Suck It Ravens! Hello Bye Week! Goodbye Yankees Next!?!?

Wex ans AC react o the Texans win over the Baltimore Ravens on the road ahead of the bye week, playoff baseball and the implosion of two teams heading out the door in the race for the college ffootball playoff

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam raised.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
By Earl.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Nolan, multi by the magnificent roller coaster ride.

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

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Sheill lge down for the only home grown afternoon team
is talking your teams. Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are
the A team.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Just like that, another week is underway here on the
A team. It's Sports Sox seven ninety wex Ac Cole
Thompson with you after now. I'll say this very careful.
I'm pretty sure that one of us in the room
predicted that that's what would go down yesterday in Baltimore.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Wasn't Cole, wasn't me.

Speaker 3 (01:11):
Wex absolutely a profit saying that the Texans would dominate
that practice squad level roster, that the Baltimore Ravens tried
it out there yesterday and they did.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I knew they'd covered the two and a half.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
I like, in the best case scenario, wildest imagination, things
just go completely fabulous for you. I don't think forty
four to ten is what any of us would have
still predicted.

Speaker 4 (01:37):
They probably won't lose another game quite like that the
rest of the year, even if they have another Cooper
Rush game coming up. Before they get there off week
and the Texans. That would be awesome if they had
another game like that, but they've seen two of the
weakest teams on their schedule. They obviously have one more
game remaining with Tennessee, and they will not see a
team quite as bad off injury wise until they get there,

(01:57):
because it could certainly happen again.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
This is the NFL. You never know what things will
bring you.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
But they are off this week off of their best
performance kind of all the way around in a long
long time. You can discuss all the parts of Baltimore
that aren't working, but you can't forget the fact that
good teams do that to bad teams.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
And that's what happened.

Speaker 4 (02:18):
If you are a good team, if you fancy yourself
as a good team, that game cannot be decided in
the fourth quarter. That game cannot be a one possession game.
You can't just get out of Baltimore with a win.
You go dominate the game and you rest your players.
How about twenty two snaps for healthy Will Anderson Junior
on Sunday? How about twenty three for Daniel Hunter. That's
all it took for them to go out there because

(02:39):
their offense dominated, so there are barely any plays to
begin with, the reserves on both offense and defense played
big chunks of the fourth quarter. You're able to rotate
your defensive players in there at certain spots throughout a
game where you're up big, very very quickly. How about
the number eight, not Lamar Jackson, but the eight con

(02:59):
saycutive possessions to open up the game in which the
Texans scored points with their offense. The forty four point game,
the math says five touchdowns with extra points plus three
field goals. That's forty four a four touchdown pass game.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
For CJ.

Speaker 4 (03:14):
Stroud only had one such game of four or more
touchdown passes before we talked about it last week against Tampa.
He's now had one three touchdown pass game in each
of his three seasons. He's got twelve more games to
go in the last two games, obviously, the Texans offense
looks completely different, much more capable, even with the sack
numbers remaining essentially the same. If you go and look

(03:35):
at just that, and that's all you care about, and
it's the only numbers you're ever going to reference for
trying to grade out what kind of quarterback your football
team has well, then they don't look a whole lot different.
Through the five games this season, against varying levels of competition,
he's been sacked two times, two times, two times, three times,
and three times. Sounds like he's faced the exact same

(03:56):
pressure because we don't have access to any other data
than sacks.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
But wow, the offense sure looks good.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
Forty four points, twenty six points, touchdowns and field goals
on eleven of thirteen drives eleven of twelve drives if
you count the ones they tried on. Yeah, sounds like
things are going a lot differently because the sack number
doesn't really relate to how often you were pressured. He
got sacked in yesterday's game two times. Did it look
like he was under duress throughout most of the game.

(04:24):
He still had to spin out of a few plays.
There were a couple of unblocked rushers. Sure, but he
had a lot more time to throw. He's also getting
rid of the ball quickly even with more time to throw.
So a billion different good things to discuss on the
Texans side of things as they get into their off week,
and what lies in front of them, obviously is maybe

(04:44):
a little bit more difficult than you would have thought.
Certainly the first four games out, three or four consecutive games,
three of them at home against teams with winning records.
Don't know what they'll look like. Then we did not
know what Baltimore would look like. We spent the whole
offseason and even two weeks ago talking about, well, you
better beat Tennessee because you don't want to be zero
to five. You better win this one because you're gonna

(05:07):
be one and four. Well, they're two and three because
they took out a not very good Baltimore Ravens team,
that is the team that emerged from that game with
just one win. Texas get the off week. Then they
have a primetime game Monday Night football in the darkness
of Seattle coming up a week from today, two weeks

(05:28):
from today, and they get to enjoy this for a
little bit.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Is it bad not to look ahead too much? Especially
two weeks instead of just one? Is it bad that
I think they should get their game faces on, like
starting right now after what we saw yesterday, which was
like a fantastic shootout in that gym.

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Yeah, a loss for Seattle, they should get pretty fired up.
A big mistake by their quarterback. I mean, I want
to throw away his first three quarters and thirteen minutes
of football because he made a horrific decision at the
end of the game and it essentially costs them overtime
or opportunity to win the game themselves. Veteran quarterbacks shouldn't
make those mistakes he did. You get him under pressure.

(06:06):
He's a totally different quarterback. Talking about Sam Darnold, who's
statistically speaking, was awesome. In their game yesterday, Seattle and
Tampa went to a thirty eight to thirty five game.
If I told you Tampa's in a game and I
told you it went thirty eight thirty five, I don't
really have to tell you much else. You know that
Baker Mayfield led his team on a game winning late
game drive.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
He did.

Speaker 4 (06:25):
Seattle, San Francisco, Denver, and Jacksonville are the four games
the Texans have coming off of their bye week. Jacksonville
an opportunity tonight on Monday Night Football to make it
a clean sweep for the crappy crappy AFC South Jacksonville's
playing Kansas City. Tennessee got a gift absolute gift from

(06:48):
Arizona Unreal. The Texans put up forty four points in
their win, and the Colts put up forty in their
fourth victory of the season, the terrible off l AFC
South puffing their chests out. Potentially if Jacksonville holds up
there into the bargain, although it'd be nice if they didn't.
Interesting what things look like when you're two and three

(07:08):
and there's twelve games remaining, and yes, you start to
look at who's done.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
What would have been nice?

Speaker 4 (07:13):
In my opinion, if Baltimore taken care of New England
last night, that would be a two and three football team. Instead,
New England is three and two. It would strike me
as go ahead and have the win. Can whichever of
the two teams you think is going to be worse
that's playing tonight, the two and two Chiefs or the
three and one Jaguars, We'll have them win tonight. That's
how I would tell you to root for what you're

(07:33):
going to see. My thought is Jacksonville is worse, and
the Texans will have one more opportunity to beat them
if they play their entire rest of their season equal
and Kansas City beats Jacksonville tonight, well, when Texans go
ahead and beat Jacksonville. When they play for the second time,
well then they're all even up and there'll be other
tiebreakers to decide. Yeah, it's okay, talk playoffs, talk tiebreakers,

(07:54):
take advantage of the good times and be realistic about
what lies ahead. But your football team did what a
good team is supposed to do. They took out the trash,
and they made it easy, and they cake walked their
way through Baltimore.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Yeah, I mean, I don't know that I would call
the Texans a good football team even if they did
do what you just said good football team should do.
That's why I like and I'll and I'll talk a
little bit about this next segment a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
I just can't. I can't get upset about a dominant
win like that, even if it means it was over
a practice squad, and no one wants you to get
upset over it.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Well, I mean, maybe upset it's not the right word,
but I'm keeping it. I'm keeping it, you know, in context.
If you will, look, if they come out of the
bye week and they go to Seattle, another place by
the way that they've never won, you.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
Know how many games they've played there, right, like three, two,
really it was less than that test.

Speaker 3 (08:52):
I mean, they're NFC and that's actually all this time
really because I feel like they've played more games that
actually counted in Dallas, for example.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
They've been on their schedule a little bit more often. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'm sure it's a quirk. Well, the location, I mean,
what do you mean. I mean, it's not as even
as you would think it is. They've played Seattle more
than four times in twenty five years, but the majority
of those games have been here.

Speaker 3 (09:15):
Yeah, that's also weird to me. But whatever, that's it,
whatever the case, whatever year. It is kind of like
Baltimore's defense. Typically, Seattle is just typically a tough place
to play. Doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a roster.
But I mean, going back to yesterday, I just I
cannot It's very very rare that any circumstances lead to

(09:39):
Baltimore performing or in this case not performing like that
on its home turf. That's just a tough place to
play and always has been.

Speaker 4 (09:45):
Yeah, everything's different based on the personnel, and that's why,
historically speaking in the NFL, unless the places or the
pieces in place are similar enough than the historical context
for me, kind of throw it out the window, like,
I don't care about anything that happened with the Texans
prior Demiko Ryans arriving, prior to CJ.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
Star Stroud being the starting quarterback.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
I don't care about their history in Baltimore except for
the history in Baltimore with those players and the coach involved.
And then I throw that out the window when you're
playing against Cooper Rush and you're not playing against five
other Pro Bowl caliber players, and that's what was faced
the Ravens were faced with. Texans obviously took advantage to that.
What part of the Texans game?

Speaker 2 (10:24):
Did you not like?

Speaker 4 (10:25):
The running game, their pass rush, their defense, overall, their
ability to take the ball away. They played four entire
NFL games and took the ball away three times, and
then they took the ball away three times in one
game yesterday, doubling their total. They were in the red
zone a very very very small number of times, four
times or seven times.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Excuse me.

Speaker 4 (10:46):
Before yesterday they had scored in the red zone a
touchdown three times. They now have four more red zone
touchdowns after their game yesterday, one more than they had
in their four games combined. So I'm not trying to
pronounce this team as good. But what I'm saying is
it is what good football teams do. It is a
sign of a good team five weeks into the season.

(11:07):
At two and three, it'd be pretty difficult to call
this a good football team. They're a playaway from a
couple of wins. Their other two wins are dominant. Those
are the types of things again that also suggest you
are a good team. Law of averages. Maybe you have
another three close games. We'll go ahead and win one
or two of those and start to even things out.
If they continually lose low scoring or one score games

(11:30):
for an entire season or the bulk of the season,
it's definitely a mark of who they are. Not being
able to make plays late. We can see a team
like Tampa is one that makes plays late, and everything
that went into trying to just take care of businesses,
as simple as it sounds, is exactly how they won.
One significant change from their own roster or their own lineup,

(11:50):
which seemed obvious and just a matter of time. After
the last two weeks of a rotation, I think they've
settled in on who their starting left guard is after
five weeks, and that they they have found success. It's
not that he's been unbelievable, but he's clearly been better
than Lake and Tomlinson, Drew Scruggs getting the start, and
one other aspect of the Texans facing their problem with

(12:12):
realistic eyes and head on. Something they've done the last
two weeks which clearly indicates they know they have a problem.
They know they have to accommodate for that problem. They
know they can't do what they did last year, which
is nothing about that problem. Pretty good weekend for most
people who are watching the Major League Baseball Division Series
from a far, almost a perfect weekend if not for

(12:34):
last night's game. We'll get into that, and today's the
first show for the twenty five twenty six season, where
we give you five hours of Rockets pregame coverage.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
They're playing at Toyota Center.

Speaker 4 (12:46):
Tonight's the new Look, New Era, third season under Ema Udoka.
Houston Rockets preseason begins right here on Sports Talk seven
to ninety seven o'clock tip with the at Atlanta Hawks.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
Lots to this Gus.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
There's also college football this weekend, wild wild stuff, including
some of what you heard right here on the iHeartRadio
family of networks.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
So all of that on the way.

Speaker 1 (13:10):
Next the eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
All right, it is a Monday edition of the program
following a forty four to ten drubbing the hands of
your Houston Texans.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
C J.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
Stroud getting right again. I'm not going to complain about
a win like that, but I do sounds like you're
about to.

Speaker 3 (13:38):
I have to keep it in context, but I'll tell
you what I'm really not going to do further than that.
I Am not going to compare this with the injuries
the Texans were suffering last year during the Christmas game
and somehow make it like this is some sort of
like payback or like, for example, Jalen Peatree didn't play
in that game on Christmas.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
Don't know that he would have made a difference.

Speaker 3 (14:01):
Certainly had a great game yesterday, well he would have
made a difference. I'm not saying he wouldn't have, but
you know what I'm saying, Like, I don't know if
it changes the score the final I don't know if
it changes whether or not I was a winner a
loss for the Texans. I just think so many things
went poorly for them that day that just like you know,
tank Dell being out there. How much would that have
helped the Texans? Would it have been a win instead
of a loss on Christmas Day?

Speaker 4 (14:23):
I have zero doubt they were going to lose that
game no matter what I weren't is good. They couldn't
stop like those players weren't going to help them stop
Lamar Jackson and Tank Dell was going to help their
offense all of a sudden go from incredibly stinky to
capable of competing. Right, they got smoked in every which
possible way and the two. I know there's more players
than that, but the quality of players is one thing

(14:44):
heavily in favor of what Baltimore was missing yesterday. But
it doesn't even matter when it's the quarterbacks, that's all.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
I mean.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Look at what this team looks like offensively with Cooper Rush.
You think the Texans might be able to load up
against Derrick Henry because they could care less. Couldn't care
less about what Cooper Rush was going to do to them, absolutely,
and their personnel usage showed it. They have five linemen
in on some plays, they had three linebackers and on
a lot of plays because they can't because they weren't

(15:12):
concerned about Cooper rush.

Speaker 2 (15:14):
And it's not like they had a great pass rush yesterday.
They didn't.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
They did a lot all eleven is what it's usually
going to take to stop Derrick Henry, but for the
most part, they kept everything in between the tackles with
Henry and he had nowhere to go and once that
was locked down. And that's the third time in the
last three seasons the Texans have done that to Derrick Henry.
I am not forgetting about his two hundred yards per

(15:37):
game stretch against the Texans, especially after JJ Watt was
reminded of it so many times in the booth yesterday.
But that's now three times in the last three seasons.
Derrick Henry was an absolute total non factor as zero,
a negative player for his team because the Texans defense
stopped him totally and completely.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Well, look, I'm gonna echo what you set about.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
You know, having Jalen Peatrie, having Tank Dell having those
play never is going to offset not having Lamar Jackson
for the Baltimore Ravens. It's just laughable to even make
that comparison. And I did see it. I'm not naming names.
Won't surprise you if I did tell you who it
was what an idiot. That person continues to be consistently

(16:23):
each and every week.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
But I'm not gonna lie. It's just not I can't.
I can't do it.

Speaker 5 (16:28):
But that's why I can't get overly excited about doing
what you should do, which is just absolutely decimating a
team that is decimated by injuries. You should beat the
crap out of them, whether it's in Baltimore, here in Houston,
or on a neutral feel of the Cotton Bowl.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
I don't care where you played that game yesterday.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
The Texans should have won ten out of ten times,
even if it's not that lopsided. I feel that strongly
about how badly the Ravens were decimated.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Right.

Speaker 4 (16:54):
It's hard to do though in the NFL, and that's
why I don't discount it completely. During the Stroud era
and games he's played, that's now the seventh time they've
beaten the team by twenty points or more. Two of
those seven are against Cooper Rush, another is against Will Levis,
another is against cam Ward. They did it to rookie

(17:17):
Drake May last season. I mean stance reason you have
a better chance to do that because most of your
twenty point plus blowouts have to include one thing, Well,
the other team can't score. I mean, the Texans do
have a twenty point blowout in their history when the
other team scored thirty two points. They put up fifty
three against the Atlanta Falcons and Matt Ryan for those

(17:38):
that remember that game a handful of years ago, which
you should be thinking about a little bit, because it
needed to be looked at yesterday when you wondered, well,
exactly how many points are the Texans going to score today?
Because they scored the fourth most points in team history.
They scored the most points they've ever scored on the
road in team history, obviously the most points they've ever
scored in Baltimore, whereas pretty clear, even though nobody on

(18:00):
the field really should have cared about it, the organization
and Demico and others that have been there longer, been
a part of the Texans longer sure seemed to have
brought it up during the week internally, not to us
externally when asked about it media wise, but they seem
to care that this was their first ever win in
Baltimore under whatever circumstances it is because down the road,

(18:21):
the more you go down the road, nobody really looks
at all the particulars they just know you finally went
in there and and just took it to him and
buried him. They ran the ball very well early. They
had good short yardage plays with British Brooks getting a
couple of key carries. Took me back to when he
made the team this year and I asked him if
that's what he expected to be their short yardage back
and he said, I don't know what they have in

(18:42):
mind for me, but whatever it is that they want
me here to do, I am here to do. And
it seemed likely because of how they were using him,
that maybe there would be an opportunity for him to
do that. And with Yakab Johnson on IR he is
the fullback. And what I mentioned in the opening segment
that the Texans did to face it head on and
fully recognize we can't keep doing what we're doing and
expect it to change, you know. The only insanity thing

(19:04):
doing the same thing over and over again. Well, last
week they put Blake Fisher on the field for a
handful of tackle eligible six offensive linemen plays and they
were okay. There were some sad success, some didn't, some
were run, some were passes. They did it fifteen times
yesterday and the last two weeks, along with putting Blake

(19:25):
Fisher on the field for a lot more plays, which
they didn't do any of in the first three weeks.
You know what they didn't do any of in the
first three weeks either, They didn't carry three tight ends
into the game.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
They've done that each of the last two weeks.

Speaker 4 (19:35):
And it's not like it's an enormous snap count for
Harrison Bryant or Brendan Bates, but it matters that you
have those particular personnel packages available to you, essentially and
tackle eligible six offensive lineman. Everybody calls it a jumbo package,
as does Demiko. They weren't protecting very well, they weren't
running the ball well enough for them to commit to

(19:56):
it over the first couple weeks of the season, and
so they did some thing about it.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
They tried something else.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
They recognize that what we're doing and the people we're
using isn't working. Changing an offensive lineman starter, adding an
offensive lineman, more personnel packages, with a fullback, with a
second tight end. Congratulations, you have evolved, And to me,
this is the big difference between last year and this year.

(20:26):
The Slowick to Kayley, that's why Bobby Slowik isn't here.
He's not a terrible play caller, he doesn't have a
terrible offense. His playbook isn't awful. He just simply could
not make adjustments, and they weren't willing to give him
the off season to figure it out. And I'm sure
they told Nick Cayley about, well, we're gonna be bad

(20:48):
on the offensive line at times, and you're gonna see it,
and you're gonna know it's coming. You better be ready
to adjust to it. And even though it's pretty obvious,
one other factor, I don't know if they're gonna play
two defenses less capable of getting after the quarterback as
the Titans and the Ravens the rest of the year.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
So they took advantage of.

Speaker 4 (21:03):
It, and we'll see if it continues against better teams
starting with Seattle in two weeks.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
All Right, there are some, I mean, just a litany
of things that we could get too for our Best
of X today. I've got a couple of mine, but
it always evolves, and some of this stuff can be
spread throughout the show because Week five was absolutely insane.
But Best of X coming up next here on a
Monday edition. Following a Texans forty four to ten beatdown

(21:30):
of the Ravens the.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
Did you all see this?

Speaker 4 (21:40):
We should be putting out between five and sim posts
a day. Four hundred people were arrested for things that
they said on social media. History repeats itself type Bangi's succeed.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Never doubt that you're the one who person no one,
You're the best.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
Nothing's gonna ever top you know you're the best of
it posted.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Every single day.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
You're the best of the breaking the entire eternet.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
Wex in between all of the football that we consumed
all weekend long. I know you for a fact were
able to take in at least some of the baseball action.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
Well, there were four games on Saturday and two more yesterday.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
And I know you had a busy weekend.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
I was also at the Cougar game on Saturday night,
and at the Cougar game early to get my tailgate on.
Appreciate Bud Light and everybody out there and all the
people that came and said hello, uh less a complimentary
of the people that brought their tortillas, and there were
a lot of them, but I think I actually accurately
projected how many of them would be there. But yeah,
I watched a lot of baseball as I opened the

(22:57):
show with nearly a baseball perfection weekend. Obviously, both of
the Yankees games were absolutely delicious, some of the best
sports foodl you'll ever eat. Nearly got two of the
same from the Mariners, especially yesterday after taking a two
to nothing lead all the way to the late stage
of the game, only for the Tigers to tie it up.
But unfortunately the good Mariners so far, there are two

(23:19):
of them offensively this postseason, Julio Rodriguez and Cal Rawley,
the only players very very literally who are hitting for Seattle.
All of their hits in Game one that they lost
all of them from those two guys, the rest of
the team went over. Yesterday, they got the two big hits,
back to back doubles in the eighths, so they got

(23:41):
a three to two win. American League off today, National
League on for their game twos today. Yeah, I watched
a little bit of everything.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
First one definitely a blowout, Yankees losing second one should
have been a blowout, but they made it too respectable to.

Speaker 4 (23:55):
The final They lost by six runs, so they got
their asses kicked both games.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
They did, and it was awesome. But that just means
that the Blue Jays are cheating.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
You know that, right?

Speaker 4 (24:05):
I am aware. I mean they know what's coming quite obviously.
I don't know bad pitches from bad Yankees pictures.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
I don't know who this person is. I've never heard
of him.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
My life looks like a total showde has like nearly
four hundred and twenty seven hundred thousand followers. He's followed
by Tracy McGrady amongst others.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
I don't know who he is baseball fan Tracy McGrady,
former minor league pitcher.

Speaker 3 (24:33):
Only Randy Johnson is taller on the mound. Um he's
not happy about it. He wrote the following at four
point thirty yesterday, not even joking at MLB, please investigate
the at Blue Jays organization only, he wrote origination.

Speaker 2 (24:53):
It was close.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
No, this this has another astros which he didn't tag
incident written all over it. This doesn't even make sense.
You're right about that. This is fishy. They're more than
likely cheating. How can you watch that? And that's the
conclusion you come to? All right, let's give you some
background on this. They've played two games. Like I said,
they played Saturday and Sunday the Blue Jays. I'm not

(25:15):
sure how they did it, but somehow they came up
with twenty three runs. The double figured it in both games.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
What an origination.

Speaker 4 (25:22):
This origination had eight home runs in the two games.
They got a twelve seventeen ops. They got twenty nine
knocks in their seventy four abs. That equates for a
three ninety two batting average across the entire origination.

Speaker 2 (25:38):
That's a pretty good offense. It's a nice day's work.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
So I'll take one play in particular and see what
I can come up with my detective work here. Yesterday's
game quite quickly got away from the Yankees. Max Fried
was on the mound, gave up two runs in the first.
It was back in trouble in the third, gave up
five or three more ours was already five nothing. Yankees
were being no hit. By the way, does this sound familiar?

(26:09):
Yankees can't do anything while the other team can in
the playoffs? Does this ring any bells? But to one
play in particular, and let me see if I can
get the full research on this. The game was pretty
much put out a reach when the best player for
the other team was standing at the plate and he

(26:32):
was hoping to do some damage. He had a good
opportunity to do just that, considering there were three teammates,
one on each base. The bases were loaded, Vladimir Gurero
was up and one of the awful Yankee pitchers was
on the mound. Count was one to zero after two
pitches were nowhere near the strike zone. Then he fired
one right down the middle, and Vladimir Gaurero was nice

(26:54):
enough to just go ahead and take it. Then he
hit his spot right on the inside corner. A right
handed hitter who loves pulling the ball into the seats,
especially at his own ballpark, and that's what he did,
so he knew what was coming from a pitcher who
was in trouble, not pitching well getting hit around already.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Those were four.

Speaker 4 (27:15):
Two runs on him, two of those runs on Freed,
and more runs to come each of these succeeding innings.
But it's only because they're cheating. That's just one of
the homers.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
Don't forget the fact that the Yankees are partially in
this position of being in this series because their own
very inexperienced pitcher had a great outing, but he wasn't cheating.
That's legit. When he does that, well, that's pitching. It's different. Well, no,
he could have been using something. But we're not allowed
to question anything about the Yankee success, pitching or otherwise

(27:47):
because they're the Yankees.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
That's the difference.

Speaker 4 (27:50):
Now, let's go to the other part of this story
as you bring it up, and we can get to
the comments and all the other fun stuff. And everybody
who clearly is on our side, should I say our
our side or the regular people's side, the common sense side,
I mean that our side exactly. It's the same thing
I'm saying in two different ways. I'm saying the exact

(28:10):
same thing. I say that every day. So is this
somebody that considering as a following? The answer is usually yes,
two points million views of his origination re spelling because
he's got well over four hundred thousand followers, so people
to run into somebody that'll ultimately moves it on down
the line. But is he any different than I just

(28:33):
created my x account three days ago and still have
an egg avatar and so I posted not even joking
at MLB. Please investigate the Blue Jays origination. This has
another Astros incident written all over it. This doesn't even
make sense. This is fishy. They're more than likely cheating.
Like why, it's no different. It's not a reputable source,

(28:54):
it's just someone who has followers.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
Yeah, well his pen tweet is him and Drake sharing
cigars together. But I like my point of all this
is if it if it involves the Yankees and things
don't go well, now, it has to be cheating. That's
where we're at in today's society, where nothing makes sense.
Everything is upside down. It's opposite day every day, and

(29:17):
Yankees fans the only thing that's consistent about them is
they're losers and they whine about it.

Speaker 4 (29:22):
I'm not sure what happened to the Yankees, but when
you've got a roster full of people other than Aaron
Judge shockingly that are hitting below two hundred, it's gonna
be tough to win games no matter what the other
team is doing.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Well, it's only the DS. He'll choke soon enough. If
the s and having misplays in the outfield, that's true.
We got to get to the comments. Chill, bro.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
This type of takes makes us Yankees fans look terrible.
Just accept the loss for what it is and utter
beating the past two days by the Blue Jays, to
which he responded, this is no regular loss, bruh. They
got twenty runs in thirteen innings. This dead ass suspicious
af And then King Corey had to weigh in and

(30:10):
ask Groc what the what the deal was? Why is
this guy think the Blue Jays are cheating? Prompt response
from Groc los Polo's TV. That's his account.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
By the way, he's a very popular idiot human in
the social media street.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
So the streamer, Yeah, yeah, he's a gaming guy. Oh god, yeah,
that's the worst he Uh.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
Groc says Los Polo's TV suspects cheating because the Blue
Jays scored twenty runs over thirteen innings in recent ALDS
games against the Yankees, calling it suspicious like the Astros scandal.
It's fan frustration after losses, no confirmed evidence of wrongdoing,
The guy says.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Even Gronk is telling you to take the l I
enjoyed that.

Speaker 4 (30:51):
I appreciate Alex weighing in, very very much. A believer
in Los Poyos. I believe they got into the pitch
com and we're listening in on the pitches at MLB
should really look into this. There were a few whispers
during the game, notably Laddie speaking to Springer, who then Homer.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
Astros fan weighing in with a graph or a diagram.
Did the Yankees win? Then the era goes the Ys
twenty seven rings. We are so back, but did the
Yankees win? No, blame it on cheating, Then that goes
to blame it on the twenty seventeen astros.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
Joel said, based on what I'm curious, and several responses
came into that PC with JB says they are claiming
their cameras in the hotel rooms in the outfield, which
if they knew the layout of the dome they would
know that's not going to do what they think it does. Oh,
I thought we had something there. What else do they
have as evidence? Jeff says, based on two consecutive ass kickings,

(31:48):
So that's their evidence. Hardy says, based on being delusional
Yankees fans who think they're mid team that the Jays
b eight times in the regular season is eliterobably also
used micro chips to ensure the Yankees were striking out
eleven times.

Speaker 3 (32:03):
Yesterday at Adam Planton weighed in. He quote tweeted the
guy and said death taxes and Yankees fans finding anything
to blame for their team's repeated postseason gag jobs other
than their team hashtag orange team bad.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
So when the Yankees suck, the other team is cheating.
That's as simple as it is. Has mentioned acice way
to say this situation in a sentence, Michael's not with us.
Definitely not with us. Last comment. George Springer was a
prominent member of the twenty seventeen Astros team. Statistical investigations

(32:43):
sayggest that Springer did seem to benefit from the Astros
bang signals. One analysis found that when a bang proceeded
a pitch, Springer's odds of making contact on off speed
pitches increased relative to when no bang was used. And
then he continues to again, no, so what we already
know eight years ago. So if what he did say,

(33:05):
say this already, we should have said this at two
thirty one. Why do you think the Blue Jays are
cheating because George Springer's on the Blue Jays?

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Duh? Well, taking a step further, wex got to dig
deep to the history of all this you're saying by
saying that George Springer brought his cheating system to Toronto
after he learned it from Carlos Beltron, who brought it
to the Astros from the Yankees. I'm done, My work

(33:36):
is done here.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
Yeah, we'll go to the announcer's studio, the broadcast booth.
This from a Blue Jays Spuck Martinez, former Blue Jay,
former Major leaguer in the booth for the Jays throughout
the season.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
I believe his quote was the Yankees they're not a
good team.

Speaker 6 (33:53):
Hope.

Speaker 4 (33:54):
I hope that was a doctor because it here sounds
like an awesome, awesome line. Twenty three runs in two games,
no wins. They will attempt to not have their season
end tomorrow, when they will face elimination for the second
time ECUs, the third time already this postseason, and just
their sixth game. They'll face elimination in every game they
play here from here on out, unless they advance, and

(34:16):
then they'll probably face it again. Dodgers and Phillies, Cubs
and Brewers both go today. An element of the Texans game.
I'm not telling you what the best moment of the
game was, but I am going to give you one
suggestion next.

Speaker 1 (34:35):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
You beat down a team by thirty four points and
you score the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
and eighth time you get the football coming out of
the gate. You probably had some pretty good moments and
the Texans did. Sure we could run through them individually.
Hear from you, guys and what you think. I loved
it when c J. Stroud hit Nico. I loved it
when CJ. Stroud found Jayon Higgins for a couple of

(35:04):
receptions during the game. Love when British Brooks ran it
on third and one and gained the eleven yards and
when he ran on fourth and one and gained nine yards.
I loved when the Texans picked off the first Cooper
rush pass. I loved when the Texans picked off the
second Cooper. I loved when the Texans got a third interception.
Jalen Petrie had two now three on the season. Kamari
Lasner got his first on the season to help close

(35:26):
things out. Jalen Petrees hit on Derrick Henry. Maybe that
was your favorite play of the game when he absolutely
put him in the turf. Didn't wrap up wasn't really
a textbook tackle for a team that needs to tackle better,
but it was a tackle nonetheless, and a big pop
on the biggest, baddest dude maybe to ever carry the football,

(35:48):
certainly in this generation, decleted him basically, again, as JJ Watt,
who was doing the TV side analysis noted, when you
catch somebody right and they don't know what's coming, it
can happen. And there's plenty of highlights of JJ in
a pass rush where someone who he does not see
coming just puts him right into the ground and he's
a three hundred pound or two hundred and eighty pound lineman.

(36:11):
But nonetheless there were tons and tons of them. I
would suggest one other play was probably among many people's
favorite plays, the first ever NFL touchdown for Jalen Knowle.
Texans rookie Jayden Higgins got that taken care of earlier
this season a week ago. Texans rookie would he Marks
got that taken care of twice a week ago, and

(36:32):
I was an opportunity for Jalen Noel to do it,
mind you, when he crossed the goal line with the
football that puts six more points to the total of
thirty four that the Texans had already put on the
Ravens defense, and again it was a succession, never ending
success on offense. It was the seventh consecutive score. Frustration

(36:54):
maybe was running a touch high for the Ravens, and
confidence was running at an all time high for the Texans.
I mean, arguably eight straight possessions in any one games
the greatest offensive stretch this franchise has ever seen. So
when you score a touchdown, maybe you want to celebrate.
Learn something today from Demiko Ryans about that learned something

(37:17):
last year if you weren't already aware of it about
one of the defensive players from the Baltimore Ravens, and
learned something from Jalen Knowle on this particular play early
in the fourth quarter that again put the Texans up
with the extra point forty one to ten. So I'm
going to take you through all of those things here,
the touchdown catch, the reaction from the booth describing the

(37:39):
activity on the field, and then the particular is involved
Jalen Knowle, Jay R Alexander and a reminder, last year
we all rack Texans fans, other fans around the league
already knew Texans fans probably found out for the first
time if they hadn't been paying attention who exactly JayR
Alexander is, Yeah, and they were found out again yesterday.

(38:01):
So the play the description Jayalen Nole, Jyr Alexander and
as I mentioned Demiko Ryans earlier today talking about what
took place, good times for the Houston Texans, march.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
In the backfield, shut up, fake the pitch, soft toss.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
It's handled. No, it's in for a touchdown. This is
his first career NFL touchdown Kitcher. Yeah, and he does
something in Baltimore that for many years would never have been.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
Allowed by an opposing player, and that just kind of
speaks to it. And then there's a little bit of
a tussla as he goes over to.

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Grab his first ever touchdown ball. Jyr Alexander takes some
issue with that and tries to steal it back. But
do you know what the squirrel is? The ray Lewis is.
I actually watched it last night. I say, we need
something that we did his own. So I watched that
last night and I was having to do it today.

Speaker 7 (38:51):
I mean, shoot, I seen him celebrating in the flat
in the bank in his own I really appreciate that,
but I was on the shot up and then I
seen him toss the ball to the mall oh boy,
and then he tried to get it back. So I
was just like, nah, he ain't getting the ball back
when they got mad.

Speaker 6 (39:06):
I've been on the offensive guys a lot for the
past couple of weeks about making sure they have some
celebrations ready right for the end zone. Like it's just
a psychological thing to me. If you're thinking about celebrations,
then you'll get in the end zone. So I'm happy
that we're getting a little swag on the offensive side.
We were getting in the end zone, then we had
some celebrations ready to go.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
But I did they know? This surprised me. With the
ray Lewis, I remember a year ago, maybe not quite.
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Did they play the Packers. I feel like it was
around week five, maybe week three, it was around that time. Yeah,
I brought up the fact that I thought jyr Alexander
was a bum that I was met with much derision
and resistance.

Speaker 4 (39:49):
Well, it's not even relative to his football playing skills.
He's a good player in Green Bay, just didn't stay
on the field enough and they were tired of that,
so they said go ahead and head elsewhere. Week seven
last year. Before kickoff, yep, Gire Alexander was all up
in Dig's face and the players and sides had to
be separated before the game. There were more antics during

(40:10):
the game and describing the situation that you just heard
all of them talk about. First NFL touchdown, he gets
into the end zone. He's essentially uncovered because it was
so such a well executed play. He drops the ball
at his feet right in the neighborhood of where the
ball boy is begins is ray Lewis celebration. If you
saw it, he did what ray Lewis has done countless
times in the Baltimore's field or end zone and when

(40:32):
he comes out for games. And then after the celebration
was over, the ball boy had the ball, had picked
it up, and Jalen went over and asked him for it,
and he readily handed it to him, and at first
day Gire Alexander is grabbing it from him. They're in
a literal tug of war over a football. A petty
bozo clown in the NFL is doing this to another

(40:53):
NFL player and I didn't want him doing that. And
the flock in our end zone here at the bank,
the one you've been playing at for what this is
your third game?

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Yeah, and he wanted to.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
Take a show that way more than he wanted to
take issue with all the other points that his defense
was allowing yesterday and showed no fight defending that.

Speaker 4 (41:09):
So yeah, props to Jalen Knowle as well. He talked
about it after the game.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
As you heard.

Speaker 4 (41:12):
That was Aeron Wilson with the squirrel dance question. And
today earlier on social media, Jalen posted I got the
ball too, and he posted a picture of the first
ever touchdown taped up and ready to be on display.
I quote posted that and said Strongman competition winner Jalen
Knowle loser Gyr Alexander. It got liked by Jalen Knowle.

(41:36):
Your Texans are two and three three o'clock. More on
the Texans and C. J. Stroud and their offensive line. Wait,
is Texans offensive line good?

Speaker 1 (41:45):
We'll discuss the A team on Sports Talk seven ninety
two lifelong Houston sports guys named at him talking your team.
Adam Clinton and Adam Weckler are the eight team.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Straight up, three o'clock Here on the A team it's
Sports Talk seven ninety and now simulcast over on Space
City Home Network, where tonight you will see the Rockets
preseason debut. No word, by the way on how much,
if any, you'll see from some of the better known participants.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
I mean, everybody is, according to e May available right
and they know who for their starters are going to be.
And it wasn't necessarily specific to tonight's game, but likely is,
But none of that's been set in stone. We'll have
that for you a little bit later as a Emay
of visits with the media once more and we're out
there for our on site coverage. But odds are pretty good,

(42:50):
at least according to what he had to say, the
fans here in Houston will see Kevin Durant once, if
not twice here at Toyota Center.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
They play tonight and Wednesday. Well, I'm not going to
be a Tonight's game.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
You're calling the game, and so if he doesn't play
on Wednesday night when I call the game and he
only plays when you call the game, I'm gonna fight you.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
Yeah. Very important, very important.

Speaker 4 (43:13):
If you see the preseason activity, they got two games
in Houston, one game in Alabama. The Pelicans game next week,
and then one game in it Lanta, and that's their
four game preseason slate. Two weeks and one day from
today they will open up their season, and then I
got a couple of home games to follow, open up
on the road at OKC, and then a couple of
home games after that. They continue working their way through

(43:36):
training camp. Practiced every day this past week. And the
only thing of availability, I said, everybody, everybody except Dorian
Finney Smith. He's not yet recovered from his offseason procedure.
He's not likely to play in any of the preseason
games and might not be ready for the regular season opener,
but no definitive word on that. Tarry Easton and Steven

(43:57):
Adams are not expected to be available Wednesday, but they
are available tonight.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:04):
I can't believe that two weeks from tomorrow night, the
season is going to begin for real. And you know,
obviously I saw last night watching Sunday Night Football, and
thank goodness for this. Can we just talk about this
before we get back into the Texans conversation, because I
know you guys saw the same thing. It was, I
believe it was at halftime and they were advertising the
fact that the NBA on NBC is back and you

(44:28):
heard the music and they hadn't changed it at all,
which is proof that you don't have to fix something
if it is not broken. The original John Tesh round
Ball rock and the fact that they just they're going
to use that again.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
I love the fact that the Rockets and the Thunder,
the defending NBA champs, be the first games out of
the slate, the first game out of the slate or
out of the gate for this upcoming season. And that's
gonna be incredible to watch Kevin Durant watch his old
organization get their rings and then try to dethrone them
starting that night.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
Well, I mean, he's gonna have to watch his old
organization on the other side of the court like three
times or ten times this year.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Oh, I forgot it. They're gonna see it. And that's twice.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
They gonna see the Suns and Thunder, I believe three
and four times respectively.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Don't forget the Warriors.

Speaker 4 (45:20):
Warriors I think are also a three team on their
three games on the schedule. I could be wrong for
so double figures against his I mean, he's been on
a bunch of former team been on a bunch of
NBA teams, so he's got a bunch of former teams.
Only one of them, though, will be getting their ring.
Now there are rings in existence for the Warriors. He
helped procure a handful of those. Not many rings in

(45:41):
the nets existence Suns same.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
No Rockets took care of that in the nineties, for sure.
They went to the finals once against the Celtics and
played a triple overtime game. But that was the seventies.
Let's get to present day. Let's get to your Texans
going into the bye week in style. They're not gonna apologize,
nor should they, for anything that happened yesterday. Baltimore was
beaten up. Their quarterback is hurt, probably multiple weeks. He

(46:09):
will miss their running back. Apparently his career ended with
that last fumble, because he just hadn't been the same since,
and really he had two key fumbles over the first
handful of weeks of the season. He looked like himself
in Week one. They put the numbers up during the game,
you could see it. The production was there, the touchdowns
were there, the yards were certainly there. He just has

(46:31):
not been the same guy since. And don't I know, it.
My fantasy team's feeling it.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
One hundred and sixty nine yards, two scores, long runs.
That was his opening game performance helped the Ravens to
one of their four losses. And I don't know if
you knew this, but man, new numbers freaks out there
are gonna love it. The totals in the Ravens four
losses as they continue to play worse and worse. They
scored forty in their opening game loss, thirty in their

(46:58):
second loss in their third loss, and yesterday ten in
their fourth loss. But eighteen carries one hundred and sixty
nine yards and a couple of scores in his first
game of the season. He has not rushed for one
hundred and sixty nine yards since, He's sitting at one
hundred and forty eight yards total in his last four games.

(47:19):
He's rushed for less than two and a half yards
per carry in a game twice, including yesterday and the
Texans again. As the game war on and the Ravens
decided they would actually get in the end zone finally,
and he had it. I mean, he had a bad
day run in the football, didn't have a carry over
seven yards. Texas defense was great, mentioned this in the
opening segment. It's not the first time, it's not even

(47:41):
the second time they've done this to Derrick Henry. And
again all this Derrick Henry owns Houston. Do you remember
what time frame this fell under at all?

Speaker 2 (47:51):
Ever?

Speaker 4 (47:52):
No, it it definitely happened Derrick Henry owning the Texans.
He ran for two hundred yards in four straight games.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Yeah, and then like after that, they like stonewall them.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
I felt like, right, so as I'm asking people out
loud here, do you remember where in the Texans franchise
history some of those elite performances took place for Derrick
Henry against your beloved Houston Texans And what has clearly
not taken place since then?

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Nargy Stadium.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
The Texans were the worst outfit in the NFL over.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
A three year period. Oh, the worst happened.

Speaker 4 (48:25):
Well, let's just let's go to the numbers. Let's let's
see when all this took place. He ran for two
hundred yards in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty and twenty
twenty one and twenty twenty two. Now, the Texans weren't
awful during that entire stretch, but something changed in twenty
twenty three. I can't quite put my finger on it.
Everything something bald, something from Alabama, something good. Dimiko Ryans

(48:53):
came aboard and was asked to take control of the defense.
Will Anderson Junior was taken away from Arizona and said,
why don't you become a Texan and team up with CJ.
Stroud make Houston great again? And that very first or
that to December game in twenty twenty three. The two
December games in twenty twenty three, the first two games

(49:16):
Derrick Henry ever played against the Texans defense led by
Will Anderson and Demiico Ryans. He ran for nine yards
in one of them. He ran for forty two yards
in the other. On twenty eight totes. He averaged less
than one yard a carry. One yard was more than
he could get per carry in one of those two games.
Texans won both of those games as he battered and

(49:38):
bruised them for fifty one yards on twenty eight carries.
And then he said, get me out of Tennessee. They stink.
He went to Baltimore. Things picked back up again. I
think we recall the game Christmas yep in a nice
little afternoon of it. They just kept feeding on the ball,
and he just kept gaining yards and making things look
rather easy. And then was yesterday fifteen carries thirty three yards.

(50:04):
He's played four regular season games against the Texans since
Demiko's arrival and since play caller Matt Burke has been installed.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
Now the last two weeks really the key to everything.

Speaker 4 (50:14):
And in three of their four games against one another,
the Dereck Henry led offense was awful, because Dereck Henry
was awful in three of the four games. Had one
good game they won, had three bad games they lost.
And you had Cooper Rush and two terrible Tennessee quarterbacks there,

(50:35):
and that definitely plays a part. But at some point
you got to give the Texans a little bit of
credit for recognizing. Okay, well you don't. Not every team
takes advantage of it. We've seen backup quarterbacks win tons
of games this year. Obviously, there was another one with
Carson Wentz playing Dylan Gabriel. If you want to call
Dylan Gabriel a backup, he's technically the starter, but because

(50:57):
the first string guy sucks, he started the U two. Well, obviously,
one of those two guys won over the weekend overseas
backups can play well, It's okay. Cooper Rush has won
nine times in fifteen starts, now none against Houston.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
I going back to the whole Lamar Jackson thing. I
don't think that this necessarily changes if Lamar plays yesterday.
I think the Ravens certainly have a better chance to
win the football game. But I don't think it's because
Derek Henry all of a sudden produces, because he hasn't
done that with or without Lamar Jackson this year.

Speaker 4 (51:29):
Now. Yeah, three games with him before yesterday, Games two, three,
and four did not have very much production. I blamed
it a lot on their play calling because Lamar's throwing
the ball so well. They got away from it a
little bit as their point total kept getting lower and
lower and lower. Like I mentioned, even though they obviously
had the one win where they did score a ton
of points. It's just not what I would have done.
It changes everything. I'm not gonna sugar quote that you

(51:51):
have Lamar Jackson out there and you're eleven defenders, Well,
one of them can't play the way he wants to
because he has to be aware of Lamar on every
single play play action. You RPOs, obviously dropbacks. It changes
everything you do defensively. It probably even changes the personnel.
Cooper Rush is out there. Texans can play big, They
can play five linemen if they want. They can certainly

(52:12):
play three linebackers, which they did at times yesterday. They
can bring safeties or Jalen Peatrie closer to the line.
It changes everything, but you also have to have to
have the personnel and the ability to make it happen.
Because Dereck Henry is still capable. He had plenty of
outstanding days in Tennessee with nobody playing quarterback. He's still

(52:32):
very good and he's gonna have some good games the
rest of this year, just not against Houston, I hope
one more time.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
By the way, they're still favored to win that division
as of this morning. I don't know about that.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
I've seen other people post things that say that's not
really accurate.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
All right, you get a gun to your head right now?
Who you picking to win that crap division? The Steelers
I mean now, by the way, Baltimore worse division than
the AFC South right this moment.

Speaker 4 (53:00):
Yeah, you got Dylan Gabriel, Jake Browning and Cooper Rush
quarterbacking three of the teams, and then the team that
he's winning games, that has Aaron Rodgers is in first place.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
By the way, I don't feel bad for any of
those teams in that division. Why would you? I don't,
That's why I said it. But why would anybody other
than their fans. It's just the nature of football.

Speaker 4 (53:17):
Yeah, I mean, it happens to teams at some point
in a long stretch of time. Maybe that happens to
teams over and over again. It had you know the
games where Lebar Jackson has missed, and you're gonna see
that graphic for every game he misses, totally different football team,
and it's directly related to how supremely talented he is
and how smart they are to build things around that.
It helps you win games if he's there. He was not,

(53:40):
and he might not be again this week as they
get closer to their off week. Speaking of an off week,
you can go ahead and take all the weeks off
moving forward, mister Fox broadcaster, No longer.

Speaker 2 (53:51):
We'll touch on that next.

Speaker 1 (53:54):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
All right in the Texan's getting a blowout win over
the Baltimore Ravens. Were very, very shorthanded in the midst
of everything that happened throughout Week five in the NFL
baseball postseason, college everything that went down over this weekend,
it was jam.

Speaker 4 (54:25):
Packed jam fall man. Gotta love it, dude. Baseball hasn't
quite ended, even though it's over. For a lot of
people here. Basketball there were actually basketball games on this weekend.
If you were so inclined to watch the not Rockets games,
they will start tonight. And obviously it was college football
weekend and this week if it didn't already, it begins
on Wednesday. We have Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday college

(54:48):
football games. Obviously, it was the full slate of games
on Saturday, some very important matchups. Obviously some of the
games local here. Also, Longhorns played a game, didn't win
a game, and they are currently and correctly unranked heading
into the Red River Shootout this weekend.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
They suck. I'll get into that.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
Not as sucky as the weekend was for either Mark
Sanchez or anyone in the vicinity of him.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
At twelve thirty in the morning.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
First of all, you might ask yourself, Wex, why was
he in Indianapolis when this happened?

Speaker 2 (55:22):
He I'm glad you asked. Currently he was there to
call the game.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
He currently still is employed by Fox to call NFL
football games, though he was replaced this weekend because he
was unavailable for a number of reasons.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
Well, first of like, right there, when you know that
the talent that's not going to be calling the game,
or the talent that is supposed to be calling the
game is not available, were you like me, that was
the first thing you thought of. I know that there's
other way more pressing issues in this story, but I was.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Like, I wonder who they're gonna get to replace him
on such short notice. No, that was not I probably
must be in the minority.

Speaker 4 (56:00):
My thought was, what's wrong with this hymn story? And again,
the first some people, the first they heard of this
was a totally erroneous report. I'm not sure where what
information was given, if any, for this to have been posted,
but it was.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
So we'll get to that.

Speaker 4 (56:18):
But yeah, Mark Sanchez was involved in an altercation, and
if you're reporting it as such and moving on to
the next story, then you're not doing the story much
just as many people did that initially involved in an
altercation started by him, nearly finished by the person he attacked,
according to police reports, finished by the person he attacked,

(56:38):
because it's Mark Sanchez that ended up in the hospital
originally in critical condition with stab wounds from the person
he attacked, who initially didn't try to stab his attacker,
Mark Sanchez, but rather pepper sprayed him to try to
keep the attack from reaching an even more feverish pitch. Yeah,
it does appear that Sanchez was not himself because of

(57:04):
outside stimulants inside his body.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Very very succinct way of putting that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Originally, and this is according to an affidavit for probable
cause based on hotel footage of this altercation we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
This is early Saturday.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
In addition to statements to police, Sanchez allegedly accosted the
driver of a box truck that had backed into a
hotel's loading dock, and according to the affidavit, the confrontation
escalated the point where the truck driver, as you mentioned,
believed he was in danger and sprayed Sanchez in the
face with pepper spray, and with Sanchez still advancing toward him,

(57:45):
said he thought, quote, this guy is trying to kill me. Oh,
we should probably mention at this point in time, since
we haven't yet that the truck driver in question here
is sixty nine years old.

Speaker 4 (57:57):
He's not a spring Gerald truck driver delivering oil, basically
cooking oil to the establishment that he was parked at
where he would normally park to deliver this product to
this hotel, essentially.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
So when he thought that to himself, that's his quote,
this guy is trying to kill me, this guy being
Mark Sanchez. The truck driver then pulled his knife and
with Sanchez still coming at him, said he struck Sanchez
two or three times.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
According to the affidavit, truck driver said he.

Speaker 3 (58:25):
Was thrown against a dumpster and onto the ground and
believed it was a was he was in a life
or death situation. The driver, according to the affidavit, then
said a look of shock came to Sanchez's face and
that quote, Sanchez took off at that point. And this
is when like we're hearing this story and then you

(58:45):
hear this detail. Oh, by the way, while he was
at the hospital he was arrested. That's when you knew
it was I mean, obviously you already knew this was
a crazy story. That's when you knew something very very
bad had gone wrong, and then in case you thought
maybe none of that would really ring a bell at
this point, Monday morning, the charges were upgraded to level

(59:08):
five felony, which means battery involving serious bodily injury, and
then the punishment can range from six years or from
one to six years in prison.

Speaker 2 (59:17):
So it just just blows my mind though, Like what happened.

Speaker 4 (59:22):
To Adam Schefter's tweet about saying Mark Sanchez was involved
in an altercation during a robbery?

Speaker 2 (59:27):
What happened to that one? Where is it?

Speaker 4 (59:29):
I'm looking having a good year? I'll see it.

Speaker 2 (59:32):
It's deleted.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
Oh, it's deleted because, like I said, I don't know
where he got it from, So I can't really sit
here and say with any authority that he made it up.
But it certainly doesn't match any of the details. Nobody
else was reporting it. The people in Indianapolis did a
very nice job just reporting the story. Here's what we know,
Here's what the police have stole. Here's the statement from
the police. Here's the information we have. We know there's

(59:55):
footage coming because we know the area and we know
that they can grab the footage from the area and
the hotel, and we'll go on from there, and then
police released the statement and then Fox released the statement,
which again I don't know what Fox was doing yesterday
on the air even acknowledging it. You know, our best
started market. I mean, I guess because he's in the hospital,
your best can go out to him, so I guess

(01:00:15):
that's why they acknowledged it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Brady Quinn.

Speaker 4 (01:00:18):
For those that were wondering, like Adam, who was going
to handle an analyst duties for the extremely competitive game
between the Colts and Raiders, it was Brady Quinn. But yeah,
this is a lot and Mark Sanchez never working I
wouldn't think for anybody again, He's definitely not going to
be working for Fox again. All indications are he's going
to recover from these stab wounds as a result of

(01:00:40):
his involvement there. There was a comment made from the
police chief. It's Chris Bailey on the stabbing incident that
involved as they said, former NFL quarterback, current broadcaster Mark Sanchez.
As he stepped to the podium, he definitely wanted to
make something clear, as you'll hear him say what I

(01:01:01):
want to be clear about this.

Speaker 8 (01:01:04):
I don't care who you are, I don't care what
you do for a living I don't care where you live.
If you come into our city commit violence, we will
use all the tools at our disposal to hold you accountable.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Pretty simple. I like it. I wish every police chief
was like that these days.

Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
Yeah, the reports of Sanchez trying to get into the
vehicle and you know, just all sorts of things where
you know, well there was only alcohol involved is not
yet certain, but this is the kind of incident if
your wits are about you normally don't happen.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Yeah, I listen, I and this comes up on the
show from time to time because a lot of you
guys know I don't drink. I never have, so I've
always I have this unusual ability, and Wex knows about this,
even though Wex is not. I would never ever characterize
Wex as a heavy drinker of any kind. I only
if I've seen you drunk, I didn't know.

Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
I mean maybe if it's if I've had a Guinness.
It's pretty heavy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
But you know you don't do You're not.

Speaker 3 (01:02:06):
But I've been around plenty of people who have, and
I mean to the point where I was like, this
person doesn't need to be driving home.

Speaker 4 (01:02:12):
Well, it's there's definitely some knowledge. You know, you should
be as I always say. You hear me say I'm
being literal, always plan ahead for a safe right home.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Yeah, and it's not like it's not a cutesy little
psa like legit.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
We mean that when we say it. But if it
couldn't be more easy to do so easily.

Speaker 4 (01:02:30):
I'm not saying it was hard to do it before,
but with the proliferation of services available to you. We
had taxi cabs, we had parents, we had friends. Now
you also have lift uber.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
I mean, it's I mean, and here's the thing. I'm
not saying this just for this situation. And I'm not
saying this because I'm some saint, because I'm not. But
it's just like in my mind, tell me if you
think I'm wrong, don't really care, because you can argue
with a wall. It's not that hard to not drive drunk.
It's not that hard to not get arrested. Hell, it's
not that hard to knock somebody up. Okay, these are

(01:03:06):
just things I've always.

Speaker 4 (01:03:07):
Wow, mar Sanchez got wasted and gotten a fight and
is facing a fell and now we got all this.

Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
And now someone's pregnant. I'm kidding.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
I just like, these are the things that I've always
felt like they're just not that hard to avoid if
you just don't avoid, if you just don't do them.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
And I'm not saying if you don't drink.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
I'm saying it's if you don't put yourself in these
situations even having drunk something like I just don't. And
this is where I'm getting to, like, I hate when
I hear yeah, but he was drunk. That has never
ever held water with me as far as an argument,
like you did that. Nobody put that alcohol down your throat.
So when you tell me, yeah, but I was drunk,

(01:03:44):
so forgive this, this and this and this, it's not
an excuse.

Speaker 4 (01:03:47):
It's part of why many people believe it happened, which is,
of course that's why it happened.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
Okay, well then that's why they're telling you. It's part
of this an excuse the fact that it happened.

Speaker 4 (01:03:56):
Though, that's what I'm getting in I don't I hope
people don't think it's an excuse. I think some people
do well sometimes when people are believing, you know, big
believers in addiction and big believers and this is you know,
hard to do, and all that I get all that,
but yeah, in this situation that that doesn't really appear
to be at at the case, it could be.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
I just right, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
I think some people cherry pick what they're able to
let slide based on alcohol or whatever substance being involved.
Oh well a guy was stabbed in this case, Oh,
then that's probably bad.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
But other these other things over here.

Speaker 3 (01:04:29):
I just I'm just making a point that I've never
understood that that mentality. I just I don't really think
you should be excused for anything that you did to
yourself knowingly in this case, being impaired by whatever. And
can't hardly wait for more of the facts of this
case to come out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:46):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
I had a family member send this to me during
one of the commercials, and I neglected to bring it
to the show very quickly. It's just something that well, frankly,
it warms my cold black in sports hard. But it's
also numbers based, so even WEX can appreciate this. Well,
let's go, man.

Speaker 2 (01:05:08):
So, just for fun, last night, this is Jay. He's
just like a second cousin of mine.

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
Just for fun, last night, I was curious how much
the Yankees had spent on payroll since their last championship
in two thousand and nine. Total three point seven billion
equals zero championship.

Speaker 2 (01:05:23):
Not in the trillions. I thought that too. I'm like, really,
that seems low, because if they're always.

Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
Consistently at the highest threshold of salary expenditure and you've
got two thousand and nine, is so so far away
in the rearview mirror at this point, especially in sports terms.

Speaker 4 (01:05:42):
Yeah, they got the late game tomorrow, so the Yankee
season could end tomorrow. Blue Jays obviously lead that series
two games to none after thrashing their pitching staff to
the tune of twenty three runs. The seven runs the
Yankee scored yesterday after the game was already over, essentially
of little consequence. Even if some would say, oh, maybe
they got a little confidence from that, Well, we'll find
out if they did when they face Guardians Ace Shane Bieber.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:06:07):
Yeah, the Guardians traded their Ace to the Blue Jays
during the season while he was hurt. He's now healthy
as expected. He gets the game three start. Two tremendous
starts for the Blue Jays so far, and Carlo Shradan
is now tasked with trying to extend the season as
their starter.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
How do you feel about that?

Speaker 3 (01:06:24):
By the way, if you're a Yankees fan, you confident
that he can extend your quite honestly, even though.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
The Blue Jays pitchers are clearly excellent, unlike their last
series against the Red Sox, when Aaron Boone was flip
flopping guys in and out of the lineup because of
the left handed quality that the Red Sox could throw
at them Crochet and then early later in the series, well,
the Blue Jays don't have that in their starting staff.

(01:06:51):
They're throwing right handed pitcher after right handed pitcher, and
then another right handed pitcher in Game three. So the
best Yankees lineup is on the field is in the
starting lineup is taking all of the bats, and.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
They just haven't been able to do enough.

Speaker 4 (01:07:05):
And obviously clearly that I'm not asking him to score
twenty five runs in order to win those two games,
but they've fallen behind early and just the games were
already over as their team again, there were no hit
for almost five in or for five innings in the
Game two, which now puts them in an actual must
win situation. Marriage and Tigers series tied at a game apiece.
Just because you brought it up. I don't know when

(01:07:26):
it would pop up into the show, but it does
now so mentioned. Vladimir Gurero's Grand Slam turned a five
nothing game into a nine to nothing game. In the
middle of their Game two win, he had a first
inning home run as they got on the board very
quickly in Game one. Obviously, they took both of those
leads and coasted to victory in each game. You know,
Vladimir Guerrero's postseason period is pretty limited. He plays for

(01:07:49):
the Blue Jays. The Blue Jays haven't quite been regulars,
not like the Yankees in the postseason, so he's been clearly.
I think if anybody watched the games, they've seen the
graphics that they can't help but show when he's matching
the Yankees hit total through the first fifteen innings of
this series.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
It's the.

Speaker 4 (01:08:08):
As Guerrero continues to work on his own postseason career
numbers and notoriety and excellence and whatever else might you
know come for him in his career.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
No Yankees are dead.

Speaker 4 (01:08:21):
Articles are obviously going to be written, or they're soon
to be dead.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Articles.

Speaker 4 (01:08:25):
Vladimir Guerrero Junior played in his seventh and eighth postseason
games yesterday and the day before, and this line was
written in Ken Rosenthal's article that says, the Yankee season
is on the line, so are their chances to maximize
peak Aaron Judge, he turns thirty four next to April.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
Sometime in the here, quick, didn't it?

Speaker 4 (01:08:48):
Sometime in early November, the American League MVP will be announced.
He's gonna finish first or second, It's possible. He wins
and continues to add to his regular season prowess. He
had another monster season, seasons that very few right handed
hitters have ever had in Major League Baseball. So bringing
those two people together, Vladimir Guerrero in game seven to

(01:09:11):
eight of his entire postseason career and Judge in what
he's done throughout his postseason career, including last year's appearance
and loss in the World Series, and Ken writes the following,
think about it. Judge might win his third MVP award
in four years, but Jay superstar Vladimir Guerrero Junior arguably
has produced more electrifying postseason moments in two days, the

(01:09:31):
first inning homer in the Grand slamming Game two than
Judge has in his entire career.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Very fair statement and that and by the way, just
before you go any further, he wouldn't have won those
MVPs had showhy not jumped to the NL.

Speaker 3 (01:09:47):
You could argue that too, because show Hay was that
good as a member of the Angels, even though he
was languishing, much like his predecessor that did the same
thing before him and teammate at the time, Mike Trout.

Speaker 4 (01:10:00):
Uh fair, I mean fair in terms of an award winner,
I suppose, but it's not. Doesn't take away from what
he's done. He also won the MVP in twenty twenty two. Yeah,
Shohey was an American League player.

Speaker 2 (01:10:14):
Yeah it was.

Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
It was actually uh impressive to me that they went
off script to the voters.

Speaker 4 (01:10:19):
Well, I can't imagine that. I mean it as a
pitch mein Shotani was they both played one hundred and
fifty seven games. They in my opinion, I don't know
correct or not. And he won an MVP with Otani,
and he won another one with Otani in the National
League last year, and maybe he wins another one this
year and makes it to three. He's been an unbelievable
regular season player and his postseason lack of production is

(01:10:42):
quite obvious. And I actually went through the article and
read a bunch of it, but that particular quote was
pulled out by somebody, which once that happens, well, there
are definitely gonna be some some comments out there. Uh.
The only one guilty of failing to maximize peak Aaron
Judge and the postseason is Aaron Judge.

Speaker 2 (01:11:00):
Yep.

Speaker 4 (01:11:02):
Well, Aaron Judge isn't contributing at all in the playoff,
so I don't know how it's the Yankees wasting Judges.
Times seem more like he's wasting theirs. Yankees can't maximize
peak Aaron Judge. If Peak Aaron Judge forgets to show
up for the playoffs. He is eight for eighteen in
their six postseason or five postseason games this year. Seven
of those eight hits for singles, and he hasn't struck

(01:11:23):
out a ton, but he did strike out with the
bases loaded in a one run game in Game one,
which then was followed up by a basis loaded walk
and another strikeout, this time by gian Carlos Stanton. There
it is a team wide issue. It's hard for one
player even in a postseason. For a whole postseason almost impossible.

(01:11:44):
For an individual series, maybe you can carry a team,
especially with the shorter series. So I don't think people
are should be saying he's not carrying this team like
he's supposed to. Individual players don't do that in the postseason.
I mean Carlos Beltron probably a pretty good example. He
managed to do it during one of his four homer series.

(01:12:04):
He couldn't do it in the second four homer series.

Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
And look, that is true to an extent, but it
also applies to the regular season because ask which New
York Area team is getting less return for its investment
on two guys who were teammates in the Bronx last year,
because Wan Soto and all the money you paid him
couldn't even get you to the postseason, and Aaron Judge
and all the money you paid him probably isn't going

(01:12:29):
to get you past the DS again.

Speaker 4 (01:12:32):
Right, But I think if take Aaron Judge off the
team and spend that money elsewhere, which they literally did
with one Soto, and he spent the money on Max
Freed among others.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Which was a good regular season investment.

Speaker 4 (01:12:44):
He was very good in their series against Boston until
Aaron Boone took him out of the game, which they
then lost.

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
Well, that's not my fault or his that they Aaron
Boone out there as manager, but Joejarati before him. It's
it's I mean the Yankees, and I love this. It's delicious.
The Yankees just can't get out of their own way
when it comes to the postseason, and they've done it
in a hundred different ways, and I love it.

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
And in Soto's case, this is that's the way I
always fall back on.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:13:08):
Baseball is just different and the team sport aspect of
it is greater than all the others combined. One Soto
in twenty twenty four was just that he was awesome
in the postseason. The postseas is incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
He overshadowed the shortcomings of Aaron Judge yet again, and
they still lost.

Speaker 4 (01:13:24):
It wouldn't great because Aaron Judge did have an electrifying
moment when he couldn't catch the ball in the inning
that got away from him. That was electrifying. Enjoy that, fans.

Speaker 1 (01:13:36):
The A on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
Lex.

Speaker 3 (01:13:44):
We've seen some things already this season around the NFL.
I don't know that I've ever seen such a legit
comedy of errors, one after another after another as we saw,
and yet yesterday's unforgettable first win.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
Of the season for the Tennessee Titans. I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:14:09):
What I meant to say was absolute gag choke job
by the Cardinals.

Speaker 4 (01:14:13):
There are a lot of bad, bad decisions made in
that game that led to that, and they needed all
of them to get a miracle win Lake Field goal
game they were getting thrashed in as per usual. If
you heard me earlier on the show, I said the
AFC South Tonight has a chance to go undefeated this week.
Texans dominated the Ravens, Colts, embarrassed the Geno Smith, Pete

(01:14:35):
Carroll led Raiders. Jacksonville plays tonight and the Titans, despite
doing next to nothing offensively for almost the entire game,
they came back down fifteen in the fourth quarter to
win their game over the Arizona Cardinals. A bird gang
guy really kind of going through it, and you could

(01:14:56):
see it on the sidelines. After one such play, they
had a turn over where Kyler Murray was in the
shotgun and they snapped the ball before he was ready,
smashed him in the face, fell on the ground in
front of him.

Speaker 2 (01:15:07):
He seemed dazed.

Speaker 4 (01:15:09):
I don't know if he was or not from the
velocity of it, but he didn't really go after the ball.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
It was just laying there.

Speaker 4 (01:15:15):
I don't know if he thought he heard a whistle
or he thought the play was dead for some reason.
Easily recovered then by the Titans. But the play that
everyone's going to talk about, I think because they can't
believe it happened. But then they also keep saying I
can't believe this keeps happening. Well, apparently it's going to
keep happening. The idea of having a huge play, a

(01:15:36):
lengthy touchdown run or reception, with you and the clear,
with you out in front of the entire defense, and
as you the NFL player who has been there before,
gets to the end zone, but right before you get
to the end zone, you deem the football unnecessary to
still hold. It was Ady Mitchell earlier this year, it's
been to Sean Jackson. It's definitely hit the college ranks.

(01:15:57):
It's been a bunch better. Jonathan Taylor's done it. But
in back to back weeks now in the NFL, after
the incident with Adie Mitchell and now Mary de Marcato,
who a lot of fantasy football players thought he would
be RB one, was basically RB three. You picked him
on it, Well, yeah, I had to. I had to
make several bye week and injury week related.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
Did you play? Of course? So how mad were you
when that happened?

Speaker 4 (01:16:24):
You got the yards, but well you got some of
the yards, right. You lost two points for the fumble,
you lost six points for the non touchdown, and you
lost a tenth of the yard because they had to
deem him to have stopped at the one yard line. Yeah,
fantasy football wise, obviously it had really the DFS angle
of it. I think many more people were ticked off about.

(01:16:46):
But it's just it's inexcuse. Well, he did talk to
the media after the game, and this wasn't like Mitchell.
Mitchell lost control of the ball because he foolishly wanted
a showboat, so he was switching the ball to his
inside hand to kind of show it to the two
defenders that were unable to tackle him. In den Mercado's case,
it's much like the other ones that have happened before him.
He just dropped the football before he got there, which

(01:17:08):
is just insane. You've run all this way and just
be sure of it and even drop I don't know why.
Hardly anybody drops the football. The fun of some of
the fun of getting there is the spike, the holding
the ball up in the air. You're probably gonna take
the ball with you. But he dropped it. I actually
am surprised. They ruled it a touchdown on the field
and then went back and reversed it and took the

(01:17:29):
touchdown off the board, saying he had already lost control
before he crossed the goal line, didn't look like they
had a clear correct angle running along the end zone,
and they'd still deemed it a non touchdown. After the game,
he said, I just made a mistake. I mean, there's
nothing about trying to move past it, or you know,
you don't want to let it linger. I mean, of
course that does.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
Nobody knows that.

Speaker 4 (01:17:50):
It doesn't do anybody any good now or then. And
that's all it was. It was a mistake. You know,
wish it didn't happen. That's what it was.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
I made a mistake.

Speaker 4 (01:17:58):
And he said, no matter how many different ways you
guys ask me about it, that that's what happened.

Speaker 2 (01:18:02):
I made a mistake.

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
If he gets that score and they hit the extra point. Apparently, well,
that would have put the Cardinals up by twenty two.
But apparently teams ahead by twenty two in the fourth
quarter are now one thousand, two hundred and seventy six
and one over the past twenty five seasons.

Speaker 4 (01:18:22):
In other words, you can't win. You can't win that
game if you're down twenty two points, right, it's never
happened before. The only way you.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
Fourth quarter, that's insane.

Speaker 4 (01:18:30):
Yeah, the only way you can win is with just
something ridiculous had to happen.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
The football play where you fumble.

Speaker 4 (01:18:36):
Guys snapped the ball before quarterbacks are ready plenty they did.
They basically had to make one play because we didn't
even mention the other crazy play. They were driving to
score late in the game and cam Ward made a
bad decision and threw into traffic and got picked off
inside the ten yard line. But as the Cardinals player

(01:18:56):
caught it and tumbled to the ground already had control
of it, he fumbled without even being touched and the
ball was bouncing around ended up in the end zone,
where it was recovered by the Titans for a touchdown.
The one real play that they had to make was
the play before the field goal. Cam Ward made a
nice throw deep down the field guess what across his body,
which seems like the only plays he makes. And Calvin

(01:19:18):
Ridley made one of his rare catches and that got
him in position to kick the game winning field goal.
So there was an incident on the sideline, and I
don't know if it was construed as I was trying
to raise his spirits, but their head coach, Bird Gang Guy,
Jonathan Gannon, he definitely struck Mercado in the mid section,

(01:19:40):
like it could have been more of a pat of encouragement,
but he was screaming at him at the time. You
had a teammate who had his arm around Mercado, one
of his linemen. I'm sure trying to hey man, we
got this, we got your back. We still got this
kind of situation. But I don't know what exactly Gannon
was doing or thinking in that situation. Never know what

(01:20:00):
you're going to have in an NFL game. Last night,
you had the second of the last two undefeated teams,
falling the Denver Broncos, who foolishly gave away a game
to the Colts, somehow came all the way back and
their head coach wanted to win. You know how, Demiko said,
We're trying to win the game. We're working all week
and grinding all week because we come out here. We're

(01:20:20):
trying to win.

Speaker 2 (01:20:22):
Well.

Speaker 4 (01:20:22):
When they scored what could have been a game tying touchdown,
an extra point on a kick would have tied it
at seventeen, he went for two. He went for two,
and they made it and they led eighteen seventeen because
of it, which is ultimately what they won by. That
gave the Eagles their first loss. Last night, you saw
many of you on North Carolina's own Drake May helped
lead the Patriots to victory over the Buffalo Bills. Now

(01:20:44):
earlier in the day and last night, no comments on
social media from North Carolina about their quarterback in the
NFL doing great things strikes a lot of people as odd.
If you know, I imagine the last two weeks, Iowa
States probably said, ah, look at our guy Jade Niggin
into the end zone for the first time today or yesterday,
A look at our guy Jalen Knowell into the end zone.

(01:21:04):
I first, everybody does that, all college teams when they
have something special, not every single touchdowns that has scored,
but usually for some of the players that did something
recently or did something for their program. And Drake May
being a high draft pick and a quarterback, of course,
and they've done it before.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
During his season.

Speaker 4 (01:21:20):
Plus, but reports out of North Carolina where that, well,
we all know that Bill Belichick has already said internally reportedly,
we're not doing anything Patriots related here. They're not allowed
to come to our facility first of all, though, watch
any of our players. And now apparently that extended to
and I don't want our social media department acknowledging anything

(01:21:42):
Patriots related. And then this morning Mac Brown posted a
picture the former North Carolina Oh great things from back
or for Drake. Is great to see this and great
to see that. Not long after, there was a social
media post from UNC Football, a really good one because
it was number ten Drake May rowing to Steph Diggs,
number eight on that huge late stiff arm play that

(01:22:04):
he made. We actually made a play very much like
that he wore ten. He threw to number eight at
Carolina and they did a nice little mashup of it.
Belichick is down so bad. Oh, by the way, they
got smoked again this weekend by the fading Clemson Tigers
who ran a trick play on them to open the
game for seventy five yard touchdown. Life not real good

(01:22:25):
for the Heels on the grid iron.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
The A team on Sports Talk seven ninety teen lifelong
Houston sports guys named at him Talking your Team, Adam
Clinton and Adam Wexler are the eighteen.

Speaker 3 (01:22:48):
A halfway home on a Monday edition of the E Team,
first one.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
Of the October variety. And so the Astros, or should
I say the.

Speaker 3 (01:23:03):
Texans, fresh into their bye week after a forty four
to ten drubbing of the Baltimore Ravens, can I don't
want to say kick back, but they're certainly feeling a
whole lot better than they would have, unlike the Ravens, who,
without Lamar Jackson are just completely lost. Cooper Rush you

(01:23:25):
mentioned this in the first hour, wex second time that
he's been bludgeoned by the Texans, specifically, that happened on
Monday night last year.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
I keep forgetting if that was a Monday night game.

Speaker 4 (01:23:34):
Yeah, this one was only slightly worse thirty four to
ten last year, forty four to ten this year. And
it wasn't like they were beating him up or got
after him. Last year was they sacked him five times.
He had to drop back for fifty five passes. They
just simply went out there and they'd run a couple
of plays, and then they'd punt. Then the Texans would
score a touchdown, and they'd run a few more plays,
and then they'd punt, and now the Texans wouldcore another touchdown.

(01:23:55):
They scored points on their opening drive and then did
not score again until the game was way out of hand.
Were on easy Street. Because of it, they got to
rest players. Titus Howard missed the last seventeen snaps of
the game, so Blake Fisher got reps at right tackle.
After going in their jumbo package quite a bit. Defensively,
you only had forty three snaps to begin with defensively,

(01:24:16):
which heck, you could play your whole defense forty three
snaps and they might even feel fresh heading into the
next week. It was first time all season, kaitlynon Bullock
has come off the field, first time all season, Kamari
Lassiter has come off the field, and you only needed
twenty three and twenty two snaps respectively from Danielle Hunter
and Will Anderson Junior. They played a full NFL game.
Neither of those players were hurt, and they just didn't

(01:24:38):
need them out there. After a while, they were able
to play their rotation. They were able to get guys
fresh in advance of what is normally in to get
you fresh, which is your off week. A little bit
earlier in the season, then maybe some teams would like
I think the only negative to having it here in
the sixth week of the NFL season is you feel
pretty good and offensively. Every single time you asked teams

(01:25:00):
about what's going poorly or what's going well well, the
word rhythm is used. We just couldn't find our rhythm today,
or well, we found our rhythm and we never shook
it away and they couldn't get us out of it. Well.
The Texans last fifteen drives basically nothing but that over
the last five quarters. Heck, Davis Mills got into the
game and for many people, they wanted him in there
a series earlier as c J. Stroud took one additional

(01:25:23):
hit that could have been avoided, but not a tremendous
punishment day physically for CJ. Stroud was sacked two more times,
was hit just a couple more times. We would have
more than enough time to run the plays they wanted
to run.

Speaker 2 (01:25:37):
Had one pre snap penal.

Speaker 4 (01:25:38):
They had a couple other typical game penalties, holding and whatnot,
but nothing of great consequence. Again, and it allowed them
to go out and play again. I know they're playing
a bad team. That's pretty obvious. I don't know that
the Ravens will finish the year as a bad team,
but the Texans played a bad team. The Ravens are
bad right now. Bad team, one of the worst teams
in the NFL. It can't stop anybody. Texans were not
the first team even to put a forty spot on them,

(01:26:00):
and then they had additional players out, and that's one
side of the football. Clearly, they become a bad team
when Cooper Rush is in there for Lamar Jackson. We
talked about the Texans off week leading into what's pretty
good run of teams that'll come right out of that.
The primetime matchup with the Seahawks is their first game
out of the off week. That's a Monday night football game.

(01:26:22):
The Niners, the Broncos, and Jacksonville. All of those teams
with three or more wins are still in front of
them now. All three of those games are at home.
The Texans fly back from Seattle the night of the twentieth.
They'll be back the morning of the twenty first of October.
They won't leave town again until Saturday, November fifteenth. Hopefully

(01:26:43):
that bodes very well at home against good football teams.
We'll see what they all look like when we get there.
Don't know about brock parties. Availability, don't know what Jacksonville
will look like, but that's on down the road. You're
asking a question about the very poorly quarterbacked AFC North.
Currently the quarterbacks in the AFC North are Dylan Gabriel,
Jake Browning, yesterday's Cooper Rush, and Aaron Rodgers. Those are

(01:27:06):
the team's quarterbacks starting quarterbacks right now. Jake Browning's team
did not win. Cooper Rush's team did not win. Dylan
Gabriel's team did not win. Heck, even Aaron Rodgers team
didn't win this past weekend, but they didn't lose either.
They didn't play. Their off week was this week. The
Ravens come back with a one in four football team
to face the Rams, who are probably not very happy

(01:27:29):
about their loss this week and are obviously a good
football team and likely headed back to the postseason. Then
they get their off week and they better basically start,
They better get Lamar Jackson back, is what I would say.
They do have teams that they can beat. They have
three of their four games left against Cleveland and Cincinnati.
But conversely, with the Steelers sitting with just one loss currently,

(01:27:52):
they're at full strength, even with how poorly the Ravens
were playing. No, I don't think the Steelers are better
than them. But the Steelers have four games remaining with
Cleveland and Cincinnati, and they're over. The next two of
those come in the next three weeks, next two weeks,
their next two games, so they're probably gonna see Dylan
Gabriel and they're probably gonna see Jake Browning or somebody worse.
They still have a game with Dolphins. If they just

(01:28:14):
win those games, that's eight without winning any other games.
And I don't calling for them to sweep all those
games is a bit much, but it's just a it's
a pretty sizeable uphill battle at some point when you're
sitting at one and four and the team at the
top of the division only has one.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
Loss, well, and they're not going to see Joe Burrow
this year, it's possible.

Speaker 4 (01:28:34):
I mean in their case, they're not because both of
their games come before November even ends. And that's why
I mentioned the next two weeks. They're playing next Sunday,
they're playing Cleveland at home. The Steelers off of their
off week, Dylan Gabriel, who didn't look bad, but they
also barely scored any points, just like they were doing
under Joe Flacco.

Speaker 2 (01:28:53):
Well, he likes in djoku, so apparently I can start
playing him again because nobody else did before that. Well,
what he likes is throwing underneath all freaking game. Well,
he throws. That's all they did.

Speaker 4 (01:29:04):
He didn't even have a completion to a wide receiver
until the third quarter. It was just over and oh
the back is out of the backfield. They played two
tight ends, and he threw the ball to his two
tight ends. It got them down the field quite a
few times on a day where they ran the ball
as well as they did, because Judkins had a very
nice day, not just a volume day, but a lot
of six, seven, eight, nine yard carries, putting him in

(01:29:25):
really good down and distant situation. I thought they played
a pretty good offensive game. They just didn't result. It
just didn't result in a lot of points. Zach Taylor
was not very positive about who their quarterback is moving forward,
finally acknowledging I think a little bit with saying we'll
evaluate everything when asked, will Jake Browning be your starter
next week? And it's they got a Thursday night game

(01:29:47):
the Steelers do with Cincinnati, so in the next ten
days they play both of those teams. I mean, I'm
not at the biggest Aaron Rodgers fan or even the
biggest Steelers fan with who I think they have, but
how could they not be five and one two weeks
from now?

Speaker 3 (01:30:01):
Yeah, it's it's a fascinating turn of events. It's in
large part, and I mean large part because of injuries
to quarterbacks. In fact, it's like ninety five because of that.
I I know that Baltimore is missing what is it
the turn of events in the AFC North, Like I
know that the Ravens and I wanted to.

Speaker 2 (01:30:20):
Talk about this a little bit here.

Speaker 3 (01:30:22):
Their defense was not just like missing a few guys,
everybody that was on their defense for the most part.
I'm trying to think of like some of the regular
starters that actually make a difference.

Speaker 4 (01:30:33):
I mean, you could argue, and maybe it might be
a debate that the best player at all three levels
was out. Yeah, Bluque has gone for the year. Roquwan
Smith's not having a great year, but he's also the
green dot guy and kind of leader of the defense
among the backers. And I think it's safe to say
most people would call Kyle Humphrey, not Humphrey, Kyle Hamilton

(01:30:55):
the best player in their secondary. And if you don't,
you'd probably say it's smartl and Humphrey and they were
both out.

Speaker 3 (01:30:59):
Yeah, now, I mean it was it was a laugh,
a laugher for the Texans offense. But is that why
the offensive line gave CJ Like an hour to throw?

Speaker 4 (01:31:11):
Well, you also happen to have a team even when healthy,
just like the Titans, they don't get the quarterback right.
Their pressure rate is low, their sack rate is incredibly low.
These are both of those teams are in the bottom
eight in the NFL in sacks, and in both of
their cases it's really just one guy anyway. Jeffrey Simmons

(01:31:32):
has half of the titans seven sacks. He's got three
and a half sacks this year. And for the Ravens
it probably tells an even worse story. Uh, they one
of the two players that has more than one sack
is already out for the year, and Texans obviously didn't
face and they only have six sacks all season, and
two of those sacks are on the ir in Matabuque.

Speaker 2 (01:31:51):
So they they did.

Speaker 4 (01:31:54):
It's a matter of how you want to have it
described to you or how you want to make up
your own mind. You still have to live in the fact.
The facts are, the Texans played two teams that should
not have been able to stop them, should not have
been able to pressure CJ. Stroud or any quarterback for
that matter, and the Texans said, you're right, and it
didn't happen. The Titans didn't stop them or put tremendous

(01:32:15):
pressure on CJ. Stroud more than you would have liked.
And then yesterday, not only did they not stop the Texans,
I don't that's a day where and I know what
the pressure rate was, and it's one of the lowest
the Texans have had in years. But I can watch
the game too, and I don't need to rely on that.
He got rid of the ball more quickly. They had
a much better game plan for it. They utilized their
personnel in an extremely effective way, I think yesterday maybe

(01:32:38):
more than they have in any game. And they ran
the ball effectively, and they stayed out of the pre
snap penalty, so all the things that can help you,
plus who they were playing, and they went out and
made sure this game wasn't twenty one to ten going
into the fourth quarter twenty four fourteen going it was
a blowout.

Speaker 2 (01:32:55):
It was over well.

Speaker 4 (01:32:56):
They were in control of that game from moment one,
opening the game with a touchdown, And we.

Speaker 3 (01:33:01):
Talked about them scoring first for a change, not playing uphill,
not having that put additional pressure on CJ. Even if
the pass rush wasn't going to do that. And yeah,
that again, who you're playing, the personnel, all that kind
of stuff, and especially who you're opposing, if you were
the Texans defense all factored in.

Speaker 2 (01:33:20):
But when you can cruise like that, it helps.

Speaker 3 (01:33:23):
It just does you know, the like the Seahawks, they
might not have like a ton of sacks, but they
get after the quarterback a whole lot better than I
think Baltimore will all this year, even.

Speaker 2 (01:33:35):
If fully healthy.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):
But if the Texans can go up again on the
road and score first, it just it just feels better
if you're on the road and you're doing that. It
has to for an offense, right.

Speaker 4 (01:33:48):
Keep in mind this too about getting out there first.
This is the second time they've scored on both of
their first two possessions ten points in each case. Scored
ten points yesterday on their first two possessions and then
blew out the Ravens the rest of the way. They
scored ten points on their first two possessions against the
Bucks and their home opener, and we're down after the
next possession because of the Bucks had fourteen points to their ten,

(01:34:09):
and then they didn't even score again until the fourth quarter.
And then their fourth quarter touchdown was the gift because
we all know the Bucks let Nick Chubbs score, right,
They didn't do anything else after they scored their first
two possessions. Yesterday was different. They never stopped doing what
they wanted to the Baltimore Ravens.

Speaker 2 (01:34:25):
That equals a blowout.

Speaker 1 (01:34:26):
Victory the eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):
Well, as we continue to keep you completely updated on
the wildest non football story from over the weekend. The
truck driver is now suing Mark Sanchez as of like
an hour ago, saying he was left permanently disfigured by
the alleged attack. Again, sixty nine year old truck driver

(01:34:58):
is suing Sanchez and his employer Fox Sports for punitive
and compensatory damages following the alleged violent attack in an
Indianapolis alley way at around twelve thirty am on Saturday.

Speaker 2 (01:35:10):
I don't think he's doing games anytime again soon.

Speaker 4 (01:35:12):
For anybody ever, right, because of all the things that
have now come from this, along with the felony charge
that was added to these several other misdemeanors now this lawsuit.
We're also not going to hear from him, likely because
he can't issue an apology.

Speaker 2 (01:35:25):
I don't believe at this point, not if it's alleged,
what are you apologizing for? Says his lawyer.

Speaker 4 (01:35:30):
That's the thing. I just don't think we'll hear anything
from him. Unfortunately, to his side of the story, also
did not come until well after the incident and all
the ambulances and police and medical attention had been offered
because he was in the hospital, and the police went
to the hospital to talk to him then and arrested
him there. And we've now given you the update on

(01:35:50):
the latest bizarre situation, awful situation for the other individual,
at least according to reports, and that he just happened
to I definitely be in the wrong place the wrong time,
although this is not anything out of the norm for.

Speaker 2 (01:36:04):
His job, it's what he does.

Speaker 4 (01:36:06):
He was at his workplace handling a delivery because he's
a delivery truck driver, and Sanchez was more the wrong
place and wrong time to be anywhere near Mark Sanchez.

Speaker 3 (01:36:18):
He was in his work market for that week. That's
the only reason why he was there. That's the crazy part.

Speaker 4 (01:36:23):
Well, he sent to a different NFL city every week
to work a game. I don't know if it could
have happened anywhere, but it sure seems like it.

Speaker 3 (01:36:30):
Yeah, I just it's one of the craziest stories, especially
like I know that we never know these people, athletes, celebrities,
that kind of thing, But I don't know that there's
anything in Mark Sanchez's past that would lead you to
believe that he'd even be capable of doing something like this.

Speaker 2 (01:36:46):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:36:47):
Again, that's when we're dealing with something severe personal issue
that he has been dealing with. He's been addicted to something,
he's an alcoholic. I don't know any of those things
that had not recalled any of those reports ever happening,
no excuse for it, but it could obviously be a
part of the story.

Speaker 3 (01:37:04):
Meanwhile, one of the other things that didn't necessarily surprise me,
although who the win came against. Definitely did I remember
you and I talking about right before the week one? Okay,
look at such and such team and their schedule based
solely on the fact that it's a last place schedule
in this case, could they end up making some noise? Well,

(01:37:27):
if you're the Patriots right now and you just talked
about this with the pettiness that is, I don't know
if it's Bill Belichick or if it's Jordaan who's made
that mandate that you can't talk about the Patriots. Bill's
a petty person, yes for sure, But like they have
your attention yet, especially now that they've beaten the team
they quote unquote shouldn't have beaten.

Speaker 4 (01:37:46):
Oh, they have my attention purely from the math. And
I was talking about this earlier. If the Patriots lose
to the Bills last night, they're two and three. If so,
just at two and three, and with what their schedule
has been, the Texans are tenth right now in the
AFC top seven presumably doesn't have to be, but usually is.
The top seven will make the playoffs, four division winners,

(01:38:07):
three wildcard teams. Now Buffalo and Indianapolis have four wins.
There's five teams with three wins, and New England is
one of them. Had they not done that, and let's
say Jacksonville beats the Chiefs tonight, which is certainly within reason,
well then there wouldn't have even been seven teams with
three wins as in the top seven teams, well one
of them would be a two win team, but Texans

(01:38:29):
have two wins. I'm only looking at it from how
do you make the playoffs? And winning the division takes
care of all of that, but again, your seating is
now related to that, so they still have the ability
to take care of their own business. They got two
games left with Indianapolis, who they trail by two games,
have one game left with Jacksonville, who they've lost to
and obviously trail by a game. But the Patriots, their
season has been a little too skitzo for me to

(01:38:51):
maybe say they have my attention. It's pretty obviously they're
not a four and thirteen outfit. Like they were a
year ago. I think that went without saying just because
they had one looked like a promising quarterback and he
would be entering year two. I did believe they made
a smart decision. And honestly, it's as much as some
of the coaches with the Patriots Way tattooed on their faces,

(01:39:12):
we look down on them. The Patriots Way isn't necessarily
the worst thing in the world. If you're in New
England and you're on their coaching staff, and you're properly
placed on their coaching staff, it's terrible if Matt Patricia's
there and he's trying to teach the Patriots way to
the offense because he's a defensive coach, and if you
know other people, that was a Belichick issue.

Speaker 2 (01:39:34):
Josh McDaniels is a good offensive coordinator.

Speaker 4 (01:39:36):
He's pretty much been a good offensive coordinator throughout most
of his career, certainly almost all of it in New England.
As long as he's not your head coach, you're fine,
I think, without being super negative about Gerrod Mayo, who
didn't he lasted one year there may not ever be
a head coach again, but it's even less about him.
I think most people would say without debate, Yeah, I

(01:39:57):
think Mike Rabel's a better coach than he is. That
seems fair for the fact that he has been a
coach longer and has had success, So they had a
better head coach. They played the Raiders, Dolphins, Steelers, Panthers,
and Bills, embarrassed the Panthers, and played one score games
in the other four which they've split.

Speaker 2 (01:40:16):
So you're three and two. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:40:18):
I just, first of all, I to this day wouldn't
have been upset if the Texans had hired Mike Rabel
as their head coach. I know, there's a lot of
things that would have had to have happened for that
to be the case. I mean, he was a defensive
coordinator here.

Speaker 4 (01:40:30):
You mean, like had said, well, instead of letting him leave,
why don't we just push Bill out the door and
hire him.

Speaker 2 (01:40:36):
That would be one scenario. I would have been fine with.

Speaker 3 (01:40:39):
Any scenario in which Bill was led out the door
or shoved violently or even kicked out the door.

Speaker 2 (01:40:45):
I'd be fine with.

Speaker 4 (01:40:46):
Yeah, they have my attention and that they're in it.
And even though they lost to the Raiders and Steelers,
they only beat the Dolphins by you know, six points
doesn't really matter at some point. Your record is what
it is, and the math of it says they're probably
another team in the Texans way for either seeding or
just the playoffs in general, because it's not a given anymore.

(01:41:06):
Far from it that the Texans are going to win
this division. I mean nothing about what happened yesterday says
the Colts are slowing down. They had another forty point game.
They had another blowout win. If you think the Texans
coasted to victory, the Colts have done that on more
than one occasion, and they did it again yesterday. They
absolutely coasted to victory twice this year, three times, blew

(01:41:29):
out the Dolphins, blew out the Titans, blew out the Raiders.
They've only played five times because is the best defense
they've played. The Rams and the Broncos are both good defensively.
They scored twenty and twenty nine points respectively. But again
the Rams game where they only scored twenty points, they
took six points seven off the board when they decided

(01:41:50):
not to continue into the end zone with the football.

Speaker 2 (01:41:53):
That was the ad Mitchell game. That's just the first
thing I think of when I think about Okay, the
next time or the first time this season, the Tech
since face the Colts, which are not going to be
like anybody thought it was going to be.

Speaker 4 (01:42:03):
That's the end of November two, so who knows what
those teams will be like health wise. It's seems pretty
likely the Colts are a good football team.

Speaker 2 (01:42:11):
Yeah. I think it'd be hard to argue that they're
not good. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:42:14):
With each passing week, and they're not just playing like
you know, cupcakes, and they're they're putting up a ton
of points.

Speaker 2 (01:42:21):
I mean they've played three non playoff teams and two
playoff teams. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:42:26):
And Jonathan Taylor though, he's always been a threat, but
the Texans have been i'd say pretty good at containing him.
I think he's like, he hasn't had like an over
the top insane game against them, has he.

Speaker 4 (01:42:40):
I'm gonna have to go to the numbers because I'm
thinking that that he has.

Speaker 3 (01:42:43):
But it's only been like once, right, I mean they
played them twice a year, so the law of average
says he has more chances.

Speaker 4 (01:42:49):
Yeah, he had another three touchdown game yesterday and he
could have had four, but for some reason, they thought
they needed a mer updula to get some touches ruin
everybody's day.

Speaker 2 (01:43:00):
Well whatever, it sounds like somebody that has Jonathan Taylor's one.

Speaker 4 (01:43:03):
Hundred and sixty one yards, hundred and forty five yards,
hundred and forty three yards, hundred five yards, hundred and
eighty eight yards and then the other three games where
he was at eighty three, ninety one and forty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:43:12):
He has demolished the Texans.

Speaker 3 (01:43:15):
Yeah, like I said, he's been awesome against them.

Speaker 2 (01:43:18):
I couldn't think I'll like.

Speaker 4 (01:43:20):
Last year he was very very successful against them, but
they couldn't beat him. The Texans were a better football team, right,
that might not be true.

Speaker 2 (01:43:29):
Well, who was their quarterback? Which is crazy to.

Speaker 4 (01:43:32):
Say they didn't have Daniel Jones yet, you know, see,
I honestly take take a real look at the list though,
and act like it isn't real, and it is real.
Look at who they've employed at quarterbacks since Andrew Luck
was there, and tell me that there wasn't a really, really,
really good chance that Daniel Jones was going to be
better than Anthony Richardson, Gardner, Minshew, CBS broadcaster Matt Ryan.

(01:43:56):
I play for every team in the NFL. Carson wentz,
I'd rather be have kids with my wife then playing football.
Philip rivers a lot to Kobe Brissett. This is the
eighth consecutive season they've started a different quarterback. And if
I told you Daniel Jones was going to outplay that list,
I just ran through. It's actually easy to believe. Now

(01:44:17):
he's played even better than that well. But they upgraded
at quarterback by a pretty large margin versus what they
were using last year, since Richardson was out there so much.

Speaker 2 (01:44:27):
Join to make it painfully simple when it comes to
the Texans, if they take the ball away from him,
they'll win because the only game he's lost that this
year is the only game he's thrown a pick in,
and he actually threw two.

Speaker 4 (01:44:39):
He's been very, very sharp. He hasn't run too much.
He actually hasn't even run all that much, but he
is a threat. He's thrown the ball very well. They've
put a ton of points on the board. Their defense
has been way better than expected. It's why they're four
and one, and again the way tiebreakers currently work. With
Buffalo's loss last night, the four and one Colts are
the number one team in the ANFC.

Speaker 1 (01:45:02):
The age on Sports Talk seven ninety Now the good,
oh good, the bad that's not good, and the ugly
don't make me good with the A team were so good?

Speaker 4 (01:45:19):
Signature segment time halfway through our number three. We get
you the good, the bad, the ugly, our signature segment
each and every weekd afternoon, Good, bad, ugly is Monday,
the weekend of sports or something related to sports. I
always like to give you that option. I will take
up the ugly, AC will get us started with the good.

Speaker 2 (01:45:38):
Cole, you're on deck.

Speaker 3 (01:45:39):
The bad, well, I thought about just saying, you know,
going easy and saying, all right, the Texans offensive line
did a good job yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:45:46):
Now you go. I mean they did.

Speaker 4 (01:45:48):
They were fine. They weren't unbelievable, but they were definitely
better than they've been.

Speaker 3 (01:45:52):
But you kind of, I mean, you kind of stole
my thunder a little bit with our conversation we've already had.

Speaker 2 (01:45:57):
But hey, new audience, it's turned over, right.

Speaker 3 (01:46:00):
I really enjoyed the fact that part of the first
win in Texans history in that city was Jalen Noel
doing the Ray Lewis dance, because that shows you that
even though he's a rookie, even though I mean, when's
the last time or how do you think Jalen Noel
was last time Ray lewis playing a zerical game.

Speaker 4 (01:46:22):
Zero, so like he didn't know anything about Ray. He
even said he played it earlier, he went back and
watched it. So can I expand on this? So Dimiko
and Jalen acknowledges. Dimiko told us today and Jalen noted
it last night in the Texans locker room after the
game that he had told the offensive players, right, you
guys need to have something in mind, you need to

(01:46:43):
be ready to celebrate. And he told us today Demiko did.
He thinks his philosophy on that is if you have
something ready to go, if you're planning on celebrating, well,
you know, the only way you get to celebrate is
if you get to the end zone. So he thinks
it's motivation to get to the end zone, which I
find real refreshing. Not anti Barry Sanders act like you've

(01:47:05):
been there before. That's fine too, but I'm also okay
with acknowledging. You're playing game that's fun and there's energy,
and there's emotion and celebrations. It's you they do put
a lot into this. It's okay to celebrate a little bit.
It's not directed at the other team. In this particular case,
it was clearly about the other team's franchise. So I'm

(01:47:26):
all for Demico having this very twenty twenty five attitude
about uh yeah, I encourage them to celebrate their touchdowns.

Speaker 3 (01:47:37):
Yeah, and for him to go out of his way,
as he put it, to do a little research, which
of course means going to YouTube. I like that because
it was a good rendition of it. Yeah, it looks
like it's easy to do until you try to do it.
I'm not gonna do it here on camera. I'm not
asking you to do it, but that's not just something
you can just kind of roll out of bed and

(01:47:58):
look like.

Speaker 2 (01:47:59):
I'm sure he practiced in front of a mirror at
least once. Should ask him.

Speaker 4 (01:48:03):
Oh well, maybe next week when they're available to us
after a full week away this week, Dimiko spoke today.
The rest of the team is off until Sunday, So
maybe at that point in time in twenty eleven, Ray
would have played his last you said meaningful, that's probably
his last meaningful game. So Jalen would have turned nine

(01:48:25):
during that football season he might have been watching back then,
didn't seem like, all right, there's plenty of other good
we can share that over the course of the rest
of the show, including CJ.

Speaker 2 (01:48:35):
Stroud's performance in the last two weeks.

Speaker 4 (01:48:39):
In the NFL. What do we have for the bad coal?
I can go plenty of ways with this one, but
don't you make it personal. Oh I'm not going to.
I'm gonna instead make sure that everyone knows one of
the biggest frauds in all of college football decided to say,
let's not lose to a top ten team. Let's lose
to a winless team. That'd be James Franklin and Penn State.

(01:49:01):
My goodness, let me just explain how bad of a
forty two to thirty seven loss this was to UCLA.
UCLA fired its head coach, fired its off its coordinator.
Has a brand new guy by the name of Jerry
new Heisel never started in their quarterback but has been
basically mister UCLA calling games for the first time. They

(01:49:21):
had a quarterback that left his university at Tennessee and.

Speaker 2 (01:49:25):
Has been dreadful. They have yet to lead.

Speaker 4 (01:49:27):
In a game this season, and they lost to two
G five programs in UNLV and New Mexico. They scored
on their first five drives. They outgained Penn State four
hundred and forty six to thirty fifty seven. Nico Iamaliava
had a career day with one hundred and forty six
rushing yards on the ground. Drew Aller was the leading

(01:49:49):
rusher for Penn State. If that's not enough for you,
they were ten to fifteen on third down. They've failed
to score inside the red zone more than once this year.
They scored six times, they punted once in this game,
and they won the time in possession by nineteen minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:50:08):
Penn State became the first Top ten.

Speaker 4 (01:50:10):
Team to lose to a winless roster since nineteen eighty five.
And this was supposed to be the year where it
all came together for the Nittallions. We had a full
week to run through some of the rankings because the
polls obviously come out after these Saturday games, so they're

(01:50:31):
out and where teams started the year and where they've
moved to. Who is still averse to paying attention to
college football, though they have a vote in the Associated
Press poll, which is maddening. Some of the stupidity that's
I mean, this is stupidity. I am making a personal
attack on voters acumen, their smarts, their brain, their ability to.

Speaker 2 (01:50:55):
Just be It's not even common sense.

Speaker 4 (01:50:58):
It's you actually just have to think a little bit,
which is obviously not happening. And I think it is
a shame. There should be at least a little care
for having that. You mentioned Jerry Neuheisel, and he was
not even that reluctant to say so, but he said
as much. And I probably shouldn't tell you all this,
but you know, coaches, you know they need practice. Nick
Cayley's a first time play caller here in Houston, and

(01:51:20):
during the preseason he spent a game in the booth.
He spent a game on the sidelines and decided how
they wanted to play it. During the season, you're getting
used to being the guy that's relaying the information to
the quarterback in game because they have the use of technology.
Now imagine that you just just wantn't you just tell
him what play you want him to run, which is
literally exactly what they do right in their headset. So
after the game, their new OC, they're Kiddoc's Dada is

(01:51:41):
obviously Rick new Heisl and they're very, very very very UCLA.
But he acknowledged we got the game plan two days ago.
We've had two days to work on this game plan.
I wasn't used to calling plays, and I kept forgetting
to turn push the button, and the quarterback said, yeah.
There were a couple times where I just had to
call to play myself because Jerry kept forgetting to turn

(01:52:04):
his mic on, basically pushing the button. Jerry said, I
would have my headset, you know, the headsets that NFL
coaches wear and we wear for our broadcasts. I don't
think you're gonna like what I have to say tonight
during the Rockets game. If I take my microphone and
pop it up top my head so it's sitting on
top of my forehead, nobody will because you can't hear me.
That's what Jerry was doing during the game. He forgot

(01:52:25):
to pop the microphone back down in front of his
mouth so Nico could hear the play calls. And all
those things happened, while, as Cole explained, they massacred the
Penn State defense with their incredibly bad offense except for
this week, that's probably more of the ugly than anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:52:43):
And as we run out of time. Here in the good,
bad and the ugly, I can.

Speaker 4 (01:52:46):
Still easily easily get it in because we've been talking
about it all afternoon. This would be the third segment
we've talked about it. There's no question what the ugliest
thing was from this weekend. It's the Mark Sanchez incident. Oh,
it's very ugly. It's awful for both of the individuals
and everybody associated, for family members, etc. With them. The

(01:53:06):
Fox family is going to be no longer. Nobody else
is going to hire him in the future. But that's
the least of his worries with the legal troubles he's in,
the physical troubles from being stabbed and in the hospital
that he's in, not to mention the pain and injuries
suffered by the person who was attacked by Mark Sanchez.

Speaker 2 (01:53:26):
He also just doesn't seem to be that bright.

Speaker 4 (01:53:29):
I mean, couldn't tell you the reasons for it. I
know he's not a voter in the apiece. I want
to attack his personal intelligence like I did theirs.

Speaker 1 (01:53:42):
The ad on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 3 (01:53:52):
When you walk into Toyota Center tonight, wex not that
long from now. What's the first thing you're going to
do the first time this season in the building. Are
you gonna greet the people that you always greet and
talk to?

Speaker 2 (01:54:05):
Are you going to go? Are you gonna walk right
up to Kevin Durant as he takes his warm up
shots before the game. If he's out there, he might
not be playing. We don't know, are you going roue?

Speaker 4 (01:54:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:54:16):
I guess when guys are healthy and they don't play,
they still go through their routine yep, which is kind
of I don't want to say weird, like if you're
not gonna play tonight and just you know they do,
they just don't risk an ankle they do during warm up.
Is it wrong that I want to put him in
bubble rap if he's not playing a meaningless game already.

Speaker 2 (01:54:34):
Well, he's been practicing all week.

Speaker 6 (01:54:36):
I know.

Speaker 3 (01:54:36):
And this is weird now because it's something that I
always tell you about this, and I think I've told
Cole this too. The minute, like the second Carson was born,
it wasn't even in my control. I just subconsciously started
thinking a completely different way. Don't die today, don't die,
don't die, don't die. Just make it home alive. You yes, okay,
Like I'm a dad now I've got to like be

(01:54:59):
there for this little guy. I was already there for Brooklyn,
but it was different, you know. And so like the
minute I started seeing Kevin Durant injury prone, gets hurt
every year, Kevin Durant in Rockets red, I started thinking,
don't get hurt. Don't don't, don't do You don't need
to do that, man, No, that's way too risky of

(01:55:19):
a spin move. I don't need to see that on Instagram.
Just go sit over there and bubble wrap. Until the
regular season.

Speaker 4 (01:55:25):
I've seen him make shots, make dunks, make passes, play defense,
the works. He looks like Kevin Durant, he sure does.
What were you going to ask about what I was doing?

Speaker 3 (01:55:34):
I just didn't know what the first I mean, it's
your first time in the building this year with a
whole different set of expectations, and you know it's.

Speaker 2 (01:55:41):
A Rockets game.

Speaker 4 (01:55:42):
I mean, I've been inside the building like three times
this in the last three weeks, sure four times.

Speaker 2 (01:55:47):
This will be the fourth time.

Speaker 4 (01:55:48):
Was there for Media Day, I was there for Shane
Gillis yep, and I was there this weekend for the
search Tosole a show.

Speaker 2 (01:55:56):
By the way, they were not available, okay by the
time I tried to reach out.

Speaker 4 (01:56:00):
But honestly, you're asking me these questions which clearly have
gone on in your mind.

Speaker 2 (01:56:04):
Same thing with what do you think about?

Speaker 4 (01:56:05):
You would you think about who's gonna be broadcasting for
Sanchez when you realized he was attacking people? I didn't
until you're I'm here at work. What do I need
to do? I'm gonna leave. I'm gonna drive down there.
I'm gonna make sure my parking pass is active and
ready to go. I'm gonna pick up my stuff. I'm
gonna pick up my credential. When I walk in, I'm

(01:56:25):
gonna put my stuff through the scanner. I'm gonna walk
down the stairs. I'm gonna put my bag in the
same place I always do, and I'm gonna get out
my drink that I have here, which I fill up
with water.

Speaker 2 (01:56:36):
Before I go upstairs.

Speaker 4 (01:56:37):
I'm gonna eat my food, and I'm gonna get my
four cookies, and i'm gonna get my sauce served your
four cookies. They go upstairs with me? What kind the
oatmeal raisins? Thank you the soft ones? And then I'm
gonna walk upstairs. Now, when I walk upstairs. That's when
I walk out onto the court. That's the path to
get upstairs from where we come into the building. So

(01:56:58):
I will clearly go and see who's out there, because
there should be players from both teams out.

Speaker 2 (01:57:03):
There at that time. Knowing you you'll take video.

Speaker 4 (01:57:05):
I'll try to take video of I will not take
video of Jalen Green or Dylan Brooks getting beat up
by the assistant coaching staff, and then he was part
of their routine as they were not etying layups while
getting fouled. But I'll see, you know, Cam Whitmore or
Jalen or Reed, somebody would be taking shots usually at
this time of day, So I don't know what the
timing is. If you guys that remember when we used

(01:57:26):
to do shows out there running around six four one
on the dot, he was the first player out there
all the time. If I was getting too a game
at five point thirty, like I will tonight, he would
have been done.

Speaker 2 (01:57:34):
For one of the most professional athletes in the history
of this city.

Speaker 3 (01:57:39):
And I mean that in every sense of the term pro.
I'll never forget getting like little stories were leaking out.
He got here and he was like, what this is?
How James rolls Now. Yeah, well you were up there
in Oklahoma City and then going to other stops. James
was coming down here and basically taking over the franchise
and getting told he could do whatever he wanted.

Speaker 2 (01:57:57):
Yeah, well, Sue's out on the court. Yeah some videos.

Speaker 4 (01:58:00):
Hey, my first look at Dorian Finney Smith working out
before a game. He's not gonna play. Whatever it is,
he's not gonna play tonight. But I also made note
of this on sure mentioned it during pregame. There are
the six players in the NBA with twenty five thousand points.
DeMar derozen is sixth active players, and then there's the

(01:58:21):
top five. Lebron is one and Ayisha's husband is five.
The other three players have all worn the Rockets uniform.

Speaker 2 (01:58:29):
Wow. Really James, James and Kevin Oh the original thunder
Trio Big.

Speaker 4 (01:58:35):
Three YEP Number seven also worn a Rockets uniform. Carmelo
four of the tops, he's act not active, he's in
the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 2 (01:58:43):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (01:58:44):
For the top seven active in the NBA have worn
the Rockets uniform.

Speaker 2 (01:58:49):
I wish they had been on the team same time
because I feel like they'd have been at least one
more banner.

Speaker 4 (01:58:55):
If that were the case, if who had been on
the same team those players, well, they were on the
same team for multiple years, all in their early primes
and won no championships. Yeah, but James was a six man,
he doesn't count. Yeah, he came off the bench, so
he was turned with him to the finals, right where
he rolled over and died. Calling him a sixth man
as almost a disservice to what he was actually doing

(01:59:17):
for the team.

Speaker 2 (01:59:18):
He was on the court when it mattered. He was
playing thirty minutes a night. Did he win six Man
of the Year.

Speaker 3 (01:59:23):
Yes, because I was gonna add to this weird lore
that we've one time dove into last year in ok
because Lou was a six man and he also was
a rocket Lou.

Speaker 2 (01:59:35):
Yes, he was.

Speaker 4 (01:59:37):
Yeah, it's gonna be fun to be out there tonight.
You'll be out there on Wednesday. Fans will be out
there both nights. The only two preseason games they have
at Toyota Center the week they opened the season, there's
two games at Toyota Center, just not the opener on
Tuesday Night two weeks from now against ok See, but
the following two games they have home games Detroit in
for one of those twin and more than likely that'll

(01:59:59):
the game on Tuesday and then the two games that
follow in every game after that, that will really probably
be our first opportunity to see what lineups, what combinations
they'll really want to have out there. I know it's,
you know, the first week, but your players are gonna play.
You're not gonna be watching their minutes. Maybe Kevin's, maybe Stevens,
maybe Tari's, but otherwise they're gonna be out there. They're

(02:00:21):
gonna be playing thirty to thirty five minutes the guys
you would expect to be out there for that Also
odd You won fifty two games last year, You out
played every team in the West during the regular season
but one, and you're gonna have three new starters out
of five.

Speaker 3 (02:00:37):
And your team are probably better on paper. Yeah no, Fred, no, Jalen,
no better on paper. It could be significantly better. Yeah, Okay,
well they wouldn't change it if you're the two seed. Now,
we can't change this. We're gonna run it back.

Speaker 2 (02:00:51):
Nope. Wait, what are you saying.

Speaker 3 (02:00:52):
I'm saying they should be significantly better on paper this
season than they were last year. When you said they
were better than all but one team.

Speaker 2 (02:00:59):
Well, is Fred on paper or does he not exist?
He doesn't exist, he's hurt. Well, then how come they're
better on paper because they got Kevin Durant. I mean,
that's how confident.

Speaker 3 (02:01:07):
I am in this, this partnership between Katie and e
May and then everything that rafel Stone did around it,
because it's not just like I'll tell you what and
maybe we'll see this guy tonight, and I hope we do.
And I think more than anybody else Katie included, you, me,
everybody that's got an eye on the rockets here in

(02:01:29):
these preseason games, the guy under the microscope is Reed
Shepherd because of what you just said. Because if he
doesn't take like ten steps forward, I'm not as confident
as I am like and there's no way to know
until he gets out there. But it was like, Okay,
they took this kid third overall in the draft and
he can't crack the rotation because they're so good, and

(02:01:50):
well Fred's not there and the minutes we saw from
him last year, eh, But like then he'll go and
he'll light it up in the G League, and he'll
light it up in Summer League and he'll light it
up in practice and we see all the hot I
need this in games, and it's there's no more like
the times. Now you got to do it like thrust
into it has to happen, reached.

Speaker 4 (02:02:11):
Shepherd the starter forty nine percent from the field, fifty
two percent from deep, twenty points per game.

Speaker 2 (02:02:17):
That was what he did last year when he.

Speaker 4 (02:02:19):
Started extrapolate that, well, he only started three games exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:02:24):
Get to the five o'clock hour. Next.

Speaker 4 (02:02:26):
Football at five got tickets to give away, including upcoming
Cougar football tickets and ice Cube tickets.

Speaker 2 (02:02:32):
They're separate events. All that on the way coming up
next The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety