Examining the Bears’ decisions at the safety position
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What decisions did the Bears make regarding the safety position this offseason?
Rahimi Harrison-Grody. Middays, 10 till 2. On Chicago Sports Radio, 104.3 The Score. On second down. Play action fake. Rush coming. Hurts scrambles away to the right side. Looking downfield. Floats it and it is intercepted. Savy up over the top. Kevin Byard came in as he was trying to get it into A.J. Brown. And Byard makes a sprawling interception at the Chicago 49-yard line. That's Byard's sixth of the year. That's the defense's 17th interception of the season.
Man, Tyler Buterbaugh, what a way to start my Friday with a little Boosie slash Glorilla. I love it.
Another six Butes. No, five Butes. It's a five scale, by the way, if you think I'm giving you five out of ten. That's a five. Another five for the Bute.
Mark gives out bears.
And buttes.
And buttes for Tyler Buterbaugh.
Tyler Buterbaugh, you know you made it because you got your own Mark Groves scale. I got my own scale.
See, it took you a little while. I'm not sure about that Nebraska hat you're wearing right now. That might take you down to a couple buttes. They played the Big Ten tournament today. I'll put it inside out.
The Fighting Fred Hoibergs.
I do like all the Hoiberg-ness of it. They are kind of fun to watch in their own Nebraska way.
I swear I thought of the younger and more athletic Bulls separately. That was just an appropriate reference. But yes, the one thing they have in common is Fred Hoiberg. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score. And I think we can safely say, as I said in the last segment, biggest free agent signing that the Bears had this season so far, the offseason, has been the contract for Kobe Bryant. Three years, $40 million, 25 and change guaranteed. And he comes to the Bears from a Seattle defense that was absolutely fantastic. We've talked about that as well. I think that's why he had fewer tackles, for example, than Kevin Beyer did, because the defensive line and linebackers are making a lot of those stops in Seattle.
You didn't need me to tell you that. On top of that, though, was us trying to figure out the biggest question, perhaps, of the offseason before Drew Dahlman's retirement, which was... whether or not Bayard, Brisker, or somebody else was going to end up on this Bears safety crew. We got our answers. Kevin Bayard goes to the Patriots. Jaquan Brisker goes to Pittsburgh. And now Kobe Bryant is the guy. Mark, when you heard Ryan Pohl's talk, what was your takeaway from just how that all went down? And the news that, you know, for example, Bayard and Brisker. Brisker was yesterday after our show. What did you think of the news that both those guys end up gone?
Wild that Brisker went to Pittsburgh for $5.5 million. The Bears easily could have afforded to bring Brisker in. And maybe they thought the two players, Kobe Bryant and Jaquan Brisker, were too similar. Maybe there were other reasons, which, again, I do think that there were maybe possibly other reasons they didn't bring Brisker back, and we'll do the deep dive investigation into that. But my overriding opinion of that is that the Bears chose Kobe Bryant over both of those guys. chose Kobe Bryant to be the one that they were going to give the big money to. The four years, excuse me, as you said, the three years and $40 million. The Bears were not willing to give that to Kevin Bayard is the way I read it.
I also read it as Jaquan Brisker was never coming back to the Chicago Bears. That was a non-starter, I think. If one was going to come back, it was going to be Bayard, but it was going to be on their terms. And when Ryan Poles is asked about Bayard and he talks about Kobe Bryant, that tells me they made that decision.
Kevin Byard was the one guy that publicly you said you'd like to have back and you said that you'd talk. Why didn't that come to fruition? And once you signed Kobe, was a reunion kind of out the window or was there a chance even the last day?
Yeah, that's what makes this part of your difficult. You have certain plans. There's guys that you would like to have back and kind of seeing how the landscape's going to
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What decisions did the Bears make regarding the safety position this offseason?
0:01–4:47
2
What impact does Kobe Bryant's signing have on the Bears' defense?
4:47–8:11
3
Why did the Bears choose Kobe Bryant over Kevin Byard and Jaquan Brisker?
8:11–11:11
4
What were Ryan Poles' comments about the safety position decisions?
11:11–11:53
Speakers
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