The Chicago Bears need more from Rome Odunze in 2026

0:00Phoenix has bizarre crime. The canals of Phoenix, Arizona are hunted by a serial killer. People are like, what are we safe? Jesus, such are the saints. Two, grizzly homicides. I know I didn't kill anyone. But salving these murders is just the beginning. That can't be his first rodeo. This is season six of American Nightmares, The Canal Murders. Coming soon, wherever you get your podcasts. I came into this topic thinking that probably wasn't anything there there. I can now definitively say that there's something there. This is Steven Deen, or host of the Unidentified Alien Podcast. An act that you just heard of Congressman Eric Burleson is one example of the work being done on this show. It's not too late to join in on the conversation. Dig into the investigation as we continue to unravel the biggest secret of our time, the alien secret. Download and subscribe to the Unidentified Alien Podcast. Just search UAP on your favorite podcasting platform. Phoenix has bizarre crime. The canals of Phoenix, Arizona are hunted by a serial killer.

1:06People are like, what are we safe? Jesus, such are the saints. Two, grizzly homicides. I know I didn't kill anyone. But salving these murders is just the beginning. That can't be his first rodeo. This is season six of American Nightmares, The Canal Murders. Coming soon, wherever you get your podcasts. I mean, if you're a Bears fan, you're thinking forward progress. Come on. Ten, two, my team. Ten, my team. Forward progress. A Chicago Bears podcast with Dan Bernstein in Madabeticola on 312 Sports. We give you forward progress here on 312 Sports as we talk bears and NFL today's episode brought to you by G. Ordano is back to school means back to busy practices and homework and everything in between and you need a break. So give yourself one with G.

2:06Ordano's. Treat the kids. Treat yourself to Chicago style pizza. Everyone can agree on and make tonight a G. Ordano's night at g. Ordano's.com or visit your local G. Ordano's restaurants today. G. Ordano's the one for Chicago style pizza. We'll be having some of that tonight. I specifically made sure that I could get myself excited to have all the pizza tonight. So I did. And we're driven by the Roman Automotive Group home of the $50 full synthetic oil change schedule online at rorman.com. So later today we'll have the official injury report. But we know the name at the top of that that we're watching is that of Roma Dunez. And it's a put injury, but not the foot injury. Okay. So that's what I that's what I'm looking forward to seeing in the injury report. What it actually is because I've seen different things online. I've seen that it's a leg injury. I've seen Yahoo Sports say it's a foot injury. We have a comment from Kevin Fishbane

3:12on Twitter. He put out a comment from Ben Johnson the other day. And he quotes different than the foot he dealt with. Right. But it is at the same foot. So I know there's a different than the foot he dealt with. So does that mean it's the other foot? That's what I mean. It's an unrelated injury to this to the same foot. But is it I mean, so I've seen leg injury. I've seen other foot injury by Yahoo Sports. So I don't know if it's the other foot, if it's even a foot injury altogether, because the way that was worded different than the foot he dealt with. So is he saying that it's the other foot or is he saying it's a different injury? Right. Because in the foot in the way that coaches would say a foot as in a foot injury. Yeah. Sometimes a coach says the body part, but means the injury to the body part. And we don't have the distinction as to whether or not it's exactly the same body part. So we don't know. So we'll see when that comes out later this afternoon,

4:15what they say about Roman Dune's a he did say Ben Johnson did say he was day to day. I'm not concerned with him not playing on Sunday. I think he will play Sunday. The biggest indicator of that to me is that he was talking with reporters other day at his locker. And if he has an injury, that's going to keep him out of a game. Guess who he's not talking to? Mm hmm. Reporters. I mean, he was in, you know, he was in, I think he was in flip flops or sandals or something and was just chatting up with reporters at his locker. If there's something serious going on that would keep him out of week one's activity, he's not talking to reporters. They would keep, they would keep reporters away from Roman Dune's a well, unless I mean, what's your take on that? Because I that's that was my first thought when I saw that he may not know. I mean, sometimes when players are in between, they don't have all the information yet. And most teams, even if they think a player is, is questionable,

5:15doubtful, probable, whatever they may, whatever designation they may put on that, they want to give him every opportunity to play until the very last moment. Yeah. So I don't think at any point during the process, he's going to have somebody be like, shut it down. You're out. Don't talk to anybody or it's looking bad. I think they have to listen to the patient is the most important thing. Listen, listen, listen. And then get their feedback after every warm up, after every aspect of practice or drill in which you may be involved and then make the judgment accordingly with that and the imaging. I don't know. I just the thing every time I think about Roma Duneze and I kind of feel like we're getting to that point in our preparation as we begin to narrow our focus on what's going on in the field and believe me, as the week goes on, we're going to be doing just that. It's, Roma Duneze just got to catch more passes. Right. That's that's the biggest thing. So my my thought process was if it was something

6:21significant that would keep him out of the week, they wouldn't let him be around and talk to guys. So and you know, we'll see all that plays out again. We'll have the official injury report comes out later this afternoon. Um, regardless of if it's the same foot, a different foot, a leg injury, whatever it might be, he needs to catch more passes period. He needs to be better at catching the football period when you have 44 receptions on 90 targets. Technically, he was given only four drops, only four passes that he was was said to have dropped officially. Now, then you say, all right, well, what's happening on these others? Why did if he was targeted and it was a catchable ball? Why didn't he catch them? The answer is probably there's a million different explanations and every single incident has its own explanation. Yeah. I mean, you just have to catch more targets. Right. It could be the defender. It could be the throw.

7:25It could be a route issue. It could be a timing issue with the quarterback. They could start at the split. It could be any number of things. Yeah. There's a lot of different things to it. But with that many targets, yeah, that that that that past catch efficiency needs to shoot way up. That needs to be much better. So hopefully he's healthy for Sunday's game and he is going to look as good as everyone who has been at camp said he looked running routes, catching balls, coming in and out of breaks. Hopefully he looks like that that he looks like the guy we saw earlier in the season last year that I thought was going to go on and have some historic season for bears receivers. I mean, he was just often unbelievable start with, I think five touchdowns in the first few games and it just obviously with the injuries it went down from there. But aside from that, yeah, that that past catch efficiency needs to be much better. If he's going to be your number one guy on this team. Now, I know that there's been a lot talk, a lot, a lot, a lot of conversation about the Ben Johnson

8:29offense and how it's going to spread out. And we saw the numbers last year. But you also had Luther Burden and Colson Loveland not healthy for the first part of the season until they really got going. I'm really curious to see how it plays out because I know Ben Johnson wants to get lots of different targets involved and they have a lot of weapons. That's why you accumulate all these weapons, not just a focus on one guy. But I believe there has to be a main guy that's going to be Ben Johnson's focus. Yeah, he might be the primary more often and maybe Caleb gets really good to read the defenses, surveying the field and that primary doesn't always get thrown to. But is that guy Roma Dunes a is that guy Colson Loveland or is it just based on on what Ben Johnson sees with the matchups and how they're going to attack the defense? I think most of that is in the way they run their route combinations. And you know, when we've talked to guys like Tim Jenkins and talked to some of our our quarterback dudes that that X receiver is he's that that'll be on Caleb

9:35sometimes if depending on his where his eyes are that if you have this like a sale route combo for example, where you're running Loveland underneath and you're using Odunze as the clear out and you've got the whole shot potentially that's going to be up to Caleb and it's going to be up to him to understand what that would time scoreboard situation of what's your primary what's your secondary and there's there of course they're going to be opportunities and a lot of them are going to be deep fly routes for a Dunes a I think because the guy you want operating in space is either Loveland or burden because that that's going to be your your horizontal guy the deep digs the deep ends the get the ball in his hands and let him go to work situations where Odunze a lot of he's going to he's going to do a lot of sprinting and there's going to be a lot of of classic

10:37X receiver stuff going on in here. Did you hear Ben Johnson that was yesterday the day before said that every time the offense touches the grass which means gets on the field he expects the touchdown. Good. Yeah that would be great. Yeah we obviously outstanding wouldn't it every time. Yep. I've been in every time the Cubs bullpen is out there to protecting a lead I expect to save. I don't get it often. Why would you why? Because it's where I'm in spares. Why would you do that? I'd forgotten about the Cubs. No you hadn't. I did. I was they were out of my brains the last 10 minutes. On the 515. I'm sorry. Sorry. I'll I go. I'm going to throw a flag. I'll I'll retract that. I'm too late. Stricken from the record the jury is instructed to ignore. Gardens of evil inside the Zion society cult tells the story of a cult in Utah suburb operating in plain sight. I said you have messed with the wrong woman as I went out the door and he did.

11:39It was our whole life some form of abuse like I can't think of any time that was just joy. Gardens of evil inside the Zion society cult is the fifth season of the award-winning series American Nightmares. Subscribe now on Apple podcasts wherever you listen. Well there's also a Chicago bearer that is about to be ignored and it's Kyler Gordon. Yeah. Yep. I said this a couple weeks ago and I'm feeling stronger about this opinion now. I do not believe that he'll wear a bear's uniform ever again. I really don't. And when you look at this situation where now he's gone away and he's working with his own trainer and he's away from the team and hoping that to make a mid-season return. That's what they said mid-season return. We know that he'll have to miss the first four games being on the public. So his first availability would be week five against Green Bay I believe. But they're saying mid-season. There are now there's a lot of different personalities in that locker room and there's a lot of

12:41different relationships that Kyler Gordon has in that locker room. And given that number of players on a football run NFL roster and NFL roster there are guys that don't ever want to see Kyler Gordon again. There are guys that support him and say yeah man do your thing and there are other guys that are just indifferent about it. There are three camps. There has to be. But there are definitely guys that just do not want to see Kyler Gordon again. And it may not be a personal thing. It's a team thing man. And a trust thing. I've seen it before. I mentioned this on DBU as well. Where Ian Rappeport framed it as a positive that Kyler Gordon was going somewhere unknown to train with trainers unknown and to make his way back to the field on his terms. Teens hate it. Even if they say they don't and a lot of them are entitled to a second opinion or an entire they hate it. They resent it. It often drives a wedge that remains forever one way or

13:45another. I've seen it too many times. He thinks this and we think this and he's going to talk to him. Ty we can't answer it. Don't ask us anymore about him. He's not even with us. He's not even around and that bleeds through the ranks. There's either people sweating alongside you and living and dying alongside you or somebody has taken what's perceived to be some sort of personal vacation. I've been very clear and I want to make sure I am anything but unclear when it comes to my hope that if there is a mental health concern as well as a physical health concern that the bears are aware of that. They are sensitive to it that they understand it and that they understand their responsibility to help treat it appropriately. That's really important. I don't know if there is or is not in this situation but the bears have a responsibility to be sensitive and to understand

14:51if in fact that's part of this. No, I agree with that and I hope that that's thoroughly looked at and and and help is offered if it is needed. You know, just thinking back this whole situation, how bizarre it is too. Like I think Ben Benzansson Ben Johnson is done with the guy. Like if you can't help him win week one, two, three, four, five, like he just he's got no time for it. And thinking back and looking back at those videos he released, he put out on social media, what's the point of that man? Like what's the benefit? Does he have anyone working with him saying, hey dude, this is not a good look. Like you're going full sprints and you can do this. If you can do why are you with the team? Right. Right. Do doing your work then. It's just not a good look. So you know, we'll see how it plays out. Hopefully I'm wrong. I would be glad to be wrong about it because the guy is an excellent football player and he makes them a better team when he is on the field. But I just I just you know, when I heard

15:56out with another trainer gone with a trainer doing his own thing and looking targeting a mid season return. I just don't think he'll ever wear bears jersey ever again. I really don't and I again, I hope I'm wrong on it. No, but you've been very consistent about that. I just there isn't anything in this piece of news that doesn't cut both ways. I found it and I thought I missed something because when I read through the stuff on social media saying this is a positive development. I thought no, no, it's really not. Not if you know the way NFL teams think and with us are against us. You're part of us. You're not part of us. Right. And not to mention all of the implied resentment over the money. Correct. And you get you feel that too. Well, he got this huge guaranteed contract. And well, I guess that's the last we see of him. Wonder what's going on there. And it is it is it cleaves to some old and ugly narratives. But we can write it out and continue to hope

17:03for the best as long as he's saying he wants to return. We can take him at his word and hope that he's his magic. Mr. Miyagi can put him back together. Yeah, the only the only statement that would be positive at this point is he's with the team. He's working with the team. He's doing whatever the team needs him to do to rehab. And they're saying, yeah, we're targeted that he he will he'll make a return week five where this is looking good. He's on track. We hope you know, we're looking forward to opening up that 21 day practice window. And this week and and then we're looking forward to having him back on the field for weeks or even better. We're holding him back. He wants to be back right now. And yeah, that's what you want to hear. And especially because of the shade that Ben Johnson was throwing like we got most of our guys would bust in their ass to get back here. And it was clear that the one he left out the point that he was Kyler Gordon wasn't. Right. And if they were to say, look, it's we've got to keep him from himself right now. If

18:04it were up to him, he'd be out there every single snap. We can't let him do that quite yet because we don't think he's ready. But this is this is just the the opposite of that at the moment. So there are just too many little warning signs in here that if you've if you've been around the game long enough are more supportive of pessimism than optimism. The Bears did name their five team captains as well too. Do you know who they are? Did you see the list? I did not. I did not. So did they did they do a distribution offense defense special teams? They have two offense two defense and a special teams captain on offense. It's oh, you want to guess? Yeah. Sure. Go ahead. Far away. I'm gonna say Caleb Williams. Correct. And the other offensive captain is Jo Tuney. Correct. I was gonna lie and say it was Taylor. It's a big. Tyson Beijing. Tyson Beijing. The one special teams captain. Yeah. Josh Blackwell. It is not.

19:07Oh, is it bow. Is it bow. God? No, but it should be. It should be bow. God. Find Southern gentleman. Mm hmm. It is not bow. Gardner. It is not Josh Blackwell. Is it Torre Taylor? It is not Torre Taylor. I just want to keep talking in this in this aristocratic Southern accent. Yeah, I can make you wait on the Lincoln way. That's not a risk to critic. Is it Cairo Santos? That is correct. It is Cairo Santos. So he's your special teams captain. All right. Roll waves. Who are your two captains on defense? They are Jalen Johnson and Montez sweat. Both wrong. Yep. Wow. Wow. Oh, my man. Think back the last year. Oh, TJ Edwards. TJ Edwards. Correct. And also last year.

20:09Kevin Byrds gone. Yeah. Remember think back to the members only jacket meeting. Members only jacket meeting. No, the players only meeting. That was held. Who spearheaded that? Come on. Was it guy that wasn't playing good at all. Wasn't even healthy. Dial not motivated dial. No, not motivated. He wasn't there. He wasn't there last year. It was unmotivated. No, he was there. Wait, no, unmotivated. Dial was there. Oh, that's right. Actually, motivated. I wasn't there. Okay. So that Devon Bush wasn't there. It's not tight reach. The most vocal guy of this player's only meeting. I forgot. Great. He jared. Oh, great. Why do you mean oh, great. Why I gotta say oh, great. I just don't think he's a man with playoff experience. He went to a super bowl a long time ago when he was good. I just I don't need to give away. Do you remember anything he's done? Yeah, he spearheaded the the players only

21:15meeting. Not farmer's only. No, no, no, no, no, it wasn't a it wasn't a farmer's only meeting. Because that would have been different. Well, I mean, I'm not saying he's not on there. We don't know. You don't have to be lonely. And you don't have to see brown people on your profile. Isn't that kind of farmer that's pretty much farmers only right pretty much. Yeah. Whatever we made the Terry Bors. Yes. What was profile? Yeah. What about farmers only? Farmers only. And that became farm. He owes only. Farming us only. Yes. Then it wasn't actual farmers that worked the land. No, no, you don't have to be lonely. I don't have to be lonely. I have friends at St. Rita High School. Yeah. Well, I think I think that's where I think that's where Benetti met Biberty. Oh, on farmers only. Yes. I know. They're so adorable together too. Yeah. Have you followed both of their social media? It's just like

22:20I don't know Jason spent Jason and Biberty are spending so much time together. Well, they have they actually have a joint social media page now. A joint Instagram page. But the fact that they're seeing the world and they I wasn't they really they both seem so happy. I really do. I'm just I'm very, very happy for for both of them. We need some sort of Jason Benetti Biberty fanfic. Right? We need to write these like it's heated rivalry or something like super graphic too. Okay. Somebody's I'm not saying I'm going to do it. But somebody has to. Well, somebody will know. Now you know, so it has to write up Jason Benetti Biberty like soft core porn fanfic. I'm in. I can hear the keyboards already being counted away on because people are on it. We'll have the emails by the end of the day. Get on it. And that I'm assigning you that work. And I want to make sure we do it. And I'm not going to let Benetti know we're just going to start doing these things

23:25and see how long it takes to get back to them. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. Good. That's good. I have some thoughts about the season here from football experts that kind of surprised me. Okay. And I do think that maybe we need an in town stupid check. Because we can we can live that way. It's okay. We can live in a world where we're not everybody thinks the bears are as good as you think they are. That's all right. And we don't know who's right right now. There are some presumptions that the bears are going to be a super bowl contender. So a lot of people don't believe that. So I saw on ESPN. And this is this this was Bill Barnwell. It's probably the same one that you're talking about that you mentioned me earlier. Do you want to do this or do you want me to do it? Uh, so is this are you talking about his his playoff picks? This is yeah. Chicago bears where it says my pick for 2026. Yeah. Go ahead and read that and then I'll

24:26this I'll share with you what is what his actual NFC picks are. Okay. Bears are listed by Barnwell as out of the playoffs. Yep. This could be a consolidation year for the bears. It's an interesting turn of phrase who made major strides under Ben Johnson and the young coaches first year at the helm, especially on offense. We saw a team that relied almost entirely on fourth quarter success on offense, takeaways on defense and a series of perfectly timed meltdowns by its opposition to win a bunch of close games. History tells us that's just not a sustainable way to win games year after year. Caleb Williams could go supernova this season and compete for an MVP award. And the 2026 bears could play at a much higher level for all four quarters of games on offense. And overhauled defense could play much better on a snap by snap basis to that scenario absolutely exists. The numbers suggest the bears are going to take a step backward before moving forward though

25:28and in a division where every team posted a winning record last year that might be enough to drop Chicago out of the postseason. All right. You want to hear what his NFC picks are then? I do. All right. So we'll start in the bears division. He has the lions winning the division. All right. The other three division winners are Tampa Bay, Philadelphia, and Seattle. His three wild card teams are the Rams, the Cowboys, the Kings, and the Giants. Whoa. So he has the Eagles, Cowboys, and Giants coming out of the East and making the playoffs. Seattle and the Rams, the lone South division representative are the Buccaneers and then the lions from the Central or the North. Sorry. Hmm. Okay. His Super Bowl pick. He has the Philadelphia Eagles taking on the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl.

26:38I was picking this. I was actually picking for three years ago. Yes. That's exactly what I thought because is that what it was? Was it three or four years ago? Eagles and Chiefs played? Yeah. The leagues kind of moved on from one of that stuff. Yeah. And I know that Patrick Mahomes is they said he's going to start week one. They said he's starting. So that was a little bit of a surprise to me. But yeah, I wasn't too fond of that pick. And not that it was not because it wasn't the bearers, but yeah, I'm not interested in the Eagles and the Chiefs. Not now. No, I think the chiefs are obviously if they're not over the cliff yet, they're approaching the cliff. Right. Yeah. That's real close. And this is Kelsey are holding hands and driving that convertible. Andy reading the back with a big hoagie. No, Andy reads chasing him. Don't go. Right, because the hoagie's in the back seat. You have my hoagie. He doesn't care about them. No,

27:43he just wants his sandwich. Right. It's still warm. I want my sandwich back. Jesus conjeeling. The staff from Monday morning quarterback at sports illustrated all of their main people were asked to make their their predictions for the season for the major awards and success, etc. And we're talking about this this list Albert Breer Connor or Gilberto Monsano, Matt Verderame, John Plum, Mitch Golditch, Mike Cadlich and Eva Geithheim. Okay. So I went through all of these. And I could not find a mention of the Chicago Bears. I couldn't I really I in all of this. They they listed their Super Bowl teams and the MVP of the Super Bowl. And then MVP offensive player of the year, defensive player of the year, offensive rookie of the

28:46year, defensive rookie of the year, protector of the year, comeback player of the year and coach of the year. And I may be wrong, but I did not see a single mention of a Chicago bear anywhere in any of this. Well, remember I did that last week on ESPN and they had like nine, was it like nine different guys made picks all the same picks and only Ben Solak, who I believe is a Chicago based guy. He had Ben Johnson and at least mentioned Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams for MVP and coach the year. Nothing here. Nothing. Nothing. That from the entire staff of sports illustrators Monday morning quarterback, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, different experts. So here's the thing. It doesn't surprise me or bother me. Like it shouldn't bother me.

29:53I don't care. People have their opinions, but it doesn't surprise me much given how the defense played last year and given how fortunate they were with all the turnovers and nearly 20% of the defensive drives ending in a turnover. That's not going to happen again. But I am a bit surprised because I do believe that the offense, which was pretty fucking great last year, is going to be just as good if not better. And how do you count that offense out is really surprising to me. I mean, they have one big question mark for me and that's the left tackle. I still don't think Bracks and Jones is a starting left tackle in the NFL. It's a question mark to me, but they should be able to plan scheme and prepare to not let that be some gaping wound that just destroys their offense. Well, what I love about this, and what I love about how Ben Johnson has handled this, he goes back to his invocation of the bears being the number one regression candidate.

31:00Yep. He said it. He said it and he said it in a way that didn't sound like bulletin board material. Like a high school coach would look at this and say the stuff I'm saying, a high school coach might be like eight different sports illustrated experts never even gave you another thought. The only people who care about this team are the people inside this locker room. And oh, it's because the criticism of the 2025 team is fair. Ben Johnson knows that. Of course it is, but that I like to think that that's that is treating the players like adults and treating the players like intelligent people. Because you can tell these professionals because of our success last year, because of how we did it, we are the number one candidate for regression. And it doesn't mean prove the haters wrong. It doesn't mean go out and show them so we can get some sort of revenge on the doubters. What haters used to be called, we're just doubters and then became haters. But you don't

32:03have to do that. You can simply state a fact and say what it means is not to prove math wrong, not to prove probabilities wrong. It just means we have to do it ourselves. We have no margin for error. We can't make mistakes. We have to look at every ball in the ground. It's got to be ours. Yeah, I like to think of the fact that with Ben Johnson, the way he runs his team is he's not afraid of that. He's not exactly of the truth and reality of what their team is. And he knows if we're going to get better and be better this year, we need to face those issues and how are we going to tackle them? What are we going to do to improve so that yeah, we are going to regress statistically. But that doesn't mean that we need to regress win-wise. Or it can mean we must progress in other statistical areas. And I think that's his best argument. So are 60 points of game. Well, but yeah, it kind of, you know, because I think it takes both the both things that we're

33:07saying when you're saying a lot of these predictions rule out or they're not considering the growth possibilities of the what was left on the field when you look at the fact that Roma Dune say didn't catch half his targets. Right. Drop one of the Rams games. Yeah, but he didn't catch half his targets. What if he catches half of those again, not even all of them. That's unrealistic. But if you take 25 of those 40 or 20 of those 40 or 15 of those 40, the difference that makes. If you look at when I when I said that and I did this with that I said I would take Caleb Williams over the projected yards and over the projected touchdowns. What is the ultimate value of that? And how does that then counterbalance the obvious regression in turnovers or end of game fortunes, etc? Because that is possible. And I think Ben Johnson believes that too. I think as well. Yes. I think he believes both. I think he believes that the regression likelihood is

34:09what it is. But I also think the way that we can mitigate that is by scoring a touchdown every time we touch the ball. Right. Right. It's going to be very true. Yes, our defense could could take a step back as far as the turnover margin is concerned. But that doesn't mean that we can't take three steps forward offensively. Exactly. And and you're getting Luther Burton and Kulson Loveland from the get go. You didn't have those two guys from the start. Or maybe you had or you didn't realize what you had. Well, no, I've ever he called them out because they weren't they weren't practicing right. They weren't doing the right. Yeah. Kulson Loveland was practicing like a championship team. He wasn't healthy either. Yes. Now you you have these two guys, you know, clearly healthy and ready to go from day one. So yeah, Ben Johnson could look at it and say, hey, we may not be the defensive team that we all want us to be. And we are going to regress from a turnover margin. It's just it's not going to happen the same way. And we we need to go from maybe the 29th

35:13team in Russian, the quarterback to maybe the 18th team. He's not saying that he's not demanding a top five defense from Dennis Allen. But yeah, you can't be in the bottom five. Like let's get to the middle of the pack. Let's let's be realistic about what we can shoot for. And even if we're the 20th past Russian team in the league, we're going to be better and our offense is going to even carry us more. I have something to be pursued by you, the listener here to for progress. And it's a very, very cool thing we're starting this year. And for this season, it is the 312 sports pro football picks. It's live. You can check it out right now. You can sign up on the 3 312 sports app. And if you haven't gotten the app yet, come on. It just makes it makes your life really easy because you can go to the Apple store, Google Play, you download the 312 sports app and everything is right at your fingertips, everything we have here. So if you go there and sign up and you think you can

36:18pick pro football winners, well, now you can prove it because this NFL season for every week, you can play the 312 sports pro football picks. You just pick winners. And then it'll be the leaderboards. It'll be capped. You can see where you stack up. I don't know. Some week, maybe I'll jump in. Maddie, maybe you'll do some picks some weeks. And you can say, Hey, I got all mine right in Bernstein. You got all yours wrong. And if that makes you happy, then I'll be glad that you're happy. So do that and enjoy. So go ahead and you can you can brag to your friends that you're on top of the leaderboard. And if you win each week, it's a $100 gift certificate to a well-known popular Chicago area restaurant to be determined each week. So just like we do on the rewards page, we'll be able to give one directly to you if you are good at picking football games. That is all at the 312 sports app. And you said that that list of the individuals you've rattled off there, that was sports illustrated. Yeah. Okay. So it wasn't NFL because NFL.com has their first power

37:22rankings out of the season before a snap. They have the bears number 11. Just wanted to share that with you there 11. Yes. Okay. I don't know how I feel about that. I think it's probably about right actually. Yeah. I think so. Let's see. Let's see what happens here. Let's see how this defense does play. Let's see how the offense can can look and move with, you know, year two for Caleb Williams. Yeah. I'm fine with that. Yeah. That that sounds just about right to me. But like preseason power rankings, we know their meaningless. But if you're number 11 in a preseason power ranking, you're a playoff team in my world. Should be. And again, a lot of this stuff then is going to be in the variance. Yes. In the injuries, etc. A few other NFL notes around the league. You saw Baker Mayfield got a three year 165 million dollar extension. I did 110 million in new guarantee. So good for him. Man, you know, like wow, is all I'm going to say about Baker Mayfield.

38:29Good for him and his career, you know, from where it looked a few years ago. It's where the guy got himself to. It's really impressive. Really impressed guy. I thought he was going to be done and out of the league by this by this time. And not only has he turned that around, I mean, the guy's got new paper. He's going to the playoffs or at least close to the playoffs. So hopefully win that division this year. I like Baker Mayfield. I like what I've seen of him outside of the football field as well too. So big deal for him. It's a good actor. I think a Baker Mayfield is a very clever comic actor. I always enjoyed what whatever commercials he was doing was it, um, was it state farm or I think I forgot what he was advertising. He did the one where he lived in the stadium, lived in a stadium. I thought that was that was kind of funny. It was close. And he was he's been funny in those, uh, is it Nissan or Toyota that does the the Heisman stuff and the Heisman house and all that. I forget which one it is, but he's he's funny in those. He's

39:32got a pretty good sense. And you can tell somebody who's really willing to try, you know, willing to actually do do do the work and listen to a director and try to try to find his character's motivation. So I saw him. He did the undercover thing where he pretended to be a fan going on a Tampa Buckingeers tour. I did. And then yeah, and then there was receivers and they had it all planned out obviously. And he was like, well, throw a few and he started throwing 65 like yard bombs. Yeah, those are fun. It was pretty funny. Um, so we have tonight we have the E uh, not the Eagles, the Patriots and the, um, the Seahawks. Oh, we, oh, we got more than that. We got more than that. We're gonna, we're out. We're out and about as we used to say, we got what we watched in the game with people's. You better believe it. We are kicking off the NFL season with three one two sports and Gerdanos. It is tonight, seven PM Gerdanos Oak Brook for our invitation only three one two sports NFL season opener watch party. It is the Super Bowl

40:34rematch, the Seahawks and the Patriots. And I don't know if they're still gonna, they might they pick a couple more today. I don't know if the room is full yet. So you can go to the rewards page of three one two sports.com or the or the three one two sports app and enter the promo code opener. Then come hungry, ready to win. We've got all the delicious Gerdanos pizza. We've got giveaways every 30 minutes. Yeah, I'm not gonna eat all day. I'm not either. I'm not gonna eat. I'm only going to eat Gerdanos pizza. And I'm gonna eat thin crust and I'm gonna eat deep dish. You heard me say it together. Oh, I can maybe there's a way to do like a piece of deep dish with a piece of thin crust on top and the bottom and make my own kind of stuff pizza. Well, then we got giveaways too. We're gonna give away tickets to see Weezer. We're gonna give away tickets to see Journey. We're gonna give away tickets to see Dave Matthews band and three one two sports swag and Gerdanos gift cards and more footballs back. We are kicking off the season with you at three one two sports and three one two sports at Gerdanos. Oakbrook tonight.

41:41All right, so that's the season opener. The kickoff Thursday night football is the Rams and 49ers in Australia. Yeah, how about those injuries? The 49ers man. Well, yeah, so Aaron Donald did not travel the team. So he's a no go for week one and Shawn McVase has he'll be back sooner rather than later, which is always good for all of us. Miles Garrett got a knee thing he's dealing with, but they say he should be fine for for the game Thursday. And then yeah, you mentioned the 49ers Alfred Collins, defensive tackle guy they were counting on to be a big part of that defensive line. It tore his batteler tendon. So he's out for the season. That was that practice yesterday that happened. That sucks. And you heard and Shanahan's quote. He said something like, well, and after cuts, like we've said our roster and then we lose two starters. Yeah. So it really does suck that ideally before there were still some ability to move around and now you can go pick somebody off a practice squad or something, but that's a no fun. It is a

42:46no fun. It happens to everybody because that is that that's the game that we love so much. And then last thing I have for you, Elijah Bienamy, so that he had a psychological evaluation. It was deemed competent. So moving forward with that that those court proceedings. And good news to Eric Bienamy, did tell reporters that his wife Mia will make a full recovery from her injuries. Okay. Good. It is good. That is very good news. Yeah. I know the chiefs have always been a place where there's things that happen extra curricularly there that seem to happen more than with other teams. So we'll see. Although some people think they're going to the Super Bowl this year apparently. Okay. Yeah. Bill Barnwell does. I do not. I do not. Let the record show. But then again, I'm an idiot. And that is today's forward progress that has been brought to you by Gier Donno's see you there

43:47tonight back to school means back to busy between practices homework and everything in between. Give yourself a break with Gier Donno's treat the kids and yourself to Chicago style pizza. Everyone can agree on make tonight a Gier Donno's night at Gier Donno's dot com or visit your local Gier Donno's restaurant today. Gier Donno's the one for Chicago style pizza. And we're driven by the Norman Auto Motive Group home of the $50 full synthetic oil change schedule online at rorman.com. You know, I do want to mention to before we do sign off here that tomorrow will be our first week with with our guy from score North. Oh, Thorne Eistrim. Yeah. You're going to nice go join us on Thursdays. Yeah. So that'll be part of our forward progress. Our NFL conversation each week. Looking forward to that. And you're going to really enjoy the time that we spend with him. You're going to enjoy the information that he has for us around the NFL. So looking forward to that. So tomorrow will be our first visit with Thorne Eistrim from our friends and our sister's sister podcast network scored North. They're up in Minneapolis. Yep. So thanks

44:52for being a part of forward progress every day. We look forward to talking bears and panthers. My god, we're here. We finally made it through tomorrow. We have a first guest on of the season. We get to break down a game on Friday and then Sunday. My man right around 3 330. It's me, Paul hour. Yeah, it is. I was I was progress post game. I was talking with a writer yesterday. And he was talking as well. I can imagine that you don't you really aren't that much of a fan anymore when you've been doing this for so long. And I was like, dude, watch me during bears games. Yeah. I like you put put a camera on me during bears games. There's a reason that my family flees the house. Whatever. I mean, luckily, there's a camera on you for the post game show when you're hyperventilating or you just can't find the words because you just saw out of breath. And then I'm wearing and yelling and red faced. Or I've got like open wounds from throwing something off the wall and having it rebounded hit me in the face. I mean, there's yeah, I go through a lot

45:53emotionally still during bears games. And I that is and I try my best to put everything in in proper headspace before we start the post game. But sometimes I can't and I don't apologize for it. So we're looking forward to that having a great weekend with you. And we'll see all of you tonight that are coming out to our Giordano's party. Looking forward to watching some football and get into the bear season with you right here on Ford progress. Ford progress has stopped 10 to 15. Ford progress. Chicago Bears podcast with Dan Bernstein in Madabeticola on 312 sports.