A Day Removed From Tunsil Trade, Texans Still Adding and Still Time To Board The Cam Train

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam Talking Your Team series,
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A Team A.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
All of the drama.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
As the Texans dismantling of the twenty twenty four offensive
line continues. We have all the details and reaction here
on your home for Texans Talk Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
It is the A Team.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
It's a Tuesday edition of the program. Wex is over there.
My name is Adam Clinton. We will take you up
until six o'clock tonight. And just yesterday, I believe his
name was Adam Wexler. He was talking about who is
gonna play guard for the Texans, and I think the
exact delivery you made was Kenyon Green. Yeah, if they

(00:59):
had their first ever game on March tenth. Well, yeah,
I know I'm being very over the top here. Hence
the music that ain't gonna happen. Listen is never gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I know that, but at.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Least you turned him into something like I'm low key
excited about this, and let me tell you why. In
case you missed it, that's usually at five thirty. But
the Texans have flipped Kenyon Green for CJ Gardner Johnson
and a pick swap. I think it's a fifth for
a sixth. But the point of all this is if

(01:31):
you're bringing over a member of the best defense in
the NFL, a guy who I think has been self
described and others have described him as having a chip
on his shoulder. I think in his farewell address he
actually even mentioned that about himself. I'm fine with it
because of what you just got done saying what was
Kenyon Green going to provide your team?

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I mean, that's at the end of the day. Isn't
that the question money and all.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
That aside pick swaps all that, like, what was he
going to provide your team? And in like to take
it a step further, is that more than what CJ.
Gardner Johnson's gonna provide your team? You know, the answers
to these questions.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
There's no conversation this. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
I'm not sure what people think they know about what
happened here. This is a this is a money thing.

Speaker 5 (02:15):
CJ.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Gardner Johnson was not traded for Kenyan Green. CNA.

Speaker 4 (02:19):
Gardner Johnson's money is off of the Eagles books because
the Texans can take them on their books.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
It's as simple as that.

Speaker 4 (02:25):
I mean, it's I suppose they're taking a flyer on
a guy who was picked in the first round. And
my god, these morons in the media h Kenyon Green
had an up and down season. Well, Kenyon Green had
an up and down career. Well, that means one side
was up and one side was down. That's absolute, total garbage.
No offense to the kid, because it has nothing to

(02:46):
do with him. When the analysis of his play personally,
there was no up. He did nothing to earn a
starter's job here ever, not in year one, not in
year two, not in year three. There was no up.
He played. It was a mistake. It was a mistake
the first time he played. It was a mistake the
third time he played. It doesn't make mistake the tenth time
he played. They flipped a person whose contract is running

(03:09):
out to a team who has the best offensive line
coach in the NFL. They're gonna see, hey, it doesn't
cost us anything because we had to get this contract
for how we want to continue to win off of
our books. Now, I applaud the Texans for taking a
nothing and turning it into this if that's what you
want to say, because that's unfortunately what Kenyan Green was

(03:29):
for this team. And again it's not for a lack
of effort. I think do he put everything he had
into being good his first year coming off of an
injury at A and M. I think he put everything
he had into coming off of injury this past year
when he missed the entire second season of his career.
But they took an entire year to come to the
conclusion that they spent the last week playing out, including

(03:50):
earlier this morning, we can't play these guys, we can't
win with these guys. We don't want these guys, and
we're gonna change everything. But instead of doing it at
some point during last off season or during the season,
at any point, they just played it out. Didn't sit
anybody at all the entire season for poor play, just
let it play out, let their offense get under siege

(04:13):
all the time. And now everyone's patting them on the
back for saying, yeah, I guess they did realize. No,
they didn't realize it. If they would have realized how
bad their offensive line play was, they would not have
given their team no chance to succeed behind it. It's
not gonna make it much better this year and until
they start adding players, and I don't want to go

(04:34):
in on them too hard with the they haven't done
anything yet because of where we are. I recognize the timeline.
But that was the deal this morning. There's certainly nothing
wrong with it at all. And actually it is, as
you said, very positive for one side while to get that,
which is because my gosh, hey man, we got the
fifth best defense, we have the third best defense, we
have the best defense. How much better do you want

(04:55):
it to be at the expense of You're spending all
of your money and all of your assets on one
side of the ball, which is great.

Speaker 2 (05:02):
They're gonna be awesome. They were already awesome.

Speaker 4 (05:05):
Why didn't you get clobberated by Kansas City in the
playoffs because your defense was awesome? Why did you win
your opening playoff game for the last two years because
your defense is awesome. You can't beat the best teams though,
unless you can score points.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Like I said, I'm not gonna go too far on
this was.

Speaker 4 (05:21):
Where listen, I hit it into the league year yet,
so give them a second to try to put some
players on the field on that side of the ball
that could help them. But they have said three of
the opening day lineup. Three of the guys in the
opening day starting lineup for the Texans on the offensive
line are gone. They will not be a part of
the Texans this year or likely any year into the future.

(05:41):
And each of the three of them have varying degrees
of possibilities where there are. Laramie tunzelll is gonna start immediately,
Shake Shaq Mason's not technically available yet. You need to
make that a new league year cut, and that will
come tomorrow. And Green is unlikely to play a huge
role on the Eagles this year, and if it's not
this year, it might not be any year. But he's
certainly he's going to be given the opportunity. That's why

(06:02):
they made that deal. And now the Texans have to
figure out what can they do with Jared Patterson and
Juice Scruggs. Where do they want to place Initially, Titus
Howard and Blake Fisher, who are the two guys most
likely to start at tackle. Another move that was made
today by the Texans they signed a long time starting
left guard in the NFL, be thirty three years old
Lake and Tomlinson, who has I would assume a little

(06:24):
bit of familiarity with Jamiko Ryans and vice versa five
years together in San Francisco as Demiko began his coaching
career as an assistant and then a linebackers coach. One
year as DC, his defenses lined up opposite Tomlinson, playing
on the Niners offensive line. Last three years, he's been
in New York and then most recently in Seattle, and

(06:48):
in each of the last seven years he started every
single game for those three teams. He's been on the
field a ton. And if you note most people that
have commented on this deal on the X platform, myself included,
that's usually the number one thing. They're right, because the
actual play is how did he start all these years?
He's been a one time pro bowler and that was

(07:09):
three years ago. He's not going to be playing for
his fifth team. I hope he's not here for competition,
but his resume says that he might be. I'm not
really sure what you're doing if that's what you're doing,
because how's that helpful. The idea that you're bringing guys

(07:29):
in for competition means you believe in miracles. This player
is going to outplay the other player that's supposed to
be better than him and then have a great season
for us because he was brought in for competition.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
I don't know enough about Tomlinson.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
Obviously, I know what the grades will say, and you
know he had this percentage of pressures and this many
sacks allowed and where it ranked him on guards and all.
But I hope it's more than that. It's not a
tremendous amount of money. But if this so far, this
offseason for the most part is very very very Nick Cassario,
which points out how last season was very very non

(08:08):
Nick Cassario. He just signs everybody that's out there because
he knows he's not gonna spend any big money. That's
what he did the first two years in an attempt
to lose, and so far, to a little bit larger extent,
there's no big money contracts, but all of the small
money deals they've done. And Mario Edwards Junior is another
one we should mention here will be re signed and

(08:28):
back with the Texans on a two year deal.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
They're doing They're doing fine.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Their defense looks insane and there's no nothing yet and
a whole day and change that they've done to help
their offense.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
Yeah, no, I I uh, you going off on the
fact that all that money. Remember when all they would
pick is defensive players in the first round for a
while there there was like a run on that and
you know, this was the Travis Johnson picked for example,
things like that, where it was just always felt like

(09:03):
the Texans were going one sided and if people like
me were screaming offensive line. And here we are, you know,
almost twenty five years later, and it kind of feels
the same. But like you said, they're not done. I
can't sit here like if yesterday was a mild stunner
because it signaled the beginning of this fire sale, because

(09:24):
that's what it feels like. Then today is more all right,
this is good because who am I to sit here
and complain about the Texans, you know, not addressing the
elephant in the room, the biggest problem by far, the
biggest weakness on either side of the football and special teams.
I'm not gonna sit here and complain, especially when the
process is really only beginning. You know, these moves are

(09:47):
a prelude to what you actually will see will be
what they intend to do with that unit. And by
the way, I don't think it's out of the realm
of possibility. And I don't think I'm out of line
to even say this. If I'm Titus Howard, I'm not
comfortable here. I'm not thinking that I'm not going to
be next. Why wouldn't he be next? Honestly, given the
moves they've made, why would that be a surprise at

(10:09):
all if they found a way to flip him for something?

Speaker 4 (10:13):
Because you got to put players on the field. No,
I know that, and I absolutely agree with you. But
and it doesn't. Guy's like it doesn't matter to him
whether they think they're untouchable, whether it was a total
surprise to TUNSL, which I believe it certainly was, or
whether a player should be on edge because they've made
so many moves.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
It's not I.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
Wouldn't anticipate bring because of Howard's posts on his social
media about Tunsl's trade.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
What about why is Joe Mixon thinking he's gone to
He posted similarly.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Well, the difference is Joe Mixon's good. Oh that's see.
Titus Howard's not a bad player, but he's not a
great player. He's not a great players.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
He's being paid a little bit too much for the
quality of player that he is, but he's not being
paid an amount that says say they've got to move
on from him. I mean, I'm not sure what he
wanted to do at this point. You could just say,
all right, that the five guys that were there opening dawn,
let's just get rid of them all. That would be
kind of an odd thing to say, which is why
everyone yesterday outside of Houston was like, oh, yeah, our
offensive line is awful, Let's get rid of the best player.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Because that's what they did.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
You have to play somebody, and you know Tomlinson's here now,
Lake Fisher goes into his second year, Patterson and Scruggs
are going to year three, and Titus Howard is quite
obviously still under contract. You got to put somebody out
there to protect your quarterback. I would be I was.
I was floored they traded Laramie Tunsel, and I guess
I'd have to drop down to another floor if they

(11:35):
also move on from Titus Howard in the very same offseason.
In the basement, there's only so much money you really
need to try to get. I'm all for making these
moves from a monetary standpoint. If we're gonna trade Laramie Tunsell,
that's trade him this off season when the return can
help us in the future, hopefully the immediate future. But
it's gonna be difficult with what they got in the
twenty twenty five draft from the Commanders. But I get

(11:57):
that from a financial standpoint, but you also have to
do something with that. What are they going to do
with this? What is it all these savings or we
don't want to pay these people anymore, we want to
move on from them.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
Great, now, what you got to bring in players now?

Speaker 4 (12:12):
Because you've failed miserably, dramatically, spectacularly in trying to play
your offensive line around the high priced players with draft
picks that don't make any money, because you're getting what
you pay for unfortunately bad play, and you can't. I mean,
we're now asking the person in charge of putting the
offensive line together to put an offensive line together, which

(12:35):
we've watched him do for all of his years at
GM incredibly badly, badly spent money, bad extensions, bad trades.
Some of his trades are so bad we rarely even
get around to some of the other bad trades because
I think people have forgotten about them. I'm bringing one
of those up next segment. Nice and then, obviously, as
draft picks have been disastrous on the offensive line at

(12:55):
least where we sit today, a little unfortunate to lump
Blake Fisher in there. Disastrous, maybe a little bit strong
for a player's only been here one year, but he's
not even an obvious starter based on how he played.
And that's kind of where they're at. It wasn't a
top pick, it wasn't a top second round pick. It
was a late second round pick. But that's where this
team is. That's where we begin today. Obviously, we have

(13:16):
Astros Baseball for you coming up tonight and we'll let
you know on what took place today. There's a couple
of notes from today's game that are certainly worthwhile not
to mention what was taking place away from today's game.
If you think the Texans sent out the trash, well,
I certainly think the Rockets took out the trash so
far on this homestand and over their last three games.

(13:38):
We'll get into that a little bit, plus what took
place at their practice today in preparation for their game
against Devin Booker and Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns
come to Papa They continue to be in the news
through no fault of their own other than their awful
play as a team.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
And everything else we got coming your way. We are
on till six today here on the eighteen.

Speaker 6 (14:01):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (14:06):
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Speaker 7 (15:10):
We now return to Adam Clinton and Adam Wexwerd on Sports.

Speaker 8 (15:15):
Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
It is the eight team Sports Talk seven ninety. Okay,
I am uh. I'm actually very excited about this because
I have no idea which direction you're gonna go, but
I do know that there are several not savory transactions, trades,
what have you, that Nick Cassario has made, so I'm
anxious to know which one you were going to highlight

(15:50):
this segment.

Speaker 4 (15:51):
Wex Well, it's all about one thing. He's made plenty
of good deals. Look at the roster on this team.
Let's give him some credit. This is a playoff caliber
team two years running. They obviously were attempting to do something.
The first two years he was here, did not have
draft picks in his opening draft in the top two rounds.
There are plenty of things that he's done right, and
you're not going to be in this position today, and

(16:13):
you were in the same position at the last offseason
as you are this offseason. You're not there unless your
general manager clearly made some correct moves. I really I
always hesitate to give him too much credit for work
that was done over the overhauling the roster in the
first two years, because it was easy.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Honestly, every GM in the NFL could do that.

Speaker 4 (16:34):
They had a bunch of bad players, they had a
bunch of bad contracts, and just got rid of them all.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
It's not that hard. They weren't trying to win.

Speaker 4 (16:40):
When you don't have that hanging over you, when you
don't have a head coach you've just brought in that
has to win, that you brought in to win, that
you hired so you guys could win together. Well, you
don't have any pressure on you to do something beyond
I have a bad roster, all right, I've got some
players I can move.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
I'll move them.

Speaker 4 (16:56):
I'll get rid of all the contractual constraints we might
be under, and I won't hammer. I won't hurt us
in the future with any contracts we probably shouldn't be signing. Honestly,
how could you not do that it's easy. We look
back at the two drafts they had during the Cully
and Smith eras and might not have meant a whole
lot at the time, but you landed Nico Collins in

(17:18):
one of them. You landed Derek Singley Junior in the other,
again with some other players that have meant something to
this team clearly. But that's pretty good for your first
two drafts when you're not trying to win. And you
really benefited in the second of those two because you
did not win and you had the third pick in
the draft, and you got it right. You should it's three,
but it doesn't always work out that way. They did,

(17:39):
and we'll find out soon how much they're happily paying
for it, with Stingley Junior becoming the latest offseason cornerback
to become the highest paid cornerback in the NFL.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
It's J. C.

Speaker 4 (17:49):
Horn for a couple of days, and we'll see how
many more days until his agent comes up with the
package for Stingley, same agent, So yeah, some credit given there.
Obviously their defense is loaded. You drafted CJ. Stroud correctly,
You traded up for Will Anderson Junior correctly. The offseason
moves they made last year to augment what was already
a playoff team one year in the vast majority of

(18:12):
them paid off and paid off very very well. Not
always easy to overhaul a defensive line like they did,
and they did it brilliantly. They look like they're about
to do it again with some of the same names,
Rankins coming back and Edward's returning from last season.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Finding CJ.

Speaker 4 (18:28):
Gardner Johnson among players that could be available, and you're
the team that now lands him for a secondary As
soon as I knew that he was coming here, looking
at what Aaron Wilson had tweeted about the parameters of
the deal earlier this morning, but it just dawned on me.
They're gonna hit the field next year against Daniel Jones
and the Colts, let's say the opening game.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
We have got to dedicate a segment of that situation.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
And he's going to be tasked with throwing down the
field against Derek Stingley Junior, Kamari Lasser, Jalen Petrie, CJ.
Gardner Johnson, and Kaylen Bullock while being chased by danil
Hunter and Will Anderson and Sheldon Rankins, Mario Edwards Junior,
and Tim Settle and Daryl Taylor and Denico Autry and

(19:14):
it's it's great. It's an awesome situation to be in.
Oh yeah, there's also Harris Toto and I'll share here.
This defense is absolutely loaded. It's loaded.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
An offensive line that's now sent three starters out, three
guys that started the majority of last season or starters
in the day began there are now going to be
playing elsewhere. And the Texans have long been trying to
get an offensive line they could truly play good football behind.

Speaker 2 (19:39):
And all of.

Speaker 4 (19:40):
These three players moved. There's no question Kenyon Green as
a Nick Cassario mistake. There's to me, it wasn't. He
didn't bring Laramie Tunsel here, and I never thought it
was a mistake to pay him. We'll find out if
it was a mistake or not to move him. But
on Laramie Tunsel as it relates to Nick Cassario's where
he didn't do anything wrong with him. He was a

(20:01):
really good player and while he was here, he got
another extension. While Nick was here, I mean he got
another extension and played good football as a pass blocking
left tackle. Trading for Shaq Mason at the time they
traded for him. His year in Tampa with Tom seemed
like it made some sense. I think it was more
about familiarity and need than this player's really playing great football.

(20:22):
He was okay as his career in New England ended,
He was okay again as his career in Tampa was brief,
and he was okay for the Texans a year ago
on the same group that we said, well, oh, they
were just so much better year before. Well, he and
two others were holdovers from that line, and somehow they
got a whole lot worse extending him, unfortunately, because you
traded for him. That was the big mistake, and that's

(20:44):
why they ultimately decided early in that extension this offseason
to send him on his way. And the extent for
Titus Howard we kind of talked about in the opening
segment is a little bit too much. Are you still
unsure of where he actually should be playing for your
team because you've made so many other mistakes. The Marcus
Cannon trade is the one I was referencing, and like
I said, I bet most people just don't even remember.

(21:06):
He made it so early in his tenure here. It
made no sense the day they made it, and it
made even less sense with what he did while he
was here. They just complete it, showed it then. And
this is March is basically four years ago, almost to
the day when they pulled off that deal. And what

(21:26):
unfortunately it should have shown us very early in Nick
Cassario's career as an evaluator of talent of the offensive
line position, he's terrible at it, just awful. And whoever
he's had with him these years, and it's quite a
few people, they are too. And that's why we are
where we are today with the text. That's why CJ's
where we are today. All this stuff being done, all

(21:49):
this recognition that our offensive line has to be revamped.
Everybody in the building knows that. And then they're gonna
go back it. They're gonna leave the room and say, ah,
job well done. And then the exact same people are
gonna go into the next room and say, all right,
we're the people that brought all those guys here, Let's
get guys who can play. Do you believe in us?
And they're looking at each other. It's like Spider Man
pointing at each other. Yep, the same guys who messed

(22:09):
it all up for four years running are gonna be
the ones who we think are gonna fix it.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
But hang on.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
This is why I have serious internal issues when it
comes to this guy running the Texans. How can you
be so good in all these other areas? And it's
not just free agency? Yeah, Danil Hunter hit, Yeah, some
of these guys you've signed have been awesome. He drafts
well at the positions outside of the offensive line. I

(22:37):
mean it's not just defense, but for the most part,
the defensive picks have been amazing, Like Kylen Block, That's
that's outstanding drafting. I just don't get how that guy
can be so bad at this one very some would
say the most important outside of quarterback position group.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
There's more people involved in every one of these you've got.
You know, we're talking about all these defensive players. He's
drafted well for the most part. Uh, Post Derek Stingley
Junior Draft, He's had someone that knows a little bit
about something defensively to help along with. You know, James
Lipfort's been here throughout the years as is basically next
man in charge of personnel. And then you're talking about
all the scouts. But as head coach currently, this is

(23:21):
what I want for my defense and you and I together,
we're gonna look at these players. I'm gonna tell you
and you're gonna tell me, is this guy gonna fit here? Hey,
you know you listen to Nick talk and he even
acknowledges I'm I'm here to support Demiko. I'm here to
get the players that he thinks he can win with,
that we think we can win with. And it's to me,
so far, so good when you're talking about defense, because

(23:41):
Dimiko Ryans looks like he does completely understand what he's
seeing on film, what he's seeing for other NFL players
that have you know that are veterans that they're looking at,
and certainly when they get together, looking at the scouting
tape and the scouting reports that they put together, because
clearly during the season, Demiko is not sending the guys
on their way on Friday, then rolling out to watch

(24:01):
college film and go to games on Saturday, then making
it just in time for game day on Sunday to.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Go and it's a grind.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
That's what your personnel department is for, especially during the season.
But then you look at the other side of the
ball and beyond, you know, they drafted together, they drafted CJ. Stroud,
J Scruggs, Tank Dell offensively top three rounds two years ago.
Last year, offensively they only had one offensive player selected

(24:30):
in the first three rounds. You'd go to the fourth
round with Cad Stover those two players when you had Fisher, Stover,
Scrugs and Tech.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
Obviously, I'm not bringing CJ into it. CJ who he is.
There's a whole lot of evaluation necessary. Even though I
suppose they could have said no, no, no, we like
somebody else better. Now that Bryce Young is off the board,
we like somebody else better, they didn't. They have holes
and they've not been filling them with their draft picks

(24:58):
offensively nearly as successfully as you almost have to be
for all the things that go into figuring out who
you want to draft and where you are in the draft,
and you really put all that into one decision. The
best offensive player that Nick Cassario has drafted as Texan's
general manager is Nico Collins, trading up for him to

(25:20):
get to eighty nine to draft him in his very
first draft. And I'm trying to make you look at
the big Obviously, he's not the best player they drafted
that plays offense, but figuring out a player's talent for
where you are in the draft and what you're after
and why you want him here. That's turned out to
be the most valuable pick. I think he's made offensively,
and it's troubling as we get set for Best of X.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
That that was three drafts ago. Yeah, don't remind me.
Best of X is next.

Speaker 6 (25:49):
The age. On Sports Talk seven ninety, we now return.

Speaker 7 (25:54):
To Adam Clinton and Adam Wexwerth on Sports.

Speaker 1 (25:58):
Talk seven ninety Did you all see this?

Speaker 6 (26:03):
Putting out between five and fifteen posts a day, four
hundred people were arrested.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Four things, so they said on social media.

Speaker 9 (26:10):
History repeats itself type bang, you'll succeed.

Speaker 6 (26:15):
Never doubt that you're the one who.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Plus we're no one building lead. You're the best of X.
Nothing's gonna have a top.

Speaker 9 (26:24):
You know you're the best of X posting every single day.
You know you're the best of it, breaking the entire enginet.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
It is time for best of X.

Speaker 4 (26:40):
Here on a Tuesday edition of the A Team X
and AC here with you. Never a shortage, especially on
the days where X is operational throughout the day.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
Sometimes we go to IG for that could have given
that to you had it happened a little bit earlier
in the day yesterday when we weren't even on the air.
But yes a couple of Texans took to social media
expressing what appears to be displeasure at the fact that
their left tackle is now unknown because their previous left
tackle will be playing for the Commanders for a playoff

(27:09):
team in Washington. In front of the Jayden Daniels, we
mentioned the Rockets will be awaiting the arrival of the
Phoenix Suns tomorrow. A couple of games for the Rockets
and Sons remain. The Suns last night nearly pulled off
a late game heroic victory late three pointer made by

(27:30):
Kevin Durant, then a couple of free throws allowed them
to attempt to win the game late on another Kevin
Durant three pointer, but he missed and they lost.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
The way you delivered whether or not he hit the
second one on the postgame show was Chef's kiss, very
very textbook, and on Brandon.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
Well that scenario was actually the Luka Doncic three pointer
that was missed at the buzzer after Cam Johnson of
the Nets missed two free throws with just a few
seconds left, which would have put the game out of reach.
But Luca's long, long, long shot was off the mark,
as for most of his shots throughout the night. He
had an awful night offensively. And yes, the Lakers among

(28:10):
these top teams, they were.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
The only one to lose.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
But specific Kevin Durant. We're here on Best of X,
and there's a spot for Kevin Durant on Best of
X thanks to at Real Skip Bayless more and more
specifically in this case, at Skip Bayles's show. I'm sure
a lot of people watch his show that is now
no longer on TV. But he's referring to his personal
product and he writes along with a video which we don't.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
Need to hear because it's a skipper.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
The more I watch him at age thirty six, the
more he parentheses. KD looks mentally semi retired. To me, well,
you know how KD is. If it's out there, he
has a comment, he never wanted it back then, he'll
definitely know about it, and in this instance he decided
to comment on it as well.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
He quotes, we did that and he said, bleep it.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
We're both washed and it was a great run at
real skip baylists.

Speaker 3 (29:04):
Honestly for Kevin Durant and the way he can really
get after people. That was far more clever and lighthearted
than you would expect.

Speaker 4 (29:14):
Someone added a caption on the replies that says you
to skip right now, and it's a picture of Cody
Rhodes with his right hand out and he's facing John Cena,
who also has his right hand out.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
They're about to, you know, embrace, having a nice Oh,
we all know what happened after that. A little bit
of a heel turn came after that.

Speaker 4 (29:33):
Someone all said, this is the first superstar that actually
admitted he's washed, followed by the inside the NBAT and
T crew falling out of their chairs laughing. So I
don't think the soon to be traded Kevin Durant believes
he's washed. He had thirty five points in the game
last night.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
To that end.

Speaker 4 (29:53):
Dwayne Rankin, who covers the Suns out West and has
for many years, apparently believe his teammate Devin Booker could
bring in via trade not one, not two, not three,
but four first round picks and a rising star caliber

(30:15):
player maybe in his third or fourth year. Almost like
he's actually saying what it would take for the Rockets
to bring him in, because that's literally exactly what their
arsenal could be in a trade if offered. But before
you get to more of the best of X options, here,
are you interested in trading for first round picks.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
And a player on your roster for Devin Booker? Who's
the player on your roster?

Speaker 4 (30:41):
We'll just say it's Cam Went Moore's going in new
his third year, So Devin Bookers could say Jabari Smith Junior.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
I'm not sure who that player might be. You haven't
because I haven't mentioned jarn Green. And if you're trading
for Devin Booker, doesn't that seem redundant? If Jalen's on
the roster?

Speaker 4 (30:58):
It does to you. But although in today's NBA you're
gonna give up a you're gonna give them Jalen. I
get it from a player to player, and this is
what we want on a court point of view. But okay,
we'll give you Jalen Green, but we're not also giving
you four first round picks.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
Then yeah, Well, and the difference between and this is
going to be the case, whether it's Devin, whether it's Kevin,
whether it's the janitor that works for the Suns. Whoever's
coming back from the Phoenix Suns and a potential hypothetical
trade with the Houston Rockets has to understand that those
those picks mean more from Houston.

Speaker 2 (31:35):
Because they're their picks.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
I've heard all these trade rumors like there's this one, Oh, well,
what would it take for the Minnesota Timberwolves to trade
for Kevin Durant. Well, it's going to be different than
what it would take for the Rockets to trade for
Kevin Durant because they're Phoenix's picks and they're good.

Speaker 4 (31:50):
Yeah, they would have to either have already obtained whatever
team we're talking already obtained picks from another team that
are you know, only lottery protected top four or in
the future where you believe they could winnable. But the
player that you're getting is gonna make your team good,
so your picks become less valuable. As in even the
Rockets picks, the Rockets picks that they own are not

(32:11):
very valuable. They're in the back ten of the NBA
Draft based on where their record is. And keep this
also in mind in any trade that might be one
year acquiring Kevin Durant or Devin Booker. In Devin Booker's case,
while he's not yet thirty, he wouldn't play next year
at age thirty either. He'll be twenty nine in his
eleventh NBA season, And he and Kevin Durant, I think,

(32:31):
are playing at a pretty high level right offensively, and
he and Kevin Durant are leading their team to nothing.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
Right.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
They're one of the five worst teams in the West,
they're one of the twelve worst teams in the NBA,
and they've both played well over eighty five percent of
their game.

Speaker 2 (32:49):
The most alarming.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Perplexing element of all both of these guys being dangled
or talked about in trade rumors. And what's funny is
I'm reading just this is just an NBC Sports one
talking about the asking price for Kevin Durant being three
first round picks and young players, and it mentions Houston
amongst a list of teams that would likely just be

(33:13):
the tip of the iceberg. And those teams are not
going to put together the kind of package the Suns
are looking for just to rent Kevin Durant. They're gonna
ask him to sign a two year, one hundred and
twenty two million dollar contract extension, which, of course, if
that's the case, and I think it would be, that
gives Katie some leverage. That's why I think he's coming
to Houston because he wants to be here too. But

(33:35):
the man giving up that those picks, which are better, again,
as we just established, than anybody else's first round picks,
I don't.

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Know if the Rockets should part ways with that.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
I was having a conversation about the Texas Longhorns earlier
today his alma mater, and was laying out a nightmare
scenario for Longhorn fans where the Horns win tomorrow in
their conference tournament, then they lose to Vanderbilt, then they
fire their head coach, then they accept their NIT bid,

(34:09):
then they hire their interim head coach permanently, Frank Hayth.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
And that's the nightmare scenario.

Speaker 4 (34:15):
But then I added one thing to it because I
happened to have a tankathon up on my browser, and
I ran one lottery simulation and the Phoenix pick landed forth.
And then I added to that text I was sending,
and the Rockets draft Trey Johnson, Texas Longhorn superstar freshman.
They misinterpreted it, like, why is that a nightmare scenario.
You don't like Trey Johnson. I'm like that was separate.

(34:37):
I was just saying how things are gonna play out
over the next couple of weeks for the Texas long life.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Actor Trey for Longhorns fans is what you were getting out.

Speaker 4 (34:45):
We've got lots of things to hold over for tomorrow
and in perpetuity. On a Best of X when I
can tell you that at least this was found on
the X platform. It begins with these five words. We'll
save it for another day for all the dumb dums.
That's Best of X for today.

Speaker 6 (35:02):
The a t on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 7 (35:07):
We now returned to Adam Clinton and Adam Wexworth on
Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Is there any new Texans that are going to demand
their number to the point where it's going to cause
the team to release a hype video about the number
change like the Rams just did with Pukinakua.

Speaker 4 (35:31):
Well, I mean, you're you're asking a question out loud
if you want to go with you know, some of
the players on their way in, you know, Lake and Tomlinson,
new offensive lineman. According to reports this morning, probably isn't
demanding a number considering he's played for four teams and
he's worn a different number in each of the four stops,
one of them being seventy, which is available should he

(35:52):
want to choose that one or has the opportunity to
choose that one. CD Gardner Johnson also is expected to
join the Texans. They trade of Kenyon Green and a
pick to the Eagles for CJ.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Gardner Johnson and a pick. In Gardner Johnson's case, he
too will be playing four team number five. He has
also worn four different numbers. Most recently, he wore John
Mechi's number. Before that, he wore Robert Woods number. Before that,
he wore Eric Murray's number. So I probably got some

(36:27):
options to choose from, and that one of those three
players likely to remain here. Murray's already gone he signed
with the Jags. Yeah, and I.

Speaker 4 (36:36):
Believe Robert Woods would be a later in free agency
reacquire for the Texans as they look in a different direction.
But if he were still there and they still had
a hole and they loved his leadership and his knowledge
of the offense, they could bring him back.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Before we get to some very interesting audio assess Eric
Murray stay as a Texan.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
Surprisingly to me, he was here as long as he
was and I guess we kind of go back to
leaning on Tomco to make things great. His best years
were with Demiko, and that's why it's not that surprising.
What he is a player that is very well placed
as depth. He is a player you want on your
team when you need him to play because the players

(37:18):
in front of him are out hurt that day, hurt
that game, or hurt for several weeks. That's what he
really can do that for a very good team and
in this case, a very good defense. Heck, he found
the end zone in the last game at home this year.
In the postseason, he played pretty well for the Texans.
And the role that he was being paid to play,
I'm not sure what role he's being paid to play

(37:40):
in Jacksonville and his years under the previous coordinators and
the previous head coach Slash GM talking about Bill O'Brien
and Lovey Smith. For the most part, they just weren't
very good. It was a bad signing when Bill signed
him away from the Chiefs, overpaid for a player you
didn't even know where he wanted him to play. He
spent time at corner he spent time at safety. He

(38:02):
never stayed on the field because he was so good
at either. And you went out and spent free agent
money on him a three year deal, and then when
you had the opportunity to walk away, Nick Cassario gave
him another contract, and I thought even then it was
a mistake. And once you brought to Miko Ryans here
and you got better talent in front of him, you
now put him in a much more proper role. He
helped his team, There's no getting around it. He helped

(38:24):
this team be better, but he also could get picked
on it at times in coverage against athletic tight ends,
and most teams employ them. There's thirty one other teams
and there's about fifty athletic tight ends you have to cover.
I was he's usually a mismatch. The Texans as a
whole had difficulty and coverage down the field when it
was involving their safeties. So it wasn't only an Eric

(38:45):
Murray problem. But teams did notice it, and teams took
advantage of it. And now he will be playing at
Energy Stadium only once a year instead of eight or
nine times a year because.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
He's a Jaguar and I mean, I hate to be
this man, but don't you feel like he's peaked. I
know he just signed a new deal with the Jags,
but the thirty one has never played as well as
he did until he got to Dimico's defense.

Speaker 4 (39:12):
I mean he was in Demko's defense for two years.
Not only was he a reserve. The first year he
was Barrelan on the field, he didn't play very much
and there's some injuries involved. Last year he played every game. Yes,
I don't think there's any question you had the best
season of his career. But you're pointing out kind of
the obvious with it's a risky play. It's not an
unbelievable deal. It's not We're never going to recover from

(39:34):
this deal that he got. And credit to Murray and
his agents forgetting him this deal. That is definitely I
can go get some money here. I've been able to
get now three free agent contracts or one free agent
contract plus an extension, and now a second one twenty
two and a half million. If it's all earned with
twelve million guaranteed at thirty one, Absolutely, he's essentially a career.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
That's awesome for him. Jimmy Ward's still under contract. Correct, Yes,
Nick Cassario extended him during the season.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
That's your depth, I would assume behind CJ. Yes, that's
your depth behind CJ. Gardner, Johnson and Kayln Bullock. You've
brought back m J. Stewart, as reports indicated today. But
it goes back to what I said during the season
at the time. Sure many of them recall I didn't
understand why they extended Jimmy Ward at all. Jimmy Ward
is awesome because he knows the defense. Guess what, everybody

(40:29):
in Houston knows the defense. Now, Dimiko's been here for
two years. Jimmy Ward in year one had a lot
of value there. He's actually an awesome dude. He's a
great locker room guy. He's a really good player, but
he has a lot a lot of difficulty staying on
the field.

Speaker 4 (40:47):
He plays exceptionally violently. He's going to get his share
of personal foul penalties when he hits a player in
an illegal way. It happens every year. Heck, he's hit
his own teammates in that way. Kamari Lassiter last year
doing that. But it this was a player that you
you smartly signed when you brought into Beko's head coach

(41:08):
two years. Let him turn help guys with the defense,
get him out there on the field. He's still got
good football out there. But as he heads into age
thirty four next year, was it a Sometimes these moves
seem like feel good moves inside the locker room. Everybody's
gonna like this. He's he's a you know, we've rewarded
him by extending him for another year.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Well it's I'm sure.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
Jeremy Ward and the rest of his teammates do like it,
but I don't know that you and your cap are
going to like it this year.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
That's good. Put all right.

Speaker 3 (41:36):
We don't have time to get to what we were
going to get to as far as an audio clip,
but it's definitely interesting when you hear what one NFL
insider had to say about how the process of the
Texans trading Laramie Tunzel went down up to an including
calling several other tackle hungry teams.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
About Laramie Tunson. We will let you hear that when
we come back.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety two lifelong
Houston sports guys named Adam talking your Teams, Adam Clinton
and Adam Wexler are the A team A.

Speaker 3 (42:25):
Our number two underway here on a Tuesday edition of
the program Sports Talk seven ninety WEX and AC with
you until six o'clock tonight. I've been talking a whole
lot of Texans with the moves they've made over the
past twenty four hours now. The Laramie Tonsel trade happening
really right around this time yesterday as we were on

(42:48):
the air, and then since then they've made some other
deals like signing Lake and Tomlinson, but also trading for CJ. Gardner, Johnson, Oh,
Kenyon Green went out in that deal. I might add
the offensive line resurgence the offensive line. I can't wait
for that. Yeah, yeah, let me know when that happens.

(43:10):
It's hopefully right around the corner. The renovation is underway.
This is the stage of the master bathroom remodel where
they're doing the demo ing they're taking the sledgehammer.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
The master bathroom. Well, it's just top of mind for
the whole house.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
And after they've done the demo on it, they realize, well,
we can't start building it. Foundation stinks too. We got
to build a new foundation. I realize, oh my god,
we can't lay foundation on this. Do you realize what
they tried to build this on the sod's no good here.
This is we're in a floodplay. We gotta start all
we probably have to move.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
Wouldn't the offensive line be the front door, like if
we're talking about because the team is the house. Really,
if we're gonna make this analogy, so if this is
not the master bathroom, wouldn't the offensive line be the
front door. It's first line of defense. Yes, So we're
remodeling the front door and they are absolutely tearing away.

(44:03):
We did this and we had a very small front door,
not anymore, and the process of it was just incredible
because they literally tore out the front wall to put
in a much more massive door.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
And that's what the Texans are doing right now.

Speaker 4 (44:16):
Yeah, three offensive linemen that were the starters last year
for the most part, certainly at the beginning of the season,
have been sent elsewhere. Mason via release, which will become
official tomorrow. Kenyon Green via trade earlier this morning. Reportedly
he goes to the Eagles. We'll swap a fifth and sixth,
and the Texans will get back starting safety and Super
Bowl champion CJ.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
Gardner.

Speaker 4 (44:38):
Johnson, one of the most impactful, disruptive players on the
back end for several years, and certainly last year in
his year with the Eagles. The Texans also traded Laramie
Tunsel yesterday to the Washington Commanders swap of fourths and
then three additional picks coming back to the Texans. The
first of those picks pays this year in the third round.

(44:58):
They'll get a second next year. They brought in only
one offensive lineman thus far. That's Laken Tomlinson, a one
year deal. It could be could be valued at in
the neighborhood of five million or so, probably a little
less than that, depending on certain parameters of his deal.
He's been a longtime NFL starter, starting every game for
seven consecutive seasons with three teams. One of those teams

(45:20):
is San Francisco. Note that because he and Demiko Ryans
were in San Francisco together for all of that time.
Spent the last three years two with the Jets, and
then this most recent year for the Seahawks. The Seahawks offense,
like the Texans offensive line, is being completely dismantled and rebuilt.
Gino Smith, dk Metcalf, Tyler Lockett, lacoln Tomlinson, all starters

(45:44):
for them last year now elsewhere, and Tomlinson probably not
coming off of one of his finest years. He's a
one time pro bowler, but has been a part of
four different teams. Idea as a starter, and it will
now be a fifth because I would have to imagine
that he was brought here to start, but others think otherwise.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
We will see what else they do.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
The deal for laramietansl obviously generates the most discussion, as
it should and all around the league. I think there
was some knowledge that maybe the Texans would do this,
and I think we need to give a little bit
of a hint to what we briefly mentioned yesterday. This
is not a we don't want him around completely. Situation.
This is not we're better without him situation. This isn't

(46:26):
some made up problem in the locker room situation. There's
some thought behind moving a player at a specific time contractually.
Look at all these deals that get made in the
NFL with players who end up in the final year
of their contract, and they do the normal NFL player
agent thing and say, look how good we are. I'm

(46:47):
only under contract for one more year. Pay me, I
want an extension, And what does the team do. They
either say yes and haul as well and you get paid,
or they say we're not doing it, but by all
means we'll find another team that will meet those needs
and then we'll move you for a lot less than
we could have if we did it a year ago. Now,

(47:07):
teams don't like to do that because that means that
good player isn't on your team for that entire season. Well,
the Texans are doing that. They're trying to move Laramie
Tunsel at a time they believe they can get something
in return, and now it's our job's next job to
determine if they did. Ian Rappaport was on with Pat

(47:28):
McAfee earlier today describing kind of as you described in
the teas, kind of the process that got them here.
It doesn't sound at all like, hey man, we got
to find a team that can take Luca, but we
got to keep it on the down low. It actually
sounded like a normal series of phone calls on the
path to maybe this is what will end up doing.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
If you're Nick Cassario, they.

Speaker 10 (47:49):
Kind of, I don't want to say shopped because it's
not like it's not like they were like shopping is
more like we're trying to get rid of them.

Speaker 6 (47:54):
If not, won't cut them.

Speaker 10 (47:56):
They talked to some teams who are in the tackle market,
and some of those teams opted for younger or cheaper versions.
Several teams who either signed tackles or were in the
tackle market had the chance for Tunsil decided not to.

Speaker 4 (48:10):
And you look at the money that was spent on
this year's tackle market. The Steelers tackle who's now making
twenty million dollars a year, which is a little bit
less than Laramie's making. He's also five six years younger
and as a lot more football left in front of him.
You could maybe make an assumption that the team that
that player signed with would have been someone you were

(48:30):
on the phone with, the team you thought might be interested,
team you thought might be willing to say the time
to strike is now. If we think we're a left
tackle away from winning, and we have the assets that
we can move out and not feel like we're hurting
our future, well then we'll do it.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
That's the Commanders.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
I think the idea that they just were done with
him is faulty, and the idea that there was something
of great significance inside their team dynamic, their locker room,
their offensive line room, or this. We need to reshape
the culture of our offensive line. They need to get
better players and that in the process will give you

(49:07):
a new culture. The culture of their offensive line had
less to do with the attitudes of the players and
more to do with the production of the players. Same
thing with the attitude and culture of the Texans when
they're being coached by Dave Cully and Lovey Smith and
Nick Cassaria was handing those two coaches terrible talent. Their
culture was awful. They had no talent. They couldn't win.

(49:30):
This is one small part of their team. They don't
have a talented offensive line. They don't play good football,
so the culture doesn't match their defensive line. Their defensive
line has the best culture on the universe. They're awesome.
They're game wreckers, they're disruptors, they're leaders. Yeah, they play
good football. It's hard to have one without the other.
And that's what they're trying to start, basically from scratch.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Early in CJ. Stroud's career.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
You know, it's interesting listening to Ian Rappaport say that
because to me, and it may just be the way
he was delivering it, and it's a short sound by
it's a snippet.

Speaker 4 (50:05):
Well, I tried to cut off all the interruptions yes
and curse words.

Speaker 3 (50:09):
Well, obviously sounds like it was more of an age
thing than anything. But he did say cheaper, so I
know it wasn't just more than anything. And money had
something to do with it as well. But it just
seems like Texans are calling a bunch of teams, and
teams are like, he's old and expensive.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
We've got this option we would rather go with.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
Yeah, except for the team that's better than every team
they talked to. I know the best team they talked to,
almost assuredly, is the Commanders, because that's where he's going.
And this is one of the sixth best teams, seven
best teams in the NFL, Eagles, the three AFC teams,
that's your top four lines are five. They're in the
mix somewhere after that, aren't they.

Speaker 3 (50:51):
I will be fascinated to see what year two is
like for that quarterback, because everybody told me, well, it's
your two sophomore slump.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
That's why CJ.

Speaker 4 (50:59):
So now after it happened, not before it happened, nobody
was saying this before.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
Before it happened, they were saying, Oh, he's gonna go
to the super Bowl this year with him?

Speaker 4 (51:07):
Right, So do you are you saying you anticipate a
second season downturn of some great significance for Jayden Daniels.

Speaker 3 (51:15):
Well, what I am saying is that some people, and
most of them were wearing Jaguars and Titans and Colts
colored glasses, predicted this. But that was also them wanting
it to happen because he was kicking their ass. And
then there's the people that thought he was going to
go to the super Bowl this year. And the truth

(51:35):
is probably somewhere in between. And I'm guessing that will
probably be what happened. This is not probably who he
is in Washington. It could be, but history would tell you, Okay,
he's gonna take at least.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
A little bit of a step back.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
I'm not gonna do this next year all the time
for a variety of reasons, not the least of which
is film.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
I assume.

Speaker 4 (51:59):
That could be right, There's that's very logical betting what
you're saying. Yeah, Well, my betting money would be on
the opposite. My betting money would be Yep. The commanders
just drafted one of the top three quarterbacks in the
NFC for ten years.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
That's what they have. There's Hurts, there's golf, there's him. Yeah,
but you were saying the same you.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
People were saying the same thing about CJ last year
with the Texans before last year happened.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
They're saying it after his rookie season.

Speaker 4 (52:27):
And he while he didn't personally have the kind of
season he would have liked, he was in the roughly
the same spot as he was a year before, and
the quarterback ladder probably people would put Burrow ahead of him,
even though he couldn't even get to the playoffs with
his terrible defense and bad late game situation.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
And more weapons on offense.

Speaker 4 (52:47):
Well, he seriously outplayed CJ last year person to person,
player to player, offense to offense.

Speaker 2 (52:52):
Their offense was great. That has to be a good line, right.

Speaker 4 (52:55):
So that that's kind of pushing past the point his
second years slump, and the team was exactly the same.
They won the division, they won a home playoff game,
they lost on the road. They were the fourth best
team a year ago. They were the fourth best team
a year after he had his downturn. That's the Commanders
aren't falling in the standings. The Commanders aren't gonna all
of a sudden be the seventh best team in the NFC.

(53:16):
He could have a small downturn in production, but he
also has something going for him that CJ really doesn't,
something that you know, Mike Vick has going for him,
something that Cam Newton has going for him, something that
Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen have going for them. I mean,
he could he could throw the ball to the other
team a bunch this year, I guess. But he's probably
still gonna run for eight hundred yards. He's probably still

(53:37):
going to be such a factor that teams have to scout,
use a scout, use a spy in game all. This
guy can't cover do what he normally does because we
got to put him on Jaden Daniels. That's it's an
asset to his skill set that it just doesn't go away.
He actually threw the ball insanely well last year. Would

(53:57):
be tough to match that again. They were score on
every drive in multiple games. I mean, they were incredible.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
He's awesome. I'm as sold as I was on CJ
after the year.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
I'm exactly the same stake Jayden Daniels is going to
be incredible. He's going to have an incredible career with
Irvin Johnson's commanders.

Speaker 2 (54:15):
Stop calling them that.

Speaker 4 (54:17):
I feel really good about CJ. I feel as good
as I felt about him before. I see how it
could get derailed, and the Texans are doing everything they
can to make sure they don't see those tracks anytime soon,
because they are way off the track.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
It's the train's not getting derailed right now. CJ.

Speaker 4 (54:34):
Stroud has a caboose with no power, there's no coal
to put in there. He doesn't even have his hat
as the conductor of the train. He's just aimlessly on
the side of the He's probably I didn't even have
cars attached to the train.

Speaker 3 (54:48):
Is this like under Siege where Steven Sagah went from
a battleship to a train and started taking out terrace
on that thing.

Speaker 4 (54:54):
But there's also no departure scheduled for another four months.
Oh yeah, there's time for the train to get put
back together, the renovation, so to speak. It gets the resurgence.

Speaker 3 (55:05):
As I mentioned at the beginning of this segment, we
will continue to discuss this. It's top of mine, it's
top of the News. It's what everybody's talking about. It's
the Texans. And by the way, they had someone that
my co host mentioned that they could have gone out
and gotten he went to the Vikings.

Speaker 2 (55:23):
We'll discuss that, among other things when we come back.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
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Speaker 7 (56:11):
We now return to Adam Clinton and Adam Wexworth on

Speaker 3 (56:35):
I was just watching the conversation between Cam Spencer and
Kevin Durant last night. I guess, if you're a rookie
in this league and you hit a three that's wide open,
you can talk trash to Katie on your way back
up the floor.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Scoreboard.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
Yep, that's what it was. Boy, they found ways to
lose games. It's actually incredible.

Speaker 2 (56:54):
All right.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
Eighteen continues here on Sports Talks seven to ninety, you
had mentioned Will Fry. He is no longer a cult
so he's not in the division, but he did go
to the Vikings, and I don't even know, like he's
an interior alignment obviously was what you're looking at looking
to get, I should say, if you're the Texans looking
to improve on that position. But man, it feels like

(57:20):
the NFC is like just loading up on some of
these guys. Eighty eight million dollar deal over five years
with Minnesota. But he did have the uh he had
that leg fracture last season week five. It required emergency surgery,
by the way, But he was, I mean outstanding before that.

(57:40):
And I don't know that he's so young. I don't
know that that's going to be like a long term thing.
It's a fractures, a fracture. I guess if you have
to have surgery, you look at it kind of the
way that we're looking at Tank Dell's situation, And if
you're having to have all these surgeries, you have to
at least question what he's going to be like. But
Tank Dell is a wide receiver versus an interior lineman.
I would think are two different things, two different ways

(58:01):
of looking at a leg injury like that.

Speaker 4 (58:03):
I think the Vikings would agree to the tune of
five years and a million dollars and broken legs are
as silly as it sounds since we talk, Yeah, they're nothing.
Broke your leg, we fix it, and you move on.
Tank Deell did that. This injury is very very different
for technolo. This is not a broken leg. This is
very very very very very different. And the timeline on

(58:23):
the recovery, because of the timeline on when you can
have the surgeries for it, is one of the reasons why.
But I actually think the other player that the Colts
lost on their offensive line to the Vikings is the
one that made more sense, even though he's a much
older player. You know, Ryan Kelly signing their center two years,
eighteen million. It's a lot of money, but it's a
short term deal. It's plug and play on every offense,

(58:46):
and the Vikings are the team that now will be
able to take advantage of that he can play.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
It's pretty simple.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
If you can't play very well, then the way the
contract is constructed, it's not gonna kill you in the
year two, go to hurt you in year one because
it didn't work out. But I'm what the Vikings are doing,
which is pretty interesting when you look at the Texans
and what they're doing. The Vikings are the team that
spent the money on John Garnard last year, and the

(59:14):
Texans weren't. They ended up flip flopping edge rushers. Texans
spent more average annual value just to make it a
shorter term deal, which they're now going to likely have
to redo because it was only a two year deal.
Daniel Hunter made twenty four and a half million last year. Well,
John Garnard got seventy six million to go there over
four years and was awesome.

Speaker 2 (59:34):
They both were great.

Speaker 4 (59:35):
You probably flip flop and they would have had equally
a successful seasons and would have helped their respective teams. Similarly,
the Vikings have a player that makes far less money and.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
For more years. That's the deal that you would like
a lot.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
They've got one wide receiver making huge dollars justin Jefferson.

Speaker 4 (59:51):
Texans do too, and not even as much money. They
have a quarterback who's making top ten pick money in
year two. The Texans have a top ten pick quarterback,
although it's a little more because he was the number
two pick hitting into year three and then all the
other parts of their team were put together dramatically differently,
and the Vikings this offseason are redoing Aaron Jones's deal

(01:00:15):
to the tune of ten million per year. They just
spent eighty eight million over five years on Fries. They
spend eighteen million over two years on Kelly. They're the
team that's getting Jonathan Allen possibly for as much as
sixty million over the next three years from the Commanders
at least three years fifty one. They've got Byron Murphy
coming back for fifty four million, maybe as much as
sixty five million on a three year deal. How are

(01:00:38):
they able to do this? Because they've put the team
together so brilliantly, they're on the way up. They're taking
a huge risk at the most important spot.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
I was about to say, if JJ McCarthy sucks, none
of that matters.

Speaker 4 (01:00:51):
Yeah, but he would have to be awful. And your
alternative was not adding all of these players except maybe
one and saying, yes, let's pay Sam Donald forty million
a year or thirty eight million a year. I don't
even think it's debatable. I think they thought about that
decision a lot. I think they thought about it a
lot because they didn't have to do all these other means.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
Though it seems like they were like, there's no way
Sam Donald's going to do this game.

Speaker 4 (01:01:16):
They went all the way into you know, the franchise
tag period, they were still talking of trying to work
out a deal. Really couldn't couldn't get there. They didn't
want a franchise tag him. They wanted to find a
long term solution. Doesn't mean he was going to be
the quarterback for the time that he was under contract for,
which just meant they now have him in case the
in case policy of McCarthy a playing for the first

(01:01:36):
time and be coming off an injury that knocked him
out for an entire year. But they they also have
the information they just played an entire year without Fries,
without Kelly without Allen, and they were they had the
second best record. Turned out, they were only the five
seed and they didn't play a second playoff game. But
they did all those things without all these additional players,

(01:01:56):
these super talents. And I think they've added some super talents,
but they're just trying to make life easier when they've
made it harder on themselves.

Speaker 3 (01:02:03):
At one position, quarterback, you know, it kills me about
Will Fries since on the same nothing, but well, no,
it's it's significant. So yeah, he got hurt in Week
five last year, but the year before that, he started
all seventeen games at right guard. H he's twenty six.
He was taking in the twenty one draft right m hm,
he's a seventh round pick.

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
And he turned it into an eighty eight million dollar
pay day. That just tells you.

Speaker 3 (01:02:27):
And look, I don't think that sturdy right guards are
going to drop to the seventh round. This of this
caliber all the time. But I mean maybe it's not tackle.
Keep this in mind, you're going to credit the GM,
I assume for this selection. Right long term genie credit

(01:02:48):
Chris Ballard. Job well done, good good pick. This is
going to work out really nicely for us. We found
this gem in the seventh round of the twenty twenty
one draft.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
I'll try to keep it just to twenty twenty. I mean,
I'm not sure which of the players. I mean, they
got Diota Yegbo, he just signed a huge deal to
leave to play elsewhere else.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
Good pick.

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
Their first pick the year after that was Alec Pierce,
and he plays. He's deep threat, got one hundred and
ten catches. Their first pick two years ago. He's the
guy that's going to do his best to beat out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Daniel Jones this year. Anthony Richardson.

Speaker 4 (01:03:24):
He has been charred burned to the crisp for his
awful drafting. But yeah, he found some guy in the
seventh round one year. Their offensive line, quite ironically, I
was talking more about him, have never been the problem. Right,
They've actually drafted, well, they've actually signed players. Well, they've
said these guys are gonna fit. That's never been their problem.

(01:03:44):
I say it's ironic because it was their biggest problem
of all time signed Andrew Luck.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
Yeah, well that was more of an indictment of Nick
Cassario when it comes to the offensive lineman than it
was crediting Ballardy.

Speaker 4 (01:04:00):
Yes, sucks You're going to find out a couple of
things about the Texans, their players, their coach. You're going
to find out just how poorly coach they were with
Chris Strasser not being here and somebody else in their place,
And you're gonna find out about how much of a
difference that might make with about eight players whatever. The
five players are that are here that are being coached
by Cole Popovich and their new assistant offensive line coach,

(01:04:23):
and Kenyan Green being coached in Philadelphia by Jeff Stoutlin
and Laramie Tunsel part of a very good offensive line.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
In Washington.

Speaker 4 (01:04:33):
Jack Mason doesn't currently have a home because he's not
yet available to everybody, but he will and he'll have
a chance to start. And even though I'm not gonna say,
watch what these guys do is some sort of I
can't believe the Texans did this, but I'm saying, watch
what those guys do to get in a little bit
more of an inside evaluation of what were they doing
wrong in hiring Christrasser in the first place in twenty

(01:04:55):
twenty three and then asking him not to retire prior
to twenty two twenty four, only to ultimately say Yeah,
maybe that whole thing was a bad idea. By he's
not going to be coaching in the NFL this year
or maybe ever.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
Again, I'm just I'm just hoping for the best when
it comes to the offensive line construction via draft this year.

Speaker 8 (01:05:17):
Well.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
You also, one other part of this is when Shack
Mason was let go, there were people I think Bill
Barnwell was among them, saying it was surprising to them
when you consider the money, not necessarily the play, but
here's what you needed to pay Shack Mason cash, and
here's what you had as your cap hit for him.
So how are you going to better that position? In
free agency? Are better that position? You're gonna have to
spend the same money, if not more. And if you're

(01:05:40):
merely talking about the players, we have this whole segment.
He's right if you wanted to say, replace him with
a better player, and Will Fries, who's a younger player,
should be good throughout the whole term of that five
year deal. Yeah, that means you, you know, we're spending
ten million or so on Shack Mason and now you're
planning to spend fourteen million or so on Will Fry.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Guys, we shall see as the again, we're still in
the demolition phase of the offensive line. We'll see what
happens is they try to put this thing together over
the coming days and weeks leading up to the NFL Draft,
which is really really getting close when you think about it.
The A team continues here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:06:22):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:06:26):
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Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Davis right talking about frog baseball strike one.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Hey, you dummies, listen to Astros baseball and Rockets basketball
games on any device with the free I Heeart Radio apps.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
And again, when you're using the three iHeartRadio app, make
sure you make Sports Talk seven ninety your number one
pre set, just like I have, just like wex has,
just like everybody does when they listen to crystal clear
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Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
It's the only way to go.

Speaker 3 (01:08:07):
In my opinion, I love using the iHeartRadio app all
day long, even when I'm not on the air.

Speaker 2 (01:08:13):
Okay, underrated or properly rated.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
Move Adam Wexler the Texans bringing back Mario Edwards Junior.
And I only say that because last season was what
it was, his first year with the Texans.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Correct yep.

Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
And when he was out there you knew about it
is that's the best way to kind of characterize his
twenty twenty four campaign.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
That would be accurate. Yep. He was very good. He
made plays, he made a difference.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
He's not going to be the highest paid guy, he's
not going to be the flashiest guy. But your your
defense is better with him than it would be if
he had walked.

Speaker 4 (01:08:53):
You don't have anybody on the interior that will would
be described as such. That's not what they're going out
and looking for. And that they kind of show that,
I thought with how they reshape the defensive line in
the offseason. They were interested in Sheldon Rankins a year
ago after he was here in twenty three, he just
ended up signing in Cincinnati, and then they had to
go out and get Settle, and get Photocossi and get
Mario Edwards junior. Denico Autry a little bit of a

(01:09:14):
hybrid and that he did line up inside quite a bit,
but is also an edge rusher. Mario Edwards Junior, Tim Settle,
Sheldon Rankins, Denico Audrey. Probably if Autry is still here,
are gonna get the vast majority of your defensive tackle
reps next year and they're gonna be awesome. Bringing back
Mario Edwards Junior is smart. It's again this goes to

(01:09:39):
his philosophy, Nicks philosophy. He's signing players to short term deals.
It wasn't an expensive deal last year, but if the
player plays well, you're then now required to give him
something or else. He's gonna end up probably taking somebody
else's money. And that's what happens with Edwards Junior. Still
not super expensive by any means. Their defensive line with
rankin settle and Edwards's very reasonably paid. You know, we

(01:10:02):
haven't talked much about adding Darryl Taylor. He's been on
a couple of teams, but he continues to show the
types of skills that make you believe he's a really,
really good edge rusher. But he's the fourth edge rusher
for the Texans. He's behind Anderson, Hunter and Barnett. Whatever
he produces I think will be a very good fit.
It's another very good signing. The Edwards Junior signing is

(01:10:23):
a typically smart one that the Texans have been making
for the last two off seasons.

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Very good signing.

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
The short term ness of a lot of these I mean,
just because they're big money doesn't mean they can't be that.
You know, Daniel Hunter, he's an example of that. They
didn't sign him to some huge long deal. It was
just huge, just right, not long right right. But I
mean I'm okay with that because if you're if you
sign a guy to big money but it's not a

(01:10:50):
long term deal, then if it doesn't work out, it's
it's much less of a hit.

Speaker 4 (01:10:56):
That's true, except in the case of this player, just
like Laramie, same thing. It's not team beneficial, it's it's
he's gonna be great. There's no question he's absolutely gonna
make gounna Like they've signed him, yeah, they have to
sign him again one year later.

Speaker 3 (01:11:12):
Of you are you of the opinion though, that that's
a bad way to go about it. Like, I'm not
saying that there's any GM out there that does this
with every player, but I think Nick Cassario is probably
without just having a spreadsheet in front of me, for example,
I would assume that that Nick Cassario is buying large
one of the gms that does this a whole lot

(01:11:33):
more than others out there.

Speaker 4 (01:11:35):
Yeah, when you're talking about great players, it's still pretty infrequent.
I don't think any GM has a history of it
or is something. This is a timing issue. This is
where we are in free agency. This is the amount
of money that's been spent on other players of that position.
I mean, the Vikings didn't necessarily want him to leave,
but they felt better doing it the opposite of what
the Texans were doing. The Texans didn't want to take

(01:11:55):
what they perceived as a bigger risk on a less
established player John Grenard, and so they took no risk
with the player, and they took all risk with the contract.
Twenty four and a half million is a ton, but
it's only going to cost you forty nine million probably
total if it doesn't work, because it's.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
Only going to be here two years. But if it
does work, it's going to cost you a lot more
than that, which is fine.

Speaker 4 (01:12:21):
I mean, think about if Danil Hunter was a free
agent this year, even as an older player, he'd break
the bank.

Speaker 2 (01:12:26):
He's unbelievable. He had a great year.

Speaker 4 (01:12:28):
Last year without blowing people away with a sack number.
That is not the end all be all of how
good a season you had, the number of pressures, how
disruptive you are, how much attention has to be paid
to you. How you can be on the field and
a ridiculous looking line set up for the final play
of what could be a hail Mary, and then you
and Will Anderson go out and make sure they can't
even get the hail Mary pass off because your three

(01:12:50):
man rush gets to the quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
Yeah, he was great. I'm just curious.

Speaker 4 (01:12:54):
In an offseason, you already probably knew you were going
to have to pay Stingley last year, you knew this
year was coming. Well, now you probably need to pay
him too. He's going to make more than twenty four
and a half million. You also get to dictate how
it hit your cap last year. You now get to
dictate how it hits your cap in the future. So
there's always some benefits to it. There's small I'm describing

(01:13:17):
its some sort of downside. It's not that big of
a deal, but it's nice when your best players aren't
the ones you have to consistently reattach yourself to. But
two years into Daniel Hunters two years you will have
had to negotiate with him both times.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
I think with all this stuff we talk about with
contracts and restructuring and everything else, plus factor in that
Nick Cassario is the guy, which, by the way, two questions.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
Need to be asked. One was the one I was
starting to ask, which is I wonder what.

Speaker 6 (01:13:50):
CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:13:50):
Stroud's big deal ends up looking like when it finally
gets done. Is it a Patrick Mahomes type situation where
it's the number looks huge on the surface, but you're
really kind of, you know, kicking the can down the
road with with the actual payments in the way you
restructure it constantly to for you know, fitting other guys in.

(01:14:15):
But also if he doesn't, if he's not successful with
whatever this plan is to retool the offensive line, is
he even the one signing CJ to that deal?

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
Uh, he might not be, I guess in that instance.

Speaker 4 (01:14:28):
But CJ is going to sign an extension with the Texans,
There's no question about it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:32):
No, I'm saying. Is Nick Cassario the one making I know?
I said, if they if they try to make it
after this year, is what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (01:14:39):
If they missed the playoffs because their offensive line is stinks,
then he's fired.

Speaker 3 (01:14:44):
But to be to miss the playoffs because your offensive
line stinks with everything else that's on the team that's
got to be a really bad line.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Yeah, it was bad last year.

Speaker 4 (01:14:54):
Well we need to We did it the whole opening
segment of the show. The offensive line currently stinks. They
don't have any players on it are plus players and
literally maybe not even a single one. And then there's
other parts of the offense. They were not a good offense.
They did not score points like you need to in
the NFL against good teams or bad teams.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
They just didn't.

Speaker 4 (01:15:13):
You know, turnovers weren't a huge problem, which is always nice.
They were a bigger problem last year than they were
a year before, but not a big problem. They've changed
offensive coordinators for all of those reasons. If you can't
win games this year with CJ. Stroud as your quarterback
and the group we can't stop frothing at the mouth
over on defense, then your GM did it wrong. This

(01:15:34):
is the Bengals. You have Joe Burrow and T Higgins
and Joe Mixon and Jamar Chase. Oh great, we can
score all the points we want, but we can't win
because our defense isn't any good.

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
Now we had to fire our DC. They're the opposite.

Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
That's why I say, how did you miss the playoffs
with Joe Burrow playing the way he did.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
How is that even possible?

Speaker 4 (01:15:55):
Because your inability to outfit the rest of the team
properly and their's was basically the whole other side of
the ball, which four years has been festering, which is,
you know, Jesse Bates is still one of the best
players at his position. He used to be a Bengal
as one of the best players at his position, and
now he's a Falcon and it hurts, and more players
are like it, and it looks like the possibility of
Trey Hendrickson following him more guys there certainly have opened

(01:16:20):
the door for it. And the Texans, you can they're
spending money this offseason, and almost all of it again
is on the other side. They've saved money on offense,
but if they don't reinvest it in the offense beyond
Lake and Tomlinson and Christian Kirk, to be fair, which
is a pretty sizable number. We don't know the exact

(01:16:40):
number because I still anticipate a new contract for Christian
Kirk when the new.

Speaker 2 (01:16:44):
League year begins. Well, it just has you have to.

Speaker 4 (01:16:48):
They currently have invested in one player, truly, and that's
Christian Kirk to make their offense better next year. They've
torn apart a bad offensive line, which I hope a
day later as you're through all all three of these
moves and how this morning's moved with Kenyan Green, at
some point we can't be so how could they do this?
Or how are they gonna get better? How are they
going to be worse? They were bad?

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
All right? Speaking of bad?

Speaker 3 (01:17:12):
When we come back, I think it's a question that
Texans fans, but definitely Colts fans are asking, what are
you doing?

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
What is your team doing? We'll explore when we return.

Speaker 6 (01:17:23):
The a team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:17:27):
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Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
I'm Wexler, our a team returned on Sports Talk seven
ninety Horny headsit your Rockets play here.

Speaker 2 (01:18:41):
It is the a team sports SOX seven to ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:18:43):
By the way, back at it on the Space City
Home network side of things at the top of the hour.
So if you want to leer at us, spy in
on us, you can do that too. We're taking it
until six o'clock. But I don't know if it's just
a I mean, every team has to have a backup
quarterback thing. But Daniel Jones to the Colts when you

(01:19:09):
probably aren't even all that confident in Anthony Richardson as
your starter. That's interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
That's the whole point.

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
Well, if you start the season with him as your quarterback,
who's him Anthony Richardson, and you decide that you're gonna
bench him midway through like you did last year.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
Daniel Jones is the guy that's coming in.

Speaker 4 (01:19:32):
Awesome for the Texans, LA years better than Joe Flacco.

Speaker 3 (01:19:39):
Joe Flacco just led the Cleveland Browns to the playoffs
a couple of seasons ago.

Speaker 4 (01:19:43):
I know they had to put Anthony Richardson back in
because Joe Flacco was so awful.

Speaker 2 (01:19:48):
Yeah, this isn't smart.

Speaker 4 (01:19:50):
This is for me for where they are, It's not
like your typical draft pick anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
We're two years in.

Speaker 4 (01:19:56):
He's got all sorts of issues inside the club, inside
the locker room, because the perception from his teammates has
reported is that he isn't doing all the things the
I mean, it's a lot of responsibility he thrust on
a player. Bryce Young had it, CJ Stroud had it,
Anthony Richardson had it, and they've all handled it a
little bit differently, very very well in Bryce Young's case,
similarly with CJ, and a little bit less so in

(01:20:17):
Anthony's case. He had less experience coming in, he had
injury history coming in all that has played over these
two years, he's not gotten enough experience because he hasn't
been on the field enough. He certainly hasn't been able
to develop as a passer his throwing of the football.
He plays quarterback and he cannot throw the football successfully.
You cannot have that player playing quarterback if he can't
throw the ball. I don't care how great of an

(01:20:38):
athlete he is, how great of a running threat he is,
how many yards he can gain running the football. You
cannot win in the NFL if your quarterback can't throw,
and he can't throw successfully. He obviously can throw the
ball very, very far. He's got an incredible arm. But
when I say he can't throw, I mean it's first
and ten and your running back comes out of the
backfield and he's eight yards away and you miss him

(01:20:59):
with your throw.

Speaker 3 (01:21:00):
That means you can't throw. And that's what he throws
the football like. So you bring in Daniel Jones, who
has more playoff wins as a starting quarterback than Justin
Herbert does.

Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
It's smarts.

Speaker 4 (01:21:14):
It's why a guy like Daniel Jones moving forward, not
even depending on what he does in Indianapolis, He's probably
gonna have a job for a long long time. You know,
Brian Dable and Joe Shane probably still regret the decision
they made, and I think most outsiders knew it, and
they somehow didn't. He had one good year with them,
he was hurt most of the second year with them,

(01:21:34):
and last year he obviously along with the team, was very,
very bad. And he's never been great throwing the football,
but he's been significantly better, much more capable, and quite honestly,
with how they will play with Richardson, they probably don't
have to play that differently with this specific backup quarterback.
He can play and run the same Shane Stike in

(01:21:54):
plays that you would have put in for Richardson because
he's so good at certain things. Well, Daniel Jones can run.
This should be legitimately. You get half the reps and
you get half the reps. That's what we're doing this offseason.
That's how we're opening camp. Best man wins the job
if they If you do this, because you're you're showing
respect to the rest of the roster. You're saying, we
think we have a chance, and we're not going to

(01:22:15):
throw it away because we didn't. We didn't have a
quarterback who can play or produce any competition for him
to play.

Speaker 3 (01:22:21):
Don't think I missed what you said about Justin Herbert
and as playoff wins, I know so what it's there, mister.
I would take him over CJ if I'm starting a
franchise right now.

Speaker 4 (01:22:31):
Same number as we role played that out for those
that were listening last week.

Speaker 2 (01:22:36):
Had to take a side.

Speaker 4 (01:22:36):
And just for the sake of argument, he's got the
same number of playoff wins as Trevor Lawrence. He's got
more playoff wins than the Colts quarterbacks before him or
the Titans current quarterbacks.

Speaker 2 (01:22:45):
Now he is trail CJ by one win.

Speaker 3 (01:22:49):
What as we always say, what I always say, sack
of quarterbacks.

Speaker 4 (01:22:54):
Wins are comical in their whole process, of the whole
theory of what they entail. But six years into his
NFL career, I think Daniel Jones showed pretty clearly he's
a backup quality quarterback that can give you quality football
from time to time.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
And that's another problem. We don't want to give him
the job six years. It's been six years since this
guy was picked in the top ten.

Speaker 3 (01:23:17):
I mean basically, anything that is twenty out what's it's
the length of our show. I cannot believe that has
gone by that fast and Daniel Jones has done what
with it other than the one playoff win.

Speaker 4 (01:23:35):
I mean, his most famous play is falling down. He
had his eighty yard not touchdown run because he fell down.

Speaker 3 (01:23:42):
Why is it that with Giants quarterbacks? That's what happens? Like,
what's Eli Manning's most famous throw?

Speaker 4 (01:23:49):
Yes, that's not fair. He has several of them, Plaxico Burrows,
Mario Manning of we plus three and all in one postseason, right.

Speaker 3 (01:23:57):
I guess, But I'm saying that Tyree is the one
because he caught it against his helmet.

Speaker 4 (01:24:01):
The throws to Manningham and Burris wasn't some crazy, impossible throw,
but it won the game, and it was a perfect
pass on a fade right to his player. The one
to Manningham probably just from a actual How awesome was
this pass?

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
That was probably the best pass.

Speaker 4 (01:24:18):
It was down the sideline where only his guy could
make the catch, and he made a brilliant catch at that.

Speaker 3 (01:24:23):
And by the way, I'm looking at a picture of
Daniel Jones, pretty boy, Well, I didn't realize that he
had the Davis mills Neck.

Speaker 4 (01:24:32):
Well, when you're talking about Danny Dimes or Vanilla Vick,
you're talking about a great player. Vanilla Vick, new quarterback
for the Indianapolis Colts.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
Unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (01:24:42):
All right, we are going to do the TV side
of things. Coming up next, we'll reset the radio side. Well, yeah,
the radio comes with it. Hey, one of the worst
talking points that came from yesterday's news, we'll reveal that next.

Speaker 6 (01:24:55):
The ad on Sports Talk seven.

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Speaker 1 (01:25:57):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named at it. We're talking
your team. Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A team.
A team.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
Welcome into the four o'clock Howard is the A team.

Speaker 3 (01:26:15):
Sports Talk seven ninety and now Space City Home Network.
Wex and AC with you on a Tuesday afternoon taking
up until six o'clock. As was the case yesterday, almost
from the beginning of the show, since that's about the
time that the the Laramie Tunsl trade went down, we've
been talking all about the Texans offensive line with the

(01:26:36):
other you know, news and notes from around the NFL
and specifically the AFC South sprinkled in. One of the
things that I wanted to get your thoughts on, wex
was what I thought was kind of one of the
what I consider one of the worst talking points that
came out of yesterday's deal, and it's kind of continued,

(01:26:57):
but not as much now that you've seen the young
green has been traded away and that CJ. Gardner Johnson's
come back. And Aaron Wilson said this yesterday too. I
feel like too much was made about, well, they're just
doing this because they've got big contracts coming up, almost

(01:27:18):
as if that was the number one motivating factory.

Speaker 2 (01:27:21):
It can't be.

Speaker 3 (01:27:23):
I understand that Laramie Tunzell makes a lot of money.
I understand that he's thirty one. And we heard from
Ian Rappaport earlier in the show where Texans were calling
teams that were in the market for a tackle and
we're being told, yeah, we're gonna go with this younger
and or cheaper option over here instead of your Laramie
Tunseel trade. And the Commanders ended up saying yes, and

(01:27:45):
the deal has been done. But I just I cannot
sit here and think, oh, the main prevailing factor, the
main motivating factor here was we've got to sign will
Anderson junior. We've got to sign C. J. Stroud, we
got to sign Stingley this offseason. And that was the
biggest percentage wise factor as to why they dealt Laramie Tunseel.

Speaker 4 (01:28:05):
Well, you couple that with what you're getting by doing
it now. Timing wise, you're going to get more now
because the new team, if they're for some reason, doesn't
get a great player or doesn't have the ability to
reach a longer term deal with him, which I don't
think he's going to sign a new contract with the
Commanders this year. He might in the future when he's
into the last year of his deal, which the Texans

(01:28:25):
trying to avoid. But you knew what your answer was
going to be to that. I mean, we just went
through this with Dana and Kyle Tuckers. Just it's a
different situation from a timing standpoint. The Texans know their
money's going to be spent on the players you mentioned
and probably others, and it wasn't going to be spent
on Laramie tuns l Laramie Tunzel was going to play

(01:28:45):
his last game with the Texans if he never got
traded at the end of the twenty twenty sixth season,
whatever that might be. I think in the Texans mind
and Demiko's mind, and Nick's mine, and everybody else's mind.
So with no thought of having him play longer than
that with the thought that if you move him but
this year's deadline coming up or next off season, the

(01:29:06):
return will be significantly lower, and so in order to
make it worth your while, you're willing to take the chance.

Speaker 2 (01:29:14):
And it's a big one.

Speaker 4 (01:29:15):
It's a huge one that you aren't going to recover
this year, that you aren't going to have the quality
of play, and in the process you're kicking aside a
c J. Stroud presumably prime year. He's a quarterback. Hopefully
there's ten of them in his future, but this one
would be very difficult to win with if you have
intentionally made their line so poor that you can't bring

(01:29:37):
in the players necessary to get it to a winning
level because it already wasn't there. And that's the other
side of whatever they're doing this off season. At some point,
we have to look at the line as a realistic group.
They weren't good. They weren't going to win big with
the group that they had anyway, Were they ever going
to win with Laramie Tunsel as a part of this
line from today forward? Their assumption was no, because his
timeline was two years long. So we've got to do

(01:29:58):
something differently. I think all those things. Definitely, I don't
disagree with that. I do think it played a role.
And the teams that they talked to that chose to
merely sign a different player and free agency, they're also
choosing not to part with assets. The Commanders chose to
part with three picks and a pick swap in order
to get Laramie Tunsel. The other teams chose to merely

(01:30:21):
spend the money, and in their cases, while it was
more long term money, it was less short term money
or shorter, smaller average annual value. There's no tackle that
got paid more than Laramie that was on the market
for them. So I can completely understand it from any
team that said no, and I've also understand it from
the team that said yes. Who's ready to win immediately.
I mean, he goes from playing with CJ. Stroud, who's

(01:30:42):
going to win and go to the playoffs probably every year,
to going to play with Jayden Daniels, who's gonna win
and go to the playoffs. A great situation for him personally,
and maybe with a team who is in the position
to spend money on him with another contract. He signed
short term contracts intentionally, Laramie does so he can continue
get raises in the form of I mean, it's very

(01:31:04):
much like NBA players now who'd sign the one plus
ones and the two plus ones which.

Speaker 2 (01:31:09):
They now have for them.

Speaker 6 (01:31:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:31:10):
Absolutely, it gives them even more flexibility and it kind
of puts the illness on teams. Well, I know, he
doesn't want to be here now, so we've got to
figure out some sort of ridiculous sign and trade deal
because he's not playing for us, but he gets more
money if he signs with us. So I really I
don't have a huge issue with this deal. It's it's
very difficult to talk about it today and tomorrow and

(01:31:32):
the next day and the next day until you have
a better idea of what the solutions are. I mean,
I know who's currently available. I know Makai Beckton could
be added. I know they could have added some of
the players that have recently been signed. I think it's
it's a risky play with pretty much everybody who's out there,
and a costly one, which is fine. You're gonna have
the money to spend because you've made these other moves.
But that's why it seems like, at least to one listener,

(01:31:54):
I'm continually crying about the offensive line.

Speaker 2 (01:31:57):
I get it, it's March.

Speaker 4 (01:31:57):
They don't play any games on March eleventh, But you
also this, when do you think they put their team together.
This is when you put your team together, and then
you try to help your team win in the future
with your draft picks. Teams like the Titans and the
Colts and the Raiders, they're trying to win with their

(01:32:19):
draft picks right now because they stink and.

Speaker 2 (01:32:22):
Their draft picks are going off the board top five.

Speaker 4 (01:32:25):
The Texans aren't trying to get winning play from their
draft pick this year unless they hit. It's a fifty
to fifty on a pick in the last twelve, you're
gonna hit in year one on that player. This player
is gonna make you better at some point. Is this
player gonna make you better immediately?

Speaker 2 (01:32:40):
Okay?

Speaker 4 (01:32:40):
Yeah, Well they got these assets, so they're gonna trade up.
They could have you, guys, figured out which offensive tackle
or in certainly you're not are trading up too high
for an interior offensive lineman see Kenyan Green And what
a horrific mistake that was. Who's the lineman that's in
this year's draft that you're dead set? The Texans have
got to go get that player. He steps in on

(01:33:01):
day one and one of your five problems is solved.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
What conference is he playing?

Speaker 4 (01:33:08):
Well, he probably plays in the SEC, not just every year,
but definitely this year. There's at least five first round
offensive lineman's lineman who played last year in the SEC,
Any Longhorns Calvin Banks.

Speaker 2 (01:33:23):
If Kelvin Banks is a Houston Texan on April whatever
it is, April twenty fourth, if you're drafting in the
first round, are you happy? Yeah, he's a good player.
I'm not super enthusiastic.

Speaker 4 (01:33:35):
I'm trading up for him. Okay, I don't think he'll
be there at twenty five, right, that's what factors in.
You've kind of you are you forcing your hand? Do
you have to do this? And that means you've you've
said to Nick Cassarios going back to twenty twenty one, Yeah,
keep drafting offensive lineman. I'm sure you'll get it right.
This time, it'll be the second offensive lineman he's drafted

(01:33:55):
in the first round, will be the fourth offensive lineman
he's drafted in the first two rounds. The only good
offensive lineman that Nick Cassario has had on his team
while he's been the GM, we're here before he got here.

Speaker 2 (01:34:11):
Jeez, how long has he been here? By the way,
this is his fifth draft? Wow, that's like the sei Ye.

Speaker 4 (01:34:19):
Sure might be good. Jared Patterson might be good. Even
Jewe Scruggs might be good. These could be players that
continue to develop, but only going in a year two
what we've seen from them does not tell you that yet.

Speaker 2 (01:34:32):
It just does it?

Speaker 3 (01:34:33):
Have we seen enough from them and tell you one
thing one way or the other? I mean, it's it's
that's not a bad thing, though, yes it is.

Speaker 4 (01:34:41):
No it with the amount of time on the field
that Jewe Scruggs has already gotten, Well, okay take him out.
Which of the guys who you want me to rip
apart next? Not I've been on the field. They haven't
been on the sidelines behind an awesome line learning. They've
been on the field playing. That's well, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 3 (01:35:03):
I don't know who the name would be that you
would move up to get, But doesn't it seem like
that's what the thinking would be. Given the the draft
capital that you got, specifically in the Tunsil trade.

Speaker 4 (01:35:16):
You got extra picks. These picks aren't great, not now,
I mean, you can trade next to year second rounder.
I guess I don't know where you're trying to go.
From twenty five to eighteen, no problem, From twenty five
to fourteen, no problem, from twenty five to ten, from
twenty five to nine, where you might actually get all
get This is a no brainer.

Speaker 2 (01:35:33):
Guy steps in on day one, no question about a
great player. We won. I mean that's not what you need.
What you got in this trade.

Speaker 4 (01:35:41):
You got a second, third, and fifth plus the fourth
round swab.

Speaker 2 (01:35:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:35:49):
Like I said, YESTERDA back themselves into a corner a
little bit you can't get into. You presumably cannot go
into the season with what you have. And that's why
Tomlinson was added today. And there are other op Makai
Becton's another name that certain the Texans would have to consider.
Not a particularly good time in his first green uniform,
a much much better time in his second green uniform
with the Eagles. He the Eagles all are still interested

(01:36:11):
in bringing him back, but he is a potential ad.

Speaker 3 (01:36:15):
The Eagles can't spend any more money. They've spent too
much already.

Speaker 4 (01:36:18):
Well they spent. They took money away by saying goodbye
to Darius Lay. Goodbye to Bradbury and now goodbye to CJ.
Gardner Johnson.

Speaker 2 (01:36:25):
How much was he making though he's due.

Speaker 4 (01:36:27):
Nineteen million over the next two years, about eight and
a half and then eleven ish.

Speaker 3 (01:36:31):
It's one of those a little bit adds up to
a lot. It's not an overwhelmingly huge contract.

Speaker 4 (01:36:39):
No, it's obviously if the Texans could take it on,
it can't be that big because they don't have that much.

Speaker 3 (01:36:43):
I bring that up to say that, you know, you're
talking about, you know, them having money and saying goodbye
to guy so that they can do what they have done.
I'm just wondering what's the what like, what's the threshold
when you also consider that Stingley's contract's gonna be this
offseason and you have ones lined.

Speaker 4 (01:37:04):
Up this offseason. But the money's not gonna kill you.
This is this current cap season.

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):
It's gonna get larger with time.

Speaker 3 (01:37:14):
I'm just wondering about the actual maybe not even not
an exact dollar figure, but the general ballpark of what
it's gonna take if you were to go help bolster
this line by actually going out and buying somebody, in
this case.

Speaker 2 (01:37:26):
The same money you were spending on the guys you've
said goodbye.

Speaker 3 (01:37:30):
That's one way of looking at it. All right, we'll
continue to discuss this. Also, your Houston Rockets all of
a sudden refused to lose and in a very tightly
wound Western Conference. That was a good thing because, as
wex put it, and it was very appropriate. They took
out the trash last night. We'll discuss that. Plus, is
there a secret weapon when it comes to the Rockets
as it pertains to the postseason.

Speaker 2 (01:37:52):
We'll discuss that next.

Speaker 6 (01:37:55):
The ad on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (01:37:57):
Ninety to Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler the eighty Hey, wex.

Speaker 2 (01:38:09):
What's up going? How'd you enjoy that?

Speaker 3 (01:38:12):
Absolute swift butt kicking the Rockets gave to the magic
last night like it was nineteen ninety five.

Speaker 4 (01:38:18):
Rockets taking out the trash, two wins against New Orleans
followed by win over the well under five hundred Orlando
Magic like they should be doing even with the injuries
they are going through.

Speaker 2 (01:38:28):
I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Speaker 4 (01:38:30):
It took a little while to put the put the
magic away because, as I said the multiple times during
the broadcast, in this very tone and speed, the magic place.
Their pace is hard to watch. They're not even the
slowest paced team in the NBA somehow, but holding them

(01:38:51):
to eighty four points, I was more like, how did
they get to eighty four points with the way they
played basketball? Miserable worse than the NBA shooting team barely
over thirty percent on threes. Rockets said, hey, man, you're open,
you should shoot it, and they did throughout much of
the night. No men Tops and no Fred van Vliet, obviously,
no Reed Shepherd, and not too much trouble with some

(01:39:15):
of the weaker opponents here.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:39:16):
Finally, the last week and the homestand might be more
of the same. Phoenix Wednesday, Dallas in Chicago over the weekend,
Philadelphia on next Monday.

Speaker 3 (01:39:26):
Although Devin Booker will be playing this time around, he
wasn't the last time they played the Suns, which is
their next opponent tomorrow night. So which one of those
guys will the Rockets trade for this offseason. That's the
running gag going on right now. But by the way,
you were mentioning the score, very nineties score there, Yeah,

(01:39:46):
we have.

Speaker 4 (01:39:47):
Luckily that matched with our postgame interview, we got to
catch up with Jeff Green Matt's Jeff note old school
basketball even for him old school back.

Speaker 2 (01:39:56):
But it was low scoring because both.

Speaker 3 (01:39:59):
The I gets won a game shooting, they don't win,
nobody wins games of the NBA doing that first.

Speaker 2 (01:40:04):
But the other team has to be even worse than
they were.

Speaker 3 (01:40:06):
The first quarter, where the Magic led most of the way,
was absolutely just It's just a.

Speaker 4 (01:40:11):
Bunch of misses. Neither team was in much of a
in sync. The Rockets at a second game in three nights,
where man, we hate the basketball. We just don't want
it in our hands. Get rid of it, throw it
out of I mean the just the.

Speaker 2 (01:40:24):
Four turnovers in the first like four.

Speaker 4 (01:40:25):
Minutes, Yes, dribbling it out of bounds, throwing a pass
to nobody, completely unforced.

Speaker 3 (01:40:30):
And I'd love to tell you I saw this as
I attended the game last night, as anybody ever told
you that when you take a six and a half
year old to a game, you don't actually see the game.

Speaker 2 (01:40:39):
Because that's what happened last er. Hopefully the basketball can
in the very near future.

Speaker 3 (01:40:44):
Yeah, he's he's slowly but surely getting to that point.
I bring all this up, though, because there's something else
that happened last night. It happened I can't remember with
the exact game it was. It was actually, I want
to say, a loss where the double big lineup that
Emay's putting out there, it really gives the opponents some issues.

(01:41:06):
And you mentioned it on the post game last night.
They absolutely obliterated yet another team on the boards. That's
not a surprise. They do that every night. They lead
the league in rebounding. They've stayed there comfortably for most
of the season. How does Steven Adams grab like thirty

(01:41:26):
rebounds per thirty seconds that he's in there? I mean,
I know that he's the biggest guy on the floor
by far. I know that he has a knack for
rebounding the basketball and always has. It's crazy what he
does in a very limited amount of time.

Speaker 4 (01:41:41):
Yeah, I brought up some of the numbers that helped
to illustrate that point before. Among players who've played at
least five hundred minutes this season, we'll go with that
as the starting point. He's averaging seven point eight offensive
rebounds per thirty six minutes. Next player in that list

(01:42:03):
is averaging six point two, and then a bunch of
guys in the six and high fives. That's where the
entire league sits. The best offensive rebounders in the entire league.
Five point four, five point seven, six point one, six
point two. He's at seven point eight.

Speaker 2 (01:42:18):
It's insane.

Speaker 4 (01:42:20):
He's incredible, and it's because he could. He could create
a trip to the free throw line probably every possession,
because that's the only thing other guys can do. They
grab him by the arm and try to hold him down.
You know, only one handed offensive rebounds he's come up
with because the other hand is arm is locked up
with somebody else in art form, and they should be
sending him to the free throw line. And it's nice,
probably go them almost half of them. He's almost at

(01:42:43):
forty five percent. But you're out there with the alpi.
The Rockets are a really good rebounding team without Steven Adams.
They're an exceptional rebounding team with him, and even without
Aman Thompson, he's an exceptional rebounder. They are huge part
of losing all your point guards, even when one of
them is a men, all of your replacements are much

(01:43:05):
bigger players.

Speaker 2 (01:43:07):
They played.

Speaker 4 (01:43:08):
There was a one guard lineup last night that was
Jalen Green, three forwards in a center.

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
That's who started.

Speaker 4 (01:43:13):
They're going to out rebound teams if the other team
isn't playing hard enough or this is where physicality where force.

Speaker 2 (01:43:20):
That's when you talk about.

Speaker 4 (01:43:21):
It, because it's not like the Magic are short. They
are actually one of the taller teams I would imagine,
especially with who comes in. But Tazi comes in, Isaac
comes in. They start three players at six ten across
their front line. But Wendell Carter Junior is a physical player,
Franz Wagner is not, and neither yet is Palo Bancaro.
Palo Bancaro is no different than Jabari Smith, and I

(01:43:43):
wouldn't call Jabari Smith a physical player.

Speaker 2 (01:43:45):
Both are super talented.

Speaker 4 (01:43:46):
Both can grab you six, seven, eight rebounds without even
trying if they're out there at thirty minutes. But they're
not pushing people around. The Rockets rebounders are either pushing
you around or going over you like a men Thompson does.
This is an exceptional way to play. It helps even
more for them, unfortunately, and Steven Adams even mentioned this.
He said, I wish I wasn't so good. I wish

(01:44:07):
I didn't have so many opportunities to grab offensive rebounds.

Speaker 2 (01:44:10):
Yeah, well, so to the rest of us.

Speaker 4 (01:44:11):
Because the shooter is a good shooting team, They're not
going to miraculously become one.

Speaker 3 (01:44:17):
Danielle Lerner was tweeting this earlier about some of the
things that Alpera and Shan Gun was saying after practice today.
He said that, uh, he feels like it's a four
big lineup because Jabari Smith is a tall one. Tarry
Easton he said, Jalen Green thinks he's six foot ten
to two, so we have to we have five out there.
I think Jalen feels like he's one of the big

(01:44:38):
men on our team. And he was talking about Jabari Smith,
who again is still working his way back after coming
back from a month off with that broken hand. He's
seven foot, bro they say six to ten. No, he's
seven foot and he can do a lot more in there,
like he can shoot and nobody can block his shot
when he's shooting and he's getting offensive rebounds. And then
he was talking about himself. He was like, I don't

(01:44:59):
mind if I'm taller or not. I do what I do,
which is true, just throws himself around in there. But
that's the part of Jabari Smith Junior that I was saying.
It might not necessarily show up on the box score
every night, especially from a defensive standpoint, but a long
guy like him, as I probably end up trading him

(01:45:19):
this offseason. In my would be deals for Kevin Durant,
you know, you've got to send something out and if
you don't want to part ways without bring Shingoon and
Jalen Green, He's almost certainly going to be in a
deal like that.

Speaker 4 (01:45:33):
He looks like there's always more and some nights when
you shooting the ball while you're like, well, there it is.
That was an easy eighteen and nine without even hardly trying,
without even hardly breaking a sweat, because sometimes those knights
are there. He's has difficult time creating his own shot
and getting to the basket. He's got a nice little
turnaround game, mid range game, which for a seven footer
like he is, I'll give him a seven footer in

(01:45:54):
the convo.

Speaker 2 (01:45:55):
Those are almost unblockable shots.

Speaker 4 (01:45:58):
He was part of the best play of the game
last night, and from our vantage point, it's awesome that
was at the basket, just a little bit further away
from us, but gives us the best view. I could
see Jabari Smith Junior timing this up from half court,
and I think the Orlando Magic player was foolish to
not go with more force. He decided to try a
little finger roll off the glass and end, and Jabari

(01:46:18):
Smith Junior on the break cleanly blocked it and bounced
off to the Rockets, who threw it up court to
Dylan for a wide open three, and he buried it,
and that essentially ended the game. Was basically the dagger
sequence in a game that could have put Away much earlier.
But he went five to ten last night from three Jabari.
The Rockets are gonna win like ninety percent of the
games where he does that, just one guy doing one

(01:46:39):
thing well, and he's a good three point shooter. It
does feel like for the amount of times he's absolutely
wide open, he should be an even better three point shooter,
about thirty five percent this year.

Speaker 3 (01:46:50):
I just think of, you know, say he's say he's
the piece that goes out or a piece that goes
out along with whatever amount of draft picks. I just
whatever they do this offseason, if they make a trade
and they manage to keep the majority of the core together,
like I at this point, I hate to say it
because I love the kid, but it's the writings on

(01:47:12):
the wall. I think Cam's in any deal you make
this offseason where you're bringing back somebody of significant talent.

Speaker 2 (01:47:17):
You mean a non rotation player will have to be sacrificed, right, Yeah? Good?
But a good player, yeah, very good player. He can't
do anything here. People can't outplay the guys in front
of them exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:47:27):
And it would take any team that is in conversations
with the Rockets about two seconds to put on film
of when he's actually gotten out there and say, yeah,
this is probably somebody that we could do something with.

Speaker 4 (01:47:38):
When he plays gets real minutes or earns real minutes
the thing you started. Everybody can see why we said,
how can this player still be available at twenty?

Speaker 3 (01:47:48):
And Tho's other instances where you could say, I might
understand why this player is still on the board at twenty.
We're not very far removed from that draft. He's certainly
still extremely young. He just happens to fit in here
because everyone's young. Well, he's total developmental stages. Absolutely could
be Some other.

Speaker 4 (01:48:04):
Gms thought of well, it was only on our draft
board two years ago and we thought he was the
fourth best talent. We thought he was the seventh best talent. Absolutely,
that's going to be on some of their minds. And
Jabari Smith Junior is in a similar vein. He's one
of the four best players in that class. He ended
up going three. Bankara went one. There's value in what
we see it in the NFL NonStop. Oh I remember

(01:48:26):
when we evaluated and we thought this, I'm like, yeah,
but then you saw him play three years.

Speaker 3 (01:48:29):
Why do you still like him? I mean, it sticks
with GMS for a long time. I'm just fascinated to
see what they end up giving up. If a deal
is actually I'm almost positive it's going to be, not
from anything I've heard, just it's just a gut feeling.
But what goes out and that also pertains to the
draft picks, all of that should be fascinating to see

(01:48:51):
how it unfolds this offseason. We will get to our
signature segment next. It's say what It's straight ahead on

Speaker 11 (01:49:03):
No need for a roadmap when all roads lead to
that sweet iHeart Radio app, Astros and Rockets games plus
legendary Houston Sports Talk seven ninety on any device with
the free iHeartRadio app. Now that's the art of living.

Speaker 1 (01:49:25):
This is Adam and Adams Weekly chaunted through mind barckling
moments that make you.

Speaker 2 (01:49:30):
Go, hey, what.

Speaker 8 (01:49:34):
What say what? Time?

Speaker 12 (01:49:37):
Tide?

Speaker 2 (01:49:38):
Dear, what are you talking about on a Tuesday?

Speaker 8 (01:49:41):
Pay what odin?

Speaker 6 (01:49:43):
I dare now say what?

Speaker 2 (01:49:47):
Hello?

Speaker 4 (01:49:47):
We've got an NBA item to hit you with here
on say what today a Tuesday signature segment. Here on
the A team, I'll relay one other NBA related say what?
This is literally what I should have typed in My
response on this text thread from my pals center around
the state of Texas that love basketball, hate the fact
that the Maps don't have Luca anymore. We're talking about

(01:50:10):
Kevin Durant and someone said, feels like destiny that the
Thunder somehow end up with Harden, Durant, and Westbrook back
together supporting SGA and Williams for a championship. My say
what response to that is none of them are going
to OKAC. Harden is retiring as a Clipper, Westbrook isn't

(01:50:30):
going anywhere either. Hey, guess what, He's helping the Nuggets win.
He's been really, really good for the Nuggets this year.

Speaker 2 (01:50:37):
He's had a resurgence for his career and KD does
have one more stop, but it's not going to be
an OKAC.

Speaker 3 (01:50:45):
I really do think Kevin Durant's gonna be a rocket
next year when all of a sudden done. I don't
know how that happens. I don't know the parameters of
the deal. I don't know how much the rockets give
up or how little they give up. I think that
Age is on the rocket side with him. But you've
pointed it out better than almost anybody. The efficiency numbers

(01:51:09):
for what he's doing, and the numbers he's putting up
just in general, not efficient or not. If he came
here last time and he was like fifteen of twenty
three for thirty seven points, like, it's insane.

Speaker 4 (01:51:20):
He's just he's a shot forty five percent or better
in four straight games on the season. He's right at
fifty percent from the floor. He's got another season or
fifty two percent. He's got another season of shooting forty percent,
roughly forty point nine on his threes.

Speaker 2 (01:51:38):
I mean stupid.

Speaker 3 (01:51:39):
And by the way, fifty you said over fifty percent
shooting from the floor. That's not Aman Thompson getting eight
dunks in the game. That's he's shooting elbow jumpers. He's
shooting even further out. Yeah, he's from that perspective, you know.
Thirty three Uh, let's see, yeah, where he shoots the
ball from. Thirty three percent of his shots are are threes,
so sick sixty seven percent of the fifty three percent

(01:52:02):
that he's making or from inside the three point line,
a number that's there are probably not many players in
the league that match this. Thirty one percent of his
shots are jumpers between ten and sixteen feet, forty.

Speaker 4 (01:52:15):
Percent of his shots are ten feet and out and
non threes. That's mid range at its finest, and he's
doing it at a very very efficient clip. And again,
I know that way over fifty percent on those shots
that I just mentioned about fifty three percent on jump
shots ten feet out and beyond two point jumps.

Speaker 3 (01:52:36):
I know that I've been up and down on him,
and some other people have as well with Shingoon, But
how are you guarding the two of them?

Speaker 4 (01:52:45):
I mean, there's a little less to Duran's game than
there used to be. Every single night he is aging,
he is getting older. It is a little bit more difficult.
The rest of his game isn't quite what it once was.
He's probably not going to be the complete player we
obviously have to face the fact that it's pretty unlikely
that he and Devin Booker are playing much defense now.

(01:53:06):
Their team's playing very very little defense. But I assume
Kevin Durant, in an effort to play at this level
on one end of the floor, is not playing at
the same intensity level on the other end of the floor.
See aging players. One of them plays when he doesn't
have a hurt groin in LA. It's just part of
the nature of where you are in your career. And
his numbers suggest that he's, you know, far fewer assists

(01:53:27):
than usual, far fewer rebounds than previously he would get.
But he can put the ball in the basket. And
who did they turn to to hit the game winning
shot last night? They sent Devin Booker into the corner
to try to create space. They ran a two man game.
Jones brought the ball off, gave it to Katie and
said go create a three point shot, which he did.

Speaker 2 (01:53:46):
He just missed. And it's you say, create, yeah, try to.

Speaker 3 (01:53:50):
I mean, he's six eleven. All you have to do
what I mean, pick up the ball and shoot it.
He has now created the shot.

Speaker 2 (01:53:56):
He's taller than you.

Speaker 3 (01:53:57):
That's how that works all right, speaking of the NBA.
So you may or may not have seen this like lengthy.
It's almost like a.

Speaker 4 (01:54:05):
Is it an article that has an attachment right at
the top that says this article can be read in
nineteen minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:54:12):
Yeah, something like that could or maybe thirty.

Speaker 3 (01:54:15):
Well, it's kind of I don't even blame them because
when you're talking about kind of encapsulating the entirety of
how COVID happened in the middle of an NBA season,
which we were a part of that night, if.

Speaker 4 (01:54:27):
You can't tell it's going to be a long article,
then you didn't read the headline.

Speaker 2 (01:54:32):
Yeah, he's got it.

Speaker 4 (01:54:33):
An oral history of NBA's COVID nineteen shut down and
how it changed sports forever.

Speaker 3 (01:54:40):
It's and again I think this is the fifth anniversary
is coming up on this, which is another reminder that
time is flying by. But yeah, it's a fantastic oral history,
as you mentioned, chronicling the series of events, and we
all know about when at the time Rudy Gobert made

(01:55:02):
just the most It looks even dumber now in hindsight.
He runs his fingers all over the microphones of the
media that's assembled there, and he ended up being known
as Patient zero because he was the first, I think
known NBA player that was diagnosed with COVID, and then

(01:55:23):
they had the test to determine if it'd spread to
the rest of the team, and they were cooped up
for around five hours were the Utah Jazz waiting on
whatever it was the Jazz and the Thunder that night.
I very vividly remember it, and Donovan Mitchell said they
were eventually able to take advantage of bottles of wine

(01:55:43):
that Chris Paul, who was playing for the Thunder at
the time, sent their way.

Speaker 2 (01:55:47):
This is a quote.

Speaker 3 (01:55:49):
Chris sent us a bunch of bottles of wine. I
want to say maybe two or three hours after they
went to the locker room. Arena was completely clear. You
would walk around the arena.

Speaker 2 (01:55:57):
And it was just us. So we ended up drinking
wine and we're just drunk. We're just like, there's nothing
else we can do. We're here. And Roy O'Neil, who
was on the team at the time, gave CP.

Speaker 3 (01:56:07):
Three props for the much needed distraction, saying that might
be what saved everybody because being in that locker room
for five six hours, I don't know what we were
going to do. There's only so much food and snacks
and water and gatorade we can drink. So props to
Chris Paul for getting the jazz drunk when they are
all stuck inside an NBA road.

Speaker 2 (01:56:30):
I might add locker room. On the night where COVID happened.

Speaker 4 (01:56:35):
They only had what how many months to recover from
their hangover to play in their next game.

Speaker 3 (01:56:40):
Probably fine the next day. But like you've been to
the visitors locker room at Toyota Center, I have. Isn't
it wild that the home locker room basically used to
be the same size it is. Yes, they've renovated it twice, yep,
the Rockets locker room, and now it's bigger than it
ever has been.

Speaker 2 (01:57:00):
But you and I were in the original one.

Speaker 4 (01:57:01):
It's almost as big as their home locker room at
the Memorial Herman Training Facility, which.

Speaker 3 (01:57:08):
Is how it should be for something that was built
in twenty twenty four. But yeah, like we we would
go in there, and then I never really, I never
thought about this until later. You'd go down the hall
to the to the visitors locker room.

Speaker 2 (01:57:20):
It's the same size.

Speaker 3 (01:57:22):
You're supposed to have an advantage being at home, especially
when one of your best buyers.

Speaker 4 (01:57:26):
Is pretty basic. It's a box and they have wood
lockers and they sit there on that happy chairs.

Speaker 3 (01:57:31):
That was the home locker room before they renovated it.
Let's imagine how bad the road one was. And one
of the guys in there was seven foot six, So, uh,
I just I can't even imagine being cooped up in
a locker room like that when that's going on and
you don't know it's Chris. Paul's a nice guy he
was that night. He's not always a nice guy. Sometimes
he takes, you know, cheap shots. Anyway, that's our say

(01:57:53):
what for today. We will come back and we'll tell
you about how you can win some free tickets.

Speaker 6 (01:58:00):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:58:03):
Before we do any of that, I want to tell
you guys about Mocarum Injury Lawyers. And speaking of the NBA,
they are proud partners of the Houston Rockets, and even
better than that, they've been helping out Houstonians for over
thirty years. At what you might ask, well, people that
have been in motor vehicle collisions, they sometimes don't know
who to turn to, and that's where Mocarum Injury Lawyers

(01:58:25):
comes in because your consultation is going to be free.

Speaker 2 (01:58:28):
You're not going to pay anything unless you win your.

Speaker 3 (01:58:30):
Case, and their goal is to help you get your
life back on track and help you obtain the highest
possible compensation for your injuries. We're talking about motor vehicle collisions,
and so what we're talking about is how to get
a hold of Molcarum Injury Lawyers. And the good news
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(01:58:53):
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Speaker 1 (01:59:06):
I'm cleansing at Adam Wexler our eighteen returns of the Astros.

Speaker 3 (01:59:10):
Fancy are you hear the Woods?

Speaker 8 (01:59:12):
It's just those crazy Houstonians.

Speaker 6 (01:59:14):
Signed Sports Talk seven ninety Home of the Stros.

Speaker 4 (01:59:25):
Probably worthwhile to pass along some of the other NFL
news that has taken place over the course of this program.
Found it kind of interesting that a player was able
to hit free agency three years apart and sign the
exact same contract both times. Justin Reid, former Houston Texans
drafted by the Texans in twenty eighteen, signed his four

(01:59:47):
year rookie deal, played out those four years to where
he could earn himself three years, thirty one and a
half million with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Speaker 2 (01:59:55):
Signed that in March of twenty twenty two.

Speaker 4 (01:59:59):
Today, reportedly he's agreed to terms on a three year,
thirty one and a half million dollar deal again, this
time with the New Orleans Saints, and he's reunited with
Tyron Matthew. Matthew spent one season on the roster with
Justin Reid that first season.

Speaker 3 (02:00:17):
For what happened at the end of that year, they
went to the playoffs, and then what happened They won
a game, and then they took a big lead in
the next game, and then what happened after that.

Speaker 2 (02:00:28):
Then he got handed the ball on a fake punt
and then he joined that team.

Speaker 4 (02:00:34):
Yeah, he was really really successful time. If you were
with the Chiefs for just these past three years, your
last game was trying to win a third straight Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 (02:00:43):
And that's the case for Justin Reid. He now joins
the Saints.

Speaker 4 (02:00:46):
Again, there's only so much money on any given team,
and it's if you look at these top teams in
the AFC. The Texans are redoing their offensive line. They're
going to save some money with what they've sent away
and try to put together a line that at least
is better than last year's and can give CJ.

Speaker 2 (02:01:06):
Stroud time to throw.

Speaker 4 (02:01:08):
The Baltimore Ravens ultimately re upped with their tackle Stanley,
saw one of their interior players sign elsewhere, have brought
back their full back. So just trying to draw some
parallels between the groups. The Buffalo Bills have spent a
ton of money keeping their players. Deal for Greg Russeau,

(02:01:31):
deal for Khalil Shakir, a deal for Josh Allen, and
the Kansas City Chiefs, they gave a franchise tag who
he has signed. Tray Smith signed the one year franchise tag,
though obviously there's still an opportunity for that not necessarily
to be what he plays under. And they told their
second best offensive lineman, if you believe Creed Humphreys, their first, they.

Speaker 2 (02:01:54):
Told him to get lost. The Kansas City Chiefs, who
struggled to protect their quarterback in the Super Bowl, told
Joe Toney to go find money elsewhere. There are hard decisions.
I'm not always saying that gms have to be able
to figure out and keep everybody. You can't keep everybody,
but you can still usually find a way to still
win and put talent around you are very highly paid quarterback.

Speaker 4 (02:02:18):
Texans are running out of years to do that. Where
their Texans, their quarterback is not a highly paid player.
That'll be over soon enough. But the Chiefs went to
the Super Bowl three straight years. All three of those
years Pat Mahomes was playing after he signed his four
hundred and fifty million dollar ten year extension. Granted, that
means his average aneral value on his contract is forty

(02:02:40):
five million, which puts him behind a crazy underachieving group
of quarterbacks. A bunch of quarterbacks like Trevor Lawrence, for instance,
his average annual value fifty five million. Justin Herbert average
annual value much higher than Pat Mahomes. Pat Mahomes is
not even in the top ten anymore. Because you were
asking where do you think seed deal right be timeline wise,

(02:03:02):
when it happens next offseason, he'll probably be extremely close
to being the highest paid quarterback. If not, but all
of those that I just mentioned, there will be parts
of his contract that say, Yep, he got a better
deal than Lawrence, he got a better deal than Herbert,
he got a better deal than Lamar Jackson.

Speaker 2 (02:03:17):
A couple he'll land atop all of them. He's the latest.

Speaker 4 (02:03:21):
The worst part about it for the Cleveland Browns, Josh
Allen's deal that he just signed for two hundred and
fifty million dollars guaranteed added one player to one player.
It's now two players that got a bigger guarantee than
Deshaun Watson.

Speaker 2 (02:03:41):
Only too just now this offseason.

Speaker 4 (02:03:44):
Many years removed from the deal he got from the
Cleveland Browns. Again, not a market setting deal. If it
was a market setting deal, then fifteen players, twenty players
would be getting guaranteed contracts bigger than that one. We're
just now seeing a second player get a bigger guarantee.

Speaker 3 (02:04:02):
You this if if Deshaun Watson doesn't get hurt post
Texans career, I mean, and he plays, no.

Speaker 2 (02:04:12):
I don't think he could outplay Kenny Pickett, their new star.
He plays.

Speaker 3 (02:04:17):
Let's just say it. The whatever his peak was here
in a Texans uniform. Ye, is that contract still worth it?

Speaker 2 (02:04:24):
Yeah? In the trade. I mean it's when when you
don't have one, you want one and you go get one.
Question is not was a trade worth it or was
a contract? You have to factor both in.

Speaker 4 (02:04:34):
You made the playoffs with an eleven win team after
the trade with Watson, he just wasn't playing any Joe
Flacker was the quarterback. There's clearly though, well, there clearly
was enough talent to win with. If his play was great,
they might.

Speaker 2 (02:04:49):
Have even won the division that year. They probably have
heard of Houston and won a playoff game.

Speaker 4 (02:04:53):
And there's lots of good things that could have happened
if he was playing at that Let would have played
when he was here.

Speaker 3 (02:04:57):
That would have hurt it, and he won that game.
But is as it as it has gone. He's gonna
be a trivia question someday. Yes, he's done, I think so. Yeah, Like,
think about where he's at right now physically best to
play right so whatever, the best case scenario is for
him to get back out just to get to the

(02:05:18):
point where his body allows him to play. Then he
has to not suck like he sucks since he got
in the Cleveland uniform, bad football.

Speaker 2 (02:05:26):
Bad injuries.

Speaker 4 (02:05:27):
These aren't automatic recover from to get to your previous
state injuries. So it's all factors. I was not really
joking about Kenny Pickett. No, I know they traded for him.
If we didn't, I don't know that we mentioned that
over the last twenty four hours. But yes, that's one
of the moves that's been made. Can't save your bacon
for the rest of eternity that. I think Bill Belichick's
pretty good evaluator of some talent.

Speaker 12 (02:05:49):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:05:49):
He said something this offseason about, you know, Jameis Winston
and how well he played last year, and I almost
fell out of my chair.

Speaker 3 (02:05:56):
Well, hold the phone, because he's also dating a twenty
year old So things are happening in Bill's life that
are probably clouding his judgment a bit.

Speaker 2 (02:06:06):
Yeah, probably so, yeah, probably so.

Speaker 4 (02:06:09):
He also, if you did not hear, he and his team,
because nobody in the NFL would say yes, are going
to be the subject of hard knocks the North Carolina
tar Heels.

Speaker 2 (02:06:20):
This is because nobody in the NFL would say yes.
You said correct.

Speaker 4 (02:06:23):
You only have a bunch of teams are able to
say no automatically because of their situations.

Speaker 3 (02:06:27):
You know what's funny is right now, at this point
in time, twenty twenty five, with everything's going on, this
would be, in my opinion, the most I've ever wanted
to see the Texans on Hard Knocks. Think about it,
year three of CJ. He's got all the naysayers now
because you know he would grows so much. Demiko is fiery.

(02:06:49):
You get to go into the Cyborg's office and watch
the vest in action and see how actual, actually boring
he really is as a functioning general manager. And then
all the personalities on this team that are awesome. I
would love to see the Texans on Hard Knocks. Hannah,
come on, make this happen. You know it's your type
of thing to do.

Speaker 4 (02:07:09):
It was a bit of a struggle, I think for
teams to say yes after what happened last offseason with
Joe Shane, the GM of the New York Giants.

Speaker 2 (02:07:16):
They I thought at the time.

Speaker 4 (02:07:18):
I show though, that was their off season, so doing that,
it was Hard Knocks needs to be training camp. Couldn't
wait for the train wreck. We all knew it was
about to become. But here's the thing, I don't know
if I'm gonna be able to sleep at night if
he's if he's not here, he's one of our best players,
one of our favorite.

Speaker 2 (02:07:32):
No, no, we're good.

Speaker 4 (02:07:33):
And the phone call of him sending Saquan out the door, Oh,
go see what your market is, but just do me
a favor. Just make sure you come back to us,
his kid telling him who they should draft.

Speaker 2 (02:07:42):
It was awesome.

Speaker 3 (02:07:43):
And then all he did was go to the Eagles
and win the Super Bowl and get an extension. Great job,
Great job, Giants. All right, we will continue all things
at Houston Sports next.

Speaker 1 (02:07:56):
The AE on Sports Talk seven ninety two lifelong Houston
sports guys named Adam talking your teams. Adam Clinton and
Adam Wexler are the A Team A Team.

Speaker 4 (02:08:22):
It's five o'clock on a Tuesday edition of the A Team.
WEXA see here with you on Sports Talk seven ninety
and Space City Home Network and Opportunity to get you
caught up. There have been moves your Texans have made
them yesterday and today, and we're still not quite yet
to the beginning of the twenty twenty five NFL season.
The new league year starts tomorrow. We're less than twenty

(02:08:44):
four hours away from it. And so all the wording
that you've seen on these deals, they've agreed to terms,
they've come to an agreement, they're reaching, they're close to it. Well,
they can all put pen to paper as early as tomorrow,
early afternoon, some of the releases that have been reported
for days or weeks can become official. For those that
are going to be June first release designations, those can

(02:09:07):
get made officially tomorrow. Aaron Rodgers fits in that category.
Shaq Mason fits in that category. The trade to acquire
Christian Kirk for the Houston Texans fits in that category.
That's one significant move they've made to add to the
team on offense. I'm not sure that they've made any

(02:09:27):
others yet, but the deal they made earlier today to
bring starting left guard Lake and Tomlinson into the fold.
Last year was starter for the Seahawks. The two years
prior to that, he had back to back years as
a starter with the Jets, and the four years prior
to that he was starter all those years in San Francisco.
His time in San Francisco coincided with Demiko Ryan's time

(02:09:48):
in San Francisco. He's also had some time working under
the system that Nick Cayley worked under with the Rams,
with his familiarity with the coaching staff there from a
previous stop. My best guest today is they anticipate Laken
Tomlinson claiming one of the starting guard spots. The money

(02:10:09):
that he's paid neighborhood of four and a half million,
four point twenty five could be as much as five
doesn't mean he clearly was signed to be the starter.
It's also a one year deal, but I believe that's
how it's going to play out. They also orchestrated a
trade to open up another hole on their offensive line,
but the hole was already there even if the person
was standing there and it was game day.

Speaker 2 (02:10:31):
CJ. Gardner Johnson.

Speaker 4 (02:10:33):
This is a plus plus level safety from the Philadelphia Eagles,
the Super Bowl champions, and from each of the teams
he's previously been on. A very strong player. He's now
Houston Texan. He comes in with a sixth round pick.
Going out is Kenyon Green and a twenty six to
fifth rounder. That sixth round pick that comes with Johnson

(02:10:54):
also a twenty six draft pick.

Speaker 2 (02:10:56):
So not this year's go around year four for ken Green.

Speaker 4 (02:11:00):
Three years ago, the Texans traded out of the number
thirteen spot, just back two spots to draft him at fifteenth.

Speaker 2 (02:11:07):
The deal they made then was with the.

Speaker 4 (02:11:09):
Philadelphia Eagles, and the Eagles then drafted Jordan Davis, who's
been very good in the front side of their defensive line.
The player drafted after that plays the same position the
player they just acquired does. That's Kyle Hamilton of the
Baltimore Ravens. Had somebody respond to me earlier when I
made a comment on the X platform about this deal,

(02:11:31):
that Nick Cassara was essentially, you know, correcting an earlier mistake,
and I suppose you could reference it that way.

Speaker 2 (02:11:39):
I did in my response and said, you know.

Speaker 4 (02:11:43):
In the addition of a really really good player, and
that's I think that's all you can say about. He's
really really good. He's gonna be awesome for this defense.
Their second ary might be the best in football. Their
d line might be the best in football. Their defense
might be the best in football. But Nick, correcting his
air drafting Green over Hamilton in twenty two, I said, Yeah,
the Eagles have Davis for three years, and now they

(02:12:03):
have Green. That's fifteen and thirteen. Somehow they got both picks.
The Ravens have Hamilton for all three of these years.
That was the fourteenth pick. And the Texans do have CJ.
Gardner Johnson, the most expensive and oldest of the group,
who's yet to say play a snap for Houston. Yip
ee error corrected. Uh it make I again. I sometimes
travel with my wet blanket, and that's very wet blanket

(02:12:26):
of me. They got a really good player, the best
player they've added this off season. They got this morning
in a deal with the Eagles, CJ.

Speaker 2 (02:12:34):
Gardner Johnson.

Speaker 4 (02:12:36):
I think Christian Kirk's gonna be good, but I would
agree he is much more established and is much more
on his resume, and it's been nothing but success for him.
He makes plays, He is a disruptive force, and I think,
paired with the personnel they have, se gonna be great.
I think he can play where Kaylen Bullock has played,
and he obviously has played there a lot of his career.

(02:12:58):
I don't want him to I want him the other
safety spot. I want Bullock right where he was. I
want Jalen Petrie right where he was. And those three,
along with Lasseter and Derek Stingley Junior.

Speaker 2 (02:13:09):
I said a they.

Speaker 4 (02:13:10):
Could be There's no way they shouldn't be not with
their defensive front. This absolutely positively should be rated, graded
and considered the best secondary in the entire league.

Speaker 2 (02:13:24):
In twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (02:13:26):
You mentioned pairing him with the personnel that they already have.
That's why I think Christian Kirk is going to be
so good here. But I think that's even more so
just because it's a stronger side of the football how
it will be on the defensive side. So I but again,
none of this is going to matter if this offensive

(02:13:46):
line is in seriously addressed like it's being addressed. We'll
talk to you again on Monday following the Texans nine
to six loss to the Colts, be back with you tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (02:13:58):
Three loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars. They did a great job,
but unfortunately CJ. Stroud fumbled and they returned it for
a touchdown and the battle of field goals after that?

Speaker 2 (02:14:07):
Did they lose Jackson's Way?

Speaker 3 (02:14:09):
Did they lose nine to six to the Colts because
their defense was so good or because Daniel Jones was starting?

Speaker 2 (02:14:13):
Maybe that? Maybe that.

Speaker 3 (02:14:16):
I just I know that there's going to require some
patience as they remake this this line in the image
of what they want.

Speaker 4 (02:14:26):
Should definitely have some patience for Nick Cassra to put
a line in front of c J. Stroud as Stroud
enters his third year.

Speaker 2 (02:14:33):
I can't even argue with that.

Speaker 4 (02:14:35):
More on CJGJ just from last year thanks to PFF
seven forced in completions that ranked third in the league,
six picks that ranked third in the league.

Speaker 2 (02:14:45):
They'll call him that. It's coverage grade.

Speaker 4 (02:14:47):
At eighty six point eight, ranked fifth in the league.
I think there is a zero point zero percent chance
I or anybody else will call him that.

Speaker 2 (02:14:55):
In the future. Are you going to ask him what
he'd prefer? It is a long hyphenated name. Is CJ?

Speaker 4 (02:15:01):
Get easier? I'll call him CJ, even though there already
is one that'll be what we call him.

Speaker 2 (02:15:09):
Johnson. I don't know.

Speaker 12 (02:15:12):
I just uh.

Speaker 3 (02:15:15):
With the with the division that set up the way
it is, with you having CJ in his rookie contract still,
which is, by the way, Stingley gets done this offseason,
CJ gets done next offseason.

Speaker 2 (02:15:28):
That's correct. Okay? And Will Anderson Jr.

Speaker 3 (02:15:31):
Who some people think is just automatically not going to
be resigned here because he's good, Well, you've.

Speaker 2 (02:15:35):
Got maybe Micah Parsons to look at.

Speaker 4 (02:15:39):
Micah did tell the Cowboys reportedly that I'm not You
can try and we can talk, but I'm not really
interested in signing my extension right now, which was last
off season. They took forever to sign cd Land, they
took forever to sign Dak Prescott, and in essence, they're
waiting whether it was both parties or more Micah than

(02:16:00):
the way a year. So that would potentially be the
timeline comp to Will. I think if they can, and
even though they have a lot of other money tied
up in other places, they can, they should want to
sign him as early as possible. That's that's the to me,
it's the best way to do it. With these no
brainer players. You're not guessing if Will Anderson's gonna have

(02:16:23):
a great rest of his career. You're not guessing he's
gonna be good through the life of this current contract
you're about to sign him to. The answer is yes,
and there's no debate about it, So why wait? You
can you have to figure out and they're clearly thinking
about it now. You're thinking about it the day you
orchestrate the trade, because you know we just did this.
We're into our first year of what will be four

(02:16:43):
three consecutive years with the Rockets, Well, Jalen Green and
Alpria and Shangoon same timeline the next year, two more
first round picks, they're gonna be on the same It's
gonna happen. You know, when you traded for with the
Arizona Cardinals, when you trade it up to get Will
Anderson at three minutes after you late it drafted CJ's,
They're going to be on the same timeline for a
contract extension.

Speaker 8 (02:17:03):
Everybody was that, you know.

Speaker 3 (02:17:04):
What's interesting about that? Just since you brought them up
and I know it's an NBA thing versus an NFL thing.
It took both shing Goon and Jalen to agree to
that deal. Nobody ever talks about that. What if Jalen
was like, no, I'm a max player even though he's not.
And that's just where you were. You were in a stalemate,

(02:17:26):
Like they convinced not one but two players who are
fringe superstars. I would even say that Jalen's a star,
Shingoon's a star. They're not superstars. Could they be coupled
with other players and could this core take the next step?

Speaker 2 (02:17:43):
And they become that.

Speaker 3 (02:17:44):
I maybe i'd honestly, I would probably be better off
or they would be better off with the collective being,
you know, greater than the you know, the parts in
this case, the individual two parts that we're talking about
for the purposes of winning.

Speaker 2 (02:18:01):
And I'm sure the Rockets told them.

Speaker 3 (02:18:03):
That there's two players in the Jalen Green draft class
that have scored over five thousand points Kate Cunningham.

Speaker 4 (02:18:12):
No, oh, it's I forget. They were on the court
last night together, Jalen and Franz. They both signed contracts
this offseason, one hundred and thirty three hundred and thirty
five million for Jalen thirty five million a year, roughly
over three years, four to three years, and Franz signed
for the max basically two hundred and twenty five million
for five years.

Speaker 3 (02:18:32):
By the way, watching Palo Bancaro again, HM, it's you
didn't get him because you didn't have the number one pick. Again,
but you're better off, Like he'd be better off being
here than what Orlando's put around him, no question about it.

Speaker 2 (02:18:50):
And yet did you have envy?

Speaker 4 (02:18:54):
I mean, I think he's a better I mean think
he's a better player. I think the rest of his
game still needs to be developed up to you know,
the fit. Jabbari's fit here is pretty good. But Pallas
he's just I think he's just a better player. I'm
not by a lot, and he does need to take
another step, but you can get twenty.

Speaker 2 (02:19:11):
He wasn't even I was.

Speaker 4 (02:19:12):
I never got around to saying this during the game,
but it never looked like he was having a good game.
It was like the easiest twenty four points, but he
wasn't impacting the game hardly at all that run together.
They didn't just keep going to them so he could dominate.
He's not that kind of player. He's had a huge month.

Speaker 3 (02:19:27):
You're gonna have consecutive players come into town, the first
one being last night and the next one being tomorrow night,
where in this case it's gonna be two more players
where you've got really good talents and it's not translating
to wins for their teams.

Speaker 4 (02:19:38):
Well they've had. They're just not good enough. I mean
the other you're talking about two non stars and ben
Carro and Wagner they're really good star No, just because
they don't win. Is he a top twenty player? Is
he an All star?

Speaker 3 (02:19:51):
We'll put him on the rockets. Aren't they better than
they are without him? If you take Jabbari away, they
might be a little better. Yet, we only have ten
seconds to argue at this point. Maybe it's a little better.
It's interesting, and of course leave it to me to
get us to NBA conversation out of NFL free agency.
We will continue with more football discussion Texans Variety and

(02:20:12):
otherwise next.

Speaker 1 (02:20:15):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety. The A
Team continues on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (02:20:29):
Should I start the campaign now?

Speaker 4 (02:20:31):
Well, we are the home number one home right here
on Sports Talk seven ninety for the Cam Smith hype train.

Speaker 2 (02:20:40):
He's going to be playing some right field for your
Houston Astros. Things about this show, I'm going to love
more than that a change of course for Dana, Joe
and Cam.

Speaker 4 (02:20:50):
He played right field today as a matter of fact,
just not in the game, on the backfields under the
watchful eye of Michael Brantley. Got in some work out
there and the team has told him to be prepared
to play right field in a game as early as Thursday,
when the Astros have a couple of games scheduled that day.
The more he has shown that he can handle everything.

(02:21:14):
The more the tiny, tiny little opening in the door
for him to be a part of the Astros asap
has become a little bit wider. The Christian walker oblique
injury potentially opened that door just a bit though. It
was good news on him all things considered in that
he hasn't even been ruled out for Opening Day yet.
He's not yet swinging the bat, not yet back into

(02:21:34):
game action, but that's something that has to be considered.
Jose Altuve has now also played some second base. He
got his first start over at second base in the
last couple of days. He's back out in the outfield today,
Jordan Alvarez has played a game in the outfield. The
work that Cam Smith has given them very good. I
Dave Clark was on the broadcast today, interviewed from the bench.

(02:21:57):
He's the Astros first base coach and he and Jason
Bell have done a bulk of the work with Zach
Dezenzo and Jose Altuve working in the outfield. Zack Dezenzo
is going to be an outfield option for them because
first and third probably won't be much of an option
for him. If Christian Walker's healthy and he's Ocparatis is healthy. Well,
now the camp smith's going to end up in the

(02:22:17):
very same boat. This is who they're going to be
working with. Clark talked about how a player at this
stage of his development, first year out of college, early
draft pick, he shouldn't have some of the skills that
he are. He shouldn't be so good at the plate,
plate discipline. The guy's had some really, really good looking
at bats. He's taken advantage of some pitcher's mistakes. The

(02:22:40):
other side of it that we continue to acknowledge. When
you push back on yeah, he's ready, you just have
to consider who he's been facing, and more often than not,
he has not been facing major league pitching. He hasn't
even been facing Triple A pitching. You start him, which
I intend they intend to do again more than not,
so you can see more of that so you can
start getting a real I don't think they brought him

(02:23:00):
to camp so they could see if he could hit
major league pitching, But now they have to see if
he can handle major league pitching because they do have
to consider is this a possibility on opening Day against
the Mets. I don't think so yet, but they clearly
they're telling you, we've changed our mind. He was always

(02:23:22):
gonna get work in right field. It just wasn't necessarily
gonna happen during spring training because this was a longer
term plan. He's our third baseman of the future. He's
gonna get work at third base. We wanted to get
better there. Again, this guy's been a pro ballplayer for
less than nine months, but we need to work him
in the outfield when he gets to sugar Land, when
he gets to Corpus, he's gonna get opportunities in right field,

(02:23:44):
maybe opportunities in left field.

Speaker 2 (02:23:46):
Work that in get him to where we think he
can play at that level.

Speaker 4 (02:23:49):
Well, we have to speed up the timeline on timeline
on seeing if cam Smith is a right fielder good
enough to play in a major league game permanently, because
they also don't want him on the roster playing once
every four days. He's playing every day. If he's an astro,
Just move Jose to right field. Jose's gonna be in
left field on opening day, batting leadoffs. I think he's soak.

(02:24:14):
Perettis is gonna be your third base when batting second.
Jordan's going to DH bat third. I believe Christian Walker
presuming health. He's gonna hit play first. He's hitting fourth.
Yiner's your catcher, he's hitting sick fifth. Jeremy Paine is
hitting sixth. He's your starting shortstop. Now after that, then
it's automatic outland.

Speaker 2 (02:24:32):
Now that's why Cam Smith is working in right field.

Speaker 4 (02:24:36):
They need a very strong defensive center fielder by virtue
of what we're talking about. That is Jake Myers, but
they need to keep in mind it could be Chas McCormick.
If they have to play Cam because of his bat,
maybe they can still play Chaz over Jake and center.
But Chaz has to give them a reason to He's

(02:24:59):
the only thing he's done well at the plate this
camp is walk. He's not hit the ball well, he's
not swung the bat well.

Speaker 2 (02:25:05):
Oh you do that last year.

Speaker 4 (02:25:07):
To base it all on what we're seeing in spring,
but had to it has that some of it has
to be there. I mean, Muricy Dubon got a second
hit of spring today. He's two for nineteen or two
for twenty. I don't think he forgot how to hit
two forty. I'm sure he can still do that. I'm
sure he can still produce his six ninety six ops.

Speaker 2 (02:25:23):
Gosh, there there outfield is just.

Speaker 3 (02:25:27):
Not if Altuve and cam Smith are in it. Yeah,
but you just you just said during the first spot
now instead of all three of them.

Speaker 4 (02:25:34):
I remember this offseason when we thought Dubon, Myers and
McCormick were starting. Now that might be down to one
if we're again we're trying to drive the hype train.
I'm putting him on the roster. I know I'm way
ahead of this, but that's what we do here on
the eighteen provided. And again this is a big provided.

Speaker 3 (02:25:52):
You know, your your main concern with a guy who
is learning how to play a position is the fielding.
But you're just assuming that he's going to race at
the plate. He's not gonna rake at the plate. Yeah,
I'm assuming that that's what prospects do when they get here.
They immediately thrive, all of them every time. And yet
see Alex Bregman, what was it two for what thirty eight?

Speaker 2 (02:26:12):
It was bad?

Speaker 4 (02:26:13):
And then he did every he said, how about if
I put you at the front of the order, Boom,
I'm gonna promote you in the lineup, and it worked.

Speaker 2 (02:26:19):
Well.

Speaker 3 (02:26:20):
Look, camp Smith is not going to be batting. Camp
Smith's batting ahead of Jeremy Pania like instantly, No he
about seventh. No, I'm saying like I'm saying, whatever is
just shy of instantly.

Speaker 4 (02:26:32):
You know who is raking this spring, Jeremy Pania. You
know what he is crushing baseballs made a go ahead
former gold Glover. Maybe he reassumes that title in the
American League. That would be nice too.

Speaker 3 (02:26:45):
Just just a little better defensively and a lot better
offensively than what you've provided since your rookie season.

Speaker 4 (02:26:51):
I will refrain, even if I hear about them, even
if he talks about them, I will refrain this entire
spring from mentioning anything about any potential swing alterations or
tweaks to what he's doing at the plate.

Speaker 2 (02:27:03):
I'll just tell you what he's doing and we'll move on.
I'm not to say he's doing this with his swing,
or he's at at that, is he waggling the bat
too much?

Speaker 3 (02:27:10):
I'm not talking about it. That was last year not
talking about it, and it seemed to work out well
for him. I don't even want to know about it.
I just want to see the results.

Speaker 2 (02:27:19):
How funny is it going to be if a.

Speaker 3 (02:27:23):
Much more talented on paper Astro's team got off to
a much worse start than the twenty twenty five squad
that has Kyle Tucker playing in Chicago and Alex Bregman
playing in Boston and Cam Smith is starting in right field.
I just did that under the radar, see if you
were paying attention, and Jose al Twoba playing in left field.

(02:27:44):
Jose had a nice hid today.

Speaker 2 (02:27:46):
How about this. I don't worry about that back.

Speaker 4 (02:27:47):
I know you guys will be with us at seven
o'clock when we give you the tape delayed version of
today's Astros Mets game. The only pitcher the Astros used
today that gave up any runs picked up the win.
Taylor Scott give a couple singles, a walk, and then
a grand slam all in one innings, work Hunter Brown
filthy six k's over four innings, Josh Hater one quick inning,

(02:28:11):
Brian Obrew one quick inning. Okert and Van Way finished
things off with four k's over the final two innings,
and again Taylor Scott one inning, three hits, a walk,
a grand slam. M The w of course, is the
only pitcher to give up any runs today, because after
they took him out, they put a five spot on
the board and overcame there for nothing deficit. Hunter Brown

(02:28:34):
was a good day for him to prepare because today
probably lines him up to make two more appearances before
he's pitching Friday, March twenty eighth for the Astros attempt
to go two to zero to start the year when
he becomes their ace. That's day two of the season.
Frommer's going to pitch Day one. Yeah, but he's gonna
take the baton this year.

Speaker 2 (02:28:53):
He has to.

Speaker 4 (02:28:54):
At the end of the year, following their third or
fourth new T shirt they put on after they clinch
of the division, win their first series, win the CS,
and then win the World Series, he will put on
his fourth we Are the championshirt and Fromber will ceremoniously
hand him a cigar that will call the b Aton.

(02:29:15):
Five years, five years, one hundred and forty million. That's
what Fromber signs for with somebody this coming off season
that's not the Astros, that's not the Astros. So less
than thirty million per.

Speaker 3 (02:29:30):
You know what's funny is that when Jim Crane has
handed out money, it's more often than not, I mean
big money. It's more often than not been for pitching, specifically,
justin super short term. He got a sixty six million
dollar deal for two years. Lance got an eighty five
million dollar deal for five years. He's Christian Javier's deal

(02:29:54):
sixty million. He's not gonna spend that kind of money.
Even Hater didn't crack one hundred bad deal. It was
a bad deal when he signed it.

Speaker 4 (02:30:03):
I wasn't saying that as much then. I don't want
a lot of people. I was pretty enthused that they
thought they could go ahead and go for it again.
It's hard not to get seduced by a team that
keeps going through it. If it hadn't been for the
stupid start of the season that lasted three months. It
was a really slow three month start to the year.
Well heeded he they didn't even need him, which did

(02:30:26):
put pause and I think everybody's mind. And it was
for a lot of money. Money may be better spent elsewhere.
But nonetheless, four more years of Josh Hater starting this year.

Speaker 3 (02:30:36):
All right, we will get back at you in a
matter of a few with some of the things that
we have not talked about today. It's in case you
missed it. And by the way, we've spent so much
time on the Houston Texans over the last two shows.
The majority of the last two shows, we probably have
let some things fall through the cracks head on over

(02:30:57):
to the waystside, whatever you want to call it, So
we'll get to some of those things when we come
back here. We're also still going to give away some
Rockets tickets before the end of the show. It's all
coming up in the last half hour here on a
Tuesday edition of the program.

Speaker 6 (02:31:11):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:31:15):
Hey, yo, listen to Sports Talk seven ninety on any
device with our free iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 2 (02:31:24):
It's free. Like a punch to that face.

Speaker 4 (02:31:31):
Opportunity for us to do what day C said we
need to do, which is get you caught up on
a handful of items that have taken place since we
last visited them over maybe a little bit of extra
info on those topics we've gotten to already. One thing
I will note is reported multiple reports now the Texans
have been busy this afternoon, even adding a linebacker. Can't

(02:31:53):
have too much defense, can they. Nicknaming late of the
San Diego Los Angeles Chargers four years is rookie contract and.

Speaker 2 (02:32:01):
Now available in free agency.

Speaker 4 (02:32:03):
Bulk of his work over the last four years, in
which he played in all but four games, has been
on special teams. Twenty twenty three worked into the rotation
a little bit due to injuries elsewhere, but has played
very little as part of the Chargers defense the last
couple of years. Believe that he could hadn't been asked
to very very good special team or two year deal
he joins the Texans defense sounds very Jake hansony and

(02:32:26):
Jake Hansen was also re signed within the last or
agreed to resign in the last couple of days. Depth
defense dominant. How about the offense literation you've brought to
the table of case you missed it.

Speaker 5 (02:32:39):
You know, just like teams have their you know team
motto for the year, Texans twenty twenty five best damn
special teams in the league. That's what it seems like
they're building up for right now.

Speaker 4 (02:32:48):
Probably printed those up about five years running. It's always
their best, even with the mistakes that have been made recently,
last couple of games or in the postseason, they're special teams.
Under Frank Ross has consistently been in top three.

Speaker 2 (02:33:02):
Can't wait to see the T shirt?

Speaker 13 (02:33:03):
All right?

Speaker 5 (02:33:03):
So you mentioned Makai Beckton earlier as a possibility to
be a future Texan in the very near future. Well,
add a Q Shipley, former NFL offensive lineman who joins
the Pat McAfee show every week. He says, Oh, man,
it makes way too much sense.

Speaker 12 (02:33:19):
If I'm Houston, I go get him right now. Okay, Houston.
Houston clearly has made the moves to go get skilled, right,
But they've unloaded their entire offensive line. They've they've gotten
rid of Laramie Tunzel, they got rid of Shaq Mason,
they got rid of Green, the former first rounder who
they obviously sent to Philadelphia in the trade. Right. They've
bolstered areas of their team skill wise with CJ. Stroud,

(02:33:41):
you know, obviously Mixon, and they went and got Christian
Kirk like they have skill galore. But all we all
have seen it, if you don't have an offensive line,
you can't win game.

Speaker 2 (02:33:50):
Guys. Fascinating It wasn't a minute long.

Speaker 4 (02:33:57):
Well, I mean that was essentially a recap of our
last two days, right, Yeah, But I want to know
why Becton. This is a former offense So tell me
what's good about him. Tell me what you like about
what he did last year? I told you earlier on
Becton he had a I think he was clearly he
was very highly regarded. I think the plan and the

(02:34:18):
hopes for his initial team was things were really going
to work out, and they they just didn't. They absolutely
started to change when he moved to Philadelphia, and Philadelphia
has a tough decision to make, and the fact that
they haven't made it completely shows you that both sides
have some work to do if it was ever going
to get done. I brought it up earlier because I
agree with AQ it makes sense. I don't think it's

(02:34:40):
a given that this is the particular player you want.
But at this point in time, a couple of guards
are gone, most of the strong tackles are gone, and
who knew the Texans were going to be so strong
in the tackle market, if they even are. But interior
line is where they needed to find somebody or somebody's
and he could be an answer.

Speaker 2 (02:35:00):
I don't know that that's the best use for his talents.
I don't know if this is the right spot for him.

Speaker 4 (02:35:04):
Because quite honestly, if your turnaround took place there and
everybody knows Stotland's great as you're a line coach, why
not continue.

Speaker 2 (02:35:15):
You're you're set in stone.

Speaker 3 (02:35:16):
You think Titus Howard is gonna be the left tackle
and Blake for the purpose of this segment, they're gonna
go after interior linemen in free agency and or the draft.

Speaker 4 (02:35:31):
Yeah, Tevin Jenkins, Kevin Ziler, Mctie Beckton or three that
are currently unsigned and in free agent.

Speaker 3 (02:35:37):
And if Titus Howard is your left tackle on opening day,
you feel.

Speaker 5 (02:35:41):
What, uh?

Speaker 3 (02:35:43):
I hope he's not off best lineman that they have. Well,
shouldn't the best lineman you have be it left tackle?

Speaker 2 (02:35:49):
Well?

Speaker 4 (02:35:49):
That means if he's your best lineman and he's playing
left tackle, then it means you probably failed at finding
interior line help. In my opinion, if you're putting him
out there, that means you're not going out and getting one.

Speaker 2 (02:36:03):
Okay, that's fine.

Speaker 4 (02:36:04):
That means you are going out to get one of
the other three spots you don't have locked down, and.

Speaker 2 (02:36:08):
Your left guard better be awesome. Well, Titus Howard is.

Speaker 4 (02:36:12):
I'm not averse to him being the starting tack because
I think he's awful. I don't think he's awful, But
she can't not go get anybody. I'm sure they will it.
We're not even to the league year. They're going to
bring in veteran players that are capable of starting and
playing at a reasonably high level.

Speaker 2 (02:36:27):
They have to, can't.

Speaker 4 (02:36:28):
You cannot operate any other way. You're not a crappy
football team. You're not looking for your quarterback. You don't
have a coach in his first year that may or
may not be your coach of the future. You're not
trying to earn draft picks at the top of the draft.

Speaker 2 (02:36:39):
You're trying to win. You have your quarterback, you have
your defense, you have your head coach. It is time
to win. It was time to win.

Speaker 4 (02:36:45):
Last year they tried to win. They had a bad
offensive line performance. They're not trying to do that again.
But they're also trying to do it all at once.
Kansas City did this right or if they lost to
the Super Bowl to Tampa. Yeah, their whole line season.

Speaker 2 (02:36:59):
For the people that were panicking, especially yesterday, that's such
a good point. Now you have you have.

Speaker 4 (02:37:04):
They used a second and sixth round pick to do it.
Creed Humphrey, very highly paid center, now drafted in the
second round. Trey Smith just got franchise tagged. Drafted in
the sixth round.

Speaker 2 (02:37:14):
You have to nail the picks. That's kind of a
big part of it.

Speaker 4 (02:37:17):
Good luck Nick showing so much promise in that area. Hey,
what else I'll see if I can crap on the
next one to dancing.

Speaker 5 (02:37:23):
All right, Well, so, actually this one's for you, given
that you are our resident TikTok star here at Sports
Talk seven nice at.

Speaker 2 (02:37:29):
Ones today, I think you're pretty madam Jay Wexler. There
you go.

Speaker 5 (02:37:33):
Yeah, give the man a follow. I think you're pretty
much the only guy here who has won. But anyway,
it is a trend where dancing is part of it.
We've seen it's in college football locker rooms primarily at
times in the sports world and New West Virginia head
coach for a second time, Rich Rodriguez says, yeah, guess what,
we're not doing that anymore in Morgantown.

Speaker 2 (02:37:53):
They're going to be on it. So it's not I'm
not banning them from I just banned them.

Speaker 14 (02:37:57):
From dancing on it. You know, it's like, don't look well,
try to have a hard edge whatever, and you're in
there in your tights. You know, dancing on TikTok ain't
quite the image of our program.

Speaker 3 (02:38:09):
That I won.

Speaker 13 (02:38:11):
Twenty years from now, they want to be sitting in
their pajamas in the basement, eating cheetos and watching TikTok
or whatever the hell they can go at it, smoking
cannabis whatever.

Speaker 14 (02:38:21):
I mean, knock yourself out. But you know, the hope
we're focused can be on winning football games. You know,
let's how about let's win the football game and not
worry about winning the TikTok.

Speaker 2 (02:38:34):
You can really go for a bag of cheetos right now.

Speaker 7 (02:38:37):
I know.

Speaker 4 (02:38:37):
It says on his bio that he was born in
nineteen sixty three, and that would make him sixty one
years old with a May birthday. Sounds more like he's
one hundred and sixty one. Well, hey, you don't have
to Hey, that'll.

Speaker 12 (02:38:55):
Play for me.

Speaker 2 (02:38:56):
You're not gonna have any fun here though. I don't
have to tell people. You don't have to be that
old time tell people to get off your lawn. You don't.

Speaker 4 (02:39:03):
But you're telling the people that you want to play
at your universe, like he's This is a stress point.
This is a talking point, this is a recruiting point,
This is a it's gonna be up on. We're gonna
hang this on a banner where it should say swarm
or dedication or determination. It's gonna have a picture of
the TikTok logo with a red line through it. Then

(02:39:26):
they're gonna run through. They're gonna tap that tap their
hand on the wall like champions. That's what's gonna be
up on the wall outside of the locker room. Let's
go be champions today.

Speaker 3 (02:39:34):
And I told you the story about those kids that
were playing kid seats outside our house, like up inside
the intr way to our front door. I've never felt
so old is when I literally told them to get.

Speaker 2 (02:39:47):
Off our lawn.

Speaker 4 (02:39:48):
From the Salem Tigers to the Glenville State Pioneers to
the West Virginia Mountaineers back in the early two thousands,
to the Wolverines of Michigan, to the Wildcats of Arizona,
to the Jacksonville eight Game Cocks, and back to West Virginia.
TikTok not banned, but no dancing. No TikTok dances only,

(02:40:09):
says Rich Roye.

Speaker 2 (02:40:10):
Only I can dance on TikTok gets the law.

Speaker 6 (02:40:15):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (02:40:20):
You've got more Ae, Adam Clinton and Adam we slur
on Sports talk seven ninety home.

Speaker 6 (02:40:27):
For your home teams.

Speaker 4 (02:40:35):
I'm gonna get at you an update on the twenty
twenty five NFL Draft because the league finally got around
to handing out the compensatory selections. It's only important for
where the Texans picks fall after those compicks were handed out,
not that they would get one, because they were one
of the many teams to not receive one, and we
already knew this based on their formula for signing players

(02:40:56):
and having players signed way or having coaches hired off
of your staff that can get you compensatory selections. Baltimore, Dallas,
and Miami three teams that got four picks. Chargers, Niners,
Seahawks each got three, and seven other teams got two
or one. I believe the picks in number that they

(02:41:17):
got from the Commanders in the trade for Laramie Tunsalls
should be the seventy ninth overall pick that's the third
rounder in this draft, and either two thirty six or
to forty six in round number seven. Not sure which
of the two are specified to go from the Commanders
to Houston. The two other picks that are part of
that deal do not come until twenty twenty six s.

(02:41:38):
Houston should have four picks in the top eighty nine.
They're three plus that pick acquired in the Laramie Tunsall deal.
All these deals that could not already will be made
official tomorrow during the league year.

Speaker 2 (02:41:52):
So currently I believe eight.

Speaker 4 (02:41:55):
Selections in their possession for this upcoming draft. I'll have
to double check that, but I think that is correct.

Speaker 2 (02:42:02):
Could be nine. I'll try to make sure I got that.

Speaker 4 (02:42:04):
But I also want to make sure we give away
tickets to go see the Rockets, and we've got tickets
to go see them play the Denver Nuggets coming up
on March twenty third. That's over at Toyota Center, of course,
and tickets also, of course, are on sale now to
go see the Rockets and Nuggets game coming up on
the twenty third, Probably a pretty important game.

Speaker 2 (02:42:21):
It's only a couple teams out of the Rockets, they
are one of them, and they whooped the Oklahoma City
Thunder last night. Finally the Thunder lost.

Speaker 4 (02:42:30):
But something we mentioned over the course of the five
o'clock hours what we ask you to tell us about,
and if you were listening last segment, you'll know the
answer to which current college coach told his players not
banning TikTok, but I am banning TikTok dancing certainly not
our locker room. That's not the kind of team we
want to be. That's how about we concentrate on winning

(02:42:51):
on the field and not winning on TikTok whatever winning
on TikTok means.

Speaker 2 (02:42:56):
I guess because he said it so well.

Speaker 4 (02:42:58):
Which college co Choo's just now beginning at this school
the second time said this and gave his his players
a heads up. No TikTok dancing. Just talked about it
last segment. You know the answer to that question seven
one three two one two five seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:43:16):
I know this is old news, and I don't mean
old news from the standpoint of I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (02:43:21):
We've heard this before Tiger Woods ruptured his achilles.

Speaker 4 (02:43:28):
Yeah, Tiger had to put out a statement through his
representation earlier today.

Speaker 2 (02:43:31):
We did not mention that.

Speaker 4 (02:43:33):
We don't usually mention the simulated golf tour that he's on. Well,
when you rupture your achilles doing that, he will was
anticipating playing golf on grass also this season.

Speaker 2 (02:43:47):
Just at this point, isn't it time?

Speaker 7 (02:43:50):
No?

Speaker 2 (02:43:52):
Why he's great? He's the greatest. Do you really still
think that?

Speaker 7 (02:43:56):
Well?

Speaker 4 (02:43:56):
As I began to ramp up my own training and
practice at home, I felt sharp and I left achilles,
which was deemed to be pruptured. Doctor performed a medically
minimally invasive achilles tender repair surgery went smoothly. Expect a
full recovery. I'm back home now, plan to focus on
my recovery, my rehab. Thank you for all your support,
Zi Tiger.

Speaker 3 (02:44:17):
How long is an achilles recovery typically?

Speaker 2 (02:44:20):
Well, what are you trying to do? Play golf?

Speaker 4 (02:44:23):
I mean, he's got pretty much every golf killing ailment
you can name, and he continues to go out.

Speaker 3 (02:44:30):
There Achilles knee, I mean, several lower leg injuries. Now
this is the latest. He's forty nine young, and I
realize there's all sorts of senior tours and all that
kind of stuff, But like, I just feel like somebody,
some higher power, he maybe even is trying to tell him,
hey man, maybe try something else with your spare time.

Speaker 4 (02:44:53):
He is recovering indoor golf nine to twelve months is
as we know, it's probably typical.

Speaker 3 (02:45:01):
So he's forty nine, that means he's fifty by the
time he's back out on the links. If it only
takes that long. I just can't believe this is the
guy that used to be that guy. I guess, for
lack of a better way of putting it, so he's.

Speaker 2 (02:45:17):
Like all the other athletes in the history of athletes.

Speaker 3 (02:45:19):
No, because in a way it was like his his
downfall was in part brought on by his own decisions,
several different types.

Speaker 4 (02:45:31):
I guess what for his downfall is brought about by injuries.
That's pretty much it.

Speaker 3 (02:45:35):
Yeah, but we're talking about the greatest. As you mentioned,
the only comparisons to this would be like if Jordan got,
you know, hooked on pills and sex both at the
same time.

Speaker 4 (02:45:48):
What if Jordan hypothetically won the NBA title in nineteen
ninety eight hypotheticothetically, or he did his sixth title, uh huh,
and then he went into in Utah, and then in
two thousand and nine he won another one. Would that
be like what Tiger did. Tiger won his last major

(02:46:10):
in a string of a billion majors in two thousand
and eight, then he played ten years of golf without
winning any and then twenty nineteen he won the Masters.

Speaker 2 (02:46:19):
It's amazing that Jordan found his way on to the
Lakers that year.

Speaker 3 (02:46:23):
Oh so he just glombed out a lot Helpe Pyle
and Kobe and that's the difference and ron our test,
Tiger Woods did not win the Masters on the backs
of his teammates.

Speaker 2 (02:46:32):
I think that was on nine. It might have been
the Celtics that year. If Jordan played for the Thunder
right now, you know what it was he could the
NBA title.

Speaker 3 (02:46:40):
It was the Celtics because they ended the twenty two
game losing or winning streak of the Rockets. And then
our test went to the Lakers the next year when
they won it in twenty ten. So it was the
stupid Celtics with fake tough guy KG.

Speaker 4 (02:46:54):
You know, the last five years of competition for Tiger
have been pretty clear, and this won't do anything to
make it better. There are no more majors in his
future and these are the tournaments he will still likely play.

Speaker 3 (02:47:05):
By the way, two thousand and nine, Michael Jordan would
have still been better than Paul Pierce.

Speaker 4 (02:47:10):
Two thousand and nine, Michael Jordan fifty year old, whatever
he would be then, But at that point in his career,
what was he doing beating the hornets at practice making
Kwame Brown cry No, that was two thousand and one
when he was a rookie.

Speaker 2 (02:47:25):
That was eight years prior.

Speaker 3 (02:47:27):
But yeah, I just I just I'll never forget watching
him on Sundays when he was in there.

Speaker 2 (02:47:33):
It was just awesome. It made the most casual of casuals.
And I'm not saying I was that guy.

Speaker 3 (02:47:39):
I'd watch a little bit more golf than the next
guy out there, like you could just something about him
and they I think you're still looking to recapture that
in golf.

Speaker 2 (02:47:51):
Yeah you won't.

Speaker 4 (02:47:52):
Jordan Speith had a nice run where every tournament seemed like, man,
he's in it or he's winning it.

Speaker 3 (02:47:56):
Nice favor when I interviewed him as an amateur, very
short of time. And Scotti Scheffler is in that same
kind of place now.

Speaker 4 (02:48:05):
It feels like he's got all of two majors and
he's got five years of competing, which is really really good.
He's the world number one. He's awesome. Are there ten
more coming in the stretch of the next eight years?
I mean, it's what do you think it was?

Speaker 8 (02:48:19):
Though?

Speaker 2 (02:48:20):
What do you think what was?

Speaker 3 (02:48:21):
It wasn't just the golf, but yet You're not going
to look at Tiger Woods and say, oh man, look
at that personality.

Speaker 2 (02:48:26):
That was awesome. That was a huge part of this.
He had the least personality ever.

Speaker 1 (02:48:32):
What was it?

Speaker 4 (02:48:33):
It was everything but that he has multi racial African
American being in one of them. He wasn't winning a
tournament every other year. He was winning two a year,
three a year. There's a Tiger Slam. It's he was
doing things nobody else could do. I know, the total
and Jack they go in the same sentence, and he's
not there.

Speaker 2 (02:48:52):
I get that. But totally different era meant totally different golf.
What did you say he was doing the things that
somebody else was doing. Yeah, on and off the course.
I don't know that nobody else was doing those things.
He just was found out of it quite the pace.
All right.

Speaker 4 (02:49:08):
That's it for today, six o'clock Beckons. That means we
step aside, were back at it tomorrow. Always great to
be with you here on the eighteen

Speaker 6 (02:49:16):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety

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