Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Bears address safety need by selecting Oregon's Dillon Thieneman at No. 25
24 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: Who did the Bears select in the NFL Draft and why?
Welcome to a post-NFL draft round one show on Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score. Nicely done, Tyler Butervaugh, as we get to know the new bear and who's starting at safety opposite Kobe Bryant. Dylan Thiedemann, welcome to Chicago. And that is a question asked and a question that was answered promptly at the 25th pick yesterday.
Marshall Harris, Mark Rohde, and Leila Rahimi with you on this Friday. And first segment, me was like, well, if the Bears want to trade up or if there's even a slight thought, it's got to be probably for safety. And then Marshall, you were on safety. Mark, I know you wanted Caleb Lomu or thought that that was a possibility.
Although in my first mock draft, I did say safety, but it was Emmanuel McNeil-Warren.
Which was Daniel Jeremiah's thought. Dane Brugler and David Hall, most importantly, both nail it with the Dylan Thienemann pick. And I guess it can be that simple at times where, hey, we don't know who's starting in safety. And Jeff King's like, oh, yeah, we got some safeties if we had to play tomorrow against imaginary team.
Okay, Cam Lewis.
Yeah, question asked, question answered. You can't tell me that the Bears didn't at least somewhat draft for position of need here. Ryan Pohl said they aligned, but we didn't know who was going to be at that spot on the depth chart. And the bottom line is, after day one of the draft, now we know.
The best part about this is that any angst you had about the Bears and what they would do in the first round, it kind of trickled away as the picks were coming off the board because you realize, oh, wait, they're going to have many options that you, as someone who's been following the NFL draft Bear saga at 25, would be comfortable with.
And so to know that when it got to 25, Caleb was the only safety that was off the board, and you didn't expect him to be there. And my question is, would the top three safeties be off the board? And there were plenty of options there, not just at safety, but also defensive tackle, other positions. I was like, let's just keep this very simple. KISS is my motto, as you guys know.
Keep it simple, stupid. You need a safety... Dylan Thieman, he checks all the boxes. So take Thieman at number 25 and solve all your problems and still have plenty of more options when it comes to day two.
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Chapter 2: What were the Bears' needs going into the draft?
By a lot of people on where people went, and we'll get into some of that a little bit later on. But when it came time for the Bears to pick, at number 24, Cleveland goes and gets a wide receiver in Casey Concepcion. So I'm like sitting there going, oh, wow, this really just opens the world up for the Bears because available at that moment were...
And I may not even have everybody jotted down here, but Dylan Thienemann, obviously. Emmanuel McNeil-Warren. So you get to choose between these two safeties who most people were mocking to the Bears. You had, as Layla mentioned, Caleb Lomu was available. The tackle, TJ Parker, sitting right there for you, who a lot of people had mocked to the Bears.
Keldrick Falk was available.
Kaden McDonald, who's still available, by the way. And who said he would be available in the second round, still in my first mock draft? That'd be me.
I was going to say that. It's Mark Grody, but you're over there tooting your own horn.
I can't toot it for you, Mark. I was going to say, nobody's going to give me the wins, so I'll give myself the wins here. Peter Woods was still available. Zion Young, by the way, still available right at this very moment, was available to the Bears. There were cornerbacks that were available for the Bears. It was all right there.
But the obvious pick, the fortuitous pick, the really good pick was Dylan Thienemann, and they did the right thing.
Well, and they did. I mean, it was a simple question, but they talked about best player available. Brian Pohl says he sticks to his draft board. He's been sticking to his saying of sticking to his draft board now for years, as long as we've known him as the Bears general manager.
But at the same time, you had a position of need glaring on your defense because we didn't know who it was going to be. So they answered their question. They got who they wanted, and That was the most compelling part about this. I think it wasn't just Thienemann going to the Bears. It was what you guys talked about with the pattern of how the draft went.
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Chapter 3: How did the Bears' draft strategy evolve during the first round?
I thought I was going to do it. I didn't have a problem until I walked into our meeting this morning. The story is our good friend Dustin Rhodes, who is the excellent executive producer of The Molly and Haw Show, did refer to him as Theleman several times this morning. I didn't even hear that. I didn't even know about that. I know. We took note of it.
And then Layla brought... I wasn't going to bring it up during the meeting because you don't want to put that stuff in your head. Layla had to bring it up during the meeting. And I told Layla, I said, I swear to God, if I say Theleman today, I'm coming after you. I'm not even running that in. Because she said it more than once. And I was like, why are y'all doing this?
Don't put that in the atmosphere.
Because it's a Chicago tradition unlike any other. How are we going to mess up your name? Is it Mitch Trubinsky? Is it Alshon Jeffries?
Thelemans.
How are we going to do it? Welcome to Chicago. Here's how we're going to put a random consonant in your name.
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Chapter 4: What options did the Bears have at pick 25?
Okay, let me reset here. Let me reset here. Dylan Thienemann. That's his name. Sure about that? Yeah. I'm very much sure about that.
Mark Rody is on a stir the pot meter of 100 today.
him being where he was made this an easy pick it fell to them there weren't hard decisions made they did not do something idiotic like trading up to get him ahead of minnesota who ended up not taking a safety they didn't do any of that they let the pick come to them and i hope they learn from this lesson and don't do anything too rash at the beginning of the second round with all those illustrious names mark that you just said are still there because they don't pick
until 57th. There's a long ways to go from where we are right now in the draft and 57.
Yes, Mark.
And dare I say that this is potentially the best Bears safety combination since Eddie Jackson, Adrian Amos, possibly. Early Eddie Jackson. Oh, of course. 2017 and 2018. Eddie Jackson was a steal in that draft. Yeah, he was a fourth-round pick, but I love theāand this is the way of the world, I think, with safeties in general. You must have some versatility, but the versatility is real.
At Oregon, Thienemann, hybrid safety, according to one of the scouts, as the words he used, wore a variety of hats. Deep middle, robber, nickel, etc. And we know about Kobe Bryant, who last year played an entire season at free safety. The year before, he played the whole year at strong safety. And earlier in his career, he was a cornerback. So these are ridiculously versatile, not big guys.
That's the one thing you look at these guys. Neither is a particularly large man, so you hope that that doesn't affect their games in terms of the wear down, but a lot of speed and a lot of versatility with those two guys.
I did have a bit of a chuckle when I saw that the video said Dylan Thienemann ran a 4.37. Then the commentary on the combine said he ran a 4.36. Then somehow it changed to 4.3540.
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Chapter 5: How does Dylan Thienemann fit into the Bears' defensive lineup?
And I'm like, you know what? What's two hundredths between friends here? Either way, that guy is fast.
I did get a bit of a preview, though, in just what you're talking about, Mark, when we try to describe these two safeties in Kobe Bryant and even in what you heard Dylan Thienemann say in his Zoom call, which for a typical customary Zoom call after a draft, he was really informative, I thought, because he told you the story about why he changed from Purdue and transferred over to Oregon.
they are two players who are multiple. And that's what we understand, multiple skill sets. You heard Thienemann talk about how he was utilized at Oregon in different ways, sometimes even as a linebacker in cases. And I feel like we get a little bit better preview as to what Dennis Allen wants his secondary to look like thanks to these two additions in Bryant and in Thienemann.
That is defining when it comes to trying to figure out how this secondary is going to work together. Aside from that is my concern that Your secondary is not going to be as productive if your pass rush isn't there. But hopefully with so many names on the board that are still left, I'm still bullish on a lot of these defensive linemen who are still available.
So because of that, I feel like there's still a lot of room for the Bears to do something, even at 57 with their next pick.
There is definitely room to understand why the safeties look the way they do today. And there's an argument to be made. I'm not making it in this very moment, but there's an argument that this secondary, these two safeties are better than last year's two safeties for the Bears.
And especially when you're talking about the cost factor and understanding that one of the things that was talked about when the season ended was they needed more what? Speed. Speed. they have gotten faster at the safety spot. And they've got a couple of guys who can do, as you said, multiple things. What's better than having one chess piece if you're Dennis Allen? Having three.
Because that's essentially what they have now when you take it to Kyler Gordon,
Knock on wood, everyone.
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