Cole Kmet walked into the large, memorabilia-filled West Loop lofts that make up the CHGO Sports offices a little after 9:30 a.m. on the Tuesday after the Houston Texans beat the Chicago Bears 19-13 on “Sunday Night Football.”
The team plane arrived back in Chicago in the wee hours of that Monday morning, allowing players a few hours of sleep before they checked in at Halas Hall to review the loss. Then they had Tuesday off to rest and reset for Week 3.
But first Kmet had more game analysis to do — for the fans.
The Bears tight end this year is hosting a podcast, “The Eighty Five,” in partnership with CHGO Sports, a media company under the ALLCITY Network that launched in March 2022. It’s one of three Bears player podcasts this season.
Safety Kevin Byard hosts “Intercepted” and tight end Marcedes Lewis started “The Big Dog Show” on longtime Chicago radio and TV host David Kaplan’s “The REKAP” YouTube channel.
Every week, Kmet joins co-host Adam Hoge, usually on set, for two segments to go over hot topics from that week’s game, banter about off-field subjects and preview the upcoming game. Between segments, Kmet interviews a guest, mostly teammates thus far, though on this particular show he prerecorded an interview with Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Alec Pierce, a friend who went to Glenbard West.
On that Tuesday, Kmet had a brief meeting with Hoge and settled into his armchair on set. He got a few reminders from show producers — about asking for subscribers to his YouTube channel and mentioning the podcast’s new merchandise line that will benefit Special Olympics Illinois. Hoge showed Kmet a video of Pierce doing a Lambeau Leap two days earlier in Green Bay after both learned that Pierce grew up a Chicago-area Packers fan.
And then Kmet and Hoge dived in.
About the Bears’ offensive problems and how to fix them: “It starts and ends with the run game,” Kmet said, noting how passing was down throughout the league through two weeks.
About a viral play in which Texans defensive end Will Anderson Jr. flew by Kmet to sack quarterback Caleb Williams: “Without getting too much into detail about that, I’m run blocking there for (D’Andre) Swift. I’m not in pass protection mode.”
About the awareness Pierce showed in finding Colts fans at Lambeau Field to do his leap and whether Kmet would try one: “No, unless I knew there was a cult of Bears fans somewhere. Then I’d maybe do it. But definitely not into a Packers fan. I’d be reeking of beer the rest of the time.”
Over 40 minutes, they moved seamlessly in and out of topics, both very football-centric — the cyclical nature of the game and hip-drop tackles — and not, such as Kmet’s ride in former Bears tight end Jimmy Graham’s Huey helicopter.
For Kmet, the side venture serves dual purposes. He has the chance to get his feet wet in media to see if it’s something he would want to do after his playing career is over. And he gets to share his knowledge of the game with fans in a forum that isn’t about the hot takes that drive some shows.
“My main thing with it was to educate people more on the game,” Kmet said. “Whether it’s giving credit they shouldn’t give or blaming people they shouldn’t blame, I think there’s a more nuanced conversation. Without giving up scheme or all of our plays to the audience, it’s good for people to understand what goes into every play.
“Like on a run play, hey, you might see somebody that is unblocked. That might not be because of the offensive line. That might be because the quarterback mis-IDs somebody or the receiver forgets to crack block. There’s just a lot of things that go into it, and I felt like it would be cool to educate the fans in that regard.”
Six days later, Kmet sat down for another podcast after the 21-16 loss to the Colts. But this time, he was the interview subject. It was Byard’s turn to host.
The player’s voice
Player shows aren’t new. “The Jay Cutler Show” on ESPN’s WMVP-AM 1000 during the quarterback’s Bears era was appointment listening. Former Bears cornerback Tim Jennings had a show on the old WGWG-FM 87.7, aka “The Game.”
Several Bears players this season continue the longstanding tradition of paid weekly radio appearances, including DJ Moore, T.J. Edwards and Jaylon Johnson on WSCR-AM 670.
But podcasts by active players have grown to new heights over the last decade. The New York Times reported this month that active NBA players, who helped pioneer the medium, hosted at least two dozen podcasts last season.
The NFL space also has many, the most popular being the “New Heights” podcast with Jason and Travis Kelce. It has 2.45 million subscribers on YouTube — a number certainly boosted by the crossover of Taylor Swift fans interested in Travis — and recently was sold to Amazon’s Wondery, reportedly for at least $100 million.
But for the Bears to have three separate player podcasts on one team in one season is noteworthy — and perhaps indicative of the offseason hype around them.
“For players, it’s just to be able to have their own voice,” said Byard, a nine-year NFL veteran. “For the longest, you had to be getting interviewed or you had to be in a certain light for you to have a voice. For a lot of players, that’s kind of what they’re realizing: ‘Hey, we can be a part of media too.’”
Byard’s vision for his podcast is different than Kmet’s.
He “intercepts” a teammate or coach at Halas Hall on Mondays after film review and sits down with them to talk about their career paths, family life or football habits.
That’s how Byard and Kmet ended up sitting together in a small radio room in the basement of the PNC Center at Halas Hall the day after the loss to the Colts — and talking about how Byard needs to go to Gene and Jude’s to understand Chicago’s love of no-ketchup hot dogs.
“You ask for ketchup, they will kick you out,” said Kmet, a Lake Barrington native.
“I won’t disrespect the city by doing that,” Byard said.
In front of two cameras and two of Kaplan’s producers, they talked football but didn’t go deep into game analysis. Instead they talked about the following:
- What it’s like to be the “hometown hero.” (Both have been called “Mayor” for being local favorites.)
- Whether young players should specialize in one sport. (An emphatic no from both.)
- What Kmet’s draft moment was like. (Kmet’s brother yelled out, “Oh, (expletive)!” because he thought it was the Jacksonville Jaguars and not the Bears calling.)
- How they’ve developed game-day routines. (Kmet doesn’t really do pregame music. He doesn’t like to put on headphones in the locker room because he feels like he’s in a fishbowl. Byard barely eats the morning of games and consumed only a smoothie before the Colts game.)
“Now that I’m doing it, it’s really just fun,” Byard said. “Especially when you set it up in a way where guys are just comfortable talking ball. A lot of conversations we have in the locker room, we can just make a podcast off of that. It’s cool to be able to do it on camera. And for people to be able to get a view of our conversations and our lifestyle.”
Byard also is using his podcast to feel out whether he would like a future media career.
He participated in the NFL’s Broadcasting and Media Workshop in the spring of 2023, a three-day session in Los Angeles in which he studied and practiced studio analysis, podcasting and in-game analysis off a segment of an old Vikings-Colts game.
His partnership with Kaplan has allowed him to do a show on his terms — he decides the guests and discussion topics and sets up the interviews — with help on the production side. And he has a pretty big platform to get started.
As of last Friday, Kaplan’s “The REKAP” YouTube channel had 197,226 subscribers and 6,345,506 views — an audience grown in only about 2½ years.
Kaplan, who hosts “Kap & J. Hood” with Jonathan Hood in the mornings on ESPN 1000, started the channel in April 2022 at the urging of a friend to move his Twitter REKAP videos to YouTube.
Kaplan’s commitment to recapping every Bears, Cubs, White Sox and Bulls game has helped it grow into what it is. He doesn’t take a day off. If he goes out to dinner with his wife, Mindy, he sets up two phones to watch games so that he can record his REKAPs on time.
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Last season he enlisted former Bears wide receiver Tom Waddle and former center Olin Kreutz — already prominent Chicago sports media figures — to be on his Bears postgame analysis show. And in the spring he began to look into adding current players to his lineup.
Byard, a team captain in his first year with the Bears, first met Kaplan at the team’s draft party this spring, when Kaplan inquired about his interest in media. They had lunch and the idea blossomed for Byard’s podcast, which also has featured Tremaine Edmunds and Jonathan Owens.
Kaplan heard backup quarterback Tyson Bagent say on a podcast that Lewis, the 40-year-old Bears captain in his 19th year in the league, was the most important person in the locker room. So Kaplan reached out to Lewis to talk about a deal.
Lewis had turned down offers before. He preferred to connect personally with people. But he has thought about how he can stay in football after he retires — he wants to make it at least through Year 20 — and whether media might be an avenue. And he felt good chemistry from his first conversation with Kaplan, so he said to himself, “Why not step outside the box?”
“The Big Dog Show” — the name and logo of a dog were Lewis’ idea — features weekly guests in a joint video call with Kaplan and Lewis.
“(Kaplan’s) superpower is being able to connect, and so is mine,” Lewis said. “So we connect in that same thread. I have a genuine appreciation for people in general. It comes across when you meet people, when you have conversations. Like, I’m always immersed in whatever it is that I’m doing in that moment.
“And him and I, we just connect. He allows me space to be me. How we play off each other just comes naturally.”
Kmet has been on the podcast — and Lewis has been on Kmet’s show — but it also has featured Lewis’ unique reach as a 19-year NFL veteran. Fox NFL analyst Jay Glazer and motivational author and speaker Jon Gordon were among his first guests.
Next week he hopes to host Dr. Jonathan Leary, his business partner and CEO of the health and wellness social club Remedy Place. Lewis said Leary has been crucial in helping him maintain his health.
“I wanted to bring in people from my network that have helped me grow into the person that I am,” Lewis said. “My world view has never been limited and never been narrow. I have friends of all different colors, all different builds that have good perspectives and that have been mentors of mine. I think it gives the podcast a little something different than just talking ball every single week.”
Radio has been Kaplan’s “bread and butter” for years, and he believes ESPN 1000, the Bears rightsholder, has a young sound. But he said his YouTube channel has “100%” connected with a younger audience.
And Kaplan thinks Byard and Lewis provide a different perspective than typical sports reporters.
“It’s just different than a media person talking to (players),” Kaplan said. “One of their teammates, they just relax and have a good time. It’s just a whole different perspective that we don’t normally get to see.
“And with Marcedes, he has 19 years of NFL experience. His contact list … I had dinner with him the other night, and it’s insane the people that he knows in and out of football.
“I said to him, ‘Who’s the most famous person in your phone?’ He goes, ‘Well, some of them I can’t tell you.’ But he knows everybody.”
‘Ask me anything’
Kmet learned how to handle media obligations at Notre Dame and grew more comfortable in the role with Bears media over his first four years in the league. He found that he likes spreading his knowledge of the game to reporters and fans.
But he’s still learning about hosting his own show, including interviewing techniques.
He said it’s “a little unnatural” at times to direct questions to teammates, but he tries to make it as conversational as possible. He got a kick out of interviewing Lewis one week and rookie wide receiver Rome Odunze another, contrasting their NFL experiences.
Another week, he dived deep with kicker Cairo Santos about why the snaps and holds — and the positioning of the football’s laces — on kicks are so important and Bears staff members’ frantic routine to get kicking footballs ready pregame.
A coach approached Kmet after that episode to say, “That was cool for you to talk about that because people don’t understand that stuff.”
Hoge, 38, has worked in the Chicago sports media scene since 2008, and he realized the potential Kmet had in media from his first interview with him.
It was before the 2020 draft, and Hoge and The Athletic’s Adam Jahns interviewed Kmet, who went to St. Viator High School, for the “Hoge and Jahns” podcast. Since then Hoge kept it in the back of his mind that Kmet would be a good player to partner with on content.
As soon as he was hired by CHGO, Hoge pushed to get Kmet on board.
Kmet joined the CHGO Bears hosts regularly during the 2023 season, but he asked for a bigger role this offseason. CHGO leaders embraced the idea and have been pleased with Kmet’s investment and preparation in everything from the show’s name — a nod to Kmet’s jersey number and the ‘85 Bears — to its format and merchandise line.
“We were obviously all for it,” CHGO general manager Jake Flannigan said, “knowing what he was able to bring to our Bears audience the previous year and also how professional he is, how well-spoken he is, how connected he is in the community and just doing the right things.
“And also just engaging. He is better than me at not being as guarded in discussion. There’s not much that’s off limits. He’s very transparent in that way, and that’s endearing to a lot of people in Chicago, including me.”
So far it has been a good fit.
CHGO’s mission, according Flannigan, is to make it more fun to be a Chicago sports fan and to deliver content to those fans at their level — “not speaking down to fans but speaking to them in the crowd, from the crowd, instead of from the stage.”
The outlet, part of the ALLCITY Network that also covers the Denver, Phoenix, Dallas and Philadelphia markets, produces live shows or video podcasts for each of Chicago’s sports teams five days a week and provides written content on its website too. Its Bears show includes hosts Hoge, Mark Carman, Nicholas Moreano, Greg Braggs Jr. and Corey Wootton, and the outlet also produces a show with former Bears players Lance Briggs and Alex Brown.
The business model relies on multiple revenue streams, including advertising, subscriptions — with exclusive content for its “Diehards” — merchandise sales and live events.
It’s a form of content that’s more in line with the 25-year-old Kmet’s age group — he said his dad listens to the radio, not him — and it offers Kmet a professional level of production and promotion at a time when his mind is focused on the season.
“People that watch most of these shows don’t realize: It’s kind of like a football game in that you spend so much more time prepping,” Hoge said. “Like the prep work is actually way more than when you’re actually on the air. It’s that same kind of concept.
“I just tried to really push the fact that if he wanted to do his own show, that part of the reason that it was good to stick with CHGO and continue to do it with us is because we could really take some of the back-end grind off him so that he can concentrate on football during the season.”
One of Kmet’s major assets for CHGO is that he can provide insights into Bears games that few people can. At one point after his Week 3 podcast with Hoge, he stood with a laptop talking over a play with the show hosts.
In his Colts recap the following week, Kmet went in-depth talking about what went wrong on edge rusher Laiatu Latu’s strip-sack of Williams, noting that while one mistake doesn’t lose a game, “It sure does feel like that in that moment.”
NFL teams have long been known for trying to control what type of content goes out from their coaches and players, wanting both to steer their own message and not to have anything said that would give an opponent an edge.
Kmet believes he has earned the Bears’ trust that he won’t give away anything that would be an advantage to another team. And he thinks there’s a balance between providing honest evaluation of what goes on in a game and not calling out a teammate.
His ability to do that is already being put to the test as the Bears offense has gotten off to a rough start.
“Being on the show last year, I was a little hesitant to do it at first, honestly, just because I didn’t want to be somebody that was coming on and outing people, accidentally saying something I shouldn’t be saying,” Kmet said. “You learn that. Talking with Adam and having the trust they’re going to ask good questions and fair questions and not put me in a position to out anybody or a teammate.
“I’ve always told them: ‘You guys can come at me all you want. Just while I’m with you guys, don’t be coming after my teammates on the show.’ That’s where I kind of drew the line.”
In that way, Hoge said their dynamic is different than a typical reporter-athlete relationship. It’s Kmet’s show, and Hoge is aware of not trying to create awkward situations.
They have pre-show meetings to talk about how they will address things. Kmet tries to stay offline as much as possible, so he relies on Hoge to fill him in about the topics that have Bears fans buzzing.
“The one thing I’ve always appreciated about Cole from the first time he started coming on our show last year is he’s always been transparent,” Hoge said. “He’s like: ‘You can ask me anything. But I’m never going to throw my teammates under the bus.’ That’s basically it.
“And other than that, there’s never been a single time where something’s been: ‘Oh, you can’t ask that. This is off limits.’ … I think that’s part of the reason why the show has been so popular so far.”
The podcast, produced by Stephen Nicholas and released most weeks at 7 p.m. Tuesday, has more than 13,000 subscribers on YouTube, and episodes regularly are getting at least 18,000 views there. It has a 4.9 fan rating out of 5 on Apple Podcasts.
Kmet’s brother Casey is among the fans, listening to the podcast while traveling to and from law school. Kmet said his brother has been “the most pessimistic, but in the greatest way” as he gives feedback on everything from the look of the podcast to the timing of its release.
The outside feedback, both Kmet and Hoge said, has been overwhelmingly positive. And Kmet is happy with how it’s turning out so far for fans — and what it’s bringing to him personally.
“It’s just expanding myself as a person and getting out there more and doing things that at first kind of made me a little uncomfortable,” Kmet said. “But now I’m growing into it a little bit.”
