Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Dennis Allen explained how he can coach better in 2026 | Take The North
13 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Bears fans, this is Take the North. What's the reason, Doc? It's here. With your host. All these guys.
Dan Wiederer. The whole key to sustaining success in this league is to have a quarterback play that is top tier and can consistently push you down those roads.
And Mark Grody. We're allowed to at this point, Bears fans are allowed to right now, dream big and predict what you want out of the season. We're going to take the North and never give it back. Hello again, everybody, and welcome into the Take the North podcast along with Dan Weider of The Athletic. I am Mark Grody of 104.3, the score on the Rahimi Harris and Grody show.
Dan, what's going on, man? Not much. How you doing, Mark? Busy weekend at House Hall, and now we're flipping the page to a little bit of a shortened quiet period here before the schedule comes out later this week.
Yeah, that's right, man. It was a two-day rookie minicamp. Dan took in both of the days. I got out there on Saturday, so I got my eyes on a bunch of rookies and tryout players as the Bears both days decided to practice indoors inside of the Walter Payton Center. So it was really good to see all those rookies, Thineman, Jones, Roush, Thomas, Muhammad, Elliott, Vandenberg, and then a bunch of
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Chapter 2: What insights does Dennis Allen share about coaching better in 2026?
The laugh sold it all. It was the tell, right? It was the tell.
It's so funny, man. I almost, because I happened to edit the tape, I was like, you know what? If I cut it off after the laugh, I thought about it because I thought that just to let that sit with our audience for a second.
DA comes from the Sean Payton era. you know, tree of dealing with the media that John Fox, he was with John Fox in Denver for a little bit. Those guys are not exactly the warm, cuddly, let's tell you everything I have on my plate type when it comes to sharing information.
With the media, that said, I feel like everybody that was in that room on Saturday morning left that room feeling like that was the best Dennis Allen that we have ever gotten. I felt like maybe the offseason timing of the session was good. As you mentioned, kind of in the outset, he's got a first-round pick to play with in Dylan Thienemann. There's a lot of questions about the pass rush.
We'll hear a little bit about all these topics, but I felt like DA was engaged. I felt like he was informative. I felt like he went to some depth that we weren't necessarily expecting on a few topics. And it really did feel like everybody got up from their chairs and walked back into the other room like, man, that was a pretty good session with DA. If only all of them could be similarly valuable.
Yeah, that was the reaction, exact reaction in the media room. And what I like about it in particular is And in general is that neither he nor anybody, uh, on this coaching staff defense of our offense is running from the fact that even though they had a lot of turnovers and a lot of big defensive plays last year, the defense wasn't very good last year, uh, uh,
Getting to the quarterback, against the run, against the pass. I mean, you look at the numbers, and they're all 20 and down for the Bears. So they just were not, in the traditional sense, a very good defense. And nobody is running from that. And so let's get into, for our audience, what made this so good. And that is maybe one of the most important questions to Dennis Allen.
And that is what Ben Johnson has been doing. And he hasn't singled out Dennis Allen. Ben Johnson has been hard on his coaching staff the same way he has hard Ben Johnson on himself, the same way he is hard and transparent about his players. So Ben Johnson has been consistent, but we hadn't had a chance to ask Dennis Allen about Ben Johnson challenging him, Dennis Allen.
And this is some money stuff here that you guys should listen to right here. Here is Dennis Allen on Ben calling him out, so to speak.
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Chapter 3: How did the Bears perform during rookie minicamp?
And, you know, you look across the board at all three levels of the defense. And and I just feel like, you know, you go in and you watch it. And in some ways, you're you're a little you're you're disappointed because it doesn't look exactly like you want it to look.
You're also really encouraged because if we can get better at those fundamentals and techniques on all three levels of our defense, how much can we really improve? I think that was a big part of what we do in the offseason. We'll have the same discussions next year. It's still going to come back to how can we coach it better? How can we teach it better?
How can we help our players reach their maximum potential? I think Anytime, if you look at it any differently, I just don't know how you're going to have a lot of success.
Dan, what did you think about that answer?
Well, first of all, I think we could go back through the entire library of Dennis Allen conversations from 2025 and not find an answer that is two minutes plus like that one was. And that carried some meat and some depth to it.
And I think that there is an admission there from DA looking in the mirror that looked like they were so intent on getting the scheme installed and putting in all the volume that they want in their defense that they that maybe they weren't as sharp with the fundamentals and technique as they wanted to be.
And so that seems to be a really firm talking point here in the spring, that they're going to be better at coaching it, that they're going to get the little things sort of polished up in a way that will position players for success. And this seems to be their formula for working around the, I don't want to say lack of talent, but the lack of additions to the roster in an area up front.
that they need to be better at with the pass rush. And so time will tell whether this methodology works. Time will tell whether they're able to squeeze the results out of that whole group up front that they're expressing optimism that they can squeeze the results out of. But I did think from a coaching perspective, it was a really valuable opportunity
uh message there that marries up with what ben's saying it's like look we've got what we've got and now we've got to coach what we've got for the best of our ability to get the best results so a good starting point for us to kind of know what's uh being asked and where it will take the bears here in the in the near future i do like the thoughtful process by dennis allen and the admission the admission of it but i i bet if we
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Chapter 4: What challenges did Dennis Allen face as the defensive coordinator?
Let's hear first, though, since the topic of edge rusher came up in that question, part of the genesis of it, that you, in theory, on paper, have not improved your pass rush, have not improved your run defense. You're depending on guys getting better. Dennis Allen, who, of course...
Most people probably know by now that Dennis Allen did coach a veteran edge rusher by the name of Cam Jordan while in New Orleans. So it was logical to ask Dennis Allen about the available free agent edge rusher, Cam Jordan. Here's DA on that.
This one guy that you coached for a long time is Cam Jordan, who is available. What was your experience like coaching him? And is that someone you'd be interested in working with again? Yeah, look, I think my experience with him was was was outstanding. I mean, Cam's going to be a freaking, you know, Hall of Fame. is a Hall of Fame player.
And so I don't know that there's been a ton of discussion about that. I think we feel pretty good about where we're at and what we have. And yet you never know what opportunities might present themselves at some point down the road. When the stakes rise and the lights get bright, that's when you find out who can really swim. Deep Waters is a new UFC podcast from CBS Sports.
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Yeah, he kept the door open. I love when a coach or anybody throws a freaking in there. It's its own word. I mean, I know it's one step away from the really bad word. It's daytime as a recording, so I won't use the word. But yeah, Cam Jordan, 36 years old, 10 and a half sacks last year in New Orleans, and he is durable as hell.
No question. He's also up there in age and the year before the ten and a half sacks. What was it? Two and a half. And so you got to you got to do the calculus on all this. I don't know. You look like we always draw these lines between people that have played together, coached together, work together and just assume that everything was smooth. I don't know how harmonious that relationship was.
I know there was one point when when Dennis Allen was the head coach. in New Orleans, and I believe they scored a late touchdown in a rivalry game against the Falcons. That was a little bit of a rub-it-in touchdown, and D.A. later apologized to Raheem Morris, and Cam Jordan then was vocal in saying, I would never apologize. That's the brotherhood in the locker room.
All of that is to say that you don't know whether Dennis Allen is going and knocking on Ryan Poles' door and being like, do whatever you can to get this guy here. The other part of this, I think, is that last little statement that that he said, you never know what opportunities can come up the road. The thing we all have to remember is there will be things that happen unexpectedly.
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Chapter 5: How does Dennis Allen plan to improve the defensive line's performance?
what you're getting from day one, you know? And I, I do think like, I think Ryan Pohl said it after the draft, like there's a lot of comparisons to Colson Loveland in terms of just like a guy that's just going to come in. He's got a really good feel for the game. He's going to give you everything he has to, to get himself ready as fast as possible.
And then you just kind of let the development development process take over. And so from, from stage one, you're just like, okay, like this is, this is, It makes perfect sense and it just feels safe to take this guy and then to help him grow.
Yeah. And I love the way you said that it feels safe. What was in my head is something similar, but I'll use the word that sounds weird to say. He seems fail-proof. You know what I mean? There's no way. Obviously, injury can derail anybody, but he's got the athletic skills. He's got the smarts.
He's got, as Dennis Allen said, you turn on the tape and somehow he's always around the ball, which goes to his intelligence and his anticipation, all of the things that you need to be a good safety. So hopefully that will continue to line up.
This is going to be a hilarious clip to revisit in 2029 when they decline his fifth-year option.
I already said he was fail-proof.
It really feels like that, doesn't it, man? It really feels like that. Yeah, you just feel like you're going to get steady production and how fast it kind of elevates is going to be up to the theming and the coaching staff, and the Bears will steer that in the right direction as fast as humanly possible.
Yeah, yeah, no doubt. A couple other things before we get out of here for this episode. While we're talking about Dennis Allen's defense, we mentioned the D-line and all that. The Bears did draft a defensive lineman in the sixth round. That'd be Jordan Vandenberg. And Dennis Allen said... that he, as he put it, quote, slipped through the cracks a bit.
So finally, finally, we have somebody saying that they got a player and they were lucky to get him in the sixth round, that he slipped through one of those guys, and that's fine. But he said, I thought it was interesting, that Dennis Allen said that his D-line staff urged him to check out what they referred to as a 60-play cut-up, the highlights,
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