Right justin middle of the field forty five fifteen bring Russ in front of a leading Lions.
In his work.
I am Jeff jonahacklitz Is on Donny Got what was.
Like playing for Cochi Gooddom.
I don't want to answer any questions like that. Sixty one yards? What's Sunday stroll for? Justin Field?
Ye Bears et Cetera with the voices of the Chicago Bears Jeff Jonyac.
Another newsy day up at Hattos Hall as the Bears began to work week on the practice field for the defending world champion Kansas City Chiefs. We'll discuss why on episode eighteen of The Bears et Cetera podcast.
Good to be alongside Tom There my Super Bowl winning Bear buddy.
I'm Jeff Joningak joined a guess today we'll be the veteran voice of the Chiefs Mitch Oltis and thanks to our producers Dan for Really, Jordan tread Up and Katie Tuber. Let's get right to the chase. Statement today from the Bears that they've accepted the resignation of defensive coordinator Allen Williams as he deals with some personal issues. So Maddiberfluse will continue on as the man called the plays and be the head coach and so spreading thin to help
on both sides of the ball. But Tom, I know, I was asked on ESPN one thousand with Wata and Sylvie on Wednesday afternoon. You know, should he go out and hire a defensive coordinator? Could he bring in a Rod Marinelli? Could he bring you know, he brought up even though Lobby Smith and I said no. There's plenty of examples. We just got done with one. In Tampa. Todd Bowles calls the plays and runs the show for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. It's not unusual. It's his defense
to begin with. And I think just hit the ground running now and move forward.
You know.
My only suggestion would be that earlier Wednesday at the podium, he talked about the distribution of his time as the head coach. Now that they have this information, I think he said, distribute his time as the defensive coordinator and allow of the offensive coordinator the offensive coaches to handle the offense. And it's been done before, so you're.
Not releasing any of your duties.
You're just focusing your time on getting this defense pointed in the right direction.
So at this point, it's only week three in the season, plenty of time obviously, but there needs to be some stability here right now, you know, justin fields at the podium was the other big story today, and then invited players reporters after the interview in the locker room to discuss how he presented that information after practice. And you know, he's putting it on his shoulders. It is on his shoulders. He's trying to find his own clarity to be a
better quarterback. And as you talk about, thinking as a rule in football is not the best, but when you're playing quarterback, and I just talked to Jim Miller about this, our good buddy who always always helps us out on Bears weekly during the off season. You know, whatever word you want to use, processing is thinking, Thinking is processing. It's a thinking man's position. But when it's time to
grip it and rip it, you rip it. And there's times you have to diagnose and understand and try to figure out what the defense is doing to you.
Yeah, but you know one thing that frustrates me for the quarterback position is they make them go to the podium immediately following the game and then they make them go back on Wednesday. To me, one of those should
be washed out. First of all, if you were as an offensive lineman, if you asked me to go to the podium immediately following the game and give you answers why things worked or didn't work, I couldn't do it because I need to go back and study the film because there's so many moving parts to the football team, and so one of the two days, and to me, I wish you was at the podium immediately following the game.
Then you get out there on Wednesday, when you had a time for tape evaluation, you could probably give clearer answers. But when you're peppered from every different direction, you know, sometimes you just say something that you wish you could take back. But now in the modern day world of social media and everybody trying to capture a story, you can't do it well.
The funny thing is, even you and I just watching a game, we get frustrated, we say things and maybe we don't mean. Then we watch tape and you know, either confirms our feelings right or we say, well wait a minute, because you've done this already here on the short term, this season. You know you've said, now, wait a minute, now, now this this was better than I thought, or this was worse than I thought, or whatever. And as a player, then when you did interviews, they didn't
have podiums back then. They either they went to your locker and you gave whatever speel you gave. And I don't know how accommodating you were as a player. You did you feel you had to answer question? I know you you know after the game, you were on on radio shows during the course of the week. As a player, all you guys were, But how did you handle media come into your locker right after a game.
I was fine because I felt that I could answer any question that was asked of me. But I had a lot of experience with that at Notre Dame because Notre Dame I went through the first losing season in eighteen years, and so there was probably more media in our locker rooms after a losing season than after a winning season. My sophomore year, we played Orgia for the National Championship, So you learn about what life behind the microphone is going to be like when you get to
the NFL. But I was also very cautious what I said because of Mike Ditka, and I remembered one time disagreeing with a choice that he made not to go for it on a fourth and two situation.
I said it they wrote about on the paper.
He called me to his golf cart on my way out to practice. He yelled at me, yelled at me, yelled at me some more, And so then it just made me think about every single answer I said.
And you know, it's.
A different way of life nowadays than it was back then. But you're still going to get criticized by the head coach if he reads something you don't like.
The gist of.
Justin afterwards said, I'm never going to blame anything on the coaches. I'm never going to blame anything on my teammates. Never will you hear that. So I just want to clear that up. Just know that I need to play better, point blank.
That's it.
And frankly, from my perspect active, whether I'm a fan or here an observer of what transpires each and every day up here at Kallisall and on Sundays when we call the games, that's all I need to hear. And it also tells me he is a competitive guy. We always hear that I mean we were in Indianapolis. I saw him and you know, during their off time after practice and before a meal, playing in the the you know, playing ping pong, and you know competitive. He's competitive and
he wants to be great. He wants to he wants to figure this out. It's not like he's just resting out his laurels. We've seen plenty of quarterbacks come through here that maybe didn't have that same mindset. So I appreciate the mindset. So let's let's hope this is the beginning of a new day. It's an early part of the season and you're going in to face the World champions. Everybody should have the mindset tim like, Okay, forget if there was nothing going on, what if it was just
a clean road, everybody's healthy. You're going into a stadium to take on the World champ you'd be that's the game you circled in May. We'll get to play the World Champs in their building, and we're going to try to slay the king right. I mean, you're going to the Kingdom, they call it the Kingdom. Go go there, play just completely rambunctious and get the job done and pull an upset and see what happens.
You know at the conclusion of the game, when you do go and watch the film, it's all about how do you make corrections. You don't sit there and dwell on the mistakes and just think about the mistakes and said, Okay, I made a mistake here. What do I do the next time I run the same play? And how do I get better? And I think when you look at how does Justin Fields get better?
It's partly coaching and it's partly Justin.
No one has all the responsibility here, but it is about making sure you watch the film in order to get better a time.
Now listen, Okay, you've mentioned it more than once, but now we got a New Day podcast here, we got a preview for the Kansas City Chiefs. So as you close your eyes and dream up a game plan for Justin Fields within the context of the scheme of the team and Luke Getze and his offensive staff what their designs are against Kansas City. Now, because you're game planning the World champions with a much better defense than maybe
people want to give them credit for. And Chris Jones is back and Steve's Bagnola brings pressure and all that. What would you like to see Sunday from justin fields and the offense?
Do you really want me to tell you my secrets. I have an exact plan in mind what I would do for him.
We can make it. We can make an editorial comment. This is an opinion of Tom Thayers, an idea of Tom Thayers, not representing the Chicago Bears coaching staff, and a game plan.
Okay, Jeff, how wide is a field fifty three and a half yards?
Buddy? There you go.
So every single snap are not every single snap, but nine out of ten snaps, I'm taking half of that field away from him. Everything is going to move to one side of the field. Reads are going to be immediate. It's going to be one two, they're not there run and it's going to be roles. It's gonna be bootlegs. It's gonna be waggles, it's gonna be play action. It's going to be an aggressive form of passing where my
decisions are made immediately. When one of the things I saw in training camp, I thought that they could really run an interesting two man game to one side of the field, and that's Claypool and DJ Moore or Darnell and d or whatever two receivers you want to put out there, including cole Comet, and so the immediacy of the decision is going to be visually right there for you because both receivers are going to be kind of
leveled on each other. And then if Justin doesn't see what he likes, then you take off and then you run the ball. And so that does one thing for me is it makes blocking more aggressive simpler for the offensive line. And if you don't have a plan of attack that includes the protection by the offensive line, you're never going to be successful with Justin just sitting inside the confines of a pocket, because now it's outside rushers
that create contained. Now you're kind of in a cup, and then you got the defensive tackles that are going to have some push forward and they're going to close that distance. So fifty three yards cut in half. My game is going to be one way or the other. And I'm going to use the blessed ability of Justin fields. He's got arm, talent, he's got accuracy, he's got distance. They have talented receivers, but they are not going to
pressure me from the pocket. And so now Steve Spagnola, if he has all these sophisticated blitzes that are coming from the interior. He's already away from those guys. Now, my offensive line, they don't necessarily need to have a vocal count because you're not going to hear it in Kansas City. But they are going to explode off the line of scrimmage. They are going to they are going to blow up, but they're going to do it in a direction, Jeff. So they necessarily don't know who is
their pass protector. They don't know how to set Chris Jones on the most vulnerable.
Person in there.
And you know, we used to it was Hilgy Jay always used to call the bootleg the play of the nineties, right because it's the easiest play that you can possibly run. It's the most successful blocking scheme and offensive line that has some susceptibility on the road can use.
And it's half ivy. That's that's my game plan.
And that's a half field play. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a half feel.
I'm not going to have Justin drop straight back and read fifty three yards. I'm going to have Justin use his blessings, get to the outside.
One to go. If I want to open throw if I'm not mistaken too.
And we discussed great defensive linemen over the years, in our twenty seven years together, and you know, you're a couple of things. One use their aggressiveness against them and get them running. Get them running horizontally, you know, so they're just not charging through a gap up field, you know, relentlessly and using all their toolbox. Get them move in a little bit. And so that's what I would want, Chris Jones, get them move in.
I was telling you about a game when we played the Buffalo Bills when they had the great bo Bruce Smith and Darryl Tallly and fred Smerlis and the rest of these great defensive linemen. If you kids are too young, go and look them up. But we didn't throw any drop back passes. Everything was play action and we are super aggressive and though so they were confused is this.
A run or are they throwing the ball again?
And the quarterback had a great day and we beat them convincingly. So I think that's something of when you have some deficiencies, you can revisit that type of game planning.
So we're brought to you by Miller Length, the official beer of the Chicago Bears tastes like Miller Time Chicago and take a chance download the Bette Rivers app today. Let's pause right now and move into our interview with the great Mitch oltis the voice of the Kansas City Chiefs.
All right, maman's here.
Mitch oltis so one of the guys I've looked up to in this business since I got involved with play by play twenty three years ago. I remember pulling you aside of the Kansas City game introdews myself. I was nervous as hell. Honestly, I said, I got to meet this guy because I just love how you call a game. Mitche oltis the veteran voice of the Kingdom as he calls it, and as they call it in Kansas City. A very unique and special time happening in Kansas City
right now. But it has to have been the time of your life here since Andy Reid took over in Kansas City.
Jeff, it's only my thirtieth season, and I can really categorize him into segments. The first five where with Marty Schottenheimer the last five of his time in Kansas City, and he was a phenomenal man and coach. The next fourteen were the time in the wilderness. Yeah, okay, looking for Manna to come down. But three playoff appearances. Two of those the Chiefs weren't even competitive, and honestly, it was just it was brutal. And then it got reached a head in it was two, two and fourteen seasons.
And then in two thousand and nine, I'm sorry, twenty twelve, we had a player you know, that took his girlfriend's life, who just happened to meet Jabal Charles, our star running backs wife's cousin. Then he took his own life on our front steps of our facility. It doesn't get any worse than that. It was a bad, bad environment, a lot of bad and then Andy Reid came and it's like the old movie Pleasant Bill, like people just started
popping up in color, one at a time. And truthfully, this has been a phenomenal eleven seasons, nine our ten straight winning years. To win two Super Bowls in a four year span, to go to three in many ways has been unparalleled. To host five straight AFC Championship games is that's history. It's never been done by any team in either conference. To win the division, which is a division that's much like yours. It's historic and it's very
very tightly contested. Every division team has won to fifteen division titles in sixty plus years, and yet we've won it seven straight years. I mean, that's never been done, only second and NFL history behind the Patriots run. So yeah, we're in unprecedented times, at least in the Chiefs kingdom, but historically it gets compared now to some of the greatest in the league.
Yeah.
You know, I was the Bulls pre and postgame co host during the Jordan era, and you knew every single night once they started winning and they started collecting championships with MJ, every night was a show. Every game is a show with the Chiefs. It's the whole hunted and being hunted thing, right, And every snap matters, just like MJ and the Boys. Every dribble mattered because everybody was out to get them and they couldn't do it. Is
there that sense now for you as a broadcaster? You know, I haven't called many playoff games in my twenty three years, and I've been involved with the organization for twenty seven years and it's been it's been a roller coaster ride. So when you get to a playoff game. It's like a massive treat. Now you're used to it. You know
you're going to the playoffs every year. I mean, do you feel though, that every that matters throughout the regular season now, because it's it's Andy, it's it's Patrick Mahomes, it's it's Travis Kelcey, it's Chris Jones, it's you never know what's going to pop up next.
Your assertion is spot on, and I'm glad you brought it up that way. And your analogy with the Bulls, I don't think is far off because you could put Kelsey in the Scottie Pippen roll. I mean it's you've got two of the greatest to ever do it that are doing it now year after year after year. Kelsey's redefined the tight end position. And the fact that now
we talk about pass catchers. When your audience here's this, they'll go what Because if you look at playoff history, Kelsey with receptions, yards and touchdowns, only Jerry Rice has more than Kelsey in NFL history. Okay, so that goes beyond tight ends. But your assertion about every play matters is so spot on. It's even intensified where only one team now gets the buy and we've seen the AFC just go all in. Man, They're just like they spend
every weeking minute. And this is going to sound arrogant. I don't want it to be arrogant, but this goes back to the Bulls. Every AFC team has spent every waking minute figuring out a way to knock us off. And even the narrative last year was these guys lee lose Tyreek Hill. They are going to be covered by
in volcanic ash by Halloween and all this stuff. And then that's why when I said when the Chiefs beat Cincinnati in the AFC Championship Game to get another Lamar Hunt Trophy, I said, you can doubt the Chiefs, you can dislike the Chiefs, you can disrespect the Chiefs, but you're going to have to deal with the Chiefs. And you can say the same thing about the Bulls. It wasn't an arrogant statement. It was more of like all this was pent up inside. But yeah, Mahomes to Jordan
is a very accurate analogy. When you look at the competitiveness, the unique athletic skill of the two and their creativity, I think that's really really go to.
Your mitche oltis voice of the Kansas City chiefs our guest on Bears, etc. As we come to you from Hallis Hall today, we'll break down the matchups in this one with Tom Thayer bit later out of the program. Yeah, I didn't mean to even bring in the NBA angle, but I was asked about him the other day by a bunch of Bears fans Mahomes, and I said, you know, we've seen some great ball handlers in the NFL and history, the guys who can carry out the fakes. I mean,
I think how Peyton Manning set up play action. You never knew it was a passer or a run throughout the course of his career. But Brett farre Aaron Rodgers, they are point guards. Patrick Mahones maybe the best point guard in NFL history, because it's just you never know where it's coming from, why, how, and it doesn't matter. It's just he is hard to figure out and hard to stop. Would you say that's a fair representation about the underrated aspect of his game?
Is the ball handling, the ball faking.
Very fair relate to a story. So it's twenty eighteen. People forget he apprenticed for all of twenty seventeen did not play. So when you see these stats of like in his first six years or a quarterback, he gets compared. He basically didn't have a rookie year, but he did. It was all spent with I said he was playing Augusta but never playing the Masters.
Right, but I was on with Greg Papa.
Then the touchdown read he is now he's like seeing Francisco and he goes, I know I'm ripping off your deal because I'm Kansa said he called me. He goes, hey, I don't want to rip it up.
It's flattery. It's flattery.
Well, okay, fine, but I was on his college show, right. I was on a show like this, and I could hear his co host and producer and they go, who does mahomes for buying you of? And I go Steph Curry and I could hear them all like ha ha ha ha.
Well yeah, let's see home runny year.
They had me back on, going dude, you're right, so you're ball handling is he's phenomenal And you throw that in with the NASA scientists that surround him, and then Andy Reid with motions and deception. But yes, I mean he is. Maybe he's like meadow Lark Lemon back in the day, but his ballhandling is he'll drive linebackers crazy. And we're very hard to play. If you don't play us a lot, we're kind of hard to play. If you do play us a lot. We're thirty seven and
five against the AFC West this last six years. And I don't mean that to be arrogant. It's just it's like, what I mean, this division's really good, but I mean thirty seven and five, Well, a lot of it is he's hard to play against and his ball handling is phenomenal. I don't think we've seen anything like it in the league.
What would you think? And I'm not sure they haven't talked, but maybe they have, maybe they haven't. What do you think, knowing now Patrick Mahomes, what his advice would be for justin fields because he enters really important time right now, Week three of his third NFL season.
Hang in there.
This has not all been unicorns and candy canes for Patrick Mahomes. I remember him losing back to back games in twenty eighteen. I remember having discussions with him and his that apprentice year at twenty seventeen, I remember a couple times we just got together and just chopped it up. But I was really interested because if you look at his Tyler Whitehouse high school days, he's either winning or losing games like sixty nine to sixty seven. Right, I go,
that's not the NFL. If you go back and look at Texas Tech, he would lose the k State seventy one, the sixty nine for seven hundred, I go, that's not the NFL. So he had to adjust. And then in twenty nineteen he had the injury. There was a bad October, looked like the train was going to be taken off the track, and he again was surrounded by great people and hung in there. The same thing happened last year. Right, he had the injury against Jacksonville, has to come out
of the game. We went on a ninety eight yard drive with Chad Henny quarterback, you know meenthusler Moses and uh. Then we go to the Super Bowl and he gets knocked out basically, and he is thank you to you know for the long halftime. But what he would I don't know if they have talked or not. I kind of hope they would, because justin right now is getting thrown all kinds of shade on him. He's dealing with tension of external and internal. And I don't mean internal, I mean inside his own psyche.
Right.
I watched him in Ohio State. This kid's a confident kid. I watched him last year, and so the question I think is, is he Lamar Jackson and Michael Vick. I mean that one and twenty five. You're going, oh my god, that's something else.
Right in the history of the league, right special.
So, and I know you got to be a pocket passer. You got to hit the seven route, you got hit the nine route. The biggest thing is you have got to go down four less than three minutes and I got to go seventy five eighty yards. Mahomes had to learn that there was a growth curve and where fans I think can hit the quick triggers like he's six and twenty three and blah, Well he's dealt with a lot just I think Mahomes would say, you're a talented dude.
You've got upside and sailing here. Just hang in there. But we also know what you can do and don't lose that either, and that is the ability to run the ball aka Lamar Jackson or Michael Beck.
All Right, we got a couple of guys that you faced last year in important, key, high leverage moments the Philadelphia Hills, of course, in the Super Bowl. TJ Edwards, my man from Lake's community here in the Chicago area, first got to signing free agency. Mitch first guy because he wanted to be a bear. He grew up a bear bled Navy blue and orange house parties at his home out here in the Northern suburbs every week.
It was in him. He had to be a bear. So he's a bear.
And Tremaine Edmonds in that great Buffalo Classic with you guys, Can these guys be a channel for change? Those two linebackers together now as guys who are only in my estimation, like a half dozen guys on this roster who in their NFL careers in games that they played, have winning records.
That's it.
This team is not a team full of guys that have learned how to win or have winning records.
Does that matter that those two guys.
Are here, no question, and they've seen it happen. They didn't walk into winning necessarily. Maybe tremain a little bit with the Bills, but they were still at the start of their.
What they are now and what they've been.
The last several years, and so it's like they have seen the secrets of the sauce, Right, they've seen what goes into the mix and a week to week thing of the you know, overreaction or thinking, gosh, we will never get there can be a tumor that grows inside the the body. Right, those two guys, those are great examples because they've been around a recent winning at a high level. Right, these guys have played in championship games or a super Bowl, and so they become a doe
they do I like your word catalyst. They become a impetus for the rest of the guys.
How do we handle this? What do we do?
All?
Right?
Guys, even on the offensive side, Jeff, What people do not realize there's a lot of untold stories about the Chiefs in this eleven years now. And one of them, and here's where Mahomes fits right in is that football teams and I don't care and we've seen it. I'm a Northwestern fan, Gash just term stay in there. But it can be the U of I, it can be Northwestern, it can be Glen Bard. I don't know, but football teams can be fractured one hundred ways because you have subcultures.
It's not the bulls, right, you have a defense and offense, special teams, you've got personnel, you've got coaching. It can just I've seen it fracture one hundred ways. But when you get a here's where I think the next step is for the Bears, when you get this flow of what we've had now for ten years of vertical and
horizontal understanding. I did exchanging influence. Mahomes works with Spagnolo, our defensive coordinator and some of our defensive players, not as much as he does with the offense, but it would shock you. He'll walk into the defensive meeting or during can and go, hey, you guys were showing me. This is what were you doing here? And what should I do? Or how do I? And Spags and the guys will go okay, right, we're showing you something that the Jags will show you in week two because the
Jags are pretty tricky. I'll give you another example. Last year we played the Titans and we were man, we were stuck in mud and we're just kind of mudding through it hard game we win Monday Night Football. But the defense it was like it was like our week two went over. The Jags give it to the defense, right, And so the award it was Sunday Night Football, I think. And so Holmes got the Fickle Finger of Fade award or whatever they hand out, you know. Here you go and he's like, why am I got this?
He walked.
The next day he goes into the defensive team meeting. He goes, this is your guys, this isn't mine. You guys won that game, Spags told me. And you gotta understand, Spags has coached for fifty years or whatever.
His resume yesterday. I can't believe it, how how deep it goes.
Yeah, he said, it's only happened one other time, and it was with the Giants back in the days of you know, those great defenses he had in seven. But he goes, here comes this dude who comes into our team meeting and goes, the sain't me, it's you guys. And that's when Spags goes, that's why we get teams off the field so we can give the ball back to this guy. There is zero jealousy. In fact, there's this flow of information. So why am I telling you this?
It's because of those defensive guys who have won, who can have influence on the offense. And that's when you get that role in an organization. It's it goes a long way.
Not asking you for company secrets.
As he wrapped things up here on Bears, et cetera with the great Mitch Holtis, the voice of the Kansas City Chiefs. So we just got through Todd Bowles and his pressure packages. They're different than what Spags puts together. What is his secret sauce in terms of a young quarterback going in there, I'm the road in Kansas City, no less that place. The last time I was there, the building was shaking as I stood there in the booth.
I feel it.
You beat it eighteen to seventeen. I can still see colors still to court that. I still see it in my sleep. Color would't even wear in a facements. He had like a cocktail and a cigarette. It was like Bobby Lane. He's like, I got a better throw it over there. Yeah, we just lost eighteen to seventeen. So hey, you got our attention. But to answer your question, Spags, Mike Dana, I had Mike dan on a similar show yesterday and Dana goes, he's a wizard.
Yeah, the guy's a wizard.
Here's this is the best defense the Chiefs have had potentially.
The Andy Reid era.
Wow.
And here's what let me give you. Let me give you a couple of things.
Chris Jones is back number one. That helps us, That helps a lot. But we won a super Bowl last year, Jeff, and we had eight rookies on our defense and won a super Bowl. That's an ull time NFL record.
Right, And you guys were the only guys playing more rookies than us on defense last year and during the season. All right, now we've added to that. But why is that important? Because Spags is the He's as creative on defense as a lot of offensive coaches are. Because don't put an ass on a guy saying that's a safety. He might be a slock corner or a week sidebacker. Don't put a oh, he's the mic and he's the will Nope. They're all moving around. Uh, and they will
move personnel around as much as his strategic packages. That's what makes it difficult. You don't know where it's coming. Chris Jones, where's he lining up? But oh, look out for the other guys, because they this is a pretty good defense. Now they've gone two games and given up two touchdowns. We lose to your friends the Lions on a pick six. Let's be honest and drop passes that equaled well, I call them hidden the yardage. It's a
big factor for both our teams right now. Sure is a fend of the yardage, not just the feddal the yardage, but the yard you lose tip passes and the drops.
Yeah right, we're thirty first and drops you're twenty seventh.
All right.
That being said, the defense won that game. It's fourteen points, guys, and we did but two touchdowns in two weeks.
But you're coming after you got runners.
I can't believe out Texas ever lost the game with Roshawn Joneses in the same backfield.
What are you guys doing anyway?
The point is Spags will throw you fastballs, curves, sliders, cutters, but you'll throw them right handed and left handed. It's really unique. It's it's very different than anything you see in the NFL.
Big jab ahead for Justin Fields and the Bears. We'll see you on Sunday. Man a little bit of a welcome Matt for us.
Right, we love going there.
It's one of the most unique venues to go as a fan or as a broadcast looking forward to it.
You know what, this has been one of the more demanded tickets over the past five years, and a lot of it is Bears fans are making this pilgrimage.
They're spending money. They're spending money.
They want to got some money, but they got your money. They want to but they want to see it, man, they want to feel it and taste it. So it'll be a fun Sunday.
My brother, thanks for your time.
Trouble well, all right.
One thing I love about Mitchel does he calls a great game. He knows the game. He knows the game very well. You can hear it in his calls and I always, I always respect that. And he's feeding the beasts, so to speak. That fan base knows football. They love their Kansas City Chiefs even before they were winning all these last ten years under Andy Reid. But he also he knows to hit all the touch points for the passion of that team, and his historical referencing is unbelievable.
So I enjoy talking to him a great deal. And I appreciate him taking the time time.
Yes, So I was reading something by him and he says he's always nervous before the first preseason game, even though he's been doing this for thirty years.
Do you get nervous before the first Okay.
Yes, here's why. Well, and I know he he doesn't do much other play by play. He used to do some college basketball and he may still. I don't know, but I don't at this point in my career. So you know, it's like talking a different language on game day. So I know, you know, my daughter's Kelly and Caitlin very well, your uncle Tom to them. Uh, And they
asked me that same question this year. You still get nervous, and yeah, because it's just you're reacting to something that you don't normally react to, and you're just you gotta just, you gotta go. It's like, it's here's how, here's how I exactly. You know, the very first game I ever did, as you recall with hub Archisian in the booth, you
had a three man booth. We're at Soldier Field, it was an old Soldier Field before the renovation, and we're it was a preseason game against the Cincinnati Bengals, and I remember, you know, you're you're you're jump. You're going at the end of a high, high dive board and you you have no choice. You can't turn around and go back. You just got to jump. And that's what preseason football is. And to some extent, when the games get bigger, you do you get more butterflies?
Like you know.
I was talking to Devin Hester last weekend in Orlando and he asked me, He goes.
Yeah, how do you prepare? And do you do you rehearse? And I go, there's no rehearsing in football. You can't. You can't. There's no practice.
You're not going Wednesday Thursday and go walk through on Saturday morning.
No, you can't.
You just have to react. And so it's the bigger the game, the more at stake, in my opinion, for every single snap you got a call because you'd never know in that next great play that will be in NFL films for perpetuity and you hope you nailed it.
Do you do you get nervous?
No?
So that ESPN commercial I saw by you that.
You sleep with the Super Bowl trophy and the microphone, that's really what you do.
Yeah, exactly exactly that one. See, it wasn't me that made it's you. And Caitlin called me up, facetimed me and was I really had tears of laughter. She said, Tom delivered the line of lines nature nature it was it was so wi no nature, it's amazing or something like that.
But but the it's the it's how.
You delivered it. It's how you delivered it. So now those are fun.
Uh.
This is ESPN takeoff from the local uh uh local think tank of good karma brands. Yeah, if you check them out online. Now for all your journeys ahead, go with a partner who's been on your team from the beginning, the one members and communities have trusted for over eighty five years. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Villinois. I always standing by you, with you for you threw it off,
all right. Braxton Jones, we we complimented his durability, his ability to make every snap throughout the course of his early career here with the Bears. Now he's gonna be down at least four games. I did see him in the locker room on Wednesday. Briefly he says, I'm gonna I'm gonna be okay. You know, I just we're gonna be fine. We're gonna be good. Aside from the injury to a neck, which you have to take seriously, how
can he improve? This was a bit of a shock maybe to his system these first two games of twenty twenty three.
You got to stay in the meetings, man, You've got to stay in the meetings and prepare as an active player. You can't lose mentally like you can lose yourself mentally in four weeks or however long this is going to take to recover. So Chris Morgan has to school him, has to drill him, has to ask him questions as if he's the starting left tackle and make sure that he stays mentally involved.
And that's what he needs to do.
Whatever type of training he can do on his lower body, he's got to still be able to do that. He's got to be on the stationary bike. He's got to do his conditioning to keep going so when he is ready to come back, he can do without skipping a beat.
In four weeks.
Obviously, the weather's going to be cooler, so it's not going to be as strenuous as it was in Tampa or eighty degrees in Cloudy with thirty percent chance arrayin this week in Kansas City, So you know it'll it'll come back to better conditions.
But it's all about him staying into it mentally.
Here again then in the big picture, and Lucas Patrick was unable to practice on Wednesday with an illness, So this continuity we seek is not going to be there for many many more weeks without the five intended parts to the puzzle. So are you concerned about this moving forward? About the offensive line now? Right now, Avion Collins will be the swing tackle I assume, and Larry borm will get the crack at the left tackle unless they decide
to move Darnell Right from right to left. Would you be in okay with that if that happened?
I would be You know, I think Larry Borum's fortunate to have the versatility and the athleticism to be to play both sides.
But maybe if you can get a guy like Darnell Right.
Improved the coaches that he is a solid left tackle, maybe that is his future for this offensive line.
So it doesn't surprise me.
Nowadays in the NFL that teams have very little continuity on the offensive line because guys missed so many games nowadays. But just think of this experiment worked out and said, oh my god, Darnell Right is making this left side of the line more powerful. He works well with Cody Whitehair, works well with the tight end position. Now we can Larry Borim, Braxton, Braxton Jones, Avantae Collins. We can figure out who is the best suited at the right tackle position.
So if I but you know, one thing I would have to do is I would have to have a period of two of one.
Hundred percent effort.
I can't examine his left tackle ability by going out there in no pads and practicing at fifty percent.
That's unrealistic. So if you really want to see.
If you have a diamond in the rough in Darnell Right, I think you really have to have a couple periods that supreme effort.
Now, the other side of the thinking is, don't disturb you young player and coach e Briflus Didy indicate that keep met right tackle where he's been trained from day one here And would you be open to going out and seeing what else is available out there's somebody that's you know, a veteran. If some sorry you don't want to bring anybody else in.
Okay, you know that's going to That's gonna take me a solid fourteen days, which is two games minimum, maybe twenty one days to have this quarterback come in and learn every assignment to its exact and how do you want that quarterback?
I'm talking about offensive line, That's what I'm talking about.
Okay, It's going to take you a period of time before you have a player that can come in here and learn every single one of his assignments first, second and third down, on pass, on run, on moving, pocket, play, action, RPOs, all the different responsibilities you have. So no, you know, Ryan Poles does a nice job of judging offensive line. And I think whoever is going to be that next guy is in the room ready.
Good news.
Chicago out of the Airlines is getting brand new planes with all the bells and whistles, like Bluetooth connectivity screens at every seat in the room for everyone's rollerbag United, Proud to fly the Chicago Bears and you too, Jeff joni Ak and Tom Thayer on Bears, et cetera. All right, let's dig into the Chiefs a little bit. What are you seeing on tape let's start with defense and what Justin's is gonna have to deal with. Obviously, the blitz packages.
You know, it's different than what Bowles does in Tampa. They do play a lot of zone coverage on the back end. They don't want to give up big plays. They will run some risky stuff up front, try to get home and create some indecision and force turnovers. But overall, can the Bears, for example, run against this team. Can they diffuse the bomb that is Chris Jones?
Yeah, they can.
You know, Steve Spagnola, the defensive coordinator, is a talented guy, and he knows how to use his talent. He'll move Chris Jones all around the up line of scrimmage. They have good pressure for outside. So to me, I'm going to set up a plan where if Chris I'm gonna I'm gonna set them up.
I'm gonna have maybe strength.
To the left and i'm gonna have Chris Jones go to that three technique tackle or that defensive end position and.
I'm gonna run right.
But I'm gonna call it in the huddle every every play example, blah blah blah. You know three two or three. That's just you know, the two hole to the right, the three hole to the left, however you number your holes. So I'm gonna go up there and it's going to be a complete check with me type of a game.
And that way, I'm always gonna not always run away from Chris Jones, but when I feel confidently that I designed a play that I can run towards their vulnerability, and that's that's the way I would try to do it.
So, as I researched this, ten different Kansas City chiefs piled up twenty four pressures against Trevor Lawrence last week.
Last week. What does that indicate to you?
Ten, Well, they know Trevor Lawrence is a drop back quarterback. They know that he's going to be on that spot. You know how we always hear during training camp we got to get the quarterback off of spot. Well, they know what Trevor Lawrence is. He is the type of guy that he's got athleticism, but he's a tall, straight dropback quarterback.
So we need to get to that spot.
And that's what Kansas City does, and that's what they do to whomever's playing quarterback. So that's why the suggestion of what they could do for Justin is, don't set him on that spot or you're just asking for trouble.
And it doesn't surprise me because Spagnola, like I said, he's been a defensive coordinator for a long time in the NFL, and then he has an offense through up into this year here that scores a lot of points that he can take more chances because he knows that Patrick Mahomes could get him out of it.
All right, let's flip to the offensive side of the ball. So many keys here. How do you deal with a playmaking guard so to speak? And Patrick Mahomes and the unique relationship with Travis Kelseys still working himself into shape. He had nine targets just for catches last week. But he can do some damage because he just they just know each other. They are the two man game.
Well, first of all, if Patrick Mahomes, you have to interrupt this creativity. He's the most creative quarterback in the NFL. Ourm angle thinking process, diverse type of throws, headfakes, I fakes when he lost the Super Bowl against Todd Poles, Todd Poles put him in a retreat position, and so the Bears are zero and two. If you want to take a chance against Patrick Mahomes.
If you lose the game, you lose the game, but don't lose it not being aggressive.
Try to take advantage of some of the skill that you have on defense and put Patrick Mahomes in a retreat position and try to get him off the spot, have him throwing off the wrong type of foundation, try to make him look for open targets while he's trying to escape pressure. And they have guys that are capable of doing that. And listen, man, you're going to have to take some chances because you're just not going to sit there in a vanilla type defense and let him pick you apart.
Play with reckless abandon, coach with reckless abandon. This is the World Champs you're going in. Not that they care, but the outside in Vegas is you're a thirteen point under. You're a two touchdown underdog, which is rare in the NFL these days. On the road at Kansas City, it's going to be raucous. I do know, Bears fans are trying to buy up some tickets and we'll be there
making some noise. But they're going to have had to spend a lot of money to get into that place and get through the big red wave that is the Kansas City Chiefs fan base. So you know, an old football coach at Iowa State by the name of Jim Cranery I alway used to say, just I want my guys to play with reckless abandon, So play with reckless abandon.
You know that's the only way to do it. Well.
One thing too, it's not just offense and defense.
In this game.
Because former special teams coordinator Dave told works over there, if I have any fourth and one or fourth and two the Kansas City Chiefs, I'd be super specicious suspicious.
Yeah, there you go, alert for sure.
Yes, any type of creative type plays that.
He is willing to do.
You know he's he's you know, almost to face of special team's coaches right now in the NFL.
He's had a lot of success.
He had a fake punt run against him in week one, and you know that he's still steaming from having that happen.
I do know also is very serious about boss security. Richie James Junior had a muff punt last week, so he is the return specialist for now, but they have others on there that could be a change there for all we know headed towards kickoff, all right, Well, it's going to be interesting, that's for sure. I'm looking forward to it always am. When you go to a take on a great team, you don't see the greatest of
the great players very often in this league. There are and he's only so many, and two of them are right there in Mahomes and Kelsey, and you can throw the defensive lineman in there as well, in Chris Jones.
Fake Town.
You know one thing about Kansas City, though, Jeff, there's a lot of distractions. So they got this new contra that they gave Patrick Mahomes the most amount of money over the period of time than they've ever given anybody.
They have the announcement that Travis.
Kelsey is now dating Taylor Swift and that's going to change the media and the questions that are going to be asked to him and the rest of the team, and that could create a little bit of a distraction. Then you got the Chris Jones returning after his absence there, so you know, some of those things do interfere with preparation. And I'm not saying it's going to but it is always a concern in the back.
Of my mind. Yeah, I think they're used to it.
Though they've been on the big stage now three Super Bowls in the last four years. They're getting grilled on all those media coming from all over the world for three Super Bowls. I think they're kind of used to it now.
Hey, listen, there's not a player on that team or has ever been with that organization that's as popular as Swifty. So if you don't think, if you don't think that there's going to be some where questions asked to Kelsey, You're you know, you're you're not You're not understanding you.
Know, No, I'm definitely not. I I did see her with the kids. Wait I did not. Yeah, that's the conversation for a Hyde Park, Hide Park, Hyde Park in London.
Hyde Park.
Absolutely not, absolutely no. My my buddy Pat Olsen and I we had some Adel beverages and we let we let the.
Ladies handle that.
Right now, when you spent over two thousand, nine ninety nine dollars it's Steinhoffel's, you'll score a one hundred dollars Bears Pro Shop gift card. Visit any one of their four Chicago Land locations. In Vernon Hill's Crystal Lake, Downers Grove and Hardwood Heights, or shop online at Steinhoffels dot com. Tom final word, A lot of distractions certainly going around. But as a football team, you have only one choice. You you get real insular.
Insular. You go to your meetings, you go.
To practice, you prepare, you go play, and let the rest of everything else settle on the outside looking in.
Is that easier said than done? Could you do that? Oh?
You know, when you have an athlete like Justin, if you put him in the right position and make the defense vulnerable, you could talk about a game at the end of this afternoon that starts at three twenty five Kansas City time. He has one hundred and eighty yards rushing, He got time of possession on offense. They give a chance to get some points, to allow your defense to
take those chances that we talked about. It's not out of the realm with possibility because they have to have defensive concerns when a guy like Justin is coming into the building. And after all the turmoil that was created today at the podium, now you got these guys on high alert.
Tom are We're going to do the fifty to fifty Raffle in Kansas City. Every stadium's got it. You've been a big proponent that the booth, Doug Colletti, Paul Zerang, Little Z, myself, you, Jason Silvia in the booth this week doing he's not going.
I mean, can we do it just once?
Can we just finally stop talking about it and actually do it?
Yes, let's get Kolletti on the case.
Listen, it's a three twenty five start. We do game Day live at the regular time ten thirty in the morning.
We may have a chance to.
Walk into the stadium, buy some fifty to fifty chances and give us the best of luck.
Yes, we'll talk about it on the on the podcast, and we're brought to you by PNC Official Bank of the Bears.
Time.
We'll talk to you soon. Thank you so much everybody for listening. Make sure you subscribe on the Chicago Bears official app, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast.
Thanks again.
The Chiefs play by playing man Mitch Holters for time, Theram, Jeff Joni Ya were down.
Everybody, have a great week.