Minicamp and OTA RECAP: Biggest takeaways for the Chicago Bears | CHGO Bears Podcast
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Welcome back to another edition of CHGO Bears. Thanks for hanging out with us here on a Friday. We won't pretend this is a recorded episode because all of us are currently golfing.

at uh in glen ellen right patrick right down the street from you absolutely right we are in glen ellen we are at the village links of glen ellen that's right that's where caddy shack was filmed at least that's what you've been telling me and so i told everyone that that's what you've been telling me even though you never actually told me that but i legitimately was telling people this because i thought you told me that yeah i i genuinely don't know where you got that from because you called me i think it was saturday night you

You called me Saturday night. It sounded like you had friends in the background. And you said, "Hey, my friends are telling me that Caddyshack was filmed in Florida." And I said, "Cool, great, awesome."

And you said, well, why were you telling me that it was filmed in Glen Ellyn? And I genuinely was speechless. I had nothing to respond to you. Well, this is clearly the voices in my head. But when I was telling my friends this, I was like, wait, I don't even know if I actually ever heard this. So this just goes to show you just never know where my ADHD brain will take me. But yes, we're at the Village Links of Glen Ellyn golfing for our CHGO Cookout Classic.

So we're excited to be there, but we still wanted to give you some Friday content for your Chicago Bears needs. And, you know, Patrick, you've been covering the Chicago Bears here this entire off season from rookie mini camps.

to OTAs to mandatory mini camp. We still got one more coming up next week. That's going to be more of a lighter practice with special teams and some rookies and maybe a couple of guys that want to stick around. But you've been, you know, doing a lot of written content.

you know, obviously you have your newsletter every morning that includes a lot of bear stuff as well. So I wanted to give you an opportunity, fresh voice to the channel, fresh set of eyes to what you've seen at practice. And, and, you know, I guess we'll start out with some of your biggest takeaways from what you've seen throughout the course of the off season. Well, I think the, the biggest thing, the biggest difference that you've seen with this coaching staff is in comparison to last year's staff. Uh,

a big point of emphasis last year from the players was that they didn't feel like they were being held accountable. And I know that the, I know that this has been brought up several times already this off season. But this week we, we really saw how that would affect everybody on the team with Ben Johnson's attitude of, of,

All right, if I see something, I'm going to say something, whether that's right in the middle of practice and I'm going to stop the play right now or we'll meet one-on-one later. I know that we're meeting one-on-one later. This is only going to benefit you. I don't think that calling you out in front of everybody benefits the whole team. It's those moments where if there is any player calling for more accountability from this year's coaching staff,

I think that they'd be lying at this point because I think you had Jalen Johnson, you had Tyreek Stevenson, you had Montez Sweat, you had several other players bring up the point of accountability and the lack thereof. And this past week, back to rookie minicamp even, back to OTAs the last two weeks, you've seen –

the fine details called out and corrected in the moment and really not repeated either. And I think that the fact that they're not being repeated is the big part.

Well, you know, early in this, you know, OTAs, I believe, when Cole came at, you know, in one of the first practices, you know, it was well documented that Ben got pretty heated over a little detail. Cole kind of expanded on that and said it was how he was lined up. But after that day, you know, we didn't get to hear from Cole until like a week after it happened. But Ben, when he spoke after practice that day, said that he addressed the team and said,

he needed to be a little better about how he calls out guys. So I'm curious from your perspective, how have you seen any kind of evolution in this short period of time from the first day hitting the ground running and how he addresses players to, you know, the today and the last couple of days of mandatory minicamp? Well, it's kind of the trope like with your parents. It's I'm not angry. I'm disappointed that,

I think he's kind of, I think in the last few weeks, he's kind of gone or Ben Johnson has gone from, from sounding more angry in his call outs to just sounding like, Hey, we shouldn't be making that mistake anymore. Or you're doing this. What you need to be doing is this. There are more teaching moments than, than scoldings. I think at this point. And what I loved about that Cole commit moment too, is you think about it, that happened two weeks ago. It was brought up this past week.

And Cole knew exactly what he was talking about. I think the first thing that he said was something along the lines of, oh, yeah, I think back on that play. But then he had perfect recollection of what actually happened. And he said, yeah, I think I lined up about a yard off, just about a yard off. And on that play, he was supposed to get the ball. And Ben's part of the thing that Ben pointed out was I'm trying to get the ball here and it doesn't work if you're off your mark.

And, hey, that's something that I don't know gets addressed last year. In fairness, I wasn't out there at the practice field last year, or at least during OTAs and minicamp. But throughout the year, that's just not something that we would see. Yeah.

And of those mistakes happen, not corrected in front of anybody. And then we don't know if they're corrected or anything like that. And from what you heard from the players last year, it kind of sounds like they weren't. So with that commit bit, especially it just is a, it's a,

It's a new thing for this organization. Yeah. Well, and as Tyreek Stevenson said, the details inside the details is what this coaching staff seems to be bringing. And we saw that with Caleb Williams as well, you know, as you guys reported and Ben talked about where in seven on sevens,

Courtney Cronin asks, Hey, you talked to him after a certain throw, was he supposed to go somewhere else? And he goes, no, he was just supposed to get it to Roshan Johnson faster in the flat. It's gotta be faster. And so when you talk about Cole, not lining up, you know, a yard off and that's going to mess up the play. Well, so is the timing of throwing to the flat to Roshan Johnson. And so that's,

when you talk about accountability and Caleb Williams being held to a higher standard, you know, we're hearing all the right things from his teammates about him owning the playbook, him trying to take on a new level of leadership, the details from Ben Johnson. So it's limited time. They're not in pads, but you know, we'll start with the coaching staff, but now let's move to Caleb Williams and what you've seen here in the last couple of weeks, you know, for bears fans and, and, and,

how you feel like he's progressing. Speaker 3 : Well, and that was kind of, that was going to be my next point. And that was the offense has taken a step forward just about every time that we've seen them. It hasn't always been pretty today or excuse me. Thursday's mini camp was a bit of a doozy at the end when they ran a drill where there was about three minutes and 45 seconds left on the clock. The offense was down by nine points.

And they had to go down. The objective was to hopefully score a touchdown on that first drive, get the ball back. I forget how much time they were running off of the clock in that moment. And then run down again. Caleb threw a touchdown to DJ Moore on that first drive, brought it within two. After that, he threw an interception. I can't remember who he overthrew. I think it was Cole Komet. I think it was Komet.

And Tyree Stevenson made this acrobatic catch, really impressive, you know, athletic feet for him. And that was a disappointing mark to pretty much end team drills on for Caleb. But we had seen on Wednesday a successful 58-second team drill. And we had seen these other things where

Obviously, the result matters, and the result will especially matter once you get into a game more than the intricacies of, did you hit your mark here? Did you do this there? That's what this minicamp is for now. You're seeing more and more of those marks being hit. We only got to see one OTA each of the last two sessions, so two weeks ago and then last week. And then we got to see all three practices this week for minicamp.

It just felt like there was a significant step taken forward every single day. And I think that that's all you can ask for on, you know, in the first week of June. Sure.

Yeah, no, no question. I mean, it's early, you know, with the coverage that we do and everyone else does, you know, we get really thirsty for any kind of talking point. You know, obviously we want to continue to bring content to our loyal viewers and listeners to this show. And, but when you're at this point of the off season, you,

you know, it can, you're kind of scraping at the barrel to like, I mean, they're not in pads at the end of the day. Well, I was talking to Lance Briggs and Jerry's put on the pads, you know, Ozzie, Ozzie trapillo. I can be high on them all. I want, we're not going to know until he gets the pads.

You know, we're not going to know what Ruben Hippolyte can do until he puts those pads on. Everybody can look good, you know, in short. So, you know, Dominique Robinson was somebody that Ben Johnson, you know, kind of singled out as one of the guys that stood out to him here, you know, over the last few weeks. So that was probably a surprise, certainly to me and probably some other Bears fans, too.

And so that's kind of where I wanted to, you know, finish this final thought and make sure you're hitting the like button while you're hanging out here. We appreciate everybody hanging out with me and Patrick. And of course, Adam rank will be joining us here in a little bit for some fun topics, but you know, on the defensive side of the ball, you know, Ben Johnson did say,

that, you know, Hey, the defense has been ahead of the offense most days here, you know, with the exception where the offense had that, you know, two minute drill, 90 yard touchdown drive that finishes with a Kyle Menungai touchdown from Kayla Williams. But for the most part, the defense has been ahead of the offense and,

So for you, what are you seeing when it comes to that and the different looks that apparently Dennis Allen has been implementing here with a roster that we're pretty familiar with for the most part on the defensive side of the ball? Well, I think you can look pretty much at just about each individual level of the defense right now. One of them being the defensive line looks good defensively.

What I would caution with saying that they're, you know, I had a schedule or anything like that right now is only because how much of that is because, and this is, this is the one kind of knock on Caleb that's persisted through the last few weeks. He's been, he's been slow to get rid of the ball. I don't think that he's necessarily slow going through his reads. He's just slow to make up his mind.

Because I actually think that he's gotten better at making the adjustments and making, you know, the reads as the play begins. But it's, you know, once a play breaks down or anything like that, and he goes off script a bit.

He likes to, he likes the run, whatever. So I, I wouldn't judge too hard on the, or I wouldn't make a decent judgment yet on the defensive line. Linebackers are kind of doing their own thing. Ruben Hippolyte's looked great in the secondary. Jaquan Brisker sticks out as a guy who to me almost looks like the quarterback of the defense now that he's back on the field. And that's a great thing for this, for this bears team, because he,

above average run blocker, likes to make plays as a safety. With Kevin Bayard, you know, we never got to see that combo for an extended period of time. We only saw it for five weeks last year. So I think Jaquan Brisker's, you know, contract year this year could be a really interesting one to keep an eye out on. Yeah, for sure. And you're certainly right. I mean, sometimes that is...

the deceiving part of not just off season activities, but when you get to training camp and it's bears versus bears and you want to say, well, you know, defensive line was dominating last year. Well, the offensive line has had its issues. So, you know, sometimes you have to be able to evaluate. Now the goal is that where you have, you know, such good, you know, it's good versus good, not bad versus bad. And,

it's in now it looks better because one side of the ball just isn't up to snuff. And, you know, I talked a little bit about that with Lance Briggs and, and Jerry about how the defenses have dominated so many practices. I can remember Khalil Mack dominating the, the,

the first team reps. And I'm like, how's the first team offense ever supposed to get their traction ever get there, you know, wheels going when, when you've got such dominant defenses, but you know, to their point, Lance's and Jerry's is like, we're not giving them an inch because once they figure out how to get an inch, then they know they're making progress.

So, you know, that I thought really made a lot of sense. So hopefully the Bears offense can continue to find those inches. And then when we get to the regular season, they can be off and running. So we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to talk about play a little segment of true or false.

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The shades rated five stars by over 300,000 people, myself included. That's right. Moving things along here on CHGO bears football Friday. Make sure you hit the like button while you're hanging out. Adam rank will be joining us here in just a little bit.

but make sure that we are, you know, subscribe to the channel as well. Make sure you subscribe to CHGO sports. And of course we have to get to our brand new segment here. And that is of course with true or false with Patrick Norton, continuing our conversation of the off season overview. So I'm going to start with this one right out the gate and,

uh patrick and that is the chicago bears are right on schedule true or false i think true i i don't know how you can possibly say or adamantly be with the false camp on this one right now um you know and yesterday's show i know that you guys were kind of talking about um

you know, how Tyreek Stevenson got up with the ball after that, after, after Caleb's pick and team drills on Thursday. And one of the things that kind of stuck out to me was, yeah. And I don't know if he's been taught otherwise. And so being taught those things right now, you know, obviously you would, you'd, you'd prefer that your players know that before mini camp or, you know, before their third year in the NFL, but yeah,

All in all, it's not bad where they are right now. Certainly no alarm bells going off. And again, I can't really give you a great example of if they're further than they were last year, but I don't think that they would be considering that they finished 5-12, and I don't think that that's the path that they're on for this season.

Yeah. I mean, I get where you're coming from. It's hard to say that they aren't right on track. I mean, Ben Johnson said as much that they'll tighten the screws when they get to training camp. But I do think the Tyreek Stevenson, you know, play where he gets the interception, but he doesn't go down is a point of emphasis that

you know, where you say, okay, well, he hasn't been coached that. I also think there's somewhat of a, it's like, Hey, this is practice. I'm goofing around. You've seen a lot of times where a guy will get an interception and they want to run it all the way to the other side of the field and have their little moment. It's practice, but it's,

you practice like you play. If you want to beat the chiefs, you got to take it seriously right now. And so you can make great plays. And then certainly Tyreek Stevenson able to do that, but you've got to hone in on these moments and simulate it as if you're in a game. And then that way you won't have those mishaps or, you know, you know, you know, where you're not thinking straight in the middle of a game in the regular season, like we've seen before. So, um,

you know, I think I liked that the coaches really hammered that home here yesterday for Tyreek. All right. The second one that I got for you is my favorite topic of the off season so far. And that is Ozzie. Trappelo will be the starting left tackle for my Chicago bears. That's a, that's a really interesting one. And I'll tell you that why I think that would be false right now. And,

And the main reason is we don't know what Braxton Jones is going to look like when he comes back. We don't really even know when he's going to come back. I think the idea is that he'll be healthy around training camp and get some good participation in there and make for a real competition at left tackle, which is what the Bears really need because that's the one spot on the offensive line right now that you can't write in stone at this moment. As for Trapillo versus Karan Amagaji,

karan amagaji um has looked all right um and trapillo's looked pretty good too but amagaji has taken precedence over um or at least a little bit in snap counts uh throughout minicamp for example uh you know ben johnson said this week that the the you know plan all along has been just swap these guys out you know continue to give them reps

until Braxton Jones is back to make a competition. The thing is, I'm a goshy, you know, there were only three days of, of mini camp. I'm a gosh. I got Tuesday and he got Thursday. So Trapillo only got Wednesday. Draw your own conclusions from that. There were no glaring, you know, mishaps from the left tackle or on the left side of the line, at least from my vantage point out of practice. Um,

you know, again, you know, we've already, we've probably talked about this too much, but you know, Caleb getting rid of the ball and whatnot, when he, when he scrambles, he tends to run to the right. Um, you, you kind of pick up on his tendencies, but his tendencies when, um, when the game, when the game situation is not one where it's late in the late in the game, you know, whatever he's picked, he's running towards the right when it's late in the game, he's running to the left. Um,

So there's no rhyme or reason to that. Like there's no, you can't say, well, it's because he got pressure from this side. It's just something that you pick up watching these guys practice. So again, nothing, nothing glaring on Amagaji, which is why I kind of give him the edge there.

because he got more first team reps this past week. Interesting. And I don't think anybody made that point here this week. Everybody was so dialed into Trapillo last week, you know, and he's certainly been a fun story so far. So we'll have to see how this progresses once we get to training camp. The next one I got, what's that? Big John's.

Yeah. Big Johns. That's right. Next one I got for you is the bears will add a running back before training camp. True or false. I will say false. I'm also prepared to be wrong on that. Why is because they're impressed with Kyle Manunga and for what it's worth, the people stand on the sideline writing about it are also impressed by Kyle Manunga and

just look at Wednesday's practice and Wednesday's situational drill, which ended with a two minute. First off, Kyle Menunga had two touchdowns on Wednesday. He had a rushing one just right through the gap and then one on a six yard screen in the flat ran that right in. That was in the end of game situation that they were doing at the D or that the offense won and that everyone said, Hey, the offense had a great day.

But one guy being in with the first teamers on that, I think is a huge story that I don't think is being talked about nearly enough. Deandre Swift not being in there is not the story to me because Deandre Swift not being in a goal to go or in a red zone formation isn't abnormal, especially, you know, from what we've seen in the last couple of years from, from his play. The story there is that it wasn't Roshan Johnson. So almost if you're, if you're adding someone, it just, it,

you're not necessarily looking for that top caliber guy to come into this room anymore that you may have thought that this team needed. Not to say that Kyle Medunga is going to be out there every time or inside the 20-yard line, or not to say that he's...

coming for DeAndre Swift's job or anything like that, but he's a capable pass protector and an all-around good player that we've seen get more and more reps. Steven just dropped this in. Ben Johnson on Count Menungai today said, I appreciate the attention to detail and the pride he takes and how quickly he's picking up things or picking things up as well.

100% and you can absolutely see that from what we've seen just, you know, going through practice. He's, you know, think four weeks ago at rookie mini camp who was hitting the cones. He was one of the people hitting the cones when Eric B enemy was, you know, lashing out. He's not hitting the cones anymore. Yeah. On Wednesday it was Roshan Johnson and Travis Homer hitting the cones. Right. So, um, and that guy's kind of, kind of taken hold and, and is, uh,

looks to be a fast riser in that room right now. Yeah. I mean, that's exciting. And this is something I've been trying to explain to some bears fans that are like, Oh, this Manung guy hype is too much. And I think it, I think bears fans were almost overcompensating. Like, I don't think anybody's saying he's Ashton Gentry, but at the same time, I think

Well, like we've done this with other seventh round picks. The bears had Travis bell a couple of years ago from Kennesaw state. And he was like this fun story this time of year, but there's a difference between, you know,

That kind of seventh round pick and Kyle Menungai, who once led the Big Ten in rushing, he was second in the Big Ten in rushing last year behind Caleb Johnson out of Iowa. And so to me, like he isn't your prototypical seventh round pick. This was just a unique running back class. And so I do think he is going to have a pretty significant role on this team. But we do have to wait and see if the Bears choose to add to that room because I don't think it's a

high risk, you know, it's, you're not paying that much, you know, depending on which player you choose from some of the players currently available, JK Dobbins, Nick Chubb, Gus Edwards, cam acres, Jamal Williams, who played under, you know, Ben Johnson once upon a time, Jeff Wilson, Ezekiel Elliott, among others. So, you know, Nick Chubb's the name that's been thrown around.

I don't think that he's going to be somebody that comes at a big price, but do you really want, I guess it comes down to how much they've seen out of Roshan Johnson more so than Kyle Menunga and Deandre Swift. And what they're starting to bring to the table is has Roshan passed the tests they need to see if they instead want to go a different route.

I don't know that he has. I don't know that he's had enough time to do that. But also you're kind of running out of time is, you know, this is pretty much the last thing until training camp now. Again, I wouldn't be shocked to see another name in that room. I just don't think that it's going to be one of the higher tier players or or players with a better past like Nick Chubb. Jeff Wilson's an interesting candidate. Cam Akers, kind of an interesting one there as well.

Yeah, for sure. Um, and Hey, rolling things along, make sure you hit the like button, uh, while you're hanging out. We appreciate everyone tuning in to CHGO bears. Uh, next item up for bid. Ben Johnson has gotten buy-in from his players, even though it's still early in the off season, true or false. True. Without a doubt. Um,

And I think the one holdout that you probably heard before all of this happened and you heard this, I'm trying to think when he said this. I'm trying to think. I think it was OTAs a few weeks ago and we heard from Jalen Johnson. Or no, it couldn't have been then. Whenever we heard from Jalen Johnson this offseason, he said, no, I'm not buying. He was like, I'm not going to buy in until we see the results. That's fine.

I understand that, but I think the mood is pretty chippy or cheery on the sideline right now. And you don't get that from people who are hesitant and have concerns about the new coaching staff.

So I think that they're kind of coming along. I think that they're starting to believe in the process of what they're doing. They're being called out, which is what they wanted. So either, you know, if anyone, again, if anyone says otherwise, then, you know, it's then they were lying last year. They're lying this year kind of a thing. So I believe the answer to that one is a very like firm. Yes, the players are buying in and have bought in.

That's great. That's great. I'm excited to get to camp and see how this all looks. Not too far away. It'll be here before you know it. I'm heading to Florida next week and I'm loading up my weekends all the way to training camp before football completely engulfs

our weekends and that's a welcomed engulfing, but it certainly takes over every Saturday and Sunday for a solid six months. So going to enjoy the summer while we still got it. Final one I got for you is there is no concern that the defense is ahead of the offense. True or false.

I'd say false. I wouldn't say that there's no concern because this is the time to be concerned about just about everything. If you're going to be concerned, right? And I mean that in a good way because there's nothing that's popping off the page right now or jumping off the page as if, you know, this looks like a catastrophic failure, nothing like that. But you also just wish that, I think that you wish that it was a bit more,

evened out in terms of who's winning the days. And, you know, Ben Johnson said yesterday, it's the defense who's kind of ruled mini camp and OTAs in each session. And it is nice to see the offense coming along. And again, they've gotten better every day. You just also would assume at some point they're going to catch up and, you know, we'll have a better, we'll have a better grasp on that one at the end of July when they come back in the building.

Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, it's exciting. It's exciting to get to camp. It's one of my favorite times of the year. So, but I'm not going to skip over it because our Chicago Cubs are on a heater. One of the best teams in baseball. Normally our baseball teams aren't doing that great. And it's easy to say, let's skip ahead to football season, but

We are dialed into every day with our Chicago Cubs. We're going to take a quick timeout, and when we come back from the break, we are going to be joined by the one, the only, Adam Rank. But first...

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things along here on our football Friday edition of CHGO bears and joining the program as he frequently does is Adam rank NFL network. And now co-host, you know, and working with the one, the only Jim Rome, congratulations once again on that gig. You know, I know you're, you're just getting started. How are things going with that? It's good. You know, starting to find a rhythm. Yeah.

with Jim Rome. Obviously he's somebody who's famously never worked with a co-host during his 30 plus years in the business. And now, you know, we move it on, you know, go into the after hour, filling in for, since T-Bob went to Barstool Sports, he moved to Chicago.

to be a part of Barstool Sports. So it's been a great opportunity. And for somebody who also has been in this industry for a long time, it's cool to get new challenges and try something else. So it's been a lot of fun. And then today, oh, shoot, on Thursday, I mean, Aaron Rodgers signed during our show.

So we had to go. I was like, can you rip on Aaron Rodgers real quick? We're like, I should be able to handle it. Like, it's better because it actually saves me because it's like, hey, you know, there's a lot of NBA talk right now. A lot of NBA talk, and it's like, eh.

Oh, we're talking about Aaron Rodgers instead? Like, even better. Well, I mean, you're normally used to the Friday news dumps, you know, in different media sectors, and Twitter is having a complete meltdown, you know, here on Thursday. We've peeled behind the curtain. We've told everyone we're golfing. Oh, do you know? Does everybody know? Everybody knows. So Aaron drops... The color that I am, I was making sure that I didn't... They all

know we're golfing i'm sure right now i'm in a bunker somewhere we know steven is that's for sure i'll be playing golf too around this time not with you guys but yeah yeah well that's playing or yeah greg's uh giving homage to tomorrow's d-day right so he's gonna spend all all day in a bunker that's right that's right uh and yeah while you talk about work that's way too soon

I just watched Band of Brothers, so now it feels a little too soon. Great. I caught over Memorial Day, they were showing it on HBO, and I watched half of episode nine

and uh episode 10 and uh the wife walks in she's like hey what are you doing why are you watching banner brothers what isn't like episode 10 and i said yeah she's like well why why didn't you just start it from the beginning on max now it's going to be spoiled for you you're like well guess what uh i know we win the war so i think we're okay i got this we're good we we were triumphant it's okay yeah have you have you watched the full series before

I just did right now. Over this last week since Memorial Day. Perfect. I watched the whole thing, and then I realized it's just 10 episodes. I'm like, is this one of those things that's going to go four seasons? But they motored through it pretty quick. They're like, ah, Bastogne. They didn't spend, I mean, they did spend a whole episode on Bastogne, but they didn't spend weeks on it like they could have.

Well, I mean, that's certainly, as you mentioned with Aaron Rodgers going to the Pittsburgh Steelers now, Pittsburgh. Yeah, I'm sorry. Now Pittsburgh will come to Chicago. That means Aaron Rodgers will once again, grace Soldier Field, but he won't have his Packers behind him. So, you know, Adam, I do want to give you the proper runway to get your thoughts on our arch rival returning to Soldier Field once again, but in a different uniform.

Yeah, it'll be hopefully the last time we ever have to see him. By the way, not David Silver, Adam Silver.

was on one of the shows talking about his matchup in the NBA Finals, being like, hey, look, if the Steelers and the Packers were in the Super Bowl, everybody would celebrate this. They would now because Aaron Rodgers would be facing his former team. Don't give the booking committee at 345 Park any ideas of who they're going to put in the Super Bowl this year. So you got that little narrative out of the way. I will say...

And Jim was making fun of me because I'm like, objectively, he's like, you're not going to be objective about this. I said, honestly, I might be the most objective person on this because last year, and this is my hot take, Aaron Rodgers wasn't as bad as people make him out to be. Like, dude nearly threw for 4,000 yards. I don't think he quite got to 30 touchdowns, but I knew he threw double-digit interceptions. I think it was 10 or 11.

And he played all right in a very dysfunctional team. And you can make the argument that the Steelers are dysfunctional, but Mike Tomlin has done a great job over the course of history of –

of getting these guys together, like having a team with Antonio Brown and Le'Veon Bell and still being successful and not letting that destroy the team, that has to be considered pretty impressive. And it would have been fun to have kept George Pickens, so we could have had Rodgers, Pickens, DK Metcalf, some of these other guys. But you look at what the Steelers did. So I'm assuming, though, if I can assume this, that the Ohio State quarterback

Aaron Rodgers is going to beat him out, right? Aaron Rodgers is probably going to be the starter. Will Howard not ready. Will Howard probably not going to start. Okay, good. I don't want to assume anything. At the same time, Caleb Johnson was a pretty good draft pick. I think he'll come in and be a guy who contributes. Jack Sawyer.

is they're like the Steelers have done a pretty nice job of drafting. Now they get Aaron Rodgers. It's a one-year deal, which shows me like Mike Tomlin's got one last run. Like this is it. This is your one last chance to not only be above 500, but to actually go out there and play some meaningful playoff games in January and preferably for Pittsburgh into February.

Will it happen? I don't know. Like, I think that Aaron Rodgers makes them better. They're much better off now than they would be if they would start Mason Rudolph or Howard or anybody like that. Like, Dave, they're a much better team.

Are they good enough to beat Lamar Jackson and the Ravens? Are they good enough to be Joe Burrow and the Bengals? Are they good enough to be Josh Allen and the bills or Patrick Mahomes and the chiefs? For me, the Steelers are a better team than they were an hour ago or three hours ago or whenever he signed, uh,

They're still not one of the top elite teams in the AFC, but they'll probably still come and beat the bears. So that sucks. Well, and I'm sure this is going to change if it hasn't already with our friends over at circus sports book. But, you know, before Aaron Rogers was on the Steelers, they were plus 700 to win the division.

And, you know, I know you got the Bengals and you got the Ravens. Not easy to jump those guys. But I thought that was the juices might be worth the squeeze to at least, you know, throw a little bit. I wouldn't hate it. Listen, as a regular season thing. And this is why I really don't like going in on pre because I've already actually what's funny is I already run out and recorded my preseason prediction for the Pittsburgh Steelers. I had them not I had them winning like seven games.

And now people will come after me. I think a lot of people will be like, he must've done this before Aaron Rogers signed. But even so like,

I'm still okay with it. One of the reasons I don't like doing the season long thing is because like, what if Lamar Jackson doesn't like gets hurt or somebody gets hurt, significant injury and you're sitting there holding a ticket and not trying to jinx anybody or anything like that, but that's always a possibility. So I, which is why I don't like going into those kinds of situations. However, they're in a much better spot right now. I think too, with, with Rogers and, and,

Kind of something that I'd love to know what you think about this is if this is kind of the last hurrah for Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh, or it's just the last chance to kind of, you know, go after it. Is Aaron Rodgers starting in week 12? I mean, he's still starting. I think that they're tied together. I think they're going out in a blaze of glory. Like there's no way there's nothing. I don't believe that.

I don't want to say nothing because Mike, like, let's say Aaron Rodgers goes in there. It doesn't work out. And they went with Will Howard and he, he's Jaden Daniels. And you're like, oh, and they go to the AFC championship game. Now, obviously Mike Tomlin would be that guy, but Mike Tomlin,

Loves his veteran quarterbacks. He does not like younger quarterbacks. That is not something that he wants to do. He's not interested in that anymore. We saw this last year. Justin Fields

That team was four and two. And Mike Tomlin's like, yeah, but we got Russell Wilson. Let's go with Russell Wilson. And I don't know if having to give the Bears a fourth round pick played into that or not. If that comes from above, like if the GMC is like, dude, we're not good. Like get Justin out of there. Maybe.

But I think that Tomlin rides with it. And I think that, like, there's – at some point, if they're 4-7 and it's looking terrible, Aaron Rodgers is still going to play. Or else Aaron Rodgers is going to come up with some injury and be like, ah, my goiter hurts or whatever, and just he's going to take himself out of the game. I don't know. Whatever. Whatever it might be. But –

I just think that he's going to be the guy. Like, they're in it. This is Thelma and Louise holding hands, flying over that cliff. Like, they might as well do it.

Yeah. Well, as you pointed out, 3,900 yards last year, 28 touchdowns, 11 interceptions for Aaron Rodgers. I think Bears fans would jump into Lake Michigan in the middle of January for numbers like that from our quarterback. And maybe franchise high in yards. We weren't far away in yards. Yeah. And I think we'll get there this year. I think we'll get there this year, but we got to do it.

first guarantee by the way from Ben Johnson yeah that's true and you know we got a few things to get to here some fun stuff on the back end but I want to take your temp

Adam rank. This is, you know, the, we we've been doing an off season overview and we're going to do a taking the temp provided by our friends over at four seasons, visit four seasons, heating, cooling.com for all their special offers and money saving coupons. That's four seasons, heating, cooling.com. Your trusted local experts are four seasons, heating, air conditioning, plumbing, and electric. Um,

And I want to take your temp on Ben Johnson. Where are you at? Is it piping hot right now for Ben Johnson? Are you trying to be like me and stay mild with it? All gas. All gas. No, no, no. Never. All gas, no brakes.

i am going all in i love what he's doing and i love you know letting the team go out there and have a little bit of fun and we saw darnell wright making a one-handed grab and things of that nature caleb williams made a nice catch over the shoulder um i think it was dj moore who threw i think it was i can't remember but it's one of those things like i'm really into it but uh but you're also like in addition to the goofball stuff we also see the tough coaching you know um

The attention to detail. Like a lot of coaches would be like, okay, you've been completed a pass in the flat to DeAndre Swift and that's cool. But Ben Johnson is still on his ass. Oh, sorry. Still on his case saying like, hey, look, you got to be better. Got to be quicker. Got to do this. Got to go out there and coaching and really stressing the attention to the details, which is something that's been missing from the Chicago Bears for quite some time. Like I don't even remember that.

the last coach who was really a stickler for the details, not Matt Eberflus, of course. Matt Nagy was the fun guy without the accountability. John Fox was his coach cupcake, like never held anybody accountable. Maybe, who knows what was going on with, geez, I can't even, the CFL guy, like I've already forgotten his name. Mark Trestman. No, don't even bring it up.

I don't even want to think about it. Actually, I like Mark Trestman. Mark Trestman's a nice person. You've set the gold standard for your business. Your website should do the same.

Wix puts you at the helm, so you can enjoy the creative freedom of designing your site just the way you want. Want someone to bounce your ideas off? Talk with AI to create a beautiful site together. Whatever your business, manage it from one place and tie it all together with a personalized domain name. Gear up for success with a brand that says you best. You can do it yourself on Wix. It's the Smucker's Uncrustables podcast with your host, Uncrustables.

Okay, today's guest is rough around the edges. Please welcome Crust. Thanks for having me. Today's topic, he's round with soft pillowy bread. Hey. Filled with delicious PB&J. Are you talking about yourself? And you can take him anywhere. Why'd you invite him? And we are out of time. Are you really cutting me off? Uncrustables are the best part of the sandwich. Sorry, Crust.

I always hate that the Bears coaches are nice people. And you're like, oh, like Mark Trestman is actually very delightful. Really enjoyed his company. Mostly back when he was with the Cardinals is when I knew him. Terrible, terrible head coaches. Oh, so bad.

So bad. From the back of the room. It's a thing though. It's one of those guys. It's like one of those things. Like my son is a delightful. He's a, he's a good boy. He's six years old. He's a good boy. I don't want him coaching the bears. I think you can make that distinction. Like, ah, nice people like Matt Eberfluss. Uh, if he ever comes down to Huntington beach and I see him at the sugar shack, I'll say hello to him. Uh,

I don't want them coaching the Bears. Like, it's okay. Like, you have friends who are like, hey, can you, like, if you need somebody to watch your house,

You know you have friends who are like, they're your friend, but you still know, like, if this guy watches my house, my plants are dead. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's okay. It's okay to understand people's limitations and understand where they're wrong. Ben Johnson, though, seems like the kind of guy that if he's watching your house, you come back, your house is in better shape now than it was when you left. And I think that Ben Johnson is that kind of person.

Yeah, it's felt right. Patrick and I were talking a lot about this to start the show. If you're coming in late, make sure you head back to the front of this show when it's over and listen to some of the offseason overviews. Patrick has been covering the Bears here for CCO Sports for years.

Little over a year now, right? You passed your one-year anniversary, Patrick, not too long ago. So thanks to you on that. You've done a great job. Thank you. A lot of great written content. Check is in the mail. That's right. The newsletter has been outstanding as well. So we'll just see how your golf game is tomorrow. Awful. Awful. Terrible. That's right. One of the final things I wanted to get to here is,

was a little bit of a, have a little fun with something because I don't know if you caught it, Adam, through your busy day, but today was trickeration day at Alice hall. And yesterday, Ben Johnson yesterday, today, I was just talking about this.

I just alluded to the fact that this was some of the goofball stuff that was going on today. Yeah. Thursday. Right. And Ben Johnson's holding auditions, right. For, you know, who's going to do the trick plays this season. We've seen a lot of different types throwing it to Dan Skipper or having Panae Sewell try to become quarterback. He's running people over. Now he's got the bears weapons at his disposal. Darnell Wright makes a one-handed pirouette catch and

Some pretty impressive stuff. Case Keenum had a nice catch. Apparently Caleb Williams ran around, had a nice catch. I think the ball was thrown from Tyson Bajan. I literally just said this whole thing. Were you not listening? Were you checking? Well, no, I'm setting it up. So my question to you is out of the, I want to rank the top five of who you would want here for the

that are running trick plays? Oh, this is a good question. It's got to be some of the linemen. I'm very... I think my number five guy has got to be Ozzy. I think Ozzy's got some skills. Watching everything about him, we don't know too much about him yet, but...

I think there's something below the surface that we're going to get. We're going to get a lot out of. I like him. I like Roma Doones. A is number four. I think Roma Doones. They can go out there. I like the height. I like the length. I like number three, Caleb Williams. It's Caleb Williams is a wide receiver. I thought his over the shoulder grab was pretty good. Whoever threw him that dart is a number two. I think it was, I think it was DJ more. I could be wrong. Um,

I think that would be my number two guy. And of course, Darnell Wright with the one-handed grab. I was trying to sneak this into the Rome after hour today because I wanted to actually talk about this subject because, you know, we're looking for, they were always trying to wedge football into the discussion. And we did because Aaron Rodgers, Aaron, by the way, Aaron Rodgers coming in here parachuting in on the day he yesterday,

Day one of the NBA finals was the guy like, oh, I got to go in and do this. Like, why does he have to take over like that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say the one person that's missing from your list is Andrew Billings.

I'm going to need some trickeration from Andrew Billings at some point this year. What's the trickeration that you're running with Andrew Billings? Well, genuine question. You're handing it off up the middle to him. Is that even a trick play?

I mean, he's, he's the fridge 2.0 yesterday or today, whatever you line them up mass. I formation in the backfield. Everyone thinks he's going to run it. You hand it off. He stops, throws it over the top to Cole commit for the touchdown. Good luck. Yeah. It's like, it's gotta be the offensive guys because like once the defender goes in, you're like, Oh, we know what's happening.

Sure. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's why it works with Darnell Wright and stuff and Penny Sewell. Was it Eddie Jackson a few years ago who just...

His role on those plays was just to run around in the backfield as if something was going to happen. It was that exact same thing. Yeah. Yeah. And last year's trick play against the Packers with Keenan Allen. That was, I I've never on a failed bears play or what you would consider an embarrassing bears play.

I have never laughed so hard in my life. Like, cause at that point we're just catatonic. We've lost 10 in a row. We're staring 11 in a row in the face and Keenan Allen on an end around throws it to the sideline, right to the Packers corner.

honestly was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. It was so ridiculously stupid that all I could do was laugh at that point. So it looked like he was his target. That's how bad it was. Yeah. So that's kind of the point with trick plays is everybody loves them until they don't work. I think Doug Kramer is another example of that.

Can I give you an example of someone who would be a bad option for that? Absolutely. Shamar Turner. Shamar Turner would be awful at that. Why? Because it would be an automatic 15-yard penalty after for taunting. Automatic. Yeah. Right away. Montez Sweat probably too. Montez. Yeah. Get Grady Jarrett in on the action. You know? I think there's some options here.

No, there's some definite guys. And, and again, I do, I do like the way that it is playing into what the bears are trying to work on. And I think it is also, I think it's also a funny little troll to the lions. Like, Hey, look what we're doing. Like, God, like,

Because, like, you, like, if you broke up with somebody, like, you wouldn't do the same things with a new partner. Like, you would be like, let's make a new tradition. Like, you wouldn't go to the same restaurants or do whatever. But now Ben Johnson's doing the exact same thing. Like, you never existed, Detroit. That's how little he thinks of you. He's already off doing trick plays with somebody. And in public, too. He's not even trying to hide it.

a lot of them would try to do it hey like uh let's try to keep it a secret let's try to not put this on facebook or instagram or nope exploiting it already and being like oh that's what we are going to do yep um yeah so like uh yeah it's like i'd like to see david shaw draw this up see what he can do up in detroit this year

Yep. Yep. Hey, I'm all for it. I think the bears need to run their, their, you know, bread and butter plays first before we get into the trickeration. You know, it's hot now. Don't even it's happening. And I know it's going to upset everybody. Don't be like the old curmudgeons.

And be like, we need to figure out how to run out of the eye first before we're running a reverse to Darnell Wright. Like, nope, you can't bring in Ben Johnson and tell him not to be. Like, you don't hire Carrot Top

to come to your party, and then when he starts using his props, be like, what is he doing? Like, I just want straight stand-up jokes to start. Like, nope, Carrot Top is bringing that briefcase full of props, and that's what he's going to do because he's Carrot Top. And that's what Ben Johnson's going to do. All right. I'm looking forward to it. You heard it here first. Ben Johnson is Carrot Top. Sounds...

Like this is going to be a short two years. Yeah. Carrot Top has been headlining the Luxor for like 30 years. The longest running residency of a comic in all of Las Vegas. So you can sit here and run down Carrot Top all you want. But he's been headlining the Luxor since like the year 2000. Makes you wonder what his death was.

Yeah. Listen, he's a good, he's a, he's a funny person. He's good. I will not, I will not, I will not take care of top slander here. And we will be in Las Vegas week four of the regular season compliments of true fan travel. You might even run into Adam rank. Uh, make sure you hit up true fan travel.com to sign up, put your deposit down. A lot of different options, including, uh,

You know, you can have a flight included or not, depending on your travel situation. A ticket to the game is included with your trip with us, with True Fan Travel, and they do a great job of putting on a whole event for three, four days, depending on where they're at and what we're doing. And it's just a lot of fun. We'll have pre- and post-game shows. We'll have tailgates and a lot of other things in between. And it's early in the season, so the sun will be shining bright there.

Adam, we're going to cut you loose. All right. Appreciate you as always jumping on with us and we'll catch up with you here real soon. You're like, this guy started talking about carrot top. Is that why I'm cut loose? We're just, we're, we're ending it short today, short and sweet. And I just wanted to let you get back out to, I know you got the family and I got training tonight. Yeah. We had, we had our training canceled on Tuesday because of thunder and lightning and,

So we got to get back out there. We're actually playing in a sand tournament, which is great because we're practicing on the Sam here in Huntington Beach, California. The two teams that we're playing are not anywhere near a beach. I'm like, I don't know what they're practicing on. If we lose to these two sides, being in Huntington Beach, if we lose to Chino and Beaumont, which even people in California don't even know where those places are, it'll be a sad day. But in any event, thank you so much for indulging me.

someday soon we will rank the top 10 wide receivers in the NFL. I didn't, I didn't want to shortchange it today and just do it to do it. I really want to sit down and put my thoughts together and make sure we do an accurate list. All right. Well, next time you're on, we'll, we'll make sure we do that. But appreciate your time here today. We'll talk to you real soon. All right. Thanks guys. All right. That is Adam rank.

From NFL Network, you can catch him on the Jim Rome Show as well now, so congrats to him there. Once again, shout out to all our diehards at allchgo.com slash diehard. That's how you sign up. The QR code here on your screen. That gets you exclusive written content by Adam Hogue and many others, including Patrick Norton here and Mark Carman. You get discounts on shirts and everything else. Free shirt right out the gate, so make sure you sign up.

When you do. And that brings us, of course, to overtime here on the CHGO Bears podcast. And make sure you're hitting us up all day. Subscribe to the channel, too, if you haven't already.

That's right. A little overtime action. Wanted to get in a few. I did ask the diehards. It's another perk for being a diehard is the Discord channel, which Patrick loves oh so much. It's the greatest place on earth. I asked the Discord to give us some questions, and some of them are directly towards you.

Patrick's love affair for, you know, having to babysit the discord channels. So, Oh boy, I haven't seen any of these, but let's get into a couple of these. Just for my own satisfaction. Will you read them like Jim Rome?

: uh i don't know if i could : oh yeah don't worry about it : adam could have that's for sure he's very good : jim rome hates hates one thing more than anything else and it's when people do jim rome impressions so that's why : i see all right um let's get into it here austin is wanting to know what is patrick's favorite part of managing the die hard die hard discord server and why is it the bears channel : austin great question um

It is the bears channel love spending so much time in there. Typically when I'm like called and told like, Hey, can you go check this out? You know, cause cause the content and they're so wonderful. You know, it is a great perk. It brings everybody together. And, and, and I'm not even joking about that. And, and,

you know, the, I, I, I've had a chance to meet a lot of really cool diehards who spend a lot of time in the discord and, uh, uh, whether they're, uh,

Bears or predominantly Bears fans are like the Bulls group is a really tight knit group and the Hawks group is unbelievably close because they've been, you know, you know, all talking to each other for years and years and now get to kind of do it all in one in one local space. So that is the best part of it is just seeing everybody else interact and then banning people every once in a while. Yeah.

Okay. I know. I think somebody asked who your favorite is. I'm not sure here. I think one of them. Yes, that's it. Wait, no, it was which discord poster. Do you hate the most Patrick putting you on the spot here?

Karm. That's an easy answer. Yeah, simple enough. And I think everybody else in the Discord would agree. I don't hate anybody. Okay. And then final one, because I just wanted to make sure, you know, these guys sent in some, we don't have time to get through them all. Unfortunately, I apologize, but we're up against the clock here. It's

a late Thursday night as we record this and we got to get up early tomorrow for some golfing. And we appreciate all you guys allowing go all the way. Yeah. Glen Ellen to Glen Ellen. Yeah. Well, the rest of us have a much longer drive, but this is a good question about the top three weaknesses here. And Jay Ramirez has based on the little, uh,

We have seen so far this off season. What do you see as the team's top three weaknesses going into training camp? Should I, should I, should I give the weaknesses like Michael Scott in the office saying I care too much and I, you know, weaknesses. That's a good one. Well, I think I hit on, on Caleb being a little slower. I think a good one would be.

Man, that's a really tough question. I kind of want to pull the Ben Johnson and say, let me get back to you on that one. If I had to put something together, it would be along the lines of the weaknesses. I don't know if you'd call this a weakness. Not everybody being on the field this past week was...

you know, not, not great. I mean, I bet they'd love to see Colson Loveland out there at some point. Obviously he came into the team with an injury. Um, Kyler Gordon, we really haven't seen at all. Um, since he, he's been dealing with a soft tissue issue, uh, as well as Luther burden. Um, and Luther burden could really be, uh, you know, taking a lot from, from these, from these mini camps and from OTAs and whatnot. And, um,

he got banged up or at least it looked like he got banged up during rookie mini camp. I don't know if this is related to that now that he's out with the soft tissue problem. But, you know, it'll be,

It's important for him to be on the field day one of training camp. So, you know, hopefully the bears can kind of get him back in the mix then. And we didn't hear anything. You know, we talked about Dominique Robinson being one of Ben Johnson's standout players, you know, you know, Dio Dangbo needs to be that spot. So where you were talking about earlier, like, Hey, let's slow down on defensive line, you know, being ahead of schedule or the defense, you know, being this,

dominant force yet like we have to see it progress a little more and we got to hear dayo dangbo's name here come up a lot more when we get to camp you'd certainly like to um and another name out there too that you probably this should have been considered an important offseason form is austin booker um awesome booker probably needs to put on some weight i mean we we were talking to

Like Roma Dunze even said yesterday and the day before that it was Dravon who said,

that they had put on some lean mass. And that's a big thing that Austin Booker's kind of got to do is he's got to put on some weight. And it doesn't matter really in what form that comes in because you can't look like a guy that offenses can target off the edge especially. And, I mean, Ben Johnson said it yesterday, or yeah, he said it on Wednesday. He said...

you know, what you're looking for from the tackle spots is pass protection. And that's uniform pretty much around the league, meaning pass, you know, these tackles, you typically will excel in pass pro. Austin Booker, there are no gimme's in the NFL and Austin Booker had a few nice flashes last year, but there, you know, if Dominique Robinson is passing him by and if, you know, Dio Dangbo moves around the defensive line, like Dennis Allen wants him to do, then, you know,

You've got to see something big from Austin Booker this year. And, you know, hopefully part of that is, is adding some size. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, shout out to our diehards in the discord as always.

Your worthy leader here, Patrick Norton, loves all of you, and we appreciate all of you guys chiming in here on the show. So, Patrick, as I said, you've been doing a lot of written content for the Bears, you know, and the coverage you do here at CHGO Sports all across the board for all the teams and your newsletter every morning. So just wanted to give you an opportunity to plug some of that stuff for viewers that watch the show that may not be aware of all the written content that you've been pumping out.

Yeah, so I thank you very much. I've had notebooks from each day that we've been allowed to watch practice at Hallis Hall so far. So that goes back to three rookie minicamp notebooks and a few of the O.T. or two of the O.T.A.s. And now I'll have a third thing up on the website.

on mini camp by the time that everybody's listening to this. Um, and you know, as I've been kind of saying, you can kind of chart the progress of the offense. You can do it by reading those in succession as well. Um, and then with the newsletter, love everybody who's had a lot of feedback to that. Um,

And a lot of really nice compliments there. You can subscribe to that newsletter.allchgo.com. And then it'll pop up and, you know, you just put your email right in there and you'll get an email from me every day. Another easy way to get my newsletter, sign up to become a diehard. It automatically puts you on the list. But yeah, my newsletter is available for everybody. Newsletter.allchgo.com. And I'm sure your newsletter will be filled with

the rejoice of the white socks selling, you know, and, and moving on here eventually from Jerry Reinsdorf. I know a lot of white socks fans were excited about that. Yeah. I missed the darn. All right. Catch writing about that today. So, well, I think it takes, I think it takes president precedent over, over,

Darn. All right. You know, it was a fantastic catch, but Adam Hogue did a great job of getting capturing it on video. So we all, you can check that out on Twitter for the next 18 hours. So make sure you watch it and then it'll be disappearing from the universe. So we appreciate everyone tuning in as always. Thank you to Steven Nicholas behind the scenes. We're on the ones and twos. And as always, thank you to Adam rank for joining Greg Bragg's too.

Thanks to Greg Braggs. You know, this is, you know, going pulling back the curtain. This is what third show that you've recorded today. Right. That's right. It shows it shows. I know it shows I'm tired. You look exhausted. You're red in the face. You know, oh, it's my skin and all that.

And now you're going to go watch the NBA finals. You're going to have a heck of a night. Yeah. And I couldn't be, be prouder. I couldn't be happier for you. No, I mean, it is a miracle that I didn't pass out in this chair as I sit at my in-laws house still, uh, because we're still waiting on our internet to get fixed. Maybe it gets fixed on Saturday. It'd be nice. Cause then I can eventually help, uh, Stephen Nicholas, you know, and do my job for once. Uh, but until then he'll be doing my job, uh, which isn't a bad, uh,

maybe I did it on purpose. You never know. Yeah. You know, get a few more rounds in that way. So, all right, well that wraps things up once again, shout out to everyone tuned in, make sure you hit the like button on your way out. We'll be back on Monday as always 12 PM central with Adam Hogue and Mark Carmen. So for Patrick Norton, I'm Greg Braggs. And as I always like to say, keep your head up and always bear down.

We all silly like the mayor. It's the Smucker's Uncrustables podcast with your host, Uncrustables. Okay, today's guest is rough around the edges. Please welcome Crust. Thanks for having me. Today's topic, he's round with soft pillowy bread. Hey. Filled with delicious PB&J. Are you talking about yourself? And you can take him anywhere. Why'd you invite him? And we are out of time. Are you really cutting me off?

Uncrustables are the best part of the sandwich. Sorry, crust.