Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Score caller trusts Ben Johnson to get the most out of Bears' young receivers

Episode Date: March 5, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote took more calls from Score listeners regarding the Bears' trade of receiver DJ Moore to the Bills.

Rahimi Harrison Grody. I'm not a fan of any team. I'm just a fan of being right. Midday's 10 to 2 on 104 3, the score. At the end of the day, is after Packers always. This is Rahimi Harrison Grody on 1043, the score. This is a very touch-and-go type of day for us

as we break down the news about DJ Moore being sent to the Buffalo bills that will be active when the league year changes. according to Tom Pelliserro, multiple reports as well, Adam Schaefter, the usual newsbreakers. The Bears will get a 2026. So this year's second round pick in return, they are sending a fifth rounder along with DJ Moore. This freeze up or reported $16.5 million in cap space for the Bears. And we now try to figure out what's next. That's where we're at with this here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie, 1043, the score. Yeah, the Bears have the 25th overall pick in the draft in the first.

first round. And now, remember last year, the Bears were pretty successful with their second round picks where you do have to hit, and they did hit on Luther Bird and Ozzie Tripillo. Jury's still out on Shamar Turner right now, but I do love a good second round pick, so they got two second round picks right now, a third round pick, a fourth round pick, a fifth round pick, and two seventh round picks. My guess is that that will still, that will be different by the time the draft comes around, which is on April 23rd at Pittsburgh. So it's 24th. The Bears' picks on the first two days of the draft numerically. 25, 57, 60, 89.

I like it. Not bad. I like it. Top 100. You know, I'm scared of the Bears in the third round. You know that. You do have a, I was going to say irrational, but rational. No, it's rational.

Look up that history in the third round. They smartly didn't have it. They did not have the third round pick last year. Where's your little diary book? Is it in there? I know you've got all your receipts in there. This is just a notebook. Why do you think it's a diary?

Because when I walked into the pre-show meeting today, you were sitting there with your legs crossed, and you just look comfortable as you were writing. And it's a unique-looking book. I was like, the first thing I said to Layla today was, Dear Diary. And I was like, why are you saying Dear Diary if you meet to yourself? Do you know what I was writing about,

which should get at least a sentence of recognition today? A potential trade? No, Edward Cabrera's filthy, blanket change-up. What the hell is that thing? Cubs got a guy with Velocity. Veloc, I'm seeing 98. Mark said he goes, it's nice that the Cubs have a guy who can throw fast. Yeah.

Yeah, isn't it? That is nice. I mean, Kate Horton, you know, he's got that 96, but he doesn't have that 98. That we call that a plus plus fastball. Let's continue with the calls here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie. 312, 644, 67, is our number. Tommy on the south side has been holding a long time. Tommy, we thank you for calling.

Thank you. Thank you, thank you guys for having me. Sure, Tom. Well, I just wanted to thank you. I said, we're going on Miss DJ, but. I'm probably one of a few callers that's excited about the season, though, upcoming season, because I look at it like this. I mean, Luther Burton, I think he's a dog.

I think he was hurt. He still finished over 600 yards receiving. If Cook went ahead of bad year in Missouri, he would have won in the first round. So we got two first round talents in him in Rome and rival receiver. In Rome, stay healthy. Have we got an opportunity still? I mean, I trust, you know, I trust what Ben is going to do with those young guys, and I trust that Colston is just going to explode.

Even though we're born and DJ, but I think it's opportunity. And I think every football player, especially those young receivers I excited about, you know, taking it to the next level. And now we just got to decide what we're going to do with that second round pick. You know, we'd be able to go from there and see what we're going to do with the cap money. I think we should address the center position. I don't think it's realistic that we're going to get. Max, I just don't think it'll be hard to pull that one. but I'm more concerned with the offensive lines

because if we keep Caleb up, I think the young wife will see with their step-up at the game. I mean, it's just about health. And, yeah, I think in a couple of years due to the brain to be the number one receiver. So, you know, I'm confident about that. That's a great question, too. We should add that to our five on it at some point time.

Who's the new Bears W-R-1? Yeah. Or do you think it's T-E-1? Because a lot of people think that's going to be Colson-Lveland. But we could call a tight-end a receiver. A tight-tide-end is a receiver. So who is your top receiver? Colston-loveland?

could be it. It would be nice to see either Roma Dunesay, or if we're talking about wide receivers, either Luther Borden or Roma Dunesay be that guy. Obviously, ideally it's Rome because of where you drafted him, but I wouldn't be mad if it was Luther Burden who was second or no, he was, where was burdened for them? He was fourth.

He was fourth in receiving last year. 60 catches, 652 yards. They were all right in the same ballpark. More 682. O'Dunze, 660. Burden, 652, and your leader, Colston Loveham, the only receiver on the Bears last year to be over 700 yards. He had 713. But it's a really interesting question.

And I like that he brought up Ben Johnson, too, because that feels like the fail safe in all of this. As soon as I start to panic about the loss of DJ Moore and having to depend on those young wide receivers, I think, hmm, the Bears have Ben Johnson. He's pretty good at developing these guys and making them good and making them good on the field. get any ideas, Ben Johnson. Don't get any ideas to suddenly retire. I don't want to hear it out of you. Whoa, why did you even put that out there? Ben Johnson retiring? I didn't. Man. Did somebody put that out there? Well, the retirement talk has been out there from Drew Dalman, so that's why I wanted to bring it up. Don't get any ideas, Ben. Don't attach that to Ben Johnson. He's our most important Ben. Franklin is up there. Let's go to Steve and Valparaiso.

Steve? Steve, are you with us? Hi, guys. Hi. Hi. Before we give away the farm for Max Crosby, have anybody thought about all these great pass rushers and how they've been injured? He's talking about it?

I think Aidan Hutchinson, Micah Parsons, all these guys get the big contracts. They don't really finish a year. But when they're playing. I'm thinking go for a. draft pick if he can find a young guy it's not injury prone and spend the money on this center. I understand why that's a concern

because any time you have a big money player who suffers an injury, that's going to be it. If you're the Packers, for example, you know you gave up a ton to get Micah Parsons, you depended on him, and then he was out with the ACL. But in turn, and I know Max Crosby had a cleanup,

but he maintained that he was fine. He showed the videos of him doing, you know, he's jumping on the trampoline with his daughter. I don't think he felt like he was done for the season. The Raiders announced that he was being shut down for the season. That at that point might have been a business decision. I'm not sure. So that's a part of this too, is sometimes are you more inclined to get a cleanup surgery

or are you more inclined to get something done when you know you're not going to be with that team next year and your overall career is still very much in play. And the injury thing can, of course, the bears, we have to trust that the bears will do on whomever they bring in their due diligence on the player injury-wise. But this is the risk you take with any position in football, not just defensive ends, any high-paid premium elite position. Of course, you have to worry about the possibility that the player is going to get injured. Aidan Hutchinson broke his leg. I don't know how you fix that.

I don't know how you prevent it. Trey Hendrickson, that was a core muscle hip injury surgery. You know, he had that done as well. So I understand why they're a concern. But at the same time, that's the price you pay with anybody of consequence, being huge in a game and having that much of an effect on the game and getting injured. The Bears were without their best defensive player last year in Jalen Johnson. Jalen Johnson was out for the whole year. The guys that they put resources into and money into on the defensive line were essentially out.

Dio O'Dangbo was injured after however many games. Is injured. He's injured. He's injured. And we'll still. Brady Jared had to have a surgery that we didn't necessarily know about the arthroscopic, correct? Oh, Grady Jared did. Yes.

I swear he's going to bust through this glass window one day. Just come running at us. No, because he doesn't like the cold of Chicago. He's no, remember, like famously. He did. He's like me. His nose runs when it's below 75. He was like, what do you guys want me to do, practice and go hang out in a refrigerator to get used to the cold of Chicago?

I do think he was a little bit affected by that, which I understand. He played his whole life indoors in Atlanta. 312-644-67. Is our number you can call us and text us. I don't know if I'm going this far. 3-1-2, Texas. This should make it easier to retain a Laminé Zakias, who seemed to have a good rapport and I believe as a free agent. I am not there.

Is he a free agent? I thought Alamede was, we'll check that. I did think about Alameday. I'm not, if I, if I, especially if I never see in Alameday's his third down playoff rep again, I'm okay? He had some dropsy's this year, but that was kind of par for the course, the way the season went on for a lot of the Bears ride receivers. That is not the guy I'm thinking about.

I know he's signed a one-year deal. I got to see these. Yeah, the Bears are good. There will be more wide receivers here, obviously. Layle and I just ran through the drafts. You have picks in the third, fourth, fifth, and two in the seven. I mean, there will be resources put into receivers, obviously. He also didn't block enough.

He didn't block when he was supposed to block. And what did Ben Johnson famously say? No rock. No block, no rock. And, okay, so 630 says, I never want to see Zakias in a bear's uniform ever again. That's a good way to describe the text line, where one text completely contradicts the other. So let's go back to the phones.

3-1-2-644-67, and Jared and Oswego, or is it Gerard in Oswego? Sorry, there's a bit of a glare here. Oh, it's Brad and Oswego. Yeah, Brad? Sorry, the lights. It rhymes. Sorry, Brad. Wow, those lights must be real bright.

Love listening to you guys. It's all right. So my son and I are going to miss singing Lil Wayne's go DJ. That's my D.E.J. Every time he makes a play. Nice. But I do think this is in the Bears' best interest.

The reality is D.J. is not getting any younger. And in my humble opinion, I don't think he was on the same page with Ben or Caleb. And having a guy like Luther Burden, who I think is going to be as good or better than D.J. when all said and done,

I think this sets us up to make some more moves. acquiring another third day one draft pick that we can either use for a player or even trade for a max. And I think this is good for the Bears. I think you are one of many people who feel that way. Like this is, it's been a polarizing discussion, but now that it's actually happening, I think people can kind of absorb it in a different way. It's interesting with DJ Moore because he's one of the, it's a rare circumstance.

where you could take both sides of the DJ Moore value to the Bears with the Bears debate in either way. He's the 18th best wide receiver the Chicago Bears have ever had. That's not, but he had three years here. You know, it's not like, like if you measure his three-year span against somebody else's three-year span, how do you look at it then? Well, the point is, is there haven't been a whole lot of wide receivers

that have come through have been this productive for the Chicago Bears. Yeah. Do you disagree with that? I do not. But I also, and I also think to that end, when you consider that he had three years out of his eight-year career here, and that that three-year span included a career year in receiving yards for him, his first year that he was here, and, you know, the moment of the year, for example, catches of consequences, you like to say. Right.

He had an excellent run. But even 18th, I don't think, when you consider the entire bears, do you think that that gives it the proper context? My point was going to be that there has never been a player that I, could think of that you could make the point to say this is an incredibly valuable player on the Chicago Bears right now. But on the other side of it, just like the caller just made the point, you could also say, yeah, there was chemistry issues with Caleb Williams. There were games where were like one target, zero targets? Where is DJ Moore? So you can like on each side of the debate of DJ Moore and what his value to the Bears was, which sounds weird to say right now,

you could make the case that he was terrific and you could also make the case that he was disappointing for the bears. See, and I think that that's, think about the last play we saw him play as a bear. That was disappointing. Yeah. I mean, isn't that the absolute essence of it that he made the best catch maybe or one of the great catches in Bears' history? And at the end, all of a sudden we felt empty. That is perfectly put right there.

There's two sides to DJ Moore with the Bears. You come over here and see how bright this light is on the call screen. I'm not even kidding. You can see it for yourself. You want to take another call while I walk over there? Well, I will tell you this real quick. There was a guy that called in. Now, we're getting flooded with calls as you hear the phone ringing off the hook here in the control room.

Stand right here. Oh, man, that's bright. Yeah, peripheral brightness. We're going to call that. You can't see anything, can you? I can't see so good. Where's my glasses? He's all making fun of me, and it's like, okay, you want to see this for yourself?

Don't knock it until you try it. So as Mark Grody gets his headphones back on, we get a call as we're getting several calls into the score control room. A guy calls in and says, and I say, this is 104 through the score. What do you want to say about DJ Moore? And he says, DJ Moore, you guys aren't talking about WBC? I said, sorry, man. No, he was so disappointed. He is, like, I guess just an oblivious baseball lover.

And I just thought that was great. And that poor, that poor guy is every reason to believe we should be talking. about the world baseball class. On a normal day. You know what? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, random caller. It's just that kind of day

where there's too much news. And the Ben Johnson, no. No! No! Okay, so more, your calls are making us talk more because you bring up good points. So if you guys are willing to stay on the line,

let's just keep it rolling. Let's keep it rolling all show. I don't even care anymore. 312, 644, 64, 67. You're in with us, man. We're reacting to the DJ Moore News and more here on 1043 of the score. It's Chicago, man. It's cold here every day, man.