Speaker 1: Right justin middle of a field for fifteen bring Russ
Speaker 1: in front of a leading Lions in his way. I
Speaker 1: am Jeff Joni hitsus on dot up. What was like
Speaker 1: playing for Coachy Boddom.
Speaker 2: I don't want to answer any questions like that.
Speaker 1: Sixty one yards? What's Sunday stroll for? Justin field? Ye
Speaker 1: Bears et Cetera with the voices of the Chicago Bears
Speaker 1: Jeff Joniac Day two of Bears training camp in the
Speaker 1: summer heat, fans and sponsors enjoying after a Wednesday indoor
Speaker 1: practice the outdoors and boy it was hot. Talked to
Speaker 1: a couple of players cleaning. TJ. Edwards say he lost
Speaker 1: six or seven pounds in this heat. And my partner
Speaker 1: on Bears et Cetera today, episode two, mister Tomtare, knows
Speaker 1: all about that. If you were practicing in that heat today,
Speaker 1: and I know you and I watched practice from upstairs.
Speaker 1: We had other commitments, but we watched indoor, so we
Speaker 1: weren't sweating it out today. How many pounds would you
Speaker 1: lose in a given day at you know, in a.
Speaker 3: NOPAD practice, I would probably lose ten to twelve. I
Speaker 3: if I was in a fully padded, full goal practice,
Speaker 3: I would probably lose closer to eighteen or nineteen pounds,
Speaker 3: no weight.
Speaker 2: The same weight I lost, it would be gained.
Speaker 3: It would be gained back by the time we want
Speaker 3: to practice through just to continuously put fluids in your
Speaker 3: body and the food you get to eat.
Speaker 2: But love.
Speaker 3: You know, well, when the coach talks about developing a
Speaker 3: callousness of a team, this is how you do it.
Speaker 3: It's not making it easier on them. It's making it
Speaker 3: harder on everybody because everybody that goes in that locker
Speaker 3: room they got something to complain about. But you're all
Speaker 3: complaining together. It's not a negative complaint. It's a positive
Speaker 3: team building complaint because it's so freaking hot.
Speaker 1: I got to go back to that though, So you're
Speaker 1: telling me your weight could fluctuate nineteen or twenty pounds
Speaker 1: a given practice.
Speaker 3: Seriously, you you could go back into the analogs of
Speaker 3: the Chicago Bears, because we weighed in and out of
Speaker 3: every single practice, every single day, and they kind of
Speaker 3: monitored that, and it would be kind of a not
Speaker 3: a contest, only a contest with yourself because you go, okay,
Speaker 3: I weigh to eighty three when I went out to practice. Now,
Speaker 3: after practice, I weigh two seventy one, but then you
Speaker 3: weigh in the next morning before practice and you're two
Speaker 3: eighty three. You know, it's it's it is the fluctuation
Speaker 3: of the water that escapes your body and then there's
Speaker 3: no time in your life that's more fun to eat. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all right, where you can just eat as much as
Speaker 3: you possibly can.
Speaker 1: Well, and they still do that. They they test their
Speaker 1: weight and make sure what it is in and out
Speaker 1: because they're very mindful of it. And that's been a big,
Speaker 1: big part of the sports science in this building and
Speaker 1: throughout the National Football League. So it was just something
Speaker 1: interesting to me that seems such a large number. My gosh,
Speaker 1: I wish I was so fortunate time.
Speaker 3: Let me just tell you a funny story at the
Speaker 3: end of my career. So as a as a player.
Speaker 2: We have a thing that we wear and it's called
Speaker 2: a girdle, and.
Speaker 3: It's a piece of equipment that you pull on that
Speaker 3: you used to put pads in, and it's kind of
Speaker 3: it's a girdle, that's what it is. So when I
Speaker 3: went down to Miami, I had such a hard time
Speaker 3: holding my weight because it was one hundred degrees every day,
Speaker 3: and I was losing weight. And so every Thursday, every
Speaker 3: Friday we had away in day where they had this
Speaker 3: guy that stood right next to you and chartered your weight.
Speaker 3: And so when I went down to Miami, I would
Speaker 3: wear a girdle and then I would stick a ten
Speaker 3: pound plate in my girdle and I would go in there,
Speaker 3: and I.
Speaker 2: Remember the guy saying, go. He goes, Damn, you're a
Speaker 2: thick guy for skinny you look.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know that was set off alarms, right,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I might have to put somebody else
Speaker 1: in there a little sturdier, right, you know.
Speaker 3: And that's and that's again at the end of the
Speaker 3: season in Miami, in those circumstances. Now, these guys have
Speaker 3: a couple of days really to fight through. But I
Speaker 3: think it's a really important part of the team building.
Speaker 1: Game day snacking calls for good foods. Chunky guacamole made
Speaker 1: with has avocados, tomatoes, onions, cilancho, and a squeeze lime juice.
Speaker 1: It's the perfect snack to watch, well the Bears win,
Speaker 1: score some today at your local grocery store. Game day
Speaker 1: is guak Day, and Day two had a lot of
Speaker 1: excitement that brought with it. You know, we'll recap the
Speaker 1: first two practices. Actually first one was indoors because of
Speaker 1: the weather and the air quality problem, so fans were
Speaker 1: not able to come on the first day. But you know,
Speaker 1: one thing stuck out to me outside of the obvious,
Speaker 1: and that's Dj Moore in the connection with justin fields
Speaker 1: and the deep ball and their connection. But the attitude
Speaker 1: of the defense. Tom fiery. They it didn't take much
Speaker 1: to get him excited indoors, and it was you know,
Speaker 1: that's a closed quarter so you really feel them, and
Speaker 1: it's it's across the board, the young guys getting into
Speaker 1: it and break up a pass, Bam, They're getting they're
Speaker 1: getting excited. Loose ball in the field, they're scooping and
Speaker 1: trying to score, getting excited. Same thing happening at practice
Speaker 1: again today. That defense is coming in hot right now
Speaker 1: in terms of their attitude and how they approach things.
Speaker 1: I'm really impressed with that aspect of But then of
Speaker 1: course the QB one and and Dj Moore wearing number
Speaker 1: two in your Bears jersey, that's getting a lot of
Speaker 1: ink right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we I think about the defense, the
Speaker 3: defensive football players how they're running around, they're kind of
Speaker 3: an extension of the coaches that they have because this
Speaker 3: is a high energy group of defensive coaches that have
Speaker 3: that expectations of whatever segment they're coaching. So it's nice
Speaker 3: to see a reflection of the coaches on the practice
Speaker 3: field and you get those results of knocking down passes,
Speaker 3: creating some fumbles and trying to do what you're supposed
Speaker 3: to do as a defense. And then on the offensive
Speaker 3: side of the ball, Yeah, it's this team is all
Speaker 3: about growth, recognition, familiarity, making sure the different segments that
Speaker 3: are growing together become familiar with each other. So when
Speaker 3: you do hit this thing running at the start of
Speaker 3: the regular season, everybody's on the same page.
Speaker 1: And certainly there's we're getting and you mentioned it today.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk every single day about justin fields
Speaker 1: and every day can't be a referendum on whether or
Speaker 1: not he's going to be a superstar or a great
Speaker 1: starting quarterback or not in the National Football League. And
Speaker 1: I know it's important for you to evaluate every single pass,
Speaker 1: including you know why it was or wasn't completed, and
Speaker 1: that can also bear fruit if it doesn't work right,
Speaker 1: So you know, you go back to the drawing board,
Speaker 1: you adjust, and you get in the same page with
Speaker 1: your receiver. Because there were some drop passes, there were
Speaker 1: some off target throws, and they're always going to have that.
Speaker 1: But everybody's trying to chart every single step in the
Speaker 1: process that comes naturally with the quarterback position.
Speaker 3: You know, it seems like every single play runner pass,
Speaker 3: we always look at timing and tempo of the play
Speaker 3: and then the result of the play. But when you're
Speaker 3: watching a quarterback as much as we watch Justin and
Speaker 3: how much we pay attention to every one of his reps,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna I'm not going to be critical of
Speaker 3: an incompletion, just like sometimes yeah, you make an easy
Speaker 3: completion and that's the way the play is drawn up.
Speaker 3: But I like the fact sometimes there's an incompletion as
Speaker 3: a result of Justin moving his eyes, changing his sightline,
Speaker 3: having trust in his arm, having faith in the receiver
Speaker 3: can catch a late notification of a pass.
Speaker 2: So it's going to be interesting.
Speaker 3: And listen, man, this is day two, you know, when
Speaker 3: we're talking in day fourteen fifteen, when we're doing this podcast,
Speaker 3: when they're practicing it against Indianapolis. There's going to be
Speaker 3: a whole different narrative to how we talk about him
Speaker 3: day by day.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, we met the fine folks from panc
Speaker 1: Bank and some of their clients today in the viewing
Speaker 1: suite over the practice field. Those are always fun for us.
Speaker 1: We could tell stories, take questions and you know there
Speaker 1: is a lot of questions about you know, where is
Speaker 1: Justin's development? Where is he at? And a comparison comes
Speaker 1: up every single time, and you know how I feel
Speaker 1: about it. You know, they want to make a comparison
Speaker 1: to the Jalen Hurts all the time. Year two was
Speaker 1: big for Jalen Hurts, but year three was bigger. Justin fields.
Speaker 1: Year two was big, became a big name because of
Speaker 1: his legs and some of the big throws he made.
Speaker 1: But dynamic run and we know he's got that in
Speaker 1: his hip pocket to get him out of any kind
Speaker 1: of trouble or if he sees an instinctual time to
Speaker 1: take off and go, go and make a big play.
Speaker 1: But everything can't be a comparison to what happened just recently.
Speaker 1: I know it's easy to do. People like to bring
Speaker 1: that up because he did have a takeoff here, and
Speaker 1: he had aj Brown coming aboard, just like the Bears
Speaker 1: now have DJ mooreboard. How do you frame that and
Speaker 1: how do you look at that discussion and those improvements
Speaker 1: towards somebody like a Jalen Hurts.
Speaker 2: Well, you look at the Philadelphia Eagles.
Speaker 3: They spent quite a bit of time building up this
Speaker 3: roster underneath Jalen to make sure when he got to
Speaker 3: where they think he can get to, he's going to
Speaker 3: have a dynamic.
Speaker 2: Supporting cast to work with. That's number one.
Speaker 3: But when you look at the comparisons between Justin and Jalen,
Speaker 3: first of all, it's the template of each other. They
Speaker 3: look very similar, They're both great athletes. They both have
Speaker 3: tremendous arm strength. To me, I still think Justin probably
Speaker 3: has the upper hand and just natural long ball accuracy.
Speaker 3: That's the one element of his game I wish and
Speaker 3: I hope that he can thrive on more with the
Speaker 3: receivers as they're developing. And then because of Luke Getzi
Speaker 3: here two years in a row. Same terminology, and I
Speaker 3: keep talking about that because this is not terminology that
Speaker 3: you want to memorize, it's terminology that you want to know,
Speaker 3: like your second language. And that's where Justin has to
Speaker 3: be able to improve in the knowledge of the system
Speaker 3: to how it best fits the play called.
Speaker 1: You know, I had a conversation with Darnell Mooney yesterday
Speaker 1: and we got into a little bit about his rehab
Speaker 1: and how he's coming along and what that journey was like.
Speaker 1: We're going to get into that a little bit later
Speaker 1: here on the program, but you know, on what the
Speaker 1: goals are and he said, well win, but you know,
Speaker 1: bombs away. They want to put the ball in the air,
Speaker 1: and he goes, we are not messing around. That was
Speaker 1: the quote that stuck with me about Darnell. We are
Speaker 1: not messing around that wide receiver room and that relationship
Speaker 1: with Justin fields and the work that's already been put in,
Speaker 1: and the work that Justin expects his receivers to put
Speaker 1: in even after practice with him. It's important he needs
Speaker 1: that and they need him in that regard, and that
Speaker 1: is something that Justin and Mooney started last year the
Speaker 1: year before working together after practice. Last two guys off
Speaker 1: the field.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, every quarterback receiver could probably echo those
Speaker 3: same words that we want to go deep, and we
Speaker 3: want to go deep offen But what's happening on your
Speaker 3: line of scrimmage. Are you getting the projection that you
Speaker 3: need in order for the receivers to get in a
Speaker 3: winning pace versus the defensive back they're facing. Are you
Speaker 3: running the ball successfully enough with enough influence that you
Speaker 3: can have play action pass that gets defenses totally off
Speaker 3: balance where you can take a take a shot at
Speaker 3: a guy that's peaking in the backfield. So you know what,
Speaker 3: you look at those receivers out there, and from IQ
Speaker 3: Saint Brown to Claypool to Darnell to DJ and all
Speaker 3: the other guys. I'm going to leave guys out because
Speaker 3: there's so many guys out there.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of speed out there.
Speaker 3: So if you can develop everything that you need on
Speaker 3: the line of scrimmage to help you be that attacking
Speaker 3: downfield football team, Listen, man, you got the quarterback that
Speaker 3: has the arm and he's willing to throw it.
Speaker 1: Now they get a combination of a basket ball team
Speaker 1: and a track team, and you got to put Tyler
Speaker 1: Scott in there, because when the ball's in his hands
Speaker 1: and I saw him return a couple of punts, he
Speaker 1: can hit the guests. The rookie out of Cincinnati he's
Speaker 1: got some speed. So all that together there's a mix
Speaker 1: and match as we bring You the Bears, Etc. Podcast
Speaker 1: Episode number two with Tom Thayer, Jeff Joniac United Airlines
Speaker 1: Official Airlines of the Chicago Bears. All right, I was
Speaker 1: in the cafeteria to today Tom ran into a surprise.
Speaker 1: I get next to somebody that we both know and respect,
Speaker 1: and I say, can I buy you a cup of coffee?
Speaker 1: It's Cole Comet and he got a big smile on
Speaker 1: his face. So fifty games into his NFL career, he's
Speaker 1: got a fifty million dollar contract. The numbers look great
Speaker 1: for him for a job well done over the course
Speaker 1: of growing in his first three plus years. Now in
Speaker 1: the National Football League, this is year four and they
Speaker 1: still see a high ceiling for this guy. But you
Speaker 1: know what really struck him, and he is a humble guy.
Speaker 1: He is. We've got to know him. We've done many
Speaker 1: events with him outside of the building, and he's just classy, mature,
Speaker 1: and you know, he reminds me a lot of you, honestly,
Speaker 1: as a guy that just respects playing in that uniform
Speaker 1: for the Chicago Bears growing up here. But you know
Speaker 1: what struck him, and I want to ask you more
Speaker 1: about this. From your perspective, is that what he wasn't
Speaker 1: really mentally ready for was the reaction he got in
Speaker 1: the locker room. Guys just genuinely happy for him, his position,
Speaker 1: Coach Jim dre emotionally happy for him. And when the
Speaker 1: guys as they say that you know the kids today,
Speaker 1: they say, the players today, they get the bag, the
Speaker 1: money bag. Right, Well, he got the bag and everybody's
Speaker 1: happy for him. And I think it sends a larger
Speaker 1: message because there haven't been many guys in the last
Speaker 1: five six years that have earned a second contract. Eddie
Speaker 1: Jackson was the previous one in twenty seventeen after a
Speaker 1: great season, but it has not happened very often. Cole
Speaker 1: Comet is the next guy since that time, more guys
Speaker 1: are going to be looking. And that is a mission
Speaker 1: for Ryan Polse. He met the media briefly today Tommy
Speaker 1: up here and echoed that again. He said that when
Speaker 1: he got the job, he'd like to reward his own
Speaker 1: and this is the first one for him. Your reaction
Speaker 1: to all of that and what it means as a
Speaker 1: former player, saw guys get contract extensions every other year
Speaker 1: during your time with the Bears.
Speaker 3: Listen, our time with the Bears was a different collective
Speaker 3: bargaining agreement.
Speaker 2: It was more of a struggle of negotiation.
Speaker 3: There was never that generational wealth player that got rewarded
Speaker 3: for his lifetime and lifetime of his kids, and so
Speaker 3: it was kind of a different battle back then. But
Speaker 3: I super envy these guys that have the opportunity to
Speaker 3: get rewarded for all the effort they've put in since
Speaker 3: they've been playing pee wee football or pee wee baseball
Speaker 3: or any sport that you played growing up in just
Speaker 3: the development of your athleticism or was it going to
Speaker 3: lead you to And so I'm excited for Cole. I'm
Speaker 3: excited for his family. He comes from a football family
Speaker 3: with his dad and his uncle and everybody else a board,
Speaker 3: and hey, it just I think it's significant message inside
Speaker 3: that locker room, if you pay attention to the details,
Speaker 3: you put in the effort that's expected of you, that
Speaker 3: you're going to have a chance to be rewarded handsomely
Speaker 3: for your investment in yourself.
Speaker 1: Yeah well yeah, people say it energizes the locker room,
Speaker 1: and it is because you know, if you don't back
Speaker 1: it up, if you don't back up. It's just lip service, right,
Speaker 1: So you got to back it up. As a general manager,
Speaker 1: Ryan Poles is following through on everything he said he's
Speaker 1: going to do and what he wants to do. And
Speaker 1: that's a great first step. Everybody notices.
Speaker 3: And what I like about it is is inside the
Speaker 3: locker room. When I was playing with some really really
Speaker 3: close people to me that I developed more than a
Speaker 3: football French ship with, I saw them go through real
Speaker 3: struggles in their negotiation and you know that's kind of
Speaker 3: a difficult message to bring down to the locker room.
Speaker 3: Then some other guys are concerned about it. So when
Speaker 3: you talk about you know, Cole for what he's been
Speaker 3: able to earn and how it lights up the locker room,
Speaker 3: it does. It sends a great bright message to like
Speaker 3: I said, everybody about their work habits and what they're
Speaker 3: you know, how they're going to be rewarded if they
Speaker 3: do it right.
Speaker 1: All right, A bit of a quiz for you. So
Speaker 1: you're head coach and Hall of Fame Chicago bear Mike
Speaker 1: Ditka of course, helped revolutionize that position. Carson looked to
Speaker 1: guys like John McKee and and some great tight ends
Speaker 1: over the history of the National Football in the early days.
Speaker 1: But I believe Ditko was the first to go to
Speaker 1: the Hall of Fame at the tight end position. And
Speaker 1: thank god he didn't follow his other pursuit. He wanted
Speaker 1: to be a dentist, as you might remember, at the
Speaker 1: University of Pittburgh. I just find that hard to believe.
Speaker 1: Pulling teeth. He guys made you pull your own teeth. However,
Speaker 1: name the only the tight end to make the Pro
Speaker 1: Bowl since that time in the nineteen sixties from the
Speaker 1: Chicago Bears.
Speaker 4: Wow Parsons, Bob Parsers now as a Potter, Yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 4: mart Martellus Bennett.
Speaker 2: He made it.
Speaker 1: He made the Pro Bowl in twenty fourteen, and that
Speaker 1: was a free agent signing, of course. But then a
Speaker 1: year later he was no longer a Chicago Bear. But
Speaker 1: that that is something that you know, alternate or did
Speaker 1: he make it? He made the Pro Bowl? Yes, he
Speaker 1: made the Pro Bowl in twenty fourteen. However, there's something
Speaker 1: about like you and I both love the running game.
Speaker 1: We're always going to love the running game. We love
Speaker 1: we love the play in the trenches with the offensive line.
Speaker 1: And I've always loved safeties and I love tight ends,
Speaker 1: and it's been a long time. I believe Cole has
Speaker 1: Pro Bowl potential. And I believe that not because of
Speaker 1: the money that's attached to his name. Now I just
Speaker 1: see him stair climbing. He's still only twenty four years old.
Speaker 1: It'll be November, I believe, or March. Pardon me, then
Speaker 1: will he'll turn twenty five. So he's still a young
Speaker 1: player that's going to be in a system now for
Speaker 1: a second straight year, And like Justin Fields and the
Speaker 1: rest of them, I believe he has that potential. Now
Speaker 1: how that works? You know, this league with Travis Kelce
Speaker 1: is the gold standard obviously of the type of tight end.
Speaker 1: George Kittle, the type of tight end is going to
Speaker 1: garner a lot of attention, a lot of yards and
Speaker 1: a lot of touchdowns. But I'm not putting anything passcal now.
Speaker 3: You know, I think this tight end room has the
Speaker 3: beginnings of a really positive atmosphere in kind of a
Speaker 3: young building tight end room that's gaining experience, and that
Speaker 3: it has some experience from Robert Tunyn and stuff from
Speaker 3: other successful organizations. So and I think that what they
Speaker 3: can contribute to the line of scrimmage, whether they're spread
Speaker 3: out wide or in a blocking position, from h back
Speaker 3: to fullback to tight end or backside. They have the
Speaker 3: qualifications to do everything, and Cole, uniquely enough is qualified
Speaker 3: to do every one of those jobs.
Speaker 2: All those other guys they're.
Speaker 3: Good at something, but Cole is good at everything that's
Speaker 3: asked out of a tight end.
Speaker 1: Score huge savings on an impressive lineup of items with
Speaker 1: jewel oscoll for you. This handy app features hot digital
Speaker 1: deals on everything from premium produce and savery snacks too,
Speaker 1: butcher fresh meat and more. Get additional details at jewelosco
Speaker 1: dot com. Jeff Joniac, Tom Fare welcoming you to version
Speaker 1: two of the Bears Etc. Podcast. Had a couple of
Speaker 1: folks already enjoy it big time. They love your sense
Speaker 1: of humor, they love your storytelling, and so you know,
Speaker 1: we'll continue on that regard because you know, the funny
Speaker 1: thing is, and I was on Wattle and Sylvie yesterday
Speaker 1: on ESPN one thousand, our new flagship home for the
Speaker 1: Chicago Bears, and Watto asked where you were, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: that one's my fault. I told them to turn around
Speaker 1: and go back home because practice was going to be
Speaker 1: indoors with no pads, storms were brewing on. I knew
Speaker 1: it wasn't a good idea for you to come up here.
Speaker 1: And that's not your bag, right, Like you love watching practice,
Speaker 1: but you know it's just not your thing. But the
Speaker 1: big wait, the big reasons. Wait, the big reasons. Wait, wait,
Speaker 1: the big The big reason was the air quality. And
Speaker 1: you were scoffing at that, right, because back in the day,
Speaker 1: do you think you had days in Platteville, Wisconsin when
Speaker 1: the temperature spiked that you had practice wiped out because
Speaker 1: of poor air quality? No?
Speaker 2: No, So you know it's kind of funny.
Speaker 3: Back in the day of transition transistor radios, so we
Speaker 3: want we had a transistor radio plugged into the back
Speaker 3: where everybody.
Speaker 2: Used to line up to get their ankles taped.
Speaker 3: And they always had a six thirty am Farm and
Speaker 3: Agricultural report, and so they would say, okay, this is
Speaker 3: the temperature, this is how you should treat your livestock.
Speaker 2: So once we had.
Speaker 3: A week it was about one hundred and five hundred
Speaker 3: and one for the whole week. And they have these
Speaker 3: live stock warnings out in the farm country to somehow
Speaker 3: cool your cattle down, keep them covered and try to
Speaker 3: get cold blankets over your horses and stuff, and so
Speaker 3: we kind of used to listen to that and chuckle
Speaker 3: and man as we are out there, we are out
Speaker 3: there stretching. You would have the guys that could yell
Speaker 3: with confidence, Hey, did get they were even letting the
Speaker 3: cows out of the bar today, What the hell are
Speaker 3: we doing out here?
Speaker 2: And you can know that it's guys like bing and
Speaker 2: Half and stuff like.
Speaker 1: That that can get it done well and be in
Speaker 1: the sweater that you are. Hey, you know, that was
Speaker 1: the first year I started covering sports in Chicago. I
Speaker 1: graduated in eighty December of eighty four. I caught a
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan game in his rookie year, and then one
Speaker 1: of my first assignments go cover the Bears at training camp.
Speaker 1: And what I remember all those years after was the
Speaker 1: sprints after practice. You guys were taking your stuff off
Speaker 1: before practice, but ended getting rid of the pads so
Speaker 1: you could make sure you could do those those guts
Speaker 1: or whatever you call them back then, and that had
Speaker 1: to be torture after a double day.
Speaker 3: So you had thirty thirty two seconds to complete the
Speaker 3: one hundred and ten yard run from the end zone
Speaker 3: to the back of the end zone and then you
Speaker 3: had a lightly jogg it back to make sure you
Speaker 3: could get back before you started your next one.
Speaker 2: And it was brutal. It was brutal, and it was
Speaker 2: something as soon as the whistle.
Speaker 3: Blew and we knew we were gonna have a half
Speaker 3: second talk to before we started running. It was a
Speaker 3: contest to see how quickly you could get your pads
Speaker 3: out of your pants, your hand pads off.
Speaker 2: You know. It was it was a real uh, it
Speaker 2: was a factor.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean practice is one thing, going up against
Speaker 1: guys like Ming and Hall of Famer in Dan Hampton
Speaker 1: and Hall of Famer Mike Singletary every day, and that
Speaker 1: defensive line, that defense in general. The sprints probably were
Speaker 1: a bit intimidating at that point when you're wiped out.
Speaker 1: How many did you have to do for practice?
Speaker 2: Ten minimum? Ten ten one tens?
Speaker 1: We see ten one tens in seconds? Did you ever?
Speaker 1: Did you ever fail the task?
Speaker 3: Never had a boy, never, But I did go back
Speaker 3: to my dorm room and cramp up so bad that
Speaker 3: the doctors had to run up in IVB until I
Speaker 3: was full of liquid again.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I've I've been ivied once and we
Speaker 1: all know what it was. Do you remember the time
Speaker 1: and place?
Speaker 2: Yes, he got a cold in Denver.
Speaker 1: No, I was, I had I had the flu or something.
Speaker 1: You know. The altitude got me and uh, former Bears
Speaker 1: trainer Bobby Slater looked me up to an IV and
Speaker 1: made it through, did the TV show and still called
Speaker 1: the game, my friend.
Speaker 5: It was three degrees above zero. No, it was, it was,
Speaker 5: it was. It was three degrees above zero. And we
Speaker 5: are doing a live TV show. Yes, three above zero,
Speaker 5: that's what the temperature was. And then we are doing
Speaker 5: the live TV show.
Speaker 3: I'll outside and you know you are the same color
Speaker 3: as the new fallen.
Speaker 1: Snow exactly right. All right, let's get some more from
Speaker 1: practice here. In the first two days, obviously, they're just
Speaker 1: ramping up some of the injured guys, ramping up Darnell
Speaker 1: Mooney for one, Jack Sanborn for the other. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: and Mooney Mooney on the side doing sprints in between
Speaker 1: some of his reps as well, getting some seven on sevens.
Speaker 1: Dante Pettis on pup. That's essentially at everybody else at
Speaker 1: full tendance. Everybody's getting their work in. What else caught
Speaker 1: your eye, you.
Speaker 3: Know, what's catching my eye is athleticism on their feet
Speaker 3: of the front seven, and they have different combined packages
Speaker 3: with the defensive line that they brought in the free agents,
Speaker 3: the guys they have with experience in the right position,
Speaker 3: and then you kind of look at the linebackers and
Speaker 3: how they're flowing accordingly, when you look at the defense
Speaker 3: right now on their feet and you look at the
Speaker 3: job require requirements of shifting from one gap to the
Speaker 3: next of the snap of the ball, maybe running a
Speaker 3: sophisticated lin stunt, trying to get the offensive lineman off balance.
Speaker 3: And so what little I've seen, and listen, man, I'm
Speaker 3: holding off any strong opinions till next Wednesday when they
Speaker 3: start in full pads, and then a couple days after
Speaker 3: to see how they are playing in full pads when
Speaker 3: they're fatigued a little bit. However, the athleticism of the
Speaker 3: front seven, starting with the defensive line, is something that's
Speaker 3: caught my eye as much as any segment or element
Speaker 3: on the field.
Speaker 1: All Right, how about Darnell right five eight. Can't miss him.
Speaker 1: He is big, and he is light on his feet,
Speaker 1: and he is in great shape. You know, there's been
Speaker 1: a couple of plays where somebody's beating him across his face.
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you, he gets right back in there
Speaker 1: and jams those big hands into the chest of the
Speaker 1: defender immediately and stuns him back. I'm excited to see
Speaker 1: what that's going to look like in pads.
Speaker 3: You know a couple of things that I've taken from
Speaker 3: the offensive line. First of all, that dude is a monster. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he is a big man. When you look at him
Speaker 3: from the end zone, shot from behind the offense, you
Speaker 3: can see who's the widest guy on the line, and
Speaker 3: then you look at it from the defensive perspective. From
Speaker 3: looking at him, he dwarfs whatever defensive end, defensive lineman
Speaker 3: he's playing against at the time, and what he's doing,
Speaker 3: how creative his feed are his like I keep saying,
Speaker 3: his bendability, his hands, strike is all good again.
Speaker 2: For let's wait till the first team. This is my
Speaker 2: takeaway from that, though, Jeff.
Speaker 3: If you look at the offensive tackle Braxton Jones and Darnell,
Speaker 3: you've got really two bookends that can be there forever. However,
Speaker 3: this year in development of the offensive line, I think
Speaker 3: the two most important positions are going to be the
Speaker 3: offensive guards and you have Nate Davis taking a rookie
Speaker 3: in his hip pocket and kind of teach him him
Speaker 3: the little the intricacies of getting ready for seventeen games,
Speaker 3: how you play.
Speaker 2: The position, what you can do to an opponent to.
Speaker 3: Maybe get him off balance on a specific type of play.
Speaker 3: And then you look at Tevin Jenkins what he can
Speaker 3: ultimately develop into.
Speaker 2: It the offensive guard position. He could be really powerful now.
Speaker 3: If he can become that guy that's set in place
Speaker 3: now for the next six or seven years. And you
Speaker 3: talk about he and Braxton, how they can grow together.
Speaker 3: That's why I said he the offensive guard position right
Speaker 3: now going into the season is as important as any
Speaker 3: position on this team.
Speaker 1: Well, interesting, we're going on the interior because they're talking
Speaker 1: about the same way on the defensive front, because the
Speaker 1: defensive tackles. You know, we talked to your good friend
Speaker 1: and former teammate Leslie Frasier on our Bears Weekly show
Speaker 1: on ESPN one thousand a couple of weeks ago after
Speaker 1: his Hall of Fame induction into the Black College Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, and he said, hey, you know, I think
Speaker 1: it was you. You asked him, Hey, if you're starting
Speaker 1: a defensive scratch where do you start? He said, the
Speaker 1: interior defensive line, defensive tackles to collapse that pocket, push it.
Speaker 1: And that's what we've heard from Matt Eberflus. Get that
Speaker 1: quarterback flush to the to the edge guys, so they
Speaker 1: have a shorter path to the quarterback. En So, are
Speaker 1: we going to be looking at the defense the same
Speaker 1: way as you're logging at the interior guards.
Speaker 3: Yes, but you know, the movement athleticism of defensive line
Speaker 3: is always more confusing to an offensive line who knows
Speaker 3: they have a stationary target right in front of them.
Speaker 3: You know, if I get my hands on them, I'm
Speaker 3: going to create a stalemate or win the battle. If
Speaker 3: you can get a defensive line, like I said, is
Speaker 3: very athletic on their feet, you're gonna get offensive line
Speaker 3: and they're going to be reaching for them, getting themselves
Speaker 3: out of position, getting their head too far in front
Speaker 3: of their feet, and the defense will create some openings
Speaker 3: for themselves. And when you look at what an offensive
Speaker 3: line is going to do, it's you know, I think
Speaker 3: we're going to see some just.
Speaker 2: Some great battles up there.
Speaker 3: But if you think of the Bears, when we were
Speaker 3: talking to Leslie in nineteen eighty four, they go to
Speaker 3: the FC Championship game, get beat. And then who's the
Speaker 3: first person they draft in eighty five? It's William Perry,
Speaker 3: so you got you got Steve McMichael and Dan Hampton.
Speaker 3: That are you know to all pros? You know, not
Speaker 3: Pro Bowl or they're all pros. And then you bring
Speaker 3: in Fridge so you can never have a Bears, etc.
Speaker 1: Podcast is brought to you by PNC Official Bank of
Speaker 1: the Bears Jeff Joniak Tom There a few more moments
Speaker 1: to break down the first couple of days of practice
Speaker 1: and look ahead, I want to talk about that secondary
Speaker 1: buzzing around. I spoke today about this seeing number nine
Speaker 1: out there on the practice field with no pads and
Speaker 1: he still looks like a beast. And that is Jakwan Brisker.
Speaker 1: When you throw in Kyler Gordon. Now just going to
Speaker 1: focus solely on that nickel spot and able to move
Speaker 1: and get in the way and be that irritant in
Speaker 1: one of the most important positions obviously in the nickel
Speaker 1: the veteran Jalen Johnson, who's playing for something bigger as well,
Speaker 1: and not only as a winning team here, but his
Speaker 1: own contract situation down the road and then Tyreek Stevenson.
Speaker 1: It's not too big for this rookie. He is in
Speaker 1: there and he's got some big pause and he's got
Speaker 1: his gutsy player. I could tell he's confident. But great Stroman,
Speaker 1: a veteran, has had two quick, great days of practice.
Speaker 1: Five eleven and eighty pounder intercepted Nathan Peterman yesterday, broke
Speaker 1: up another pass. Had I think he had another breakup today.
Speaker 1: Played the final couple of games for the Bears last
Speaker 1: season against that Viking team. He had eight tackles and
Speaker 1: a pick. I remember that, but a late addition last
Speaker 1: season as he was recovering from injury. That secondary has
Speaker 1: some layers to it, and what do you think?
Speaker 3: And these layers because they have to contribute on special
Speaker 3: teams if.
Speaker 2: They're a part of the layers.
Speaker 3: However, when you look at two guys Brisker and Gordon,
Speaker 3: if you have Gordon playing one position and mastering one position,
Speaker 3: and then you have Brisker that can play at near
Speaker 3: the line of scrimmage and even deep, then you're talking
Speaker 3: about playing multiple defenses, being able to be confident in
Speaker 3: a lot of different fronts upfront because you're certain about
Speaker 3: your talent behind you.
Speaker 1: All right, I'm keenly interested in the punt return game.
Speaker 1: Now we both know, and you've said it. You pointed
Speaker 1: it out before anybody that Dante Petis is the cleanest
Speaker 1: hands in the punt game that you can possibly find.
Speaker 1: He's smooth as can be, outstanding at it. But you
Speaker 1: gotta give a longer look at Vayalis Jones his ability
Speaker 1: to break it big. We saw what he does when
Speaker 1: he gets the ball in his hands and he has
Speaker 1: a space to run, He's gonna run away from you.
Speaker 1: So he had two muff punts and his five punt
Speaker 1: returns last season. It came in you know, close proximity
Speaker 1: in the weeks that he did do that and that,
Speaker 1: and that yanked him from that. I think he worked
Speaker 1: extremely hard in this offseason. I'm told he had hundreds
Speaker 1: and hundreds of punts that he was fielding in that
Speaker 1: off period between the end of Veteran Mini camp and
Speaker 1: the start of training camp. Are you open to a
Speaker 1: second chance here for Vayalis Jones to try and win
Speaker 1: that job not only as a kick returner, but as
Speaker 1: a punt returners.
Speaker 3: Because I don't have to teach him courage. He has
Speaker 3: all that you need. He's seeing it take big hits.
Speaker 3: It's about ball security, making sure that when you're in
Speaker 3: a position where you're going to catch it, that you
Speaker 3: have that good, confident, comfortable catching position. That's first and foremost.
Speaker 3: Anything else beyond that is going to fail because if
Speaker 3: you don't catch it, you're not going to be able
Speaker 3: to return it. So I have all the faith in
Speaker 3: the world that Veilist that he has that high level
Speaker 3: of desire and he understands the competitiveness of this football
Speaker 3: team and how it's growing. This is where he wants
Speaker 3: to be. This is why he was drafted here. But
Speaker 3: just make sure secure the catch and everything else will
Speaker 3: work out.
Speaker 1: Right now, I want to ask you about his offensive ability,
Speaker 1: because everybody keeps saying, well, he's going to be a
Speaker 1: good gadget guy, and he did show that on occasion
Speaker 1: with the fly sweep. He did have a big play
Speaker 1: offensively last year on a forty four yard reception. But
Speaker 1: if you're only going to use him as a gadget,
Speaker 1: everybody knows that when he's out there, then do you
Speaker 1: see room in this receiving cord. Now with all the
Speaker 1: new additions and the developments, that we have seen here
Speaker 1: in the early stages of the twenty twenty three Bears.
Speaker 1: Because you only have so many guys in this league
Speaker 1: with game breaking speed that can really turn a short
Speaker 1: catch into a big play.
Speaker 3: The first thing I would challenge, and I would ask
Speaker 3: them to be above and beyond the call of duty
Speaker 3: is an outside blocker. If he could go down there
Speaker 3: and give the attitude of a Dennis McKinnon, and Dennis
Speaker 3: McKinnon put the fear of God in defensive backfields because
Speaker 3: he was such a vicious blocker. If Veylas could go
Speaker 3: out there and kind of put one or two of
Speaker 3: those on display in the preseason or early in the
Speaker 3: regular season, now they're going to be thinking about his
Speaker 3: blocking instead of his gadgetry. So show out. Let him
Speaker 3: go out there, Let him have a couple immediate blocks
Speaker 3: and bubble screens and stuff, and I think you'll start getting,
Speaker 3: you know, a different feeling for what he's capable of doing.
Speaker 1: Our Bears, etc. Podcast is brought to you by United Airlines,
Speaker 1: Airlines of the Chicago Bears and Miller Lite, the official
Speaker 1: beer of the Chicago Bears. Tastes like Miller Time Tom Chicago.
Speaker 1: Any final thoughts before we ramp up version two. We're
Speaker 1: going to do this twice a week during training camp
Speaker 1: and throughout the season, so we'll have a lot more discussion.
Speaker 1: But any final thoughts from what you've seen here in
Speaker 1: the first couple of days and what your hopes are
Speaker 1: for the remaining practices this week.
Speaker 3: You know, like I said, I'm here to get to
Speaker 3: next Wednesday, and I'm going to talk about the no
Speaker 3: padded practices and it does give you an opportunity to
Speaker 3: look at some of the new players they brought aboard.
Speaker 3: But my football is kind of on hold until next Wednesday,
Speaker 3: so I hope you can.
Speaker 2: Can you do any impressions or anything. No, I'm not
Speaker 2: good at that.
Speaker 1: I'm not good at that, so no, can't. I can't
Speaker 1: say I can't dance and I can't do impressions, but
Speaker 1: I can talk football and we've enjoyed it so far
Speaker 1: and we'll continue to roll on. Thanks for joining us, everybody.
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you next week. For Tom there, I'm
Speaker 1: Jeff Jonah. This has been Bears, etcetera. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3: M