No trap game allowed for Texans, MLB Hot Stove

Wednesday on TheA-Team, Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton preview the Texans' upcoming clash with the Cardinals, and hear from DeMeco Ryans and CJ Stroud. Plus, the guys react to the big deals going down in MLB.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Is a Wednesday edition of the A Team Sports Talks
seven to ninety wex Ac Josh Jordan with you. We're
taking up until six o'clock tonight. Don't worry, there's still
not a Rockets game tonight. The quirk of the early
portion of the schedule continues.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Now.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
I know that NBA Cup has to do with this.

Speaker 4 (00:17):
Yeah, they want exclusivity last night tonight. Eastern Conference last night,
Western Conference tonight. Nobody else plays just two games each night.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
You know who's not going to play tonight, Vicky, he's out.
Chengu's not playing tonight either. He doesn't have a game schedule,
but that's also true. He just anyway, they've done actually
pretty well without him. Maybe he's not as good as
we think, Yeah, because he played more games. Okay, well,
if there what's the Rockets record fifteen and six. It's

(00:45):
not relative to the number of games they've played. It's
relative to the fact they have a higher winning percentage
percentage points. Right, But if you play more games and
you win them, that's gonna help, is it not? I mean,
whatever you say, I want to quibble about this. In
the first thirty second into this, exactly keep your mouth
just keep your mouth shut.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
Well, there you go.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
Why are you here talking on the radio? They technically
are the same number of games over five hundred as
we sit here today.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
All right, forgive me for thinking this.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
And the Rockets are ahead of them by percentage points.
Just so you know, I knew all of that before
I started this conversation. All right, so forgive me. This
is a little bit of a letdown. Let me just
I'm gonna put this Wednesday's eighteen. No no, no, no, not the show, everybody,
let them don't go anywhere. We're never a let down. Now,
let's just just follow me on this. If I were

(01:34):
to utter the sentence, Texans prepare for Cardinals, what does
that do for you?

Speaker 5 (01:40):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:42):
As I finished the sentence, now, okay to Texans, prepare
for Chiefs. Texans, prepare for Colts. You know what I'm
saying billion times over. You guys that have listened to
the show since twenty nineteen, you should know this.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
Buy now, we look at you. Go ahead, we look
at everything exactly the Cardinals. See what happens.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Just go ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:59):
Yeah, I have a let Act like this game doesn't
matter in the standings. Act like you don't get a
win or a loss just because you're playing the Cardinals.
Go ahead headed too, the final three weeks of the
season at eight and six, feeling like crap, having your
five game winning streak snap, No problem, go right ahead now.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
I should clarify, I feel like getting up for this game.
I'm not. I should clarify.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
I'm not saying this is how the Texans are approaching
this game or even thinking about things. Far be it
for me to say that, because I don't think it's
the case, first of all, and secondly, I mean it
wouldn't matter because they're the ones that have to play it.
But I'm just talking about from a, you know, a
cachet standpoint as a fan. I realize they've got to
still do their side it. They've got to hold up

(02:38):
there into the bargain.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
The mental side of the game's last Sunday night and
this Sunday afternoon, here's the difference. The mental part of
playing the Cardinals is trying not to have a let
down against the team that never wins, and there's no
history between the two teams that anybody cares about.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
By the way, that's the same for next week's game.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, the mental part of Sunday Nights game that they won.
Was the guys on the team for the most part,
they don't know what it's like to go there and win.
All they know is what it's like to go there
and lose. All they know is the Chiefs are the
best team in the AFC until proven otherwise, they are
still the team that sits there atop the AFC every year.
This year looks like it's going to be different. We're
almost to the point where it's definitively gonna be different.

(03:19):
The leader of the AFC West is definitively going to
be different. But they haven't been knocked out of the
playoffs just yet. The Texans helped them get there. And
that's why when we were getting into is this the
biggest game and sadly, is this the biggest game in
nearly twenty five years of football for the Texans, a
Week fourteen regular season game on the road at Kansas City,
And the answer was yes for a number of reasons,

(03:40):
for the standings of twenty twenty five, but really for
the mental part of it all. You know, this team
is learning about all that stuff. It's all new to them.
It was new to CJ. And Will and Tamiko in
twenty twenty three, literally everything. It was their first year.
Then they went to the playoffs, and you know, they
saw what happened in the second round of the playoffs.
They did the same thing the next year, and they
found out what it's like to go somewhere else in
the second round of the playoffs and not win and overcome.

(04:03):
You know, CJ missing a little time in twenty twenty three,
and CJ and the team having a little bit of
a downturn offensively in twenty twenty four and firing in
oc in between twenty four and twenty five. Beating Kansas
City is new, brand new, never been done before by
this group.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
Feels good.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
It should feel good for them, but it should only
feel as good as your next game, and that obviously
is the Cardinals. Cardinals are probably going to be making
a ton of changes next year. They're in the boat
of we spent a lot of money on our quarterback
because we felt like we had to, but we really
didn't know if he was the answer, and we still
don't feel like he is or know that he is.
And there's a bunch of teams like that, and they
just happen to be on the Texans schedule. The Raiders

(04:38):
aren't even worse shape as you alluded to, because they
don't have that player even on the roster. Kenny Pickett,
Aiden O'Connell and Gino Smith are definitively not the answers
they foolishly thought even a short term Genosmith contract could
be the answer for maybe this year and next under
a new head coach, Pete Carroll brand new Raiders head coach,
still in his first season, still learning the ropes a

(05:00):
head coach in the age of what in Vegas Texans
need to go out and you know, honestly, all that
stuff push it all aside the legitimate, you know, actual
part of what has to happen, the smaller part of
what has to happen is I mean, I'm not saying
do anything differently. I'm not saying approach it any differently,
but utilize these games to say, I guess we can

(05:21):
play offensive football. I guess it wouldn't be the worst
thing in the world. Put twenty eight thirty points on
the board. I mean, it's not the end of the world.
If we score points in the first and third quarters,
like we almost never do, it's not the end of
the world.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
If we have a two score wins, not the end
of the world.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
If we aren't dramatically winning a game in the fourth
quarter with a field goal with thirty seconds left, with
a field goal with no time on the clock.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
It's okay to do all those things this week and next.
I'm not saying focus on that, but I'd love to
see it.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, I looked, and I don't think there's gonna be
a drop off or a letdown or a trap game
or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
But I do. What are they looking ahead to?

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Well, that's the thing they're looking Ah, if you ask
that question, you laugh.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
But I'll tell you what they're looking ahead to.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
The playoffs they think they're in, essentially because.

Speaker 3 (06:05):
Why you haven't done because well, that is the why.
How about this.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
They have the same record as another team battling with
them for the final playoff spot in the AFC, and
that team probably is starting Philip Rivers on Sunday against
the Seahawks.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
As the saying goes, there are no wrong answers, But
in this case, the saying would go, there's no right answers.
It is not any better if you take care of
business against the Sisters of the poor the next two
weeks in Arizona and Las Vegas. Somehow find a way
to go to US to La and beat the Chargers
and then lose to the Colts on the last game
of the season.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
Probably won't mean anything for the Colts and might not
mean anything for the Texans other than maybe seeding.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Honestly, I would say this right now.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
If the Texans win this weekend, next their next two
home games against the Cardinals and Raiders, they're going it's
they won't be clinched. But I even think they can
lose their final two games and make the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Think other things will happen that will help with that scenario. Yeah,
they'll be ten and five with two games to go,
but I don't want to lose to the Chargers.

Speaker 4 (07:06):
Telling you what they can do to make it, you
know that it doesn't make it easier on themselves. Just
put them in the position where if they're not a
healthy team, or if this, that, and the other are
in place, I would think it would make a lot
of sense to try to avoid the spot that they're
in where you're facing a team that won twelve, thirteen
to fourteen games and instead playing either the division winner

(07:28):
in the AFC South Jacksonville, if it's not you, or
the division winner in the AFC North, which currently is
the Steelers and could be the Ravens. All of those
matchups would be more desirable than playing the Patriots or Broncos.
In my opinion, far from unbeatable, not scared of those teams,
but just trying to play the common sense game. Would
you rather play a team with ten or eleven wins

(07:49):
with Trevor Lawrence at quarterback, a team with Aaron Rodgers
at quarterback, a team that is six and seven as
we sit here today, or would you rather play a
team that won thirteen or fourteen times this year?

Speaker 1 (08:01):
That's all I'm saying. Yeah, no, I get it, and
again likely in weather too well, of the of those
four games that remain, because I do think you're right
about the Colts.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
They're I mean, they're starting Philip Rivers.

Speaker 4 (08:13):
Yeah, it's not the biggest tell ever because he's brand
new to the team that today, But usually when you
go through drill work when the media is allowed to
view practice, the order does matter. The order of reps
usually is telling of where these quarterbacks are going to
be on Sunday they put uh Brett Rippon on the
active roster. Riley Leonard is practicing in full today, and

(08:35):
Philip Rivers is practicing for the first time in five years,
and he's taking the first go round of reps.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
Again.

Speaker 4 (08:41):
They're not I'm not watching film from our friend James
Boyd who's covering practice in India of their actual seven
on seven or eleven on eleven or anything like that.
But when they go through the early quarterback drills and
work and throws, that's a pretty good tell of the
order that they're in. Could be just because he needs
more reps, but at this point in practice they take

(09:01):
the same number of reps. He goes first, Riley Leonard
goes second, Brett Rippon went third. That's usually what the
lineup is for Sunday.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Here's the thing, all this that we've talked about, we're
talking about four more games. Wex has already said the
Texans can lose twice and still make the playoffs. It's
on the record, it's out there now. He can't take
it back. No backseats.

Speaker 3 (09:22):
Okay, all these four games.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
I need, I know, I want, I need the Texans
to go to LA and beat the San Diego Chargers.

Speaker 4 (09:34):
Well, I'll mentioned one another thing for practice before we
get into San Diego Charger talk. The order of things,
as I mentioned, is sometimes what they look like on Sunday.
For quarterbacks for sure, especially if everybody's out there for
some other positions, they have to work a little bit
through who's available. And today, the four players that were
getting hand offs during the early portion of practice today

(09:55):
only four players because remember the entire practice squad practice
is like they're part of the team on practice days.
They had a grand total of four running backs taking
handoffs from CJ. Davis and Graham today. First in line
Dario Goombawalle, second in line practice squad running back Juwar Jordan,
third in line full back British Brooks, and fourth in

(10:17):
line going through his first practice ever as a Houston Texan,
Cody Schrader.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
That was it.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Woody Marx and Nick Chubb did not participate in practice,
at least during the portion we were out there for.
I'm sure they'll be listed as such as a non
participant today. Hopeful for both of them for Sunday, more
hopeful for Woody than Nick, but I'm not ruling either
one of them out today. Today's only Wednesday, but that's
what they're working with at that position. They also opened
the practice window for two additional players that were both

(10:45):
out there today. Harrison Bryant was working among the four
tight ends. Now they were down to two at times
this year, but his twenty one day practice window and
designated to return is opened. Luke lache, he Stover and
Dalton Schultzer out there. Technically there were five because Jakab
Johnson was re signed to the practice squad and he
gets a lot of his work over with the tight ends.

(11:06):
Justin Watson remember him from the first couple weeks of
the season. He's been on ir ever since. His practice
window was opened today also, so he was among the
ten healthy wide receivers they had practicing today when you
add in those on the practice squad, not including Jadel
who was also on the field today as per usual.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
Yeah, all right, So a lot to get to as
it pertains to this upcoming matchup against the Cards and
the remaining quarter if you will, of the Texans calendar,
but hardly the only thing we're going to get to today,
up to and including where you know, yesterday we asked
Chandler Rome where he thought from ber Valdez was going
to land. Well, that team that he mentioned, which we

(11:49):
will get into next segment, just got a lot better
today if you believe in the player that they signed
in free agency. So we'll get to that best of
Exus hour plenty from Demiko Ryan, some Rockets conversation, and
a whole lot more. Oh, by the way, we have
our Wednesday bs for our signature segment as we continue
here on a Wednesday edition of the program, what would

(12:10):
you do with one hundred and fifty five million dollars?
Wex what's the first decision you would make.

Speaker 4 (12:15):
I'd pocket five million and spend the rest on Kyle Schwarber.
But if I was running an American League team, I'd
spend it on the Polar Bear.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Well, he stays in the AL East.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
He moves from the NL East to the AL East,
and he goes, I'm one hundred and fifty five million
to do so. Pete Alonso, as the Mets extremely well
to do owner, watches his closer go to the Dodgers
for sixty nine million over three years.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
Now.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
He watches his first baseman, who signed a one year,
thirty million dollar deal with the Mets last offseason. He
now signs a five year, one hundred and fifty five
million dollars to play in the American League East as
the Baltimore Oil's new first basement.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
You know who may be affected by this, but probably
did not necessarily take into consideration he was going to
be playing with those two guys in his first year
in New York.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Juan Soto.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
I mean to me, Juan Soto basically went where there
was the most money. He could have stayed in New
York for a few million less and been on about
the taxes. I mean he chose New York over New York. Well,
which borrow has higher taxes. I mean you you can
continue your comments. You know, he basically went where the
most money was. We know that's what sports players do. Well.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
Pee Alonzo is like, I'm not living in this city
with a communist mayor. I'm out of here. That's what
he said.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
I will commit to this in the future, in the
coming days or wherever, whenever it takes place. I will
commit to a start to finish viewing of the entire
pe Alonzo I'm a Baltimore oriol press conference and see
if that is addressed.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
Oh Man, now want to ask a question, are they
doing zoom? I want to get the link. I hope
we're past that.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
Philip Rivers commented on that today on the on What
Well when he got to the podium, eventually he walked
up there, took a bit and he got up there
and before they asked walker questions, He's like, hey, guys,
go to see you.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
No zoom anymore? How about that?

Speaker 4 (14:17):
Yeah, because the last time he was in the league
was during the COVID season.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Now, who was the member of the Houston media at
the time, who was the most notorious about his lack
or overuse of the mute button. There's only one right answer, Uh,
Barry no, John no arc There you go.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
Remember Mark was always that easy of a question.

Speaker 1 (14:44):
Remember Mark would always be talking and everybody'd be like,
everybody's screaming at him to turn his microphone.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
Oh, we still do zooms.

Speaker 4 (14:52):
We zoom with the demico sometimes, like they played Sunday nights,
instead of having everybody over at the facility, we did.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
A zoom so you can get a little bit mo.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
Whatever the reason is it has happened probably five times
over the course of the season, is it's gonna fly
home That night.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
Yeah, that's to me, and I get it.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
They're they're pampered, highly compensated athletes. After a game like
that in those temperatures, I'd be like, hey, Hannah, why
don't we stay in cac for the night so we
can just get a good night's sleep.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
And they're getting good night's sleep all week. All right, guys,
we got what we came here for. We'll see you Wednesday.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
I do love that. It never fails to get me,
do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 (15:31):
Like a white game went down for getting out of there,
a late physical game in the cold, you want to
get on an airplane and fly. I know it's not
that much of a flight, but let's just say, for
the example. Excuse me, you're in my seat, Let's just say,
for example, they were flying from somewhere that's not in
the Central time zone.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
I wouldn't have wanted to get on an airplane that
late at night. I don't.

Speaker 4 (15:49):
They haven't had any late night games this year out
on the West coast in Seattle, have they?

Speaker 3 (15:55):
And they probably flew back from that one. We're gonna
get in at four as I'm sorry, this is all
we can do for you. Guys. Hannah and I have
talked about it.

Speaker 4 (16:01):
We've looked at our bank accounts, We've gotten our revenue
sharing from the league. We're spending one night in this city,
and it's going to be the night before the game.
That's that's the best weekend.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
All we got. We're not springing for another night.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
As someone who once took a charter jet after a
World Series game back home to Houston from Los Angeles,
I can tell you, man, that was tough.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
And I didn't even play tough.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
We got home at four am, and then you got
to drive home and then you have to sleep.

Speaker 4 (16:27):
I've been on some of those flights level because this
is what college football teams do too. It's just a
little bit different caliber, and there is a lot of traminations.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Hours in those schedules.

Speaker 4 (16:39):
Sometimes we leave the stadium, there's all this food waiting
for them when they leave the stadium. Then you bust
to the airport. There's more food waiting for them there,
and then you get on the plane and all the
lights go off and you sleep.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
And again it's a charter they're not exactly huge guys
sitting and coach. It's not like that. And it was
a happy flight, very happy flight. It's probably the happiest
flight light in Texans history. Maybe, I mean, think about
it the one in Cincinnati after they clinched their first
playoff that's probably a happy foint.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
Look what they came home to a little celebration outside
NRG Stadium in that instance.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Not quite fifty thousand in the astronome after a loss,
but close.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
About all their plane flights home after playoff wins.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
I'm trying to think if they got they've never gotten
one on the road, have they? They have not?

Speaker 3 (17:26):
They really have it. I've never thought about that.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
It's two Cincinnati's a terrible, terrible almost shouldn't count playoff
win at home over Connor Cook because it's Connor Cook, because.

Speaker 5 (17:37):
You were playing.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
You won a game with brock Osweilers quarterback when.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
He's playing opposite of Connor Cook. They've really never gotten
a road playoff win. Wow, that could happen this year
especially that's see now I really want to England get there.

Speaker 4 (17:55):
So in this instance, their arrival in the playoffs, based
on the current standings, be as a wildcard team, as
a road playing wildcard team, they've obviously played in the
wildcard round, did you previously?

Speaker 1 (18:07):
But as a home team. We'll get back to Pete
Alanso on a second. But did you like me? And
I don't know. We were playing some of the clips
yesterday from that podcast with a key to Leab and TJ. Morris. Well, I,
as far as I'm concerned, he doesn't even exist anymore.
Hear from him. He's just part of it, right, do you?
Did you watch a lot of that?

Speaker 4 (18:29):
I watched a little bit more than what was floating around,
because once I usually see something floating around, I'll try
to go to it and get a little more of it,
Like the Philip Rivers clips that were being sent out. Yeah,
I went back and watched a lot more of what
he had to do say so in that and cleaned
up the audio.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
That very same podcast we're talking about, if you allowed
yourself or I guess in this case, if you put
yourself through the rigors of listening to that drivel that
was coming out of both those guys.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
I really want to see the Denver Broncos in the
post season, now.

Speaker 1 (19:00):
I.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Know, but but and I do.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
In fact, if there was a way to see both
of them and get to the super Bowl, for example,
which is I think plausible. I'm not sure right now
as we see both. Of course, they're the highest two
seeds right now.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
So yeah, beat Jacksonville and Jacksonville in the opening game.

Speaker 2 (19:20):
Hmm.

Speaker 4 (19:21):
Then as you knock the three seed out, there is
the possibility you're playing Tour one the following week. They
couldn't be playing one somebody crappier. Well, that that could be.
Assume two very flawed teams. Every team is flawed, are
waiting on you at each successive round. But after I'll
look for some Pete Prisco sound tomorrow, so you can say,

(19:42):
after listening to that moron talk about the Jaguars, I
want to play the Jaguars.

Speaker 1 (19:46):
Well, Pete Prisco is an absolute moron, so he could
say anything about anything and I would be like whatever that.
I'll try to get somebody new each day. Yeah, but
Pete Prisco is consistently stupid. It's not even like this
is a science that I'm talking about right now. This
is not analysis or even my opinion. He's an idiot.

Speaker 3 (20:04):
H This is known. It's kind of like Mike Florio
is a jerk. It's just known. I could keep going.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
He's got four hours, I know, so I say all
that they were really borderline disrespectful to the Texans. It
wasn't just about oh I think Denver's a better defense.
That's fine, that's subjective. That's something that probably will be
argued until the cows come home, or until the early
stages of January, more likely when one of these two
teams advances farther than the other. But it was just

(20:36):
the other things they were saying, and especially at keep
to Leeve, where I was just like, Okay, now I
want to play them and I want to embarrass them.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
Odds are pretty high that they've seen the Texans play
a couple times in primetime standalone games, maybe certainly the
one that played Sunday Night and when the Broncos played
the Texans. And remember when the Broncos played the Texans,
the Texans played through ten attempts of CJ. Stroud, with
all of the remaining attempts going to Davis Mills after
c J. Strouds kind of a big deal, right, So

(21:05):
if they want to talk about how poorly the offense played,
they did not play well that day.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
If you want to say him out, you didn't really
knock it. It's not like c J. Stroud's concussion was
caused by a hit. It was caused as he was
sliding himself by a hit.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
They knocked him out. I don't I don't know, Hill,
he plays, you got hit and he was out of
the game. You're the way you were saying that.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
If nobody saw the play, you would you would say
it was the same thing as his I's al Shi
or on on Sunshine last season, And it wasn't no hit.
He stays in the game. There was a hit.

Speaker 3 (21:37):
He knocked out.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
Game wasn't driven into the turf like that. His head
less hitting the turf was a byproduct of a guy
coming in late.

Speaker 3 (21:45):
Great. There, they hit him, they knocked him out. They
I mean, it can't be more literal. No flags.

Speaker 4 (21:50):
They therefore they don't get credit in no flags, they
get no credit. Guys get knocked out of a game
all the time on clean plays. No, I mean credit
Rashi Rice for staying.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
In the game. It's barely freaking ragged off.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Thank goodness he did. Here's the throw and there's the
not catch. Here's the throw and he's dead. That's what
I thought.

Speaker 4 (22:07):
A lot of things to get to a lot of
things on our mind barely scratched the surface on one topic.
We introduced it and then really never analyzed it. Peter
Alonzo is a Baltimore oriole. The Astros added player today.
The Astros added a player today. They got a full Yeah,
that's moot. He's gonna be wearing a uniform Dyke and
park all year.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
Nough youmus heard me. I said woot oh, I like that.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
Woo.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Point is moot. That's series's favorite word when she's not
really excited about something.

Speaker 3 (22:32):
Oh WoT oh. Well, I have to sprinkle that into
the show today.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
But in two thirty each and every weekday afternoon, we
hit you with the best of X.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
A conversation that is being had. It was had on
this show yesterday and now on a little bit more
of the national landscape, the exact same conversation was had,
and one side is very firm on his position and
the other side is equally firm on how stupid that
position is.

Speaker 3 (22:55):
And it's all on the X platform.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
That's next.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
The age on Sports Talk seven ninety did.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
You all see this?

Speaker 2 (23:03):
You should be putting out between five and fifte posts
a day.

Speaker 4 (23:07):
Four hundred people were arrested for things that they said
on social media.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
History repeats itself type banguls succeed.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Never doubt that you're the one who puts no one building.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
You're the best of ex.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Nothing's gonna ever top you know you're the best of it,
posting ever seen day.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
You know you're the best of X, breaking the entire enginet.

Speaker 6 (23:40):
You know.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
I'm torn right now because Philip Rivers is a cult,
and I know it's not the first time he's a cult,
and I even know that the last time he was
a cult, presumably he could have done more damage.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
It took me a while, what I swear. I was like,
why is he saying this? Because he has ten kids,
because he has a big following. Is he saying he's
a cult? What kind of cult does he think he is? Oh,
he's a cult. Yeah, an Indianapolis cult. That is not
what I thought you said?

Speaker 3 (24:07):
Three times?

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Would you? I don't want what did you think I
was getting at?

Speaker 3 (24:10):
I was waiting for the payoff on what kind of
cult he was leading.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
He's a cult, he's leading other cults, I guess at quarterback.
So we mentioned that, and I'm assuming you were alluding
to the fact that he needed a walker to get
up to the podium, that's what you mean.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
Yeah, one of the reporters, Kevin Bowen, that covers the Colts.
You just happen to have the video his approach to
the podium, and you know, obviously a forty four year
old grandfather was going to take the opportunity. By the way,
I'm not a grandfather, but I'm almost ten years older
than him, so it's funny for me to make fun
of that. And he's in the NFL. You should have

(24:46):
started earlier like he did, and I'm not. If I
would have started, I would have started earlier. Then I
would have been starting with somebody else.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
Oh, is this the one?

Speaker 4 (25:02):
Well, his first child was with his current wife, but
it happened while they were still in college. I believe
in between sophomore and junior year, maybe between junior and so.

Speaker 1 (25:12):
You're telling me people have sexual relations in college.

Speaker 4 (25:16):
No way, Well they were. I think they were beyond that.
I think they were married. And nope, this is who
it is.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Oh man, I haven't even graduated yet.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
We're having some sex.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
Well, you see people in college that don't go to
BYU going into the stands and hugging their kids after
games occasionally and their wives. Obviously Jacob Rodriguez, who could
win the Lombardi Award right here in Houston married.

Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's funny. How old were you and Samantha
was born? She was born in six? Right, No, five? Ah,
you're good at this.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
Well, it's because Brooklyn is six and she's a year
older than her.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
Okay, so five plus I was I knew you by then,
and it was after my birth. Dad occurred in five
because she's born in the summer, so I would have
been thirty two.

Speaker 3 (26:02):
Good job.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
I was thirty seven when I had my first kiddo.
All right, I believe Back to Philip Rivers.

Speaker 4 (26:08):
So yes, he got to the podium today, and everyone's
going to be curious about a number of things. We
know he's high school football coach. I didn't mention this yesterday.
I talked about him coaching his son. His son is
guess what he's he's pretty good at football. He's a
one of the top recruits that he talked to twenty
seven class gunner and that's the son who's on the

(26:29):
team currently. So he's around football. We know about the
stich In relationship, and he mentioned that today. He's a
huge fan of his really excited to do this. Why
did you? Why did this happen? And you know, why
would you do this kind of a perfect storm of things.
It would only have been for this team. You know,
I like the organization when I was here. I love
the coach that I'm now going to be playing for,
and you know, he obviously has a lot of information
about the current He said there were fourteen players there

(26:53):
when he was there that are still there, and obviously
the same family owns the team. But much like a
transition took place here in Houston with the mcnairs, a different,
larger group of Ursayes run the football team now.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
But he talked about all those good things.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
He was also asked about the physical nature of it,
specifically this shape that he's in. You know, what's your
listed weight and all the assorted things that go with it.
So that was literally the question that he answers here
about his weight right this second.

Speaker 7 (27:23):
I'm not sure Gray, how about that? That's an honest answer,
and I will answer your question a little better on
the planeway, Greg, not what it was when I walked
up the film in Buffalo, all right, I can tell
you that, But then I'll follow that up when I
ain't never ran away from anybody anyway. So so I'm

(27:46):
they you know, people say, well, they're gonna know, you're
gonna be right there, and it's like, well, they do
that for sixteen seventeen years.

Speaker 4 (27:51):
So why does this land on Best of X? I'll
remind you from the very beginning. We'll go back to
the beginning, and I'll tell you why it lands on
Best of X. And he addressed, is this playing weight
again to the media in the media workroom in Indianapolis.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Right this second?

Speaker 7 (28:07):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Ray O my god, Oh Philip, Oh my god, that
is so funny.

Speaker 4 (28:19):
Please please, we got you. Gotta stay up here. Man,
this is awesome. We're having the best time today. I'll
take a whiskey sour when you get a chance. Man,
this is so funny. This is the greatest man. I
love Philip Rivers. Hey man, Sarah, you love Philip Philip Kevin?
What about you, James?

Speaker 3 (28:34):
Oh my god? Is this great?

Speaker 1 (28:36):
Or what?

Speaker 3 (28:36):
This is awesome?

Speaker 1 (28:38):
This is how a lot of his press conferences went
before he retired the first time.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Like, I will even admit this to you.

Speaker 4 (28:45):
I cleaned it up a little bit because most of
the audio that's making its way around social media is
from one of the TV stations or the reporters on
site that are recording off their phone, or in the
TV station situation, they're recording on both channels. So you
hear just crazy loud audience at the comedy club laughter,
And that's the audio this posted on social media.

Speaker 3 (29:07):
So the comments are elite.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
They got Nickelodeon laugh track going, crying emoji, crying laughing emoji.
Why does it sound like a stand up set in there?
Another crying emoji?

Speaker 3 (29:19):
After that.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
The other night, Teresa was like, you know, we haven't
watched in a while and I want to watch it tonight.
And I was like what, because we never watched TV
together anymore, because she watches her trash TV and I
watched sports. And she goes Good Fellas, which brings me
to the gift everyone in the room, and it's Rayleiota
at the scene with Joe Pesci funny, how like I'm

(29:41):
a clown When I muse you, I make you laugh?
How the am I so funny? So Raliota gift is
in there, let's see. Oh expected to hear the Seinfeld
music halfway through at the beginning of a Seinfeld episode.

Speaker 3 (29:53):
Where's in front of the red curtain.

Speaker 1 (29:56):
Let's see here, Oh about to throw for ten yards
at five picks.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
That's not nice. I wonder when somebody would get to that.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
I was texting with somebody right before the show about
Philip Rivers. It began with, I can't believe Philip Rivers
is going to play. I responded with, I don't think
it's gonna go well. Highly Dowdy can push the ball
down the field and he obviously can't move. It was
responded with, the game will be like one hundred miles
an hour. If he is alive by week eighteen, he
will get decapitated by the Texans defense.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
That's the thing. I have always liked Philip Rivers personally.
I think he's a good dude by all account. I've
never encountered somebody in this business that knew him even
more than just a little that didn't have something great
to say.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Just a great guy.

Speaker 4 (30:42):
So four or three weeks from today, hopefully maybe Monday.
Three weeks for Monday, when they're in advance of the
Colts game, I'll do my best to be there in
attendance for the pressers so I can try to get
more laughing stuff going on. I will ask Demiko, Demiko,
have you told your guy, like when you're going up
against Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson and Pat Mahomes, now

(31:04):
that they're going up against Philip Rivers, someone you have
experience against, that they really need to stay with russ
integrity and make sure he can't hit the A and
B gap and scramble for yards.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Will you?

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Will you express that to your team? There's no way
because he has Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:18):
I don't like the prospects of what you're talking about
in week in week nineteen.

Speaker 4 (31:23):
In Week eighteen, game seventeen, I suspect that the Texans
Colts game will not be a matchup between C. J.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Strout and Philip Rivers.

Speaker 3 (31:34):
I agree with you.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
By the way, we are not far away from saying
week nineteen and it being accurate.

Speaker 4 (31:39):
Yeah, when they go well, I think we might actually
say week twenty because there's gonna be two buys. I
think if they go to an eighteen game schedule, they
will institute a second.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
It feels like there's nineteen weeks now.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Man stop playing football for years and looks better than
Ben Roethlisberger did at any point now that is true. Fact,
there's people trying that. People ask this question because it
does matter. They want to know what kind of Shapey's
any hasn't played the NFL football in five years. I'm
sure he's throwing the football practice all the time. I'm
sure his arm is probably remarkably good. Funny you mentioned that,
I wonder how he got prepared to head to Indy.

(32:09):
Probably got the news, made a couple throws of his
kids in the backyard, and then too the private plane.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
Absolutely, but looking at him, and I don't mean on
the practice field, which I did see a little bit
of their practice video, but looking at him just at
the podium, like he's noticeably larger. It's been five years,
he's in his forties. Things change, so I would be
amazed if he's able to do things super positively.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
He's forty four.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
I'm forty four, and neither one of us have any
business being quarterback for the Colts. I can't wait to
see it.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
This has up first filmed in front of a live
studio audience.

Speaker 4 (32:42):
I mean it's sometimes you get the awkward media laughter,
sometimes you get unnecessary media.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
Why are they dying like that?

Speaker 4 (32:50):
This was legitimately I'm gonna have to stop what I'm
doing because my side's hurt so much.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Everybody in that room pregnant. Now, thanks Philip. That's actually
a twofold right there. Either throwing for one hundred and
twenty yards and in interceptions or four hundred and fifty
yards and four touchdowns and nothing in between. How about that?

Speaker 3 (33:11):
How about that?

Speaker 5 (33:11):
How about that?

Speaker 4 (33:13):
We'll get to a few other things over the course
of the show, some quarterback on quarterback via the social
media violence, and back to baseball because the hot stove
is actually hot. The last couple of days, in light
of the fact that Winter Meetings have taken place, let
you know what the Astros did do, and if Pete's
big money from Baltimore impacts fromber Valdez.

Speaker 1 (33:35):
That's next.

Speaker 5 (33:41):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (33:47):
Eight team rolling along here on a Wednesday edition of
the program. So when fromber Valdez, Because yesterday we had
channeler Roman from the Winter Meetings, and I point blank
asked him on the I said, where do you think
who's the leader in the clubhouse? What's your gut tell
you as to where Valdez leaves the Astros and signs

(34:08):
with who what team, and he mentioned the Orioles, which Orioles,
and to a I think to a larger extent, the
Blue Jays were mentioned the most, and then the blue
Jays landed Dylan Ce so that kind of went away.
It's not to say that they couldn't maybe come get
fromber too and just try and make that rotation really nice.
But something tells me after giving will they give Dylan

(34:30):
Sees seven years one hundred and how many was something
or other.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
Two hundred and ten was the figure the agents gave us,
But with the deferrals in there, it's a little hard
to pinpoint.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
That's not money well spent.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
I mean, I'm glad that they almost knocked off the Dodgers,
the big bad Dodgers, but that's that's a lot for
Dylan Sees, especially a guy that's only going to get
to the first two times of the order. But anyway,
if fromer Valdez winds up going there, well he's going
to join Pete Alonzo one.

Speaker 4 (35:01):
Hundred and fifty five million to go be the first
baseman for the Orioles and make the Mets weaker in
the process. The Orioles are in a division with a
lot of competitive baseball set to be played pretty much
every year, and this year's obviously going to be no different.
The Yankees and Red Sox always pretend to be contenders,
and the Baltimore Orioles flirted with being a contender before

(35:23):
they finished in the last place last year, two games
back of the Rays, who don't spend a lot of
money but always are a tough team, and then the
Red Sox, Yankees, and the American League champions the Toronto
Blue Jays. This is what Baltimore is trying to do.
They were two games back of the Rays, fourteen games
back of the Red Sox, nineteen games back respectively of
both the Blue Jays and Yankees. Yankees might lose some

(35:47):
offense if Bellinger plays elsewhere, and if Grisham plays like
Trent Grisham PRIX twenty twenty four, who they've now avender
contract for twenty two million, so both of those things
probably happen. Pitching looks pretty good if healthy, and the
Blue Jays are just saying we're just gonna keep getting
better and we're gonna spend in order to make sure
we do so.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Med Socks don't have Bregman yet either, do.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
You think he goes back there. I think everybody's just
assuming he will. I I'm not convinced it's.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
A done deal.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
Well, if the Astros move forward with an Esoch Perettis
deal and send him to the Red Sox for one
of their really talented young starting pitchers, then maybe they
can help.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
Push him to Detroit.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
That'd be awesome. I don't think that's going to happen personally.

Speaker 4 (36:31):
I think the Astros know that they're better with Perettis
than whatever they could get for him, Unless they are
so in love with either the Red Sox pair one
of them totally or early that they could get that
they forecast that picture as a front of the rotation,
right behind Hunter Brown caliber talent, I would be that'd
be hard to pass up.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Well, before we get to the Astros and really more
of the I want to get a little bit of
MLB labor talking here is attracted as that sounds, I
actually think you guys want to hear this.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
What the what are the Orioles doing.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
The Orioles are run by basically all or most of
Jeff Luno's top lieutenants when he was putting together the
Championship Corps of the Astros dynasty this last decade.

Speaker 4 (37:18):
But during the time they've been there, they have been
sold to somebody who is not Peter Angelos, right, and
somebody who is inclined to spend money.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Well, spending money's fine, but it's the type of money
you spend and who you spend it on.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
You know they said no to Anthony Santander last offseason. Yeah, well,
correctly that is true, and that has looked like a
stroke of genius. But I'll tell you this, Like.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Pete Alonzo at what he'll be thirty three when the
season starts, I think he's thirty two. Now, I'm not
sure you're bad on you, so I won't ask you.
I won't forcefully ask you.

Speaker 4 (37:53):
I'll just say he's thirty two without even looking it
up or confirming or denying it.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
Yeah, when the season starts or during the season, he
will probably turn to it. So thirty three is not
like it isn't say the NBA or you can still
have some gas in the tank as an MLB player.

Speaker 4 (38:09):
He'll turn thirty two at the end of next season
after this way off play this year at age thirty one. Okay,
I guess, But what are you worried about with. I mean,
you could, we could look at what we have here
in Houston, and this would be a very bad thing
to say. Well, look at what happened with Christian Walker.
Christian Walker plays first base. He's obviously not the best

(38:30):
athlete on the team. You're not asking him to do
all those other things. But hopefully his bat continues like
it has, and it clearly did not. Now Petez at
another level offensively, While Christian Walker's gonna hit you twenty
eight or thirty homers, Alonso's gonna hit you forty. He's
gonna drive in one hundred and twenty runs. That's why
I think there's a difference because of who they actually are,

(38:51):
not that I'm comparing two older, white plotting first basemen.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Well, they're all white in Baltimore, by the way, they are,
all of their key hitters.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
The sport itself lends itself to that.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
Yeah, but specifically, like, well, Cedric Mohans got moved, okay,
Jackson Holiday is very white. Oh he's red, really, that's true.
The cheeks are bright. Peachek's red. But no, I'm not
super concerned. If I'm the the I guess the Orioles
from some drop off. He stands with the batter's box
and defenses. No, I mean, I guess I'm probably presenting
this not the way I should be. I feel like

(39:28):
Pete Alonzo for big money, and he's gonna be big
money regardless of when you get in because of who
he is. I think you, I feel like you add
that as a missing piece to a team that's right
there on the brink. The Orioles have been regressing, no
shortage of regression the last three seasons. Now, if you
really want to go back, well, regressing two seasons from

(39:48):
what they were three.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
Seasons ago, I guess would be better way to say it.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
Yep, first place, one hundred and one win team, and
they're down to seventy five this year with back to
back drop offs. Though they did make the playoffs still
in twenty four, so this is their first miss in
three Yeah, but that playoff run was like five seconds.
It was as short as the Astros. It was as
short as it can possibly be in Major League Baseball
met you could play minimum of two playoff games if
you lose both of them.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
They did and the Astros found that out the same season.
So just interesting, and I will I promise I will
get to that juicy tidbit on MLB Labor. It's got
good news and bad news. I'll put it that way
three o'clock hour and the simulcast coming up next right
up three o'clock here on Sports Talk seven ninety and

(40:30):
Space City Hall Network.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
It is the A Team. It is a Wednesday edition
of the program.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
It is a lot of football conversation, but we also
got some baseball sprinkled in as the weed at winter
meetings continue. We talked to Channel Room yesterday yesterday of
the Athletic. If you missed any or all of that
conversation at five o'clock, you can check it out on
the Pack podcast, and you know to do so. I
would highly suggest that you download the free iHeartRadio app

(40:58):
where we sound crystal clear and we look even better
because it's all audio. But yeah, he had some interesting
things to say about both the Astros and Major League
Baseball at large. Talked a little bit last segment about
the fact that Pete Alonso is going to be manning
things at first base in Baltimore now for the Orioles
after signing there on a five year deal. Could fromber

(41:19):
Valdez join him. That was yesterday at least Chandler Rome's
gut feeling as to where fromber lands by the way,
maybe this affects that. Maybe because you spend all that
money on Pee Alonso, you don't go get a fromber now,
and that kind of starts moving him down the pecking
order of places. You thought he was gonna land, You
thought he might be going to Toronto, but now Dylan

(41:41):
Ceese is taking up all of his money, his money,
and Pete Alonzo may or may not have taken some
of the money that Baltimore would have thrown at fromber
From a pitching standpoint, it's.

Speaker 4 (41:49):
Pretty interesting because they definitely need starting pitching moved on
from Grayson Rodriguez had all sorts of pitching injuries last season,
and I think they certainly would be easily able to
recognize what Romber Valdez can do for them in the East,
with what he's done to the American League the last
handful of years. So I would think they should be
interested even with this money being spent. I don't know

(42:11):
that they were, you know, kind of going through meetings
saying well, we have we have one hundred and fifty
five million to spend however we'd like to all.

Speaker 3 (42:18):
Right, we're done. All right, that's it, let's go.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
I think they probably spending that sometimes it means okay, well,
when now we can't go do this, And they do
have to concern themselves with their young roster and how
many of them they want to be there for super
long term. They've done a nice job and getting some
of those guys under contract, very team friendly, you know,
pre arbitration year type of players. But they're still counting

(42:41):
on some pretty young players to do pretty great things.
Gunnar Henderson, Jackson, Holiday Rutchman's only twenty seven and has
not played well for now more than a year. Clearly
they're hoping that this kind of stabilizes things. He's been
as there's been some outstanding Aaron Judge does every year.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Won Soto does it every year.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
You know, they're a handful of players and people probably
forget that Peelonzo does it every year. Not only does
he hit and produce the same way he plays one
hundred and fifty games. He's played one hundred and sixty
two games each of the last two years, but at
least one hundred and fifty.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
He's the first five year.

Speaker 4 (43:17):
He has answered the bell absolutely the case, so I
don't think it shuts the door on Baltimore. But like
we discussed the other day, the Sea Steal is a
good deal for Fromber and his agency if the market's
set up here and I can make the argument that
I'm better than him.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Which he is, He's better than Dylan See's.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
I would hope that you some team out there sees
that and seven years I'd be shocked with For Fromber,
I would have been shocked with or without the Sea Steal.
But a five year deal, a four year deal at
a bare minimum for the talent that he is, at
the age that he is, and the expectation that he
pitches through that entire contract, at the level he finished
his Astros contract with, I'd feel pretty comfortable with that

(43:55):
if I were the Giants or somebody else in search
of pitching that has money to spend in there teams
out there that still do clearly.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Okay, your nickname on the show is what.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
Sunshine No great to be here, guy, No loves talking
sports guy.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
I'll let you know when you're getting warmer.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Thanks. Some people call me a wet blanket, all right,
I'm in a wet blanket all of the bright and
shiny conversation about Major League Baseball, whether it's Astros related
or otherwise. And here's why I was having a conversation.
And I have long been a believer that this was
going to be the case that twenty twenty seven, essentially

(44:38):
the season that would come after the CBA expires, is
it's a foregone conclusion.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
We're not gonna have it. And here's why CBA expires
after the twenty sixth season.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
The labor strife that we are about to see in
Major League Baseball. And again, this is more than a
year away, so I know I'm probably getting ahead of things, buttionally,
even the NBA and even football, I feel like MLB
consistently has the worst labor negotiations for the fans. I

(45:10):
mean they're the only ones that, uh, well, you haven't
lost an entire season, I guess, but you got pretty close.
Ninety four was bad. And not only was it bad,
I mean that from the standpoint of it took you
a roid infused home run record chase between two guys
that were definitely using to get fan interest back into
the game to where it was prior to that. Labor

(45:33):
stoppage four years before that. Four years is a long time.
I mean, ask anybody that anyways. But like it's just
that's a long time to be still kind of spiraling
from the standpoint that they were. Now you're talking about
a situation where I really do think you're gonna lose
all or most of the twenty seventh season.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
And here's why I think this. I think.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
The salary cap in Major League ball that you probably.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
I think you want it. I know I do.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
I mean, don't you think baseball would be better with
a salary cap and floor? Well, yes, that true. That's
a good point. You got to bring in. You have
to spend some money, but a.

Speaker 4 (46:14):
Salary grandfathering in of this salary cap is going to
be something.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
Salary cap is the only thing that's going to keep
you from And again the Dodgers are all they're doing
is pouring gasoline on this, accelerating this whole thing happening.
You just got Edwin Diaz. You probably will go sign
Kyle Tucker just to sum your nose at everybody else
even one more time this offseason. Think about that, that's
a reality. You know, why not only did they kick

(46:41):
the can on what they owe Shoho Tani I was
talking to somebody about all this. They have more than
made up whatever. Because you know, there's the what is
it called the competitive CBT, the competitive balance.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
Tax, competitive balance tax.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
We're basically the teams that are the haves as a post,
the have nots in Major League Baseball have to break
off a chunk of money to basically hand out to
the other lesser sisters of the poor, you know, the
non Dodger and Mets teams in Major League Baseball. The
poor little Yankees can't spend money anymore. At this point.
That's a whole conversation in of itself. Here's the deal.

(47:18):
You want the Dodgers to keep just stacking and buying
championships like this, because that's what they're going to do
until somebody steps in and says enough, this is ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
There's no end in sight.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
And as much as the players do not want something
like this, the owners are absolutely going to demand it
and are absolutely willing to lock out. By the way,
they also hate each other. The players and owners hate
each other. The owners hate each other too. The have
nots really hate the haves.

Speaker 4 (47:48):
And even that fractured group has constantly won the battle
of which of the two sides is not a firm unit, right,
because they always and that's.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Because it's billionaires fighting with millionaire.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
Well, it's it's just I think it's been easier for
them to fracture the union because they all are maybe
for just the reason you said, I think we talked
not enough about what went on in the last round
of negotiations with basically a mole for the owners and
someone with the agent working alongside the players and with
the group of union leaders that they're trying to put

(48:21):
together a you know, their they're unionized thoughts, they're together thought,
this is what we're fighting for, and he's telling Rob
Manford in their side, well, here's what they're doing, and
here's what I mean. It's just it boggles the mind
that this is not a bigger deal and the people
involved are trying to convince us it's it's normal.

Speaker 1 (48:40):
It's not normal.

Speaker 4 (48:41):
It's completely ridiculous that anything like that would have ever
taken place. And it obviously, if you didn't have it
already gave you an upper hand.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
All right, the owners. Here's something that here's a scenario
that was run by me that I really really because
it's it's it's the owner's way of making this happen.
The halves in other words, the Dodgers and the Mets
of the world. But the Dodgers is all really people
care about because they're the ones actually winning with all
this money they're spending. The Mets are spending a bunch

(49:11):
of money and it's not getting them anywhere.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
So whatever, when you start like, how do you stop?

Speaker 1 (49:18):
How do you basically dissuade that kind of spending and
just flaunting your TV contract money and everything else. By
the way, they gladly handed over that competitive balanced tax check,
like go ahead, take it.

Speaker 4 (49:31):
We're the Dodgers the tax system, or to a certain extent,
in the NBA, if you look at the way, you know,
the Golden State Warriors piled up championships over and over
and over again, and they just kept re signing their
players to bigger and bigger deals, and finally when they
got to the decision making when they knew they weren't
quite as good. If we signed Klay Thompson to a
seventeen million dollar a year deal, it's actually costing US

(49:52):
fifty million dollars or something thereabouts. Because they were a
constant eight figure to nine figure tax payer during the
years they were winning. So repeater tax this is how
you still operate.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
You're you're allowed to spend.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
More than everybody else, basically if you so choose, but
you're going to put you from them.

Speaker 3 (50:15):
We're just gonna hit you harder with it.

Speaker 4 (50:17):
And your additional spending, well, it's going to make your
team better, it's going to end up in the pockets
of the other owners via the payoffs.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
And that's not even there in Major League Baseball right now.

Speaker 4 (50:27):
Right so it can work, and you can't still have
teams like the Mets because of their owner, the Yankees,
Dodgers because of their TV money, and some other teams
because of their owner.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
They can just decide that's great. Here, here's our cap.

Speaker 4 (50:39):
Here's how the the loopholes that are within. Because the end, no,
no league has more loopholes than the NBA and in
actual real money, and then no league has more loopholes,
and how to skirt the salary cap, which is a
hard cap in the NFL than the NFL. I mean,
if Major League Baseball gets a whold avoid years, then
we might as well just stop. Yes, deferred money very similar.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
How many people right now are looking at Edwin Diaz
signing with the Dodgers, And if it didn't happen over
that transaction, then let's just say, for the sake of argument,
what a horrible cruel world we would live in if
this did happen. They do, go sign Kyle Tucker? Why
are you playing the games? Why are you having a season? Seriously?

Speaker 3 (51:20):
They played all of the games just to barely win.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
Okay, and now we're adding the best closer in baseball
and the best right fielder in baseball, give or take
regular season, not playoffs.

Speaker 4 (51:31):
But still is show Hey, pitching is class now going
to get hurt? Is bets going to continue sliding down?

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Well, they've offset that by bringing in Kyle Tucker and
Edwin Diaz close out games. What if you start taking
draft picks away from some of these teams. That was
another thing that was presented to me as something that
could very well come up. What I'm saying is we're
not having a twenty twenty seven MLB season. I can
guarantee you that right now. I feel very strongly about it. Demikos,

(52:00):
what is he saying about this upcoming huge matchup with
the Cardinals. Plus, where does the Rocket's front office rank.
I'll give you a hint. It's in the top five.
That's next.

Speaker 5 (52:12):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety on.

Speaker 4 (52:15):
A Wednesday edition of the eighteen, wex and AC here
with you. We'll welcome your phone calls in throughout the afternoon.
Should you want to discuss things with us, always find
us on social media at Adam J. Wexler, at Adam
Clanton and via the phones. A seven one three two
one two five seven ninety week of practice begins on
the NFL side, one more day until the Rockets are

(52:37):
back on the court until several more days off. They
got the LA Clippers in town tomorrow evening the Western
Conference side of the quarterfinal action in the NBA Cup.
We'll take the NBA stage tonight. And we were just
talking about the Astros and their fellow twenty nine teams
and the thirty teams worth of players who will be
up against one another in labor negotiations between now and

(52:58):
the expiration of the current which runs through just this
upcoming season, expectation for quite some time, probably more than
a year. For most people involved with this, they felt
like this was on the horizon. This was likely to
be the case. There wasn't likely to be very positive
news on this front until we get much, much, much,
much closer to the deadline, and even then saying positive

(53:20):
news would be there is one thing. There will be
acrimony almost certainly between the two sides, and I would
agree as most are saying, I think we will see
less than one hundred and sixty two Major League Baseball
games played during the whatever twenty twenty seven season turns
out to be, whether they start late or they are
interrupted at points throughout the season, most likely it will

(53:42):
be a late start at best. And how that impacts
spring training, how that impacts injuries. If you recall the
last time they locked the players out, it was during
you know when you're rehabbing with the team, Well, you're
now no longer rehabing with the team. Maybe you have
a plan, you have a sheet of instructions on what
you can do, but contact between you and those that
you should and more most likely would be working most

(54:04):
closely with, well those are cut off. Those don't happen anymore,
and setbacks can then ensue. Everything could go fine. Also,
it's not a guarantee that things don't work out for
an injured player, but it's certainly not the best case scenario.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
So I guess we're just trying to say, enjoy the
twenty twenty.

Speaker 4 (54:18):
Sixth season here on Sports Talk seven to ninety and
Space City Home Network. You know, free agency will go
as it normally would, except for this added part of it.
I think players actually it was a tough call for
some of the players with the qualifying offers, because while
you didn't want to pass up on twenty two million,
you might have wanted to look at it a different way. Well,

(54:40):
do I want to guarantee myself twenty two million for
next year and then go into what will likely be
no baseball without a contract? Or should I say no
and see if I can get two or three years
at twelve million a year and there and now I've
guaranteed myself twenty four million or twenty eight million or
thirty six million or something like that. But everybody else
that just simply hit free agency. I think they and

(55:01):
their agents are strongly considering that. Will we see teams
actually give out a second and third year to players
but for less money in any given season, rather than
taking seventeen million for a year. Would you take thirty
for two? You know something along those lines. I think
we might actually see more of this season, specifically because

(55:22):
of the uncertainty of well, I don't want to be
making even though I'm well to do, I don't want
to be making nothing from the expiration of this and
the lockout beginning and no games in March, April, May, June, July, August, September.
I'm gonna come back for a ten game season and
then have a World Series. I do a ten game season, Poilo,

(55:44):
it just means more. Well, you know, this baseball season
isn't a marathon, it's a sprint. Finally, a season I
can get with. How do you think your rotation's gonna
pan out? Well, they've spaced the games out enough. We
really only need three starters.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (55:59):
I do wonder if that's going to affect some of
the money that's given out. And I do know that
guys that are getting these deals like a Pete Alonso
today are probably no not probably literally laughing all the
way to the bank. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (56:12):
Two big deals are three big deals, Schwarber, cease and Alonzo.
You had Matt's signing a deal for two years over
the last couple of days. I thought that was kind
of one of the deals I'm talking about, maybe got
a little bit less average, but got a little bit
more just in the full guarantee because it was a
two year deal rather than say a one year deal
for nine or ten million something like that got seven

(56:33):
and a half. I think we'll actually see some of that.
I don't know how that impacts Houston because of where
they are personally. Financially, you can spend whatever you want.
It's up to you how very much money you want
to spend. There's no limit to it. You just have
to absorb the ramifications and if you are financially in
position to do so, just keep on spending. Other teams
can if you feel that you can go ahead. They

(56:54):
obviously have a pretty self imposed spending limit and CBT related.
That's part of the res and they'd like to get
away from some of these contracts that obviously got away
from two contracts this past off season or this current
off season with the Jose abra You deal and the
Rafael Montero deal, which they were able to actually alleviate
a little bit more of during the season when they

(57:15):
moved him and his contract was absorbed by another team.
But those are just a couple of things. Obviously Fromber's
money is off, But Christian Javier has a big raise coming,
Jordan Alvarez has a big raise coming. You're still paying
big money to Jose al Tuve and Josh Hater. You
take on a chunk but not the full salary of
Carlos Korea again this year, and then everybody else, And

(57:37):
they were a pretty long list of arbitration eligible players
that are all going to get raises of some variety,
and some will be larger than others. Isaac Perettis is
going to be making eight figures the bare minimum.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
As he should. By the way, you mentioned Christian Javier.
I was having this long ranging conversation about all things
major League Baseball earlier today, and when we're talking about
some of the things that we mentioned in the last
segment about the labor strife upcoming, and the subject of
the astros rotation came up because of the impending departure

(58:10):
of Fromber and the fact you've got Hunter Brown and
this person, and to a large extent, you even when
his name has been mentioned, just I don't think, look
at Christian Javier the same way, and maybe I'm maybe
I'm living in the past. I just think that having
him under club control and having a full spring training,

(58:36):
all that kind of stuff under his belt, I do somewhat,
maybe it's wishful thinking, look forward to him returning to
form to where maybe he's not your second ace, but
he's absolutely a stronger than average third guy in your rotation,
provided you go out and get somebody else this offseason
to kind of slot in behind Hunter Brown as your

(58:56):
new definite ace. I look forward to Christian Haavey having
a full twenty twenty six that's a typical Christian Walker
or Christian Walker Christian Hobvier season.

Speaker 4 (59:07):
He's gonna make twice as much money as he made
last year. He's about a ten million dollar player last year.
He's gonna be about a twenty one million dollar player
this year.

Speaker 3 (59:14):
Let me rephrase that he'd better have a Christian hobby
Aer type season.

Speaker 4 (59:18):
I I'm definitely, as you described, very hesitant to jump
on board with that. He was almost always his whole
minor league career, and up until the injury, he was
basically the hardest pitcher in baseball to hit and give
up a one to seventy five batting average, a one
eighty nine batting average pretty consistently throughout his major and
minor league career. And I'm hopeful that's something he can

(59:40):
find again, because now he has to because he walks
too many hitters, He puts too many runners on base.
He loves five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten to eleven
pitch at bats, and it prevents him from going into
the sixth inning, seventh inning, and going through the order.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
He's the caliber of sounds like Lance. Well he does
do that now he has pitch like the very very
much like that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
Like Lance used to be unhittable when his stuff was
filthy and before the injuries.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
Then the last two seasons very brief, he only pitched
fifteen times. Talking about Xavier, he produced the two highest
whips of his career. If nobody hits you, then you
could afford to walk a player here and there. But
his walk rate went up and he let players hit
him more. So it's almost untenable to get in and
out of innings easily. I mean, Christian Avier, do you

(01:00:27):
know the answer to this question? What is a nine
pitch inning? And his answer would be something I don't
do and it's it's just not a good way.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
No, no aces can sustain that.

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
His stuff is still pretty good, but they've learned more
about how often he doesn't try to beat them with
he tries to get them to beat themselves, by the way,
out of the zone.

Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
That's where we were spoiled with Fromber because even if
his stuff wasn't filthy, which it was a lot of time,
by the way, don't get me wrong, but he could
always rely on the ground ball to get him out
of innings, not only if he got into a jam,
but to get him out of innings quickly if he
was able to induce those ground balls on not as

(01:01:08):
many pitches, which happened a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
Yeah, execution of your pitches is also a part of it,
and he's just always been. You know, he has his
moments where it goes away from him talking about Fromber,
but I think he was actually underrated league wide in
how his ability to execute pitches. You know, he does
have the nastiest curveball, fall off the table, punch out pitch,
or I'm gonna I'm gonna put it over the zone
so you'll swing at it and I can walk back

(01:01:30):
into the dugout so you're gonna hit it to the four,
he's gonna flip it to the six, he's gonna throw
it on over to three.

Speaker 3 (01:01:35):
And that's all she wrote.

Speaker 4 (01:01:36):
It's not an accident that the same pitcher leads the
league in ground ball percentage every year and leads the
league and double plays turned behind him every year or
close to it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
It's a spill. Should just resign him?

Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
Well, that was one thing we might have hoped for,
is say if Dylan Cees went out there and was
the first pitcher signed and he got a five year,
one hundred and eight million dollar deal, and we're like, wow,
this markets dinks, there's not Teams aren't really willing to
go out there for these pitchers. And then the next
guy signs for even less and frommer and his agents
are panicking, and then maybe there's not a team for

(01:02:10):
us anymore. They're certainly not going to get the offer
who wanted. Could we look at next year's available group
and say we can try to boris this. Give me
a one year deal for twenty one million Houston, twenty
five million Houston, and I'll hit the market again. It's
literally what Alonso did. It's what Matt Chapman did.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
It's what the guild one year deal because there's labor
strife coming.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
That is a huge portion. We talked about it this
whole hour.

Speaker 4 (01:02:33):
That would absolutely throw a monkey wrench into any idea
like that from an agent or from a team. Doesn't
mean it's off the table, but it would be pretty
tough to come by.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
We should probably check in on Tamiko.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Ryan spends you long and there is a really really
big matchup this weekend at home for your Houston Texans.
Cardinals are coming in town. We all know what that
means pretty much. It's gonna be over after the first quarter,
I hope.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
So usually not over after the first quarter against the Cardinals,
they like to pretend that they have a chance to
win and then they don't.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Well, what's the best defense they've played this season prior
to this game, Seahawks.

Speaker 3 (01:03:17):
Yeah, that's in their divisions.

Speaker 1 (01:03:19):
That would be definitely one unless they're just finding one
of those weird schedules where they haven't played them yet.
But I'm pretty sure they have. I hope that is
the great equalizer here because that's.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
I mean, they've got backups running all over I'm saying
where Marvin Harrison's been missing time and it may or
may not be back this week. They're on their third
running back because Benson's been out and Connor got hurt
a long time ago, and Benson hasn't returned.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
Every week they're like, well, could return this week.

Speaker 4 (01:03:43):
It's practice windows about closed up, so I think this
might be the week they actually have to make a
final decision on that. And then they found Michael Wilson
who gets twelve targets every single week, and the Texans
will have to concern themselves defensively with him. And you
know the same thing about asking who's the toughest defense
the Cardinals have, who's the toughest tight end that the
Texans have tried to shut down? Sure's Heck, wasn't the

(01:04:04):
guy they played last Travis Kelsey, but it is going
to be this week. And you know, if you're not
playing Brock Bauers, who they'll play a week from Sunday,
then it's probably McBride. These are two of the toughest
matchups that they might not kill you, and they might
not have twelve catches, but just from a matchup perspective,
they're two of the toughest. I think the Texans handled
themselves tremendously well against Tyler Warren a couple of weeks

(01:04:25):
ago with the Colts. Albeit he is a rookie, but
I do think he's gonna turn into more and more
like these two guys have already gotten to. It's something
you're always concerned with. We always talk about it to
the linebackers. Are they good enough in coverage? Can Jalian
Petrie handle that? And you know, the last most of
this season, it has been an almost non issue for
the Texans trying to stay with or keep a tight

(01:04:46):
end from dominating a game offensively. He's dominated a ton
of games, and it just hasn't mattered for the Cardinals
because they're just not good enough to beat teams no
matter how many eight catch ninety yard one touchdown receiving
games that he had.

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
I keep in mind, like you mentioned in the first hour,
this is another team that is still in contention for
the number one pick in the draft. I mean, I
don't think teams tank. I mean teams can want to,
and teams can put a bad product down on the
field to help with that. But the players themselves, I
find it hard to believe that they're all able to tank.

Speaker 4 (01:05:22):
This team has got a coach who's fired if they
don't win games. He's in his third year and they're
not winning games for the third year, Well, they're gonna
finish three and fourteen and keep you. Probably not. Jakobe
Brissett is a backup quarterback. He's playing for his NFL
life every time he takes the field, and I think
he's actually shown himself very well this year, and teams,

(01:05:43):
especially those that have watched their backup quarterbacks play, teams
should be lining up to make him their backup quarterback.
It doesn't really matter on the Kyler Murray front because
he's been out so long and they already know that
mistake is in their hands and they have to deal
with it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
But you said it. These players don't care.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
About that stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:05:59):
They hit the wide receiver, the defensive end, the linebacker,
the safety. They're not sitting at their locker with their
phones looking at tankason dot com slash NFL and wondering
how they can get Fernando Mendoza to Arizona, or how
they can get name NFL talent that's going to be
at the combine that they want as their teammate. Players

(01:06:20):
don't do that. Players don't want that, players don't want
to be playing in those situations, and even though they
can't do anything about it, at this point, best they
can do is finish seven to ten. That's what they're
going to try to do.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
Are you saying that the guys on the Arizona Cardinals
know that it's just about the team. Is that what
you're saying? Guys know it's about the team.

Speaker 4 (01:06:37):
I mean they actually I know that they got smoked
this last week and now three times in the last
five games, they've been absolutely smashed by their division mates.
Each one of them has beaten them soundly like a drum.
But every other team they've played basically, they lost to
the Bucks by three, they lost to the Jags by three.
Those are playoff teams. They lost to the Packers by four.

(01:06:59):
It's another playoff. They lost to the Colts when they
were good by for another playoff team. I mean, they
have managed to play pretty competitive football. The further the
season has gone on, the less competitive they've become, because
I think they're getting beaten up.

Speaker 1 (01:07:13):
Well and cut forward Josh Dimiko Ryans knows that his
guys know it's about the team, not the Cardinals talking
about the Texans.

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
They know it's about the team.

Speaker 8 (01:07:22):
They are guys, and you know what we have here
in our building. They understand it's about the team. Like
this team first, they understand a brotherhood. And how I
like that. How excited guys are for the other guy
making a play and nobody has to pump themselves up,
nobody needs a pat on the back, but they're excited

(01:07:43):
to encourage their teammates and pump them up, because that's
what true team team sports is all about, right, encouraging
the man next to you, And that's what our guys have.
They have a true love for each other. They truly
care about each other and they all want to see
each other right, succeed and do so. That's why you
see the guys comment the way they come there.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
You might sound or you might hear that and say
it sounds like cliche coach speak.

Speaker 3 (01:08:08):
What have you?

Speaker 1 (01:08:08):
I know you've seen the Kamari Lassiter sound bite where
he's talking about looking to the left and he sees
Derek Stingley Jr. Looking to the rights. He's Kaylen Bullock
and just realized I was talking about the visitors locker room. Yes,
in the visitors locker room. I wouldn't be accurate in home,
that is who his mates would be. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
Oh, not only have I heard I.

Speaker 4 (01:08:30):
Have heard him say that, but I mean not knowing
the exact phrasing of the question. I mean I can
cite specific examples that I've seen he Demico can cite
when many more.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
Kamari can cite many more.

Speaker 4 (01:08:40):
But I was talking to Kaylen Bullock one day earlier
this year, I was talking to Will Anderson one day.
A little bit later in the year, Rankins had his
touchdown to close out the Jacksonville game and Lasser had
one of his many spectacular games plays, et cetera. And
Caylyn's talking about how much more pumped up he is
for Kamari when Kamari makes a play a hit and interception.

(01:09:02):
It's the greatest thing for him to get more hyped
up for what four is doing. And Will Anderson Junior
and actually a couple of defensive players said the same
thing about Big rank You know, I couldn't be more
fired up when he does that. I mean, I want
to chase him down myself, like and you know it's
a truthful statement. When you watch these guys interact with
each other, celebrate with each other. We see so much

(01:09:22):
more of it in the NFL because of social media.
On game day, because when insert player intercepts football, twelve
guys run down to take the picture with him, or
to do their celebration, to do the rkle dance with him,
whatever it might be. So you can see that there's
some fun in it, but it is truly this is
their brotherhood, this is their family.

Speaker 1 (01:09:42):
And a byproduct of this not intentional for you know,
Kamari Lassid or anybody else. Tomko saying this, but it
kind of makes you think, Oh, CJ. Gardner Johnson didn't
really fit into this locker room, and so they jettisoned
him out very quickly. He did not just from the
things he was saying in his quotes at not only

(01:10:03):
this stop, but the next one he made before he
got to the Bears, just didn't seem like that kind
of guy.

Speaker 4 (01:10:09):
Yeah, I was a little surprised with what I thought
he was. The reason he left here I thought would
not be the same reason it didn't work out in Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
I thought, you know, they needed him. I thought it
would get him on the field.

Speaker 4 (01:10:21):
He only signed a practice squad deal, but for some
reason it did not work out at all.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
It was very short lived.

Speaker 4 (01:10:26):
He obviously did not play there, and then he went
to Chicago where they have a really good group and
a very talented secondary. But they obviously had some major injuries.
But he essentially got on the field almost immediately, fit
in almost immediately, makes plays regularly for the Bears, and
they've also been playing winning football. What he said upon
arrival here was always true, and it turned out in

(01:10:48):
twenty twenty five it was still true. Where when he
goes places, they win. We don't know if they were
going to win here in Houston. He was here when
they were losing. They immediately started winning.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Basically though, he was going to be the guy that
made the defense what it is now, which is elite, historical,
all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
They're doing this without him.

Speaker 4 (01:11:04):
Yeah, he's playing pretty good football in Chicago. But the
Texans in no way miss him.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
At all, not even a little, not even a little.
They're not even sitting in Christmas cards nothing. They might
like him personally now they said beat it. We're better
than you. Collectively.

Speaker 4 (01:11:19):
Well, congratulations to the Packers. They were the first team
to hand CJ. Gardner Johnson a loss in a game
he played this year after leaving Houston.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
In nineties. Space City Home Network.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
Taking up until six o'clock tonight, we have Rockets basketball.
Not tonight. They are playing tomorrow. They're playing for the
first time in three weeks.

Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
That's what it feels like.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
And then they won't play for another three weeks again.
After that is what it feels like.

Speaker 4 (01:11:50):
They have a game on the eleventh, and then the fifteenth,
and then the eighteenth, and then the twentieth and a
couple games. Then they play again on Christmas Day, the
twenty seventh, twenty ninth. They'll play on the first and
the third. They had a lot of basketball all oh
games every other day at that point. That sounds more
like it. Wait till they get to January and March.
They almost literally do play every other day. That we
knew this was coming. Not looking forward to it conversationally

(01:12:11):
because I know that that will likely sound like but
we will get there soon enough. Breaking news, it's bowl
season in college football, you know that, right, I've been
told not breaking news yet. I've had a committee meeting
with the Stone Cold Locks Committee. There are two college
football games this weekend. They're not going to be forced

(01:12:35):
upon you. You're not forced to make a selection via
college football.

Speaker 3 (01:12:40):
I go over five last week.

Speaker 4 (01:12:41):
Yes, as soon as this week is over, we'll be
back on it because there'll be bowl games and playoff
games specifically for you to look at.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
Speaking of bowl games, I had a better than six
hundred average picking Stone cold box last season.

Speaker 4 (01:12:53):
On December thirty first, the last day of two thousand
and twenty five, we will not be on the A
because we will be carrying Texas Longhorns football pre game
at one o'clock to o'clock kickoff for their Cheese Its Bowl,
which they will be playing in Florida against I'm not sure.

(01:13:14):
Coaching the Michigan Wolverines. Michigan is firing their head coach
Sharon Moore, who was on the field here in Houston
in January of twenty twenty four celebrating a national championship
as head coach of the Michigan Wolverines, in place of
Jim Harbaugh, who had been told to leave or he
left on his own because he would have been to cheating.

(01:13:35):
But they're firing him for cause.

Speaker 3 (01:13:38):
What's the cause?

Speaker 4 (01:13:40):
According to reports, Well, they reported the cause is the
reason they fired him, and that was in the announcement
from the school. More engaged in an inappropriate relationship with
a staff member.

Speaker 3 (01:13:55):
You know, teams can get really you can get their
hands on really good coaches. Well, that happens sometimes. I'm
not mad at it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
Okay, Listen, it was an unfortunate situation that happened in Boston,
but I'm very happy that it worked out for the Rockets.
And that's all I'm gonna say about the subject. Okay,
it wouldn't have happened otherwise. I mean, everybody can be
uncomfortable about that, but I man Ema Udoka being the
coach of the Rockets is the best thing that's happened.

Speaker 3 (01:14:25):
In this franchise in probably twenty years.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
Very unexpected news, I would say, at the very least. Yeah,
that stuff tends to come out this time of year.

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
Maybe not that particular kind of stuff much. That stuff
doesn't tend to come out. Ever.

Speaker 1 (01:14:40):
What I'm saying is coaches losing jobs in all walks
of that game tends to happen at the end of seasons.
That's how I probably should have phrased it. Okay, I
bet you. It has nothing to do with when it
came out.

Speaker 4 (01:14:55):
I would hope as soon as the investigation was complete
or whatever they found out, that you make the decision,
and that's when it happens. It just happens to be
during this extended period between their last regular season game
and their upcoming bowl game. The statement he's fired terminated
with cause, effective immediately, falling an investigation, credible evidence was

(01:15:16):
found that coach More engaged in an inappropriate relationship with
a staff member. It constitutes a clear violation of university policy,
and we maintain zero tolerance for such behavior.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
We've heard this name before.

Speaker 4 (01:15:28):
We can make fun of it another time like we
did the first time we brought it up when he's
coaching somewhere else. But their interim head football coach, effective immediately,
is Biff Pogy. Yes, he became famous for both his
name and his clothing choices at times at previous stops.
But apparently he'll be going up against Steve's Sarcasian and

(01:15:52):
the Texas Longhorns right here on Sports Talk seven nights.

Speaker 3 (01:15:56):
What a sell?

Speaker 1 (01:15:56):
What an absolute sell? Okay, where would you say? And
then where would the athletics say? The Houston Rockets front
office ranks.

Speaker 3 (01:16:07):
Well, it wasn't just them. They did a poll.

Speaker 4 (01:16:09):
They talked to thirty six NBA executives, and if you
look at the landscape in the NBA, it's pretty easy
to figure out what a poll like this might look like. Well,
who do you think's done the best job? Who do
you think has the best front office? Who's been making
the best decisions? I can I see the standings real
quick before I weigh in on this. It's pretty much
going to be how it plays and after the Oklahoma

(01:16:32):
City Thunder in the standings on any given day over
the first two months of this season, the Houston Rockets
were among the teams that would have been next in line.
So thirty six people handed in their front office ranking votes,
and they're all NBA executives. If there was one team
listed on every single ballot, you voted first, second, third,
four to fifth. That's the Oklahoma City Thunder. Not only

(01:16:52):
were they listed on every ballot, they were no worse
than third on every ballot, and only five of the
ballots had them not first. Prey one of thirty six
NBA executives thinks the front office, led by Sam Presty,
is the best in the NBA. And if I had
a vote, it'd be hard not to give it the
same exact as those thirty one. There were only four
other teams that received a first place vote. Of the

(01:17:15):
five remaining, the Heat got two of them, Pacers got one,
the Celtics got one, and the Houston Rockets got one.
Rockets were also tied with the Celtics for most ballots.
They were on twenty one of the thirty six ballots,
and they essentially finished in a tie for the second
best front office with the Boston Celtics.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
In your wildest dreams, when you heard that Rocket's general
counsel rafel Stone was replacing Daryl Morey as GM, I
don't think you ever would have said it'd go this well.

Speaker 4 (01:17:47):
I would have probably said that about everybody, because I
happened to think that the ideas of how to put
a team together that could beat Golden State were very,
very good. Now, the very very end of Darryl's tenure
was exceptionally and the team that Raffell is running is
still paying for it. Uh But all those years of
his leadership, and if we were asking, well, at some

(01:18:08):
point he's gonna move on or he's gonna get let
go or he's gonna need to spend time with his
family for five minutes before he goes to Philadelphia. We
would have been thinking, well, how's the next guy gonna
do better? They were a championship contender, They were certainly
the second best team in the West for many years running.
They stole an MVP candidate, They did some really good things.
They were drafting nowhere near the top of the draft

(01:18:30):
and constantly finding players that could play, including one on
the current team, Clint Cappella. So I thought the guy
that was next was gonna be hard pressed to match that,
And as you and I very well know, he was
in a very different position with what the roster looked
like and how they were going to have to go
about doing that. For James Harden related reasons.

Speaker 3 (01:18:49):
Well, it was James's start.

Speaker 4 (01:18:50):
Raffel and everybody over there and Ema included, insanely successful.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
Yet that's unbelievable, and I know that Kevin Durant accelerates it.
But Kevin Durant wasn't there last year when they won
fifty two. Well, they're on pace to win a lot
more than fifty two games this year. How many playoff games?

Speaker 4 (01:19:08):
More than four how about more than three more so
they're going to get a win in the second round
after I.

Speaker 1 (01:19:13):
Was saying when you know, no, no get down in
the first round for sure. But yeah, I'm I'm liking it.
I can't argue with Okay, see hate it, absolutely hate it.
But the Rocket's going to do their best to be
that that spoiler. If you will, We'll have more Rockets conversation.
We'll have some more from Demico Ryans next when the

(01:19:34):
four o'clock Hour gets underway the eighteen on It's It's
the four o'clock hour here on the A Team Sports
Talk seven to ninety Wednesday edition of the program. Glad
to have you with us, especially if you're watching over
on Space City Home Network. But however you're consuming the show,
appreciate you getting along with us for the drive home.

(01:19:55):
If that's what you're doing right now. Hopefully you've ducked
out of work by now until the boss. Hey, forget it,
nobody's here anyways, I'm out. I don't know why I'm
really getting into your office politics, but however you're listening,
we appreciate it. We also appreciate the fact that the
Texans are doing something once again. Historical. Now, it's not
even the first time they will have done this. If
the Texans go ahead and make the postseason, it's not

(01:20:18):
even going to be the first time in franchise history
that they will have started oh to three and made
the playoffs. Even though what there's only a handful of
teams in the league's history that have done that, I
think seven or eight something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:20:31):
Yeah, and they were the last one to do it
when they had the mighty Mighty Bill O'Brien in charge.
Get streat wins after an OHN three start in a
sixteen game schedule.

Speaker 1 (01:20:40):
Don't forget the mighty Mighty de Shaan Watson. I could
never I think a lot of us would like to.
But yeah, he was actually playing good football then and
wasn't further ruining the quarterback position in Cleveland yet, not
to mention anything else he might have been doing. But yeah,
you've got a situation now where if you beat the
woe begone ARIZONAA Cardinals and even more woe begone Vegas Raiders,

(01:21:05):
then you're looking at a season where you already have
what they got right now eight wins.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
I'm trying to keep track. There's four games left there
eight and five. Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
They'd already have ten, so they would equal what he's
done the first two seasons. Talking about Demiico Ryans and
his little partnership with CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:21:22):
Stroud.

Speaker 1 (01:21:22):
Of course takes the rest of the roster two, but
those two came in ten straight or ten wins and
two straight seasons. But you're looking to win eleven twelve games,
and it's totally doable.

Speaker 3 (01:21:34):
Twelve games after starting zero to three.

Speaker 4 (01:21:36):
That's what it would get if they match Bill's nine
game winning streak in season A twelve and five finished
for the Texans, even though they actually can't control it.
I think that would win them the division because you'd
need it one loss by the Jaguars, and I believe
it would be any loss. It doesn't matter which game
they would lose. Obviously, everyone's pointing to Denver much more

(01:21:57):
so than the Jets, who they played.

Speaker 3 (01:22:00):
I hope the Jets beat them. I would laugh.

Speaker 4 (01:22:02):
By the way, the Jets have three quarterbacks on the roster,
and two of them did not practice today. Brady Cook's good,
he's healthy, he's practicing and is headed towards potentially starting
for them against the Jaguars.

Speaker 3 (01:22:15):
This week they have the chance to do the funniest
thing ever.

Speaker 4 (01:22:17):
They have played better football of late, but it becomes
more and more difficult to play good football when your
quarterback doesn't belong in the NFL.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
Every doubt Trevor Lawrence's ability to screw things up.

Speaker 4 (01:22:27):
He's been at the Helm for more wins than any
of the Houston quarterbacks have been. Remember, CJ has been
at the Helm for just five this year. Trevor's been
at the Helm for nine.

Speaker 1 (01:22:39):
That's fine. I'm not intimidated or if it impressed Trevor one, CJ. Nothing,
that's true. And it took Davis Mills, the Mills Miracle
to beat the Jags a second time, because, as we know,
they are so good.

Speaker 4 (01:22:54):
Thankfully the Jaguars Lawrence led offense in the fourth quarter
of that miracle come back, the Mills miracle, Well, they
were awful and they couldn't move the football and they
couldn't secure a win when they had a nineteen point lead,
and he threw an interception on the final play of
the game.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
It was returned for a touchdown, which was awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
Yeah, that's real.

Speaker 8 (01:23:12):
Sad.

Speaker 4 (01:23:13):
Jacksonville sits atop the AFC South. Like I said, they've
got the Jets this weekend, the Texans.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
And the Colts. Don't forget the Colts just a game
back at eight and five.

Speaker 4 (01:23:23):
The remaining schedules for these teams does kind of paint
a picture of excellence for the Texans, excellence for the Jags,
and an exit from the conversation for the Indianapolis Colts,
for their own quarterback reasons and for the other obvious reasons,
they were already starting to turn in the wrong direction
they had started in on a They actually saved themselves

(01:23:45):
with the injury from the horrific articles that would have
been written and the possibility that they might have considered
moving on from Shane Steichen. The last time the Colts
won a game wasn't even in America. It was the
first week of November and they played their overseas game
against the Falcons and beat them in overtime. Because the
Falcons are morons. They lost the game before that to

(01:24:06):
close out October. They've lost every game they've played since then.
Granted they've had one off week, so it's just a
three game losing streak. All two playoff teams caliber of
one of them was the Chiefs, who otherwise might be there,
but they couldn't beat the Chiefs, couldn't beat the Texans obviously.
Last week they lost both the game against the Jaguars
and Daniel Jones. They're playing playoff bound Seattle, playoff bound

(01:24:28):
San Francisco, playoff bound Jacksonville, and playoff bound Houston to
close out the season, which is why I think that
season ending game in Week eighteen in Houston, which we
once thought might be the choice of the big networks,
let's get this standalone game to close out the regular season,
because it's going to determine a playoff berth the division winner.

(01:24:52):
Something like we saw last year between Minnesota and the
team led by Sam Darnold, the Minnesota Vikings probably not
going to be the case now. Jaguars are on the
complete opposite side of that. They do play the Broncos
to close out the season, but their list of quarterbacks
to finish the season are likely Brady Cook, Philip Rivers,

(01:25:13):
and Cam Ward three of the four teams they face
to close out the season, gri if they lost two games,
that would be very much unseen and very unlikely.

Speaker 3 (01:25:25):
I don't I know.

Speaker 4 (01:25:25):
The Titans are coming off of a win, and they
put thirty one points on the board in order to
do so. I don't really look at the Titans and
say they're playing better football. Somehow one of the league's
best run defenses couldn't stop Tony Pollard. Tony Poller had
the huge run to open up the game, but then
he just kept going, and they kept going. They kept
running the football and made life so much easier on
their quarterback and obviously their offense in general. To put

(01:25:47):
that many points on the board something they just don't
ever do, and they still should have been no better
than in overtime at Cleveland wasn't so stupid. But the
Jaguars losing more than once is very unlikely. They will
not be favorite to win at the Broncos. Likelihood is
their favorite to win all three of their games other games,
even at the Colts. Texans similarly favored this week, favored

(01:26:08):
next week. They'll be favored in the finale against the Colts.
We'll see what things look like when they get to
the Chargers. I don't know if Laura Rutledge will pull
on Justin Herbert's bleeding elbow between now and then, and
he might get hurt again.

Speaker 1 (01:26:19):
But he'll probably be healthy. Well, it wasn't too bloody
to keep him from trying to celebrate with his teammates
instead of answer her stupid questions.

Speaker 3 (01:26:26):
According to him, his words.

Speaker 4 (01:26:27):
Stupid or not, it's just part of the deal. Not
on either side of it. Surprised that it even happened.
Did think there probably should have been some Charger representative
near him, and that's usually how it works at the
end of games.

Speaker 3 (01:26:42):
Trying to celebrate with my teammates.

Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
Yeah, okay, fine, I'm asking you these questions because you're.

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):
Live, right, Chris Long, Well, they shouldn't have gone to
her yet.

Speaker 1 (01:26:49):
She didn't have him yet. That's cucually how it works.

Speaker 4 (01:26:52):
Chris Long was talking about this on his podcast the
other day, and I thought what he said was probably
pretty on point. I don't think justin herber to so
much wanting to celebrate with his teammates or wanting to
be rude to her, but more of enough already.

Speaker 3 (01:27:06):
I know I'm the quarterback.

Speaker 4 (01:27:07):
I know it's all about me, and I know you're
gonna ask me about my hand and where it is
and how it's going with that.

Speaker 3 (01:27:13):
Which she did. Hopefully it's still attached to it.

Speaker 4 (01:27:15):
Gave her a typical for the week of interviews. He
didn't tell her a single thing about it that feels good.
I feel good, and I'm not gonna get to I'm
not oh my god, I got to stand up for journalists,
or she did a great job, or why did she
do that?

Speaker 3 (01:27:31):
Or how could he do that?

Speaker 4 (01:27:32):
That stuff happens every once in a while, and I
don't I doubt she. She's obviously been on social media
since then and has not said anything other than we're
moving on.

Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
It's no big deal.

Speaker 4 (01:27:42):
Justin Herbert's not going to be raked over the calls
for this either, nor should he be, nor should any
other quarterback be, because I'm sure it will happen again,
and this quarterback, whoever it is, people will have their
vibe about who he is and they will probably react
differently stupidly about this. We gave no reaction on it
for the first full show after Monday Night Football, but

(01:28:03):
here we are to it at least acknowledging that it happened.

Speaker 1 (01:28:05):
How about we get some reactions from Demiico Ryans great, well,
he had a couple of things, well, he had more
than a couple of things to say, but one of
the things that he had to say earlier today was
first of all, talking about what that road win means.
I don't know if it meant more, you know, a
lot sec because it was a road win at Kansas City,
or if it was just regular it meant more because

(01:28:27):
it was a road win.

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):
But I'll let him determine that.

Speaker 1 (01:28:30):
No, you won't.

Speaker 3 (01:28:31):
Why I'm not playing it? Well, it's not hard to
that is why? What number is it too?

Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
I see what I first don't think the Lakers are
good enough?

Speaker 3 (01:28:41):
That ain't it. That's not even Dimiko.

Speaker 4 (01:28:43):
That sounded like Demko Paul the agent for Brownie James. No,
it's not your fault.

Speaker 1 (01:28:48):
I just can't see it in the system.

Speaker 8 (01:28:49):
Nothing for me, And I've been with these guys. I
understand who we are, what we're about. So our guys
just going out doing we're capable of doing to a
couples win games.

Speaker 1 (01:28:58):
I like that answer. What is the road waying need
for you? Nothing to me? Shut that down? Whoever asked
that stupid question? Not a stupid question, only stupid answers there. Well,
the South Park episode, mister Mackie says there are no
stupid questions, only stupid papal. Who's mister Mackie one of
the characters. What does he do? Is he a teacher?

(01:29:19):
I think so he's an administrative he's administrator in the
administrative side.

Speaker 4 (01:29:23):
Yeah, like he would be on the selection committee if
they had a college.

Speaker 3 (01:29:27):
Am I am? I?

Speaker 8 (01:29:27):
Miss?

Speaker 1 (01:29:28):
Am I misrepresenting the characters? Josh, aren't you a huge
South Park fan? I'm not.

Speaker 3 (01:29:32):
I'm not sure I am. Isn't he the guidance counselor?

Speaker 1 (01:29:37):
But who's the one that sounds like there are no
stupid questions, only stupid papal? That's I thought.

Speaker 3 (01:29:45):
Mister Mackie was this guid they drugged your bad kids? Clear?

Speaker 1 (01:29:50):
You should hear him seeing Carol of the bells. It's hilarious. Okay,
I'll let's I'll we'll play it later some other time. Uh.
Speaking of other things that Tamiko Ryans not only said
but probably appreciated being a line back, former linebacker and
former defender. Now, Jalen Petree is not a linebacker, and

(01:30:10):
I would say he probably hit even harder than Dimiko
on average. Demiko is more of a tackle guy, more
of a I'm sure he made some big hits during
his career. But like you're gonna automatically think of that
hit on Rashid Rice every time you think about Jalen
Petrie's career, I'd say from here on out, at least
Texans fans would so in that vein, What does Tamiko

(01:30:33):
Ryans think about his safety number five? Jalen Petrie product
of this here fair city being a hard hitter.

Speaker 8 (01:30:39):
Yeah, Jalen, He's a Stafford Cobra. That's where he gets
it from. It's nothing that he did, He's He's been
doing this since Little League. I beg like, he's always
you know, he's been a fun guy to watch. You
know you I watched him. I wasn't here, but watching
him his Baylor tape. It was the same thing, like
he played with his hair on fire always and populated

(01:31:02):
in football where ever it was where he's blitz and
whatever he was doing. He's just always an impact player.
Think at every level he's been on.

Speaker 4 (01:31:09):
That is knowledge of your players. He wasn't talking about
Stafford High School, where he did play football. He was
talking about his youth football team, the Stafford Cobras.

Speaker 1 (01:31:20):
I love to Meka Ryan's I love that. I love
the fact that it was Jalen Peatrie too, a local guy.
And we'll have more on this topic and so much
more on the Texans when we come back.

Speaker 5 (01:31:34):
The A Team once I have.

Speaker 1 (01:31:36):
Been told by more than one person what an idiot
I am. For the last segment, of course, it was
mister Garrison on South Park that said there are no
stupid questions, only stupid people. And it was mister Mackie
who was the guidance counselor who says.

Speaker 4 (01:31:54):
Good mister Mackie, mister Garrison, mister Magoo, what's the difference
you like in people who knows people need to know?
How much disdain Wex looks upon adult cartoons?

Speaker 1 (01:32:09):
He's sister Montgomery? Is that what he goes by on
The Simpsons? Montgomery Burns, Burns, Burns Burns. What's his assistant's name, Proctor? No,
that's Police Academy Smith Smith? Is we that's your favorite
Police Academy movie.

Speaker 4 (01:32:28):
First of all, there was you know, as you know,
Josh Knows and everybody out there, and I pledged a
fraternity land knows usually get pledge names. We had a
pledgere Steve Mark, who is on the text chain that
I often reference here on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:32:42):
His pledge name was mister Burns. Well, so this is
like a nickname that we don't really still use it,
but it was used for obviously during pledge ship and beyond.

Speaker 3 (01:32:52):
Is this still done across the country at different.

Speaker 4 (01:32:55):
Pretty common to have names for people. I had thinking
about it on their paddle, which, of course nobody is anymore.

Speaker 1 (01:33:00):
Right, because that's hazing. I was there was I don't
even remember which one it was. It was particularly after me,
and I was like, listen, I'm gonna stop you right here.
Under no circumstances am I into this thing. It's just
not my thing. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I
don't do any drugs. I'm not saying that's what fraternities do. Well,

(01:33:23):
you can and everywhere else in school, I go home
every weekend without fail to Houston Dark.

Speaker 3 (01:33:31):
This is that's a little different experience.

Speaker 1 (01:33:34):
Unlike my stepdaughter, who was basically like it was, here
are your priorities going in sorority, and then I guess
some school stuff happens after that. Different, It's totally understandable.
I mean, come on, we're not living there next year.
We're totally living in this place. And no, we would
never live there and and my gosh, it's fun, man,

(01:33:56):
is it. Yes?

Speaker 3 (01:33:58):
I had a lot of fun, too much fun. Your
frat house was different though, yes we weren't a sorority.
The thing, I just I can't see you in that environment.

Speaker 4 (01:34:08):
You can't see me lined up in a room made
for ten people that had forty people in it with
the last name.

Speaker 3 (01:34:15):
I just called it the alphabet. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:34:17):
That clearly, man, I was going to be in the
back row making comments from the back row when I
should have kept my mouth shut.

Speaker 3 (01:34:24):
You can't see that at all that I can see.

Speaker 1 (01:34:26):
And by the way, this is not to say that
I didn't take part in greek life. When I was
in college parties. I spent a ton of time in
sorority houses.

Speaker 4 (01:34:39):
This guy I did two what I was just saying, Hi,
assignment and goodbye in the morning.

Speaker 1 (01:34:48):
You see, I gave you the inch and then you took.

Speaker 3 (01:34:50):
It ten miles. I mean, it's I know they start
dropping names now.

Speaker 4 (01:34:54):
I know that the windows had bars on them, but
some of them were detachable bars on the windows security purposes?
Where did you go but you want to keep people stay?
What bad part of town did you live in? It's
just smart. It's not mandatory. What are you gonna do
get robbed by a hippie?

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
It's not The fraternity houses did not have bars on
the windows. Did the sorority houses, That's what I was referencing.
Do they still?

Speaker 4 (01:35:18):
I haven't been in one or out of one in
a while, not even this morning, not even this morning.

Speaker 3 (01:35:24):
My home is not a sorority. Robin in a sorority.
She was in a sorority.

Speaker 4 (01:35:28):
Remember you met I did not meet her at the
University of Texas, even though we were there the same
four years.

Speaker 1 (01:35:33):
You met her after the fact, after the fact in Houston,
here in the age, at a bar, you could say that, Yeah,
not to be confused with the bars on the windows
of her sorority house.

Speaker 4 (01:35:43):
Two different kind of bars, entirely unbelievable. What a life,
The things I find out this life?

Speaker 5 (01:35:49):
Jeez?

Speaker 1 (01:35:49):
What was your line? How did you get her to
go out with you?

Speaker 3 (01:35:53):
Good question? I want to hear this.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
Why would she say? I don't want to hear what
a wax line sounds like? I don't know, Hey, baby,
definitely is not that you.

Speaker 3 (01:36:01):
Ever called her baby in your life? No, not to
this day.

Speaker 4 (01:36:05):
I don't think I mean Oh no, I've probably said
babe in jest, but that's probably it.

Speaker 3 (01:36:11):
What's your pet name for her? Robin?

Speaker 1 (01:36:15):
I don't know. Like, what do you yell across the
house when you're trying to get her attention?

Speaker 4 (01:36:19):
Don't do that because I don't see where her house
is not big enough for that. Just go They're thirty
feet away. Just walk over there. I'm not like needing
you to help me carry something. I can just whatever
I need to say. I don't have to yell your name.

Speaker 3 (01:36:32):
You've never yelled across the house.

Speaker 1 (01:36:34):
Probably have when I used her name? You say, Robin. Yes,
I've never once said Teresa. What do you say? I
don't know. I don't even Hey, I think it's what
I usually say when I'm joking around. By the way,
thing like this goes both ways. She usually does the
same thing. Hey, yeah, that's normal. Actually she does. She'll

(01:36:55):
she'll scream out.

Speaker 4 (01:36:56):
Like at four seventeen twenty when we started segment, Yeah,
what were we talking about?

Speaker 3 (01:37:01):
Who cares? South Park?

Speaker 7 (01:37:03):
Is that?

Speaker 3 (01:37:03):
What?

Speaker 1 (01:37:04):
God is here?

Speaker 3 (01:37:04):
Yeah? What happened me?

Speaker 5 (01:37:07):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:37:07):
Come on, man, could we talk whatever we want to
on this show on television and radio?

Speaker 3 (01:37:14):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:37:15):
Matter, no, it doesn't matter. Fine, do you want to
get back to sports?

Speaker 3 (01:37:19):
I mean, I'm fine with this.

Speaker 1 (01:37:20):
I think you like this. You want to keep going?
That's great. What was her best memory as a member
of whatever sorority? I don't know. You have to ask her. Sure,
I can call her. We went.

Speaker 4 (01:37:31):
The sorority she was in is now the sorority that
Samantha is also in.

Speaker 1 (01:37:35):
Obviously same school as well.

Speaker 5 (01:37:37):
Well.

Speaker 1 (01:37:37):
Okay, so in that vein. This is gonna sound the
beginning of this is gonna sound terrible. You just gotta
stay with me, Okay, our sentence is gonna be rough
for you. Okay, you know what my favorite thing to
do when we go up for family weekend and we're
at the sorority house. See how bad that sounds when
I say it that way. You know, my favorite thing
is your favorite thing to do. Go look at the
pictures of all the people that were there in like

(01:37:59):
the seventy and laugh at what things looked like at
that time in our country. It's just the I mean,
cause again, you've seen these pictures that I'm talking about.
Here's this, here's this class of whatever, and there's I
don't know how many are in there. These pictures fifty
one hundred probably more. Yeah, And I'm just like, gosh,
what was it like then to just not even just

(01:38:21):
to be in college at that time. It's just so
I would net exactly that that right there. I just
I can't even imagine. And I would never say this
to Brooklyn. I can't even imagine being in college right now,
and just the crap you have to do with.

Speaker 3 (01:38:37):
I'd love to imagine being in college.

Speaker 1 (01:38:39):
There are good things about No believe me, I'm not
saying that. But I'm just like, if I sat around
and worried about all the things I need to be
worrying about, I would never get anything accomplished. I already
want to go up there with like all sorts of
weaponry that I don't want to get into right now.
Just sit outside and just wait until somebody looks at
her the wrong way. But I can't do if I
think about it, you know, I'm very much that dad.

(01:39:01):
That's great. It's good for her to have.

Speaker 3 (01:39:03):
That is it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:05):
I think it has a lunatic stepfather, a very concerned,
loving stepfather, her dad who's a really nice guy, very
easy going. So it's it's easy to kind of balance,
right there, I'm the lunatic, He's the nice one, wonderful.

Speaker 3 (01:39:19):
Yeah, you wanna keep going my ears all right? Real quick?

Speaker 1 (01:39:26):
The uh the Rockets aren't playing again until tomorrow night, whatever,
but they are getting some love. And I kind of
figured this would be a case with you thought, when
you got into this season and you have Kevin Durant
on your roster, you knew that you were going to
in all likelihood at least have a good shot at
being an All Star. I suppose that there would be

(01:39:46):
a situation where his game rapidly falls off now that
he magically turned thirty seven, because the day that happened,
then it's just no, he's still awesome. He's still efficient,
which was what was a really cool thing about the
last time the Rockets won, just how efficient he was.
But you can essentially pencil him and Shingoon in as

(01:40:11):
if not all Star starters, they're definitely going to make
the All Star Game this year, no question.

Speaker 4 (01:40:18):
A little bit different this year all Star starters because
of the way they're doing it, and they're having multiple
teams and it's not East versus West. I'm not sure
how they're going to continue with that terminology because everybody
always looks at that down the road. Let's look at
his resume as he qualifies this a Hall of Fame player.
I wonder he never got voted in or he wasn't
a starter. A little bit of that is going to

(01:40:39):
be different. And when they change the need to vote
for positions, which they've now changed again, you don't need
to vote for positions anymore, and it's not all a
fan vote to get you there. About two weeks into
the season, I think was the first time I said
Albrin Shinguns he's going to be an All Star again
this year, and he hasn't done anything to change my mind.
He's having argued. I think I would say he's having

(01:41:01):
his best season. I don't think that's much to debate.
He'd like to see him making more like fifty three,
fifty four, fifty five percent of his shots this far
into his career, but he also takes more difficult shots
than most other bigs. He's also again other than Jokic,
Essentially he's doing more than most other bigs. Rebounds are
down a touch because their team is so awesome at it.

(01:41:23):
The year, he plays for the number one rebounding team
in the league. But his assists are up multiple touches,
up over seven per game, and you could see the difference.
And I know Adams missed one of the two games also,
but the two games he didn't play were very very
different Rockets basketball games. They just can't play that way
every night and expect to be great. Kevin Durants played
an All Star level. He'll land that spot as well,

(01:41:44):
and the league knows it and the league sees it.
And just had CBS Sports put out a group of
thoughts on who the best fifteen players are and who
the best twenty four players via All Star would be,
and both of them found themselves on each of those lists,
All NBA Third Team and All Stars.

Speaker 5 (01:42:01):
Rockets a little help over the hump with some Wednesday Bs, two.

Speaker 1 (01:42:06):
Adams, and a whole lot of bit stealing, bit.

Speaker 5 (01:42:08):
Stealing with the bit Steelers, better known as the eighteen.

Speaker 4 (01:42:14):
First Things First, as we get to our signature segment
on a Wednesday, if it's time for the injury report
to come out, and then it's time for the injury
report to be relayed to you. As reported by many,
including myself, earlier today, there was no Nick Chubb, Kamari
Lassiter or Woody Marx at practice today. I did not
report on the other four Texans that did not participate

(01:42:36):
in practice today light of the fact it was difficult
to tell if they were there or not for the
time that we spent there. Not very close to us.
The defensive lineman and the offensive lineman. But Sheldon rankins
with an elbow and a shoulder injury. Trent Brown continues
to not participate in practice on Wednesdays with his hand
injury and then play on Sundays. Deniko Autry same with

(01:42:56):
his knee. Aziz Al Shaier, in the ankle injury, played
the entire game, every snap on Sunday evening, and I
think the expectation is he will be prepared to do
the same this coming Sunday against the Cardinals. But those
seven Texans did not participate in practice today. We mentioned
that Justin Watson, the wide receiver and Harrison Bryant, the
tight end, both had their practice windows open, so they

(01:43:19):
remain off the roster and on ir but were designated
to return, so they practiced today on a limited basis.
Jamal Hill returned to practice today. He's missed the last
several games with a hamstring injury plays on special teams
for them, and he was back at practice today and EJ.
Speed also limited with a knee injury. He has been

(01:43:40):
extremely helpful on special teams, kind of under the radar
because he's been such a big part of their defense
now getting a lot of those reps that somewhat were
split between he and Henry Toato at different times this year.
Now Henry's back on the side of getting more of
them than EJ. But he's been a pretty important performer
on their special teams unit. So, like I said, it
seems like most of these injuries are not of great

(01:44:02):
concern for Sunday. I'll know a little bit more about
Nick Chubb, I think later in the week, and hopefully,
as was the case last week, with each of these
players that missed some time early in the week, they
were able to turn around and play in the game.
Kamari last among them. He played every single snap. Six
Texans defenders played every single snap. The list for the
Cardinals is very, very lengthy, and probably of note. Paris Johnson,

(01:44:27):
the offensive lineman who has been outstanding, not necessarily going
to be available this week. He did not practice today
with his knee injury. They could have another missed game
for Marvin Harrison Junior, as his heel injury as one
of the reasons he's missed time throughout the year. That's
what he's currently dealing with. And a host of other
players are either limited or did not practice at all today.

(01:44:48):
Their DNP list, by the way, is eleven deep. That's
all well and good.

Speaker 1 (01:44:54):
I would like to read aloud from Shawn's tweet, Shawn's
who Sewan is? He's a he's a listener. Oh, okay,
uh Rocks Michael thirteen. Okay, so wrestling fan Sean Michaels.
I'll just put it together, and they actually, that's what
the case is.

Speaker 3 (01:45:12):
Wex, how do we get here? Ac me?

Speaker 1 (01:45:15):
Wex Well, come on, man, And I said, hey, our
show every day in a nuts show, and he said exactly,
I'm so here for it. Listening to Wex's mental gymnastics
trying to keep you on track is radio gold for me,
to which I said, attention deficit disorder is undefeated, fantastic.
You don't act like you didn't get good feedback from

(01:45:37):
last segment.

Speaker 3 (01:45:38):
I did get good feedback.

Speaker 4 (01:45:39):
I referenced that someone in my pledge class who I
still stay in contact with via text chain. Then I
reference on the show all the time. One of the
participants in that chain and play his name, was listening.
He listens all the time. He actually was listening to
the Sharon Moore is fired for cause segment. He was
wondering who the head coach would be. And remember the
comment I'm about Biff and his wardrobe. He sent a

(01:46:03):
picture of Biff and his cutoff shirt and saying he
probably won't be in the same situation that Sharon was in.

Speaker 3 (01:46:09):
Nope.

Speaker 4 (01:46:10):
But he did also say the segment on mister Burns
is an all timer.

Speaker 3 (01:46:14):
Thank you for that. Maybe way read the whole text the.

Speaker 4 (01:46:17):
Segment on mister Burns and sorority bars and windows?

Speaker 3 (01:46:20):
Is it all timer?

Speaker 1 (01:46:22):
Who is that?

Speaker 3 (01:46:23):
BK is here at the top? Thanks for listening, BK.

Speaker 1 (01:46:26):
Okay, there you go.

Speaker 3 (01:46:28):
I did there.

Speaker 4 (01:46:28):
I actually like to reference this every now and then
just to show at least you don't have to believe
me or not, but just to show that, yes, I
do have a couple of friends.

Speaker 1 (01:46:36):
I know you have friends. That's one of the ones
that was in the frat house. Yeah, he was in
the frat house. Are we allowed to talk about what
went on there?

Speaker 4 (01:46:42):
I'll tell you what we're not allowed to talk about.
Uh huh what his pledge name was? Oh, come on, BK,
give us permission. Text it right now so I.

Speaker 1 (01:46:50):
Know what it was.

Speaker 4 (01:46:51):
Everybody knows what it was. Can you say inappropriate? You radio?

Speaker 1 (01:46:55):
Say it on radio?

Speaker 4 (01:46:56):
Now I'm getting confused on the week half of the
pledge name he had, in which half the other person?

Speaker 3 (01:47:00):
I'm fascinated by. What was yours?

Speaker 2 (01:47:01):
Again?

Speaker 3 (01:47:01):
Both are inappropriate? What was yours?

Speaker 4 (01:47:04):
It was given the pledge name of a television star.
I was gonna bet the role that he played on
the program. It was a program about a man and
a woman who separately had three children each and then
they got married.

Speaker 3 (01:47:19):
The Brady Bunch.

Speaker 4 (01:47:21):
My pledge name was after one of the male characters
on the show, Peter.

Speaker 1 (01:47:25):
Not correct?

Speaker 3 (01:47:27):
Uh, what was the stupid Oliver?

Speaker 4 (01:47:30):
That's not one of the six kids we're talking. It
would have been funny if I had glasses and blonde hair.
Would have made sense too.

Speaker 3 (01:47:36):
Were you Bobby?

Speaker 4 (01:47:37):
That's correct? Why did they call you Bobby? They called
me Bobby Brady Why? I guess they thought there was
a resemblance.

Speaker 1 (01:47:43):
Maybe I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:47:44):
You look more like Peter than any of the other.

Speaker 1 (01:47:46):
Neighbor boy voice didn't crack, so they couldn't go with
that one.

Speaker 3 (01:47:49):
I'll tell you who.

Speaker 1 (01:47:49):
I'm glad it wasn't for you, Mike, and we don't
know you very well, Pledge. But did I already tell
you when I started working at Channel two that that's
how Steve Mark referred to me, Harry Pledge.

Speaker 3 (01:48:02):
You were the young intern, I know, but it was
like just he called me that in Jackson.

Speaker 4 (01:48:07):
So from a fraternity standpoint, what did the older member
of the fraternity Steve have the Pledge due for him?
Did you have to run and get coffee? I sent
something out a printer while you grab scripts for me.

Speaker 3 (01:48:20):
It was more about writing his script.

Speaker 4 (01:48:21):
Hey, can you give me exactly seven seconds of David
Carr running out of the tunnel, and then I need
four seconds of Corey Bradford at practice, and then I
need three seconds of rollout.

Speaker 1 (01:48:34):
Yes, that's exactly how it was. Now, it wasn't delivered
the way he would have delivered it because it was
very herky jerky.

Speaker 4 (01:48:40):
He was probably written out very very specifically on a
shot sheet.

Speaker 1 (01:48:44):
Yeah, with doctor handwriting. Oh we really, it's a second
segment in a row.

Speaker 3 (01:48:48):
I can do this all day.

Speaker 4 (01:48:49):
Wednesday's BS actually has something today. All right, go, So
what do you think the College Football Selection Committee is
made up of?

Speaker 1 (01:48:56):
Who's on the committee? A bunch of jerks? What kind
of people are they? What do they do for a living? Administrators?

Speaker 4 (01:49:02):
So everybody on the twelve person committee is either a coach,
a former coach, an administrator, an AD or a former
administrator or AD except for two people. One of them
is Wesley Walls. He's a former NFL player, played tight
end for the Panthers and a few other teams and
is a great college football player, so somehow he landed
on the committee.

Speaker 1 (01:49:22):
Wesley.

Speaker 4 (01:49:22):
Then there's ten other people who are currently ads or
coaches been coaches. Make a lot of sense. And then
there's one media member on the committee, and you probably
know him. I can't remember if we've better have him
on the show or not, but I believe we have
Ivan Mazel. I don't think we've had him on the show,
but yes, prolific writer, media member, also a writer of books.

(01:49:47):
In fact, one of the books he wrote was scheduled
to have him have a book signing for this particular
piece of work. Okay, Now, anywhere in the country he
could have this signing before we get to the full store.
I'm only going to ask you this, where in this

(01:50:07):
country for this member of the college football Playoff Selection
Committee would they have said, we don't want this guy
here selling his book.

Speaker 1 (01:50:17):
That's tough. It sounds like it should be an obvious
It is an obvious answer. You've got seven seconds. That
is correct.

Speaker 4 (01:50:26):
Yes, So we'll take you through what took place between
South Bend and their hatred for Ivan Mazel.

Speaker 1 (01:50:34):
When we come back, BK, who's still listening? Or should
I say b f hmm?

Speaker 4 (01:50:42):
You could get back to the story we left you with.
Got a petty kind of ridiculous, yeah, kind of lame.
Notre Dame's AD's kind of been on a rampage verbally lately,
and most everybody that's listened to him is making it
sound like they think he's just lost it. Just ridiculous,
the nonsense that's coming from it, picking fights with the

(01:51:03):
ACC the Big twelve commissioner, then coming around the backside
and saying, we think you're in the wrong here. I
think you're making everybody look bad. And I think if
I was in the same room with you, I'd say
the same thing. Well, Notre Dame's Bookstore decided to get
in the middle of this. We're not very happy with
the College Football Playoff Committee Selection Committee. Frey Notre Dame
Bookstore has canceled a schedule Friday signing of Ivan Mayzel's

(01:51:27):
book on Frank Lahy. Frank Lahy a Notre Dame legend.
It's called The Triumphant Tragedy of Notre Dame Legend Frank
Lahy American coach. He Ivan, the author, as I mentioned
last segment, is a member of the College Football Playoff
Selection Committee. And Matt Fortuna, who's spent following this story.
He covers college football for The Inside Zone, and he

(01:51:50):
got a comment from Ivan.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
I'm disappointed.

Speaker 4 (01:51:53):
I look forward to hearing people out and talking about
my book, and it seems like the ultimate right there,
in the definition of petty, that's what this would be.
Ivan said, Hey, the bookstore acted in good faith in
the end. We got to the best result on we
go because the book signing is now back on. And

(01:52:14):
not only is the book signing back on, i'ven't posted
on his own X account. I've spoken with the ad
and the university executive director in charge of the bookstore,
both of whom gave apologies that were neither requested nor necessary.
He added this, which I bet you most people didn't realize.

(01:52:34):
And when I talk to you about who's on the committee,
if the people on the committee are involved in college
football to the point that they're ads or former ads,
or coaches or former coaches, well then they probably have allegiances,
very strong allegiances to very specific programs and or conferences, biases.
And in the fact that this particular person, we'll call

(01:52:57):
them Ivan Mazel, wrote a book specifically on one of
the legendary people associated with and in charge of and
helped create the tradition of Notre Dame football. His thoughts
on Notre Dame football and a committee meeting might not
be the ones you would want to listen to because
he might have a bias. Well, he wrote about that

(01:53:20):
when he posted like I said, he says, I stand
by the committee and the work that we did. I
stood by as the committee decided on Notre Dame because
head coach Marcus Freeman, current head coach, wrote a blurb
for my book this book American coach, I was recused
from discussing slash voting on the Irish I offered the
refusal in August, and the college football Selection Committee accepted it.

(01:53:43):
So any ill will they have towards the committee as
it involves Ivan is well, it's very poorly aimed as
he was not involved in discussions about Notre Dame, which
we did not know, although maybe could have guessed prior
to today.

Speaker 1 (01:53:58):
I know this is a very specific example of this
kind of thing, but aren't you surprised some of this
stuff doesn't happen more often?

Speaker 3 (01:54:04):
There's always biases.

Speaker 4 (01:54:06):
So send it back to the conversation that you and
I and Gordy had both on the air and off
Why I think involvement of more or some computers again
would be warranted. And again you can use all the
computers you want. Probably also want human voters, as in
the ap Pole, the Coaches poll. There's a college football
another college football poll which Cole Thompson votes on weekly

(01:54:28):
right here from Sports Talk seven to ninety the National
College Football Writers' Association Poll. Whatever there does need to
clearly be in my opinion, both you can build all
these computer models and then sometimes they spew stuff out.

Speaker 3 (01:54:41):
You're like, come on, man, I know.

Speaker 4 (01:54:44):
We've played ten games and you got this to look
at and that strength to schedule in this margin of victory.

Speaker 3 (01:54:48):
But three days ago they just played and they won.

Speaker 1 (01:54:52):
You can't rank them behind them when they have the
same record or their records better.

Speaker 4 (01:54:56):
So you balance it out with humans and computers and
all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:54:59):
You're telling me that machines are gonna be involved in
determining the outcome of something that's controversial.

Speaker 3 (01:55:06):
Is that what you're saying. I mean, I don't know
if Cyberdine Systems is busy.

Speaker 1 (01:55:09):
I'm not going down that road. I'm actually going down
a different road. You know who might probably, yes, definitely,
will weigh in on this, whether you want them to
or not. I'm not a big fan of machines determining
things and then us being tall.

Speaker 3 (01:55:22):
That's not rigged well.

Speaker 4 (01:55:24):
Right now, he has a list of only twelve universities
that are on the current list of who he could
treat too fast Food on their visit to the White House.
When they win the national title. There's only twelve teams
left that can get there.

Speaker 3 (01:55:38):
We're gonna have the.

Speaker 1 (01:55:39):
Best Big Max, the most beautiful Big Max. Really, they're
so beautiful.

Speaker 3 (01:55:43):
Don't you think the kids from James Madison will really appreciate.

Speaker 1 (01:55:45):
My gosh, what was the other smaller school that's a
potential Toulane. I Lovedulane Errow's dealing with hurricanes and other
things of that nature. We have Louisiana, great state, big,
great beautiful state.

Speaker 4 (01:56:02):
Do you have it in your toy wind up doll
that I just pulled the string to handle all of
the universities that it might be?

Speaker 3 (01:56:08):
Oh, geez, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:56:09):
A team from Lubbock wins the national title. Texas Tech
we love Texas, great red state.

Speaker 1 (01:56:15):
Some would say the most red state, although I like
Florida a little bit more red. But they have Timboweed
going across the football field there, Patrick Mahomes played. There
is Ron Dee's team. A possible visit. The Miami Hurricanes.
We love the Hurricanes private school. Michael Irvin went there.
He's a big fan of mine, Big donor Michael Irvin.

(01:56:35):
That's actually not true.

Speaker 3 (01:56:36):
I lied.

Speaker 4 (01:56:37):
What else be the one of the big ten teams
in Indiana, Oregon, Ohio State?

Speaker 1 (01:56:43):
Just pick one.

Speaker 3 (01:56:44):
What about Penn State?

Speaker 1 (01:56:45):
They didn't make it? No Happy Valley, They're not happy
there anymore. They were happy once upon a time, and
then they did hire a good coach. Some bad things
happened there, though, yes they did.

Speaker 4 (01:56:55):
Yeah, one more, one more Texas school right up the road,
about ninety minutes away college station.

Speaker 1 (01:57:01):
You know, putting an engineer school in the middle of
a cow pasture and then not being able to get
out of there when there's a George Strait. I love
George straight, but one hundred and eleven thousand people, you
have to have more efficient exits to get out of there.
I love George Strait, but I'm not going up there
in the middle of the summer to sweat my butt
off and then not be able to get out.

Speaker 3 (01:57:21):
Is is he a Rick Perry, guy Donald or no?

Speaker 1 (01:57:24):
I don't know, Like Rick Perry was before dot well, no,
Rick Perry was still the governor back then.

Speaker 4 (01:57:29):
Was on the field for only one Texas A and
M football game in my life, and on that day
I was on the field before kickoff, I took a
picture with two very famous Texans.

Speaker 1 (01:57:40):
Rick Perry is one of them, and not Matthew mcconniey.

Speaker 4 (01:57:44):
The other one is well over seven feet tall. Was
who David Robinson? Oh he's not. He went to the
Navy Naval Academy. He spent a lot of his years
in Texas, did he He played for the same Antonio Spurs.

Speaker 1 (01:58:01):
I thought you're talking about before his playing career, like
I'm thinking of college here.

Speaker 3 (01:58:04):
Well, there you go, thanks don. He hated Tim Duck
and to win. He couldn't beat a game a game.

Speaker 1 (01:58:09):
What's the best? The dream they called him.

Speaker 3 (01:58:14):
It was a nightmare though.

Speaker 4 (01:58:15):
Like the Rockets are championship contenders and for maybe multiple
years during his current presidence.

Speaker 3 (01:58:22):
Look look, look, okay, just stop right.

Speaker 1 (01:58:23):
There's Helman for Tita's team, Patrick Fatita's team to Italy.
I'm not saying I have a rooting interest, but let
me tell you they're all coming to the White House,
even the two Adams.

Speaker 3 (01:58:35):
We call them the A team.

Speaker 1 (01:58:36):
The greatest afternoon drive hosts in the history of the
Houston market.

Speaker 3 (01:58:40):
I love him.

Speaker 1 (01:58:41):
Come on at him, both of you. Could you imagine
if we went to the White House and lose my mind? Yeah,
we just need a room. We need about four hours.
We set us up a room, broadcast. I just want
to go. I want to work if they win. Just
can we make sure that Tracy gets us on the list.
It'll be the second time I've been in the White House.
I've taken a tour too. Football at five is next

(01:59:02):
Football at five with some breaking news that has not
been announced, but it has been reported. Who hits the
breaking news sounder? Now that Josh is the producer, does
he do it?

Speaker 3 (01:59:14):
Or do you?

Speaker 1 (01:59:14):
Because I'm not doing this until I hear it. It
needs to be official so that I can give this
NFL and Texans related breaking news to the masses. As
soon as I said that, the guy who tweeted this said,
there's a new version of this post and changed it up.
Let's see what he says now. I don't think this

(01:59:35):
is a huge surprise, especially since you had heard about it.
So the Texans are going to face off against the
quarterback who doesn't do postgame interviews with Laura Rutledge without
being a jerk.

Speaker 4 (01:59:46):
When the NFL schedule comes out, weeks seventeen and eighteen
are known opponent and location, but they don't announce the
dates and times on that TBD.

Speaker 1 (01:59:56):
They're TBD. Well, it's beendeed now it has been reportedly deed. Yeah, determined,
that's what that stands for. Week seventeen December twenty seventh.
NFL network is the place. Who boy, that's a great
network right there. Three thirty in the afternoon kickoff for
your Houston Texans and the San Diego Chargers, which by

(02:00:19):
the way, a Chargers game in La not San Diego.
We jest now at this point at three o'clock or
three thirty, yeah, the end, that's not.

Speaker 4 (02:00:29):
The NFL has now made the announcement all those games
for that week, and there are three Thursday games.

Speaker 3 (02:00:34):
Thursday is Christmas Day.

Speaker 4 (02:00:35):
We knew about those games, Cowboys, Commanders, Lines of Vikings,
Broncos Chiefs in that order. Then the Saturday games, which
we did not know would be Saturday games are now.
The Texans have the first of those two games. That's
the trip to the Chargers that you just mentioned, three
thirty pm Central time kickoff, and then the Ravens and
Packers will play the night game on Saturday night. Be

(02:00:56):
interesting to see the situation both of those two teams
are in Monday Night Football that night is Rams Falcons.
Sunday Night Football that night is Bears Niners, and everybody
else fills out the Sunday Day and afternoon schedule.

Speaker 1 (02:01:10):
Rams Falcons is going to be an absolute snooze fest.

Speaker 4 (02:01:16):
The Falcons are awful, Falcons are bad. Falcons might still
be playing Kirk Cousins. I hope they have somebody else
they can give the ball to, but we'll see what
it means.

Speaker 1 (02:01:24):
The Rams will well, I guess they technically might not
have the number one seed locked.

Speaker 4 (02:01:29):
Up, probably won't have the number one seed locked up,
but I feel like they could. Mathematically they absolutely could.
But like once the Bears figure out that they're actually frauds, well,
Bears are seventh. I don't think they're too concerned with
the Bears anymore, even though they could vault themselves Rams, Lions,
Rams Seahawks over the next couple of weeks, then the

(02:01:51):
Falcons game, then they close with the Cardinals. So if
they beat the Rams in LA this weekend and then
follow that up with the they the Thursday game the
following week. If they beat the Seahawks in Seattle after
beating them earlier this year at home, odds are pretty
good that game won't mean much of anything to them.
But the Texans, that means they will have a short

(02:02:12):
week after the Raiders game. They'll fly out to LA
on Friday rather than Saturday, and then they'll have an
additional day the ending week of the season before they
played the Indianapolis Colts and three point thirty on Saturday,
after sixteen weeks of NFL football have been played. For
the Texans to draw a game at three thirty after
sixteen games in the NFL season have been played, or

(02:02:34):
after six weeks, I should say, yeah, sounds very familiar,
sounds very twenty ten standalone game that they now otherwise
would not have had. And this just adds to the
list they had a standalone game throughout the season, and
if obviously their most recent standalone game was in Texans victory.

Speaker 1 (02:02:51):
Permission to pick knits?

Speaker 4 (02:02:54):
Yeah sure, you sound like well, I can't tell if
it's directed me or some other lunatic NFL.

Speaker 1 (02:03:02):
Reporters now like Iron Eagle or and micro Fortello. Can
I just say something? Yeah? Sure, Any Sunday game in
for example, LA against the Chargers would be three five
or three twenty five. Why is it when it's a holiday,

(02:03:23):
seventeenth week of the season schedule, it magically becomes five
minutes later?

Speaker 3 (02:03:29):
What's the point?

Speaker 1 (02:03:30):
I don't know. I couldn't tell you.

Speaker 3 (02:03:31):
I don't get that, well, it's always been this way too.

Speaker 4 (02:03:33):
Well, I think I tell you what my answer now
is that I think about it.

Speaker 3 (02:03:36):
It's not a typical.

Speaker 4 (02:03:38):
The windows on Sunday are noon and five or twenty
five if it's three o'clock. The windows for National TV
games outside of those Sunday windows topper bottom of the
hour almost every time. And you look at your playoff
start times for the most part, and I don't know
if they made a change recently, but you know, three
point thirty on Saturday for a standalone game on a

(02:03:58):
network other than oh, your typical Sunday slate, that's usually
what it's been. I couldn't tell you the answer to
this question, even though it's been on the schedule all year.
The Texans preceding game is the game against the Raiders.
You know, the Raiders are a West Coast team, but
they're playing in Houston. It's three twenty five start from
NRG Stadium, Sunday afternoon on the twenty first. Seems like

(02:04:21):
once out of every two years they get a random
post noon start three three h five for like.

Speaker 1 (02:04:28):
That where you go without fail to every home game
ever in the history of the franchise, ever your home
game ever ever miss What do you do for the
early window?

Speaker 3 (02:04:36):
Do you go to the stadium early and watch games there?

Speaker 4 (02:04:38):
Do you watch got to the stadium the same amount
of time before kickoff as I.

Speaker 1 (02:04:42):
Would if it were a new which is what three hours,
four hours, ten hours?

Speaker 3 (02:04:48):
I don't know. Sometimes I wonder.

Speaker 4 (02:04:49):
I try to be there at a bare minimum ninety
five minutes before kickoff.

Speaker 1 (02:04:54):
Have they given you a cot yet to sleep in? There?

Speaker 3 (02:04:57):
On the site? I'm there are people there before I
get Yeah, you're always there.

Speaker 1 (02:05:02):
I challenge you to miss a home game and come
over and watch it at my house.

Speaker 3 (02:05:04):
Is that I did not attend last year's Christmas Day game?
It was Christmas. Anna was there, Cal was there.

Speaker 1 (02:05:11):
It took Christmas. You were going to do it. You
were out.

Speaker 3 (02:05:14):
You weren't in town. That's why.

Speaker 1 (02:05:16):
Don't act like you made a sacrifice, like you were
a challenged. It's just like you were sitting at home
on a regular You left town. Was part of the
Tampa game this year for what? The show?

Speaker 3 (02:05:27):
Yeah exactly, geez.

Speaker 1 (02:05:30):
I think I missed another home game this year maybe
for what? Probably out of town? Where were you? I
don't know? Was it like family? Weekend at UT sounds
like maybe that sounds right. You know what I've done.
I've missed all the home games. Okay, good job. Well
I've watched them. I just didn't attend my only I

(02:05:52):
mean playoffs.

Speaker 3 (02:05:54):
That might change. That's not true, because I went to
the Thursday night game.

Speaker 4 (02:05:57):
Come April, when the Texans have traded the twenty fifth pick,
or they're gonna get to the second round, the twenty
ninth pick in the draft to somebody, so Nick can
again not pick in the first round, so they will
not take a defensive tackle, offensive tackle, or any other position.

Speaker 1 (02:06:11):
Keep your spot and take an offensive lineman. This isn't hard.
Offensive line's fine.

Speaker 3 (02:06:16):
Well, the best player available on the board was not
an offense yet was he doesn't even know what that means.

Speaker 4 (02:06:21):
Remember, but they are making a change to the NFL draft,
where I think even general managers, even personnel people, even scouts,
even agents, definitely television people. I think we can all
get behind. They picks in the first round. A long
time ago, they used to give you fifteen minutes. Then

(02:06:42):
they brought it down to ten, which is where it
was last year. They're gonna bring it down again. You
only have eight minutes to decide if you're gonna pull
the trigger on a trade. You only have eight minutes
to decide which obvious player you're gonna draft here in
the first round. You only have eight minutes to make
the biggest first round draft pick mistake of your general
manager's career.

Speaker 1 (02:06:59):
We are saving so in fifty four minutes this year
an hour. Yeah, coverage running till almost midnight for those
of you on the East Coast and US, you know,
the same number of minutes for every four or five
hour per round should be.

Speaker 3 (02:07:10):
Of course it should be five.

Speaker 4 (02:07:11):
I mean it's going to it a general manager. I'm
sure we'll talk to Nick about this and they'll have
something hilarious to say. But I think they can manage
to months and months and months of work on these players,
building their board, getting intel from other teams, keeping communications
open with general managers named Monty, and making sure they're
ready for their selection.

Speaker 3 (02:07:33):
And they can handle the eight minute of crunch.

Speaker 4 (02:07:35):
Time just as well as they can handle the ten
minutes of crunch time, don't you.

Speaker 1 (02:07:39):
Think, Nick.

Speaker 3 (02:07:39):
I'm Nick Cassario, and you're gonna ask me about this.

Speaker 4 (02:07:43):
NFL sent a memo out today to all thirty two
teams that during the broadcast coverage of the NFL Draft,
one of our signature Jewel Diamond events, we've elected to
shorten the broadcast by limiting teams to only eight minutes
per selection in the first round.

Speaker 3 (02:07:58):
Is that Is that cool?

Speaker 1 (02:07:59):
I mean, I don't really think about anything like that,
and it's just kind of busy work for some of
the people in the league, offact, just busy work. And
we're not even going to make a first round pick anyways,
because we're always going to trade out and we're going
to take take on extra picks and then we're gonna
flip those picks for other picks and jump back into
the second round after we do that, So it really
doesn't matter. And it's not like I'm taking the best
player on the board, because I don't even know what

(02:08:19):
that means. So, I mean, you want to tell me
that I have two less minutes to do nothing in
the first round like I always do, well, just go
ahead and tell me that, But I don't really care.

Speaker 4 (02:08:26):
You think he would want first round picks now, granted
most of them have been crazy high, but he's only
made four first round picks in his five drafts. Here
in Houston. Uh, he's batting seventy five percent. He's batting
seven to fifty. What's his worst first round pick? Well,
that's why he has the other twenty five percent. CJ

(02:08:50):
was I'm going to give that a thumbs up. That's approved.
I'm gonna give Will Anderson Junior a high approval rating.
Derek Stingley Junior, the first first round draft pick of
the Nick Cassio era. I'm gonna also approve that one.
The second pick of the Nick Cassio era. I guess
would have taken place fourteen times ten, two hours and

(02:09:12):
twenty minutes later as he traded out of thirteen to
get fifteen so they could draft Kenyan Green.

Speaker 1 (02:09:19):
That's the that's the miss low approval rating on that.
No approval rating on that.

Speaker 4 (02:09:25):
But three out of four and two of them are
arguably the best players of their position. But all three
of them drafted in the first, second or third slot.
You they should be those players.

Speaker 1 (02:09:36):
Just bring in an executive offensive line drafting assistant and
then let Nick handle the rest.

Speaker 4 (02:09:42):
Next year's offensive line includes three current starters minimum, probably exactly.
Titus Howard is going to start on this offensive line
next year. Let me tell you something about Titus Howard. Please,
you and everybody else have realized I think finally this

(02:10:03):
last week, you earlier than others. Jalen Peetrie has been
absolutely awesome this year, but he just kind of flies
under the radar with so how good everybody else is
the offensive line. We have talked about everybody on that
offensive line all year long, mostly negatively, except we barely
ever mentioned Titus Howard. And it's for the same reason
that we just mentioned Jalen Peatrie. This is the best

(02:10:25):
season Titus Howard's ever had, and he's had good seasons before,
and he earned his contract extension that Nick gave him.
He's been extremely good this year at all three spots
he's been asked to see.

Speaker 1 (02:10:34):
Yes, I would make one quick argument as we go
to break, Urseri has gotten primarily I would say positive
feedback from us the show.

Speaker 3 (02:10:42):
When he puts his hand across the line of strange
on fourth and one.

Speaker 2 (02:10:45):
You know.

Speaker 5 (02:10:49):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (02:10:53):
By the way, just as an aside came roaring back
to life during the break. Very impressive work there.

Speaker 3 (02:11:00):
What did we do? We got to the root of
a mystery? Yeah, the Uh, firing the coach for cause.

Speaker 2 (02:11:08):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:11:09):
There had actually been a report earlier in the day
that basically they were the first person if this proved
to be accurate, to have the story and who it
was with and staffer and what all it entailed and
a real Harvey Levin also seemed to indicate their sources
inside the program indicated that this was known about for
a while, for months. Interesting, And when you fire for

(02:11:33):
cause if you already knew about it, if the investigation
told you about it, let's say months meant September, what
did you Why were you waiting?

Speaker 1 (02:11:42):
Did it?

Speaker 3 (02:11:42):
Was it football? You fired him cause the season was
almost over now.

Speaker 4 (02:11:47):
So it's an unfortunate situation for I'm sure everybody involved,
including the unnamed what was it called inappropriate relationship? The
other side of the inappropriate relationship.

Speaker 1 (02:11:59):
Well, I mean, listen, this kind of stuff is happy,
is happening. It's happening right now, right now, I guarantee it.
There's too many schools. It's happening right now, and it's
it's going to happen next year. It always happens. This
stuff just happens. It's the seedier part of him.

Speaker 4 (02:12:16):
Yes it does. And there have been a bunch of
rumors with a bunch of other schools. It wasn't a
rumor at Arkansas because obviously he was caught.

Speaker 1 (02:12:23):
What was his name, Bobby Petrina, No wrong, his name
is road Rash, facial road Rash. I'll never forget that.
Just the meme of him at the present. Look what
happened to him? Do you remember?

Speaker 3 (02:12:36):
Looked like Fred Krueger. What was he doing this past
year coaching Arkansas?

Speaker 1 (02:12:41):
He'll be back.

Speaker 3 (02:12:42):
He was the head coach of Arkansas after they fired
Sam Pittman already in the SEC. It's just a matter.
It was until he they moved on from him finally,
Well again, i'll be back. He's not.

Speaker 1 (02:12:53):
That's this last tour of duty at Arkansas, would hope
at Arkansas. Yes, we'll get to another SEC school. I'll
just I'll just say no. But we'll see Bandy. I'll
take no on that.

Speaker 3 (02:13:04):
Bandy.

Speaker 1 (02:13:05):
Dandy's in great shape with Clark for now, been in.

Speaker 4 (02:13:09):
They're not They're not a real SEC school, is Vandy.
They might actually not lose him because he.

Speaker 1 (02:13:15):
Wants to be there. Okay, if you say so.

Speaker 4 (02:13:19):
We'll also see what they look like after the second
place finisher in the Heisman Trophy.

Speaker 1 (02:13:23):
Voting leave school. Do you think every talks to her still, Bobby, Yeah, Like,
remember that time we got on my motorcycle.

Speaker 3 (02:13:30):
Oh what do you think she's doing now?

Speaker 4 (02:13:34):
Not working in college sports administration? Like that was so
long ago now twenty twelve. Oh my gosh, I'll just
never forget.

Speaker 1 (02:13:44):
Like every day, for like two or three straight days,
more details would come out and I'd be like, Wow,
it was even worse than I thought. Wow, what a
scum Like an even bigger, scummier situation than I thought.
And just but the motors cycle aspect of it, the
road rash, just Chef's kiss. He survived.

Speaker 3 (02:14:07):
It's fine.

Speaker 4 (02:14:08):
They both survived the road. So I brought this up
earlier and we never really got into them. We'll get
to in case you missed it next. We've got tickets
to give away in the final segment of the show.
We'll give you deats on that as we continue. But
we had actually brought this topic up a few days ago,
just because the Texans had just played to the Chiefs.

Speaker 3 (02:14:26):
They've already played the Bills.

Speaker 4 (02:14:27):
Texans has tried to get through the Bills and Chiefs
and the postseason before and the most experienced quarterbacks in
the AFC that have actually played an AFC playoff game,
So I can dismiss Aaron Rodgers. Are those two quarterbacks,
Pat Mahomes and Josh Allen. We'll see if Allen is
a big participant this year. We'll see if Mahomes even
is a participant at all this year. But they've played

(02:14:47):
each other a bunch and one of them has had
a lot more team success than the other. So somebody
who covers the Chiefs wrote about Mahomes. Mahomes has been
working in a torture chamber of bad wide receivers and
schemes has led the Chiefs to three Super Bowls during
that span, with two titles. He's absolutely the best quarterback
in football with due respect. You know, I mean that

(02:15:08):
you know about anything you might be talking about. Wait wait,
hang on, read the first part again, the very first part.
He's been working in a torture chamber of bad wide
receivers in scheme. Okay, I'll give you maybe the wide
receiver's part.

Speaker 5 (02:15:22):
Pretty much.

Speaker 4 (02:15:22):
They've had Tyreek Hill, and if you're really being he
says bad wide receivers. So he's taking Travis Kelsey out
of the conversation, which is a little bit unfair because
he's not just your typical number one, he's he's the guy, right,
But outside of Tyreek Hill, they've had a hodgepodge of
guys that are just rostered wide receivers.

Speaker 3 (02:15:39):
Again, nothing special. This offense is has been elite with
Pat Mahomes because he's phenomenal.

Speaker 1 (02:15:48):
Okay, but then that just I mean, he didn't look
like he was being tortured. I'm sorry, like I can't.
I saw the stomach that someone had the same point
of view as you did. And he works three covers,
the draft and a bunch of other things. He wrote,
anyone who writes this guy off at thirty, well do
so at your own peril.

Speaker 4 (02:16:08):
Nobody's writing off Patrick Mahomes. Another writer responded and said,
no one is writing him off.

Speaker 3 (02:16:13):
Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 4 (02:16:14):
And because this conversation in previous back and forths had
included Josh Allen, he said, no one's writing him off.
Josh Allen is just playing better over the last fifty games.
Doesn't mean that can't flip And for some reason is
continued with the other reporter. It's Jason versus Marcus. Marcus
is telling you how good Josh Allen is, and Jason's

(02:16:35):
telling you how bad Josh Allen is. Starting here, and
he writes, and he writes, Josh Allen has never reached
a super Bowl, let alone one one, and in the
playoffs he always fails against fifteen. You can talk about
stats as much as you want, but whether in Western
New York, Kansas City, Missouri at legacy time you can
count on Allen to come up short against Mahomes.

Speaker 3 (02:16:55):
That is the most disingenuous.

Speaker 1 (02:16:58):
I'm not even trying to be a serious journalist or
person on social media. If that I've ever heard since
James Harden arguments I used to get into so.

Speaker 4 (02:17:10):
One response from the same writer that he's been going
back and forth with Marcus says, I promise covering football
is more fun when you view it as a team
sport and not quarterback versus quarterback, because otherwise we get
into the ELI is better than Brady because Brady never
beat him when it matters.

Speaker 1 (02:17:26):
Or Eli's better than Peyton, if you want to go
that route. At least Eli didn't have to jump to
another team for ring number two, because that's what a
stupid person would say.

Speaker 4 (02:17:36):
Like him Josh Allen walked off the field and arrowhead
with thirteen seconds and the lead. He never saw the
ball again and lost. And that's an indictment on him,
by the way. This he's the one who came up short.
Come on, man, you can't work for a major network
and be that dense. Gosh, this guy probably hated Dan Marino.
That gay sucks. So he even went so far as
to take us to last year's games specifics when they

(02:17:58):
met and the Chiefs kicked a fieldgal take a thirty
two to twenty nine lead. Josh Allen got the ball
back two minutes to go, ended up giving it back
on downs on a fourth down play. And that's how
he described it in his post. Here's his opportunity, here's
where he was. This is what he could have done.
And if you were just taking him to his word
and moving on, it sounded like a pretty good case.

(02:18:20):
And then you realize that fourth down play again, could
have done more on first, second, or third down. But
the fourth down play was that somewhat memorable wild scramble
by Josh who throws across his body. It looks like
this wounded duck and it lands right in the hands
of Dalton Kincaid who drops it.

Speaker 1 (02:18:36):
Oh, so dropping is okay when it's Patrick Mahomes, but
not for Josh Allen. By the way, is he aware
of this guy who thinks that if you don't win
ever against Patrick Mahomes, you suck as a quarterback I'm paraphrasing.
Does he know that Patrick Mahomes is about to sit
on the couch this winner while Josh Allen's going to
take a top seed into the postseason or does that

(02:18:57):
not count because Patrick Mahomes also wasn't there and so
therefore his narratives obliterated?

Speaker 3 (02:19:01):
What an idiot?

Speaker 4 (02:19:01):
Yeah, many, I pointed these numbers out the other day,
and he's obviously refuting all of them.

Speaker 3 (02:19:06):
But it is this guy's name, Jason Idiot, Jason idiot.

Speaker 4 (02:19:10):
It is these these games that they've specifically played against
one another. They scream, Yeah, you can't win without a
great quarterback, but you can lose with a great quarterback.
And he's playing great when the rest of the team
isn't along for the ride. They're literally just along for
the ride. All these games we're talking about. You know,
Josh Allen had the thirteen second game that's like the

(02:19:32):
greatest individual quarterback performance you're ever.

Speaker 3 (02:19:34):
Going to see. But the game wasn't over yet.

Speaker 4 (02:19:37):
His defense had to take the field twice, once in
regulation and then again in overtime. He never saw the
field again. These these games and these stats and these
losses that his team is incurring. He's losing thirty nine,
thirty six. He's losing thirty.

Speaker 1 (02:19:53):
Two to twenty nine. Teams that allow twenty nine and
thirty two points a game regularly. In the playoffs, they
don't advance. Okay, not the quarterbacks fault. I'll make it
even more simple for you, since this is how he
looks at things in a not even one dimensional way,
I'm gonna name off teams that are ahead of Josh
Allen's in the standings, and I want you to stop

(02:20:15):
me when you'll trade one of their starting quarterbacks for
his for his short list. Denver Broncos, you want, you
want bow Nicks? Not this year?

Speaker 3 (02:20:23):
How about Drake May with the Patriots?

Speaker 1 (02:20:25):
Not this year?

Speaker 3 (02:20:26):
How about Sunshine Horse Face in Jacksonville. Well, they're not
ahead of him, They're just the same nine and four
football team. Well they're the three seed right now.

Speaker 4 (02:20:32):
They are ahead of them in the seatings and how
about saying Rogers this year, I don't mean anything about
how they're playing. I mean these are second year guys.
Neither has won a playoff game. May has never even
played in a playoff game. I don't want him in
the playoffs over Josh Allen. And oh, by the way,
I don't want Justin Herbert over Josh Allen. No matter
what you guys all tell me about how he was

(02:20:53):
designed in a lab and how great he is. You
know why he's never won a playoff game.

Speaker 1 (02:20:57):
Twenty five touchdown passes, four and tas in his postseason career.
That's Josh Allen.

Speaker 3 (02:21:04):
He's awesome.

Speaker 5 (02:21:07):
The AE on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (02:21:13):
Oh dream that music means it's time for WEX to
talk over the start of in case you missed it.

Speaker 3 (02:21:20):
We got in case you missed it. In case you
missed it.

Speaker 4 (02:21:22):
Last segment we were talking about Josh Allen Pat Mahomes
before he turned things over to Josh for a few items,
including some words of wisdom from C. J.

Speaker 1 (02:21:30):
Stroud, Houston Texans quarterback.

Speaker 4 (02:21:33):
Let me ask you this, since I left you with
the playoff numbers for Josh Allen one hundred and one
point seven passer rating to go along with those twenty
five touchdowns against just four picks in his thirteen career
playoff games. He is among the top five current NFL
starting quarterbacks in postseason passer rating minimum seventy five attempts.

(02:21:56):
Should like to guess who the other members of the
top five are, and I'll tell you he.

Speaker 1 (02:22:02):
Is fourth active active Mahomes. Mahomes is two one oh
five point four. Lamar is not a good playoff postseason quarterback,
especially throwing the football.

Speaker 3 (02:22:15):
Old man Rogers.

Speaker 1 (02:22:16):
He's not in the top five. Really, he is a
good player, okay, and I believe he is six. I
feel like this should be obvious.

Speaker 4 (02:22:29):
One of the other ones is obvious. The other two,
number one and number five are not obvious.

Speaker 1 (02:22:37):
I give up.

Speaker 3 (02:22:38):
Wow, Matt Stafford's in the top five. He's third.

Speaker 1 (02:22:41):
Okay, what's the unobvious number one?

Speaker 4 (02:22:46):
He's the.

Speaker 1 (02:22:48):
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback. And then who's left five playoffs active?
Is he on a roster but he's not starting? He
is both on a roster and starting.

Speaker 3 (02:23:05):
Oh, there goes Russell Wilson. That's a joke. He's I
don't know. This is weird.

Speaker 4 (02:23:13):
Let's hear from CJ. Stroud Josh because he's number five, Okay.

Speaker 6 (02:23:17):
Oh yeah, I mean I try to just make plays
and you know whatever that looks like. So you know,
Sunday it was a little bit me on the move
in the pocket. But I know stuff like that in
this league doesn't last. So you know, got to just
get better on just sitting in the pocket and taking
one stare and just you know, our guys up front,
you know, blocking and blocking the side out and just
you know, so we all know what we need to fix.

(02:23:38):
And I think you know what he's go on. You
know we can do to get better at that. But
I think I can pull it out the bag when
I need to.

Speaker 9 (02:23:44):
So what CJ was talking about there was all scheduled plays,
second reaction plays, which we saw a lot of that
in the second half where he was flushed from the pocket.
He had to make some big throws on the run.
He hit I remember Higgins for one of the big ones.
So that's something CJ can do when you need him
to do it, and I trust him to do that
more than somebody like Davis Mills. I don't know about
you guys.

Speaker 4 (02:24:03):
Yeah, two big plays to Nico Collins one in the
framework of an on schedule play. Why don't we call
plays where you stay in the pocket on schedule plays,
That's exactly what they are. Maybe it was an underthrow,
but it succeeded nonetheless to a certain degree, very shobbed
to Andre Johnson like the other one was the one
on the move to Nico Collins when he rolled out
to his right through the ball into an area. Nico

(02:24:24):
Collins got to the area before anybody else did, turned
up field and trudged inside the red zone slowly. According
to your you play the Josh reference was probably the
best throw of the three. He rolled out again to
his right, avoiding pressure. And I've seen just the live
version and then the replay of the live version rather

(02:24:45):
than some other angles where it certainly looked like the
throw was a dart and in between traffic and right
into the belly of Higgins, and arguably.

Speaker 3 (02:24:53):
Like it was probably his second best throw. It was surgical.

Speaker 4 (02:24:56):
The best throw of the game was one that you
don't have in the books because it was wiped out
by p only sent earlier in the week. The touchdown
passed the Schultz for the time of the game.

Speaker 3 (02:25:04):
Very beginning of the game.

Speaker 4 (02:25:05):
Oh my god, the Texts are going to get off
to a good start and score a touchdown.

Speaker 3 (02:25:09):
He put the ball in a perfect place. Seems like
an easy throw to make.

Speaker 4 (02:25:12):
They did everything right on that play after the snap,
but unfortunately didn't do everything right before the snap. All right, Josh,
I know you got more lined up from old Cole Ridge.

Speaker 3 (02:25:22):
What else I do?

Speaker 9 (02:25:23):
And just tacking on to that, remember that play where
Chris Jones had him in his grasp and he just
got away and made that huge throw.

Speaker 3 (02:25:29):
That was a big part of the game.

Speaker 9 (02:25:31):
And speaking in this well same kind of area of conversation,
CJ talked today about his chemistry with his receivers. We
talked about Jaden Higgins and these other guys and a
lot of them are are young guys, Noel, we see
them having issues.

Speaker 8 (02:25:43):
Line it up.

Speaker 3 (02:25:43):
How's the chemistry going? CJ was asked today, I think.

Speaker 6 (02:25:46):
We've you know, built rapports, you know throughout the room.
You know some of the guys are you know, I'm
still trying to figure them out. And then I think,
you know, when I got the concussion, you know, I
thought I was where I was get a connection with
some guys, I had thrown to the minute and then
you know, kind of had to restart that when I
came back. So I think it's gonna take more time
with everybody, but I think, you know, we're taking charge

(02:26:08):
every week and we're just having more conversation and communications.
You know, I want them to see how I see it.
I want to see how they you know, So in
that connection, that chemistry is getting built every game.

Speaker 4 (02:26:18):
Jad and Higgins just completed his fifth consecutive game with
at least five targets. Obviously, the last two have come
with CJ five targets each. He caught eight of those.
The previous three games, the Jacksonville, Tennessee and Buffalo Mills
miracle win games. He was targeted seven times or more
in all of them. And before that, CJ's last game

(02:26:39):
against Denver before he was hurt, and every game that
preceded it, he saw more than four targets in a
game only one time. He's now done that in five
consecutive games. He's getting the reps that go along with that.

Speaker 1 (02:26:52):
He's on the.

Speaker 4 (02:26:53):
Field neighborhood of sixty sixty five percent of the time now.
Xavier Hutchinson has seen a similar portion of the reps.
Very curious what the Texans do between now and even Sunday,
but certainly in the next few weeks. In that Justin
Watson has returned to practice. His practice window is open,
but he is not yet on the active roster. I'm
sure he won't be activated before this week because they.

Speaker 1 (02:27:14):
Would have to make a roster move.

Speaker 4 (02:27:15):
Braxon Barrios is consistently on the inactive list, and they
have a healthy group all around him. Everybody at the
position group now is healthy. If he doesn't see the field,
he's not part of your return game, and you make
him inactive every week, and you have other areas of concern,
which they do. I think, and I'm sad that I'm
saying it this way because I'm just not a nice person.

(02:27:36):
I think the second breakup of Braxton's late twenty twenty
five will.

Speaker 1 (02:27:41):
Occur with the Texans. Ah, yeah, yay, Why did you
do that? That's because it's in the news.

Speaker 3 (02:27:47):
I didn't even know that.

Speaker 4 (02:27:49):
Yeah, just after DWTS concluded both sides confirmed and amicable
parting other ways.

Speaker 1 (02:27:56):
Do you remember when he came on the show? I do,
and we weren't allowed to ask him about that.

Speaker 3 (02:28:02):
I mean a live interview in person.

Speaker 4 (02:28:03):
If I interviewed him at practice or something like that
where she might actually have been there, maybe I would have,
but he was at a charity event talking football with us.

Speaker 1 (02:28:11):
Probably didn't need to anyway.

Speaker 3 (02:28:13):
Now you know, and now he won't ever have to.

Speaker 4 (02:28:15):
I thought it was a perfect spot for in case
you missed it. Do we have anything else today, Josh, yeah,
Just quickly on the injury front, something to pay attention to.
Marvin Harrison Junior not practicing today. He missed last week
with the heel injury.

Speaker 9 (02:28:27):
Of course, Michael Wilson's been picking up the slack for
them and Trey McBride as it stud it tight end.
But hey, if you don't have to deal with Marvin
Harrison Junior, that's a good thing for the Texans.

Speaker 3 (02:28:36):
We'll see how he does throughout the week.

Speaker 1 (02:28:37):
I asked WEX during a break, I said, does Marvin
Harrison Junior play this week?

Speaker 3 (02:28:41):
And he goes no.

Speaker 4 (02:28:44):
Marvin Harrison Junior has missed three of the last four games.
The only game that he participated in, he had sixty
nine receiving yards on six catches. Michael Wilson, who you
just referenced he's seen fifty six targets in four games.
Last four games, a fifteen catch game, a ten catch game,
an eleven catch game, all while Trey McBride has also

(02:29:08):
seen forty targets. It's not a surprise. They're not disguising it.
It's not whoops. I didn't know we had to cover him.
Jacoby Brissett is not messing around. I am throwing the
ball to these two guys all afternoon long. You're not
gonna stop them, but you might still beat us, which

(02:29:28):
pretty much everybody has been doing. And remember the Arizona Cardinals,
the Kyler Murray led Arizona Cardinals prior to this past Sunday,
when Shadoor Sanders joined the group. The only two teams,
the Browns and the Cards to lose to the Titans
this year. The Titans won a game when the Cardinals
fumbled a seventy yard touchdown run when they dropped the
ball before the end zone, and the Browns lost a

(02:29:51):
game to the Titans when they were down fourteen points,
scored a touchdown in the fourth quarter and decided to
go for two stupidly, and then ran an even dumber
two points play later.

Speaker 3 (02:30:00):
In the game.

Speaker 1 (02:30:01):
There you go, Titans.

Speaker 5 (02:30:07):
The eighteen on sporting.

Speaker 4 (02:30:10):
Final segment of this afternoon's program, don't go anywhere. After
we wrap things up, you will get to hear from
Steve Sparks Astrolines Sparky Winter Meetings Edition with Steve Sparks.
Astro's assistant pitching coach Ethan Katz will be among the guests,
as will aj blue Ball somebody who's interested in who

(02:30:31):
else will be joining the starting rotation. I'm sure he
will be given a very good opportunity to be a
part of it, certainly to be a pitcher who makes
the opening day roster. Maybe in a different capacity, but
all that comes your way. Beginning at six o'clock mention,
we have tickets to give away still and that includes
a pair of tickets to Trans Siberian Orchestra there of
course performing The Ghost to Christmas Eve, the Best of

(02:30:51):
TSO and more. That is December nineteenth at Toyota Center.
So tickets to both the afternoon and evening shows are
available via Toyota Center Dot. You can also win a
four pack of tickets. You singularly can't win both four
pack of tickets with pit passes to Monster Jam. That's
February fifteenth. That's at NRG Stadium. There are actually three

(02:31:12):
Monster Jam events there in February, one on the seventh,
one on the fourteenth, and the ones we're giving tickets
away two on the fifteenth. But show tickets are available
via ticketmaster dot com for all three of those shows.

Speaker 3 (02:31:24):
Right now.

Speaker 4 (02:31:25):
For Monster Jam, we got a four pack of tickets
with pit passes to give away here. If you know
the answer to this question, and you will know the
answer to the question if you were listening to the
show just last segment, so you can call in with
the answer to this question I'm about to give you.
At seven one three, two one two five seven ninety
I asked my co host and our listeners in a

(02:31:46):
roundabout way heading into the postseason, who are the top
five current active starting quarterbacks in postseason passer rating minimum
of seventy five attempts.

Speaker 1 (02:31:58):
I told you that CJ. Stroud is on the list.

Speaker 4 (02:32:00):
He's fifth, Josh Allen is fourth, Matthew Stafford is third,
Patrick Mahomes is second. Who's first? We mentioned it this
very last segment. Who is number one among current active
starting quarterbacks with at least seventy five postseason passes in
postseason passer rating if you know the answer to that

(02:32:21):
question seven one three two one two five seven ninety
and I will note that that answer is to a
quarterback that currently would be able to either make it
better or make it worse, depending on his performance.

Speaker 3 (02:32:39):
Are you a fan of.

Speaker 1 (02:32:43):
Any athlete, but particularly well known slash successful athletes making
stands on social media that look ridiculous and sound even
more ridiculous.

Speaker 4 (02:32:53):
I'm not going to offer an answer to that extremely
rhetorical question.

Speaker 3 (02:32:58):
So you remember back before the.

Speaker 1 (02:33:03):
Twenty fourteen twenty fifteen playoffs, when Lebron James said the
following on April eighteenth, twenty fifteen, I'm gonna take my
talents to no no No. That was different that was
earlier zero Dark twenty I can't even stay with the
straight face zero Dark thirty twenty three activated hashtag strive
for Greatness.

Speaker 3 (02:33:25):
I don't remember that, but I'll take when he was
gonna go dark.

Speaker 1 (02:33:27):
Okay, now, the difference being in twenty fifteen, Lebron James
had a lot left in the tank, a lot. He's
won championship, well, a fake championship since then, at least.

Speaker 4 (02:33:41):
In a couple of real ones, so we wanted to
focus on winning titles and leave social media go dark. Okay,
guess who else is going dark? Is this someone that
close to his level? No, someone I'll know, Yes, big
social media presence like active. He was actually mentioned last.
So he plays football, specifically the quarterback position. Is he

(02:34:06):
from Texas Tech?

Speaker 2 (02:34:09):
No?

Speaker 4 (02:34:10):
Is he from Shaker Heights and co hosts a podcast
with his brother. No, all right, I don't know he
plays in the biggest market. He plays in New York
and by plays I mean does not play. Russell Wilson.

Speaker 1 (02:34:26):
Russell Wilson man, I gotta get back to ballin and
being me back to my first ten.

Speaker 3 (02:34:32):
It's time time to go dark.

Speaker 1 (02:34:35):
He tweeted that today, like today, I believe you like
he's thirty seven and can't beat out anybody on the
New York Giants death chart to play quarterback, and he tweeted.

Speaker 3 (02:34:49):
That I don't know what to do with my hands.

Speaker 4 (02:34:53):
The passes that he threw for the New York Giants
this year will be the last NFL passes that he throws.

Speaker 1 (02:34:59):
Oh did I mentioned that? He quote tweeted a tweet
that said twenty seventeen through twenty twenty, Russell Wilson would
be the best quarterback in the NFL if he played today,
And Denny said, I gotta get back to ballin and
being me back to my first ten.

Speaker 3 (02:35:13):
It's time time to.

Speaker 4 (02:35:14):
Go dark because most responses are gifts. It's hard for
me to bring them to Rye try No. I mean
it's I think everybody has the same reaction listening to
us that had on social media. I just like it's
hard to say goodbye. It's hard to face sports mortality.

(02:35:37):
And he's had multiple years to come to grips with
it and as having trouble. This is not This isn't
the first year he's a quarterback that needs to be replaced.
It's not the second year he's a quarterback that needs
to be replaced.

Speaker 1 (02:35:50):
The funniest part is that the years he mentioned again
he wasn't the best even then, twenty seventeen to twenty twenty.
You're not better than Patrick mahomes Well, the best is fine.
I think you're probably right, but he's one of the
five best, top ten if five mahomes Lamar, Josh Allen,

(02:36:13):
somebody else, some others.

Speaker 4 (02:36:15):
Also during that time was having at least as much
if not more postseason success than some of them, Like
he won well in those very small four years. He
only won one playoff game, but he had already been
a Super Bowl champion. Like not that it's a big deal.
We don't need to spend too much time on it.
We don't have much time on it. We talked about
Josh Allen, we talked about Eli Manning, We've talked about

(02:36:36):
Philip Rivers all this week. And on the Hall of Fame,
Russell Wilson's going to the Hall of Fame. Russell Wilson
is a Hall of Fame NFL quarterback.

Speaker 3 (02:36:45):
To what you're saying and his credit.

Speaker 1 (02:36:48):
Twenty seventeen, he was just under four thousand yards passing
thirty four touchdowns eleven picks, led the league in touchdowns
a ninety five to four rating. Twenty eighteen just under
thirty five hundred, thirty five touchdowns, seven picks, one ten
point nine. Twenty nineteen threw for over forty one hundred

(02:37:09):
yards with thirty one and five and one hundred and
six point three rating, and twenty twenty he was forty
two plus with forty touchdowns, thirteen picks, one hundred and
five rating, but you're thirty seven. Now, that's the part
I really want to get at. It's time to go
dark Man forever. Okay, what does he think it's gonna happen?

Speaker 4 (02:37:30):
Twenty twenty's probably more about that was the last year
that he was awesome. His last year in Seattle wasn't awesome.
It wasn't dreadful, but it wasn't awesome, and then two
years in Denver were both bad. His year in Pittsburgh
was not very good, even though he quarterbacked them in
the playoffs badly, and then this year's with the Giants.

Speaker 1 (02:37:47):
That's what I was just saying.

Speaker 4 (02:37:49):
He's not just going through the first nine to twelve
games of Oh man, I really don't have it anymore.

Speaker 3 (02:37:54):
I'm gonna say this five years running.

Speaker 1 (02:37:56):
I'm gonna say this as eloquently and as delicately as possible.
You're thirty seven, you're beyond washed, and you're married to Sierra.

Speaker 3 (02:38:06):
Go home. It's like retirement's gonna be awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:38:10):
It's actually gonna probably be better than ninety percent of
the other guys who played at your level and achieved
what you achieved. None of them went home to Sierra afterwards.
I don't know how he's been with his money, but
very He's got lots of it. Even if he was
like awful spending too much. He's still married to Sierra.
They're not gonna be hurting go home. Well, he's not

(02:38:31):
playing for money.

Speaker 4 (02:38:32):
He's playing because he doesn't realize what he isn't anymore
a good quarterback. There you have it, astroline comes your
way next. We'll be back with you tomorrow at two
pm for another edition of I don't even know what
Clan's going to be talking about a team