Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show - Will Tremaine Edmunds be a salary cap casualty for the Bears?

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Leila Rahimi, Marshall Harris and were joined by Herb Howard of the Bigs Media to discuss the latest Bears storylines, including whether linebacker Tremaine Edmunds will be a salary cap casualty this offseason.

Bears beat reporter for the Biggs. Herb Howard is joining us. Herb Howard is here from the Bigs. Herb immediately showed he was going to be somebody asking meaningful questions. He's going to ask a question that everyone else in the room is going to want to know the answer to. What then happens that they can't get out in his snap before them? It's a great question. Well, thank you so much, Herb, for joining us.

This has been a lot of fun. It's always fun with you guys. You are absolutely amazing. I listen to you guys when you don't invite me. So it's really good. It's so fun with Herb that we were having a lovely time just now, talking about old school cash money music. Mani Fresh. That's my love language.

You know that. Cash money is my love language, Ray. Mani Fresh is the man. He's the man. No doubt. He is. It's just they're hard to top, okay? They're the millionaires.

I don't hang out with the billionaires, but I'll hang out with the cash money millionaires. Not the cash money billionaires, though. Herb and I were both at the cash money reunion concert at UIC. That was a great show. It was. It had the locks. Like, I was happy that Jayden and Stahleston was there. Like, you can't beat it.

BG just got out of jail? BG had just got out. I was hoping Wayne was there. He wasn't, but. Credit Union one arena. Yeah. Okay. I know the vibes.

It was a good time. People were dancing. My first concert that I ever went to when I was in eighth grade, it was juvenile and the cash money millionaires. And it was at the, like, UIC Pavilion or something like that? Eighth grade, back that thing up. That's right. Okay.

I was at least. No, I was not 18 when back that thing. I came out, actually. Oh, well, we survived. Yeah, we're good. You weren't 18 when back that thing came? I think I was probably like 14, 15. I don't know.

I can't. I can't do the math off the top of my head right now. Wait, yes, I can. Cash money taking over for the 9-9-2000. It was 992,000. I was like 4-tick. 19-8 is what year. Yeah, I was not 18.

I'm old. That's all I heard. I don't want to publicly admit that I was dancing to the song before that age. Way to bust up my spot. Oh, my bad. It was what it was. Well, to this day, you hear that beat dropping. It's like, it's funny how when the beat drops, you look around, these women act like they can't control their bodies.

They can't. It's like, oh, I'm trying. Is that a, is that a avid elementary scene? Oh, that's how they got, they got, yeah. Not Cheryl Lee Ralph. No, not Cheryl Lee Ralph. The principal? Yes.

Was it the principal? Janelle James. Is that? I don't, I don't watch that show enough. and I'm sad about it. And now I'm like, they're too, they're in too far and I can't catch up. I will never be able to catch up. It's like Game of Thrones.

I never watch it because like I would have, I'd spend the rest of my life catching up. The principal, Ava Coleman gets on like the straight narrow and then they're like, we got to get her back to how she used to be. And they play that song. It's going to bring it back every single time. That's a good, on a day like this where people think it's warmer than it is just because of relativity, if you were just outside since it's nice and sunny and you play that song. Would people just come up and start dancing?

I say yes. I do believe so. One quick note. I know we're moving on, but go ahead and hit Tyler. This part, that little intro, Mani Fresh intentionally, I heard in an interview, I heard him say, he intentionally put that little intro to let people know, like, oh, this song is coming. Hit the dance floor. You might want to get to the dance floor as soon as possible. Because Maddie is a genius. Yeah. I'm leaving it at that. Yeah. All right. Other other disputed talk that is not as easily agreed upon is the cash money cruise greatness is the bears.

We talked a lot this week about like some of the cap casualties. Kevin Fishbane wrote an article about it. I know you've talked about it too. Shout out to Fish. Yeah, it's been something on people's minds. Like we just discussed it. DJ Moore might not be the guy you trade because it wouldn't make a lot of sense. But unfortunately, the money makes you think about it because they need to free up money. The Bears. There's a lot of restructuring they can do. The cap is going to go up. Sure. You know, who do you think it might be an odd man out in this scenario next year? The first person that jumps out to me would be Tremaine Emmons, right? Just look at his contract and, you know, the lack of guaranteed money left on.

And then how could they replace him, right? And I think that Tremaine Evans had a really, really good season. I think he's a really, really good player. And I was joking with Brian Erlacher about this out at Super Bowl. Like, bro, the reason that people look at Tremay Emmons and they're like, he's okay. He's the spending it's like, it's because of you. Like, y'all did this stuff. You and Mike Singletary and Dick Buckets and Bill, like y'all did this to all the middle linebackers or linebackers in general coming through Chicago as a bear not right now because the standard is just too high.

Tremaine Evans is a really good football player, but because he's not 54 or 50. People were like, he's trash. It's so funny you say this because I know you talked to 54 when you were out there. I said that to him. And he kind of was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. He had major pushback to the idea that Tremaine Edmonds was not worth the money, right? He's like paying him the money. He likes her man at him.

I'm like, I do too. But the reason he's in these types of conversations is because of you, sir. You did this to him. Yeah, you're right about that, though. Because like we talked about him yesterday. I was like he's the bear. He was the, by the numbers and the eye test, he was because people were injured too. Even he was injured.

He was still the bear's most productive linebacker this season. Yeah. The tackles didn't lie. He led the league or he led the team in the regular season tackles. And then he goes down. And then, yep. He had four interceptions. And, of course, a fumble recovery.

He's a huge problem in the red zone. It's hard to navigate his height, his length, his athleticism. That's a tough problem for quarterback since the field gets tighter down and around the red zone. But you also look at what happened when he went out. And then DeMarco Jackson comes in. He's got 15 tackles and 14 tackles. And it's like, well, we can just plug and play now. So it's okay.

So we can get rid of him. It's like, all right, be careful. Be careful. Yeah, I like the DeMarco Jackson piece as a backup, as a quality, if your guy gets hurt because people get hurt in the NFL. It happens. But what happens when Marco Jackson, if you go the route of he's going to be the guy? And I don't think he would even be the guy necessarily if they got rid of Tremaine Edmonds.

But if he gets hurt, now you're on that next level of linebacker. And that's when linebacker becomes more than just something you don't think about to a problem. I know they still have high hopes about Ruben Hippolyte and, you know, no soul. He's got his Achilles and, you know, he's going to be coming back whenever he can. I think they feel good about their young linebackers, but it's also about being able to have proven production out on the field right now. Who keeps offensive coordinators up at night? Who would you have to scheme for?

And I don't know that you get rid of Tremaine, then you have that without going outside of the team to then replace it. So if not Tremaine, then who? Or are you saying they don't need to cut anyone? They can just restructure away and figure it out. Listen, that's Ryan Pohl's job to figure out. He's got to figure out. Tremaine, they can't restructure.

They don't have to extend them to restructure. Yeah, they don't have to extend them. I mean, he's just got the one year left. So listen, I think this is a completely new challenge for Ryan Paul's, and I asked him that at his end of season press conference, like how do you go into an offseason where now you're tasked with completing a roster to compete for Super Bowl versus, you know, starting it out, which is where he's been for the most part.

And he said the challenge is going to be there's just more restrictions. And these are the restrictions that he's speaking of. How do we go about figuring out how to fill the holes that we need and also do so in a fiscally responsible way when they're already kind of cash-strapped against the salary cap and they've already heavily invested in positions where they need to reinvest. So you look at the defensive line, it's like, well, they need to invest in the

defensive line. True, indeed. They need to be better there, but Montez makes $100 million. You just gave Dio all that money. You gave Grady Jared a healthy contract. Like, you invested in that position. You drafted in there in the second round last year. Like, you've invested in that position

already and it's not producing what you want. Do you just throw more cash at that problem? would you like some info for the for the team here today would you like to hear about an old friend

who's at okay we'll call it breaking news breaking news on the score is brought to you by the Take the North podcast because we said so

this is according to Adam Schaefter the bills have hired John Fox as a senior assistant coach wait what say what it's all a problem

how do you feel about that Marshall Harris Carlos Santos what the who hired John Fox? Your team, the Buffalo Bills. Have you heard of the bills?

Say what now? You know what? Hey, that stadium looks amazing, by the way. Oh, don't start with me. It does. It looks great. It's like a wider open at the top Texas Stadium. So,

this is real news now. I got me going on Twitter. It's the real Adam Schaefter, yeah. Carlos Santos. Like, what? Oh, yeah. Yeah, senior assistant coach. That's a title title.

Like that pays you some money in the league, doesn't it? Yeah. I just... Gray's laughing and I can hear him for a soundproof glass with headphones on. Did they put... Did John Fox prove that he was past, like, it's over for him? I thought he proved he didn't even care anymore. Like, that's what I'm saying.

Like, you don't care anymore. Isn't it over for you? No, no, you guys know how this goes. When you don't care, that's what everybody wants to pay you. It's just like office space. Wow. Did they force that on Jermuddy? Like, did they tell me

had to get a guy like that? It's like, we need you to get someone to help us out. Was Bill Belichick not available? Did they Bill Polly in this? We're like Bill Pollyans telling people, you got to get somebody with experience in here. I don't like this guy. I don't think that's how Bill Pollyan sounds.

I'm just making that up. You don't like the same. It's just one guy. He's not the head coach. What if he just hangs out? Tell stories. Isn't that what he did at the end of his bear senior? No, he didn't tell us a lot.

The post-conferces got to be it out. He was talking about the pet monkey he had growing up. That was earlier, wasn't it? That was earlier in his tenure? Oh, was it? But I feel like by the end of it, he was no longer interesting in coaching football. And it was just like, I'm just collecting the check until they tell me to get out of here. You know, a lot of times on the outside, it's crisis or carnival.

Well? Yeah, that. Is you wrong? It's not wrong. I don't love that news for the Buffalo Bills or any team. in particular at this point of John Fox's career. I think on behalf of securing the bag and continuing to do so in efficient ways, I give John Fox a thumbs up.

Yeah, shout out to him. Yeah, that's pretty impressive work. So I like that a lot. He's not as old as I thought he was, too. I was like, is John Fox in his late 70? No, he's only 71. Oh, okay. He's a young man.

71 is young in the NFL coaching. He's like the Kirk Cousins of coaches. The way he's just finessein bags out here. Kirk Cousins could still get out there and win you a game. I don't know that John Fox can win you a game. Kirk Cousins might be going back to Minnesota. Yeah, I don't know how I felt about that. You were at Super Bowl.

Yeah. Kirk was there. I know he was kind of making the rounds. Will you tell us about your experience out at San Francisco for Super Bowl Week? No, that was super cool. A lot of good work we got done. Shout out to the whole team at the Biggs, man. We got a lot of good work done.

And then we had a lot of good time just hanging out. It was great weather out there. It's about 65, 70 every day. The sun was shining. and the birds were chirping, it was beautiful. Well, before you get into it, we're on the, we were up against a commercial break. So let's, let's ask you what, like, stood out to you, what were some of the conversations you had? You mentioned Brian Erlacker.

So we'll do all that next.