Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Reacting to Caleb Williams' comments at Bears minicamp (Hour 2)
12 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What did Caleb Williams say at Bears minicamp?
Here we go. Fourth and four. Johnson. The man in motion. Williams drifting. Sprinting for space. In all kinds of trouble. He got it! For the touchdown! They've done it again!
Chapter 2: How does Caleb Williams plan to improve his game?
Unbelievable!
It never gets old. That is courtesy of NBC. Our friend Mike Tirico on the call. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grody on 104.3 The Score. And the Bears have wrapped up the last of their offseason program. Mark Grody and the rest of the Bears get a break for six weeks. Actually, you don't really even get a break because you're on Stuck With Us.
and the take the north podcast like i was trying to do like an emotional this is it for us for a while dan then it was like oh well we'll be doing the podcast tomorrow yeah that's right but yeah this is the last of the bears we're gonna see for a while caleb williams was asked about that too by the way and it sounds like he will get to decompress a little bit and get away get away from the coaches specifically is what he said
Want to get away.
Chapter 3: What insights do the hosts provide about Caleb's leadership?
And in the meantime, he spoke at the last day of Bears mandatory minicamp. And we all, I think, had different things that we heard him say that we want to bring up. Mark, I want to start with you because you feel like he was sincere in talking about an aspect of his game he wanted to improve.
Well, yeah, yeah. I think my sort of theme of this offseason has been Caleb was great last year. Now I want to see him become a complete Jedi. You know, his training with Yoda is not done yet, right? He's still in the swamp. Right now. Yeah, he's still in the swamp. There's still things to learn. Yoda's still yelling at young Luke Skywalker. He's not dressed in all black yet.
He doesn't have the cool lightsaber as of yet, but he's getting there. There's a lot of cool tricks that Caleb Williams has at this point. I don't know if he could just point his fingers and make that ship come out of the swamp yet, like did occur in, I guess it would have been Empire Strikes Back. But there is still more to the training of Caleb Williams.
And Ben Johnson has been all over Caleb Williams in this offseason. Anytime there is something that comes up about his being on the cover of Madden, it's like, well, let's make sure your accuracy is good. Make sure the ball placement is good. Let's make sure you're doing the right things out of the huddle. And what I like about this cut right here is that Caleb Williams gets it.
He knows that there is still more to his game that exists that has to be refined.
Caleb, you've had a lot of really cool things happen to you the last several months and obviously since you've been in Chicago. How do you process that personally, kind of the successes you've had and also knowing that there's much more on your journey ahead?
Yeah, that's the last part that you just said is what, you know, keeps everything going for me and myself mentally and physically and things like that is that there's so much to unlock. There's so much to get better at. There's so much left of ball for me and, you know, and us and accolades that we'll have as a team and things like that. So I think that's the part.
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Chapter 4: How does the 'How Many Bears?' segment work?
And then having a good support system around me, having Ben and my teammates and things like that, that I got to look in the face and make sure I'm doing the right thing every single day to accomplish our goal.
I love it. I just love hearing his knowing that there's a long way to go. I don't know if there's a long way to go, but there are still things that need to be tightened up. So it was heartening for me to hear that. Well, I think he recognizes that the simple matters, and it matters because it's so simple. You've got to be able to do the simple stuff to be the quarterback you say you want to be.
If you're talking about winning multiple Super Bowls, hey, the pedestrian things, Ben Johnson's offense, so much based on timing and being able to hit guys quick, and then they do the work after the catch. If you can't do that, you're putting yourself in a position where in fourth quarters, you have to put the cape on and hope nobody's got some kryptonite out there to stop you.
Chapter 5: What were the highlights from the 'How Many Bears?' segment?
Well, and if there's he's a man of incredible discipline. And I think if there's one like adage or comparison that we can make, too, is what do we say about guys who come out of the scene in baseball thrown one oh five one ten famously? You know, that was the Michael Kopech radar comment.
But the point is, these these gas guys write these flamethrowers plus plus plus fastball is that you can do it now. But if you really want to have a sustained career, you've got to learn how to be a pitcher and not a thrower. And the same can be said when it comes to the football aspect of, yeah, you can do this now in the fourth quarter. You still have enough gas in the tank.
You're still in shape. You still have an arm that is elite when it comes to the talent. But once you're, you know, from an old head, once your body starts breaking down, you'd better you want to lengthen your career.
Chapter 6: What challenges does Caleb face as a quarterback?
You want to make the real money in your second contract. You've got to understand how to keep that, keep the energy, how to reserve it, you know, every single play, every single game.
And that best way you can do it for your longest term career success is to be able to not just do the exciting stuff, but also to get those other basic plays, you know, tight and convert on those runner's balls to be able early in games to then have that success.
Let me reference something very specific from my childhood that taught me something that I still carry with me to this day. And it applies to sports. It applies to lots of things in life. A wise character named Scrooge McDuck told me. Work smarter, not harder.
And for Caleb Williams to be able to do the types of things we're discussing here, where we're not talking about these amazing throws to the back of the end zone, whether it's to DJ Moore or whether it's to Cole Komet. Just work smarter, not harder. That will preserve you, your body, your career. And to your point, Layla, he's not going to be as mobile as he is right now 10 years from now.
Well, and I think it was Tim Jenkins, guys, that brought it up on one of our early appearances with him last season when he was talking about how, yeah, you can do this now while you've got this body and this ability. But you can't sustain that. And the league knows that, and I'm sure he knows it as well. But when you think about it as future you, then that's where it starts to come into play.
And I'll just say this. From what I saw in this off-season program, if you want to call it that, all the practices that the Bears have had here before training camp, which starts in late July, he's been hot and cold. Caleb has been hot and cold. And as a matter of fact, yesterday, yeah, it was yesterday, Ben Johnson was pressed ā
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Chapter 7: How does the discussion shift to Chicago's sports culture?
on asking him to evaluate how his accuracy and ball placement have been. And he didn't answer that first. And I think it was Leisure who said, yeah, but what about the ball placement and accuracy? And Ben just goes, it's been okay. That was it. That tells you the story. It's been okay. We got work to do. Yes. Ben's relentless.
And understanding that the way they talk to each other and they've talked about their open relationship and the growth of it, now they're on the same page. I don't want you on the same page. I want you on the same word, on the same line, in the same sentence every time. And I feel like they're not there yet because if he's saying okay, it tells me he needs to be better.
It all comes back to the same idea. How many different motivations or reasons do you need to convert the basic play as much as you want to do the exciting? And he is a person who can and should be able to do both. There was a lot there to digest when it came to what Caleb Williams had to say. This is Rahimi Harrison-Grote on 104.3 The Score. And I think this is part of it.
Chapter 8: What is the significance of the Halftime segment in this episode?
You know, if we're looking at this as a foundation of a house, I think you build that foundation first and then part of it, you know, on top of it is the planks and the platform, that ball placement that we discussed.
Ball placement, being able to put the ball in the best position for the wide receivers first starts with a completion. And then from there, you grow in the confidence from completing the ball, completing the completion, completion, completion. And then it grows to how can I place the ball better for these guys in these situations? and moments throughout the games and, you know, practices.
And so it starts in practice. It starts with the mindset of that. And then from there, you keep growing. And, you know, for me, it's always, you know, another thing for me is just always getting better with procedure, being able to see defenses, you know, pre-snap and have an idea of, you know, what they'll be in or if I need to make an adjustment.
So it's always going to be those couple things for me.
I wonder when will it be enough, right? Because no, but seriously.
Like you're saying this... That's great.
But I need to see the actions back it up. And I'm trying to be patient. You know I'm patient, right? Because at the beginning of last season, I said, listen, by the time this is all said and done, the offense will be ahead of the defense. I have complete faith in Ben Johnson. And if he can't do it with Caleb Williams, nobody can.
That's my personal opinion just because Ben Johnson has the track record. Now, Caleb Williams did enough to take what really is a running offense. Let's be honest. Ben Johnson wants to run the football. And then he'll hit you with all the ah-ah. With Caleb Williams. Yeah. You got to get the basic stuff down, all the fundamentals. You got to have the run game, and then we can have some fun.
But you can't have fun if the quarterback doesn't have the fundamentals down, is my point. Right. Right. You just want that better early. I mean, that's what they said. They're earlier in game. Save some of that special stuff for the early and for the later. A little bit more minutiae. Yeah, minutiae.
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