Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Mike Florio talks Bears' stadium saga & latest NFL headlines (Hour 2)
10 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This hour is brought to you by Jewel Osco.
Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now is a man who's got a massive brain.
Mike Florio.
He used to be a lawyer, then he decided to take his talents to the internet.
NBC Sports. I'm sorry I'm late. I was talking to Robert Kraft. That isn't the time for an airing of grievances. Pro Football Talk. I got a lot of problems with you people.
No, you're going to hear about it. On Chicago Sports Radio, 104.3 The Score. I want to keep talking Legos. It is a Wednesday at 11 a.m. or so, 11 to 450. And that is when we talk to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. He is the creator, the editor-in-chief. He is kind enough to join us, not just on our hotline, but on Twitch, twitch.tv slash thescorechicago.
Mike has now figured out the commands for fireworks, and it is always very exciting. We get fireworks when Mike comes on. You can check that out. And Mike, we are happy to have you on today. Thanks for joining us.
Great to be here, as always. Happy to delay my lunch on a Wednesday at noon Eastern time. I am very OCD when it comes to my meals, but as we have established in the past, it is a thrill on Wednesday every week to press pause for 20 minutes or so.
We appreciate that you do that for us. People do ask about your lunch, so just know that our listeners have you in mind.
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Chapter 2: What are the latest updates on the Bears' stadium project?
You mentioned the NFL's part in this. How much power or influence do you think the commissioner, Roger Goodell, might have in all of this? And if the Bears really, really, really, really, really said they were going to go to Indiana and said that they've got a date where they're going to put shovels in the ground, does Roger, can he do anything about it?
Because obviously I'm assuming he wants the Bears to stay in Illinois and probably wanted them to stay in Chicago would be my guess. All it takes is nine no votes to keep the bears from going. And it would set up some interesting dynamics. But this is what happens when you own a business, but you become part of a league with 31 other ostensibly competing businesses.
And we've seen litigation in the past. That was... How the Raiders dealt with the NFL not wanting them to move to Los Angeles. And then there was a fight over lingering rights to the L.A. market after the Raiders went back to Oakland. It all comes from this basic concept of I own my business. I run my business. You don't tell me how to run my business.
But when you're part of the league, you sacrifice some of that freedom. And that's where Goodell's power comes from. He only needs nine owners to say no to the proposed deal in Indiana.
Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk on with us on Rahimi Harrison-Grody. There's a massive story, and you as a former lawyer, I'm sure, are pretty ensconced in it, in the Brendan Sorsby case. And he gets an injunction from a local judge in West Texas, home of many Texas Tech fans and alumni. to be able to have eligibility.
And I know that the latest report is that unless an appeal happens fast, he's available. We're already seeing leagues respond to this. We're seeing teams respond to this in ways that they're concerned about their integrity. What are you seeing as far as the ripple effects? And as a former person of practicing law, how are you seeing this take place?
Well, I was disappointed by the ruling itself. It's only four pages long, and it recites all of the magic words necessary to come to a defensible finding that a preliminary injunction that would freeze everything in place while the case goes forward is justified. But there's no reasoning. There's no explanation.
And I see everyone having an opinion, but nobody really knows what the legal arguments were, what the reason was, whether or not it holds water. You really have to get in the weeds of the case to understand whether or not this judge did the right thing.
The perception is it's just another state court judge throwing a bone to a college in that state and a player who wants to play football in that state. And the thing that... that I eventually was struck by was the idea that no one said anything about this until after the ruling came out. And after the ruling came out, all hell broke loose. And look, we know how this game goes.
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Chapter 3: How does Mike Florio view the Bears' leverage play in stadium negotiations?
They want to turn the clock back, not all the way back to the days when the players got nothing. I don't think that's ever returning and it shouldn't. But I think they want to find a way to mess with the current imbalance as they see it at the expense of the players. And I think this Sorsby thing could become the key.
NCA President Charlie Baker called it the thunderbolt moment that could cause everything they're looking for to finally come together. And I just think that would be unfortunate. I'm a firm believer Congress shouldn't be cleaning up this mess.
I think if the NCA and its members truly want to clean up this mess, they need to do it themselves by embracing unionization, by having collective bargaining. It would give them the antitrust exemption they would want. They'd be able to set transfer rules. They'd be able to set rules regarding compensation. There's a lot they could do, just like the NFL does. That's how the NFL has a draft.
That's how it has free agency rules. That's how it has minimum salary rules. That's how it has salary cap. There's a 32 company union, a multi-employer bargaining unit that gives them the antitrust exemption. That's what the NCAA should be doing.
And it's disappointing that I feel like I'm shouting that into the wilderness while everyone is pushing this thing toward a federal solution that just gives the NCAA everything it wants.
What's funny is I look at this in so many different ways, Mike, because number one, what do we always hear from the NFL, for example? Well, let the legal process take its course before we act. That's always what they say. So I'm not surprised that the NCAA, who famously doesn't ever want to govern, decided to let somebody else handle this.
But I don't necessarily think that they thought past the idea of in Texas gambling bad and looked into how, for example, in Amarillo, the 7th District of Texas, where this was decided, all four justices that preside over the court are graduates of Texas Tech's law school. They have to some point do their job here.
Well, and look... This is why I question the absence of any outcry before this happened, because even though they always tell a jury you're not allowed to do any research on a case, you know, when you go home at night, you can't look it up on the internet, you can't watch TV coverage of it. I mean, the judge is free to do whatever the judge wants to do.
And if the judge had felt, and if he had any sense of what the aftermath of this was going to be nationally, would it have affected the exercise of his discretion? So many of the decisions that individual judges make in any given case, action, whether it's a civil action or a criminal action, there is discretion everywhere. You can get through the maze however you want.
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Chapter 4: What role does Illinois play in the Bears' stadium decision?
He needs to relight the fire. And if he can relight that fire and he wants to come back for one last run that culminates in a Super Bowl to be played in the Rams' home stadium at SoFi, it wouldn't surprise me if he did it. And it would just make the Rams the even more presumptive favorite to get to the Super Bowl and win. It would almost put too much pressure on the Rams if Aaron Donald came back.
Mike, this has been a lot of fun as usual. The Law Talk and more. We appreciate you taking the time.
Thanks. Have a great week. Thanks, Mike.
That is Mike Florio, the creator, editor-in-chief of Pro Football Talk. You can find his work at Pro Football Talk on X and, of course, on the NBC side as well. The Southside Summer Festival, presented by Marist, is coming up July 18th from 4 to p.m. at Marist Stadium. Features live music and more. Tickets are on sale now for $45 at Marist.net.
We do need to play what the Hammond mayor, Thomas McDermott, said this morning on Mullion Hall. He helped us fill in the gaps a bit, clarified a statement from the Bears that came out on Friday. So we will listen to what he had to say and react. This is our only Bears stadium segment, okay? We try, but it's also just news you need to know.
So we'll give you the latest from the mayor who spoke with us this morning next.
Rahimi Harrison Grody.
That's a show trying to win a Marconi right there.
Middays 10 to 2 on 104.3 The Score.
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Chapter 5: How does the NFL influence the Bears' potential move to Indiana?
Eight no votes? Nine. Nine no votes by the NFL could send them right back to the state of Illinois. I do want to know the extent to which... Kevin Warren and Roger Goodell, or maybe to put it more concisely, what day-to-day role, if at all, Roger Goodell is playing in this? Is he being briefed every day on this? Is he that involved yet? Or is it, call me when you need me?
Well, and we know, based on the reports out of the NFL meeting in late May, that the only two locations that were discussed were Hammond and Arlington Heights. McDermott also shared this piece of, I think, important information when it came to his relationship with Kevin Warren.
It was businesslike. It definitely was businesslike. But no, I mean, Kevin and I, we went to the same law school. So him and I have a connection. We went to Notre Dame Law just like I did. And that's not a very big law school. So that was a huge connection right off the bat that Kevin and I both understood we had. And I think he respects me very much. But it's not like...
He's like, this is yours for sure. He's very businesslike. And he said, you know, Hammond's the only location we're looking at right now. We're going to put the statement out there. And, you know, and we talked about because I was getting buried in press requests at the time. And he asked if I would not hold a press conference. And I said, no problem, Kevin.
And we let the word settle in over the weekend. And then I was allowed to start talking to my favorite media outlets.
So I'm happy to hear that everybody else is at least speaking. Like, thank goodness for guys like Thomas McDermott and everybody else who's trying to fill in the gaps here while we're waiting for the Bears to answer in earnest.
Which leads to our own speculation and, like, taking shots because we're not hearing the concise words, but maybe that's the Bears allowing us to say what we all believe to be true, and that is that this is still wide open.
But it doesn't sound like I feel like it was very sincere from the side of Indiana when it came to what they believe is going to happen. The only thing that didn't reflect that was them adding in the taxing already.
Yeah.
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