Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - What can Bears fans expect from Coby Bryant and Garrett Bradbury?

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

Leila Rahimi and Marshall Harris discussed what Bears fans can expect to see out of newly acquired safety Coby Bryant and new center Garrett Bradbury.

Rahimi Harrison Grody, midday's 10 to 2 on 104 3, the score. Rivers down the middle of the field, and it is intercepted. That's courtesy of CBS. This is Rahimi Harrison Grody on 1043, the score. And yes, you heard that right. That was Philip Rivers. Remember that happened? He had a nice little run coming back at 44 years old with the Colts.

I don't know, based on the Colts moves and their health, if that's going to have to happen again. I'm going to guess not, but I won't say hard no. Will you say hard yes? No. This is Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 1043, The Score. And just to button up the discussion regarding Kobe Bryant, now with the Bears, Benjamin Solac was on with the afternoon show yesterday with Lawrence Holmes and Matt Spiegel

and was very complimentary of who the bears have picked up. So you would see Kobe's friend the majority of his time in the box and Byatt spent his majority of time up high. They would not have the full, like, you know, the Sealks had with Kobe Bryant and with Julian Love where it's, hey, you never know who's coming down. Everybody can do everything. It'd be a little bit more like the Eagles with Vig Fangio, where they had Reed Blankenship and then they had, you know, at times it was Johnson Garner Johnson, that it was Andrew McCuba. But it was, hey, like, you know, Reed is the player. We'd prefer to have deep. The other guy, we prefer to have closer to line of scrimmage.

We can switch it up on you just to get the drop on you, but it's not going to be what we live with. So if they return Byard, which is my expectation, then you're going to see Byard spend the majority of his time as the deep safety and Kobe spent the majority of his time near the box. Now, Kobe has cornerback experience. When he played at the University of Cincinnati, he was a corner for his first couple of years in Seattle before he broke through in Mike's defense. He was on the corner of the Jep chart. That was where he was. And so when you think about the coverage ability that you got from a guy like Chauncey who, you know, plays safety, but really you're trying to play him in the nickel a lot and have him cover receivers, Kobe has that skill set. And that wasn't relied upon a ton in

Seattle because they had Devon Wittlespoon and Nick him on War. Like they had so many guys. But you can ask Kobe to be a player who comes down and plays that slot position and then be creative with the safeties that you play behind him as well. So that shed some light. He was very bullish on Kobe Bryant whenever he got drafted. Well, here's why I love this pickup for the Bears. One game, sorry, one team, one receiver in particular comes to mine. I don't know.

Do you guys remember when that team from just north of us came? and played against the bears, and they lined somebody up in the slide, and he was just destroying people off the line of scrimmage. Christian Watson. Ah, that's him. That's good. Good recall on your part. Something about a bay and it being a color,

and they put things together in boxes. You already know. And so now, with a player with this particular skill set. Team Baltimore. Because he can cover. Kobe Bryant can be down as a guy. who could bliss, but if you also, you know, oh, I see it's not C.D. Gardner Johnson down there. It's a guy who cover covers in Kobe Bryant. That's not Advantage Green Bay in the way it was last year. And that's,

it's a very specific memory, but you notice I unlocked it quickly. Green Bay was not just Green Bay the last month of the season. You know what? I feel like the Packers game, though, was like the perfect example of it happening multiple times. Yeah, because guys got beat. And now the Bears were healthy. Kyler Gordon won in the first game. But at the same time, what did Matt Bowen tell you for the last two or three weeks of the season?

Just call crossing patterns. Just make everything slot oriented. And frankly, when we were talking about Wondale Robinson, what is he good at? Receiving yards in the slot. Who had a decent game even for the Giants that day against the Bears before Brian Daybull got fired?

Same idea. Yeah, before Jackson Dart took a hit to the head. This is a weakness. This was a weakness for the bears. And it got more and more exposed as time went on. The beautiful thing about this is the bears are not done. We know they need more safeties. How do I know this?

Because they have one. Three to go. And so that's where we sit defensively. Now let's shift gears to the offensive side of the ball. And we do want to take your calls on this and your texts. 312, 644, 67, Twitch mob, you guys have your own show. So we don't keep you from speaking. You know that.

You're out here talking to each other. But when it comes to just the feedback that you may have or your thoughts so far, especially after that DJ Moore trade, moving over to the offensive side of the ball, we thought that perhaps the DJ Moore trade would be freeing up important money, given that he was your largest cap hit at the time at $28.5 million. For a big name like Tyler Linderbaum. I did that.

I thought that that was the case. I dared to dream. and then he went to the Raiders for $81 million in three seasons. The Bears trade for Garrett Bradbury. But in what I thought was a surprising move, even though it was discussed. Braxton Jones, I think, did the Bears a favor. I feel like a left tackle who's serviceable in this league, especially who has the height and is at that age where you are just outside of your rookie contract,

you could have gone elsewhere and probably signed for more years and made more. money. But Braxton Jones, true to prediction, re-signed with the Bears on a one-year contract. We know Ozzie Tripolo is hurt. We know that Patel attendants, especially in offensive linemen, a defensive lineman, can be very, very impactful on a career and what happens afterward. But in the meantime, it sounds like they got perhaps a bridge left tackle to figure this out. What do you think about Braxton Jones, Garrett Bradbury now at center, and then Joe Tunney, Jonah Jackson, and then Darnell right on the right side. So you said you think Braxton Jones did the Bears a favor. I'm going to say Braxton Jones did himself a favor by returning to a place that he is familiar with, comfortable with,

and honestly, he didn't have a great shot last year because he was hurt at this time last year. And now it's a one-year deal. It's not for nothing, a $10 million deal. If he, the, up to his incentives, but a clear shot with no Tripolo being available at the start of the season and probably for the entire year, it's a clear shot at him being a left tackle in Ben Johnson's offense with Caleb Williams at quarterback with a running game that certainly was one of the best in the NFL last year. He could showcase himself and earn this longer-term contract that you're talking about while at the same time establishing himself. Who knows if Tripolo can't come back and I'm assuming the bears are going to address tackle depth by probably drafting another one

or getting it. That means four drafted left tackles total for the Ryan Pulse regime. I'm not against it. You should keep trying. Yeah. And it may be like a guy who can play guard and tackle just a depth on the offensive line. And so what I'm saying is he may see this as an opportunity for himself to say to the Bears, hey, you guys didn't get the best version of me last year.

Now I'm healthy. I'll show you what I can really do. In fact, I'm trying to win a left tackle job here in Chicago going forward. It's a great room to be in. We know about the guys that he'll be with, whether it's Joe Tooney. And now you've got on the other side, Darnell right, as I mentioned. Darnell right. And so for him, I think this is just a great opportunity for him to get another year to reset

and show the best of his ability. Yeah. I mean, I just, I think he did the Bears of favor. And I feel like I'm not saying that on any reporting. I just feel like that was the case. So that may be our offensive line. Ben Solac, who was on with our afternoon show, did some scouting on Garrett Bradbury as well.

And this is valid when you consider how this gets put together. I think it's safe to say we knew it wasn't going to be the same line. But listen to what he had to say. Bradbury is just a guy who the strengths are known and the weaknesses are known. And especially the weaknesses are known in the NFC North, right? That's where he was when he was with Minnesota. And so if you can get power on Garrett Brabara, you can walk him back into the pocket, right? And you can really destroy, we talk about pocket integrity and the ability to kind of like step up and make those pocket throws.

You need to have the depth of the pocket set by a center who's holding his water. And Bradbury just struggles to drop that anchor. Always has since he was drafted at NC State in the first round. The tradeoff, the value has typically been where he's such a good mover and he's got such great, you know, wide zone ability. And he's great, you know, horizontally and laterally. like, you know, he'll make it worth your time. The juice will be worth the squeeze. But as he's gone older, you know, that edge starts to diminish a little bit.

And so in Bradbury, I think you have a player who is capable of holding down the center job. And you know what he's good at when he's not good at. You're going to be able to get to your outside runs. And when you have a quarterback like Caleb Williams, depth of the pocket starts to become a little bit less employment because Caleb's out the back door anyway. Like, you know, Caleb's not really a step up guy. Caleb's like, hey, I'm going to run 15 yards back this way and still make a throw. So you a little bit can, you know, account for it and cheese it.

you can boot Caleb out and be successful that way. But the level of investment in Bradbury to me indicates, A, that Ryan Poles had a good sense of how heavy the center market was going to be, right? Connor McGovern 13 million. Tyler Linderbubham at 27 million is insane. He didn't want to be a part of that and rightfully so. So I think, A, he knew which way it was going and he wanted to get a cheap option that could just definitely start for the Bears.

And to me, it's also an indication that the Bears might still be looking at the center spot somewhere in the draft. It's a really good year for centers, round three, round four, right? typically like, you know, it's very rare for like, oh, there's three first round centers. That's not a real thing that never happens. Typically, we talk about good years for center and the draft. We're talking about middle round prospects. And there's several guys this year.

And so my guess is going to be that the bears are still willing to invest in the position with a rookie. And then they're going to kind of let Bradbury and the rookie figure it out when it comes to training. So if the criticism on Bradbury is, he can't drop anchor. He can't anchor as well. So you may not get that forward push like we talked about. And then there's the outside zone blocking issue that comes with that. Then there's the criticism of Braxton Jones, which is also, anchor has not been his thing. And we know that.

We know that from years of watching him. Now, Dan Rochard may have helped with that, especially after having a year. And yes, he did break his ankle and he was still getting back from that. But they thought that they had seen enough. So if you've got two O-Lyman who can't anchor well, one of them being in front of your cornerback, that is not, I think, a recipe for sustained success. Like, you better be handing that ball off quick. You might have to get flushed out of the pocket quickly.

Here's a thought deliberately move the pocket. But then also, how much does that limit your offense? Like, we know, because of left tackle being exposed last year, Kayla Williams would oftentimes roll out to his right. Did that result in fewer targets for DJ Moore? You know, all of these things to me go hand in hand. So knowing what you know about Zendor and knowing what you know about left tackle, are you as confident in the line this year as you were last year?

I don't know if I'm as confident, but I am confident. And the reason why I'm confident, as we talk about the Bears and their free agent signings to this point through one day of the negotiating period here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 1043, the score is this. My confidence in Ben Johnson is unwavering. And if Ben Johnson obviously signed off on these moves, he'll figure it out because that's his job as not only the head coach, but the offensive schemer, the playmaker, the guy who draws up the plays. I think Ben Johnson will scheme this through. I also think the Bears will draft, as we just said, a backup offensive lineman, but they'll draft a guy who's going to be the center of the future coming up.

I think that was always going to be the plan. They thought they'd have more time to develop behind Drew Dalman. You might not have as much time. but I think they're going to be able to figure this out. Really? Because they've never drafted a dedicated center under Ryan Poles. Ryan Poles won't be the one making that call this year. Ben Johnson will be telling him this is what we need. Ryan Poles is still the general manager.

You think Ben Johnson did all of the scouting? Ryan Poles is the general manager under Ben Johnson's direction in my mind. And no one can convince me otherwise. Is it confirmed? No, I'm saying based on you have to get what the coach, both on defense and offense needs, whether it's Dennis Allen as the defensive coordinator, whether it's Ben Johnson as the offensive play caller.

You think Ryan Poles isn't going to Ben Johnson and being like, hey, does this work? Which of these, like, they drafted, he drafted a backup center, but there's never been a, this guy's going to be our starting center. We're drafting this person for this reason. They went out and addressed it last year

through free agency by signing Drew Dalman, the best available center. So obviously that was a priority. If you think Ryan Poles isn't in conversation with Ben Johnson trying to find out exactly what Ben Johnson needs to make his offense work, I don't know what to tell you because that's the way this is clearly gone down based on what happened last year. I understand what you're saying about the drafting of a true starting center. I'm saying Ben Johnson can have his desires and his preferences just like I think the head coach did before him. But I think that Ryan Poles still does a lot of that and his scouts do a lot of that. that on their own.

Oh, no, no. I agree with that, but I think at the end of the day, they come to Ben Johnson, like, which of these fits what you need as a offensive playmaker? And in year one, it was very easy for them to go out and be like, we're just going to get the best center available as a free agent on the free agent market. Clearly, they couldn't do that with somebody getting paid $27 million a year. They couldn't do that with Linderbaum. That was not an option with the cap restraints and them trying to, I don't know,

reconstruct an entire defense really that could actually affect someone else's passing game while also stopping the run. It was like a two thing. Like, hey, we get a lot of takeaways, but we're not really stopping the run or stopping anyone from throwing the ball against us. We just happen to get a lot of takeaways more than anybody in the NFL. I think now Ben Johnson and Ryan Polzer is like, okay, so what is our future player? How do we, now that we don't have Drew Dalman for at least two years and cannot draft a

center to develop, like what the Patriots did basically, as they put one of their guards now at Center that they've been preparing for this moment, and that's why they're able to trade away Bradbury. Now for them specifically, it's we have to go and draft a center. And they knew they were always going to have to go and draft a center. The timeline just went up a little bit with having this bridge guy in here in Bradbury. But that's what I'm saying. Like they hadn't drafted purposefully center.

They had drafted a guy who was a backup who had had a couple snaps and ended up playing center because they had 20 offensive line combinations, I think 25. but that hasn't been what they've done. Since Ryan Poles took office, they've always gotten what they think is their starting center through free agency. Right. And Ryan Poles, though, back then was in charge of Matt Iberfus, who clearly didn't know what he was doing and who was more defense focused. But you don't think that the former offensive lineman GM still very much had a hand in the offensive line drafting and how he wanted to construct it?

Yes, I just think Ben Johnson's at the top of the pyramid now. He's the one calling the shots when push comes to shove. And Ryan Poles wants to preserve his position also. So he's going to get the guys what they need. 312-644-67 is our number. How do you feel about the Bears free agency so far? We continue to be on the lookout for news because guys like Nishon, right are still available.

Guys like Kevin Byrd are still available. We're monitoring on the second day of the NFL negotiating window and continue to do so. right here on Rahimi Harrison Grotie on 104-3 The Score.