Dan Wiederer is waiting for Kyler Gordon to give his side of the story

0:00Dan Weeter, his nickname is Weets. Dan Weeter. Well, mention this mainly because Dan Weeter said we would mention this Nuggin. Bears beat reported for the athletic. I come out of the bathroom and it calls ringing it and it says no caller ID. Quick hello. Hey Dan, Peyton Manning. It's an old out of second I just gotta get to a place where I could talk. Oh, I'll just a minute. Co-host of the Tink the North podcast. Tyson, Beijing ladies and gentlemen. Yes sir. How you doing Tyson? I'm great, thank you guys for having me. Thanks for being here, man. It means a lot to us and it means a lot to Gernie. How are the Bears fans treating me inside? We have the same question. But you guys had a long line of people looking to get autographs. Yeah, I mean, you know how it is. There's a couple hot balls in there, but everybody was wonderful. It was one of the back guys right there. Yeah, that's you stuff. You stuff. You stuff. He looks like he's been doing burpees. What do you look like he's been doing to juice? That's a burpee garage. That's what it looks like. That is very possible. You lagging to juice, man.

1:01Dan Wheeter. You guys are good on Fridays, aren't you? With Spiegel at home. On 1043, the score. Dan Wheeter is going to be part of our football coverage. All fall long looking forward to that. And we'll be hanging out on Fridays. So why not do it now? Spiegel and Caitlin Sharky right here on the Spiegel and Home Show on Dan Wheeter joins us on the hotline, which is brought to you by Potawatomi Casino in Hotel, the Midwest, best Casino. What's up, Dan? How are you, sir? I'm doing great. How are you guys? Well, we're wonderful. Wonderful. So, you know, I was with you, Dan, here in the studio, when we realized that Dennis Allen was pointing a thumb about being coached up by the coach himself after Ben Johnson had talked about it. And so, wanted to check in on that. Through training camp, what kind of things to your knowledge has Dennis Allen been coaching up if differently or maybe just with a little more attention? And who has responded to it well amongst the team? Yeah, speaks. I think the real witness test of this

2:01will come with the defensive interior when we get into games here soon, because I think they made a bet on depth there. They made a bet on development there. And I think that group there responds to coaching. And so there's been a lot about the way that they want to place up all up front, the way they want to get off the ball and strike first and not be reactive. But look, I know I'm at the point now where I'm interested. That is an interesting sound as I believe the man was taken off the car and put onto the regular phone. Is that what that sounds like? Or the other, I don't know, either way, the space capsule was ejected. And he's going through that. Technology, man. Yeah, man, what a world we live in. I won't reestablish with Dan. It makes sense that his answer is on the interior of the defensive line where they've made a play on depth and now we'll see, is it Contavia Street? Yes. This is to say nice things about him. Which was kind of not shocking,

3:02but when a coach or coordinator gets up there and they're like, Contavia Street has had the best production of all the detacles, you're like, really? So I made an effort yesterday to watch Contavia Street at practice and I'm like, he looks good. He looks fast, he looks strong. They must like him. What do you think about Contavia Street as an example of what we're talking about here, Dan? Yeah, again, we'll see. And I think that's the mode that we're in at this point where it's just time. It's just time to go get a handful of regular season games to test all this stuff out, to see all the things that we've all been talking about since the spring apply it to actual tests. And again, we're nine days away from a meaningful game in Charlotte and all of sudden we have some evidence there to figure out what's happening up front. But Street is certainly a guy that's going to factor in a dead rotation up front. Dan, you wrote a great piece in the athletic about taking the North and on the mission to never giving it back. And I appreciate those questions like this time of year and looking at how much the culture has changed and everything that we get to see every single day

4:02at Hallis Hall. When you think about the cap situation and the restructuring of what they're doing with salaries and contracts and all of those things, do you feel like this is the first time Ryan Polz is really being tested with how to be a savvy GM when you're talking about being serious, you're no longer rebuilding, being a serious contender and sometimes managing salary caps and cap space and going all in as part of the deal. No question. And particularly when you're trying to sustain this, it's just like there are a lot of pieces to this puzzle and you've got to be planning for right now while also having an eye toward the future and understanding kind of how to move all those cogs in the machine around so that you're able to be ready for big deals that you're going to have to give to in-house guys, be ready in case of emergency and somebody exits your plans and all of a sudden you've got to go fill that hole at a time where it's just out of nowhere. And that's going to happen sometime during this regular season where they'll lose somebody and we saw it last year. They needed to go out and get CJ Gardner Johnson in October

5:03because they were so shorthanded in the secondary and so that's all part of this. And there's a lot of moving parts financially to making sure you're healthy and nimble and able to react to things. And again, the ideal situation here for the Bears is to get stories like Darnell Wright where you got a first-round pick that grows under the development plan of your coaching staff and does so in a way where you have to go reward him in a big way and then when you reward him in a big way, you've got to figure out how that affects the rest of your puzzle building and so that's going to be part of this process for sure. To be clear, they restructured the contracts of Joe Tune, Dio Dengbo and TJ Edwards and freeing up about 17 million in salary cap space. I had read that headline and thought, Max Crosby, here we go. Like, let's roll, let's finally get going. It's happening. It's finally happening. We don't have to bitch about being broke. But is this just to sort of cover what they were over and give them flexibility?

6:03Is it that boring, Dan? It is that boring. I feel like you've been listening to the new Peyton and Hoss show in the morning because David seems to be really beaten to drum for Max Crosby again and so on. What do you mean by that, David? What do you mean by that, Dan? What do you mean by that? And so we're going to have to see kind of where that whole thing goes. But right now, they were over the cap. And they needed to do some things just to move some things around to get themselves in a place to be ready for the regular season. And here we are. Labor Day weekend, thank God, the regular season is here. I think Caitlin can agree with me. It's like, this preceding is just a couple of points before it's just red. I'm just, you need real football. Dan and I were standing at practice yesterday, the very long two hour practice. Why is your whiter? Man, we need a game. We need a game. You'll get one. It's coming. No whining. No whining. It's just observation. It's like, we need to move all these storylines forward. And we've just been stuck, I think, for probably three weeks with a bunch of storylines

7:04where it's like, yeah, we know what this is. Now we have to test it out. Let me counter. You're not being creative enough. What do you mean? Well, I've got some stuff coming for you next week that I think you in particular, skis are going to enjoy it. Tell me. Next week will be fun. I want to give you some band stuff, some Caleb stuff, some offensive evolution stuff. It's, I'm putting the finishing touches on some stuff. And I'm excited about it to be honest with you. And so there'll be some fun stuff at the early parts of next week. I love when you get excited about your projects. You write some long form pieces. And yes, when it's offensive in nature, because we were talking about it. This team's going to have to outscore the defense. Score it what they allow. And that says some fancy football thinking right there out of me. But I mean, maybe they're going to be one of those teams to win a bunch of 31-28 games. I'm kind of ready for it. I'll be honest. Ben certainly ready for the 31 part. You know, I think that's where their mindset is. Now, obviously, they're hoping that they can solidify themselves and sturdy themselves in defense enough

8:05that they're not in a shootout every single week. That as entertaining as that Bangles game was last year, I think it took some years off of a few people's lives because of what happened on the stretch of that game. But I do think offensively, the one thing that I left the preseason with was this just absolute admiration for the collection of playmakers that they have. And it starts with the quarterback. You've got a running back who the coach says he thinks it's prime to have a big year. You've got at least three pass-tetters who seem like they're on the offense. And you just pair that up with a guy that's smart as Ben Johnson is. And your imagination can run wild. And right now, I think that's where Chicago's at. Do you feel like Dan Ben Johnson? We always talk about the quality and the character of a Ben Johnson guy. Like Ben Johnson's got his guys in the building. And it's very clear to see who they are. On offense, it appears to me like every single one of those guys is a Ben Johnson guy. I don't know if he's just like, that's because that's their coach and he's an offensive coach. But on defense, you could say, I don't know if necessarily who he's a Ben Johnson guy yet. Do you feel that way on offense?

9:06Like they're all just all in all the time? I think there's a lot of them, right? And that's where the excitement comes from there. And you know, like I go back to Darnell for a minute because he had that elbow injury a couple weeks ago and when it occurred, you're like, oh man, you just rewarded the staff. Huge contract. And now he's got this flare up of an elbow issue that was bothering him last year. And he misses like half of the practice and a little bit of the next day. And then he's ready to roll for a joint practice and a hundred degree heat and ten of C. And so those are the types of things where it's like, you know, Joe Tune, you can set your watch by him, right? Like you guys never gonna miss time. Knock on wood. There's a reliability factor there. There's an investment in what you're doing every day. Factor there. And then, you know, you feel like Ben has gotten Caleb to kind of turn the screws a little bit tighter in his own approach to things where he now can be the leader of a lot of this stuff and really push this offense in the right direction. Is there a prevailing theory about the Kala Gordon situation that is yet to make it to media publicly?

10:07Scott O'Butt that no one has written quite yet? I'm waiting for Kylo to have his say in this matter beyond, you know, sort of, I don't wanna say theatrical, but I'll say theatrical, you know, social media videos, right? Like we need to see Kylo Gordon. We need to hear from Kylo Gordon. There's clear disconnect here. And it's obvious that there's another side of the story. And I'd like to hear Kylo's side and then allow us to kind of go into the jury deliberation room and figure out what exactly is happening here. But certainly this has been a frustrating thorn in the bear's side really since probably going back to May and even last season to some extent. And so like when you look at that, you look at where Kylo's at and then you look at Azit Jopillo coming back fast seven months after a torn patella tendon. You look at what Jalen Johnson did to put himself back on the football field last year after core muscle surgery. You look at, you know, again, Darnell Wright,

11:09you look at DJ Moore a year ago in the way that he would suffer some pretty serious injury-flash discomfort things and never miss a practice, you know what I mean? And so like that's what you're looking for. And right now, the next time you can feel comfortable about Kylo Gordon in your plans is when he's healthy for like seven straight weeks. You know what I mean? And that seems like a super steep mountain decline for a guy that we saw play three games last year and now miss an entire, you know, six months of training on the lead up to the regular season. And at this point, do you feel like not that he'd be a liability if he's out there, but how much do you think, like you said, seven games, I can't even imagine what seven games with Kylo Gordon on the field would look like for the bear's because he hasn't had those stretches in his entirety and his career here. I mean, do you feel like at this point, they're just game planning to get whoever's behind him, ready and good to go? I was zero question about that latter point. I like Ben's body language is pretty easy to read.

12:11His tone is easy to read and it's clear that for a guy who's so big on trust, he's done, you know, he's done with worrying about this. They are really, you know, driving into getting Malik Mohamed ready to play that role. They've obviously got contingency plans if that doesn't go great for rookie trying to figure this out in real time against, you know, good NFL teams with regular season meaningful stakes on the line. But yeah, it's clear that they're not sitting there just saying, well, wait till we get Kylo back. They've pivoted, they've moved in the new direction and when he gets back, it's gonna take a long, long time for him to earn their trust. I've been looking around for any NFL offense that has ever used four tight ends at the same time. Bears have four on the roster. I found the chiefs toying with that back in 2021. They were toying with that and just kind of messing around with some Andy Reed stuff. But I don't know how much it's actually happened if it's happened at all in the NFL. But, you know, 13 personnel with the three tight ends,

13:13Bears gonna rival the Rams this year. Rams were number one last year at 30%. Bears were sixth. They certainly want to use that personnel grouping a lot and they've got three really good ones in Loveland, Komet and Rausch that are gonna get them out of the gates in a way that allows them to do what Ben wants to do, which is make the same things look different, different things look the same and really just create matchups that expose and opposing defense's weaknesses. It was interesting, I think yesterday to hear from press Taylor talking about his favorite part of crossing this bridge into an actual game week and being able to kind of study and opposing defensive coordinator and figure out the tendency and figure out the vulnerabilities. I think they're really eager now as a staff to get into this game week and just dive headfirst in this preparation to do things that they know after, you know, developing things throughout the entire off season and training camp that they can use as strength. And Miles, it's a chance to put those to use. Using their strengths and I appreciate the game prep part of it as well, Dan, as we were going back

14:14to our main point. I think the coaches get to a point too where like, okay, this is who we have, this is who's on our squad. The tendencies, it's time to like dive in and I already know that Ben is not even probably sleeping and is he prepares for Caroline. I know. Yeah, I like, that'll probably be in the office all weekend. I'll probably get, you know, a few hours here and there to go visit with the family, but this is his time of year and he's ready to get this show started. Look, I think we're all eager again to not just to Caroline a game, but this first collection of games is it's a really fun slate of, you know, first four weeks here for the Bears to take a lot of different tests and figure out who they are. And we saw last year after four games, they figured out some weaknesses and they made them strengths to running game in particular. And so it's that time of year now where it's time to learn exactly who you are as a football player. You've been to Riggly with your boy lately, Dan. I always love seeing you there and running India. Actually, we went for the first time this season on Sunday evening and sat through a little rain delay and then saw a PCA hit two home runs, but it comes lost.

15:16Oh, okay. By the side, but he saw the two home runs. My kids rock in the PCA jersey, costus a nice clean 200 plus every kid in Chicago. I feel like on the north side is the PCA jersey. My kid also has a buzz cut, which I think is not a coincidence, either PCA goes yard last night and my son yelled up from the basement. He was due. He was due. Thank you, Dan. You guys been three days. Yeah. It's been three days unbelievable. Dan, we're thanks, but I look forward to talking to you this year. That's for sure. All right, guys, we'll talk to him. Yeah. Thank you, Dan. Tonight, the Cubs road trip begins in Miami against the Marlins. Pregame coverage begins at 535. First pitch at 610 in crystal clear FM quality on 104 through the score. And then Northwestern Medicine Cubs radio network. When we come back, let's touch on a confluence of former college teammates. I hadn't even realized what's happening at Bears Camp. And it involves an incredibly important player on that defense. More Bears coming up with Caitlin Sharkey and me, Matt Spiegel on the score.

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