Texans Leftovers, Rockets-Spurs, Indiana Wins Championship

Tuesday on The A-Team, Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton continue discussing the Texans' loss to the Patriots, preview Rockets-Spurs, and react to Indiana winning the National Championship.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We'll do the simulcast thing coming up at the top
of the hour, but in the meantime, just traditional old
radio for the first hour. Here he's wex I may
see Josh Jordan is our fearless producer and another day
lamenting what could have been. You know what's interesting is
immediate aftermath, marinating in a loss like the Texans had,
and then day after it's very different. People are more measured,

(00:23):
people are less hot takey, I think, and more people
have a chance to weigh in. Not that we'll necessarily
play any of this today. I just wanted to point
out something because it was top of mine last night
as I was scrolling through social during the National Championship game,

(00:44):
which was highly entertaining if you started watching after halftime
like I did, and a key to leave being like
the I don't want to say voice of reason, but
basically a guy who's like, I'm not going to let
all of you trample on the the good name of CJ. Stroud,
no matter how bad it looked. I just didn't. I

(01:05):
didn't have that on my BEINGO card, and I do
always kind of pay attention when it's former players versus
anyone else who's a talking head, but a guy like him,
who how would you rate him as a defender over
the years he was a good defender.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Rate him as the Gilbert Arenas of post playing career
nonsense that I couldn't give, no, no, slightly better than
the one bleep I didn't give about Leshawn McCoy yesterday.
I just see the next time I recognize their former players.
But holy cal the stuff that comes out of their
mouths is useless.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
Okay, but you heard what he said about CJ, all
the same stuff that had already been said on this
very program that very day.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah, but he played in the league, So I just
I do pay attention to someone who's at least going
against the grain when it comes to piling on I
said this during our pre show meeting.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
I go back one today.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's what I'm saying. I go back and forth on CJ.
I really like I should be down on him more
than I am right now, I think, and I'm down
on him.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, being down on him is definitely a part of
the conversation. But then maybe today, like you're explaining, is
it's different. Well, you you have to there's some there's
an end to it. I've slept on it twice. Well,
it's okay, you can be down on him. So now
what right, Like he's never gonna play here again, leave
him in New England, cut him today, like I hope

(02:34):
we can keep saying that if we want, but you
got you gotta have something else to do. You're probably
gonna put eleven guys on the field next year, probably probably,
so you're gonna have somebody playing quarterback. I mean, we
don't have to jump right there immediately, but that is
part of the entire discussion. And you know, that's why
I tried to keep myself yesterday from just killing the idea.

(02:55):
But the textans are gonna pick up the fifth year
option on CJ. Straud like it's it's a given.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
By the way they should It's it's not even about okay,
zactly if you want to destrip everything away and just
be like I don't like CJ. I don't want to
pay him, Fine, that's your right. But year four, which
is upcoming, and then year five you're paying him rookie
scale while you figure out what you're going to do.
And that's what they're doing, Like I don't, I don't

(03:23):
think right now in the halls of NRG Stadium. I mean,
I'm sure that in their minds, they they're looking at
CJ like he's going to be the quarterback of the
future still. But if there's truth serum involved, he's absolutely
auditioning for his contract at least one more year.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, I don't think that's unfair.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
You can listen to all sorts of voices on the
topic of twenty twenty five's CJ Stroud, and I'm all
for it because I don't think everybody sees it all
the same way. And you know, I'll pick out this
part that makes it look the way I think, and
you'll pick out that part that makes it look like
the way that you think of. But then you've got
to be honest with where you are as a football
team at that position as it relates to the conference,

(04:06):
because that's all that really matters. That doesn't really matter
if you're better or worse than Baker Mayfield and Sam
Darnold and Brock Purdy and Jalen Hurts, because you're not
competing against them except for random Sundays maybe during the season.
You're competing with the other teams that have Trevor Lawrence
and better Drake May and better and Joe Burrow and
on and on and on among the list of at

(04:26):
least half of the AFC quarterbacks that are currently should be,
in my opinion, considered better than CJ.

Speaker 3 (04:33):
Stroud. Well less than half the AFC makes the playoffs,
and if you don't have one of the top half
of your conference's quarterbacks, then you do have to consider
what is your future? Can he be yes? Was he once?

Speaker 4 (04:46):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Is he currently? In my opinion? No?

Speaker 2 (04:50):
No, And it doesn't really I mean, clearly, his performance
on Sunday and the Monday before were poor. His postseason
performances in the second round have been poor. But it's
really just about his season. And I do think there
are a bunch of reasons why, many of which aren't
necessarily determining where he's going to be in the future.
Because if you think they didn't change the offense to

(05:14):
basically try to have a game manager this year, whether
or not they believed in him or I don't know
if they really were looking at him versus the head coach.
Head coach wants game manager and he thought with this team,
that's the best way to play it, and that's what
they did, and that's what Nick Kaylee called and that's
how they went about things. I mean they went forward
on fourth down like fewer than any team in the

(05:35):
entire league. I think there were second fewest times. They
kicked more field goals than any team in the NFL.
When Woody Marks would run into a wall in week four, seven,
or twelve or twenty one, they would just keep handing
it to him because that's what they want to do.
It has almost nothing to do with CJ. You think, oh, well,
CJ's so good, why would they want to do that,

(05:55):
Because they don't want to turn the ball over. And
when you throw the ball, you turn the ball over.
It's pretty simple.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
It just it is.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
It's what happens. That's a lot of it. And CJ
even alluded to that with his comments yesterday about things
he had to learn. And you know, the way that
the things were going to be done doesn't mean that
Nick Kayley's a bad OC. It means that Nick Kayley's
doing the things that he's being asked to do, not
only during the week, but when he hears the voice
on headsets that is the head coach.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
It's all part of it.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
But you can't I mean I really don't think there's
any way you could look at the twenty twenty five
regular season and even try to spin, And I know
people are out there trying to spin that CJ played
good football this year. Anything other than average football seems
silly to describe.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
That's that's where his play was.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
I'm grading it not off of previous years or off
of what I think he can do or how they
off I'm grading it off of everybody else played the
season two. So where does he fit? How did other
guys play? You know, where are they in their careers.
It seemed foolish to the two of us and most
of our listeners and followers and people that live on
planet Earth to say, gosh, I wish Trevor Lawrence was

(07:00):
our quarterback instead of c J. Stroud, or Trevor Lawrence
is better than CJ. Stroud.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
That seemed ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Here we are on January twentieth of twenty twenty six,
and all we've seen is what we've recently seen.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
It's not ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
I would not want to hitch my wagon necessarily to
Trevor Lawrence, but I'm not gonna lie to you and
say CJ played better football than Trevor Lawrence did last
year because he just didn't certainly not at the end
of the season when both teams were on their respective runs.
And yes, competition has something to do with it, just
like Drake May's performances during most of the year when

(07:33):
they were playing bad defenses and bad teams and we're
playing with two touchdown leads because there was.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
No competition for him. All of it should be considered.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
That's why we're super excited to spend four of our
twenty four hours with you each and every weekday.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
Afternoon to do just that. Well not you today, not today, Well,
not you either our Thursday or Friday, that's true, Well
neither of us on those days. Now we'll get we'll
get as much time in as we can.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Which three Rockets games between now and our weekends.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
One of them is tonight.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
They've got the San Antonio Spurs in town to close
out this five game homestand an opportunity to go for
in one in an opportunity to even their season series
with the Spurs. Spurs are one of just a couple
of teams who've gotten to the thirty win plateau. They
come in at thirty and thirteen, all indications are and
Victor webbin Yama will be out there and starting, as
he has been not listed on their very recently submitted

(08:26):
injury report this afternoon. They were on the court last night,
and then the Rockets have the two games we mentioned
Thursday and Friday of this week on the road in
Philadelphia and Detroit, so we'll be all done with the
best team in the East before we hit the weekend. Obviously,
Detroit was here to open up the Rockets home schedule
in a super entertaining game up until the end when
the Pistons won by four, And now chance to see

(08:47):
how things are basically half a season later, Rockets getting there,
most everybody else in the league has already gotten there
and pushed past it. The halfway point of the season.
As the final buzzer goes off tonight, and following Vanessa's
on court interview, whomever she talks to who then will
launch the Rockets win and thrusters, boosters and smoke that'll

(09:10):
go off inside Toyota Center, the Rockets will have played
half of their NBA season tonight's game number forty one.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
That's crazy that we are at the actual midway point,
not the proverbial one which comes post All Star Break
that WEX hates because of semantics.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Oh, baseball is the one that I really hate because
it's I mean, this one. We hardly reference it. You know,
pre and post All Star break in baseball seems to
be a big deal to everybody. The NBA has never
even done it remotely close to the halfway point. They
won't be doing it again this year. What comes before
that is just over two weeks away, is the NBA's
trade deadline, So we'll get into a bunch of those things. Also,

(09:44):
there's a baseball note to follow throughout the day, and
certainly in the final hour of the program, will yet
another member of the two thousand and four unbelievably awesome
but not World Series participant Houston Astros. Here there name
called for the Baseball Hall of Fame. Bizio has Bagwell,
has Jeff Kent. This year will and now the writer's

(10:07):
vote will be announced tonight during the five o'clock hour,
and Carlos Beltron is likely to hear his name.

Speaker 1 (10:13):
It's how I choose to remember him as an astro
because the alternative is just too painful.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
We've had a lot of clearly a lot of awesome
postseason moments during the last decade, a lot of great
postseasons individually. For pick eight names out of a hat. Yesterday,
the name was Ryan Presley. Any other day, it could
be yourd On, It could be Alex, it could be Carlos,
It could be Jeremy, it could be Jose on and
on and on, And I don't think any of them

(10:38):
were as good as what he did in two thousand
and four.

Speaker 3 (10:40):
I'm gonna argue with you about that now.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Those two series, offensively were just sick eight home runs,
four in each series. They didn't even win the second
series that season, but that will come up a little
later on the show. Obviously, our focus will remain as
it has so far early this week and likely for
much of this offseason, and there are decisions to be made.
They do have a bunch of free agents, although lower

(11:04):
level for the most part, around this roster for the
Houston Texans. The coaching carousel spun into the AFC South
when we just since we spoke last and a couple
of things on the games this weekend, naturally, our thoughts
on how the college football season came to a close
last night, and you guys, of course, always welcome to
be a part of it. Best of X comes your

(11:24):
way at two thirty. It will be college football related
and it will be delicious. We've got our signature segment
coming up at fort thirty. There was a coach introduced today,
so some of it will center around that when of course,
football at five comes your way at five o'clock, like
it does each and every day here on the eight Team.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Lots of things to get to on a Tuesday edition
of the A Team Sports Talk seven to ninety plenty
of Texans leftovers, Rockets and Spurs, Tonight hate watches on,
Baby Can't Wait, and Jimmy Butler has done for the year,
which means the Warriors, who already were done for the year,
are definitely done for the year now. But let's give

(12:04):
some love to the Natty. Last night the National Championship game.
As I mentioned after halftime, it really lived up to
the hype. It is actually alarming to me how many
times a football game will not be able to suck
me in at the beginning, and then I'd be like, oh,
this thing's getting competitive, or it's let's see what happens

(12:24):
in the second half, and it delivers. I can't tell
you how many under games I picked this year on
our stone, cold locks that I absolutely got screwed over
on because both teams decided to just go off in
the fourth quarter or the second half in general, that
would probably qualify for last night's National Championship.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Were really good defense from Indiana to start the game,
and Miami just really didn't have They just didn't have
an answer for it, and they were still in the games.
I was saying this to the Misses last night, these announcers,
Kirk and Chris, We're talking about the game, like the
scoreboard read thirty one nothing, Yes, like it's ten to nothing.
Indiana did dominate statistically and on the clock, and Miami

(13:08):
was going three and out and then Indiana had these
very long drive They scored two times in the first half.
This game was so far from over. I'm like, what
are what are they watching? There's more to say, there's
more to describe their acting. They're trying to tell the
viewers to go away. Basically, yeah, which was crazy, and
obviously there was much more to it. A couple of

(13:28):
big plays from Miami. Obviously Fletcher had one of them,
the first of them with the huge run off right
tackle and just kept on going and they couldn't catch them.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
Then it was a game. It was.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
It was really truly a contest the rest of the way.
Even though it seemed like Indiana would maintain throughout, It
wasn't even over until the last Miami possession of the
game with the interception that was thrown by Beck.

Speaker 3 (13:50):
It was extremely entertaining.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
It was a test, like I think most people figured
they would have at some point in the playoffs. This
was their first of three games. They were tested because
they crushed prior to this, and I did watch one
explanation of it this morning. And you know, Indiana in
order to get there going through the blue bloods whatever
wording was used, the best college heritage programs in college football,

(14:15):
Ohio State and Alabama and Oregon and Miami. How can
Miami be trying to be back. You're just spun it
to make it sound really good. Miami was the tenth
seed for a reason. Miami was being discussed as I
don't know if they belonged there or not, for a
reason they were not one of the three or four
best teams in college football. The playoffs will help provide

(14:36):
for a change in that because it's hard. You know,
it's just hard to win in the playoffs. But they
weren't that during the regular season. They were that for
six weeks of playoff football. Wait till next year when
it's even later, twenty fourth, twenty fourth, twenty fifth, twenty fourth,
twenty sixth.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Over the next four years, we're going.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
To a place where February first, I have a birthday
in the National Championships.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Really, I honestly think they're they're going to realize how
stupid it is when they see some of their I
don't know if it'll be proved. I don't know what
the numbers were for last night, but I do think
they're going to run into a You know, they could
be capitalizing more if they did it differently. If you
stopped stopped taking the sport away from people, it doesn't
build up that much more. I said, I don't know

(15:19):
what the ratings were last night, but I absolutely felt
like the Monday night college football championship game was lost
in everything else that was going on because we just
had four playoff games. We just said, NFL, I don't
you know, with the NFL playing Saturday and Sunday, that's
why you want to avoid playing against them, So don't

(15:39):
be playing football games the third week of January for
absolutely no reason. There's no reason for all the time
off they take after the regular season. Just play your
conference title game or eliminate it, and then get to
the postseason. We're gonna have. We won't need more weeks
of postseason when they had a four more teams, but
we'll have three more or four more postseason games, well

(16:02):
fifteen postseason games.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
Just play them.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Why are there ten days in between this game? You're
playing on a Thursday and a Friday. You're playing on
a Friday and Saturday. You're playing on a Thursday Friday.
And just play the games.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
We play college football the NFL every other week, so
just keep it going.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
Yeah, yeah, there's no you'll he'll have more of your
postseason against regular season NFL. If you choose to play
on Sunday, you have the option of playing Friday or
Saturday during the I mean the holidays.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Do you not want this? People are home watching their
TV and I know.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
They're still tied to January first and tradition, but at
some point they'll realize we should be tied to having
more as many people watch us as possible. They will
also have to adjust the bowl schedule because I'm pretty
sure nobody's gonna watch bowl games after the national champion
has been decided, so that will also has to take
I mean, I don't know if that will even be true.

(16:54):
And the calendar with nil and transfer portal and coaches leaving,
all that stuff will be at play. Like think about
Lane Kiffin or any of these other coaches that left.
What if as soon as all this season ended, they
didn't make the conference title game, so two other teams,
you'd have a week off and then you'd be playing
the next week. Not as far down the line as
it turned out this year, and all this extra wasted

(17:15):
time where coaches are figuring out where we're going, and
am I staying here or am I going with this coach?
Or now that this OC job is open, should I
leave here? But we still have a game. But I mean,
I feel like I'm talking to my secretary when she
brought over my sleeping bag so I could spend time
with my coworker because his parents, he lost his parents
when he was a kid, and I promised him he
would never be alone on his birthday, you know, do

(17:35):
you give him the hug?

Speaker 3 (17:36):
Is it an awkward hug? Is the ass out hug?
Do you said?

Speaker 5 (17:39):
Now?

Speaker 2 (17:39):
I like them, but they like me. But I don't
want you to know that I like you, but they're
pretending that. I mean, it's the same thing. All these
things are tied together. Ouch ouch ar on my hair. Yes,
that's my favorite part of that, right, But a great
opening to a movie. All the things that happened in
the first like twenty minutes.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
It sucks you in. It's brilliant to watch.

Speaker 6 (17:57):
I like.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
The best part about my rewatch this weekend was about
fifteen minutes into it when my wife came in from
the other room.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
She goes, oh, I'm watching this in there. That's why
ours the best. But yeah, it was, uh it very entertaining. Yeah,
it was very entertaining.

Speaker 1 (18:13):
I I think that, And I asked you guys this
question beforehand. I'm just not I'm not a huge college observer.
I pay attention to it. I know what's going on,
but I am not your pro I'm more of a
pro guy. I've said this many many times in the past,
but what fascinates me about this time of year is
you see these guys these these people competing for the

(18:36):
national championship, and you're starting to ask the age old
question that most NFL centric fans do. Okay, how many
of these people are gonna am I gonna be watching
on Sundays later on this year? And who of them
that I will be seeing drafted very high in April
are actual NFL talents up to and including the quarterbacks

(18:56):
in this game on any given year.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Just one random first one that I decided to click
on mock draft for next year.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
There's a very very funny It's mock draft season.

Speaker 6 (19:05):
Baby.

Speaker 3 (19:05):
It is as I mentioned you, especially here in Houston. Now,
well there's only four teams left else left to do
watch your team twenty eight teams. Seasons are over.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Four teams are left, and two of them are gonna
be without very very important pieces because of injuries. Last week,
we obviously talked about the Boon Knicks injury and Denver
Zack Charbone's ACL injury is also of pretty large significance
for the Seattle Seahawks. But talking about Mendoza, I don't
think he is the obvious franchise level talent, but I

(19:35):
do think he's going number one overall. I think there
are big question marks about him. I do not think
he's a camp miss. If this were any other draft
with other quarterbacks with any kind of talent whatsoever, then
he'd probably get drafted after twelve, after eighteen, somewhere in
the first round, and maybe some dumb quarterback needy GM
would even trade go get him, like the Vikings did

(19:57):
with JJ McCarthy. But I don't think he's that talented,
but I do think he's going number one.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Overall.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
The fun of your parts about this is where some
other players will go. They got John Harbaughs New York
Giants at number five, taking another wide receiver. They're gonna
have like the best young wide receiving group in the
NFL pretty soon. I wonder if any of the rest
of their team will be good, but we'll see. There
is another quarterback going in the first round. Dante Moore
of Oregon would have fought for the number one pick,

(20:26):
but apparently it's gonna go back to Oregon, so he's
not there. You remember a couple of years ago, in
an awful, awful quarterback draft, Mike Tomlin and his GM
decided to take Kenny Pickett with the twentieth pick overall
and just a total waste of times. I do remember
that it's like throwing their number one pick away. And
he's now played for a couple of different teams and
not very well for any of them. They've got the

(20:48):
Steelers at twenty one, taking the second quarterback off the board,
Ty Simpson from Alabama, and I feel similarly about him.
There aren't any other quarterbacks in this draft, and is
probably gonna take a chance on a guy that probably
doesn't deserve to be drafted in that spot.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Texans at number twenty eight, it.

Speaker 1 (21:09):
Better be offensive lineman, even though I know it's going
to be some stupid linebacker.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Caden Proctor, offensive lineman Alabama. There we go, and in
Alabama wanted to boot. Now we're talking that makes sense
for the Texans history and needs. I don't know if
Proctor is the guy that they want, and we can
yell Proctor into the microphone every day and it would
be funny. He also, you know, might be able to
spell Tommy TOJII a little bit in the backfield for

(21:33):
the Texans, since he lined up in the backfield for
Alabama so often this year. But that's just a little
look at it. Tom Brady and the Raiders were on
the sidelines last night scouting, scouting. They have the number
one pick in the draft, that would be Fernando Mendoza.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Well, there was a number one pick for one of
the camera guys last night. That was a dangerous situation
and we will talk about it next. And Best of
X the breaking the entire internet. HM.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
How appropriate on a day like today. It is the
Best of X. It's our signature segment. Every single day
of the week around this time, we sometimes have to
scour the internet far and wide to see the best options.
On a daylight today, that was not the case.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
Didn't even need to go online to find Best of
X at some point during the last twenty three hours,
because the moment happened during last night's national championship game,
I already knew that's what the play was for today.

Speaker 3 (22:35):
There's no question.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
Once it happened during last night's college football national title game,
I knew that the people are friends, even those that
we don't know, which is almost one hundred percent of
them on social media, specifically the X platform, they would
come through and they did, as per usual. A couple
weeks ago, I learned of this and I think it
was last week when we put this out there, that

(22:58):
I was supposed to be doing some research about a
certain industry. So for that reason I knew what was
going on, and that reason only as soon as the
ESPN cameras found a very very very specific person in
the stands and showed her for a very brief period
of time, I did roll on over to X dot com.

(23:21):
Down the left hand column, it says home, Explore, Notifications, Chat, crocketca.
Middle column is all your feed for you or following,
right hand side relevant people. Maybe if some people you
follow or are prominent have a live stream going, it'll
say live on X and then right beneath that it
will say what's happening? And I went there specifically to

(23:44):
see if this would be in the what's happening section
of X dot com.

Speaker 6 (23:49):
Was it?

Speaker 2 (23:50):
It wasn't yet, oh, but very soon after. It took
about four and a half five minutes. I didn't clock it,
but that was about how long it took. And yes,
there were two different tops.

Speaker 6 (24:00):
Now.

Speaker 2 (24:01):
For example, right now, in the what's happening column on
my feed, it says the first thing is Milania Comma
the film Twenty Days to History.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
I can't wait to see it, even though I've lived it.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Then it says sports Dash trending Suarez, sports Dash trending Wemby,
sports Dash trending Danny Smith Wemby, is you know he's
really good in the NBA. He just named an all
Star starter. They played last night, They're going to play tonight.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (24:28):
Danny Smith was just hired for a new special teams
gig in the NFL, very well known.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
I get it.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
Two different columns in the middle of last night's game,
after this particular person was shown on camera, very very briefly,
a little bit unsure of what she was watching, and
the one of the teams her team was down ten
two different of those four open spots. I mean, I
can show more, and I could see fifty trending topics,
but the immediate line is there's four. One said danger

(24:57):
and another said Abella. So so it was a very
popular topic. It had taken over two of the four
most needed to point out trending topics. And when you
put those two things together, you have someone who a
lot more people than you think know about know who
she is. Like I said, a couple of weeks worth
of research, let me in on a belly.

Speaker 3 (25:19):
Danger is a.

Speaker 2 (25:20):
Very very rabid football fan for the Miami Hurricanes. She
is a student there, so finding her in the crowd
A thirty year old student by the way, a thirty
year old student because she went to work before she
went to college.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
She went to work.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
She had a high paying job before she went to college.
She's I can make a lot of money. I might
as well do this and then maybe if I want
to go.

Speaker 3 (25:43):
To school working hard, like a lot of people that
age do.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
It's you know, sometimes it works out very well. Sometimes
you don't even go back you've made so much money.
But I did know who she was, like I said,
research from the show, and I knew everybody else would too.
And that's why I knew that everything on social media
would be killer, including Groc, because people were pretending, well,
I don't know who this is, Hey Groc.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
Who is this? Can I read you? My favorite by far,
hands down? This is We're gonna spend the next couple
of minutes of Best of X just rattling them off.
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
Some guy named Mark screen cap of course of them
capturing this person on camera during the game. Guys across
the country watching the game with their wives and having
to pretend they had no idea who Abella Danger was
when they showed her on TV and their wife asked,
is that.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
Or this guy? Shout out to the guy was watching
the National Championship with his wife and said, holy cow,
that's a Bella Danger and then got absolutely torn apart
for the rest of the fourth quarter before getting exiled
to the couch, and he added it was me. I'm
that guy, to.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
Which most of the responders were wait a minute here,
So if this is what happened, then you're with the
wrong person, while others said, so you screamed out, holy cow,
that's Abella Danger and your wife immediately got mad at you.

Speaker 3 (27:03):
How'd she know who she was? Exactly?

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Don't act like this is a one way street, all
of you out there, you people.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
Clearly lots of good memes were out there, not really,
and most my feet's clean, so anybody that tried to
get two out of bounds I wouldn't have even seen it.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Well, thanks, a Bella Danger, you just ruined my buddy's relationship.
We all started laughing. When ESPN showed her on the screen.
My buddy's girlfriend got confused and asked why they had
a massive fight, she stormed out, and now they've broken up.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Just three hours ago, someone posted she is still trending.
A lot of other people said the cameraman knew what
he was doing, or they thanked him, or things along
those lines. I mean, if you guys don't know she
did her career prior to going back to school as
go with what GROC tells me that she's retired.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Uh huh, she was an adult actress.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Yeah, well, you know, lots of people start their career
in that industry and go on to bigger and better things.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Sliced alone and they're even in the rock response in
many others. Why the last three weeks, as Miami's made
their way through the postseason, it became more of a deal.
I don't think it's true. I don't know why other people.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
Think it's true. Rumored to be with Hurricanes quarterback cars.
Some best she could do better.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
My favorite was the shot of Nick Saban with a
smirk on his face looking at another panelist and they
superimposed a Miami hat on his head and the caption reads,
when you see a bella danger in the Miami stands.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Yep, I made a lot did you see her. Did
you see her post game situation? On social she posted.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
I don't follow her, and nobody that I know re
posted it, so I've not seen it.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Lots of fake crying in that I could not see
tears coming out of her eyes, and saying how much.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
She hated it.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
Oh, I'm actually looking at it right now. Just someone
grabbed the video. I think I didn't. I never saw tears.
I thought it was what I saw the This is
the one with the fireworks going off behind her. I
guess yes, because it was like a low show. It
was taying so little attention to it. I thought it
was from a previous victory.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
ESPN is so unapologetically horny. Panning the camera to a
bella danger at a crucial part of the game is crazy.
That's the thing we should probably mention when they did this,
when they went to her. This is right in the
middle of the fourth quarter, when this is a seesaw
battle and.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
There was no seesawing.

Speaker 5 (29:42):
Dah.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
I mean team led the whole game. It was a
one score game with seconds remaining.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
It was twenty four or fourteen when she appeared. Yeah,
that's true, so it wasn't as crucial then. But yeah,
last couple of weeks here and there, and from her
own social media, she'd made a lot of posts if.

Speaker 3 (29:56):
I might, yeah, you might. This guy is it's just
not accurate.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
I understand where he was trying to go, but it
fell flat because of how he phrased it. Camera and
this is on all caps, of course, cameraman doing God's
work yet again.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
I don't know, man.

Speaker 1 (30:13):
Something tells me God might not be a fan of
her former life.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
I swear I've seen her before somewhere. Is she an actress? Well,
it says Miami scores moments after they show her.

Speaker 6 (30:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:25):
So that was part of last night's game, and it
will probably be out there for a little bit longer.
But now the college football season is over. Just back
to class again. I don't think she's with Carson Beck.
I'm sure she's not, but if she is, she could
do better. She could do better. I think he's not him.
His on field excellence has come to an end. I

(30:49):
don't think there's more in the future at the next level.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
What was the interview.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
They were asking a question and he was talking about
I haven't been to class in like two years or
whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
It's something like Chris Wiki realized that this is totally
this is not crazy anymore. You've been in college for
how long? You're really only care about this semester anyway,
because you're a football player and you've been in college
for a fifth year, a sixthy like these grad students
that are playing a sixth year of college football that
you've had the COVID extra year, they've been granted an

(31:20):
extra year.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Their days in between football practice are not full of well,
I've got from ten to eleven thirty, I got to
you know, four oh one three, and then from a
two to three thirty Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I've got
to EGS four twenty two. I got a loaded class.
Get they go to one class and it's.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Sound like many times I got a current student in college.
That's the way you rattled those off, by the way,
uh And just to sum this up, because this is
basically the variation of FISHI. ESPN showing a close up
of a bella danger by Miami fan. Yeah, ESPN showing
a close up of Abella danger followed by Miami scoring

(31:58):
a touchdown on the next play is arguably one of
the greatest sports moments in history.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Only a brief bitsteal here to close out best of
X and it's believe it or not. Did someone one
of our awesome, awesome, awesome elite listeners to the A
Team while listening to this segment, did they send us
a post on X with a gift of Ron Jeremy

(32:24):
believe it, believe it.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
Back at you here as we continue with the A Team.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
It is Tuesday, two days out from four teams seeing
their NFL season end, one day out from the college
football season in total coming to an end, and in
advanced Rockets basketball coming your way tonight. Astro's fan fest
coming up this weekend Spring training not that far off,
so plenty to discuss, obviously, Texans being first and foremost,

(32:50):
want to get into a couple of things that they
had to say both after the game and yesterday.

Speaker 3 (32:55):
We'll hear from Nick Cassero tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
Also want to continue hearing from you your thoughts on
both the game Sunday or games in the postseason, the
season and the future. Seven one three two one two
five seven ninety. And we'll do that here heading out
to the phone seven one three two one two five
seven ninety. Get Greg in on the conversation. Appreciate you
joining us here, Greg and contributing and whatever I am
about to hear about Greg, What do you got?

Speaker 7 (33:20):
My question was, I know we all know CJ had
a rough game, but you know they had a game plan.
But you would think the coaches of stars will say,
let's make some adjustments put them in a more comfortable
position than they did. I remember when Kooby I had
Matt sharp uh he had the same footspeed that PJ had,

(33:41):
but he made the plays for him where he rolled
out and do a little sharp passes and then it
may open up a players down the field. And then
you know, running in that kind of level up the middle,
every down pretty much up the middle, up the middle,
everybody was already packed in, no embarrassing them. They tried
to do something around the edges of riding out that defense. Well,

(34:01):
we can get some things going on, but you know
a lot of I think has to do with how
do you manage the game. Because his first year was good,
but you know, typically in your first year you may
come out way up because nobody's really seen you. But
coaches on other teams make adjustments as time goes by,
and they've made adjustments to what CJ can do. So
I think it's up to our coach is to make

(34:23):
another adjustment to make them more of a comfortable position.
I think it was really a pocket passer.

Speaker 6 (34:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
I think those are all very fair points, and two
of them, specifically the runs up the middle where there
wasn't anywhere to go because the Texans offensive line was
essentially they got dominated in the run game.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
You couldn't be more correct to Greg.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
And they had one pitch play late in the game
that I did gain yards and I would have suggested
the very same thing you did. I don't think they
adjusted very well to where they were trying to establish
the run.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
I know why they wanted to run.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
I know why there were so many plays called for
them to run, but I did not like the way
that they attempted to go get there. But you you
do have to recognize that their offensive line is really
the problem.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
On this particular Sunday, it.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Wasn't a season's worth of getting dominated up front, especially
in the run game. It was just one week ago
where they were the team dominating in the trenches when
their offense was on the field. Just had a complete reversal.
Patriots have a good defensive front. Obviously Williams was a
factor as he was all year last year for a
Super Bowl caliber squad, and it mattered, and I think
that took away some of the you know, creativity and

(35:26):
obviously the pressure quite simply off of your quarterback because
you could you couldn't do anything. And then it's you're
totally right again on trying to adjust to maybe making
it easier for CJ. And you know, like you sent
you brought up Kubiak and Shaw because it was a
favorite of Kubiak to roll the pocket out, roll them
out to the right, or create a new space for him.

(35:46):
Two of CJ's four interceptions were on plays just like that,
you know, the Harrison Brian interception. It's a design to
have CJ moving to his left a little bit. He
then ended up going a lot because there was nobody
blocking Chase on and that was the one where he
got hit and threw it up in the air. The
other one was he rolled out. It was a absolutely
play by design, roll out to your left and throw

(36:07):
a nice easy out to Xavier Hutchinson and he put
the ball on the inside.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
It got picked off.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
They did some of these things you suggested. I think
the OC was cognizant of those things. I don't think
it was a great day calling plays, But they didn't
have bad offense because they called the wrong plays. They
had bad offense because their quarterback played poorly, their offensive
line played poorly. And I mean, you got eleven fifteen
guys that played offense on Sunday.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
Whose game did you like?

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Not a one of them. They're not a receiver that
came up with any one of the best catches of
the game. The best play a Texans receiver made in
the game was Jayden Higgins when he was playing defense
and he had a pass break up on another poorly
thrown ball. Dalton Schulz had a forty two yard game.
He was sitting in the middle of an absolutely wide
open space and CJ scrambled and right before he crossed
the line of scrimmage, you saw him and he threw

(36:55):
it to him.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
That was great. Well.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Cad Stover could have had a very similar play, but
CJ threw it behind him. He could toort it back
to try to catch it and hurt his knee. He
had another play where he was even more wide open
and CJ threw it just high enough where Cad Stover's
millimeter vertical was not enough to go up and get
it and it went off his hands. Just a lot
of missed opportunities on a day where it was so

(37:18):
bad you kind of forget they weren't that far away
from just making a couple of plays. Heckulf forget all
the CJ stuff. What if what he marks doesn't fumble,
You're gonna put some points on the board. You might
even score a touchdown. You're in the red zone.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
We do this every year when there is a painful
playoff loss, especially in football.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
And I'm not saying we as in Houstonians.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
I'm talking about every game that is within, you know,
being the change being changed as far as the final result,
the kud a shit of what is really really suck
when it comes down to this. But it really did
feel like if some of these things go to Texans way,
they absolutely pull this game out just because of how

(37:59):
absolutely dominant their defense is. You gotta start hoping for
that again for twenty twenty six, because I don't know
if you're gonna fix the other side in one off season,
but I hope you try.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
They will definitely try. There is a lot to do.
That is where the focus I think of the off
season will be. We dig right in on that. On
the other side, Demiko on CJ and the overwhelming negativity
that's about to come his way.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
That's next.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
It's Sports Talk seven nine. He has Space City Home
Network take you up until six o'clock. Can I guess?

Speaker 3 (38:33):
You can guess? Can I do it? Or are you
gonna go do it? No, just guess. It's the lights.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
Gosh, this is one of my favorite times of the
week when it happens when we disgustingly gets out of
his seat because we forgot to turn the studio lights
on before the simulcast started. But you know what, he's
taking care of it right now, and by the time
I finished this sentence, he'll be back in his chair
and we can start out what a jerky is the

(39:00):
right way. Talked a lot about the Texans, talked a
lot about the National Championship game last night.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
I only care about the lights.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
I don't care that I forgot to put makeup on
for the every single show we've ever done here.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Well, you just wear a hat like me, and you
don't have to put any makeup on.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Smart because honestly, between the two of us, if one
of us was to need makeup for lights that are
this bright, I wish you guys could just stare directly.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
You're wearing a hat, because otherwise you would need makeup
because it would be too shiny.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Right, people, You know it's funny about that.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
People will sometimes it's very rare, like on social media,
they'll say, oh, look at a shiny head.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
What did you think it was gonna look like? I'm bald?

Speaker 6 (39:39):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (39:40):
Wehould just say, man, that person wearing glasses is shooting content.
Probably shouldn't be using a ring light.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
You know, I'm going to be doing a web based
podcast of sorts after the game tonight with our good
friend Dave Hardesty and Bendu Bo's after the Rockets game,
and I'm going to be using a ring light, and
I don't think I'm gonna be washing my face to
get all the excess oil off.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
You know, you should be fine with a ring light,
sands glasses. If you're wearing glasses, that's the reflection in
your life.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
I thought you were getting at is my bald head
would reflect what you imagine?

Speaker 2 (40:14):
But could you imagine if you could see the ring
light in my head. That's that's a lot. Yeah, So,
as you were saying.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
So, I was just speaking of that. I know we
got a lot of Texans to get to and we will.
We're gonna get to both CJ and Demico this segment,
and specifically on the criticism he's been getting and continues
to get and rightfully so, by the way, talking about CJ.
It is a it's a big game over at Toyota
Center tonight. You will be calling it along with Matt Thomas,

(40:42):
that idiot, giant French guy who never wanted to play
for the Rockets is in town along with the rest
of the San Antonio Spurs, and I think a lot
will be made of this game, this regular season January matchup.
By the way, no matter what happens tonight, there's another
one next week. Keep that in mind, right here in
the same building.

Speaker 3 (41:01):
But it's a it's a it's a.

Speaker 1 (41:04):
First look at I think this version of Victor Webbin
Yama the Rockets are going to get.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Yeah, the fans and media and players is extremely intelligent.
Players have said have had their say, and Victor Webbin Yama,
Steph Curry, Sga Luca and Nikola Jokich, are your Western
Conference All Star starters?

Speaker 6 (41:27):
Now?

Speaker 3 (41:28):
It's very easy.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
The answer is should be before I even finish, the
sentence should come out of your mouth. Who Anthony Edwards
should be starting in place of players voted?

Speaker 2 (41:39):
And as I was alluding to a lot of it's
it's interesting what the players decided to do with their votes.
Considering how many players voted for a Bronnie James. If
I tell you the number is not zero, then you'll understand.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
What I mean. It's not one either.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
It's not one either, but one hundred and ten player
votes logged for Western Conference starters, Nikola Jokich number one,
Steph Curry number two, Sga number three, Anthony Edwards number four,
Kevin Durant number five, Lucas six, Victor seventh. That's a
portion of the total. Fans and media also vote. That's

(42:16):
a portion of your total. And Victor and Anthony Edwards
finished with the same weighted score, but via tiebreaker, which
is the fan vote, Anthony Edwards is sixth, Victor's fifth,
he starts.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
It's not even who I thought should be replaced. I
think Victor win Binyama should start in the All Star Game.
Much as it pains me to hate to say it,
much as I hate him and his team and his city, okay,
and anybody who roots for him not named Missy always okay,
But I like Anthony Edwards should start over Steph Curry.

Speaker 6 (42:51):
You should, And.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Steph Curry's numbers are fine? Was he twenty six nearly
twenty seven?

Speaker 3 (42:56):
A game?

Speaker 6 (42:57):
This year?

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Media vote basically had three quote unquote unanimous. You had
ninety nine to ninety five and ninety five for Jokic,
Donchets and SGA, seventy three for Victor, seventy two for
Anthony Edwards, and then way down the list finishing sixth
in the media vote with Steph Curry with thirty three.
It's nice total, but very underwhelming consider the other five

(43:18):
players ahead of you all got seventy percent of the vote.
RD like, why what is so differ rated score? Because
they want all parties involved in announcing this. Presumably one
of these five isn't going to participate. Nikola joksh If,
Kevin Durant's not an All Star this year? Why is
Steph Curry?

Speaker 3 (43:34):
Is my question?

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Because you could argue that they're having similar seasons and
one of them has a team that's winning a whole
lot more and his one face up.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
I mean a whole lot more. They have the same
number of wins.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
Okay, right now, it just happened like in the last
five minutes.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
They've won four straight games by double figures to get
to twenty five. Rockets have won their last two to
get to twenty three. Warriors have been basically it was
twenty five to twenty three. What's the difference.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
That's my point. Neither one of them be starting this
All Star Game over Anthony Edwards.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Yeah, and that's coming.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
I'm sitting here wearing Rockets gear from head to toe,
literally Homer glasses.

Speaker 3 (44:08):
Again, it's an honor. It will be a totally different setup.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
Probably won't see all of these players participating to begin with.
Nice to have at least one Rocket participating, and I'm very,
very certain that Kevin Durant will be that at least
one possibility of another with either a Men Thompson or
Opera and Shingoon, but a lot of good players having
very good seasons. We're not far away from the All
Star Game and the trade deadline that comes before it.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Sometime later this season.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
The third all time NBA great will be looking up
at Kevin Durant on the all time scoring list. Will
was last road trip, Dirk was last night, and sometime
late in the season, probably late March or early April,
it will be Michael Jordan looking up at Kevin Durant
on the all time scoring list.

Speaker 1 (44:52):
At which point the Rockets will likely be a top
four team and Steph's Warriors will not even be in
the play in Because Jimmy Butler is gonzo.

Speaker 3 (45:01):
Yeah, he's done for the year. Unfortunately.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Last night playing the Heat, the typical, sadly typical non
he jumped up for a rebound, came down awkwardly on
his knee, and that was that. They do think it is.
It has been reported as an ACL injury. That's obviously
is much more than even this season. He's not a
young player either. They did commit to him for two
years on the extension following the trade last year, so
that's also something they have to consider. I'm not sure

(45:25):
what Jimmy is considering in the future. It's obviously tough rehab,
and again, at this stage of his career, he probably
believes he can still play after that.

Speaker 3 (45:32):
I would too.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
The way he's playing this year, their season hasn't been
all that much different from last year's season when he
got there. There have been so many other missing pieces.
It's been a little different. But basically, when he plays
and plays well, they win, which happened a lot last year.
The other parts of the team are way worse this year.
The cominga situation is a comedy show. And we didn't

(45:54):
mention this. The other day, I don't know if you
saw it. They opened up an addition of the NBA
program on ESPN with a host and four analysts, and
their opening topic was what's going on with kumingas the
deadline here? He's not playing, he's demanded it, and Windhorse
was the first to speak, and he just said, what
are we doing? There's all these other teams playing good basketball.

(46:16):
There's all these other players. This guy doesn't. He's not
even on the court. He hasn't been on the court.
He hasn't been a good player. Why are we doing this?
Why are we talking about.

Speaker 3 (46:25):
Because that's ESPN in a nutshell, and this is like
the tenth time it's happened where somebody on the panel
is like, why are we talking about them?

Speaker 2 (46:33):
Whoever the them might be. But again, when you have
an hour to fill. It's okay to get to it.
Why you open with it is why he openly questioned it.
But yeah, Golden State's sitting in an okay position. Now
you still have to tell me Golden State's going to
fall apart, right yep? Well, where which teams in the
West are you expecting to just take their spot? I
mean they got to be at least good enough to
take their spot Right now? Golden State's six one in mind,

(46:57):
and there are three games ahead of both Portland and
the Clippers, who are nine to ten. So now a
third team would have to push them to eleven to
get them out of the play in tournament.

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Well, I don't.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
I mean the Clippers are playing very, very well and
they will woke them up exactly.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
Kawhi is also now out missing time again. Oh that's
huge shock there. I just I don't.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
I don't know if they fade back to the pack
because of what you just said. But he doesn't play
half the time anyway, so why would that be any
different from now? But Portland is playing out of its
mind this year, I would I would think those are
two great choices. Now, who's the third?

Speaker 2 (47:33):
Is Memphis going to keep John Morant and push them out.
Are the Mavericks going to get anybody back? Heck, I
said this to the guys last night. Uh, the Mavericks
having everybody on the team hurt has turned Jason Kidd
into the coach of the year. They're playing their asses
off lately. Their beating box Christy hits every three he takes.
I can't believe how weather playing. And they did it
again last night. They ran the Knicks off the court.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
You know what's funny, a lot of those losses we
were watching it the Rockets, they're not looking as bad
in hindsight at least right now.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yeah, Portland's two games and obviously Dallas at eight games
under when they have no players out there most nights
is pretty remarkable. Rockets will go into play tonight half
game back of Minnesota two and a half back at
Denver three and a half back of the San Antonio Spurs.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
There faux for tonight.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
Yeah, so that will be something to keep an eye
on here on Sports Talk at seven to ninety as
it is a nationally televised game.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
By the way, you're on Space City Home network. Oh yeah,
I get to here on our.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Network sometimes I forget that there's some that are are
exclusive and some that are this is not one of those,
So yeah, you can absolutely check it out on Space
City Home Network. Wanted to get Noah Eagle, who's going
to be calling the game tonight, on the show, but
it's just because of our time slot and his obligations
going into any sort of broadcast here in town, it's
just a little bit harder to do it. But he's

(48:53):
gonna come on tomorrow around three o'clock to kind of
do a recap slash talk about the Rockets in the NBA.
So looking forward to that because we've never had on
the show. But I've been talking back and forth with
him since I met him in Kansas City last year
for the regular season Texans Chiefs games.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
So I've interviewed a different member of their broadcast team
before several times, which one Grant Grant Hill will be
the analyst? He is that was your like Header on
Header maybe on Facebook?

Speaker 3 (49:20):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (49:21):
Is he not like the nicest guy ever, not just
for NBA but just ever in the history of mankind?

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Probably one of the guys that went to and played
basketball at Duke that I don't despise, there's like two three.
Maybe Austin Rivers is another. How do you feel about
jj jj Reddick. I mean as soon as he hung
up his sneaker as he was fine both in the
pros and in college. Yeah, despised as he should have

(49:47):
been in college. And same thing when he was clippering
up the rockets.

Speaker 1 (49:50):
I think those are the two right there that you named,
Austin Rivers and in him.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
So that's that's about it. That's a short list.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Tamiko Ryan's on CJ's idiot future this offseason and the
noise he might hear, and CJ on his long term future.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
That's next.

Speaker 6 (50:08):
All right.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
You've heard it all week, and by all week, I
mean yesterday and parts of today, the criticism lobbed at CJ.
Stroud for one of the most regrettable, forgettable and just
playing awful performances in Houston Pro Football postseason history. That

(50:30):
was again, We've said it a million times and it's
kind of becoming the theme of the twenty twenty five season.

Speaker 3 (50:37):
And you said it in the first hour.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Damiko Ryans became a coach that just basically wanted to
turn CJ into a game manager.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
This year, and I think.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
That's wild because the reality of who and what CJ.
Stroud is as a franchise or starting quarterback in the NFL,
I think is somewhere between game manager, which I don't
think he is, and elite top five quarterback.

Speaker 3 (51:05):
Which I know he is not, at least right now
he's not.

Speaker 2 (51:08):
I mean, whatever terms you want to use, he just doesn't.
He is a good coach that hates turnovers and he
thinks if we play a certain way, we won't have them.
And that's I think what he was trying to ideally
create for the Texans this year. Just fewer throws, run
the fall, run the ball, play great defense, churn up

(51:28):
the clock, fewer possessions, fewer opportunities to make mistakes.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
Let my defense go dominate. We'll win football games.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
You're taking away a little bit of your ability to
do things offensively. Although this year's offense and pretty much
every regard was better than last year's offense. You know,
as we continue to ask the questions about the OC
and last year versus this year and two years of
slowank and one year with Kailee, but the nature of
the game, in the nature of the NFL, the nature

(51:57):
of any level of football, the quarterback is going to
hear itquarterback's going to feel it, and the quarterback is
going to have a hard time ignoring it. But because
he's always done with CJ, and I'm sure he will
do with any quarterback he might have in the future,
he thinks his quarterback is perfectly capable of handling the
criticism and understands it comes with the job.

Speaker 8 (52:20):
Look, the quarterback position is gonna get, you know, the
most odds, most attention. We understand that, and in this league,
that's what it is. And CJ understands that as well.
Like I thought, just throughout the season, I thought he
did a really nice job of coming in, learning new offense,
new scheme. Thought he picked it up well. We got

(52:40):
better as the season went along, and you know, he
made some plays to allow us to win a lot
of football games as well.

Speaker 6 (52:47):
So I'm not gonna let.

Speaker 8 (52:49):
You know the bad plays there in that game, you know,
really for me, dictate to me who CJ is. I
know who CJ is, I know what he's capable of doing,
and so we just keep looking to get better. No
one feels worse about the situation than CJ. Right, He
feels bad, you know, for the team. I feel like
he let the team down, and you know it just

(53:12):
told me keep your head up. He keep moving forward.

Speaker 6 (53:14):
Look, we all want it better.

Speaker 8 (53:16):
We can't go back in that game right now and
running back and play it again like we just learned
from it, Like what do you learn from it? That's
my main message to him is what do you learn
from that? And how do you make that a priority
and getting it fixed and getting improving it getting better?

Speaker 1 (53:34):
What I mean, you can look at film and you
can do all the things that he's talking about, But
if you're CJ. Stroud specifically, even if you do learn
from it, so to speak, you something drastic has to
take place this offseason, in my opinion, in order for
and probably plural things have to happen this offseason in

(53:56):
order for him to change his standing in this team,
let alone in the NFL. And I think some of
those things have to do with acquiring talent around him.
I think the offensive line and running back to positions
that would really need to be addressed and not just
kind of halfway. But if you're just focusing on CJ.

(54:18):
I mean I've even seen people suggest sports psychologists for
him if.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
You think that's what happened in this game or a
series of games, or concussion related. Maybe he's mentally not
over that. There's a number of different reasons. I'd be
pretty surprised, honestly, if that were suggested to him, and
it would be the first time it's probably been suggested
to him, if he hasn't already done it, because I
think a lot of NFL players do it. We don't
ever know about it, But yeah, I could understand that

(54:46):
as being an option. I don't even I think people
are thinking, man, you know, even the way you said it,
like maybe a sports psychologist could help, Like it's such
a huge negative, like okay, whatever, you trying to get better, Okay,
well I lift weights, Well I'm trying to get better.
Well I watch film. Well I'm trying to get better.
I'm doing stretching and doing drills for my arm strength.

(55:08):
You want to get better, I'm seeing a specialist for
my mind.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
Do you want to let me tell you like that
in all bold honesty, why I just cringe when I
hear that, because and this is right or wrong, I
don't really care, because this is this is a big business,
big money organization.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
That's what this is, this business.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
It tells me that you don't already have the killer
mentality or the even just regular mentality, whatever you want
to call it.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
Mentality. You need to be successful already.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
And if that helps you acquire that or digs it
out of you or whatever, I guess that's fine. I
just assumed the guy come in with it. And I
know that's the hardest intangible to measure.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
Everything about what he did at Ohio State. Said that
he did that, he did exactly that.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
Why were the rookie year too Well?

Speaker 2 (55:55):
Everyone was talking about, well, you don't know him yet.
Now we do know him, and now we're watching it happen.
But before he got here, he was being marveled about
for a loss, for his play against Georgia in a
game his team did not win, and the plays that
he made while he was under pressure the whole game,
while things were falling apart in the backfield around him
from start to finish, and he just kept making plays

(56:17):
and making throws and scrambling into better positions and making
his sure his team could keep up because their defense
couldn't keep Georgia from scoring. It was all of the
things you were talking about that did not show up
in several postseason games, clearly not this last game.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
It's what I said yesterday.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
It's the only way you can prove that you can
play at this level if you can make plays and
make your team win and do the things that you
have to do when other things aren't working, When your
line can't keep the pressure off you, when the running
game isn't working, when the weather isn't good. All those
things were against him on Sunday. It all led to

(56:54):
why he played the way he played. But the best players,
even in a loss, you got to do more things.
You got to play better football. We take less of,
I think a target on him. If there were plays
to bounce off of it, they're a handful of nice
throws or a couple of nice plays. But I think
Demiko talking about the regular season, was pointing to plays

(57:14):
that were made, and a lot of them weren't touchdown passes.
They were great third down throws. They were drive extenders,
they were game finishers. You know, the way that he
still could put the ball where it needed to be
when it mattered most, when it was third and seven,
and you know that we get this first down. This
game is over of you. We get this first down,
and we know we're in position to put points on
the board. If we don't, we had to give the

(57:35):
ball back, we got to punt it away. And they
just were not They weren't there really very often against Pittsburgh,
and they weren't there really at all against the Patriots.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
Yeah, we really.

Speaker 2 (57:46):
I mean, it's no different than our discussion about Dak
Prescott for years, Mike McCarthy and the Cowboys for years.
I don't think anybody really cares that you won thirty
six regular season games over a three year period if
your postseason results not using but playing bad football. And
they Cowboys, they played bad football and made bad decisions

(58:07):
in game, which is what we saw this past Sunday.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
It's funny you bring that up because one of the
more interesting aspects of this whole situation with CJ to
me is that in a weird way, and I'm not
saying that he had any semblance of this kind of
a bad game during the regular season, but when you're
not putting up eye popping numbers exclusively in the regular

(58:31):
season and then turtling some way, shape or form in
the playoffs, when you're not expected to do something that is,
you know, superhuman week in and week out during the
regular season. In a way, it was almost like it
was preparing you for It's not a letdown, it's just
who we thought he would be. And then he went
even more rogue, if you will. That's the difference between

(58:53):
c J. Stroud and guys like Dak Prescott. Dak Prescott
is winning thirteen games year in and year out at
times and is putting up big numbers even if he
isn't winning that many games, and it does build up
that fan base so that they're like, all right, this
is our year for the fiftieth year in a row,
Cowboys fans.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
And then ultimately.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
It's almost it almost feels like the let down is
even more huge because of the expectations your own offense
and your own individual performance.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
Has set versus a guy like CJ.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
Who, if you you know, this season for example, very
much just this side of a game manager. It was
the defense that kept bailing you out, and you just thought,
all right, they're good enough from that standpoint to ride
all the way to a championship.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Possibly just don't screw it up. But he did, yeah,
really good defense. In my opinion. They played against a
lot of these again, plenty of factors to it, and
it's it's way more complex than saying, well, if you
don't turn it over, then if you don't turn it over,
you still have the football, your drive still continues. Turning
it over on first down. That's how many more minutes

(59:58):
off the clock. That's how much further down the field
you're going on. That's how many more points you're gonna score.
There's there's a lot more to it to take it
away from just well that their defense in New England defense,
give them some credit. Well, sure, I'm not trying to
take credit away from them, not at all. On SOY,
I open things up here, get CJ's thoughts on a
couple of different things, including his long term future.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
When we come back is the A.

Speaker 9 (01:00:19):
Team Sports Talk seven ninety Space City Home Network, before
we get to a couple of other items around the
AFC South And I saw I saw Adam Schefter talking
about this earlier.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Today on on ESPN. Just the fact that the Texans
and and the Panthers are both probably going to pick
up that fifth year option on their starting quarterbacks've already.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
Done it, Yeah, they did, right, after they lost.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Yeah, so Bryce Young won CJ Stroud two in the
twenty twenty three NFL draft. But in the case of well,
I guess in the case of both of them, it's
a it's a prove it contract if you will.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
But I just two very different reasons.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Like Bryce Young's team snuck into the playoffs in a
bad division because they were the less sucky of all
the other ones. I guess record wise, CJ. Strouds team
should have made even more noise than it already did.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
Well, just one thing it shows you is what the
difficulty is in finding a quarterback. You're ready to give
up on this guy. I mean, watch how Bryce Young
has played over his three years and even this year
when they won eight times in eighteen games, and they
still don't want to give up on them.

Speaker 3 (01:01:34):
And I don't blame them.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
And it's a very easy way to not give your
final answer on it because you have that fifth year option.
It's gonna make twice as much money and then some
in that fifth year. And the same is true for
CJ where his cap hit might have been seven, eight, ten,
thirteen over his first four years, this upcoming year being
the fourth year, the year after that the option that

(01:01:56):
is picked up by the Panthers who have done so,
and then the Texans, who will likely do so. It
goes from twelve thirteen, thirteen and a half to twenty
six twenty seven million for that fifth year, which is
still way less than what it would be the next
year after a real long term extension will have been signed,
and you might be able to kind of cheat your

(01:02:17):
way through the first year, but at some point it's
you know, if it's two hundred and seventy five million
dollar contract over five years, the money's gonna hit your cap.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
My thing is okay, next year's year four. You're asking
CJ to quote prove it. What if he has statistically
a year like this year again, in other words, his
numbers weren't like you look at the surface, his numbers
weren't awful. They just weren't elite level, like he was

(01:02:48):
doing the thing that you wanted him to do Sunday.
He wasn't losing you games. He just wasn't necessarily going
out and winning.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
Them for you every single week.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
So his proving year will get you to negotiate what
of deal because he'll want the most and you'll say,
but that's not how you've played for any of your
three years since your rookie year. Like, if he plays
that way year four and you go into the last
off season before you then have to make a franchise
tag decision, you're gonna re up him to make him

(01:03:19):
one of the highest paid players in the league.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Why would you do that? Is there any scenario where
they would franchise CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:03:25):
Stroud.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
It's very unlikely with a player like this, It's very unlikely.
With the quarterback period, it happens almost never. Like Kirk
Cousins is an example of somebody, and I've said it
many times, I think what the Redskins at the time
did on Draft Day was or draft days was just stupid.
They drafted Kirk Cousins in the same draft they drafted
RG three. Turned out because they helped RG three and

(01:03:50):
his career prematurely with how they used him and how
they brought him back from injury. They didn't need Kirk
Cousins and as a middle round pick go on the
franchise tag route, which was a massive raise for someone
who'd made four million dollars his first four years, was
something that made more say. He also was not some

(01:04:11):
unbelievably established quarter. He was just the guy they were
going to continue playing, the guy that was going to
be the starter. It also started in year five, not
in year six, because he only had a four year
deal with no option, because he wasn't a first round pick.
And it just started Cousins on the track of being
the guy on the right of the perfect right side
of negotiations his entire career.

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
Hey, are you desperate? Perfect? That's why I'm sitting her.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
Guy signed me to a deal I haven't played up
to and you won't win with. And he's doing it Atlanta,
just like he did it in Minnesota and just like
he did it in Washington. It's absolutely the story of
we don't really care about the playoffs. I can't believe it.
But that's a very unique situation. It's very hard to
draft a guy where they did him on the pay
scale that he's on, have one spectacular season, potentially have

(01:04:57):
four consecutive playoff seasons, and say, well, you can play
your fifth year option and then we'll discuss a franchise tag.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
I know it's a different position, but how if they
went that route for example, which again brings up horrible
memories just because of who we're talking about and who
was in charge at the time. You took a guy
at the top of the draft that you franchised twice,
and you could say he probably I wouldn't say he
had his best season his rookie year the way CJ did,
But how similar would that be to a Jidevion Clowney situation.

(01:05:27):
In other words, he's a guy that's fine, has his moments,
but he's not going to be confused with the best
at his position by any stretch of the imagination throughout
the league.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
What they did with him, if I'm not mistaken, is
they had him play his fifth year option. They had
not extended him before that, so he just played his
fifth year option. And then they screwed up by trying
to franchise tag him and then moving him without any leverage,
and he took the leverage from them, and they ended
up trading him for nothing. Practically, they just really screwed up.
I don't believe he ever played here or anywhere under

(01:06:00):
the franchise tag. They was talking about doing it, they
were ready to do it because they could not. That
was a situation a little bit like arians. Clearly the
other end of the draft completely, and they ended up
signing him to a big extension another guy who cousins like.
He wasn't making any money and they were ready to
pay him big bucks, but not necessarily ready to commit
to a running back for that kind of dollars. They

(01:06:21):
ended up doing it and went to the podium and
talked about how much that meant to him in clowney situation.
They just couldn't come to an agreement on committing to
him long term with that money because they had reservations
about what he might be and I somewhat understood those.
There were some injury concerns, there were motors, There are
all sorts of concerns. Even though his play on the
fields was very good, very good, not JJ Watt good,

(01:06:42):
not he's one of the best players in the league.

Speaker 6 (01:06:44):
Good.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
But he also was a Pro Bowl selection, well, a
real Pro Bowl selection while playing for the Texans. So
I'm pretty sure on those conversations, just do it, just
finish it, just extend him. If it doesn't work out,
there's always time. You can always get out of it
later if it's an injury, if it's he didn't he
got his money, and then he slacked off whatever the
case may be. Instead, they made the most amazing mistakes

(01:07:05):
with it. And I would still say it's nothing like CJ.
Only because of this. He doesn't play quarterback.

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
That's where the money actually really comes into being a factor.
As much as it already is a factor at this
at this level and at that position in the draft,
quarterback is a whole different ballgame.

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
You might wonder what CJ thinks about all this. I mean,
you would think.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
He'd want to be here long term, but why don't
we just hear it from him? He does want to
be here in Houston. He does want to be here
long term, and even though he won't be extended this offseason,
I would just be floored if that happened.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
This is his thoughts on that particular situation.

Speaker 6 (01:07:41):
I want to be here as long as I can.
I love the city of Houston.

Speaker 10 (01:07:44):
You know, I'm just you know, I'm crush, you know,
And I don't want to be emotional, but just like
just how hopeful we were, you know, to go farther,
and you know, for it to be on my plate
for me not to you know, step up, you know,
it really hurts me. And I just you know, I
wish it didn't go that way, but in my intent
was never that. In my intent as always you know,
to go out on ball and you know, play as

(01:08:05):
best as I can. And it didn't happy, but you know,
I know that I can do that. So I just hope,
you know, this city and this organization and my teammates,
and I know my teammates will, but I hope you know,
everybody gives me.

Speaker 6 (01:08:15):
A shot to do it again.

Speaker 3 (01:08:16):
He's gonna get a shot next year, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
Yeah, this idea that there's no shot to do it again,
that's even a couple of days later, I still think
that's crazy. If you're looking forward to finding your quarterback
of the future, then go ahead and get rid of
CJ and make sure your quarterback play is absolutely terrible
all seventeen games next year, because that's the only way
you're gonna ever find an answer, because if you keep
playing mediocre or good football, you're never gonna replace him.

(01:08:40):
So I don't I don't think there are many good options.

Speaker 1 (01:08:42):
There is good news on two different fronts for the Texans,
in my opinion.

Speaker 11 (01:08:47):
We'll explain next the A seed on Sports Talk seven night.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Uh, maybe you should bring in somebody who's listening better.
I'll take the first one.

Speaker 6 (01:08:59):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:59):
I think the good news is that Robert Sala just
got another head coaching job, and it happens to be
in the AFC South.

Speaker 2 (01:09:06):
Tennessee Titans, settling in on the former Niners defensive coordinator
a couple times over, and that's where he most immediately
comes from. He obviously was the head coach the Jets
prior to that, unsuccessful, like most Jets coaches head coaches
have been, that's really no different, but that is the
direction the Titans are moving forward in the AFC South

(01:09:26):
boasts Demiko Ryans here in Houston, Liam Cohen. They're in Jacksonville, Tennessee,
just hiring Robert Sala and the Indianapolis Colts going into
year four. Just like Houston with Demiko, they're doing it
with Shane Steiken.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
So it's probably a little unfair to Sala to say, ah,
look at what you did in New York, but because
I mean, that's what Aaron Glenn's doing right now, and
that's what pretty much every coach does there except Rex Ryan.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
He found a way to win there. He had Mark
Sanchez mister butt Fumble prior to that he was winning
football games though, and post to that he was getting
in trouble with the.

Speaker 3 (01:10:03):
Law stabbing people drunk.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
So anyway, so again, it's probably a little unfair to
just assume.

Speaker 2 (01:10:12):
Why are you out there as a retread because you
weren't good, Your record wasn't good the first time, That's
what they're all.

Speaker 1 (01:10:18):
But he was immediately scooped up as DC in San Francisco,
so it's not like he's been sitting on the sideline.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
Even if you were, I mean, why how did you
get to be a head coach because you were a
successful OC or DC or some part of the coaching staff.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
That's how they all do it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
Like Brian Dabele could be in OC this off season
after getting fired midst or into next or he could
be a new a head coach. Again, the same for
all of them, for most of them.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
If you're if you're the opinion that Robert Sala might
be a little bit overrated, and again that's the term
is it's just he's been around such a relatively short
period of time. In the conversation of head coaching, I'm
saying that might even be a stretch, But I would
argue that that would just confirm it if you're the

(01:11:00):
Titans guy. And he wasn't even the Titans guy. He
was like their fourth fifth choice. When they kept striking
out on other teams hiring coaches, they wanted to hire me.
I know that's how it works to an extent. I
don't know who. All of them are mean, and I
think they wanted Stefanski. I think they wanted Harball. And
who's the third one that's been scooped up? Well, let's

(01:11:20):
just start there. So they wanted Harbaugh. Okay, who does.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
Everybody wanted to He wants nothing to do with you
because he's smart. And then you mentioned who they wanted Stefanski.
I wish they would have hired him. I think much
more lowly of him than Robert Sala. He just happens
to be an offensive coach. How about you hire Robert
Sala and then you hire a really good OC and
you find out Cam Wore can play. I want to
be like I want to watch the Titans and make

(01:11:46):
terrible decisions. I don't think this is a terrible decision.
I think they I thought they were about to make one.
I thought Matt and Aage was going to be their
head coach. I was ecstatic. I thought this perfect. He
is the type of retread I don't know why anybody
has a belief in I don't think he's done a
good job so many times over and in a position
to do a good job. Good hire him. I think
Stefanski's very similar. And I know he won't coach the year.

(01:12:08):
I know they won some games in Cleveland, clearly, but
I don't know. I just don't really, he just doesn't
inspire me as a head coach. And I'm you know,
good luck Atlanta.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
See that's how I feel about Robert Salah, exactly how
you just described it. And I don't I can't even
point to any like concrete reason other than just he's
just It's kind of like Mike McCarthy. I feel the
same way about Mike McCarthy, and he's won a whole
lot more games.

Speaker 3 (01:12:31):
He's uninspiring higher.

Speaker 2 (01:12:32):
Sure, but calling him unsuccessful means your standard for successful
is through the roof.

Speaker 3 (01:12:37):
Yeah, but like John Harbaugh didn't win the Super Bowl
every year, like we famously talked about yesterday. But John
Harbaugh is an inspiring head coaching higher, no matter who
you are, anybody could have hired John Harbaugh, and they're
gonna be able to sit there and see their fan base,
will be able to sit there and say, well, we
won this coaching higher cycle.

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
I think, why is Dallas hiring McCarthy just because it's
more applicable in a analogy?

Speaker 3 (01:13:00):
Why is the Cowboys.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
Hiring of Mike McCarthy different than the Giants hiring of
Jim Harbaugh or John Arbaugh. They both had a really
good MVP caliber quarterback that they won one Super Bowl
with in a decade plus.

Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Yeah, and John Harball. But John Harball had two to
his name, did he not just one? I thought he
won with uh oh, I always I always forget that
bright it all together and it's a lie.

Speaker 2 (01:13:24):
He had an MVP caliber quarterback in Baltimore, but he
won a Super Bowl with Joe Flacco right right to me,
that's worse than what Mike McCarthy did.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
I guess I think it's more impressive, isn't it if
you win a Super Bowl with Joe Flacco calling the shots?

Speaker 6 (01:13:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
But it balances out with I mean, you just got
to coach the last seven years with Lamar Jackson playing
at an MVP level almost the entire time except for
the year he was.

Speaker 1 (01:13:47):
That's an incomplete sentence. He's it coincides with the dominance
of Patrick Mahomes, which is the same thing. That's an
excuse for him and Josh Allen and everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:13:56):
Comes back to what I I I feel myself sounding
like a broken record, the same thing I'm talking about
the quarterbacks. Well, how come he's not winning more? Kakam,
he only has one super Bowl?

Speaker 3 (01:14:07):
Is only one team can win?

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
The same for the coaches, except the same team each
time going. You know, that's the difference with Mahomes. It's like, Okay,
you're one of five guys that you think are the
best in the league at what you do, except for
he's the only one that keeps going to the game
and sometimes winning it.

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
Right, So instead of saying Mahomes, why wouldn't you just
say Andy Reid because he's done.

Speaker 3 (01:14:26):
That, he's not available. Well, I'm just saying, yeah, putting
this guy from a coaching standpoint, Andy Reid was not
in any NFC coach's way for the last hour many years,
and he wasn't in an AFC coach's ways when he
was with You know, it's hilarious about it. And he
was real guiding his team to the Super Bowl, winning
it obviously with Kansas City multiple times, and keeping any
other coach from doing it because he had a better team.

(01:14:46):
I coached that way every year.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
I am old enough to remember when Andy Andy Reid
was the Mike Tomlin of the NFC. You know what
I'm saying when I say that, Yeah, he's one once,
but why can't this guy get over the hun All right,
he's worn out, get out of here.

Speaker 3 (01:15:02):
Beat it now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
To their credit, they've gone and won it twice with
two different coaches since then, I believe, right, or is
it just the one coach, two different quarterbacks? That's what
it was, Sirianni was.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
There Peterson with Nick Foles and that's right, Pod.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
I thought they had switched head coaches since then.

Speaker 1 (01:15:23):
Yeah, but you know, to his credit, that is such
a it's not a footnote because he did go to
the super Bowl and they had some success, But like
Andy Reid's going to be remembered when all of a
sudden done for his tenure in Kansas City above all else,
and it's not even close.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
Resume wise, for sure, right, their super Bowl wins there
and he was pretty awesome in Philadelphia.

Speaker 3 (01:15:42):
Very That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
People forget how awesome because of how good he's been
in Kansas City.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
The two coaches that we just mentioned in Philadelphia with
Super Bowl wins are probably regarded as they in Philadelphia
by Eagles fans. They like Andy Reid more than those
guys easily. They think he was a better coach than
the those guys.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
They also probably like Donovan McNabb better than any of
the quarterbacks they've had since.

Speaker 3 (01:16:04):
Then, if they like Donough McNabb more than Jalen Hurts,
that's be foolish. Yeah, because he actually won one and
went to another.

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
I mean, up until this year he won, he'd played brilliantly.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Yeah, But why are we hearing rumblings about him specifically right.

Speaker 3 (01:16:23):
Now because twenty twenty five happened. That's crazy rum or something.
That's the year after you won a championship. We're not
getting rid of you. We know who you are.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Let's see if we can fix everything else so you
can get back to who you were. Hey, OC, it's
time for your meeting.

Speaker 7 (01:16:37):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
It's gonna be brief and maybe aj Brown I guess
if you want to get less talented.

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
Well, the other thing that's good as far as the
AFC South, I'll tell you about that next. It actually
is a very good thing, and we'll hear from Demiko
Ryan's about that because he was asked about it, and
I think it's it's something that might actually be being
slept on as we go into the twenty twenty six
Texan season. It's never too earlier. I start looking forward
to twenty twenty six, especially when your twenty twenty five

(01:17:07):
campaign ended the way it did.

Speaker 3 (01:17:09):
So we'll explain that coming up next.

Speaker 11 (01:17:13):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 6 (01:17:17):
How did I do?

Speaker 3 (01:17:18):
I've actually seen a Darren headlights before? Did you hit it? No?
I wasn't there to run it over? What were you
there for to shoot it? You were hunting. It's a
long time ago, bro, What I was going to bury
that lead? For the last twenty years that I've known.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
You grew up with friends who had were hunters and
went out went to out to their lease and that's
what you do when you hunt.

Speaker 3 (01:17:42):
How many times did you go hunting in your life? Twice?
Maybe that's one more than me.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
One time I went with my ex father in law
and we got up at the crack of dawn.

Speaker 3 (01:17:53):
You know what he said to me? What did he
say to you? It's early?

Speaker 1 (01:17:59):
This should tell you how how little of an outdoors
he actually said, with a straight face.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
No, I wasn't like that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:07):
This was the night before we were getting ready for
gearing up, right, Yeah, he said, don't This is funny,
he said, don't wear cologne smart.

Speaker 3 (01:18:17):
No, I mean like people forget, like they don't go
hunting with sack either. No, well you you can go
just not end well some something. Yeah, something's getting shot,
but it might be you, Jeremy oh Man. And then
they did crab cakes and football. That's what Maryland does.

Speaker 6 (01:18:33):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:18:34):
So as the four o'clock hour gets underway, we were
talking about the good news that the Texans are getting.
I think Robert Sala being hired as a head coach.
I think Chris Ballard Steve still being employed by the Colts,
and I think Trevor Lawrence being the quarterback of the
UH the Jacksonville Jaguars are all good things for the Texans.

Speaker 3 (01:18:54):
I'm sure he had a nice stretch this year, but
he can't keep it up. I'll give you cam Ward,
he can be fourth.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
Let's say November of next year, after Daniel Jones has returned.
Who's ranked those three quarterbacks, CJ, Jones and Trevor.

Speaker 1 (01:19:10):
The sad thing is, right now, I'd have to put
Trevor ahead of CJ just because of Sunday. Well, that's
CJ's fault, not mine. It's what I brought up earlier.
That's that's unfortunate on me, Ricky, Bobby, that's that's a problem.
I mean, like, come on, CJ. I've defended you to
the death, but this is ridiculous. We're asking you not
to lose. We're not asking you to win. Well, I

(01:19:31):
was different.

Speaker 2 (01:19:31):
I wish we were because he did in his rookie season.
It's so bad about the Texans defense crushing and the
Texans offense also crushing. Is it is it okay to
go into a playoff game in the divisional round and
win forty one to six like Seattle's good offense and
good defense and obviously good special team.

Speaker 3 (01:19:53):
It helps if you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
Run back the opening kick in today's NFL, by the way,
that would be nice.

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
It's okay to have a good offense. They had a
good defense o be among the league's best on both sides.

Speaker 6 (01:20:01):
Of the ball.

Speaker 3 (01:20:03):
It's okay to have one of the best units out there,
no matter which units out there.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
Did we ever get a confirmation on how loud it
got in lumen when he ran that back? I know
they're constantly measuring the decibels there. That had to be
like top five all time noise for an NFL stadium.

Speaker 3 (01:20:16):
Right probably, So that was ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
And if you want to know what fast looks like,
that's what it looks like.

Speaker 3 (01:20:24):
He was a vapor. That was incredible. He wasn't even
a vapor trail. He was a vapor. Good move by
their GM in season to acquire him.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Good move by them having Doug Baldwin to raise the flag,
which had zero wind. They could have left the flagpole
barren and it would have looked exactly the same. I
just thought that was funny. So anyway, Tank Dell is
coming back next year, so.

Speaker 3 (01:20:48):
Nick Casario doesn't even have to trade out of the
first round to draft a receiver instead of an offensive.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
Lineman this time. It's like they're getting a new one.
He would have helped on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
Yeah, if you want to even spin it harder and say, well,
his favorite three targets during his time here in Houston,
were unavailable to him Sunday in New England or if
you want, I mean he played a whole season and
change without Tank and.

Speaker 3 (01:21:11):
Joe Mixon parts of it without NCO.

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
But there was a question about where things are with
Tank Dell and the rehabittack and what went on this
season as it relates to now next season, which Dimiko
Ryans answered on Monday.

Speaker 8 (01:21:26):
The Tank has done a really good job with his
recovery throughout the entire offseat. You know, it's very tough
when Tank has such a significant injury right and he
was battling trying to get back.

Speaker 6 (01:21:37):
He's working really hard to try to get back.

Speaker 8 (01:21:40):
You know at the end of this past season that
it just didn't work out that way. But he's showed
up every day with a smile, with a great attitude,
and I'm excited to see him back on the field
next year.

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
It's really all everybody who's been listening for and I
mentioned it on Monday on social that that's what he
said looking forward to I'm excited to see him back
on the field next year. Hopefully it is exactly what
he said. It's not a I'm gonna give them this,
even though I don't really have an answer. He has
been rehabbing and working towards a return to the NFL
football field for over a year. He'll have another six

(01:22:12):
months before they even get to September or late August
and training camp, so there's a long time for him
to get any in an even better physical situation. But
I was never under the impression it was a career
ending injury. I just thought it was an injury that
will require I think a lot of people one of
rehab and time, and I still believe that to be true.

Speaker 3 (01:22:34):
I don't know what it'll be when he comes back.

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
You never know, but I think he if he is
back on the football field at all, which my belief
is he will be, then he's going to be the
same type of player he would have.

Speaker 3 (01:22:46):
He would help any game plan.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
I'm told talked about this quite a bit when he
was still at EU of H and then when he
went through the off season work. Before you get to
the draft, this guy's going to be open. This is
what every offense needs. You want players that can get
and you want guys to create separation. He has both
the ability to do that on any underneath route you
want to run him on. He has the ability to
play as an outside receiver even at his small stature,

(01:23:10):
and he can run past defenders, and he can get
behind the defense, and he can take the top off
the defense. And if you'd like and you want to
take the chance, he can be on your return team too.

Speaker 3 (01:23:19):
And then he did.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
All those things with the Texans and he was a huge,
huge factor for CJ. Stroud during this magical season we
keep talking about. You know, Jayden and Higgins had six
touchdown receptions this year. That's more than any rookie wide
receiver in Texans history except for Tank Tell who had seven.

Speaker 3 (01:23:38):
He was awesome. I think we forget just how awesome
he was.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
And him and Nico was like the magic Tonic because
the numbers would the game plan or the game performance
i should say, would dip when either of them were out.
It wasn't just like, okay, well one guy's like they
both are out there, you are set, you are locked
in now again, it helped that you had Joe Mixon

(01:24:02):
out there last year, which, by the way, can we
just talk about how the Texans are handling that situation
like the Astros.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
Well, one more chance to give them a chance, and
that comes tomorrow when Nick Cassario meets.

Speaker 3 (01:24:14):
With the media. But I got to give a legit answer.
He doesn't, he wants to. He should.

Speaker 2 (01:24:19):
I think I don't really know what could have happened
that makes them gives me reason to want to say, yeah,
I think they handled it well. I think their desire
to not say anything about it was the right play.
I don't know what it could be. I really can't
think of anything. Something really really bad, something super personal,
something totally medical, something completely accidental or otherwise. I just

(01:24:42):
don't know what that would be that would have them
going through an entire season of wanting to not say
anything about it and then getting to the off season,
even though it was just one day for Damiko, who
has asked multiple times about mixing, and when he was
finally asked for some clarity or initially asked for some clarity,
said no, no clarity, And obviously they We did have
more from Nick during the year. I don't know if

(01:25:04):
it was smoke or just lying or truthful. It just
didn't play out that way.

Speaker 6 (01:25:10):
Well.

Speaker 2 (01:25:10):
He gave us a timetable of what it doesn't look like.
We don't know, but in a couple of weeks, we'll
have a little bit better idea. And then as that
time came, he said, well, we're running out of time,
so it doesn't look likely. So whether that's enough or not,
it's we still don't know what caused all this. The
timetable's great, but why did he get hurt after his

(01:25:30):
season ended and then missed the entire season without any
information about what took place? You don't they don't have
to tell us. I keep repeating that. They've said it too,
But I don't know why they wouldn't, is my question.

Speaker 1 (01:25:45):
Aaron Wilson was writing a little bit about the finances
of the situation, because you know, he was originally signed
to that three year, twenty seven million dollar contract, and obviously,
because of that is under contract for next year. He
was due guaranteed seven million this season. He do a
non guaranteed eight million in twenty twenty six, which means
that Texans can cut him this offseason without any financial consequence,

(01:26:08):
and it is considered.

Speaker 3 (01:26:09):
Likely they will do just that due to health issues.
Uh yeah, I think there's still some dead cap. It's minimal.

Speaker 2 (01:26:18):
I think it's two million dollars maybe because of how
they've laid out the cap hits per year. But the
base salary of eight million is obviously something you would
not be paying him over the ten I think that
he's owed contractually either way, that's an amount that is
of little significance. The eight millions of an amount that's
very significant, the ten million, whatever it is. Because you're

(01:26:38):
I'm guessing there's concern about his ability to play at
a ten million dollar running back level.

Speaker 3 (01:26:47):
I would have to think that at this point, wouldn't I.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
Yes, And just to kind of go with what we
were talking about right before you started that train of thought,
he did right time. On Aaron Wilson, The Texans didn't
provide much, if any, detail on his status. Sources say
that was because they were honoring Mixon's wishes for privacy.

Speaker 3 (01:27:09):
There were several.

Speaker 1 (01:27:10):
Untrue and unsubstantiated rumors surrounding how Mixon got injured. Ie
people were going around saying that he got shot. Well,
think about that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:19):
For what I just said, and Aaron Wilson said, respecting
Mixon's wishes, San, I don't think of everything, that is
a perfectly reasonable reason to not tell us, in my opinion, Yeah,
if that is what players and everybody involved is agreed
on them. Then there's your reason, and that is honestly,
they're running a team. They're not trying to cater to us.
They're doing what they're required to do. They meet with

(01:27:40):
the media, they answered questions and the best way they
feel fit to do so.

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
When was the last time you also heard that we're
not telling you more because the player doesn't want us.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
I mean, without saying it in those words. That's what
Demiko said like ten times this year, and when he
was very very critical of us for not being as
personally caring at the player, that's what he was saying.

Speaker 1 (01:28:01):
That's the most cantankerous his relationship with the media has
ever gotten.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
Here, I'm not I don't really care what you want.
This is how we're going to deal with it without
saying it, because this is how we've decided, or this
is how Joe has asked us to handle it, and
we're respecting as which helps.

Speaker 3 (01:28:16):
He could have even said that it.

Speaker 1 (01:28:18):
Helps when you're in the midst of a nine game
winning streak to get away with that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (01:28:22):
I suppose I don't know that he was. I don't remember.

Speaker 2 (01:28:25):
I don't know the timeline of when Demiko has asked
over the last nine games. I don't know that he
got any Joe mixing questions.

Speaker 1 (01:28:30):
Well, it wasn't that day that he said all that
wasn't that in the middle of them winning all those
games in the.

Speaker 3 (01:28:35):
Year it had to have been there was nine of them.

Speaker 2 (01:28:37):
Well, they there were eight nine weeks of football before
the winning streak and nine weeks of football after.

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
I'm maybe I'm miscalculating when it happened. It doesn't really matter.
The point is Tank Dell is going to be back,
so therefore CJ. Shroud is going to be back next year,
or at least that's how we'd like to look at things.
You'd always depend upon a certain coworker of ours, the
Worst of X, to send me something that is exactly

(01:29:03):
that should be. That we just go to the text
thread from that exact coworker, and that's the new segment
The Worst of X.

Speaker 2 (01:29:10):
Gosh, he doesn't, I mean, it's he wants to derail show.
It's the people. This is what the people do on
the socials.

Speaker 11 (01:29:18):
Hey, so.

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
I was gonna ask this question seeing as how less
than an hour from now we're gonna find out if
that cry baby who Bob Nightingale is trying to single
handedly right into the Hall of Fame and Cooperstown is
gonna get his due. I want to ask this question,
who had the best the best postseason in Astro's history.

Speaker 3 (01:29:40):
You brought it up, you think it's him, I sure do.

Speaker 1 (01:29:43):
I have a guy in mind, But since I don't
do things like get spreadsheets of numbers in front of
me at the ready, no matter what time of day
or night it is, I figure even if you don't
have it in front of you, you'll probably be able
to find it very quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:29:57):
There's only one other person that I would I think
I would have a debate about, and he wasn't a
position player.

Speaker 3 (01:30:04):
Garrett Cole. No, Mike Scott and oh it was brief.

Speaker 1 (01:30:08):
Yeah, I think because of what you just said, the
tenure of the postseason, I think that goes into this.

Speaker 2 (01:30:16):
Well, we're talking about the single postseason an Astros history.
Which player had the best single postseason in team history?
I'll go with Carlos.

Speaker 3 (01:30:25):
What do you go with? Doesn't George Springers twenty seventeen
have a huge argument here. I think that's definitely a
fair one to bring to the Table.

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
Series alone, in which he hit what like five home runs,
including the clincher in Game seven at Dodger Stadium.

Speaker 3 (01:30:39):
Suck at La hit.

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
One home run in the first eleven games of the postseason,
added five in the world.

Speaker 3 (01:30:45):
That's what I was worried about.

Speaker 1 (01:30:47):
That's why I wanted to know about the numbers, because
I had a feeling that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):
Was a seventeenth Well, let me amend that. I'm trying
to figure what the minimum at bat should be to
put this list together. Probably the eighth or ninth best
ops in a single postseason was George Springer's twenty seventeen Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):
Because home runs aren't everything. They just seem like it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
No, but if you get on base lot for in
his case, if you're creating havoc by walking, singling, whatever,
right in runs. Yeah, he did all those things, but
it also what else does it show you? A bunch
of other astros had unreal postseasons.

Speaker 3 (01:31:20):
Yeah, and that's why I just I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:31:25):
I feel like, in order to have the best postseason
in Astro's history, it's got to end in either twenty
seventeen or twenty twenty two, because you won it all.

Speaker 2 (01:31:33):
Springer's twenty seventeen six bombs, nine ninety seven ops, Correa's
twenty twenty six bombs, seventeen rbi in thirteen games, twelve
twenty one ops. Altuve in twenty seventeen his MVP year
a seven homer postseason, Wall had three in one game
he just asked Bob Costas and a ten to twenty

(01:31:53):
one OPS. Jordan in twenty twenty three six homers, fifteen
stakes in eleven games with a fourteen eighty seven OPS.
And then Carlos in two series total of twelve games,
eight homers in twelve games, twenty one runs in twelve games,
fourteen rbi, six dolen bases, and a fifteen to fifty

(01:32:17):
seven OPS, which is the greatest single season OPS in
Astro's history.

Speaker 1 (01:32:22):
Well, if he had gone to the World Series, he
could have played longer and his numbers could have sucked more.

Speaker 3 (01:32:27):
Right, It's it's fair to bring the like anti George.

Speaker 2 (01:32:30):
We're trying to get to the world We're not looking
for an individual, but that's not what we're discussing. Just
one player going berserk, and he was unstoppable for what
happened to be briefer, but his entire postseason that.

Speaker 1 (01:32:41):
Considering the stakes of what we're talking about here, that
may have been the first time the Astros got a huge,
big fat dose of uh of Scott Boris.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
That was the first.

Speaker 1 (01:32:53):
He was the guy that was leveraging the Mets and
Astros against each other, or leveraging the Astros against them.

Speaker 3 (01:33:00):
That's basically because he was never going to come back here.
And Tim did know that.

Speaker 1 (01:33:04):
Tim Pooperah, Tim Purpura, Yeah, Tim poopera the former director
of scouting who was some reason given the GM role
because I don't know what you do to even let
Jerry Hunsicker walk out the door, but they did.

Speaker 3 (01:33:19):
Once upon a.

Speaker 2 (01:33:20):
Time, Carlos Beltron let Saturday night's deadline to resign with
the Astros pass without an agreement, and the Mets were
trying to close an agreement with the speedy center fielder.
Both the Mess and Astros were on the telephone Saturday
night with Beltron's agent, Scott Boris.

Speaker 3 (01:33:35):
Yes, Scott was working one against the other.

Speaker 2 (01:33:39):
Working for his player. Yes, an unbelievably successful telling Dad jokes.

Speaker 3 (01:33:44):
After blah blah blah blah blah. Hate Scott Boris, we
all do. The only people that like Scott Boris are
those agent clients.

Speaker 2 (01:33:52):
Mets fans are ready to tighten up their Beltron and
get after it.

Speaker 1 (01:33:58):
You know, it's sad. He probably said that, are you
reading a quote? No, it wouldn't even shock me if
you were.

Speaker 7 (01:34:03):
No.

Speaker 3 (01:34:03):
But Dad's no. You know, I've never been able to
come up with.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
Well, yeah, I'm a dad though, and I don't come
up with those my dad does. It's the pun, the
art of the pun. Brent should write a book.

Speaker 2 (01:34:15):
Carlos Beltron will be I think the only name announced
tonight for this Hall of Fame class as voted on
by the voters.

Speaker 1 (01:34:22):
Do you think at his Hall of Fame speech he's
going to thank Bob Nightingale or he's.

Speaker 3 (01:34:28):
Going to thank the writers without naming names.

Speaker 1 (01:34:31):
Even better, and honestly, the opportunity to address the scandal,
will he address the scandal? And or will he thank
Jeff Luno for bringing him in?

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
What if he addresses the public, whether it's during the
media blitz that will happen this week or during the
week before, or on stage and says one of the reasons,
I am glad the voters have voted me into the
Hall of Fame with all of my peers and everyone
on stage behind me, because I'm very hopeful that the

(01:35:03):
same will come true for one of the best teammates
I ever had, Jose Altuve.

Speaker 3 (01:35:08):
You know what in his first year, Eligiber, I don't
know that I've ever said something on this show.

Speaker 1 (01:35:13):
I've meant more than what I'm about to say. He
owes that to Jose Altuve. It's not just a nice
suggestion from Adam Wexler. On January twentieth, he owes Jose
Altuve after being the guy who brought the system.

Speaker 3 (01:35:27):
From the Yankees.

Speaker 1 (01:35:30):
He owes it to Jose Altuve because of how much
Jose al Tuve gets booed to this day, He's gonna
get booed next season for Carlos Beltron's jack assery.

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
Have you ever given any thought to you know how
we blame these pill Oh he did this and he
did that, and we're like, well, if he wouldn't have
done it, somebody else would have. Anyway, who do you
think would have brought the system to the Astros if
it wasn't Carlos Beltron.

Speaker 3 (01:35:52):
That came through those doors, anybody.

Speaker 2 (01:35:53):
They brought over the years, Because if everybody was trying
to gain an advantage, and the Astros were definitely trying
to gain advantage in every which way you could. As
we know other Major League teams where I'm sure they
would have at some point probably dabbled in the dark arts. Heck,
they don't call their own system basically that.

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
What was it called again, dark Star, something like that
Jedi mind trick, death Star whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:36:18):
Yeah, it will, I'm sure there will be. This will
be or tomorrow will be a day to read all
about the Astros scandal.

Speaker 3 (01:36:25):
Again.

Speaker 2 (01:36:26):
If Carlos Beltron gets in, and I'm pretty sure he will,
then we're gonna have a lot of this going on
in the next twenty four hours, people talking about the
scandal and how awful it was and how could the
Astros have done this and how could the voters have
let Carlos. I mean, we'll see it all.

Speaker 7 (01:36:41):
We know.

Speaker 1 (01:36:41):
It's it's like Pearl Harbor and nine to eleven all
put together. Oh wait, that was January sixth, My bad,
I got my subjects screwed up in all honesty. Wait
what yeah, you know people compare January sixth to that.
Oh okay, the woman who ran for president. Actually compare
nine to eleven and Pearl Harbor to January sixth, I.

Speaker 2 (01:37:05):
Again never see it coming. I know, talking about the Astros,
but Pearl Harbor.

Speaker 3 (01:37:10):
It's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
People who know, no, they know what I'm saying is correct.
It's absolutely factual. There's audio you want.

Speaker 6 (01:37:15):
To hear it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:15):
It's irrelevant.

Speaker 1 (01:37:17):
What if she laughs? You love it when she does that?
What if I could guarantee you that she laughed at
the end of it. Why can't you just do it
for our listeners? Or I don't want to do that.
I don't even think I'm good at it. The cackle,
I'm not good at that. But no, like, I'm not
even kidding why I say this. I really think that
it would not only be a nice gesture, you owe it.

(01:37:38):
This guy has had his legacy dragged through the mud.
And you know what the best part is, and by
best I mean worst. Whenever you tell people, hey, you
know they actually went through and tracked every at bat
of the season.

Speaker 3 (01:37:50):
What was his name?

Speaker 1 (01:37:51):
Who's the guy that tracked all the at bats and
like listened for banks? Yeah, that guy, first of all,
absolute lunatic in the most complimentary way possible to sit
there and listen to one hundred and sixty two games worth.
Oh my gosh, you have to be sick in the head,
but we're glad you did. He didn't take part in it.
He didn't want any part of it to be happening,

(01:38:13):
and so for him to bear the brun of it
because he was the face of the franchise. And I
told you this a million times and I still believe
it to this day. I think because he's a tiny
little guy who crushes the dreams of these idiot fans
over here that root for the Yankees and the Dodgers,
I think that's why he gets booed more than anything.
They know in their heart of hearts, he didn't. The

(01:38:34):
data is all there. This is to support it. His
own teammates have been like, yeah, I did it, but
he didn't. I mean, Josh Reddick will come on right
now and probably say it to this day. But like
Carlos Beltron could actually do a solid to a guy
who deserves way. He deserves the least amount of scorn

(01:38:54):
for this whole thing. If he were to just come
out during his Hall of Fame speech, you are dude,
there's no takebacks. It's not gonna hurt you if you
get up there and say.

Speaker 3 (01:39:05):
He'll rail on all the other teams while he's at it.
That'd be awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:39:08):
You want to, really you want to do a reverse
Mike fires Carlos. You have the chance to do the
most incredible thing as you're being put into the Hall
of Fame as other cheaters are not allowed in Roger.

Speaker 2 (01:39:18):
Very signature segment time comes your way. Next, it's time
for a Tuesday edition of Say What Little College Football?
A little NFL New York style coming up.

Speaker 9 (01:39:30):
This is Adam and adam sweekly chund through mind buckling
moments that make you.

Speaker 3 (01:39:36):
Go say what what say what?

Speaker 4 (01:39:43):
Type?

Speaker 3 (01:39:43):
What is here?

Speaker 6 (01:39:44):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (01:39:46):
On a Tuesday way? What odin I dare you now?

Speaker 2 (01:39:51):
Say?

Speaker 11 (01:39:51):
What?

Speaker 3 (01:39:54):
Lots going on in the world sports? Is it fine?

Speaker 2 (01:39:56):
A bunch of these last night had a special visit
her to the college football set.

Speaker 3 (01:40:02):
Maybe we'll hear from him today. What if they had
a bella danger on.

Speaker 2 (01:40:07):
Uh, we have a random fan of one of the
teams here joining us on famous we have a famous
fan of one of the teams. More likely she would
have made an appearance like Jake Paul did during the
Pat McAfee portion of their or that special broad. What
if Pat McAfee had on that, I could totally see.

Speaker 1 (01:40:26):
I'm a huge fan of your work. Probably I can
just hear him. He'd be enthused.

Speaker 2 (01:40:31):
And again, like we did with the Aaron Rodgers interviews,
we would be saying, man, please ask the right questions.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
All right, two hundred and fifty grand right now, if
you do this on the set, right.

Speaker 3 (01:40:43):
No, what classes are you taking?

Speaker 1 (01:40:45):
Oh my gosh, And he has to say it like that,
just dead pant with a straight face.

Speaker 3 (01:40:49):
What do you think she's majoring in? All right? Can
we get on with the set? I want to know.
Can we find this out? Communication?

Speaker 10 (01:40:58):
Man?

Speaker 6 (01:41:00):
Arts?

Speaker 3 (01:41:01):
Maybe probably getting a liberal arts degree.

Speaker 1 (01:41:04):
Liberal arts degree anatomy, bingo Joshua made.

Speaker 2 (01:41:09):
Is that an option? Majoring and anatomy?

Speaker 6 (01:41:13):
You know?

Speaker 2 (01:41:13):
No, there's classes to take and there's stuff to learn
about the old body.

Speaker 1 (01:41:17):
Do you think there is a professor on campus at
Miami named Pedro del Norte.

Speaker 3 (01:41:23):
I doubt it.

Speaker 2 (01:41:24):
Why she had no pete it's Miami. Yeah, But how
about more current? I mean, I don't not asking you
to out yourself, but I mean more current, more likely
the doctor they've carred in an ole missad accidentally.

Speaker 6 (01:41:41):
I don't know what you're talking about. Man.

Speaker 3 (01:41:42):
Everybody knows that John do this to me on live
radio and television.

Speaker 2 (01:41:51):
All right, So we've seen a few head coaches hire
hired their head coach. Tennessee's coming to an agreement with
their head coach. Some announcements have been made. We got
our first new head coach introduction earlier today as the
new man in New Jersey is John Harbaugh. So he
was introduced by his new GM. They're super excited to
work together. A bunch of side interviews after with management

(01:42:14):
and everybody like that. His family was there, as he
explained to one of the reporters from pix eleven in
New York, it's the last time they'll see him for
a while. Again, let's just he just say. He describes
his family as just a three piece, three peas in
a pod. He his wife, Ingrid, and their daughter who
was not there because she's in law school. Simone Eli
had asked that question of John Harbaugh today about you

(01:42:35):
know the real boss in the family. We all know
who that is coach's wife, as she is very well
aware of.

Speaker 3 (01:42:41):
But much like Nick Saban.

Speaker 2 (01:42:43):
Why did they even hire coach Harbaugh. What was the
impetus to doing this? Why was he there on stage
taking questions and answering questions and talking about the future
and the culture and we can win here. And I
really like Jackson Dart more than who he is as
a football player, but just the person.

Speaker 3 (01:42:59):
That he is. Why did they hire him at whose request?

Speaker 6 (01:43:04):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (01:43:05):
Well, this guy be the owner, right, They got a
great coach.

Speaker 6 (01:43:08):
I like the coach.

Speaker 3 (01:43:09):
I like his brother.

Speaker 4 (01:43:10):
They came up to see me with about three months ago.
They came up to see me in the White House.
And you know that with the mother and father, because
the mother likes me and the father likes me, and
I think they like me. And he's a great coach
and he's gonna do well with the Giants, just like
his brother does so well that they are they got
something very special in their blood. And I'm happy for

(01:43:33):
the Giants. They got a great coach. It's nice that
you asked.

Speaker 6 (01:43:36):
I did put out.

Speaker 4 (01:43:37):
I put out a strong word higher coach harbor.

Speaker 3 (01:43:40):
Them and they did. Do you think coach Harbaugh? And
they did. Who's the Jets owner again? Wood?

Speaker 2 (01:43:50):
He he knows he knows uh Don even more than
maybe the Giants owner, so he's in his cabinet, he
knows him.

Speaker 1 (01:43:57):
Well, that's why I'm wondering what he thinks about the
fact that if you listen to this SoundBite, you clearly
can tell Trump being a New York guy, clearly a
Giants fan I am.

Speaker 2 (01:44:09):
I love the fact that there are die hard fans
and all sports, for all teams, because that small extent,
that is what fandom is truly all about. No matter
how many times they kick you know, how many times
they let you down, you are You're their fans. Well,
that's Jets from the day you became a fan to today.
No matter what age, it's every New York team though,

(01:44:30):
because you are very one right. But what I'm saying is,
if you're in New York, this is what I'm getting at.
It doesn't matter what sport it is. There are two
teams at least, and you are not in any gray
area about which one you're rooting for. Yets and Yankees,
Yankees fans, Mets and Yankees fans. Easy for me to say,

(01:44:52):
very very like, there's no ifs ands or butts about
which way you're leaning, even like hockey Rangers or Islanders.
I want this to be true, because I wasn't quite
finished with statement when I said, well, the Giants have
won more recently. Yeah, but I want to say that
they're the only team that's won, even though the Jets

(01:45:12):
won with I mean Joe after nineteen sixty eight Super Bowl.
Following the nineteen sixty eight season, we saw the whole
third of a century pass and nearly another third of
this century pass without the Jets not only not winning,
having so many remarkably uncompetitive, non competitive seasons, And we're

(01:45:37):
sitting in a great spot to be saying this today.
They were historically inept. This year they did something nobody's
ever done before. Well, they didn't do anything. That's why
they were the first team to not do it pick
off a pass for an entire football season.

Speaker 3 (01:45:51):
Like being a.

Speaker 2 (01:45:51):
Giants fan feels like they have had opportunities to lift
you up and they've let you down. They've had products
worth watching and then it just didn't work out, or
they won super Bowls with a backup quarterback, and the
Jets for fifty plus have just been a joke, the joke,
like the butt of the joke, the butt fumble of
the joke.

Speaker 1 (01:46:10):
Well, but again, going back to the Trump's a Giants
fan like they surely a Giants fan.

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
I don't even know how he How do he?

Speaker 1 (01:46:17):
And would he even become acquaintances just because they lived
in the same city and the rich guys all know
each other.

Speaker 3 (01:46:23):
Oh, I didn't know that. That's that's definitely why. Right,
I don't know. I'm not one. Well, I'm not in
the club either, so I don't know. I'm definitely not
a billionaire, right, I just I just I'm a little
taken aback. I guess I didn't realize it would be
so obvious. And boy does he love the hardballs, all
of them. And I couldn't help but notice his thoughts.

(01:46:45):
And he's gonna win just like his brother.

Speaker 2 (01:46:47):
He's he's talking about hiring this great head coach, and
he can't help but talk about how great his brother is,
who's won less than he has.

Speaker 3 (01:46:55):
Yeah, but he won in college. Great. Well that's why. Hey,
you just said one follow I got a follow up here,
everybody's give me a follow up.

Speaker 2 (01:47:04):
Uh, mister President, you just mentioned his brother's been so good,
and he's just he wins.

Speaker 3 (01:47:09):
Where where did he win? Exactly?

Speaker 6 (01:47:10):
Michigan?

Speaker 3 (01:47:11):
Like me, you think all the swing states that's what
he'd say.

Speaker 1 (01:47:15):
Okay, uh, it's that's very on Brent. But again, I
think Trump could probably have like Satan himself come to
the White House.

Speaker 3 (01:47:26):
He's the greatest devil I've ever seen. It's quite a
journey where he lives. Maybe it's closer than you think.
You never know, it's pretty far down. Everybody's the best.
It's called hyperbole, it's called Trump isms. That's what he
does well. Is was that by the marine one? Was
that the helicopter outside the White House? Or was he
a tarmac with a with Air Force one? I couldn't

(01:47:47):
see the flight.

Speaker 1 (01:47:49):
Thought for sure you were scrolling and saw it and like, oh,
I gotta put this on the show.

Speaker 3 (01:47:53):
No, I was. I was excited for it, sure, but
you know, okay, all right, the greatest team to not
win the World Series? Is it an Astros team? We'll
explain next.

Speaker 4 (01:48:06):
The eight.

Speaker 1 (01:48:09):
So we're talking about Carlos Beltron likely being the only
guy named to the Baseball Hall of Fame coming up
in a matter of minutes here now, and it's supposed
to make the announcement shortly after the top of the hour,
and it I was scrolling my timeline and I saw
that our good friend friend of the show, John Morosi

(01:48:33):
had mentioned the following, and again this tweet reads, this,
are the two thousand and four Astros the greatest team
to not win the World Series? And Josh, I probably
should have checked with you before the segment to make
sure we have this audio here, But.

Speaker 3 (01:48:52):
He's basically arguing that.

Speaker 1 (01:48:55):
But I don't know that his argument, as you hear it,
is going to be the same thing as the Caps,
and so I just want to make sure the caption reads,
are the two thousand and four Astros the greatest team
to not win the World Series?

Speaker 12 (01:49:08):
Talk about Carlos Beltron the zero four Houston Astros. You're right,
Jeff Kent is already in and you think about that
iconic team probably one of the best ever to not
reach the World Series because they've already got Jeff Bagwell in.

Speaker 1 (01:49:23):
There you go, Jeff, Why can't MLB network last write
the right kind of option of caption?

Speaker 3 (01:49:31):
They got you to listen in, but it's it's it's sneaky.

Speaker 2 (01:49:38):
Yeah, I mean, it's hard for me to think you'd
even have an argument like that. The best team not
to not win the World Series? They also didn't get
there then probably not one of the best, A really,
really good team that got all the way to the
World Series and then lost. Yeah, probably would be considered that.
There's some hundred plus win teams that didn't go very far.
Seattle's team, you can add that to the conversation a

(01:49:59):
little different. So I would afford for that, I think fairly.

Speaker 1 (01:50:02):
But a four time about astros teams, I know they
were loaded with guys that had big names and were
still very much playing.

Speaker 3 (01:50:09):
Well, come on, man.

Speaker 2 (01:50:12):
Hang on to this until we're at the last member
of the team in twenty nineteen that's eligible for the
Hall of Fame gets in, and then revisit this. There's
not a single member of the twenty seventeen at twenty
actually twenty nineteen Astros that's in the World Series, right,
and he's about to become the fourth and that doesn't

(01:50:33):
include Roger Clemens from two thousand and four. Because their
their careers are over, they've been eligible for the Hall
of Fame, they've been voted in, they've been elected in
this year by the committee. Well, how many of those
astros are going to get in, which will then reinforce
the come on, this is silly. They were in the
World Series. It was definitely the greatest collection of talent
the Astros that ever put together, and they didn't win.

Speaker 3 (01:50:56):
Yeah, I mean, like Jeff Kent was.

Speaker 2 (01:50:59):
The Astros second baseman, not the best second basement in
Astro's history, because a guy on the twenty nineteen team
was Carlos Beltron was like Lance Berkman or some other
really good Astro.

Speaker 1 (01:51:11):
Jeff Caan't the third best second basement in Astro's history.

Speaker 2 (01:51:16):
Joe Morgan, Craig Vigio, Oh catcher, Craig Vigio.

Speaker 3 (01:51:20):
Oh, sorry forgot. Yeah, I mean it's a little unfair
because I mean those two guys are Hall of famers
who their whole career was in Houston, and his was
just a brief stop.

Speaker 1 (01:51:28):
Just like Carlos Beltron both times five minutes. His was
even shorter.

Speaker 2 (01:51:31):
It was one season where he was really bad at
playing baseball and the season where he was great. Yeah,
part of a season. It's to me, it's just you know,
I you know, and who is it we were talking to.
It might have been Blummer, but we were we were
talking about No, it wasn't Blummer and it wasn't Jeff Luno.

(01:51:53):
But I was talking to somebody who was close to
the organization and they were convinced their argument. I feel
like you were there for some reason, you know what.
Maybe it was Reid Ryan that said the twenty eighteen
team was actually the greatest team in Astro's history.

Speaker 3 (01:52:10):
I there's the case to be made. It just feels
like they weren't like the twenty nine team won them.

Speaker 1 (01:52:17):
That team won the most games, They had the top
two cy young you know, vote getters.

Speaker 2 (01:52:23):
They won three more games of them, maybe four, one
o three and one oh seven. I think for those
two teams.

Speaker 1 (01:52:27):
Yeah, I think you're right now, I'm not in Look,
the twenty eighteen was nothing that the team was nothing
to sneeze at, and it absolutely got robbed because Fat
Joe West took two runs off the board in that
game in the ALCS against the Red Sox, who were cheaters.

Speaker 3 (01:52:42):
And it's a case to be made, a losing case.

Speaker 7 (01:52:45):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:52:45):
They cheated the Dodgers out of a World Series that year,
and the Dodgers went and just signed two of their players.

Speaker 2 (01:52:51):
I mean two days a week, you give the ball
to Lance mccullors and Charlie Morton. Of the other three
days you'd give it to a cy Young Award winner
Dallas and JV.

Speaker 1 (01:53:03):
Dallas Kaiko won a cy Young That seems crazy now
and gold gloves like he was your number one, no
doubt about it. Ace in twenty seventeen and you thought
you had a pretty good shot to win the World
Series before you got justin Verlance.

Speaker 2 (01:53:18):
And he as a very good pitcher and Lance as
a very good pitcher were your worst two starters that year.

Speaker 3 (01:53:24):
And Lance was good.

Speaker 1 (01:53:26):
Imagine this, very good Lance mccullors, Lance mccullors junior got
you to the World Series by throwing twenty seven straight
strikes or a curveballs for strikeouts.

Speaker 2 (01:53:37):
And take what I just said and imagine this to
also be true. Because it was in the postseason. Lance
was great. He had at least as good in a
different role because he didn't start any postseason games. He
threw in five different games, and this is twenty eighteen.

Speaker 3 (01:53:55):
He had a one.

Speaker 2 (01:53:55):
Ader, while each of the other guys on this starting
staff and their respective roles didn't yeah well.

Speaker 1 (01:54:03):
And as it turns out, a lot of key guys,
Lance being one of them, were playing through significant injuries
to get to these numbers.

Speaker 3 (01:54:13):
Altuve at the top of that list.

Speaker 2 (01:54:14):
Nice to be able to have those conversations. It'd be
nice to have more World Series victories, especially with both
of those teams twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, which did
not do it even better than after the scandal. They
did get to the World Series twice, obviously winning it
once in twenty twenty two. It's what this will never stop.
These conversations will never stop because of their excellence, and

(01:54:36):
it's what we're dying to have with both of the
other two franchises. For more of a current look, the
Rockets got close to giving us that, but they kept
They don't have the they don't even have a finals appearance.
Hey got fostered. Yeah, so there isn't that lofty thought
about them. And obviously we're two days removed from this team,
reinforcing the fact that even with seven tries since two

(01:54:58):
thousand and two, or seven tries in the last fifteen
years of reaching the conference title game, they failed all seven.
Oh they got CJ strouded once.

Speaker 1 (01:55:09):
Yeah, I still can't believe how bad he played on Sunday.
If he plays twenty five percent better than he played
on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:55:19):
I mean, you know, a lot of people have pointed
to the being under a thirty passer rating, and everybody,
everybody knows if you take a snap and just spike it,
you got thirty nine point six. They could have run
the ball into the line three straight snaps each possession
and punted and then asked the Patriots to drive the
length of the field to put points on the board.
And I know their turnovers didn't equal hardly any of

(01:55:42):
the Patriots points, but they also prevented you from moving
the football, prevented you from keeping their offense on the sideline,
prevented you from scoring your own points. That's can't be
lost on what those turnovers were. And worst of him
wasn't I mean the two worst turnovers. One was his
pick six, clearly, which can't ignored. The Texans defense wasn't
even on the field for seven of the points that

(01:56:03):
were allowed, and then the Woody Marks fumble. Obviously, I
think considering Kymi made his kicks in the conditions, he
likely would have been at least able to put three
on the board or maybe a score six.

Speaker 3 (01:56:15):
All right, football at five is straight ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:56:18):
One more hour here on a Tuesday edition of the
program The.

Speaker 11 (01:56:23):
Eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:56:27):
Talk seven ninety Space City home network WEX has departed.
He is making his way down to Toyota Center, where
Victor wimbin Yama and the San Antonio Spurs await tonight.
It's the first of two games these two teams will
be playing against each other in as many weeks. The

(01:56:47):
Spurs are gonna be right back here next week inside
Toyota Center, but this one's the first of those two.
And uh, you know, I don't know if you want
to call it a measuring stick, that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (01:56:58):
I think right now, with the things are going.

Speaker 1 (01:57:02):
And the Spurs' wildest dreams, best imagination, I don't know
that they would see themselves five and a half games
back of the Oklahoma City Thunder, which in and of
itself is an accomplishment that sounds like it's a little
bit of distance, and it is. Consider that they've played
each other four times and the Spurs won three out
of those four games, so that's the only reason they're

(01:57:24):
even that close to the Thunder, and everyone else is
behind the Thunder as per usual, but.

Speaker 3 (01:57:30):
It's still tightly compacted.

Speaker 1 (01:57:32):
In the Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets will host the
LA Lakers tonight, and they're just an absolute bundle of
team chemistry on and off the floor of the Lakers.
I don't even with Jokic out of the lineup, I
would expect the Nuggets to win that game, which would
further tighten things because the Lakers right now are a

(01:57:53):
half game behind your Rockets. Rockets currently in the fifth seed,
just a half game behind the Timberwolves, who they beat
last week. And then the Nuggets are two games ahead
of the Timberwolves and a game back of the Spurs.
So again, much like last season, and we've talked about
this all year long, we kind of thought this is
how it would be. You would have hoped the Rockets

(01:58:13):
would have won some of those Utah, Portland, Sacramento games
of the world that they've dropped multiple times, by the way,
in order to maybe be in that three or four spot,
if not the two spot itself like they finished last year.

Speaker 3 (01:58:28):
But that has not been the case.

Speaker 1 (01:58:29):
And you can look no further than their conference record,
which is a fat five hundred right now, and all
the teams in front of them at least have a
winning record to the Rockets fourteen and fourteen within the
Western Conference, so no rest for the weary, and again
you're playing a lot more games at home. You're in
the midst of a five game homestand so Rockets have

(01:58:51):
no choice but to win games like the one in
front of them tonight if they want to climb those
Western Conference standings, because the Spurs show no sign of
slowing down even when victor WINMBN Yama isn't in the lineup,
and that's been the case about two of the teams
ahead of the Rockets, Spurs and Nuggets, both without their
big time big man for stretches this season. Obviously, the

(01:59:14):
Nuggets are in the midst of a very long absence
from Nikola Jokich, who does everything, and yet there they
are at twenty nine and fourteen. The Spurs, it's been
more of a okay, he misses a couple of games here,
a couple of games there, but they've been able to
amass a thirty and thirteen record and a big reason
why they're ahead of the Rockets and the Rockets again,
like I said, they just got to start winning some

(01:59:36):
football games or some base some basketball games.

Speaker 3 (01:59:39):
Wow, let's try that again.

Speaker 1 (01:59:41):
Rockets just need to start winning some games, period in
order to make up that ground. We've talked a ton
about the Texans and we'll do it again here at
Football at five is Look, the criticism of CJ. Stroud
has been front and center, first and foremost, and it's
going to be all we talk about, all we hear
about into the offseason, to the point where in April,

(02:00:03):
which is going to be here before you know it,
you're gonna be I think this is just my prediction,
you're going to be hearing about CJ. Stroud's season ending
the way it did when you start getting closer to
twenty eight, if that's indeed where the Texans pick their
first draft pick, and there's no guarantee of that, but

(02:00:26):
when the panelists during the coverage of that first round night,
provided the Texans hold on to that first round pick,
when they start talking about the team, it's almost assuredly
going to be the defense is amazing, but you've got
to do something to shore up that offense, which had
a spectacular flame out to end the postseason in New

(02:00:47):
England last this past year.

Speaker 3 (02:00:48):
I mean, that's what's going to be said.

Speaker 1 (02:00:50):
I almost can guarantee it, and that's going to really
really bring some scrutiny to this organization in specific Nick Cassario,
he's gonna meet with the media tomorrow. I wish I
could say I'm fascinated to see what he's going to say,
but I just don't look for an awful lot. And
we had him on the show earlier this year kind

(02:01:12):
of gave similar type answers. He's just not a guy
that gives good soundbites in general. And it's not even
necessarily It's not like he's not an eloquent speaker or
something like that.

Speaker 3 (02:01:22):
He just doesn't say a whole lot. He speaks in.

Speaker 1 (02:01:26):
Circles, he does cliches, he does GM speak, whether he's
trying to keep things close to the vest or not.
Bottom line is, when you're asking him questions, you're just
not getting a whole heck of a lot out of him.
And I don't expect that to change tomorrow, up to
and including the subject of Joe Mixon, you know, like

(02:01:46):
what happened That should be the first question out of
the media's mouth about that particular subject at least. But
I don't at all anticipate that he's gonna give any
sort of semblance of an informative answer. He might dance
around it. He might just choose to basically not address
it all together.

Speaker 3 (02:02:05):
You know, I don't know or I'm not clear.

Speaker 1 (02:02:08):
It's not clear the way Demiko Ryans did, so that'll
be interesting. But what I found interesting is what do
you say to your team after what happened on Sunday happens?
And I mean that in the truest sense, your Demiko Ryans,
you have been brought here to change the culture. Clearly,

(02:02:29):
you've been brought here to do a whole heck of
a lot more than that. Though, that's all we heard
about going into the New England game. Been to this
round plenty of times before. Got to change the narrative.

Speaker 3 (02:02:38):
It's all Demiko would talk about when he would come
in after the latest win, both regular season and that
night in Pittsburgh. We're not done yet. We've got more
to go.

Speaker 1 (02:02:49):
We've got a chance to do something historical that's never
happened in the history of this franchise. And he'll still
be looking for that as he enters year four and
as CJ enters year four. Because they came in together,
they obviously have championship aspirations, but CJ. Stroud's player lack
thereof is a big reason why that didn't get accomplished

(02:03:10):
this year. And it happened in a year in which
your defense was just an absolute monster, just a juggernaut,
could single handedly win you football games up to an
including scoring the football. And yet it wasn't enough to
overcome Drake May and the Patriots on Sunday afternoon in Foxboro.
So what did Demico say to the team after he

(02:03:33):
got into that locker room, after they'd been out in
the wintry mix and saw twenty eight to sixteen and
their season end.

Speaker 8 (02:03:41):
Keep your head up. I love you like I got
your back. And that's what I told him at halftime.
This whole team has your bag, like we're in this
thing together from day one, like it. It doesn't change
for me, Like we have a really special group, a
tight knit group. You know, when things don't go your way,
you have bad performances, it's not a time to point

(02:04:04):
fingers or say it's on one person, if anybody is
all it all starts with me. For me as the
head coach of this team, we didn't perform well. Obviously
I didn't have our guys you know, ready to go
in this moment. So that starts with me. We stick together.

Speaker 1 (02:04:20):
You know, there have been times throughout this season where
we come in here and we talk about how many
penalties the Texans had. You know, how many false starts,
how many illegal shifts, one of which happened in this game.
You know how many things that look like, ah, it's
such an undisciplined unit. That's such an undisciplined team.

Speaker 3 (02:04:39):
And they were.

Speaker 1 (02:04:41):
And I guess at the end of the day, that
reflects on on Demiko Ryans. I just have a hard
time and he's He's saying the right things there. I
just have a hard time saying or believing the sentiment
that Demico Ryans didn't have his team prepared to play
that football game.

Speaker 3 (02:05:02):
I just can't. I know that it's easy to say
that after twenty eight to sixteen, it's easy to say
that after the way cjla, But that's more to me,
And that's not even the coaches, Like you can't coach
CJ to not make some of the bad decisions he
made at some point.

Speaker 1 (02:05:22):
It's on him and he knows that. I'm not saying
anything that he hasn't even already said. But I guess
what I'm saying is when it gets down to it
when you had a defense like that, and you've got
a coach in Damiko that I do think gets his
team prepared, and I do think he has hired people
that have helped get this team prepared to win football games.

(02:05:42):
I guess I just have a hard time accepting that
when just such of the Lion's share was I don't
know what percentages you want to put on it, but
anywhere from sixty to seventy five percent CJ.

Speaker 3 (02:05:56):
Stroud Stroud and then some semblance of.

Speaker 1 (02:06:00):
Injuries, you know, turnover what he marks his turnover, and
just a myriad of things that did not go right
on the offensive side of the football, with like a
percentage or two going towards the defense. And I know
they allowed the Patriots to put up twenty eight points,
but I just have a hard time, just like with
what Demko said, I have a hard time looking at

(02:06:20):
that defense and saying, yeah, you're the reason we lost
that game here in Houston. You guys should have played
back and they'll tell you they were. They'll tell you
about the plays they left on the field because they
did that every single week.

Speaker 3 (02:06:31):
But I don't know, Man, They're in a tough spot
they really are.

Speaker 1 (02:06:35):
There's so much that has been done the right way,
particularly on the defensive side of things. I don't know
we said this last year. I was disappointed. I'm still disappointed.
Even with the addition of Ursery at left tackle, who
I thought was really, really good.

Speaker 3 (02:06:53):
It's proof that it can be done.

Speaker 1 (02:06:55):
But I was still, even in light of that, very
disappointed with how the Texans handled their offseason as it
pertained to the offensive line.

Speaker 3 (02:07:03):
You didn't know about Joe.

Speaker 1 (02:07:04):
Maybe they did know about Joe Mixon, maybe they knew
that he wasn't gonna but you at least attempted by
going out and getting Nick Chubb, even if that was
a band aid. This is by far the most pressure
a GM will have on his shoulders in the history
of this franchise going into this offseason, and I know
it feels like we say that probably every offseason, if

(02:07:26):
not every other offseason. I have never felt that more
strongly than I do going into April twenty twenty six,
as the Texans try to do something that can compliment
that defense and finally rid us of this divisional round
malaise every single year that is the Texans coming up short.

(02:07:48):
A lot of times to the team they lost to
on Sunday. Speaking of which, what did CJ. Stroud have
to say about what Will Anderson Junior said to him
in the locker room following that loss. You'll hear from
that will give away some tickets and more coming up
next the Tom Pelasero. Less than an hour ago, former

(02:08:10):
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel informed the Browns he's withdrawing from
their head coaching search ahead of a scheduled in person
interview tomorrow. Per sources, McDaniel, who is still a candidate
for the Ravens and Raiders head coaching vacancies, is interviewing
for the Chargers offensive coordinator job today. He has multiple

(02:08:33):
oc offers and could have a new home soon. The
Browns suck. That's awesome. First of all, I love the
fact that I still can't believe that we had to
deal with some beat rider in Cleveland talking about the
Texans Browns trade and how the Texans have fallen short

(02:08:54):
with a straight face, like just Mary K. Cabot's trying to,
I guess, kick the Texans while they're down, no matter
how down the Texans are right now.

Speaker 3 (02:09:05):
With CJ.

Speaker 1 (02:09:05):
Stroud and how he performed on Sunday. They're not as
down as your quarterback room. You guys were running Shador
Sanders out there this year. That's just awesome. Mike McDaniel
was like, you know what I thought about it. I
don't even want to come up there. I don't even
want to. I don't want to even a free lunch
from you Browns.

Speaker 6 (02:09:24):
I like that a lot.

Speaker 1 (02:09:25):
That's funny to me, no matter how bad you feel,
Texans fans, I don't think you're ever gonna be the Browns.

Speaker 3 (02:09:32):
I some people like to call the Texans Brown South.
I'm just not.

Speaker 1 (02:09:37):
I can't go there. I know that we have our
issues down here, but I guess I'll take our dirty
laundry over theirs.

Speaker 3 (02:09:44):
They're a mess.

Speaker 1 (02:09:45):
They have Miles Garrett and nothing that's basically them, and
they're run by the Haslims.

Speaker 3 (02:09:50):
All right, Speaking of our own dirty laundry. C J.

Speaker 1 (02:09:53):
Stroud mentioned the fact that he was being consoled being uplifted,
if you will, by several different entities, players, coaches, you know,
any number of people within the friendly confines of the
Texans walls trying to get to that quarterback and lift
him up. After that performance on Sunday, and in the

(02:10:15):
final analysis, the only thing that's going to change any
of this is CJ playing better. But in the meantime,
Will Anderson Junior, as we mentioned yesterday on the show,
just went out of his way to really reinforce how
much this team has CJ. Stroud's back, and if anybody's
deep down, probably as frustrated, hurt, disappointed as anyone, it's

(02:10:39):
got to be the leader of that defense along with
Danil Hunter, who just created so much havoc, made it
so difficult for opposing quarterbacks and offenses in general to
get things done this year, and just played their minds
out and you know, got the Texans in a position
to really do something special with, by the way, probably

(02:11:01):
the easiest path they're gonna see in quite some time. Injuries,
no Pat Mahomes, no Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen wasn't even
gonna be standing there at the end of things, and
Jared Stidham was going to be the quarterback between you
and going to the Super Bowl. But five turnovers. So

(02:11:23):
what did Will Anderson Junior have to say to c J.
Stroud following that loss?

Speaker 10 (02:11:27):
Yeah, you know, I remember you know you no, not
not feeling the best, and for him to come up
and say that, you know, it means a lot.

Speaker 2 (02:11:35):
You know.

Speaker 10 (02:11:35):
I remember coming up on my thirty visit when I was,
you know, just about to get drafted. I was twenty
years old, you know, young behind the ears, and you
know he told me, no matter if you come on
this team, no matter what happens, I mean, always have
love for you know.

Speaker 1 (02:11:49):
It's interesting because those two have been joined at the
hip since draft night. Uh, the iconic picture of them
walking together after they had been drafted by the Texans.
You know, they're wearing their suits and they've got the
Texans caps on on draft night, and look, both of
them have done some amazing things.

Speaker 3 (02:12:07):
In their early careers.

Speaker 1 (02:12:09):
But Will Anderson Junior is one of the best in
the league, if not the best. Like there's maybe a name,
maybe one other you'd put ahead of him, if that
like Miles Garrett because he's the defensive player of the year,
and then who, like you want to say Max Crosby,

(02:12:30):
Like it's Will Anderson Junior. And so he's the best
of the best basically at his position. CJ looked primed
to be that guy and then has just taken a
I mean you talk about meteoric rises, he's taken a
catastrophic fall if you want to include everything that's happened
in the last forty eight hours or so, because no

(02:12:53):
matter what he did his rookie year and everything about
that that was electric and refreshed and promising and just
sky's the limit, he has managed to neutralize all of that.
And even if it wasn't heading into Sunday's game, it

(02:13:13):
certainly was after Sunday's game, because what I said to
Wex yesterday, you go into that game, you know that
he didn't play his best on Monday night against the Steelers,
but you also thought to yourself, well, it's got it.
There's nowhere to go. But up right, you hear about
rock Bottom all the time, and just when you think
things can't get any worse, they do. Really, it's gonna

(02:13:35):
get worse than that.

Speaker 3 (02:13:36):
It's gonna get worse than how he played at times
in that Pittsburgh game. Yeah, it's gonna get way worse
than that.

Speaker 1 (02:13:44):
And yet the game was still in doubt in the
late stages at one point, which is just a testament
to this defense. But uh yeah, look, Will Anderson Junior
is being a good teammate, Will Anderson Junior and everybody
else that said something positive, including Dmiko Ryans about CJ.

Speaker 6 (02:13:59):
Stroud.

Speaker 1 (02:14:00):
They're all doing what they're supposed to do because they're pros.

Speaker 6 (02:14:05):
Boy.

Speaker 1 (02:14:06):
I'd like some truth serum, just to hear it. And again,
it's not that I don't think CJ can crawl out
of this hole he's in right now.

Speaker 3 (02:14:17):
We've seen it before.

Speaker 1 (02:14:21):
You know, Sam Donald is about to play for the
NFC Championship. Once upon a time, Sam Donald was in
a pretty bleak place as quarterback of the Jets. Then
he went to Minnesota, resuscitated his career, got himself a
fat payday in Seattle, and I mean, he's got as

(02:14:43):
good a chance as any to be standing there with
a Lombardi Trophy at the end of the year. Now
he did that by way of two different stops prior
to that. But you would like to think that it's
not a change of scenery situation, that this can be fixed.
Hopefully that you put the right pieces around him and
you get his head right.

Speaker 5 (02:15:03):
C J.

Speaker 1 (02:15:04):
Stroud can maybe rediscover some of that magic. I just
hate that we're having this conversation after year three, Like
if we were having a conversation about c J. Stroud
where you're like, ah, yeah, he's kind of got that
Josh Allen in them a little bit. He just can't
get over the hump. But you're talking about Josh Allen,
You're talking about a guy who's putting up, you know,
outrageous eye popping numbers in the regular season. Then just

(02:15:27):
can't get over the hump because he keeps running into
Patrick Mahomes and then he has a bad day when
Patrick Mahomes is out.

Speaker 3 (02:15:32):
That's one thing.

Speaker 1 (02:15:33):
And again that's why Sean mcdermot's out of a job
right now.

Speaker 3 (02:15:37):
That's why they, you know, or are in search of
a new head coach.

Speaker 1 (02:15:41):
Somebody had to take that fall for all of Josh
Allen's even though it's not just him, it's failures. But
it's not like that with Cj' it's a I don't know,
the Texans are in a precarious place because you don't
want to be in quarterback purgatory, and you definitely don't
want to be in quarterback purgatory while you're on the

(02:16:04):
hook to the tune of fifty five sixty million per
That's where the Jacksonville Jaguars are out right now, and honestly,
they look like they're not as much in that as
they were, say even the beginning of this season, because
of what they were able to do winning the division.
And even though he's not perfect, Trevor Lawrence right now,
pound for pound, is a better quarterback than c J. Stroud,

(02:16:25):
just because that's the way it goes when you have
these types of performances coming off the season you had.
I hate to say it, it is a sad commentary
on the state of the AFC South quarterback situation on
the whole, because cam Ward is cam Ward right now,
He's coming off his rookie year, and the Titans were
one of the worst teams in football, and Daniel Jones

(02:16:46):
is going to not start the season on time because
of an injury, and even before that, you could argue
that his success was fools gold because as soon as
the Indianapolis Colts schedule started having the matchup against anybody
who was any semblance of a defense, they kind of
got exposed. But right now, there's no way you can
say CJ. Stroud is the best quarterback in the division.

(02:17:08):
And I think that was pretzy, pretty easy to say
heading into this season. As recently as this season. So
that's that's where you're if you're the Texans. Picking up
that option is one thing, But committing to this guy, yeah,
this is going to be a serious audition here in
twenty twenty six, which means Nick Casario is hardly the

(02:17:31):
only guy with all the weight of the world on
his shoulders, but he definitely is. And that's why I
think tomorrow's press conference, while it probably won't be, should
be fascinating just to hear from the guy who is
right now because players aren't lining up until July and
into August. He's the only guy standing in the way

(02:17:51):
of this team taking that next step, making some serious
progress and fixing the one side of the football that
kept them from advancing, Or are we gonna do dumb
things again like not you know, maybe take as many
offensive linemen as I would have liked. I admitted I
selfishly wanted that, but you proved you can draft one. Finally,

(02:18:13):
it's not Kenyon Green. You know, urser is the first step,
in my opinion, to rebuilding the most important part of
any super Bowl caliber franchise. It's in the trenches. You've
got it done on the defensive side, you gotta get
it done on the other side of the football.

Speaker 3 (02:18:31):
We'll take a quick time out. We'll come right back.
We'll get you caught up on some of the things
we have not talked about today. It's called in Case
you missed it. It's next.

Speaker 11 (02:18:39):
The A team on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 5 (02:18:41):
Ninety good time for in case you missed it, But
real quickly, I want to let you guys know you
can support Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital for a chance
to win the grand prize of two tickets to Super
Bowl XL in the San Francisco Bay area.

Speaker 1 (02:18:58):
One lucky winner and a guest will witness this is
the biggest game of the year, live and in person.
Your experience doesn't stop there. You and your guest will
attend the exclusive Legends for Charity event presenting the Pat
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(02:19:19):
including a four night hotel stay in the heart of
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to Propeller dot LA slash super Bowl LX for more details.

(02:19:42):
That's Propeller dot LA slash Super Bowl LX Propeller dot
LA Forward slash super Bowl LX in order to get
yourself in the running. All right, Josh, it's time to
get to what we we have not gotten to, and
as I understand it, we have not one, but two

(02:20:04):
new Hall of Famers.

Speaker 11 (02:20:06):
We do.

Speaker 13 (02:20:07):
I haven't had that pulled up. I had something else
in the document on that too. Let us know who
that is.

Speaker 3 (02:20:11):
It's Carlos Beltron. It's also Andrew Jones. And I'll just
ask you, are you a little surprised that Andrew Jones
got in? This is his ninth year of eligibility.

Speaker 13 (02:20:21):
I'm a little surprised, but I think I see why
he did get in, because, my lord, my Twitter timeline
just was covered in Andrew Jones stuff the last few days,
probably more so than anybody else.

Speaker 1 (02:20:31):
Yeah, he I mean, if you're an Astros fan, you
obviously remember him being part of the absolute just thorn
in the side that was those Braves teams. But I
admit I thought maybe he would he'd be one of
those guys that was just squeezed out of the running,
and Carlos Beltrom would be the only name we were

(02:20:52):
hearing about today.

Speaker 3 (02:20:55):
Yeah, that's fair. We were talking about in the pre
show meeting.

Speaker 13 (02:20:57):
We didn't think Jones was gonna get in, but hey,
we don't always get them.

Speaker 1 (02:21:00):
Right, by the way, I like, does does Carlos Beltron
wear a Mets cap?

Speaker 3 (02:21:08):
Like? Man, what does he go in with? It's not
an Astros hat.

Speaker 1 (02:21:10):
That was Royals before the Astro Yeah, and then he
played with the Yankees obviously. Yeah, so that's gonna be
interesting to see an ass hat, six hats on his head,
right right?

Speaker 3 (02:21:23):
All right? What else we got?

Speaker 6 (02:21:24):
All right?

Speaker 3 (02:21:25):
Well, more football? I think that's a good thing.

Speaker 13 (02:21:27):
We have this from old Bobby Kraft, owner of the Patriots.
It looks like we are expanding to eighteen regular season games,
and I quote, I want to tell you guys that
we're going to push like the Dickens to make international
games more important to us. He said, every team will
go to eighteen games and then down to two preseason
games and every one, every team, basically every year will

(02:21:50):
play one game overseas.

Speaker 1 (02:21:53):
So count me as one of the ones that is
not a huge fan of this number one.

Speaker 3 (02:21:59):
I I just don't think that to me, and tell
me if you agree with this, Josh.

Speaker 1 (02:22:06):
The the international thing, it feels like, mean girls, it
feels like they're trying to make fetch happen, like I get,
trying to expand the game and all the cliches like that.
You hear that from every sports league. The World Baseball Classic,
which I mean baseball is a pretty expanded game as
it is, Basketball has probably done the best job of

(02:22:27):
expanding it, just if for no other reason than they
have so many international players not only playing in but.

Speaker 3 (02:22:32):
Leading the league right now. Look at the reigning MVP.

Speaker 1 (02:22:35):
Look at you know, Luca, look at just I mean
so many different Victor Wombinyama's in town tonight, he's from France.
So I just have no desire whatsoever to a wake
up to watch my team at eight o'clock in the
morning for some of these games.

Speaker 3 (02:22:54):
But b I just it just feels like it's being forced.

Speaker 1 (02:22:57):
And then you know it's it goes back to the
original thing where you know, players laugh it off when
the NFL fans concerned for players safety, yet they're going
to make them play eighteen games that count. The injuries
are gonna start going up significantly, not down. You can

(02:23:18):
try and balance it and offset at all you want
with two preseason games eighteen games that count. I hope
you enjoy. It's just just like a fantasy team that
you know you have a great roster when you draft it,
and then it's decimated by injuries and you limp to
the finish line if you even make the postseason. I
have a bad feeling that's gonna backfire in this sense
because you want your teams playing at their best, and

(02:23:39):
look all we have right now, just in the AFC
Championship game.

Speaker 3 (02:23:43):
Yep, Jared Stidham is starting. I mean, even if the
Broncos went and everything went well, you want that to
be Bo Nicks. And I'm not saying it's because they
played seventeen games, but they played seventeen games. When you
just play sixteen, like in an NFL game, is like
being in a silent car crash several times every single
time you play one.

Speaker 13 (02:24:04):
Yeah, and that's eighteen regular season games, not in postseason, postseason,
and then the other thing. Nobody plays in the preseason
now anyway, So it really matter if you take away
a preseason game.

Speaker 1 (02:24:15):
But what I'm saying is eventually they're not gonna be
playing in the regular season games because by the time
you get to week sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and in this
case nineteen because of and you're gonna have two buys.
By the way, you have two weeks when this happens,
and that's how they'll justify it. Of course, well, we're
gonna give you an extra week off, and how does
that help my torn acl.

Speaker 13 (02:24:35):
It's a cash grab and it's gonna water down the product.
There's no way around that.

Speaker 1 (02:24:39):
Greed always gets in the way of everything. Ever, it
ruins everything. That's why the scripture says the love of
money is the root of all evil, not the love
of money itself.

Speaker 3 (02:24:52):
People screw that up a lot.

Speaker 13 (02:24:54):
I'm with you, I be I mean, I'll be watching,
but you're right. It's you already see it with your
own fantasy team every year, like what your team look
like and then what it looks like by the end
of the season. And that's I think that's why we're
also frustrated with what happened with the Texans. It's not
this that often that you get a defense, like the Texans.

Speaker 3 (02:25:11):
That's this healthy and good.

Speaker 1 (02:25:13):
At the end of the year right now, I'm right
there with you. So but you know what, of course,
and that's the other thing about this. Robert Kraft, yes,
the owner of all owners, one of the richest owners.
Of course, he's for this money making, money grab scenario.
Of course he would be all of the owners or

(02:25:34):
for this. It's dollar signs. It's people who are going
to actually pay, you know, regular season money. Although do
they charge regular season prices for those preseason games, the
three that we have right now, I'm not rich enough
to know that answer. Yes, that's a good point. None
of us are. The next time I pay for an
NFL ticket will be the first time. Seriously, I don't

(02:25:56):
think I've ever bought a ticket in my life.

Speaker 13 (02:25:58):
I've always been invited, and I've certainly never had, you know,
season tickets or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (02:26:03):
No.

Speaker 1 (02:26:03):
No, I had family members that were season ticket holders
for a long from the beginning of the franchise. Right
and in the middle of the Jack Easterby era, we'll
call it, they finally pulled the plug and I applauded them. Yeah,
I was like, they're not being run like a professional organization.
I don't blame you. Things have improved, but now he
got our own issues again.

Speaker 13 (02:26:23):
Yeah, and that's what I talked about last night on
the show. Not only are you disappointed he lost, but
now it's did we have a franchise quarterback anymore?

Speaker 1 (02:26:31):
That's so sad. I just and again I can't help
but think if a big part of where CJ. Stroud
is right now may or may not being able to
have been avoided had you protected him better. Not saying
everything would be hunky dory, imperfect, but shouldn't you give
him every shot to be sure that it is. That's

(02:26:53):
the whole point of protecting your franchise player. If you're
treating him as any thing but that I don't really
know what you're doing. And that's my biggest gripe with
Nick Cassario, amongst many good things he has done, particularly
on the defensive side of the football.

Speaker 3 (02:27:09):
But we'll leave it at that.

Speaker 1 (02:27:10):
We got one more segment to go before we make
way for Rockets and Spurs coverage. That's right around the corner.
Final segment coming up next. I need it's Space City
Home Network, by the way. Carlos Beltron eighty four point
two percent of the vote Andrew Jones seventy eight point
four percent of the vote. This is the third straight

(02:27:31):
election to yield multiple Hall of Famers. When's the last
time there was just one? I suppose I could look
that up, but I'm very busy right now hosting a
talk show.

Speaker 3 (02:27:39):
All right, it's it's a Tuesday edition.

Speaker 1 (02:27:43):
You've got Rockets launch pad coming up right around the corner.
As the Rockets and the Spurs get together this season,
Victor winbin Yama, I gotta admit, has absolutely and this
is crazy to say, considering, you know what his hype
was coming in, but he's absolutely exceeded expectations to be

(02:28:06):
where he's at right now at this point in his career.
This is just this is, by the way, the second
game these two teams will have played.

Speaker 3 (02:28:15):
Mentioned that next week on Wednesday, they.

Speaker 1 (02:28:19):
Will play the third game before they get together March
eighth for the finale in San Antonio. They lost, did
the Rockets the first game in San Antonio won twenty one,
won ten? So they owe the Spurs for that one.
But again, and I've said it, and I've sounded like
a hater, and maybe that's what I am.

Speaker 3 (02:28:39):
I don't care. I will I will die on that hill.

Speaker 1 (02:28:43):
I do question Victor wimbin Yama's long term ability to
stay healthy and if indeed he can't, if indeed he
is the next.

Speaker 3 (02:28:58):
Ralph Sampson.

Speaker 1 (02:28:59):
Just to use a local example from way back, some
of you people are like, what, who's that? Yeah, once
upon a time, the original Twin Towers, they were in Houston.
There was this uh Ralph Samson guy. He was about
the size of Victor Winmbnyama. And then the Rockets drafted
Hakim Elijuan on the very next draft. You imagine that.
Imagine getting the nineteen eighties version of Victor winmbin Yama

(02:29:21):
and then the very next draft you get Hakim Olijuan.
That's what the Rockets had in nineteen eighty four. That's
why they knocked off the Showtime Lakers.

Speaker 3 (02:29:32):
In five games.

Speaker 1 (02:29:33):
By the way, in nineteen eighty six to get to
their first or their second finals, they lost in six
games too. I think probably the second greatest team of
all time the eighty six Celtics. I put the Balls
at the top of that list, and then I put
the eighty of six Celtics after them.

Speaker 3 (02:29:48):
But yeah, that was it was exciting times.

Speaker 1 (02:29:54):
I mean, I hate to say it, but illegal drugs
for the most part, in addition injuries, undid probably what
would have been a real rivalry here in Houston between
the Showtime Lakers and the Rockets. Showtime Lakers were well
under way already and they had their rivalry with the
Boston Celtics in the finals, but getting to the finals

(02:30:16):
would have been a whole lot harder had that team
stuck together. Instead, guy like Ralph Sampson built very similarly.
And again this is nineteen eighty six when they go
to the finals, then a few years later where he
starts having the knee issues. You know, sports science and
all that kind of stuff has evolved and advanced and

(02:30:37):
all that kind of stuff, but attendance is key, and
keeping him healthy and on the floor is going to be,
in my opinion, as big ashore as anything else. The
weird part is he has already missed too much time,
but it's not for like what you would think necessarily,

(02:30:58):
Like the blood clot thing came out of nowhere, and
that's something to keep an eye on because that's what
ultimately ended Chris Bosh's career prematurely. For example, he was
wearing orthopedic sleeves on his legs, that kind of thing.
Hakim actually dealt with that towards the tail end of
his career. This is very early on for a guy

(02:31:19):
to be dealing with something like that, But yeah, a
guy like Victor woman Yama staying healthy is going to
be the key for this Spurs basketball team to do
what they think they're going to do with him.

Speaker 3 (02:31:31):
In the lineup.

Speaker 1 (02:31:32):
As for the Rockets, like I said a couple segments ago,
they've just got to start winning games more than they
have been at a more regular clip. It's one thing
if you're losing close games to the Thunder on Opening
Night and you're winning most of your other big games
and taking care of the garbage. But when you're not

(02:31:52):
winning some of the other big games and then you
start losing to the Utahs of the world and the
Sacramento Kings of the world, and you know, things like that.
When that's happening, when you're losing dumb games to the Mavericks,
with or without Anthony Davis, you're a better basketball team
than them. That's where you start finding yourself caught up
in the mix, so to speak, of the tightly compacted

(02:32:14):
Western Conference.

Speaker 3 (02:32:15):
So a game like this tonight, and you know.

Speaker 1 (02:32:18):
Frankly, the confidence that it will bring because this is
a team that's ahead of you in the standings, whether
or not you think these two teams are on the
same you know, pairing right now with their status in
the league. And I'm talking about both fan bases because
we all know the Spurs things that are the greatest
things in sliced bread, and the Rockets are just an
also ran. They look at us much the same way
we look at them, trust me. But regardless of that,

(02:32:40):
it would be a confidence booster for this Rockets team,
who I think frankly needs it. It's one thing to
take care of business the other night, as the Rockets
did against the Pelicans. It's quite another to have a
team like this in front of you where you're not
talking about playing down to the competition. This is a
game you need to get up for, much like that
Thunder game the other night. That's what's that's what's stunk

(02:33:02):
about that Thunder game. By the way, you were competitive
in that game even though you weren't hitting anything.

Speaker 3 (02:33:07):
I mean, you shot awful.

Speaker 1 (02:33:08):
And credit to the Thunder defense for being a part
of that, but then in the fourth quarter where nobody
could score, it was just a lost cause that can't happen.
And it's a huge, huge bonus that Jabari Smith Junior
just had his best game of the season coming into
this game, because I kind of look for him to
kind of be an X factor. Tonight was trying to

(02:33:30):
see if we had gotten any word on whether or
not they're gonna have Tarry Easton in the lineup. I'm
guessing that's gonna that official news would come down like
any second now, because he was listed as questionable earlier
today on the injury report. Boy, is that a game
that you'd like to have a guy like Tarry Easton

(02:33:51):
out there, especially when you consider Steven Adams ain't walking
through that door. Looked bad the other night, and I
don't expect to see Steven Adams for a while, just
based on what we saw, and that stinks because he's
a big reason why you are the top rebounder in
the NBA, You're a top offensive rebounding team. Not having
him out there, especially in a game like this where

(02:34:11):
you need all the healthy bodies you can get to
throw at Victor Winbin Yama, that's a large blow as well,
So we'll have to see even saying all that should
be a good one tonight right here on Sports Talk
seven to ninety right here on Space City Home Network,
and again barometer, game measuring stick, whatever you want to

(02:34:32):
call it, it just feels like, especially since you got
Victor winbin Yama going number one in the same draft
that A Men Thompson was taking number four, these two
teams will always kind of be linked in that way.
I know that that Oklahoma City and San Antonio have
that rivalry because of basically this season's series, three of
which of the four games went to the San Antonio Spurs.

(02:34:54):
But I'd like the Rockets and Spurs rivalry to be
what it was. Frankly in the midd nineties after that,
the Spurs just absolutely owned the Rockets. They had Tim Duncan,
they were putting up championships, and the Rockets were dealing
with injuries.

Speaker 3 (02:35:08):
Sound familiar.

Speaker 1 (02:35:09):
Their big man couldn't stay healthy and their small forward
Tracy McGrady.

Speaker 3 (02:35:13):
Also couldn't stay healthy.

Speaker 1 (02:35:15):
So been along road, Rockets and Spurs renewing their iten
rivalry tonight and we will have all of the action
for you right around the corner here on your home
for Rockets Basketball Sports Talk seven ninety When we reconvene tomorrow,
we'll obviously be talking about that. We're going to talk
to Noah Eagle, who is going to be calling the
game tonight on the national side of things, a little

(02:35:37):
bit of a recap. He will join us for the
first simulcast segment of tomorrow's show at three o'clock, so
we'll look forward to that and continuing to discuss the
offseason that is currently thrust upon us with your Houston
Texans c J Stroud decision making, and of course everything
that Nick Cassario has to say at his press conference.

(02:35:58):
All of that and much more are going to be
discussed tomorrow on a Wednesday edition of the show. For
WEX for Josh I may see enjoy the game. It
is right around the corner.