Texans looking for statement went vs. Chiefs, Rockets square off with Suns

Friday on The A-Team, Wex and Clanton give their final predictions for Texans-Chiefs, look ahead to Rockets-Suns, share their Stone Cold Locks of the week, and more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, it is Friday on the A team Sports SOX
seven ninety. Wex ac with you until six o'clock tonight,
and it's time to watch the Phoenix Suns. Just get
absolutely molly wopped on the Toyota Center floor.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
That's my prediction tonight.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
I've already told the boys that precede us that they're
gonna win by thirty. So you can make your prediction
if you'd like, wex you're free to do.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
So.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Biggest victory of the season. Really it's thirty.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
It will be, yeah, because they've messed around and let
Utah get it under that margin the first time.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
By messing around, you mean intentionally took a turnover because
there's to be nice. Why didn't you? Okay, So the
other night they did it again.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
They did it again, and I was it was Wednesday
night against the Kings, and I texted you and I said, hey,
they're doing it again or something that effect.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
I understand, but I did mention it on the show
the following day. I said the Rockets had eighteen turnovers
recording to the box score. Guys, actually seventeen.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
I swear you, guys, you have to understand how much
fun it is when you have known Wex as long
as I have, both professionally and then friendly because believe
it or not, we are friends off the air. We're
not like, you know, an old married couple outside of
the four hour day part that we work. That's only
when it happens. I tell people all the time, you
should really hang out with Wex after the show's over.

(01:16):
He's a completely different person. You should really take a
road trip with him, because he's really a different person.
Nobody believes me yet. I gotta get that hook to
have a drink, Yeah, exactly. So. So anyways, I was
texting him the other night after the at the end
of the game, and sometimes I get it. Most of
the time I get a response from you, especially if
it's Rockets related, because even though you're not working the game,

(01:37):
you're obviously always watching it and probably five other sporting
events at the same time and a press conference thrown
in for fun. But yeah, I just I think that
you know, Dylan Brooks is gonna do his thing tonight,
but with no Devin Booker whatsoever, and obviously Jalen Green
is I don't know when he's gonna play for them again.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
He's had one game and like ten minutes of another.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Get this one before you go to Dallas for a
back to back. In other words, even though it's a
short trip, even though it's your second back to back
in a week after you had none before that. I
want to see Kevin Durant and company on the bench
in the fourth quarter, you know, Like that'd be nice
and get us in to a sweep of a weekend

(02:18):
because I think it's set up very nicely for Houston.
Now I'm talking about the pro levels, and I'm only
talking about two teams. But we should not come in
here on Monday talking about the Rockets or the Texans
losing a game this weekend. If everything goes according to plan, now,
something might happen.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
Well, their favored to win tonight handily, they'll be favored
to win tomorrow night by a smaller margin, and the
Texans are underdogs. But that number has changed.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
It was four and a half at the start of
the week, right, and now it's three and a half
if I'm not mistaken.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, it might have been four and a half. Like
after the Texans game. I'll tell you what.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
It went back to four and a half after Tim
settles and season ending injury. That's what it was. Definitely
did not do that. I do, but you know, I joke,
but he is. That is a big loss if you
watch them, it is a huge loss for that defense.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
It's depth. You don't agree. I mean, at some point,
you got eleven guys out there, you play fifteen, what
number do you get to where you wouldn't call it
a big loss? Like if Kamar Lasser doesn't play way
bigger loss. I agree, And and Kamar Laster is like
their sixth the best player on defense.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
That's how good they are, right, he would be like
the second or third on most teams.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Yeah, I mean, I don't want to you know, too
oh for it, but their depth is so good that
I'd be hard pressed to stick the word big in
front of loss. It's a loss. I don't want to
dismiss it at all. And I don't want to dismiss
the value of a tim settle. And you're you're you're
good because all of your players are good. But they're
well equipped at that position to handle his loss, I
might need.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
To have a Josh grab this audio. I meant to
do it yesterday, did you see? And I believe it
was Who's their offensive coordinator in casey, I know it's
Andy Reid for all intents and purposes, but Matt Naggy,
I think it might have been him that was talking about.
It's either it was either him or maybe their special
teams coach. It was talking about the advantage of the
cold weather, like guys don't want to tackle on special teams.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
That sounds like it could have been their special team Well,
actually I think it probably was him. But he's one
of the best. Yeah, well so is the Texans.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Now, you don't nobody's there's that's not nothing to sniff
at with the Texans.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
As long as they get to where they were the
last couple of weeks, not where they were the weeks before.
I mean it was just two games ago. They give
up a special team's touchdown. Yeah, but that was that
was that was what. That doesn't count, that's exactly what.
Did they lose the game? No, it doesn't count the game. Well,
that's because their defense saved that part of the team's
backside too. They're always saving bacon. That's the twenty twenty

(04:42):
five Texans. Yeah. By the way, again, practice today inside
the stadium. It's very light work. Usual Friday work for
a team playing on Sunday normal week, but Kamari Lasser
was working off to the side, so an effort certainly
seems to be being made on his part to see
if you can give it a go on Sunday. I
wouldn't suspect the very significant long term injury as Aaron

(05:07):
Wilson had reported the other day. This certainly jives with that.
Doesn't look like a long term, serious, certainly not season
ending injury. People who have suffered season ending injuries aren't
on the practice field four days later in any capacity.
So I'm not telling you he was practice. I'm telling
you who's working off to the side. But that's a
pretty good sign for the long term twenty twenty five

(05:28):
season future. We'll find out in a little bit what
his designation is for Sunday's game. I just I think
they're in good shape everywhere else. Everybody else who's had
any kind of limited time at practice other than Jamal
Hill and Jalen Reed, those two will be out. I
think everybody else is good to go.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah, I am cautiously optimistic about this game.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
I've felt pretty good all week.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
I just believe in the Texans defense that much but
you can believe in the Steel Curtain and the Shego
Bears in eighty five and all that. Patrick Mahomes always
gives the other team a chance to win. That other
team being the Chiefs, of course, he's always going to
give them a chance. And you can ask the Colts
about that is if you want the recency bias factored in.

(06:16):
I just I mean, I said some of the concerns
I had yesterday about the whistles he'll get potentially, But
I just think, like I said.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
The Texans are as aware of that as any team
in the NFL and will do what is necessary on
certain plays to prevent it. Yeah, hopefully not to their detriment,
but he'll try to bait and they'll try to not
take it.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Now, when you say bait, you're talking about flopping on
the sideline. You're talking about flopping in the back flopping.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
I'm just saying, he will you know, you'll run along
the sidelines and see how close he can get and
how close are you and he now he knows you're
not going to stop, So now I'll step out of
bounds when it's too late for you to stop and
hit me. And wouldn't be a penalty against anybody else,
wouldn't be a penalty if it was not a quarterback.
Might be a penalty because it's me, and because it's
a quarterback. There are a lot of there are.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
You know.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
There's obviously one of the biggest, biggest hits of the
year was being talked about quite a bit. Two of
them actually, but the one on Jackson Dart which couldn't
be more legal. He's standing in bounds and running. That's
what you do to football players who have the football
that are standing in bounds and running, and he got
absolutely smash and there was no penalty. There should be
no penalty. Nobody should ever be trying to say there
should be a penalty. But it has to be a

(07:29):
concern for the defense in that we're even talking about it.
It's like, you can't get more legal than that. Every
player inbounds both feet running with the football is fair game.
And it was a legal hit in terms of how
he was hit. So why is there any discussion about him, Well,
because it's a quarterback and because it was close to that,
and that's why there was a skirmish on the sidelines.
It's not the defense's fault and I'm glad they weren't

(07:50):
penalized for nothing. They didn't do anything wrong. But we
all aware of it because it's happened so many times
where it looks bad or do you think it's bad?
And like I said, I really, really, really, really truly
do not believe we're going to come in here on Monday.
And that's topic number one. I just I just don't
think that's gonna happen. It would be brutal. If that's
the case, Yes, it would be, so I definitely don't

(08:12):
want it to be. I didn't really think it should be.
Even in their last meeting, even though I'm aware that
there are several calls that definitely looked like they should
not have been made and both went against the Texans
or against the team playing Kansas City, which in that
case was the Texans. The Texans have made some mistakes,
They've had some calls go their way, They've had some
calls not go their way. This year. You know, the

(08:33):
best teams seem to figure out a way to overcome it. Now,
I don't know where the Texans fit in that category.
Are they among those best teams? They can be among
the best teams in the AFC this year. But honestly,
things like that are things that they will have to
show that they can overcome. All right, so you gave
him a first down on a you touched his helmet.
On third down, you got on illegal hands to the
face that was missed. You missed a you know, a

(08:55):
horse collar tackle. Who knows what it could be? All right, Well,
then go make the next play. I hope it's not
the last play of the game, and you got time
to make up for it. Yeah, you don't.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
I don't feel like that the Chiefs are playing the
way they have in recent seasons where you have zero
margin for error, like in you know, pretty much every
season leading up to this one, including last season somehow,
even though their offense was horrible in my opinion. But
you know, it's it's arrowhead, it's on the road, it's
cold that all the factors don't make Excuse me, will Yes,

(09:28):
you just gave the entire weather.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Report and that's it. It's not expected to rain or snow,
not expected to have significant game altering wins eight miles
an hour or less as of today, and yeah, it
will be in the high twenties. If the weather report
for today two days out and an evening game is accurate. Okay,

(09:50):
play a game in cold weather where you can throw
the ball, where you can punt the ball, where you
can kick the ball, where you can catch the ball,
no problem.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Where a lot of you have done that most of
your football playing lives. Yeah, meaning on what part of
the country or.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
There's individually you know, you walk up and down anybody's
roster that doesn't play in a cold weather city. Those
guys have been there, done that at some point in
their career. Everybody's gonna have it. Oh my god, this
is the coldest game I've ever played in. Will not
be this weekend, I hope for any of the players
on the Texas I suppose it could be for someone
who just never had a travel game in November or
December that had that remember the college football season outside

(10:25):
of the bowl game oftentimes, which isn't played in cold
weather to begin with. Well, college football season comes to
a close before it gets into late November and deep December,
So quite honestly, there could be younger players who have
just not been in the NFL long enough playing into
those colder months with more outdoor stadiums where they've really
truly had to do this. I think it's a bigger

(10:47):
issue when it's the weather conditions. I think it's a
smaller issue when it's the temperature. And that appears to
be the only thing that the Texans and Chiefs will
be dealing with. That's good number.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, I like that other than with each other, and
that's a whole different ballgame. And that's what we're gonna
get to all day long, along with the Rockets Sun's matchup.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
All.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
By the way, the Cowboys fatal flaw was exposed last night,
actually a couple of them. If you want to listen
to the talking heads, we'll get to that when we
come back.

Speaker 5 (11:18):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Forgive me, we all like get copyright of music in
the first hour, so I have to enjoy some pearl
jam when I hear it.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
All right.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
By the way, you're a little bit of a scrooge
about most things the rest of the year.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Do you like Christmas trading the rest of the year, Yeah,
a little this time of year. I'm not the worst person. Yeah,
I'll give you some grace during December. Do you like
Christmas music or you one of those people that's like ah,
here we go again. I'm the first category. Okay, it's
it's on already, Thanksgiving has happened, We've been to some
of the stores've been out. The radio has been flip

(11:54):
flopped around station to station, like our sister station here.
That's killing it. I like it. It's pretty easy to
get in your head.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
You're usually whistling it after it's stopped. By the way,
this is a part from Mariah Carey. That's its own category.
Of the thing is, I think people play that so little.

Speaker 2 (12:11):
And there's a bunch of other stations or Spotify wherever
you want to be, or via the iHeartRadio app. So
many opportunities there. I mean, what do you want from
your Christmas music? No problem is that? Yeah, I don't
think honestly, it's on enough if you're seeking it out,
if it's part of your Christmas playlist, if you have one,

(12:31):
Come on, man, you can do better than that. I mean,
Frank Sinatra is Christmas music. There's so much good stuff.
I'll tell you what.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
So, I was the second guy in that scenario for
most of my life. And I blame my mother for this,
and everybody knows it. And I would tell her this
to her face because I have a million times she
kind of oversaturated the holiday, because it would be you're
trying to go into that Thanksgiving food coma and she
wants to haul down all the decorations, and we're like,
hey man, can we just at least wait till after

(12:58):
the game and then the music's arts and then it's on.
But this is also happening in July. So I was
a little bit of a scrooge. But for whatever reason
the last year or two, maybe it's because Carson's like
a little bit older now, unlike I'm into it and
Michael bou Blaze Christmas album. If you're gonna do that
sort of thing, I would highly recommend it's not annoying

(13:18):
or obnoxious. Although the meme that starts circulating right after
around Halloween where Mariah is def what is it defrosting
or she's you hear the like the beginning of the
song and you see her under a huge chunk of
ice where she's been apparently all year.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
That's funny to me. I like that, all right. You
know what else is funny?

Speaker 1 (13:38):
When the cowboys lose, And not only when the Cowboys lose,
but when all the warm and fuzzies that had been
following them around in recent weeks, with some of their
improbable to thrilling victories were happening, and then all of
a sudden, in one night, it feels like everything that
was going their way got just snuffed out on Thursday

(14:02):
night Football Sports.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Talk seven ninety your Southwest, your deep Southwest home for
your Dallas sports. No, please continue, Well, I had you
had to make it official. I get that. So what
do you want to go with? First? The other team
is better than they are, and they played in their building,
so they came up short.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
You said yesterday as we were leaving, you thought the
Lions were gonna lose that game.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
I did. I thought the Cowboys had a chance, and
they did. It's a one score game much of the night. Yeah,
they gave up a lot of points, yep. Probably didn't
want to do that.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Forty four of them. That's a lot, even for that defense.
But suddenly that defense looked like what we thought was
going to be the case most of the year. And
it's not to say they haven't given up a lot
of points in games, no.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
But recently and the changes that were made, they've may
made several major in season defensive changes from a personnel standpoint,
that obviously improved their defense, and I think the thought
maybe things would be a little bit different in last
night's game probably not very good news for them. When
they learned that Eamon Ross Saint Brown would be good
to go, and he looked perfectly fine throughout the game,
it probably hurt them quite a bit when someone on

(15:08):
their way. And I'm not saying this because on pace guy.
I'm saying this because of who he was up against
and where he was going on the field all night.
That's a two hundred plus yard receiving night in the
making for ceed Lamb if he doesn't leave the game
with a concussion. Now, I don't think they had any
trouble throwing the football to anybody other than George Pickens
last night, even after Ceedee Lamb left the game, So
I'm not saying it would have maybe changed the outcome.

(15:29):
But when somebody is going off like that and it's
difficult to I guess rein in like it looked like
Ceedee Lamb was in the midst of having that kind
of a night, you know, maybe does change things. But
I think the simplest thing is what I said out front.
It was a kind of an eliminator game for both teams.
I think the Lions can make the playoffs at seven
and six with four weeks to go, but now they

(15:50):
don't have to try. The Cowboys at seven, five and
one are in a totally different spot in the neighborhood
of thirty almost forty percent probability to make the playoffs.
But they lose and now it's under ten percent. They
need so much help. Now they only have six wins,
there's only four more weeks. They can only get to ten.
Having the tie could play in their favor, obviously, but

(16:11):
now they got to win out just to have a chance.
I mean they lost to a good team. They lost
to a good team in a simple in a similar
position to theirs. You know, didn't make a ton of mistakes.
Dack's interception obviously is one of them. The fumble from
Ferguson is obviously one of them. They made a couple
more mistakes, and I think we would agree. Personnel wise,

(16:31):
I'm shocked that Detroit is at this point in their
season record wise, with who they have. On the positive side,
like I think their personnel is better than their record,
and the Cowboys, I think are the opposite. I think
their personnel is worse than their record, but their offense
has been so potent they've kind of been able to
overcome it well.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
By the way, since we're on the subject of it,
the ced Lamb concussion, since I got to playing doctor
a little bit on the radio, that looked like the
type last night that's going to keep him out multiple
games just because of the.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Again, I know what you're thinking. I'm thinking he will
play in week fifteen's game, which is their next game.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
He like did the whole What is it called posing unintentionally? Yeah,
but it's like a it's a medical term. He was
trying to talk his way out of it off the field.
I think he was trying to act his way out
of it on the field, because you did see the
tensed up right extremities, and then it looked like he

(17:32):
was trying to talk to the first person who got there,
Like I'm like, he was trying to get himself back
in order.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
But I'm glad. This is why we don't just leave
it up to the player, and we do have the
independent people there for this very reason. But it's a
Thursday game, Like, it's the kind of the opposite path
of CJ. Stroud. Well, it happened to him on a
Sunday game, and as he hoped to come back then
he was trying to come back before a Thursday game,
so I had less time to come back. They just
played back to back Thursdays. They obviously won't play again

(18:00):
until the following Sunday, a week from now. I mean,
I don't like even getting into these discussions because it
just this total guess work, and I hate guessing on
these things because of what they are. But who knows.
Sunday he has extra time to try to pass protocols
being that it was Thursday. This is a game, is
two games, is three games. I just hope whenever he

(18:22):
is capable, he plays.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
Which would be I guess, best case scenario or okay,
news to stomach. If you thought that George Pickens was
going to be solid in his absence, which by the way,
he was earlier this year, but now all of a
sudden there's drama surrounding him. At least if you listen
to Richard Sherman after the game, gege Pickens.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
George Pickens throughout the game, especially late in the game,
just look uninterested playing football, you know, And that's what
you can't have if you're gonna be a superstar, if
you want to be the best receiver in the National
Football League, you can ever be disengaged. It doesn't matter
if the game's going your way. I'm not going away.

Speaker 2 (18:57):
You can't just disappear in these games. A rush You're
not gonna have him.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
And just right here, cruising, cruising routes, you're the guy,
You're the guy, ceedee Lamb's not in this day, he's
out and you get intercept there on your sack routes
and you can't beat the guy in path?

Speaker 6 (19:11):
Does it?

Speaker 3 (19:11):
And I'm sorry, it's just you can't.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
It's unacceptable.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
And if you're a Dallas Cowboys and you're looking at him,
and you're looking at the big time receiver money forty
million dollars, you gotta look at this safe and say, hey,
is this a guy who can trust paying forty million
dollars to show up with growing in some circumstates, I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
So there are a lot of people that could not
get away with saying something like that. Richard Sherman's not
one of them. Richard Sherman has the credentials from his
playing career before he ever dove into broadcasting, to be
able to look at what George Pickens was doing last
night or not doing, and say something like that and
have the credibility that to you know, behind it to

(19:49):
do so. I tend to agree with him, by the way,
I don't know. I mean, you might not, others might not.
I don't know how Cowboys fans are feeling this morning.
I don't know if that's something they were feeling as
the game was going on and then they heard him
and they were like, yeah, actually, that's what I was thinking,
or if they're disagreeing because he has been good for
the Cowboys this year, but especially like what he said,

(20:10):
in a game like that, where you're one, your number
one receiver is out and you're trying to make a comeback,
it's not what you want to see.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
It's definitely not. If this were most every other player,
it wouldn't be much of a big deal. But it's
a player who has way too much baggage. This should
not I mean I didn't. I'm not even trying to
grade what it looked like, not even really trying to
grade Sherman's comments on what it looked like it's George Pickens.

(20:42):
That's why he is a Cowboy in the first place.
Because Pittsburgh was tired of his act. Georgia knew he
would be off campus at some point, he'd be in
the NFL, so there's no reason for them to send
him away. But they were tired of his also, and
at no point in his career. You'd have to go
multiple years of just perfect behavior, perfect teammate, perfect production,

(21:06):
super team guy for a player like this to even
hope to get past what you created as a well
deserved reputation. Not even specifically saying dogging it if that's
what Sherman is and he was, but just in general,
this awesome season he had. Almost any other player would

(21:27):
be going into free agency next year or whatever the
Cowboys want to do with him next year and be like, Yeah,
I'm glad I had the opportunity to play in a
great offense. It was a great fit, and I went
up and I shined like he did that part. But
who was even with that? Who was going to take
the chance, Who was going to give him four years
eighty million? Anybody? Were the Cowboys even going to do it?

(21:48):
They're the ones who see him every day or were
they going to say, Man, he's really productive. Our offense
is cooking. It's a great compliment to CD. I can't
imagine us replacing him, all right, perfect with French tag him.
So the only risk is for the upcoming season he
gets a ton of money. I hope he's happy with it.
We're taking on that additional risk just to who he

(22:09):
is and how he might react to this, even we
can't sync that much faith into him. Last night just
showed you. I think who pickens has always been. Yeah,
well why he don't respond on his ig which has
since been deleted. A lot of bad stuff there? Can
you clean it up? This is a team game. I'm

(22:30):
not the only one on the team. Stop becoming an
analyst and talk about one player. When you're playing a
team's game, Lots of has to go right, explosive plays.
It's funny because I thought former players would know that
all caps very bad things about Richard Sherman and the
Legion of Boom much love and a bunch of other stuff.
Don't speak on me unless you know. And this was
immediately after the game, so obviously Richard Sherman hadn't spoken

(22:51):
to anybody about anything. Not that he needs to. He's
an analyst doing postgame work. It's kind of why we
like players on set. They have a pretty good feel
for this.

Speaker 1 (23:02):
Especially ones that were demonstrative in talking when they were
still players.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
They tend to translate.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Well, that's why Ryan Fitzpatrick is like, whoa where did
this come from? You know he was well spoken, but
I just didn't see that version of him during his play.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yes, like the Cowboys gave up forty four points, they
kicked a billion field goals. Like George Pickens not having
nine targets and nine catches but rather nine targets and
five catches. I don't know that that's the swing factor
in last night's game, but if it happened and he
saw it and he felt like talking about on their
very lengthy postgame show, which I sing time that they do.

(23:39):
It's not a filling time. They just every other what
other NFL games have this Monday night, Sunday night, and
Thursday night. There's no postgame show for Texans, who they
beat last week, Colts. There's no Texans Colts postgame show.
They talked for about it for three seconds and they
go to the next game. They go to the next Game,
and even NBC and ABC Slash ESPN on respective Sunday

(24:01):
and Monday nights, they have fifteen minutes. It's not Lonny,
They're not like this. Yeah, this is extremely long and
there's a lot to go through, and that's what we
get from it.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Yeah, it's and it's been good too. All Right, we
will take a quick time out. We'll come right back.
We'll get to the best of X Friday edition on
the A team.

Speaker 2 (24:20):
All right.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
We scour social media to find the most fantastic, interesting,
hilarious out of this world's stuff, bring it to you,
and then, of course the responses are what's the best
part of this? This is kind of out of left field,
but since we're always talking about this subject, I thought
I would bring it to the attention of everyone. How

(24:42):
do you feel about tile murals? Tiled art where you
take a whole bunch of little bitty things and you
put them all together and that makes a big image
of something.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Do you think that's interesting? Do you think that's cool
A mosaic?

Speaker 1 (24:57):
Yeah that well, no, but it's not I don't think
it's necessarily that's the term for we in art class. Well,
we are today with what I'm about to talk about.
I mean, and this is why I hate school. I
definitely hated those classes, hardly ever had to take them.
Thankfully business school didn't require that nonsense. Sorry kids, Yeah,
that's neat stuff.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
I like it. You don't strike me as someone that
would have hated school. Hey, do you want to go
to check out the museum? I mean the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame? No? Is it some other kind
of interesting stuff? Or is it mainly just art? No?
The name of it ends in fine art. Is it
mostly like paintings and sculptures and stuff? Okay? What's is

(25:39):
it next to? Anything? Like? Could I meet you after?

Speaker 1 (25:42):
So you're not a huge museum guy. Apparently five hit
them all? But no, not really. Herman Park is beautiful,
all right.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
So the answer to your question, whatever it would have was,
is yes.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
Some guy put he took like, I mean, this has
to be hundreds, if not thousands, of Rubik's cubes, which
by the way, have to be solved before you can
use them the way he need. He did it because
they all had to be you know, uniform and whatever
color it was. He took a whole bunch of these

(26:14):
had this like hollowed out frame and somehow made Shay
Gildess Alexander's face with again.

Speaker 2 (26:24):
This seen this before. You know, you have a you
build out a box basically so you can just line
them up. Or I've seen someone do this with legos
before you make a Lego design and like it's a
little square Lego and you drop it in, and you
drop that in, you drop that in. Once you fill
up your box with all these creations, it shows something else,
you know. I've seen rice dumped into a particular way

(26:45):
and oh, look at this picture, and then when you
throw it up, it looks even cooler until you've ruined
the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (26:49):
I've seen some of these. Well that's what happened here
is This guy's name is Dylan Sidik. He made It's
called Shay Gildess Alexander Art.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
I guess it. In the video he's.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Standing next to the finished product and I'm sure it
was staged, but still the whole thing falls over like
just everywhere, total disaster. Looks like something that would have
taken hours to make, and he actually rebuilds it. Is
the is the gist of the rest of the video,

(27:22):
but it's all about the comments you know guys saying
things like I would have given up, or these are
the guys that should be pattern recognition experts.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
I like that one. It's very CIA related.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Maybe the way this looped, I thought it would have
happened again, way cool before he destroyed it.

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Blah blah blah blah blah. Then we get to the
good stuff.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
The art flopped just like SGA and I sent you
a I saw this this morning. It was a montage
of egregious, egregious pushoffs in different games against different opponents
and different defenders. Where is it's not even close. The

(28:03):
defender is not flopping, he's pushing off not being called
for it. Sometimes the defender's being called for a foul
to get his basket, and it's just got to be stopped.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
This evil. Have you seen the movie that Chevy Chase
was in, the basketball movie that he was in. It's
called fletch oh Okay. So he has a basket in
his home and he's also in the midst of a
divorce and his wife's divorce lawyer comes to visit him

(28:32):
at at his home to issue him some papers and
ask for him to you know, you owe us, you
know Wendy, his ex wife. You owe some money and
I'd like to come collect it. And as he's pretending
to listen to him a he thinks he can cover
whatever it is he's looking for monetarily because he just
got something from Ed McMahon and the mail, so he
thinks he's about to win some Mubblisher's clearinghouse. But b

(28:55):
he his setup. It's in his kitchen. He's got a
basket and the basketball is sitting right next to the basket.
But if you pull the string from ten to twelve
feet away, it disengages and the ball bounces to you,
so you can take your shot, you know, like a
ball return missione right there in his kitchen. So as
the lawyer is explaining some of the needs that they have,
he pulls the court and ball bounces to him. He

(29:18):
shoots a free throw, and then he steps to the attorney,
grabs him by the shoulders and bumps him with his
chest and says, he draws the foul and he takes
his free throw. That's shay, yeah, yeah, you're talking about
where he actually creates contact so he can create space,
which is why they beat the Rockets in the opening

(29:39):
game of the season. That's the shot he hit to
end it. He creates space so he can take a shot.
If they call a foul, great, Now I get three points.
If they don't call a foul, even better because I
fouled the offensive player or the defensive player. But I
know they're not gonna call it. Now I have space
to take my jumper. Those are the ones I wish
they would get rid of, and they're not even the worst.

(30:00):
The worst ones are when he drives and falls, When
he drives and says, wow, I'm no way I can
make this shot from this angle. So I'll just fall over.
I'll put my arm up so it looks like the
guy hit me, or I'll brush against his jersey as
he's looking at me, like, what kind of ridiculous, unable
to score move is this that you're making. I don't
even have to defend this. Oh but I was too
close and your elbow hair graised the numeral on my jersey.

(30:25):
And the officials are going to fall for it, because
look at you. You're fifteen feet away after you slid
across the floor. Soccer player, even though nobody touched you.
He's a soccer player, he's I mean it's not really
that different from James Harden in this part exactly. They're
so freaking good at putting the ball in the basket,
like Shay is elite in every possible way you could

(30:46):
ever want. If he's got a shot from twelve feet
to nineteen feet, it's going in. If he's driving to
the basket, it's going in. He's awesome. James was the
same way. It wasn't about well, I need the fouls
to get the extra points, but he so good at
that too. Shay's just doing the same types of things
that people wish they weren't a part of the game
when Harden was doing. And I certainly think I know

(31:08):
the teams are sending tapes to the league office. The
league has to be gathering this stuff on their own
and sending it to the officials before they work for
the week. Every Monday, here's our meeting, here's a bunch
of film you need to look at. You've got one
of his games coming up. This is ridiculous to us.
We know he's great for the league, and it's awesome
that he's our MVP, but seriously, it makes us look

(31:30):
like morons. Please don't call this. We have hope these
are happening.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
We have had numerous rules changes, including that of James Harden.
I mean, this is this is a point of emphasis
now because of this thing that James Harden was doing.

Speaker 2 (31:45):
I'm sorry, I wish there was an equal I really
don't think there is, because he was what he was doing,
the rip through the you're forcing the contact.

Speaker 1 (31:53):
But have you ever seen anyone push off like this though? Yeah,
so just call it it's a push off, I know.
But and get away with it. They said, stop letting
him get away with it.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
Mirvi Turvian thinks he pushes off a lot.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Yes, they talk about MJ getting all these whistles, but
like MJ did not push off like this, least of
all against Brian Russell.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
He did in that situation, and that was a very difficult.
Most of Shay's push offs are almost all the same.
He puts his shoulder into the player. If he's driving
towards the basket with his left hand, he shoulders them
with his right vice versa with his right hand and
his left shoulder. He puts it into them and extends it.
And when almost every other player does it offensively or defensively,
Listen to the announcers. Listen to me, Listen to Ac,

(32:37):
Listen to Matt, Listen to TV guys, Listen to Craig
and Ryan and Videssa. He extended his arm. You see
the chicken wing come out. Yeah, and they call it
unless it's SGA because it's a foul. I don't get it.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
And clearly the NBA is at a crossroads where they're
looking for star power to push and he's the guy
because they're the champs, and he's young, and he scores
a lot, especially the free throw line. But like, okay,
if you want him to be the face of your
league in Oklahoma City, you can't.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
This can't be it.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Again if you and I realize that he's probably ten
billion times more likable a personality than James Harden ever
was or will ever be, because James is a big
a hole. But you can't just let him get away
with it because he's nicer than James hard.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
He doesn't do a lot of That is one thing
that in game you'll notice. I think you'll notice because
so many other players Lucas at the top of the list,
there's a bunch of other players with him. They just
never shut up. Well, that's your things talk and talk
and talk shit. He doesn't refs non stop and it
hurts their team. I still actually like shit. Yeah, he
didn't do a whole lot. And if you ever see him,
there was a guy because he doesn't have to guy. Yeah,

(33:47):
well did you see the guy that was taunting him
in Golden State the other night? So the person to
his left was asking for an autograph and the tauntre
to his right was saying something in a What was
he saying to him?

Speaker 1 (33:57):
I can't remember the exact context of it, if you remember, basically,
just he was saying something about gonna yeah he said
he was basically a paraphrasing. I do know what he
did say that he's too good to be doing this,
like you just got done saying you don't need to
do this play the right way.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
But now we're talking about Maddox and Clavin. Why did
they throw the pitches off the play? Ump was going
to give it to him. They were way too good
to need it.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
But they should take point higher better officials NBA.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Good god, it's not that hard. There you go a
lot of people talking about this. I'm sure they will
continue as he and the same usual suspects are up
for MVP conversation later in the year or maybe even
whenever Oklahoma City suffers lost number two unbelievable, so they've
yet to suffer so far this season.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
When we come back, Dylan Brooks is back in town.
Hear what he is saying ahead of this matchup with
Yoke between your Rockets and his sons, I think we have.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
The same like minds. Votes by ourself in defense, no mentality,
and he really still that from both sides from the
quarterstaven from the players. So you know, I got along
with e May's one of my you know, good friends,
and they against them.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
That was a specific comment about he and e May
same like minded people as how he viewed it. And
sure it'll be cool before the game just because it's here.
Obviously we saw everything that took place before the last
game and after the last game. Plenty of hugs and
you know what's ups from guys that he got really
close with. And keep in mind, the Rockets made all
those changes and a lot of those players just stayed

(35:38):
like that was the team they put together. He and
Jalen are among the first to not be a part
of this, like Jeff Green, is in a one year
two year rocket. He and Aaron Holliday and a lot
of these guys, clearly the young Corey. They've all been
there through that whole time. They were all there that
whole time, through the couple of years of the Dylan
Brooks era, So I think there are a lot of
good feelings there. He's been awesome as a player for

(35:59):
the Suns this year, especially over the last ten games,
most of which has been played without Jalen and are
now going to continue to be played without Devin Booker.
He's averaging almost twenty five points per game, shooting at
almost fifty percent overall from the field. His three point
shooting is down this year. I think because he's taken
on such a large offensive importance to their team. He's

(36:20):
taking so many more shots. He's doing much more offensively here.
I'm going to get wide open looks at three because
I'm wanted the kickout guys. He's really never been that.
He's taking threes in the framework of giving him the ball.
He's sizing up the defense and this is the shot
I want to take. And he's taking more three pointers
than he ever has. He is probably the biggest driving
offensive force that they'll be up against tonight is again

(36:42):
that the way that the Rockets play these teams to
stay with them. Phoenix had to play extremely hard to
stay with them the last time, and that was with Booker.
They'll have to do the same thing tonight to try
to stay with them because firepower is concerned. Defense for
the Rockets, outside of their loss to youth Saw on Monday,
for the last eight nine games, has been significantly better

(37:05):
than it was at the beginning of the seasons. Why
their defensive rating now is where they would love for
it to stay among the top couple of teams of
the NBA. They held the Suns to ninety two points.
That was the first time they'd held an opponent to
a number that low. Had another game this week where
they held an opponent under one hundred points, something.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
That could easily happen again. I think the Rocket's gonna
win by thirty tonight. I think I've said that already,
but you have. I'm just gonna reemphasize.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
In the first fifty four minutes I think they I mean,
I hope you sn nobody by thirty did come close.
They have come close twice. Yeah, I have two twenty
eight point victories.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
You know what was crazy was the other night when
they trailed the lowly five win Sacramento Kings by one
at halftime, fifty two to fifty one. I believe they
outscored them seventy to forty three in the second half.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
It was alarming.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
And again I still maybe it's because I have last
year's Rockets unquote offense in my head. It was alarming
at how quickly that got out of hand in the
third quarter. And then you looked up and it's like, oh, yeah,
they've scored one hundred and twenty five points and you
never thought they would even you know, it just didn't
look fifty one at halftime.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
They scored twelve points in the first four minutes of
the third quarter and already had created a complete change
in the scoreboard. Down one, up six, they were up
double figures just at the three minute mark of the period.
That's how fasted. We don't have any trouble scoring. We
were already fifty two points allowed. Great, you're gonna give

(38:36):
up one hundred and four tonight, you're definitely gonna win. Well,
then they also got their offense going, so a win
turned into a blowout win three.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
O'clock in Houston, Texas, on a Friday edition of the
A Team Sports Talk seven ninety Space City home Network,
WEX and AC with you alongside Josh Jordan As.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
We'll take you up until six o'clock.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
This is our number two of the program overall, and
we've talked a lot about the that's going to highlight
the weekend. That would be your Texans going to Kansas
City on national television to play the Chiefs. The only
thing bad about this whole scenario, it's not the weather.
It's not potential for the referees and Patrick Mahomes power

(39:15):
walking all over the field, none of that stuff.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
I mean, that's all bad. Ah Man, It's gonna be a.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Burden to listen to Chris collins Worth just absolutely gargle
for three hours over Patrick Mahomes and everything wonderful he does.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
The injury report for both teams has been submitted and
it went about us expected. What we told you at
the start of the show an hour ago is exactly
how the Texans have laid things out concerning their eight
players that were at least listed on the injury report
for today. Five of them were full participants. At there
walk through practice today and thus have no injury designation,
and that includes Will Anderson Junior, Denico Autrey, Trent Brown,

(39:50):
Woody Marks, and aziz Al Shaier three players listed as
either non participants or limited, and we told you about
those as well. Jamal Hill and Jalen Reed are both out.
A broken arm for Reed and the hamstring that has
kept Hill off the field for the last couple of
weeks have them both out for Sunday's game. Last year
is listed as questionable with the foot injury. I told

(40:11):
you he was working on the side with the team
practicing today, doing what he can to see if there
is an opportunity for him to be active on Sunday,
and a listing of questionable suggest that the team believes
there is an opportunity for that. Could be an update tomorrow.
Every once in a while, especially on a road game,
when the team flies out, this player didn't accompany the
team or this situation has changed, and they'll give that.

(40:33):
Kansas City side is also essentially as we suspected it
would be listening to Andy Reid discussed things earlier this week.
Both of the offensive linemen that have been unable to
practice remained unable to practice, though again reluctantly, Chiefs aren't
ruling them out. They have not ruled out Trey Smith,
they have not ruled out Juwan Taylor, their guard and

(40:55):
tackle respectively, though they're both listed as doubtful. I think
this is more you're allowed to do it, and it
isn't faulty and it's not fake. But I don't think
either two of them are going to be able to play,
and I think they will both be out, which means
they'll have three alignment they otherwise would not have out
there because Josh Simmons is also out, He's out for
at least the next four games. He was placed on

(41:17):
injured reserve. One of their return men is also out
with his concussion and shoulder, Nico Remijo from last week's game.
So we'll see how that impacts what they like to
do from a specialty standpoint. Otherwise, Carlaftis, Mahomes, Pacheco, and Rice,
all of whom have enlisted all week, all of them

(41:37):
full participants all week. There are obviously no injury designation
for any of them.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Good to go by the way, you sent me a
video earlier, m HM, and you said CJ is at practice.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah, you sent me a video of something funny from
an Instagram reel, which I would not be watching while
I'm watching Texans practice inside the stadium. Too many people around,
who knows what it could be, That's right, So I
was just indicating to you what I was doing at
the time. And when they practice inside, it's at One
of the main differences is they aren't gathering all of
whatever it is they need to practice and then leaving

(42:11):
the stadium and taking the walking bridge over to the
other side of the street and then walking across the
first practice field and then entering the indoor training facility
and then going out to practice. When they practice in
the stadium, everything's there. They walk out, Well, I'm just saying,
they walk out of the locker room and right onto
the field. So it's a much more staggered attendance. Everybody's

(42:35):
not there coming from everybody's inside the practice facility before
practice starts, every single player that's going to practice, and
when practice begins, they all file out. The only thing
that's staggered about it is you can only fit one
football player through the rotating door that exits the practice facility,
and sometimes that's barely enough. So you've probably seen a
few of my videos of players coming onto the field.

(42:57):
From that vantage point, it's a just base, a single
foul line of players making their way onto the field.
When they do it inside the stadium, they could come
at any time because they're right there. When I'm done
at my locker, and I'll be there in plenty of time,
or when I need to be there. The quarterbacks were
on the field without CJ for I don't know, five minutes,

(43:17):
but I certainly wasn't going to say it doesn't look
like CJ's practicing today. If they were outside, I might
have because that would have been abnormal. Then about five
minutes into Davis Mills looking at a surface tablet and
Graham Mertz bouncing a football off the indoor turf awaiting
their walk through part of practice, and CJ walked out
to practice, And obviously I was videoing at the time,

(43:38):
so I just mentioned that to you. But you know,
different players will walk out at different times. It's just
a little bit different. You know, We're in an interesting
spot from a I want to tell people if during
the small portion of practice, the media viewing of portion
of practice, players aren't there, then that means they either
are very limited and haven't aren't a part of this
part of practice, They're not going to be there at all.

(43:58):
That's what I do over the course of the week.
A little bit different. When they're inside. They also have
three outdoor practice fields. Any given day they use two
of them. The third field, whether it's technically field one
or technically field three, that field is the quote unquote
rehab field training camp. Especially guys are pulling sleds, Guys
are being measured by the health and performance staff to

(44:21):
what can they do they're on the side field. We
don't video the side field. We really don't report on
what's on the side field unless it's something that's been
mentioned by the coach or is obvious and you're allowed to.
When they're inside, there's no third field. There's one field.
If he's working off siled side, yeah, well I see him.
He's there. These guys are practicing, and these guys are

(44:42):
practicing and there's this player, so it's a little bit different.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
That's actually the first thing I thought of when you
said he was off to the side today. I thought
you had sent the video. I didn't realize they were
going to be inside. It's pretty normal for Fridays walking through. Yeah,
when the stadium is available for one thing, it is curious.
I'll just go ahead and knock out Friday's walk through inside.
It's just it is curious to me if you're going
up to a cold environment that you wouldn't have been

(45:07):
outside a little it's overblown.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Well, they spent two and a half hours outside each
of the last two days, and today's such a light
practice that, Yeah, that's the situation. But I would I
would stress if Kamari Lasser is on the field in
any capacity that means he's trying to play, because if
he's not trying to play, there's no reason to do
that on a Friday before a Sunday game that's nine
days away. You wouldn't You wouldn't want him on the

(45:31):
field trying to get ready for the game against the
Cardinals in two weeks.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
He's trying to get ready for this game. What is is?
Is there a specific on the foot injury?

Speaker 2 (45:41):
I don't know specific, I don't. I don't know if
it's a sore foot of you know, some sort of
planner for it or tell you, But I don't think
it's particularly, Like I said, I don't think it's particularly serious.
I know Aeron Wilson reported the same yesterday that it
doesn't obviously it's not. It could be season ending. If
he week by week doesn't play in the fight, he
wouldn't be out there. Probably know that, And I would

(46:01):
like to say I couldn't tell you for certain what
the Texans will do. I know who the backup for
him is. Technically it's Traymon Smith, but I have my
doubts that they would just say, Okay, next man up,
you get all the reps here, because I just don't
think that's feasible against the team that they're playing. I
think too many other teams know the difference. He has
played good at cornerback previously, not in this go round

(46:26):
with the Texans. He's been with the team more than
once he came back, and mainly as a special teamer.
But it kind of shows you how thin they are.
Miles Bryant might be someone that would be utilized in
this situation, but they obviously have other needs because of
other injuries and other situations that they're facing. I just
don't think if it's you know, you have sixty three

(46:48):
snaps on defense. If it's a normal game, Kamari Laster
plays all sixty three. I don't feel like the player
that backs him up is going to play that because
the player that should be backing him up is out
for the year. That's Jalen Smith. That's one of the
other rookies that they drafted in. Almost immediately he became
the number three corner. He became the number two outside

(47:08):
corner at both spots. If Stingley was off the field,
he was in his spot. If Laster was off the field,
he was in his spot. Unfortunately, he got hurt twice
this year now, the second time that he's on IR
that ended his season. So there is a bit of
a depth issue there. Something else interesting about the pickup
they made yesterday JaMarcus Ingram from the Buffalo Bills. The
Bills put in acclaim on Darius Slay and that was

(47:30):
the roster spot they cleared in order to get him
on the roster, and subsequently he's I don't really want
to I don't want to play here or play at all.
Maybe so. Sean McDermott was at the podium, the Bills
head coach, and he wasn't really very happy about it.
For obvious reasons, but the secondary reason was he wasn't
happy is because of how much he likes JaMarcus Ingram.

(47:53):
Ingram's played mostly special teams for the Bills this year,
but he has seen time in most of their games
limited work at the cornerback position, which is obviously a
huge area of need for Houston. I think if there's
any kind of trust and familiarity with how the Texans
play their defense to how Sean McDermott and their defense plays,
that it might speed the process up. And maybe. I mean,

(48:16):
they've signed two corners to the active roster from other
teams in the last two weeks, and Mere Speed is
the other and he's a top flight special teams player,
but out of necessity could they play? Could Ingram play
four days after being added to the roster. Maybe it's
not so far fetched.

Speaker 1 (48:34):
What if Justin Simmons was signed to the next twenty
four hours, would he make the charter?

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Yes, if your statement happened. The answer is yes, and
there's virtually no chance of that happens.

Speaker 1 (48:45):
It's not amazing to me that these guys are in
that physical shape.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Well they're not. You don't know that.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Well, but yeah, you can be doing whatever as a
free agent.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
It's st just not the same as you know game action.
I would bet that every coach is different, but my
guess is most would be like this. If you're not
practicing every week, if you're not on the practice fields,
you didn't go through training camp, I can't believe that
you're ready to play for us anytime soon, not the
first week. If we could sign you and you could

(49:14):
go work out for three weeks, or you could practice
with us for three weeks when we have some sound
of grace period and you're not on the counting against
the roster, then maybe I could see it. But I
don't think the Texans. Maybe because of Demiko and who
he is and how he thinks, even though I couldn't
say that for sure, he might not believe a player
who hasn't been with a team since the end of
last regular season is ready to join his team and

(49:37):
be on the field for his defense.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
And definitely they were both really good players, yes, but
definitely not on the road against Patrick Mahomes. Now if
they were home for the Titans this week, maybe because.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
They're terrible, they might be. I think it was.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
It might have been Klay Travis because he I think
he has season tickets because he lives in Nashville. He
was tweeting about the Titans and he was like this
might he goes, I've seen a lot of football, and
I've seen a lot of bad teams over the years,
and he's a Titans fan, so he's a little bit
more in tune with them specifically.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
He said it's probably the worst football team he's ever seen.

Speaker 1 (50:11):
And I'm like, wow, because if you think there's some
Lions teams in there that were almost didn't they go
zero for sixteen?

Speaker 2 (50:16):
They did one of them. Dan Olofsky on that squad
was that the back of the end zone stepping out
of bounds season? There was that season. And keep this
other small little tidbit in mind as you're referencing who
the opponents might be before we hit the break here.
The team against whom he played the most defensive snaps
of this entire season in any game this year was

(50:37):
November against the Kansas City Chiefs as a part of
the Buffalo Bills Secondary West.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
Yes, I got something crazy to throw at you with
regards to this Texans defense. Now, last few days, we
play a lot of talking heads talking about how amazing
this this team is playing on the whole, but then
just specifically, how this defense has been fantastic. Any number

(51:07):
of national types talking about that very thing, how it's
the maybe the great equalizer in a matchup with Patrick Mahomes,
however you want to phrase it. I'm not saying that's
how they did it, but it's certainly a talking point
for I guarantee Chiefs Sports talk radio up there in
Kansas City has been talking about the Texans defense all week.

(51:29):
And I think, just based on what Tarren Armstead had
to say, for example, that I could make this opinion
in a season like this and it not even be
hot taky. And it's not to take anything away from him,
but I think there might be a way that Danil
Hunter is underrated this year.

Speaker 6 (51:51):
So they're relentless, they're consistent, they play really well together
the entire defense, But talking about these two guys specifically,
Danil Hunter has been there, and I feel like now
he's starting to get his notoriety and starting to get
more attention nationwide attention, but he was that in Minnesota.
I've had my personal battles with the guy. I'm happily

(52:12):
on this side of it because of guys like Danil Hunter.
Have you ever seen this man in person? When I
say a specimen, this dude has zero percent body fat.
It's crazy to watch this man and the way that
he plays. And then you add Will Anderson on the
other side and their fire individually, but when you combine them,

(52:32):
it's picked your poison because as an officive line in protection,
you can only slide one way. One of these two
guys are getting a one on one.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
So that audio coming courtesy of Pro Football Focus. Former
offensive lineman for those that are unfamiliar, twelve years in
the NFL. Last year was his last year, so.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
He can speak of very recent play against the guy
like Danil Hunter. But I mean, and I wanted to
say underrated, slash, maybe even overshadowed.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
And it's again, it's not a slight at all.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
It's just that I think just being in a city
where they play and talking about them on a daily basis,
I think we have a little bit more of a
feel for it than maybe outsiders. Will Anderson Junior is
getting more of the praise and attention this season, even
though they have similar sack totals and all that.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
Kind of stuff that usually gets you the talking points.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
I think that that Will Anderson Junior, for whatever reason,
has gotten more pressed so to speak, along with maybe
some other guys on that defense.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
And I'm not.

Speaker 1 (53:34):
Calling him the forgotten man. I'm not even saying he's
not getting credit. But it just shows you how good
they are that a guy that is a specimen, by
the way, as he put it, with zero percent boy fat,
which we can both attest to, is just not getting
the kind of run that he probably normally would, maybe
even in Minnesota a few years.

Speaker 2 (53:52):
Ago, publicly right on talk shows on we got a
fill time shows. But there's no lack of it in
team meetings. There's no lack of it in offensive coordinator
meetings and passing game coordinator meetings and offensive line meetings
for the opposition of the Texans. You know, we talked
about it yesterday with that list of traits where he

(54:12):
obviously he probably could have been on there ten times. Underrated.
I guess the term itself probably screams this is exactly
who you're talking about, because just go ask any NFL analyst,
go ask any fan of football on the street, Go
to the Texans game at Kansas City this weekend and
ask somebody, give me your five best edge rushers in

(54:32):
the NFL. His name probably gets left off of it
quite often. And I'm saying he has to be on it,
but I bet you he gets left off of it
a lot more often than he should be for who
he is. Will Anderson is gonna have thirty career sacks
soon soon he doesn't yet, Daniel Hunter is among the
active sack leaders. Daniel Hunter has been a sixteen and

(54:53):
a half sack season player. Before you know he's got
his hundred sack. He's on the list of fastest to
get to one hundred sacks in an NFL career, among
the fastest. This is nothing new. But he also did
all of that work in Minnesota, and he wasn't doing
all of that work during their wild card divisional round,
conference title game, round super Bowl round of the playoffs either.

(55:16):
So I think he basically has an entire career of
being overlooked. Who's best edge rush in the NFL. It's
probably JJ Watt, Oh, maybe it's Miles Scared or again,
you're gonna run through this list of other names before
you get to his, and then you'll go and look
at the numbers and say, I didn't realize he was
top five and pressures again this year. I didn't realize
he was top six and sax agons this year. I

(55:37):
didn't realize its twenty twenty two. There's only three players
that have more sacks and there's only one player that
has more pressures. I'm not these are hypotheticals.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
But well, and maybe that is why yesterday the Texans
x account posted that graphic. And again, sometimes I make
fun of this stuff because it just feels like, oh,
you're cherry picking numbers to make it look good, but
this is legit. Will Anderson Junior Daniel Hunter of only
six players that have a ninety plus pass rush grade
this year. So there's six players that have that rating

(56:06):
and you have two of them on your team. That's
why you have more than a chance to go into
Kansas City and beat Patrick Mahomes this weekend.

Speaker 2 (56:12):
So since nineteen ninety four, there are just five teammate
duos that have had double digit SAX seasons in back
to back seasons, which obviously Danil Hunter and Will Anderson
Junior have now accomplished themselves last year and this year.
And that's over the last thirty plus thirty one NFL seasons.

(56:33):
Jerry Hughes and Mario Williams did it in back to
back years in Buffalo. Mario played in Houston before Buffalo
and Hughes played in Houston after Buffalo. Lamar Woodley and
James Harrison did it. Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney did it.
John Randall and Chris Dolman did it. There will be
a couple of Hall of famers on those of those

(56:54):
previous eight duos. And you look at Jared Allen's career,
he was somebody that played with Daniel Hunter on that
Minnesota defensive line. He is a Hall of Famer. I
think it's getting harder and harder as he continues at
his age to play the way he's playing, thinking that
there's another three or four years of this at least,

(57:14):
to not view Daniil Hunter as underrated as he is.
This is a Hall of Fame football player. Yeah, and
I one opposite will Anderson, like you have something. It's
more than just having one. It's what they can do.
Because why can't double team both of them? I can't
ship both of them constantly all game long.

Speaker 1 (57:35):
By the way, just because it's a conversation. They came
up earlier this season. You absolutely extend Will Anderson Junior,
like as soon as the season's over, or maybe even
before that, and then you worry about CJ next offseason.
How about really, do you think that's the way the eventual.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
You again, the second part you don't necessarily have to
be relegated to. But I'm down for the first part.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Well, only one of them is like, this is one
of the top whatever in the game.

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Of what he writes that you're suggesting what we're gonna
have to continue talking about. You're right to suggest it.
There's no doubt, there's nothing to concern yourself with. If
you have to go out and find the best pass
rusher out there, well you have him. He's right here.
You don't have to do that. There's no doubt. He
is the best, He's among the best. He sets the tone,
he's a leader. All of the things you would ever
want build from scratch, there's Will Anderson. Yes, you don't

(58:24):
have to think about it. All you think about is
what's the least amount of money that will make him
super duper happy that we can work with. And they've
actually the way that Nick Cassara is operated. Probably don't
talk about this enough either the lack of negotiations or
acrimony and negotiations that I believe doesn't exist. Again, it's

(58:45):
a lack of it. He negotiated with David mullagedto on
a three year extension for Derek Stingley Junior. How quickly
did that come together? That's not an easy agent to
deal with. By the way, he's one of the best.
I don't mean from the standpoint of personality means guy,
he's awesome, right, I against his guys their money? Well,
what did he get there? Ek Stingley Junior? A good deal,
the number one deal. He became the highest paid for

(59:07):
a very short period of time. But also clearly both
sides are happy with it, and it was not your
typical contract. It was short term, the extension for the
best cornerback in football heading into he wasn't even outside
his first contract yet he only gave him a three
year extension. The two contracts with Danil Hunter, they signed
him to a two year deal and then when they

(59:27):
headed into the last year of the first one, they
extended him to another two year deal. He actually did
the same thing with Laramie Tunsel it was an extension,
but it was a shorter term extension. I don't think
there's many players they want their guaranteed money, for sure,
but at the age of all of these players were
talking about, they know there's another huge contract in their
future when this one runs out, so they're fine with

(59:49):
it as well.

Speaker 1 (59:50):
That right there, what you just said I don't agree with.
And it's not because you're saying it. It's because of
the game they play.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
But at the age that they're signing it, it would
they would have to almost be retiring due to injury
to not get that additional And yet this is the
one sport where that could happen on any snap. It could.
But I mean, can you cite a few I mean,
there's probably not even three players you could cite that
that's happened to. Well, until we see Tank Dell. I
just mean that this can happen.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Yes, I mean Tank Dell went up for a touchdown
grab which he caught by the way, and his leg
was turned a mush like mush.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
I don't think you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Guys realize how significant. Well you probably do just from
the the optics of it. But like people were wondering
if he's ever gonna play again. So I just I
it's that is what I'm saying is that's impressive that
Nick Casario got Stingley to sign on the dotted line
for a short term deal in a violent game like this.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
I don't know that it will work the same way
for Will and Yes, it's a violent game. But as
much as I hope it's not putting him in this
category until he plays again, he would be in it.
It's not a very big group of people. Tank Dell's
in a very very small group of NFL players who
may have suffered an injury during the contract number one,
a four year deal where he might not play from it.
I suppose I could say that he hasn't played yet.

(01:01:07):
I don't believe its career ending. I don't know that
he has sentenced to the same performance level, but won't
get there. When they get there, we'll see. Will Anderson
Junior is a half sack away from tying Jadavian Clowney
for fourth on the franchise list in sacks. Will he
get it against Patrick Mahomes Boards to seven ninety, you're
Southwest home for Yankees Baseball.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
There you go. It's not official until we play the
imaging Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Yankees Baseball December fifth, twenty twenty five. Meetings about to
get started, signings likely to follow.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Tell me if you agree with this sentiment about just
society in general here in America.

Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
These days, definitely not here we go that serious. It's
gonna be awesome. Victimhood, victim mentality, it's profitable.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
It's very very in vogue to make yourself the victim
or way up every morning and see what you can
complain about.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Make it woe as me.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
People need to feel sorry for you in today's society.
Is that something that you see a lot? So let's
talk about the Yankees. That's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
This was an interview yesterday. No, I just take that
back Wednesday on Yes Networks. You know, the Yankees they
have their own very highly profitable conglomerate.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
TV Yes work they do.

Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
Yeah, here you go, And they and the Dodgers both
have that which enables them to spend gajillions more dollars
than everyone else.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
What do the Dodgers call their network?

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Probably something it's probably Otani communist Otani communist propaganda propaganda,
Dodgers Central or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
What's the acronym for that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Oh C p ocp omni consumer product products they are
responsible for ED two O nine and RoboCop alrighty, thank
you for your cooperation.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Yes, General Managers meetings have happened. Yes, more meetings with
teams getting together are about to occur, also in Orlando
at the Winter meetings. So a time to shine is
in front of a lot of players. Well, I don't
know if you were aware of this, but this is
a quote.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
I never never wanted to be the GM of the
New York Yankees, I'll be honest. It's a very tough
environment in the GMS under George set Steinbrenner you know,
didn't last very long.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
It was a year, year and a.

Speaker 1 (01:03:36):
Half maybe two years tops. And it was a difficult situation,
no doubt about it. Yeah, I could see how it
would be very difficult to have more resources than basically
any other team out there, have everybody expecting you to
win and therefore trying to help you do that, and
getting the pick of the litter anytime a free agent
came up because you had more money to spend on

(01:03:58):
anybody else. Tell me more about how difficult it was.
Brian Cashman as you routinely signed the biggest names out there,
and with the help of performance enhancing drugs, were able
to win a championship back in two thousand and nine.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Oh don't worry.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
He went to the World Series in twenty twenty four,
but not before he complained about the Astros being the
reason he hadn't gotten there sooner than that. This guy
is a total boob. Every time he opens his mouth,
I want to throw something through a window, and by something,
I mean him. He's so obnoxious. Just retire already. We
know you hate it there, We know we all hate you.

(01:04:32):
You're never gonna win again because you suck at your job.
Everybody's laughing at you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
And then you make it worse by coming out with
these quotes talking about how we should all feel sorry
for you because you work for Jewish gamp inner. Stop.
So what makes it hard? What makes a general manager's
job in baseball hard? Lack of funds, lack of support
from ownership would be one thing, right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
Two of which he doesn't have to worry about. Lack
of talent. He's got some of that, and not teams
beat you like the Astros and you just sign it
away from them. You got Garrett Cole after his most
badass season of all time, and what have you done
with it?

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Nothing? He couldn't even cover first base. Presumably, the bar
for Yankees' management upper management ownership is very high. Yankees
have won. My understanding is the Yankees have a few
World Series banners hanging around.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
Yeah, but like half of them were against plumbers and mechanics.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Okay, but the expectations for the Yankees are, well, we're
here to win championship. We're not here to compete, We're
here to be the best. We're here to win it all.
So I think the bar is pretty high. Presumably that
means if you come up short, then ownership will be
dissatisfied and might act out accordingly. Well, that also hasn't happened. Right,

(01:05:45):
he's been there since nineteen ninety eight. They have well,
they have won a title. And if you open it
up to that window, well that's.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
How why he's been there. When he's talking about two years,
two and a half tups.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Right, So he's been there. So the last two and
a half years they have none. So let's double that.
Last five years they have none. Double that. Yep, they
still have none. Let's add five to that they still
have none, Right, canna add five more? You're doing great, Brian.
I mean if the ownership that has a bar set
so high that, how is it possible that you lasted
fifteen years there without a change. Well, here's the answer.

(01:06:17):
You're this is a hard job. This is I mean,
I get it, I get it, I get it. Except
what could you possibly do to have how Steinbrenner say
we can't have you here anymore. By the way, because
he's done these things and he's still there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
I'm glad you brought that up because his next quote was,
George Steinbrenner was a tough boss, and he didn't have
much patience, and he was driven to NonStop success. And
in baseball you can't have success every day. That's all true,
But you know what, you've now worked for how longer?
And oh, by the way, the last time you thought
you were gonna go to the World Series and it

(01:06:55):
went terribly bad for you, you know, twenty twenty two,
when the astro made sure you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Didn't even win a game. Yeah, a month later after
that you signed a four year extension. I'm like, what
is this guy complaining about? I think he thinks he
still works for first George, and he hasn't for like
two plus decades or whenever George dies. I mentioned this earlier.
You're obviously where he's been with the Yankees organization since
nineteen eighty six. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Yeah, before he came became a GM, he was there
as a nineteen year old intern.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Now do you know how that came to be that
he became a nineteen year old intern for the New
York Yankees in nineteen eighty six?

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Did somebody write him a recommendation letter? Well, the owner
at the time was who George King? George uh huh.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
And the manager of Pompino Park in Pompino Beach, Florida
was a John Cashman. That's Brian's dad. Really, so nepotism too.
John and George became friends. Oh and then Jack got
this kid, you know, helped Brian obtain a position as
an intern in nineteen eighty six. I mean, look what
he's done with that internship. That's like I write a

(01:08:02):
book about that. I was an intern in previous life,
this one actually, and I turned it into a full
time job. I mean I never became the general manager
of the Arrows, but I thought I did all right,
you were awesome in retail.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
Thank you, he added, just because you keep saying things
now I don't. Maybe you read this already, or maybe
you're just smart enough to know how Brian Cashman operates.
His last quote here, It was not something I was
ever aspiring to be, but I was smart enough to
know when I had an opportunity offered to me by
the boss, I was smart enough not to turn it down.

(01:08:36):
This guy is the most insufferable Delta Bravo I have
ever seen in my life. Just retire already. You hate it,
and they hate you, and most of all, I hate you.

Speaker 2 (01:08:45):
I'm gonna go into any Major League baseball outfit Nick
pickettein real quick. I gotta hit the break. Just name
a team, Orioles. I'm gonna walk through the Orioles Baseball
department and say, would you like to be the general
manager of the Yankees? And see how many of them
are like Brian Cashman and are smart enough to not
say no, what a loser?

Speaker 6 (01:09:04):
Do you know who.

Speaker 2 (01:09:05):
Paul Sheer is, the actor, the comedian. Yes, yeah, did
you see what he said about Chris Paul? Yes, he
not very complimentary about him. Longtime Clippers fan that I'm
sure nobody knew about Many of you probably know who
he is, because if you are like us, you have
that kind of comedic taste. And he's in a lot
of the stuff you've probably some just some weird stuff,

(01:09:28):
random stuff, and yes, but a comedian nonetheless. And he
was very speaking, very unfavorably about the later years of
Chris Paul's career and how the Clippers.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
Whatever now get him out of here. We have established
that this is Paul Sheer and not Donald Trump, right,
because it sounds like the same guy. And when I
read yeah, when I read the quote, you're gonna understand why,
because I'm gonna read it like our president.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
All right. I mean I actually heard him say this.
I did find the audio somewhere. This guy's the Chevy
Chase of the NBA. He's not loved, he's not liked,
he hasn't been relevant for many, many years. It sounds
like something Donald would say about as a political opponent. Now, clearly,
I think Paul took some liberties there to hey man,
what why Chevy? Why Chevy Chase catching strays here? Like

(01:10:17):
he must either have intimate insiders knowledge or it's common
knowledge that I'm not aware of that. Everyone dislikes Chevy Chase.
Uh did you not know that he's kind of evil?
He is kind of difficult, and it is I guess
his career is still active. He's gonna be here in
a little while. Yes, I think it's like next week, right,

(01:10:38):
But if he's not on stage with a mic or
in a movie, I don't know that I'd say his
career continue. He may still make appearances and gather checks
for speaking, but I wouldn't say his career is still active.
Not Chris Paul's career is in that same kind of
unknown right now. Yeah, he's in the twilight of his career.
He's definitely in the twilight of his career. I mean,

(01:11:00):
is amazing that a team that's playing such bad basketball
has had a player that meant so little to their
bad basketball. And this is what we're talking about. They
found a way, not the Clippers management majorly screwed up,
or the players that they have are dogging it this year,

(01:11:20):
or whatever you want to say, is the issue. They
brought James Harden there, they brought Kawhi Leonard there, They
brought up several star players there in the last handful
of years. They have one of the most willing to
spend richest owners out there. The amount of money they
put into their brand new building, state of the yard,
the wall, with the fans, and they have an awful product.

(01:11:43):
That's I mean, I know there's a cap, a spending
cap in the NBA, but the way that they have
sent out their money for the players that they have,
and how sunk they are because of it, Like, forget
this year for a second, what about next year and
the year after that and the year after that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
How many well, and again you're talking about players that
make max dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:12:10):
Now your team doesn't make max dollars. James doesn't makes
forty million. I don't think that's the max for a player.
I'm accomplished what he's done fifty four, I want to say, right,
but it's all relative to how long you've been in
the league.

Speaker 1 (01:12:22):
But before you even get to that, they're still under
investigation about the whole Kawhi Leonard thing. Like you that's
that's how bad the Clipper season is going. That their record,
the way they have completely discarded a franchise icon is
now he is.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
They discarded a franchise icon when they traded him the
first time they discarded Chris Paul. This time they traded
him for talent on the Rockets roster. He was also
a talent. He isn't currently a talent. Yeah, but you
still okay, I mean, I know what you're saying, and
I'm picking at it. But man a franchise icon, like

(01:13:02):
you're right, but the pantheon of Clippers, he's he's out
of basketball, yeah, but in the Clippers pantheon of icons, right,
But they're trading him when he is that in nation?
Before or after Danny Manning? Is he before or after
number one overall pick? Michael Olowa? Kandi? He's before him.
You think Kwame Brown was a disappointment, Ugh, so I

(01:13:25):
say all that probably probably gonna have their first losing
season since twenty ten, twenty eleven.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
It's difficult right now, James Harden, It's just difficult. Isn't
that what he said this time around? Isn't that what
he said? Wasn't that his quote? Or it's just hard
right now or something hard, something to that effect. It's
not gonna work. It's not scary hours. Nobody's talking about
scary hours now all of a sudden, did he's have
anything to say about Chris Paul. Uh James Harden, Yeah,

(01:13:56):
Uh yeah he did. He lied if you want to
you want my opinion. According to Kevin O'Connor, I've heard
from multiple sources that James Harden was opposed to the
Chris Paul signing, that he was one of the guys
that was like, Eh, I'm not so sure here.

Speaker 2 (01:14:19):
That's a quote that shouldn't even remotely be a surprise.

Speaker 4 (01:14:25):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
Is he wrong?

Speaker 3 (01:14:27):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:14:28):
But again, what did we all say when that signing happened. Wow,
it's gonna be the second time these two are getting
together and it ended acrimoniously here in Houston. Can't believe
that they've I guess they're putting aside their differences for
the greater good of the team.

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
That's hilarious now in hindsight. So it is hard and
mad that they that Chris Paul was his teammate. Where
is he mad that I told management not to do
this and they didn't listen to me And I'm not
used to that, So I'm mad.

Speaker 1 (01:14:55):
I don't know that he's mad about any of that.
I think he's more mad about the fact that he's
on a six win team. But I do think that
it's hilarious when just yesterday, oh, Kawhi Leonard and James
Harden were shocked. Now they weren't.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
Do you know why.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
I know they're not shocked because they're the ones that
went to the front office and said, hey, Lawrence, get
rid of they call him Larry, Hey, Larry Frank to
first named guy, get rid of this guy. He sucks
and he's grating on my nerves as he averages two
point nine points per game and tells us how to
run our organization with accountability and such things that I'm

(01:15:29):
not used to having.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
Yeah, he's telling us what to do. Also, all right,
we'll do it right. How about Tylo's not talking to
him and then gets up at the podium yesterday try
to tell Chris that we can't have me here anymore.
Well about that they're not speaking, so we can't have
the coach speak to him because they're not speaking. Ah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:49):
And now you know what, I'm fine with it. I
am happy about it because two malcontents that have forced
their way out of multiple organizations each are having to
deal with this right now talking about Kawhi talking about
James Harden.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
Also of note, where it actually matters. What the Rockets
finished with last year, fifty two wins, right, fifty two
and thirty Where were the Clippers fifty and thirty two
right behind him? They mattered, They were on the playoffs,
they were up again, they nearly They could have been
a team that knocked off this team that was in
your way. They could have been a team that was
in the Rockets way. Any number of things could have happened.

(01:16:24):
And I can't believe three months ago, I'm sitting here saying,
I mean, I like what they did. I like bringing
in brook Lopez, and I think John Collins can help
him in a different way. Hey, you and John Hollinger
had that in common. Had to give up a Norm Powell,
but I think they got something in return. And Bradley Beal.
If you look at his numbers, they weren't even all
that bad in Phoenix. They just weren't winning. His offensive,

(01:16:46):
you know, efficiency was up, his shooting was up, and
so now they're not winning. He's a fifty win team
that did that. I mean, it might not be so bad.
My god. Norman Powell is actually the reason why they're
getting clear clocks clean on a regular basis. He was
awesome for them, and now he's even better in Miami
and they have John Collins for him. That's pretty much it.

(01:17:07):
This is good. A six and sixteen Clippers team off
a fifty win season. Warriors lost last night to Hollinger.
Just wanted to remind you, Yeah, without Steph, without Jimmy,
and Draymond left during the game.

Speaker 1 (01:17:19):
Somebody said Draymond saw that those two are out and
was like, screw this, I'm not playing.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
They almost came back and won, but they didn't. But
they didn't. That's what's important. Straight up, four o'clock here
on the eight team.

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
It's Sports Talk seven ninety, It's Space City Home Network.
WEX over there, ac right here Josh Jordan along as
our producer as well Texans and Chiefs coming up on
Sunday Night football.

Speaker 2 (01:17:45):
Am I gonna get?

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
Can I at least bait you into some sort of
negative commentary towards Chris Collinsworth.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
Just give me something. There's no way you like him
on those games. That is correct. You do not like
him on those games Like Mike Turico's fan fantastic, he
is awesome, And then Chris collins Worth starts talking like
I actually was excited over the holidays when I saw
Jason Garrett was his color guy. Yeah, he got to

(01:18:11):
fill in one time. It was nice. Even though Jason
Garrett's just okay, like Chris collins Worth. This tough to
stomach on a regular Sunday night football game.

Speaker 1 (01:18:21):
I mean, there's some great quarterbacks out there, but Patrick Mahomes,
you're gonna hear that all night long.

Speaker 2 (01:18:27):
I hope not.

Speaker 1 (01:18:28):
I hope d'aneil and Will and AZ's the heavy hitters.
I hope they put him on his backside. And I'm
not saying that. I hope they knock him out of
the game, but just say if they did, or how
about this, let's just say they get him off the
field quickly because they stop him and he's over on
the bench. Because the Texans aren't one of their textbook

(01:18:49):
eight to nine minute long drives to drain all of
the clock in the quarter.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
Basically we won't even know comes in when that happens.
What do you mean when all the back homes can't play? Uh,
who's their backup? Now? I don't know. He's new new
to this new this year. He's a rookie, no new
to them. He's a career backup, He's played on for
a lot of different teams. He's faced the Texans over
the last couple of years. I'm Marriota, is it No,

(01:19:15):
he's now back to the bench with Jayden Daniels coming
back as a County Washington. Okay, I can't think of it.
Gardner Minshew?

Speaker 1 (01:19:22):
Oh okay, Well, if this is the Gardner Minshew game
on Sunday, I'm pretty confident the Texans win.

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
Can you imagine how Collinsworth will be gushing over Gardner
if he has his way with the Texans defense.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
I mean, if you gotta lose a guy like Patrick Mahalmes,
at least you have Gardner Minshew.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
He's just so obnoxious.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
And you know what, I think his son does a
good job, but he sounds like him, so I hate
him too.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
I'm a little less reluctant to say his son does
a good job like this. You're right, I was being nice.
Like we've talked about a father son duo. We talk
about him all the time. We're huge fans of the
Eagle family here. If I don't, I don't know how
you could watch or listen to a game, because Noah
does both and Ian does both and don't think they
do a good job.

Speaker 1 (01:20:05):
I also don't know how you can be listening to
a game as you pass through the room and determine
which is which.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
Now. Jack doesn't do a lot of Collinsworth a lot
of without a k. Doesn't do a lot of play
by or analyst work from the booth like his dad
Chris does. He's a studio guy more or less, or
the desk guy. I have hard time calling him still.
I don't call it Chrissa studio host for the Thursday
night football games. They're on the side of the field,

(01:20:30):
but technically that's a studio. But that's what he does,
so it's hard to compare the two. But he's just
there to set everybody else up. I don't even think
he does. He's just okay, Maria Taylor, I don't think I.
I think clearly Noah had an easier path because he
knew everybody in the business because who his dad is.
But he's really really good at He wouldn't be doing
what he's doing at this age unless he was really

(01:20:52):
really good at it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
It's not pure nepotism. I don't know that Jack would
be doing this if speaking of guys name Jack and broadcasting.
Do you think Joe would have been able to break in.

Speaker 2 (01:21:03):
I mean, he's also very good. He's gotten better. Well,
he was the only thing wrong with him before was
his attitude. He called games fine. I just didn't think
he wanted to be there, So I was that was
my biggest point of consenter, Like, how this guy, you're
at the biggest game on Earth, You're at every big
NFL game, and you're doing all these postseason games the
best get everybody wants these assignments, and you sound like

(01:21:24):
you'd rather be anywhere. But in the Boots.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
Well, there was one in particular moment where he really
didn't want to be there, and that was when he
was in Lambeau and Randy Mosss a pantomiming movie.

Speaker 2 (01:21:33):
Why did that come up around this week because I
saw it two more times.

Speaker 1 (01:21:36):
That is a disgusting act and it's unfortunate we had
to show you guys that said that. I know he
didn't even do it. He acted like he actually pulled
his pants down in the end zone, and he didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:21:47):
He was just faking it. I mean, come on, this show,
there's more to the story. Because of where he was
and what the fans do. It's totally normal. It's the
anti Lambeau Leap. When the fuss comes in carrying the
insert opponent's name, specifically divisional opponent's name. When the bus
rolls in. What are the players on the bus see

(01:22:08):
when they look out the windows. But that's why he
did it. He hasn't done it at any other stadium
for any other game and his entire career.

Speaker 1 (01:22:15):
Expect Joe to know anything about anything else other than
the stat sheet, all right, And I hate it because
I you know, we met him in Miami and that's
when he really won me over because I asked him
not about a football question. I asked him about the
Astros cheating scandal. Because it was January of twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:22:33):
It had happened like five minutes ago, and he was
on the call for that World Series. So the last
baseball game that was played was his.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Yes and uh And he said, well, no, that's not
true because this was two years later.

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
Oh well, he wasn't still doing it in twenty nineteen.
You know he could play yet, Yeah, because he just
wasn't those games, right, because al Tuve had just sent
the Astros of the world series another good call of his.

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
But yeah, he was like he gave such a good
answer and it was almost like without him actually physically
doing it. It was totally a wink wink answer, like
I'm going to answer this diplomatically because I know they
weren't the only ones doing this. That's what I got
from him. And remember, this is like five seconds old
the scandal. This isn't Oh, We've had time to do
interviews and players and Chris Bassett coming out and they're like,

(01:23:19):
guys like that, or Mike fires with his stupid answers
that we talked about yesterday. This is fresh and he
gave an amazing answer, and then you know, simultaneously he
had already improved his play by play, so he won
me over awesome stuff, but he won't be there tonight
or Mike Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
Chris and Melissa on the TV side. I do like
Melissa chiefs text. She's done a good job. I liked
Michelle Tafoya before her on that broadcast.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
Al was kind of losing this fastball and now it's
completely gone and he's not even.

Speaker 2 (01:23:46):
Awake for the game. He's awake. Do you believe in miracle?
Looks like Come on, dude, where's that guy?

Speaker 6 (01:23:53):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:23:54):
Where is he? He's not here. He's not coming back either.
Al's on the shelf, man, he's half out. The game
was there was a game last night? Out? Did it
last night? Okay? Thursday night football? He twenty twenty five?
There twenty twenty five. Yeah, you just said do you
believe in miracles? That's nineteen eighty.

Speaker 1 (01:24:13):
Nine, forty five years ago. Brother, But that's his signature call.
What's been his signature call since then? You don't have one?

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
Easy Like, I'm not trying to turn him into some
great broadcaster, but he was though. That's my point. It's
gonna happen to me. I'll tell you what we're gonna
be on, and you're gonna be talking about something I'm like,
I don't know, not true, and I'll tell you why.
I'm gonnact. You're Richie, and I won't even want to
be here. Right, you're the Lionel Richie of sports talk
show hosts. You know what that means. That means Lionel.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
You can go see him today at seventy three years old,
and he sounds exactly like he did in the seventies
with the Commodores, you have gone with the grumpy, wet
blanket persona, which will last well into your nineties.

Speaker 2 (01:24:54):
Doing this, will any other members of my family make
you think of any other member of his family? Yes,
so Samantha and Nicole. You're putting the two of them together.
Is that what you're trying to say.

Speaker 1 (01:25:05):
I'm saying that Ryan is a walking, breathing clone of you,
and I fully expect, whatever he does for a living,
for him to be the wet blanket of that situation.

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
What's a compliment?

Speaker 1 (01:25:15):
Greatly after al Michaels said, do you believe in miracles?

Speaker 2 (01:25:20):
Yes? Do you want to talk about this for a minute?
What's his next? Go ahead? Can we can we move
on to the game itself.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
Well, everybody's picking the Texans, So now I'm getting less common.

Speaker 2 (01:25:28):
Not everybody's picking the Texans. But it's Friday, so all
the shows that are airing for the last time this week,
and a lot of articles that'll get written before they
think people no longer look at stuff on the internet
because it's the weekend. The picks are all coming in,
you know, the picks from the crew on NFL Live.
Three out of the four pain under the most part
for the most part. What's forty one and a half right?

(01:25:50):
That would be three overs and an under. Oh, I
thought it was forty four for some reason. Maybe you're right.
I doubt I don't know anything until twenty two minutes
from now. I don't gamble. When we get to our
stone cold locks, we guess three of the four people
on the NFL Live crew, including all three analysts, picked
the Texans to win. The host picked the other team
to win, and the host is from Houston as Houston Ties.

(01:26:11):
And at end of the show, Now, just because I
brought that, I brought that up specifically because I just
happened to be looking at at an extremely random group
on NFL dot com. Because I don't recognize really any
of the pickers. I don't know Ali Bampori, Tom Blair,

(01:26:31):
Brooks Cersossimo Gennaro Felice, Dan Parr Up, I don't know
them very well, Dan parr Come on, but they predict
the winner of every game each season, and they've looked
at Week fourteen and made their selections and almost there's
a lot of pretty important games this weekend, so pretty
matchups that matter. Steelers Ravens, all five of them picked

(01:26:54):
the same team. All of them think the Ravens are
gonna win Browns Titans, huge game. All of them picked
the Browns to win Slam the under huge game. Back
to the serious part, Jaguars Colts, huge implications, especially for
the Texans. All five picked the Jaguars to win that game. Well,
they're done at home, and obviously we'll get to the Texans.

(01:27:16):
Coults are winning that game. Huge game, huge game against
the Chiefs. They were not in agreement on this. Four were,
and the four that were in agreement all have the
Chiefs winning by a field goal. But Gennaro, he picked
the Texians. No that this is his first name and
it's a man. Oh, this is Holly's son that grew
up in Pomona, that she gave her last name to

(01:27:39):
as a first name. His first name is Gennaro. Well,
you want to know why you picked him? Why? Now?
He actually is going to get us and our listeners
some homework. He says, defense wins championships. That's the simple
way of saying anything. But every so often a d
comes along that flips the modern game on its head.

(01:28:00):
I think Seattle's Legion of Boom, Denver's No Flies on
top rank units that spearheaded super Bowl triumphs. Is this
Houston group which leads the league and points allowed and
yards allowed that kind of defense, we tend to believe
it is. We're not comparing him to Ray and Ed's
defense with the Ravens. We're comparing them to more recent

(01:28:21):
versions of Super Bowl winning defenses that were clearly the
better unit on their particular team.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
With a quarterback on his rookie deal. I might add
going to the super Bowl.

Speaker 2 (01:28:30):
But just maybe not the greatest defense of all time
or one of them. So yeah, I think that comparison
is fair, But the homework is and I don't have
anything for you. And I've thought about this, and I
think it's very difficult to come up with. Does this
defense play at such a high level and do such
great things in twenty twenty five that with a little

(01:28:52):
bit of twenty twenty four mixed in and so many
holdovers in twenty twenty six, they need a nickname? Would
you call them? What would you call the Houston Texans defense?
And you can't call them bulls on parade? Stop playing rage?
That was like a decade ago. Now that's the question
we ask of you a little help please, Hey, whats Yeah,

(01:29:16):
guess who's active on social media again? Uh, mister but Fumble,
that's him. That's his nickname. That's what they'll call him Mark.
I bet you he would be thrilled if that's what
he continued to be known as well. It would probably
be better than some of the options that are out there.
Thrilled if that's how people thought of him.

Speaker 1 (01:29:39):
He has not said much of anything since the drunken incident. Yeah, lawyers, Yeah,
well that's usually I'd like to apologize for my action. Nope, Nope,
don't say that. He wrote a heartfelt tribute to his
family on Instagram earlier today. This time of year always

(01:30:02):
makes me look around and appreciate what matters, but this
one hits different.

Speaker 2 (01:30:08):
Pause.

Speaker 1 (01:30:09):
I'm just grateful to wake up, to be home and
to be able to wrap my arms around my wife
and kids. Thank you to the people who kept me
standing and gave my family opportunities to share moments like these.
From our family to yours, we wish you a happy
and peaceful holiday season. The first slide is a picture
of his wife with what appears to be they got

(01:30:29):
to be twins, Yeah, they're twins, and then the second
slide is an older child with the twins and I
when I first saw this, it's kind I kind of thought,
what you know, kind of the road you were going down,
Like Wow, I'm surprised he's speaking publicly in any way,
shape or form, just because I'm sure lawyers have told

(01:30:51):
him not to do that in light of what has happened.
He has lost his job as a broadcaster. And then
I started looking at the comments because I feel it
would be an absolute disaster, as comments in this scenario usually.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
Are people aren't nice, well, neither they think they're funny, well,
and neither was he Allegedly he wasn't very nice. He
definitely wasn't. There's nothing alleged about it. There there was
an encounter and he was half of it. But he
got a lot of positive feedback, and I was like,
whoa like? For instance, in one example, please.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
Love you Mark big hugs to everyone with the little
they did this emoji, I don't know what that's called.
Got to handle on this poster that is Darcy M.
Beaver's all one word you asked. I was actually going
to go a different route, but who knew? Amazing, amazing stuff,
just good, really good stuff on the live radio. Absolutely

(01:31:50):
beautiful Sanchez family photos. Hashtag happy holidays, hashtag seasons greetings.

Speaker 2 (01:31:57):
There's a heart and then another heart and in between
is oji all right? You know I can't take any
more of this, so get to the other side. Oh
even things out. This one said just turn the comments off.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
Mark the guy responded to that below by saying, asap,
uh like.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
The guy he put in the hospital.

Speaker 1 (01:32:23):
You mean the guy that stabbed Mark multiple times and
put him in the hospital and Mark had to wrestle
the knife away from him.

Speaker 2 (01:32:29):
Sit down. You don't know what you're talking about. Now.

Speaker 1 (01:32:31):
They're arguing back and forth about the incident. Mark, turn
off the comments.

Speaker 2 (01:32:35):
Okay, since they're not off, one more and then we
can move on.

Speaker 1 (01:32:39):
Hold on, I gotta find the really really good one
that I saw earlier, because that was the one I
read to you in the break and I've lost it,
but I definitely probably lost it after you read it.

Speaker 3 (01:32:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
See I did the thing where it's like not logged in.
Put the bottle down, Mark, Mark Arc you shouldn't be
posting for at least a year if you don't want
to get bullied.

Speaker 2 (01:33:06):
They don't have to look at the comments.

Speaker 1 (01:33:09):
Completely out of touch, narcissistic, manic happy holidays. He did both,
He wished him happy holidays. And then I'll finish with
Eva who said, isn't this just a stab in the chest?
There you go, it didn't go well for him, Stay
off social media, mark and turn the comments off to

(01:33:29):
It's just I mean, I got fired and I just
didn't tweet for a month and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Maybe easy. It was easy, easy felt better.

Speaker 1 (01:33:38):
You guys wonder why I'm not on social as much anymore,
at least on Twitter.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
It's because it's a cesspool. So as you were saying,
the Texans offensive line.

Speaker 1 (01:33:46):
Yeah, so, dan Orlowski is just really complimentary of the
Houston Texans this season, and especially on the Texans offense
and their offensive line.

Speaker 2 (01:33:56):
This is what he had to say about that it's.

Speaker 7 (01:33:58):
The most improved offensive line in football, and it's the
most improved offensive coordinator in football.

Speaker 2 (01:34:03):
Shout out to Nick Kayley his growth this season.

Speaker 7 (01:34:06):
We've talked for years, about two years about how bad
this offensive line has been using and the impact on
the quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
This offensive line was terrible last year. Look at the
number of difference.

Speaker 7 (01:34:15):
Okay, at this point last year, one hundred and four
pressures and twenty one hundred and sixty four pressures, twenty
five sacks right now one hundred and six pressures, so
a little bit more than fifty less fourteen sacks.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
That's eleven less.

Speaker 7 (01:34:28):
That is huge by that center guard or that guard
center guard trio totally has changed. It's the most improved
offensive line in football, and it's the most improved and
developed offensive coordinator in the game right now.

Speaker 2 (01:34:42):
So let's make sure you understood some of the things
he said, because he explained him a little bit out
of order, and it might have made people do a
double take on that those sack numbers were I'm assuming
and they must be referencing only sacks from interior pass
rush sacks and pressures a lot by your guard center
guard trio, which is clearly where they were awful a

(01:35:07):
year ago and where they were not very good to
begin this year, either partially because they had to start
a group they didn't want to in week one and
then partially for all the changes that were made. But
it's taken them a long time to get to this point.
They have played. I think my eyeballs are telling me
they are playing significantly better. It is hard to figure
some of this stuff out because everybody's doing what you

(01:35:29):
think is the same thing with their analysis. Here's their
pressure rate allowed, here's their sack rate allowed, here's the
pressures coming from these players. And then you look at
two different entities who've essentially tried to give you the
same numbers, and they're just totally, completely, utterly uncomparable numbers.
Pass rush win rate numbers. We brought those up the

(01:35:51):
other day, and ESPN puts those out every week, and
they do it for the team itself offensively and defensively
on the offensive side, past block win rate, run block
win rate, defensive side pass rush win rate, run stuff
win rate. So for the Texans, we're talking about their
offensive line. According to ESPN's numbers, their past blocking win
rate through their twelve games thirteen weeks, it's twenty eighth

(01:36:15):
in the NFL. It's a thirty two team league. That stinks.
Their run block win rating is the worst in the NFL.
It's not what he was talking about at all, But
twenty eight out of thirty two is awful. So I'll
look at it a different source, and the year to
date numbers from somebody who works through the ESPN outfit,
gathers their pressure rate allowed and to date this season,

(01:36:39):
the Texans pressure rate according to him and his numbers.
What's great, it's sixth in the NFL. Well, that's that's
kind of what we're talking about. That's kind of where
your ore fifth. Excuse me, that's where you'd like them
to be. But the very same person also lists pass
block win rate. Their pressure rate is fifth, the past

(01:37:00):
win rate is twenty ninth. So they're never winning their blocks,
but they're also not giving up any pressures. How's that possible?
It's the most Texans thing ever. Well, it's I think
I must not understand this because that'll makes sense. You
would think they would get pressures when they don't make
their pass blocks. That's usually what happens. That is averages

(01:37:22):
you're talking about. That's just where they are in the
relation of the league. There are twenty ninth in the
league in that category. That's like the worst.

Speaker 1 (01:37:30):
But isn't forty ninth thirty two if you're taking the
whole sample size of this season, which is.

Speaker 2 (01:37:35):
That was a year to day look, they actually do
a last four games look, which is where we believe
what the impressive numbers have occurred. Well, they don't list
all the same things, but their pressure rate allowed in
the last four weeks is twelve. They're almost top ten,
which is very acceptable. You can win a Super Bowl

(01:37:55):
if your offensive line is above average. You're gonna go
to the playoffs and have a good offense if you
have a line that's right near the top, Like look
at what's Denver's doing. Denver has a great offensive line
and a quarterback who's putting up among the worst statistics
of anybody in the league. But they're winning every week
because he has all day to throw and even though
he's not throwing the ball particularly well, their offense is
operating just fine. They're figuring out a way to be

(01:38:17):
in the right spot at the right point in the game.
We're only down nothing at the end of the game.
We've barely scored. So you're telling me, if we do
nothing all day, but then we kick a field goal
at the end of the game, we're gonna win. Awesome.
They've done that three times this year. They've done it
to Kansas City, they've done it to the Texans. Their
offense isn't good with a great offensive line. Okay, so

(01:38:39):
let's put one good drive together behind a great offensive line.
Perfect we'll win. As long as you don't kick field
goals at the end of it. Well, that's what they
literally do. I tell you what. All those wins I'm
talking about, they're all they've won. They beat the Giants
on a last second field goal, they're all last play
of the game field goals.

Speaker 1 (01:38:57):
If you assume that what we're going to see from
the defense is what we're going and I know that's
a big assumption assumption considering who they're playing opposite them
at quarterback, but all things considered, if you get the
kind of defensive performance you expect to get overall in
this game, which means, just like with Josh Allen, you've got,
you know, a situation where he might have some successes,

(01:39:19):
but for the most part, you contain him relatively speaking.
If I see you going down the field, marching down
the field at times, and then settling for threes, I'm
just going to expect that the Chiefs are going to
win that game somehow, some way, because you've got to
have sixes instead of threes to beat Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
Most years, I would say that most years, I mean
we're literally watching him lose games in that exact fashion
this year, but we haven't seen it very often in
the past, and certainly not for the Houston Texans. The Texans,
obviously they're part of Stone Cold Locks. Catch your Stone
Cold Locks for the week next are back here on
the a team signature segment time on a Friday during

(01:40:00):
football season, wexay See and Josh deliver you our stone
Cold Locks for the first time in the history of
our Stone Cold Locks. Josh participated. Welcome aboard and appreciate
his involvement in this extremely important portion of our show
gets us thinking about the football weekend college and pro

(01:40:21):
he's going to bury the lead by not saying he
also destroyed us. I haven't gotten there yet. Okay, I'll
get there now as prompted. I have something to say after.
I have a simple question for Josh, and you just
need to give a simple answer. Did you in your
first week with us making your Stone Cold Locks emerge
with the best record of the week between the three

(01:40:42):
of us that is correct? How many of your five
games did you get correct? I got four?

Speaker 8 (01:40:47):
And if a monat Saint Brown didn't get hurt right
when that game started, you were on this game with
me two wex we might have had a different outcome.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
So you went four and one in your very first
week picking games for Stone Cold Locks. Now a co
host on our morning show, The Morning Drive, Cole Thompson
was in the previous slot that you have now taken over.
I just want to remind people that he left with
a mark of twenty eight and thirty seven in his selections,

(01:41:16):
which isn't very good. It's nine games under. He in
his very first week of making picks on Stone Cold Locks,
also went a robust four and one, only to plummet
down the standings almost immediately and for the duration of
us making picks with him. No pressure, no danger zone

(01:41:37):
that you're about to jump into. Just like to give
people information. So you went four and one. Last week,
each of the two of us managed to almost get
half of our five picks right, but not quite. We
only got two each, so eight for the squad. Thanks
to Josh, we were on the right side of five
hundred got eight out of fifteen correct for this week,
we have decided as a group, not just one of us.

(01:41:58):
At this time last year I was sick six fifty
nine or forty nine aren't you excited that we have
last year's results in there?

Speaker 1 (01:42:04):
Well, of course I am, but it wasn't like I
had a choice. Since you're you, I'll just go over
to this other tab on the spreadsheet. Good lord, as
I was saying, machine.

Speaker 2 (01:42:14):
The stone cold locks includes pick on the Texans game
Texans at Chiefs, a pick on a college football game
of the week. We've reached the conference title games portion
of the season. Soon we'll be in bold season and
playoff season. So the proper accommodation for this week was
just pick any of the conference title games this weekend.
Whether you want to play the line or the over

(01:42:35):
under your choice any one of those, Well, see any game.

Speaker 1 (01:42:38):
It'll give you your fourteenth loss if you're me exactly what
a loser.

Speaker 2 (01:42:42):
There's two games tonight you could have chosen from if
I so choose. There's a handful of games tomorrow if
you so choose, and then any three other games you
would like wild card's choice. We always saved the Texans
for last. Josh, you always go first, hit us with
your pick on any conference title game and your three
other selections this week.

Speaker 8 (01:42:59):
Please, all right, boys, I'm gonna go with Ohio State
minus four. Just gonna go with the big bad team
there and hope they cover for my second I.

Speaker 2 (01:43:08):
Can I ask you a quick question. For sure, Indiana's
loss will send them outside the top four in the
final college football playoff rankings. Believe it or not, believe it?
Leave it? Yeah, all right, they're overrated, is what we're saying.
Over rated. They're playing the best team in the country. Yeah,

(01:43:29):
the Texas long Horns did that. Okay, So if they lose,
only were into the place best team in the country.
How does that make them worse than Tech or Georgia
or anybody else.

Speaker 1 (01:43:39):
You gotta go to the rest of their schedule and
start doing semantics.

Speaker 2 (01:43:42):
All right, let's hear your other three picks.

Speaker 8 (01:43:44):
All right, I'm gonna go with the Commanders minus one
and a half. This line's been moving, but I'll still
take it. Is that where we sit here today. You
and I had a discussion about that earlier. It was
about an hour or two ago. It was plus but
then when I just googled it before we did the segment,
it was back to minus one and a half there,
So we're gonna have to.

Speaker 2 (01:43:59):
Well, J Daniels is playing right if it were plus
one and a half, I would take my MT Bucks
and play that with it. But even at minus one
and a half, it factored into my choice on a
fine play. You'll hear that for me a little bit later.
To alright, wrap things up.

Speaker 8 (01:44:14):
Cool, I'm gonna also take the Eagles minus two and
a half. Who knows what happens with Herbert on Monday,
and then I'm gonna roll with the Bears again.

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):
This one worries me a little more.

Speaker 8 (01:44:22):
But plus six and a half against the Packers, I'll
take the points.

Speaker 2 (01:44:25):
Yeah, best team in the NFC was plus six and
a half a week ago against the Eagles, which they
obviously covered, and then now again as the best team
in the NFC at least by seed, same number at
the Packers ac year four.

Speaker 1 (01:44:36):
Please all right, Indiana versus Ohio State. Even though I
think Ohio State's going to win this game, I think
they will somehow find a way to hit the over
on forty seven and a half. Likewise, the Bengals Bills
game just screams under fifty three and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:44:52):
Ooh, even with t Higgins coming back, I did that
does nothing for me. Even with Darius Lagh saying this
Buffalo Bills thing is not for I know what you're thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:45:01):
Bills can't stop the run and the Bengals aren't gonna
be able to stop anything. It's got to be the over.
That's the kind of thinking. They can make weather news.
What kind of weather do they have? It's super cold,
It's just cold. Great, all right? Under Kami's at Vikings.
Because of the aforementioned return of Daniels, I will take
the over forty two and a half and the big

(01:45:23):
game of the week that's not involving the Texans but
is involving the Division Colts at Jaggs. Forty seven and
a half is the number. I feel like there's just
enough Trevor Lawrence involved to take the under.

Speaker 2 (01:45:35):
I had some time today I was looking over some numbers.
Oh really, among all current starting quarterbacks in the NFL,
So there's thirty two of them, among all of them
that have thrown at least five hundred passes since twenty
twenty two, So pretty much everybody that's not a rookie
it's started and is currently starting. The worst three passer
ratings of that entire group are all former number one

(01:45:59):
overall picks. Wake Bortles, you think he's throwing five hundred
passes since twenty twenty two and is currently a starting
quarterback in the NMS. The parts that make it wrong
current starting quarterbacks right, Tremor Lawrence, He's third worst, who's
the worst than the second? And Bryce Young is first worst?
See I told you Bryce Young sucked. Nobody believes me.

(01:46:19):
I've got Bama and Georgia as my college game of
the week. I'll take the under on that. I'll believe
in the defenses and what is a pseudo Georgia home game.
I'm playing all road teams, same as Josh. Usually not
a good idea, but he seems smart. A'll do what
he did Seahawks minus seven at the Falcons, Broncos minus
seven and a half at Raiders, and like he said,

(01:46:39):
I will also take the Commanders minus one and a
half at the Vikings. Josh and I agree as well
on the Texans. Do we agree that they're going to win?
We both have played them to cover and their dogs
at three and a half. But do you believe they're
going to win?

Speaker 4 (01:46:56):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:46:58):
I do. We could both win the play, but I
think they're going to win the game outright, as do
I and that's also how I'm taking over forty one
and a half. Yeah, but I thought that number we
discussed it earlier. Forty one and a half Texans win,
twenty four to twenty one Texans win, you know, somewhere
in that Simbury Texany game this year. Yeah, I think
that's a probably the play I would make as well

(01:47:18):
if I was playing the over under. But we will
see if any of these work out. Last week we
got just enough to say we know what we're doing
for the season. We don't quite know what we're doing,
but with Josh's help, we just might get there. All right.
So there was one game in the NFL last night.
We've talked about the team that didn't win. Could we

(01:47:38):
maybe talk about the team that did win? Okay, let's
do that. The Lions won last night. They have a
very interesting head coach that's next mentioned a couple of times.
Pretty important weekend in the NFL. Is only five weeks left,
so most of the time we're gonna see some of
these matchups that make a great deal of vans play

(01:48:00):
out in who expects to get into the postseason, what
their respective chances are of getting there. Obviously, the focus
on the Texans and Chiefs. Chiefs chances of being a
playoff team in this postseason they get pretty low. If
they fall to six and seven with another loss in
an AFC game, they'd be three and five in the

(01:48:22):
AFC and would continue losing tie breakers to several of
the teams sitting right in front of them, who they've
played and lost to. Steelers and Ravens are going head
up this weekend. Each of those two teams sit at
six and six, so the loss obviously puts them in
a bad spot in the division race. A loss also
puts them, very much like Kansas City, in a bad
spot in the wild card race. They'd be sitting at

(01:48:43):
six and seven and again their ninth and tenth respectively.
Steelers are ninth, Chiefs are tenth. The eighth spot is
not a playoff spot. That's the Texan spot at seven
and five and eighth. Wins should tie them with one
of the two teams they're chasing in the AFC. Provided
the Colts and Jaguars don't lose, one of those eight
four teams becomes an eight and five team and would
then have the same record as Houston after Houston wins

(01:49:05):
this weekend. If they do that. So those two games
in particular, just in or those three games obviously create
a tremendous amount of variance. And we briefly mention what's
going on in the NFC. You had a matchup last
night of teams right in that same position as the
Texans and Chiefs are in from a wildcard standpoint. Detroit
and Dallas kind of felt like an elimination game. If

(01:49:25):
Detroit loses, they're sitting at seven and six, with two
wildcard teams already with nine wins, with a team in
their division already with nine wins, not a very good
place to be. And like Houston, they're a third place team,
but they won. Dan Campbell's Aaron Glenn Less and Ben
Johnson less team got to eight and five. They're having
a good season. Eight and five is a good season.

(01:49:47):
You're on your way to ten and seven, or you're
on your way to eleven and six. It's not a
bad year. Might not be a playoff season for the Lions,
who have for several years now been a very popular
pick to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl. Well
it's not.

Speaker 1 (01:50:01):
I mean, it's a good season, like you said, but
it's not I don't think the season that Lions fans
or even NFL fans probably thought was going to be
where they'd be right now. I mean, that record is
paltry compared to last year at this time, so is
their coaching staff. They're coaching elsewhere. But do you really

(01:50:23):
is it as simple as that, or is it just
like some of the play last year? Aiden Hutchinson missed
how many games they've got him for all this season?

Speaker 2 (01:50:37):
Maybe it is the coaching. I just I don't think
they have a bad either. I don't think they have
a bad OC. I don't think they have a bad DC. Obviously,
Dan Campbell's had a much more hands on approach to
the point that he is calling plays to some degree
each week. I think Kelvin Shephard's a fine defensive coordinator.
I think that they are coming up with fewer oh

(01:50:57):
my god, this is the best player I've ever seen
than they did last year, and the creativity is a
little less. I don't have I didn't have it before
and I don't have it now. Any disdain for Dan
Campbell's propensity to go for it on fourth down. At
some point, the other coaches who have comparable offensive personnel
and maybe have some concern about their defense. We'll start

(01:51:19):
doing the same thing. If you have the players and
it's fourth and reasonable, you should go going forward as
often as they are. It makes sense. It's not analytically unsound.
It's smart football in my opinion. But it hadn't worked
out clearly as well. Jared Goss not having that kind
of season. They don't have the same balance between Montgomery
and Jamier Gibbs. But Gibbs is having one of those

(01:51:40):
unbelievable individual seasons. Had another three touchdown game last night
without even having a crazy successful running night, but he
caught another seven to eight ball. I mean every week
they're finding ways where he is in an advantage position
against the defense. They scored forty four points this offense
that I've been talking bad mouthing. They scored forty four
point points, and they wanted a game that they pretty

(01:52:02):
much had to have to keep their strong playoff hopes alive.
Even though they're gonna head into next next week in
a very similar will probably still need help position.

Speaker 1 (01:52:11):
Well, all they gotta do is win the rest of
their games and they'll have the same record as last
year twelve and five.

Speaker 2 (01:52:16):
Well, I didn't. Did you think they were gonna be
as good as last year? I thought they had a
chance to be a good NFC contender, and maybe that's
my pick, but I didn't think they'd be as good
as they were last year. They won their last game
of the regular season last year to earn the number
one seed. Yeah, I don't know that. I thought they
were going to replicate that.

Speaker 1 (01:52:31):
I think I thought they were going to be somewhere
between last year and where they are, though better than
they are this year, more so than anything else. But
you know what, That's why this quote from Dan Campbell
is so interesting. In this article in The Athletic, he
said he told those guys his team, this may have
been our only shot.

Speaker 2 (01:52:51):
Do I think that?

Speaker 3 (01:52:52):
No?

Speaker 2 (01:52:53):
Do I believe that? No. However, I know how hard
it is to get here.

Speaker 1 (01:52:57):
I'm well aware, and it's going to be twice as
hard to get back to this point next year than
it was this year.

Speaker 2 (01:53:03):
That's the reality.

Speaker 1 (01:53:04):
And if we don't have the same hunger and the
same work, then we got no shot at getting back here.
The reason that quote is so awesome, other than the obvious,
is that I.

Speaker 2 (01:53:13):
Don't think.

Speaker 1 (01:53:16):
It gets publicly talked about nearly as much as some
of the other cliche talking points in all of sports,
not just the NFL, but because it's the NFL, I
think it applies a little bit more because the NFL
is such a league of parody, and part of that
being a good thing, obviously is that, you know, teams
feel like a lot of teams feel like they can

(01:53:36):
either have a chance every year, or if you're like
the Texans a few years ago, you can turn things
around in one year, which they did with CJ and
Will and the hiring of Dmico Ryans. But it also
is because of the fact that, yeah, you have all
these teams that are runners up either in the conference
championship or more importantly, I think in the Super Bowl,
and how many of those teams do we see crater

(01:53:58):
And over the years this happened And it's not a
modern NFL versus old NFL thing. This happens all the
time where a team gets to the Super Bowl, for example,
and then they don't sniff it for a long time
if they lose it that year, and it's happened all
the time.

Speaker 2 (01:54:14):
So for context on that particular quote that carries so
much weight, that he's making, you know, giving the acs.
Talking about this was in an article in The Athletic
after they lost the conference title game in twenty twenty four.
That's when he said it, when he still had Ben
Johnson and Aaron Glenn on the staff, which they then
had all of last year. It came after they finished

(01:54:36):
twelve and five, after they went to the playoffs and
won two games to reach the conference title game. And
this is the message he wants to make sure throughout
that run and the ensuing teams that they would have.
You can't take this for granted. They went fifteen and
two after he made those comments and did not win
their first playoff game. The following year, they saw this

(01:54:58):
last postseason, they lost to the Kama and forty five
thirty one. This is where they are now hoping to
reach the playoffs. It's easier with an older team. Jared
Goff and few others that probably have a better understanding,
especially him for who he was once with. You've got
to believe it. You have to believe it. I know
it may not sound this way. What do you mean.

(01:55:20):
I'm in year two, he's in year three. We're all
under contract for the next three years. Not in the NFL,
it does not work that way. And the Texans I
thought had a pretty good sense of that these last
two years. But they've stayed together and I don't know
if they really truly believe it, and when they get
to this point of this season, they have to take
advantage of it.

Speaker 1 (01:55:39):
That is why I was screaming all off season about
the offensive line because I knew this defense could do
this again this year. But I'm also, what are we
always talking about the rookie quarterback contracts having to pay
guys all that you have two first rounders in the
top three that you have to pay. And I realize
you can keep kicking the can down the road because

(01:56:00):
that's the new way of loopholing the CBA and the
salary cap to be able to keep a team together.
But gosh, even with everything that's happened, if you waste
this season's defense again, that's gonna really, really really sit
not very well at the fan base and obviously with me.

Speaker 2 (01:56:19):
Well, you get too. Football at five coming up next
when we return at Football at five, final hour of
the program, final hour of the week, we go directly
into Rockets basketball. After we wrap things up here, tonight
they've got the Phoenix Suns in town. That means Dylan
Brooks has returned as a player. Jalen Brooks has returned.

(01:56:40):
Jalen Green has returned as a player in streets as
he will be unavailable tonight' same story for Dylan Brooks.
Ross will have Rockets launchpad for you coming up at
six o'clock AC with Rockets countdown at six thirty and
AC and MT will have you for Rockets basketball tonight.
I'll be with you tomorrow night for Rockets as Houston

(01:57:01):
closes out five games in seven nights, hopefully with four
wins in seven nights. They've gotten two so far. Hopefully
the next two come tonight and tomorrow night. But it
is football at five. The matchup for the Texans this
weekend obviously has taken the majority of our conversation. The
update from an injury standpoint for both teams was pretty
much as expected. Once the two teams hit the practice

(01:57:22):
field on Wednesday, it appeared that the Kansas City Chiefs
would be without a couple of offensive linemen. Josh Simmons
injured recently and now has had subsequent surgery. He is
on ir. He is obviously not playing this weekend at
one tackle spot. Juwan Taylor did not practice at all
this week with the triceps and shoulder injury. He is

(01:57:42):
listed as doubtful for this game, and I think most
people believe he will not suit up and play for
the Chiefs this weekend. And Trey Smith similarly been out
a couple games with his ankle injury, also listed as doubtful.
So very likely that while they've seen some of these
players on the field, not their normal starting group and
a host of snaps will be given to their reserves.

(01:58:04):
Probably three of the five starters not available when the
Texans at the practice field on Wednesday, and Kamari Lassiter
with a foot injury, was one of the players who
did not practice. That was eyebrowt Raising did not practice
yesterday either, but over there today as they practiced inside
the stadium, and there I saw him on the field.
He was working off to the side, though normally the

(01:58:25):
place where players attempting to return from injury or work
through whatever it is they have going on are so
his situation listed again as questionable a limited participant is
how he was listed today and listed as questionable for
the game. I do think it is of great importance,
not only because of what a strong player he is,
both in run support and obviously in defending the pass

(01:58:49):
and defending his opponent. Think he we were talking about
Daniel Hunter being overshadowed a bit by Will Anderson. I
think the coverage of Will Anderson maybe is overshadowing him.
I think the player Derek Stingley Junior is so good
that nobody could get the kind of attention that playing
off side of him, off the opposite side of him

(01:59:12):
would get. For you, last year has been unbelievable. This year.
He was awesome last year as a rookie. He's been
better this year as a second year player. And I
do know that he has been beaten at times. Just
last week, I think you could say that. I think
Daniel Jones made two incredible throws. I think Alec Pierce
had a given him a tiny window to throw into,

(01:59:32):
but a window nonetheless, and he put the throws where
they needed to be and they had a couple of
long connections. But I don't think that means he hasn't
had a great season. He has. The Texans would be
in a big, big hole without him if that is
what they're left with on Sunday if he's unable to go,
if he's not active, or even if he is active
and then is unable to finish, or there's some sort
of additional injury to the foot. Don't know the exact

(01:59:56):
nature of the foot injury other than it is a
foot injury, but Traymon Smith and I'm not sure who
else they would turn to in this situation if they
are left with him not being available. I know that
Smith is the so called immediate backup and he has
seen reps there at that position. The fact that Jalen Reid,
who would otherwise be starting, is also out. He broke

(02:00:18):
his arm in last week's game. His return is uncertain,
but he has not been placed on IR and if
he is, his season will be over. He's already been
on IR once, so they already have one hole to fill.
It's the same thing when Jalen Petrie was out, Miles
Bryant was filling that hole, and then he had to
fill a different hole because a different player was out
and Jalen Petrie return and Jalen Reid was on the field,
so Miles Bryant could return to his role as wherever

(02:00:41):
they need me I'm ready to play. Well, that's what
the Texans have to consider. They'll have Petrie Bullock, Derreck
Singley Junior. The fifth defensive back is the open spot now.
Jalen Reid obviously is not at safety, and if Lassner
isn't a available Okay, well, now where do you put

(02:01:02):
Miles Bryant? Because where do you want to Traymon Smith?
Is it possible JaMarcus Ingram factors in to their game
plan this weekend. I don't know that he has any
idea how they play it. I don't know how similar
it is to things he was doing in Buffalo. Remember
they claimed him off waivers midweek, so he was on
the practice field today. I presume I did my best
to try to find him, but I did not. Doesn't

(02:01:25):
mean he wasn't there, just means I personally didn't see
him in the massive players I was looking through. But
that is a huge deal. You're playing against Pat Mahomes.
Any opening would love not to see it. What do
you want to do when you play Kansas City Chiefs offense?
You'd love to have a great pass rush and you'd
love to have guys that can cover. That's exactly what
the Texans have. It's kind of obvious why they're one

(02:01:45):
of the best defenses in the NFL. You know, they're
already playing without Tim Settle. His season is over because
of his foot surgery. But I think the Texans are
pretty well equipped to make it work up front. My
assumption is Tommy TOJII gets the bulk of the reps
that otherwise would have gone to Tim Settle and probably
starts alongside Sheldon Rankins, but he and Mario Edwards Junior

(02:02:08):
are probably going to get most of that work. I
think maybe you see a few more reps for Denico
Autry than we've previously seen, though he is playing through
injury each week, he barely practices, but then is there
on game day. He does have a little bit more
positional flexibility than many of the other guys on the
defensive line. They can go five man front with him
at any number of positions. He's obviously can play outside

(02:02:30):
as well as playing inside, depending on what look they
want to show to the Chiefs. But for the most
part this year, after his season got started with him unavailable,
he was on the pup list. Over the last seven games,
he's taken forty percent of the snaps or less. Roughly
around thirty is about where he averages. So a day

(02:02:50):
where the Texans offense stays on the field a lot,
you might only see Denico Autre on the field for
seventeen twenty twenty two snaps. That number probably comes up slightly,
but I would suspect it's the Togii Edwards portion of
their interior that probably plays a little bit larger role.
They would have to consider is there another person, another
body that they want in that group. They did sign

(02:03:14):
Solomon Byrd to the active roster off of the practice squad.
He was a late round pick from the twenty four
draft and has played sparingly for the team same thing
last year, got some opportunities to play with them. He's
I think exclusively a defensive end. I have never seen
him line up anywhere else, so I'm not really sure
how that might factor in, unless well, Bird could be
up so Autrey can play more exclusively on the inside.

(02:03:37):
And they have a couple of defensive tackles that have
been with the team throughout most of the season, if
not the entire season, on the practice squad, Marlon Davidson
and Junior Tafuna. Again, we'll keep an eye on Saturday
to see if there are elevations at that position, and
the same thing in the secondary. I should say, is
it possible that Arnett is a player they bring up.
Is it possible that Kevon Wallace, who has yet to

(02:03:58):
play a snap with the Texans this year, is brought up.
Both of those two players are on the practice squad.
Probably see elevations this week because of those areas of need. Well,
we'll see exactly how the Texans decided to play it
on that front. A couple of things from inside the
Texans facility earlier this week. We heard from Matt Burke
earlier this week on the loss of Tim Settle. They

(02:04:20):
got Jalen Petrie and his guardian helmet back this week.
Mer Burke on Petrie's impact. It's a good player obviously
for us. So it's obviously good to have players back
for us and playing.

Speaker 9 (02:04:31):
So that corp sort of underneath defender's force, the linebacker
level of Peatree and the safety level, like that's where
a lot of that stuff's happening. I mean, our corners
are our corners and whatnot, but I think having a
guy with his speed and tackling ability, because again as
a lot of it's going to be tackling in space
and those sort of things that hopefully is a huge
benefit for us.

Speaker 2 (02:04:49):
One of the things that Tamiko Ryan said specifically as
to why they were able to do what they did
against Jonathan Taylor and to the Colts in general as
a defense, was their tackling. We've had games where he
has had to talk about and we've asked many questions
about it. Why was the tackling so bad in this game?
Maybe back to the Bucks game probably one that stands out,
but recently, as their defense continues to sit atop the

(02:05:12):
league and both points allowed and yards allowed and a
few other categories, when that is also sound, and it
absolutely was against the Coults, the other team pretty much
has no chance. You're gonna complete passes and you're going
to win some one on one battles and create some holes. Well,
if you're tackling a sound these games aren't going to
net you first downs. They're not going to see a

(02:05:32):
lot of explosive plays and driving long drives with multiple
third down conversions against the Texans defense, they are hard
to come by. Now. Jalen Pecher and everybody else out
there will still have to deal with what I agreed
with ESPN with I actually said it first because they
hadn't put out their list yet and I didn't know
that they would, and they did. The best Gramlin quarterback

(02:05:53):
in the NFL the Texans have not seen yet this year.
It is not Josh Allen's, not Lamar Jackson. It is
Pat Mahomes, And we're Burke's comments on number fifteen for
the Chiefs.

Speaker 9 (02:06:03):
Obviously in a supremely talented quarterback, very unique and how
he operates in terms of all the off schedule plays
he makes and his ability to make explosive throws from
outside the pocket, from anywhere out of the framework. So
obviously a huge challenge for us this week.

Speaker 1 (02:06:16):
For sure.

Speaker 2 (02:06:18):
He said the keywords with Pat Mahomes, and they are
usually kryptonite for a defense. Off schedule. He makes plays
off schedule, he's not taking the snap, dropping back, going
through his reads and making throws. On occasion he will,
but even when it's not due to pressure, he just

(02:06:40):
he moves moves to his light left, moves to his right,
moves up in the pocket, climbs in the pocket. Obviously,
he rolls out of the pocket a ton Is he
looking to run? You don't know, because he still will.
And that's why the scrambling aspect to it. He is
scrambling for first downs more than anybody in the NFL.
He's scrambling for third day conversions as much as anybody

(02:07:01):
in the NFL. And these defenses know that and still
don't know is he scrambling to run or is he
scrambling to throw? So it obviously puts the defensive players
in an off position. Most of those linebackers. You're not
necessarily using an al Shair or Henry Toatoa as a
scout against Mahomes because you need them in pass coverage.

(02:07:24):
They don't. I think you can maybe disguise it here
and there, but I don't think the Texans do much
of that. There's a nice little chart this week that
showed blitz rate and disguise opportunities. How often does the
defense dis skies what they're doing? How offense? How often
does a defense blitz? Well, the Texans don't do either

(02:07:45):
of those things much. They're the last in the league
when you cross plot those two things. Nobody blitzes and
disguises their defense less than the Texans, and they're the
best defense of the NFL. If you can't understand what
I'm saying, I'll explain it this way. Here's what we're doing,
and we know it's going to work. Good luck. That's

(02:08:07):
what this super talented, well called, well executing defense does
every week. They don't give you tells, They tell you
what they're doing, and you can't keep them from winning.
That's why their defense is the best. Not to go
back to last night's game for like the ninth time
already on the show, but we talked about it so
much and didn't talk about one of the most talked
about things that happened in last night's game, the offensive

(02:08:31):
pass interference call. Oh, the Cowboys are not going to
come back. This is great. This is gonna hurt, this
is gonna end their season, this is gonna keep them
from the playoffs. Not really sure in that particular point
in the game that's really the case. But the play
itself involved Jason Ferguson tied in for the Cowboys, linebacker
Ox Hands alone for the Lions. A lot of these

(02:08:55):
individual standalone games television wise, broadcast wise, also in the
assistance of their own broadcast view of the call with
the help from an expert, rules expert. NBC does that,
Obviously Amazon does the same. Most of the networks have
somebody in there for nearly every game, and certainly the
big ones like this one, and they did last night,

(02:09:16):
and so a lot of people thought, this is absolutely ridiculous.
Here we are again, this is weekly, this is every game,
this is certainly every big game. An enormous call that
was just absolutely botched. They're looking at the play, they're
running replays of it, they're dissecting what happened, and they're like, well,
I guess you got to call past interference on Anselon.

(02:09:39):
I mean I could see where the contact is and
you see what Ferguson's trying to go, and I guess
that's where we're headed with this. And then they call
offensive past interference and two A man, everybody, what are
they doing? This is just awful, just a horrendous call.
I don't know where they're seeing this. This is absolutely
not past interference on the offense. We can't have I

(02:10:00):
have this, all this, that and the other. And then
you want to talk about social media, absolutely the same
thing tenfold. Can't believe we're still seeing this on a
regular basis. This is the second, third, fourth, fifth call tonight.
That's egregious, terrible call affects the game huge. How could
they do this? Alex Anseloon, the player involved, He took

(02:10:20):
to social media about it last night. Dak Prescott, the
quarterback involved, He talked about it last night. He said,
do I get fine for talking about this? I'm sorry
that was bad. Gotta look at the film. Maybe I
can see it from their vantage point. I know. I
talked to the ref after he said Ferguson aggressively pulled through.
I've never seen a call like that. The linebacker in question,

(02:10:42):
he posted this, y'all are weird. You can't grab someone's
jersey and sling through like that. My body didn't do
that for no reason, and then he factually added we
declined it. Anyways, So I watched live last night. I
watched the replays I've seen. I guess a better replay

(02:11:06):
since so I thought the call was bogus to last night,
I don't now. It does seem pretty clear that Jason
Ferguson grabs him right underneath his shoulder pads right there
on the jersey, gets a hold of him strongly enough
that he flings him away. From the path that he
wants to go in, creating space, creating an opening, making

(02:11:27):
him open. That is illegal. That is not hand fighting.
That's offensive pass interference with the ball on the way.
I don't know if it's me, and I know it's
after the fact. I don't think they got the call right.
I mean, I don't think they got the call wrong
four minutes under, four minutes left in the game, and

(02:11:48):
maybe later in the play. You could look at Anelon
and say he got there early. But the particular call
on Jason Ferguson, which happened before Azelon's hand was around
his ways or before he might have, like I said,
gotten there early with the pass on the way, that's
a fair fight, and I certainly am willing to listen
to that argument. Maybe you call it holding on Ferguson

(02:12:09):
and defensive pass interference on Anseloon. But the reason they
called offensive pass interference is because they believe that Ferguson
grabbed him and basically tossed him aside. I think they're right.
I think that's exactly what happened. Not trying to not
pile on the officials, but every once in a while
they get it right and I might not even be
right that they got it right, but every once in

(02:12:31):
a while they do, and I think in this case
they did just kind of preparing you for the weekend ahead.
Lots of games that are gonna have huge impacts on
the postseason playoff picture. The Texans are in one of
those games. If the Texans are eight and five after
this week, they have a phenomenal chance of getting in. Actually,

(02:12:51):
by the way, if they win their next three games
game against the Chiefs, then they got a game against
Cardinals and Raiders, both of them are in huge If
they just win their next three, they go from seven
to five to ten and five, they're going to the playoffs.
I believe they can actually lose games in the AFC

(02:13:13):
to the Chargers in week seventeen and to the Colts
in week eighteen, and I think the other results would
actually still have them in the playoffs at ten and seven.
Not asking for them to do that. You don't have
to play with fire. You don't have to see if
it'll happen. But I think they're in a really good
position if they win the next three weeks, because you do,
I mean, we're paying so much attention to the Texans

(02:13:33):
games and the Texans schedule. I'm doing my best to
try to remind you what everybody else is looking at
these next couple weeks, Like, have you gotten to the
point have you decided who you want to win the
Colts Jaguars game? Do you care? And I think you
should care. I know the Texans play the Colts again,
all right, So go ahead and have the Colts win
that game, right, because then you can take care of them.
Or do you want the Jaguars to win the game,

(02:13:54):
because then the Colts game might not matter much to
them at the end. I don't know how you want
to play it, but I would play it the way
I said it. The Colts winning this game, great, beat
the Jaguars. What are the other games the Colts are
going to win? I know they're a good team. They
would be nine and four. They would have just gone
into Jacksonville and won a game. I'm not trying to
tell you they're bad at all, not even close. But

(02:14:16):
after they play the Jaguars, they go on the road
to Seattle, they have a game in Indianapolis against the
forty nine ers, and then they close on the road
in Houston. They haven't won a lot of road games
this year. Majority of their wins are in Indianapolis. If they,
in my mind, steal a game at Jacksonville, great, because
they're not gonna win anither of the other two road games.

(02:14:36):
So you've got a six lost Colts team with games
against the Jags, Niners, and the other game against the Jags. Yeah,
that is what you should hope for. And conversely, if
the Jags beat the Colts and move to nine and four,
are they gonna lose another game the rest of the year?
Maybe one, because after the Colts, the Jaguars play the Jets,

(02:14:58):
go on the road for the Broncos and Colts and
close with the Titans. I don't think they're gonna lose
to the Jets or the Titans. They're playing at home
against the Colts this weekend. If they win that game,
well where are their other losses? What are the Broncos
playing for? They're still playing for the number one seed?
Are they still playing at the same high level the
second game with the Colts. They're gonna win the division
if they win both games against the Colts. Very likely,

(02:15:21):
because they're probably also going to have two other wins.
They already have eight that gives them twelve. Texans can't
catch them. Texans have to win every game to get
to twelve. It's possible in that scenario the Texans would
still win the division via tiebreaker, but not very likely. Yeah,
go ahead and say Colts win with fractured leg Daniel Jones,

(02:15:44):
even with the help of his college roommates at Duke.
What a fascinating story. We haven't talked about it at
all for a reason. Yeah, that's what you should be
looking at. And these other teams that you care about,
the eight and four Bills, the eight and four Chargers.
You have a win over all of the eight and
four teams in the AFC. You've beaten the Colts've beaten
the Jaguars, You've beaten the Bills. You haven't played the

(02:16:06):
Chargers yet. You play them in week seventeen. They close
with the Eagles on Monday Night with their quarterback in
his first game. He's gonna play, but he's gonna have
something pretty significant on his left hand after he had surgery.
He's been practicing through it this week. I'm sure they're
figuring out exactly what they want from a contraption standpoint.

(02:16:27):
That he'll be wearing on his left hand. Chargers visit
or Chargers are hosting the Eagles this week. Then they
go to Kansas City. Kansas City's desperate. No matter what happens,
Kansas City wins this week, they're still desperate. Kansas City
loses this week, they're not eliminated. It's getting close. They'll
be desperate. So Chargers at Chiefs. Chargers beat him earlier

(02:16:47):
this year. Then they go to the Cowboys. Still have
that game with the Texans, and then they close with
the Broncos. Their schedule might be the hardest one in
the NFL. Over the final five games of this season,
these are all things the Texans can catch everybody basically
other than the two loss teams. They're not gonna catch
the Broncos. They're not gonna catch the Patriots. They're not

(02:17:08):
trying to. They can win this division to be the
three seed very very easily, as long as they're not
fooling us. Four wins in a row, I don't really
care what your schedule is not an easy thing to
do in the NFL. Texans haven't won five games in
a row since they won those nine in a row.
The Bill O'Brien Texans that lost their first three games
and then won nine in a row. And we're the

(02:17:30):
last OH to three team team to start OH to
three to then make the postseason. And remember that was
a sixteen game schedule, and that was a six team playoffs,
not a seventeam playoff in each conference, so even harder
to do. Then, well, if the Texans win nine in
a row, they're going to the playoffs. Also, they've won
the first four. If they closed the season on a

(02:17:51):
nine game winning streak and finish twelve and five, they're
definitely going to the playoffs. I've already told you that
as a lock mathematical guarantee. Odds are pretty good. They
also win the division and odds are pretty good, then
they are the three seed. They've been the four seat
the last two years. All of a sudden, this season
could end up better than last season or the season before,
at least in terms of where they start the postseason.

(02:18:12):
A lot of work to do before they get there.
It is shade after five point thirty here on Sports
Talk seven ninety. We always hit you with in case
you missed it during this portion of the program. A
couple of things we need to get to here quick
tease about the tickets we still have this week to
give to you. Got a pair of tickets to see
Chicago and Sticks Still Be Live with the Woodland's Pavilion

(02:18:33):
on August twentieth. We got a pair of tickets to
see Tody's Live at the House of Blues coming up
on December twenty ninth. We'll give those two away in
the final segment of the show. Just keep on listening
and you will have your opportunity to win them in
the final segment of the show. In case you missed it,
we go into Rockets coverage as soon as we wrap
things up here. Rockets and the Phoenix Sun Suns will

(02:18:55):
be without Devin Booker and Jalen Green. The Rockets will
be without Fred Van Vliet, Tarry Eason, Dorian Finney Smith
as per usual, and alprin Shangoon. He made doka just
mentioning to the assembled media in his pregame availability. Alpi,
who was deemed questionable earlier today with illness, is now
in fact unavailable to the Rockets tonight. Steven Adams will

(02:19:19):
make the start in his place. It'll be An Adams,
Smith durant Aman, a Kogi starting lineup for the Rockets
against the Phoenix Suns. Likely we will see something different
tomorrow night because Udoka indicated that tomorrow night Steven Adams
will not be available for the Rockets part of their
plan over the course of the season. They've just now

(02:19:42):
gotten into their first couple of back to backs. Sunday
and Monday had their first set tonight and tomorrow have
their second set, So Adams in tonight and starting, but
the plan is for Adams to not to play tomorrow
night when they get to Dallas to take on the
Dallas Mavericks. What else we have here in case you
missed it, Josh, Yeah, I thought this was pretty interesting.

Speaker 8 (02:20:05):
Clinton was going to get to this a little bit earlier,
but from ber Valdez with an interesting approach to the
off season. Maybe still worried about a little bit of
the image with you know, the throwing the pitch and
the call being not what he thought, trying to clean
that up a little bit. So I thought it was
interesting that that Thad Levine had this on fromber about
a video he put together to try and get people

(02:20:28):
to be excited about signing him and not worried about
any kind of personality stuff getting in the way, so this.

Speaker 5 (02:20:37):
Had to say and with Fromberville does specifically, you know,
it's such a fascinating case. I actually had a chance
to work with Ulysses Kberra's agent this all season because
I am an independent person right now. He asked my
opinion of how our front office is going to perceive him.
He did put together a video, as you referenced, God
and the video is fascinating because usually these videos are

(02:20:59):
hype performance videos. This is actually a twenty minute video
which really gives you insights into who fran Burvell does is,
where did he grow up, what is his family like?

Speaker 2 (02:21:09):
You know, it's the classic story of a.

Speaker 5 (02:21:11):
Guy growing up in a household with no electricity and
no running water and really having to fight for everything
throughout his life. It really put the person in perspective,
and I think for teams that genuinely care about that
this will be a video that will probably open their eyes.

Speaker 2 (02:21:26):
Sad Levine, a former executive, used to be the GM
of the Twins. This is from an appearance on the
Foul Territory podcast and as he noted, not currently with
any Major league ball club, but obviously has good relationships
I'm sure around the league with plenty of agents, and
in getting contacted by Fromber's agent, some advice he offered.
And there's no question there is some question about, well,

(02:21:48):
what kind of clubhouse person teammate from Berval does is Honestly,
most of his time here in Houston, you really wouldn't
have questioned it from inside what you had seen here
in Houston. Guy pretty much adds the bell all the time,
had some huge games. In some huge games, he had
the opposite too. He had some games where he just
didn't have particularly good performances. But there are pitchers you

(02:22:10):
could count on one hand that were as successful as
he was for as long as he was over the
last five years, making roughly thirty starts a year, and
most of those seasons for him included multiple postseason starts
those particular years. But you're heading into free agency off
of a season where you seemingly intentionally crossed up your catcher,
so you basically threw a pitch right in his chest

(02:22:32):
that you knew he wouldn't catch but rather would get
hit by. And I think that Seysar Salazar handled it well.
I think the team handled it well. I think after
the fact, fromber handled it as best he could, but
I'm in GM around baseball. It's the first thing I
want to know about. I'm going to ask other people
about it, not just Fromber. I'm going to ask other
people that were involved and see what other information I

(02:22:53):
can get, or other people who've been around Fromber, not
just Astro's personnel over the years, but maybe those who've
been through there. It is huge for him when that's
really the only thing you need to question. Best left
handed pitcher on the market, There's no question about it.
He is it. He is in line based on his
performance to get a big fat, guaranteed paycheck for the

(02:23:15):
next three to five seasons, which is absolutely what his
play has earned. But if there's an image issue, and again,
for as much as we see a Fromber on the
days he doesn't pitch, and how seemingly well liked he
is around this clubhouse, it's hard to believe that is
part of it. But this did happen. It is part
of it. He's had some issues focusing within games, famously

(02:23:37):
in the postseason with the Carlos Korea visiting the mound
after he merely had a dust up with Yondi Diaz,
and several other instances where it feels like he's cruising
along and then all of a sudden, something doesn't go
his way. He doesn't personally make a fielding play, or
something goes wrong. It feels like he could have had
a double play ball and it scortes through the infield,
just any little thing. A pitch is not called for

(02:24:00):
him that he thinks as a strike and it seems
to not set him off but set him down the
wrong path, And all of a sudden, a five nothing
Astro's leads a five to four game and you had
to pull him there in the fifth inning when he'd
only given up one hit and face the minimum. It
does seem like too many of those have happened. His
overall numbers have been fantastic, but sounds like a very
very good idea for he and his side to try

(02:24:23):
to present things as this weekend's probably a pretty big one.
Winter meetings Orlando are rapidly approaching something to put in
front of everybody that says, hey, man, I'm a good guy.
What else do we have.

Speaker 8 (02:24:36):
A little more Astro's news coming from Brian McTaggart. The
Astros have optioned Logan Van Why and Taylor Tremmel to
Triple A. I don't think that's a big surprise there.
But what is interesting is they made a trade for
a right handed pitcher, Nico Zeglin from the Cubs. It
looks like he's going to be assigned to Ashville actually
minor league er in twenty twenty four under.

Speaker 2 (02:24:58):
One What about is ra in twenty twenty five he's
been hurt. Oh yes, this is a smart move. I
love when teams make and it surprises me when another
team goes for it. Basically, they spend on international money.
They are taking a risk. This is a pitcher is
probably several years away and did not pitch last year
due to injury. His numbers and his peripherals and his

(02:25:19):
strikeouts per nine inning they look fantastic, And I'd love
when the Astros, who are super great, fantastic in developing pitchers.
If a pitcher has an asset, an arsenal of pitchers,
or as very specific pitch that is super plus, they
usually figure out a way to cultivate that, develop that
and tournament is something that helps the big league club

(02:25:41):
love the acquisition of Nico Zeglin, and not just for
his name. The Astros sent the release out on the
getting forty the forty man roster down to thirty eight.
That's what the van Y and Tremel moves do as
they outrite them to sugar Land. They are at thirty
eight presently, but will be at thirty nine when it
is officially announced that Ryan Weiss has been signed by

(02:26:01):
this team. So it's not just house cleaning, but it's
a little bit to give him a little flexibility and
obviously open up that spot, that one of the spots
that they must have in order to make the Weiss
signing available. And if you were listening to the A
team yesterday, Josh we said this very loudly and clearly,
even though I am nowhere near the Ravens facility. Lamar
Jackson is starting and playing on Sunday, which they in

(02:26:24):
fact said themselves today. He went practicing today. He was
actually stepped on it Wednesday's practice, so good to go
after missing Thursday's practice. Will he play good? Will he
play well? Will the old Lamar Jackson please show up?
If he does, they will have a one game lead
in the NFC North when they throttle the Pittsburgh Steelers.

(02:26:46):
Segment of the Show, final segment of the week Rockets
Basketball follows with the Rockets launch Pad from Toyota Center
with Ross Vilri. I come in your way in just
a few minutes. Mention we got tickets to give away.
Would love to do that for you Here at seven
one three two one two five seven nine. You can
answer this simple question, something we discussed earlier here on
the show today. Hopefully you heard it. Even if you didn't,
I bet you might be able to figure out what

(02:27:08):
the answer is. If you know the answer to this question,
you can make that call at seven one three two
one two five seven nine. You've got a pair of
tickets see Chicago and Styx Live on August twentieth at
the Woodlands Pavilion. Tickets are on sale now via ticketmaster
dot com. Went on sale this morning. We'll also have
a pair of tickets to see Tony's Live December twenty
ninth at the House of Blues. Tickets also can be

(02:27:29):
had for that at ticketmaster dot com. So if you
know the answer, we'll have two winners today, one for
each and here's your question. The Weekend Tilt with the
Kansas City Chiefs will put Patrickpatrick Mahomes against two of
the best edge rushers in the NFL. One of them
is Will Anderson Junior. Will Anderson Junior has one sack

(02:27:49):
on Sunday that'll give him twenty nine and a half
in his career, all of which has obviously been played
here in Houston. He will pass someone for or fourth
place on the Texans all time sack list. If he
gets a sack this weekend, he will be fourth. He's
currently fifth. He'll move into fourth place. Who will he

(02:28:10):
pass on the Texans all time sack list if he
sacks one player Patrick Maholmes presumably unless his backup comes
in this weekend against Kansas City. Obviously, at any point
in his future, same thing would be true. But he
needs one sack to pass who on the Texans all
time sack list? The answer is not JJ Watt. For

(02:28:31):
those of you that just want to call and give
a bad answer, that would be a bad answer. He's
number one. Will's just trying to move into the four spot.
Who will he pass? Seven one three two one two
five seven ninety seven one three two one two five
seven nine. If you know the answer to that question,
it is college football conference Championship weekend. The Sunbelt champion

(02:28:52):
James Madison, who has a new head coach, Billion Apier.
They will be looking to increase their chances of continuing
their season, which seems like a possibility. Twu Lane in
North Texas playing for the American Championship also trying to
do the same, also in the same position as James Madison.
Their successful seasons resulted in their successful coaches moving on

(02:29:17):
North Texas in Tulane. In that one, it is a
home game for Tulane right there at Yeoman Stadium. North
Texas is eleven and one likely takes some of their
talent with them to Oklahoma State with head coach Eric Morris.
That's tonight Friday night conference title games now Saturday eleven AM,

(02:29:38):
three o'clock and two games at seven o'clock. The teams
that everybody think, oh, these are the best teams in America,
like the ACC Championship featuring unranked Duke and Virginia. That's
the last game of the night. It's also the only
game going up against another game. So I don't know
how many people care or will be watching Indian Ohio State.
We will have just one undefeated team heading into the

(02:30:00):
postseason playoff picture. The winner of that game will be
the number one seed and will be undefeated, and they'll
be thirteen to zero. Bama and Georgia play mid afternoon
in Atlanta, another pseudo home game for the Georgia Bulldogs.
BYU and Texas Tech, they have the first game of
the day. It's rematch in both of those cases. Obviously,
I You and o iiO State were not on each

(02:30:21):
other's regular season schedule, which you often get in these
larger conferences now. But Georgia and Bama played earlier this year.
Bama beat them, so the revenge is for Georgia. Bama
could lose this game and suffer a third loss and
make the College Football Playoff. They earned the right to
get an additional game by finishing with the best record

(02:30:45):
in the SEC. Nobody had a better record than them
this season. In the SEC, several teams had the same record,
but they reached this title game, and Georgia reached this
title game, they earned the right to play an additional game.
Alabama losing to Georgia and evening their record against Georgia
absolutely should not send them out of the playoff in

(02:31:06):
my opinion. BYU in Texas Tech is also a rematch.
BYU's one loss is to Texas Tech. Somehow Texas Tech
lost to somebody else. I remember watching it thinking this
can't be happening, and it happened. Arizona State came back
and beat them late. That's their one loss. If Texas
Tech beats BYU for a second time, obviously they'll hold

(02:31:29):
firm with one of the top four spots and BYU's
resume will be we won't have anything on it. Their
win over Utah's neat. Utah's a good football team. Uta
only lost one other game, never a playoff thought, because
Utah didn't win any of the games they needed to
to become a playoff thought. They went ten to two

(02:31:51):
in a good conference. They went seven to two in
the conference. That's the signature win, a three point win
at home over Utah, and then obviously a bunch of
other conference wins in a good conference. Big twelve had
a good year. They had a lot of good teams.
They didn't be anybody that matters to the playoff picture,
though I don't think I think a BYU lost means

(02:32:14):
they're not going to the playoffs. Could be wrong, might
not sound fair. They also earned the right to reach
this stage, so maybe it should be looked at like
all the other games. Why are you penalizing them for
playing good football? They they showed you they can't beat
Tech and it wasn't a particularly close game. Well now
they're just showing it to you again. Doesn't mean they

(02:32:35):
can't beat the teams that are five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven,
twelve in the playoff picture. So we'll see who turns
out to be right on that comment I made if
they lose and they're sizeable underdogs in this game, twelve
and a half point underdogs heading into that game. I
refuse to analyze the ACC title game on principle Virginia
is not good and Duke is decidedly worse. A five

(02:32:59):
lost team is playing for the conference title in one
of the powerful conferences. Come on, man, it's not like
they only scheduled the best teams in the country in
non conference and so that's why their record overall looks
like it's us. They're not very good at football, but
they have a chance to win this game and get
us to an interesting scenario where because of where they're uneranked, well,

(02:33:22):
it just opens up the spot for somebody else. We
don't need to get into the Texas situation, because I
think that's a very cut and dry situation. We can
debate it, but we know what the committee is already thinking.
Texas has no chance to make the playoff. That's where
we stand today. Every one of those teams behind them,
even the ones that are pretending that we're gonna believe
they tried to schedule a thirteenth game, like Vanderbilt is
pretending that we're gonna believe they tried to do They're

(02:33:44):
not going to the playoffs either. They don't have a
true signature win. They had a really good season. A
lot of teams are gonna have really good seasons. They're
not a whole lot different than Utah in that regard.
When you want everybody to get in the playoffs, we'll
just keep expanding it because that's how we're gonna get
away from this. Was it worse when we were leaving
undefeated teams out of the playoffs like Florida State? Yes, clearly,

(02:34:05):
you would think a team that won every single game
they played would earn the right to, if you have
a playoff, be a part of the playoff. Well, now
there's twelve teams in the playoffs, maybe they get rid
of the automatic spots. That might be a step in
the right direction. Don't know how the non Power four
teams would feel about that, but I don't know that
they have allowed enough voice to for anybody to care.
We'll see, but that's the only change they really should make.

(02:34:28):
I know the change. They're going to make more games,
more money. A twelve team playoff means you play eleven
playoff games. A sixteen team playoff means you play fifteen games.
That's four more games worth of how much can we
get from our TV deal money? And then we'll spread
it out accordingly. Yes, we're headed there. Please tell me

(02:34:49):
that's as far as we're headed. Sixteen is the absolute
end of the line, right, just like I thought sixty
four teams was the absolute end of the line for
March madness or sixty eight teams. Well, we're going to
be at seventy six teams soon. Unfortunately, when is enough enough?
We'll find out soon. I am sure Rockets basketball next
huge football weekend. Can't wait for it. Can't wait to

(02:35:12):
be back with you at two o'clock on Monday to
talk all about it right here on the A team
on Sports Talk seven ninety