Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Clay Harbor explains why he likes how the NFL Draft played out for Bears
24 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What are the initial thoughts on the Bears' draft strategy?
This hour is brought to you by Vasectomy Clinics of Chicago.
Clay Harbor, former NFL player. Clay Harbor, slot to the left. Here's Vick's pass, and it's caught. Touchdown by Harbor. That's a touchdown.
Clay Harbor makes that catch. And they've got Harbor for the touchdown.
Football analyst for Chicago Sports Network.
This is an excellent pick. Ben, Johnson guy, train killer, love the draft pick. Dylan Thienemann, number 25, Bears got their guy.
Clay Harbor with Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score.
When you hear dreams and nightmares, it is the music of Clay Harbor, the former Philadelphia Eagle, the longtime NFL veteran for nine years, co-host of the big pro football show on CHSN alongside David Haw and Ruthie Polinsky. And he is in studio here on Rahimi Harris and Grody on this draft Friday.
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Chapter 2: How did the Bears' pick of Dillon Thieneman impact their draft?
I picture Clay just salivating all night long as the draft starts, and he's like, all right, this is my time to shine. How were you feeling processing and watching it go from 1 to 25 and realizing the Bears are going to have all these options and could probably get what they wanted there?
Oh, it was great. Obviously the Ty Simpson. First off, a lot of people were saying this draft didn't have a ton of intrigue. There's no big name. There's not a Caleb Williams coming out. The first overall pick isn't even going to start right off the bat. But for me, I said this is very intriguing. Because after pick one... We don't know what's going to happen. Is it David Bailey, Arvel Reese?
You didn't even know pick two who was going where. And that was a top ten, and I think that was so fascinating, especially the Ty Simpson, the Caleb Banks to the Vikings, just guys that you think you saw the flashes, you saw a talent they could be, but there's something medically, or there's something where they might not fit in a scheme, and just seeing where some of these guys go.
But as a Bears perspective, you loved it because you saw more wide receivers.
Chapter 3: What were the intriguing aspects of this year's NFL Draft?
Kenyon Sadiq, a tight end, go early. Ty Simpson. And then you start to realize as the board gets there, they could go Lomu, they could go edge, they could go safety, and they had a plethora of players at their disposal. I think you saw, you heard Ryan Poles talk about that.
He said, hey, we even considered trading down when we saw how many players we had in the board, and they were being even more selective with their draft board. So I think it fell perfectly for the Bears.
It was a situation, Clay, where the Bears hadn't been in this before, picking in the 20s with Ryan Poles as the GM. I feel like Jeff King gave us a lot of information when he spoke, but for them to just... I don't know if I'd call it luck, but it was nice how this went.
I think for a lot of teams, when you consider Reuben Bain goes at 15, one of our texters said earlier that what set it off, this chain event, or this chain reaction of events, was... It all goes back to Ty Simpson being picked at 13th overall by the Rams. That was the one that probably set all of this in motion.
And more offensive players being picked early than we thought based on the depth of the classes.
Yeah, it worked perfectly for the Bears. And the Ty Simpson thing, my old quarterback, Matt Stafford, I wonder how he feels about that. Obviously, he knows he's got one, maybe two years left and they need to have a succession plan. But if you're Stafford and you're one play away from the Super Bowl, don't you want to maybe...
get over that hump by getting a big-time pick in the top 15 of the draft, an edge rusher to put alongside Verst, defensive lineman, a safety. You've lost some players here. So to me, that was interesting that they would even take a quarterback when they are so close if they just need one more piece to maybe make a Super Bowl.
It reminded me of a little bit of Aaron Rodgers and all those years that they were not drafting him a wide receiver. And then all of a sudden the year that they drafted Jordan Love, who did sit on the bench, and that obviously worked out. But I want to get the ā obviously I want to hear the nuts and bolts on Dylan Thiem and what do you think of him as a player from the film you've watched.
But I do want to add one more question building up to that. And as we were kind of talking about, you have all these choices at that point. You had ā
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Chapter 4: How did the draft selections affect the Bears' roster dynamics?
The new DN that just signed the contract, $50 million. Top of the class.
Texans, Will Anderson.
And then the safety is getting $25 million. I understand the cap ramifications of all that. But last year we saw, Grody, what happens when you just take the best player in the draft? Colson Loveland was the best player. Tight end, as much as it hurts me to say this, is not a premium position. I think it is. But it's not. So they take the best player available.
And here's what Thienemann does for you. He's a guy... I'm playing tight and I'm playing slot. When you have Jaquan Brisker and you have Kevin Byard on the defensive backfield and you're trying to disguise the coverage. Byard could play a little bit in the box, but he's a free safety. Jaquan Brisker's a down safety.
75% of the time, if there's a safety roll, Jaquan Brisker's rolling down and Kevin Byard's rolling back. So it kind of...
takes out of the mystery of what they're doing you feel a lot more comfortable in these coverages you're not disguising much you don't feel confident that they're going to try to run man-to-man you watch the film you see how these guys run I think Jaquan Brisker is a great tackler heavy hitter can run downhill in the alley I think Kevin Byard's a great center fielder these guys are not man-to-man players Dennis Allen likes man-to-man that's why they wanted speed on this defense you
You've got Kobe Bryant. Where did he play in college, Marshall? Outside cornerback. Then he moves to slot cornerback. He can play nickel. Now he's a safety. Dylan Thienemann in Oregon. He's straight split post-safety. Or at Purdue, he's post-safety. Then he comes to Oregon. He's playing a bunch of different things.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of the Bears picking in the 20s?
He's down in the box. Sometimes you see him even in a middle linebacker alignment. It makes them so much more versatile. These guys are both fast. You can stay a nickel when you come to base because they can both tackle. Guess what? You go four wide receivers. Most teams, you've got to go to dime. You can still stay a nickel because these guys can cover wide receivers.
It makes them so much more multiple. You can send a lot more blitzes because you're confident these players can run with receivers and man-to-man. So I think it's a perfect fit. Him and Kobe Bryant being able to play off each other is going to be huge.
When you add Kyler Gordon, if healthy, into that mix, this is something Dennis Allen hasn't had. This is something maybe the Bears haven't had in how long. Three guys who can do the things that those three guys, any of them, can do, right? I mean, those three guys are all now elite chess pieces in theory.
Kyler Gordon can play safety. Obviously, we know Kyler Gordon can play slot. Where did Kyler Gordon start out his NFL career? On the outside. On the outside at cornerback. So you have these positionless players. And when you look at the last Super Bowl, what were the Seahawks able to do? Stay in the same defense, but they played so many different looks.
When you come in for a meeting on Wednesday, you're an NFL player. Marshall just puts your hat on like you're an athlete. Pretend. Pretend. Pretend.
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Chapter 6: How does Dylan Thieneman fit into the Bears' defensive scheme?
This is going to be a stretch, pal. It's a stretch. But you get your analytics right. Okay, this personnel group, right? When they're in this personnel group, this is what they like to run. So you start looking at these personnel. Okay, they like to blitz from here. They like to run cover two with these players on the field. They like to run quarters with these players. Quarter, quarter, half.
Tellers ain't telling no more. Guess what? There's no tells. There's no analytics right there because these guys can all do all these different things. They can all blitz. We've seen Kyler Gordon blitz. Dylan Thienemann can blitz. Kobe Bryant can blitz. You can move these guys around and hit so many different ways. So for me, when I look at this, I always look at it like I'm playing.
That's the first thing I do when I'm looking at these players. If I'm playing, if I'm a tight end, a slot on this team, and I see these guys in the backfield, it eliminates... So many tells. And once you start becoming a veteran, those are the things you rely on. Okay, they got their base package out there. This is what they're going to do. You don't know anymore.
The level of upgrade from C.J. Gardner-Johnson, from a speed standpoint alone, the Christian Watson play just keeps running over and over in my head.
Mine too.
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Chapter 7: What are the strengths and weaknesses of Thieneman as a player?
Mine too.
First thing I thought of. My favorite singular stat about Thienemann from last year, 8.3% missed tackle rate. That man does not miss when he's got somebody in the open field that he can get.
Now, my favorite stat is in his college career, he played 1,000 snaps as a deep safety. He played 800 snaps in the box. I mean, this isn't just coach being us hearsay, like, oh, he can play both. He did both. He even learned a new system. And I love that because sometimes you don't know a guy can get comfortable in the system. Maybe they just know the system really well.
But when you've got a guy that's produced in multiple systems, I know some people, oh, he transferred, he transferred, he transferred here. If he was successful in multiple systems, that tells me something. He's a player that can transcend a system, right? So like Julius Thomas, I love Julius. He's actually one of my best friends in the league.
But when you go from Denver playing with Paint Manning in this throw the ball all over the field system, he got paid when he came to Jacksonville. He had 10 touchdowns, 1,100 yards in Denver, and we signed him to Jacksonville for a huge contract. Guess how many yards he had in Jacksonville? 400. 350 and three touchdowns. So system matters a lot. Quarterback matters too.
Obviously, he was playing with Peyton Manning, and he comes to Jacksonville, and he has Blake Bortles, the boat, I might add.
Oh, I remember that draft pick.
Yeah, but just the system transcendence when you get to see him do a lot of different things at Purdue, and then he comes to Oregon and plays in a lot of big games. under a lot of bright lights, and that's what you saw with Colson Loveland, the guy that played in the national championship. You saw that in Luther Burden playing big-time SEC football games.
These are guys that you know can show up when the lights are brightest.
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Chapter 8: What surprises emerged from the draft that affected the Bears?
We talked about it a little bit earlier. Dennis Allen, what did Tom Brady say about him all season whenever he was an analyst on Fox? Just how much he would confuse an opposing quarterback with the look, with what they were showing versus what they actually did. And this plays into that.
This comment, what you talk about with the multiples and just the skill sets themselves that present themselves with Dylan Dienemann and Kobe Bryant plays to that whole concept. You don't know where who's going where. And that is a big part of what this defense, I think, has to do, especially while the defensive line is not where they want it to be.
It's become a game of mismatches. When you see a specific guy on film, you'll come in the meeting room, like I said, and you'll say, okay, you get the full scouting report. You have coaches, the analytics. All right, this is the guy we're picking on this week. We know we like our matchups against him. We like our matchups against him.
With the Bears, if you get Bayard in space, I'm sorry, Bayard was a great post-safety. He wasn't a great man-to-man cover guy. If you get Jaquan Bresker covering somebody man-to-man, not great, even what they did with their linebackers. If you got Tremaine or TJ in space, now you got Devin Bush. Now you got DeMarco Jackson, who's actually really good at coverage.
So now you're starting to eliminate some of these mismatches. So when these offensive coordinators turn on the film for the Bears, okay, who can we get in the slot against our stud receiver, Dylan Thienemann? Man. This guy's quick, he's physical, 4-3-5, explosive, he likes to tackle. Okay, do we have a mismatch if we go two tight ends and we can block him into the sidelines, into the bleachers?
No, he's actually good against the run too. Not a mismatch there. So you're taking away a lot of weaknesses when you get guys with this versatility. And like I said, me as a tight end, I would love to see a safety lined up on me most of the time because most of the times they can't cover. They can't cover man-to-man. This guy can't.
a couple of uh texters chiming in some things that i'm enjoying here right now 312-644-6767 i feel like clay really likes dilly t there it is there it is i i don't know but that's what the texture i don't know if he is universally known as dilly t but poor kid i was thinking thena him
Oh, wait a minute. I like that. Look, if he produces in the way that we think he can, he may end up with that nickname. I did want to run something by you, though, because you mentioned Kevin Byard in space. You're talking about Jaquan Brisker in coverage. It's my belief, and I haven't gone through the numbers, whether it's from an analytical standpoint.
Obviously, one of these guys has never played an NFL snap. I think the Bears, their safety duo is better now than it was at the end of last season, point blank.
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