Rahimi, Harris & Grote Show
Transition: How easy or difficult is it to fix the Bears' slow starts?
06 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What are the challenges with the Bears' slow starts?
Three TVs in there. One TV is always like on Fox Sports or something like that. Colin Calhart, I think is his name. Yeah. So he does his sports every day. Colin Calhart. Yeah. Calhart. I'm sorry. I don't mean to butcher his name. My bad.
Ah, something tells me we'll use that from time to time. That was Kevin Byard on the Bussin' with the Boys podcast. Thanks to everybody who helped out with the show. Ray Diaz, Tyler Buterbaugh, Tyler Ferengul, as I understand, helped cut up our Bears audio. So go Tyler Ferengul. Thanks to Alex Kuhn because he's standing in there. Ryan Portu is also standing there.
Everybody gets a thank you today. Thanks to Connor O'Donnell.
With some great stand-in.
Yes, Jacob Stutz and Max Curtis, always working for us.
Y'all mind if I stand here?
You can stand in there all you want, Ryan. Ain't going to make your tight ends any better anytime soon.
Y'all expecting both of the Mats to be working in Nashville next year? That's my dream.
They're going to have a partnership.
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Chapter 2: How does coaching impact a team's performance early in games?
Or easier than we thought?
Not insurmountable, I think, is what he's saying.
It can be overcome. What was he thinking would be the way to fix it? Third down.
He thinks that he's trying, and it's visible. You can understand why Caleb Williams is like, I'm going to get this third down the way I know how with my legs. That makes perfect sense. I understand it completely. And he thinks that Ben Johnson's play calling has indicated, no. You need to stay in the pocket a little bit more and throw this to get out of this third down situation.
It is odd to think that he would struggle on third downs because, again, maybe this is just me projecting, like, there's a sense of urgency right there on third and fourth downs, obviously. And if we're all to believe that he has this thing that clicks that becomes icy and urgent in the fourth quarter, why not?
down too i think well if it's third down early it's probably just because your thought process is to move the chains and if it's if it's late he's probably thinking get as many yards per play as you can because the clock if that's the case it's situational there was an early third down that's what you want in your quarterback
The second third down of the game on Sunday was a third and nine, and Caleb audibled to a Kyle Menungai screen on the right side, and there was nothing there. He dirted it, because Darnell Wright was kind of already downfield. It was probably going to be a penalty.
But that was one of those times, Lawrence, that I thought it was like where the Lions were running something different than what they expected. And that's more on Nagy than it is on Caleb.
But that goes back to the six mental errors in the first 11 plays.
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Chapter 3: What insights did Tim Jenkins provide about Caleb Williams?
But you'd have to call run plays to do it.
On the right side.
We know the Bears are capable of calling run plays.
307 yards they gave up to the Ravens. 307. Is that a lot? That is a lot. Feels like a lot. Then they didn't play nobody in the next week.
I like that idea. And if we're going to be a little bit critical of Caleb here, right now he's still getting like two balls per game, it feels like, getting tipped. That second quarter sequence, 6-0 Detroit, Caleb fires it down the middle, the ball gets tipped, and then the next play he gets sacked by Andrew Hutchinson.
I mean, I haven't been able to quite figure that out, but it is something that he's still got to tighten up.
I'll give you one more on Caleb. It's a play that somehow didn't get mentioned on our show yesterday. After they get the ball, and it's what, two minutes, 11 seconds, and you're like, they're going to go down and win this damn thing. The first play was a bullet of a slant to Luther Burden that Burden bobbled. And now, yeah, Burden should catch it.
Throw it at 88 miles per hour instead of 92.
Throw it a little softer. And it's a first down play. And then the second down is the grounding and it's third and 20. Yeah, he had to reach for a bullet. And I'm like, man, if Caleb just used a little touch right there, then you're off and running.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of mental errors on game performance?
Our guy Dave Wanstead.
Yep, uh-huh, uh-huh.
Wani was great this morning with Mully and Hawes. He always is. And I like afternoon Wani very much, but morning Wani is also delightful. And he said that he believed all the players heard Ben's message really clearly. Groats, would you agree you hear that? Like, so many different players said, yeah, that was bad. That was not good.
And, like, everybody was completely on board with Ben being pissed off.
Yeah, no doubt. I mean, good coaches get their players to echo the things that they're saying. And one thing we know about Ben, while he's not always completely transparent with us, he is much more transparent than the average coach, or at least the ones that we have seen here in the very near past.
Y'all think Tennessee's ready to understand that personnel equals scheme?
Oh, my goodness. Hey, the Matt Nagy thing is very potentially real in Tennessee because of some of the connections there. Borgonzi, you can say it. Borgonzi, that is right. Borgonzi. I'm all for Matt Nagy getting another chance. I mean, there were some serious flaws, but if he really thinks he's clean, if he's really going to have non-yes men this time around. That's real good.
and maybe hand the ball off to, well, not necessarily Jordan Howard, but somebody in his next chance, then he could be a good head coach because he is a good communicator.
What offense is he going to run? What do you mean? He's going to run the Andy Reid stuff, right? He's going to run the Andy Reid stuff and try to shove it down the throat of a quarterback he did not draft one year into his career. Does that sound familiar?
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Chapter 5: How does play calling affect quarterback performance?
People say a lot of things when they're trying to get the job. Manage the clock. And I'm looking at it and I'm thinking if I had an NFL team that I own, which I don't, I would not hire Matt Nagy. Why am I hiring Matt Nagy as CEO? There are other people that I could hire to do this that I feel like are more qualified to do this.
And to that end, what was the talent evaluation and the personnel fit when he was in charge of it that said this is working?
Yeah, well. Let me offer you guys.
I think Dalton is the example here.
Let me offer you a scenario and see if it makes it a little bit more palatable to hire Matt Nagy. Matt Nagy comes in as your head coach and hires Eric Biennemi as his offensive coordinator. Do you feel better about it?
No, because then I don't know what Eric Biennemi does as far as calling plays.
Eric Biennemi is going to want to run the football, and that is not something that he likes to do.
He's going to want to run the team, too. But that'll be good influence. It's an interesting thing. Theoretical of good influence.
Can I present an alternative here? Sure. Don't hire him. Guess what? Matt Nagy is up for your head coaching job. Also, Cliff Kingsbury is now up for your head coaching job. Tell me why you wouldn't take Kingsbury over Nagy.
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Chapter 6: What role does offensive line play in a quarterback's success?
You don't even really know if Matt Nagy, what you have for him as a play caller is what happened with the Bears, where he gave away play calling twice.
And he took it back, and that's when they weren't as good this last time with Lazer.
So your point about what does he do, what's your expertise? Because the expertise isn't you calling plays. And one could make an argument that his handling of the Cody Parkey thing was
was ridiculous oh yeah and he talks about all those things he learned alan robinson with quotes in that piece right groats about about like you know naggy started asking for help and asking for suggestions like he was a very bad ceo so now you're going to bank on him being a better ceo when he's not even your offensive guru how did he get better now maybe he got better because like in the piece like he and andy have been really talking about it he's been following but
When you are only allowing yourself to be in one school, like one school of thought, and you've already tried with that one school of thought and not succeeded, I am less likely to give you an opportunity to try it again. I wanted Matt Nagy to go do a walkabout. I understand why he didn't.
If I had the opportunity to go work with Patrick Mahomes, if I was thrown a lifesaver from Andy Reid to come back and win a championship, I'm probably doing that too. But it doesn't mean that he's all cherry all the time.
Oh, thank you. How about butter rum? Butter rum? They still make the butter rum? Orange whip? Orange whip? I don't know if they still make the butter rum.
Should he have gone and seen your guy in Tuscaloosa back at the time?
I mean, that seems to be a way to learn some stuff. If you look at the Saban tree, it's doing actually pretty well.
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Chapter 7: How can the Bears improve their offensive strategies?
Now, am I mindful of how famously the Cowboys lost to the Packers in the playoffs under his stead, for example? Yes, absolutely.
Oh, yeah, Jordan Love on the road.
Exactly. And they rattled up 40-plus points on them pretty easily.
Full circle, Porth. He wants McCarthy.
He does?
Yeah, that's what he said. Y'all talking about Mike McCarthy.
But that's the point here. Once you narrow it down and you talk about it, that deserves discussion.
Do you think this is appropriate? Ryan Porth showed up for a little pre-meeting meeting that we had. Pre-meeting? Yeah, he was wearing overalls with a big piece of straw sticking out of his mouth. Is that appropriate? Did he have a hat on? Did he have a matching hat? He did. And he had Lawrence's pitchfork from his shed.
And then you walked into his office where there was a hay bale instead of a desk.
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Chapter 8: What are the future prospects for Matt Nagy and the Bears?
Where does the trident end and a pitchfork begin?
The trident is for the sea. It's for harpooning.
How does the rototiller fit into that? Marine.
Rototiller is used? Sea.
You guys all need to leave. They need to leave, Lawrence. That Sparky, the mascot from ASU, is supposedly based off of Walt Disney? I like it. The story about it is that there was an animator who worked for Walt Disney, and he hated him. And so he was asked to come up with Sparky, and go look at the side-by-side between Sparky and Walt Disney. Are you serious? Yes.
That's the long-rumored origin of Sparky. I love that. is that it is a shot at Walt Disney.
It's like Lorne Michaels is Dr. Evil.
Yes. Oh, that's so good. So good.
It's true, though, the way he talks, for sure.
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