Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Transition: Bulls have already won too many games to truly tank

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

Leila Rahimi, Marshall Harris and Mark Grote welcomed on Matt Spiegel and Laurence Holmes for the daily transition segment.

The city should use eminent domain to take control of the team. It's the Chicago Bears. Bears. Eminent domain to take the team? I mean, I've heard of some land plays. How do you get to the team, Mike? I mean, the CPD, that's what, like a 3,000 strong, personal, private army that the mayor controls. What are they going to do?

It's the government. That man saw the dark night rises one too many times. Where do we even begin with that? It began and ended. Yes, yes, yeah. And for everybody who then replied in a response on our text line that that is the meatball take of the year, it's early in 20206, but I'm willing to put it up. I'm willing to put it on the board. Leader in the clubhouse.

Yeah, like it's going to be hard to top. That is for sure. Imminent domain to take the team. Imminent domain. Yeah, it wasn't immino. domain to build a stadium. It was just like, let's take the whole team. Wait, what? M&M domain? Not M&M donate.

That'd be more plausible. I am pro M&M domain. And I mean, not the artist, but the actual candy. The peanut M&M is one of the world's perfect junk food inventions. Not perfect. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to all those who cannot have peanuts. I apologize. That's what makes it not perfect. Yeah, it's true. Fair enough. But you know what? Strangely enough, I think Spies likes the exclusivity.

the gatekeeping there. Can't quite be around those peanuts, huh? More for me. The peanut butter one. Excellent. But some people don't like peanut butter. It's true. You know, here's what the perfect.

The pretzel is kind of disappeared. I don't like that. I don't like the pretzel. I loved it. I thought it needed a little bit more chocolate. That's what I'm saying. It's too much pretzel to chocolate ratio. This came up in my group chat the other day

because someone just discovered the uncrustables addiction that the NFL has. Delish. Is it an addiction or just a very satisfactory? It's the usage. It's unbelievable the amount of uncrustables the NFL goes through. And I was championing the uncrustables and I mentioned peanut

but really that Heinz ketchup is a perfect recipe that cannot be matched. Wait, wait, what? Heinz ketchup? You can't get a better brand of ketchup. There is no substituting for Heinz ketchup. I've tried others. You're right. You're right. It always comes back to Heinz's

You always come back. You appreciate this then speaks. When I lived in Pittsburgh for two and a half years, I stayed at the Heinz lofts, which was literally a Heinz factory that they gutted out and turned into apartments. That sounds good. It was amazing. Was it amazing? Was it cool?

It was so cool. Is there all the ketchup you could drink? It's the best place I've ever lived. No, there's no more ketchup left because they gutted the ketchup. Need a pump? Ket soup. Not a pump. Ketchup.

They should have had like a pump downstairs, though. Yeah. You just load up with little baskets and take the ketchup back upstairs. Yeah, man. I love a little cups. Oh, those are one of the greatest inventions, by the way. Yeah. The ketchup that's not in a packet, but you can peel it and make it a dip, or you can squeeze it out either or.

So the category is perfect, like corporate food creations that are successful for valid, infallible reasons. Helmonds. I'd go Helmonds. You got Helmonds, man? I've tried others. Always comes back to Helmonds. Yeah. Little Debbie Donut sticks.

That's a very specific call. is there competition well in the donut stick I guess donuts donuts of the 1970s I don't even think the donut stick is the best little Debbie product

I'm a little Debbie Brownie guy it might not be okay but that item is but I know that that's a good item that item has been consistent for 30 years consistently really good

something to be said about that yep yeah okay that's fair sorry Lila did we cut you off in the middle of a god I just wanted to thank the people who helped make the showpost

So thanks to Ray Diaz, Tyler Peter Baugh, Brandon Fryer, Connor O'Donnell, Jacob Stutz, Max Curtis, thanks to our guests, Kaelin Kaler, and Jack Silverstein. Kalyn Kalin Kaler got to be the pool reporter for Seattle at the Super Bowl. Was that cool or poor of both? I mean, like, I would just see. She's always the cool reporter. I mean, it seems like that is a stressful responsibility.

Because you were thinking about if that was you. Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to get it right for myself, let alone the rest of the class. One of the things that did not enjoy covering football practice is that initial got to make sure everybody's out here. It's just taking a roster out. Yeah. Especially early like training camp. There's too many people out there.

Everybody's taking attendance. You're like, this guy's not even going to make it until next week. Exactly. And cross them off. It's just very, I did not like it at all. So she was the pool reporter for the referees? Seahawks. For the team, yeah.

For the whole week. She was the only one who got to see practice. Amazing. Which comes to a lot of responsibility. Yeah, it does. No pressure at all on it. But anyway, back to these peanut MMs and stuff. I have a thing.

I like a, does it have to be pre-packaged or can I just say my snack? Sure, go for it. The apple and peanut butter combo. This is delightful. I'm with you on that. It's phenomenal. Don't hit me with the ants and a law. That's a lie.

I don't want the celery with the raisins and the peanut butter. I like the banana and the peanut butter as well. So Elvis. It's true. He did. It's a little difficult, more difficult to apply. Must be a performers thing. Yeah, I don't know.

Layla, you got a go-to pre-packaged snack that you like? Oh, yeah, it just depends. I think when I was eating less sugar, not necessarily no sugar, the peanut butter crackers was a big one. I'm a knee-cut guy. What's the knee cut? It's like a different, it's almost like a cookie-style cracker that the peanut butter is in between. It's very specific. Got you.

The Trader Joe's organic ketchup people are out on the text line. It's organic. They are feisty today, my friend. They say once you try that, you'll never go back. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I don't believe it. I don't believe it.

So what that's good is because how do you guys feel about the natural peanut butter versus like the old school? No, that's one thing where I'm like, I'm going to need. need the I'm going to need all the preservatives. Yeah. Give me that skippy. Are you a natural peanut butter now? Peanut butter.

Your chemicals are on fire. I try to avoid all of it just because it's addictive. I also love like the GIF, low fat or lower fat peanut butter spread. They can't even call it peanut butter. I think it's like peanut spread now. It didn't hit some FDA requirement, which doesn't seem like a lot.

Yeah. But I still love it. And I'll just say that some of, Some of your favorite... I'm not going to name any names, but some of your favorite places where you go for ice cream don't actually serve ice cream.

Well, that's why I'm a Wendy's guy because it's just dairy dessert. You know, you know, off the top, but it's not, you know? Well, McDonald's used to use, like, way back in the day, they used to use the powdered shake that you literally put in water. It was powder, and then they stopped making the powder shake. And the shake machine never works.

It's probably why the shake machine never works. because people don't want to clean it. That's why it doesn't work. Somebody snorted that by accident. There's only one way to know, and that's to go to the rock and roll McDonald's or the headquarters in West Loop. If their shake machine works, then we know.

Layla, now you are on to something, because that is one of Chicago's most slept-on treasures. A hundred percent. The West Loop John? The West Loop John is real. Where you can get the international menu. They always have international items on the menu. The little, like, Bisk-off, like, don't.

Besskhoff cream inside? Yeah, they're unbelievable. I agree. And the freshness. You'll never have a better breakfast burrito there. Is it bad that I just want, because you guys mentioned the thing about barely passing FDA requirements? Can we just get the European standards over here?

If we do that, we'll lose weight. No, the companies won't let us steer. They lobby against that type of thing. Oh, I like when you go deer. Deer. Deer him. No, like, that was very librarian-ish.

She knows I'm very passionate on this. stop it because we've talked about it. She kind of deared you on the Bulls too earlier. She was like, he just got dangerously close to wait till Lonzo comes back territory and that's it. That's a couple years I lived.

Yeah, that wasn't Leila. That was Dolores. That was more Delores than Leila. Someone should deer Marshall on the Bulls. Yeah. Whoa, what's the problem? What did I say that was that you had a problem with?

Well, one, the Bulls are going to win 46 games. Well, that's before they decided to try to blow it up. And then. 45 days. Forty five days. What about now is he? Saying nice things now? Then when I saw you last week before you were getting on the elevator, you're like,

you know what I think this is going to be all right? And I was like, no, it's not. And then when I saw you yesterday, you were like, this is going to be a really interesting team to watch. Goes out there, loses to Brooklyn without their best player. That's fair. Bulls didn't have their best player either, but that besides the point, they are going to win more games than they're supposed to.

You agree with me on that, correct? Yes, but that's it. Yeah, well, that's the whole AK era, is it not? Well, the thing is that they don't have enough games to get to the bottom. Like, even if they trotted the five of us out there, they don't have enough games to get to the bottom of the... Because Utah and Indiana are just like, we don't care. And even Brooklyn, to a degree, is like, we don't care.

Do I end up playing center if we trot the five of us out there? I guess. Marshall's the tallest. Yeah, Marshall's the tallest. I'm going to play stretch four. Yeah, it's too much short. Like, I think I got to play down low and just try to bang people out of the way. Layla at point.

Do I get to play in the post, like other former Bulls 5-something point cards? Sure, if you want to. I got to clear out, though. You got to give me a few minutes to clear it. I mean, you and Yuki. I expect you to leave some screen assists. Maybe not a few minutes. I'm like Yuki.

I'm throwing down all the facts. It might take 10 or 15 seconds of the shot clock for me to clear out. But then you get down there and you have a, you know, a mismatch. you go for it. I'm throwing elbows and I'm giving six fouls. The Bulls may not have enough games left to truly tank this year, but they are like, you look at their, like they've lost five in a row. It's very plausible that the Bulls will have lost nine in a row.

Don't you think that like you're at Boston versus Home Against Toronto, home against Detroit, home against all teams that are interested in winning, and then Charlotte might be the one where that, so they may not lose 10, they could lose 10 in a row. Yeah, but Indiana has a 11 game lead on. them for the bottom of the east. They've lost four in a row. And they've beaten the Bulls twice this year. Three times, three times is it now?

Indiana. They've beaten them three times. It's a tough day for the Bulls today. It's a tough day because now that the smoke is cleared from the Super Bowl and the football season, we have time to focus on that. We got time today. It's an unfortunate moment for the Chicago Bulls. There's a lot of ways to slice it.

Are there a lot of ways to say small bowls? Because we could say what a crap-ass rebuild or what a, what a brutal job. the front office has done and doesn't deserve this other shot? Are they even doing it badly enough, which is the current conversation? Like, all of this, like, is Billy Donovan just going to withstand the next 29 games and then move on his merry way and they're even more effed than they are now? Like, all the different ways we can break it down, none of it is good for that. As long as the slices were all rooted in criticism of the Chicago Bulls, I think that's all I was looking for.

Yeah, well, I'm saying, but like, it's just bad news for them that we have time to focus. How can you say that when Justin Verlander just signed a contract where he's going to get paid to play baseball in the year 2030? Layla, I still wanted him. I absolutely still wanted him for the Cubs, for now, for this year. He was so good down the stretch last year. I don't care if he throws a pitch for the first two or three months of the year. The prospect of him being a guy who can give you three, four innings of dominance in the postseason worth the $13 million for the Detroit Tigers. That's, I agree with all of that.

100% worth it. I'm just amazed at the fact that he got it deferred to 2030. I think they had to, right? Because Detroit is stepping up. They had to pay Scouble all of the money that he asked for. Yeah, because Scoobel walked in there with his side young. It did. Both of them won any chance?

How about these? Scuba was like, I'd like 32. I'd like 32. They're like, we'd like to give you 19. And the judge was like, what he said. He said 32, give him that. And then they signed Framber. They don't have any more money. but they're trying.

I love Lawrence reinventing the what do you think of this? D's awards? No, but like also. It's the last two of the awards. It's not like he's bringing out some Sy Youngs from 2021. No, he said, the last two that were awarded

belonged to me. These ones right here. Because they say, 2024 and 2025. What were they thinking, thinking that 19 was, like that at some point you've also insulted the arbitrator. You know what I'm saying?

Yes. Like there's the concept of you negotiate from the lowest point possible because you know you have to. But then when you involve a third party, I am here to tell you it doesn't always work out in your favor. And sometimes you insult the arbitrator as well. Layla, you're 100% right. Because if you're the arbitrator and you're sitting in the room, you're like, come on, fam. I did a little research. You didn't even have to.

I know who you are. It's like 19 million. Maybe if you had started at 25, 26. there could be a conversation, but 19 is like, you're making me pick between what? You walk in there and be like, you know the Cubs are paying show to 20, right? 22.9, but they didn't mean to. Does that have any bearing? How the conversation go between the arbitrator and the Tigers? Was he like, yeah, I've heard of baseball? Like what?

Oh, man. That's what makes it bad. That's what makes it really bad. And the whole time I was like, there's no way they can win this case, right? There was no winning. There was just negotiating from your lowest point possible. It's kind of like telling Illinois that you want 900 mil to build something on the lake front when everybody knows you're not going to get it. And then later on you've got to invent some crap with another state so you can get a little bit of what you want. I don't think they've invented it. I think it's legitimate.

Oh, Illinois is taking it very seriously. Apparently they've been taking it seriously since December when the Bears threatened to move to Indiana. So something is definitely being taken seriously. Well, did you guys know that now there's another team that's thinking about? moving. Bears too. Cardinals. Electric Bougaloo. St. Louis Cardinals. St. Louis Cardinals want them some Illinois tax dollars. That's right.

I was like, I don't think they can go to Kansas City. Belville, Illinois. East St. Louis. Yeah. Home of Uncle Tupelo and Jeff Tweety of Wilco. Oh. Wow. I mean, East St. Louis is right there. It's got St. Louis in the name. It does. But also.

Yeah. You know what? They chose Missouri. Missouri. That's true. They did show it was Missouri. That's all I have to say. If you're outside of San Luis, it's Missouri. Come on.

Do you have anybody else to thank? I mean, you know, we could go back to perfect food items, but there must be more thanking to go on. Sometimes we don't think Connor O'Donnell enough. He came in here yesterday in his Valas Jones Jr. jersey. That was one of the highlights of the radio show yesterday. How did that happen? How did he end up having to wear it?

I believe the mob got it for him. Yes. I think it started as a bit and became reality once they bought him a jersey. Yeah. Had Connor been, like, defending Valis, or was it irony here? It's tongue and cheek, but now it's the thing. You know how people put stuff on you in this business? Yeah, that's why I was trying to figure out, was he victimized?

Like, Connor, or did he embrace this? That's a good question. He has leaned all the way into it. Like, he was rocking it yesterday. It looked good. I mean, that was a fresh Valis Jones jersey. But at the end of the day, as me and Tani walked by, Tani said that was the best part of the show, good modeling.

And I believe he said, I can't wait. to take this off. Okay. Okay, so he was victimized a little bit. I think there's some little bit. Some gentle victimization. Yeah, yes. You are a victim.

That's what goes on. Radio bits. Yeah. Back to the food talk. Yes. Rice Krispy treats. It's a perfect item. That is a perfect item.

That gets me. I can have one of those before a workout, be energized. The homemade. The homemade or the corporate creation. I'm fine with either one. Yeah, man. It's nice when you get one that's made with love and butter. Absolutely.

Yeah. If you get one, You know, I'm never turning it down. Have you ever made a batch with too much marshmallow? That's not a thing. It becomes the most frustrating thing ever. It just becomes some sort of glue. You don't actually eat any of it.

It just sticks to everything. Sticks to my heart in the best way possible. And then we get Matt Hasselbeck on. He's like, hey, get your LDLs down. Damn it. He was good, by the way. He was really, really good. We actually should revisit some of that.

Yeah, there was some really good quarterback stuff in there. You know those moments when you're like, am I, am I really going to ask this guy about this? I asked Matt Hasselbeck about, we want the ball and we're going to win. And he had a great answer and a great response about Al Harris picking him off for a pick six. But sometimes you got to ask, right? Tough. I think I always default to ask. Yeah, absolutely.

That's the job. So we were watching, me, Christina Rubin, we were watching the Miracle on Ice documentary that's on Netflix right now about the, the 1980 U.S. Do you believe in Netflix? Yeah, man. It's good. It's really good. But there was Jack O'Callaghan.

I was thinking about, now that's the worst question I've ever asked on the score. I asked Jack O'Callaghan what it's like to have your life peak at 19 years old when you won the gold medal. How did he answer it?

Not agreeably. He was not in a good mood. I think I've done a lot of things in my life. I've had a great life. I mean, it's a wonderful thing, but how dare you? I've done this. I've done that?

I mean, there's a way to ask it. The way I asked it was not the way to ask it. Not the way. I think we all since that. He's so good. How to feel to have your life peak at 19. That came out wrong. It's been all downhill the last 25 years or whatever, however old years.

Right, he's 65. 60, it's been more than 25. It's been 45 years since he won a gold medal. I think his life has gone really well. Thank you very much. Shut up. You've been old for this. That is rough speaks.

I didn't know. I thought it was being funny. I could see I could see doing the same thing But when you think about it It's awful. It's awful and mean It's on the phone, right?

It was on the phone. You really screwed up, Spiegel. I would have got thrown into the boards. Yeah, I would have got thrown into the boards. That's hilarious. Here's what we have planned for today's show. We're going to let because I'm sure there are people over at 1901, West Masson,

and you guys are being too hard on us. We're going to let the national media tell you, about what the Bulls did at the trade deadline. We're going to do that at 5 o'clock. We'll have a discussion. They're not going to enjoy that. They're not going to enjoy that either. But at least it's not us this time.

Cam Buckner is going to join us at 4, so hopefully we'll get some answers on whether there are anything stopping the bears from marrying Arlington Heights is the site for their stadium. So we'll talk with Cam at 4 o'clock about that. Maybe get his thought. You know what? I'm going to ask him the Illinois athletics question. My question is, is this the healthiest that Illinois athletics has ever been?

I'll ask Cam Buckner about that. He'll have a thought. We are going to talk about the Illinois Cardinals or the... Sorry, we didn't have a thought. The Granite City Cardinals or the Alton Cardinals or the East St. Louis Cardinals. We're also going to talk with Boog. Boog. Shambi was on the call last night for Arizona versus Kansas. Is that his favorite place?

Allen Fieldhouse. And Jason Benetti on the show today, too. We got both those guys. We're going to have them cross-talk to each other around 315. I love that. I'm going to join us exclusively at 3 o'clock. I also have a little Nico Horner-related baseball news that is bursting. Nope, we're not allowing that.

You must allow me to burst through the baseball seams. It's not time yet. I think it is. Since you jumped the gun yesterday, we are delaying your baseball conversation. You know what you guys should? to do. It's baseball season. I have the honesty. I had the audacity to...

The same difference. Is Caleb Williams the greatest Bears quarterback ever? Take it and go. You're welcome. It's funny that you ask that question because there is a Green Bay Packer that had some thoughts on it and we will share on the show today. But when we come back let's talk about the stadium

situation and I'm in a place where I think is a little bit surprising to some on this. and I want to see if I'm alone, which I'm probably am, but I'm totally okay with that. We'll do that after Taney's Open, which is appointment listening, and it's next here on the score.