Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Transition: Happy birthday, Chicago!

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

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

Just a little. Little's okay. You really sound like a dog marking his territory. Spraying down the keyboard in here before Spiegel and Holmes come in. Well, thankfully for you, one of our broadcast partners is broadcasting from home today. That's right. Thanks to Ray Diaz. Thanks to Tyler Bueberbaugh.

Thanks to Brandon Friar. Connor O'Donnell, Jacob Stutz, Max Curtis, and Cody Westerland. Thanks to our guest, Joe Thomas. Check out Hall of Famebeef.com. He's promoting it and it looks really great. Mike Florio, also a part of the show today. And thanks to Danny Parkins. Matt Spiegel, you are keyboard marked free.

Lawrence Holmes, I think I was at your keyboard, so I didn't spill anything just a little, even though Grady claims that it's okay. I have a two-mic region over here. So I am... He's hanging out with his cat too much. Yeah. I clean this studio after every show.

That's very courteous of you. After every show. This is why we have a good relationship with Mike Mulligan. This is why. Because Lawrence cleans it up. And then when Mully comes in, he knows he's all good. So that's why we had Mully on yesterday, because Mully respects the way that Lawrence takes care of the workstation.

It's like the gym. You wipe it down for the next person? 100%. It's common courtesy. I appreciate what you do, Lawrence. However, let's give Dustino a little credit. Dustin comes in here, unless he doesn't do this anymore. But I was in here for five years with Dustin.

He comes in with his little wipes and spray. And that might have been the grover time, too, because the place did have to be disinfected. He'd robberized. I'd come in here. He'd be sweating, mopping the floor, and wipes all over the place. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mark.

You lost me at, let's give Dustin a little credit. That's where you lost me. That's what happens. He does bring in his own disinfecting wipes, though. I know. He's very particular about them. Yeah, he keeps them locked up. I go and buy cleaning supplies, too.

If I had known, I would have contributed to the pot. I'm sorry. You didn't know that speaks? I didn't know that you brought your own. stuff? Oh, Lord's got a locker. That's right. He's one of the score of locker people. But what that is? Like, we're a team. We can all contribute. I hope you're expensing that. What are we doing? It's $4. He's got a bottle. He doesn't matter. He really has a bottle of spray. We will guilt buy some disinfectant in support of our team. Look, Chris Tannahill is in charge of

cutlery in our office. He buys cutlery, the plastic kind. And every once in a while, you just got to contribute to the Tanny Costco fund. I had no. idea that Lawrence was in charge of cleaning supplies. I feel guilty. Lela, I'm not in charge of cleaning supplies. I just wanted to make sure that we had what we needed to clean the studio after we're done. Is this like how I always acquire plastic cutlery and now to go containers for tanny for our stash? Yeah, that's important. What else he got back there, Lauren? He just pulls out a big can. What else he got under the table? What else you keep to keep yourself comfortable? There's a rag in there too. You know, you just want to...

Yeah. I feel like we're on the prices right. Can we guess some of the prices of these items? 399. The beautiful Charlotte is showing you at 2002 Saturn. Oh, God. Are the prices right, ladies, for a young Matt Spiegel home from school? Oh, boy.

I was one of those microphones, the Bob Barker tiny microphone. Ooh. That's what... No, no, mind. No. She did not say that. She didn't say that. That was the style back then.

It was Bob Barker. Parker, who was the host of Joker's Wild? He had one, two. That was the whole thing, like the super skinny Mike. Yeah. I want to say Joker's Wild was Wink Martindale. Yes. He's a defensive coordinator.

Same guy. Same guy. Not same guy, but same guy. Every time I'm like, Wink Martindale is a game show and a defensive coordinator. His name isn't actually, the coach's name isn't wink. It's just because it was Martindale. He got the nickname. Oh, yeah.

What about the coach actually? named Bronco. Bronco Mendon Hall. Bronco Nagersky. Well, and it's funny, Gene Rayburn, who was the coach, the host of the match game, and he had the awesome microphone,

the long microphone, is not the same guy as Gene Rayburn who was the defensive coordinator for the Cowboys in the 1990s. This is getting ridiculous now. I made that out. I was going to say. I was like, I don't remember a Gene Rayburn. I think there's like four or five guys that actually host

posted those shows and then multiple shows like Richard Dawson. Ryan Seacrest? Yeah, Ryan Seacrest. He's doing that now. If you get one game show, you must have 12. It's a, from what people say about it, like, it's a really good life. Oh, yeah, dude. He started as one of us.

Van White's been doing it for 60 years. I can't believe she's still, I was thinking about it. I think I saw a billboard with her for the press. I'm like, man, she must really love her job. It's a great job. Yeah, I guess. She doesn't even have to turn. the things anymore. Now she can just touch them. Touch screen. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's like sitcom life. If you're a movie actor and you're going to just settle down and relax and do that instead.

Or flow from Progressive or Jan from Toyota. Hey my dude um my dude is chicagoan uh guitar player Greg saran wonderful guy big listener of the of the station and the show is now the guitar player on both the voice and American Idol made man that is his that is his that is his that is his stay-at-home California music job after being on tour with lots of different artists through the years. So that's his version of Game Show Life. He's enjoying himself. Any musician with a regular gig of any kind, you're in the top 1% of musicians.

Spiegel. Yep. Congratulations. On some level. On some level. Hey, I learned something today, guys, about the Raiders situation. They're right. Do you remember?

You remember the name of Alex? Back, back, back, back. You guys remember the name of Alex Guerrero? No, but I remember Roberto Guerrero, who was the guy who did TB12. There it is. Alex Guerrero, Tom Brady's partner in TB12, all those kind of specious life improvement and athletic improvement devices and medicines, which seemed really odd. Yeah, wellness.

He's the wellness coordinator for the Raiders. He is everywhere. Michael Silver wrote about it today at The Athletic. He is considered a direct pipeline to Brady. While Brady was off doing his Fox stuff, Guerrero was attending practices, attending coaches meetings, telling players about upcoming transactions,

telling staff members they could be at risk for their jobs if they don't follow along the right way and apparently reporting 100% of things to Tom Brady. And this is part, of why Max Crosby wants out. Who's running that damn show? Tom Brady. Alex Guerrero.

Well, that's Mark Davis. Mark Davis announced when they fired Pete Carroll that John SpyTick was going to work closely with Tom Brady on everything from now on. And Brady, while he's splitting his duties, is letting Alex Guerrero be his eyes and ears at Raiders camp. And Crosby's an ultra-competitive dude who wants to be great, busts his ass, didn't like that they shut him down last year at the end of the season and is disgusted by the way it is going down right now.

You would think that a guy named SpyTech would know that there was stuff going on. Really is true. I think it's with a K at the end, not a C. It doesn't matter. That's how all the stores spell it anyway. This is true. It's for the streets with Z. Alex Guerrero is a straight up charlatan.

I always thought that. I did not realize he was this embedded in Raiders culture. Do you want me to take the shot or no? Yes, go ahead. Let's take the shot. So do you know what that breeds? Insecurity. If you need a lieutenant to do your job or they're not doing your job or you're not,

or you know you're not doing it well enough, pick a lane. Hmm. Pick a lane. If you want to have that much control or you want to have that much purported control, then you either got to do it yourself because you're the one who commands respect, or you need to delegate to somebody who actually can and doesn't have that type of role. tell me somebody who's a leader who has that person on his staff and is secure these are all good observations by you anyone yeah solid no no no i i think i think you're on it

i think brady you have to delegate to that extent when you need to trust somebody else to do your job that is a sign of weakness well and he can't be there he can't be there because he's trying to do two things and live in both lives and he's and he's kind of a wackadoodle leila he's he's the insecurity is is real that whole thing was a mess last year with Pete Carroll. It's an absolute disaster. It's amazing that he was a one and dunner. It really is. Did you see the grade that was given, you know, when

Kalin Kaler had the grades like that? I believe he had the lowest grade of any head coach in the survey. That's interesting. It's the reason he faded into the background in Seattle. You can't tell because they were letter grades and the NFLPA released him as numerical. But I believe that was the case. I can look again.

Bears head coach got an A. Yes, he did. Defense coordinator. He got what? He got to see. The D. He got a C. That was interesting. Yeah. Was it a C minus? It was.

I thought it was a C. I didn't know it was a minus. Oh, man. That had piss him off. Let's look at it. Yeah. Offensive coordinator in Detroit got a C minus. Well, they got him up out of there.

He's going. Let's see. So Chicago, there's only so many things we can memorize. Oh, happy birthday to Chicago, by the way. Happy birthday to a city I live. Happy birthday, Chicago. Now I feel terrible. Dinosan a little inauthentic.

Simming a little inauthent. How about that? Dennis Allen got a C plus. That's what I thought. So C plus. Still, though. Pretty big difference, though, between a C minus and C plus. I really short a D.A.

Pretty big difference between an A and a C plus. That's true, too. D.A, I am sorry. But I wouldn't have given you a C, but I also don't play football. So there's that. All right, let's look at the late. Can we pause on the DAC plus for a second? Yes, sir.

Because the DAC plus, like, he's a crusty dude who has been a head coach twice and failed and is now back doing this. And it's like, if that is attitude-related, like he's not warm and fuzzy, I kind of don't give a crap as my defensive coordinator because the position coaches can be warm and fuzzy as needed. Well, I would say that the defense was about a C-plus last year, though, wasn't it? I mean, I think it's relative to what his defense did. I don't know that is necessarily, do you think it is the personality?

Well, these are players report cards as to, like, the approachability. Like, like, the likeability, I thought. Okay. Because the Matt LaFleur won, Matt LaFleur dropped a full letter grade because he didn't respect his players enough, according to them. Here's the issue, though. The position coach has got a B minus, and Dennis Allen got a C plus, and Declan Doyle got an A-minus. Well, the position coach's jobs, though, are to be your friend, to be the player's friends.

No, but what I'm saying to go against Spee's point is one of those position coaches, I guarantee he got an A and has a crustier attitude than any of you. The enemy you're talking about. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's the only one I can think of, like, assistant-wise that had that.

Crusty is too simple. I thought the generals were due. Krusty is too simple because B. Enemy has crusty is crusty, but, like, has a standard, I mean, I don't know. We don't know about DA. We don't really know. So I don't want to keep speaking on the personality perception. Kind of do, though, actually, from being at the, I'm not going to pretend like I had a whole lot of conversations with him other than when we had the group conference.

But every single time he did a press conference with us, and we tried to ask him about what had happened in the previous game. It was, I'm only talking about this week's game when we haven't even had a chance to talk to him about last week's game. So you know what? C-plus is appropriate. I agree. A really easy way to fix that, PR. Real easy way. Talk about the game from last week.

Just move him up in the week. Make them available. Absolutely. Absolutely. Do it on Wednesday. Which I never understood why that message got to Dennis Allen. Do you understand that we also, as reporters, would prefer not to be asking about the previous game on a Thursday either. It sucks for us, too. Especially when the head coach will sometimes delegate to the defensive coordinator and say, like, well, that's more of a question for him. Absolutely.

Then it's our job to follow up. Don't you think all of that is self-aware, though? Like, DA has been probably presented as of other defensive coordinators through the year with the idea of speaking earlier in the weekend. He's like, no, I like it on Thursday. And that gives him freedom to then say, let's move on. Probably. Probably. Maybe so. Maybe so. But, you know, I think jogging media. So here's the thing. The Raiders head coach got a C plus, and so did the Chargers. I mean, we know that Jim Harbaugh is a little touched. Head coach, a head coach for the dolphins who's no longer there. Got an A, right? A general manager

got an A minus. head coach for the Vikings obviously an A get it okay So Ben Johnson was it was a straight A Like Ben Johnson was an A yeah Amazing For a guy that drives people that hard

Right Right that's what I was just thinking Spiegel That he's got that maniacal side to him You know at the point where I said this a million times Here and on Take the North That I wasn't sure if Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams Are gonna make it for a while But you see the results

Like like with him Like hey here's why I want you to do this this is connected to this, this is connected to this. And then you see it and they go, oh, coach knows what he's talking about. I like that. And it's also the fact that he pointed the thumb at himself time and time again. It all goes hand in hand when he says, yeah, I screwed that up. I got to get better here.

It's the old account to likeability, folks. It really is parenting. It really is parenting at its best of like, you know, you're trying to impress your kids and teach your kids and hold them to a standard. and when you share your own frailties, it actually works in your favor, but it feels a little scary to do. It's like that leadership thing is real. Some people got it.

Some people don't, man. We got a guy that's got it. It's a beautiful thing. Lowest head coach grade was C-minus for the Browns on the two-time coach of the year. That's like every year. Stefansky. Wow.

I did delve into this quite a bit. Did you guys see any of the weirdness of the Team USA game yesterday? I watched some of it last night because our buddy Boog was doing the game, and I knew there was going to be a lot of interviews. And it was cool, like him talking to David Ross. Welcome back to ESPN during the year, by the way, David Ross. And so I was watching that.

But like the second half of that game, Team USA, the roster was filled. It's a fixed roster. So they don't have enough guys to use in these spring training exhibitions. So Giants minor leaguers were wearing Team USA jerseys. in the second half of that spring game on television with no names and numbers on the back. I like it. And like, so there was a dude from Oak Lawn, a UIC grad named Charlie Zacc County,

okay? He doubled in a couple of runs. He's a Giants minor leaguer, but he was wearing a team USA jersey. He doubled in a couple of runs and goes to the dugout, and he's getting high fives from Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper during that game yesterday. It's just crazy weird circumstances. of these exhibition games that I'm finding entertaining as hell.

You would think that there would be like a U.S. select team, and I guess that's it, but it is a strange thing that you wouldn't have enough guys to kind of help you out in what is ideally a tune-up for your WBC game. Like, why not just, I don't know. Yeah, you could load it up.

You load it up with the U.S. select team or a college all-star team or something like that. Let them hang around, right? But apparently every exhibition game, they're borrowing spare minor leakers from the team they play against. It just seemed like an absolute broadcast nightmare. Broadcast nightmare, yes. But to them, I bet it's a really fun experience to be able to do that.

Yeah, absolutely. And the man hits the ball. And boom goes the dynamite. And boom goes the dynamite. Yeah, you know how it is, Spiegel and spring training when you start getting players on the opposing team. Number 97. Yeah, or the third or fourth number 90s. Oh, wait.

You just throw the papers up, and you're like, I'm not scoring anymore. I had a moment like that when a dude came in to play for Jonathan Long when he got hurt for the Cubs. And I literally, I said, I'm not quite sure who that is. Good on you. On a baseball. But I know. And Coom is such a gem at the break. He's like, you know, we don't have to say that.

If we don't want, we could just let it play out. And then, you know, and figure it out next thing. I'm like, Coom, I don't mind admitting it. This is an absurd moment in the baseball universe. And frankly, frequent. Like, this happens. often than people think. Yes.

Apparently, I was told that some veteran broadcasts will just make up dudes' names. Oh, I bet, yeah. After a while, like, if you're like John Miller, right, if you're out there and you're just like, enough, enough of this crap. And John Smith. Joe Joe Chabadoos, Bathbyt is really improved

in the offseason. No, no, no. You guys go ahead and do these spring games. I don't care about these spring. I don't care who doesn't, Matt, go ahead. When did you get in? When did you get in. The new left-hand pitcher for the Royals is John Smith.

John Smith. Anybody know about it, Zach? Do you know anything about John Smith? I certainly do not. I do not. John L. Smith. Oh, yeah, there you go. Shouldn't have to worry about it.

But Jonathan Wong, yeah, man. You're going to be a good backup defensive player for the Cubs. You over here were laughing so hard. Was it Austin Hayes? Was that the one that got you? It was either Austin Hayes or Tyler Austin. I get them mixed up. It was Tyler Austin.

You were like, it's cool, guys. Tyler Austin's here. But no, he's no longer here. No longer here. Tyler Austin is the one that's gone. Austin Hayes is preserved, right? It's not going to work here anymore. Not going to work here anymore.

But that was kind of the joke when it happened per grove. He's here. Well, this is the only time we could talk about these names. Like, once the real stuff starts, there's no. There's no gauge tater work room anymore. Especially this year in a must win, must, must, must, must win year. for the Cubs. I am sitting on some Chas McCormick and Dylan Carlson

content that just isn't getting used in the afternoon. Hey man, have any AOCS. Has it in two weeks. How many ALCS does Chas McCormick go to? Thank you. Lely, you know Chas McCormick, World Series Defensive Superstar, Chas McCormick.

And that concludes our Chas McCormick segment. You got it out of a system. You're welcome, Lawrence. This is what we're going to do today. Mark Potash is going to join us at 5 o'clock. It's still my heart. We get to talk with Pottsy. Potsie. Olin Crutes is going to join us at 4 o'clock today.

Cruetcy. Hell yeah. Marvin Freeman's going to be on the show today. We just wanted to talk baseball and maybe Chicago basketball with him. We'll see. And we are going to have, and Layla, I know that this conversation is near and dear to your heart, the Luke Cornett conversation. What about the Luke Newman conversation?

No, I feel like that's more important. tired of having that already. What is the the, like the one I had? No, not the one you had, but you know, I know that you guys know each other from him being Big Shot Bob. I feel bad for him that came out the way it did.

His coach said it. It wasn't your fault. His mom was one of my favorite newscasters growing up guys. That's cool. Well, Luke is out here trying to fight the good fight about the Atlanta Hawks of Magic City Night that they're going to have.

I don't know why. Neither is he. Neither is he. And you know what? He's a really good writer. He's a really good... Notre Dame guy, right? He's a writer and a blogger.

And by the way, having a very nice NBA career. Thank you very much. At age 30. Never mind. Don't do that. So we're going to spend some time talking about that, but we are going to start talking about the bear's center position. And at first, when we were talking in the media,

I was like, yeah, we kind of went over everything. And then as we talked about, I was like, I actually do have a stronger feeling on this than I thought. So we will share some of that and talk it about. And we'll talk about Jason Benetti's new job and all sorts of other stuff. All that is coming up. Chris Tanhill's Open is coming up. And you know that that's must listen radio.

It's next here on the score. Luke.