Texans-Raiders prep begins, National media showing Houston love

Wednesday on The A-Team, Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton preview Texans-Raiders, hear from DeMeco Ryans and CJ Stroud, discuss the national media's newfound love for the Texans, and more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
We are live and in studio, guaranteed human. That's true.
Can we just go ahead and talk about that for
two seconds? We in fact our humans? Yes, they made
us two seconds? What's that in our emails signatures? If
you get an email from us from our iHeart account
and in this case for me, my Gmail account, Yes,
my personal email is something something something at Gmail, it

(00:22):
says guaranteed human in the signature.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's branding and messaging is extremely important in twenty twenty
five and beyond. And I don't blame him at all.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Why didn't they get me to say that instead of
that girl guaranteed him at Oh, you never know where
our imaging people are gonna find the good. She sounds
like the barista that Paul Rudd. Is it Paul Rudd
that's upset with her Ron Livingston? Ron Livingston, Paul Rudd
didn't like the language. Well, he just doesn't think any
of those things mean twenty VINTI is twenty large, is large?

(00:52):
In fact, grande is large. Congratulations you're stupid in three
different languages. It was more it was it was his problem,
and we're often running. He was having a bad Yeah,
he was a minute thirty night show, and I'm already
off track with.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Ecause he's drinking too much, Minotaur. I need some caffeine
right now. Well that's what it offers. Well, what do
we have for you? We Week sixteen in the NFL
essentially begins Wednesdays, or for the teams that play tomorrow,
already got a game tomorrow. We got games over the
weekend Saturday and Sunday, Monday Night Football featuring Grandpa Rivers,

(01:25):
and by then we'll know a little bit more about
the AFC South, with both the Texans and Jaguars playing
three o'clock games. It's on the West Coast basically for
the Jaguars, so that makes sense. They've got their game
at Denver. The Texans are playing a West Coast team,
but it's here in Houston with a three twenty five kickoff.
They'll be wearing their reds for the Raiders, and so

(01:45):
they had their helmets on, their red helmets, you know,
making sure that they fit properly, even though they have
worn them already once this year. So was over at
practice today gets you updated on who was present during
the media viewing portion of practice and who wasn't give
you that initial knowledge, which I bet you could have
probably already guessed their backfield still had just four players
in it today, Britis Brooks getting the last of the carries,

(02:09):
preceded by Daria Gumbalwale, preceded by Jawar Jordan, and the
number one running back as they went through drills today
was Nick Chubb, back at practice. Did not play in
last week's game, was inactive with the rib injury he
suffered in the game the week before. But there was
no Woody Marks at practice today. Not a typical for
the last several weeks, and again tomorrow will get a

(02:30):
little bit more informational where a lot of the players
that will be listed on the forthcoming injury report over
the next couple of hours. As the d NPS did
not practice, there were quite a few, but I don't
believe they are in any worse situation than they were
the week before with all of these injuries, other than
maybe two things. Derrick Stingley Junior obviously was not dealing
with an injury prior to last week's game, but this

(02:51):
week he is. He did not practice today, or at
least was not seen during the media viewing portion of practice. Again,
that'll be confirmed with Demiko maybe in the next half
hour at least the injury report. Kamari Lasters, same situation,
doesn't practice on Wednesday. He has not missed a game.
He's picked off passes in each of the last two
and obviously their defensive line is gonna look a little
bit different because of the need to send two players

(03:14):
to ir over each of the last two weeks. Tim
Settle last week and now this week Mario Edwards Junior,
so the player they added to the practice squad today.
Marcus Harris was back on the field. Nae Kwon Jones,
who made his Texans debut last week, obviously back on
the field. Danko Autrey, who has played on a rotational
basis all season long after coming off the pup list,

(03:35):
has made a lot of his limited snaps and can
be a big impact player even on limited snaps, and
as has been the case the last several weeks, he's
not practiced three days in any of those weeks, and
he won't practice three days this week either. Did not
see him well, Like I said, we'll get you an
update on that. We will let you hear from Demiko
Ryans and CJ. Stroud, among others over the course of

(03:55):
the afternoon as they meet with the media, and it
is a game that is expected to be lopsided. We
do not know the answer from Pete Carroll yet about
who is starting quarterback will be yesterday. In the final
hour of the show, I mentioned it looks like Gino
Smith will return. They're kind of waiting to see how
he makes it through practice. If not today, but throughout

(04:16):
the week, gives them a little bit better player, It
doesn't give them much more of a chance. They've lost
a bunch of games with Gino Smith this year. Eleven
times they've done that, and now they've lost a game
with Kenny Pickett. Also, they are awful, and you'd like
to think the Texans, being very very good, would not
have to face US adversity in that game, and that's
exactly what happened a week ago. So I do think
that's what they're headed for this week. Rockets will continue

(04:39):
their road trip beginning tomorrow re beginning tomorrow night in
New Orleans. You just heard from Matt Thomas with the
team in New Orleans, so we'll get into a little
bit of that. I had a visit from Chandler Rome
for a couple of hours during the Matt Thomas Show,
and I always appreciate Chandler this time of year for
two reasons. He continuing tremendous off season coverage of the

(05:01):
Houston Astros and his constant lending of his voice to
the airwaves here on Sports Talk seven to ninety. It
spent a couple hours with them t today and over
the next couple of weeks here'll hear quite a bit
more of him filling in some of the gaps that
will appear on the shows that we host here on
a weekly basis. So looking forward to catching up with
him again. And Chas McCormick said thank you Houston earlier

(05:23):
today on his social media after nine years with the organization.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well, he's not officially gone until he makes it on
social with the goodbyes.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
That's how that works.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
First the team says thank you, and then he says
thank you, and it's usually in that order.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Although some guys jumped the gun. Yeah, all of it
goes hand in hand with what the Astros are after
this off season. They need more pitching and without Chas McCormick,
the hole gets even bigger. Three appearances last year, after
the first appearance where he got hit a little bit
two shutout appearances out of the Astros bullpen that followed.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
I'm gonna call you Shirley, because you can't be serious
with what that holds.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
We'll see if his next team decides to utilize his
asset package in full like the Astros did.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
I mean, some might argue that he has a much
brighter future as a pitcher than a hitter.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
If he were capable of putting one hundred and ninety
three pitches on his arm in one outing. Mm hm,
then he would be the architect of the fastest game
in Major League Baseball this season. Oh, he's efficient now,
like you If you didn't see it last year or
hear it with Robert and Steve, it is impressive. The

(06:29):
ball barely spends two seconds in his glove. After Sally
or Jiner or Victor gets the ball back to him.
He's standing on the rubber, he gets the ball back,
he's already in his wind up, and he throws it.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
That's it. There's nothing else. You mentioned A name right
there that makes my heart hurt.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Victor Carrottini doesn't have a team for this upcoming season,
and I don't think it's going to be the astros
and I'll tell you why. All right. So we got
a lot of things on the table today, looking forward
to everything we can share with you today. We'll have
tickets to give away, as we always do in the
final hour of the show. Segment comes your way at
four thirty, so there'll be some bs there. It is Wednesday,
and uh, we're off and running. We are off and running.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
The Texans Raiders preparations are officially underway. As you mentioned,
I can't it's kind of like last week, only worse.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
I always told you that the Jags games on the schedule,
no matter what's going on with either team, those are
the hardest games every year for me to kind of
like get excited for it. Anyway, it's just because it's
so blah. That is how I look at this Raiders game.
The only difference being everybody that is playing this weekend
that has potential or is already in the postseason race.

(07:39):
They've got something to play for. Nothing has really been determined,
and so many things will be determined by the results
of games like this over the coming weeks. The Texans
have to and I'm not saying that they are fighting this.
I'm not even saying it's a possibility. I'm sure the
Miko has them all laser focused, but I'll just put
it into the universe because this is the type of

(08:00):
thing that I do.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
They have got to fight off just showing.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Up to the stadium and assuming they're going to beat
the Raiders, because the whole any given Sunday adage, well,
that came from football.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
It didn't come from the other sports, even though we
use it or some sign any given Sunday, the Astros
manager could decide to put his Sunday lineup out there,
you might lose, right, But nobody says that no, because
it does happen a lot in Major League Baseball. Man,
what's he trying to do? Well, these guys can't play
every single day. We can't expect her to play every game,
which we obviously do in the NFL, it's just, you know,

(08:32):
seventeen times a year plus playoffs. So any given Sunday,
you never know what you're gonna understand what you're saying,
And in theory, it makes sense with this team, with
who they are, with Demiico, with what their season has
already been, and with what they did last week. To
prove this point, I'm trying to make again for this week.
They don't have to fight it at all. I don't
think they're not in the playoffs. They haven't done anything yet, right,

(08:54):
and that's what they've been. I mean, if they weren't
saying it and then going out and proving it every week,
I wouldn't put much stock into it. But they weren't
going into their fourth game of the year thinking, man,
we got to win this one. We're zwing three. And
they weren't going into their ninth game of the year saying, man,
we got to win this one. We're three and five.
And they weren't going into last week's game saying, hey man,
we've won five in a row. Cake Walkeett, we got this.

(09:15):
They I'll give them credit for the appearance of facing
every game the same way they have. They don't know
what their record is, they don't know what the other
team's record is, they don't know how it impacts the
standings is they don't know anything about the standings. It's
probably not actually true, but I think that's what I've
seen in how they play it. And I don't think
anything's different this week. You know, especially back to last
week when you were two plays into the game and

(09:36):
they were up seven to nothing, and you were seven
plays into the game and you were up ten to nothing.
And the Cardinals I think are while only a win better,
I think they're actually significantly better than what the Raiders
put on the field. But we shall see what the
Raiders are really trying to do. Every team at this
point in the season that isn't in the playoff picture

(09:58):
has different goals. You know, if Kenny Pickett wasn't their backup,
and their backup was more somebody like I don't know,
a rookie out of Texas, let's say, then maybe they'd
play him anyway like the Dolphins are doing. The Dolphins
have benched to a Tagabailoa and they're going to start
quinn Ewers this week.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Hey, you're spoiling alert one of our segments coming up.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
One of our fifteen remaining segments. I had I was
supposed to hold onto that information. Yes, okay, at least
until the end of this hour. Do we have some
good sound for Mike McDaniel on the way.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Well, any sound from Mike McDaniel is considered good.

Speaker 2 (10:35):
I don't know what it sounds like, so I'll just
tell it to you right here, because it probably takes
about twenty five minutes for him to say it. He
really said this today after making it public that they
were moving from Tua. Currently, he's going to be a
third so he'll be the emergency quarterback. Zach Wilson will
remain as their backup quarterback, and Quinn Ewers will start.
They're playing the Bengals this week. He really did say this,

(10:57):
I think yours gives us the best chance to win. Like,
if you want to insult does he? I can't. I
guess I'll let seeing his believing, let me ask you this.
That's like saying that they're there. He's trying to present
this idea that they are a losing team because two
is not playing well enough for them to win. Those

(11:18):
aren't the same things. Two is not playing well enough
for to start. Apparently right, they're they're going to lose
with Quinn Yuers, They're going to lose with Zach Wilson.
Everybody inside that organization knows that.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Real they play this week, the next week, oh, they're
going to be that team.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
It's not going to be because they finally got great
quarterback play to his leading the league in interceptions. He
got fifteen of them to his Dolphins offense didn't do
anything last week until the game was way out of hand.
He hasn't had a very good season. It's not throwing
for a lot of yards. They're not very explosive. They're
only there's one of their two explosive receivers. I guess
if you consider Waddle still explosive, I don't know if

(11:56):
he should, but Tyreek Hills miss most of the year,
and he threw up deuces on social media as soon
as this news came out.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. We'll get into this in
the final segment of this hour. We got a lot
to get to, as WEX mentioned, and I am very
and I mean very excited about next segment.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
There's something one of the fifteen segments I didn't already ruin.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
That's true, and maybe you still will ruin this one,
but it'll be because it's in the segment, not because
we haven't hosted it yet.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
But I doubt you'll ruin it.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Something was ruined last night and I enjoyed it a
great deal because I'm mean, I'm a mean, bad person,
and I'll explain why next eighteen Sports talk seven ninety
wex aciee Josh Jordan with you on any Wednesday. He
really gloomy weather outside today. By the way, did you
enjoy your drive in? Uh?

Speaker 2 (12:44):
Driving was totally fine, uneventful. Weather outside was a little
darker than usual for Texas practice. But luckily whenever it
decides to rain in the future, if it does, or
if it did rain anywhere earlier in the day, it
wasn't during practice. It's really all that's all you care about.
I mean, I wasn't going to go anywhere I can
withstand water, but it's more preferential to not be standing

(13:06):
out there in it when I'm headed here for four hours.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
I was having a conversation with somebody today about you
and your personality and your quirky your quirkiness.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
And I could have just said, I wish I hope
it doesn't ruin when I go to about That's what
you could have said. But I didn't.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
You can't, I can't. I don't think it. It's not
about that you didn't that you can't. I had to
say it was more preferential. You had to use fifty
more words than are necessary. I had a lot of
time to fill Oh my gosh. All right, speaking of
using words, there is nothing and you know this about me,
especially from some of the videos I've produced. By the way, Well, yeah,
where's the good morning video? We talked about this. I'm

(13:43):
actually surprised we talked about this last week. Oh, I
thought you were referring to the Texans. Do you really
think there's gonna be a video about Texans win over
the Cardinals or Texans win over the Raiders?

Speaker 2 (13:55):
See? The sad thing is it's not worthy of it
for the magnitude of it. But you'll put regular season
baseball videos out all the time. There's only seventeen games
there would have maximum you could have made nine Texans
videos so far this year, right, and this last win
where they scored forty points and got two turnovers. You

(14:15):
probably had content content. I had content to make an
anti Sunshine type video. Well that's the thing, or an
anti bird type of video. I'm not sure what you
would have done anti Arizona. What is there even now?
If you would have done so, I would have gladly
offered you some pieces of audio that I still have
from three more than three years A gang guy, Hey

(14:37):
Bird Gang, Hey Bird Gang. I also have Demiko's video,
like every team pretty much does one. Hey Texans fans,
this is Demiko Ryance can't wait to be your head coat?
Whatever he said, I have it, so I would have
offered both of them up because they were hired during
the same cycle. Yeah, and they're not headed in the
same direction.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
What if something happens this weekend that, let's just say
for the sake of argument, and I don't know what
it would be because I don't think there's gonna be drama.
I actually think the Texans will cruise to a victory,
even more so than they maybe did on this past Sunday.
But I'm sure now that I've said that, I'll jinx
them whatever. But what if they do and there's content,
what do I use John Madden?

Speaker 2 (15:14):
Like, that's not timely. You could use Mark Davis's dad
just win Baby, and then you would insert Vincent Price's
thriller laughter.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, maybe I don't like that, something along those lines,
or maybe the former vice president her laughter.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Now we've long had a which how she really is she?
I mean, I know she got a jersey from the
Golden State Warriors when she was part of the president
Vice president team. What part of California. Is she from
San fran Well.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
She was a former I think she was joined the mayor,
but she's the attorney general. Yeah, something like that. Whatever
she slept with Willie Brown to get I'm sure there's
a logo out there somewhere. I was alluding to the
fact we've been in a fantasy football league with coworkers
for many, many years, different spots, different places. You may
not have even been in this league, but there was
a participant in the league that had a team name

(16:06):
that was a takeoff on the Oakland Raiders commitment to excellent.
It's excellence, and there was a logo made specifically for
the parody of that name. Commitment was the same, two
was the same, and the last word begin began with
e X and ended with M e NT, but the
rest of it was very different. So that SCEE in

(16:26):
it it did it might fit better with the tone
of your video. They have a c R because they
have two wins and they're headed to the top of
the draft. They're very committed. Commitment to excerment is so good.

Speaker 2 (16:37):
Anyway, I do not expect you if you felt compelled
as you head into a long holiday, you'll be more.
You'll have more than enough ammunition to make a video,
but no one's making you. Yeah, no, no one's making me.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Although it is encouraged by certain sponsors at times, it's not.
It's not like it used to be. Let's put it
that way. And then you know the Astros videos. Judging
from this offseason so far, I don't know how many
of those I'll be making this summer either. We'll just
have to see. But I do know this. There is
nothing better to me. This is the whole point of
this conversation is when you have unfortunate for the subject

(17:16):
at hand, audio for them when they go out of
their way to trash talk or make a statement or
be kind of a raw raw or puff their chest
up and then it bites them directly in the backside
almost immediately. And I would say this qualifies because you
can't be Vicky and talk this much trash and then

(17:38):
not show up. This was Victor winmbin Yama before last
night's NBA Cup Championship finale.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
You know, some people are built for these moments, some aren't.
But we definitely are any shows because it's not against
anybody that we won that game. So it's just again,
I feel like I'm glad we have this group because
everybody buys into this and everybody who's built for this moment.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
I don't think he was built for this moment. I
don't think he was.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
He did score eighteen points, seven of seventeen, six rebounds,
he had an assist, he had two block shots. He
was a minus eighteen last night. And yes, I'm aware
that he apparently lost somebody close to him, so I'm
sure that had some sort of effect on him. Even
if it wasn't his game, he'd probably be the last
to try and make excuses like that. But he has

(18:33):
talked a lot of trash all of a sudden, and
he didn't.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Used to do this. He ever noticed that, and I
guess he's smart.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Victor winbin Yama wasn't this guy even last year. I
don't think when the Spurs were losing a bunch of games,
he had been hurt.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
And so in your estimation, what he said is talking
trash about like two hundred and fifty other guys, like
everybody on every other team.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
Well, in that particular SoundBite was probably centered more towards
a tall guy in Oklahoma City more than anyone else.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Like you really think that he was angling that to
a particular team or player rather than just saying it
to talk about how strong he feels about his group.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yes, actually, in this case, I do think he was
talking to Chet Holmgren.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah. They just beat Oklahoma City in the Semis to
get to the finals, which they lost last night to
the next, very entertaining game. A lot of good basketball,
and I think watching last night's game and watching the
more recent Rockets games and the type of chatter we've
had about it, there's a point to be made that
I think we're kind of missing. But I don't want
to shy away from this conversation. So you like this

(19:39):
if you believe that this is what's happening. He's already
being told he's one of the best players in the league.
He's obviously one of the most important players in the league.
Whether we like it or not, he just is. Are
you in favor of not yet accomplished anything team wise
player to be speaking this way if that's how you
see it, or do you not like it, Well, I'm
never again Listen me, far be it from me to

(20:02):
ever criticize people from talking trash, so long as they
back it. Up.

Speaker 1 (20:06):
I mean, that's kind of what we're talking about here,
the good Morning video and the slate at the beginning
of each one of them, and what it actually reads,
if you take the time to read it. You can't
put that out there when you're not a contending team.
It's a gimmick. It doesn't make sense, just like you
can't talk this kind of trash if you're not gonna
back it up. And I just look, they're well on

(20:29):
their way seemingly to doing just that. The Spurs are.
I don't know if they're surprising a lot of people,
but I think they should. I just think they're ahead
of schedule. They've made some shrewd moves. They've gotten extremely
lucky multiple times at the top of the draft.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
There's no sort of skill that's needed for that lucky
one time with this team at the top of the draft,
just Wenby. They weren't lucky any other times. You don't
think that, mate, I mean unless you think this draft
the Harper pick.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
Well, Harper, and then who am I not? Vassell? Who's
the other Castle did? He was the fourth pick. That's
the top of the draft though, But.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
He's the best player of the four. Yeah, so'd they
get lucky that they get lucky the other three teams
chose three other players.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
That and the fact that they wouldn't have been in
that position had they not been just gone awful for
several years.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
It's not luck, you're awful. You're supposed to be at
the top of the s.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
So I'm supposed to believe that it wasn't bad luck
that the Rockets got the number two pick in the
draft and Jalen Green was supposedly the best player of
that year.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
No, these are two different things. You absolutely should believe
that they deserved one of the top several picks, and
you would hope the lottery wouldn't take that away.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
So luck comes from who's available during said draft. It's
not necessarily. You know, you lost a bunch of games
because your organization or your team that you were fielding
was bad, But that doesn't mean anything. If you have
the number one pick in the draft and Michael Lolocondi
sent standing.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
There, you know, there's a lot of factors into it
beyond just say winning a draft lottery. If you win
the draft lottery and there's your prize, and these got
much of a prize, these teams had bad seasons.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
Concurrently, the Rockets and the Spurs, and Stringbean over here
was pumping his fist when the Rockets got awarded that
pick that wasn't number one, because he wouldn't have to
play in an actual booming metropolis.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Sant Janao prayed harder for Victor.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, I guess so that's what it was Tillman didn't
pray hard enough, and look what happened.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Anyway, he lost. Last night, they did lose the NBA
Cup Final game, which created a whole new controversial topic
because of the Knicks winning and what they are not
going to do with part of their prize, which I
find hilarious. But we'll explain that also wasn't an entertaining game.
I think the NBA is an entertaining product, despite what

(22:45):
we've been talking about the last two days. I will
explain why. We'll hear from Demico, Ryans and CJ. Stroud.
But halfway through our number one, we hit you with
the best of X. That is next. Before we go
any further, have you seen the news?

Speaker 1 (22:59):
Tell every Ema Udukka is indeed a little lighter in
the wallet.

Speaker 2 (23:06):
Well, appreciate all the NBA charities that we'll see the
funds that he's sending their way.

Speaker 1 (23:09):
Do the when people get fined like that, do they
get to at least choose the charity that it goes to.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
League? Does? But it's your money? No, it isn't. It's theirs.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Nah, it's yours, and then they're taking it. Honestly, if
I'm not mistaken, you really don't. It's it's one of
those that could be wrong. But it does work this
way with some other leagues. Like you get a uniform
violation fine in the NFL, which is a huge deal
that happens way too often, Like your shirt wasn't tucked in,
You don't ever see the money just gets taken right
out of your check. M Yeah, I guess that makes sense.

(23:43):
Twenty five grand, by the way, which, by the way,
I think is light.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
It probably means he hasn't been fined before for negative
however they worded about the officiating. Yeah, well that's one
way to look at it. It is.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
I I think I asked you this either yet yesterday,
because it was the day after all this had happened,
whether or not he had been fined before, because it
is definitely and we talk about reputational technicals and fouls
and fines for guys like Dylan Brooks, which we all
experienced when he was here in Houston.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
The public criticism of the official. Yeah, is the exact
wording of that they use each time.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
But you know what's interesting about that, and I don't
know how many times it had happened to him prior.
It was very famous, slash infamous that Jeff Van Gundy
was fined one hundred K for criticizing officials during a
playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks and five And it
was the amount that was such an eye opening thing
because it was the opposing owner that usually got those

(24:42):
kinds of fines. Mark Cuban has been fined millions over
the years of his time owning the Mavericks and then
you know, being involved in the organization.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
But did he get it all back when he decided
to sell the team and he knew that once he
got out of the way that they would then send
Luca to La.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
How about what happened in between? You're leaving out some
of the drama, drama.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
Raps, lawsuits that's not important to this particular discussion. I mean,
tis Mavericks at the time, well, I'm not trying to
bury him further. I'm trying to bring him out of
that by saying, Oh, the League's like, hey man, we'll
forgive all those fines. I guess for you. We'll forgive
all the incredibly bad decisions you'd made inside the building
and the horrific culture that you'll had inside the building
if you'll just get out of the way, which will

(25:23):
lead the way to Nico Harrison being given more control
new ownership and they'll send Luca to La. Thank you,
Houston Rockets.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Heead coach he May Dok has been fining twenty five
thousand dollars for public criticism of the officiating.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
It was announced today by James Jones James, NBA player
James Jones and former NBA executive James Jones.

Speaker 1 (25:40):
And current executive vice president head of Basketball Operations.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, this is not the first time that he May
has been fined for what he has said, but maybe
they term it a little different. December of twenty twenty three,
he directed inappropriate language towards a game official, so obviously
that happened in game. He blobbed he blast, censor beeped
him m hm, and got a twenty five k. Fine,

(26:05):
just twenty five k. Again, here, let's go to the comments.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
You have to at least tell the public what visible
measures are being taken to make sure these referees are
held accountable, like you were bearing the lead here and
we aren't.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Because we talked about it yesterday.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
He got fined for telling the truth about what's going on,
and nothing is.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
It's the way he said it. I mean, tell what
you said the truth. His opinion was the game was
very poorly officiated.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
It was look at the last two minute report that
was like paragraphs long, and that was just the last
two minutes.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Well, that's because they include all the other like I
didn't the correct calls. Yes, they were probably I'm guessing
I didn't count them usually I do. I think there
was thirty five calls in there, m hmm, and four
of them, three of them were deemed incorrect percentages. Please, Well,
if it's three out of thirty five and just the
final two minutes, you know it's probably what's too many, right,
that's what I say, too many, But it doesn't mean

(27:01):
it was poorly efficient because of what he said, like,
I think it's actually showing people. Okay, this is just
the final two minutes. Okay, if you miss three calls
in two minutes and there's twenty four other segments of
two minutes, then you miss seventy calls in this game.
By way, this is the NBA is going to They're
gonna miss thirty calls every single game pretty much, no
matter what. Right, Yeah, well, I guess no, because it's reality.

(27:22):
You can't find three officials on what I'm saying, I
guess about. I don't want to be. You have to be.
I don't want it. You have to accept it. Why
why should we accept mediocrity? You're not accepting mediocrey, you're
accepting reality. Like the best three officials then the history
of basketball, all in their primes health wise, who are
they get to officiate a game with them? Do you
think they're gonna call a perfect game? No? But I

(27:43):
think that that a game like this shouldn't.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
You shouldn't be able to point to their screwed up
calls as a reason realistically why you lost this game.
And again, I was saying that about the whole game,
and he was absolutely well within his rights to do so,
because there was a no call on Jokic that would
have fouled him out much sooner in this contest that

(28:07):
wasn't called, and it was against Shingoon who was called
for some pretty dumb stuff.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
And that's what he was saying. That's why you get
comments like this.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
By the way, this is the NBA pr X account
that dropped his statement with the Udoka fine and how
much it is and who did it and all that,
And you know the first comment, you have to at
least tell the public what visible measures being taken. The
next guy says, is this a dictatorship?

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Lol?

Speaker 1 (28:31):
Yes, yes it is. Here is what we are doing.
Here's where we screwed up. We don't particularly plan on
changing it because nobody's getting fined or suspended on the
officiating side. But this coach who decided to point it out,
however way he did it, did it publicly. We're absolutely
going to find him as a dictator shares more.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
I'll ask you your opinion on this. I think there
is more to do it than how he did it.
What he did is why he was fine. Not that
he criticized being during the game. No, No, I mean
what he said in his postgame comments, which I do
believe is the reason for his fine. And the sole
reason for his fine not anything during the game, right.
I think if he said it was a I thought
it was a poorly officiated game. I think we need
to be better as a league. I think it's hard

(29:09):
to overcome this. This is what our players have to do.
We're not going to change the way way that we play.
We need them to do a better job. I don't
think there's a fine. He was super specific and very
direct about why and who doesn't belong on this court.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Yeah, sixty six percent of that crew doesn't belong out there,
and the other thirty three percent is starstruck.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
That's why he was fine. He called out an official
for something like that's entertaining. Man, it was entertaining. But
in order to be entertaining as a coach, when it
comes to officiating, you have to be willing to pay
for it. Usually, when you're entertaining behind the microphone, people
are paying to hear you say it, and then you
drop the mic. In this case, he paid for everybody

(29:48):
to get to hear it.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
This is bs. The officials even admitted to making poor calls.
The Rockets should have won that game, and now they
want to find coach emy for telling the truth in
all caps, someone else in all caps the whole thing.
Maybe find the referees that are doing their job, like
two year old blind kids? Why do they have to
be two years old? I get the blind part, but

(30:11):
why are they two year old kids? The next guy,
how about fix the bleeping refs? I mean, what about
the refs? Sorry, ass league, that's another comment. Go to
hell is another one. STFU, I mean make it easy.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
That's what these are, all separate comments were not one
they're the shows. These are boom boom boom boom comments.
How about finding your trash refs?

Speaker 1 (30:35):
And then they actually include a video of when U
Shingoon got jobbed? I mean all of this. This happens
every year, though. This is why it's frustrating. This is
why Ben Dubo's blood pressure is off the charts right now,
because this happens every single night sometime to someone, whether
it's the Rockets or not. This time just happened to

(30:56):
be the Rockets and it probably did help the turn
in the outcome of this game.

Speaker 2 (31:01):
Well, a nice job on reading at least one of
the comments to confirm that we can't use this. Later
in the show at four thirty when we get to
Wednesday's BS instead today it fits in your best of X.
It is the A team.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
Winding down the two o'clock hour Sports Talks seven to ninety,
we will begin our simulcast as per usual, coming up
at the top of the hour over on Space City
Home Network. All right, let's jump back into what we
were talking about earlier. Ladies and gentlemen. You're new Dolphins
score starting quarterback this week will be none other than
former Longhorn and rookie Quinn Ewers. Now they're playing the Bengals.

(31:35):
Is that game in Miami or at Cincinnati? I know
you want me to care, you should, I don't. Why
what difference does it make two teams playing for draft picks?
One of the very few games that has absolutely nothing
to do with the playoffs. It's in front of the
home fans. Okay, so it can't get bood. The Bengals
still have like the worst defense in the league, right, Yeah,
this is like softest landing ever.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
That's why I think that he could actually win this game.
That's bad. Why why are you trying to win well
because you're quinn yours? Why don't you just make it
known once and for all if the benching didn't do
it already, that you can't win with him, Like I
spent how many years with him before they gave him
this massive extension in the twenty twenty four offseason, and

(32:18):
then less than two years later, with the same head
coach running the same offense, You've decided, Nope, can't win
with this guy. We're done with him. Well, okay, but
again I'm gonna play the card again. You didn't say
this when Davis Mills was trying to win the Texans
games in the middle of the season. They weren't eliminated

(32:39):
from the playoffs versus the end of the season where
they are.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
Yeah, no, right the season before they got the number
two pick in a draft that season, Yeah, they shouldn't
be trying to win, but they were because Davis Mills.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
They were.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Davis Mills was absolutely trying to win games in that vale. Yes,
the players, and that's what I'm saying management. Yeah, I've
been talking about before the game, you make the decision
like your play a backup quarterback when Davis Mills plays
the entire year.

Speaker 2 (33:02):
That's the level of play here.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
You're telling the reason because he gives them a better
chance to win.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
I'm saying Mike McDaniel is an absolute liar. He says
quinn Ewers gives them a better chance to win. I
know two is bad. I've been the loudest person's like,
what are they doing extending him? He's got injury issues,
He's got so many concussions. I'm scared that he's the
next game is his last game, and we're going to
commit two hundred and fifty million of his player lunacy,
absolute lunacy, because you think what the alternative is worse

(33:31):
because you don't have anybody. You don't have anybody when
you have him. But they spent another year at plus
almost two full years pretending like they did have somebody,
and now he's turned in arguably his worst season. He's
a Zach rates a little bit higher, but his interception
rate is through the roof. He leads the NFL in interceptions.
They don't move the ball when he's out there. His
best player's not on the field with him. By the way,

(33:52):
in terms of the passing game with Tyreek Hill, they've
also fired their GM. If their roster was good, their
GM's not getting fired. There's a lot of things going
on here. I'm just trying to be fair to the
whole process, right, Quinn Yours, Well, we liked what he's
done behind the scenes. I mean, this is what all
the national people right now. Quin Yours is getting elevated.
They really like what they've seen from him during his
rookie season behind the scenes. I mean, just I know

(34:14):
you like there his agent. I know how you're supposed
to play the game, but gosh, I wish people wouldn't
do it. He's third string, he gets no reps. Stop
lying to people that don't know the difference. Graham Mertz
has not looked good behind the scenes, right, nor has
he looked bad behind the scenes. There is no behind
the scenes. He's not doing anything that would make you

(34:36):
able to give your opinion on anything he's doing because
he isn't doing anything.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
Okay, well, I'm still gonna say this that I'm gonna
laugh when it happens.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
I think Quinn Ewrs is gonna beat the Bengals. Now.
Quinn did get into a game earlier this year. I
think he had twelve snaps with sacked twice, fumbled twice,
and completed five of his eight passes in a game
that obviously was out of hand, and it is what
I would do. I wouldn't play Zach Wilson. We already
know Zach Wilson High NFL. We know you. You don't know.
I totally understand that. I absolutely believe that you don't

(35:06):
have an answer on Quinn. You had a draft day answer. Well,
Quin yours is on the board. We'll take this guy
before him. Hey, quin yours is on the board. All right,
we'll take this guy before him, over and over and over.
I don't think and I wish I could pull it
up immediately because these I've already on a roll here,
so I might as well just keep going these things
that these people that cover the league say. These people

(35:29):
so that their people, their agents, their friends, the other
people in that situation will like them more. They say
these ridiculous things.

Speaker 1 (35:38):
Just call it Adam Schefter, like you're saying it wasn't
Adam Scheffer.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
I that's why I'm not. I can't recall who it was.
I should have highlighted it more for no. But the
point they were trying to make is that they ran
through the wise. Quin Yours the starter, Well, he was
the number one rated high high school prospect when he
committed to Texas and he won these many games, so
what that could not mean any less in the NFL.

(36:04):
He's a high school kid. Nobody cares anymore. Nobody cared
two years after he got to college, let alone. Now
you're saying he has no reason to be there by
saying these are the best things I can come up
with about it.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Like that NBA official who has in her bio that
she reft the NBA All Star Weekend. That's not good
for your second line of your bio on your Twitter account.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
What is she doing on It's a very good indicator
of how little work in the NBA. Like Zach Zarbi's bio,
it runs through well, he's worked over twelve hundred games.
He's worked over by the way I think he is.
I don't think he It's hard to be a good
official and take that out of a game where the
game was officiated poorly and you worked it. He can't

(36:50):
go in there and say, Natalie, seriously, why did you
blow that whistle? It's not a foul. There's nothing I
can do about it. JD, My god, I talked to
you in between the first and secondar. That is not
a foul. Stop calling that you're making us all look bad.
He might have said it, but he can't really do
anything about it except to encourage them to stop being bad.
He got saddled, I'll say it. Maybe you disagree he

(37:11):
got saddled with a really bad crew. He did.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
But then I again, and I agree with that, because
I do think those other two were absolute a word.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
There's no way to get better at officiating the NBA game,
for the NBA speed and what you have to deal
with in working NBA games, just not this game.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
But he may picked on him too. He was his starstruck. Yeah,
and I did not expect that.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
And maybe there's a previous history and he just doesn't
I mean, he probably doesn't believe he's up there, but
we may hear from I may in the future, on
or off the record, that he could see it the
way I just described it. It just wasn't a very
good night for him, and he fit right in with
the crew. So that's how I felt about it. Maybe
there's other nights where he doesn't feel that way.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
There is a new one on my list, Mark Lindsay
aka discount Adam Kinsinger.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
He's awful. I'm afraid to ask because I probably know
the answer, even though I literally have no idea what
the answer is.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
Political boot Okay, I figured it would be. If you
look him up, Adam Kinzinger, he'll be like you're saying doppelganger.
You'll know exactly who I'm talking about. Okay, Well, you
know what Mark Lindsey looks like, so now you know. Yeah,
because oftentimes he talks to us. He's a crew chief
sometimes most of the time. But yeah, we'll get into that.
We will give a little bit more time to the
decisions being made around the league with their quarterbacks, especially

(38:20):
since there will be a decision made in this game
Sunday at NRG Stadium about the starting quarterback for the Raiders.
All as we get started with the three o'clock hour.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
Next we our number two of the A team. Wexday's
seeing Josh here with you this afternoon as per usual,
as we get you into well, the holidays are fast approaching.
We're eight days out from the Christmas holiday. We're week
away from then seeing the twenty twenty six on all
of our calendars. College football bowl season be in full swing.

(38:50):
As we continue, we got the bowl game here in
Houston coming up on the twenty seventh, got several Bowl
games here on our airwaves, including on the thirty first
with the Michigan and Texas game, that game on the
twenty seventh Texas Bowl. You can pretty much hear everywhere
on our family of networks with the Cougar's broadcast, the
LSU broadcast right here on Sports Talk seven to ninety,

(39:11):
and a host of other things to get us there. Obviously,
Rockets basketball will take us through the holidays, the majority
of those games being played on the road. Tomorrow night,
game two of their six game road trip will happen
in New Orleans. Then it's back to Denver, Sacramento, and
LA for the final four games of that road trip,
last two of which will be against each of the
LA teams before the Rockets get back to town to finish

(39:33):
out the twenty twenty five portion of the season. Have
some conversation to share with you that Fred Van Vliet
and Kevin Durant provided via Fred's podcast that was released
earlier today, some pretty entertaining stuff both about Kevin's brief
time here and non court time together with Fred how
that might look if they were able to spend some

(39:53):
time together on the court as teammates, in addition to
some time they spent together on the court as opponents.
A very important topic for this day and age in sports,
both in the NBA and in the NFL that the
two of them broach. So bring some of those topics
your way, and also get obviously into the matchup itself
the Texans this weekend the games that precede it, because

(40:14):
this is a full weekend of NFL football. The good
news is if you like it, you're gonna see plenty
of it beginning tomorrow night. With Thursday night's game between
the Rams and Seahawks, go a long way towards determining
who will be the number one overall seed in the NFC,
and very possibly a team that takes the best record
overall into the postseason. Eagles and Commanders play on Saturday,

(40:36):
Packers and Bears play on Saturday, and then your noon
slight on Sunday, again does not include the Texans. Despite
the fact that they're playing at home. You get an
idea of where things stand for a couple of things
they'll be looking at. Bill's play a noon game against
Shudoor Sanders and the Browns in Cleveland. The Chargers play
a noon game against Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys,

(40:59):
right thereunderneath the watchful eye of the open stadium, so
whomever wants to look in can see. And then the
two games that seem very much at the forefront of
everybody's mind, the Broncos and Jaguars, the last of the
important noon games. Broncos hosting the Jags as three point favorites.
Steelers and Lions will play at three o'clock. Steelers are
touchdown underdogs, the Texans are two touchdowns plus a hook favorites,

(41:25):
hosting the Vegas Raiders. Ravens game is a Sunday night game.
They're hosting the Patriots. Obviously, it becomes an even more
important game for New England after their loss last week.
If they don't go into Baltimore as underdogs and win well,
the likelihood is they'll be tied to top the AFC East,
with the Bills winning in Cleveland, presumably, And then we
get to wait until or Monday night football for game

(41:48):
two of the second installment of the Philip Rivers experiment,
as the Colts host the Niners. Colts probably not going
to the playoffs if they don't win this game, and
the Niners can continue to meant their position in the postseason.
There are still three games left. They go into this
third of those last three looking for an eleventh win,
when they basically split their starts between Brock Purdy and

(42:11):
Mac Jones, when they've had injuries ravage their roster both
sides of the football, and here's Kyle Shanahan's team just
winning games again in the best division in football, where
they sit third at ten and four.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Do you remember when we were coming down the stretch
of the baseball season and I was like, I hate this.
This is such I remember it, and it's weird because
this is the same exact principle, albeit much much fewer
and vastly more important games. The games themselves are more important.
I like this in football for some reason. It's more

(42:44):
entertaining to me. It just means more. I don't know,
however you want to characterize it. I liked the Astros
cruising to the end of seasons, boat racing the Al
West and all the kind of stuff that came with it.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
I mean, I'm fine with the Texas doing that. You
yourself watching or working your way through this baseball season
and just leaving it to me from late March until
early September. You just say, I'm just I'm gonna bow
out of all the baseball conversation. I'm not gonna watch
the game. I'm not gonna listen to the game. I
don't like I do with college now. I'm not gonna
go to the ballpark. And if it comes up on
the show, then I'm just gonna turn my mic and transparent.

(43:19):
But for Game one forty six, I am all model.
For the final seventeen years of the season, count me in.
I cannot wait to see where these zero and zero
Astros and these zero and zero Mariners, how they fare
over the next seventeen games, the only seventeen games that matter.
I mean, you're gonna You're not gonna be eliminated until
the final couple of days. You're not gonna clinch until

(43:40):
this day. It's gonna be awesome. Well, the NFL does
that every year, every single year. It's why.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
It's it's one of a litany of reasons why it
is the king. But yeah, this is gonna be It's
for a for a Raiders game in which you are
clearly what did you say, two touchdowns and a hook.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Fourteen and a half point changed. I don't think Geno
Smith being announced one way or the other will make
it change. No, they already know how bad they are
with Kenny Pickett, and I think that's probably what the
number might have been based on. But I don't think
they'd make much of a difference if Geno Smith to
the line. I think it makes a difference in the game.
I don't think it makes a difference to how much
money's gonna come in one way or the other.

Speaker 1 (44:20):
I can't I keep going back to the same thing.
I cannot believe that basically Seattle got rid of Russell Wilson,
got Geno Smith, used him until he turned into a pumpkin,
and then poached Sam Darnold. I mean that is I'm
not saying they got a generational quarterback each time, but

(44:41):
that is playing it very well in today's climate of
NFL quarterbacks and every team still, I mean, look at
how many teams are still trying to find a franchise guy.
I mean, he's not gonna be the best quarterback, he's
never even gonna be probably referred to as a top ten.
But if you're the Seattle Seahawks right now, you've got
a franchise guy that you can win with. I know

(45:01):
he fades late and all that stuff, but there are
not in the regular season with Sam Darnold. He has
to prove you can win in the postseason with Sam.
That was a matter of ten years since they've had
an offense this good, and that includes five years of
Russell willsrect.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
I mean, Jackson Smith and Jigba makes a lot of
quarterbacks look good. This just in Yeah, it's amazing what
they've been able to do without much of a threat
at the other spots, even though the back of one
guy's jersey says cup on it. I don't think teams
have been afraid to commit more to Jackson Smith and Jigba.
They just haven't been able to slow him down. Or
maybe they should be and they're not. It was a

(45:34):
very smart decision as it played out. I don't think
we were all so convinced clearly that, you know, taking
a Seahawks team that had won all three years that
Gino Smith was quarterbacking them. They made the playoffs once
at nine to eight. They just missed the playoffs last
year at ten and seven. They tied for the division

(45:54):
lead with Geno Smith. Last year but missed the playoffs
via tiebreaker in the division than they did not hold
the best record in the wildcard race, so they did
not go to the postseason. So they evaluated the free
agent marketplace, which Gino Smith was a part of, who
got a very good contract from the Raiders, probably would
have gotten a very good contract from Seattle if they

(46:15):
didn't have what they found to be a better option.
I don't think they think they thought they'd go this
high up on the ladder like Sam Darnold's played like
one of the five or six best quarterbacks in the
NFL this year. I think they were just trying to upgrade,
and I thought they would just not to this extent.
They have a chance to be the number one seed
that Sam Darnald has a chance to be the number
one seed for the second year in a row with

(46:37):
two different teams heading into the final three weeks of
the season. He took it all the way to the
final week of the season a year ago, and how
their Saturday game plays out this weekend will kind of
determine whether he either takes it into the final week
or just flat out puts his Seahawks in that position.
He's playing with an unreal defense. The Texans know that,
you know, they're right there with the Texans throughout the
year defensively in a number of categories, along with the Broncos.

(46:59):
So it does help. And last year's Minnesota defense was
very similar. So Darnold has benefited from some other factors.
But the Texas already played the Seahawks. We can analyze
the Raiders now. And like we said, Debiko speaking about
a little while ago, and we'll hear a little bit
from him on that, it's easy not to sugarcoat what
the Raiders do, even though they'll say, well, they do
this well and they do that well. You ask him

(47:19):
any question about their team, you start with the defense.
If you don't slow down Max Crosby, he can single
handedly ruin a game for you. And I think they
will be extremely committed to forcing other players on the
Raiders defense to impact the Texans offense negatively and do
everything they can to prevent the real only true that

(47:39):
threat in my opinion, that they have upfront defensively, they
outfit another ten players defensively every snap. But he's the
one on this defense and they didn't even have a
one on the defense a week ago. With the Cardinals,
but the Raiders do what do you think.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
I mean, how much let me let me rephrase, how
much do you think Demiko Ryans and Matt Burr and
the defensive staff are licking their chops regardless of who's
back there under center for this week? I mean, we
could see because we've been talking about how good this
defense is all year, and again, this matchup is not
where you want to if you had any questions about it,

(48:18):
which nobody does. It's not where you're going to solidify
that it's a bad team. But what I'm getting at
is the historical nature of this defense, especially in Houston
Texans history, but just in the pantheon of NFL defenses
all time, but specifically good NFL defenses in this day

(48:38):
and age, which you just don't see like this very often,
and we have two of them this year in the
Broncos in your Texans. They could put up some astronomical
numbers this Sunday and it wouldn't surprise me.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
It would surprise me personally because and the reason they
would be licking their chops is because what they didn't do.
They had two sacks last week. They hit Jacoby Brissett
three times times. It wasn't because he was dropping back
and immediately firing down the football. He did have some
quick release plays, They did have some quick hitting plays
and very quick progressions, but he was protected. Well, they

(49:11):
did not quote unquote get after him. That's what they
should be licking their chops about. So maybe the surprise
would be who they're playing, what they're doing. But they
said the very first thing to make us out on
Monday again, it was the question. So he didn't just
come out and give a statement, but he was answering
the question. He said that game was not up to
our standards. And historically speaking, they're the best defense this

(49:33):
franchise has ever had. They're not among the top fifteen
defenses ever, ten, twelve, twenty thirty. I mean, they're really
really good. But there's a lot of time that we've seen,
even in our lifetime, we've seen defenses where shutouts are
not in common.

Speaker 1 (49:49):
Yes, common said it differently. Well, that's why I said,
though it's this day and age. I mean you have
to it's all relative to today's NFL. I don't think
it's possible.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
How about when I come in on Monday saying, well,
the Texans defense is good, but not as good as
the Eagles. They shut them out.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
You would do that too, That's the kind of thing
you would do, all right. Speaking of wex and things,
he says he had a question yesterday and I've got
an answer and you're gonna love it.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
It's coming up next.

Speaker 1 (50:18):
It is the eighteen Sports Talk seven nineties Space City
Home Network. So every now and again we'll have a
discussion that comes up. And this happened yesterday on the show,
and I was lamenting once again as I want to do.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
I'm on this topic about how I.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
Just can't stand the fact that people are always drooling
all over justin Herbert, and I believe your exact response.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Was, who are these people that are doing that?

Speaker 1 (50:48):
Some extent, you know, something along those lines. Maybe you
didn't say it exactly like that.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
Well, I was not on stage as an eighties comic,
eighties early nineties. Who are these.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
I guess that was him before the sitcom.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Do you respect Kyle Brandt Good Morning Football? I think
he's He's one of my all time favorite Real World
cast members.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Is he one of your all time favorite producers of
the Jim Rome Show? After Travis Rodgers left and was
fired unceremoniously.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
What kind of car did he like to hang out in?
An XR four TI. Yeah, Kyle's fine. It's like a
poor man's sob. He gets away with pretty much anything
to me because he likes this job and it shows.
He's on the air, he's entertaining. It's full of energy,
like he wants to be doing what he's doing, like
on I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Once he escaped the shadow, if you can call it that,
of that little guy Jimothy, he really kind of came
into his own as a personality that you associate with.
I think if not if not serious, then at least
entertaining football coverage of the NFL.

Speaker 2 (51:55):
We'll keep this in mind. Good Morning Football just did
a complete and all my total overhaul, not only moving
the location of the show, but changing out everybody who's
on it except for one person. Him. Yes, he's good.
I like him.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Dare to tell you about the time I pranked him. No,
as jim as with many other voices you are able
to do, you you could actually with that one. You
could actually hear it running down his leg when he
realized who was on the phone with him.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
Nice. I was told hey do it today. He's guest hosting.
All right anyway, A very popular topic here on the
show the last sixteen months or so, as C. J.
Stroud went through his second season and out into his
third season and gets compared to the other AFC quarterbacks.
Totally fine if he's not above Mahomes, Alan Lamar Jackson,
probably similar to if you add Joe Burrow that list

(52:46):
that seems totally real, more specific, but everywhere else on
every other list and every other time it gets brought up,
if he's not at or above nearly every other quarterback
playing in the AFC who has accomplished absolutely nothing during
their short, long whatever time in the NFL. What's the purpose?
Why can't you see what we see? We see him

(53:08):
more so you guys are dumber, or you guys see
that guy more so we're dumber.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
Well, I'm glad you said that, because this is a
very specific, narrow scaped situation we're talking about here. He
can't be below Mahomes because Mahomes is not only sitting
at home because he's been eliminated, but now we don't
even know he's gonna be back.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Yeah, Kyle Brant put together a listing of the current
AFC playoff quarterbacks and separately with the NFC, here are
my quarterback tiers. So it only involves seven names, the
seven quarterbacks of the teams on the inside of the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
Before we go any further, what he should have said
was this is based on their team's records, because that's what.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
It looks like. Who's number one in the AFC right now? Well,
that's that.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
The only caveat is a pretty big one, is that
he has Josh Allen at the top, but that just
strikes he also.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Has the quarterback of the only team that's twelve and
two at the bottom.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
Right, Yeah, I guess I should have rethought that before
I spout it off.

Speaker 2 (54:05):
But it's not the first of the last time I'll
do that with my mouth.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
What Anyway, Josh Allen is basically the only name left
of the big three that we always talk about. So
therefore that's why he's at the top by himself, by himself.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
In tier one with a what nine and four record?
Ten and four?

Speaker 1 (54:22):
Ten and four I'm sorry, Tier two, where Justin Herbert
of course resides because spoiler alert, C J.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Stroud doesn't reside in this tier.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Justin Herbert, all right, I guess never won a playoff game.
And then Drake May and Trevor Lawrence tell me this
isn't just based on records when you put those guys there, It's.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Based on where we sit today. And if you're able
to take a ladder, I guess of their season, that's
what you know. I bet you, And I don't think
he did it a week ago, because we weren't this
close to the playoffs. Prior to producing six touchdowns in
a single football game, I doubt, very seriously you would
have put Trevor Lawrence in that tier. He had also

(55:05):
started to play better. They were already on it. They
were on four game winning streak. Now it's a five
game winning streak. So I'm not saying ye started to
play a whole lot better because he had. I think
a little bit of it is their competition, and last
week is no different. I don't know how to how
do you view it? Did they take advantage of a
bad Jets defense? Or are the Jets not that bad?
And because of it, they're saying, how could you let

(55:25):
this Trevor Lawrence character do that? And we hate it
so much you're fired The Trevor Lawrence performance partially led
to the firing of the Jets defensive coordinator. What's his
name again, Steve Wilkes. Yeah. How many times has he
been fired after one season? A lot? He actually sued
one of the teams because of it. They were in

(55:45):
a they did some they had some other issues. And
we've seen it over the years because Carolina's management management
has been very, very bad, both ownership groups at different times,
including the one that fired him after one season. I
do think firing after one season with what was happening
there and how he's running the team, And unfortunately it
was the first opportunity and there probably won't be another one.
I don't I don't know that it was unwarranted. But

(56:06):
that's Herbert and Drake May who's number one in the
AFC and passer rating, and Trevor Lawrence. All right, so
there's three guys left, so the last tier must be Gosh,
if I knew what Aaron Rodgers wife's name was, I
would say it that I may know. Nobody does Aaron Rodgers,
C J. Stroud and New England.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
Who's the other team, the only their team with a
good defense? Oh, bow Nicks. There you go that those
are your those are your seven names. Now again going
back to the whole record thing, if you take that,
if you take Josh Allen away, and then of course
you don't give as much credit to Bo Nicks. This
does kind of make perfect sense based on record.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Well to me, it makes perfect sense based on what
he thinks that is going to happen seeding wise. You mean,
I mean, I don't what ever led us to this.
I know over the course of the day we've talked
about it and off air, like you have to pick
somebody to win the AFC, and a lot of it's
going to be based on who their quarterback is. You're
picking Josh Allen. You don't want to pick the Bills,
but you do want to pick Josh.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Let me ask you this, you being analyst, not Adam Wesler.
The AFC Championship is the Buffalo Bills in the Houston Texans,
and it's played in Houston.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
Who are you picking?

Speaker 1 (57:29):
I will take the underdog Texans. You think they'd be
an underdog at home. Well, in order to be at home,
they it's it's possible. They just have to basically finish
with the same record as them, which is very very positive, right,
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
But they both will have won games, which means Josh
Allen's bad Bills defense was not keeping them from winning.
So he probably played very well, and I imagine CJ,
his running back did He probably played very well, but
remember I don't know. I think he played really well
against Cleveland and did have to. I don't think he
played very well against the Chargers and also didn't have to.

(58:05):
And I'm not too disappointed in how he played in
their two road games when they obviously were not the
better team in either case. But he does have some
experience that ought to raise people's expectations for where the
Texans should really fit, and especially if we're talking about
an AFC title game, where that now they've won two
playoff games in one season and CJ's the only quarterback
to ever play in a conference title game as a

(58:28):
Houston Texans quarterback, that should probably go a long way.
But you're talking specific to the matchup. Why would I
say all of a sudden, after owning Josh Allen that
they're not going to win. It matters most I would
absolutely be picking the Texans to figure out a way
to bottle him up to a degree. If he gets
three touchdowns, then the Texans will get four. If he
generates twenty six points of offense for the Bills against

(58:49):
the Texans defense, well, then Cjstroud in the offense will
figure out a way to take advantage of their not
very good defense. Passer rating only AFC quarterbacks that are
in the playoffs rank like this. Drake May's number one,
Josh Allen's number two, and they're the only two with
a passer rating of better than one hundred. Aaron Rodgers
is three, CJ's four, Herbert's five, Bo Nicks is six,

(59:14):
which leads me to the next ques. Trevor Lawrence is seventh,
and again that's just among each other. Trevor Lawrence is
actually eleventh in the AFC overall and Nix's eighth overall. Like, yeah,
they're frauds. The Jags are frauds. They are fraud they
are Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Do you expect them to do anything other than Didley
pooh in the playoffs?

Speaker 2 (59:34):
No?

Speaker 1 (59:34):
You don't just say it. It's okay, just because we're
on two forms of media where the.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Team and the team the Texans played was significantly worse
both times than they are now. They're a better football
team now. So is the Texans. I agree with that too,
but they also did it through a personnel shift. They
didn't have a number one receiver, no matter how good
Brian Thomas Junior is on paper, and no matter how
much they paid, because on to the field, he drops
the ball all the time. And no matter the price
they paid to go draft Travis Hunter, Jacoby Myers is

(01:00:01):
a better NFL wide receiver than either one of them,
And Trevor Lawrence and Liam Cohen know it, and now
they're playing football like it because he's on their team. Dude, all.

Speaker 1 (01:00:10):
But again, you just said it with the passer rating.
I know it's not the only metric here. When will
it happen? When will Justin Herbert finally be routinely slotted
behind CJ. Shroud in any sort of meaningful or meaningless
conversation like this?

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Yeah, he's right behind him in passer rating in the AFC.
But I brought this up the other day and we'll
close it out with this. CJ. Stroud one hundred point
two passer rating over the last eight games for him
since Week three, since they started ozing three that same
period of time. Justin Herbert's sitting at eighty eight point
zero in his eleven games, more than half the season.

(01:00:48):
Those are stinky, stinky numbers. He's not as good as
people think he is, and I don't get not having
a great season. Neither is their offense. So I was right.
Just tell me I was right. Oh, it's got to
hit a break. What a shame speaking at quarterbacks.

Speaker 1 (01:01:02):
Heck, speaking of former Texan quarterbacks, I'm still I'll say it,
I'm still Jones that to get this guy on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:01:10):
I think we had him on once, didn't we. Ryan
Fitzpatrick noj Y No Shober no, Tony Banks no, David
Carr no, Matt Lioner no, keep going, Jake Alone no,
Jeff Garcia no, not Deshaun Watson, Graham nope, h not
Dave Raging uh, Cayden Slovas no, Keaton Keaton Slovis no,

(01:01:36):
Graham Mertz no, Davis nope, a Cole Ridge Bernard no,
the current quarterback, of course, Deshaun No. I just said,
of course, not Deshaunicholas Cage no, Tom Savage, No. I
knew who you meant. Well, maybe a listener didn't. I
there's only got that couldn't be more than five quarterbacks.

(01:01:57):
He's on TV every day now, Derek Brother. No, he's
on every day now, and he used to play quarterback
for the Texans. He's probably on this monitor. They're just
not showing him right now. I didn't intentionally do this,
even though it seems like I did.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
It really seems like you did. It really didn't. So
he's a huge Texans fan. Dan Orlovsky loves the.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Texans's not a huge Texans fan, and he doesn't love
the Texans. He's an unbiased analyst who loves what he sees.
That's what I said, the same exact thing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
No, he's unbiased who says what he sees and what
he's seeing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:30):
You preface it with he loves the Texans, and they
could just roll anything out there and he's just gonna
talk positively about it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Know what I'm saying is he loves the Texans. Listen
to him.

Speaker 2 (01:02:42):
Yeah, this Texans team looks like.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
A true AFC championship team. Work in the middle of
the fields, sound stroud. We've talked about. I think this
is the most improved units in all of football. The
Houston Texans offense. The second thing is and this is
Nick Kaylee.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Their keeper game has become really good.

Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
We see this from the Los Angeles Rams, which is
where where Nick Hayley's from. But that ball bake with
their tight ends. They're doing this half a dozen times
a game where CJ. Strout is getting out on the
edge and then their young players are winning. Are talked
about those shrunk down formations. Work in the middle of
the field, inside out motion. Now you're creating vacancy between
the hashes.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
I need you to win versus man coverage.

Speaker 4 (01:03:20):
Hutch He does, and once again, the ball placement by c. J.

Speaker 2 (01:03:23):
Strout leads to that I've talked about this. The interior
of their offensive line is much better.

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
This is the version of their offense that looks a
lot like twenty twenty three. And we rave about this
defense rightfully so, but the way this offense is playing,
Houston should make it to the AFC Championship game because
they're a complete football team.

Speaker 2 (01:03:41):
All the very specific details and from the Rams and
Kaylee this and this, you know their fake game and that.
All that stuff's great analysis, but he did sneak in
there the most obvious and still overlooked part of why
they are an improved offense. Which part the part where
he says they're offensive line is better. Oh yeah, the

(01:04:02):
interior of their offensive line is better. The player on
their offensive line who has had the best season of
anybody that they have this year, has played almost exclusively
on the interior over the last several weeks, whether it
was right guard or left guard Titus Howard. They've gotten
consistently good play, even with some missed assignments and blown

(01:04:22):
blocks from Ed Ingram. That means you've solidified the two
positions that were your biggest problems at the beginning of
the year. Ed Ingram did miss one game at the
beginning of the year, but then he got back and
so that side of it was gone, and then you
had to fix the other side. But it was the
biggest problem all year last year, and they knew that.
I think Nick Caseario and clearly their O line coach

(01:04:43):
that was fired and Demko, they all knew that this
was you can't play football like that. Their tackles were fine.
They played on a bad offensive line. The tackles the
Texans had a bad offensive line last year and got
adequate play out of their tackles. They couldn't play football
because their interior offensive line was too bad. It was
too unsustainable for a weekly sixty plays that we want
to run today, Well, you're only gonna get to run

(01:05:04):
forty of them because the other twenty are gonna get
blown up in your face. And when fifteen of those
are the thirty five passes you want to run, well,
now you're looking at third and long and third and
fifteen and you got a punt and you got sacked
because they were just that bad. So solidifying that was
job one. It took them a long time to get there,
about week nine, week ten. Now they've played that way
for the last several weeks. Not coincidental that they've rattled

(01:05:25):
off six straight wins, half of them with their backup
quarterback and half of them with CJ. Stroud. Because consistently
good line play can allow anybody anything to help you
win games. I don't think See J. Davis are the same.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Now, put a talented quarterback back there and it's it's
obviously your chances go up. But there's two questions I
need to ask in light of what you just said,
and one of these questions, I'm just gonna go ahead
and warn you.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Now, I'll be asking it through the draft in April.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
The first question is how much of what you just
got done talking about the six currently of the offensive
line has to do with them cheating and putting a
sixth actual offensive lineman in at tight end.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
That's a great question because I think it has for
what the other team's putting on the field, the personnel
packages that they're using. But it is absolutely amazing, and
I'm not telling you I've charted every single Blake Fisher snap.
It is amazing how many of those plays he plays poorly,
he gets beat. Yeah, he's the reason the play wasn't

(01:06:31):
more successful the very of the game this last week.
It was a perfectly great play call, well executed by
ten guys, but he didn't make his block. He didn't
even get in the way enough of the player he
was supposed to block for him not to make the tackle.
And we're like, oh, here's how we're going to go today.
And then CJ and Nico connected off fifty seven yard pass.

(01:06:54):
But they don't run behind the heavy side of the
line when he's out there because he doesn't line up
ext to Trent or next to Ursery exclusively. It's obviously
a mix of how it's done. What they did this
week was include the tight end because they played Dalton
and Kaid a tremendous number of snaps together, which they
had not done a lot of in the past. But
the look that they're giving presents certain ideas to the

(01:07:15):
other team's DC and certain things that they think they
should do personnel wise, So it creates advantages just by
being on the field. They're getting an advantage by playing
six linemen, they're not getting an advantage because that sixth
lineman is crushing it unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
And the second question, the one that's gonna be asked
ad nauseum by this guy two thumbs in this guy
through April's draft, is you still need to go get
offensive lineman plural for this upcoming season.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
I think it's fair to say we know this already.
Trent Brown will not be penciled in as their starting
right tackle. It's possible he comes back, it's possible he's
in the rotation, it's possible he fights for the job.
But if he's the starting right tackle in their first
game next season on Thursday Night is defending Super Bowl champs,
I think that would be a tough one. I don't

(01:08:05):
think that would be ideal. That's the position of greatest need,
unless it's Titus' position again, well, then the position of
greatest need is the position he's currently playing and the
one that he will then vacate. I do think they
have to look at a center also, and I think
Jake Andrews has played better and better throughout the year.
He looks a lot better when the other four guys
are playing better. He's a little bit undersized. This is
his first full season of being a healthy NFL player,

(01:08:26):
and obviously he's getting the reps to show for it.
But I do think they could look to make that
position a little bit stronger. There's going to be an
awesome center in free agency, presumably because the Ravens have
not extended the fourth year, they declined the fifth year option,
and they have not come to any kind of agreement
on any future deal with Tyler Linderbaum. The problem is

(01:08:50):
every team looking for a center is going to be
on the phone with his agent, and as an unrestricted
free agent, he is going to get a huge deal
this offseason. And I don't know if the Texans re
constructed far less expensive offensive line that is far out
playing last year's offensive line if they want to immediately
reverse that and spend all this money on one player
on their five man offensive line at that high of

(01:09:12):
a rate, when they've kind of gotten out from under
that and should be building through the draft. We'll see
what they do with their first pick, Washington's pick in
the second round after Nick trades out of the first.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
So apparently, before we get to some of what Demiko
Ryans had to say today, apparently Patrick Mahomes injured his ACL,
got his surgery done the next day, and I think
he was doing resistance stretches like an hour after his operation.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
Yeah, he was in Dallas, and they did something that
I think we've talked about it in all sports. They
the Chiefs did something I still can't figure out why
all teams don't look into doing this more. They made
their team doctor. They made the person in charge of
the these decisions available today to the media, and he
spent about two minutes before I don't know if it
was the answer to a question or just his initial comments,

(01:10:06):
explaining everything that took place, the timeline, the surgical procedure,
the why they did it. Rockets used to do that,
but it was unfortunate. Well, they would do that when
someone was out. Oh, here's what happened with Yao's foot.
Take a look at this this time foot. We've brought
up here what was his name, doctor Clinton? Thank you.
But what he described was, here's what you know. We
asked this question the other day. Guys don't usually have

(01:10:29):
ACL surgery this fast, and he acknowledged that, and he
said because of the AlCl injury as well, they wanted
to get that put back together basically, not in so
many words, quickly, so they could do this other surgery.
So he went for a consultation during the day or
late morning, early afternoon, and then in the evening they

(01:10:49):
performed the procedure. He said, I'll be back in Kansas
City with the team this weekend. Now, they also said
this this could be a you know, a nine month
or six could be a six month recovery. It could
be a little bit less, or it could be a
little bit more. It could be a couple months more.
We know it's not an exact science. It's gonna be
the same recovery time as everybody else until it's not.
Whether it's a little bit longer, it's a little bit shorter. Well,

(01:11:11):
we'll find out as he goes through the process, but
his timeline for next season is no more uncertain or certain,
just in the fact that he had this surgery, just
purely from the surgery happened quickly. So if there were
three more weeks of waiting, obviously you've eliminated that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
Doctor Dan Cooper is the physician that performed the procedure.
Rick Burkholder, that's who they made available, is the guy
you're talking about. He's the chiefs vice president of Sports
Medicine and Performance. It was a bit of a used
car salesman quote. Every player is different, every sport is different,
every position is different. Mahomes is so in tune to
what he does. He does it a little quicker ballpark

(01:11:48):
on this is nine months, but it could be a
month or two more a month or two.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
List get the audio so you can hear what he
actually sounded like. I think he sounds like that. But
that's truthful, man. That's why they don't like us to
try to grab these timelines from them when they're not exact.
He doesn't know. He knows what the general rule is
for when will this heal? When will you be able
to push it, but it doesn't. It's not applicable to

(01:12:13):
one hundred percent of the population every single time. And
we'll find out by the way they have some many
other things, all the same things they were already going
to be concerned with heading into this off season are
to me more front burner material than him. They shouldn't
spend any time in their meetings talking about their future
at quarterback, not two years from now, not four years
from now. If you want to pretend that they're concerned

(01:12:35):
about that, or they want to waste time being concerned,
what if he's not the same, Great, maybe it'll ruin
the rest of their preparations. Well, you're going to be
worried about it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
And in all fairness, you can be overly cautious and
maybe even draft a guy for all I care. You're
not going to know until he's on the field for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
Yeah, if you draft a quarterback, then you're basically trying
to trade him or you're dumb.

Speaker 1 (01:12:55):
Well, if you draft him the first round, then you're
even dumber. Well, yes, you would be very dumber. But
I'm just saying if they drafted a guy in the
fourth round, and because they have multiple picks, not necessarily.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
The Texans and Chiefs both play fourth rounders on a
regular basis. Why would you draft a quarterback that is
never gonna play? Okay, fine, I'm not being said a
fifth rounder. You know what's funny though, you look at
their schedule. There's two parts to this. One was I
can't believe it took them this long to do this.
Look to see, hey, are there any games of consequence

(01:13:29):
against the Chiefs. Now, there's only one game of a
playoff team, but it's the Broncos that they were gonna
win that game if ma Homes started, in all likelihood
maybe I think they would have.

Speaker 1 (01:13:40):
They sucked this year. The other two are the Titans
and the Raiders. I mean, Gardner Minshew can beat them,
and he probably will. The other thing, though, is you
know when that game is against the Broncos. Yes, what day?

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
Well, they have three games remaining, like you mentioned, Yeah,
it's got the Titans this week, then they are home
for the bron goes three o'clock at Sunday night. This
is Saturday game? Is that the first the second Saturday game? Nope,
I don't know. It's on Christmas Day? Oh, that's right.
They're back on the four days of rest schedule for

(01:14:14):
the second year.

Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
Let me just quickly go over the we decided to.

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
Throw our weight around.

Speaker 1 (01:14:21):
That's the most eloquent way I can put that on
a television radio show. Right now with what I want
to say about the NFL on Christmas Day, we are
going to now own Christmas Day suck at NBA. That's
what they're saying essentially. Well, now for your troubles, you
have the Dallas Cowboys taking on Who's the Who's the backup?

Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
Marcus?

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
Okay, you have Detroit and Minnesota, which Detroit being eight
and six right now is very depressing.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Why can't you just say it like this, like I
would say, it's succinctly and quickly with all of these
extra words. They got six teams playing, only one of
them is going to the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (01:15:00):
Well, because that's the way I would normally say things
compared to you, but you're right that would be And
then again Detroit Kansas City there Bo Nicks versus Gardner
Minshew in primetime, the primetime game. I'll be watching that
night Rockets and Lakers. I'll also be working at that night.
That's why I'll be watching it. But we'll have it
on on the other monitor, Josh and I uppear at
the station. Since the Rockets will be in Casey, I

(01:15:22):
are in La. I just it's funny to me because
this started last year when they forced teams like the
Texans and Ravens to play on a Wednesday. It's just
that's insane. It's insane enough they do this with Thursday
games after a Sunday game, but to have two teams
play on a on a Wednesday's it's just stupid.

Speaker 2 (01:15:42):
How many of the ten teams playing in the NBA
on Christmas Day do you think are playoff teams? Don't
look at who it is, you obviously know they got.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
Two of them are playing each other in the Rockets
and Lakers.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
Yep, I'm assuming that the just in general, without like
really thinking about it, you got ten teams. They picked
these teams very specifically to play on Christmas Day. You know,
the home teams are going to be pretty good. It
could be other than Dallas, who's maybe a playing tournament team.
They're not going to be finished top six. Yeah, when

(01:16:14):
you say playoff team, do you counfair in the NBA
to say that? But yeah, I think what we'll see
is nine of these ten teams in the playoffs. I
think Dallas will nine. Yeah, I think Dallas will miss
the playoffs this year. But Cleveland and New York are playing,
San Antonio and OKAC are playing again. We brought this
up when the schedules were remade because of the NBA Cup.
The Spurs and Oklahoma City play three times over a

(01:16:35):
six game period, over about a fourteen day period. That's
gonna help the Rockets. So they got a couple more
games against each other, one of them being on Christmas
Day at OKAC, Dallas is at Golden State, Houston's at
the Lakers, and Minnesota's playing at Denver. And that's from
eleven am to nine to thirty with all those tip offs,
all while the NFL will be playing their three football games, awful.

Speaker 1 (01:16:55):
Football games, like not one of those is going to
be particularly comp I don't think.

Speaker 2 (01:17:01):
I mean a big rivalry game. Cowboys Cowboys.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
The Cowboys are gonna blow out whoever who they have
again Marcus Mariota.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
Who that is sexy right there?

Speaker 1 (01:17:13):
I mean, look, the Cowboys game will be highly rated
because Moron still watched the Cowboys, because they still think
it's nineteen ninety five. Well again, I don't know, nineteen
seventy five, it'll be highly streamed. I'm sure, Yeah, I
don't know. I mean it's Christmas Day, so there's a
lot going on. I just don't know that I'll watch
any of those games. I know I should, so that
I cannot talk about it the next day on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
I'm not hosting, but.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
I just none of them appeal to me. They just don't. Sorry,
don't fallow, Sorry not sorry. All right, four o'clock Colur
is coming up next. You will here from Demico Ryans.
Plus I'll tell you why the NFL is greater than
every other pro sports league when it comes to complaining
about officiating.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
One of my favorite pastimes.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
Next is the four o'clock out or here on the
A team Sports Talk seven ninety. He's Wex. They call
me Ac. Josh Jordan is our fearless producer. We're halfway
home on a Wednesday edition to the program. I have
one more day this week, and I want to let
you guys, many.

Speaker 2 (01:18:13):
Days you have next week? None? What about the week
after that? None? Okay, I'll see you in twenty twenty
seven or twenty six. Do you guys want to peek
behind the curtain. Guess, raise your hand.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
If you never take vacation on this show most of
the time, except for that one week during the summer,
go ahead, raise your hand.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
Well literally raise it. I have taken vacation since then.
Josh has not taken a vacation day ever on the show.
He congratulated here for five minutes. Well, I'm just trying
to be literal to the question you asked.

Speaker 1 (01:18:41):
Yeah, but you haven't taken any and you still won't
and they don't roll over.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
In an effort to keep the show as true to
the A team as it needs to be, one of
the Adams has committed to work all of the shows
that we have the rest of the year, and one
is me. I'm the other one. Yeah. I was like, hey,
this was so funny. I told wex hey.

Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
Not going anywhere, and I will work Rockets games, but
I'm gonna take two weeks of vacation.

Speaker 5 (01:19:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:10):
Somehow mt H didn't follow along with some of the
emails of the scheduling I sent out. He goes a
c is gonna be out like two weeks? So am
I gonna be working on Rockets games like all these games?

Speaker 3 (01:19:18):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:19:19):
No, nothing's really gonna chee. People are coming here, that's
the thing. Like last year we left town, people are
coming here this year. I need to be off, but
I can shoot on over to Toyota Center and you know,
do a few hours of Rockets basketball and come home.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
It's gonna be a good holiday season. Can't wait.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
I feel bad now you've made me feel guilty live
on air. Well, it's not gonna change anything right now.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
I'm still taking them. That's all good.

Speaker 1 (01:19:40):
You know what would happen if we actually both took
two weeks off? Would they just show a dark studio
for four hour or three hours on Space City every
Day Team the met We just sit here with the
lights on, like the logos would be on the monitors,
but the studio lights are off.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
Earlier today, uh email Udoka joined The Matt Thomas Show
with Ross. Here's the entire interview four times.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Josh is sitting in there playing everything by himself. Yeah
he had to come in all right. You know why
I take so much vacation. Yeah, I take a lot
of vacation because I get a lot of vacation clones.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
Does he still call his listeners clones? On x or Twitter?
Or whatever. He's hosting a show on sevage. Yeah, they're
the same.

Speaker 1 (01:20:23):
Do you ever see it? Like, do you follow him?
I definitely don't follow him. There's a countdown. I'll sometimes
see it on my stream. He's not time the only
one out there doing things like that. So you see
YouTube show, same thing. When they're regularly scheduled, they'll produce
a little countdown for you.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
I should be clear. He's one of the countdown happens
every day too. It's Matt and Ross talking yeah, and
they say what should we do? And then they say
together yeah, yeah, whatever gimmicks. But no, I should be
I should clarify. He is one of the main reasons
why I wanted to do this for a living. I
don't want to I don't want it to come off.

Speaker 1 (01:20:59):
As I'm ungrateful for the path he blazed, the pioneer
that he is of sports talk. But it's a little
quirky that he does a lot of the things he
used to roundly criticize, like say again a streaming.

Speaker 2 (01:21:13):
Show, Yeah, just gotta make it work for you.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
He evolves, but only after he makes fun of the
things he'll eventually do to evolve.

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
He's made quite a few coins racing. He used to
make fun of that. Now he's in it. Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:21:25):
He used to make fun of ultimate fighting. He used
to call it human cockfighting. Do you know that now
he's a big UFC guy. I love Dana White. Dana
White on the show today, Great interview with my guy, Dana.
He used to call it human cock fighting. Dude, just
own it, just like he used to call Jim Everett Chris.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
He owned that. Actually, Jim owned that when he flipped
the table and threw him. That was very typical of
an athlete in competition fighting with another athlete. I bet
I do. I don't really want to fight, even though
I mean, if we're wearing helmets on the foot ball field,
will shove each other. If we're basketball players, we'll put
our foreheads against each other and realize trash, but we

(01:22:06):
won't throw any real punches baseball, I'm gonna charge the mound,
but there won't be any punches throw Jim. Ever, Jim
Everett flipped the table over on top of him. Nobody
ran from off camera to save the fallen Jim Rome
and Everett was already not going to do anything to him.

Speaker 1 (01:22:21):
Do you realize though that he was gonna lose lose situation,
Like Jim Everett is six foot five, Jim Rome is
four foot seven, okay, and he's mouthing off at him,
and then he mouths off at him in person. And
so the minute Jim Everett decides he's going to flip
that table because he got called Chris again, then it's

(01:22:42):
just he's gonna lose lose, because now, what are you
picking on this little guy?

Speaker 2 (01:22:46):
What was Chris's take on this? Actually? What do you mean?
What was Chris tennis player? Yes? What was her take?

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
You know what, that's a good question because of all
the time I had Jim Evertt's phone number because of this,
Like we've talked about this on the It blew my
mind the day that Jim Everett called my phone because
we were going to do a spoof on the Smackoff
for you know, it was just something we were.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
Doing eleven years as an NFL starting quarterback. You know
what's even funnier, this is what he's known for.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
You know who He used to be married to, Kristin Strauss,
that was his spouse from ninety three to ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
I bet he called her Chris for short, I bet
you won't. I bet I do.

Speaker 1 (01:23:24):
And he was married to her when this happened, because
that was ninety four, when he was on Espen two.

Speaker 2 (01:23:30):
So after they broke it up and he was leaving,
and he said, all right, man, well I'll let this
one go. We'll let bygones be bygones. By the way,
if you met my wife, Chris, you know that the
story goes. He drives off the lot at the studio
they're talking about Jim Everett and he gets down the
road and Jay Leno was already calling him because I

(01:23:52):
think he was booked anyway. Either he was booked anyway,
or he was booked I guess jay Leno was already
the permanent host of the show. He stole from Conan.

Speaker 1 (01:24:01):
No, if this was ninety four, he hadn't quite. I
don't think. No, he had stolen it. You're right, because
ninety four is when Well Carson left in ninety two,
so he'd already stolen it by a couple of years.
So this happened in nineteen ninety four. The Jim Everett
Jim Rome thing happened in ninety four. What else happened
in ninety four or anything in June, there was a
double stabbing in Brentwood. I got much like the one

(01:24:21):
that just happened. I should, but I will like. Is
that your favorite year? Yes, nineteen ninety four.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
Think about it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:28):
I'm thirteen, the Rockets win their first of back to
back championships.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
I'm a ball boy on the court. So how many
things can you actually list?

Speaker 3 (01:24:36):
Then?

Speaker 2 (01:24:36):
Rockets in nineteen ninety four makes your list of great
things in nineteen ninety four? Uh, Allapaluza happened? The first one?

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
Yes, okay, I think no, no, not la Llapaluza would
stock the second one clearly not the first one. Yeah,
I got into Uh. I think that was a year
I got into both Metallica and Pantera. Music is like
top of mind. My bootleg copy of Snoop's solo album

(01:25:05):
made its way into the home, much to the chagrin
of my parents when they found out was.

Speaker 2 (01:25:09):
What was that album titled Doggy Style?

Speaker 6 (01:25:11):
And then.

Speaker 2 (01:25:14):
This mentor or this inspirational person, Jim Rome. The incident
took place in ninety four, but I didn't know. I
wasn't exposed to Jim Rome until nineteen ninety eight. What
I used to do, I used to work at sunny
ninety nine point one across the hallway. You know what
my job was. I was in the promotions department. Probably
had to inflate and deflate their inflatable and go not

(01:25:34):
just any inflatable, the sun. They had an inflatable sun.

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
Yeah, and during rush hour, which doesn't happen until I
mean it's the wee hours of the morning, my job,
along with a coworker was to drive stakes into the
ground to hold that thing down at like four thirty
five in the morning, sit in a van and sleep
while listening to sports talk, and then at around nine
or nine thirty we would take the inflatable down and

(01:26:00):
point I think Jim was coming on at ten am
local because he had a four hour show. Back then
he used to work, and that's when I would first
hear the Jim Rome show. Shout out to my boy
Adrian Sesim. That was my coworker that introduced me to
Jim Rome and then nice. Pretty soon I figured out
I could do a pretty good impression of him, and
then I made money doing that. Awesome and yeah, like

(01:26:22):
fast forward, we did that spoof and we're like, hey,
we should have Jim Everett be a part of the
smack off on a mobile and so we had to
reach out to him and it was wild.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
I talked to him for probably thirty minutes. He's the
nicest guy you'll ever meet. Our nineteen ninety four timeline
reveals some of the most memorable events for the year.
The case against oj Simpson began to form. Guess what
was in theaters? The death of grunge rocker and Nirvana
frontman Cobain, and Cobain shot himself. That's right in Seattle.
Great job, mariners. You seem to know this list pretty well.
As we continue on, the most important segment of the

(01:26:52):
day by far were the What were the films you
had to hit the theaters to see?

Speaker 1 (01:26:56):
If you were a child, it was The Lion King. Okay,
if you were an adult, it was Forrest Gump.

Speaker 2 (01:27:01):
What about that movie with Andy Dufrayin and Red Hicky
And pulp fiction came out in ninety four. This is
quite a year. It's an awesome year. It really was
totally with you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
And then on June twenty second, the Knicks got sent
back to New York after being called a hell hole.

Speaker 2 (01:27:18):
Remember that? Yeah? Was it?

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
Peter Vessi that called Houston a hell hole in the
NBA Finals. Probably did he do it like this? Hang on,
This is my impression of Peter VESSI.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
It's a hell hole. Why are you shrugging your shoulders
while you talk? Man? Nobody talks like that. It's a
hell hole. And he's got the New York accent. I
love that.

Speaker 1 (01:27:37):
The best part of the commemorative video of the Rockets
Championship was at the very end when they're in the garage,
the player's garage at the summit and here comes Patrick
Ewing and Hakeem to like do the bro handshake thing.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
And you know, Hikeem was thinking, I got you, I
got you back for eighty three? Remember Georgetown? You remember?
Actually it was eighty four, wasn't it? Eighty three? Was
in c State?

Speaker 5 (01:28:01):
The worst?

Speaker 2 (01:28:02):
All right? June seventeen, nineteen ninety four. In response to
his murder Chargers, former NFL running back broadcaster and actor
OJ Simpson doesn't turn himself in, and instead police in
Los Angeles chase his Ford Bronco car around for an
hour and a half before he gives up. This is

(01:28:23):
all seen on national TV by the public.

Speaker 1 (01:28:25):
Yet another example of when Al Michaels had way more
emphasis in his call on that broadcast than he did
the other night when Tampa Bay and Who'd they play?
Atlanta beat Tampa Bay on a last second field goal,
and he barely had a pulse.

Speaker 2 (01:28:42):
In response to his murder Chargers on July twenty second,
OJ Simpson pleads absolutely not guilty. I mean ninety four
top that you can't. I don't even think I'll try.
What else happened? There had to be something. What happened

(01:29:02):
the second year ed Wood was released? Not not not good.
That's not going to work for this list. No, it
doesn't do anything for me. There's some lot of bad
things that happened, like what worldwide, some bombings and some shootings,
things like that. I don't think that makes the list.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
Was black Hawk down there? Tanya Harding was officially banned
from the ice skating That's right, that happened in February, right?

Speaker 3 (01:29:25):
Why? Why?

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):
That's my Nancy Carrigan impression. There was a Tom Hanks
film released in nineteen ninety four Forrest Gumps.

Speaker 5 (01:29:33):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:29:34):
I already said that I couldn't remember if that was
one of the ones he tould them me. I said,
it during the segment, and you didn't hear it because
you weren't paying attention. What a very well known company
that people purchased things from online quite a bit these days,
was established in nineteen ninety four Amazon.

Speaker 5 (01:29:48):
There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:29:49):
What a great year, all right? Dimiko Ryan's awful segment.
Next promise, last segment.

Speaker 1 (01:29:55):
I told Josh Jordan we'd be playing, Uh, Demico Ryans
sound but inte? Instead of course, as usual, wex veers
us off track on the show and started talking about
oj Simpson. I would never do something like that, So instead,
let's get to what Demko Ryans or some of what
Demiko Ryans had to say today. I can tell you this,

(01:30:16):
the fact that the Texans you were talking about the
offensive line earlier, Hodgepodge does that?

Speaker 2 (01:30:24):
Is that accurate? Is that too demeaning of a term? Well,
if they were playing poorly, it would be fine. They're not.
It's not a Hodgepodge. But at left tackle is playing
left tackle right now. Next year's starter at left guard
is playing left guard right now?

Speaker 4 (01:30:37):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (01:30:37):
I think we I think that's ed ed Ingram's not
a given just because the contractual situation. But they found
their left tackle. They know Titus Howard will be on
this line next year. I couldn't tell you where, but
if I've told you three of the five guys they're
perfectly happy with for next year, and they should be.
Not the Nick Cassario way that, oh no, everything's fine,
but it actually is fine. I don't think it's a hodgepodge.

(01:30:57):
It's been a hodgepodge to get here, but now they've
arrived on a group that they want out there every
snap of every game moving forward. That's what you should
hope is pre game one. That's what you're trying to
do in camp. That's what you're trying to do with
one or two spots. And unfortunately, all in one off
season they I didn't think they would overhaul it the
way they did because they essentially ripped it all apart.

(01:31:18):
Outside of Titus, they played a lot of Juice Scrugs,
played a lot of other guys that other positions all
throughout the first ten weeks for a variety of reasons.
An injury was one of them. You know, Jake Andrews
missed a little bit of time at Ingram's missed a
little bit of time. Trent Brown wasn't healthy at the
beginning of the season, but with three games remaining before
they play in the playoffs, presumably their offensive line is

(01:31:42):
in a very very good place. Yeah, well one of
the best offensive lines in football.

Speaker 6 (01:31:49):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
Now you have to add that caveat.

Speaker 1 (01:31:50):
I bring this up because one of the things that
Damiko Ryans touched on you're gonna hear right here is
what every NFL team does constantly. It is it is
the lifeblood of every good or bad season. You're constantly
adding players mid season and.

Speaker 6 (01:32:08):
Whenever we ask the one midseason, we're throwing everything we
have at them. I seeing what they can handle first
and foremost and seeing, you know, how can they go
out and help us, how can it benefit We may
have to change some things, you know, technique wise, what
a person has, you know from what we're doing, Like
we've been working techniques and things like that since Ota,

(01:32:29):
so we know when we get guys who come in midseason,
it's not gonna be perfect technique, But can we find
a way. It's coaches to get guys in the position
that it's it's good enough, it's serviceable, that it can go,
we can go play winning football.

Speaker 1 (01:32:45):
Isn't it nice to have a coaching staff where you
can add players midseason and they will be coached up
so to speak.

Speaker 2 (01:32:51):
Yeah, they haven't really been forced to send those guys
out on the field. Like last year with Derek Barnett,
that was a big deal. You were able to add
a player and you inserted him as a rotation defensive end.
He played every game the rest of the way. He
was your second set after Anderson and Hunter. Whatever they
had their series off or their plays off, he was
out there with whomever was opposite in and he had
an impact on this team, a very very positive impact

(01:33:12):
on that team. And that's an ind season edition and
those are pretty hard to come by unless it's at
the very very high end of it. This is a
player who was just no longer wanted by his team.
You're able to claim a player, and they've made a
bunch of claims lately. Those players have come in almost
immediately helped on special teams. Nay Kwon Jones helped on
defense at defensive tackle while they still had Mario Edwards.

(01:33:33):
Last week he got sixteen snaps. He's going to get
more snaps this week most likely. Now the player they
added a defensive tackle today to their practice squad is
a former Texan. He was a draft pick of Nick
Casio's and twenty twenty four hadn't played for the team,
but it's been on practice squad. Is very familiar with
what they want to do defensively. The benefit of all
this over the years is anybody that's been here when

(01:33:54):
Demiko rans has been here defensively haven't changed. It's the
same defense from the day he got here, the same
defense from the day Matt Burke got here. Because they
came here together and they put this defense together together.
So this is what they've been doing. So they're gonna
have players that they can find if they're available other
teams practice squadsers are simply not with a team that
they can bring in and they feel like they're going

(01:34:15):
to know what's up here. They can immediately step in
and do the things we want to see them do
in practice, so we can gauge whether or not we
think they can help on game day. They brought up
Kevon Wallace last week, his first action with the Texans'
is another player that they claimed. JaMarcus Ingram was up
last week and has played special teams so far now
twice for the Texans hasn't gotten reps as a member

(01:34:35):
of the secondary. That could change moving forward. We'll see,
depending on who's available and who's not a mere speed.
Another player they claimed on waivers immediately was put in
on part of their special teams unit. He was inactive
last week, but he's been a plus performer on special teams.
These guys, almost all of them, had some kind of
familiarity with what the Texans defense likes to do. They

(01:34:56):
don't just automatically, oh, this player's good, like Matthew Judon's
gonna be going through waivers and there's another player, the
defensive lineman that was released earlier this week, and the assumption, oh,
of course the Texans will put an acclaim on him.
Now they might, but they're gonna look at it more
of will this particular player have any idea what we're doing.
Does he have any familiarity with Matt Burke's defensive teams

(01:35:17):
in the past, or San Francisco's defensive teams Robert Salad,
Demiko Ryans, or anything that would make him more likely
to be ready to help immediately, Because that's why you're
bringing these guys in, not really getting a look at
these guys. I guess you could say that about Cody Schrader.
He was here for three days and that was it.
I'm not sure again what they think the names you're
able to rattle off. I mean, these are all in

(01:35:38):
season waiver plows, which is what he was talking about there.
But they have That's one thing they've done a really
good job of. And it's good to talk about this
on a day where I decided to talk about the
last three drafts for Nick Casario Online posted his last
three drafts and commented on where these players are? They
dressed nine players this off season, nine players the off
season before that, players the off season before that. As

(01:36:02):
twenty seven players, how many of them do you think
are with the Texans as we sit here today at
four to twenty three On December seventeen, twenty seven, you said,
I said, twenty seven, Yes, three are here.

Speaker 1 (01:36:12):
Yeah, they're just they're churning through it. I mean, you know,
in the last three years, he's drafted CJ. And Will,
So that's two. Let's do you think there's only one left?
Let's do this think about twenty the other way. Let's
do twenty. Okay, I was being funny.

Speaker 2 (01:36:26):
Twenty is six players. Shy of the actual number. Really,
every single player he's drafted in the last three years,
and that's nine players each year is a Texan except
for one that's name. You can interpret this a number
of different ways, So I'm fair to this number. I'm
not trying to who the one is. It's Ludarius Henderson,
an offensive lineman from Michigan twenty twenty four to seventh

(01:36:48):
round pick. He just didn't make the team. Say no more,
you said seventh round. Yeah, So again, that means other
sixth and seventh rounders are here and are now varying
degrees of success. We already talked about Blake Fisher and
he in the category of yeah, great, wex he's here,
but is he good and was it a good pick?
And in his case, the answer is no, it was
not a good pick, and she scruggs. Similarly, they just

(01:37:08):
brought Brandon Hill back to the practice squad. That was
a seventh round pick in twenty twenty three. He's a
safety and obviously they have some injury situations there. But
we're talking about players drafted outside of the first two
rounds over the last three years, like Xavier Hutchinson, Henry
totoa Dylan Horton. All of them play a lot for
the Texans. Horton's the guy who plays opposite Derek Barnett

(01:37:30):
at defensive end reserve. He plays every Henry Toto starts
and plays every snap in many games. Xavier Hutchinson was
on the field almost as much as Jaden Higgins and
Nico Collins several weeks this year. He is our wide receiver. Three.
These are all middle to late round picks from twenty
twenty three the twenty twenty four draft, outside the top

(01:37:51):
two rounds Kayln Bullock, Cade Stover. These guys are on
the field non stop this last week, and obviously Bullock
has only been off the field for about ten plays
all year. Juwar Jordan was a twenty twenty four draft
pick of the Texans late round. Now they got a
couple of guys on injury reserve this year, and Tech
Dell fits in this group unfortunately among those ir and

(01:38:12):
pup players. But this is actually whether you want to
really get into the minutia of how successful how unsuccessful
he's finding players that make a difference to making your
roster work. You gotta have players that don't make any
money on your roster, but they have to be able
to help your team. And he's finding those players all
over the draft. He's finding players that are at top

(01:38:33):
level players. Texans have three guys that have four interceptions
or more. Yeah, no kidding. He took Derek Stingley with
the number three pick. How hard is that he's not
one of them? Derek Stingley Junior never gets thrown at.
How's he supposed to get four picks? It's Jalen Petrie
a second round pick, it's Kamari Lassiter a second round pick,
and it's Kayalin Bullock a third round pick. It matters

(01:38:55):
what he's doing outside of the first round. And really
all over the draft talking about Toatoa and Hutchinson and
now maybe Juwar Jordan as much as it pains us,
and you hear it from us way too often, man,
just get the offensive line right, please, And they've spent
four first or second round picks and those three drafts
on are the last four drafts on offensive line and
they just haven't hit often enough. But you can't ignore

(01:39:20):
the other extremely successful roster construction of Nick Cassario's time here,
and that's why he's not going anywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
Yeah, And there was a time where you were convinced
he was going to go somewhere and it wasn't it
was this year. Yeah, No, it was when their offense
was bad. It was when they were playing bad players
on offensive line. It was when they were zero and
three and when they were three and five, and there's
no reason to believe it was going to change. Now
there is reason to believe it's going to change. Well,
there's reason to believe that Wednesday's BS is next. That

(01:39:51):
is our signature segment every single Wednesday. More details on
the Sharon More tryst at Michigan and why the other
part of that situation is not going to be fired.

Speaker 2 (01:40:05):
It's something we talked about yesterday.

Speaker 1 (01:40:06):
Plus we're still going to get to plenty more from Demico,
Ryans and company as we continue here on a Wednesday
edition of the show Bit Stealing.

Speaker 2 (01:40:14):
Bit Stealing with the Bit Stealers better known as the
eight Team. It is signature segment time here on the
A Team. Halfway through our number three. You think, after
eight thousand years hosting this show, we'd have a signature
segment of some variety halfway through our number two. Since
we have one on the other three hours, but we'll

(01:40:36):
get there when we get there. Signature segment on a Wednesday.
We do like to let the other people have their
own things, and we've been doing this for quite some time.
We haven't done a whole lot of bit stealing lately.
I'm sure we'll pick back up on that at some point,
but there's just so much BS going on. Wednesday's BS
usually applies in that form, and for the second time

(01:40:56):
in the last I don't know, since the scandal broke
at Michigan with their head coach, the head coach of
Justin Herbert's team was asked questions about this. I know
we're going to get into the actual scandal, but he
was asked about it almost immediately when he was at
the podium one day with the Chargers, and he said,
I hadn't even really had a chance to process things,

(01:41:17):
and that allowed him to deflect any future questions from
the media about it. And there really weren't any, so
you really didn't have to say much of anything other
than the obvious. Anybody would say about it, whether they
were associated with the school or the coach, or that
he was working for you or that you hired him,
anything like that. He was on a guest of the
Dan Patrick Show. That's Dan Patrick, the sports announcer guy

(01:41:38):
for those of you here in Texas, not the lieutenant governor. Correct.
And he asked him two questions about it, the second
one after he got a non answer about the first
one because he introduced the first question with you said recently,
you hadn't had a chance to wrap your head around it.
So how about now, basically was Dan's question, and he
again he called it a tragedy, and you know, it's

(01:41:58):
a tough situation. All my focuses on the Chargers and
what we're doing here. So he said, oh, he talked
to him, he goes, uh, texted him. I texted him,
and you know, I just hope praying really for everybody
in this situation, praying for his family. And you know,
I love Michigan, I love my university, I love my
alma mater. But so he really didn't shed any light

(01:42:22):
on any conversations he might have had or how Sharon
is doing, or how he's feeling, or how his wife's feeling,
or how the family's feeling, how the university's doing, or
anything like that. He's just locked in on how are
we going to beat the Dallas Cowboys this weekend? So
what's the latest start on campus in ann Arbor.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
He's not He's never gonna give you a good SoundBite
on that. By the way, he doesn't have to.

Speaker 2 (01:42:45):
He's given some. I appreciate some of his postgame locker
room celebration speeches. Most of what he has at the
podium not much there.

Speaker 1 (01:42:52):
All right, Yeah, yesterday we were talking about this, and
I'm just sitting here in this very chair asking you
why hasn't she been fired? Because it takes two and
it was two consenting adults at least at some point
in the operation.

Speaker 2 (01:43:05):
Right, But what what are the grounds for firing her
because she did what? Well, it's because she's in a
relationship with somebody who's married. Well to be fired, is it?

Speaker 3 (01:43:19):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:43:21):
Not by itself, but when you're both members of this
organization and it could absolutely be construed as a distraction
to the program.

Speaker 2 (01:43:31):
Well, if he's not married and they stay together, because
there is no three kids and wife, neither of them
are going to get fired. They'll just get married. So again,
what what's what's she doing wrong? From a university standpoint,
she's the underling.

Speaker 5 (01:43:50):
So to speak.

Speaker 2 (01:43:51):
Well, that's apparently.

Speaker 3 (01:43:56):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:43:56):
Unfortunately, they say the university would risk a violation of
its own policy if it were to remove the football
staffer from her current role. She is protected from retaliatory
discipline in a relationship of unequal authority.

Speaker 2 (01:44:16):
And that's I don't mean to say, what has she done?
I'd said this all yesterday, so I'm trying out to
regurg There's a legal aspect to the reason she is
still there.

Speaker 1 (01:44:24):
Policy number two oh one point nine seven states that
a supervisor at the University of Michigan may not I
feel like, as Ventura, what do you know.

Speaker 2 (01:44:32):
About Ray Finkel.

Speaker 1 (01:44:36):
Implicitly or explicitly initiatedor attempt to initiate an imptimate relationship
with a supervise e. Moore was a supervisor. His alleged mistress,
whose name is already public, was the supervise e. So,
although it is currently unclear as to who of the two,
isn't it whom initiated the years long relationship. The policy

(01:44:57):
requires the supervisor to report the relationship to the university officials. Hmmm,
why wouldn't Sherome Moore have reported that relationship to university officials?
I wonder right, And like I said, if they were
both and she's not required to by the way, that's
the second part of this. Okay, upon disclosure by the supervisor,

(01:45:19):
the university will then create a management plan to remove
the supervisor's power over the supervise e. He obviously did
not disclose the relationship, so he was canned. This is
what you're looking for, you being the guy that wants
this relationship to continue. Just kidding, wow words his mouth mind,

(01:45:41):
it's just sounded put there, all right. This is a
quote recognizing that intimate relationships by the way intimate and
relationships are capitalized, I thought that was funny. Recognizing that
intimate relationships exist or may develop in the workplace that
are not initiated by a supervise and are free from

(01:46:02):
coercion and abuse of power. Immediate disclosure of the relationship
by the supervisor is required. Failure failure of the supervisor
to disclose an intimate relationship is a serious offense and
cause for discipline, up to and including dismissal from employment.
Hence cause that's why he got canned. Not to mention

(01:46:24):
all of the I mean, it's interesting because if nothing
else had happened, Michigan's in the right by doing this.
They are well within their rights to not only fire him,
but to keep her even though she got a raise
because of him.

Speaker 2 (01:46:36):
By the way, you saw that, obviously, Yeah, presumably there
was no change in job description or job duties, but
a raise from fifty five thousand to ninety thousand dollars
annually was made as an amendment to her contract over
these two year period that they were allegedly together.

Speaker 1 (01:46:54):
But the interesting part about this all is that she's
you know, she's going to stay, and she was allowed
to keep her job because the power dynamics at play,
And this is all this is Michigan's policy. It's I
guess different in different places, I assume, but intimate relationships
initiated by a supervisor are at high risk of being
unwelcomed and experienced by the supervising as sexual harassment, and

(01:47:18):
they are therefore Supervisors are therefore responsible for understanding how
their statements and conduct may reasonably be interpreted by persons
who do not share their same level of power, i e.

Speaker 2 (01:47:28):
Her.

Speaker 1 (01:47:29):
The thing is, if nothing else had happened, this would
be the case. But then he's kicking in her door
and carrying butter knives and all sorts of weird stuff
that he was doing. That's just making this all look
worse for him while she and by the way, this
is a very interesting question that I'd like to ask,
and I'd love to hear what your thoughts are.

Speaker 2 (01:47:51):
If you're her, why would you stay around?

Speaker 1 (01:47:54):
Everybody's gonna look at you and point and whisper and
everything else that comes with you ste around even though
they all know the policy.

Speaker 2 (01:48:03):
I mean, I don't think that she will stay around.
She's just not leaving. But to the best of our knowledge,
we don't know that she's gone yet. No, she hasn't
been told to leave fired, Yeah, because they're not going
to do that. But I'm sure she will not want
to continue working there if she knows she can work, Like,
can I just stay here and keep pulling a check
while I don't really do anything? Because everyone's in an

(01:48:23):
awkward situation, and the legal part of it, because you're
gonna leave, you're gonna want to work. And if this
is the line of work she wants to continue to pursue,
it is gonna be difficult to find it. Yeah, that's
that last part right there. As the kids say yes
whole segment, even though we didn't bring it up once
talking about a love contract, even though it's the opposite
situation we were talking about Jan and Michael.

Speaker 1 (01:48:43):
It's what we did in Mifflin's The eighteen Sports Talk
seven ninety oh Man doing some love contract research from
last segment. You can't help but think about the office
when you hear about this, Sharon more the.

Speaker 2 (01:48:59):
Rule workplace environment. If it's happening in real life, then
something similar to it might have happened in the workplace
in scram Do.

Speaker 1 (01:49:06):
You think at any point this is totally inappropriate and
way too soon? Do you think at any point during
the what do you want to call it an interrogation
interview of Sharon Moore to confirm this ever happened with
this staffer, at any point he looked at any of
the authorities asking him questions and said that's what she said.

Speaker 2 (01:49:25):
Uh No, I don't think he knows them that way.
Probably somebody recording the conversation and there to read it
back to him if need be.

Speaker 1 (01:49:35):
We, of course, were inspired to watch the deposition scene
during the break of the office between Michael and Jan
and all I could tell every time I see that scene.
All I think about are the writers having a meeting
putting that scene together and the geniuses.

Speaker 2 (01:49:47):
That they are delivery is all wrong. You're butchering it.

Speaker 1 (01:49:49):
Which she reads back the transcript, that's what she said.
It's pretty awful.

Speaker 2 (01:49:54):
So one of the topics sports related that we talked
about throughout the course of the day obviously stemmed from
last Knight's last game of the regular seasons in season tournament,
because now it's over, the cup belongs to the New
York Knickerbockers. Maybe the Spurs last night one twenty four,
one thirteen, or several minutes in the second half of
that game that were exceptionally entertaining, And I probably would

(01:50:19):
tell you that stan Van Gundy on the analysis in
this game, he couldn't stop talking about the game like
he was just some guy sitting in the stands watching
it and how much fun he was having watching this game.
It was while Victor went and hit a three, hit
another three, had a block shot, hit a jumper in
the lane, but didn't make any references to deportations this time.

(01:50:40):
But the Knicks were doing so many things on the
other end, and it was coming from Tyler Kohleik and
it was coming from Jordan Clarkson. The basketball was so good.
The offense was overcoming the deef. They were taking shots
that normally the past several years would be like, Man,
why are these guys taking They're not gonna make that.
He's right on you pass the ball a few more times,
but everybody's making him. The NBA now, it's not just

(01:51:01):
that we think the defense have gotten so much worse.
They really haven't to that degree. There's just more shot making.
There's just more players capable of making shots. And they
played out the game. The Knicks kind of pulled away
from the Spurs in the late stage of the fourth
quarter and one rather comfortably. Two things have come out
of this. We'll get to the sound from the game momentarily.

(01:51:22):
The Knicks have already made it clear to those who've
asked where the banner is going from their NBA Cup championship,
and they said, not the rafters. They're not going to
raise a banner for their NBA Cup championship to despite
the fact that each of the last two, the first
two champions in season tournament NBA Cup champions did do
you know why those to the rafters my assumption is,

(01:51:44):
and what I gather from how these people have involved
with these three champions have talked about it was since
we created this signed NBA, would you please make a banner.
We'll even pay for it and raise it to the
rafters and have a little ceremony next game and then
we'll move on. And each of the previous two winners,
the last one was the Lakers said okay, and they did,

(01:52:07):
and maybe before they got to the Knicks, or maybe
there's no meeting, or maybe the Knicks don't care, and
they said, no, we're not and we're just gonna play
our games. We have bigger goals in mine where we don't.
We are happy that our players won. We're happy that
they got up for it. We're happy that they've delivered
good basketball. Last night's win doesn't even count in the standings,
but we want a bunch of games that do. We're

(01:52:28):
having a great season. We plan on winning the NBA Championship,
and that's the banner we next plan on raising.

Speaker 1 (01:52:35):
You know why they're not gonna do it in New
York right? Why because people will point and laugh at them.
I just you've been to the garden, right.

Speaker 2 (01:52:42):
I've been outside the garden, not been inside the garden?
How have you not been to the garden once? And
I've been in there twice. Think I've been to New
York twice once? Is it ever? Ever? That's shocking to me.
If my son's listening and can text me and tell
me which summer vacation was the one we went to
New York. But it was recent yea, since we've been
working together. Oh definitely, I just was it two years ago?

(01:53:03):
Three years ago? I don't know. I never remember. We
picked up our rental car right outside, literally right across
the street from Madison Square Garden. You wait time out now,
I have way more questions. You got a rental car
in New York so we could drive to our next location.
This was at the end of our time in New York.
Thank you, because nobody should ever drive. We do no

(01:53:23):
driving in New York except driving out of the city
to Philly, Baltimore. I don't not even sure where we
ended up it. I would be the worst driver in
New York. But the other trip to New York, I
was in my teens and there was no activities that
I could plan on my own, and that it was
a tour group of teams.

Speaker 1 (01:53:38):
Believe it or not, there are a lot of banners
in there. Yeah, they got a lot of teams in there, right, Yeah.
Not a lot of them are Knicks. And if they are,
they're from the seventies. Yeah, not a lot of them are.
They are definitely in position, to think about it. They
absolutely should be no worse than Eastern Conference champion or
Eastern Conference finalists.

Speaker 2 (01:53:55):
They absolutely belong there. I think the two teams at
one and two are going to be there. I don't
know what it'll be like, but I think the Pistons
Nicks are going to meet again in the playoffs and
it's gonna be for the conference championship. The other thing
that came out of last night's game was the typical Shenanigans.
We don't see her here a lot of them because
it's the Knicks, and we pay a little less attention
to them. It's not like they're the Yankees of the
Dodgers or the Rangers. But on the podium, on the

(01:54:18):
on the stage, I should say, when they're celebrating the
championship and here announcing to the crowd this and hoisting
the trophy that Josh Hart and Jalen Brunson clearly have
a long standing, good relationship going a long way back,
and everybody in the media and everybody on the team
has a great fun time about it and because of it.
On stage, as Brunston's looking one way and Hard happens

(01:54:41):
to be behind him, he you know, a wet willie
is when you, yeah, you lick your finger your stick
in somebody's ear. What do you call what he did?
It has a similar vibe to it, so to speak.
Is there a name for it? Well, he don't. I
don't want to say he thumbed him, but he did
extend his thumb towards the backside, and Brunton like, immediately,

(01:55:01):
what are you doing right here on stage? And he
just acts like that camera, those cameras are there. So
then they hit the podium, and this is also a
regular occurrence for these two players. They do especially when
they're at the podium because their lockers are right next
to each other, so often one guy will hear what
the other guys saying or being asked. But they sit
at the podium together for postgame press conferences. Honestly, we've

(01:55:21):
got all sorts of sound we could play. You played
the pregame press conference because this is a big event
for the league. All press conferences are aired. The crowd
has a mic or the media has a mic, so
you can hear their questions and everything about it, so
there's a little bit more audio. They back and forth
between their head coach and Mark Spears in light of
what we were just talking about. I don't know where

(01:55:42):
that comes from, but that's coming up later in the
show or later in the week when we have more time.
But this is what the two of them, Jalen Brunson
and Jason Hart, sounded like, I'll give you the question
so you can understand the answer and the reaction. Remember
this is Jason Hart being asked a question while Jalen
Brunson is seated right next to him at the podium.

(01:56:05):
When you factor his his height and not the most athletics, Jesus,
you've said it. You've said, you've said it. You didn't
have to see it.

Speaker 1 (01:56:13):
Though.

Speaker 2 (01:56:14):
How many guys in the NBA do you think score
the basketball better than he does?

Speaker 5 (01:56:19):
You know, probably not many. You know, he's barely six
foot guard, not physically impressive, not athletic, but he's able
to manipulate, you know, defense. Obviously big heads. He has

(01:56:45):
a big brain. He's able to, uh, you know, figure
out those angles and find himself in position to be successful. So,
you know, Entre Inch I think is probably the best
best one.

Speaker 2 (01:57:04):
Cut it off just as they, of course broke into laughter.
I think I said Jason Hart before one of those times.
Obviously it's Josh Hart's teammate. It's it is hilarious when
players enjoy themselves and even goove around a little bit.
He is not doing this the Clippers, No, they are not.
But we'll get back to the NBA, I'm sure shortly.
Next up, we're talking NFL. We're gonna hear from CJ. Stroud,

(01:57:27):
Houston Texans quarterback coming up in Football five and on
Space City Home Network. So it's time for Football at
five before we hear from Houston Texans quarterbacks CJ. Stroud
on the red zone improvement on from this team, and
there has been significant red zone improvement over the course
of the season. First of all, getting there is a
major side of improvement that barely got there at all
the first four weeks of the year. But first, how

(01:57:50):
are his teammates feeling these days? Eleven of them listed
on today's injury report mentioned most of the players that
I did not see at the media viewing portion of practice.
The group included these players dealing with knee injuries. EJ Speed,
Sheldon Rankins, Diniko Autry, and his e'z Al Schier. All
but EJ. Speed played in last week's victory for the Texans,

(01:58:14):
so we'll see where EJ. Speed is this week. He
was an active last week. You have an ankle injury
for what he marks, which he suffered in the game.
He did not practice today. The hand injury for Trent
Brown has kept him from practicing for the last several Wednesdays.
Then he practices on Thursday and Friday and plays every
snap on Sunday, and I suspect that will be the
same this week. Same for Kamari last year, two straight

(01:58:35):
weeks of not practicing much during the week. He did
have a limited practice last Friday and then played in
the game. He's played in every game and he's picked
off passes in the last two, but he did not
practice today on a Friday, and Derrek Stingley Junior, remember
he was a late leave the game player last week,
ended up not playing ten of their defensive snaps seven

(01:58:56):
of them coming on the final drive of the game,
replaced by Traymon Smith, and it was listed as an
oblique injury. That was the same injury that had him
in a tough spot earlier this season trying to play
through that. So we'll see where he stands later in
the week. Tomiko Ryans on these injuries said what he
usually says, especially at this point in the year. We'll
see how things go over the course of the week,

(01:59:17):
and we'll see how things are. Nick Chubb returned to
practice today listed as a limited participant. They announced that
Daryl Taylor was having his window designated to return practice
window open today. I saw him practicing out there, one
of their defensive ends very well. Might find himself back
in the rotation. And Justin Watson was also a full participant.

(01:59:37):
He is like Taylor, he is in his practice window.
He's in the second week of it, but he's not
yet on the fifty three man rosters. So I don't
know that they would have any reason to activate him
this week either, and I think the same. We'll see
for him. So Nick Chubb there and practicing, and what
he Mark's not there not practicing, I mean, I.

Speaker 1 (01:59:58):
Mean I'm looking at this list, it's like that's a
lot of did not participate, But it's early.

Speaker 2 (02:00:03):
I like I said earlier, I think EJ. Speed and
Derek Stingley Junior are the only ones I think there's
any concern about no pleasant week injury with Derek Stingley right,
and it's just it's I think what it also shows
you is, as we already know, is very difficult to
get past an injury like that in season. I think

(02:00:23):
having it fully healed and not a concern comes in
the offseason. He knows it, the team knows it, and
hopefully he's got another three regular season games and three
to four postseason games. I say three to four in
the fact that they still have an opportunity to land
the number one spot, not that they're going to win
three times, get to the Super Bowl and not win it,
because of course that they get there, they will win it.
Gino Smith practiced in full today. I don't know that

(02:00:46):
any word has been said from inside the walls of
the commitment to excellence. Yet he's going to start if
he's practicing fully. I don't think they're going to keep
him off the field just because the game is an important,
or they want to get a look or lie and
say they want to get a look at Kenny Pickett
or Aiden O'Connell. I think if he's playing, if he's
practicing in full after not playing last week or practicing,

(02:01:09):
odds are pretty good he will be out there. Max
Crosby didn't practice with a knee injury, but I think,
similar to a lot of Texans players, I still don't
have any reasonab believe that as a keep him out
of the game injury, even though he didn't practice. Yeah,
to be this time of year, and honestly, it was
so long we would do this.

Speaker 1 (02:01:25):
We would look at the injury report when it came
out on Wednesday, and then Thursday and then Friday, uh
for a typical week, and it would be remarkably clean,
which is not at all like last season. I'm still
convinced to this day that if the Texans just their
defense is a little bit more healthy, who knows what
happens in the postseason last year at Kansas City.

Speaker 3 (02:01:48):
But.

Speaker 1 (02:01:49):
I mean it's I'm glad it's against the Raiders this week.
Part of me wouldn't mind if maybe some of these
names we're talking about didn't like if Derek Stingley Junior
didn't play against the Raiders.

Speaker 2 (02:02:03):
You should be able to beat the Raiders handily. They
are I think I'd have to do a quick scan,
all right, complete, I think other than quarterback, which should
probably even be able to refute because of the way
Davis played, their next in line at corner is the
biggest drop off anywhere on the roster. If Laster would
have missed either the last two games or if Stingley

(02:02:24):
misses an upcoming game, the drop off from those players
to who plays in their place, And as far as
I can tell, it's Tremon Smith. He's the one who
replaced Stingley last week, and he has done it in
previous games for either of those spots that have been
available since Jalen Smith, the rookie is done for the
year and he's on IR And that was your initial
first reserve cornerback, in my opinion, significantly better than Traymon Smith.

(02:02:47):
It is impossible to not notice when Tremon Smith is
in the game because dc our offensive coordinators don't miss
it when he checks in. He's attacked for good reason.
But even in last week's game, right, just seven snaps.

Speaker 1 (02:03:01):
But this is geno Smith, this is the Raiders and
this is still the Texans pass rush and giving Derek
Stingley Junior two weeks off before you face a Chargers
team on the road sounds pretty enticing.

Speaker 2 (02:03:13):
Yeah, I think there's a real possibility that he was
not one hundred percent. They'll be very tempted to do that.
I wouldn't play him this week. I'll just go ahead
and say it now on Wednesday.

Speaker 1 (02:03:22):
I don't think you need him to beat This is
not an insult to him, obviously, and what you're saying
I agree with.

Speaker 2 (02:03:26):
There is a huge drop off.

Speaker 1 (02:03:28):
But if you can't beat the Raiders at home without
Derek Stingley Junior, is your defense really that good?

Speaker 2 (02:03:34):
Kidding? It's for effect, But I would rest him.

Speaker 1 (02:03:36):
I really would if if you think it's basically because
of the injury we're talking about, because my thing is,
all right, what can go what can go right if
he does play versus all the things that could go
wrong with the position he plays, with the athletes he's facing,
even if they're Raiders athletes at that position, even if
you think that nobody's going to throw it his side

(02:03:57):
of the field because he's Derek Stingley junior is just
something maybe I've got PTSD for on the astros of Bleaks,
you know, with with jord On, I just I don't want.

Speaker 2 (02:04:08):
I don't want that. You need that guy to make
any sort of serious run this year. Yeah, some otherwise
not significant news but expected elsewhere in the league before
he gets to CJ. Both Patrick Mahomes and Micah Parsons
were placed on their respective teams I are today. I mean,
we knew they would be, and it's just the finality
of it. Packers are probably gonna play at least one

(02:04:30):
playoff game. I think they are in position to maybe
may play more than that. Obviously, winning the division will
go a long way towards doing that, and they're in
position to do just that, do so without Micah Parsons
and obviously the Kansas City Chiefs. I don't really think
there's much to look at with Minshew that he's going
to be playing the rest of the season. Mahomes has
already had surgery, probably be back with the team sometime

(02:04:50):
this weekend, and we got football games tonight, Saturday, Sunday,
and Monday. C J Stroud back on the field with
this team, had a little bit of time away. We'll
get to that momentarily. But I'm mentioned this earlier, the
red zone offense. It's awfully nice to say, man, we
need to get better in the red zone. Hopefully next
time we'll score on more red zone touchdowns during our

(02:05:10):
six trips into the red zone if this is the
red zone six times last week against the Cardinals, and
scored touchdowns on three of those possessions. Had another touchdown
from a further distance on the Nico Collins touchdown. But
getting there is one thing. Finishing is another. I think
it's fair to say the last several weeks with the
touchdown pass to Nick Chubb, the touchdown launch this week

(02:05:31):
to Nick Chubb on the missed snap, the finding Dalton
Schultz in the back left end part of the end zone,
finding Nico Collins in the back of the end zone.
All these plays that just weren't happening at the beginning
of the year are happening a little bit more regularly.
They're nowhere near the top of the league in red zone,
and they're not nearly at the top of the league
even of the last just during the winning streak, they're
just significantly better. And C. J. Stroud commented on their

(02:05:54):
red zone earlier today.

Speaker 7 (02:05:56):
Oh, I mean I always look internal to see like
what I can do better, and then from there, you know,
I think we look at it as a whole, like
what are we doing, you know, as players, as coaches,
schematically you know. So I don't think, you know, it's
another are we can give itter.

Speaker 2 (02:06:11):
In just not getting into specifics other than if we're
not one hundred percent. And I think most offenses and
ocs and quarterbacks think about it that way. If we're
not scoring every time we're in the red zone, that's
on us. It's not what they're doing, it's what we're doing.
And it's the plays that Demiko mentioned on Monday. First
things first, how do you fix the red zone? Don't
hurt yourselves with pre staff penalties, don't gift them yards.

(02:06:32):
Don't make it hard on yourselves where it's already hard enough.
I mean, why do we talk about the red zone
so much? This is difficult. You only got, however, many
yards to work with. There's no safety forty yards away,
there's no thirty yard pass plays to make everything is condensed.
It is difficult, But in this short period of time
that they have been winning during the six game winning streak.

(02:06:53):
Their red zone conversions. They converted four out of the
five they had against Jacksonville. It's obviously why they won
the game. They scored all those touchdowns late one of
three against Tennessee to a four against Buffalo, to a
five against Indy, to a four against Case three of
six against the Arizona Cardinals. I say and give you
all those numbers to remind you of the first three
weeks of the season. Here's what they were in the

(02:07:14):
red zone against the Rams in the opening game, oh
for one, and then the Bucks a week later back
at home, oh four to two, and then Jacksonville a
week later on the road, oh for one. That's four
trips to the red zone in three entire football games.
Thirty plus drives. They found their way to the red

(02:07:37):
zone four times. That was pathetic. Of course they were
gonna get better at it, but I think they've made
huge strides and not only getting there but converting. And
the one for three and two for four is that's
strictly did you score a touchdown, not did you score points.
It's the conversion rate is based simply on you're in
the red zone, you score a touchdown. Same thing with

(02:07:58):
goal to go, where they've also gotten significantly better. They
had four gold goes situations against Arizona they scored three touchdowns.
They've had one other game where they scored more than
three goal to go category touchdowns, and that was against
the embarrassingly bad Ravens defense. At the time, they were
perfect that day, four for four. I still can't believe
just this. Well.

Speaker 1 (02:08:18):
I could say this about three different teams this year,
but especially the case with the Baltimore Ravens. I cannot
believe how their twenty twenty five is gone. Like even
if it wasn't injury related. The games where Lamar Jackson's
been healthy, and that wasn't one of them, of course,
where the Texans put up forty four points against that
very injured defense too, he hasn't looked good.

Speaker 2 (02:08:40):
I never thought I'd say that about Lamar Jackson, at
least not at this stage of his career. First three
games of the season, he was playing forty points, forty
one points, thirty points. Now they lost two of those games.
In every game they've played since, with or without him,
they've scored thirty points on the nose once. Every other
game was under that Their offense isn't good this year.

Speaker 1 (02:09:00):
He's not right though, right, I don't think he is,
Like there's no other explanation for him. I mean individually, no,
I totally agree. So something to keep an eye on.
But those are their problems. Texans have their own, and
they'll continue to get ready for the Raiders. Will continue
here on a Wednesday edition of the program.

Speaker 2 (02:09:20):
Most things to still get into here, many of which
we probably could talk at length about. One thing we
probably don't need to go too far into because unfortunately
it's not gonna happen. But interesting, nonetheless is what would
this season maybe look like for your Houston Rockets if,
as they had planned all the way up until about
ten days before training camp, this team would be led

(02:09:42):
by the same quarterback they had last year, Fred van Vliet.
Fred van Vliet brought here to help with Dylan Brooks
and other veterans create a certain type of culture. If
Fred van Vliet was absolutely phenomenal, as the postseason series
with the Golden State Warriors came to a conclusion last year,
he was just doing everything he could, kind of playing
way above his head. It seemed like from an offensive standpoint,

(02:10:04):
but you'll take it in the playoffs and he's been
there before. He's been a part of a championship team.
When he was on a championship team, he played against
Kevin Durant and the Golden State Warriors were trying to
become a championship team three times over. Kevin Durant and
Fred van Vliet they are teammates, though they have yet
to play together as teammates, and that's many, many months

(02:10:25):
from now if it happens at all this year. They
did sit down together recently to record a podcast. Fred
has podcast called Unguarded. Kevin Durant was his guest. They
talked about a bunch of different things. The series they
played against one another did come up, and a topic
we have longs discussed since then, and hearing Kevin Durant

(02:10:46):
describe it, I guess pretty interesting because of what has
happened a lot more often in the NBA here and
honestly in the NFL with achilles injuries, the calf injury
and then it subsequently leads to the Achilles injury. Perfectly
healthy calf is probably several weeks and months away when
you have an issue with it, but it might not
necessarily be nine to twelve months away if it then

(02:11:08):
happens to turn into an achilles tear, which has happened
many times. During their conversation, they referenced Tyree's Halliburton situation.
You're in the finals. Can I give them this? Can
I go out there in this game even maybe knowing
what it might lead to? And you wondered what that
thought process was like for Kevin Durant. Well, they talked
about all that. He said he went and worked out.
He actually said in Toronto. He had to go about

(02:11:29):
forty five minutes away to the only place that had
a no gravity pool for him to work in to
get ready, and then he did some three on three
before Game five and he said, Man, I'm moving really well.
I feel really good. I felt like I could give
this team something, and you know, look, we're trying to
win another title. So I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna go
out there. And I don't regret going out there. I

(02:11:49):
don't regret any of that. But they also continue the
conversation just to indicate had I had the information, had
I been told that I could be risking an achilles
injury that this could lead to that, I wouldn't have played.
I wouldn't have gone out there and us. That indicates
to all of us that that's not how the diagnosis

(02:12:10):
and subsequent treatment and belief in what it could lead
to was ever presented to him that way. Well, that's
the thing.

Speaker 1 (02:12:15):
These guys that are total Jim Rats, Amn Thompson, Kevin Durant,
these guys that play twenty four seven, three sixty five
seemingly throughout the year, it's a double edged sword. It
It's like, yeah, I love the fact that they're constantly
playing because they're constantly in some sort of game shape.
But especially with guys like Durant, you know, if you

(02:12:38):
want to not be on the floor so much, seeing
as how you seem to be injury prone in recent seasons,
I wouldn't mind.

Speaker 2 (02:12:44):
No, he had a pretty entertaining finish. To his interview
in the locker room after their last game, he was
talking about how he was defended and he's like, yeah,
the last play of the game, they had three guys
committed to him, you know, three guys not necessarily surrounding him,
but making it very difficult to inbound the ball to him.
That's why it was such an easy pathway for the
inbounds to go to Alpha and Shangoun. We know what
happened after that. So he was commenting on a team,

(02:13:06):
you know, still having some fear that a thirty seven
year old could go out there and do that, and
you know, the course of the conversation continued with the
media that was there with him. One of the media
members had said, well, you know, you know, look like
a thirty seven year old when you're out there. He's like,
come on, man, you don't have to say that. I
know who I am, I know how old I am,
what I play thirty seven forty minutes tonight. I'm gonna

(02:13:26):
feel this tomorrow. It takes its toll. I'm not who
I used to be, but obviously I can still do
a whole lot of things. All this to say, getting
into this conversation a little more, we'll probably share a
few more items from Fred and Kevin's conversation on the podcast,
but specific to what has that particular play and most

(02:13:47):
of what we've seen Kevin Durant this year. People are
all over him and the Rockets have not had a
great successful time helping him to get open. Honestly, I
don't think I've even said it. I think he's been offensively.
He played a lot like Jalen Green this year. Not
the results, but how they're using him. Are they setting
a bunch of screens to get him open?

Speaker 3 (02:14:07):
No?

Speaker 2 (02:14:08):
Are they giving him the ball and just saying beat
your guy? Yes, they did that a lot last year
with Jalen. And it's because I don't think they still
have the right group of players outside of Steven Adams,
that are setting the right types of screens, that are
doing the things away from the ball. And I don't
expect Kevin to ran at thirty seven, to be running
around screens constantly to find himself over screen when he

(02:14:29):
has the ball, screen when he is the next guy away,
one screen, one cut, all that stuff. Fred kind of
noticed that it seemed like in this conversation piece that
I wanted to share as he's talking about what if
they were on the court together, and then I know
how I screen.

Speaker 8 (02:14:44):
So I'm watching you out there playing jiu jitsu trying
to get over and I'm like, bruh, I know I
could get this man open.

Speaker 2 (02:14:51):
You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (02:14:52):
It's Kevin's thinking about that every night, especially as he
walks over to the bench where the unwanted unexpected additional
assistant coach Fred van Vliet is waiting on him in
street clothes, knowing that if that guy's out there and
everybody's talking about this, this is.

Speaker 2 (02:15:08):
What's and you know what else.

Speaker 1 (02:15:10):
This is why, in my opinion, a man has not
either taken the leap forward or in some cases seemingly
has taken a step back this year. I know it
seems like it's not a big deal when you're handling
the ball up the floor. I think it is for
guys like him. I just think that it weighs on
him mentally. I don't think it's so much a physical thing.
He's young, he's still kid. But I just think getting

(02:15:32):
into your sets, getting into your offense, getting into your
individual rhythm is not going to be as easy to
do if you're also involved in getting the ball across
the half court line.

Speaker 2 (02:15:42):
As simple as that sounds, so I'll make it as
simple as I can make it. It makes him less helpful. Yeah,
he can't help the team more by doing that more.
He helps the team less setting things up, bring the
ball up the court, being the first guy to get it,
wasting the eight seconds of the shot clock to be
the guy dribbling it up, passing it off to somebody,
and then with thirteen second on the shot clock, you
go to the place where you can actually help this offense.

(02:16:03):
He is an insanely helpful offensive rebounder. He extends possessions,
and he obviously is phenomenal in the dunker spot. He's
really good at breaking his man down and getting to
the basket. Now you've seen this over and over at
least once a game, there's probably a highlight worthy play
and everyone's ooing and eyeing about it because he just
faced up his defender, got by him, and threw up

(02:16:23):
some whirling dervish reverse left handed layup on the opposite
side of the basket. He's not going to do that
as he sets up the off He's not gonna do
that from the top of the key. He's not gonna
do that with sixteen seconds off the shot clock to
when nobody else has touched the basketball. I was afraid
of this when the year started, and I think the
more that the team has played we're twenty three games
into the season, the more they're gonna see. This is

(02:16:45):
not the best amend Thompson for us. It's not the
best for him Our team's going to be better when
he's on the ball to open possessions or out there
on the perimeter, not on the baseline, running the baseline
or in the corner for a three point opportunity. It's
just not good for us, it's not good for him.
Reach Shepherd's going to do it even more these both
fourth quarters against Denver this year. That's the kind of

(02:17:07):
team I think they're going to be a lot more often.
Reach Shepherd's on the court with Amn, with Durant, with Yourbari,
with Alburn. However, they can manipulate the best five for
what they want to do in a close game, even
with the defensive issues that might come to it and whatnot.
That's when they're going to be better off because they
just flat out need somebody else to run the show
and not amend.

Speaker 1 (02:17:26):
This is why when he got hurt, people were backing
off of their title contender, you know, hopes. I guess
whether they're fans or you know, you know, uh, talking heads,
But I'll go ahead and say it right now. That
game against Oklahoma City, the two games against Denver, those
are wins. If Fred van Vliet is healthy and out there,

(02:17:49):
I really think.

Speaker 2 (02:17:50):
That they might even be wins if they complain with
the way they played the other night against Denver more redoing,
not just that. Let's be fair Reach Shepherd in the
first five game of the season versus Reach Shepherd now,
and he was awful against Devil the other night. Yeah,
the first half was terrible, but when he shot the
ball poorly in the early portion of the season, very
early portion of the season, his game was also bad.

(02:18:11):
His night's work was also unplayable. He wasn't a good
enough defender to be out there, and he's made enough
improvements in a week, two weeks, five weeks. Now. All
the timing of this will actually work in the rockets favor.
It stinks that Fred's gonna miss the entire year, or
almost the entire year if he somehow managed to come back.
But you got to use all this time before December fifteenth,
two days ago, when essentially the pseudo trade deadline opened,

(02:18:34):
because all these players that had their offseason contracts change
or signings or additions that they were unable to be traded.
Well now they all can be. And you had all
that time to look at what we want to do.
How are we going to do it? Who do we
have on the roster that can make it happen. What's
the best version of the Rockets? We haven't seen it
yet because this was all learning. In the next two
months before the actual trade deadline will be even more

(02:18:55):
of it. And that's why I suspect we'll see more
of Reed Shepherd running the show because of it. And
you're probably gonna see starting maybe as soon as tomorrow,
Tarry Easton back, maybe as soon as they return home
from this road trip, and if not then early in January.
Dorian Finney Smith not back but here at all. He
hasn't played a game yet, and you're still gonna have

(02:19:17):
another twenty five games to look at. What does that
look like as the trade deadline approaches?

Speaker 1 (02:19:22):
All right, in case you missed it, right around the corner,
some of the things we have not gotten to. We're
also going to have plenty more from the Texans as
they continue to get ready for Radus coming into town
for this game this upcoming weekend.

Speaker 2 (02:19:37):
That is all ahead, hey, in case you missed it, Hits.
Some items we've not yet discussed are ones that we
might need to revisit earlier this hour. We got into
it right at the top of the five o'clock hour,
but quickly a reminder of the attendance report. At practice
today for the Texans, Nick Chubb returned to practice on
a limited basis after missing last week's game with a

(02:19:58):
rib injury. Eight other players starters all the way through.
Other than Denico Autry, we're not practicing today isis Al Shaier,
Trent Brown, Kamari last year, Woody Mark, Sheldon, Rankins, Derek
Stingley Junior, and E. J. Speed. Though outside of Speed
and Stingley Junior, I don't expect any of those players
to be out for this week. I expect those players,

(02:20:20):
those other six probably to be limited or full participants
even as early as tomorrow. But we'll get more information
is that week continues. As Demiko likes to talk about injuries,
We'll see how the week goes. Geno Smith full participant
at Raiders practice today. In case you missed it, is
that where you want to start things there? Josh, yeah,
I do.

Speaker 8 (02:20:40):
Pete Carroll said on Tuesday that Gino Smith did not
travel with the team to Philly. They wanted to, They
didn't want him mount in the cold and traveling trying
to rehab the injury.

Speaker 2 (02:20:48):
So he expected. I thought he said he didn't want
him to see what they were gonna do because it
was gonna be so awful. That sounds more accurate if
I'm being honest. I got shut out thirty one nothing,
so in an effort to speed up the rehab process,
it seems to have worked, right. Yeah, I mean, he
looks like he's good to go in this game.

Speaker 8 (02:21:05):
He does give them a better chance, but I don't
think it's gonna make much of a difference. In along
with Gino saying that, we also have a new quote
from Gino saying he expects to win a lot of
games with the Raiders. I quote, that's what we're pressing towards,
and nothing happens in one day or one year. We'd
love to win the super Bowl this year, but that's
just not the reality right now. What do we think

(02:21:27):
is Gino dreaming? Is he gonna be back next year?

Speaker 2 (02:21:30):
Is he gonna be back next year? I kind of
think he is, because financially speaking, it's you know, it's
only I think it's a little less than twenty million
dollars of a dead cap hit, maybe eighteen and a
half next year on next year's cap if I let
him go in order to do what like, they're not
gonna go out and find some other free agent quarterback.
I don't think they're not gonna trade for Kyler Murray
or Tua. I don't think there's not really very many

(02:21:52):
options where I mean Gino Smith's having a poor year.
His team is having a poor year. He has very
few weapons. They got a rookie in the backfield, They
traded away his best wide receiver in season. They don't
have a good offensive line, their defense stinks. But what's
the better play next year? Pay him a reasonable salary,
which is what he's gonna make next year. If you

(02:22:12):
draft a quarterback, even out of the gate, which it's
not a very good draft for quarterbacks, they're going to
draft very high. Maybe there's a quarterback later in the
draft second or third. Doesn't mean you don't want Gino
Smith out there unless you're also trying to lose next year,
because that draft class has the quarterback you want with
the last name of Manning. So he can be drafted
by Tom Brady, who's doing a terrible job as whatever

(02:22:35):
role he's in. They're in Raiderville. Their team is in
bad shape. Pretty much every which way you could look
at it. They have management issues, they have coaching issues,
they have player issues. All of the bad things are
happening as he's helped make some of those decisions because
he's part of the group that hired their head coach
Pete Carroll. I know it's way too early to ask
this question. You need Archie is going to be a

(02:22:58):
good NFL quarterback?

Speaker 1 (02:22:59):
Yes, So you think he's going to take leaps and
bounds development between now and the end of next to
college football season to do so.

Speaker 2 (02:23:07):
Obviously, I definitely think he took him this year because
I was killing him at the beginning of this year, rightfully.
It was almost begging him to come out and say, yeah,
I only have one ligament left in my shoulder, but
I've been gutting it out like I could not believe
what I was watching. Just decisions that were awful, throws
that were awful, arm angles that were awful, results that
were awful. Nothing like, Yes, this guy's probably gonna win

(02:23:28):
the Heisman this year if not again next year. And
then he started playing quarterback like a real authentic prospect
and he's had really good play game last week was
probably his best game of the season, which is kind
of where you want it, and I think we'll see
more of it next year. I know he's going to
be regarded as a strong prospect. I think that if
you asked ten draft prognosticators right now, if he put

(02:23:49):
his name into this year's draft, not only would he
be the best quarterback prospect in it, in the running
for being the number one pick, and he could absolutely
declare he's not going to, and reports have already surfaced
again that he definitively is not going to. But yeah,
I think he'll be regarded as that kind of prospect.
You didn't ask me to play some kind of on
any level, So I don't know that he's top ten,

(02:24:10):
top fifteen, whatever, But yeah, I mean, Tyler Schuff is
winning games this year in New Orleans. I think Arch
can at least do that next year somewhere. But yeah,
it's a bad place to be if you're following the Raiders.
And I just don't think Gino Smith is a problem.
While we're on Gino, and I know we'll get two
more discussions about him as the week continues, I'll give
you one item on his work this year. He's been exceptional,

(02:24:33):
surprisingly in the fourth quarter, and I don't know if
the game's on the line in the fourth quarter for them,
but Matt Stafford, Josh Allen, and Brock Purdy are the
only current NFL starting quarterbacks that have a better fourth
quarter passer rating than Gino Smith. So you better load
up on that lead otherwise he's gonna come back. Yeah,

(02:24:56):
what else do we have? Yeah? Sure, confident exactly, Yeah, yeah, definitely, Okay.
I want to know if you like it or don't
like it. Cam Moore don't wants to be part of
the coach Did you say like it or spike it?
Like it or spike it? He says.

Speaker 8 (02:25:09):
I want to meet all of them, every coach who
gets the opportunity to come here. I want to have
a conversation throughout the process with them. I'm going to
be here for that whole time.

Speaker 2 (02:25:18):
Sounds like Josh wants one of us to say, who.

Speaker 5 (02:25:21):
Does he think he is?

Speaker 2 (02:25:23):
Will Levis? Is that the end of the sentence. I
think that's totally fine. I think it's something that should
be warranted the team management, ownership, et cetera. They could think,
if they want to think about cam Ward, is he
our guy? You know how much do we believe in him?
What have we seen?

Speaker 1 (02:25:39):
All?

Speaker 2 (02:25:39):
That's fine. The player shouldn't doubt anything. And that's what
I think is common as saying, hey man, this is
my team. They drafted me to take this team to
places they haven't been recently or ever, and I think
I can do that. And I want to be a
part of what the future is, which means I want
to be a part of who's gonna help guide us
there as the head coach. I'm all for it. If
I'm in the locker room with this guy, I'm all

(02:25:59):
four if I am this guy, I'm totally down with
Cam wanting that, whether he gets it, whether they want it,
and we should know all about it, because a lot
of that unfolded with Deshaun's dissatisfaction with this team, whether
it was for the coach or for the GM. And
he'd been here obviously a lot longer than just his
rookie season, and and he clearly he'd established himself as

(02:26:22):
somebody difference and that that's all the difference. That's an
enormous thing to point out. This is a rookie who's
lost all of their games but two, and he wants
involvement like what has he done to earn this? I don't.

Speaker 5 (02:26:34):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (02:26:34):
I think that's almost unfair to say, well, who do
you think you are? That's why I said it that way.
I'm I would be glad if he wants it. I
just hope it doesn't create some sort of negative vibe
if they kind of don't let him. I just he
shouldn't take it that way. It should be okay to say,
I mean, we want your input, we want you to

(02:26:54):
meet them. But you're two years ago you were doing
what and three years ago you were doing what?

Speaker 1 (02:27:00):
I mean?

Speaker 2 (02:27:01):
Are you in a position to help guide the franchise
with this big of a decision.

Speaker 1 (02:27:04):
He strikes me as a guy that much likes some
of these Rockets drafts. You get the pick at or
near the top, and you just because of what's available,
you don't get that game changing player you were looking for.

Speaker 2 (02:27:19):
Depending on what year you're talking about, give me a
quick thought on this last year, same timeframe. We're in
the off season and Josh gives us a quote from
Drake may Hey, I want to listen. I want everybody
to come by. I want to talk to everybody. I
want to be involved in the process. I want this
team to win big.

Speaker 1 (02:27:35):
Drake May's rookie season greater than Cam wortz rookie season.

Speaker 2 (02:27:38):
Almost everyone's is gonna be they were, but the Patriots
were bad. They barely want any games. Yeah, well, they
also had a different head coach, Right, so did he
help them get Rabel? Should he have helped them? I
don't think he had much input of any.

Speaker 1 (02:27:53):
Well, if I were Drake May and I saw this quote,
I would say I definitely was the number one factor
as to why we hired Mike Rabelke a.

Speaker 2 (02:28:00):
First round pick, not the first overall pick like Camward.
That's a different quarterbacking a four win team last year
and now they're an eleven win team. There wasn't that
much difference in the team's performance. But yes, I will
admit Drake May's rookie season statistically and obviously eyeball test
a little bit better than Camward Sports Doc seventy nine.

(02:28:21):
You know what we didn't do earlier, Tea's the tickets
we have to give away. We should probably do that
now so that then we can ask a question to
give said tickets away. Yeah, we're giving tickets away this
very segment. That is your tease a pair.

Speaker 1 (02:28:33):
Of tickets to see Ron White live on March twenty
seventh the Smart Financial Center out in Sugarland, Tickets on
sale now at Smart Financialcenter dot net. And a pair
of tickets to Monster Energy Ama Supercross that's gonna be
January thirty, first over at in OURG Stadium. Tickets on
sale now at ticketmaster dot com. Earlier in the show,

(02:28:57):
Wex had played some audio from a podcas cast featuring
a member of a Houston sports franchise. Who was that
player's podcast? That's all I'm I'm not. I'm not gonna
tell you what sport. I'm obviously not going to tell
you who the guests were. If you were paying attention,
you know whose podcast were. You don't even have to
know the name of the podcast, just the player whose

(02:29:19):
podcast it is, and you get those tickets seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven to one
three two one two five seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (02:29:31):
I know you saw this, and it makes me very happy.

Speaker 1 (02:29:35):
Did you see how the Warriors owner emailed a fan
about his displeasure regarding the terrible under five hundred crappy
John Hollinger was wrong Warriors This year.

Speaker 2 (02:29:45):
I've seen less of it than you think. I saw.
Steve Kerr was asked about it and said, oh, I
have a great relationship with him. Yeah, Steve Kerr is
always running his mouth about something. He's on the podium,
he's at the talking guy for the Usually when he
runs his mouth. Does email Udoka run his mouth? No,
he does the same thing. They get asked questions and
they answer them. Sometimes they just go off on tangents. Yes,

(02:30:08):
I under well what you're saying, but I mean he's
a turd. He didn't say I'd like to call a
special session here so I can address something. Well, that's
the thing.

Speaker 1 (02:30:16):
If he did, maybe more people could avoid it because
no one cares what he thinks about that stuff. But anyway,
there was a fan. Actually the name of the fan
was Justin Detari. He somehow found Joe Lecobe's email address.
He's the owner of the Warriors, and he sent in
a an email that said, dear Joe, please do something

(02:30:39):
about this team. He capitalized team. I don't know why,
uh what Steph need to do every night to win
drop fifty points. I'm just reading from the actual. He
can't clean it up little less this. No, if he
doesn't know the English language. I'm not learning it for him.

Speaker 2 (02:30:53):
Team Is need a real second opinion or option. See,
I did it. I'm doing this all day tomorrow. Find
with mistakes.

Speaker 1 (02:31:01):
Do it I'll correctly. Do you mean talk with an
IQ above that posting something on social media? I forgive
almost all of it, Like I don't know that that
they they don't know. I just know what it's what's
been tight.

Speaker 2 (02:31:15):
Team is need a.

Speaker 1 (02:31:16):
Real second option. Speak English. Okay, Jimmy's tools are being underutilized.
He spelled that correctly because he is playing as a
power forward. Due to these small position players, we have
no true center. I am so frustrated. Thanks justin. Ps
I have a third grade reading level.

Speaker 2 (02:31:38):
All right? That part I made up?

Speaker 1 (02:31:39):
Joe Lacobe responded, it was sent from his iPhone. By
the way, Uh, you can't be as frustrated as me.
I am working on it. It's complicated style of play, coaches,
desires regarding players, league trends. Jimmy is not the problem,
signed Joe. I don't know what I'm more impressed with here,

(02:32:03):
the fact that the owner actually responded or the fact
that he kind of threw Steve Kerr under the bus.

Speaker 2 (02:32:10):
In the process.

Speaker 1 (02:32:11):
So what part of it do you think is the
bus throwing on Kerr coach's desires regarding players. That's just
inside information. However you want to reveal it, that's just
not necessary to share. Yeah, you could interpret that in
a number of different ways. One simple way could be
and it's just totally hypothetical. He the owner who helped
them decide to pay Jonathan Kuminga this offseason, might think,

(02:32:34):
why are he having such a hard time? Why he
having such a hard time get on court?

Speaker 2 (02:32:40):
See, it's not as hard as it. Why coaches makes
no sense to me. Why Steve Kerr acting so I
can't do it? I'm just not why. So Steve was
asked about it because it took an apparent shot at him,
he said, and we have I have the clip, but
I'm just gonna allowed it's faster, not a big deal.

Speaker 1 (02:33:02):
Imagine if everyone's emails were posted publicly, how tough would
that be to live from that?

Speaker 2 (02:33:08):
Take this deflection. I tell you what, it will be
tough to live.

Speaker 1 (02:33:11):
I'll tell you that right now, Johnny Gruden, my emails
were public, and I'm gonna sue the NFL's pants off
Joe supports me. I support him, is what he finished with. Yeah,
he does support you, and you support him until he
fires you. I can't wait for that day, you know
what I can't wait for? Actually, you know me being
the patented certified Warriors organizational hater than I am only

(02:33:34):
on the basketball side, though I really enjoy their PR
staff and their broadcasting crew on the radio side. It's
gonna happen. Steve Kerr is gonna get fired or leave
or whatever. He'll He'll not He's not gonna oh yeah,
it'll be amical, bol it'll be you know, I.

Speaker 2 (02:33:48):
Don't even think so. I think he's gonna leave when
he wants to leave. But he's gonna want to leave
after this year.

Speaker 1 (02:33:54):
He's definitely gonna not want to coach the Warriors without
Steph Bingo. Here's what's gonna happen. Though, eventually somebody's gonna
hire him. Yeah they are. I don't think so they are.
I'm not saying it's going to be a smart decision.
I don't think he's ever coaching in the NBA again.
He walks away from the Warriors, he'll do a little TV,
then he'll get the itch, then he'll go back into coaching,

(02:34:14):
and that's when reality's gonna slap him in the face
like it did in Phoenix. You're not a good coach.
You just happen to have the greatest shooter in the
history of the league on your team. He's not going
to be a successful coach ever again anywhere.

Speaker 2 (02:34:26):
We you agree. He's also not going to attempt it
semantics as usual on this show. Yeah, we're talking about
broadcasting real brief let not a huge conversation piece. But
these games during the NBA Cup were exclusive to Prime,
so they got to do all their covers, just like
Thursday Night Football. With the Primes group, we get a
lot of Whitworth and Sherman and Tony Gonzalez and Fitzi

(02:34:47):
and Carissa, and we think, I think, we think they
do a really good job. I don't think people are
yet seeing enough because not everybody is locked in on
these games. The group they've put together, I think is
awesome too. Taylor Rooks obviously, here you go. That's it,
end of the story. It doesn't even really matter who
else is on the set. Taylor Rooks is there. The

(02:35:07):
basketball talkers. You know what I say every time I
see her excellent, excellent job. She's also on the Amazon
Prime football side. She was one of the on Instagram.
This is also true. She thought we liked her shoes
the other night. Wasn't that funny? She's does a really
good job in this role as a worker rights, as

(02:35:30):
a journalist, drink, I meant, but Dirk, Blake Griffin, uh,
e Donna's Haslam, and Steve Nash probably And I think
I listed them in order of you didn't do you
know that?

Speaker 4 (02:35:42):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:35:43):
Which one of them you? Donnis? I never had to
get traded for Alan Iverson Haslam, okay.

Speaker 3 (02:35:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:35:49):
Dirk is phenomenal. He is, and I hate that he
played for the Mavericks. He's really really good with a microphone.
He was his whole career. He did a lot of Hell, hey,
Dirk's not playing tonight. He wanted to us on the
side and awesome at analysis. Blake Griffin is very good
at being both good analyzing things and kind of being
their comic relief goofy. Yes, I think he has a

(02:36:11):
pretty good sense of humor for that. Eudonnis Haslim is
very different than anybody else I think we see. But
he's also I think these guys care. They're trying to
do a good job. They're trying to, you know, learn
how to do this because they're all relatively new. But
they chose very well with this group of people. I
think it's a good mix.

Speaker 1 (02:36:27):
You can see why the Heat chose to keep Eudonnas
around until he was eighty five before finally letting him
out the door, because you could tell that kind of guy.
It's like Jeff Green with the Rockets, that kind of
guy in the locker room when he's not getting technicals.
What a great technical that was on the bench in
his warm ups, never going to get in and tweet

(02:36:47):
five grand boom.

Speaker 2 (02:36:49):
So many more of those games down the road. Rockets
will be involved at some point as the season continues.
They'll be back on the court for US and Force
Bace City Home Network tomorrow night when they take on
the New Orleans Pelicans.

Speaker 1 (02:37:00):
My new Year's resolution for our show, Oh yes, wait
right now, right here at the end of the Rand Show. Okay,
your choice, Well do you want to tell you about
it tomorrow? I can't wait.

Speaker 2 (02:37:11):
I'm looking forward to a new Year's resolution on December
eighteenth for the upcoming year's worth of shows. Well, I'm
not back until twenty six. I'll give you my New
Year's resolution for the shows, like eight shows later when
I do my final show of the year. We actually
have a bunch of days off for a bunch of
different reasons, but we're looking forward to another edition of
the program tomorrow. Can't wait to be in these seats

(02:37:32):
with you right here at two o'clock, right here on
Sports Talk seven ninety