The Chicago Bears Podcast
Hard Knocks Ep 4 Breakdown: Bagent’s Spotlight & Emotional Bears Moments w/Jason McKie
The Chicago Bears Podcast with Pat The Designer and Jason McKie presents a special reaction show for HBO's Hard Knocks Episode 3, brought to you by ComEd! ComEd Electric Moment: Pat and J Mack kick off the show by sharing their favorite electrifying moments from the episode. Episode Breakdown: Pat and J Mack go through the episode highlighting the highs and lows. ComEd Moment of Light: Pat and J Mack discuss what they learned from the episode. Looking Ahead: They wrap up by sharing what they hope to see in the next episode of Hard Knocks. #ChicagoBears #HardKnocks #NFL #TrainingCamp #ComEd #PatTheDesigner #JasonMcKie #CalebWilliams #JaylonJohnson #KeenanAllen #VelusJonesJr #HBO
- Broadcast on:
- 28 Aug 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
[MUSIC] Bear on Bears fans. Another edition of the Chicago Bears podcast coming your way. ESPN Chicago's hard knocks recap brought to you by comment. Episode four has come and gone. A very interesting episode. Dare I say one that pulls at the heartstrings and talks about some tough moments. And listen, there's no good time to have the conversation on jobs being won and or lost. But there is always a good time to talk about it with somebody who has been in those situations and has won a lot of jobs in the NFL. Jason McKee in the building with us. JMac was good, my guy. >> Hey man, it was good man, it was a good episode, man. I think it continues to show a lot of different things. We see the football side, we see the coach, the player side. We see the human element with guys going downtown. You look at the quarterbacks and stuff like that. We got a chance to see Adrian Coldworth, a little bit of his back story. So a lot of things in this episode of hard knocks. So I liked it, man, I thought they touched on a lot of things. I touched on some different guys in this episode. So we're going to break it down for you as usual, man. It's a good stuff. It's a win win when it's all bears. So I'm excited. >> It's not bad, but I'm not going to lie to you. When you sit there and you're like 20 minutes into it showing you like there's more bears coming. It's not a bad feeling. >> Yeah. >> But let's jump into our comment, electric moment of the episode. But before we do that, we got to talk about what comment is bringing to this episode. JMac, lead the way, man. >> Yeah, most definitely, man. More business across Northern Illinois are partnering with the ComEd Energy Efficiency Program to save on energy costs, get started with a free ComEd facility assessment to find new ways to control your bottom line. Learn more at ComEd.com powering this. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Make sure that you guys tap in with ComEd over there rocking with the show. Let's talk about our ComEd electric moment of the episode. JMac, what did you see in today's episode that really stood out to you? That really was like, wow, a little bit shocking, a little bit hyped, a little bit of I'm excited to see what we're going to dive into with this episode. Man, it was a lot of moments, I mean, honestly, it was a lot of empowering moments. It was a lot of shocking moments. Like I said before, I thought, I really think, and we've talked about this before, Pat, us being at practice and obviously me traveling with the team, being on the sideline, like Coach Morton. And when I look at the relationship that him and Ian Wheeler have, it reminds me of my running back coach back in the day here, Tim Spencer, and the relationship that we had with him is running backs and him as our coach. It was similar. There was a time where we could crack jokes and laugh and stuff like that. But at the same time, he wanted all of us to be on the 53-met roster. He treated us all the same, no matter if you were a starter, no matter if you got paid a huge signing bonus, or you got a undrafted for aids in signing a bonus, he treated everybody the same. And he really pushed us, and you see that from Chad, like you see him pushing Ian every day at practice, he's being real with him and honest saying, hey, Ian, that's not good enough. That's not good enough. You're on a 4-3. Run through that contact, use your speed. But then he's also trying to make sure that he's helping him prepare, not to fail. And they even showed that during him getting ready for his rookie show performance in front of the team. Him and Jennifer King, this sister running back coach, they're doing like a mock rookie show and he comes out and he's like, he walks out and Chad's like, Ian, get the hell out of here. Get the hell out of here. You can't come in here like that. They're gonna boo you. Get out of here, man. They're like, you don't see running back coaches help prepare, undrafted free agent guys trying to make the team, preparing them for the rookie show. You know what I'm saying? And that just shows you that coach more than really cares about his players as people and not just players. You know what? And Jamie, you got into my moment a little bit there as well. Here's my problem. And this is, this is my moment of flight, right? Or should I say, this is my, this is my electric moment of the episode. I love the rookie shows. I'm a big rookie show guy. I thought Theo Benedict came out, dominated it, thought Rome absolutely killed it. Right. At this point, you know, I do have some questions on why athletes have no rhythm. But maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe you can answer that for me later. I mean, rhythm is guys on, they, they, I mean, he did, like the beginning of the performance, I was pretty upset, like chief, like, I mean, you got the right song, you got the smoke, but he got a key on my boy, you know, the words, like, come on, like, how are we picking songs? I got props. I got props. I got props. He don't get a pass. Like, you got to do that again. Like I get it towards the end. You only succeed because everybody just bobbing ahead because they love the song. But you didn't succeed singing that song. See, and this is my, this is my problem. You know what I mean? Like, here's my question at the end of the day. Are you really a gorilla in the F and Koop? Are you finna pull up in a zoo? Yeah, I mean, who are you? I don't know. That's my problem with your will right now. Jay Mac, my, my big question right now is why don't athletes have rhythm, Jay Mac? I feel like this is a simple thing. It's a, it's a above 70% African American league. You guys have, you, you, you, you're a basketball fan. You seen John Wall when he used to his interest coming in doing the Doug, you guys got rhythm. You got to, you got to pick the right song though. Like that's not, that's the song you don't need rhythm for. You got to literally bounce to the beat, find the beat and bounce and shake. So let me ask you this, were guys doing songs because of Hard Knocks? Was this the fake moment of Hard Knocks? Because a finito on a, from Ian Wheeler, guy not right from the, from Chicago. And I mean, like you're, you're clearly trying to ingrate shit yourself with the city, trying to win over. What do you say, is this a, is this a Hard Knocks was on? And so I wanted to do it. Is this the fake moment of the show? There usually is one and this felt like it to me. You mean, because he picked the Chicago song, it being a fake moment. I mean, they could have been like, he could have been struggling and say, Hey, you know what? Do finito by chief keeps since you're with the fairs. But I mean, at the same time, like do what studied the words, like you studied a playbook. You're going to be on national TV. You're on HBO. And you know what I mean? Like you, you're on HBO and you don't know the words. Come on, man. Like get out of here. And like, I'm just saying, I just, I didn't feel like Ian Wheeler was really committed to blowing New Jersey up. That's, that's all I'm saying at the end of the day. I'm going to tell comment that burned the power off on Ian Wheeler performance. I was telling him, like, like, listen to me, bro, like you got to, like, you got to do that again. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like I'm sure he had the, they didn't show it, but he had to do something different. Like they edited it right, but you got to do that again. Like that's unacceptable. Now, I will say this and we haven't done a second moment of the episode, but my second moment of the episode was because, and we'll talk about Ian Wheeler a little bit more throughout the episode. The opportunity that Ian Wheeler has been given, and I want you to talk about that as somebody who, who is played in this league and has seen people come and go a red shirt year. Essentially, we heard Ryan Post talk about that. Yeah. And I thought that that was very big because it not only speaks to the talent that they believe that Ian Wheeler has, but also that they want to keep him around the team. They want to keep him working. They want to keep him around the playbook and learning that because I would assume, right? You don't invest that into somebody. If you don't eventually end up trying to utilize that player in the future when you heard that from Ryan Post, or I should say from Ian Wheeler, where he came in and said, you know, I've basically heard that I'm doing a red shirt year this year because of the injury that he ends up sustaining, how often have you seen that happen throughout your career? And what does that mean moving forward for a young player like Ian Wheeler? It actually happens all the time. You know, we got to be looking at the possibly could have been on the fringe of earning a roster spot for guys that you would have brought back to your practice squad. You know, they get hurt. You put them on a higher, let him heal up. You know, it is like a red shirt year. It's like, essentially, he's on practice squad, but you don't have to use one of those practice squad roster spots. You know what I'm saying? So a guy like that, who's a very, who's show talent, who's shown a lot of ability, who's got four, three speed, who made some plays in preseason, he gets hurt and like coach, you know, I'm not coach, Ryan, Paul said, you know, here's the way I feel like the coach. Yeah. You know, the funny thing is like about that scene, you know, like he was genuine, you know, he said, call me. You know, if you want to cry, cry, you know, if you need the yellow screen or whatever, call me, my line's always open. And the thing is like, Ryan Poe's has been on the other side of the desk. I was here with Ryan Poe's in 2008, he was an undrafted for agent at a Boston college who got released, you know, he was on the other side of that desk. So there's a lot of gyms who've been, you know, in a helmet, worn shoulder pads, who's been cut, who's baiting, and I'm a guy that's made tons of rosters, a guy who's got released from rosters like, you know, it's tough. And you know, emotionally, you know, when you're in that situation, you're getting released just like, or you're getting, you know, for him, it's different because he's being placed on IR, but at the same time, it's like, man, I got to overcome adversity. I got to overcome injury and stuff like that. So, you know, Ryan Poe's a little different because he's been on the other side of the desk. He's been in the same seat that Ian Wheeler has been. Yeah. And that's a moment I do want to talk to you about being on the other side of that as well because you have been on both sides of it. Let's keep this thing moving along. Talk about our common moment of light, but before we do that, we do have to tell you guys that your company can save money by becoming more energy efficient. In fact, ComEd is energy efficiency program can help your business find up to 35% in energy savings resulting in lower energy costs for its facilities. At ComEd, we're not just moving towards clean energy, clean energy future. I should say we're powering the future of your business sign up for your free facility assessment at ComEd.com/poweringbiz. When we talk about the moment of light, I thought that a very interesting moment of light for me, Jay Mac, was what Austin Reed's dad said, "You did nothing wrong. You played it perfectly." And yet we saw the news today that Austin Reed probably is not a part of this team moving forward. Yeah. And that is probably what more guys than not feel in this NFL, right? Like I did everything the coaches told me to do the things that I would assume you get coaches that tell you, "If you do these things, you will make an NFL team." And sometimes it just doesn't happen. And I thought that how Austin Reed went out there with a smile, he goes out in that final play. He says, "Hey, boys, listen, you've heard about the Legion of Boom. You've heard about the 85 Bears. They're going to talk about the 2024 preseason Chicago Bears." I thought that that was a very, and I'm not going to say a final moment, right? I'm not... Because you never know if he's going to make a team again. I think that he has the talent to be a backup, but it felt final for this season because he was like, "I know what the future is going to bring it for me, but I did everything I could." I mean, realistically looking at it like this, right? And it's a numbers game. And players out there, they're counting numbers. They're like, "Okay, they're going to keep five receivers and where I'm at, how many reps am I getting? Am I going... I'm not going with the ones. I'm not going with the twos. They get reps of threes. I'm with the fours. Like that. I ain't going to make it." You know what I'm saying? So when you look at the dynamic of that quarterback room, obviously Caleb's there. Tyson had a great year last year. They liked Tyson. So that's one too. You know what I'm saying? They're carrying two. So with him, it's about, with him and ripping, it's about going out there and getting the best film that you can, performing when you get opportunities to put together some good film. Because all these teams are going to look at it. I mean, there's a lot of teams that aren't in a good quarterback situation like the Bears. The Bears have two potential very capable quarterbacks. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Some teams don't even have one quarterback. They're unsure if they have a number one. So it's just putting together a good tape, making sure that other teams can see it because he may land on somebody else's practice squad. He may come back on the Bears practice squad. We don't know how to go. How to say, yeah. So I think with him though, you can see that he's a very likable guy. And that's what part of the evaluation, right? The GMs are going to look at you and see how you deal with your teammates, how you are in the building, how you are with meetings, how you are with your own position coaches. And obviously, Austin Reed has that type of personality and that type of comradery with the guys in the locker room to be a fit in this Bears organization. So I think that's what he has going for him right now. Yeah. I just, I thought it was so, so telling right when today's episode felt like a, and this is why I made it my moment of light. It felt like a very, you can do everything that you want to do to accomplish your dream and it's still not going your way. You felt that way with Austin Reed and not to say Austin Reed's dream. I would assume his dream is to play in the NFL, but like, you know, I think there's probably some writing on the wall when you sign with the Chicago Bears, you go, you know, they drafted this guy, number one overall, probably not going to make the team here, right? I think that there's some understanding going into that, but I thought even with Ian Wheeler, I write some, some, some understanding, some, some, what's a good way to say it. I don't want to say some clarity because I think the wheel had a really good chance at making this team straight out, but maybe some I've done everything I can and the odds didn't play in my favor, right? Because of the injury that he ends up sustaining with the ACL, I thought that it was a very good episode for that of like, you really do have to be right. You mentioned it before the 1% of the 1% that gets to be a part of the league. Less than 1%, you know, I mean, there's, and I feel like looking at the dynamic of that running back room, right? I feel like Ian Wheeler didn't really have a chance, especially when they moved in was the running back. You know what I'm saying? It was over and I think he had a chance to be a practice squad guy, you know what I mean? I think if he wasn't on IR, he'd be on practice quite for sure because he has the talent. Coach Morton's going to pull for him. He's going to bang his fist on the table for him. You know, that's one of his guys. You need those development of guys and the practice squad guys, they'll be called up during the season. The practice squad has expanded. You know, when I was out, when I came out in the league, it was only five guys. What is the practice squad now? 15, 16? I don't know what it is. You were at, I want to say 16 guys, I want to say 16 guys, right? I apologize to the purists in the in the chat that are going to be like, how do you guys not know? I know when I came out, it was five, but I know I think they up the number. So I think the number may have been up this year, but anyhow, I feel it was a long shot, but you know, my, my moment of like for this episode was, you know, Adrian Covert up to 17 players up to 17 players. That was wrong twice. I was wrong twice, but you weren't on the practice squad, though, Jim, I actually were in the game. Yeah. Yeah. Starting out my first year, I was on practice squad. There was five slots. So you talk about a battle, you know, but at the same time, moment of light talking about Adrian Covert, I mean, here's a guy who's been on 10 different teams in eight years, right? And people, you know, a lot of people, a lot of football players say, I want to play the NFL. My dreams are playing the NFL. You know what I mean? As soon as they face adversity, right, they crumble, they quit or they're not doing anything necessary to achieve that less than 1%, right? Adrian Covert has been cut so many times when he keeps going, he keeps going, you know what I mean? He keeps making plays. Yeah. He keeps trying to show up in the preseason and he's falling short, but he keeps trying, you know what I mean? So that I, you know, there's guys I've seen like that, you know, I was that guy in the preseason, my first preseason where, you know, you talk about stress. I mean, it's stressful because you're out there, you're trying to make a play. You don't want to make a mistake. There's so much pressure. You know, that one mistake that you make could be your last time, you know, on that roster or on that team or in that locker room. So it's a lot of pressure, man. There's a lot of pressure. But I commend him for continuing to chase his dream after failing and failing and failing. Like I, I commend him for doing that. And then they talked about, you know, him going through an ordeal when he was a kid, the accident, you know, and being able to overcome that. So here's a guy that's been overcoming adversity his whole life, but he remains, you know, remains, you know, humble and he remains consistent enough to be able to continue to chase his dream. And, you know, I thought that was, yeah, I thought that was the one interesting thing about Colbert was, excuse me, that this wasn't his first adversity and they wanted to bring that out. This wasn't even his first diversity in the NFL, but not his first adversity in life. And I thought that was, I thought that hard knocks did a really good way of bringing that story out as well. When you look at, you know, that, I mean, even you want to talk about adversity, some people think of adversity as a life thing, right? Or as a career thing, yeah, he had a adversity in that game. He was getting cooked. Yeah. He was getting cooked. And then he comes back big breakup, big blitz on the quarterback, right? That turns it to a big six, big, big interception himself. Like, sometimes it really is just that. And I thought that hard knocks did a really good job of bringing out those notes and it's not just life. Yes, the life aspect of it is there. And that's what the bigger picture is, but also sometimes you're getting cooked from the first half to the second. Yeah, it's going to happen. I mean, it's, you're going to make plays, plays are going to be made on you. It's the NFL, you know, it's the way it goes. And, you know, I think when you look at it, I think the one, one moment that I feel like we overlooked that we haven't talked about yet is they were kind of, they, they showed more of the relationship between Caleb and Tyson, right? Yeah. So after Tyson, who played well this entire preseason, who played well in that Kansas city game, he comes over after scoring on their drive, right? They take him out of the game. Your night's over. Tyson comes up to Caleb and he says, Hey, you know what, I learned a lot from you. And then here's the thing. Caleb says, dude, I learned a lot from you. So that goes to show you like two different dynamics of quarterbacks, two different journeys going to it. And if the, obviously Caleb has a trophy winner, number one overall pick in Tyson, 100 free agent from a college, nobody even knows where it is. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, he's learning, I've had a trophy winner, number one pick. But I've learned from a guy who played at Shepherd University, you see what I'm saying? Like that's, that's the way the league is, man. No, listen, I mean, I, I thought the, the best part of that was just seeing, right? The mindset that Tyson brand, and maybe I read too much into this, but them showing his dad again at a local establishment, arm wrestling people that came up to him. Oh, you went there for that. I was there. It's a bar called the blue line in Kansas City. I went to it. So we're Tyson sitting the cameras, like right here. I'm literally two seats behind him. And they scrubs you again, my God, always, always a bunch of big dudes walk around it, like, I mean, arm wrestling, they're in there with the, with the little bungee band cords and they're like, like getting ready, they're doing this with their arm, getting their arm warmed up to arm rest of that arm wrestling tables everywhere. It was chaos, man. So, so Jay Mac, you didn't get in on this? I mean, I've seen you do a lot of lifting. Hey, I've seen you do a lot of, a lot of, a lot of football playing a lot of coaching. You weren't a part of this. You didn't want to get in on this at all. I didn't want none of that. A bunch of sawed off, sawed off arm wrestling, walk around in there, drinking up all the protein in Kansas City, man, wait a minute, wait a minute, was Nathan Vasher in the building there was protein shake available, was Vasher in the building? That's where there was the other, but, but, man, David's dad is intense, man. Like, because when he walked in, they introduced him and like the cameras around Travis Bayesian, this Tyson Bayesian's father, and I'm behind him, I'm like right behind him about to walk into the bar. So they're introducing him before he walks in, he takes both his fists and he starts punching himself in his, in the chin, he's like, yeah, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. He's one of my favorite people of all time, for the simple reason. And it's what he did today. It's what he did today. And there's a clip on YouTube go watch this. If you haven't seen it, it's him wrestling against arm wrestling against who I would assume is one of his major competitors. And the guy almost has him pinned, has him go any other direction and he goes, you better make your move now, and he's looking this dude, like just the mindset of that to me, like going up against a tough competitor is going, you got one shot, do it now. Yeah. And then he goes too late, beat my man on the other hand, like seeing that on hard knocks, that was phenomenal to me where the guy's going the other way. He's fighting with all his might and Travis goes, here we go. All right, let's, let's, let's run it up. Yeah. The one thing that's not fake though is like, you know, people on the outside looking in, it's not really, you know, around, around him or seeing him off camera like that besides hard knocks, like they may say, oh, he's acting, oh, he's overdoing it. He's, he's been, every time I've seen him, he's been like that on camera, off camera, like he's intense. He's an intense guy. Like that's his person out. Yeah. No, 100%. He's, he is, I keep saying this, I hope Tyson never leaves because he's one of my favorite people. Yeah, I asked Tyson, so I did an in-game interview with him on the sideline during that game and I said, Hey, I said, have you ever, have you ever attempted to arm wrestle your dad? And he's like, man, he's like, no, I haven't. He said, my arm's too valuable. I love it. I love it. Good job. Good job. I love it. Understand the moment there. I mean, because literally me and my brother were watching it, of course, we're down here in Florida. We're doing a little vacate down here, me and my brother were watching it. My brother was like, I've seen people like snap their tendons trying to arm wrestle people like that. And it, it, it, maybe we've gone too long on the arm wrestling conversation, but it's so, I'll say this, championship mindset transcends any sport. And you can see from Travis Beigeant that he has that. And dare I say, you can see from Tyson Beige that his father has instilled that in. And I am a little concerned that Tyson Beige may not be a part of this team very long because of those aspirations and say, say what you want. He's better than Daniel Jones. Maybe I'm the guy that has to say it, nobody else seems to see. He's better than Daniel Jones. He's better than, he's, he's one of the top 32 quarterbacks in the NFL right now. He just makes plays when, when given the opportunity. And you know, you can say like, Hey, I mean, he, he's, he's done it. Given an opportunity last year to start when he did, you know, you can say it's just backups and preseason because he did an opportunity to start last year when Justin got hurt. So yeah, he's a guy that's got a lot of talent, you know, guys like that young quarterbacks, you got to keep around. And his, his story is different. Yes, it's a small school, but look at how his body of work, you know, how many snaps that you have in quarterback at Shepherd University, over 17,000 yards, you know, however many touchdowns he threw. Like he's seen a lot. He's seen a lot. And he works as he, like what he said, I grinded my face off and he also, he works grinding my face off. Yeah, he works. He works. You know, J man, anybody doing mile long, what do you say he was doing? He was doing burpee lunges burpee, I don't know what he was doing. But burpee lunges, I think he was doing, you let me know if anybody attempts that and I will avoid them at all costs before we, before we get up out of here, Jay Mack. We got one more episode to go on a hard knocks, right? Five episodes to go. We got one more episode here. What do you want to see to finish this out? Of course we know cut down day was the day. I would assume that that has a part to play in the final episode. But what do we want to see in this final hard knocks that we have coming towards us? And I want to see, man, guys, we haven't seen, like we haven't, you figured, you know, DeAndre Swips, a new guy, we haven't even seen swift that much, which is weird, right? A lot of Jay Mac listen, and I understand this is a hard knocks podcast and it's very hard knocks focus and I've enjoyed seeing the inside look on the Chicago Bears, but I would be unme if I didn't say it and I put this out on Twitter, a lot of stories been buried. Yeah. A lot of stories have not been talked about, a lot of stories have been avoided. And we, we know why there hasn't been as much profanity, which I'm fine with. I like being able to watch hard knocks with my daughter and stuff like that. But I don't like that we have shied away like you, you could have, I would say we will leave this hard knocks feeling like you could have not done this. And as a Bears fan, that makes me upset. Yeah. That's, yeah. That, you're right, though, I mean, it's, you know, when you, when you look at the hard knocks in the past, right, look at the Cowboys had so many years of hard knocks, even look at the last one, the Giants, I thought showed a lot of insight, you know what I mean? A lot of things that was that you wouldn't think would be disclosed was disclosed, like Jose Krombarkley saga in the last one, like, you know, I don't know. I just want to see, you want to see more of the guys like it's, I mean, I'm not even asking for the draft. I'm not asking for the front office. Let me ask you this. Is this, is this, is this not the training camp, hard knocks? Right. Right. But the amount of training camps we saw today, and I want y'all to understand this in case you didn't watch this episode of hard knocks. The amount of training camp we saw today was Ian Wheeler taking a shot from Jervon Dexter, Montes Sueda stalking some trash, some things happen. Everybody's going at it. Right. The part they don't show you in case you didn't listen to the podcast when we, when we talked about this, because this was a part of it, um, there was a full on fight. Yeah. There, there was a full on, I'm at your head. You're going for real hate, like two, six, six dudes going at it. Yeah. Jervon Dexter runs up and Kevin Jenkins is like, we doing this right now? Yeah. Like battle little bears moment that just didn't get shown on hard knocks. And for me, I know it's probably not going to happen in next week's episode. Yeah. I ain't showing that. But, but show me something. Show me something. Yeah. It's all I'm asking. Give me a little something. Yeah. And it's the last episode. So, you know, we'll see, we'll see when we get, we'll see what ends up happening. We'll see what ends up happening. Also, Reed's been in the whole time, like I need to see some other guys, like, no disrespect. I want to see more of the other guys, like give them a, what, what is Austin Reed have for breakfast at episode five. No, man. Hey, listen, we appreciate comment for sponsoring this. And I think that that they would want the real, they would want that real energy and we gave that real energy, that clean energy on today's episode. And hopefully we get more of that from, from hard knocks next week. But hey, for Jason McKee, she will have to have the designer back at it again. Make sure that you guys stay tapped in with hard knocks. Hit that like button. Subscribe to the page. Lead a five star view. Y'all know what to do. And make sure you rock with us over on this TV podcast. Y'all stay safe, I'll see you guys in the next one.