended, bro. Berries. Berries.

Serca. Bear. Izzy's buttercup Italian sandwich by former Bears player Israel Adange. It's available in the Miller Light Midway. It stacks mortadella, prosciutto. Pesuit. So, Priseta. with spicy pepperoni, chili crisp, lettuce,

and Italian dressing on toasted sesame bread. If Israel Adonaget is making this thing, I know it's got to be good. Ziazzi is doing good stuff in the restaurant space. Shout out to Izzy, yeah. So that's where I would go. Did you guys see the cute little drink in the mini keg? And it's like in the mini, the Bears keg. It's the Midway Orange Crush.

Is that the kids keg? No, that is the adult keg. It's like the best of cute. It's a little baby keg. It's a tequila drink. It looked pretty good. I love the packaging. I'm a sucker for the marketing.

I am, and I'm like, oh, it's so cute. It's little. And then the next thing you know, I can't remember the game. So I'll stay away. But for those of you who try it, I hope you have a lovely time with it. And I got swayed by the cutness of it all. It's such a cute little mini keg thing. I love it.

For you parents out there, don't worry. We've got you covered here, too. The kids grilled cheese available at Molly's Back in Cheese Cart in the United Club 300 level. And some adults may want that, too. I mean, grilled cheese, does that have to be for kids, man? There's also cookie dough on the go, available in three flavors. I can't believe all the...

On the United Club, 300-level cart. There's a lot of people who didn't know about the sushi push-pop. I thought we had publicized this pretty well. We're not at Soldier Field. I mean, the sushi push-pop on the south side was very well publicized. I had no idea it was at Wrigley Field. Okay, so the Biria is at the Bears game, Patrick from Gage Park. So that's where we're going with.

How about the Dr. Pepper Porky Pretzel sandwich? I love all iterations. available in the South Courtyard. How are we feeling about meat meridate with a, with, uh, Dr. Pepper. It's a part of it. Oh, hell. Yeah. Dr. Pepper's a great marinade. They soak the pretzel and Dr. Pepper?

Well, I'm not here for your Dr. Pepper slander. Okay. Oh, I'm just asking. Oh, I'm just asking. Uh, the chicken milanese torta looks really good too from Rick Baylis. Tortta. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm a, I do love a good like torta. There's also ramen, but like, I don't know how to eat ramen at a, at a game.

need a table for that and like surface and time. Right. That's getting on my shirt. And if you're at the Cleveland game where it was like negative 20, that thing would freeze in like five seconds. Dude, but hot ramen on a cold day? Oh, now you're talking. All right, bears, nicely done.

Keep me away from that cute little keg drink, okay? Now that everybody's hungry. It's so cute. Grab your food, kids, and gather round five on it because that is what's coming up next on Rehemi and Grotie on 104.3, The score. It's time for five on it. Rahimi and Grody.

Bring you five topics on their minds today. On 104-3, the score. I got five on it. Number one. You're listening to a four-seasons, heating, air-conditioning, plumbing, sewer, and electric football Friday, presented by your local Ford dealers and Advent. Here's question number one. Bears' tight end, Colston Loveland, finished week one's game against the Panthers with zero receptions. So the question is, how many receptions and how many yards will Loveland have in the Bears' week two match up against the VIII?

Viking. Well, he was targeted a couple times, and those were a couple of the critique throws that Caleb Williams had come his way. So I would imagine that Caleb Williams is going to take it upon himself to make sure that he sharpens things up, tightens things up a little bit

with Colson Loveland. I also think Ben Johnson took note of all that, not that he didn't have a good game blocking. So, so, here I am. I say Colson Loveland in this game ends up. I'm not going to go crazy. I'm going to say he's going to have five catches for 63 yards. in this game. He does not get into the end zone. He will not get there, but this will be the start

of the Colston Loveland season so far this year. You know, he had the, it's probably not even necessarily worth bringing this up because it was so different last year when he missed the offseason program, but it did take a while last year to get Colson Loveland involved in the offense. It was the Cincinnati blast off that he did. Hopefully it's not a thing where Colston is cold earlier in the year. But yeah, I got him down for five catches and 63 yards for Sunday. So five catches would put him at second highest on receptions for the bears in the box score from last week. Behind Khalif Raymond, yeah. Well, yeah, because Khalif had eight.

Luther Burton had five. So Luther. And also Luther Burton, five catches on five targets, my friends. Oh, that's it. That's making the most. That's the blessings. That's the Kwan. That's everything.

He might have a bust out game, too. Not to be out done. Caliph Raymond had eight catches on nine targets. We love to see the catches and the targets align. Shout out to you two, two for three. I see you doing things. So that said, I'm going to say Colson Leveland has four catches.

Five targets total for 40 yards. That's generous. It's generous yards per catch. You can do the math easily. But I feel like for Colson Loveland to have 40 yards, things are going well for Yee Bears' offense.

Number two. That doesn't sound good. No, it did what? Me saying yee? Yeah. Was it two Terry Boers-ish? I do love a Terry Boar sound effect. Yeah. Wake up!

Wake up! Thank you. Trying to refocus me? Is that what that was? Did I need? I was wondering. No, I asked Tyler to play because I was wondering if you'd make a different noise. It's like a prod for me.

Wake up! Yeah! When it comes to the Bears Week 2 opponent, are you more concerned about the Vikings' offense or the Vikings' defense? I'm more concerned about the Vikings' defense. I am because the bears can out score you. But I got to let the Vikings offense. I just have to accept the fact that it might look similar

receiver yards to what we saw in week one. I mean, Justin Jefferson is a threat at any time. So you're more concerned about their offense. You said defense first. Right, but I'm saying, no, I'm not more concerned about their offense. I just know that that's, I know that I have to live with that. The X factor becomes, can the defense stifle the Bears' offensive enough to not overcome the Vikings offense? Does that make sense?

I basically just said all three phases of the game. Yeah, you just took all the answers. Shout out to Cairo Santos while we're out in. Penalty on Layla, she just took all the answers. The question is now moot. But I'm saying if I'm expecting something to be similar, it's probably the offense of production of the other team. So then therefore, the defense stifling the Bears' offense results in a law. This is an answer of resignation.

What's the answer here? answer of resignation on knowing what the bear's defense is. Stop criticizing me thinking. You should try thinking sometimes. Layla is resigned to knowing what the bear's defense is. I think is that correct. Am I correct characterization? I've come to accept that we might see similar performance.

So you're more concerned about Minnesota's defense. Stopping the Bears' offense from winning the game. Okay. Despite the Bears' defense allowing Minnesota to get a lot of yards and points. Ben Johnson, I think I just explained a football game and how it works. Thank you. That was not the question. The X-Factor is seriously the Vikings defense stopping the Bears offense. Okay.

I'll go with the offense. I'm a little more concerned based on what we saw last week. And look, like I said, Jalen Coker might end up being great this year and being a thousand-yard receiver for the Carolina Panthers. But there's two legitimate wide receivers in Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, who did not have a good first game. talking about Jordan Addison. He's had some big games against the Bears. He has done very well against the Bears in the past. He has. So we saw, look, the way Jalen Johnson is talking, not

feeling great physically or mentally. We know the issues with Tyreeks Stevenson. I don't know that the secondary is going to rebound in week two. And then there's always like the T.J. Hawkinson threat. He's probably good for a couple of big run or big catches out on the field. So I am, I am leaning towards, you know, the Aaron Jones factor, look, he's been kind of a Bears killer since his days with the Green Bay Packers, and, you know, they're down a man in the running back room, so you're going to get

a big dose of Aaron Jones as well. So I am more concerned this week against that Minnesota offense, getting up to speed against the Bears defense, which I don't think is going to catch up for a couple of weeks yet. Five on it. Number three.

It's five on it on 104 through the score with Lailorahey and Mark Grody. Here's question number three. Last week, ESPN and NFL network insider Ian Rappaport took to X to report that Bears' cornerback, Kyler Gordon, who is on the physically unable to perform list with a calf injury, was away from the team working with his own trainer to accelerate recovery. Rappaport went on to write in his post that the plan is for Gordon to return a few weeks into the season and began practicing shortly thereafter. Yesterday afternoon on Spiegel and Holmes, 104, 3, the score of Bears reporter, Herb Howard,

shared this note on Gordon. I talked to several guys in the locker room, Roma Dunzei, Jade Walker, among them, who without prompt brought up Kyla Gordon. They told me, one, he was in the building today. Now, I didn't see him. He said he was in the building earlier today. They all talk about, you know, when he comes back,

he's going to be a problem. There is not a single person in their locker room. One, who doesn't love Kyler Gordon as a teammate, and two, does not think he's coming back to play football for this team. They talked about when he comes back. He comes back. Romadunz, they said he is one of one, absolutely unique in a way that nobody else can kind of replicate the way Kyler is able to play when he's on the field. The health is what it is and they got to get them back. But they all are really, really excited to get them back.

And I think when he's able to get back, he's certainly going to be a useful, useful piece and add to that secondary. It's 104.3, the score Bears reporter, Herb Howard, talking about Kyler Gordon there. Now, Ian Rappaporten said he would return a few weeks into the season. And here we are week two. He is apparently was in the building yesterday at Hallis Hall. So leads me with my thinking on all this craziness going on in the Bears this offseason. What will happen first? Will Kyler Gordon return to the field?

Or will the Bears officially announce the site of their new stadium? Which one happens first? Okay. I'm going through this year. Ready? Okay. You say it's Kyler Gordon returning to play or shovels in the ground for a new stadium. At least an announcement.

An announcement. An announcement. That's all I'm asking for. You don't have to bust out the shovels yet. I'm going with answer C. I'm submitting my own answer. Before those things happen, you were you guys ready for this? I'm backing up a little because I'm about to yell.

I'm about to yell. Ozzie Tripillo will play left tackle for the Chicago Bears before both of those things happened. All right. That's right. I went outside the box and I cheated on this question. Wait, you just criticized me. criticized me for answering a question too well. I know.

I felt enabled. You enabled me to cheat. So if you're going to cheat, I'm going to cheat. Well, I have really good news. I have really good news about this, all of this that has gone down on five on it. It is the Rahimi and Grotie show, and you guys could do whatever the hell you want. That's true. That's a good point.

I guess I'll answer it, though. Kyler Gordon or the stadium, Kyler Gordon returns to play for the Chicago Bears before there's a shovel in the ground for the bears, or an announcement of the shovel going into the ground. Yeah, I think Kyler Gordon also returns to play, and that could be in 2027 at this rate. What about Tripillo? I didn't want to correct you, buddy, but it's a pillow. Oh, what about Assad? I have faith in, I have faith in Ozzie and Kyler Gordon more than I have coming back more than I have faith in the Bears getting anything done with their stadium.

Like, that's just a given at this point. And by the way, yeah, there are reports about how in August, apparently J.B. Pritzker's economic development team, met with the bears. That really proves that Indiana is the sole focus, right? That's what that proves, except J.B. Pritzker's here. He's the Illinois governor. I completely get the messaging, right? That's what sole focus means is when you're talking to everybody.

Suddenly soul means something different. By the way, since we were on this stadium topic, I'm watching the prime post-game show after Thursday night football, Ryan Fitzpatrick had this to say, and it made me, Think of the Bears, of course. What's your headline for tomorrow, bud? I actually, I was going to say something about Josh Allen. How fantastic he.

How's that voice? How's that voice? But it's these fans. These fans have been waiting for this stadium for the last four years. They deserve it. Western New York, full of Bill's Mafia members. This is a special night for all of them. That's Ryan Fitzpatrick on the Prime Postgame show saying,

the Bill's fans really deserve that new stadium. They've been waiting four whole years. Four years is nothing to be. fans. We are the most deserving fan base in existence. What about the bears? Yeah. What about the one-arm guys? Did you see Ryan Fitzpatrick jumping into a table last night? Yes. Isn't that the point? Then he did the, he did the thing. He ripped over, opened the shirt. He gave the people the show. Is that what the people wanted? They were chanting. They were chanting, take it off. They wanted him to take his shirt off. Also, isn't the point of Bill's Mafia to jump into tables? I thought

that was the point. I guess so. I mean, there have also been questionable decisions and viral videos from Bill's crowd members that I don't choose to participate in. But the jumping on the table seems pretty innocuous except for your body and all. Josh Allen had five touchdowns last night. Josh Allen had the bills looked really good.

My goodness. DJ Moore left the game hurt and there's some concern there. Yeah, man. Because when he leaves a game hurt, that means he's hurt because he's the toughest dudes I ever covered. Since we're here for some nuggets during five on it, can I interest you in this? Alyssa Bergamini is your public address at the Sox game tonight. Burghs!

How about our team mate? Alyssa, Burgumitty. She said on Twitter, Sox fans, I'll be your public address announcer tonight, filling in for Mr. Aligni, Jean Honda, an honor and a privilege for the South Side gal. So congratulations to Alyssa. I think that's pretty awesome. Hell yeah. She's awesome.

Love Bergeni. Does she try to do the Gene Honda or does she just go with her own voice? Frank Thomas! Because I would be so tempted. So tempted to say, your Chicago White Sox, how Gene Honda says it. Oh, I would love that. Your Chicago White Sox!

Like, who hasn't done it? Mata-Moracami. Who among us hasn't done it? Or have you impersonated the previous play of PA address for the Cubs, Andrew Bellison, and now Jeremiah Paprocky in similar style Yeah, Bracki. Yes. You know

you've done it. I know you have. Muglio Ardonias. Why am I doing Wayne Laraville all of a sudden? I don't know. That just happened. Andrew Billings. He should do. do that. Alyssa, please don't mention Maglia or Donias or Andrew Billings in Wayne Larravee voice. David Sandlin starting for the White Sox today.

Andrew. So it's Wayne Larravee doing White Sox play by play now? I think I like the idea of that. The White Sox had runners on scoring position. One for 12 with runners in scoring position. The arrogance. The arrogance. of Will Vettable!

It was like the least arrogance person. This is great. I love this so much. The Matt Nagy cop now going to will. I'm not going to have a voice for, I will not have a voice by with that and with Riot Fest. I may be voiceless on Bears Monday. Yeah, you might be,

but at least you gave a good cause to it, you know. At least you sacrificed for the team. Did I ever tell you guys about the play-by-play address? Who would say the upcoming place on the, public address. Say what? There was one time where, like, he really wanted to be a play-by-play guy who's the public address instead.

Tommy Fam! How is he in the lineup? High school football game. This guy says, looks like it's going to be a reverse before the play happened. Oh, wow. So then the opposing team hears this because he's the public address. And they completely blow up the reverse. Turnover on downs.

I just realized what I think might be the best white socks name for Wayne Laird. be. Randall Gritchick. Gritchick. Tristan Peters is a banana. Number four. Yes. Okay.

The Lions are 10 and 9 since Ben Johnson left the building to become the head coach of the Bears. The Lions. McGill-Vernis. Are you starting to believe that Ben Johnson had more of an impact on the Lion's success that we expected? Whose turn is it? I don't know.

I don't know. Layla, go. Oh, do you have to? Just say yes. Just say yes. Yeah, never let the genius leave her building. The genius left her building. The jig is up.

Yeah, they did look like, I don't even know who the play caller is. Like, they showed him with this. Drew Petting. Oh, yeah. It is Drew Petzing. Like, he just, he looked. Drew. Petzing looked hopeless out there.

He can't do a thing. Chase Midroth. Oh, man My waist An error I'm short I have to stop now Do you?

Wake up! Oh yeah Back to the question Oh yeah So What if you were What if you were a public address? What would you do?

She'd probably be really good at it actually I mean Wayne's got a voice No, no, no, you Oh what if I was? Maybe it'd be a different voice every night, you know? I'd be shouting somebody's voice, probably.

Would that go over? You switch the samples. We need Tim Sinclair to teach us how to do public address. Well, he'd be doing the Bears on Sunday, man. It's going to be a whole of the crowd. His TikTok, by the way, if you want to see like the most fun behind the scenes, Tim Sinclair's TikTok is tremendous. Grody, are you starting to believe that Ben Johnson had more of an impact on the

line's success than we had expected? I am. And you know what? I was not buying into that last year, to be honest. you. I was like, there's just so much talent on that Detroit team. But now having seen the creativity up close that Ben Johnson has put together for the Bears last year and obviously through one game this year, I don't, I really don't see how you can deny it. I mean, they had to change play callers, right? So I, yes. Yes. And then Dan Campbell had to take over for a while.

Happy Ray, we answered the damn question. Thank you. He gave a snippy answer about pre-snap movement. Do you remember that? That's when we knew was that a bit of a fever pitch. And then Dan Campbell gave a snippy answer last night, by the way. Snippy. Brian Hudson. Dan Campbell also got choked up again after a loss.

It's getting old. The bit's getting old. I mean, if he's upset, it's okay. He swore at halftime, too. Are you, by the way, I thought about the, are they allowed to swear on Prime? Like, I guess they probably are, right? The FCC lets them be, I suppose.

Yeah. Yeah. I think so. He said we've got to stop this bleep. Number five. The Cubs have a day. off yesterday and took a trip to Churchill Downs in Kentucky to support third baseman Alex Bregman. Bregman and his family own a horse named Act of Parliament. Active Parliament ended up winning at the famed racetrack last night. Is this the most random thing a baseball team has done

on their day off? What's more random? Like that's the question. I've seen I've seen players I knew go to the U.S. Open. You know, for example, if it was in a, if they had a day off and it was at a golf course that was nearby to one of their cities that they were in traveling. But the entire team going to Churchill Downs to support Alex Bregman, who had a horse who won, by the way, that's also pretty impressive. That's a pretty big deal. So I can't think of anything that's more notable that a team has done that's off the beaten path like this. And what's funny is they were relatively close because they're playing Cincinnati.

The natty. Yeah. I'm trying to think like I should know this since I covered this. team but Joe Madden with all his ridiculousness, the zoo on the field. With those before games though? The petting zoo? Yeah, like was that an off day thing or was that like before games? I don't remember.

Was it before a game? So that doesn't necessarily count. But that's pretty cool, man. That's pretty cool that they did that. That's like a cool event to attend, like just to go to Churchill Downs. And then, aw, they're supporting Alex Bregman. Oh, and also Ryan Rawlison dressed up in a horse costume. That was also on Instagram.

Oh my gosh, I forgot about that part. That was pretty crazy. If you saw that out of context and didn't know what happened, there were a lot of questions to be asked. He's still in my circle of trust. Oh, good. Weren't you concerned? I was.

I just don't want him in the ninth inning as evidence from the last game. All right, that's fair. What about Noah Schultz? Five on it. Random White Sox names as Wayne Larravee. That's it. I'm out. I'm done.

Oh, yeah. So we have, oh, this is perfect. Coming up next, our guy from the athletic. Say it. Kevin Fishbane. Kevin Fishbane joins us next year. That's it. No more.

No more Wayne. Preserve that voice. The voice must stay. Like, my voice is actually starting to hurt right now. Can I stop myself? Can I? I don't know if it's even possible. Can I get you some tea, Mr. Grody?

Immediately. It's Rahimi and Grody on 1043 to score. Kevin Fishbang, Bears beatwriter for the athletic. They know how much skepticism everybody has about their ability to rush the pastures. They know how much criticism their GM has gotten for not adding a big-time pass rusher this offseason. So, you know, there's a chip on their shoulders. And, you know, now they have the opportunity to prove themselves because this is it. Like, these are the guys.

Kevin Fishbane talking bears. Matt Ebert, Blue, George McCasky, Ryan Poles, Kevin Fishpane. On Chicago Sports Radio. 104 3 the score. It is Rahimi and Grotie on 1043, the score. Olin Kruits text me said, No more Wayne. Protect yourself.

Sorry, the texers were egging me on. What can I tell you? Some were not, because it's always split. It's been a weird day on the text line. Some guy tried to tell me I was fighting with him, and I was like, I don't know you. You are listening to a four-seasoned heating, air conditioning, plumbing, sewer, electric football Friday.

Presented by your local four dealers in Advent. We always love having. Kevin Fishbane on to talk about the bears. And you can see Kevin if you'd like. Kevin is joining us on our video stream to watch Search the Score Chicago on Twitch and YouTube. Fishbane. What's going on, man? How are you?

I'm great. Happy Friday. Look at that Northwestern Polo. Are you ready? You ready for the season? You ready for it? Football season. Grotie knows this.

I try to wear a little purple on Friday to the office. It's a little tradition among the alums. and just get hype for Coach Prime coming to town tomorrow night. Yeah, and Coach Braun got the reported extension. Like, times are good. Yeah, new stadium in two weeks. They want to know they beat the number three team in the country in the FCS. So, you know, we're feeling good.

I like what you did there. That was perfect. All right, Fishbane. I spent time, you wrote a very lengthy, insightful article, which I read this morning in The Athletic. about those words, completion percentage. And Caleb Williams was successful in that regard through one week at 72.6% against the Panthers. What else have you uncovered about completion percentage going forward with Caleb Williams from some of the discussions that you had?

Share with the class, as my guy Steve Rosenblum would say. Yeah, Mark, this was a bit of a summer project for me because I'm always been fascinated by the idea that if you are inaction, accurate when your football career begins, there's a theory that you'll never be accurate. I think we kind of had that thought sometimes watching Justin Fields when he first got here. And there's a laundry list of college players or NFL players for myriad reasons that just haven't gotten their completion percentage to where they wanted to be after a tough start. And Josh Allen's kind of The Unicorn. Now, as I started kind of diving into the story of a summer, one little nugget somebody passed along to me was like,

well, go look at those quarterbacks and see how often their playbook changed. Go see how they performed in college. And you might see that Caleb Williams is maybe a little different. And you go through them and there's so many guys who had coaching changes, which Caleb Williams had. And so many guys who also weren't accurate in college, but Caleb Williams was decently accurate at USC. So I really wanted to kind of understand it. And one of the things I came to learn from talking to Ben Johnson about, talked to Press Taylor about it, talked to Ryan Poles about it, was they just put such an

emphasis on ball placement all spring and all summer. And Caleb Williams bought into that idea, that even when you're just throwing routes on air, you're just throwing to receivers with no defenders, they are still grading all of those passes because they want a runner's ball. They want the ball put perfectly so you can catch it and go. And to the point where Ben Johnson told me, he said, Caleb would get frustrated with himself if he had an inaccurate pass in those periods, those early periods of practice. he was getting hard on himself because he wanted everything to be perfect.

So they really saw that and take you guys inside the writer's studio for a second. You know, I worked on that story a lot this summer. He goes off for 72.6%. What a perfect time to publish a story before whatever happens on Sunday against Brian Flores. Oh, yeah, excellent timing on your part. But it is a deep dive. And you also talk to Clyde Christensen, which I think is important here. And one of the biggest quotes that I found was really good from this story is quite the obvious.

once it translates to games, it was the way Caleb Williams said it, talking about how ball placement is everything, but at the same time, you've got to be able to do this in less than perfect conditions. Yeah, and the Christensen element is interesting. So for those who don't know, he was with the Colts with Andrew Locke and Payne Manning.

He was with Ben Johnson in Miami. He came to visit OTAs. He's the one who kind of said to Ben Johnson, like, Ben, you've got to emphasize this more. Like, you've got to put more on this. You get what you emphasize. And Caleb Williams has bought it in that. And yeah, Laila,

But to your point, I think that's a lot, too, where the checkdowns come in, right? I think we saw, what, five checkdowns or so last week, including the one that Kyle Mononga, that went for 19 yards. And it wasn't just, you know, doing it to do it. It was, like Caleb Williams said on Thursday, that specific one, or on Wednesday, that he saw grass in front of Kalamonga. He put that ball in a spot where Mononga could take it and run. And that was one of the things Ryan Poles talked about.

So even when you've got all these things that you haven't prepared, not that you haven't prepared for, but the unscouted looks, the blitzes, the things that throw you off your rhythm, trust those layups, right? It's that Drew Bree's idea that just three more completions is you're going to build up your completion preternage. Because I think we all know in this town that like that 58.1 became an almost unfair scarlet letter on his season last year because there was so much more to it. Like obviously he had to get better.

We saw a lot of passes that he airmailed last year. But there was also a lot of times he threw it away purposely to not turn the ball over. So, you know, hitting those layups. having more of an emphasis on it, all those things. They really hope that this will become a whole season of better accuracy, better precision. How do you think Caleb looks this week against the Minnesota Vikings in week two? Yeah, that game at Soldier Field a couple years ago,

remember that was one of Caleb's better performances as a rookie. I believe that was a Thomas Brown play calling game to take fans. It seems like it was a decade or two of a couple of people. go back to the horrors of 2024. But that was a solid game for Williams. And last year, to go back to completion of percentage, was only at 50 when he was up there at US Bank Stadium. Obviously, the Vikings do a lot of tough things.

So, you know, it's the same stuff every week with every time you play a forest defense, right, get the ball out quick. I saw somebody posted on social that one time the Lions had a play where I think golf handed it to Dave Montgomery, who threw it to receive on the perimeter just to get nine yards, like all the different, and that was a Ben Johnson when Ben Johnson's play caller. So all the different things that you're trying to do to counter that. And the other thing, too, guys, what's maybe the best thing Caleb Williams can do to counter this pass rush is hand the ball off. Yeah. Right. I mean, look, Minnesota is a phenomenal run defense too. It's not like

they're only good blitz in the quarterback, but we all know that is one way to keep those pass rushers back is if you are really attacking them with the Andres Civcommonong guy forces them. forces them to be honest. So, you know, that could be the best thing that K. Williams could do. I'm very, this is a very little thing that I'll be watching, guys. We know how good Caleb Williams is it spinning out of those sacks or spinning out of the pocket.

Flores, it must drive him nuts when he's dying up these splits and they get home, but they, but K. Williams gets out. I'm very curious to see when a defensive cornerer is going to find a good counter to the slipperiness with which Kable Williams gets out. Williams plays. I don't know if there's a good antidote for that. It's hard to prepare for that, but that's something to keep an eye on because K. Williams, if he needs to, he's going to want to extend that play. And we saw great things happen in Carolina when he did. You're also the guy, Kevin,

who keeps track of the snap counts. I do look to your Twitter because I know you're going to post him. And for that, I appreciate you. And I'm very curious to see this week how the snap counts play out with the defensive line. How many Austin Booker is going to get? Is Jordan Vandenberg going to get more than 22 snaps, which I thought was impressive for a rookie, given that this game wasn't super decided until third and fourth quarter, midway through the third, I'd say. So how do you see this playing out, especially on that line? Yeah, the Booker versus O'Donbo will be an interesting snap count division. Again, now obviously if it's a third down, O'Donbo is going to slide inside with Booker on the edge. And they need those guys to come get home. Like, you know, they were five

quarterback hits on Sunday in Carolina. Two were sacks and two came in garbage time at the way end of the game. So really there was only like one legitimate hit on the quarterback that wasn't one of the two sacks. So that is going to be something to watch. I thought that it was a good sign that Monta Sway was pretty high in that snap count total because I think sometimes over the years like he, you want your guy who's getting paid the most money up there to be out there as much as possible.

So I thought that was a good sign, especially in that humidity in Carolina, that he was able to play a lot. Grady Jarrett was also very high up in that participation level. I'm fascinating to see what Grady Jarrett can do. I think we could all agree. You can't ask for him at this age to play like he did in the Super Bowl, right? But I thought he was pretty active last week against Carolina. I thought he had a good camp. And curiously, if he can stay healthy, can he kind of help that interior?

But, yeah, you kind of need, we're going to talk about this all season. you need one, two, three of those guys to exceed expectations to play above average football. And you're looking for Austin Booker to break out. You're looking at Montes Sweat to play like a pro bowler. You need those guys to flash certainly more often than they did last Sunday. Talking to Kevin Fishbane, Senior Writer at The Athletic covering the Bears, host of the Breaking In with Kevin Fishbane, a sports media podcast. And you could follow Mr. Fishbane if you like at Kay Fishbane.

And he's on Instagram at Kevin Fishbane as well. It's Rahimi and Grotie on 104-3, the score. All right, I wanted to leave a minute or two here because you always have good, juicy nuggets and things. I was reading some nuggets that you had in the mailbag. You may even have some stuff outside of that. What do you have for us this week that is interesting about bears and Vikings? So I was taken by the fact that the bears are four and a half point favorites,

because this all goes back to maybe this new normal, that the bears are good. and we just have to get used to this. And so I was like, wow, man, what was last time they were favored by that much against Minnesota? And it was 2019, the regular season finale up in Minnesota. I'll throw a name out there. You always want to play Remember Some Bears? How about Riley Ridley?

Ooh. Had a great fourth down catch in that game that led to a meaningless win, and it was one of those things. We're all like, ooh, maybe Riley Ridley is going to take this catch. You saw Mitch Trubisky make that great play. We'll see what this thing means in 2020. and obviously, oh, they made the playoffs in 2020. But yeah.

So, but then I was like, wait a second. Once last time they've been favored by this much at home against the Vikings, guys, you got to go back to 2013. Holy cow. They've played, it's been 13 years. And I believe that game was won by Marty Bennett with a touchdown catch right at the pilot early in the Mark Trussman era to beat the Vikings. I believe the Minnesota still covered that.

But yeah, it's been a lot. I mean, the Vikings have really had the Bears number over the past decade and a half. half. Kevin O'Connell's never lost at Soldier Field as Vikings head coach. So again, these numbers are going to keep getting a little more entertaining if the bears keep winning, keep scoring points because again, we're not really used to this here in Chicago. Our segment with Kevin Fishbane is brought to you by four seasons, heating, air conditioning, plumbing, sewer and electric. For all the right reasons, call 866 four seasons. Not even the time where COVID had run rampant through the NFL in 2021, Kevin. And then,

then we had no idea who was even playing the secondary for the Bears of the Vikings. Do you remember that game? I thought for sure maybe just because it was such a toss-up that the spread might have favored the Bears just because they were at home in that one. I remember that also being a really big question mark. Yeah, I do remember the game. I think they brought up like four different guys from the practice squad to start in the secondary in that game. It was crazy. And I think they actually played pretty well like all things considered against Justin Jefferson that one. But boy, yeah, you want to play Remembers some Bears. Go check out those 20. 20 and 2021 rosters because you had to you had to load up on players as insurance policies.

But yeah, you know, look, these two teams played, you know, two really close games last year. Obviously, we all remember what happened in week one in Bears, Vikings and what Jay-J. McCarthy did in the fourth court's crazy how much that Vikings team has changed. But it's fascinating. I can't wait until overreaction Monday, no matter what happens. Ben just talked us about this. Like he's, he knows this roller coaster in town, right? 59 points, Super Bowl Bears.

If they go out Sunday and, you know, the defense gives up 30 points again and Brian Flores gets Caleb Lambs number, then it's going, why get Ryan Bulls go get the Max Crosby out there? Oh, that's going to happen no matter what. Get ready. You're right. Trade deadline talk is going to be all year, man. Yeah, that's true.

I got so many complaints that we weren't writing enough about the defense, which, like, I get in like the mailbag. Yeah, very defense. Dominant. I just wanted to tell the, I just wanted to tell everybody, your team scored 59 points. They hadn't done that in 46 years. 46 years.

I was reading your... I'm like, just enjoy that they scored that many points. They're not going to do it every week. I get it. The defense needs to be better. I get it. But my goodness, your team is one in O, and they have an offense.

Be happy. Nope. Old habits. It was like a sobering up of Bears fan. I was reading that mailbag, and you're right. Like, it was like every question was about. the defense. So stand by. We're trained. I gave them what they wanted.

They wanted defense. So I was like, all right, guys, here's your defensive breakdown. But I just don't know how different it's going to, you know, how much is good changes the year goes on. We'll see. But I just, you know, it's okay to just enjoy the 59 points. Have a little fun. It's great stuff. This segment with Kevin Fishbane also brought to you by Advent, breathe well, live better. Visit adventenose.com. And I really thought Riley, really was going to be a good player.

But he wasn't a fourth round pick out of Georgia. I think there was just a little. lot of optimism surrounding him. I don't think it was, I remember that. It's because he didn't get exposed at Georgia. He didn't have like a great career. He didn't have like a great career, but people are like, well, you know, we know his brother and he didn't really get a chance at Georgia. So he's going to be good with the bears.

That was one too where I remember the, he had a really high draft grade relative to where the bears took him, like in the media. Yes. I think we all kind of latched on to that this was a potential steal, which obviously the bears thought they got to steal. every team thinks every player they ever draft is a steal. We couldn't believe we got them in the fourth round. I think it's exactly what they said. I'd tell you what, the third round pick, the Bears drafted that year.

Dave Montgomery's had a very nice career. That's true. That draft was not all for naught. Fishbane. Yeah, he has. Fishbane, you're the best. I'll see you in the press box on Sunday, man. Looking forward to seeing you, buddy.

All right, take care, guys. Go cats. Yeah, go cats. Go cats. That's Kevin Fishpain. Coming up next, I got my quarterly, random intermittent text from Brett Boone, the former baseball player. It's about the Cubs, and you may not like what he texts me about the Cubs.

So we have to talk about that next on Rahimi and Grody on 1043 The Score. Rahimi and Grody, Midday's Tyndal 2 on Chicago Sports Radio, 1043, the score. Burmiri and Grohemi and Grody on 1043 the score. Cubs are back on tonight. In the Natty. Cubs at the Reds. It's a Clay Holmes Chase Burns pitching situation.

Burns, 15 and 3 with the 280 ERA. The good news on Burns is they may not leave him out there that long. He's only gone three innings against both Milwaukee and the Dodgers and his two previous starts as they go out of their way to manage his workload.

So hopefully the Cubs will be the beneficiary of that. But Lela, you know that every once in a while I get a text message from Brett Boone, who is an Odyssey insider. He comes on the show every once in a while. And usually it is to say something positive a lot of times. Like last time it was Cubs and Sox, the city's on fire. So this time, I got the text yesterday from Booner, 3.16 p.m. yesterday.

And he says the following, Padre's going to catch Cubs. That would be in the wild card. as it stands right now, the Cubs are tied with Philadelphia, and the Padres, who have been red hot, are one game back in that capacity. It's crazy because there was a time this season when we weren't really worried about Philadelphia, when there was at least a five-game lead over the Phillies,

and then all of a sudden the Phillies are in the party, and now the Padres are in the party. Are you worried about the Padres, Laila? Yeah, I am. I think that's a safe assumption when we know that the Cubs haven't been as consistent. I mean, they've only won four out of their last six games. So when you consider four out of their last 10 games,

rather, they're four and six over their last 10. So when you, that's 40%, that's not going to get you there, as we know. We know they've struggled. So I can't say I'm surprised. Do you know what the Padres record is over their last 10 games? Do tell. Nine and one. Red hot.

So that alone lets you know that that's a team who's, trying to streak at the right time. The problem, though, I have is not just with that. You know I said that. It's how many times do you want to run guys out there in your bullpen because you think they're going to have to get it at some point and gamble with those standings? Yeah.

It's not a priority to the manager, as he told, our afternoon show. So that said, winning game, he said he wants to win games, but again, we've asked at what cost. So when you have that kind of mentality, I don't really know where you go from here. with it. Well, I get what you're saying because he was pushing back hard on Lawrence's question,

but I think he's just frustrated and frazzled by the bullpen in general because he doesn't really have a lot of options right now. And the experimentation, I guess, is what? Putting Ryan Rawlinson out there in the ninth inning. Edward Cabrera

in relief and trying to figure out exactly how to use him. And if he doesn't try different things, if he doesn't experiment, then we're going to hit him over the head because you keep putting Jacob Webb out there in high leverage, or Daniel Polencia or Ryan Zephyrjohn, which we did explode about. So I guess I'm asking you, like, what's he supposed to do other than experiment in those spots? And the other part of it is that means you hopefully just have your starters go as long as they can.

Yeah, that would be nice. But that hasn't been the case for Clay Holmes in the start against the Marlins, 10 to 3 loss. He went 4 to 30, gave up eight earned runs, better last Saturday against Pittsburgh, five two-thirds. Three run-h runs. Yeah, that's the point. Three-run homer. Yeah, give up three runs, but two of them were earned.

And then you hopefully get Danesby's once in back, as they've mentioned. But how long is it going to take Danesby's offense to come around once he's back? That's a great question. And I know behind Clay Holmes, that would be nice to see. I don't think the timeline adds up, right? He's not playing today. But still, all of these things factor in where you've got to ask yourself a lot of

questions about how this thing plays out. With the Padres, again, winning nine of their last 10. Yeah, and they have three games against Miami starting tonight. I guess the good news, if you want the Padres to potentially falter, they are at the Dodgers for three, but they've won their division. The Dodgers already clinched, yeah. Yep. And then they finish out the series against Arizona, which is still in the picture as well.

So a relatively, depending on what the mind state is of the Dodgers, a relatively difficult schedule. The Cubs have this series against the Reds. then their home against Miami, and then at Boston to end the season, that's a decently high degree of difficulty for the Chicago Cubs. Not to mention the White Sox were asking for the Red Sox help. Yeah. What about that part of it?

Yeah, what about that part of it? Indeed. So I just, I wish that I had a definitive answer or some sort of concept or understanding when it came to what I should expect out of this Cubs team. Yeah. But aggressively getting into the playoffs. and streaking or playing their best baseball going into the postseason, isn't it? Yeah.

I can't say that. Is there one last streak? One last streak? Nine games to go. Run the table. Two 10 game winning streaks this year. I don't know. We'll see about those Cubs.

But let's talk more bears coming up next. Let's go to Minnesota. We're going to bring in Ben Lieber of the Vikings Radio Network. He is their sideline reporters. He does all sorts of other stuff, which will tell you about as well. But he'll be our Minnesota Intel guy next. on Rahimi and Grotie on 1043 The Score. This hour is brought to you by your local Ford dealers.

Shop now at buyfordnow.com. To me, Caleb, he's just such a unique talent from a standpoint of makes all the throws on schedule and they do a great job getting guys open, marrying the run in the past. But then it's just those times that he gets out. And whether he saw it, I think it was a tie game late in the first half the other day. and he runs the ball in from, you know, on a simple, they're trying to work through a play.

And the rush is doing everything they can to get to him. And then he gets out and it's a touchdown. And he makes playing defense difficult. That is Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell talking about Caleb Williams, the Chicago Bears quarterback as we welcome you back into Rahimi and Grody on 104-3, the score. And we are excited to go. go to the Twin Cities to Minnesota to bring in Vikings Radio Network sideline reporter Ben Lieber.

He is also the co-host of Sound the Horn on YouTube, co-host of the Lifestyle Daytime Talk Show, Twin Cities Live. And Ben is also joining us on our video stream to watch Search the Score, Chicago on Twitch and YouTube. Ben, welcome back to The Score in the Roheemi and Grody Show. How are you? Well, I'm doing great. How you guys doing? We're trying to figure out, I think first things first, Kyler Murray's status.

I know the injury report will come out later today. That's probably number one as we try to decipher who's going to be even playing quarterback. What have you seen and what's your indication of what we could expect? I mean, my indication is that there's a little bit of verbal gamesmanship going on right now with our organization, just thinking, letting everybody know that he's doing well. He is a limited participant. He's going through some of the practice stuff. But I mean, if you're asking me personally, you know, I think that it's no chance that he plays in this game.

I think it's going to be Carson Wentz. And, you know, for the record, I don't go to practice. So it's not like I'm watching practice. I don't know anything that is going on there. So this is all just the way I feel about things. And, you know, you guys have all watched a lot of football games. And when you see a player get knocked unconscious, whether or not that they feel good 15 minutes later,

whether or not he seems like he's in good spirits right after the game. I still think optically it's not a great look to put the quarterback back out there or any player out there just a week later. So I think it's very positive news that he is working through the protocol in a swift expedited manner, but I just don't see him playing on Sunday. Ben, let me take it to another level here because this came up early in our conversation with Mike Florio from Pro Football Talk. And I think he was referring to an Adam Schaefter piece or Adam Schaefter tweet about, specifically about Carson Wentz.

And if Carson Wentz is two quarterback, which we all probably assume he's going to, and let's say he looks good and he looks successful, is there any possibility that Carson Wentz continues to get the ball even when Kyler Murray is healthy? No, I don't think so. I think that they know what they have with Carson right now. And we all hope that he goes out there and plays a spectacular game on Sunday. But this organization, this fan base and this team wants to see what it looks like with Kyler Murray as the commander. And I think that whenever he's healthy, and let's just say that it's going to be healthy against Tampa Bay at Tampa Bay the following week, we want to see what that looks like.

How does this offense differ than what we've seen out of Carson Winston and J.J. McCarthy. Are we, are we more explosive? Are we a little bit more conservative, but yet we can control the clock and move the chains? Are we getting the ball into Justin Jefferson's hands? Are we being dynamic with all the playmakers that we have? I mean, that's the one thing that you didn't see from Carson Went's last game is a lot of, a lot of big time plays to Jason, or Justin Jefferson, but he missed on a couple of throws to Addison. We didn't see Joanne Jennings get involved as much. We saw the touchdown catch by Hawkinson, but we talk about this offense being really diverse and with a lot of playmakers. And does it become much more diverse with a guy like Kyler Murray?

I mean, I think everybody's excited to see that. Ben, I feel like the last time we talked to you, the Vikings quarterback situation was remarkably different. How do you describe what you've seen it change into and just not just the continued inclusion of Carson Wentz? But J.G. McCarthy, I think at that point, was still in a lot more higher favor than he wanted. was. We see what happened in training camp. Then we see Kyler Murray and now this. I feel like we're in a remarkably different spot talking to you today than we were the last time. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to really explain what we think is going on because I think that there's still a lot of high hopes for McCarthy that he can continue to mature, understand this offense a little bit more

and still be the guy. He still has years on his rookie contract that's left. There's There's no reason really to throw them off to the side right now. But yet you look at how this franchise is set up in the roster that's been built, despite the fact that we got rid of our general manager and we brought in Nolan Teasley, we still feel like we have a very talented roster. And a talented roster that can compete in the playoffs. So this is a one-year push with whoever is going to be at quarterback. And hopefully it's Kyler Murray.

And if not, then maybe a little bit of Carson Wins. I don't think this franchise is willing to give up on my first. McCarthy. But I think McCarthy's got to go out and prove some stuff. I mean, to me personally, he took another step back in that last preseason game where he was suffering from a little bit of a high ankle sprain and he had an opportunity to play. He had an opportunity to go out there and write some of the wrongs that he had in preseason game number two. And he sounds like, at least what the words are, that he elected not to play. And I think that's just a yet another missed opportunity by him where he didn't take this opportunity by the horns and try to show some

growth. The whole thing is pretty wild for sure. The fall from grace for J.J. McCarthy's. We talked to Ben Lieber of the Vikings Radio Network. He is their sideline reporter. This is Rahimi and Grody. I want to ask you about a specific player on the rise, and that is Dallas Turner, the 2024 first rounder out of Alabama.

I loved him coming out of the draft. In the last game against Green Bay, seven quarterback hits. He also had a sack. Most in an NFL game since Chris Jones had the 8. for Kansas City in week 15 of 2018. What's the ceiling for Dallas Turner? He hasn't hit double digits in sacks in either of his first two years. Does this feel like he's poised for a breakout season?

Yeah, it definitely feels like that. And he answered the Jonathan Gernard a void question in game one. And I did not realize it was only going to take one game for him to answer that question. He looked fantastic. I think the one thing that we're so excited about is watching his development. He was actually really good against the run from the first day that he got here. It really was just about the past rushing skill set, seeing things, understanding things, and now you see him play, especially this last game.

There's no hesitation. You saw some hesitation from him before on some of the pass rushing looks, on some of the things that the offense was trying to give him. And sometimes when you see a half a step hesitation, hesitation. That's all it takes in this league for you from a quarterback hurry or pressure into a quarterback sack. And I think now with all the film study and the great coaching he's got and obviously with his tremendous talent, there is no hesitation anymore. And he's making every single rep count. And he had a phenomenal game last week. And I expect him to be on that track to be a

proble player this year. What do you make of the whole Ben Johnson, Brian Flores? I think the NFL national pundits have talked about it a lot, but the matchup, what does that mean to you when you see yet another meeting between these two teams? I mean, it's going to be fun to watch. You heard Ben Johnson talk about, of course, it keeps me up at night. And you know that Brian Flores, you know, you know that with their past history, he's got some stuff that he wants to, he wants to fix. And he wants to go out and prove against Ben Johnson. You know, the X factors you guys know is Caleb. I think that I actually have a lot of faith that Brian Flores is going to get some free rushers. He's going to get some opportunities where there's going to be guys going across that line of scrimmage and they're going to be untouched.

Now, this is not a Jared Gough situation where you can maybe get the guy down in Detroit. This is a whole different beast. This is a superhero back there. You get a free rusher and you push pause and you're going to say, hey, man, Brian Flores got the best. He got the best of Ben Johnson on this play. But then you keep hit and play, and then you get Caleb Williams doing his thing. And that is the X factor. It's going to be really difficult to say, did Ben Johnson out scheme Brian Flores?

Or did at times Caleb Williams just outplay the Vikings defense? And we saw it. We've seen it time and time again. And I think that's going to be the tricky thing is Flores is going to get there. He's going to get some pressure. It's just how do we mitigate the big plays from Caleb? And that's going to lead me to Caleb Williams. I'm getting the vibe that you're a fan of Caleb Williams.

What have you thought about his evolution and do what do people in Minnesota think about the Chicago Bears finally seemingly have a quarterback because every team in the division has enjoyed life without a quarterback in Chicago for decades? I mean, we don't like it. Of course we don't like it. Party's over, pal. I know. I think everybody's a little jealous. I mean, we're trying to figure things out on a year-to-year basis, and it seems like you've got your guy for the next 12 years.

So, yeah, I'm a big fan. I mean, I think what I've seen out of him is there's just so much more confidence and poised to the things that he does. Even when he scrambles, when you look at his eyes down the field, he's not looking down the field in a scattered sort of way like, okay, I'm just looking, looking, looking, trying to find a guy. He now knows where his guys are going to be. He's just waiting for the right windows to open up so he can throw the football.

So there certainly is a bigger knowledge to his to his game, a bigger knowledge to the offense. And of course, the playmaking ability is ridiculous. I've never seen a quarterback that can scramble damn near full speed to his left and still throw a ball across the field. And you're like, how does he do that? And if you look at Achilles' heel for our defense with B-Flow, it is those situations. It is the scramble-type coverage, where we do get a free rusher, we get the quarterback to get outside the pocket. And then we get guys that just run free in the back end of our defense.

So we really have to be disciplined on Sunday. How do you think Jordan Addison and Justin Jefferson are going to fare after what you saw the Bears defense give up against the Panthers receiving core? Well, I mean, I got to think that, you know, Tyreek and Jalen and everybody back there is looking at, you know, where they got overaggressive, where they bit on the double moves. I don't think that you're going to make, they're not going to make those same mistakes. Should the Vikings try? Sure. They should try to hit them on some of those things to see if they are staying disciplined with their eyes. I really think if they end up playing that 40% man defense that they played last week, that there are our opportunities to get those guys on our hips with our wide receivers. And if we can get enough time, I do think

there are some shots to be had deep over the middle of the field. That's one area of the field to be watching against this bear's defense. I think that you guys as linebackers can be susceptible to some backside runs. If we can get vertical and hit some of these backside cuts, I think they get caught up in the wash and the trash. I don't think they do a good job getting lateral off of some of those cuts. And I think that we can exploit those guys in play action. And so if we can get the run game going,

I think that middle of the field, whether we're talking about corners and nickels on our wide receivers or tight ends over the middle. I think that's the spot that I'll be looking for. Who's spelling Aaron Jones with Jordan Mason hurt and out for a little while? Is it going to be Jones going to carry the load? He's going to be fine in that capacity? Well, they somehow feel like they've found a guy in DJ Dallas, who they picked up, you know, about two weeks ago.

And he came out and played a great game last week and had the key block on kickoff return for 61 yards by Miles Price. He got some run in the Vikings offense, which, we thought was like, how is he doing this? How is he picking up the verbiage and terminology and being a trustworthy asset out there? So I think it's probably going to be DJ. You know, I don't know who else you're going to see back there. Claiborne.

It seems like a guy that we have a lot of promise with. But if you read between the lines, why wasn't he active last week? He's a speedster out of Wake Forest. It seems like he fits this offense very well. He had a lot of high praise during camp. when the rubber meets the road in the regular season, he's not activated and he's not out there and they bring in a guy off the street.

So I think it's going to be most likely DJ Dallas. And then also what's your impression of Garrett Bradbury, who's now the Bears Center? I know that that's somebody who's gotten some attention from the Minnesota media band as far as people keying in on him. Would Brian Flores key in on him, knowing his strengths and weaknesses? How do you see that playing out if at all?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, first of all, I think we all love Gary. I mean, he's a great guy. When it comes to the way that you can maybe exploit him on the field, you know, where he had some deficiencies with us is just with the bull rush. You know, he's always been a lighter center, maybe not the most stout and stocky. So with all of our our agap blitzes with Eric Wilson and Blake Cashman, with a lot of our stunts, I think that we are going to try.

And I don't think this is necessarily just because of Garrett Bradbury. This is just what we do. We always try to exploit those A gaps regardless of who we're playing. So I think they're going to look at that and say, yeah, we're going to try to get him. We're going to try to get them on skates. We're going to try to get them thinking a little bit and see if we can't take advantage of that. Because I do think that is probably the best way to get after Caleb is if you can cage him up on the outside. And we talked about Dallas Turner and all that stuff.

And Andrew Van Ginkle, he's another great rusher. I know that you want those guys to go out there and hunt. But I don't think that you want to get those guys out there, you know, really flushing Caleb out to his left or right. We want to cage those guys there just if he happens to break out, then they can be there. I really think all the pressure has got to come up the middle. Ben Johnson loves, loves Jalen Redmond.

I think two years in a row now, going back to the second game against Minnesota last year. That was the guy that he named checked. I mean, I know he's a great story, but how good is Jalen Redmond? Dude, he's a great story. he is and I and I love that he's getting the recognition from the head coach. Oh yeah.

Because we, we all see it. And obviously he's watching a lot of film. I mean, he recognizes, you know, he respects the tape when you, when you turn it on. Redmond is a baller. He's a twitchy, relentless technical player. I mean, you name it, he's got it. He's not the longest guy. He's not going to wow you with this length.

he's not going to long arm some guy and just like pushing back kind of like a hakeem nick hicks who i just loved that played for the bears it's not going to be that type of guy um but he is he's very quick his first step is very quick and he's got a motor that just doesn't stop and he and uh levi drake rodriguez who we're trying to we're trying to give him the nickname el presidente i don't think it's going to stick but we're going to try as much as we can okay uh he's playing phenomenal as well. So we just got a bunch of guys up front that don't stop, that don't quit. And hopefully Big Citrus and Caleb Banks can be right on their heels and provide the same amount of pressure when they get in. Best nickname around Big Citrus right there. Ben, this has been great. Real quick,

because we're going to do our picks in a second. I don't know if you're prepared to make one, but are the Vikings going to win their seventh straight game at Soldier Field on Sunday? Who do you have? I mean, of course I got to pick the Vikings. Of course you got to pick the Vikings. You know, I'll be I'll be on the sidelines working the game for them for KFAN radio. I mean, I can't pick against the Vikings. So, yeah, I'm going to say. So you're the good luck charm. We got to get rid of you now.

That's what this is. That's it. I'll go 2824. I think the weather, the sloppiness of this weather is going to be a factor in this game on Sunday. Ben, we really appreciate you coming on. Thanks for your insights. And good luck on the sidelines here in Chicago on Sunday, my friend. Yeah, thanks a lot.

I don't have to find my poncho. Yeah, stay dry, Ben. Yeah, poncho or a good slicker. Thank you, Ben. That is Ben. Thanks a lot, guys. Take care, man. That is Ben Lieber, Vikings Radio Network,

sideline reporter, co-host of Sound the Horn on YouTube and co-host of the Lifestyle Daytime Talk Show, Twin Cities Live. We forgot to ask him about that part, the daytime talk show. Yeah, what is? We get these lifestyle guys on this show, our guy Eugene Robinson from Carolina. It's something I'm looking for now. Yeah.

We need football analysis. And by the way, do you happen to host a daytime talk show? Also, we really should have talked to him about the Minnesota State Fair. I mean, John Triffon went. Oh, man. We missed an opportunity here. Ben Lieber, have you ever won a giant bear from the Minnesota State Fair? What do you bet he has?

Who would have thought we needed two segments? Yeah, he's a good guy. Good stuff from him. Coming up next, that's right. Moment of truth. We will make some predictions. Ben Lieber, pleasant linebacker. Yes.

I've got a few nuggets. He is. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, here in chat. TJ Edwards, another pleasant linebacker. Very pleasant man, absolutely. But we'll do our picks next, and I got some nuggets from this game that I was mining this morning.

You have any sauce for them? Of course. Delicious, delicious, delicious sauce. Nothing but the best from Soldier Field. It's Rahimi and Grody on 104. Rahimi and Grody. Tim Jenkins founder and CEO of Jenkins Elite. He is our quarterback.

Tim, welcome back to the score, man. How are you? I'm fired up. I'm happy to be back. You guys are the best. Midday. 10 a.m. to 2 on the score. That was a thick pick.

Let's go. Do you know what this is? Do you know what this song is? Is this Slick Rick? No. This is heavy dirty sold by 21 pilots. Oh, I did not know that. Yeah, I'm getting ready for the 21 pilot show. Can you tell? We're going. All American rejects opening up, essentially. We're 21 pilots.

We do a lot of stuff together as a show. I like that we take days off as a show, too, sometimes. We do? Yeah. When did that happen? Oh, you did you... I wasn't on the show then. I didn't know that.

That's awesome. Why don't we take it a day off? When we just ditch? Is that how that works? No, we plan it. I'm supposed to say it on the radio, Grody. Sorry. Sorry.

It's Raheemian Grody. I'm sorry. We left you at Gurney Millsby. You were with your buddy, Gabe. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's right. You guys abandoned me. No, Ray.

No, you, I was with Grody. Ray abandoned zero people. The jig is up. Ray and I had a... Yeah, well, you were having fun in a lake and having party. And Ray and I were having a three and a half hour drive back. Oh my goodness. It was a great time at Gertie Mills, but the trip back was forever.

I did die laughing because I was on my way up. And then I was like, oh, hey, guys, I made it to Gertie Mills. Several hours later. Yeah, yeah, we were out here working, but we got to know each other better, right, didn't we? That's what happens on a good car trip. You know what? You know somebody for years and then you take a trip like that with somebody, you learn even more. It was great.

We're going to do picks here in a second. A couple nuggets for you, though. Overall series, Minnesota leads it. Bears and Vikings that is, 69 to 59. As we told you, the Vikings won six in a row at Soldier Field. DeAndre Swift is 101 yards shy of 5,000 for his career. And Colquette, this is interesting, four receptions to pass Alan Robinson on the all-time receptions list, 293 for 9th, 9th on the Bears list.

Cole Commet can be ninth all-time. Exactly. Exactly. Damn, if that doesn't tell a lot of tales. Nine times. CBS Sportsline is where I stole those nuggets. So thank you to whomever put those out. There's some good stuff that I thought.

All right. What are we doing here? What are we doing here in terms of our predictions, Ray? All right. Here we go. Very first question for our Bears predictions. Who will score the first touchdown for the Bears in week two against the Vikings? I guess we start with Mark.

We'll go Team Pink and then we'll go Team Black Shirts. Sounds like it. First touchdown for the Bears against Minnesota, correct, Ray? Yes. I'm going to go with the guy that I just mentioned as a matter of fact. DeAndre Swift scores a one-yard touchdown for the Chicago Bears on his way to 101 yards to get the 5,000 for the game. I also thought DeAndre Swift, I don't think that that's far-fetched after what we saw last week. Amen.

And if not him, do I have to pick a different person? Yeah, why don't you? Just to change it up a little. bit. Okay. Since I stole the good one. Colston Loveling. Okay.

I believe in you. Aw. I'm going to go with Rome O'Dunese. I think inside like the 10-yard line, they'll do like a short little pass play and get Romoondunzee up there in the end zone the first time. Okay. Sweet. I see you, Tyler. We just had Vikings radio network sideline reporter Ben Lieber on the show.

One of the many things he talked about was the scrambling ability of Caleb Williams and the potential for that. to be kind of a problem for the Vikings defense. So I'm going to go ahead and say, first quarter. I'm going to call the quarter, first quarter, score for the Bears. It's going to be Caleb Williams, his damn self. He's going to rush it in. His damn self, Leila. He did run for 20.9 miles per hour on that one touchdown run.

He's going to be eluding all of that pressure and just run right into the end zone. It's a good pick, Ray. It's good. It actually is. Yeah, that's a subtly savvy pick. All right. Question number two. For anybody that missed five on it, we're bringing this one back.

Bears' head end Colston Loveland. Finished week one's game against the Panthers. This is your receptions. How many receptions and yards will Loveland have in the Bears' Week 2 matchup against the Vikings? Is it back to me again? Yes, sir. If I said five catches for 63 yards, no touchdowns though. Sorry.

I said, I wrote down four catches, five targets, 40 yards, and I guess he's getting a touchdown. Congratulations, Colston Loveland. I'm going to go with six catches and 70 yards for old Colston Loveland. All right. All. All Colston. Five receptions. We're the old show.

Five receptions. 60 yards. And two touchdowns. Break out game for Colston Loveland. Okay. I need it for my fantasy. All right. Here's a big one.

None of us got carried away with Colts. Good on us. Well, I said two touchdowns. It's just pretty lofty. Two touchdowns is strong. Yeah. But I have. We all expected a strong first game from Loveland.

So you're saying the Bears score at least three touchdowns then. You got Caleb with one. You got Colston with two. Keep that in mind for your pick, man. That's right. That's right. Absolutely. No, I've done the math already.

You're writing the plot for the NFL script. You already got it. Which one will they choose? But we're going to go to the other side of the ball for our third prediction. How many takeaways will the Bears defense have against the Vikings? Zero. I say the bears do not force any turnovers. Because if we're going to sit here and talk about the bears

being a regression candidate and all the stuff that we read statistically about turnovers going down after a year in which you had gargantuan numbers, how the hell did they come up with three last week? The regression will occur this week. The bears will not force any turnovers. Why do you think they're going to regress? Lestie we remind you of Adam Schaefter, whose direct quote was, regress his arse, except he didn't say that exactly. Well, I don't know that I always believe.

Sheffter. But why do you think they need to regress? Nobody said you had to do it. Did you watch the Bears defense last week? Yeah. I mean, like, they're not very good. You can force turnovers and still allow a bunch of yards. I mean, I saw a lot of numbers that prove that teams that have large numbers of

turnovers one year the next year they don't. So I think it begins this week. Sorry. Sorry, Homer. Regress my ass. There it is. Yep. All right.

What do you got five turnovers this week, Leila? Two. Two. I don't necessarily think they're regressing. When I put pen to paper and looked at the schedule, I did not see regression there. So you thought you thought they were going to have like another double-digit? Well, I know that, but I'm talking about a double-digit turnover season? You think that's, you think I'm crazy for saying zero.

That's what I'm trying to figure out. No, I'm just laughing because you're committed to the concept of regression. In that capacity specifically. Oh, yeah, that's fair. In turnovers specifically. Yeah, that's fair. want to throw me in a volcano. I just don't understand. Multiple volcanoes. By the way, Layla, you have started

such a thing because I've been peeping on the text line. People have referencing throwing people into the volcano. I'm afraid to go to riot fest. It's a really obvious yet unlikely murder weapon is the thing. You've started a thing. Hey, Mark, do you want to go to Hawaii? Really? That sounds great. You're already in salmon. You're already in salmon.

You look so festive. This is bad. Have you seen the Twitch dual screen where we're on the two shot? As we say, two people take up one. And it's a lot of pink and salmon. Man, sorry, folks. Yeah, we didn't, we didn't plan this. It's a pink and salmon football Friday on the score.

I swear to got, if we wear the same thing to Riot Fest tonight, I am walking out of there. Are you going to wear a romper? I was thinking about wearing a romper. What's a romper? It's where the top and the bottom are attached. I was thinking about wearing a romper. Is that like a onezy? Yeah.

Oh, it is. In a way. Crony's going to show up to Riot Fest and his salmon onesie. Or like Rapper Room. Do you remember Yohan Mankata's music video? He was in a romper, wasn't he? He was. Disastery Personnel?

Yes. Are you wearing shorts? Wait, is that shorts or is that long? It's going to be shorts, but then I'm wearing a flannel over it. Okay. I'm going to going to go to middle school me. I need some grunge in my life. I'm going to go shorts and hoodie, I think, tonight.

I am going to also say two takeaways here. I think it can be a fumble recovery and an interception from Dylan Pheneman. Ooh, this guy. Well, you know, somebody's got to be. you know, get carried away on the bear's Kool-Aid here, so I guess it's going to be me. I'm going to go with three takeaways because it's going to be a rough day for Carson Wentz.

We do think Carson Wentz is playing, right? That seems to be, that's also my assumption. Oh, yeah. But I can't, like, rule it out until they rule it out, but it's my assumption. Everybody in Minnesota is kind of saying it'd be kind of crazy to consider a guy who was out cold to play

this one. Well, I don't know. Ask the Miami Dolphins. They rolled out two and no matter what, that one year. Well, that's a dumb organization. It's ridiculous. Yeah. All right. The real moment of truth, as Grady would say,

we know the matchup. Bears, Vikings, who you got. And what's the score? All right, the Bears will only score 31 points this week. It's going to be a Bears. I got to make sure I do the score right because I already did this on Take the Norris. Sometimes I've done, I've done different scores.

You didn't write it on your spotting sheet. Believe it or not, of all the things that I've written down on my spotting sheet, did not write that. No, it's Bears 31, Vikings 21, and I'll even be a little specific here. It's not even going to be that close. Minnesota's going to have a garbage touchdown at the end of the game to make it 21. So 31, 21, 21, the Bears will win this week. Two and O. Lales. Okay. I think we're working together too much. Oh, God. The way you started that, I thought you might have been picking Minnesota. Oh, no, no. I too pick the Bears to score 31 points, but here's the twist.

I said 31 30 And a nail biter Is that is that wild? I feel bad but I just I don't know I feel like it's going to be a really close game It's a good offense and a good defense I'm tired of Kevin O'Connell winning at Soldier Field

Yeah it's a real thing But I respect the fact that he can't Ergo Bears win by one I love when you say Ergo What you guys got? I also have 31 after picking 31 last week

What is going on on this show? We've got to stop talking so much Get this guy a salmon shirt Give me one. I want to add to you guys. And then Vikings, 27. I don't trust the defense holding them down to a blowout. That's fair.

The offense is going to keep offencing. And 31, baby. So you and I are on the same page. Bingo. I'm calling for a close game as well, but a victorious bear is it's shoulder field over the Vikings, but my score is different than yours. 27, 24.

Bears. Okay. Do we have time to do Dustin's prediction? Let's do Dustin. Rhodes from the morning show is my favorite bears prediction so far. I'm going to go. I'm going to take it a little further. What?

I know Mike Singletary, one of my all-time favorites. You're putting a 34 on it? Yes. I'm putting a Singletary on it. I'm putting a Singletary on it. I'm saying 50 to 21. Love it. 50 to 21 Bears.

Samurai, Mike. I thought I was bad for my three takeaways. It's amazing. Let's hope it happens. Manifested. Dustin. Can you imagine if it does happen? Like, how will we react as a Bears community

if the Bears do back to back 50 burgers? That's got to be the first ever, right? Yes. I'm going to go on a limb and say yes. That would be the first. The Bears have been around for a long time. I would need a fact check on that. The Bears have had a season in which they allowed multiple 50

burgers. I believe that was the Mark Trussman era. And who was the guy? Oh yes, it was the It was the defensive coordinator. I haven't heard any of that. I didn't hear all of it. I heard a lot about most of it.

But what I did hear, I did not hear any of that. Mel Tucker, Mel Tucker, I think, was who the guy, the defense coordinator. I think it was like New England, the Packers. Ugh. Sorry. Sorry. My brain holds these things, and it's not good. Wake up!

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. When we return, we talked about it a lot. At least three of the people on the show are going to riot. Fes. And so we must discuss our plans this weekend. Cheers to the freaking weekend.

And in the meantime, a friendly reminder, this is not all the hype you're going to hear on the station. Before Chicago takes on Minnesota, tune in Sunday morning from 9 a.m. to noon for your local four dealers pregame show right here on 104.3, the score, Olin Crutes, Patrick Manley, and Gabe Ramirez. We love game. They'll get you set for the game. Then immediately following the game, they'll have instant reaction.

on the Timber Tech decking and railing postgame show presented by the Rorman Automotive Group home of the $50 oil change. Visit them online at worman.com and this week's post game show can be seen exclusively

on YouTube and Twitch so keep that in mind. I have it on good authority on the pregame show. Brad Biggs will talk football with Olin and Pat and Gabe Ramirez at 11 a. That's awesome.

Oh, Biggs? On the pregame show. He's doing all of them this year. So he'll be, yeah, he joined us live from Carolina. He'll be at Soldier Field this Sunday. It's a great show. Courage you all to tune in. You know you're going to get some realness, obviously, from Olin and Pat and from Gabe Ramirez.

Cheers to the freaking weekend is next. Yes. Oh, also this is important. Sorry, I know we're trying to get to the break here, but. Trying real hard here. Breaking news on the score is brought to you by IDID. At some point in the day, everyone is a pedestrian. Slow down and give them space.

Share the road. It's not a game. Officially official. Kyler Murray is ruled out for Sunday's game. Carson Wentz is starting. That is per Adam Schaefter. That was important to know. Yeah, I wouldn't do that to you unless it was important.

Cheers to the freaking weekend. Okay, one more. No. Is next on Rahimi and Grody on 104. Lerah, Rahimi, Mark Grody. Midday, 10 a.m. to 2 on the score. Cheers to the freaking weekend. Weekend.

Oh yeah. Feels good when the weekend is here. It is Rahimi and Grotie on 104.3, the score. You are listening to Four Seasons, Heating, Air Conditioning, Plumbing Sewer, Electric Football Friday, presented by your local Ford dealers and Advent. If you haven't heard, yes, Kyler Murray officially out for Minnesota. Carson Wentz will be the starting quarterback for the Vikings when the Bears and Minnesota meet up along the lakefront at noon on Sunday. and it's a riot fest weekend.

Layla and I are going tonight, and Ray Diaz is going tonight. So guys, I want to know from everybody, what are you most looking forward to seeing this weekend at Riot Fest? Layla, I will start with you. What you got going on? Well, number one, bowling for soup has a song called Come Back to Texas, and part of the chorus involves the phrase,

You know Denton County will be waiting for you. Spot on. So that's my home county. So that was something that meant a lot to me. I have seen 21 pilots in Nashville, actually, where they put on a tremendous show. They are a wonderful live band to go see. So I'm really excited about seeing 21 pilots. Shout out to Alkaline Trio.

The uncle of the bass player texted us earlier. So congratulations to you. And they are from Libertyville. Yeah, man. Like they're always there and they're always good. I might check them out like if I get there early enough tonight. Yeah, All-American Rejects I want to try to see, and we were just chatting about how they are from Stillwater, Oklahoma, originally.

Yeah. How about that? So the plan for me today is All-American Rejects and 21 pilots for sure. And I got to say, you've sold me, and other people have two. Like, I'd like 21 pilots, but I can't do the deep dive. I mean, they're catchy, obviously. I probably know four or five of their popular songs, but what everybody keeps telling me is that they do a great show,

and it's at the expense. Like that one band I would like to see, is the pixies, but it's at the same time. So this better be good. 21 pilots better be good. I'll walk right over to the pixies if I'm not liking it. If these are your options, those are pretty great options. But yeah, so I saw it.

One of the best shows I've ever seen, by the way, was Frank Black Live at Fry Street Fair in Denton. Oh, wow. And it was a free show, and he was awesome. Yeah. I have no idea how I got to say. I was like 20 feet away from it. It was a badass show.

But yeah, so for me, it's 21 pilots. And then Atlanta's more set. and bullying for Super the ones on Sunday. I want to see Santa Gold. I also have a couple of their songs still on my phone. So that would be one to see, but it's at the same time as the All-American Rejects. So I think Emo Me is going to beat hipster me

in the Battle of Eras. So I'll probably go with hipster as Santa Gold, but Emo was all-American rejects. I'll probably go that direction. You know who got me into watching their shows was former B-96 afternoon DJ, Eric Tyler. Oh, okay. So yeah, him and his wife, Randy,

I would always talk about going and seeing their shows. So I met up with them in Nashville a couple years ago and got to watch them. They were tremendous. I have been wanting to see Tool for quite some time now. I'm like a late bloomer to Tool. I was not into them necessarily. I didn't really get Tool when they first came up. But now I think they're awesome.

So I want to see them on Saturday. And that we have the expensive, Naz, who I kind of wanted to see as well. And then on Sunday, I don't know. I'm not sure about Sunday. I'm going to the Bears game on Sunday. It's going to be kind of a late night doing the podcast and locker room and all that kind of stuff. So I'm not, I want to see Alainas Morsep,

but it's going to depend on the energy, I think, at that point. So we'll see. Bears take priority, yeah. Bears. Ray, you're going to be out there tonight too, man. Oh, yeah. You got mapped out, buddy.

The name that sticks out in the Friday lineup right off the page to me, hip-hop legend, slick Rick on the rise stage. Okay. At 5.30, I got to see. Got to pay my respects to Rick the ruler. So that's the one.

for sure. I'm going with my girlfriend Lola. She also loves the All-American rejects, so we will probably meet you guys there at the riot stage. And then it's a toss-up, man, because it's either Iggy Pop at the rise stage or Guar.

Friends of the show, at least the lead singer of Guar, has been on this show before. So picking one of those for the main event on Friday. And of course, I'm with you on Tool. I've never seen Tool. So I might have to do it.

I'm going to go Saturday. Oh, maybe I'll see you there. Yeah. I will, yeah, because I'm still undecided. Who else is going with me? Retro one Roscoe is Saturday, so I might be deviating for Saturday. Oh, okay. Okay, okay.

Yeah, uh, Gorgo Bordello is a really awesome band. They call themselves immigrant punks. I got to hang out with them once, and they were really nice and welcoming. So I might have to check them out too. You hung out with them? I did. How? I did.

I worked at a radio station. and they came by for an interview, but then they were like, let's just chill. You, I want to hang out, and then we just hung out for like an hour, and it was really cool. Ray, you, Ray Diaz.

Here's what I've learned about Ray. And I'm not only Ray for a long time, but I feel like I know you better than ever since we work together so intimately now. You are the ultimate gamer. Like, Ray's always game. Oh, yeah, you guys want to hang out? Yeah, man.

Yeah, let's go hang out. Like Ray. Ray's always the guy that is available. And we'll go, yeah, man. Yeah, sure. Ray's down for the cause. He's down for it, right? Like the rest of us are like, I don't know, man.

I got to go home. Like, I'm talking about a lot of it. I don't know if I'm going to make it out. Ray's like, yeah, man, I'll go. I'll be there. I love that about you. Always down for good time. Gamer Ray.

That's who you are. I have to mention as well that will be at the radical stage on Saturday night. I ate Afro-Man. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Town cake. Hell yeah. And insane clown posse on Sunday night.

I was just looking at them. I might have to do it because I've, never done it. I'm not necessarily like a juggalo. I'm not, I've never really been into their music specifically, but in the later years, I've seen some very interesting interviews with them, and they seem like pretty cool dudes. Elvis Costello. Everybody's saying, what is

William Shatner doing? Is he actually singing? I thought that, well, I didn't know that he, they met the needs of his tour writer. Did he ever get that boat named after him? I'm sure he's going to make some sort of appearance somewhere there. I'm looking at the lineup. I don't see him on here, but I'm sure he'll But he had a lot of demands. Did you see the tour writer?

Yeah. Well, and one person is texting his name a lot. Oh, is that the same. Oh, it's the same one. Oh, William Shatner. Here it is. Yes, Sunday. Oh, okay.

525 on the Rebel stage. Oh, man. No way. There it is. There is. It's 95. God. Bless him.

Yeah. Last year, the weirdest thing that I found myself in at Riot Fest last year, on route to seeing blink 182 was getting stuck in a massive crowd of Weird Al Yankovic fans and I'm talking about you young people which I appreciated

have retroactively found him to be hilarious like that was a huge draw last year it was unbelievable. I ran into a buddy who was there to see Weird Al and not Blink 182 and I was like I am older than you. Yeah yeah like they were all young I'm like oh it was it was equally

frustrating because I literally got stuck. Like I was trying to get somewhere else to Blink 1282 and like this massive weird Al crowd came in and they're all like in their 20s. I'm like, I'm proud of all of you for appreciating something that I grew up with. There's also probably some good parenting.

Probably some good parenting. See, that's the thing. Gen Z are the kids of Gen X. Yeah. Yes. So when you need to connect the dots, there's the dots connected. That's why millennials care about stuff like boomers do because, you know. Yeah, some generations are just connected. Why

we do? Why don't we bring in the fellas next? It's time for transition. Spegel and Holmes are here. We will talk with them next on Rahimi and Grotie on 104.3, the score.