Fishbain talks Bears: Caleb Williams' growth, fan fatigue over stadium (Hour 4)

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Rahimi & Grote Show 44 min 7 speakers 7 chapters transcribed 1 month ago

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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Rahimi Harrison 0:05

Kevin Fishbane, Bears beat writer for the Athletic.

Marshall Harris 0:08

My question is very simple.

Can the Bears' pass rush realistically improve after this offseason?

Marshall Harris 0:09

Do you believe that the Bears can be better at pass rush than they were a year ago based on what has transpired this offseason?

Kevin Fishbain 0:17

The easy answer, Marshall, is it's hard for them to be worse.

Rahimi Harrison 0:20

Kevin Fishbane talking Bears.

Kevin Fishbain 0:21

Matt Eberflug, George McCaskey, Ryan Poles, Kevin Fishbane.

Rahimi Harrison 0:24

On Chicago Sports Radio. 104.3 The Score.

Vinny Rotino 0:29

It's a Friday. Bears training camp is about to begin. And we're talking to Kevin Fishbane. And things seem right in the world. Kevin Fishbane, he is kfishbane on Twitter. He is at kevinfishbane on Instagram. Senior writer at The Athletic covering the Bears and the host of Breaking In with Kevin Fishbane, a sports media podcast. Kevin, how are you today?

Kevin Fishbain 0:51

I'm good. It's Friday. Training camps are on the corner. We got LeBron news like it's 2010. It's a fun day.

Vinny Rotino 1:00

It really is. And we had a lot of fun talking about your Bears fan survey. I feel like there's a lot of truths that are told in there. The Athletic gets a good amount of responses. 3,500 people or so responded in your fan survey. You can find it now published on The Athletic. And Kevin, what were your takeaways from the responses that you saw?

Kevin Fishbain 1:21

You know, it wasn't so much that it was surprising, a lot of the responses, Layla. It was seeing... numerically, how excited this fan base is about its head coach and quarterback. Because I've done this survey when it was Matt Nagy, Mitch Trubisky, and Nick Foles. I've done this survey when it was Matt Eberfuss and Justin Fields. So I've been able to kind of see the progression of this and to see the numbers for confidence levels and things like that in the coach and quarterback. It's just, again, not surprising, but just to see it in number form is just unusual around here and really speaks to why everyone is so excited for next week. The other on the flip side, I think that the fan frustration about the stadium certainly has peaked since I started doing it.

Kevin Fishbain 2:08

I've asked questions about the stadium situation every year. Fans still overwhelmingly expect the stadium to be in Arlington Heights when you ask them what they think. But certainly As excited as everyone is about Ben Johnson, Caleb Williams, approval ratings for Kevin Warren totally plummeted in this year's survey. So, you know, as I kind of joked at the top of survey, it's like, you know, the Bears are giving everyone something to be really thrilled about on the field. And it's just kind of ignore everything going on behind the curtain.

Mark Grote 2:40

Yeah, and I know we chatted a little bit about this on Take the North, but I need you to explain to our score listeners the category that you have here as it pertains to the stadium. Let's get the stadium stuff out of the way. Who do you blame most for the ongoing stadium situation? And Kevin has here three categories. The category of blaming everyone leads with 45.1%.

Vinny Rotino 3:05

I like it.

Mark Grote 3:06

I do, too. Then the Bears comes in second at 38.8%, and then somehow, someway, in the city of Chicago, which we all have lived in and know all about for decades, its reputation, the politicians, Mr. Fishbane, only getting 16.1%. Can you explain or rationalize the Bears getting more blame than the politicians?

Kevin Fishbain 3:33

I mean, I think a lot of it is Bears fans, the face that they put on this situation is Kevin Warren and a little bit George McCaskey. I don't know how many Bears fans are in tune to the Springfield legislators. who are obviously very involved with this in the end of May. And obviously we've heard, you know, many of them been on this station and been talking about it, but for the bears fans, it's so much easier. I think for them to go straight to the people, they know straight to the people who have been giving them these statements and having these open letters. I mean, one of these days I got to go through like every single switch that they've made and read what the statement is. Cause if you compile them, it's,

Kevin Fishbain 4:16

it just comes off as silly. And I get, you know, you can step back and understand the navigating between stadium sites, but I understand the Bears frustration.