Cancel The NFL Season In H-Town, Welcome The NBA One

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Your two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam Raised.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
My earl Nolan.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Voulted pot the magnificent roller coaster ride.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
That is Houston.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Sports chill age down for the only homegrown afternoon team
is talking Your teams?

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A Team.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
A welcome in to a Tuesday edition of the A
Team And for the second consecutive day, Adam Wexler. A
game day edition of the A Team. Rockets Basketball is

(00:55):
underway tonight. I cannot wait, especially because it's going to
be a palate cleanser for Houston sports. The only thing
that salvaged last night was the fact that our dear
old friend George sent the Mariners packing and I could
not be happier with secondhand joy for another team in
another country going to the World Series.

Speaker 5 (01:18):
It was pretty sweet. I definitely separate the two, I
mean Blue Jays, Mariners, Dodgers, the other nine teams that
made the postseason this year that weren't Houston. It's really
not going to change how pathetic that performance was last night.

Speaker 6 (01:33):
You're talking about the football team.

Speaker 5 (01:36):
That's the team.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
Yes, I didn't, I didn't. I was going to maybe
not get to it until like four o'clock. I don't
want to talk about them that.

Speaker 5 (01:43):
I do know you listeners do. I don't know about that.
I actually heard a listener. You're on social media right,
just a little bit. Yeah, probably the most active they've
been the entire season, maybe during the entire run of
Tabiko Ryans and CJ Stroud. People like winning, and people
like to jump on board, and they like to tailgate
and like the good vibes and everything's cool. U. People
despise losing much much more, and they are ticked off

(02:05):
they they lost.

Speaker 6 (02:07):
Yes, that's the problem here.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
Yeah, losing is fine, right, Losing the way that your
team performed for I mean I could talk for four
hours straight, you could take the day off, no breaks,
no commercials. It's like the easiest thing ever because it
was so embarrassing in so many ways.

Speaker 4 (02:23):
Oh, that's why I don't want to talk about it. Look,
I get we're gonna have to. It's so funny that
we're so different.

Speaker 5 (02:28):
Like I couldn't to get in here and talk with
our listeners about this. It's like so enjoyable to hear
from their perspective, give my perspective, tell you it just
is like I couldn't wait, Not that I want to
talk about it for four hours, because as you said
to me off the air, dude, the Rockets are playing. Yes,
the Rockets gave us something last year, and unfortunately seven

(02:52):
games later it was gone. We thought something very, very
exciting was on the horizon, and it is but the
horizon and lasted a little longer that I want to
get past that. I want to go over the rainbow
and see the pot of goal there. You got to
the rainbow last year. And I think the idea that
the Rockets are going to do something big is well
worth believing in. Not blind faith. Not oh look at

(03:15):
the home for the Rockets acting like the Rockets are
gonna be good this year. No way, you don't see
it's I really don't think it's like that at all.
It doesn't mean they're going to win tonight. It doesn't
mean they're better than the thunder. Doesn't really mean anything
except they have a chance. They have a roster and
a coach and have put the team together and what
we believe makes sense the right way, in a way

(03:39):
to compete with everybody in the West. They're doing it
their way. The Rockets have done it their way that
obviously started to a very very very very bottom and
arrived here three awful years, and here they are three
awful years for the Texans. I'll say the exact same phrase,
and here they are in a little bit different way.
Three years of bad basketball for the Rockets, and here

(04:00):
they are three years of bad football for the Texans,
and here they are well.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
And that's that's that is where me and you differ.
It's not that I don't want to talk about the Texans,
but my problem is, and this is what happened, and
you and I were doing the show, and you remember
this vividly. I know you do, because you have that
photographic memory unless it's a year, and then you just
completely if that, if it's that or geography, you just
completely check out. Other than that, though, you have a

(04:26):
very very I know you have a vivid memory of
me coming in here after the latest just embarrassment, not
even we're not even running our organization like a real
NFL team, And I'm just like, look.

Speaker 6 (04:39):
Let me know when you do that. And that's where
I was.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
And then they did it almost overnight, and this is
I was reading about I read somebody write this about
Demiko Ryan's over the last few hours, and I don't
remember who it was because this is in the middle
of my scrolling and I'm add and that's how I
do things. But it was like, you know, Demiico did
change the culture almost overnight, and they did get the quarterback,
and they did, but I feel like a broken record

(05:04):
because that offense. And we'll get to Nick Kyley, because
that's a new that's a new little subplot of this
same sad tale, playing with their arm tied behind their back,
whatever metaphor you want to use. I'm like looking at
that defense last night and I'm like, you cause four
turnovers and you lost by double digits.

Speaker 6 (05:25):
That's so unacceptable.

Speaker 5 (05:27):
Whatever. Man, they've had a five interception game. You're right,
that was last year.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
But at least at the end of that season, when
that game happened, you had you were on the on
the right side of five hundred and you went to
the postseason. I got news for you, guys. Texans aren't
making the playoffs this year. It's not happening. There's too
much road to climb, there's too much of an uphill battle.
And we can you can argue with the wall whoever
you are, because I'm not gonna hear any scenario in

(05:53):
which unless everybody in front of them has massive catastrophic injuries,
particularly to their quarterbacks, you're not going to beat any
of those teams. You need to to get to postseason
play with that crappy offensive line, because this just in.
When you play a plausible, not an elite like last night,
a plausible NFL defense, you are cooked.

Speaker 6 (06:15):
Before the kick is even up in the air. You're done.

Speaker 7 (06:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (06:18):
Six games played for those teams are above five hundred.
They've all beaten the Texans, all sadly because of last
night's late going in one score games and two games
against teams that stink. There's only five teams in the league.
We're seven weeks into the season. There's five teams in
the league that have fewer wins than Houston, only five.
Only five teams have one win or fewer. The Texans

(06:39):
have two of those five teams. Guess where the texans
two wins come from. Yeah, a win against two of them.
They've beaten Baltimore and they've beaten Tennessee. As long as
you're not a one win team or to Rod Taylor's team,
you're beating the Texans, and that's all that they have
on their schedule other than their remaining game with the
one win Titans. So you you gotta let me know

(07:01):
when a team that has a pulse is going to
lose to Houston, because it hasn't happened so far this season,
and quite honestly, if you take it back into most
of last year it hadn't happened, then either beating the
Chargers would stand out. It did. It was a playoff game.
Most of the other Texans wins over their last well
regular season games, I think, over the last fifteen games.

(07:22):
If you're pathetic, really pathetic, the Texans will beat you.
If you have a pulse, you got it, and it's
a w for you, and they'll go back to the
drawing board and probably tell us how close they are
after a lot of that from last night. Certainly a
number of different areas that they gave that game made
that game too easy for Seattle. Seattle is a good team,

(07:43):
but they obviously did some things that could have produced
a victory if they didn't do a billion other things
that cost them a victory. And we'd like to highlight
each and every one of those over the course of
the afternoon. We do know where it all starts. And
I can't believe that nick Ce was the first one
you brought up, but I guess since they played a game,
that makes sense. But we all know the reasons that
they are where they are, and it's the same problem

(08:04):
over and over again. You can change OC's you can
change the quarterback, you can change who's calling plays. You
can get new wide receivers, you can change the running back.
You can do whatever you want. But if the same
person is in charge of getting talent for the offensive
line and it's just got awful at it, you're not
going to fix the problems. The problems are not fixed.
The problems have been long standing, and they have a
lot to figure out in order to get there. And

(08:25):
I say figure out, meaning the people in charge of
making this team what it is very very very unlikely
to be in that same position when we sit here
a year from now, or when we sit here entering
the twenty twenty six off season. Again, that's big picture stuff.
I need to break down a lot of the individual
things that we're talking about here. What exactly went wrong?

(08:48):
What personnel groups made no sense to be out there,
what glaring, avoidable mistakes, and there were a lot of
them that the Texans made in last night's game. Shouldn't
be happening to a team that tries to us they're good,
that tries to pretend when they go to practice every
day that they are good. If you practice those things,
if you had accountability, if this was not an undisciplined group,

(09:09):
which it clearly is, then they wouldn't happen. And we
know where that all starts. And it sounds like it's
harsh for you know, one guy to control all that
and he can only do so much. But as he
will tell us, I'm sure today in about twenty minutes
when he meets via Zoom, it all starts with me.
It's and that's what Tamiko will say. It's what all
head coaches say. But it has to get fixed. And

(09:29):
that's what obviously didn't happen in last night's game for us.
At two thirty, we're in a talk Rockets basketball. Danielle
Lerner talked to her yesterday brief flow over a Texans
practice just before she joined the Rockets in Oklahoma City,
the Rockets beat writer for the Houston Chronicle. She is there,
she will join us at two thirty to set the
table on what will be an absolutely delicious feast of

(09:51):
basketball delivered by the Houston Rockets this year.

Speaker 4 (09:55):
Yeah, no, I can't wait. I really am. I mean,
I'm not playing it up. I'm very, very excited. I
was yesterday because it meant the week had begun of
us talking about this Rockets, and of course because Katie's
locked up, I knew he was gonna be but it
was nice to actually have it done.

Speaker 6 (10:09):
Tarry Eason not that is still something.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
It's kind of like it's gonna stick in the back
of your head all season because you don't know how
it's gonna turn out now, because you could have a
team that goes and gives him a bunch of money
and you aren't comfortable matching that, and so he's gone.

Speaker 5 (10:23):
But why would they give him a bunch of money
because he's good, because he helped you have a really,
really good season, and then you deal with that after
Danielle was there in Oka. See when Tarry Easton met
with the media earlier today, did you see scuss a
little of that so we'll get her thoughts.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
Did you see people making something of nothing probably about
I know that happens all the time. Let me down
so that the social media team for the Rockets is fantastic.
All the social media teams in town do a great job.
But I'm not It's not because I'm biased. I just
think the Rockets they're all fire. They are all fire.
That is how you hashtag astros. Keep that in mind

(10:59):
when you come up with next year's slogan, because Built
for this ended up being very very bad.

Speaker 6 (11:04):
But they're just very.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
Good about being hands on with everything that team does.
So they're all getting on the charter and everybody's smiling
except for Tari. As somebody put it, I thought that
was hilarious. He's never smiled. But in that setting, that's
who he is. Man. You know what, you remember last
year when we were at that I think it was
the Corporate Partners event, and he got up and he
introduced everybody and it was the funniest thing ever.

Speaker 5 (11:28):
Awesome.

Speaker 6 (11:29):
Oh it was great. It was like stand up. You
had to be there.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
I know it's a little inside boostball, but he's he's
very very good. And I do agree with you. I
think that he will do that, and then it's just
going to be whether or not that contract offer that
gets made out there by whatever team is too rich
for the Rockets. Blood on an off season where they're
likely giving him and Thompson a crap ton of money.

Speaker 5 (11:51):
Also means they might have some alternate plans on how
to accommodate their team as well as they can, considering
he may Again, that's so far off in the discagas
the full Lady two game season plus postseason before we
get to that point. So we will get to that point.
Ryan Hollins visited the station via the airwaves earlier today,
so we will check in with him Space City Home Network.

(12:12):
Not with tonight's game in there, Well, why would you
send him there?

Speaker 6 (12:16):
I don't know, I was thinking about that. We'll talk
about that.

Speaker 5 (12:18):
In a little bit. It's the kickoff to the tip
off to the entire NBA season, so one of the
new networks has that game. First game on Space City
Home Network. Our second game here on Sports Talk seven
ninety is the home opener coming up on Friday. But
we'll visit with Ryan Hollins or catch you up on
his visit with Matt Thomas coming up about two hours
from now. But clearly we have a lot to get

(12:40):
to clearly there were some good things last night that
just didn't necessarily come directly from Houston. They came from
Houston through Toronto, and yeah, it was pretty clear that
people were enjoying that.

Speaker 6 (12:51):
And do have a baseball had a passport?

Speaker 5 (12:54):
Do have a team to root for in the upcoming
World Series which is about to get underway in three
days across the border in Toronto, the Dodgers and the
Blue Jays. We just get started here on the A
Team on a Tuesday NBA opening night here on Sports
Talk seven ninety the eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (13:20):
It is the A Team.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
Sports Talks seven ninety kind.

Speaker 6 (13:24):
Of mad at Neil Sean right now.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
Actually, now that I think about it, he was, uh,
what did he do before the forty nine Ers game?

Speaker 6 (13:31):
I know they raised the flag in Seattle last night.

Speaker 4 (13:33):
Neil Sean did something before the forty nine Ers win
on Sunday Night Football, and I can't remember. It's some
sort of pregame thing that they do in forty nine
Ers land. Whatever they're coming. They're coming into town this week.
And this is what this is what I don't get
you have And we're gonna get into this right now
especially since you said you brought up the wrong nick Sy,

(13:56):
not that there's there's no wrong choices.

Speaker 6 (13:58):
Everybody's at fall from.

Speaker 5 (13:59):
Man, they got a fire, Bobby, Oh my god, they
gotta fire Nick Keyley. Do you notice something about that? Yeah,
the same problem. I wonder why.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
Yeah, listen, I am fully aware and still believe right now,
even after last night, actually more so after last night,
that they have an elite Super Bowl caliber defense.

Speaker 6 (14:20):
I do.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
I know they gave up twenty seven points. I know
that even the defense made some boneheaded plays at times,
like what are you doing, Derek Stingley? Really like, did
you need to do that over on the sideline?

Speaker 5 (14:30):
That really was That was a physical mistake.

Speaker 4 (14:32):
Tim Settle, really dumb. Probably probably the biggest brain fart
the defense made all night on the last would be
play of the game. I mean a penalty to essentially
seal it. I mean Kyami fairbarn is not a defensive player,
so he gets he definitely gets a say in this
conversation by not kicking the ball out of bounds. But
all of this is to say, I can't stand when

(14:56):
teams get like ninety percent of it right and the
one part they don't get right is like one of
the most important things. Like, say you could trade Texan
special teams play, I won't even Kymie fairbarn is not
going to be as accurate. Let's I'll go all the
way to the top. You're not going to get your
leading scorer, by the way, is not going to just

(15:17):
he's just not going to get you as many points
as Xyz kicker for these teams over here. But you
have an amazing offensive line, your quarterback isn't shaking in
the pocket, And yes he did hang onto the ball
too much, and yes he's increasingly getting more and more
of the blame with each passing week. But I'm just
sitting there last night and we got a tweet during
the break that totally sums it up. Can we hire

(15:39):
Dan or Losky as our next offensive coordinator? I'd also
support WEX becoming the new GM once we get rid
of Cassario Orlosky was saying it. Lewis Reddick was saying
it last night, What the f are you doing with
some of these play calls?

Speaker 5 (15:52):
Yeah, well they're all the same reason. The reason you're
making those play calls because you haven't put the team together.
And I think you're way, way, way overshooting the ninety percent.
First of all, there's five players on the offensive line.
What else do you like about their eleven player fifteen
player offense.

Speaker 4 (16:06):
Yeah, no, you're right now again Joe Mixon probably, I
don't know.

Speaker 5 (16:11):
If they had the twelfth or thirteenth best running back
in the NFL healthy, then I'm sure things.

Speaker 4 (16:15):
Would be way different. It would help, It would definitely help.
I mean, you wouldn't have gotten negative yards on some
of those runs. But then again, because your line sucked.
Because they had their worst game, guys A looted plays
like multiple plays per game per week. You're not even
blocking guys.

Speaker 5 (16:30):
They hadn't done this from a running game standpoint for
most of the year. What they did last night was
something that this group because obviously they've only been together
this year, so I can't say, well, they were doing
this last year. Well, they weren't out there last year.
This group wasn't a part of things last year. They
were not doing their job in the run game. They
weren't capable of doing their job in the past game,

(16:52):
not nearly enough. Obviously, you wouldn't want your quarterback normally
to throw forty nine passes and when you add in
the sacks, et cetera, he dropped back more than fifty times.
That's not winning football. Normally, most quarterbacks who attempt fifty
passes or are dropping back fifty times, it's because the
scoreboard is telling you you have to do that, and
you're getting clobbered. And Sexans were down two scores very

(17:13):
very quickly. They remained down two scores for much of
the game. Total miracle that they were down at one
score at the half, and kind of a miracle, thank
you Seattle, at the end of the game for them
to be down by one score with a chance potentially
to get the ball back. Thank goodness, they didn't. So
they can't give us the we're close nonsense. And Dimiko
did not try to after the game, and CJ did

(17:33):
not try to after the game, and the players in
the locker room did not try to after the game.
They're actually pretty honest about their shortcomings. But they don't
have a championship caliber roster. They have a championship caliber defense,
but even they are making mistakes that are so incredibly
avoidable just and I couldn't help but note them throughout

(17:57):
the game. It's I don't the physical penalties, pass interference.
You're going for the ball, or you're playing overly aggressive
and they call you hands to the face, or you've
hit the quarterback late like, depending on the exact play.
Some are avoidable, some are pre snat penalties. I mean
going off sides, lining up in the neutral zone. That's
totally avoidable and defensively that that really should never happen.

(18:19):
It happened to Will Anderson Junior in last night's game.
You know, I know Daniel Hunter always has a role
because they have to commit some personnel to him, but
when you're at that level, you make plays anyway. There
very few of those happened in last night's game, very
very few of those. You know, the Derek Stingley Junior

(18:39):
face mask call, which was what I thought they were
gonna call. They just called unnecessary roughness. He's just trying
to keep the guy off of and then he didn't
put his hand too high, and he put his hand
too high for the shorter player and he shoved him
right in his face mask and it popped off everything
they did after that absolute miracle gift that they weren't
penalized for it, because that's absolutely what should have been
called on the Texans. It could have been called on Stingley.

(19:01):
They could have called a penalty on JSN. Also, don't
get me wrong, because he obviously took Stingley way out
of bounds because he was ticked off. They let that go,
so I think maybe they felt like, wow, we'll just
let everything go. Christian Harris coming in from the bench
to shove jsun like that. Absolutely shocking that a penalty
was not called. There was a penalty filled game, and

(19:21):
Texans and Seahawks certainly got their fair share in. But
it always starts up front. It always starts in the
trenches for both sides. If the Texans defensive front isn't
doing their job, then they're not likely to have a
good defensive game. And you can look at some of
the points. Clearly, you're gonna look at twenty seven and think, well,
that's too many points to have allowed in that game. Well,

(19:42):
keep in mind the first of those points, the first
seven of them, came on an awesome forty four yard drive. Yeah,
they started in Texans territory on their second possession of
the game and pushed it in. Then they had a
long drive, their only long drive of the tire game.
They didn't have a fifty yard drive the entire game

(20:05):
except for their second touchdown drive. They had the ball
fifteen times every single time, but once they were held
to forty four yards or less and they turned it over.
Texans took it away from them four different times, and
two of those times these idiots calling plays offensively for
Seattle were on pass plays in the fourth quarter of

(20:28):
a game they led by two touchdowns. I finally tweeted
it this morning or posted it on x and I
was thinking it throughout the fourth quarter. I don't know
who Gilbride is and who Buddy Ryan is, but my god,
who's calling these plays? The Texans can't get you off
the field, even though you're terrible on third down. Just
run the clock out. Their offense is never gonna score

(20:49):
if they have a full field and you're throwing passes
over the middle and then he's fumbling and you're throwing
in completions to stop the clock and you're throwing a
pick and sixty seven percent of your nine play calls
are pass plays. Thank you. I guess it was a gift.
I mean, come on, wake up a little bit. Coaching staff.
By the way, coaching staff in last night's game.

Speaker 4 (21:10):
This is not a trick question, but I don't think
it's I also don't think it's an obvious answer. Which
quarterback played better last night?

Speaker 5 (21:17):
Sam Darnold? You know why?

Speaker 6 (21:19):
Why?

Speaker 5 (21:20):
Because when there were plays to be made because protection
was there, he made them.

Speaker 6 (21:24):
Okay, CJ didn't, but did he?

Speaker 4 (21:27):
But did CJ not make those plays because the protection
wasn't there for him?

Speaker 5 (21:31):
There were plays? And I talked about this with people
off air Saturday all Saturday night long, and I don't
think these teams are the same, but they have the
exact same problem. The Longhorns line is embarrassing and they're
asking Arch Manning to do things that he's clearly not
cap who was worse for their team. Well, they can't
run the ball at Texas either. It's the same problem.
Is it closer than you? I mean, I know there

(21:53):
are different levels of but it is. You're right, it's
the same thing we're seeing. The Longhorns played the worst
team in the SEC and they got manhamed up front again.
On offense, they did a little bit better defensively, but
they had a good offensive line though. But the same
things are happening arch drops back, there is protection, there
is a slant, there's a quick hitter, and he's missing

(22:14):
his target by eight yards. A guy can't even get
his hands on the football. It's third down, and that easily,
you know, continues the drive, or you're putting yourself in
a great second down because you completed the easy here.
It is make this simple play. Granted, I know there's
much more mental to it. And he knows he's gonna
get hit or he feels like he's gonna get hit.
So even when they're pre his protection, it always feels
like you're gonna get hit. That's how CJ's been playing

(22:34):
for two seasons now, and he played that way last night,
and there was a difference. Sam Darnold got hit plenty,
not quite as many times as CJ. He made a
horrific decision with the football when Will Anderson sack fumble
touchdown to him. That was a horrific decision with his
pass that was picked off. But think about the rest
of the game where he had time and your buddy
Dan Orlowski's like, oh, there's nowhere else to put that ball.

(22:57):
What an unbelievable throw from Sam Darnald. There's almost no
separation there, and look where this pass goes out of
the over the out When there were plays to actually
be made and the protection was there, more often than not,
he was still able to make the throw. Makes the
same Sam Darnold mistakes he made that we talked about
with Brady Henderson yesterday that cost them two games and
their season last year, but not enough to lose the

(23:20):
game last night.

Speaker 4 (23:22):
We will put this on hold. We will re visit
this topic not just in the following segment, but all
throughout until five point thirty tonight when Rockets launch Pad
takes over. But we got to take a break right
now because when we come back, Rockets tipping things off
tonight in OKASE. That is where we will find Rockets
beat writer Danielle Lerner of the Houston Chronicle, conversation with

(23:45):
her coming up.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Next the Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (23:57):
It is the A team Sports Talk seven ninety Tuesday
edition of the program.

Speaker 6 (24:01):
We's ac Cole Thompson with.

Speaker 4 (24:03):
You and Danielle Learner of the Houston Chronicle joining us
from OKC.

Speaker 6 (24:09):
I hear it's lovely this time of year up there.

Speaker 4 (24:11):
Daniel appreciate the Danielle appreciate the time, and I don't
know that I've been dis excited about a rocket season
since maybe Chris Paul was traded here at the end
of last decade. Does it seem like there's that air
around the team or are they taking the tone of
their coach like a business like approach?

Speaker 6 (24:32):
No matter what, I think they.

Speaker 8 (24:35):
Are trying to kind of reflect the business like approach.

Speaker 9 (24:38):
But you know, there is that excitement, especially just given
the outside expectations and outside excitement. As much as players
always want to say that they don't care what other
people outside the team think of them and they don't
care about that stuff, they hear it. They can't help
but hear it, and I think that they do internalize it.
So just hearing that everybody else is really hyped for
this season and has really high expectingtions for them, and

(25:01):
knowing what they were too able to accomplish last season,
and then adding a bunch of new players, including a
future Hall of Famer and Kevin Durant, I think that
everyone within the organization has championship contention expectations, and so yeah,
they are excited.

Speaker 8 (25:16):
To get started.

Speaker 5 (25:16):
How do you think this group is actually handling that
and do you think it's tremendously different than the vibe
or expectation they had going into last year? They were
a forty one and forty one team. I think they
knew they were going to be significantly better. I don't
know that their expectations were we'll finish second in the
West and have home court advantage in the postseason. But
clearly the expectations are a little different this year. How

(25:38):
do you think they're handling that as they get set
to begin the season to night, Yeah, I.

Speaker 9 (25:43):
Don't think I think they're handling it pretty well. I
don't think anyone is, you know, getting too high or
too low, as the cliche goes. But you know, they
haven't even played a game yet, so I think we'll
have to see if that changes as we actually get
the season underway.

Speaker 8 (25:58):
But right now, it's like, well, they had four.

Speaker 9 (26:01):
Preseason games, one of those really didn't count at all,
and so they think that they know what they can do.
But you know, tonight facing the defending champions is going
to be a really really huge litmus test to start,
and then as they keep going, it's just going to
be okay, how can they adjust and continue to improve
and get better because on paper, yes, this team looks

(26:21):
like it can be a lot better than last season,
but we don't really know until we see it in action.

Speaker 5 (26:27):
Since you brought up the preseason, I was thinking about
this and have talked about this on the show. Was
there something statistically maybe that they did during the preseason
very well that is seducing you into believing, Yeah, that's
going to happen during the regular season.

Speaker 8 (26:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (26:43):
I mean, I think that double big lineup that we're
going to see starting tonight versus OKC in the preseason
game versus the Pelicans, when they started with that group,
it wasn't the smooth that's starting out. There's definitely some
spacing issues that have to be resolved in the half court,
but overall, it was pretty dominant, especially on theos and
we already knew that was one of the Rockets strengths

(27:03):
last season. It's gonna be even more of a strength,
I think this season, especially just with the amount of
size that they have now. In addition to Steven Adams
being out there, you have Clinton Capella who can play
alongside Albert and Shangoun just playing. You know, Kevin Durant,
who is listed at six ten but is really more
like seven foot. Playing him at shooting guard is just ridiculous.

(27:25):
So I think the rebounding is gonna take even more
of a jump, and then you know, you just look
at the scoring potential. I think that lineup played about
twelve minutes together in the preseason game versus the Pelicans,
and in that span they outscored the Pelicans by sixteen points.
So you know, you already see more offensive firepower with
this group, which is obviously what was lacking last season.

Speaker 4 (27:48):
Yeah, having stood right next to both Hakim Elijuan and
Kevin Durant, I don't know why Elijuan was listed at
seven feet when he's six foot ten, and I don't
know why Durant is listed at six to ten when
he is definitely a true seven footer. But in that vein,
you know, you mentioned the size and you're gonna get
that big lineup tonight. I know there might have been
some talk about Reach Shepherd starting at point guard, and

(28:10):
maybe that's an interchangeable thing. I'm actually kind of fascinated
and maybe you have a little bit more insight on
this into what em Udoka winds up doing. Is this,
You know a lot of teams do have that that
starting five doesn't matter what the matchup is, We're going
with these guys. Does that seem like it's a fluid
situation depending on the matchup, because I think a lot

(28:31):
of people might have thought Reid starts tonight, but instead
they're gonna go with that big lineup. Do you feel
like that's gonna be interchangeable or that this is the
lineup that is gonna go with more often than not.

Speaker 9 (28:42):
No, I think absolutely it's gonna change games game at
least here early in the season. I think perhaps when
Dorian Phinney Smith comes back and is healthy.

Speaker 8 (28:51):
Which we don't know when that is.

Speaker 7 (28:52):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (28:53):
They've said they expect him to miss at least a
few games in the regular season, but there's no exact timetable.
I'm gonna follow up on that some more tonight and
tomorrow if I can. But I think that obviously he
was a guy who's expected to potentially compete with Jabari
in training camp for a starting spot before his injury,
So I think that that could change some things. I

(29:15):
think that how this lineup performs tonight could change some things.
I think that they are going to potentially start read
against some smaller teams, but it definitely is the plan
to against teams that go double big, like Okay, see
they're going to start this lineup with Steven Adams. They
might change that, and I think it's all kind of

(29:37):
going to be a work in progress and trial and
error for these next few weeks at least, and then
they might settle on a more permanent starting five for
the rest of the season.

Speaker 5 (29:48):
Danielle Lerner of the Houston Chronicle, beat writer for the
Houston Rockets with the team in Oklahoma Cities. They get
set to begin this season tonight, first game of the
NBA season. You and I were over at practice yesterday,
got a chance to talk Kevin about the extension, talk
to Alpi and e May similarly about that, and obviously
over the weekend had had that opportunity to do so.
That was in advance of the deadline for Tarry Easton's

(30:11):
potential extension, which there was no agreement reached on that.
Tarri spoke this morning there in Oklahoma City, curious what
you think about a what he had to say and
how he's handling this, which was very tari like for
those that don't know, But I'll let you share that
with them, and what you think this actually might mean
for his season and his future.

Speaker 9 (30:31):
Yeah, I mean, credit to him, he seems to be
taking it fairly well, at least publicly, saying, you know,
I understand this was a business decision. It's not personal.
It's not going to change how I operate this season,
which you know, he was already coming into training camp
kind of gunning for an elevated role, saying, you know,
he wants to be in contention for NBA six Man

(30:51):
of the Year. You know, of course last season he
had his best season yet in a lot of areas,
despite not playing more than sixty games. But you know,
he was then ineligible for NBA awards because he did
not meet that sixty two game minimum.

Speaker 8 (31:06):
So I think, you know, he's.

Speaker 9 (31:07):
Always someone who likes to have a chip on his shoulder.
That's kind of his mo And so you know, he said,
there's no ill will towards the Rockets. He still wants
to try and bring a championship to Houston this season.
And I asked him, do you want to be a
Rocket next season? And he said, yeah, yeah, of course,
you know, and in a way that's not necessarily up
to him right, He's going to be a restricted free agent,

(31:28):
which means that if another team gives him an offer sheet,
the Rockets have the right to try and match it,
but they could also choose to let him walk or
just financially be unable to match it, depending on what.

Speaker 8 (31:40):
The offer is.

Speaker 9 (31:41):
So it's a little bit out of his control at
this point, and all he can do is try and
have the best season that he can.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
I think it's telling that when the Rockets social media
staff released that video montage of all of the players
reacting to the news that Kevin Durant had been traded,
Tarr Eastan's in show reaction was, was I traded too?

Speaker 7 (32:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (32:04):
I mean, I don't know if that's super telling. I
think it's just everyone's reaction when there's a superstar involved
in the trade and whoa must have cost a lot
to get that guy, right, and then that was kind
of Kevin Durant's whole point that starting five documentaries that
he didn't want to go to a team where they
had to gut their entire roster in order to acquire him.

Speaker 8 (32:23):
So I don't think that's that's.

Speaker 9 (32:25):
The super telling in that instance, but definitely Tari Easton
is going to be the subject of trade speculation this
season because he is one of the few tradeable contracts
that they have at least until mid December, one of
a lot more of their guys will become trade eligible.
But you know now, he's going to be kind of
that the centerpiece of any package that the Rockets might

(32:48):
go for, And of course that's going to also depend
on how the backcourt situation plays out with Reed Shepherd
and a Men Thompson.

Speaker 8 (32:55):
If the Rockets feel like they need.

Speaker 9 (32:57):
To explore the trade market to acquire a point guard.

Speaker 6 (33:00):
He's reading our minds.

Speaker 5 (33:00):
Yeah, as we let you get ready for the action tonight,
a six thirty ish tip off tonight from Oklahoma City,
I'll ask you this, is there a player you think
will be the biggest positive surprise for this Rockets team
that you could pinpoint or is there a bold prediction
you have about the team for this season.

Speaker 9 (33:23):
I try not to get into the predictions game too
much because it's not much of an upside there. But
I'll answer the first question, which and I don't know
honestly if this is a surprise at this point given
what he did in the preseason, but I think Jabari
Smith Junior is going to be much much more of
a factor when it comes to scoring. I think we've
already obviously seen what he can do on the defensive end.

(33:44):
You know, he's able to guard smaller players, he's able
to guard bigger players. He's very versatile in that respect.
But last season, aside from the playoffs in which he
shot very well, he was not He didn't have a
super big impact in the scoring column.

Speaker 8 (33:58):
You know, he wasn't one of those guys who like, oh,
he's going to take over a game.

Speaker 9 (34:02):
I think this season you're going to see him in
takeover mode a lot more like you did in the
preseason game against Pelicans.

Speaker 6 (34:09):
He has visually put on more weight. I might have
missed it.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
Has he said anything about a certain number of pounds
he's put on in muscle, because it totally looks like
it when you see him versus last season.

Speaker 9 (34:21):
Yeah, he hasn't said anything specifically about it, but I
agree he does look a lot stronger. And that was
something that I was hearing even really early in the
off season when I was in Vegas for Summer League.
You know, he and a couple of the other guys
came by and we're working out there, and the feedback
that I was getting from coaches who were around those
workouts were like, he looks like a monster right now.

Speaker 8 (34:41):
And so that was in July, and I think that
he just.

Speaker 9 (34:44):
Has continued to do that work, and I think that
getting his extension done really early in the offseason kind
of allowed him to focus a lot more on just
improving his game.

Speaker 4 (34:54):
When you're following up with the Dorian Finney Smith injury news,
could you go ahead and ask that question for me?

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Danielle.

Speaker 6 (35:00):
Thanks, I just want pounds of muscle.

Speaker 8 (35:05):
I'll you venmo and you can uh veno me per question.

Speaker 6 (35:09):
You got it.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
You got it well, Danielle. We appreciate the time, especially
on opening day. We know you're busy. Enjoy the game tonight,
and we'll see you when you get back here to
Houston for the Friday night home opener. Thanks guys awesome,
Danielle Learner of the Houston Chronicle. Rockets beat writer with
some good stuff right there. We'll react to that. Get
back into some Texans conversation from last night's abysmal defeat

(35:29):
in Seattle as we wind down the two o'clock hour.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Next the eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
Anyway you want, anyway you want, Thanks again to Danielle
Learner of the Houston Chronicle. Fel sorry for that she's
in Oklahoma City. But other than that's a sweet gig.

Speaker 10 (35:53):
Hey.

Speaker 4 (35:53):
Look, they have a nice, little quaint downtown there. This
is kind of morbid, but the way they did the
memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing was actually very well
done as those things go. I've been to a lot
of that kind of stuff because I'm a freak that way.
Like you go to the nine to eleven memor Oil
It's very well done. But I hate that they had
to make it the reason why all that kind of stuff.

(36:15):
But I mean, other than thunder games, and that's about
it to.

Speaker 6 (36:20):
See down to.

Speaker 4 (36:20):
I mean when you drive through Oklahoma City, if you
do that, you can see it. There's the one tall building.
I just can't. I cannot believe the NBA defending champions
reside there. It's a credit to Sam Presty. As much
as both of us don't really care for the guy,
I mean, I just have It's nothing personal.

Speaker 6 (36:39):
I think it is.

Speaker 5 (36:40):
I told you, I think it was last week. He's
done it twice now, like his eye for NBA personnel
is tremendous, probably the best in the NBA. It's hard
to do it once, and he's done it twice, two
totally different carnations of a championship caliber caliber basketball team,
and it appears probably learned from his largest mistake. In

(37:03):
my opinion, Ever, if you're really truly playing basketball, running
an NBA team, owning an NBA team for the purpose
of winning an NBA championship, I don't know how it
could be regarded as anything but a mistake. Even though
I can't guarantee you they would have won with James,
and they did make it back to the finals without James,
he just made their team worse and it was his

(37:25):
decision to do so. And I think that's not the
way I would do things. In a year salaries and
the timing of his deal running out, he could have
been gone in a year and they wouldn't have gotten
Steven Adams or the other riff raft that they got
in that deal. But I just don't think that made
any sense at the time, and I still think that
to this day. But it's no disrespect to his ability

(37:46):
to put together an unbelievable roster he's also still stockpiling
more talent and more picks. They were in a position
where it was not even that difficult a decision to
just we got three great players and at this point
in time, it's time to him and the time to
extend him and time. And they just did it. We
just spent the money on all those players.

Speaker 4 (38:04):
I think from a purely selfish standpoint, that's another byproduct
of bitterness, if you will, why I hate that the
Rockets didn't get it done in twenty eighteen because from
a professional, jealousy competitive standpoint, that would have been Daryl
Morey getting a one up, the ultimate one up on
Sam Presty, because the guy that spearheaded that attack was

(38:26):
obviously the guy he obtained from Sam in a trade
that looked and was lopsided. There's no other way around it,
even the fact that the Thunder have now won a
championship with a completely different era of players. The Rockets
didn't just win that trade. They absolutely robbed them.

Speaker 5 (38:41):
So drop that trade on one side of the scale,
and the title of the scale is trades, Big trades
between the Rockets and Thunder. Now PLoP the other trade
that the Rockets and thunder made that involved Chris Paul
on the other side of the scale. Is it kind
of balanced now? It's there's still I know. Isn't this
the last year of the picks? Huge win for Oklahoma City?

(39:05):
I remember at the time thinking, okay, for actually hurt
the Rockets. Maybe more it did helped the Oklahoma City. Yes,
so maybe it looks a little different, but it was
a it was a deal. Heally in there face at
the end of the day, what did it do?

Speaker 4 (39:17):
It made you more competitive than you would have ever
hoped to have been, and you pushed the Rockets of
all teams to the brink in the first round of
the playoffs, which nobody even remembers because it was being
played in a bubble in Orlando and lou Dort out
of nowhere. Just and can he continues to do this
against the Rockets hits an inordin amount of three is
that he never hits consistently about against anyone else. Having

(39:39):
said all that, yeah, it was almost It wasn't the
same robbery because the talent level wasn't as skewed. It's
the draft picks, it's the draft capital, and it's who
was involved that was coming back like, forget the fact
that it wasn't a good fit. You're gonna compound this
trade all because James Harden isn't happy, Like this is

(40:03):
the ultimate Lebron's the GM of the Lakers deal. James
Harden actually made Darryl Mory of all people, make a
bad for basketball trade, which I would argue he had
never done up until that point in all of the
deals that he had done with the Rockets, and there
were a slew of them, especially pre hardened as he

(40:23):
was trying to spin his wheels and wheel and deal
for all these other like later you know, draft picks
in trying to feeld a semi competitive team because Les
wouldn't let him tear down the squad.

Speaker 6 (40:36):
He never made a.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
Bad basketball deal in my opinion, until that one, and
it almost offset not doing it for all the years
prior to.

Speaker 5 (40:44):
First round pick swaps twenty one and twenty five, two
first round picks overall twenty four and twenty six. Yeah,
and Chris Paul for Russell Westbrook, the deal that the
Rockets vice president of the basketball operations and resty minutes.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
Just to add a little more hint of insult and injury,
he stayed healthy the entire season after ripping up his
hamstring in Game five of the Western Conference Finals two
years prior.

Speaker 5 (41:10):
Sometimes that's the way it goes. That's how it went
for Houston. Then, obviously, we'll talk a little bit more
about the Rockets moving forward. We'll hear from Ryan Hollins
coming up at four fifteen. We will dig in harshly
on the Houston Texans as the three o'clock hour begins.
They are a two and four football team. They are
a two and four football team. We'll say it again

(41:31):
three o'clock.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Hour, the A team on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
Ninety two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam talking your team,
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A team.

Speaker 4 (41:56):
Straight up three o'clock here on Sports Talk seven ninety
in Space City Home Network. Welcome in if you are
just tuning in on television side as we will take
you until five o'clock on that side of things, and
five point thirty on the Sports Talk seven to ninety
side of things. Getting you ready for Rockets basketball. A
little bit of an earlier start time tonight because they

(42:18):
are obviously the front end of a double header that
tips off the NBA season, taking on the defending NBA
champion OKC Thunder in Oklahoma City, followed by the Warriors
and the Lakers. So that has been a big topic
of conversations. The first game that's going to actually count
with Kevin Durant in a Rockets uniform. They are going

(42:39):
with their big, big, big lineup tonight, and Jalen Williams
is out. That is a huge You know, last season
they were just mowing through teams and chet Holmgrim missed
a whole bunch of time, and it just felt like
they could have just done that the whole season without
It really felt.

Speaker 5 (42:54):
Like that Rockets and thunder, Lakers and Warriors, those are
fourteen playing tonight. There are three players on those four
teams that were all NBA last year, Steph second teamer,
Shay first teamer, Jalen Williams third teamer. That's it, star

(43:15):
studded night of basketball. Kevin Durant's playing, Lucas playing, and
all that that goes along with it. Obviously, as you said,
Jalen's not playing. Actually I left somebody out. It was
very unintentional, very unintentional. Kd Right, No, Lebron. Lebron was
second team last year. He also liked Jalen Williams will
not be available tonight in their game.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
That's that's amazing to me that KD did not make
an All NBA team. Not eligible? Oh, it was the
amount of games. Okay, well then that how many do
you played last year? Not enough to be eligible?

Speaker 5 (43:45):
Duh?

Speaker 6 (43:45):
Well, I know that.

Speaker 5 (43:46):
I don't even know what the number three years ago
in Phoenix had brought this up yesterday. For all that
he misses so many games, he played seventy five games.
They played sixty two games last year, so right at
the figure you needed.

Speaker 6 (43:57):
Probably sixty five.

Speaker 4 (43:58):
I'm guessing yes, okay, because otherwise he would have been
But yeah, probably, I think well, with his numbers that
he averaged, I would assume.

Speaker 5 (44:06):
I mean, he scored twenty seven points a game and
hit forty three percent of his threes.

Speaker 4 (44:10):
I mean, twenty seven points per game isn't what it
used to be in today's NBA, but it's still darn good,
especially when you do it as efficiently as he did,
which is all the reason why the Rockets were willing
to make the trade for him, Because his efficiency numbers
haven't dipped in the slightest.

Speaker 5 (44:23):
It was good enough for seventh in the league.

Speaker 4 (44:25):
There you go, only six other players averaged more. So yeah,
Rockets hoping for plenty more of that, hoping to put
the first blemish on the defending champs record in that
they will have only played one game, but it was
it was something to look forward to today after what
happened last night in the Great Northwest. Thank god George

(44:48):
Springer hit that home run to kind of like take
Houston sports fans minds off of things. By the way,
I got my cutaways. I knew I would my aerial cutaways.
That is the most pathetic watch party I've ever seen
in my entire life. There's barely anybody there at whatever
they call that place, T Mobile Park Now.

Speaker 6 (45:06):
Is that what it's called, Yeah, that's what it's called.

Speaker 5 (45:08):
I mean there was a football game to attend or
a baseball game to watch. I mean, I don't know
if that was if the city can support both stadiums
being in raucous when only one stadium is actually hosting
a game.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
Yeah, but if you're not playing the game there and
your team has a chance to go to its first
World Series ever, in that they're still the only team
to never do that, and we're told all the time
about what an amazing fan base they are. I know
there's a game next door on Monday Night football. I
don't care. I just thought there'd be more people there,
that's all. Yeah, I must have missed that. During my

(45:42):
extreme focused viewing of it, I was more looking at
the football teams and what they weren't doing, and that's
the Texans.

Speaker 5 (45:48):
Texans weren't doing much of anything. And they even acknowledge
it after the game, using the word complacent. That was
from Titus Howard after the game. And although he's pretty
blunt about how things went said they let the down
on all those things. We'll hear from him a little
bit later in the show, so we can tell you
exactly how it went down. But you can't.

Speaker 6 (46:06):
You can't do that after two weeks off.

Speaker 5 (46:10):
You can't do that. It came out and did nothing
on the opening drive or the second drive, or the
third drive or the fourth drive, absolutely going through the motions,
absolutely having no idea of what they saw on film
to take advantage of. Theyre just we're plan less and
I don't know what they did for two weeks. And
it's not a physical thing, and it's not anything beyond that.
This is definitely a coaching problem. It's definitely a player problem.

(46:31):
When the coach goes out there and says I didn't
have him ready to play, I'm not a huge fan
of that. And when others media people say, man, this
team looks flat, I'm an even bigger non fan of that.
But they absolutely looked like it last night. I don't
understand how that can happen. They acted after the game
like they can't understand how it happened either, But they

(46:54):
have zero juice when games begin far, far too often
in the two plus seasons of Dimiico Ryans, last night
was a perfect example of that. You know, the challenge
is huge, you know everybody's watching. You've had all this
time to prepare. You also had time to get your
bodies fresh. You had a full normal week of practice
leading up to this game. It went out to Seattle,

(47:16):
and you know showed the first fifteen minutes of the game.
You got the ball back with seven minutes left down
two scores and somehow found your way into the red
zone for the first time in the game and managed
to put a field goal on the board. And you
managed to again get lucky at the end of the
game or end of the first half. Maybe not lucky.
You actually executed fairly well and put yourselves in position,
Like I said earlier, Shockingly, they were only down fourteen

(47:39):
to six. It was a one score game. As that
seems like all of the Texans. Oh they just lost
by one score games go. They didn't play very well
in the first half. There's no if sands or butts
around it. And then they opened the third quarter with
a turnover on the second play. Just again, what are
you seeing? What are you doing? I don't want to

(48:01):
pretend that teams spend fourteen minutes at halftime making some
unbelievable adjustments and staring down film and surface tableting their
way to a better second half. But just about the
worst possible thing that could have happened to come out
of the second half in a game where you got
the ball first and you scored last at the end
of the first half, and fifty eight seconds into the

(48:22):
second half, the other team as the football and you're
just putting yourselves in an even worse position. Defense did
stand up held them to a field goal after that interception.
The loan turnover of the game from the Houston offense,
but they also let the Seahawks score three times in
the third quarter, So you played all of the fourth
quarter until your touchdown down two scores, and your first

(48:45):
touchdown of the game came when CJ. Stroud was holding
a surface tablet because the defense scored it. This has
also been a long standing problem for the Texans, very
much so on the road, very much so against reasonable competition.
That coulds happen against that head coach, as someone pointed
out now three times until they got the late touchdown.

(49:06):
You know, Mike McDonald, the head coach of the Seahawks,
was the defensive coordinator in Baltimore in twenty twenty three
when CJ was a rookie and they went to Baltimore
to open up his career and they did not score
a touchdown. And then they went to Baltimore for his
first road postseason game of his career and they did
not score a touchdown on offense end of the fourth quarter,

(49:27):
deep deep, deep, deep, deep into the fourth quarter, two
and a half, two minutes remaining in the game, two
minutes and four seconds to be exact. And it's important
to note that they finally scored a touchdown against that
defensive coordinator now head coach in Seattle, which brings us
to one of the egregious, unforgivable errors that they made

(49:49):
in the game. It's all about the clock. At that point,
you've used two your timeouts, you have one remaining. You
need the ball back because you're down still by a
second score. You're down eight and there's two four on
the clock. You can use the two minute warning to
your advantage if you don't allow the other team to
return the kick, and there's numerous ways to do that.

(50:09):
Kicking it inbounds in the landing zone is not one
of them, and that is what Kamie Fairbairn did.

Speaker 8 (50:15):
I know.

Speaker 5 (50:15):
Demiko Ryans met with the media a little bit ago.
I will check in and see if it was readdressed.
It was addressed last night, because that was a mistake.
That is a tactical coaching mistake in that he either
wasn't communicated properly or the player just decided to defy it,
and I doubt that's what happened. So there's some sort
of disconnect on exactly why they made the mistake. But

(50:36):
Demiko Ryan said after the game, our intention was to
kick the ball out of bounds. It's very frustrating when plays,
and he was then referring to the whole game when
plays weren't executed as they should have been. So instead,
two minute warning time out was no longer of any
use to you because you used it on the after
the post kickoff. You let them use those seconds before

(50:59):
you got to first down, which is a huge, huge air.
The only thing there is on the other side of
that argument is with two four remaining and first down,
Seattle could then have the option they could pass the
ball on first down if they want, because they're not
concerned about an incompletion stop in the clock. The clock's
going to stop after that play no matter what. So
maybe you're giving them a little bone of well, now
they can get that first down, which kind of ends

(51:21):
the game. Well, maybe they've been throwing the ball the
whole second half to their detriment.

Speaker 6 (51:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (51:27):
They would have been a bad thing to open the
door for them to consider that, but they didn't have
to billion other mistakes, but that one right there. I
think that one cuts about as deep as anything else
we're going to get into today. Physical mistakes, undisciplined play, unpreparedness, play,
calling any of those things. If you can't communicate properly

(51:48):
or then have the player execute properly, you're in a
bad spot if you're the head coach, because that's definitely
on you.

Speaker 6 (51:55):
I think.

Speaker 4 (51:56):
And there are a lot of things that are somewhat
out of Demiko's control. I mean, the offensive line, that
kind of stuff. You can only do so much. I
think the most alarming thing, and this is not just
this season, to me, has been that a Demico Ryans
head coached team has been as undisciplined as it has

(52:17):
at times. Now, I know he's not the only coach,
He's far from it. There's a lot of assistance. There's
a lot of stuff that goes into not just the
game itself, but during the week, preparing for it, leading
up to it, and all that kind of stuff. I
guess I just thought that that was baked into a
Demico Ryans program, and maybe it is, and it's just
not translating because you don't have the talent.

Speaker 6 (52:36):
But I don't know.

Speaker 4 (52:37):
I just am shocked that we're still talking about an
undisciplined team as much as they are here in year
three of Demiko Ryan's ten year as head coach.

Speaker 5 (52:49):
Afside, ineligibly man downfield, false start, illegal shift.

Speaker 6 (52:54):
Illegal shift's the worst one.

Speaker 5 (52:56):
Well, these are the types of penalties that are you're
undisciplined if you're committing these are pre snap penalties. These
are or I think I mentioned one that is not.
These are issues that should be weeded out by the
time you get to the field in week seven, and
they're not. And I'm not saying one hundred percent, but way, way,
way too many of them. Again, two false starts in

(53:18):
the fourth quarter on two different offensive linemen. These are avoidable,
but they don't want to avoid them for some reason,
and they are leading to losses.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
The age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (53:35):
I would never ever discourage you guys to not listen
to an iHeart podcast unless it was that one. That
one sounds like it sucks. Who wants to listen to
a Dodger's podcast. We are all Blue Jay fans. By
the way, moving forward, we gotta wait till Friday. After
that drama last night, that sucks. Do you know what,

(53:56):
maybe George's a Neil get even better and you can
smash another one. I would love nothing more because you
were talking about the social media we saw last night
and from all walks of sports, because there was a
lot going on.

Speaker 6 (54:08):
There's a lot of Dodger tears after that.

Speaker 4 (54:11):
George Springer Dinger, and I would love nothing more than
for the guy who effectively ended their season with that
home run to make it a five to one Astros
lead in Game seven at Dodger Stadium, where they lost
two games in that seven game series. For all those
Dodger fans are like cheaters. I'd love for him to

(54:32):
do that again. Absolutely would love for it. And I
didn't know this. The Blue Jays had a better record
than the Dodgers by a single game this year.

Speaker 5 (54:42):
That's why the first game is in Canada.

Speaker 4 (54:44):
I just I knew that there was home field advantage
because of that, I guess, I just I thought the
Dodgers were supposed to be this unstoppable machine that was
bought at the store on credit.

Speaker 10 (54:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (54:56):
Well, when they're players that they bought on credit or
otherwise aren't of available for much of the season, it's
harder to win games.

Speaker 6 (55:03):
I saw show hey most of the year.

Speaker 5 (55:05):
Yeah, I mean, they're big three players. That was one
of the biggest differences. The numbers were actually closer than
you'd think a number of players that missed time, the
Astros on the American League side and the Dodgers on
the National League side. But when Shoho Tani and Mookie
Betts and Freddie Freeman for the most part, who are
clearly their best three offensive players, and late in the season,

(55:25):
show Hey became one of their more trustworthy pitchers. They
were healthy, They played in the vast majority of their games.
There was barely any time missed for any of them.
They weren't one hundred percent all year long, and there
were some time away, but not like arguably the Astros
three most important offensive players who missed enormous chunks of
the season, and it clearly impacted them in a way.
Their pitching staff was actually where they got hit much harder. Obviously,

(55:49):
Shohey wasn't available for the entire season. He's available now.
Tyler Glasnow wasn't available for the entire season. He's available now.
Blake Snell did not pitch the entire season. He's available now.
It's the best they've been. This is very NBA like.
We'll just get there, and if every goody buddy can
be healthy when we do get there, then we have

(56:10):
a great chance to win and that's why they have
absolutely dominated the National League postseason, totally dominated the team
with the best record. Milwaukee scored a run in each game,
a run in each game of a one sided four
game sweep. Their pitching wasn't awful, but it didn't matter.
Once they gave up the second run, the ball games
were all over. And now they've had a lot of

(56:30):
time off, they've obviously been able to set up their rotation.
With the Major League Baseball scheduling, I think Toronto's in
very good shape to set up the rotation either way
they would like, even though they're seriously again this series
went the distance. They played all these games and both
teams were asking starting pitchers to pitch out of the
bullpen many times. And there's no game Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

(56:51):
So however you'd want to line up your rotation, it's
pretty much which you can do. Three Blue Jays starters
pitched in yesterday's Game seven. But I think they'll still
be able to set things up the way they want
for this four games away, Toronto's four games away from winning.
The Dodgers are four games away from what's it called
when you win the title one year and then you

(57:13):
win it again the next year.

Speaker 6 (57:15):
I don't know the crown. When the Astros are the
World Series, I don't really pay a ten.

Speaker 5 (57:20):
I have a chance to repeat. By making it this far, well,
we'll have much more super entertaining baseball commentary for you.
We will actually let you hear the radio calls. There
were actually three of them from last night's game, the
local ones and the national one, so i'll let you
hear that coming up. They all sounded very different, very
very very different, and it's always fun to hear it

(57:42):
because you can tell who's who just by the tone
of those voices. So we'll get to that later this hour,
probably around three forty five. We have a very special
Seattle based segment coming up for you, baseball related at
three point thirty, revisiting someone who had a lot to
say about George Springer earlier in this series, and again

(58:03):
the I don't want to call it a grave because
I don't think his demise is imminent, but he's definitely
digging something that he jumped into a couple of days
ago and is just piling more and more dirt on
around him, not on top of him, just around him.
Maybe it's quicksand and just.

Speaker 4 (58:18):
Real quick before we move off of this, I saw
when the Mariners watch party and it wasn't the one
I don't think necessarily in the stadium. It was a
different one when the Mariners took the lead and everybody
was like, can you show that same setting when George
Springer hit the home run.

Speaker 6 (58:38):
Nobody can find that footage. It's a missing footage.

Speaker 5 (58:41):
I'm gonna tell you this happened in Game seven for
your team that still has never reached the post season party,
the biggest postseason party the world series. Before I mentioned this,
I did find this rather interesting. He didn't see until
just before the show about the Mas and their inability
to win. First of all, you were talking about social

(59:03):
media earlier in the series. After their ten to three
victory in Game two to take a two games to
none leave, the Mariners had posted hold on we're coming,
We're going home, hashtags es the moment and a little
graphic of their ten to three victory last night. That
was quote tweeted by at Blue Jays and it says correct.

Speaker 6 (59:23):
I did see that one. That was very very good,
well done.

Speaker 5 (59:28):
Speaking of teams that have been around and been unable
to complete the task. I believe they are the only
team over this forty eight year period of existence that
has not moved and not reached the Super Bowl, World Series,
NBA Finals, et cetera, in Stanley Cup, in all of sports.

(59:48):
So they still have that going for them. But Game
seven on the road, who are your two best players?
I know Josh Naylor's had an awesome postseason, but the
two best players on the Mariners Leo Rodriguez, who has
to bat lead off, and Cal Raley, who bats right
behind him. They both homered in Game seven and they

(01:00:10):
did not win. Well, now, I mean that's baseball. One
of them batted in the ninth inning.

Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
And the other one couldn't get that at bat because
the Blue Jays were nails out of the bullpen.

Speaker 5 (01:00:21):
So three batters faced by their closer, Jeff Hoffman, three
batters struck out. He was okay against can zone and
striking him out, okay against rivas and striking him out.
He wasn't overwhelming his few balls out of the strike zone,
a little bit of chasing. He threw six pitches to
Julio Rodriguez, the last of which was obviously a full
count pitch. None of them were strikes. He struck him out,

(01:00:44):
That's what I'm talking. None of them were in the zone,
and it's a tough spot to be in mentally to
do the right thing. He clearly let three of those
pitches go. Those were the three balls. He was also
ahead in the count two to zero, and thus three
of the next four pitch is, all of which were
out of the zone. He swung at and missed. Technically

(01:01:04):
he hit the last one, but he only fell tipped
it into the glove. None of them were in the zone.
None of them were particularly close to the zone. And
you're the tying run and the guy behind you is
a monster and has shown up for the postseason for
the most part. You gotta find your way on base
with two outs there, no matter who you are, and
you can tie it with Jeremy.

Speaker 4 (01:01:26):
He did that. He absolutely did that. As you bring
up a very good point, and they're just compared a
lot because they were rookies at the same time.

Speaker 5 (01:01:33):
There are a lot of similarities, and I think Julio
had a good postseason. I think these last two games
you also saw Seattle making too many mistakes, whether they
were base running mistakes or fielding mistakes.

Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
Just flat out mistakes. And look, get a three two
series lead and you could not win the final two games.
It's very close to home. Yeah, you've all felt that.

Speaker 5 (01:01:52):
Here the other thing they did last night, and it's
you got to take everything into account when people like
me mention these things. First two batters of the inning
get hits, and you're at the plate, nobody's out, two
runners on, they've both gotten hits. You're batting seventh in
the order. Don't freaking bunt man, not if you're playing

(01:02:14):
for Seattle. Do you know what the Seattle hitters at
the bottom of the order have done this this postseason
and this series specifically, They're awful. I'm almost as good
as them, and I have no hits. They have five.
So their seventh place hitter, first pitch, beautiful, well executed, perfection,
the sacrifice bunts, the runners get to second and third,

(01:02:35):
nobody out for your eighth and ninth place hitter, who
combined are five for thirty nine in this series. That's
what you wanted to do. You wanted to give their
pitcher and out, and you wanted to send up two
of the worst least productive hitters you've had this postseason
and this series, specifically, neither of them got hits, one
of them struck out. You did not score any runs.

(01:02:57):
Oh ooh hey, way wait wex What about the inning
where the Blue Jays took the lead and Springer homer?
Why don't you tell me what happened right in front
of him gladly a couple of runners on base. What
did the hitter in front of George Springer do? Sacrifice
but well executed, got runners to second and third. You
were actually down two runs at that point. You know
you got the two runs you needed into scoring position

(01:03:19):
for George Springer at the top of the order with
Vladimir Guerrero a couple of spots away, Hugh Mongus freaking difference.

Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
Well, let's take a step further. Their nine hole hitter
was killing Seattle this series. It's the antithesis of what
you're talking about. The bottom of Seattle's lineup. He was amazing.

Speaker 5 (01:03:41):
He came out of nowhere with bombs and back to
back games.

Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
Two of those three, the three games they won in
the middle, that was him that started those rallies with
home runs.

Speaker 5 (01:03:49):
It's weird that the insides of the series Games two
through six had little drama there was a couple of
late you know, they scored late runs in one of
the games, but run game, four, run game, all that
kind of stuff. Game one was tight three to one finish,
and Game seven was unbelievable drama. It was a full game,

(01:04:10):
four to three game won on a three run home
run in the seventh inning by one of the all
time greatest postseason performers, former Houston astro George Spring.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
You'll hate to hear this as we go to break.
It was the first time all October that I finally
missed what we were seeing. As far as the astros go,
I just don't know. I'll explain later.

Speaker 6 (01:04:31):
Best of X coming up next.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 10 (01:04:40):
Did you all see this? Should be putting out?

Speaker 5 (01:04:42):
Between five and fifteen posts, four hundred people were arrested
for things that they said on social media.

Speaker 11 (01:04:48):
History repeats itself type Benils succeed.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
Never doubt that.

Speaker 10 (01:04:54):
You're the one to before no one.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
You're the best.

Speaker 5 (01:05:01):
Nothing's gonna ever top you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
Now, you're the best.

Speaker 11 (01:05:06):
Posted every single day, you're the best, the breaking the
entire internet.

Speaker 4 (01:05:18):
All right, we moved this obviously it's normally at two
thirty We're gonna do it at three thirty today because
we wanted to get a conversation in with Danielle Lerner
of the Houston Chronicle, but not for a lack of content.

Speaker 6 (01:05:29):
I gotta tell you, this was a lot of fun
last night.

Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
Uh probably zero percent of you knew prior to this
series at least who something called an Aaron Levine was.
Apparently he's the sports director for the Fox affiliate in Seattle,
and apparently he does not like the Astros and particularly

(01:05:54):
George Springer because George Springer used to play for the Astros.
And obviously if you used to play for the Astros,
especially if you were on that twenty seventeen team, then
you're the only player or the only member of Major
League Baseball who has ever done anything wrong. As we
highlighted last week at one point, all of the other
forms of cheating that have taken place in this sport,

(01:06:17):
of all sports, over the years, those are fine if
you are a member of Orange Team Bad. However, then
if you get drilled in the knee during a playoff
game against Seattle, then you will be subject to any
and all horrible takes on Twitter, even up to an

(01:06:39):
including a guy who is the sports director at the
Fox affiliate in Seattle, because when that happened the other
night in Game five, I believe it was.

Speaker 6 (01:06:52):
He had no problem.

Speaker 4 (01:06:53):
Basically saying, if anyone is going to get drilled with
a fastball.

Speaker 6 (01:06:59):
Dot dot dot dot com thought. I think that's what
he said. I'm paraphrasing. I don't have it in front
of me at this exact moment, but he was basically saying, yeah,
it was.

Speaker 4 (01:07:07):
It's George Springer, so it's okay because he used to
play for the Astros. And as you can imagine, a
lot of people did not take too kindly to that
when it was when it was said. But man, when
George Springer was the one to essentially send the Toronto
Blue Jays to the World Series, I mean they still
had to get some outs. A lot of game had

(01:07:29):
to be played after that bomb. He hit, Yeah, six outs. Well,
they got him, they got him, They got him. Aaron
Levine was going through it last night on social media.
Now you can pick any of these because the one
after he hit the bomb, he's trying to be diplomatic,
he's trying to be complimentary, and he says, just amazing,

(01:07:50):
that's Springer's twenty third postseason home run. Just an amazing player.
Blue Jays take a four to three lead. I think
he had tweeted two post earlier, six more outs or
whatever it was.

Speaker 5 (01:08:05):
People were piling on probably nine more outs if he
was thin his team, Yeah, you know, the team he covers.
I guess may be a fan of I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:08:15):
I believe you were celebrating this former Astros player getting
hit by a pitch a few games back.

Speaker 6 (01:08:19):
Just reminded of that.

Speaker 5 (01:08:20):
I mean, get down to it, Astro or not. How
is my team, the team that I cover, the team
that I want to get my station to pay for
me to make a trip out to LA and cover
them and work hard. Well, how are they going to
get there? Hopefully the best player or one of the
best players in the other team that has hurt us
this series gets hurt. And I don't mean he trips

(01:08:43):
over first base. I don't mean he trips coming down
the stairs or just has some court of baseball related injury.
I mean he gets hurt because we did it to him,
because we threw a pitch that hit him. I'm not
saying he was thrown at him, but what was thrown
at him to hit him, not intentionally, I'm sure, but
that's where this all changes. And that's why he had

(01:09:07):
to reach out to people like our listeners and thank them,
because he's definitely eating all this up like this. I
don't know much about his career, so maybe this is inaccurate.
Probably the best thing that's happened to him, and that's
not good, but it's probably true.

Speaker 6 (01:09:23):
The most noteworthy. I don't just want to think all.

Speaker 5 (01:09:25):
The Astros fans for so much attention, and I means
the Mariners are finally relevant in the Al West, hopefully
for many years to come. Great season of the MS.
They'll be even hungrier next year, as you might say,
probably Josh Naylor and cal Raleigh, but I don't know
about the rest of them as comes to hunger. Can
we just say, I don't even know if Naylor will
be a Mariner next year.

Speaker 4 (01:09:45):
He's a free agent, so is Suarez, so is there's
one other. Oh, it's Planco because he's he's there, Montero,
you best not give him money. He ain't gonna do
that again. And by the way, you know who else
isn't going to do that again? Cal Raley kidding me.

Speaker 5 (01:10:00):
I think that's fair to say.

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
The seriously, he like had his best season before this
was what thirty one homers, and he doubled it more
than doubled it.

Speaker 6 (01:10:07):
Well, why aren't we asking that question about that guy?

Speaker 5 (01:10:10):
Don't do what other dumbs are doing and talk about
his season in totality and add his postseason totals to
his regular season totals, which has never been done in
the history of baseball except well, I'm just trying to
make an awesome point about how many home runs he
hit this year. So I'm going to tell people that
cal Raley hit sixty five home runs this year.

Speaker 6 (01:10:31):
No, he didn't.

Speaker 4 (01:10:31):
He hit sixty exactly. It's not the same Barry Bonds
was on that list. Did they even make the postseason
that year when he hit seventy three?

Speaker 5 (01:10:39):
Well, this is how good Cal is that he could
do that thirty four home runs a year ago. Listen
to this progression. You're gonna love it. I'll go backwards
so you get the best number last good. Sixty home
runs this year year five, last year he hit thirty four.
Year before that, thirty year before that, twenty seven year
before that is rookie season he hit two hey games

(01:11:00):
play one hundred and sixty two. He had seven hundred
and fifty at bats. I'm just kidding, Okay.

Speaker 6 (01:11:07):
Was on its way.

Speaker 5 (01:11:08):
He did slug five eighty nine this season and slugged
three on nine as a rookie in only one hundred
and forty eight bats for twenty four year old dumper. Listen,
why aren't we asking that?

Speaker 4 (01:11:22):
Well?

Speaker 5 (01:11:22):
Where's where's the link? You gotta make this work, the ass.
Tell me, you gotta make it work for me. Who's
on the team, who's on the coaching staff, who's in
the system, who's a minor league coordinator? Connect the dots
for me, because if you're gonna tell me, I don't
know where he got it from or which on staff
member was able to sneak it into his uh shakes

(01:11:46):
each day. I want a real link. I want to
know who he's played with, you know, like we always
knew the Rangers and oh there's there's Rafael Palmeiro and
there's Juan Gonzalez, and I mean the list just went
on and on and on and on.

Speaker 6 (01:12:00):
He also wagged his finger at Congress. He did as
he was lying to them under.

Speaker 5 (01:12:05):
Oath, I would say, I would be willing to wager
the number sixty in any season on the home run
line for cal Raley will not be met again.

Speaker 4 (01:12:15):
The best part about this is when they don't even
make the playoffs next year, because this has classic that's
gonna happen written all over it.

Speaker 6 (01:12:21):
If you ask me, we'll see.

Speaker 4 (01:12:22):
They're pitching staff is in tacks again. I'm not being
an apologist, far from it. I was hissed this season,
but the longer we go, the more it's hilarious that
there were fans in here.

Speaker 6 (01:12:36):
You didn't even make the postseason.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
You're right because the record number of guys on the
shelf for the astro MLB record number okay, and you
couldn't even take the division from them until like the
last handful of games of the season while your juiced
up guy was hitting better than sixty home runs. Get
out of here, Seattle and enjoy not making the dance
next year, especially everybody leaving in free agency.

Speaker 6 (01:12:58):
Nobody wants to stay there.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
The Aight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (01:13:15):
Eighteen continues it as Tuesday opening Night for the Rockets
coming your way with five thirty coverage the week of
Niners visiting the Texans begins. Now it's a short week
since they played on Monday night. No real gift from
the additional extra day during your off week playing not
until Monday night. So now they have a short week
as they await the latest five and two NFC team

(01:13:37):
that they have to go up against. There's a bunch
of them in the NFC, and seems like the Texas
played all of them and the results has been the same.
If it's the same this week, then you're talking about
a two to five team that will be in a
very very different position than they expected to be in,
in a very different position than I thought their talent
suggested they would be in. But that's what they're up
against this week. Three straight home games could get the

(01:13:59):
season right, but they have to play good football, and
they've only done that twice this year against two incompetent
teams that both have one win each, and against teams
that are competent, they have been beaten each in a
one score game. Don't forget. That's what they're going to
want to remind you of moving forward. One score loss
to the Rams, one score loss to the Bucks, one
score loss to the Jaguars, and now a twenty seven

(01:14:19):
to nineteen six plus two is eight. That's a one
score game. They lost last night to the Seattle Seahawks.
Team they trailed fourteen to nothing for much of the
first half, team they trailed twenty seven to twelve much
of the second half. In addition to it being a
short week, the timeline for recovery from injuries that took
place in the last night's game is shorter a Nico

(01:14:41):
Collins falls into that category. Was evaluated for a concussion
during the game and is in concussion protocol following the game.
It's why I did not return, and it's why in
deference to Demiko o'ryans telling us to care about the
people and not about the situation and whether or not
they will play and what they can do for the
TI team, I'll go that route. You can't play Nico

(01:15:02):
Collins this week. You just can't, and I don't think
they will. I don't think he'll be out of protocol.
I don't think he should be out of protocol, and
I wouldn't clear him to do so. That's just not
the way to operate. That's not any good for the
player moving forward, this week, next week, the rest of
his life. I doubt Nico Collins plays this week, so
you got a hamstring ridden. Christian Kirk did not play

(01:15:23):
in this game. He's now missed half the season. They've
played six times, He's played three times. You got Jalen Knowle,
who is the most explosive player the Texans have, according
to his head coach. He said that a little while ago.
Let you hear that also so explosive that they decided
to eliminate his return duties because he was so explosive

(01:15:44):
they needed him on offense, where he was also out
snapped by the same person that took over return duties.
Like I said, a full five days of NonStop Texans
discussion would be extremely easy this week, and eventually we'll
talk about something good like the play of Denico Autry
in his first game of the season. But not there yet.

(01:16:05):
What are you doing with your personnel? Demiko and Frank
in this case and Nick Kyley in this case. Braxton
Barrios has been healthy since week three, and you did
not request him to put his uniform on for any
of the games that have been played since then. But
this week, with Christian Kirk unhealthy again, you said, we

(01:16:26):
need you and we want to I guess protect Jalen
Knowle because he's such a big part of the offensive
game plan. We're going to take our most explosive player
out of the return game where he's been exceptionally explosive
and have you return kicks. And Tremon Smith returned kickoffs.
Though Braxton Barrios made a mistake on the very first opportunity.

(01:16:47):
Feet are on the ten yard line, ball lands on
the ten yard line, You don't catch it, You fake
like you're going to catch it, ball lands to your
left and Seattle downs it And not really sure how
the Texas didn't give up points on that drive, but
the officials said, no, no, no, no, CJ's not in
the end zone. That's not a safety. Absolutely should have
been eighteen yard loss was something you just cannot do.

(01:17:10):
But that was mistake number one. Mistake number two coaching mistake.
What's Braxton Burrios doing out there for thirty six snaps
while Jalen Nole's out there for thirty three on the
field while Jalen's off the field. Is Jalen Nole in
such bad shape he can't take fifty reps in a
game where you're on the field for seventy plays. It
doesn't make any sense. We know it, you know it,
and everybody knows it. He's better, he's more helpful to

(01:17:32):
your team. And I don't know it sounds like a
shot at Burrios, it's really not. It's more about you're
missing a playmaker at some point in this game when
n Ego goes down and on the an addition to that,
I watched it and I still can't believe it happened.
How did you not get Jayden Higgins the ball?

Speaker 11 (01:17:49):
Is it him?

Speaker 5 (01:17:50):
Does he not know the plays? Does he not know
how to get open? Does he run terrible routes? Are
his hands awful? He was targeted only three times, and
I don't think he was targeted at all in the
first half. Out there for sixty three percent of your
offensive snaps see a blocker like we're gonna get to
the direct shots at the offensive coordinator. But there's so

(01:18:11):
many of them. They're just all little bits and pieces
of Well, of course your offense looks awful. Look how
many different things you're doing wrong? And heck, go watch
some of these incompletions. You're gonna get all these overhead
coaches film on during the week. Now, look at some
of the routes that these receivers are being asked to run.
How many defenders would you like to be able to

(01:18:33):
defend your one player. They're running in the same spot.
They're not even putting moves on guys, They're just running.
And there's two guys running five yards from each other.
And now there's two guys over here running five yards
from each other. That can't be how these plays are designed.
I think in every possible way, they're being failed. The
offensive coordinator position a lengthy answer here about that very thing.

(01:18:55):
From just a little while ago. Dmiko Ryans asked about
a number of things offensively, but specifically the offensive coordinator,
the play calling that comes with it, and if there
is a solution that they're looking for or are they
just find with what they have going.

Speaker 7 (01:19:10):
No, Look, we're pressing forward with everybody that we have.
We're pressing forward with with everybody that we have. We're
collectively all in this together, and it all starts with me.
So if you guys want to point the finger at
somebody or put it on somebody, put it on me.
That's that's my job and ultimately is my job to
get it fixed.

Speaker 10 (01:19:28):
So and that's that's how it'll be. But we're rolling
on what we have and we gotta just all do better.
Gotta coach you better, we gotta play better. We got
to execute better on game day.

Speaker 7 (01:19:40):
And look as bad as it's teams, I tell guys,
at the end of the day, we're still we're still
one possession from getting getting that game, you know, tie, right,
we can't we find a way to make plays to
do that. That's the NFL, as ugly as as it
may be, like, we gotta find ways to make plays.

Speaker 10 (01:19:59):
And at the end of the game, in the fourth quarter, it's.

Speaker 7 (01:20:01):
All about how you finished, right, and we had an
opportunity to finish it multiple times. So we just have
to do a better job find a way to win,
all right. But we did some things yesterday that was
bad football, right, But I feel like the defense did
a outstand the job of taking the football away, blocking
a field goal, giving us a chance right to put

(01:20:22):
to turn it around and get points on the board.

Speaker 10 (01:20:25):
It's a team collectively. As a team, we'll stick together
as a team and find a way to do that.

Speaker 12 (01:20:29):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 5 (01:20:30):
Texans are the first team in NFL history to lead
the NFL in points per game allowed and have a
losing record through the first seven weeks of a season. Yeah,
I mean last night was that we're very close.

Speaker 4 (01:20:41):
I don't want to hear that anymore, And honestly, if
I'm Demico Ryans, I don't want to have to say
it anymore because one side of the football can't get
it done when the other side of the football keeps
giving them extra opportunities and.

Speaker 6 (01:20:53):
Scoring for them. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:20:54):
Again, I get why he says it, and the little
surprise in the way he's delivering it to his team
is indicated by his comments. There their goal. He's making
it sound like their goal is to be close. Their
goal is to play close games. That can't be your goal,
and that's exactly what they're out there doing on a
weekly basis. We got to finish, finish. What getting to overtime? Maybe?

(01:21:20):
How about finishing an opponent? How about taking a fourteen
to nothing lead, how about leading twenty seven to twelve
that's what the other team did. How about scoring twice
on back to back possessions, taking a fourteen to nine lead,
and just going through the rest of the game and
not giving up any points. That's what the Rams did.
How about the Bucks going out there and winning the
game by making the play. They're not trying to be close.
They don't want to be close. They're trying to win.

(01:21:42):
Like I know, he's trying to win. He's even said that.
But the way he's they're describing some of their shortcomings
and they're falling short is it's just the wrong way
to view things. It's not great, they're just they're playing
bad football, but we're close. Well, look about when we
play good football? Well, when's that going to be?

Speaker 2 (01:22:02):
The A Team? On Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:22:09):
Two, lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam talking your Team.

Speaker 3 (01:22:16):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A Team.

Speaker 6 (01:22:25):
It is the A Team.

Speaker 4 (01:22:26):
On a Tuesday edition of the program Sports Talk seven
ninety and for another hour Space City Home Network, we
will make way for Rockets basketball earlier than usual, as
they will tip off the NBA season with the very
very first game on this upcoming season's calendar tonight when
they're in Okay See to take on the defending champs.

(01:22:46):
Talked about that and we'll actually hear a little bit
more about that. The next segment is Ryan Hollins joined
the station earlier today and the television side of the
color commentators had his thoughts on this upcoming season. We'll
have a few of those thoughts to replay for you
in the next segment. But back to the Texans last
night and back to some of the things that continue

(01:23:07):
to plague this team before we get to de Miko.

Speaker 6 (01:23:12):
I said it earlier. I do believe this.

Speaker 4 (01:23:14):
I don't know if you agree with me or not.
I don't think the playoffs are going to happen this
year for this team. I just think it's not. Even
even if you could like fix some of the things
that ail the Texans, they've got too much out of
their control now in front of them at this juncture
of the year in order for me to see that
any pathway to that happening.

Speaker 5 (01:23:33):
Yeah, you're behind the Chiefs, Jags, Chargers, Bills by two wins.
They all have four wins. You play each of those
teams once the rest of the season, you'd win the
season series, which is with each of them other than
the Jaguars, who'd you split the season series with, So
there's an additional game you'd have to make up on

(01:23:53):
those teams other than Jacksonville in an additional game on
them anyway, because you may or may not have the tiebreaker.
Behind the Broncos by three wins, okay, great, beat them,
and then you need to outplay them by two more
games the rest of the way, and you're behind the
Colts by four wins with two games remaining against them. Great,

(01:24:14):
sweep them. Well, now you also have to outplay them
by two more games just to be tied, which you
would obviously win the tiebreaker, whether that's for the division
title or for a wild card spot, regardless, you'd at
least be ahead of them. And all that being said,
that's math. Now let's talk football. You're two and four.
You're two and four. You stink any of those games

(01:24:37):
you just mentioned, right, The teams that they've beaten have
one win. Okay, Well, then they'll beat Tennessee again. And
the Raiders have the same number of wins that they
have two. Okay, you'll beat the Raiders. You got the
Arizona Cardinals. That's a two win team, all right, you
got them too, that's three wins. Now you're five and
four against nothing but teams that are inside the playoff

(01:24:59):
picture as the remainder of your schedule other than the
Kansas City Chiefs, who technically are not inside the current
playoff picture, but of won four of their last five
and are sitting at four and three. The NFC is
made up of the Packers in the number one spot
and six five and two teams. That's the current playoff picture.

(01:25:19):
The Texans have played the five and two Seahawks, the
five and two Rams, the five and two Bucks, and
now they host the five and two forty nine Ers
this weekend. It's not clearly not easy, but the point
is you're not as good as those teams, So paint
this picture. Where As AC said, you're gonna win enough

(01:25:40):
of these games, you're gonna rattle off a win streak.
The Texans do have a win streak this year. They
beat Cooper Rush and cam Ward previously in back to
back games for a two game winning streak. In the
other games they lost, they were only by one score,
so they're in good shape. I mean again, paint this
picture like in the Baltimore Raves, rattle off a bunch

(01:26:01):
of wins when they get Lamar Jackson back. Maybe not
because they did lose three out of four with him,
but I would take my chances with the Lamar Jackson
led football team. No matter how bad the rest of
the team is, then I would over what the Texans
have put on display here where Obviously, offense is a huge, huge,
huge problem for the tenth best team in the AFC.

(01:26:21):
So starting there with some of Demiko's comments from a
little while ago, specifically on the offense, many of the
players set it. CJ said it, Titus Howard said it,
and it was pretty obvious when they had the ball
four times to open the game and had four punts.
Sixteen plays into the game, the Texans had twenty four yards,
no points and four punts. How about the explanation on

(01:26:42):
the slow start, Tomko.

Speaker 7 (01:26:44):
Yeah, for us as collectively as a team, like we
we have to do our jobs right. If we expect
to win, we have to do our job, not offense.
Was just on the offense, but it's all three phases.
Guys have to do their job and we have to
do it at a high level. So that's the main
reason we didn't play up to the standard. We didn't
execute how we needed to execute to win a game.

Speaker 5 (01:27:07):
That is true. Sadly, they haven't been at their worst
in the first quarter. If you calculate it by points
I would. Coming into a game, they've scored twenty three
points in the opening quarter. Coming out of halftime the
third quarter, they've managed only sixteen points. This god awful
two to four football team has outscored their opponents by

(01:27:30):
forty points in the fourth quarter. They've outscored their opponents
by thirty nine points overall in the season. And granted,
two lopsided wins are there, and they can't win football
games against competent football teams, it is amazing what they
couldn't do last night. Also, I think, in my opinion,
for the first time all season, they couldn't even pretend

(01:27:53):
to run the football.

Speaker 10 (01:27:54):
CJ.

Speaker 5 (01:27:55):
Stroud had two scrambles and he told twenty five yards
on those two plays, and in doing so he led
the team in rushing. He could have had a whole
lot more, he could have if he took off more often.
But the point here is Woody Marx and Nick Chubb
could not have had more. There wasn't anything for them
to do to overcome the overwhelming domination coming from Seattle's

(01:28:16):
front line, many times only rushing for or only needing
for on running plays. So Demiko, again, I turned to you,
what about the inability to run the football.

Speaker 10 (01:28:25):
We got knocked out the ball.

Speaker 7 (01:28:26):
At the end of the day, if you want to
move the ball, we have to be able to run
the football and get a yard, right, But if we're
getting knocked back up front and we're not gonna get
a yard, So it all starts up front with displacing
the line of scrimmers.

Speaker 10 (01:28:40):
We did not do that. Therefore we were not successful
at gaining the yard.

Speaker 5 (01:28:45):
Well, he was a little too specific there at the
end about the horrific play calls on third and fourth down,
And I want to get into that more specifically because
it's another thing that I think coaches who want to
lose their jobs do too often. I want call to
fire that one off again, the inability to run. He
actually crushed the comment. If he would have stopped after

(01:29:07):
his opening comment, we got knocked off the ball, boom,
that's it. That is why they can't run the football night.
Why did you get knocked off the ball? Because you're
not strong enough, or your technique and your leverage is
not good, and your base isn't good. All things that
point to two things. Either the person charged with adding

(01:29:28):
the players that that position is doing an awful job
of doing that, or the people coaching the players to
overcome the you know, are you're operating with good technique
or good hand placement, are you using the right leverage,
or you're in the right spot, just the just the
physical nature of it. You don't have to be the
strongest of the two players, you and the guy you're

(01:29:48):
trying to block. But you can't. You can't overcome that
to a degree occasionally over the course of a game
when you're doing everything correctly with all those things I
talked about, but they weren't doing that, and more often
than not, it's actually both of those people at fault.
I think they've done it again with their offensive line.
They have hired the wrong person, they have promoted from within,

(01:30:11):
and they are putting the wrong people. They're not putting
the wrong people on the field because they don't have
anybody else. Still amazed what they're doing with their roster
from an offensive line standpoint, and we'll get to the
why they're still playing two left guards on purpose in
one game, because they went back to that this week.
But all the pass pressure that CJ's on, all the

(01:30:33):
running for his life, which last night he was doing,
been telling you I don't think he's been doing that
the rest of the season. He definitely was last night. Well,
just you make it even worse when the other team
doesn't have to commit to stopping the run with extra
bodies because they that's just what they're doing. On every play.
You got blown off the ball, you got hit in
the backfield, over and over and over again. It had

(01:30:55):
not happened much this season. It happened all night last night.

Speaker 4 (01:30:59):
Yeah, And I I was talking about this with somebody, like,
I don't think that CJ is going to go fold
to Sean Watson on the Texans organization and say I'm
out of here, But like he does have his extension
coming up and something has to change. I don't know
if it has to be a big change, Actually do
I think they should. I think Nick Cassario's time should
be done after the season, and I think if things

(01:31:20):
keep going the way I think they're going to, that
decision is going to take care of itself because they're
not gonna have a choice other than to make the
only change they haven't made during this era of Texans football.

Speaker 5 (01:31:30):
Yeah, you've changed those ce's, you've changed offensive line coaches,
you'd be going into your fourth year that that's the
next thing in line is one of the two people
that are in charge. You either fire the head coach
if you're not satisfied with the progress on your offensive
line to protect your quarterback. Your quarterback in the NFL
is your meal ticket to winning. If you're not doing
him the service he deserves to give you the chance

(01:31:52):
to win, then you can't be there anymore. You can
hire another OC if you want. Most teams don't allow
their head coach to do that three times, certainly not
in four years. And when the problem is clearly personnel. Well,
the problem on the offensive line is clearly personnel. They
do not have five good offensive linemen to play on

(01:32:13):
a weekly basis.

Speaker 6 (01:32:15):
Let's just start with that. Like stranger things have happened
in the NFL.

Speaker 4 (01:32:20):
If the Texans wanted to, you know, hire a OC
that has experience coming into the gig, it wouldn't be
the craziest thing.

Speaker 6 (01:32:29):
But the personnel has to change on top of it.

Speaker 5 (01:32:32):
Yeah, you asked Bobby Sloan to figure out how to
overcome this glaring weakness on your offense, your offensive line,
and you brought in a new OC, and I'm sure.
In meeting number one, you said, we need you to
overcome this glaring weakness. They tried spinning it all off season.
You know, we're fine with what we did. We think
this group can work, and we've made our changes. I mean,
it's a bunch of nonsense. I mean, they've played good

(01:32:52):
football teams, and you've seen what kind of team that
they have up front. The more there are clearly more
problems than this. Some teams are better at figuring out
how to over moving the pocket way more often than
they have, and they did that at times last night,
utilizing different personnel in a different way. I thought their
uses of personnel and last night's game was disastrous. And
I don't know who's calling the shots there and what
they're thinking with that. I'm sure it's Nick Kayley, and

(01:33:15):
that's just another strike against what they're trying to do.
But the thing that's remained constant, as you said, I
don't think you think it'll take care of itself. And
Nick Caceario probably won't be here because of it. You've
had five seasons because rebuilding an offensive line from the
day you got here could have absolutely started before Demico

(01:33:36):
CJ and everybody else came on board, and you do
have one player from that era and Titus Howard, and
that is all of consequence. You have a bad offensive line.
That's that's on the GM, the A team on Sports
Talk seven ninety. Like I said, there is no shortage

(01:33:57):
of Texans topics. Following their twenty nineteen loss to the
Seahawks late last night, the final Monday night doubleheader completed
after three hours of football in Seattle. Texans follow the
two and four remain in third place in their division,
remain tenth overall in the AFC, and we will continue

(01:34:18):
talking about then. We got all week to talk about them,
the mostly poor things that are keeping them from winning.
But it's definitely something we should also get into, and
we'll do so a little later today and many more
times this week. They're doing things defensively are that are
the types of things that teams with four and two
and five and two and six and one records are doing.

(01:34:38):
Turning a team over four times, keeping your team in
the game, scoring points on your own and as bad
as the Texans offense was, this is not a good
offensive game for the Seahawks. They weren't able to contain JSN,
but they were able to get the Seahawks off the
field pretty much all night long unless they committed a penalty,

(01:35:00):
because their third down conversion rate was awesome as a defense,
but still tragically bad as an offense. But we will
shift back into a little Rockets talk here. Four games
on the NBA slate tonight. Rockets have the first of
those games against Oklahoma City. They'll be back home for
a pair of games after that. First one is of course,

(01:35:20):
the home opener, and that comes on Friday evening with
the Detroit Pistons, who had one of the biggest turnarounds
in NBA history from one year to the next, going
from one of the worst teams in the league to
an absolute threat in the East, which is exactly what
I think they will be this year. We'll get to
that one in a minute. Ryan Hollins analyst on the
TV side for Space City Home Network. His first duties

(01:35:43):
along with Craig and Vanessa, will come during that Friday
night game at home, but he joined Matt Thomas earlier
today on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross to dig
in a little bit on this upcoming NBA season, the
Kevin Durant debut and Durant will debut with four teammates
tonight that are big, tall NBA players. So amongst the
portion of the conversation we've got for you here Ryan

(01:36:05):
Hollins talking about the jumbo lineup at times versus the
smaller lineup at times.

Speaker 13 (01:36:11):
Ryan Hollins, Well, well, the goal to the free hell
for opposing teams. And the one thing that you know
is Oklahoma City goes essentially it will call chent Hongren
a guard. They'll go five out when Hardenstein's off the floor,
play dribble drive offense, and they really swarm you. They
truly swarm you defensively, which is hard, and you can
do that when you're young. So I think what he
May's saying is go small, We're gonna press you, and

(01:36:33):
we're gonna press you to stay big. And I'll be honest,
I don't think that's Oklahoma City's best offense because Hartenstein's
great down low. But you put in them in situations
where you get the ball out of shaves hands and
you got Hartenstein shooting floaters, which he's really good at.
But it's picked your poison and now their spacing goes
away a little bit. And if they're gonna throw Caruso

(01:36:53):
at the five something they.

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
Were great at.

Speaker 7 (01:36:55):
Uh.

Speaker 13 (01:36:56):
You know when he played against Yo, Kitchen pressured him
and did a lot of those things. You know, you
got to punish him inside. So I'm pretty sure that's
the message is going to be sent home and the
pressure gets put on the opposing team. Matt to answer
your question of do we match up big with him?
Do we go small? And I've been on another side,
you get extremely uncomfortable. I remember playing the Golden State Warriors.
They roll out the small lineup and all of a sudden,

(01:37:16):
we'd be playing lineups that we've never played the entire season,
didn't know how to work with. So I love what
he may does and I think he's gonna mix in
back and forth. Shoot the last three season game, I
thought Reed Shepherd looked the best with the five out
offense and all Smalls on the floor, he was excellent.
So you're getting a sample size of what our guys
can look like, and I think it differs from game
to game.

Speaker 12 (01:37:36):
So we all talked about before Fred's injury, right about
Reed Shepherd's increased role. Now, obviously Fred has done for
the year, how much did Reed's life change when he
found out that the ACL was gonna coll spread the season.

Speaker 13 (01:37:51):
I think for Reed obviously a lot more pressure. We're
not going to hide it, and there's a reason he
was drafted third and I think you're gonna he's gonna
get his number, Paul because of it. And I think
the best thing that we saw in that last Prison game,
preseason game he could argue could have been the most
impactful of the season, is because we just got confidence.
The guy knows how to play. Matt When we've talked,

(01:38:14):
none of us ross you two, none of us have
questioned if if he can play. But it's more a
question of Hey, him being confident, him taking those shots,
him defending, and honestly, man, he brought a lot of
toughness to the table in that Atlanta game. You know,
Trey Young is not mentioning that's one of the best
guards we have to offer in the league, and he
out played him. Granted it's preseason, but he brought it

(01:38:36):
to the table. So hopefully that confidence can shine through
and he's going to be thrown in the fire man.
He's going to be tested. That's that's what he came
to the NBA for all.

Speaker 12 (01:38:44):
Right, So a couple of things. Big picture, it feels
like the national folks have obviously dropped the Rockets down
a few slots because of Fred's injury.

Speaker 6 (01:38:53):
If everything goes right this year.

Speaker 12 (01:38:56):
And let's say the Rockets are even better than their
fifty two win team of a year ago, in your mind,
what has gone right? And I'm gonna say, if things
haven't gone right for the Rockets, my guess is larger
because of the more of the injury bug than anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:39:10):
Correct.

Speaker 13 (01:39:11):
The thing that's going right is the opportunity to step
in and play big like I've never seen anything like it, Matt.
The size and the depth that Houston has, the way
they can beat you in different waves, it's truly intimidating.
And you're going to have a player on the opposing
team in a mismatcher, uncomfortable with mismatches all across the floor.

(01:39:34):
I think everything goes right, we'd be saying championship like
Kevin Durant's too great, too late in his career and
too good to say that he'd be on a group
this talented that would have an opportunity. So everything clicks,
that's where you go. And I think the challenge now
more so than it was, and we just talked about it,
just putting it together. But I do think that this
is a group that just looks special. Matt. You know

(01:39:55):
when you see special teams. We saw that ninety five
Rockets team, Like they look special, they have weapons. You
going like this, this group has enough. And you know
as a player, when you got enough and when you don't,
and this group has it.

Speaker 12 (01:40:07):
Give me one or two teams. The West is so
ridiculously loaded. Who are you going to pay attention to
more than anybody else this year? If I said, hey,
keep your eyes on teams that might be a threat
of the Rockets, who would you go with? Are the
one or two teams that would be in the way
of a potential West championship.

Speaker 13 (01:40:25):
I think Denver got a perfect fit in Cam Johnson.
That's crazy because he moves off to basketball, he's healthy,
that's a role that in the spacer and cut her
off the ball. That's made perfect for him, and he
can defend, and he brings a lot of size to
the to the table. I think that's a huge fit.
I'll be honest, man, I'm intriguing Wendy. She's kind of

(01:40:47):
doing some things where you know, you like to rule
out San Antonio. But we've seen this with Oklahoma City,
We've seen this with Cleveland. When those young players get
good out of nowhere, when they have one of those
mega summers and they get better, your force has an
organization to make a move to put pieces around them.
They got Darren Bops. We'll see how that plays out

(01:41:08):
when he's fully healthy. But Wimby's doing some things that
you know, I think we all had to keep our
eye on. And you know, I can't wait to see
Winby with his hot size well against the biggest team
in basketball in the Houston Rockets. So that's something I
got my eye on.

Speaker 5 (01:41:24):
I would not have said anything other than that. I
totally agree mainly on the first of those two teams
that MT asked Ryan about, and it is because of
Cam Johnson. I think Denver was too uncertain about, well,
who's going to be available for this month or for
this postseason. And MPJ is a talented player, really difficult

(01:41:46):
to guard at times because of his size, because of
his shooting ability, And they basically got a player who
if he's healthy, and he hasn't been a model of
health in Cam Johnson can do a lot of those
same things. I think they have more belief that he
will be a little bit slighter build, but he's also
probably playing his best basketball. And I wonder if him
being back on a team that's competitive can get even

(01:42:11):
better his numbers in Phoenix. When he was playing with
a competitive Phoenix Suns team at the beginning of his career,
shooting at at better than forty three percent or forty
two percent from behind the arc and forty percent in
his partial season there, well it dipped a little bit.
He's still a very good shooter, but there wasn't anybody
to take any pressure off of him or set him
up when he was a Brooklyn Net These past couple years,

(01:42:33):
he averaged nineteen points a game with the Nets and
shot forty eight percent from the floor in thirty nine
percent from three point line through three point line. And
those are his career numbers shooting wise. And now he's
playing with Jokic and Jamal Murray on offense.

Speaker 4 (01:42:46):
Yeah, Denver to me is the one team where I
look at and I'm like, Okay, they somehow got better
than they were, even though they just the move might
seem on paper like it was lateral or just like
a shake it up type of thing with the same position.
But Joki is such a machine. I feel like every

(01:43:06):
time the Rockets played them last year, somebody was missing
from both sides or one side for sure. But going
back to the San Antonio thing, You and I especially
have not talked about this enough. It bothers me. I
know he's worked with other players. He's even worked with
other players on rival teams in the past. There's something

(01:43:27):
about watching Dream work with Victor winmbin Yama that really
really sticks in my craw And I know I'm not alone.

Speaker 6 (01:43:34):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:43:35):
I know he's got what is it, a personal services
contract with the Rockets, and he certainly works out with
Alprin Shingoon we've seen recently in other players. I don't
want him working out with a Spur A spur big
Man seems sacrilegious.

Speaker 5 (01:43:49):
Oh yeah, he's worked out with so many players, this cab,
his wife Jannis. He just brush it all off. He's
doing something he likes to do. He loves to help
the next generation. Man, it doesn't bother me at all.
I don't think it's something that we're gonna see, man,
can you mean, he's pretty good.

Speaker 6 (01:44:04):
But now we'll have him teach k a new move?
What new move with that? I don't know, I'm making
that up. Yeah, it's uh, it's.

Speaker 5 (01:44:11):
Okay with Chris Paul working with a wemby this left
past year to make him a great player.

Speaker 6 (01:44:16):
What'd he say? I'm just saying, continue to be tall.

Speaker 5 (01:44:18):
He got to be his teammate and so I'm sure
that rubbed off on him. And as much of a
Rockets legend Chris Paul he was, he was a teammate.
If his spurs better this year, sure, how much better?
I can't wait for the season. Unfold the a.

Speaker 2 (01:44:33):
Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:44:38):
This is Adam and Adam sweetly charged through mind bockling
moments that make.

Speaker 6 (01:44:43):
You go, hey, what.

Speaker 8 (01:44:48):
What what?

Speaker 12 (01:44:49):
What?

Speaker 10 (01:44:51):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 13 (01:44:53):
Man?

Speaker 5 (01:44:53):
On a Tuesday?

Speaker 2 (01:44:55):
Hekay, what odin? I'm dare now to say what?

Speaker 8 (01:45:01):
You know?

Speaker 4 (01:45:02):
Hearing Russell Westbrook there reminds me that he is not
with the fakeness. Dude, you're on the Kings, Russell say what?

Speaker 8 (01:45:10):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (01:45:10):
That is crazy.

Speaker 4 (01:45:11):
He's gonna become one of those guys that like wears
all the uniforms at the end of his career like Shack.

Speaker 5 (01:45:16):
The last couple of stops, those teams certainly could have
done something stops in LA and obviously last year in Denver,
those teams were competitive, very very good.

Speaker 6 (01:45:26):
He helped win them games and helped lose them games.

Speaker 5 (01:45:29):
And he's he's such a non factor this year because
he doesn't play for one of those teams anymore.

Speaker 6 (01:45:34):
Right, they have some really good they're gonna love it
in Sacramento, have.

Speaker 5 (01:45:38):
Some good NBA names. He's playing with Sabonis when he's
healthy and he's currently not, DeMar DeRozan, Zach Lavine and
Russell Westbrook, Lak monk At Hegan Murray sounds good. I mean,
Murray's their sixth, fifth or sixth best player.

Speaker 6 (01:45:52):
He highest paid.

Speaker 4 (01:45:54):
They just they're just not gonna win. No, they're not,
and neither of the Mariners because their season's done.

Speaker 5 (01:45:59):
They won three times in this series.

Speaker 6 (01:46:00):
And then what happened. Yeah, George Springer was awesome last night.

Speaker 7 (01:46:05):
He got a hit.

Speaker 6 (01:46:06):
He got a big hit, just one. There's different versions
of that hit though, there.

Speaker 5 (01:46:10):
Are different versions of that hit when you get to
the postseason. Again, we've noted it many times here in Houston.
It's awesome for us here at Sports Talk seven ninety
the radio crews continue to do the job. Yeah, they're
paid to do all season long. So we've got lots
of great Robert Ford, Steve Sparks moments. And I don't
just mean after the games in the locker room in
overalls while people are enjoying themselves, I mean during the

(01:46:32):
actual game. So Mariners radio broadcasters still working, calling every
pitch and every play and every dramatic moment. Same thing
for the Blue Jays. And when you get to this stage, also,
there's all ways eight national radio call so wanted to
give you the say what version of each of those calls.
It's pretty obvious where they each come from and you
hear them go. But we'll start with the winners call.

(01:46:54):
This is a three to one game, bottom of the
seventh one out to on Springer at the Dish. Dan
Shulman is the radio voice for the Toronto Blue Jays.
He's awesome and I think most people are very He's
very easy to recognize his voice because he's done so
many different things beyond just being the voice of the
only Canadian team in Major League Baseball. But he killed

(01:47:17):
it with this call.

Speaker 10 (01:47:20):
One oer pitch swing in a five ball.

Speaker 14 (01:47:23):
What fielding deep a Rosa arena turns good? Oh swinger
dagger four or three Blue Jays in the bottom of
the seven.

Speaker 5 (01:47:45):
Comes up? Oh yeah, I like it.

Speaker 6 (01:47:47):
Well, let me tell you something.

Speaker 4 (01:47:50):
I like the fact that Arosa Reina was catching strays
on multiple calls only because he happened to be the
guy that was there.

Speaker 5 (01:47:58):
It wasn't a billion miles over the fence. It wasn't
obvious that it was going to be a homer. What's
he catching strays for?

Speaker 4 (01:48:05):
His name's in the call as the violence occurs to him,
just like Vererling was for the Phillies when Jordan demolished
that baseball in the World Series. That is true, Viarling's
back and then that game was turned upside down.

Speaker 5 (01:48:17):
That one is like, he hit it to center, so
of course the center fielder needs to go back at
Dyking Park then minutes to run into the wall. But no,
I'm sure any of the announcers, including Robert and Steve
obviously the call that was made the TV call, anybody
no way from behind home plate and up forty feet, Lae,

(01:48:39):
You're not gonna think he hit that over the batter's eye.

Speaker 6 (01:48:43):
It landed on some guy's plate on the party.

Speaker 5 (01:48:46):
Deck, so that was pretty awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:48:48):
Welcome.

Speaker 4 (01:48:48):
By the way, let me just say this about because
you're not playing Joe Davis's call here are we what
Joe davis call?

Speaker 5 (01:48:54):
Wasn't he on the call last night for Fox Radio only?
I'm saying we're no offence space at the home network.

Speaker 4 (01:49:01):
We're not using the TV call as no everybody heard
that he is as a Dodger guy, especially which again
they're back in the World series that call in that
series that the Astros.

Speaker 6 (01:49:11):
One and twenty two and this one here like he's
really good.

Speaker 5 (01:49:15):
Very good, well deserving of the honor of being able
to call the national games. Totally agree. I think he
does a fantastic job and did do a very good
job on the TV call. Now, the team that was
winning when the pitch was thrown and losing after the
ball landed in the stands. This is the Mariners radio call.

Speaker 1 (01:49:32):
There goes the pitch from bizarreta swunging on that is
hit high deep let field.

Speaker 8 (01:49:39):
And it is col.

Speaker 5 (01:49:44):
Way way way way. Later in the call, he gets
to describing what has happened. They down four to three.

Speaker 6 (01:49:51):
Well, right now he's dying inside.

Speaker 5 (01:49:53):
Just laid out for the crowd noise there, and you know,
I think he did as good a job as you
would expect. Some guys will bring ton of excitement because
it's a moment even though they're obviously the hometown radio call,
and it's a crushing moment. But I don't have no
issue with that. That's I think you could very clearly hear, like,
how what just happens in the game to the Seattle Mariners.

Speaker 4 (01:50:14):
How would Robert Ford have called that? And that ball
is hammered a left and you can kiss it goodbye?

Speaker 5 (01:50:20):
I think instros are dead when it said that last
he might have said that ball is gone and given
you the the the slumped over sound you heard from
same type gone, Like you can tell a difference, and
that ball is gone. There's a totally different way to
say the word that describes it exactly, and Robert does
a tremendous job of that.

Speaker 4 (01:50:39):
It's one of the bigger venues in Major League Baseball
in that it is such a huge stadium.

Speaker 6 (01:50:45):
What's the capacity there? Fifty five?

Speaker 4 (01:50:47):
I want to say, I remember us talking about this
earlier in the postseason and I think it might have
even been at the beginning of.

Speaker 5 (01:50:57):
This Baseball I still think they're pushing theighborhood of forty Really,
it looks so much bigger than that. I think they
can't nWise get up to fifty to fifty plus.

Speaker 4 (01:51:08):
I think the biggest crowds World Series standing room only
that dyke and packed in was like forty three tops.
And part of that's just because you're confined to basically
a city block, so you can only pack so many
people in. But I've just always felt like the Rogers Center,
it'll always be the Toronto SkyDome to me because it
was the site of WrestleMania six and eighteen. I just

(01:51:30):
always have felt like, for even for baseball, it was
not quite the Dome. But we're talking fifty to fifty
five thousands.

Speaker 5 (01:51:36):
What sounded like the announced attendance was forty four to
seven to seventy.

Speaker 6 (01:51:40):
Well, it sounded like seventy four.

Speaker 5 (01:51:42):
So, like I said, there were three calls for that
Homer last night the national call ESPN Radio had that
call Ravage on the call. Would you like to hear
that one? Not really boom, We're not playing it, don't
even have it.

Speaker 6 (01:51:52):
I don't really even know. It wasn't very good. Yeah,
because he sucks and he's just he's Carl Ravich. There's
nothing about game in here.

Speaker 5 (01:51:59):
It's a huge moment, like it's a big deal. And
again I'm not here to bury him by playing it
and then crushing him all, just crush him. It just
wasn't a very good call.

Speaker 4 (01:52:07):
Well, because he's not a very good broadcaster. He says
dumb things. He doesn't call games well, he meanders. He's
Carl Ravitch.

Speaker 5 (01:52:15):
So last thing on the say what portion a little
bit on the visual side. They went to Club Poppy
last night, deep into their post game, and I'll give
both sides of whether it's the American League side or
National League side. They're giving unbelievably lengthy postgame coverage. It's
been awesome. So Club Poppy, they've got the disco lights
on and he's pouring shots for everybody. Gets one over

(01:52:37):
to KB, slides one over to a Rod, slides one
over to Jeter, and then they all lift him up
and toast he downs it. None of the other three
of them even pretended to drink theirs. That's because he's
big Poppy, big poppy, so very fun. It's baseball. It's
a game, and they have a ton of fun with it.
We have four to seven games remaining in the baseball
season beginning Friday. We'll wait for our extremely highlynticipated prediction

(01:53:01):
until Friday's program.

Speaker 2 (01:53:04):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:53:11):
Winding down the four o'clock hour.

Speaker 4 (01:53:13):
It's our final full hour because we are going to
somewhat step aside Early.

Speaker 6 (01:53:18):
We're not going anywhere.

Speaker 5 (01:53:19):
I'm not stepping aside.

Speaker 6 (01:53:21):
Now, You're gonna keep working. I'm gonna go eat and
you're gonna keep.

Speaker 5 (01:53:23):
Working from now until five fifty six. As per usual,
I will be on the air here on Sports Talk
seven ninety. But at five point thirty, you're out. I'm
piecing out. That's because I have the game tonight with
Matt Thomas and Ve Early, so he can make his
way on over to the broadcast location. It's across the hall.

Speaker 6 (01:53:40):
I mean, are you gonna tell me to be careful far?
I don't have to get in the car.

Speaker 5 (01:53:44):
Just call me when you get there.

Speaker 2 (01:53:45):
Okay, I made it.

Speaker 4 (01:53:47):
I'll just like open the door and yell out into
the hallway. One thing we did not get to last
segment as part of say what, And it's a big
part of say what. We were just having so much
fun with all the audio of Seattle dying. You know
who else died metaphorically afterward in the clubhouse Mariners players,
I would assume, well, they were interviewing the pitcher who

(01:54:10):
did not give up the bomb, but certainly set the table.

Speaker 5 (01:54:13):
Yeah, if we weren't so locked in on the fact
that neither teams playing last night were the Astros, or
the fact that the Texans gave us what they gave
us last night, we could black sandwich. Yeah, exactly, not
very tasty.

Speaker 4 (01:54:26):
Or as Ron Burgundy once ingested a cat poop sandwich,
that's what he had.

Speaker 5 (01:54:32):
We would probably get into the decision making in last
night's World ALCS Game seven. You're mentioning they didn't like it.
They were talking to Brian Wu for the Ardua that
we're going to play. Brian Wu should have been in
the game for the at bat against George Springer, or
maybe he should have just come into the game because

(01:54:52):
George Kirby shouldn't have been taken out of the game.
But this is the postseason, this was a Game seven.
Dan Wilson is just like the other guys who've been
in that they just they can't service. They just can't
help themselves with the move they I've got to chain.
He's already seen the lineup more than once. I've got
to go to this guy. I've gotta go to that guy.
I gotta pitch the same guys in every single game.

(01:55:13):
I mean, the manager moving on, I think he thinks
Varland is the greatest pitcher to ever walk the face
of the earth. I get it. It's just part of
postseason baseball. So Brian Wu's being interviewed and continue.

Speaker 6 (01:55:24):
Yeah, so the bomb has been hit, because this is
in the aftermath.

Speaker 5 (01:55:28):
This postgame clubhouse interview of a player on a team
that season just ended, and and.

Speaker 4 (01:55:33):
The guys that he put on base to make it
a three run shot. When when George Springer hit that
bomb to left field, they he was responsible for them.

Speaker 6 (01:55:44):
And so he's being interviewed. And let's not forget what
we highlighted earlier. Who struck out to end the game again.

Speaker 5 (01:55:49):
Julio Rodriguez was at the dish, two down, three to
two count a swing and a foul tip into the
catcher's glove ballgame over season over.

Speaker 4 (01:55:57):
Well, apparently at some point during this interview with Brian Wu,
you will hear let's just say, Julio letting out his
end of season I'm going home and I'm going to
Cancun frustrations in an audio clip.

Speaker 5 (01:56:13):
Having con has further than any other team in franchise history.

Speaker 4 (01:56:19):
Uh, you know, i'd say act like he became rather unimportant?
Did Brian Wu's reaction when he's just like, Okay, that
just happened.

Speaker 5 (01:56:33):
Yeah, so good. I saw that.

Speaker 6 (01:56:37):
All Mariners fans, by.

Speaker 5 (01:56:38):
The way, Yeah, a couple of minutes of the postgame
interview with cal Raley and you know he's had obviously
been crying, probably quite a bit.

Speaker 6 (01:56:47):
It happens.

Speaker 5 (01:56:47):
It's awful, and in this case, game sevens can be
clearly very very different. This particular Game seven is the
worst for the team that comes up short. Wrenching at it,
or you feel good about it. You're in a good position.
I mentioned earlier they just played a Game seven and
both Julio Rodriguez and cal Raley put the ball over

(01:57:09):
the fence in that game, and they had the lead.
I are obviously not only leading leading by two runs,
having not yet gone to Munno's he would at some
point you would assume he'd be used, could have obviously
been used in that exact spot right there. But like
I said, we're not gonna analyze it. But yeah, cal
Raley was in tears. I'm sure many of his teammates
were also. And I was curious the first few times

(01:57:31):
I saw that clip, and now we've all heard it,
how did we get the information because this is all
off camera.

Speaker 6 (01:57:38):
First people were saying it was cal Raley and I
was like, that doesn't sound like cal Raley.

Speaker 4 (01:57:43):
It just doesn't. But this definitely sounds like Julio Rodriguez.
But do we actually know that it's him. I'm gonna
go with yes, they almost confirmed it. I don't know
confirmed it.

Speaker 6 (01:57:54):
I don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:57:55):
Now.

Speaker 5 (01:57:55):
I have seen one post with the audio attached, and
it has a per so and so Julio Rodriguez was
the one who screamed loudly in frustration in the Seattle
Mariners clubhouse. I mean, if you want me to tell
you who so and so is, Yes, it says at
Aaron Levine underscore.

Speaker 6 (01:58:14):
Oh well see, now I don't know if I can
trust that source.

Speaker 4 (01:58:17):
I'm pretty sure it's anybody else but Juli Driguez, since
he's such a liar all the time.

Speaker 5 (01:58:24):
So this team to be real as you move forward.
The Mariners, the Mariners, Mariner's got all the postseeds and
experience that you could probably ever want playing throughout. They
obviously had the first series off, but it was a
tough series to get there. This was clearly a tough series.
I wanted to just say, this is basically a kin

(01:58:44):
to you mentioned cal Rawley was crying. This is a
kin to what I saw with my own eyes, and
you can trust this source. Back in twenty nineteen, after
the Nationals won in Game seven, that was a game
you had. It was in this case, it was at
home for you, but you had the lead. Greenky was awesome.
He got pulled. You didn't put in Garrett Cole.

Speaker 4 (01:59:05):
Will Harris was like indestructible all postseason and season until
that one. But just everything about it sucked and they
looked like they were gutted. That's what I imagine you
saw in cal Roy last night. So I apologized for him. No,
you're totally right. This is kind of part of it.

Speaker 7 (01:59:20):
All.

Speaker 5 (01:59:21):
The Astros had their first It wasn't a long trip
to the postseason. Twenty fifteen. It was pretty gut wrenching
considering where that series was for them and what they
thought was about to happen. Twenty seventeen, they won it
all right, their very next trip to the postseason, they
won it all and then they had a variety of
ups and downs over the next several golden years of
Astros baseball. Now, the Mariners hadn't been to the playoffs

(01:59:43):
every season of this there's a little bit of a
gap from the time they beat the Jays and then
lost to the Astros to what they did in this postseason.
And even though they're going to be a couple of
changes pretty obviously, and if Naylor is not back, that's
a pretty significant change because he was just flat out
awesome this postseason, except for except for what he did
in last night's game.

Speaker 6 (02:00:04):
The double play.

Speaker 5 (02:00:05):
No, I don't know that you have the double play
he made sure happened because he turned his back and
jumped up in the air and got hit by the
baseball on purpose. Yeah, I mean I can almost appreciate.
Hey man, shut up, wex it's Game seven. Whatever it takes. Yeah,
what if they didn't call it all hands on deck?
I mean, do whatever you can, and but he's running

(02:00:26):
to second. He turns us back on the play and
jumps up into the air. The reactions from the Blue
Jays players, Shane Bieber screaming at him. Ernie Clement is
looking around like, dude, there's six of y'all out here.
Somebody has to call interference.

Speaker 6 (02:00:42):
What are we waiting for?

Speaker 4 (02:00:43):
Are you ready for this? You know what I've said
about him all season long? Your favorite play. He didn't
even mention his cleats there were to be dazzled. Yeah,
well so is his belt. He's not likable. I take
him at first base and a heartbeyond this. Astros defensively
also played offense. He's everything you wanted Christian Walker to
be in both venues, not just on the road.

Speaker 5 (02:01:04):
Yeah, walk around an okay season on the road. Josh
Naylor just finished off a twelve game postseason where he
hit three p forty and slug.

Speaker 6 (02:01:11):
Or ops in the line together. Yes, please, that would
be nice.

Speaker 5 (02:01:16):
We'll see. We'll see what the Astros have in mind,
see if they can log jam the infield. Just a
little bit more mentioned this was a day for the
Texans to return home from Seattle. Heard from CJ. Stroud,
Demiko Ryans, and a few others last night in postgame.
Demiko available today earlier this afternoon. So another thought or
two from him, very specific to who I just mentioned,

(02:01:39):
CJ Stroud. CJ Stroud does he need to be better?
We'll hear from DVP.

Speaker 2 (02:01:48):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (02:01:53):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the aighteam.

Speaker 4 (02:02:05):
So wex as we start this abbreviated final hour with
football at five, you're here to tell me that your
entire household is anti mayo like I am um.

Speaker 5 (02:02:19):
It's mayo can be used, it usually should can't. It
can be used if it's part of a concoction. No,
it cannot to create a non mayonnaise overwhelming taste. If
you spread mayonnaise on one or two sides of the
bread of the sandwich you're about to make.

Speaker 6 (02:02:36):
You've ruined it.

Speaker 4 (02:02:36):
I'm not gonna not gonna be down for that. This
isn't like a for debate thing either. It's disgusting like this.
It shouldn't be regulated by the FDA. Is even appropriate
to purchase, I mean on shelves.

Speaker 6 (02:02:48):
It's for you.

Speaker 5 (02:02:49):
It's mayonnaise.

Speaker 6 (02:02:50):
Is not the worst thing.

Speaker 5 (02:02:51):
But I wouldn't even easy to avoid when there's so many,
Like if you haven't noticed at your local grocery store
your options for sauce, flavors, condiments. It's never ending. My
refrigerator has now it does have mayonnaise. Because I was
just telling you off the air, we had to get
some for a recipe for some chicken wear. Making sounds terrible,

(02:03:13):
but every shelf in the doors it's nothing but sauces.

Speaker 6 (02:03:17):
Right, It's awesome. I love it, except for that one.

Speaker 5 (02:03:20):
I don't need it. I mean, I'm sure we'll get
no finish off this tiny jar of mayonnaise that we bought,
but I.

Speaker 4 (02:03:26):
Don't know when or why, so you got the smallest one. Yeah, sorry,
do me favor when you get home tonight. A matter
of fact, don't even wait till you get home. I
want you to call r during the next break. I
hear toss it out, and just go ahead and have
her reach in there, take it out and throw it.
Not in the inside trash. Can't take it out to
the one that goes to the street directly.

Speaker 5 (02:03:46):
How about if I just wait until it's within days
of its expiration, like a year or so, and then
bring it in.

Speaker 4 (02:03:52):
So I can throw it at my worst in it
it sounds great, it's something like that. It's just the
worst substance on the planet.

Speaker 5 (02:03:58):
We'll continue with the mayonnaise at five here Sports Talk
seven to ninety, especially edition of throwing that mayonnaise against
the walls. I guess the Texans idea of a game
plan last night against Seattle, falling behind very quickly looking
very bad doing so mentioned this a couple times. Texans
came out ran sixteen plays on their first four drives,
they all ended in punts, and the Texans had twenty

(02:04:19):
four yards to show for it. Seahawks, conversely, they did
have two punts and a pair of three and outs,
but they scored touchdowns on the other two drives, and
the start of the texans inability to keep JSN, the
only legitimate threat on their offense, from torching them, was
already underway. It turned into a very productive night for him.

(02:04:41):
He's going to turn in the best season any Seattle
receivers ever had if he stays healthy. Fourteen targets on
the thirty two throws that were made. Watching the game
last night, I'm absolutely shocked sitting here now that were
three hours in and I've ripped Seattle for their fourth
quarter calling, begging the Texans to stay in the game,

(02:05:03):
giving Texans the ammunition that we hate that they have.
It's one score game, We're close, We're there at the end.
I keep telling the guys, we had a chance to
to get it done and score and tie the game.

Speaker 10 (02:05:14):
Late.

Speaker 5 (02:05:14):
That's on you, Seattle for your absolutely atrocious stupidity with
your play calling late. I can't believe we're three hours
into the show and I haven't mentioned the most brain
dead thing that they did in last night's game. Really
does it immediately come to mind, because if it doesn't,
it absolutely should. Yes, Texans second quarter getting rolled. The

(02:05:38):
Texans have seen them avoid points. On the second ridiculous
non safety call, CJ. Stroud drops back to pass, he's sacked,
he's fumbled, it's picked up by Seattle, it's returned for
a touchdown. What he marks, doesn't give up on the
play and makes the tackle and the ball comes free.

(02:06:02):
And after review, since Braxton Barrios was all in last
night and he recovered it in the end zone, a
ridiculously awful play from the Texans was ruled to be
an awesome tackle by Wood, he marks forcing a fumble
before the ball crossed the plane recovered by the Texans

(02:06:22):
for a touchback.

Speaker 6 (02:06:23):
Do you know how fortunate they were? So fortunate, that's
not even the right word.

Speaker 5 (02:06:27):
So they had to then enforce the penalty on the
Texans because they had an illegal shift on the play
from Xavier Hutchinson. So they got the ball back, but
he was second and fifteen, so passed Teniko a couple
of yards back, passed to Jalen Noel a couple of
yards back. He also had a penalty on that play,
but they don't. They don't need to call that, so
you're gonna punt. They punted away, so Seattle's got the

(02:06:49):
ball in very good field position. They're already in very
good position overall in this game, and that the Texans
haven't scored any points yet. They have two touchdowns, so
it's fourteen to nothing. They're at the forty three yard line.
You get a face mask call on Mario Edwards, you
get a lost yard run by Kenneth Walker of one.
Then you're sitting on third and eight at the forty

(02:07:10):
and the Texans drop Will Anderson and coverage. It's probably
but I can't remember when it happened, and it's actually
a good thing that they did because it was a
quick throw to Jackson Smith and Jigba who had beaten
Derek Stingley again, and Anderson was actually there to chase

(02:07:31):
him down and keep it from being a touchdown. So
they got nineteen yards on third and eight. They converted
two third downs all night. This was one of them.
And now to the incredible, incredibly stupid play call from
Gary's kid, Clint Gary's Why does Gary catch straight first

(02:07:55):
and ten? Fourteen point lead seven to ten till halftime.
You got the ball the twenty one yard line and
you run a reverse. Cooper Cup comes back behind. The quarterback,
gets the ball and drops back to pass overthrows and
open Jackson Smith and Jacob and Kalin Bullock picks it off.

Speaker 6 (02:08:18):
What are you doing?

Speaker 5 (02:08:20):
Do you not know what trick plays are for?

Speaker 12 (02:08:22):
Like?

Speaker 5 (02:08:23):
What do you need them for? You're dominating this team.
You're about to put three scores in between you and
the terrible doing nothing at this point in the game,
Houston Texans, what are you doing?

Speaker 10 (02:08:33):
Well?

Speaker 5 (02:08:33):
They took the gift that the Cooper Cup led offense
gave them. He was zero for one with one pick,
and the only good drive of the game is what followed.
Ten plays sixty yards. Obviously, they got shut down once
they got to the red zone and they were at
the seventeen yard line for basically no snaps because it

(02:08:54):
was fourth down. But they got their first points and
they kicked a field goal. Then the Texans blocked a
field goal, and they follow it up with their own
field goal with an extremely good pass play to Jalen Nole.
And it's halftime now, seven minutes and ten seconds after
you were driving to take a seventeen to nothing lead,
twenty one to nothing lead, the Texans are down fourteen

(02:09:14):
to six at the half, and they.

Speaker 6 (02:09:16):
Totally went in striking distance right.

Speaker 5 (02:09:18):
For thirty minutes of football, just the seat.

Speaker 4 (02:09:23):
It was a very Tennessee like performance from that perspective,
because they didn't do much any of anything at all,
Like Tennessee hadn't done anything themselves, but everybody forgets they
didn't do anything until basically a.

Speaker 6 (02:09:35):
Fourth quarter of that game.

Speaker 5 (02:09:36):
Yeah, I wanted to give at least one player a
little bit of props. Mentioned it earlier, but that block
field goal the Texans had was thanks to Deniko Autry,
he got in for a very limited number of plays
his first game of the season, been on Puff the
all offseason and on Puff the whole regular season. At
his twenty one day practice window opened up just shy
of three weeks ago, so he was activated for the
first time for this game. Jalen Reed, in a similar situation,

(02:09:59):
was hurting camp and he was activated for this game,
and he got some work on special teams. But in
Autrey's case, he was on the field defensively for only
ten snaps, had seven more on special teams, and obviously
that's where the block came from. In ten snaps defensively
and last night's game, and at least one of them

(02:10:20):
was when the Texans had a five man defensive front.
They played heavy last night, by the way, by design,
I thought it was the best way to defend Seattle,
and I don't think they were wrong, So I think
the defensive coaching staff actually did get that right. In
ten snaps for Denico Autrey in last night's game, two tackles,
a sack, a TfL and a quarterback hit in ten plays.

(02:10:44):
If they had production like that from the rest of
the group upfront, they probably would have been able to
manage it offensively because Seattle just simply wouldn't have had
that much success. Will Anderson had the sack, fumble and
fumble recovery in the end zone. So that's a touchdown
that you got from you defense, I think, And if
it were me, I would have just kicked the extra point.

Speaker 4 (02:11:04):
With that much time remaining in the game. They went
for two and did not succeed. You know what I
hate about that last night, as it pertains to that
very play. When you lose a game like this, it's
just never gonna get the play that it should. It's
never gonna get the credit that it should. You know
how hard that is to do what he did. It's
not just that he made the play, and I get it,

(02:11:24):
like the back of the end zone, all that kind
of stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:11:26):
That Sam Donald was the opposing quarterback. If you asked me, yes, but.

Speaker 4 (02:11:30):
You went from two points to six points, not only
because he caused the fumble, but a lot of guys
caused fumbles. And because of the shape of this thing,
it goes any which way. No, I'm just gonna go
ahead and get it myself. That is so insane. And
he did it basically from the prone position because he
was already on the ground.

Speaker 5 (02:11:49):
I just was a catch and release. Yeah, he went fishing.
He caught Sam Donald, and then he released him so
he could pick up the other fish football.

Speaker 6 (02:11:57):
I don't know if he intended for it to go
down that way.

Speaker 5 (02:12:00):
I don't think he thought that. Why would the ball
come out Sam Donald's got a hold of it. I'm
really just tackling him around waist safety. But Donald switched
the ball from his throwing hand to his left hand,
and it allowed for where he was putting in his
waist for Anderson to get a piece of it. Knock
it free, and he noticed it immediately was able to
scoop it up. He knew they had the touchdown. And again,
things can change dramatically when your defense does what the

(02:12:22):
Texans defense did not. A flawless game. Probably worth noting
Kamari Laster, even though you probably have some highlights of
JSN catching passes over him too. He had a really,
really strong game and he is a tremendous assist in
the run game, a great tackler that was on display
last night. There's twenty seven points on the board. You

(02:12:43):
forced four turnovers. I told you the Seattle offense was
disastrous on third down two for fourteen and you lost
to them.

Speaker 4 (02:12:53):
He won the turnover battle by three rights. And this
is why I was screaming all week. Fine, give the
Seahawks their credit defensively, and they certainly showed up.

Speaker 6 (02:13:03):
Although it's not really.

Speaker 4 (02:13:05):
Hard when you're like, ohlay as they go by you
as you're not you're not even blocking certain guys. I
didn't feel like the Texans defense was getting enough credit.
And then of course, you know, they give up twenty
seven points last night, so on paper it doesn't but
they they.

Speaker 6 (02:13:20):
Just caused four turnovers.

Speaker 4 (02:13:23):
I just this is up there with This is like
Detroit last year, except for you're not having a good
season or you're not gonna finish with a good record.

Speaker 5 (02:13:30):
Yeah, I couldn't keep Sarbonnet out of the end zone.
One of those carries is just you heard from Demiico
earlier saying we got blown off the ball. That was
one of those two touchdown carries. The Texans got blown
off the ball and he just ran in untouched from
inside the five. The other one was probably worse. One
of those plays where I don't know if I need
to blow my whistle. Ever, he'll just grab everybody they

(02:13:52):
could and pull him and push him into the end zone.
And I'm not you know, it's it's not easy. But
there's times when the officials should be blowing plays dead
because poor progress needs to be it should be stopped.
You need to call that it has stopped, not let
five more offensive linemen get involved and start pushing. Clearly,
we all know what's going to happen, but that really
shouldn't be a part of football. That's more of the

(02:14:13):
rugby that I thought we wanted to get rid of.
And then there's other points in the game you'll touch
a quarterback and they'll say Ford progress to stop. He's sacked,
and you're like, no, he's not, he's out. That there's
not much consistency there, doesn't have anything to do with
who won or who lost. Great game for JSN, a
really strong game from Dalton Schultz, and that's another part

(02:14:33):
of the play calling that probably needs to be called
into question.

Speaker 6 (02:14:36):
God, he was getting creamed last night too.

Speaker 5 (02:14:39):
Yeah, that's the other aspect. We have to talk more
about the Texans and where they go from here from
a health standpoint. Just this past week, man, what a
clean injury report this team has well, look how things
have changed in a span of a week from practice
and now from this game on what appeared to be
a very hard field to land on for at least

(02:14:59):
three three different Texans. We will touch on that we
get closer to the opener. The Houston Rockets are playing
basketball tonight in an NBA regular season game with Kevin Durant.
It's all coming your way here on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 2 (02:15:14):
Ninety The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (02:15:20):
Oh, it sounds like the Texans are coming out of
the tunnel right now.

Speaker 5 (02:15:32):
Whitney Merciless.

Speaker 6 (02:15:34):
Have they not played this in a while.

Speaker 5 (02:15:36):
They don't play it, so they.

Speaker 4 (02:15:38):
Don't play anymore when they come out of the tunnel.
They did it for like twenty years.

Speaker 5 (02:15:43):
I mean, if they do and I've been to every
game and don't remember it, then I'm i gotta check myself.
See why I'm not paying attention. It's just so laser
focused in focused on making sure I get Really I
usually spend some of that time trying to record a
boomerang of the pyro.

Speaker 4 (02:16:00):
Okay, by the way, remember when I came to the
Cleveland game, the Cleveland playoff game, the win, Yeah, and
It was the first time I had been to a
game there and probably I mean.

Speaker 6 (02:16:13):
Close to ten years.

Speaker 5 (02:16:14):
You got three straight weeks of Texas football if you
want to head back out there.

Speaker 4 (02:16:18):
Well, what I discovered was how much they had elevated
the press box cuisine.

Speaker 5 (02:16:24):
No longer going to road games, but my understanding from
those who come to Houston from other places in our
Houston media that travels to other places widely regarded as
one of the best spreads in the entire league.

Speaker 4 (02:16:36):
Unbelievable. And here's what was a reminder of that. I
was in the building this past weekend from Monster Jam
of course took the little guy went down and you
know how they have the donut company that rhymes with schmumu.

Speaker 5 (02:16:52):
I'm aware of it.

Speaker 4 (02:16:53):
Well, I'm not gonna give him a free plug unless
they're a sponsor on the show The Dolls with Needles.

Speaker 10 (02:16:57):
I got it.

Speaker 6 (02:16:58):
Well, what am I supposed to call them?

Speaker 5 (02:17:00):
It's fine, I understand, you can move forward. I didn't
realize it's all over the building. It's not just in
a press box.

Speaker 4 (02:17:11):
You know, they have like the tower where it's rotating
and they're lit donuts that are lit. That's just another level.

Speaker 5 (02:17:17):
Yeah, last year they added an ice cream making machine.
You can individually make a little bowl of ice cream
for yourself, got a bunch of different flavors.

Speaker 4 (02:17:24):
Do you still do the thing you do at all
the other venues that we have free ice cream at.
Let me tell you, guys a little secret about this guy,
this pre diabetes guy right here, Like, I'm gonna out
you right now because it's hilarious.

Speaker 6 (02:17:36):
Most people take the.

Speaker 4 (02:17:37):
Little like there's usually a bowl for your ice cream. Yeah,
there's a tiny I mean it's the size of my
palm and it's not much tea right size for ice
cream for normal people.

Speaker 6 (02:17:46):
Not this guy. I'm gonna walk across the room.

Speaker 4 (02:17:49):
I'm gonna pick up one of these plastic cups that's
made for drinks with ice and liquid, and I'm just
gonna fill that thing with ice cream and toppings, and
just to be real amatose.

Speaker 5 (02:18:00):
Now, what I actually do is I grab the paper cup.
It's a coffee cup, and I.

Speaker 4 (02:18:06):
Could have sworn you've done it with plastic. Maybe I'm
thinking of diking.

Speaker 5 (02:18:08):
Do you guys have coffee cups? We're out right now? Well,
then I'll take a plastic cup, but I take the
coffee cup and I put the soft served in there
with the toppings like you said, and raspberry sauce. But
then I put a lid on it because I'm taking
it upstairs to my seat. It's I don't want it
in a bowl. When I'm walking through the arena.

Speaker 4 (02:18:30):
I'd say four or five times the servings that you're
supposed to have in the little bowls.

Speaker 5 (02:18:35):
No, no, no, definitely not. It goes perfectly well with
my four cookies, with your four cookies, if they're on
the table ready for me.

Speaker 6 (02:18:45):
When's your next physical?

Speaker 5 (02:18:47):
Next decade?

Speaker 6 (02:18:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (02:18:50):
Do you just go see your dad? But he still
got a stethoscope. It's beating.

Speaker 6 (02:18:57):
He probably has a little hammer thing they.

Speaker 5 (02:18:59):
Trand on your chest, anything, pushing it up and down.
Do you hear anything? Yeah, you're good. That's not a physical.
You don't think he did.

Speaker 6 (02:19:06):
That's no.

Speaker 5 (02:19:06):
He would probably send me somewhere else.

Speaker 4 (02:19:09):
You can't fit in an appointment because you're too busy
going to sporting events and practices and watching press conferences
on your laptop.

Speaker 5 (02:19:15):
Fact San Francisco, Denver, and Jacksonville all set to visit
NRG Stadium over the next three Sundays.

Speaker 6 (02:19:22):
Miss Christian mccaffery's gonna go nuts.

Speaker 5 (02:19:24):
It's all. He's very much like JSN with their health issues.
He's their whole offense. He's been their whole offense. No
other wide out or tight end really has stepped forward. Obviously,
George Kittle came back. It's possible they'll have a quarterback
switch for this game, but it doesn't look like it
looks like it will be another mac Jones game. But
it's the Texans didn't lose last night because of Seattle.

(02:19:49):
They lost because there was another team playing against them.
It really could be anybody. If you want to call
the opponent a team, then you're telling me they're a
competitive outfit. They field legit, jitimate NFL players that could
win a game. And provided that is the information we
have that they're going to be Houston, they're going to
win the game. That's all Seattle had to do. That's
all the other teams that have beaten the Texas have

(02:20:10):
had to do. If they don't have that, then they're
the Ravens or the Titans and they're incapable of competing.
Those are the teams the Texans so far have beaten.
They will not see one of those teams until Tennessee
four weeks from now, and that's the road game at Tennessee.
I said yesterday and had to figure out how to
make my way through this comment. You were here yesterday.
I said, Jacksonville's not a good team. That's why that

(02:20:32):
loss hurts more than any of the others. That's not
a good football team. You just lost to them. Well,
I can't say if you play a team that's moderately competitive,
you can't beat them. I mean, which is it? Wech
Are they good or are they not? I don't look
at them, and I don't think they're good. But because
they're not an absolute total disgusting failure of an organization,
they beat you. So the bar's pretty low. You can't

(02:20:53):
get much lower than that for where the Texans sit
right now. And they just aren't seeing that. None of
those teams are on their way to to NRG Stadium
three weeks and like I said, there are so many
different things that we could get into. Brought it up
and we'll finish it up here. Nico Collins is in
concussion protocol and I strongly would shocked if he plays

(02:21:13):
this week. He shouldn't play right, just especially in a
short week. You shouldn't be able to clear concussion protocol
in that short period of time when everything visual not
a doctor, everything we saw there, I could have sent
out a full and completed post on X as soon
as he went down. He's down, he's gonna get looked at.
They're gonna walk him into the tent, and then they're

(02:21:34):
gonna walk him back into the locker room because he's
going into the concussion protocol. All those things happened. I
actually waited till they happened to post that, but that
was clearly going to happen. I honestly thought Davis Mills
was going to be forced into the game because I
thought the same exact thing happened to CJ. Stroud and
almost the same exact way, right by the sideline, awkwardly
goes down back first head snaps, hits the turf and

(02:21:55):
his head. Our hands immediately go to his head and
the shaking of the head. Then he sits on the
bench and you know, I didn't stay with the shot
long enough to see is he this a glazed look?
Is he is he still there? His postgame press conference,
I would say happily went off like you wouldn't have
known the difference, and I hope that means he's not
needing it. He hadn't had any setbacks. Today we're regarding

(02:22:16):
it and he's totally fine because he obviously finished the
game on top of it. And Dalton Schultz Katie George
was reporting this a couple times during the game. I
think he hit his head multiple times in the game.
I think once he actually was he hurt his eye
because of whatever had the angle that he went down
to the turf. I think he kind of scraped it
across the turf. But late in the game when he
was pushed out of bounds legally, the Texans weren't very

(02:22:39):
happy about it, especially Daniel Hunter, but he had not
stepped out of bounds. It's a legal push. He went
down hard enough that he was now feeling his shoulder
and his head had gone down, Like that's the one
offensive thing that they did well. I gave the the
hat tip to two guys defensively three Kamari Lassiter, Deniko
Audrey will Anderson Junior. That's if they want Dalton Schultz

(02:23:01):
a good example of why I don't know that there's
much difference from one tight end to the next the
Dalton Schultz just become the most productive tight end of
the NFL last night. Yeah, for one game. For why
because they chose to call plays where they're tight end,
Like any of the tight ends that play in the
NFL would be unguarded, would be indefensible. And I don't

(02:23:22):
know why those plays aren't in the playbook every single week.
It's not about how the other team rushes, it's not
about their being super aggressive. It's not about them bringing
eight guys or seven guys or five guys. Those plays
are open, like it's almost impossible if it's executed well
to miss that play. And they ran it over and
over and over again, and they should have run it
even more.

Speaker 4 (02:23:42):
How about danil Olofsky just begging them and Lewis Reddick
go back to the play action. Put CJ under center,
put him in a position to at least have a
chance to succeed, not saying he will.

Speaker 5 (02:23:55):
Yeah, going under center and maybe seeing a little bit
more of what you're up against is some thing you
can do a little tough to take your time and
have the time if you're not getting the blocking and
you're our under center moving the pocket, which they did
do some need to do more. We'll spend much more
time tomorrow and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday on each
of the issues with Nick c both of them, their

(02:24:18):
general manager, and their newly hired offensive coordinator that unsurprisingly
are very linked long before they became Texans together. This
is what the Texans do. A Nick Casario hire doesn't
look like it's working out. Does it seem like a
Demiico high Not at all. Rockets Launchpad very first edition.

(02:24:40):
I've got it for you and it's next

Speaker 2 (02:24:43):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety

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