Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Bears’ most productive linebacker will likely be a cap casualty
12 Feb 2026
Chapter 1: What are the implications of Tremaine Edmunds being a cap casualty?
Layla Rahimi, Marshall Harris, Mark Grody, Rahimi, Harrison, Grody on 104.3 The Score. Flacco on first down, over the middle, and it's intercepted! Off the deflection, it's Tremaine Edmonds. Edmonds on the move. Flacco trying to make the stop. He can't do it, and Edmonds is in with a pick six. He had his third interception of the year last week.
His fourth puts six on the board and gives the Bears the lead.
That is courtesy of Fox. This is Rahimi Harris and Brody on 104.3 The Score and Tremaine Edmonds despite being on injured reserve. Still did work. He still had the most tackles of any Bear this season in the regular season, despite being on injured reserve. 112 combined tackles, hit 61 solo tackles, 51 assists. That's how you get to the number. The four interceptions, as we've mentioned.
Tremaine Edmonds had the season that I think a lot of us thought the Bears would get out of him. With the Matt Eberflus defense, it ended up happening with Dennis Allens.
I want to say, Tremaine Edmond surprised me this year.
Yeah.
Because I kind of cast him off as a guy who's just, you know, underperforming based on the contract. And then, obviously, you connect him directly with Roquan Smith and understand this is an all-pro player in Baltimore that you're comparing him to. And at some point, you're like, well, why didn't they just give Roquan the money to stay?
We're not going to move up to draft and all the off-ball linebackers yet.
Yeah, but to see him actually come through and look like the guy for the 13, I know he missed four games, but for the 13 games to look like the guy that you thought that they were acquiring, that was good news for the Bears and a stabilizing force, remember, on a Bears team that had a secondary and serious flux.
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Chapter 2: How did Tremaine Edmunds perform despite being on injured reserve?
And it makes you wonder what's going to happen.
It's the fact that you look at where he is compared to other linebackers at his specific position. He's the fourth highest paid one. And so you have to weigh what you got out of Tremaine Edmonds this season. against the value of what you're paying compared to what other teams are paying that same position.
I know the salaries are going to go up, as you mentioned, because of the salary cap, but you still have to look at what are our priorities as an organization position-wise because we know what's going on with the secondary, specifically the safety position, and where can we – Shave some money off.
And I'm sorry, but he's the most obvious candidate just because of where we are in his contract, the timing, and the structure of the contract.
Yeah, it's the difference between that cap savings and the dead money. That's the key here. And as we see in Kevin's article, and he included a lot of nice graphics, too, on The Athletic if you want to check it out. It's $15 million for Tremaine, as we mentioned, in cap savings. $2.437 million in dead money. That ratio is high.
That's a low amount of dead money for the amount of savings that you can get. Two other names that deserve to be mentioned here on this list. Cole Komet is an $8.4 million cap hit. That's $3.2 million in dead money, so more than Edmunds. And then DeAndre Swift. I don't know why they would want to do this necessarily unless they see a clear upgrade at the position.
$7.47 million in cap savings that would lead to only $1.33 million in dead money. And that's when this gets hard. You know, we knew at some point that would happen. Think about the fact that Kevin Byard is up for free agency, the league leader in interceptions in 2025's regular season. Nashawn Wright is a free agent. Jaquan Brisker is a free agent. All four of the safeties are.
So throw Jonathan Owens in there as well. There are some very tough decisions on the defensive side of the ball that have to be made. And as we've mentioned before, because of all the money you're giving to your line right now.
So my first question is, What do you think the conversation is like right now, specifically between Ryan Poles and obviously C.C. Ben Johnson, but Dennis Allen? Yeah. And Dennis Allen getting what he needs. He's a guy who moved, switched those guys position-wise. We can talk about Tremaine Edmonds switching his linebacker position from what we had seen with T.J. Edwards.
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Chapter 3: What challenges does the Bears' salary cap situation present?
They thought they had at least paid a lot for their trenches, and that's why this is so tricky too. When you've got guys on rookie deals who are cornerstones and they're on the line, that makes your life a lot easier. At least you've got Darnell Wright on one side. But he's going to get really expensive quickly, too.
Yeah, he's going to get expensive. This window is so important right now. This is one of two years in which you can do more than you're going to be able to do after the next two seasons.
Chapter 4: What factors contribute to Tremaine Edmunds' potential release?
A whole lot more because of the flexibility of the rookie contract with the quarterback.
The other part of this, too, is you know what I'd really like to have if I have all these tough questions facing my salary cap? An assistant general manager. Fill Ian Cunningham's spot.
They need one of those?
Yeah. You think you need more eyes on scouting, especially when your draft board is going to have to be a lot different now that you pick lower in the draft, for example?
I'll be surprised. Wow. But seriously. I'll be seriously surprised if they don't have a new assistant GM by the end of next week, before the combine.
Don't make that bet with Mark Rohde. He doesn't know if they're going to fill the job.
At all?
Yes, for the career.
I can't see them not filling the job unless they're just going to redistribute titles in another way. You've got to have a certain number of people doing a certain number of jobs because that's the way front offices work.
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Chapter 5: How does Tremaine Edmunds' performance compare to his salary?
I understand it's Matt Feinstein. So he's the vice president of football administration, and he spent his last five years as director of football administration.
And now he's been promoted.
I don't know that cap dude is part of the title there, but everybody's got a cap guy.
Yeah, and sometimes the cap guy has wield more power than some situations than others. And then that guy has to leave when it's time to go home. See Minnesota Vikings. Yeah.
Play the buzzer. and lives in my head rent free most of the time coming up next it is halftime and boy do we have something for you the seahawks parade and their social media posting were both really entertaining and we might have to play some other sound effects too next
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