Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Clay Harbor likes new Bears safety Dillon Thieneman's preparedness
24 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: Who is Dillon Thieneman and why was he selected by the Bears?
Rahimi Harris and Grody. Middays 10 to 2. On 104.3 The Score.
This is Rahimi Harrison-Grote on 104.3 The Score. Clay Harbor is in studio with us, the nine-year NFL veteran. Big pro football show on CHSN. And Clay, you love to prepare for a broadcast. You love to prepare for a game. You love to prepare for a segment with us. He brings his iPad. He's got it together. And according, yeah, he's showing me his notes right now.
We're note takers here on the Midday Show. We like to hang out and we like to take notes. So I heard your ears perked when Dylan Thiedemann also talked about his show prep and his game prep.
Chapter 2: How does Clay Harbor prepare for broadcasts and games?
In my experience, the guys that have, he talked about his process, and he talked about having two notebooks, and how after every, here's what I would do when I started playing, and I learned this from Brent Selick, the tight end that was above me, Cincinnati guy, and he would always say, every stadium you play in, every team you play against, make sure you bring a notebook.
After the game, you fill out what you remember from the stadium. How were the lights? How was the grass? How was the turf? You remember exactly, so you could put yourself in that exact scenario the next time you go there. Every time you go against a player, write down what you remember about them.
Obviously, you can watch things on film, but sometimes it's lost in translation when you're actually out there. Those are the guys, the guys that do things like that, played with Tom Brady, played with Drew Brees. The level of obsessiveness, which people might say you need to have balance. No, these guys were obsessed, and that shows in their note-taking.
Drew Brees, when he flew me out to San Diego to run routes with him before the season, he had a page of 30
plays exactly if we didn't do the the route the exact way he'll call out the coverage he's redoing it i come back and i try to hand or put the ball on the ground right next to him when he's dropping back there's a couple tight ends out there he goes clay don't put the ball on the ground hand it to me i don't want to bend over more than i have to like those guys have the highest hit rate in my opinion even more so than somebody that's more talented
Well, let's listen to Dylan Dienemann talk about that notebook. I know we played it a little earlier on the show, but with just what Clay said, now tell me how you hear it.
Really, just when I keep improving my process and my preparation, like how I watch film and taking notes, writing stuff down. So I had two separate notebooks. So I had a notebook just for opponent scout, and I had a notebook where I wrote everything down. So I write everything in one notebook, and then I would kind of compile it and what I needed to study, what I needed to know in another one.
So I could study that before the game.
I love the idea of raw data and then compressing the raw data into the bullet points that you need. That's how I process things in general. I never turn down data, but then I take the best of the data to get what I need in any given moment.
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Chapter 3: What unique preparation methods does Dillon Thieneman use?
Sorry, Hall. I know you're probably listening right now. I'm just teasing. We do a great job playing off each other. Morning, Molly. You get all of it. You get all this info and you have to condense it down into a 45-second point. Maybe you bring in one statistic. Maybe you bring in one point from your playing career and you just condense it down.
So in any profession, the guys that do that, you know they're taking it seriously, that it means something to them. For a rookie...
To come in and already have that down, already know how important that is, the preparation, the film study, the watching of the opponents, the watching the formations, the motions, the analytics of if this guy lines up here, watching the splits, if this guy is split inside, if his split's two feet wider, two yards wider, what kind of route concepts are we going to run? That's impressive.
And that's the type of player I want on my team.
Wow, it's getting pathetic here, man. This guy's almost too good to be true all of a sudden. Like, all the traits, all the versatility, all the smarts, all the being a good student.
Is there anything about him that should worry us? Only thing that I could say is he's a little... He's a little undersized. He's a little fella. He's a smaller guy. Yeah, you're right. He's six feet and change, right? He's six feet and change, 200 pounds. So he's not the biggest guy in the world. He's probably below the 50th percentile in height and weight.
But he makes up for that in speed and strength. Bench press reps at 200 pounds, he threw up 18 at 225. That's impressive. I mean, that's more than Keldrick Falk. That's more than some of these edge rushers. And I know people love to use Raz, the relative athletic score. which honestly means absolutely nothing.
I think they should do away with that because the players pick the events they want to run. So they should at least put them mid-tier, 50th percentile for the events they skip, and then put that into the RAS score. So I look at the... The individual events.
I love that you bring that up because when we were talking to the so-called draft experts, the people who do this for a living, right? Part of the draft industrial complex, if you will. They would say the difference between Caleb Downs and Dylan Thienemann isn't that much because Thienemann has no holes in his game. There is no weakness per se. It's just that the upside is higher for Downs.
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Chapter 4: What are the strengths and weaknesses of Dillon Thieneman?
Are they a power guy? Are they a strength guy? Are they a long-arm guy? And then you try to come up, form a plan to beat them. You've got to basically change yourself into a different player against whoever you're playing against.
And I think Dylan Thienemann's a guy that his versatility is going to make it hard for you to come up with a plan to put him in a bind because he can do so many things so well.
One story in the NFL that has dominated our days, and unfortunately we haven't wanted it to, is whatever has been going on, just the latest receipt drop of the hour with Diana Rossini and Mike Vrabel.
I thought that's where we were going. Do you got some photos on you?
I mean, everybody else seems to. But I think you made an excellent point when it came to how it actually affects a football team. And I think we saw a glimpse into that yesterday from Vrabel. So I do want to get into that a little bit with you next. Clay Harbor here to discuss the draft and the NFL. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score.
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