Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Transition: Wrapping our heads around Bears center Drew Dalman's retirement

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris welcomed on Matt Spiegel and Laurence Holmes for the daily transition segment, where they reacted to the breaking news that Pro Bowl center Drew Dalman has informed the Bears that he’s retiring at 27 years old.

Sometimes you just have to try to emphasize your points. Make sure they make sure it's understood. Good enough? That was a very direct answer. Sometimes it's, sometimes there's a little fun in it too. That's Craig Counsel and Bruce Levine. And I wish they would take their show on the road. But I guess it's good enough that it might come back to Chicago soon.

This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 104. The score we give way to Lawrence Holmes. and Matt Spiegel. We thank Alvindrellic for joining us at 11 o'clock to give us the latest news on the teams major league baseball's labor situation. Also Tom Verduci for talking World Baseball

Classic with us and the Cubs and White Sox. Thanks to Ray Diaz, Tyler, Buderbaugh, Brandon Fryer, Connor O'Donnell, Jacob Stutz, Max Curtis, and Cody Westerland. Guys, I didn't think I'd be thinking about this right now that the Bears

reportedly have to find a new center. anybody anybody it's not great like this this is the sort of thing that coaches like and you heard Ben talk about it at the end of the season like this is

they'll never be this team again but you're not thinking that the most stable part of your entire team will be upset the way that it is with Drew Dalman seemingly going to retire reportedly going to retire

The most stable part of your team is a wise way to say it. I mean, the transformation of the middle of that offensive line was unbelievably important to the success of the entire operation. And obviously, he's a big, big deal. We know from our conversations with Olin, we know from all of the work we've done to get smarter as a station about football in the offensive line and how they have not invested. The bears were long overdue for the kind of investment it took to. get Drew Dalman and it worked beautifully with a young quarterback. This is shocking in the micro.

That's for sure. Yeah, that's where I sit with this. Like, what was the last time any of us cared about what a retirement meant to a salary cap? And we're talking about Drew Dalman at 27, coming off of an outstanding season. But in the macro, in the macro, we know what the league has seen with all these different guys retiring in their 20s. Frank Ragnow, and then he tries to come back. Like, I mean, going back to, you know, the linebackers, like Luke Keeckley, and who's the San Francisco linebacker who retired so early, whose name is escaping me. Right now, it's like, I mean, Patrick Willis obviously left early, but that was with injury.

But, like, Dalman is a smart dude. He's a Stanford guy who might have gotten to the point where he's like, I don't think my body can take the beating, nor do I want it. So in the macro, we see this in the NFL now. It just sucks when it's here and it's this surprising. Yeah, I think that's where we're at with it. And Frank Ragnow also retired before the age of 30. But he was a little older.

He was 29, right? Or at least 29 or 28 when he retired. Look, any of these guys that played as many snaps as Drew Dalman or Frank Ragnow or Patrick Willis or Andrew Luck or Calvin Johnson or. Or like, Chris Borland, Lawrence, Chris Borland is the guy I was trying to think of from the Niners. But keep going. All of those guys, considering the amount of hits that they take, I understand if that's part of the reasoning. But we don't know.

Like, we're just getting this. Like, so it's hard to make any sort of assumption on why Drew Dalman is retiring, because you never know. Like, it could be loss of love of the game. It could be he wants to spend more time with his family. It could be all sorts of stuff. But we do know, like, from the history of younger players retiring, that the grind of it, the physical and mental battle that you have to fight to play every single day, like that part of it is real.

And so there's a couple of different compartments that I'm looking at this from. One of them is the health and well-being of Drew Dalman. That's one. Then you start talking about the health and well-being of the Chicago Bears. If I go to that compartment and start talking about it, these are the types of small little moves here and there throughout an offseason that changed the trajectory of a team going forward. It's why Ben Johnson kept talking about this team will never be the same team.

It's stuff like this where if you look at teams that had Super Bowl aspirations going into last year and then start looking at some of the stuff that they lost, it's how quickly things can change for a team that clearly if it's 40 minutes ago you're looking at the Bears as a team that clearly wants to content. We're also getting this news from Ian Rappaport. The Bears are hosting Free Agent Center Tyler Beadish on a visit. The former commander starter was recently released and is now available before the frenzy begins. So there's a, that's interesting. That's a name.

There's another Tyler Linderbaum. Ravens Center who they're having trouble coming to terms with. They love, but like that guy's out there and there have been reports about the bears sniffing around him. Ryan Kelly, the former cult, who's been in Minnesota, right, Lawrence? There are rumors that he might get cut. There are going to be free agent and veteran centers that they could grab. This does not change the draft necessarily.

But what you're going to get destroyed from the team's perspective is the continuity. like right away, and that's going to have to be rebuilt. And not just for the three men on the interior who kind of defined the O-line success, but for Caleb. The way that a center works with a quarterback is so unbelievably complex and important and vital, and Caleb's going to have to relearn that. So it sucks on a lot of levels purely from the competitive standpoint. That's for sure.

Something that our friend Carmen Vitale just tweeted out. She tweeted, Drew's dad was a player and a coach. she's seen firsthand life after football and the effects the game can have. If anyone is going to make an informed decision on when it's time to hang it up, it's true. Happy for him, sad for the bears. That's from Carmen Vitale. That's a really good tweet. It's a really good thought from Carmen.

Chris Dalman played a long time in the NFL and Drew. I mean, and we don't know, Lawrence. You're right. It could be any number of reasons. It could be a health thing we don't know about. It could be anything. But it's just the viciousness of the game and the time horizon when guys feel like, I think I've made enough money.

And, you know, it's just, that's an understandable place for so many of these players to get, regardless of the age. The risk analysis of it. Like, how much money have I made? Do I have a plan for my life? If this is, like, and again, we have to be really careful because we don't know the reason. But if the reason is, I'm tired of playing football right now. If that's the reason, then what's your plan for your plan? post football life is that stable.

All of those things kind of go into it. And then, like, will you miss it? Ragnow did try to come back. And then he's had a, was it a hamstring that kept him, a third degree hamstring tear that kept him from coming back to the lions when they desperately needed him. But you saw the impact of that. You saw what the lions were and were not able to do and how they seemed to scramble,

like all season long to figure out how to most effectively protect Jared Gough and improve their offense. It's a crazy thing to have this happen now. And it'll put Ryan Poles and his crew to the test here to try and find someone who is capable of playing that position as well as Drew Dalman did this past season. And also, you know, understanding that that first year with the Bears kind of solidified, his career earnings to be at a point where $25 million earned, he can walk away and say, I've got life-changing money.

Whereas before, not that $7 million wasn't life-changing money, the time that he spent with the Atlanta Falcons, but certainly $25 million, it might have given him pause. And again, this is all just speculation, because we don't know the specifics of the why just yet. But understand that more and more players are walking away from the game early, especially if they got other stuff they can do with their lives. Yeah, let's say that would give me pause, Marshall.

You know, like, I don't know exactly what it is, to your point. But, like, he got the signing bonus, and he got that initial 14 mil. And then nine and a half of the 2026 salary was also guaranteed at signing. But obviously, that won't happen if he doesn't play this year. So we'll figure out exactly the cap ramifications and how much this hurts if it doesn't. but you get a lot of relief when somebody retires on you from the league, that's for sure. The cap part is the least of my worries with this, though. Like, we all know that when we talk about teams that are quote-unquote over the cap,

like the Saints have been over the cap for a decade. You can still operate your program. I'm more concerned about what was clearly a connection that happened between Caleb Williams and Drew Dalman, that he got comfortable with a guy who was protecting him. and that guy ended up having a great year along with the other guy, the other three guys on the offensive line that weren't rotating in.

So the comfort of your quarterback, this is another one of those things where in a quiet moment, I'm sure Caleb is like, really? Now I have to adjust to this. Everything has been an adjustment since I got here and I felt like I was on stable ground. And now I'm no longer on stable ground

because I don't know who's snapping the ball to me. This is, guys, this is why my wife is the best, okay? I told her this news just before transition. I'm like, babe, yeah, Drew Dalman is retired. She came up to me and she looked me in the eyes and she said, babe, it's your time. It's your time. It's time for me to get out of retirement.

She said it's time for me to step back in and make myself available. Did she see the show that you did in the performance studio? That video is on a loop. It runs every day or so. And no. She has seen the game film of my time with the mighty sequoias in the intramural flag football league. What year was it? That last year you played.

91, 91. 91? Yo. Shut up, Marshall. Shut up, man. Here's what I would suggest for you. Then you look at that game film and then look at the film of you being critiqued by Olin Croutts. And tell me if you.

Tell me if you got better or worse as a player since 1991. Oh, man. Well, I mean, mentally so much better. It's a knowledge acquisition position. How about physically? Is center. How about physically? Physically, it's taking a downturn.

It's taking a bit of a downturn. I would say, like the Sequoia, it is taking a mighty downturn. Yeah, but Lawrence, think of what I will bring to the table as a knowledge, a quirer and as a communicator. Like, I will tell Jonah Jackson and Joe Tunney everything they need to know from the middle of the board center, sir. Can't be a clipboard center. Not going to the hall fame. I'm looking at Case Keenham and I'm

trying to live that life. Can I do that? As a center? The best thing that you bring to the table right now is having Olin Cruz's phone number. That's the best thing that you can bring to the table to the Bears as an alum of the mighty Sequoia. In their center search? Yeah, that

might be the case. Come on. This definitely becomes number one priority. Like period, paragraph. End of story. Unfortunately, yeah. I agree with you 100% on that because it's the center and we've seen what happens when you don't have a center. I just wonder how much lead time the Bears had on this. Me too.

And I get that they're out here looking for people. But see, now the thing is you got two problems. Yeah, because I don't know. It's a strong statement to say this becomes number one priority. And I think you're probably right. But my knee-jerk reaction was, well, wait a minute. We're talking about left tackle with Teryon Armstead on today. show and that's number one on our Ben's Vision depth chart and obviously center will jump in there

and there are right now I think there are more viable veteran centers on the market than there are left tackles yeah I just think when it comes to the store you know the center store and the left tackle store they don't exist very often and when they do they come at a very high prices we've seen but I'm not flat out disagreeing with you I'm just it's it's it's it's It's definitely, it's either one or one A as a priority. And it's a priority that you didn't think was going to be on the free. And then you combined the two. Yeah.

Like that's my issue is that if I would have told you going into the postseason that the Bears had to replace a center and the left tackle, you would go, yeah, that's a problem. While being over the cap. You know, that's the other hard part about this. And safeties. They have to replace safeties. They don't have any.

Right. So that's the part about this. And Matt, you're more than allowed to contradict. To me, though, left tackle wasn't a priority as much for the Bears previously. So that's what they prioritized getting the best center they possibly could previously. And see, that's the thing. Because guard to guard, they were strong. And obviously, darnel right played at an all pro level last year.

Because of that, left tackle was able to not be an issue. But now it becomes an issue because you've got to figure out how whoever this new center is going to be is going to work with the guys and if it's going to work. And to show you how razor thin the margins can be on that, Colin Shelton considered not good in his first season with the Bears, in his last season with the Bears, right? goes to L.A. and it works out for him. I mean, I don't know if you can just say, just plug anyone in. I think it's more complicated than that.

I think the coach, look, I think Coleman Shelton probably would have had a fine year with the Bears last year under Dan Rochard and Ben Johnson. I think we have had a terrific reacclamation of importance when it comes to an offense. offensive coach and head coach and O line coach and O line value this year because of the success. And I think that somebody is going to fill in and do okay as a veteran. I suspect that's the way that we'll go.

I want to say this. I feel like appropriately, every decision that they made last year was about trying to get the quarterback comfortable and see if he could grow. And then he did. Every decision on offense, you know? And so, Lely, you're probably right about the top priority because solidifying the middle to make Caleb Williams stay in the pocket and step up when need be and actually play within structure a little better. That worked. That worked and you feel better about your quarterback than you did at the beginning of the year because of that solidity.

And they need to supply that again to the quarterback. Yeah, two things. I think the previous Bears coaching staff probably made a lot of good players look worse. And then additionally, Tyler Linderbaum's name also crossed my mind. But if he can't agree to a deal with Baltimore, what makes you think he can agree to a deal as a free agent with a team who needs him? I loved his tape out of Iowa. I thought that he was fantastic. But because of that, he's also going to come at a premium.

We're still trying to figure out how much of Drew Dalman's signing bonus is left. And if that affects the cap for this year, it's a pre-June 1 retirement. this is all stuff we're having to reacquaint ourselves with information real time as we try to figure this out because this news just hit our wire about half an hour ago. And the news is that Drew Dalman, according to Adam Schaefter, has informed the Bears he's retiring from the NFL at the age of 27. And what concerns me a little bit that we haven't really touched on yet is remember, regardless of who they get, just remember back to the before the buy for the Bears and how that line. and had to take some time to gel in real time in the regular season and that that was costly for the Bears. And that's one of my bigger concerns

heading into a first place schedule next season, trying to pick up where you left off to a certain degree. And this is definitely an obstacle to that. For sure. Like, it's, man, it's, I hope that all this is is a guy that's tired of playing ball. I hope that's all it is. I hope it's not a lingering health thing. I hope it's not a family issue that needs the attention of someone in it full-time.

I hope this is just, I think I've had enough, and I want to walk away. And then you can get to, man, this really sucks for the bears. Like, it's a lot. Like, they had that chorus line clicking. They had the chorus line clicking so well that the left tackle didn't matter. They were able to rotate in three guys because the left tackle kind of didn't matter last. year. Yeah, all of it is hidden at the same time. Like, you know,

the personal thoughts about whatever his situation is and how it all fits together and what the roster possibilities are and what the salary cap ramifications are. Like, all of it is hitting at the same time is what happens when

news breaks of this magnitude. A texture asks if Ryan Bates is still under contract. He was last year at 3.4 mill sitting there as a backup. up, sometimes active, sometimes not. He's an unrestricted free agent now. I have no idea how they feel about Ryan Bates.

So we're going to obviously get into this. I just got a text from our friend Carmen who says that she's got more info and she'd like to come on so we can talk to her about this and kind of where things stand. And we're reaching out to people and we're trying to connect with folks and figure out what the hell is going on. But this is quite the bombshell that has been given to us by Adam Schaefter on. on the Bears. Drew Dalman has informed the Bears that he is going to retire. And now the Bears have to scramble to find a new center for Caleb Williams. We will take a break.

We will talk about it with you. Don't go anywhere. The Spigo and Home Show starts next here on the score.