Rockets down the Suns, Texans-Colts, NFL playoff scenarios

The A-Team's Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton weigh in on the Rockets' big win over the Suns without Durant, the Texans massive matchup with the Colts, the NFL playoff landscape, and much more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Two o'clock here on a Tuesday edition of The A
Team All, we are so much closer to Thanksgiving. I'm
actually super excited for that meal this year. I am
every year, but I'm really I don't know what this
year is. I'm like really looking forward to it. So
we are approximately forty eight hours away. I don't know
what time of day you eat that meal? Wex with

(00:20):
your family? Like, is there a set time every single year?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
First one will have already been completed by two o'clock
on Thursday, And then when do you go back for seconds?
Is it four hours? Is it six? The second one
will start maybe between six thirty and seven, depending on
how well I get everything situated at the second stop.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
How do you have this already down to like times?
You know too people?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, we have set times like, Hey, we're gonna go
eat Thanksgiving meal at blank time. Hey come over to
our house for Thanksgiving meal at blank time. That's not abnormal,
is it? Well?

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Will you tell people to come over for a holiday
like Thanksgiving? It doesn't mean that you're necessarily eating at
that time. It means that's that's the time you should
be at the house where everybody's gonna do it.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
The meal that we're making and serving at a home.
I get there at a certain time because then I
help organize how we get everything ready in time for
me to eat when I want to eat.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Wait, you help organize something. So it's the way you
like it?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
No way, No, I just think that it works better
this way, right.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
That's why I just said in so many words. I
didn't even ask. Yeah, I don't even have to ask anymore.
They're like, how do you want to do this? That's
how they say it. That's how I am here on
the show with like graphics and such. What's I mean?
Just how do you want to do it? All right,
you'll do it because that way it gets done the
way you like it.

Speaker 2 (01:34):
I mean, it's nice to spend time. I think that's
what Thanksgiving is about, spending time with family and friends.
But it's also about hey man, let's go, let's eat.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
You know what, I'm thankful for you organizing our show
as much.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
As you do. That's great. How about that. I'm thankful
for you making the show as entertaining as it could
possibly be. I don't I yeah, I try.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
I try my best, but it's sometimes it's some days
are more difficult.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well to save all the I love working with you
till tomorrow when it's our last show before Thanksgiving. Yeah,
sorry about that.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Let's get back on task, all right, Let's talk about
what happened last night in Phoenix. It's not that it
was a surprise. I thought the Rockets would honestly easily
win that game, even without Kevin Durant in the lineup,
even with all of the I guess on court pleasantries
we thought we would see when the season began.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Some of those still happen. They were just in street clothes.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
I thought it was cool to see Jalen greeting his
teammates both before and of course after the game. Jeff
Green was really happy to see Jalen. I don't know
if you happen to catch that bear hug.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
All right, Jeff Green is not your typical get ready
for a game you know you're not gonna play in
unless it's a blowout player. He's a part of their
get ready for the game every night. Every night, he
stands at half court, He chest bumped, fake fights with
his teammates and e may so he's right there. And
so when Jalen comes out to tap up a few
guys or get some bro hugs in. He's also right there.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
I really like if you guys get the chance, and
there's not a lot of home games coming up in
the next month or so, just because it's a very
road heavy portion of the calendar for the Rockets, if
you get a chance to attend a game at Toyota Center,
make it a point to be well. First of all,
make it a point to be in your seat anyways,
because you know Houston struggles with that. But then once
you get there, one of the things you really should
do is right before tip off, just observe what Jeff

(03:23):
Green does. I hadn't even really noticed it, and probably
until very late in the game. He really does go
above and beyond. I don't want to say, is Jack
Hayley because that was one man's personal cheerleader if you
know what I'm talking about with Dennis Rodman, But.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
No, he really, it's a whole thing.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
It's a whole system he's got going over there, and
it's quite amusing, as Wex was pointing out. But yeah,
that game, in light of the fact that Jalen Green
was out and Kevin Durant was out, was a lot
more entertaining than even I thought it would be. I
knew that Dylan Brooks would have some of his antics.
I did not know the emay would come out there
and kind of I don't know. What do you think

(04:00):
he said to him in his ear last night in
the middle.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Of that.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Fracas dust up, whatever you want to call it, where
he thought it'd be a good idea to try and
take out Steven Adams.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
That was hilarious. It was a common foul, and Steven
Adams went down to the ground and so Emy went
out to check on him. That was pretty much it.
Did you agree that it was a common foul? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (04:21):
Even looking at the slow moo replay, you don't think
he did this. So I'm a little dirty there. It
wasn't a basketball play.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, when neither of them had the basketball. It's hard
to make a basketball play when neither of you have it.
Guys run into each other all the time, and this
was intentional. That's a foul, I guess I get.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
If the roles were reversed, don't you think that Stephen
would have been at least reviewed for a flagrant as well,
and maybe even.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Give him one. This guy's a lot harder than that
when he sets screen, I know he does, and those
aren't flagrant fowls either.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
It was surprising to me. I think that Dylan was
able to inflict that kind of damage. You don't see, Steven.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
That's why I May and everybody else involved kind of
acknowledges it was a bit of an embellishment, or, to
use a better term, flop. You thought he flopped, well,
I know E May thought he flopped.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
Oh my gosh. Maybe he sold it to me so
well that I thought it was legit. He got him good,
he did. It was typical basketball stuff.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
We've watched Dylan play before he was with the Rockets,
and we've watched Dylan play since he's left the Rockets.
That's the type of basketball he likes to play. By
the way, he was awesome.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Yeah, okay, so I was yesterday years old when I
discovered that he's averaging almost twenty two points per game.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, I don't know how bad he was. Crazy. They
were coached last year, but I know they're coached a
lot better this year. They understand how to play basketball
now and they play a lot harder than they did
a year ago. And it's not because of their personnel,
because that's just not it. As much as you might
want to point that out and try to make that
the thing, that's not the thing. It's just about what

(05:49):
they're trying to do this year. To be eleven and
seven with the roster that they have, that is impressive.
They were eleven and six before. The Rockets just said,
you can play as hard as you want, you can
make all these threes every time we try to extend
the lead, but you're not gonna beat us or better.
The Phoenix Suns played pretty well all things considered, but
they also didn't play the twenty five twenty six Rockets
last night. They played last year's Rockets. That was a

(06:11):
last year's Rockets basketball game. That was You're not going
to be able to score. That was every basket you
get is going to be extremely arduous to try to
get and eventually we're gonna blow you out. That was
last year's team. Yeah, it was. That was the recipe
for success.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
It's I don't know how well that translates to the
postseason because I just don't think that that works. I
think the you know, the game being slowed down, all
the cliches you hear about with playoff series. Plus you know,
teams make adjustments. Because you're saying that they did it,
they tried to throw it back, I'm saying this is
who they had at their disposal last night.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Absolutely, I agree with you.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
It's it's because of who was available who wasn't available.
But again, part of who wasn't available was because one
of those players was playing in another jersey, you know,
Dylan Brooks. And and I think I think this was
Matt Thomas that talked about this during the broadcast last night.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
He was talking.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
To somebody about, you know, whether or not this deal
might go through. And I think in the early stages
of Rockets saying we want Kevin Durant, I don't think
that they thought Dylan Brooks would be included in any deal,
or at least they didn't want him to be if
they could help it. And I often wonder, especially after
last night, what this year's team would have looked like

(07:31):
if they were able to trade Jalen Green for Kevin Durant.
And it was again a multiplayer, multi team deal, wasn't
just the Rockets and the Suns, And they showed that
on the graphic last night. I think people forget just
how many players were involved and how many picks were
involved in this deal. But what would this year's Rockets
team look like if they were somehow able to keep

(07:51):
Dylan Brooks with everything else they have, they'd be better.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
I know, I just but again, last night's game was
played with this here's team, but they played last year's style.
I'm not saying it's because they didn't have Dylan and
they are capable of playing last year's style with this
year's roster. This really hadn't done it yet. Last night
was the first example of them being able to really
clamp down defensively. I think it's specific to the who

(08:18):
they were playing. Basically, it's a two man offense. They're
getting offense from other guys, but these are the two
guys you want to slow down. If you slow down
one of them, you're probably gonna win. One of them
was Booker. Booker just could not get off against the Rockets.
They made it difficult for him, and credit to all
the bodies they threw out him, I think there's some
credit that needs to be given to the rest of
the roster, like Joshua Koge last night, he was going

(08:38):
to play a bigger role and he did because he
is capable of doing those things. You want to change
tempo defensively, you bring a guy like him in, He's
probably not getting as many minutes if Tarry Easton is healthy.
So all things considered, that was one of their more
impressive basketball games the way they went about it last night.
Also because of who wasn't there offensively, I think there
was a lot more time for Amen Thompson to have

(08:59):
the basket, whether it was creating for others, creating for himself,
or just being a bigger part of the offense. And
I think the last probably four or five games, we've
seen that more. Last night we saw it even more,
and I think it's something we'll see a lot the
rest of the way.

Speaker 1 (09:13):
The nickname that I'm gonna try and make happen, but
I don't think it's gonna catch on because it's more
of a description of how he plays, not who he is.
Was certainly on display last night, several different quick Twitch
plays he is, and I was looking.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Over the highlights again this morning.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
I think it was basically a montage that the Rockets
have put together on either X or Instagram. I mean,
he was unbelievable last night. Offensively, take everything else aside.
Just from a pure offensive standpoint, he was fantastic and
he made a lot of the shots that he was
missing in the game against Denver. You get that him
in Thompson against Denver, you probably won that game. Yeah,
credit to Denver.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
It was one of the probably the worst shooting night
I know they've had one game. The Denver game was
even technically worst fieldbal percentage wise, but the top to
bottom Denver did a number on just about everybody in
that game. And I give credit to them. Nothing that
the Rockets were doing differently. The shots weren't going in
because I think they were pressured into shots they don't
want to take.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
A men.

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Thompson took one three confidently, drained it. Took sixteen other
shots from the floor. Most of them were at close
range or in his new sweet spot in the kind
of mid range game, mid lane range, or right at
the basket. So he made ten of those ten of sixteen,
made all seven of his free throws, and led the way.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
It was a great game for the Rockets, gets them
to eleven wins, and we'll see if they can build
on that. Monday Night football a bit of a snooze
fest unless you're a diehard forty nine Ers fan.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
It just I will say this.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Bryce Young looked decent at times. At times he.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Was awful for the night he was overall, but he
made some. He made some. Last week's game was the outlier. Yeah,
well he sucks.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
I'm glad the Texans didn't get the chance to draft
him and ruin their franchise.

Speaker 2 (10:59):
I give. I mean, the Niners have done this to
a lot of teams, but they didn't do it to
Houston's team.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
That's all I kept thinking about the whole time is that, Wow,
forty nine Ers have been really good except for that
night they played the Texans.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
And well they also wear a different team because that
quarterback doesn't throw the ball to the other team all night.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, Brock, party's a mess. I did not expect him
to be that bad, but he was not. Neither quarterback
was very good last night. And then they started punching
each other in different places.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
We'll get to that.

Speaker 1 (11:24):
Yeah, it's it's all fair game along with your Texans
of course, another day closer to Texans Colts. I think
this is going to be a titanic matchup coming up
on Sunday, so we'll talk about that as well, an
emy udok a replay, say what is going to be
fantastic today, and a whole lot more on a Tuesday

(11:45):
edition of the program.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
It is the A Team.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
It's a Tuesday edition Sports Talk seven to ninety A
couple days away from Thanksgiving twenty twenty five, and the
Texans a couple of days after that, a few days
after that, going to be up in Indianapolis looking to
win yet another game, hopefully with CJ. Stroud and Jalen
Petrie back in tow but looking to do what the

(12:11):
Chiefs just got done doing to a Colts team that
has pretty much had its way over the first half
of the season.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
Just take them out of what they do. I don't want.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
I don't think the Texans want to come back from
a twenty to nine deficit, but I don't think they're
going to have to either. If their defense does what
it does best, they're gonna have to stop Jonathan Taylor.
But they're also going to have to get something out
of their running game. And that's something that Demico Ryan
spoke about yesterday when he was addressing the media. All
this talk is going to concentrate in all likelihood on

(12:44):
the Colts running game because Jonathan Taylor is like one
of the best players period in the NFL this year.
It's a big reason why the Colts have had the
success that they've had. But as Wex mentioned earlier this week,
and it's I mean, it sounds simple, sounds basic, but
it's the truth. If you stop, for the most part,
you're going to stop the Chiefs, I mean the Cults
because he's so everything they do offensively is so predicated

(13:09):
on him having a big day in a successful day,
and it kind of percolates to everything else that Daniel
Jones and They've been able to do with that offense.
So of course, what about the Texans run game. You
know what he marks is for all intents and purposes,
the guy, whether you know Nick Chubb is the quote
starter or anything that you want to kind of paint

(13:31):
this Texans offense with. I think from a running standpoint,
that's going to be who has to have success for
the Texans to.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Win from that standpoint.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
On Sunday, and Tamiko Ryans gave his thoughts on the
Texans run game yesterday.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah, for our.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
Offensive line, the rushing game, we have to stay connected
on our blocks. I think when we have double teams
that we're coming off at the second level if we
stay connected and we finish our blocks with the right
mindset and we have good running lanes. I thought Woody
ran the ball well. Let's see, especially on our fourth
down play when he's one on one right in a
hole with the with the defender, like for him to

(14:09):
play behind his pass, really keep his feet moving like
that's how, yes, how you have to run the football.
So we continue to block it well, we continue to
make good decisions with our running backs running the ball well,
and we can we can run the ball.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Effective, running the ball effectively, but not doing so necessarily.
I don't think between the tackles every single time, and honestly,
wex I don't know if it wouldn't be a good idea,
even though we're not talking talking technically about running throwing
the ball to Woody marks, especially CJ's coming back, I

(14:43):
think would be a very good thing to do.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Probably something they should do a little bit more. If
you had four catches in the three games that Davis
Mills has started, really have little consequence. In the past
game he didn't even have positive yardage after one game
last week and caught a ball and caught it behind
the line of scrimmage and absolutely got as soon as
he caught it. There's also no question about the running
back hierarchy anymore. Last three games with Davis Nick, Chubb

(15:07):
had forty one snaps wood he marks had forty one
snaps in the last game. He's had one hundred and
forty seven snaps in the last three games they have
made the shift. There's a clear hierarchy. He is the
lead back. He is the every down back also, which
is nice that they're not automatically putting Darry out there
and third and potential passing situations A because he's the
least talented player at the position that they carry on

(15:30):
the roster each week, and B you're telling the other
team what you're doing. They don't hand the ball to
him ever, so if he's on the field, they pretty
much know what's coming. So I don't think that's a
very good idea, and I think they've started to figure
that out. But what he running the ball is still
where this all has to happen. As much as they
want to use him in the passing game, that's great
and I hope they do. There are some games this
year where they, I think realized how important he can be.

(15:53):
Just Probably the San Francisco game is the biggest example,
because he had a huge positive impact. Throw him four balls,
had forty nine yards, had a hundred and eleven combined
yards in that game. That was one of his most
productive games of the entire season. That's what we should
start seeing a lot more of. But he also was successful,
especially early in the game, and he's like everybody else
on offense. This last game, they kind of had to

(16:14):
figure out, how are these five guys going to block?
I think we're gonna have the same five this week
as we had last week. It'll be the first time
in four weeks they'll started the same five offensive linemen.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
So every single game has been a different combination during
the Mills era, even if it was just moving guys
around on the same line. But they are the same people, No,
they had different people every time. That's what I thought.
Because of injuries and Tider Platterson. I started at Ingram started,
Titus Howard started just not as not all three games.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
I just wonder if I don't know why it wouldn't
City so started also in one of those games. Yeah,
but I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
It shouldn't matter who the quarterback is behind you relative
to the passing game, at least that you start and
be a cohesive unit and be able to block for
whoever's back there.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
In other words, it doesn't. It just matters if you
have good players out there, and they haven't had good
players out there, and they're starting to have good players
out there. You're right, it doesn't matter who's back there.
If you can block, you can block, if you've been
coached up, if you understand who you're going up against,
if you're a cohesive unit, if the communication is good,
then you should be fine regardless. But it's not even
the change, isn't even the issue. It's who they have,

(17:28):
and somehow, some way they realize that Trent Brown is
not a lost cause. I was kind of surprised when
he went out there the first time that he held
his own I still think it was not as awesome
as everybody made it out to be, but good enough
to keep him out there because they felt like they
were so weak at other spots. They thought the drop
off from Titus Howard at right tackle to Trent Brown

(17:48):
at right tackle was not as big as the increase
in moving Titus Howard inside to left guard, where he'd
never played this year, But they flipped him over there,
put right at Ingram back right guard, right next to
Trent Brown, hat Ursery and Howard now next to each other,
and continue moving with with Jake Andrews. And you know,
I didn't ask Demiko this yesterday or Monday when he

(18:10):
was talking about the online although I wanted to. I
wonder what it looks like sometimes when they're in meetings,
offensive meetings or the co Nick Cayley's meetings and they're
watching some of the run blocking that Trent Brown does
because that's where he's at his best. He needs to
be able to move his feet quickly enough in the
pass pro game to get outside. So none of the
edge rushers that they will face, not many that they

(18:31):
just faced, but some in the future. So they can't
just simply run around him, because that happened in the
first start of his and will happen in every start
of his when you face that caliber of talent. But
in the run game, this offensive line is finally doing
things that they just really haven't done. And again the
numbers are there to point it out. Guys aren't getting
hit in the backfield nearly as often. They're not being
met in the backfield where they have to immediately secure

(18:54):
the snap and then make some kind of crazy jump
cut to get out of the way of the oncoming rusher.
Because the pockets been or the run blocking, nobody's moving anybody.
If the Texans snapped the ball at the thirty five
yard line and they're planning on running the football these
last two games and this game specifically, early, their old
line is pushing to the thirty six, the thirty seven
to thirty eight, and some of the guys like Trent

(19:14):
that are holding their blocks, they're baring this guy five
yards down the field. They haven't done that all year,
but we saw it this last game and that.

Speaker 1 (19:22):
But again, and I keep bringing this up and I
will until it's more about their offensive line versus who
they're playing. How much of that was Buffalo's defensive front
being shorthanded and just.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
Not as good on the outside. This is who they are. Yeah,
they're definitely not as good, but I don't think the
Colts are tremendously different. I think a pretty good player,
and obviously Buckner not being there is a significant loss,
but this is a little bit better group than they
faced any of the last three weeks probably, I mean
last two weeks. Jacksonville is very good. That was the
first Trent Brown start and that's why I said he

(19:55):
got beat outside on more than one occasion because Walker
and heinz Allen are elite.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, heinz Allen with a sack the other day in
that game they somehow manufactured to win against Arizona. I
just I wonder if it's not a similar situation to
the caliber I guess of talent they faced on Thursday
night coming up this week, because you have your main
your main disruptor is out in both cases at Oliver

(20:22):
for the Buffalo Bills and Buckner for for Indiana or
indian or sorry Indianapolis, and uh So, I just wonder
if it's it's basically a similar situation, even though obviously
going on the road is a little bit tougher with
the crowd, noise and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Uh I think Butner on the inside is certainly the
guy that matters most. But I do think Lotso is
an above average pass rusher better than anyone that they
faced against Buffalo. We shall see, it's gonna be fascinating Franklin,
not from necessarily only a pass projector pass pro pass
uh rushing perspective.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
He is.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
He's something to consider and again, better than than anything
Buffalo had to offer.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
All right, we're gonna both figure out how to talk
during the commercial break, we'll come right back and urted
it out. I know, I know, it's fine. We are
going to get to Best of X next.

Speaker 5 (21:10):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
I'll give you a comparent contrast, and it's certainly gonna
be obvious which one was the television call and which
one was the home radio call when we come back
in today's edition of the Best of X, did you
all see this.

Speaker 6 (21:27):
Putting out between five and fifteen posts, four hundred people
were arrested.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
Things so they said on social media.

Speaker 6 (21:33):
History repeats itself type Bangul's succeed. Never doubt that you're
the one who plus no one build You're the best OX.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Nothing's gonna ever talk. You know you're the best posting
ever single day.

Speaker 6 (21:52):
You know you're the best of X breaking the entire Internet.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
All right, let's get it on for a Tuesday edition
of Best of KS just before Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
I gotta ask you a question WEX.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
In all the years of doing broadcasts involving play by play,
have you ever been on the air with someone who
absolutely lost their mind whatever play that caused them to do.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Such a thing.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
I guess so in a good way. No, I'm talking
about in a bad way, not in a bad way.
I mean, if a game winner, I expect the person
to lose their mind in a good way, you know,
all that kind. But I don't think I have either.
I don't like, certainly nothing to this extent. I know,
I know you were glued to Creton and Baylor last night, right,

(22:48):
I mean you could not.

Speaker 2 (22:48):
Get tournament time a lot of these awesome tournaments Cougar's
involved in one.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Yeah, watch a little bit of some of these games.
I was told tournament time wasn't until March.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Pre postseason tournament time. All right, in Vegas, we'll have
their game this evening over on nine fifty again.

Speaker 1 (23:04):
Yeah, Well, Craigon was in Vegas too, and they were
taking on Baylor, and Baylor won the Player's Era Festival Showdown.
This is what we're gonna call this. Eighty one to
seventy four was the final. Uh twenty one points from
Cameron Carr. One of those points came after a missed
dunk and that drew a foul call with around two

(23:26):
minutes to go. Here's how it sounded on television CBS.
Was I believe the entity here?

Speaker 2 (23:33):
I could be wrong. No, it was Turner.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Sorry, so Brian Anderson I believe who was on the
call for this play.

Speaker 2 (23:40):
I'll just let you hear how it sounded when Brian
called this the second half.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
He's good, fantastic spellings now with eight rebounds, He's had
four offensive rebounds of this half.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Hello, oh, coss on his way going on with some violence.

Speaker 5 (23:57):
To throw that down.

Speaker 4 (23:58):
He missed the dunk, but the foll is called on
Creton that would.

Speaker 2 (24:03):
Have So you know, clearly you could tell that.

Speaker 1 (24:07):
You know if you're watching the broadcast, especially, would you
call that a week call a week whistle?

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Well, you couldn't tell anything from what he said, but
you're watching it, you don't need him to tell you
what happened. Where they were down six at the time.
Drove the lane, tried to dunk it from the right side,
cutting back to the middle, took a little, tiny minuscule
bit of contact and missed the dunk.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Well, let's let's hear what it sounded like when Creighton
radio play by play guy John Bishop called this same
exact play.

Speaker 7 (24:38):
Outside the circle, car in the pain with the dunk
walking foul. Why are you talking about?

Speaker 5 (24:51):
That was two seconds after the planned car driving.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
He's outside the circle. He's outside the circle.

Speaker 8 (25:00):
What he's set? He was outside the circle and he
was set, Pratt Smith blew it. He was outside the
restricted area. He was straight up and down. He was
set like the statue sitting out in front of New York,
New York.

Speaker 7 (25:15):
And they called that ct it absolutely horse crap call
in a game that's been played out like this, unbelievable
fail out call, fighting confident referee.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
And fall.

Speaker 9 (25:35):
Don't buy.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
He missed he missed the free thrill clearly.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
I mean I have been called a homer a number
of times in all sorts of settings, not just radio
play by play or color or whatever. That takes it
to like the next level, And.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Well, what takes it to the next level is the
clear excellence and talent that this play by play guy has.
Because you gave us the information we need to realize
what a good call that was. This isn't just some
Creighton Baylor game home gym for Creighton or out in
Waco for Baylor. This is in Vegas, and he used

(26:16):
a Vegas reference in his disgust for that call. He's
standing there like the Statue of Liberty outside of New York,
New York. Like that's brilliant.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
One of the comments said that as much quoted that
line and said, that's pure gold.

Speaker 2 (26:31):
Lmao. And this is if you guys are familiar with
what we bring you here weekends during college football season
and all throughout the week during college basketball season a
home of LSU football, home of Longhorns basketball in football
and mentioned the Cougars as well over on nine point fifty.
Not that every single one of them is over the top,
super homerrific, but in college sports broadcasting, the idea that

(26:55):
this happens on occasions.

Speaker 1 (26:58):
That's just how it is. It's all like it's like
tuning in to see here Gus Johnson. You know it's
coming to an extent.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
Well, that's different. He's not in favor of one team
over the other.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
Well, I just mean you know that you're gonna get
these kinds of calls when you sit down to listen
to the broadcast.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yes, but this call is only like this because he
hates the other team and loves one team Gus's calls.
He doesn't care. This is a great play.

Speaker 1 (27:23):
I'm gonna lose my voice and go crazy over Yeah,
I'm just as a homer call. Yeah, I'm just a point.
You know what you're signing up for. In both cases,
That's that's what I'm getting at.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
But yeah, I.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Homerrific. Does not quite do it justice. I can't tell
you that. I think he's one hundred percent wrong.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
This is one of those cases where maybe the official thought, yeah,
he's standing there, and yeah he's outside the circle, and
yeah he's set. But the offensive player did everything necessary
to avoid contact, and then he stuck his shoulder out
and drew a little bit of contact, which is why
it's a foul, which helped why he missed the dunk.
Like It's not quite is cut and dry as he

(28:01):
made it out to be. But it probably wasn't the
right call. I can see why the official standing where
he was might have seen it differently, and we got
a chance to watch it a billion times. But it
doesn't matter if it was right or wrong. There's the passion.
What do you guys want? You want passion. That's it.
What do I say about broadcasters all the time. Just
tell me that you like what you're doing. Just tell

(28:21):
me you enjoy sitting court side, or you enjoy being
in the press box. And you get to do this job.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
You get to watch all these games, you get to
call all the action on radio, get to describe all
the action for the people who aren't watching. Show me
make me hear that you love being there. Mister Bishop
did that. I know he loved being there. D Cart
ten twenty one says I'm a Baylor fan and he
was cracking me up.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
Uh Hawaii, Dandy said, is this Gilbert Godfrey?

Speaker 1 (28:50):
Somebody asked Groc to transcribe the video, which is very
entertaining because Groc inserted a curse word where there wasn't one.
I'll let you be the judge of where they happened,
because I'm not going to obviously read it. Car driving
on ironically great commentary.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
It's a little bit of a dad joke. It is
interesting that he did go so like I'm talking about
it like I love it, and I do love it,
but it's probably not the way to go directly calling
into question the competency of one of the three officials.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Well, that was the best part of the grock transcription,
because he does they it does get the last line,
unbelievable bailout call by an incompetent referee, ball don't lie.
I really I enjoyed this a great deal, especially in
light of yeah, it's early, and yeah it's it's a
tournament situation. But this sounded like you were in the

(29:46):
throes of March madness, Like that's how much it meant
to this game.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
And we do. We use that line quite a bit.
We call Rockets games obviously with mt and there's calls
where were like and I don't really think they got
that one right. Our commentary might not be quite as
crazy as John's here. But then when they go to
the free throw line in Bricket, we'll usually say, ball
don't lie.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
Craig Ackerman's free throw defense is unparalleled.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
I crushed somebody the other night. I'm trying to remember who.
Who'd they play at home Orlando that last game Denver. Oh,
he was Jamal Murray. Late in the game, they had
to foul him. They obviously, I go, well, that one
other thing that makes Denver so difficult to come back
against is because they've got so many good free throw shooters.
Jamal Murray's one of them. He's over ninety percent.

Speaker 1 (30:27):
Brick, good job, you did your best and that's all
we can ask for. All Right, that'll do it for
best of Becks on a Tuesday edition of the program,
speaking of hoops, a little bit more love for a
men Thompson. Last night in the Desert, he was sensational,
easily his best all around game of the season. There's
someone else who also had a very nice night at

(30:49):
the office. We'll tell you who that was when we
come back.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
It is the eight team.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
It's Sports Talk seven ninety. We'll begin the simulcast on
Space City Home Network. Coming up at the top of
the hour. Wex Ac Josh Jordan with you. On a
Tuesday edition of the program, mentioned that the Rockets got
to win last night in uh Phoenix. They'll be in
San Francisco tomorrow night. Still just chaps me that they

(31:13):
won't have Kevin Durant for that game. That's the game
of these two that you needed him, as evidenced last night.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
By the way, second straight game. Not really crazy.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
About Alpera and Chingoon's style of play or effort or
anything like that.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
He looked tentative, He looks soft.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
He looked like he was getting taken advantage of last
night for the second straight game. Now, if you want
Nikola Jokic to be the guy doing that to you,
I suppose there's no shame in that. But they were
playing a couple of stiffs against him and Phoenix.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
I didn't like his game. Uh so is it okay
if I disagree? Yeah, you can do whatever you want.
I didn't see that at all.

Speaker 10 (31:52):
He was.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
So you thought he was forceful. He thought he was deliberate.
You thought I thought they were completely in capable of
defending him straight up. So the players that they used
were there to just try to beat on him a
little bit, Nick Richards specifically. So he let them do
that to him and let his teammates dominate the game.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
And if they hadn't made the shots that they did,
especially from the outside, you would have had a loss.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
You would have done something different. There was no reason
to change away from that, I don't think because everything
was working. They had the lead from what the five
minute mark till the end of the Game's never got
closer than six. After they took that lead and he
was one of the reasons why I think they took
their the first permanent or their last lead when he
hit that three straight up Top made it eleven eight.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yes, no again, I'm talking about specifically from the standpoint
of how many times, and you're right, they were beating
up on him, And this is what this goes into
what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
He was hitting his threes last night.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
It's not he took a ton of them, but I
felt like too many times he was catching the ball
like almost at the three point line, and there was
Dylan Brooks to beat on him, and it just I'm
talking about from a standpoint of inside force, full purposeful.
Now he had a great sensational play with like just
some of the best for work I've seen of any

(33:11):
big man since t Hakeem last night, and he's done
that this year. He did it against Gianni's full court,
he did it against Booker last night. Yeah, like when
the opportunity, I think he just more.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
I just saw him letting the game just whenever it's
whenever I can, I will. And he also, I think
was as you said, out top more because he had
to be because Kevin wasn't there. Now he didn't have
to do it as much as I thought he was
going to do because they played Aaron Holiday so much. Yeah,
which is good. And even if he didn't make all
those shots, clearly the game is different, the score is different,

(33:44):
but the way that they want to run things doesn't
change because he allows them to kind of go back.
I mean, honestly, how did Aaron Holiday play last night?
He played like Fred? Yeah, he helped them run the
nobelized it. He hit a bunch of open threes, which
they shouldn't leave him open for same thing as them,
Like that's how That's why I keep there's so many
different ways. It just felt like they played last year's

(34:05):
style more than they have in any game this year.
And I mean it's kind of obvious. Well, because they
had last year's group out there. There's no there's no Durant.
Durant changes everything. He makes it so easy because he's
out there. The other team can't play you straight up.
If they want to play you straight up, and nobody
has so far, then you're gonna light them up. So

(34:26):
they don't. They They commit so much energy and effort
and personnel bodies to Durant that it just changes how
you have to play. You know, Chaguna had fourteen shots. Yeah,
it was it was a so before the game. First game,
Durant's gonna miss They're playing Phoenix undermanned in the middle.
If I would have set the over under at fourteen

(34:47):
and a half shots, you would have said, he's gonna
blow that away. Yeah, it feels like that. But you
know what I don't.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
I think the best part of Shingoon at times is that,
and we miss on this because we're so constant. I
think a lot of times on talking about how much
this applies to Durant. He's a fairly efficient guy most nights,
even if he's having an off nights. It's not he
might miss more shots, but he never takes way more.

(35:15):
It's not gonna a Caid Cunningham situation, which is the
other extreme.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
But like say ten games as a rocket, I think
to even attempt twenty shots in a game.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Right, it's never a volume shooter situation, which you wouldn't
expect from a big man anyways, necessarily.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Sorry, I thought you were talking about Durant. No no, no, no,
no no. But for Alpi took twenty four shots in
the opener.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Yeah, but after that, and that was an overtime game,
by the way, true, so I'm sure five of those
shots were in the extra fame if I had to
just get him.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
He did set his career high for most misshots in
a game this year. Was it Friday Night? No, it
was the win over Orlando when he missed twenty of
his thirty one shots. Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
I just felt like he got manhandled defensively against Denver.
And while I don't think there's necessy fairly shame in
that because of who was matched up against him, I mean,
Joki is a brute. He doesn't get the credit he
deserves defensively, I don't think.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, it's just hard to move and huge. He does
try to get away with the tricks. And honestly, I
didn't say this during the game, and I didn't say
yesterday either. He baits well. I think after he got
his fourth foul then they pretty much let him do
whatever he wanted. Well, he was taunting.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
He was downright taunting Steven Adams at the free throw line.
I mean, he was committing fouls, right, and they're like, well,
we can't foul this guy out.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Why not if he's committing them ages and like I said,
I didn't complain about it during the game. I'm not
John Bishop, but it did seem like there were plays
that if that happened in the first quarter and he
only had one foul, they probably would have called it. Yeah. Yeah,
I don't like that. Again.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
I go back to that all the time when talking
about the various reasons I think NBA officials are the worst,
even worse than Major League umpires now. Trying to keep
the stars on the court's not so the pants game
your job.

Speaker 2 (37:02):
It's just not your job.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
If the star can't keep themselves on the court because
they're committing fouls, that's not their problem.

Speaker 2 (37:09):
It shouldn't be. Yeah. One of the rockets more lopsided
wins last night because every team they had played had
scored at least one hundred and two points. Phoenix scored
ninety two.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
I at one point I didn't think they were gonna
score ninety and they barely did. I mean, it was
three minutes left and I think they had eighty four
eighty five and Matt even said they're not going to
get to one hundred to night, and I was like,
they're not gonna get to ninety, and they did, but
it was and I was mad about it, of course,
because I'm.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
The Rockets have also played four straight games with one
hundred and seventeen or less, which is they only had
two games of under one hundred and twenty the whole season.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
I think that's the most impressive part about what Detroit's
doing right now.

Speaker 2 (37:49):
And they just put this graphic up on the screen.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
I think they've scored one hundred and thirteen or more
in every one of these thirteen straight wins.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
They got to stop. That's I can't have that, Detroit.
What we're seeing with Houston and maybe the rest of
the league is what we've been waiting for. One seventeen,
one thirteen, one fourteen, one oh four, one twelve, one
oh nine. Well, now we're starting to stabilize things. This
is more like what we think we're gonna see the
rest of the year, not one forty to one thirty six,
not one thirty seven to one thirty one regularly. I

(38:20):
think we're starting to see everything come back down a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
The UH Pistons, by the way, are at Boston for
their next game because they tied their franchise record of
thirteen straight wins last night.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
Beating thereabout to become the baddest boys. I don't better
than anything they ever did during the regular season.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Yeah, but when you say bad boys, you're talking about
a different connotation.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
Yeah, these guys are going to be better than that.
So if those guys were the bad boys, and these
guys are better than their baddest, give that bad boys.

Speaker 1 (38:50):
Moniker was more about what they did to people that
was illegal, versus how many wins and championships they were
racking up. I guess, I mean, Bill Lambert, nobody is
confusing anybody on this team for that jerk. No, they
do things a little differently when they play bully ball.
I actually like the Pistons, except for Duran, just because
anybody that goes after a men, I've got beef with you.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
So do you have beef with Book?

Speaker 3 (39:13):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (39:14):
That was a clear flagrant foul, and I'm glad they
reviewed it appropriately. How about that type of play is
very cut and dry. You pull a player down without
a play on the basketball shoulders high, that's a flagrant.
That wasn't even the worst he got beat up on
that night.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
I mean, I guess we Unfortunately, he fouled Richards just
just before he got elbowed in the chin and crushed
his head on the back of the court when he
fell back over. I'll tell you though, on the replay,
Josh c and I both thought he was concussed on
that play, and then on the replay, I think his
hair actually kind of was a buffer.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
I was looking at him thinking, is he just now
this is true. He's definitely built differently in the not
literal sense, But I wondered if he was actually built
differently in the literal sense, because when he fell backwards,
obviously his back fell complete deletely flat on the court,
and then when his head snapped back, his neck looked
like he was much higher off the court than a

(40:07):
normal person. It was almost prevented, maybe his head from
hitting it as hard as we thought he did from
the regular angle. We got the reverse angle from underneath
the basket, and you're right, it's possible that what really
hit hard was more his hair, and he's actually hurt
from whiplash more than hitting his head.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
In professional wrestling, they teach you how to fall. It
almost looked like he had been in Glenn Jacob's class.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
I don't think Nick amen Eme and Jordan, their coach
got together before the game to script that foul.

Speaker 1 (40:37):
No, I don't either. How are the Texans gonna stop
Jonathan Taylor. We'll tell you about it when the three
o'clock hour begins. Next it is the eight Team Sports
Talk seven ninety Space City Home Network Tuesday edition of
the program pre thanks Giving. We will be here until
six tonight. We will do tomorrow's show. We'll have Rockets
basketball late tomorrow night, thirty minutes later, by the way,

(41:01):
then the eight to thirty tip that took place in
Phoenix last night, and then Thanksgiving will be here. Will
be off Thursday and Friday, and back at it again
to discuss the Texans and the Colts on the following Monday.
And in that vein, I've been talking a lot about
the Texans last or the Texans win Thursday, and how

(41:21):
that sets up just this titanic battle with a division
rival coming up on Sunday, the first of two. By
the way, that the Colts and Texans will play against
each other, it's increasingly looking like, especially if the Texans
can pull this off on the road, that that regular
season finale here in Houston for the final week of

(41:43):
the year is going to mean a whole heck of
a lot. Not just will the Texans get into the postseason,
but maybe will the Texans win this division. I just
cannot think that Jacksonville is going to win this division,
both because the Colts do their part for the Texans
and Trevor Lawrence is able to lead them anywhere. It

(42:05):
feels like they win in spite of him every week.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
Well, they have a bunch of wins where he hasn't
been the reason why they have a couple wins where
he has been, and one of them is probably their
most important. When the victory over Kansas City, he did
make plays wild as it sounds. He made a couple
of great throws on the final drive, and after he
fell down twice, he was able to get up and
run in for the winning touchdown in the final seconds.
Most of the rest of the season, he's looked like

(42:27):
he did this past Sunday. Four turnovers, three picks, fumble,
near the top of the league in turnovers as a quarterback.
Cam Ward is his favorite NFL quarterback quite obviously because
he's the only quarterback in the NFL with the worst
passer rating than he has and he plays for seven
and four team that doesn't have an elite defense that
isn't elite everywhere else. They're a very good running team,

(42:50):
they're a good defense. But it's amazing that they've been
able to overcome all of that. And like I got
into yesterday, quite a conversation about all the issues that
he's had, and he has had issues over the five
years he's been there. He's already on his third coach.
Multiple OC's all sorts of personnel changeover their GM was
a joke when he first got there, and now I
think they have someone, even in spite of the overpay

(43:13):
for Travis Hunter, I think they have a GM who
will get it right. And I think between Gladstone Cohen
and Tony Boselli, they probably have a much better structure
and more smarts football smarts than they've ever had before.
But at some point, you'd like your fifth year quarterback
to not be among the worst players at his position
in the league, especially after you've extended him. And there's

(43:34):
a lot of ways where you can point out he's
among the worst in the league at his position, and
every week we see it. Steelers Ravens also play in
Week eighteen. I think that is another game that they
might have to consider being the last game of the
regular season because that could end up deciding that division.
I don't think it will. I think the Ravens are

(43:55):
about to Hey, you guys were way ahead of us before,
and now we're gonna be way ahead of you real
real soon. We'll find out maybe if that's going to
be the case Thursday, because the Ravens have Joe Burrow
on Thursday and the Bengals, and they're not going to
be quite as much of a pushover with this Joe
as opposed to the previous Joe and Jake before him.
But the Texans have to take care of their own

(44:17):
business because it's almost inevitable that Jacksonville will take care
of theirs. Jacksonville's played the Colts zero times, but they've
also played the Titans zero times. They've got two wins
staring them in the face that they don't give those
games away, because that's the only way the Titans win.
The other team has to give it to them. Arizona
showed you that, and they have the Jets. So we

(44:39):
talked about it. We've already talked about it that that's
ten wins if they just don't give those games away.
You're begging them to lose every other game, the Colts
twice and at the Broncos. It's actually reality that they
could lose all three. But they almost have to lose
all three. The Texans get to eleven wins by winning
every game they have left but one the tight or

(45:02):
the Jaguars get to eleven wins by beating the Titans twice,
the Jets once, and winning one of those other three.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
See, but I think they're just bad enough at the
quarterback position that they can screw this up hoping for it.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Well, you had a chance to help them do that,
and you couldn't beat them one time. Yes, seventeen to ten,
couldn't beat them. That was Week three. That doesn't even
count anymore. I hope they're nothing like that team. And
all that being said, those were all winnable games. I'm
not gonna tell you they were close. I'm not gonna
tell you they needed to finish. They could have won
those games absolutely. The Bucks game is the one I

(45:40):
would lean that you needed to finish that game. You
have the lead, they had the ball. Your defense is
on the field. That's the best part of your team.
That's the part of the team you count on the
most to make the plays when necessary. We just saw
it on Thursday night. That's why I keep pointing to
that particular game, the Bucks game, because the Texans lose
to the Bills, then it would have been a carbon
copy of what happened against the Bucks. Yes, the best

(46:01):
defense in the NFL is on the field. That means
whoever they're up against is worse than them, So finish
the game. The Bucks are worse. The Bucks offense is
worse than the Texans un fourth down, the Bills offense
is worse than the Texans defense, so don't let them
win in the winning moments. They did that Thursday night.

(46:21):
They had to pick the ball off in the last
play of the game after allowing a fourth and twenty
seven conversion. But it's the same as the Bucks game
and that they allowed a fourth and ten conversion when
they called the right defense. They executed everything really well
up until they didn't have discipline. Henry to Atoa's rush
at Baker was undisciplined, and that's why I brought up

(46:43):
the discipline which they clearly had in the Bills game,
that they didn't have in Week two.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
And Demiko wanted no part of giving you anything longer
than a five second answer when you did that.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
Hey, he just wanted to recognize the rest of the people.
There's pretty full house. Why did everybody get their questions in?

Speaker 1 (46:56):
By the way, I'm not kidding when I say this,
how did they convert that? How did they convert that
fourth down? The Bucks do.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
They drop back to pass? And the Texans rushed and
were in man coverage. So when Baker broke contained, when Tootoa,
instead of being more of a spy, he's like, this
guy's right there, I'm just gonna run after him and
sack him. And he took such a haphazard angle and
was coming in there flying. I want my players, if
I'm Demiko, to be playing that style. But he just

(47:24):
ran right by him. So Baker just ran forward and
scrambled his way to a fourth and ten first down.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Is the reason Josh Allen didn't do the same thing
on that drive because he had been destroyed all night.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
No, it's because they were where they were supposed to
be in their rush lanes. I just wanted stepped up
in the pocket countless times. But he couldn't go anywhere
anywhere because there were players and where they were supposed
to be. Plus, you're going to have a little bit
more of a spying angle to what your play calls are.
Defensively with Josh Allen versus Baker, even on fourth and ten,

(47:58):
you're probably not going to leave a linebacker. Just just
hang out here in the mid range. Don't go past
the line of scrimmage, don't drop back fifteen yards. We
want you to spy Baker here because we think he
might scramble. They really didn't play for that. Yeah, it
burned him, Yeah, it did, just like Baker burned the
Texans that night.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
But yeah, when you put it that way and you
look at the Jag schedule, because I do think I mean,
three and three is very realistic. But all we're talking
about is trying to kept trying to win the division.
If the Texans do what they need to do, that's fine,
They're still going to the playoffs. Yeah, but winning the
division means you have the home field the first round

(48:38):
matchup at home.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Maybe. Well, if you win the division, you do not anymore. Oh,
that's right. The stupid not stupid, it's stupid. It's a
smart rule change. I don't think it is. I think
it is a very You should be rewarded. You are rewarded.
You get to go to the playoffs. You should be
rewarded with the home game. I disagree. I know that's
why we're having this conversation. Well we've had it for years.

(48:59):
I was begging them to change it. I obviously I
am glad that they did. You got your way again.
You always get your wall. I thought it was logical.
Why because there's only four teams in your division, so
you only have to be better than three teams no
matter what your record is. You can win a division
at six and eleven if everybody else sucks that bad, and.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
Win a division at eight and nine, and it's gonna happen.
I don't want a division a lot at nine and seven,
Bill O'Brien. I don't want that team to get rewarded.
I don't want a twelve and five team on the
road against an eight and nine team.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
Well maybe they should have been in a different division, right,
That's the thing. It's not there like it'll happen this
year probably, and it's definitely happened last year. Like Denver
and the Chargers, they're they were great, their records were great,
but some other division winner had a crappy division that
they won, and Houston was one of them. Back to
back years.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
West advantage with a record Argers. What they're really saying is, dude,
your division stinks. If you're so good, why are you
only ten and seven? You know it's funny to be
eleven or in six or twelve and five. Then go ahead,
We'll get you our home game because you will have
truly earned it. You're getting six games against these teams.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
While the Chargers have to play the Broncos and Chiefs
four times, you got to play the Colts and Jaguars.

Speaker 1 (50:14):
The funniest part about that whole thing with Rex Ryan
saying it was their bye week and all that, and essentially,
you know, people having a problem with it because the
Texans were rewarded with a home game and the Chargers
supposedly had a better season, so they should have. All right, fine,
let them host that game. The Texans would have smashed
them there too. The way that game, I guess, I mean,

(50:34):
why wouldn't they have give me one good reason the
way that game went down.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
We do use the word advantage after home field because
I think we believe it's true.

Speaker 1 (50:42):
Yeah, but the way that game was played. If the
Texans defense does what it did, it would they would
they could have played on Mars, they would have destroyed
the Chargers defense usually travels. Their offense wasn't very good.
Houston's offense was not very good, that's true, and it
really wasn't good for an entire half. I mean it
wasn't like, oh, they had their spot, No, they didn't
do any It was a lot like this.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Year in the early stages. Even the game the year
before against Cleveland. The Texans offense was fine that day. Yeah,
but they won because Joe Flacco kept throwing them touchdown passes.

Speaker 1 (51:12):
He kept throwing to the defense. Yeah, that's honestly. I
wish that it wasn't just about Okay, can the Texans
stop Jonathan Taylor. I wish it was. I knew what
we are going to get from CJ. Stroud in his
first game back, and I got it better be better

(51:33):
than anything they had from him prior to his concussion.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
What they did against San Francisco is probably something they'd
like to see a repeat of that. It wasn't overwhelming,
it wasn't incredible, but the mix of really good defense
and perfectly fine offense, and that's about the hats highs
so far I can make Yeah, that's how you want
to go win football games the rest of the year.
They're not going to turn into some unbelievable offense. But
watching what they did the last three weeks, and I

(51:58):
think considering what happened in the last six quarters for
CJ before the injury, I think they can believe that
there are better things ahead for their offense. I believe it.
Do you believe it? We'll find out.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
Well as we look around the college football landscape.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
I have one simple question. What's going on in LSU?
They're looking for a new head coach.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Why is the Why is the Brian Kelly situation being
referred to as a non formal termination.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Because he has a contract that would otherwise pay him
an enormous amount of money to have him leave fifty
four million? Did we fire you? Was it a mutual
parting of ways? Are he firing you for? Cause?

Speaker 9 (52:48):
All?

Speaker 2 (52:49):
Why they have lawyers?

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Last Friday, the LSU Board of Supervisors authorized the new
university president.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Is it Wayne Rousse rousy? Sure? It's probably not Rowsy
two unless that's how it's spelled.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Rou s Se Okay, it's the two s's that are
making me think it's a possibility. But whatever, the board
authorized him to send Brian Kelly a formal notice of termination.
He has not coached the team since October twenty fifth,
So if he hasn't been fired, why hasn't he been coaching.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
That's what they actually are getting into. Like the first
week after he was not there, they really were putting
out commentary statements. I don't know if it was an
official statement, but people inside the university were saying, we
didn't really fire him.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Wait what Yeah he did, Yeah, you fired him. He's
not there anymore. What would you call it then, if
you're if you're lsu Well, what you're trying to say
is again, this is all legally is nonsense.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
Yep. But that's why they do what they do. They
they engage or they execute these deals, and then when
they have to get out of it, they want to
get out of the terms of the deal, which is
facing I think they can and they could be right. Yeah,
well except for that.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
Brian Kelly is very upset because he cannot get a job,
according to him, and that's why he had his attorneys
send a letter to the LSU Athletic Director and the
Board of Supervisors.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
As you know, this is a quote.

Speaker 1 (54:24):
As you know, there is absolutely no basis to LSU's
contrived positions that coach Kelly was not terminated or that
cause existed for such termination. LSU's conduct, including its failure
to confirm that coach Kelly was terminated without cause and
its unsupported allegations of misconduct on the part of coach Kelly,

(54:47):
has made it nearly impossible for coach Kelly to secure
other football related employment. LSU's conduct continues to harm coach Kelly,
particularly during this critical hiring period.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
Now, most of that is pretty on point. Most the
rest of it is kind of nonsense. But if there
are people out there that believe, well wait, wait, wait,
is elis you trying to tell us that something happened
there that would actually give them grounds to fire him
with cause, Well maybe we better back off on this.
And the other part of it that makes no sense
is who's backing off? Why is he having a hard
time finding work? He's not looking for work.

Speaker 1 (55:23):
There are currently nine head coaching vacancies in the Power Conferences,
with perhaps more to come. The way things currently stand,
Kelly probably isn't wrong when he claims the situation with
LSU makes it quote nearly impossible for him to get
any of those jobs.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
I suppose that might might be true, and it's a
pretty good from a lawyer standpoint to argue that it's true.
But let me know which job and Virginia Tech is
no longer open, although I think he could have been
a consideration for them. Which job? Is it so difficult
for him to get employment because of what LSU is

(56:02):
doing to him their behavior? Is it the SEC job
in Florida? Is it the SEC job in Auburn? Is
it the SEC job in Arkansas? Is it any of
those jobs?

Speaker 1 (56:13):
Are you saying they've gotten a close enough up and
up close in personal view of his antics, his work
that they don't want him for any of their vacancies.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
What you're saying, I would say pretty likely that he's
not landing another SEC job this coaching cycle and before
the season ends, because think the timing of this, Like
James Franklin getting hired when he did, that's not normal.
He got hired during the season, there's multiple weeks of
football left, that's not normal. I don't think any of
these other places except maybe by Saturday after the Egg

(56:44):
Bowl when they make the announcement that Lane Kiffin is
going to We'll get to that later. Kyle's not going
to hire a coach before the end of the season.
They just fired their guy this weekend. Oklahoma State has
played all of their games but three without a coach
so far this year. UCLA's obviously moved on on these
other schools we're talking about. Penn State's not going to
hire a coach before the season ends. Like, if you're

(57:05):
trying to tell me he's trying to gain employment and
this is what is available to him, I don't think that.
I really personally don't think it, but I definitely would
argue it on the from a legal standpoint from our
client is being hurt by your actions that I don't
disagree with. I mean the reality of it, and a

(57:25):
judge doesn't even have to care about this. I would.
I'm just saying it because we're here. It's probably worthwhile
to go this route. But it's all about the money. Like,
the thing is, he's going to get employment, which just
means LSU's gonna have to pay him even less because
of the offset of whatever job he gets. It wouldn't
shock me at all if Brian Kelly is not a
head coach in college football in twenty twenty six.

Speaker 1 (57:45):
I love that the university, talking about LSU, says it
now wants to fire Kelly for cause and avoid paying
him buy out.

Speaker 2 (57:54):
Right, that's always been the case. Once they put out, well,
we never really fired him, but they don't. I don't
know what it is. They're trying to go back in
time and say this is why we actually fired him.
If there was cause, well then they just would have
used it like this is. We couldn't have dreamed up
anything better. We don't want him here, We're not winning enough.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
We have this ammunition of well we can fire him
with cause because of this, this and this, you know, say,
this is the best part of the entire article. LSU
also claims that then athletic director Scott Woodward did not
have the authority to terminate coach Kelly and or make
settlement offers to him. He was fired, of course, four

(58:35):
days after he either did or did not fire Brian Kelly.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
State University.

Speaker 1 (58:40):
Huh, well, I mean this is so this seems very convoluted,
unnecessarily us.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
That's because there's we're talking about fifty million dollars. But
we've seen this time and time again, A and M.

Speaker 1 (58:52):
There's a buyout on the table, and we never went
into this legal eese situation.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
They just paid him.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
Yeah, because at the end of this I think that's
what's gonna happen with Brian Kelly.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Like Jimbo Fisher, we barely I don't even think we've
said his name yet this college football season. He could
actually land a job this coaching cycle, not at LSU,
though probably not at LSU. Plaane's got that locked up.
It's just a matter of time. Is that your call? Yeah,
that's my final answer. I don't understand why Florida is
in the mix personally. If you're leaving Ole, miss I

(59:26):
think you're going to LSU. But every time I think that,
I do recognize what coach Spurrier did there, and I
think it's a different time. So maybe that's fool's goal
thinking that that could happen again.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
But why, which do you think is a better program
slash more attractive program for a hot coaching commodity to
come to.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
Well, the last part of that question should be to
a student athlete. He's in Mississippi, trying to recruit players,
pay players to come to Ole Miss, to Oxford, Mississippi,
or he can coach in football rich Louisiana right now
to football richest Texas, or he can coach in football

(01:00:04):
rich Florida. I'm not saying you can't get players from
any of those places to Oxford.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
It's more convenient, But the best talent in the country
is in basically two four places California, Texas, Florida, and Michigan, Ohio.
I mean, but too near where he's trying to get jobs.
I'm just saying, which one do you? Of course I
said it the other day, like, what is the big deal?
If you can win a title Little Miss, which he's
clearly showing he could. They're going to the playoffs, they

(01:00:31):
could win the title. I don't know that they will.
Why can't he win there? I know he can win
an LSU, and I think he can win at Florida.
Maybe that's how he sees it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
I also think he's catching too much heat in my
opinion for what's been happening the last couple of weeks.
Why is he in this position? Why is Lane Kiffin
in this position of trying not to say the wrong thing,
do the wrong thing, answer the wrong question, rub because
he's good at coaching football, right. All he did to
put himself in this situation to win a lot of

(01:01:01):
games at Ole Miss, and he did it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
That's the latest installment this guy, Remember, had a high
profile coaching gig and they left him without putting him
on the charter or the team bus or whatever it was.
He's had to rehabilitate his coaching career and has done so,
I would argue more successfully than any other college coach
in the history of the game.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Twenty years ago, fifteen years ago, ten years ago, eight
years ago. If I told you the hottest coaching commodity
in college football is lame Kiffen, you would have said, well,
if you think that, or if you want to tell
me that, then you probably aren't qualified to host a
sports talk radio show, because that is virtually impossible.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
And yet here we are, and here we are because
it was I mean, it was bad, bad, bad.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
He was His thoughts were bad, his exits were bad.
Everything was bad. Sure, he said all the wrong things.

Speaker 1 (01:01:49):
And this is again, this is a guy who's still
on social media saying quite a few things that I'm
sure all of his athletic directors would prefer he didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
But yet at the same time, all he's doing put
himself in this situations, win football games and have fun
with it. Talk a lot of trash, and I don't
mind it at all.

Speaker 10 (01:02:08):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
I don't feel bad for any of the universe institutions
involved or the players involved. I wonder how he could
be staying at ole Miss. If he's staying at ole Miss,
then they would just tell us today if they're waiting
till Saturday. That's what I'm saying he's going on. He's
probably possibly likely not staying.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
But I also don't think this is some easy decision,
Like again, he's catching all this heat, Well, just make
up your mind or just do something, or just it's
not that easy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
You're gonna get paid any which way you want. Yeah,
he's definitely leaving Ole Miss.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
It's just a matter of where he's landing, and I
think he's landing in Louisiana instead of Florida. Ima Udoka
landed in Houston a few years ago and it's been
fantastic ever since. We'll play some of his conversation with
the Matt Thomas Show coming up in the next segment
seven ninety Space City Home Network Tuesday edition of the program,
following a Rockets win over the Phoenix Sun's last night,

(01:03:00):
fairly comfortable, I might add, once the Rockets got I
mean I think the Suns, like I said, got it
back down to like six on a couple occasions, but
it was never really in doubt.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
One fourteen ninety two to the final.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
They're now eleven and four on the year, and as
Matt pointed out last night, if you want to look
at it this way, all four of their losses have
been quality losses X quality.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
We're on TV, right, Yep. My eyes were rolling as
you closed them. I mean, I couldn't decide what to do.
I was making a face and rolling my eyes. Follow
me here.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
With the exception of the Spurs game, where they turned
the ball over twenty four times for thirty two points,
that's not a quality loss. That's you shooting yourselves in
the foot and the Spurs benefiting from it. You lost
to the defending champs who have lost exactly one game
and are seventeen to one. On Opening night, you came
home and you lost to a team that just walked won.
It's thirteenth consecutive game, and you lost to a Nuggets

(01:04:01):
team that, for all intents and purposes, is going to
be duking it out with you for the number two
seed in all likelihood the rest of the season. Those
are your four losses, all quality, well, the Spurs one.
The silliness to not include it. Why you think the
Spurs are good? Come on, we don't have to do
this every time I think I want to, though I

(01:04:23):
hate it. I hate them clearly. So anyways, this was
emy U Duck earlier today. A big reason why the
Rockets were able to get that win last night. Aaron
Holiday coming off the bench with twenty two points. He
was I believe eight of seventeen overall, six of ten
from long range, and it was just fantastic. Like you
said in the first hour, it wasn't just the scoring.

(01:04:44):
It was the stabilization of the offense with a true
NBA point guard.

Speaker 3 (01:04:51):
Oh, I've said it, man, now stop that.

Speaker 11 (01:04:53):
He's a Townson and trow, a guy that always stays ready,
works extremely hard, and no matter when it's been in
these last years, whenever called the bomb. To your point,
he's always ready, plays multiple roles, multiple positions, and does
a little bit of everything as far as defending, storing
our initial offense, and so he's been great for us.

Speaker 5 (01:05:14):
Last night, you didn't start the jumbo on it, but
you went to it a little bit during the second half.
As you watched this and the season progresses, do you
find yourself kind of curious to throw the jumbole one
up in there to see what it does when you
don't normally think you'd put it in the into play
during the course of the game, and how much of
it is feeling, how much of his Hey, let's try
something different.

Speaker 11 (01:05:35):
Oh, I think there's something that works really well for
us consistently, and so we're going to go to that
pretty much every game. There's some nonconventional ups out there
that you think we would not use it against. But
you know, we can go to our zone there and
then scenes are going to either side of upside, so
that's our physicality or downside to create mismatches.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
But if we do what we do on the offensive end,
take care of the ball and then say, you know,
good zone with.

Speaker 11 (01:05:58):
Communication and activity, we kind of combat any line up
that's out there.

Speaker 9 (01:06:02):
You have had to go a little bit deeper into
the rotation with the injuries popping up, what'd you see
from JD Davison with his eighteen minutes?

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Things you liked and things that you would like to
see improved.

Speaker 3 (01:06:13):
Yeah, I mean he hit him very well.

Speaker 11 (01:06:15):
He's another guy that we're very confident in and obviously
numbers punch and minutes a crunch at certain positions. So
with the air and not being able to get minutes
every night with more fully healthy, it's obviously JD's behind
him as far as that. So the guy that's had
a really good preseason, dominant in the G League, and
we see that carrying over into the games, and so
he kind of hit the ground running. You know, handles

(01:06:39):
the plaint are very well, can guard upward, guard down.
I think he's just sitting and with the other guys,
and so having him out there with read er Aaron
was great. Another guy that can handle and like I said,
he cast togger guys and so I had a very
impressive night.

Speaker 9 (01:06:53):
Rockets head coach Imi Adoka was just here on a
Sports Talk seven ninety A bit of a quiet night
for reach epperd offensive, but uh, just from my untrained
I looked defensively like he was holding his own teams
look for him. What are your conversations with him as
far as the defensive side of the ball, where you
know that there are teams that are going to try
to exploit his defense, He's gonna have to be ready

(01:07:14):
for that. I know you've run some zone with him
as well, and what have you seen from him on
that end of the floor.

Speaker 11 (01:07:19):
Well, first of all, you know, we want to him
to take the challenge, and I think he's done that
and improved his physicality darking the ball this year, and
so in general, I think, you know, it doesn't matter
with him or Aaron or somebody else that's more seasoned
and he was stronger, there's going to be some size
advantages and disadvantages regardless, and we could scheme up things
to you know, get heads and certain things that.

Speaker 3 (01:07:39):
We did against Booker last night.

Speaker 11 (01:07:41):
But you know, he's taking on the challenge this year
to night and day from last year. More competent, more physical,
more aggressive and understanding assignments and so he's great there.
But even with that, offensively, you know, he just missed
shots and that he normally makes and so he don't
we don't equate a bad night just to miss the shots.

Speaker 3 (01:07:58):
He still ran the pick and roll.

Speaker 11 (01:07:59):
They well made a ton of great passes and got
this into what we needed.

Speaker 5 (01:08:03):
To im Is that a Men Thompson eurostep mid range
becoming one of the most difficult shops for opponents to
stop right now in the NBA.

Speaker 11 (01:08:14):
Yeah, I mean he seems wanted to give up to
him because of his pace in athleticism, and you know
he has a change of pace there and it can
stop on the dime and make.

Speaker 3 (01:08:22):
That awkward shot. So and since you know you keep
giving up ground, he keeps eating up the space.

Speaker 11 (01:08:26):
And elevates and he's so high over the ram or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:08:30):
And yeah, a very unique.

Speaker 11 (01:08:31):
Player and the things he does, things he can teach.
But he's more confident than jumper knocking down the mid range.
They're going to step up a little bit and get
to that much easier now.

Speaker 5 (01:08:40):
I know the three point shot is something he's still
trying to work on, and it feels like he's been
a little more selective, especially since earlier this season. Was
that something that is his just knowing the where he
is on the floor, is it something you've talked to
him about. I don't think you need him necessarily shoot
five or six a game. But if that becomes something
where you get knocked down one or two for you

(01:09:02):
every single night, it will certainly open up your spacing
on the offensive side.

Speaker 11 (01:09:07):
Yeah, we want him to be aggressive, but also understand
that take the shot that you want, not the shot
that the opponent wants you to take it. So just
because they're you know, shifting off and trying to beat
you in decent shots, you can still slash back door
like he does very well. Still attack the closeout, like
I said, eating up that space, and be confident when
the shot presents itself. And so he's been much better

(01:09:28):
in the corners and we encourage him to take those
above the break. We wanted to move and get to
his spots a little bit to the corner or the
dunker spots, a little bit more to the defense around.
But when it's presented, take the shot confidently, but also
don't bail teams out by taking that taking when you
want it and attack when they close out short.

Speaker 5 (01:09:47):
Last year obviously was a knockdown, drag out seven game
series with Golden State. They're going through some injury concerns
just like you are right now. What have you seen
on tape and early thought about playing the Warriors tomorrow night.

Speaker 11 (01:10:01):
Yeah, I mean they've had some unch of downs due
to those injuries guys in that lineup, like a lot
of the league right now. But still, you know, decent
record with the injuries and the and the set I
say that they've had, and so always a challenge. You know,
they got a guy over there that that makes that
possible with Curry and playing the way he is, and
you know, obviously add Butley to the mix as well.

(01:10:21):
So we'll prepare for them as they're going to if
they're gonna be whole, and regardless, we helped ourselves to
the same standard regardless is in for us.

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
As you saw last night.

Speaker 1 (01:10:31):
Well, you're gonna definitely react to some of the things
he had to say there, especially in light of the
upcoming schedule. Gosh, insanely road heavy here in the month
of November and definitely into December as well. So a
few of the thoughts from rocketed coach Ema Udoka following
that win over the Suns last night, and of course,

(01:10:51):
as you've got the Golden State Warriors and then two
in Utah on back to back nights to round out
the weekend.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
And into next week.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
All of that and more coming up here on a
Tuesday edition of the program Sports Talk seven ninety Space
City Home Network. Aaron Holliday, coming off of that snippet
from em Udoka last segment, it remains a godsend, relatively cheap,
the consummate professional, as you heard em say, but just
the perfect type of that at the perfect position in

(01:11:21):
a season like this. Where I told Matt this last night,
I didn't obviously I hated the news that Fred Vanvliet
was going to go down, But there's a reason that
Rafel's Stone and company have been so confident in reached Shepherd,
and we have yet to talk about what he did
last night, even though it wasn't an overwhelming offensive game.

(01:11:43):
But I they have earned my trust at this point
with what they have done personnel wise and who they've
drafted and how those players have developed. But having Aaron
Holliday is an absolute luxury when they're fully healthy, but
it's just imperative for what they're trying to do on
nights like last night. It's a luxury that he didn't

(01:12:05):
feel like there was a better opportunity elsewhere than he
couldn't get playing time elsewhere because he knew he wasn't
gonna get it here, and then Fred got hurt, and
he's still not in the rotation when everybody else is healthy,
he doesn't necessarily play. He's maybe a guy they go
to for five or six minutes, but maybe they don't
go to him at all.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
Last night was different, and he's been unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
When guys do that, Guys like him, I mean, do
that when they look around and there's thirty NBA teams
and there's clearly a place somewhere where you could get
minutes relative to the lack of that here. Do they
stay in a place like this because they think at
the end of the tunnel there could be ring Do

(01:12:49):
they just like the team that much they like the
guys that might I'm always fascinated by what you just said,
because it's true he's not.

Speaker 2 (01:12:55):
I don't think he's giving up a whole lot of
money playing here versus elsewhere. I'm not sure what their
contracts he would have available. I think people kind of
look at him and think, well, he's at the end
of the line. He's thirty two, thirty three, whatever, he's
he's not that old, and his career is not at
the end of the line, not if he plays like this.
He just turned twenty nine just before the season began.

(01:13:16):
He shopped the ball well in his last stop before
coming to Houston, when he was in Atlanta, but that
was only for one year. He shot it better than
forty percent from three point distance. He's getting close to
that during his Rockets career. He's up to now thirty
nine point eight percent, Like I said, close to forty
as a rocket. And this is year three and this
year he's well, he's kind of stupid. Forty eight percent

(01:13:38):
from downtown right now and shooting well over fifty percent overall.
He's never done that before in his career. He is
brilliant for what they need. And any given night, you
got to give him twenty five minutes, he'll earn those
twenty five minutes. He wasn't on the court for nearly
thirty minutes last night because we didn't have anybody else.
He was out there because he was making sure that
they won the game. He was great, and he's been

(01:14:01):
great on a couple of different occasions this year, last year,
and the year before. I asked im about that before
their last home game just about the value on a
night like last night goes without saying, well, yeah, he
hit six threes, he scored twenty two points. It's clear
what he's bringing to the table. But he and Jeff
and so many other veterans who aren't necessarily a part

(01:14:21):
of their every day playing, they obviously meant a lot
to this team as they were growing and learning how
to be NBA people, men, talents, all that stuff, and
I think that probably gets underlooked or under discussed because
we just focus on what happens in between the forty
eight minutes of whistle to whistle, which is great. But
what they got from him last night is something I

(01:14:41):
think they can get pretty frequently. He gets, for the
most part, wide open looks. Last night probably wasn't even
the best example of it because Katie again wasn't out there,
and that's what's delivering so many good looks. I would
guess that's the biggest reason they are shooting the way
they are. I think assuming improvement from Reid is fair.

(01:15:02):
I think assuming some improvement from Jabbari is fair. Assuming
improvement for pretty much anybody else on their roster I
don't know about, but they're all improved. I mean Tari's
still over fifty percent, and he won't be back for
another four plus weeks and even read to improve some
There's one hundred and four players that are what I
would call high volume three point shooters seventy five attempts

(01:15:25):
or more through this first fourteen, fifteen, eighteen nineteen games.
There's one hundred and four of those guys. He's third,
third among all of them in three point shooting accuracy.
He's shooting confidently, obviously, but he's shooting shots that how
could he pass up on? No matter how he was playing,
he's wide open.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
And Reid again didn't have the strongest offensive outing last night,
but he made some passes where it was I hate
it because I keep seeing it more and more and
I don't want to see it, and I certainly don't
want to see it and then have to come on
here and say it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:02):
I'm not calling him John Stockton.

Speaker 1 (01:16:04):
It's just the way sometimes he passes, not to mention
his shot, his size. It's not just because he's a
smallish white guy either. I mean, it's that is kind
of silly. It's like calling him Mark Price. I've heard
people try to say that's a comparison to.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
That was the very very first first name I heard,
and I was on during our draft night broadcast when
they selected him. That's it's more likable than Stock. It's
definitely more likable. Not quite as strong an NBA talent,
but the talents of Reed. Well, who did I bring
up earlier this week? I mean, this is crazy. I

(01:16:41):
think he plays basketball not quite running. He's not the
focus of the Rockets offense, so he's not running all
over the place, running through screens and stuff like Steph.
But being besides that, that that's how he plays. To me,
I see a lot of Steph Curry in his game.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
You mean like moving away from the ball or no,
I mean, okay, he has the ball boom going up.
I mean when the passing and all these other things
you're talking about. And we brought it up the earlier.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
Steph Curry is targeted defensively for obvious reasons, especially when
we're an even better defensive team. There are only so
many ways to beat the Warriors in the half court
when Draymond and Iguidal and Bogit were out there. Yeah, absolutely,
we want to attack Steph. It's the same thing here.
There's not many great avenues in the half court to
attack the Rockets. But if Reid is out there, he's

(01:17:28):
probably their weakest individual one on one defender. But he's
making up for it for all the things you can
bring up, for all the things that he may just
brought up. He knows how to play defense. He knows
how to cheat in a good way defensively and creates
opportunities for other guys. He's maybe overplaying this guy so
hard this way that that means the pass he just
made is gonna get stolen by him and Thompson, or

(01:17:49):
he's tipped it far enough away that the player can't
recover it, so it's Tari's steal. He does a lot
of things that you want your players to do. He's
he's still learning how to get his offensively.

Speaker 1 (01:18:01):
Three more steels last night, had five assists, only two
turnovers on a night, were only scored seven points and
just did not shoot the ball well at all. He
was only two for nine and one of those was
a three, but it was one for five on those attempts.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
So aren't you okay like Eme saying, yeah, he had
a good game. He played a good game last night.
He was a plus six and he played a good game.
The shots just didn't go in. I don't That doesn't
mean I don't think he played well. He played well.
That's what you want him to do.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
Look at the guy we were talking about is the
leading candidate for Player of the Game. Amn Thompson doesn't
normally score twenty eight points. Thoms Kdi's taken all the
shots away. He's probably scored him for losing in two
K to him. I'm still bitter about that. I put
that one to bed. All fourteen minutes of that boardroom interview.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
How'd it go? It's awesome? Could not want more? They
left me wanting more. I want to listen to these
two guys talk and funny because almost the entire conversation
was just about the game and the games over the
years and how KD was like, yeah, I've been playing
this forever. I played two K when it was two
K and the men, how old were you then? That

(01:19:08):
was minus three? He was born in two thousand and three.
I hate it Here.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
Four o'clock hour underway here on the A Team Sports
Talk seven to ninety Space City Home Network Tuesday edition
of the program, wexac Josh Jordan with you taking you
until six o'clock tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:19:28):
No Rockets basketball. They'll resume their.

Speaker 1 (01:19:30):
Schedule with a second of four straight away from Toyota
Center tomorrow night at Golden State against the team that
sent them packing in the seventh game of the first
round last season.

Speaker 2 (01:19:41):
Still bitter about that and.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
All of the other playoff losses, but the Rockets can
get at least a regular season measure of revenge if
they can go into San Francisco and get a win
without Kevin Durant.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
I wanted him to play in that game because of
that reason.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
Oh okay, you don't think we have a go to
score that is good enough to beat you. We'll just
go get the guy that used to play for you
and he'll beat you. But it might make it more
satisfying tomorrow night if they win without him.

Speaker 2 (01:20:07):
It should be satisfying anytime you beat a team that
even though the history for these guys is now new.
But remember what we were talking about before the series
began last year. Is a men or Jalen or Alpi? Like,
do they care that this franchise couldn't be Golden State
in the playoffs? I mean, I'm sure there's people around
the buildings were talking about the Yeah, they mentioned it,
but now they do. They're among them now because they

(01:20:30):
just got ousted in their first playoff trip in seven games.

Speaker 1 (01:20:33):
Before we get to playoff chances in the NFL for
the Texans and some other teams. It kind of flew
under the radar because I was so focused on the
Rockets side of things last night. Did you see what
Dylan Brooks had to say about the Rockets his old
team after this loss by his new team, the Phoenix Suns.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
After he scored twenty nine points, hit half of his shots,
was the driving force offensively, was all over the place,
played really well in many different ways. I like the
rest of his teammates. He had trouble finding teammates. He
had zero assists. That was pointed out to me by
somebody when I said he played awesome, he said, oh, yeah,
zero assists. His team had eleven assists and they weren't
making shots. I'm not sure how you get any when

(01:21:11):
the team players you passed to don't make any shots.
Only scored ninety two. But nonetheless, yeah, he was. He
got a few hugs before the game, and then he
got the real hugs after the game. Then he went
to the locker room, showered and changed and hit the podium.
I did see this.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
And this is what he had to say once he
got to said podium.

Speaker 10 (01:21:33):
But I've never seen so many flops being rewarded on
the other side, And honestly felt like I was in
a FEBA game, like playing basketball and feba where you
just get rewarded for flopping, and that killed every single
run we had. Couldn't be physical, but the Rockets were physical, grabbing, holding,

(01:21:55):
and when we try to do it, there was calls
right away.

Speaker 2 (01:21:59):
I would have imagine there are enough, uh, social media
savvy rockets. They're young kids, Jabbari, Tari, who else shingoon
a men, maybe maybe Alpi, but probably those three specifically
heys Alpi grabbed that video that's making his way around
social media media and texted it to Dylan with a

(01:22:22):
bunch of laughing emojis. Stay like, be dead serious to
say who you are? Bro? Stay the same like you brother.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Every time we went on a run, it was the
Rockets flopping like they played in a soccer federation.

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
Or they would hit a three yeah, or they would score.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
I mean, there were several things that were stopping your
runs that only got to within six multiple times.

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
It's no different than what he did here, no different
than what he did in Memphis.

Speaker 1 (01:22:49):
He is who he is. He doesn't mind going out there.
It puts puts it out there.

Speaker 2 (01:22:53):
Maybe it makes everybody else in the league consider this,
but it also shows you that this is who he
His Rockets became largely because of him, who was the
most You mean that they didn't bully the Suns and
the Sons didn't back down. No, Sons were just as
physical last night. But that's probably not how they play

(01:23:14):
every night. The Rockets play like that every night because
this is who they are. Yeah, and he helped set
that tone exactly. He and e May, I mean, perfect
compliments for each other. I just thought that was hilarious
because he's dead serious and he was involved in what
I think most people involved. E May especially would regard

(01:23:36):
as a flop his foul on Steven Allam, as we
brought it up in the opening hour. That was in
his mind and e May's mind, a flop. Okay, But
even if Steven doesn't go down there, if he doesn't
go down, they probably don't even call it, ah like
was it called on the floor at all, or did
they go to replay after he was down.

Speaker 1 (01:23:54):
I know they went to replay and did not upgrade it.
They went to replay here. It was a clear this
wasn't like the Creighton Baylor play. This was I'm going
to intentionally run into you as you're coming towards the lane.
That would have been a foul call if Steven Adams
didn't go down, because it's just like those legal screens

(01:24:15):
that they call on Shingoon all the time for sticking
his hip out, which they did again last night. He
put his hands up like, how could you call this
on me? I actually thought he did a pretty good
job there. They do call it all the time, and
he might have leaned into him a bit. If they
had called half of the ones that Andrew Boget committed
when he was with the Warriors, they probably don't have

(01:24:35):
any of those championships before he left.

Speaker 2 (01:24:39):
It is a shame that the fouls that were called
in favor of the Rockets killed their ninety two point
offensive flow. That's what I'm saying. They scored ninety two.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
That's like seventy in the nineties NBA, I don't maybe
even sixty.

Speaker 2 (01:24:51):
You know, he usually this is just what he likes
to do. Remember that time, I could feel like when
he said all that stuff, I was like, come on, yeah,
but it's Dylan.

Speaker 1 (01:25:02):
You remember the time the Rockets scored sixty seven in
a playoff game against the Jazz that sucked.

Speaker 2 (01:25:06):
The Jazz have been involved in some embarrassing playoff scores.
I hate them. They've been on the bad end of
it a few times. I love that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
Well, in the finals against U I love Michael Jordan
for making sure the stock and I'm alone never got
a ring. That's just glorious two years in a row. Well,
if it weren't for MJ. Yeah, we know, we know.
He used to say that about the Pistons back if
it weren't for MJ. Okay, So what's the alternative, man?
If there weren't better players than we had in the league,
we would have won. Yeah, like that's what you're saying.

(01:25:34):
And don't forget it wasn't a better team than us,
we would have won.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
Did you are you the.

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
One that sent me or was it Matt that sent
me one of the Wi Fi handles inside the Delta Center?
It was I pushed off I had gotten I'd seen
that on somebody's social media and was working that game.
Curious loser mentality stuff nineteen ninety eight, loser mentality.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
Who do you think is why FI was that? I
don't think it was a Delta Center set up Wi Fi.
It was probably if some fans hot spot Wi FI
or something like that. I would like to think that
it was a Delta Center employees. Nice.

Speaker 1 (01:26:12):
That means that he's still living rent free in their
head thirty years later, nearly.

Speaker 2 (01:26:18):
We're coming up on it again. This is where my
confusion comes from, Like Michael lives or NBA Champions. If
Michael Jordan doesn't hit that shot, maybe how did he
get the ball? Important? How did he get the ball? Wex?
I mean, I don't stole your franchise player alone. Now
he didn't. It came from behind him and slapped down

(01:26:39):
on his arm and it wasn't called.

Speaker 1 (01:26:40):
Wiped the ball cleanly and then walked up the floor
calmly and then drained it as Bob Costas had the
worst possible call ever for the most iconic Jordan shot ever.
And then he walked over the bench and started putting
six fingers up.

Speaker 2 (01:26:54):
But why why isn't he just he lives in their
head because he beat them. Yeah, they don't have rings
because of him. Right, but why are I don't know
the rent free part, Like it's it's a big deal.
He should be in their heads forever. Yeah, it's not
on them. It happened, it's a big deal. Why would
they just forget about it? Well because and move on?

Speaker 1 (01:27:13):
So you're saying that conversely, Stockton does not live rent
free in Rockets fans heads because he hit that shot
and they would have gone to the finals and beaten
the bulls.

Speaker 2 (01:27:23):
Like that's the thing he does.

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
Championship with heads really because he never won anything MJ did.
But you don't care that they didn't win. You care
that it prevented you from winning. Yes, but I'm also
happy that they didn't win. Right, It's just the kind
of offsets it in a little bit. Sports makes you
hang onto things forever. I'm far more upset about the

(01:27:46):
like the Rockets Warriors in twenty eighteen than I will
ever or have ever been, honestly about Stockton beating the
beating the Rockets in nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (01:27:55):
Yeah, you were just a kid. I was fourteen. I
was fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
Maybe I knew what was going on though, And I
knew how those dirty jerks right got there.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
You'd put in ten years of fandom. H eight years?

Speaker 1 (01:28:10):
How long were you in the h I have to
admit I did not become a Rockets fan until I
won that competition or not competition.

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
I stuffed a ballot box.

Speaker 1 (01:28:20):
Basically, I was cheating to get the So I went
to the Olive Garden every Sunday and.

Speaker 2 (01:28:26):
Put about it sounds like the beginning of a joke.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
I know, well back in the day, I mean in
the nineties, it wasn't looked upon the way you know,
like Nickelback is in music, okay, And I would stuff
that ballot box with entrees and eventually got the phone call.

Speaker 2 (01:28:39):
Put your business card in here for a free lunch.

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
No, it was just you filled out your name and
your address and your phone number.

Speaker 2 (01:28:46):
And this is pre cell phone, at least for our family.
So this was to become a ball boy contest night
for a night.

Speaker 1 (01:28:51):
And you get an Olive Garden logoed Jersey shorts combo.
When I got there late, thanks Uncle Robert, it didn't fit,
not properly.

Speaker 2 (01:29:04):
I'm aware of that part of the story.

Speaker 1 (01:29:06):
So the guy that was in charge of me, because
I'm supposed to be introduced by Matt Thomas by the
way to the Summit crowd before the game and then
be in the handshake line or whatever for starting lineups.
I'm like, these shorts aren't coming on, and he's like,
I'm gonna make them, and he legit. I mean, it's
all sorts of thanks for helping. Not really, I was

(01:29:29):
seeing soprano. So I go out there get introduced in
my ironically looking like Stockton shorts, and then after the
spotlight has been on me Adam Clanton from Blile Junior
High School visiting us tonight as the guest ball boy,
then they miraculously found a pair of shorts that fit
me normally.

Speaker 2 (01:29:51):
Anyway. That's the night I became a Rockets fan, right
when they were losing a Golden State over and over
and over again. You had been in the mix for
a lot longer.

Speaker 1 (01:30:00):
Yeah, So I was best personally because I was on
the call for that crap.

Speaker 2 (01:30:04):
Because that's what it was, Scott Foster. It was bad,
this twenty seventh straight free through.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Yeah, because you didn't call like two four point plays
that should have been good.

Speaker 2 (01:30:14):
So it would have been more like twenty five because
those would have wiped off. Yeah, no, it would have been. Well,
when you get fouled on a three, it doesn't count
as a shot, right, the number twenty seven would just
dip lower. Well, but shot made one of them? Oh,
but it was a foul. Would a shot point play?

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
Yes, that they didn't call, and it was probably on
like the thirteenth or fourteenth miss got it And maybe
you call those and you win that game.

Speaker 2 (01:30:36):
Maybe I hate Scott Foster. All right, we will take
a quick time out. We will come right back.

Speaker 1 (01:30:42):
We'll talk about the Texans and some other NFL teams
playoff chances, realistic playoff chances to go to the postseason
here in twenty twenty five, and for the Texans it'll
be the second time. I believe that they started the
season zero three and then made it to the postseason.

Speaker 2 (01:30:58):
Not a lot of teams have done that. They're already
one of them. Twenty eighteen, they did this.

Speaker 1 (01:31:02):
We'll discuss next the eight team Sports Sox seven to
ninety Space City Home Network. I believe you've put it
this way Yesterday, following a nearly completed week, what are
we coming off of twelve in the NFL.

Speaker 2 (01:31:18):
Lee twelve is complete. It's now week thirteen. Yes, AFC
was complete before last night, right, And that's where I'm
getting at.

Speaker 1 (01:31:25):
The Texans actually dipped, I guess in their playoff chances
based on some of the other results.

Speaker 2 (01:31:32):
No, the didn't dip in their playoff chances. They dipped
in the standings. That's what I meant. They went into
the week eighth and they are now ninth basically just
because previously they had the same record as Pittsburgh or
as Baltimore, who was on the outside looking in, so
the Texans had the tiebreaker over to them. Now they
have the same record as Pittsburgh and Baltimore, but Baltimore

(01:31:53):
is the team that has the tiebreaker over Pittsburgh, so
they're in the playoff picture with the tiebreaker, and thus
the Steelers sit in front of them. So one of
the teams in front of them stayed there Pittsburgh, one
of the teams behind them, Baltimore, moved ahead of them,
even though they all have the same record. So to
that end, somehow this is Trevor Lawrence's fault. Well, they

(01:32:14):
are seven and four, so there is no tiebreaker.

Speaker 1 (01:32:16):
Yet what a completely unlikable and mediocre team, true worst
seven and four team in the NFL.

Speaker 2 (01:32:24):
To not very many of them. So yes, all right,
definitely the worst. All right, So winning obviously increases the
Texans playoff chances kind of goes without saying I'll give
you the actual numbers that somebody's come up with about
how much it goes up. But first, there's ten teams
in the AFC playoff race. There's seven spots, four division winners,
three wild cards. Ten teams are fighting for those spots.

(01:32:45):
I'm gonna walk through the AFC schedule this weekend involving
those ten teams and tell me who you thinks favored
to win those games. First AFC game that matters is
Thursday afternoon Thanksgiving Chiefs at Cowboys. Who do you think
is favored Cowboys? The Chiefs are favored by a field goal.
They are so one of the teams the Texans probably
would prefer to lose, especially since they're playing an NFC team.

(01:33:05):
The only thing that matters in that game to Houston
is the AFC team be nice that the Chiefs lost.
The Chiefs are favored to win. Bengals and Ravens play
later that night. Who do you think is favored to win.
It's in Baltimore. Baltimore, Baltimore, another team in the AFC
playoff race favored to win. Then we get to Sunday,
Texans and Colts play. Obviously, the Colts are favored at home.

(01:33:27):
The Jaguars are on the road at Tennessee. Guess who's
favored to win? Stupid Jacksonville, that's name, that is correct.
The Bills are at the Steelers. Steelers have the same
record as Houston. The Bills are still ahead of Houston.
Guess who's favored to win.

Speaker 1 (01:33:41):
I'm actually gonna say, and I'm assuming that it's gonna
be Mason Rudolph again.

Speaker 2 (01:33:46):
No, it looks like they were very optimistic that Aaron
Rodgers will return as of today.

Speaker 1 (01:33:53):
I'm gonna say barely. The Steelers are favored.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
No, Buffalo is favored by three and a half points,
and another team ahead of Houston favored to win this week.
Chargers are a home for the Raiders, Yep, Chargers. Charger
are favored by almost ten points. Broncos are on the
road at the Commanders, who will continue to play without
Jayden Daniels.

Speaker 1 (01:34:11):
Who's favored Broncos? The Giants are at the Patriots, who's favored,
not the Giants. So every team ahead of the Texans
is favored to win. Okay, the Texans are not favored
to win their game, but in the instance that they
do win their game, they would increase their playoff chances
quite obviously, that's that's one way to do things. But

(01:34:32):
I couldn't figure this out. The Texans playoff chances dip
to twenty six percent. If they lose, they rise to
fifty excuse me, sixty three percent. If they win, it
rises to sixty three percent. Everything else stays is saying,
But just a win and a loss by the Texans,
that's just their personal playoff chances. So I must be

(01:34:54):
reading this graphic wrong. But you're gonna help walk me
through it. Figure out it, figure it out for me.

Speaker 2 (01:34:59):
So, if the Charge win in their favor to do so,
their playoff chances are at sixty five percent. If the
Chiefs win in their favor to do so, they go
up to seventy three. Jaguars will go up to seventy nine.
If they win, the Ravens will go up to eighty one,
Bills up to ninety two, Colts up to ninety five
Patriots and Broncos are way way up in the nineties.
It almost doesn't matter if they win or lose a

(01:35:20):
ten respectively. So if only the Bills are playing the Steelers,
so one of those teams is definitely going to lose,
and thus their playoff chances will dip. And they're on
either side of the Texans by the way right now.
But all of these other teams that are ahead of Houston,
that are favored to win and then they will win, Like,
are you just saying by coin flipping all these results,

(01:35:44):
they're favored to win. The likelihood of them winning is great.
It has to be. So how can the Texans' chances
rise to sixty three percent after Week thirteen if they
win when everybody else is going to win their chances
aren't we do increase? It's just gonna tell us they're good.

Speaker 1 (01:36:03):
I would say, I mean, I don't really believe in this,
but I would say it's because of their remaining schedule.
That must mean that they think the Texans have. That
must mean they are favoring the Texans to win at
Arrowhead the next week by like three and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:36:17):
That is the presumption.

Speaker 1 (01:36:19):
And Cardinals Raiders the next two weeks in a row
at home, those should be wins. If the Texans just
show up and don't screw it up, they should win
those games. In fact, I'll go so far as to say,
if the Texans beat the Colts and they beat the
Chiefs whatever you know, that may or may not happen
either or but no matter what, fully healthy, they come

(01:36:41):
home and they don't turn the ball over to the
Cardinals or the Raiders, those are two wins, guaranteed.

Speaker 2 (01:36:48):
Guaranteed they suck.

Speaker 1 (01:36:51):
Those two teams are so bad right now, and the
Texans defense is so good they're absolutely going to force
at least one turnover in each of those games.

Speaker 2 (01:37:00):
Their four games are against an eight win team, seven
win team, a team with the same record as you
six and five, and another eight win team.

Speaker 1 (01:37:09):
And the other part of this that you're asking me
is that I think some of those other teams you're mentioning,
as you've said, all play each other at some point.

Speaker 2 (01:37:19):
Right, not as much as you'd think, but that is
definitely the reason why it is how it is. I
still think it's a bit off. I don't think there's
a swing though. I don't think there's any way I
could rationalize the Texans getting to seven and five probably
being behind six teams record wise, minimum maybe seven that
all of their schedules suggest the Texans are going to

(01:37:40):
keep winning at a high clip while those teams, several
of them find ways to losses. Like we talked about,
nearly every one of these teams, and what is remaining,
the Patriots and Broncos maybe are not even worth discussing because,
like you said, these are two loss teams unless they're
playing games against other teams where it would help for
them to win. The Chargers and Bills are the two

(01:38:01):
teams along with Jacksonville that are one to win ahead
of you. These are the teams for you to pass.
These are the only teams really that you can pass
in order to make the playoffs unless you win the division.
So you have the tiebreaker over Buffalo. So now you
got to outplay them by one game and you will
pass them, and you will be ahead of them in
the standings based on tiebreakers. They have the Steelers, like

(01:38:23):
I said, this weekend, they still go to the Patriots,
whom they already lost to in Buffalo. They play the
Eagles still, but they also have the Bengals who are
probably a threat because Joe Burrow's return. They have Sudar
Sanders Browns, and they have Aaron Glenn's Jets.

Speaker 1 (01:38:42):
They have a very Jacksonvillian schedule half good, half bad
the rest of the.

Speaker 2 (01:38:46):
Way, and then the Chargers the other seven and four
team Raiders probably the only gift game they have left.

Speaker 1 (01:38:54):
Like, I don't see the Bills at least not the
team I watched on Thursday night in person going and
winning in New England.

Speaker 2 (01:39:01):
Even with Brandon Cooks joining the team. Brandon Cooks signed
by the Bills today.

Speaker 1 (01:39:07):
No, it is gonna do as much good as as
Damian Pierce is going to do for the for the
Chiefs on their practice school. Well, he was signed to
the active roster. Yeah, well that's fine. But like say,
you give the Bengals the benefit of the doubt because
Joe Burrow's back, I would, well, yeah, I mean he's
a sensational quarterback when he's healthy.

Speaker 2 (01:39:27):
He's just never healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
So I'm trying to categorize these games. The Eagles have
not looked good. Plus they just choked the way that
I don't know what's going on with the Eagles. There's
no reason for them to be playing as down as
unless they're just hungover, you know, from a Super Bowl standpoint,
I don't think they're actually drunk Bengals, Patriots, Eagles versus

(01:39:50):
Brown's Jets, Steelers because I don't know what to make
of the Steelers. I mean, it's basically a three and
three situation for the Bills. That would be great, that
would be really great. But like I said at the
beginning of the segment, this is somehow Jacksonville's fault. They
just they remind me, I don't want to say, of

(01:40:14):
the Chiefs last year, but remember I kept coming in here, like,
how are they doing this? They look like absolute trash,
and they somehow gut it out a win. And that's
with Patrick Mahomes, who I actually respect. I don't respect
anything about horse Face. They're winning in spite of him.
And they're not particularly like the things that they are.
Quote good at defense, running game, they're okay, but they're

(01:40:38):
like above average in those aspects. I don't look at
the Jags defense and have any sort of fear, and
I don't look at et Tenn and any of the
rest of the running backs like they're anything more than
just a good, serviceable running back maybe above average in
his case, but I could probably rattle off five different
running backs I'd rather have starting for me than him.

Speaker 2 (01:40:56):
Well, they are sixteenth in the NFL and yards per
play on the right there in the middle, they're very mediocre.
And then their quarterbacks not. He sucks. There's nothing mediocre
about him. He's terrible.

Speaker 1 (01:41:08):
He's a back three interceptions and you won because the
Cardinals are just that much more incompetent.

Speaker 2 (01:41:15):
Basically, he laid out the formula in week twelve on
how to win. Brock Purdy followed it to a t
last night. Yeah, and what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:41:22):
I mean, that's another that is a you know what
great analogy because that was such a Jacksonvillian win.

Speaker 2 (01:41:29):
Well, you happen to play a team that was dumber
than you know.

Speaker 1 (01:41:31):
The other team's never gonna do anything, so they just
treat it like a preseason game. Just get to get
the rust off, figure it out. Like if this were
a different team they were facing, you would have had
to think Kyle Shanahan was gonna wonder should I maybe
bench him?

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
I have Mac Jones sitting right here. I kind of
want to win this game. We kind of want to
get to eight and four, we'll get our signature segment
in here. Next signature segment time.

Speaker 1 (01:41:55):
Halfway through our number three on a Tuesday, we hit
you with say What's got a couple of pieces of
Wait a minute, what did I just hear you say?

Speaker 2 (01:42:02):
For say what? Today? We were just talking about last
night's Monday Night Football game, which I believe previously on
this afternoon's program you said it was kind of a
snooze fest, and that would be accurate. A toy game
where the Panthers did little and the forty nine ers
could only do so much to try to keep the
Panthers in the game, kind of a one sided affair.
McCaffrey did McCaffrey things. He now leads the NFL in

(01:42:23):
pass receptions and rushing attempts. He has been healthy this
year and he is killing it again and they have
eight wins now. In order to keep Monday Night Football
from being a snooze fest, in my opinion, you tune
into Monday Night Football on the Manning cast that five
guests last night. Shockingly, Jerry Rice was the worst one.

(01:42:45):
He obviously was. They try to get a game specific,
so they had Jerry Rice in early it was fine.
I'm not saying he was the worst of five. I'm
not saying he was bad. I just enjoyed him the least.

Speaker 1 (01:42:56):
Did you happen to see when they put the graphic
up of the all time leading receivers for forty nine
ers history.

Speaker 2 (01:43:01):
He was obviously at the top right.

Speaker 1 (01:43:03):
The next guy was real close, Harel Owens, who was amazing,
albeit not a long time in forty nine. It wasn't
even so Jerry had I think north of nineteen five.

Speaker 2 (01:43:16):
Toreu was like eighty five hundred yards. It's amazing, and
he went.

Speaker 1 (01:43:20):
To Oakland and did like he had like two thousand
more receiving yards.

Speaker 2 (01:43:23):
He was forty one. He was in the sane specimen,
so he was first. Luke Combs came after that. He's
from the area. He's been a long, long, long time
Panthers fan. It was fun watching Eli and Peyton helped
dissect his own personal football scouting report when he was
in high school. He said he wasn't very good, and
they made fun of it. They had Michael Chay and

(01:43:44):
Colin jost On together, so it was basically like did
they write each other's jokes? They were telling a lot
of them. They were pretty funny, so it was pretty entertaining.
I think Johansson was the best. Then they had Texans
quarterback on after that, former Texans quarterback for a Niners
Panthers game, Jake Delome.

Speaker 1 (01:44:02):
Jake Delom was their final guy. I saw none of this,
by the way, I'm completely blind. So he was their
final guest.

Speaker 2 (01:44:07):
So when he wrapped up, the game was wrapping up,
and Eli and Peyton Will just kind of, oh, this
is what happened, and we'll be on again. And they
were getting through all their saying goodbyes, and they're watching
because all they have is their video. It's just the
regular broadcast, and they're showing Juwan Jennings just absolutely going
berserk after the game. They didn't really know why, and

(01:44:29):
most of the viewers really didn't know why. And we
learned why as the evening continued. The actual broadcast went
back and showed some of the footage of exactly why
he was so angry after the game and went after
a player, and very very particular player, Trayvon Mooring, and
he punched him, slapped him across the face and shoved
him and then got tackled away by several people, players,

(01:44:52):
coaches security, so it didn't go beyond that, and all
that took place after the game, when players had gone
back onto the field for the handshake portion of the setting.

Speaker 1 (01:45:01):
Punched him in the face. Be a little bit more
specific about the type of punch open handed, closed handed,
and what did he connect with his helmet? I mean,
what do you think you're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:45:14):
That's why I didn't even want to say punched, because
it was more like he shoved his face aside, He
gave him a good hard shoved to the face with
his fist. It was less of a punch than we
usually get mad at players for punching other players and
to helpt with, yeah, it's just dumb to protect you.
I'm not here to dog Juwan Jennings at all. No,
and neither was Kyle Shanahan. After the game. Now, later

(01:45:36):
this afternoon we found out that Trayvon Mooring, the receiver
of this punch, he got a one game suspension from
the NFL. I'll tell you why. Actually, let's let Kyle
tell us all why.

Speaker 1 (01:45:50):
The guy I took a cheap shot and hit him
in the balls, and really proud of Juan for not
losing his mind out there and get him to the sideline.

Speaker 2 (01:45:58):
He's right, Well, that's literally an exact comment to the
point direct of what happened. That is what Mooring did.
That is what the league suspended him a game for.
It happened in the fourth quarter, and what Kyle is
saying is that when it happened, he was in pain,
he was stumbling backwards, his teammate was there to catch him,

(01:46:19):
and nothing happened there as in, he didn't do anything
to hurt the team. He was at least able to
control himself in game. Then after the game he absolutely
sought him out and went after him. And now we
know why. Jennings talked about it after and moring talked
about it after. But I think the league was pretty
easily justified in doing this because it was such a clear, obvious,

(01:46:42):
intentional post play punched to the footballs junk. As Kyle said, So,
I'm trying to think of what other usually violent hit
to a quarterback. Multiple all necessary roughness penalties will result
in a player drawing a league suspension like what happened

(01:47:04):
with us. He's all Shire last year. I guess there
have been others. They're not immediately coming to mind, the
three suspensions we've had this year are for spitting, for spitting,
and for a junk punch.

Speaker 1 (01:47:18):
Come on, NFL players, Well, they're being very They're they're
behaving badly. They are behaving badly.

Speaker 2 (01:47:24):
But this is.

Speaker 1 (01:47:25):
Why when I was talking to you about the stupid
flag that was thrown on who's the tight end for
the Cardinals McBride, Well, he did the yeah, the nose wipe. Yeah,
Ray McBride a not a finable.

Speaker 2 (01:47:42):
It is under it is.

Speaker 1 (01:47:45):
Actually they changed punching each other in the junk and
getting suspended. We have some real problems. Leave him alone.
They just plays for the a couple of bucks from
the guy that's thousands and thousands of dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:47:58):
I'm not dismissing it because they make so much. These
fines are way out of control. Now, let's take it
back to the field. Okay, we got one huge weekend
of college football ahead of us. We got games a
game Thursday, we got a bunch of games Friday, we
got a ton of games Saturday, and it will all
help lay out the postseason playoff picture to a certain degree.

(01:48:18):
We still have conference title games to go after that.
For those that qualify. Kind of a big game here
on Sports Talk seven ninety five point thirty coverage Friday
evening from DKR with the Longhorns hosting the undefeated Texas
A and m Aggie's Now. There are a lot of
people who have thrown support behind Marcel Reid for the
Heisman Trophy. He's the quarterback, the driving force, led that

(01:48:41):
amazing comeback and played brilliantly after he played so poorly
in the first half. They're undefeated. Yes, I think that
makes some sense. We talked about the idea that the
Heisman Trophy this year is going to go to somebody
who's probably not even having that great of a year.
The Heisman Trophy caliber talent in college football this year
it's so bad. Yeah, every time anybody has a good game, Oh,

(01:49:03):
this guy should be the Heisman. Let's make Haynes King
the Heisman every week if somebody knew. But I just
still couldn't get past this, and uh, we'll save it
for the other side so we could make more comments
on it. I I'm torn between support what do you
want them to say? And total lunacy. And that's why
it fits in say what but this is like the biggest,

(01:49:25):
most important game that it's back on the schedule. It's
a huge rivalry game. Everyone's amped up for it. There's
a lot on the Texas aim could lose their only
game of the regular season and tumble out of the
SEC title game because of it, and because of where
Alabama and Georgia's are. Absolutely would. But we'll hit you

(01:49:45):
with that on the other side. So it relates to
the Horns and the Aggies Friday night. What was said,
I'll tell you next, all right, So back to the
topic in hand. We had a Heisman Trophy discussion. Got
a comment from somebody involved in the Longhorns Aggie's game
this weekend. Do you know what Fernando Mendoza, Jeremiah Love,

(01:50:07):
Diego Pavia, Julian sand David Bailey, Jeremiah Smith, Haines King,
Dante Moore, Jacob Rodriguez, and Kayden Wager have in common. No,
they were all listed on at least the first, second,
or third place spot on a straw pole among college
football prognosticators for a Heisman Trophy is a straw pole again,
when people in the media are asked to give me

(01:50:28):
your vote randomly, probably all people that work for the
Athletic as this is where I've chosen to grab the
information for your So three different people Mendoza, Love and
Pavia at least got one first place vote. And those
were the other seven players that finished among the top
ten Straw Pole vote getters for the most recent Heisman
straw Pole done by the Athletic. Did you recognize a

(01:50:51):
name that I didn't say? And we're talking about Texas,
A and M. We're talking about Texas. I clearly did
not say Marcel Reid, which I find rather odd. Well,
is there another name that I also didn't say?

Speaker 1 (01:51:05):
Probably it's probably obvious for millions of people that are
listening to us right now, but I don't know what
it is.

Speaker 2 (01:51:11):
Well, let's ask uh hm, the other number sixteen for
the Longhorns, Michael taff what he thinks about the Heisman
Trophy and who if you had a vote, maybe he
should get it.

Speaker 12 (01:51:21):
If you vote vote arch Manning, I think, yeah, I
don't know. You compare his numbers. I bet his numbers
are probably up there. I think he's the most hated
on person in all of college football and he doesn't
even care. He just cares about winning, and he cares
about his teammates, and you know the things that he's

(01:51:44):
done for this team and the adversity that he's gone through.
I think if you look at the best player in
college football, I think he's Arch.

Speaker 1 (01:51:53):
The adversity meaning criticism because you played terribly.

Speaker 2 (01:51:58):
No, probably, since he's obviously been there for all of
Arch's time, they're probably more than just this season would
be my guess. Adversity for who you are, adversity for
everybody's been talking about you for three years now.

Speaker 1 (01:52:10):
You barely haven't played any football before this year. And yes,
also that well, hang on a second, you said adversity
for who you are.

Speaker 2 (01:52:20):
Yeah, I like shud Or Sanders in a similar he's
Deion Sanders kid, but this is this is Cooper Manning's kid.

Speaker 1 (01:52:28):
But in both cases, you don't have to play football.
It's not that he's saying you should. He should be.

Speaker 2 (01:52:35):
Oh my god, I can't believe that's not what it means.
Of course, he doesn't have to play football, but he
likes it and he's good at it, so he's out there.
But this is his teammate and obviously one of his
closer friends, and the best player in college football is
Arch Manning that's a little tough to stock. I actually
want to make it sound like he hasn't played a

(01:52:56):
lot better, And I've definitely spent more time the first
couple of weeks of the season talking about how poorly
he's played, then over the last eight weeks of the season,
when he's played significantly better, he's coming off again. It's
not because he scored touchdowns street three different ways this
past week. It's about how he plays. It's about how
he throws the football.

Speaker 1 (01:53:14):
It's about how he's dissecting defense and how he's putting
the ball where it's supposed to be, how he's making
better decisions, how the ball's coming out like I thought
it would come out twelve weeks ago.

Speaker 2 (01:53:23):
He's absolutely playing like one of the better players in
college football for a good five to six weeks now.
But it takes a little bit more than that, I
would hope. And I know he doesn't have a vote,
and I know he's his teammates, so I am taking
it with somewhat of a grain of salt. What is
in Yorks receive virtually no consideration for the Heisman Trophy.

Speaker 1 (01:53:42):
Yeah, no, I agree, but he has improved his play
that much is absolutely the case. Of course, what is
the number one factor as to why he doesn't look
like ground meat as a quarterback in every way versus
how he's been playing lately?

Speaker 2 (01:53:58):
Just experience? Is that is some is that I don't know,
to be honest with you, because really don't because that
sounds like what they're promoting, and it certainly could be
the answer. He's been out there more, he's had a
chance to look at him playing and understand what he
needs to do because of it. I mean, he could
have studied all the film he wanted of Quinn, he
could have studied all the opposing teams game film for years.

(01:54:20):
But now he's watching himself plays. He's doing all this
in real time and then going back and looking at
it and figuring things out, and you know, further into
the season. We don't talk about it much. We should,
especially since the playoff teams get selected. They don't necessarily
earn their way in literally by every other sport professionally
that does it. Teams get better in college football throughout
the season for a lot of obvious reasons. Players get

(01:54:43):
better individual I mean, the NFL might not be like that,
and it probably isn't, especially for teams like Kansas City
and Buffalo and Baltimore. What about for teams like Houston.
The Texans are so clearly getting better. They are absolutely
like college football team this year.

Speaker 3 (01:55:01):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:55:02):
Not their defense. Well, actually that's true too. Their defense
is somehow better now than it was in Week one.
It was really good in Week one.

Speaker 2 (01:55:08):
So it's just an interesting take, and he probably will
get some voters out there who believe he's put himself
up there, and it's mainly because of the seasons that
aren't being had everywhere else across college football. Like quite honestly,
you could vote for a Texas Tech defensive player. I
don't even know which one to pick between Bailey and Rodriguez.
And if I told you they were the best player

(01:55:29):
in college football this year, which what you give the
Heisman Trophy out for supposed to, then I would absolutely
believe it. I mean, Pave is a really good player too,
and Mendoza is a really good player too. I think
Bendoz is gonna win the award, and I think he's
gonna win it in a not very close race. But
if he told me Love is the best player in
college but that's believable too, this year. Nobody's run away

(01:55:50):
with this.

Speaker 1 (01:55:51):
Nobody's had to start to finish unbelievable, can't be ignored type.

Speaker 2 (01:55:55):
Of Heisman season. They've just there's some pretty good, pretty
good players in college football this year, and that's pretty
pretty good. Like the quarterback for the team that's been
ranked number one since Week one the whole time, has
virtually no chance to win the award. Julian's saying just
because he's a freshman, their team is so good. He's

(01:56:15):
played well, but I don't know if he's the best
player in college football. Like most years, it'd be a
slam dump that he would win it just because of
the position he's in. I play quarterback. We're the best team,
give me the award and people would do it.

Speaker 1 (01:56:28):
Yeah, I uh, it's a it's an interesting because what
the premise of this whole conversation is this competition sucks
this year.

Speaker 2 (01:56:38):
Yeah, you know, to say what he say, who's the best?
His numbers are probably up there, Like I need to
acknowledge that he's not a voter and he's not going
through the numbers and he's not putting everything he has
into making a legitimate vote, Like we hope everybody does
with all their votes in sports media, but they don't.
He's a teammates.

Speaker 1 (01:56:56):
I need to reach out to Andre where to get
because he has, Yes, he does, and he is. Having
known him as long as we both have, but sitting
in the studio with him day after day after day
for several years. It's first of all, Number one, it's
fascinating to see when he brings in his ballot, just

(01:57:18):
because you don't see that every day, but if he
is one of those guys, because he is a current
analyst and does a very good job. By the way,
and again, I know we know him personally, but he's
really good every year. This conversation is fascinating because he
is not and you know him, he does not sugarcoat

(01:57:38):
on or off the air how he feels about things
like this, and he'll give you He'll he will give
you opinions on something like this that'll make you look
at it in a way that you never had even
thought of before. But you're like, oh, why did I
think of that? Like he's just I want to get
him on, That's what I'm saying here. How he would
love to get him on to talk about this and

(01:57:58):
all things college foot and we'll definitely reach out to
to Dre.

Speaker 2 (01:58:02):
But yeah, it'll be fascinating to.

Speaker 1 (01:58:04):
See the lesser of all the evils, I guess is
a way to put it. Football at five, the return
of Bill Belichick to the NFL, and other things.

Speaker 2 (01:58:17):
Next it is the A Team X KAC. Thank you,
Josh Jordan.

Speaker 1 (01:58:28):
As we get into the fourth and final hour of
a Tuesday edition of the show before Thanksgiving, well we
have five hours left in this work week.

Speaker 2 (01:58:37):
We got a lot of football to get in.

Speaker 10 (01:58:39):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:58:41):
I have.

Speaker 1 (01:58:43):
Two ish Josina Anderson, she's all over the place lately,
and none of this has to do with Shador Sanders.

Speaker 2 (01:58:50):
All right, tell me if you just.

Speaker 1 (01:58:53):
Believe this, I'll put it. I'll phrase it that way.
Per Josina Anderson. There is a quote longtime head coach
who has told others that he's considering wanting a change
of scenery. It's not specified which coach it may be,

(01:59:15):
you said, per Joseina Anderson, not per John Hayman. I
know you're are you protecting the report? So I will
have to still guess or was that literally how it's
written as the most ambiguous non.

Speaker 2 (01:59:28):
Report report of all time? Yes, I uh, I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:59:34):
I don't particularly believe anything she puts out there, but
just for the sake of this discussion, longtime head coach
in the NFL is not as many guys as you
would think.

Speaker 2 (01:59:47):
So the suggestion is somebody who's been in place in
the NFL for a long time is going to leave
on his own accord because he wants to change of scenery.

Speaker 1 (01:59:56):
That would be who Mike Tomlin. Mike tom is one,
Andy Reid is too. Andy Reid would be another. John
Harbaugh is three. Yep, And that's the name right there.

Speaker 2 (02:00:09):
I don't.

Speaker 1 (02:00:09):
I don't look at Pittsburgh and think that that's Mike
Tomlin's m In fact, this season is proof of that
because it was this kind of stuff was being said
about him, and he kind of quickly put that to
bed pretty verbally, volatilely in his own way.

Speaker 2 (02:00:25):
Isn't that when he walked off?

Speaker 1 (02:00:27):
Yes, that's what I mean, John Harbaugh, nothing about this season.
And I can personally attest to this because I have
three Ravens on my fantasy team and they have been
woo I mean, bipolar as all get out, Like Mike
Tomlin every year has the team in the race despite

(02:00:47):
all the years since Big Ben left having no quarterback,
John Harbaugh has his team in the race every year because.

Speaker 2 (02:00:53):
He has one of the best quarterbacks in the best
quarterback in the AFC. They have a good defense, and
they run the ball exceptionally well. And this year's single
year one of those things have gone according to plan.

Speaker 1 (02:01:02):
Not saying that Lamar hasn't had good performances, not even
saying that Derrick Henry has had good performances. And there's
been times where I guess their defense was functional. So
change the scene or nothing about this Baltimore season has
been normal nothing, and they're gonna win the division. They're
gonna win eleven.

Speaker 2 (02:01:19):
Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 1 (02:01:20):
Nothing has been according to plan, nothing has felt like it.
They feel ten billion times worse than last year's Chiefs.

Speaker 2 (02:01:27):
They look like a potential opening round loss, even as
a division winner. They played badly last weekend and they
won by two touchdowns. They played a bad team, but
they look bad at doing so yep, okay, So change
of sceenior. Does that mean he wants to drink lemonade
on his porch or does that mean he thinks there's
another NFL job for him to get and I don't

(02:01:48):
know again which person you're talking about. Andy Reid's not
leaving the Chiefs to coach another NFL team.

Speaker 1 (02:01:53):
The only thing about Andy Reid being kind of sort
of somewhat interesting in this conversation is that I feel
like it might have been just rumors. It might have
been little blurbs that were written. Hasn't it been like
for so long? He's on his way out and kind
of like Kelvin Sampson in a way, Well, my son's

(02:02:14):
waiting in the wings. I have everything set up for
me to step aside so that we can try and
continue this success that I've built when the time is right. Like,
Andy Reid is not a spring chicken. I mean, he's
been at it for a long long time. I can't
imagine he's gonna coach longer than five more years tops.

(02:02:34):
I mean, he's in his seventies, isn't he. H So
from that standpoint, you know, maybe he goes out with Kelsey.
I don't know, maybe, Like it's not the Chiefs are
not going to magically get better unless they just draft
their backsides off, which could happen. But I just like
Travis Kelcey with each passing with each game is getting worse.

(02:02:59):
The only constant there is Patrick Mahomes at this point.

Speaker 2 (02:03:03):
If Patrick Mahomes is your quarterback, if Lamar Jackson quarterback,
if Josh Allen, you have a chance to win. But
could is Sean McDermott in this category. He's very hardball.
He accept with less success. I don't know about that.
I just that's not a name that he's sprung to mind.
Those three you mentioned are the three, and the first one.
Mike should be at every owner's list, number one. Every

(02:03:27):
every owner should want him as their head coach. If
over Demiko right now, I mean the Texans wouldn't have
an opening. Just say yes, no, I'm not firing Demiko
to hire Mike Tomlin. If Demko has coached poorly enough
to get fired, then I might reconsider, but I'm not
firing him to get Mike Tomlin here.

Speaker 1 (02:03:46):
If Demiko goes to Alabama tomorrow, your number one choice
to replace him is you gotta fire Kalin de boor
first he's about to take his team to the conference title.
They're getting Demiko Ryans. They don't care. Right, he's your
number one choice, right, he'd have to be. If the
opening was there. Yes, he would be a my number
one choice if he were also available and bring Omar
Khan with you, you.

Speaker 2 (02:04:06):
Could do that. I'm not tied to Omar Khan in anyway,
but I think he also ranks higher than these other
coach like Sean McDermott. I guess this is harsh. He
strikes me as he's just another coach who's successful. He's
not You're gonna I don't grade him out particularly high.
I respect that they win a lot of football games.
Andy Reid's different. He's very much like Tomlin, accept at

(02:04:28):
a higher level. He's won at an extreme level with
two different franchises in two different eras. If he were
available and wanted to still coach, he'd be at the
top of my list as well. And John Harbaugh is
still a little bit closer to McDermott. He's not an OC,
he's not a DC. He's had like the best setup
ever with the best front office ever, and they have

(02:04:49):
won once with Joe Flacco. Yep, elite Joe Flacco. So
she is telling us that there is a long time
current and fell head coach. Is that what it said? Yep?
Does she actually say current NFL head coach.

Speaker 1 (02:05:04):
Well, it's longtime head coach, is what this is written.
And I should say this is a secondary source, not source.

Speaker 2 (02:05:15):
This is a secondary just be a coach, like a
college football coach. It's an NFL post.

Speaker 1 (02:05:24):
But again, this is not even the only Josina Anderson
hot takey thing that's on her account.

Speaker 2 (02:05:31):
New So you took this for one of those ridiculous, horrible,
awful I hate the aggregators, didn't you? Probably there is
a long time in quotes head quote, oh the worst.
But it's from her, what she liked. She's tagged in it.

Speaker 1 (02:05:44):
So if if that were objectively wrong or false, I'm
sure that they wouldn't have tagged her in it. But
let's go to her account, which has blocked me by
the way. There, I got I've got it.

Speaker 2 (02:05:55):
I've got it.

Speaker 1 (02:05:56):
It's a new feature where you can still read stuff
that they write. You just can't interact with it. Don't care,
I'm told quote. At least two NFL teams are still
expected to have interest in talking to Bill Belichick behind
the scenes, at the very least about head coaching jobs

(02:06:17):
this carousel season, per a league source quote. A third
team could also enter the mix. Maybe it's the same
team that has the coach leaving for a change of
scenery with desires to talk, particularly if one specific personnel
change is made under ownership. The source added, that's a

(02:06:37):
very very specific situation. That's almost like the smart person
that works for that team is in the way because
he knows how stupid it would be to hire Belichick,
So you have to get rid of him first, so
they're dumb people can then hire Belichick and ruin the franchise.
Oh wait, there's more. Okay, side note. We always love
the side notes. There's more to the story of why

(02:06:57):
Belichick did not end up head coaching another NFL team
a couple a couple of seasons ago Atlanta, with his
own desires and preferences regarding workplace dynamics playing more into
a part of it. Again, that's clearly Atlanta than I
think has been discussed publicly known or given real credence
at any rate. Belichick still has deep respect from a

(02:07:20):
number of owners across the league, and that is what matters.

Speaker 2 (02:07:23):
That's actually very well said. That is important. We know
there are bad owners in terms of making football decisions.
They make bad ones, and an owner who thinks hiring
Bill Belichick, in my opinion at this point of his
coaching career, would be a good move.

Speaker 1 (02:07:38):
I think is incorrect. Aren't you also hiring Jordan Again?

Speaker 2 (02:07:42):
I think that doesn't matter at all, Especially it doesn't
matter in college football. It's gonna matter even less at
the NFL level. He's not trying to recruit players with
a twenty four year old girlfriend. You know, we make
all those jokes about us helping him and recruiting. Well,
let's let's be real about this. Let's let's take this
for what it is. So the Giants have an interim
coach already, the Titans have an interim coach. Where how

(02:08:06):
many jobs are going to be available with this cycle?
Those are two jobs that are available. Are the Dolphins
going to move on from Mike McDaniel? Are the Cardinals
going to move on from Burdeny?

Speaker 1 (02:08:15):
The Dolphins are definitely firing McDaniel, Okay, so that's a
third job. I would say, let's see who's already. Okay,
Jet's going to keep Aaron Glenn. I'm looking at the box.

Speaker 2 (02:08:27):
The Jets and the Saints or have first year coaches.
I would hope that they can last through this miserable
season and not get fired. Any chance that Stefanski's on
the hot seat, there's much more than just a chance
he is on the hot seat, and it's not really
his fault, but why he's on the hot seat.

Speaker 1 (02:08:42):
Yes, he could easily be removed. What about Pete Carroll
also in his first year? I mean, what has he.

Speaker 2 (02:08:51):
Was going to be brought into this story? Regardless of
our discussion, he is making it very He's making it
even harder to hire Bill Belichick because he is Bill
Belichick and they're awful, and they already had to fire
his choice for his oc after eleven games. So you're
gonna hire Belichick who has a history of being tied

(02:09:14):
to certain people, coaches, front office personnel that you know
he's gonna want to bring in that are helping him
be bad at North Carolina and help him be bad
at the end of his tenure with the Patriots.

Speaker 1 (02:09:25):
You know, it would also be another stupid idea, even
though you say it all the time. Bad quarterback play
gets coaches fired. The Vikings parting ways with Kevin O'Connell, Yeah,
that would be stoop stupid beyond all belief. If he
is probably heavily involved in their decisions to draft mcar
or draft McCarthy and then move on from Darnold to
play McCarthy.

Speaker 2 (02:09:46):
But I agree and moving on from him and that
would be dumb. The usual suspects after that, Cardinals. So
are we taking time in the next segment to tell
you which of the the Dolphins, Titans, Giants, and Cardinals
are going to hire Bill Belichick? I mean, come on,

(02:10:08):
I hope the Titans hire him. That's good for the Texans.
We might talk about it next segment. If we don't,
you'll have to tune in to see what it is.

Speaker 1 (02:10:16):
The Team Sports Talks seven to ninety Space City Home Network,
rolling you along until six o'clock tonight on a Tuesday
before Thanksgiving. We were talking about the It's actually interesting
the way Josina Anderson phrased that because it was the
upcoming carousel. Even though the carousel has started, the ride
is cranking up because there's already vacancies. The carousel doesn't

(02:10:40):
officially begin until everybody gets fired.

Speaker 2 (02:10:42):
Right well. In the NFL, unlike college football, they don't
hire new coaches during the season very often, pretty much never.
They put an interim coach in place, they might do
some of the preliminary work, but they're waiting till they
have a calendar. And here's when you can talk to assistants,
and here's when you can talk to assistants that are
in the postseason. Here's what you talk to because more
often than not, you're hiring those people. College football is

(02:11:03):
just total renegade stuff. What it was in an hour
and a half ago where said we're talking about Lane
Kiffin and I was saying, well, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma
State's been without a coach, sin interim coach for months,
they're not going to hire a coach, And less than
a half hour later, the report came that Oklahoma State
has hired North Texas coach Eric Morris. Eric Morris will

(02:11:24):
continue as North Texas coach though through the weekend, through
their conference title game, and possibly into their postseason game,
their playoff game. North Texas might be one of the
twelve playoff teams, and sounds like he's going to be
the next Oklahoma State head coach, but he will also
continue coaching the remainder of the season at North Texas.

(02:11:46):
But on the NFL side, it's pretty infrequent that you
have somebody hired in season because most of the candidates
are working, they're still assistant coaches somewhere else, or maybe
they haven't gotten fired by a team that you think
they did a good enough job with it. You would
then interview them yourself. Mike Rabel an instant you only
gets fired, And obviously he's very strong candidate for another
team and he's been hired again. The Bill Belichick angle

(02:12:09):
of this, and I guess I can just make it
super clear if I were a college ad slash president,
if I were an NFL owner slash GM, I guess
zero's too low a number, but I had to have
something close to zero interest in hiring Bill Belichick to
be the head coach of my football team. I might

(02:12:29):
have interest in speaking to him, I might have interest
in consulting with him maybe, but I don't want him
as my head coach.

Speaker 10 (02:12:37):
No.

Speaker 2 (02:12:38):
I mean, that's as simple as I can put it
at the stage of his career.

Speaker 1 (02:12:42):
Just for the sake of clarity, since we were talking
about the aforementioned Josina Anderson tweet that was kind of
alluded to vaguely by that aggregator, The original tweet reads
as follows, and they did leave out a couple details
keeping tabs as we approach carousel season, league sources are

(02:13:04):
eyeing five more NFL teams with projected openings at head
coach as of where things stand today, while waiting to
collect more data on a sixth team.

Speaker 3 (02:13:14):
Two.

Speaker 2 (02:13:15):
Meanwhile, there is a long time.

Speaker 1 (02:13:18):
NFL head coach out there who is considering wanting a
change of scenery and has told others of these thoughts.
If he acts on those lingering feelings, his departure would
clearly add to the list of vacancies.

Speaker 2 (02:13:31):
It probably should have added Shanahan and Lafleur to that
list longtime coaches. They've they've been there long enough. I
think they would fall into that group.

Speaker 1 (02:13:40):
But why would either of those guys want a change
of scenery when both of them have come up short
recently and figure to be right there in the mix again.
I think it would just have to be some sort
of internal where I don't think they respect me enough,
or I'd like to have more control, and I think
I can get it if I go somewhere else. I
wouldn't have the answer to that, but I would have

(02:14:00):
to guess, because you were I don't think this is
going to happen. I expect Laflor to continue and I
expect Shanahan.

Speaker 2 (02:14:04):
To continue same.

Speaker 1 (02:14:06):
I mean, you were clearly involved in the trade for
Micah Parsons if you're Laflor, and even more so, I
think you're entrenched if you're Shanahan, with again very promising
potential postseason run, even though your quarterback starts right now,
you've got I was.

Speaker 2 (02:14:24):
Saying this last night to Josh. See.

Speaker 1 (02:14:26):
We were in the other studio doing rockets, and we
had the Monday night game on and it ends and they're,
you know, they're doing the handshakes and punching each other
and you know things that teams do after the game.
And I was like, there was a shot of Christian
McCaffrey and George Kittle just basically with their arms right
and shot.

Speaker 2 (02:14:41):
I'm like, that's the embarrassment of riches.

Speaker 1 (02:14:44):
You should brock Perty should find a way, even on
his worst day, to make it work with those two
guys as weapons in his offense.

Speaker 2 (02:14:52):
Well, the guys were open. He just did not throw
the ball away airmailed it.

Speaker 1 (02:14:56):
I mean, it wasn't just a little and I guess
that that's why, And it was probably just the times.
I happened to look over last night where Bryce Young
made a good throw, one of a few that he
had available to him. It wasn't necessarily all about him.
It was like these guys weren't getting opened. At one
point they put a graphic up and this guy has

(02:15:16):
one catch, and this guy has one target, and this
guy has one catch, and that was your three main receivers.
So but yeah, that story screams harbaughed to me. He's
been there the longest besides Tomlin, who's just not I
just don't think that it applies here.

Speaker 2 (02:15:36):
He would just have to be tired of them not
attacking the quarterback position properly. But again, it's not that easy.
It's the same thing Indianapolis went through at Post Luck
and they're still searching the Pittsburgh is not as far along.
But ever since Big Ben left, it's been one not
really good quarterback after that, and Aaron Rodgers is no different.

(02:15:57):
Aaron Rodgers the same thing as bringing in Max, Philip
Rivers or Carson Wentz like the Colts did.

Speaker 1 (02:16:02):
But isn't it like amazing to you that I'm so
dead set on you have a guy that I think
is at the top of the list for this story.
And he has his quarterback, like Lamar Jackson, has plenty
of gas left in the tank. He's not going anywhere
anytime soon. And yet Harbaugh has been there since before Flacco.

Speaker 2 (02:16:25):
Well, what if Harbaugh believes what I can't believe anybody
believes that he's really, really good in the regular season
and he's not quite as good in the postseason. We're
just never gonna win it with him.

Speaker 1 (02:16:36):
The reason that Baltimore Ravens are never gonna win it
has nothing to do with their quarterback.

Speaker 2 (02:16:40):
It just doesn't. He has played more poorly in the postseason.
I think that's fair to say because it's true.

Speaker 1 (02:16:46):
I think I'm I'm gonna go ahead and make an
executive decision since it's just a funny text. I just
got a text from a coworker. His name is Chris Gordy.
I just think you're gonna appreciate this. I bet it's
Sean Payton. He realized bo Nicks sucks.

Speaker 2 (02:17:05):
That's funny. He does. By the way, again, longtime coach
doesn't mean long time in one place because he's only
been in Denver a couple of seasons. See, that's a
semantic situation that's accurate to her wording. I don't think
she means that though. I think she means a guy
who's been in one place for long. But let's take
Sean Payton and put him in that group of coaches
if he became an available target and you had an opening.

(02:17:27):
But the thing is, Sean Payton wants a change of
scenery from the best defense in the NFL, the team
that's about to win the NFC West, so he can
go where and his scenery is so the Rocky Mountains.

Speaker 1 (02:17:38):
The Browns like the Giant, which availables is actually an
interesting one because he has history with the Giants and
maybe because of how down they are, and maybe it's
we need to fire Joe Shane first the GM, so
then we can hire Sean Payton. You marry Sean Payton
with that young quarterback, and I might have ABC as

(02:18:01):
a possibility. That makes some sense. See, it took us
a while, but we could get there.

Speaker 2 (02:18:05):
You get a help.

Speaker 1 (02:18:07):
Yeah, and their defense should I know it's it's you've
put a lot of uh equity or put a lot
of asset management into one position. Edge rusher. They have
three of them, by the way, they're really good. You
know who else is good on the Giants? Wandale Robinson? Really,
did you see him this week?

Speaker 2 (02:18:26):
I was always curious, like he was such an unbelievable
athlete when he was quarterback when he was in college,
and I was I thought it was smart rather Raiders
to do that. They drafted him and said, we're gonna
figure out a way to make this super athlete talent.
We'll find a way to help have him help us

(02:18:48):
win games. And it really never happened. He's so talented.

Speaker 1 (02:18:52):
Yes, I saw what he did this week, and everybody
who has him in fantasy football saw what.

Speaker 2 (02:18:56):
He did this week. I'm one of them.

Speaker 1 (02:18:57):
He's he gets open, he's super quick, he's got good feed,
He's obviously an unbelievable athlete, great run after catch, good
like he's not a tall receiver, but he's got good size,
good build for a receiver.

Speaker 2 (02:19:08):
He's an awesome fit in that offense. And credit to
those both Kafka and day Ball before him for making
good use of him. It should not have in my opinion,
and I don't know the Wandelle Robinson story that well,
but it didn't seem like it should have taken this
long for it to take off. This is not year
one or two or even remotely close to that for Robinson.

(02:19:30):
He's been around and it just never clicked like it's
clicking in New York. Now they have almost no other
targets around him anymore because Slayton's been in and out
of the lineup. And oh, by the way, Malik Neighbors
when he's not on social media is out. I must
be confusing with somebody else. It was drafted by the Giants. Yeah,

(02:19:53):
you're getting him confused with. Uh, I'm trying to think
of who you're confused. I'm getting him confused with a
former Kentucky He was drafted by them, and this is
the right player. I just had the wrong story. Kentucky player. Yeah,
he played quarterback in Kentucky. I thought maybe I'm wrong again,
but he definitely went to Kentucky. Speaking of Gordy, you

(02:20:14):
know who would know that? Yeah, he's locked on.

Speaker 1 (02:20:17):
I was just talking about his wife. Big Kentucky fan, you
would know that too, big reed Shepherd fan. All Right,
we are gonna get to some of the things we
have not gotten to at the bottom of the hour,
like we do every single time of the day or
this time of day, I should say it's in case
you missed it, it's coming up next. As we are
coming up on the final half hour of a Tuesday
edition of the program, says to get to here as

(02:20:40):
always final thirty minutes of the shows when we get
started with in case you missed it, a couple of
items before turn things over to Josh.

Speaker 2 (02:20:47):
We do have tickets to give away. The Never Ending
Nineties will be at Smart Financial Center in Suirlando December thirteenth.
That's with Ezra ray Hart. Give you more deats on
that in the final segment of the show when we
give those tickets away. We also have a pair of
tickets to see Motley Crue the return of the Carnival
of Sins Tour. How's Vince doing these days with Tesla

(02:21:11):
and Extreme? Whoa, whoa wait? What did you say? Extreme?
More than words? Extreme?

Speaker 1 (02:21:16):
I'm going to give you some more words here. They're
playing at the Woodlands Pavilion on September eleventh of next year,
So give you all the details on all of that.

Speaker 2 (02:21:23):
Will I be going, You're going, We'll see you're going
with me? Um, that's fine.

Speaker 1 (02:21:30):
In case you missed it, last segment, I completely butchered
a recollection of Wandale Robinson. I was actually thinking of
Lynn Bowden, junior former Kentucky quarterback drafted by the Raiders,
converted into a receiver and did not pan out. Robinson
was a great college receiver, played a couple places. Lastly,
Kentucky drafted in the second round by the Giants, and
in year four he is awesome. It was very good

(02:21:52):
last year as well, So that's a little correction on
that note. Did not discuss the boss in Red Sox
purchasing via trade Sonny Gray from the Saint Louis Cardinals.
He's gonna basically get forty plus million this year, twenty
of which will be paid by the Cardinals. They bought
a couple of players by adding all that cash to

(02:22:14):
the deal, so the Red Sox would make it work.
So Sonny Gray will now be a part of what
was already a very good Red Sox pitching staff. I'm
sure there are people that liked what Sonny Gray did
and liked how he threw, and said, maybe this makes
sense for Houston. Yes, the pitcher would make sense for Houston,
but the contract that goes with it and the inability

(02:22:34):
to orchestrate a deal like that because you don't have
players that the Cardinals would want to buy from your
prospect list in order to make this happen.

Speaker 2 (02:22:42):
They're pushing. The Astros are pushing against two things.

Speaker 1 (02:22:45):
They're not gonna be huge spenders, and they can't augment
deals or make other deals with the top like level
prospects because they don't have them. So that's what their
offseason might look like. Red Sox, they got better today.
It's proud to be a very underwhelming winter for the Astros.

Speaker 2 (02:23:02):
I don't necessarily think so.

Speaker 1 (02:23:04):
I look, I don't. I'm not saying that they're going
to not get better. I'm saying I have it. I
have it on good authority. It could go a different direction.
But I think there's a good chance they sign a
bunch of names that aren't gonna get your attention.

Speaker 2 (02:23:19):
Top ten pitching starting pitching free agents, they'll sign zero
of them. There definitely won't sign one of them because
one of them's from her. So of the other nine,
you think they will land none of them. Do you
consider Dylan Cease, He's definitely among the top available for
starting free agent pitchers.

Speaker 1 (02:23:37):
There's too much smoke there, even though I don't want
them to and you don't want them to correct I
don't ness it.

Speaker 2 (02:23:43):
What do you think about Michael King? That would be phenomenal,
and he's also in their group for sure. In my opinion,
I would love to see him here. What about Chris
Bassett of the Blue Jays. I would love him.

Speaker 1 (02:23:52):
Plus he's like, hey, stop talking about the cheating scandal.

Speaker 2 (02:23:55):
Everybody was doing it, idiots. But first thing I do
when I get here and I talked to Jose and Carlos,
I'm like, so tell me how you did it exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:24:04):
Well, yeah, but Chris Bassett was probably the most well reasoned,
rational and calm voice, and that was a current player
about the whole thing. Sure was in reality, he probably
doesn't need to ask him. I think we all know
how they did it exactly, and I would actually like
to know how the fans think they did it in

(02:24:25):
the postseason when it was like one hundred and fifty
decibels in that building. But you're right, Didger's faceshlights? Maybe
don't lose two home games. I don't know, hand up,
hand down in the bullpen. Okay, it's pretty easy. No
one else was doing anything like that though, just the astros,
all right, So what else do we have? And in
case you missed it.

Speaker 13 (02:24:41):
Josh, Hey, guys, we were talking about Brandon Cooks joined
the Bills a little bit earlier today, and we're no
strangers to him, trying to force him force his way
off the team that's not playing very well. But in
Cook's circumstance here, I kind of don't blame him so much.
We're looking at he hasn't had more than three orcent
in a game all year. The most receiving yards he's

(02:25:03):
had in a game is twenty six yards, So maybe
he'd rather catch some footballs instead of just running wind
sprints all days on Sundays. You think he makes any
impact with the Bills? We know Khalil Shakir's kind of
his guy. Keon Coleman's been a healthy scratch. They do
need playmakers. What do you expect from Brendan Cooks?

Speaker 2 (02:25:19):
He has played a lot surprisingly this year for these Saints.
He's been on the field a ton, roughly a sixty
five percent snapshare over the course of the season, having
missed only one game. He's been a big part of
what they hoped to do by being on the field,
but as Josh noted, they never throw in the football.
I'm pretty sure he and his agent knew what the

(02:25:39):
quarterback situation was in New Orleans when he was gonna
decide to sign there. It was awful and they had
a new head coach. He has been some situations that
he wasn't a big fan of his essentially his whole career,
because he got traded so often from a good spot
to a bad spot, and then he would sign there
because I'm just here's what they're offering me, so I'm
going to take it. I posted this a little while ago.

Speaker 1 (02:26:04):
So Brandon Cooks presumably gets into game action and catches
a pass from Josh Allen, so add his name to
the list. He will have caught passes from Dak Prescott,
Deshaun Watson when he was good. Deshawn's best season in Houston,
he was one of his receivers. Jared Goff, former number

(02:26:24):
one overall pick Tom Brady Okay quarterback Andrew Brees over
the course of his NFL career, super productive everywhere he's
been up until this year in New Orleans, but very
productive in his first stop in New Orleans. This is
an Honestly, I feel like it's a little bit of
a desperate move. But for Cooks, as you said, Josh,
a no brainer. We never talked about it. Give me

(02:26:47):
thirty seconds on this. The Saints probably were allowed to
do something that is supposed to be illegal under the CBA.
They redid Brandon Cook's contract to prevent anybody from claiming
him on waivers so he could hit free agency. They
basically made it financially stupid to claim him on waivers

(02:27:07):
by reworking his deal and basically hitting the claiming team
with a much bigger twenty twenty six salary than he
otherwise would have had. So nobody claimed him. So he's
not under contract with anybody.

Speaker 2 (02:27:17):
He doesn't have a contract, so now anybody can sign
him to whatever they want, which was the whole purpose
of doing right by the player. You don't mean anything
to us now as the season continues and we suck,
so if we let you go, you can go play
for a good team, which ultimately is what happened. But
the noted NFL watchdog Mike Florio had pointed that out
a couple of times, and it does seem like he

(02:27:37):
was right.

Speaker 1 (02:27:38):
This probably should not have been allowed by the NFL,
but it did get allowed.

Speaker 2 (02:27:43):
You got anything else?

Speaker 13 (02:27:44):
Yeah, just quickly, how about football players being football players here,
Joe Burrow. We know the Bengals, they don't have a
great shot here, but they do play the Ravens a
couple more times. So I just like to quote here
from football pro football talk. I'm not gonna ever go
be some that will say I'm healthy, but I don't
think I should go out there and play.

Speaker 2 (02:28:04):
How about that.

Speaker 13 (02:28:04):
You're making a ton of money this guy. I'm gonna
go play football and whatever happens happens. I'm not gonna
worry about getting hurt.

Speaker 2 (02:28:10):
I like to hear that some people thought, Okay, you're hurt,
They're gonna lose a bunch of games. Then when you
get healthy, you're gonna have a terrible record. Why play?

Speaker 1 (02:28:21):
It's exactly what has happened, And Josh is giving you
Joe's thoughts on that, saying hogwash, that's baloney.

Speaker 2 (02:28:28):
I want to play. I don't care. I'm healthy now.
I'm not even gonna play scared. I'm gonna go out
there and play. The Bengals have the late night game
on Thanksgiving with the Ravens two weeks later, they see
them again, and they have two games with the Steelers,
and a game with the Packers and a game with
excuse me, that's the Ravens schedule.

Speaker 1 (02:28:47):
The Bengals need to sit him for the rest of
the year, get a good bunch of draft picks, and
surround him with help.

Speaker 2 (02:28:53):
They could also lose games he plays surround him with help.

Speaker 1 (02:28:58):
But an injury prone quarterback playing in meaningless games is
not a recipe for long term success.

Speaker 2 (02:29:04):
If he gets hurt again, I'm ready for the articles.
Can you believe that he got hurt again? Why would
the Bengals do this? My column?

Speaker 1 (02:29:10):
They would come, they would be there and we would
all read them and laugh.

Speaker 2 (02:29:15):
Final segment. Some tickets to.

Speaker 1 (02:29:17):
Give away have the final segment of the show, and
normally here on the eighteen.

Speaker 2 (02:29:20):
That means it's your chance to win. And it does
mean that today your chance to win. Tickets to see
either of these two upcoming shows. Motley Crue Return of
the Carnival of Sins Tour will be performing on September
eleventh at the Woodlands Pavilion with Tesla and Extreme. Tickets
on sale now tickemaster dot com. We also have a
pair of tickets to see Never Ending Nineties with Esrae
Hart nineties Hits Christmas Rifts. That's December thirteenth. Smart financial

(02:29:45):
Center and Sugarland also will feature members of Sugar eight,
Tonic and Better Than Ezra performing their biggest hits. Tickets
on sale now right there at Smart Financialcenter dot net.
Should you not win them? Here? Something we were talking
about just last segment will help you answer this question
and you can call him with the answer. Seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three

(02:30:07):
two one two five seven ninety. Last segment, we were
talking about Brandon Cooks and I ran through a list
of quarterbacks he has caught passes from over the course
of his illustrious career, including a stop in Houston. One
of those quarterbacks has reached the semifinal stage for possible
election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Could be

(02:30:28):
a part of the Class of twenty twenty six. It's
his first year of eligibility and he has thrown a
pass in the NFL that was caught by Brandon Cooks.
Who is that quarterback? Seven one three two one two
five seven ninety List of semifinalists. By the way, was
announced today. There are twenty six of them. The answer

(02:30:51):
to the question is one of the first time players
on the ballot, along with Philip Rivers, Frank Gore, Larry Fitzgerald,
and Cowboys tight end Jason Witten, all have made it
to the semifinal stage and their first year of eligibility.
Along with the answer to our question, the only Texan

(02:31:11):
that has made it this far is the same one
who makes it this far most years, Vince will Fork
among three defensive linemen that are in the final group
of the first timers. In addition to the answer to
the question, Larry Fitzgerald, you brought up Jerry Rice's ridiculous
numbers earlier. He's second to Jerry Rice across the board.

(02:31:33):
This is a first ballot Hall of Famer that they
will get right. Wide receivers always a tough spot. There
are five wide receivers among the semifinalists. It seems like
for sure Reggie Wayne had a Hall of Fame career,
and he's been here before and not made it. Tory
Holt seems like he was awfully close to saying yep,

(02:31:53):
that's a Hall of Fame football player. Steve Smith Senior
was a finalist a year ago, a lot along with
those other two, so they made it even further than
the current list. And heinz Ward is also on the list,
and he's probably one who I think is more of
a tweiner, but understand the recognition for what he's done
to get to this point. And having said all that,

(02:32:15):
how can you not look at Larry Fitzgerald And I
don't think the voters will make a mistake. Everybody should
be saying, oh, you don't have to spend twenty minutes,
an hour or two hours convincing us whoever speaking on
his behalf will vote him in. You don't need to
convince us.

Speaker 1 (02:32:28):
Yeah, Larry Fitzgerald, not only for what he did on
the field, but just the work ethic, the leadership, the
longevity is the big part of it for me with him,
he was and he did it.

Speaker 2 (02:32:43):
It's kind of like Andre Johnson.

Speaker 1 (02:32:46):
I know Kurt Warner had his moments on it, but
a franchise it's not well regarded as being a winner.
To be putting up those numbers year after year after year,
that's almost more impressive. It's more one thing. If you're
you know, if you are a Jerry Rice and you
played with a Joe Montana and later as Steve Young.
It's one thing if you are you know, I don't know,

(02:33:07):
fill in the blank wide receiver where you've got a
Hall of Fame quarterback throwing to you. But Kurt Warner
was relatively there for a very short period of time.
Larry Fitzgerald was like DeAndre Hopkins in that way, just
putting up numbers every single year no matter who is
under center.

Speaker 2 (02:33:22):
That's impressive. Larry Fitzgerald in Arizona started there in two
thousand and four, so four years before the two thousand
and eight season when they went to the postseason for
the very first time. They played four games in the postseason,
which means they played in the Super Bowl m and
he was absolutely ridiculously unstoppable that entire postseason run. He

(02:33:47):
had a thirty catch postseason. That is that's unhinged. He
averaged one hundred and thirty six and a half yards
per game in the postseason that year.

Speaker 1 (02:34:00):
I'd forgotten about that. And for you know, the commentary,
he dragged them there. Well, they obviously were very good.

Speaker 2 (02:34:05):
He just was unstoppable and it was one of the
reasons why they nearly, if not for the same running.
They're probably Super Bowl champs, right.

Speaker 1 (02:34:13):
Yeah, yeah, because as I recall, that was a pretty
good game. It was an awesome game. The Arizona Pittsburgh game.

Speaker 2 (02:34:19):
Yeah, this was Matt Lioner's Arizona Cardinals. He completed fifteen
passes that year. Forgot Matt Lioner went there.

Speaker 11 (02:34:25):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:34:25):
Their ground game was paced by Eddrin James. More of
a by committee. He didn't have. This wasn't one of
his unbelievable seasons later in his career after the Colts. Yeah,
he was thirty years old, but they had an Kwon
Bolden and Larry Fitzgerald.

Speaker 1 (02:34:42):
I always forget about that because an Kwon Bolden is
one of the more underrated receivers. Honestly, I think in
the history of the NFL. He's like Steve Smith junior.
He's been very close before he's been and with a
new player on the ballot, it's now making it harder
for him to continue. Another guy who he went to
Baltimore to end his career and put up numbers in

(02:35:03):
playoff seasons again, John Harbaugh, good player.

Speaker 2 (02:35:07):
John. That is a I hate them, but man.

Speaker 1 (02:35:10):
Baltimore has had some really, really good teams year in
and year out.

Speaker 2 (02:35:15):
They're like Pittsburgh in that way. He actually doesn't sound right.
But he played half his career after Arizona. Seven years
in Arizona and seven years elsewhere, three in Baltimore, three
and with the Niners, and then finished up with Detroit
and was productive in one hundred percent of those seasons,
including every season including his last season.

Speaker 1 (02:35:34):
I remember that. I remember that. That's insane. Yeah he
should be in there, but yeah, Larry Fitzgerald should not be.
Who doesn't cast I.

Speaker 2 (02:35:40):
Presume we have an answer to the question, so I
can discuss this person. You know how I like to
give away the answers. I don't want to give it
away here.

Speaker 1 (02:35:49):
But if we have a winner, right Josh, we can
get answer talking about him, right.

Speaker 2 (02:35:52):
I think he's taken. He might be taking the call
right now, and that's what it is. Go ahead and
do it. No, you can't just ignore us.

Speaker 1 (02:35:58):
I'm going to make his executive decison vision that the
reason he's not answering you is because he's taking down
the information.

Speaker 2 (02:36:04):
Of Larry is right behind Jerry for all the wide
receiver numbers. Well, Drew Brees is right behind Tom and
all the passing numbers. Those are two members of the
twenty twenty six class slam Dunks, if you will.

Speaker 1 (02:36:19):
The all silver medal Hall of Fame class, as it
pertains to these numbers.

Speaker 2 (02:36:24):
At least, well didn't, didn't Drew Brees win one gold
medal with Sean Payton in New Orleans.

Speaker 1 (02:36:29):
No, I'm just saying on the all time list their
number two. Thus, as Matt Thomas would say, thus the
silver medal. He loves to use the word thus. Good
for him. He just landed in San Francisco, So of
course I made a completely inappropriate comment about what you
can find on the streets around there and in an
outfur No, I mean, I'm sure they have him there.

(02:36:52):
I was more talking about it. I've in and out
there before, the only time I've had in and out.
You know where it was?

Speaker 2 (02:36:58):
You know what night it was? It was Halloween? I
don't okay, now I know what night it was? Los Angeles. Oh,
you were in Los Angeles for Halloween. I wonder what
year that was. Maybe twenty seventeen.

Speaker 1 (02:37:09):
That was the one after George Springer's home run and
Justin Verlander wasn't enough to clinch it. We're all on
the bus getting back onto the charter that that Mac
had put us on, and we stopped off in uh oh,
basically a few blocks old.

Speaker 2 (02:37:27):
All go in, Oh, yeah, what do you think the
look on the And I've been to an in and
out Burger out there out west when an entire bus
of sooners and I can't I think it was their
baseball team. The tire bus goes inside. This is south
central LA. This is in smack dab in the middle
of Englewood. I looked it up.

Speaker 1 (02:37:47):
We were about two blocks over from where the LA
riots were.

Speaker 2 (02:37:51):
Yeah, but they didn't just happen, They just had happened.
How many years ago.

Speaker 1 (02:37:54):
Buildings were spoiling. Still, I'm just saying it's not great.
It wasn't a great neighborhood, I know. But still rolled
up into where the La rid and I was like,
y'all suck, take me to waburger.

Speaker 2 (02:38:06):
Well they didn't have that out there, they should. Well
that's one day done, two days done this week. The
third day will be the last day of this week.
That is tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (02:38:17):
Is that how you want me to say it? And
that's tomorrow. And that is it for us Today. We
leave you with sting and a cut off his new
album Take It Away.