Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Mark Grote shares a Bears report & Ian Happ talks Cubs' struggles (Hour 4)
09 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What updates did Mark Grody provide from the Bears mandatory minicamp?
Mark Grody, covering the Bears for 670 The Score.
Can I get a couple minutes with you here, man?
I ain't talking today, man. I'm sorry. Okay. I'm going next to Mark Grody. Are you from The Score? How gratifying is it when you win that battle and get the football thrown to you? What? Host of the Take the North podcast. I'm sorry, guys. What was I talking about? Kind of shaking your head at God for a second, though. Mark Grody. My hair does look good today.
With Rahimi Harrison-Grody on The Score. He's an apartment complex, this guy.
We go to Hallis Hall. That is where we find the third man of our show, Mark Grody. We're called Rahimi Harrison Grody, and that means Mark, who is at the hall for the mandatory minicamp that is going on in Lake Forest. And, Groats, I hear you have a weather report for us additionally.
I mean, it's hot. That's the weather report. It is high sea hot. Out here, it's a, I would say a minimum, and I am going with, just for people at home who wonder, I'm going with the 30 Heiss. It's Heiss. Heiss means hot. So I decided to say Heiss-y, hot. What language is this?
Is this downstate? Tell me the origin of Heiss-y.
Okay, I think, if I am not mistaken, isn't Heiss hot in German? If I am... I may or may not be right about that. Why I added the E onto it, I don't know. Why do I add the E onto everything when I talk?
I mean, your last name has an E. That's true.
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Chapter 2: How is Ben Johnson preparing Caleb Williams for the upcoming season?
So there's a lot of German words that I picked up as a child. So occasionally they'll just come out. So congratulations to you guys. You guys got to hear me use a German word.
And we're educated now. We're more educated. See, you don't just educate us on the bears. You educate us on foreign languages as well. Guten tag.
See? See, it's it's it's what I do. But no, it is. Yeah. The reason that I'm in particular so hot is because I'm hot. But the other part is, is I am the I am looking at my fellow reporters. I got to keep my distance a little.
Oh, no.
That's that's what we get. Does the equipment not handle the heist? Questioning the the elements. Everett Hallis.
Is it too high for his equipment to work? Is that what's going on?
See, the problem is heise also sounds like ice.
That's why I was so confused because he said heise. I was like, did you mean icy hot? Like, what are we doing?
Heise. Ecto-cooler.
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Chapter 3: What challenges are the Cubs facing as they head into a new series?
That's a... What's my man's name?
Did I just take you back? Slimer?
Slimer. Slimer on the front of the Ecto Cooler. I didn't really like Ecto Cooler as much as like Orange or Fruit Punch, but yeah.
Red. I was red.
You know what's funny? I had one of those juice boxes recently. I forgot how little there is in there as an adult, and I just took like one sip and it was gone.
Also like the jukebox, jukebox, juice box. You think it's a reasonable size when you're a kid. Yes. But then you're like, what? This is the tiniest thing ever.
But it might be a victim of shrinkflation is what I was thinking.
Yeah.
Maybe they were bigger when I was a child.
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Chapter 4: What are Ian Happ's thoughts on the Cubs' recent struggles?
Sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, processed sugar in a box.
Ah, Mark is back. Mark is back from the hall. Hi, Mark. What happened? You questioned the elements and then they just cut you off?
I don't know. I think it's because I keep getting farther and farther away, kind of in no man's land. Like I said, I don't want to be a – I am a rule breaker in general in life, but I'm just not in the mood for breaking the rules today. So I'm actually inching closer to the haven that is the Walter Payton Center right now as we are speaking.
What can you tell us is going on at the hall for mandatory minicamp? Mandatory?
Well, I can't give too many details because that's just the way it works. I'll be able to give more details in my 5 p.m. report on the afternoon show, but they've just begun. They just finished up stretching and individual and position rules, so they're getting ready to do some 7-on-7.
They'll do some 11-on-11 as well, so I'm looking forward to watching that and see who's where and see if things step up out here. As you mentioned, Layla... the word, it is mandatory. And from my count and from my observations, it would appear that everybody is here.
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Chapter 5: How does Ian Happ reflect on his 1,000th career hit?
There had been one veteran who was not going to the voluntary stuff, very important to mention that, and he is here today. So it would appear that everybody is out here and practicing, except for those that are injured and sitting out, which we'll be able to filter through a little bit later on as well. Ben Johnson did speak today already to the assembled masses.
There were, by the way, zero cell phones placed on the lectern today. So that didn't happen. Ben Johnson, though, on Caleb Williams, here's a nice big chunk of Ben Johnson on Caleb Williams having to adjust to defenses today. who have now had a good look at him under Ben Johnson. Here's Ben on that.
He just needs to worry about executing the play at hand. There's really... There's really no secret sauce in terms of being able to defend a guy like that. I think he's a unique individual, and we're going to continue to hone in on our core plays, our bread-and-butter plays.
They might be a little bit different this year than what they've been in the past, and when those plays aren't working, then that's when his exotic self can come to life.
And with the priority on ball placement,
your quarterbacks what ways are you using this spring to sort of heighten the emphasis on that whether it's drill work and then and then how specifically you grade it well yeah there's dialogue every single uh day when it comes to that um within the quarterback meeting room when we watch it as a staff certainly uh my individual meetings with caleb um
You know, I think it can be as simple as just having a grading system, A, B, C, D, F, and figuring out where that ball location lies. Certainly you grade yourself a little bit harder with those throws within 10 yards than you do the chunk or deep balls necessarily. But it's something that he's taken to heart. I think he's critical of himself.
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Chapter 6: What does Ian Happ say about the team's performance expectations?
And it's something that you want to see an individual drill work, carry over to routes on air, on over to the team settings as well. So, you know, you're far from a finished product. It's always a challenge for us. It doesn't matter if you're a rookie or you're going into year 10. I think it's a, it's always a big piece of the quarterback equation.
Exotic self. Less of that. I love that. I love all of it. I love all of it. Mark. Mark.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, I thought it was terrific, too. You know, and it just continues on with Ben Johnson, the theme here, I think, in this offseason season. is Caleb is great, Caleb is great, Caleb is great, he's the next big thing.
And then you have the head coach saying, yeah, he might be great, but there are certain fundamental things that we have to continue to make better and to be better at.
And then, you know, Weezy asking the ball placement question, which, again, did get a lot better, just like everything Caleb Williams in the second half of the season, but it's still a huge emphasis, and he gets a letter grade on all of these questions Well, and I think, Mark, part of that is it's still us learning Ben Johnson, too.
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Chapter 7: What insights does Ian Happ provide about the upcoming series against the Rockies?
You know, I think there is a real truth to how the league will develop a book on you and your offense after seeing it. with a certain team for a year. We saw that with the league also trying to figure out the Detroit Lions offense a year into the Ben Johnson offense with that team. But I don't know what the 201 is for Ben when it comes to things outside of the objectives he's mentioned.
You know, the runner's balls, the ball placement. We've talked about that. But I wonder if there are certain other wrinkles he wants to bring in. He won't tell us everything. But it does make me wonder how he wants to utilize this. I brought up the screen game. Like, are you going to use the screen game more in the second year of the offense?
That's my next question when it comes to just figuring out, well, what's 201 for you? You know, outside of the quarterback objectives.
Yeah. And a lot of that kind of came up during the press conference today, Layla. And Ben Johnson was asked about, how he has improved as a play caller, if he has. And he said he'd like to think that he's improved a ton. And he did mention, yeah, there's a lot of things that have to change. year to year in terms of his play calling because you don't want to be predictable as a play caller.
Chapter 8: How does Ian Happ feel about the Cubs' potential to turn the season around?
There are different players, as he mentioned today, that you have to make plays for. Defenses adjusting to Caleb Williams can be synonymous with defenses adjusting to Ben Johnson. So he's obviously not going to give us any kind of specifics on things that are going to change this year, but
he gave strong indication today that yeah, there, there are, you know, there's the bread and butter plays that you may have seen last year might change this year. And the plays that became predictable to defenses last year, they may be stricken from the playbook.
So it's, it's going to be continued to be interesting to, to see the evolution and development between coach and quarterback, because it's imperative to keep defenses off balance.
I love that.
this exists the idea of the range that ben johnson has and drawing up the playbook and just saying we're going to scrap this and just go get some new stuff and put it in my playbook and you'll learn that and we'll be as good at that as you were at this i like that idea what i also love right now mark what we get to celebrate is not only the bears accomplishments from last season because they are the reigning nfc north champions but where everybody was a year ago
today is kind of crazy when you think about the struggles of Caleb Williams. The fact that Colston Loveland wasn't even healthy enough to do anything at this time last year. And now we're talking about Colston Loveland after seeing just one season of him. And it wasn't even a full season as a guy who can be the X factor for this offense.
It's funny because yesterday, Layla, Marshall and I started to talk about the list of players that Ben Johnson seems to love. And obviously we got the love of Luther Burden. I love Tyson. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Bajent is number one. Like you cannot, cannot overcome his love of Tyson Bajent. He bought all the stock in Luther Burden. And I am going to play this cut for you guys here right now.
And I want you guys to tell me, If you think that he has made Ben Johnson's, let's call it his list of love, his LL, here is Ben Johnson. By the Colson Lovell, we're going to get to talk to him later on today. Loveland! In between time, Ben Johnson on Colson Loveland now relative to, as Marshall was indicating, last year.
Missing last year was a big deal. Obviously, it took us a little bit to get going with him. But this offseason, it's been full tilt. I love what he brings to the table. He's one of the most consistent players I've been around, and that's saying a lot for a young guy because I think it takes a while before guys can truly understand what it means to be a professional. But he's in early.
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