The A-Team: Bad Weekend For Astros/Texans, Good/Bad/Ugly and Stan Norfleet

Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton talk about what's going on in Houston sports and more on September 18th, 2023.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adamraised by Earl Nolan Huckey, multifide the
magnificent roller coaster ride that is HoustonSports. Hello, Chill, lhdown for

(00:24):
the only home grown afternoon team istalking your teams. Adam Clinton and Adam
Wexler are the A Team a straightup three o'clock in Houston, Texas.

(00:50):
It is the A Team here onSports Talk seven ninety. His name is
Adam Wexler. My name is AdamClanton. Dan Matthews is our fearless producer
as we take you up until sixo'clock on a Monday edition of The A
Team. And I'm just gonna startoff by saying that I have a massive
dilemma on my hands. I havenot spoken to Adam Wexler about this.

(01:14):
I have not spoken to Dan,our producer about this. This is an
internal struggle that I have had sinceBasically, I guess the Astros game technically
ended after the Texans game yesterday.But here's what my internal massive struggle I'm
having is, I don't know whoto crap on more today. I honestly
don't know which team I want totake by the juggular and do horrible things

(01:38):
that will put me in a penitentiary, because I never like, I told
you guys that Anthony Richardson was goodand I looked like a genius for about
a half, but I never feltlike, oh, oh, the Texans
are favorite at home by a pointand a half or whatever it was,
and then it was like even orI think at one point the Colts swayed
in there. I never felt goodabout this game, but the reasons they

(02:00):
lost this game had nothing to dowith what I was worried about, if
that makes sense. And the Astros, I'm sorry, you fancy yourself a
contender. You do not lose twoout of three two, not one,
but the two worst teams in MajorLeague Baseball. So I don't really care
that they salvage that series in KansasCity yesterday. I don't care that they

(02:21):
hit a bunch of home runs.I don't care about any of that.
And I also don't care about allthe raw ra that went into the higher
of Damiko Ryan's and all the fieldgoods because now they're owing two. It
was a convincing loss, and Ijust don't know who to absolutely, you
know, destroy on this show.More so as usual, I'm going to
turn to my even keel co host, who doesn't have any sort of emotional

(02:43):
attachments or knee jerk reactions. Healways is a measured and thoughtful response to
every situation in Houston sports and beyondme. He could tell me which way
he wants to go. But I'mthoroughly pissed off with both of these teams.
And I'm guessing the Rockets did somethingI don't know about yet, but
they probably pissed me off too,I just don't know yet. No reason

(03:04):
to be pissed off the Texans atall. Honestly and truthfully, there's nothing
to be mad about. You're gonnahave to sell me, like, what
are you mad about? The madYou're mad about their fifth string capable offensive
line not blocking for the run game, which fighting through an injury. That's
why why he's the highest paid guyon the team. I'll make Come on,
man, that's really what we're gonnaYou're mad at a guy for being

(03:25):
hurt. I'm mad at a guyfor a pattern that I absolutely tried to
explain to you. Then I'm mostmad at the Astros. Will that get
us off that? Yeah, wecan do that perfect Okay, So the
Astros are the one you should careabout because they're actually going to do something
this year. The Texans aren't,aren't they though? Are they going to
do something this year? The Astros. Yeah, they're gonna go to the
playoffs. And then once you're inthe playoffs, even if you're twenty nine

(03:46):
and thirty one and don't win thedivision, you might make the World Series
or you might make it to thelast American League game at least and have
really really exciting things for your fansto enjoy, which is ultimately what they're
there for. Plus winning. Yes, they're gonna do something. I mean,
they are awful this month of September, but so is everybody else.
Yeah, they're the best team inthe division this year. They have the
best records of division, and they'reawful. Incredible because it shows you just

(04:10):
how awful this division has been.Well, you could pick out almost any
team in the American League race otherthan Minnesota because they're not in a race,
and you could probably describe put adefinition of what baseball is just in
the last two weeks. What isbaseball? See Blue Jay's last seven games
get dominated and embarrassed for four straightdays at home, then win every game

(04:32):
and move all the way up theladder and pass two teams definition of baseball.
See Mariners last month. They havefive wins this month. It's the
eighteenth of September. This is ateam that has held first place. They
are a five win team this month, and they played at home this weekend
and didn't win any of their games. Just real quickly interrupt you on that

(04:55):
too, because it's not because JulioRodriguez is cooled off either, like he's
still playing pretty well, maybe notlike on fire like he was a week
or two ago. But they're doingthis for a variety of other reasons.
Now, look, they did playthe Dodgers. The Dodgers are clearly a
superior team most days. I meanyesterday, the day after the Dodgers clinched

(05:15):
their division, they did the rightthing. They moderately celebrated that they at
least they're used to this, they'vebeen there but the Orioles. But well,
so what do you do the dayafter you celebrate and the season's not
over? Mookie Bets didn't play.Then they got out to an early lead
on the Mariners and coasted too.Yet another victory. So Yeah, baseball

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is just the weirdest thing of all. That's why. That's why I love
it. I think it's why everybodyelse loves it, and it's why you
sit in this situation where the Astroshave you know, basically kicked things away
and were being literal. You know, the game Saturday is really the only
one of the three. I mean, obviously you won yesterday, you did
lose Friday, but the Saturday gamethe manner in which you allowed the Royals
to just keep scoring every time youscored to get back in a game you

(06:00):
never should have been in that situationin the first place, in you gave
them runs back. They scored offof nearly everybody they faced. The Bregman
error inning was extremely disheartening. Afteryou just tied things up and then to
fall behind by yet another run inthe bottom of the eighth inning in advance
of putting another rally together in thetop of the ninth inning. That just
doesn't get you where you want tobe. Because the other team, Kansas

(06:21):
City, has ten runs on theboard. So I wish they could turn
all these quote unquote series of threegames or more into one game series,
because then they'd all be getaway days. That's about. The Astros only hopes
the getaway day win from their sixgame homestand was that was it. That

(06:42):
was the only one against Oakland,their getaway day win on this road trip,
their only win of the three gameseries and only three game road trip
against Kansas City. And all thatbeing said, the gap between themselves and
Texas, and themselves and Seattle thismonth has grown, and it grew again
with those teams unable to win,the Texas Rangers unable to win against the

(07:02):
Guardians who aren't going to the playoffs, and the Mariners unable to win against
the Dodgers. Two and a halfgame cushion for the Astros over the Mariners,
one and a half game cushion overthe Rangers. And it's again good
that they're in that order, becausethe one and a half game cushion is
real. Like the cushion, whateverit is they have to pass you,

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a tie goes to you and theMariners case, you're really only two games
ahead of them, because if theyend up tied with you, then they
win based on the tiebreaker. Youobviously have a couple more games with them
to round out the season series,but they've already won eight of the ten
games. Not only does that givethem a sizeable advantage and a clinch,
it gives them confidence that they ownyou. They won all but one game

(07:44):
so far in Seattle against Houston.They won all but one game in Houston,
and that's where the season series hasalready been completed. So those games
coming up this homestand is the lastof them. You heard on the send
off from mt it over the weekendwas paint your date over at minute made
with the Astros date being the batter'sbox or the batters, I excuse me,
and they painted it all green.And I'm sure you'll start seeing all

(08:07):
that filter in the unnecessary but askedquestions and answers about what do you think?
How do you think this will impactyou? Let's see what again it
should be, always should have been, and hopefully we'll continue to slowly be
less and less of a story.This story should be. You have justin
Verlander on the mound, and thatshould give you confidence. I wish that

(08:28):
were true. I know it's nottrue. It sounds like you made the
type of deal that puts you inposition to say, yep, this is
what puts us over the top atleast to win the division. We went
out and got one of the bestavailable starters. We have someone that we
feel like we can count on.It was just a year ago that he
was dominating and winning a cy YoungHe came to us while he was pitching
well, not like last year,but still pitching well, and he's been

(08:52):
just okay. Got a great startfrom fran Ber Valdez yesterday and quite honestly,
they kind of have to have that, in my opinion, tonight from
JV, even against a team thatagain is a far cry from the Mariners.
The Mariners at the bottom of thestandings in Major League Baseball and the
Baltimore Orioles are near the top.They are at the top of the American
League standings, and that's by virtueof them coming to play. They needed

(09:15):
to do no worse than a splitin a four game series with Tampa to
be in first place, and that'swhat they did. Each of the last
two days were Orioles victories over therace. So they come to Houston thinking
that, well, this is ourchance to put it away, win the
division, claim the number one seed, and the Astros stand in their way.
So the answer to your to thequestion off the top is the Astros

(09:37):
If no, the answer is thatyes, of course. What do we
do again? What are you madabout that this terrible football team lost?
They're they're bad, Like I don'tnot sure where people are missing this.
They don't have enough talent to winconsistently. They have enough talent to match
up with another talent deficient team,and that's what Indianapolis is. So it
could be somewhat of a coin flipgame when you play Indianapolis. Maybe when

(09:58):
you play Tennessee. Hopefully when youplay Arizona a few of the other teams,
maybe things are equalized by what quarterbacksare healthy later in the year,
but it becomes unequalized and the scaletips in the favor of the other team.
When you can have a game planand you can script out your plays,
but your expectations for the offensive lineto just hold their ground is foolish.

(10:20):
For as many sacks and hits asStroud took, and as many tackles
for loss as they had, andas many plays were unable to succeed,
Take that number and push it allthe way to whatever the total offensive plays
for the game number was for theTexans that's how many times the offensive line
was pushed back. Every single play, every single play, one of the

(10:41):
offensive lineman was pushed the wrong direction. Sometimes it was two linemen, sometimes
it was three linemen. Those destroyplays a miracle what they were able to
do offensively with CJ. Stroud.And that's why point one point for today,
and obviously on the Texans top ten, which we'll get into it a
little bit later this hour three thirtyand three forty five will try to run
through all ten of them. Stroudis the man. Last week the Texans

(11:03):
top ten, Will Anderson is theman. Now Stroud is the man.
Case closed. The Texans got twofranchise cornerstone players in this year's draft.
I know that I'm confident saying thatI feel confident it will play out that
way. There are ten quarterbacks probablythat are the man in the league,
so not all of them are gonnawin. So understand, you might have

(11:26):
found him and you might get someplay from him at that level, but
doesn't guarantee you this unbelievable run ofgreatness and this, that and the other.
And I think that's maybe what we'llget lost along the way. But
that's three years down. The road. Well, for every team that's at
the bottom of the standing, that'sthree years down the road. Yeah.
Well, and I would say inthe NFL's case, sometimes you can speed

(11:48):
up that process. But the problemis if you try to say that about
this team, you start looking atI don't know, a year from now.
In the dream, it's literally allin front of us. Kyler Murray's
team was three years down the roadwhen they drafted him, then they made
the playoffs. Drevor Lawrence's team wasthree years down the road when they drafted
him. Then they made the playoffsand won the division. Joe Burrows team,
it happens all the time, JoeBurrows teams going backwards. Well,

(12:09):
that's because Joe Burrow wasn't healthy andclaimed he was and isn't. And I
would strongly consider sitting him on Mondaynight, if not longer. Is this
the weirdest first two weeks? Iwould call the Texans? Oh yeah,
yeah, it's just to see.Well, I can tell you this,
I don't I don't think Davis Millsis a good quarterback, but I don't

(12:31):
think Jake Browning is a good quarterbackeither. And I've been saying this for
a month. I don't know whatthe Bengals are doing. Their roster is
way too good to let an injuryto their quarterback for any number of weeks
do what I think is about tohappen. And now it's even worse because
they lost two games with Burrow.Yeah, it's it's uh. I actually
saw one of the best memes I'veseen in quite some time over the weekend.

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I'll share that also, among otherthings. He did it again.
Probably wasn't the way ever everybody thoughtit was gonna go. Probably wasn't.
Well, it definitely wasn't the wayhe drew it up. But Dion did
it again this weekend. If youmanaged to stay up until like one o'clock
in the morning to see the endof that game, it was not smooth
sailing and there was some fallout obviously, But wow, I he has captivated

(13:16):
college football unlike anybody I've seen quitesome time. I'll actually compare him to
something someone else in the college footballgame. Uh oh, good while back,
and it'll piss a lot of youguys off, but it's just who
I think of. So we'll dothat and more coming up here on a
very busy Monday edition. Of theA team, Sports Talks of an ninety
Adam Clinton, Adam Wexler, Ateam continues, they fall, football,

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Basketball, Sports Talks Home for yourhome teams. C J is a competitor,
and he shows that he continues tofight no matter what odds are stacked
up against, no matter who's infront of him, like it doesn't matter.
He's a he has a winning mindset, and now we need everybody around

(14:01):
him continue to have that winning monathtand go play winning football, and that's
when things will get better. Forthe reason. So when I said the
Texans lost because of reasons that Ididn't think they would lose, I'm not
saying c J. Stroud was areason that I thought they were going to
lose or was going to be areason. But I just thought that in

(14:24):
light of the offensive line or lackthereof in front of him, and you
know everything going into that matchup withthe Colts, thought it could be a
long afternoon, and in some respectsit was. He was on his back
a lot, but he wasn't thereason they lost that game yesterday, like
quite the opposite. The defense wasprobably the biggest reason they lost that game

(14:45):
yesterday, and that's not something Iexpected to be saying today. Well,
I don't know how to stop anybody. It's been two weeks. Granted,
I think that from a schematic standpoint, it kind of gets thrown out the
window in some games, and they'veplayed two of them. I'm not sure
that they'll have another one most ifnot the entire rest of the year.
If you line them up one throughthirty two with the most stone lad footed,

(15:07):
impossible to move out of the pocketquarterback at thirty two, and lined
up the top guys, the oneswho are mobile, capable of making plays
with their feet, and extremely difficultto stop when they run the football,
I think Lamar Jackson and already AnthonyRichardson or one and two. I think
Jalen Hurts. People will probably getmad for me saying that, but if
you watch Jalen Hurts, it's alittle bit different. He's better at it

(15:31):
from he's already done its standpoint.But if you ask me who's gonna likely
get you more yards running the footballout of the Philadelphia scheme, he or
Anthony Richardson, it isn't he.It is Anthony Richardson. He put that
on display with two touchdown runs thatif they had both been of the untouched
variety, then he would not havehad to leave the game. First touchdown

(15:52):
run for Anthony Richardson, he wasuntouched. It was really well designed play
and he read it properly. TheTexans defense did exactly what he thought they
were going to do, and sothere was a huge opening to his left
and he ran right through it.Anybody who thought they might have the angle
on him now knows that he's thefastest quarterback in the league, probably,
and he ran right through them,and he ran right into the end zone.
The other one another extremely well designed, but probably a one that was

(16:15):
worked because it was executed so well. Go back and watch the second of
the two touchdown runs and watch AnthonyRichardson perfectly execute the fake that eats up
almost all of the necessary defensive players. And the one that it didn't get
he was gotten by Michael Pittman,the wide receiver who absolutely decleted Denzel Perryman,

(16:37):
who was looking to get a handon Richardson. I don't think Perryman
saw him to be fair to him, but wide receivers who can put linebackers
on their butts blocking for a runplay like that pretty valuable and a Pittman
showed it there. Had he gottentoo the end zone, like I said,
untouched, well then he wouldn't havegone out of the game later because
MJ. Stewart put a really goodlick on him. I think Anthony Richardson,

(16:59):
also, maybe a little unused tosome NFL speed, probably wasn't sprinting
to the end zone because I thinkhe felt like, while I'm going to
get there, had he been,maybe the hit is closer to the end
zone, and maybe MJ. Stewartat that point realizes as much and pulls
up a little bit. But hemade full contact with Anthony Richardson long before
he got to the end zone,the two yard line, the one and
a half, the one whatever,perfectly legitimate hit, a very hard hit,

(17:23):
and unfortunately it looked like the forceof him getting knocked off balance is
what st Anthony richards into his backand then ultimately his helmet slammed pretty hard
into the turf at NRG Stadium.He got up and appeared to be okay.
He continued as if he were okay, but then self reported having some
concussion like symptoms. Watched him walkacross the back of the cult sidelines into

(17:45):
the tunnel and back to the lockerroom. As TV was seeing that,
and as I was watching Gardner Minshewwarm up with Sam Ellinger on the sidelines,
and then it was the Minshow ShowMinshew show from here on out.
But point being, the Texans defensedidn't know what to do with Anthony Richardson's
legs, and I think it ledto him having a little bit of success
early. I didn't throw the balltremendously well, but he threw it well

(18:07):
enough to help them move down thefield for the one entire drive that he
played that was lengthy. The otherdrive lasted a play he ran a touchdown,
But Gardner Minshew was able to takethat same short passing game plan and
do the same thing to the Texans. And one of the items on the
Texans top ten, which we'll getto in full later, was Steiken versus

(18:30):
Demiko. This isn't first year headcoach versus first year head coach, and
really has nothing to do with personnelor injuries here or injuries there. Shane
Steiken is an offensive coordinator who's nowa head coach who calls plays. Damiko
Ryan's is a defensive coordinator who's nowa head coach who calls plays. It
is a literal matchup, and theTexans head coach did not win it from
a schematic standpoint, from how hemanaged the game standpoint, Steiken forced Damiko

(18:55):
Ryans to call a time out inthe second half by coaching his team a
little bit better. I'm a preparednessstandpoint. Just on one play when it
was fourth and one and they rantheir offense back on the field. Well,
Demiko had their special teams run offthe field and their offense run on
the field, and I couldn't evencount them fast enough. There were either
twelve, thirteen or fourteen Texans onthe field when Demiko correctly was forced to

(19:15):
call his time out to avoid givingthem a first down. And that's I
remember exactly what you're talking about.I don't want to call it gimmicky,
but I you know how often areopposing head coach is going to do It's
like the smart ones will do itmore than the dumb ones. There's no
reason not to do things like that, correct But I just don't see it
as much as you probably would ifthere were more smart ones. I guess

(19:38):
I totally agree. I mean,it's fourth and one. You're basically at
midfield. You can almost kind ofget to putting the game away. Why
not? You could either literally donothing and act like this isn't an awesome
job and I'm gonna sit back andcount my millions, or you can take
advantage of being on the head coachof an NFL team. I'm going to
do anything I think is possible that'sgoing to give my team an advantage.
And he did, and it weremore effective than trying to do a hard

(20:03):
count as well and get them towhen everybody in the stadium knows you're not
going to enough that the teams stilldo it. But it doesn't work a
lot. No, but you youmentioned something that they weren't prepared for what
Anthony Richardson was going to do withhis legs. How can you not be
say I didn't say they weren't preparedfor it. I said, it's hard
to stop. I don't know exactlywhat you said, but I remember thinking,

(20:27):
well, how are you not betterprepared? Let's put it that way.
Well, this that at some pointyou get to He's good. It's
no, it's inevitable. How doesJackson run for a thousand yards everybody knows
what he's gonna do. Yeah,but he's really really good. But I
like, in some ways, Idon't want to say that they got bailed

(20:47):
out because Gardner mat because he camein and started carving them. So I
don't, you know, I don'twant to say that, but they gave
up four touchdowns in the first half. I don't think there's any bailing out
of it. They looked off.They did. They couldn't stop first quarterback
with his legs and again he washe was okay throwing the football okay enough
again to drive him straight down thefield the first time. And Minch was

(21:07):
very good with short reads, quickreads, limited progressions. They didn't put
much pressure on him. They didhit him once early in the game.
That was about it. So yeah, I was talking to Stan and Dan
were with me at the game,and you know, Gardner Mint, she's
looking pretty good finding the ball,and I'm like, yeah, at practice
it was a practice he was hewas like he was wearing a red jersey.

(21:32):
And conversely, you know, Ithought that maybe the biggest compliment you
could give C. J. Stroudwas that he put up the numbers he
did in spite of being knocked aroundlike he was, and and the reason
he did it, And if youcan't see it just in two games,
if you couldn't see it at OhioState, I'll explain it to you.
He is an accurate passer. Allthe other things that it looks like he's
going to be very good at thatare a little bit harder to determine from

(21:53):
college strapro and pro over. Youknow, roughly one hundred dropbacks, how
quickly does he make his reads?How quickly does he make his decisions?
I know, once he makes hisdecision, the ball is going to be
where it needs to be. Reallya heavy, heavy percentage of the time.
And you know, I have asixty three and a half percent completion
percentage. It's great. It's anice number, especially through two games under

(22:14):
the circumstances. But literally, Iwish everybody spent the time to watch the
individual throws. There's some good,there's some bad, but the goods are
so good. How many guys inyesterday's game, from del to Woods to
Collins are catching the ball without everbreaking stride, without even reaching up high
for the ball, without having todive for the ball. And there were
a couple of those revn Jordan andNico both had two of those late in
the game where they had to goto the ground to catch them. That

(22:37):
goes as a one for one inyour completion department, But you'd like the
throw to be better. There's somany of the throws where I don't say,
man, I wish that throw isbetter. Where Robert Woods almost has
a touchdown running down the sidelines becausehe's hit in stride properly. Nico Collins
is able to take an eleven yardpass and go twenty eight yards with it
because he's hit properly with the pass. It was just it was fun to

(22:59):
watch quarterback who knows how to playthe position. And I know it's early
and I don't want to say toomuch too soon, and the winning is
really all that matters, and we'renot going to find out if he's going
to be quote unquote making the winningplays because the scoreboard is telling you otherwise.
These aren't winning plays. He canonly do so much when his team's
down by this much. And Iknow there's a lot of people out there

(23:21):
that are looking at these three quarterbacks, Stroud Richardson obviously playing each other,
and then Bryce Young, who willplay tonight as they have with other quarterbacks
bunched together in certain drafts, andyou know, Burrow and Herbert and Tuah
are somewhat bunched together going in thetop ten the same year, although Hurtz
is the most quote unquote accomplished ofthe four, so they kind of get

(23:41):
lumped together. But just the twaHerbert thing, because why didn't the Chargers
take to a right? Why?Why did you do? Why? I
mean, why did the Dolphins taketo over Herbert? And there are a
lot of people in Miami saying,man, this justin Herbert's really good at
coming up short three straight games ifyou go back to last year, which
their head coach, Brandon Staley wasvery unhappy with when people brought that up

(24:04):
again, they are right there towin games with the football needing to make
plays and they're not happening. Well, maybe if they had CJ. Stroud
on their team, they could getthat plays done. It's funny that we
put that all together. If youwere recalled during the pre draft process,
it's it's not always the best wayto analyze quarterbacks, but it's it's kind
of the thing that everybody does.I think there are a lot of parts

(24:26):
of CJ. Stroud's game that looka lot like Justin Herbert. I think
he can be better than that.I think they're comparable play extenders, but
not scramblers for yards because I don'tthink they're fast enough. But I think
there's a lot of he can juststand back there and chuck it and put
it where he wants now. Ihope he had had better results in his
first three seasons than Herbert's playoff despairfrom last year and two underwhelming win loss

(24:52):
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dot com. Hey, it's RobertFord from the Astros broadcast team. Catch
every Astros game on Sports Talk sevenninety and the iHeart Radio app. Home
of your Astros A real quickly.Wex all right, the Texans lost the

(26:48):
Astros drop two out of three overthe weekend. They're back home tonight where
things have not gone well and wecan continue to discuss what went poorly yesterday
for the Texans. But I'm onlybringing this up just because I just saw
it. It's about an hour agoChannel of Rome. Who you guys should
all think for this happening? Thepower of media, right He posted it

(27:11):
before and after picture the batter's eyethat's now obviously been changed at Minute Made
Park, where there are you know, in the article he wrote, which
is also linked on the tweet,there's numbers backing it up, and of
course the players speaking to him onthe condition of anonymity. But like to

(27:33):
me, it's overblown, first ofall, because they've been using the same
batter's eye for the better part ofthe easily the greatest run in franchise history.
So that's one. But two,you could paint that that party deck,
which is where this is located,green all you want. There's still
people sitting there, and I wouldI would think that if players are really

(27:55):
saying it's tough to see the ballcoming out of the hand of a picture,
particularly a left handed pitcher. Thosepeople sitting there are going to dilute,
I guess, is the best wayto put it. Any sort of
changes you've made with dark green paintas opposed to red and white, you
know, beer signage that was therebefore. I'm sure it'll help a little
bit, but I just I don'tknow how much, especially with like a

(28:18):
handful of games left to go andliterally you're at the last homestand of the
season, Because I think this hasa potential like really be ugly if it
doesn't vastly improve things at home forthem, Yeah, against the good team
headed to the playoffs and then theworst team. So I mean, there's
too many other factors to put itall on one thing like a batter's eye.
And you know, maybe the playerswon't have much to say about it,

(28:40):
maybe it won't have much impact,Maybe we won't see. It's really
hard to tell exactly what they're doingwith the people in that area. The
paint does extend well above where anybodywould sit, and it also goes well
below where you would have seen peopleanyway, because that's where the signage was
and the signage is now covered withgreen paint. It's only a moderate area.

(29:00):
They have hit well, they havehit poorly, they've hit well and
one at home. The majority ofthis six year run, they've had one
year where they've played bad baseball athome. It's this one. And so
they're making a change. It's certainlynot gonna I mean, I would not
expect them to say, nah,I'm sorry, we were so adamant about
changing it, but I think itwas better before. I don't think we're

(29:22):
going to reach that. But Ican't tell you that, Okay, they're
going to be so much better.I probably will have limited, if any
impact. Maybe it's a mental thing, you know, the placebo effect or
anything like that, where you really, you know, it's just in your
head. And they haven't really doneanything medicinally in that case to do anything
to make you better. But it'smade you feel better mentally. It's it's
made you feel like little. Ican now I believe I can see the
ball better. It's the same whiteball, the same everything else. Maybe

(29:47):
it'll be true, maybe it won't. They hit the ball pretty poorly in
one game in Kansas City that theyhit the ball really well in two games
in Kansas City, same bat asI all three days, different pitchers Zach
Granky and the relievers in the firstgame, Jordan Lyles in the last game,
they're only good pitcher. Cole Reagan'sin the middle game, they're only

(30:07):
good pitcher. Was the one whowas on the mound for half of their
best day of offense in Kansas City. By the way, now I've really
started noticing the batter's eye and otherstadiums. It's very dark in Kansas City.
Yeah, I mean, that's whythere's You always have to take certain
things in consideration from a playing standpoint. You build parks, arenas, stadiums,
etc. To make money, andyou have to take advantage of all

(30:32):
those things, but you try notto do it at the expense of your
team and affecting their impact on winning. And if you believe that doing all
the things that they've done, buildingall the things, and having all the
fan related amenities out there are worthit, versus this may or may not
have an impact on our hitters.I mean, is there really any actual
value to having shrubbery and star andan h in there? One off it

(30:59):
was pitch black. They're getting thesame money out of it which is none.
It's actually probably less costly to paintit and repaint it black versus keeping
those greeneries as they needed. Whateverthe case may be. It's just at
some point I think anytime you haveany possibility to give it what you believe
is a positive impact to your hittersand the other hitters. By the way,

(31:22):
same bad ors. I yeah,that's the direction they've gone, by
the way. I like the ivy, but it's I mean, of course
there's nothing not to like about it, but it doesn't doesn't do anything,
you know, the main reason Ilike it? Right? Uh No,
I don't. It's not Tow's hill. Well you can have the IVY and
a hill. No you don't needa hill. Well you never needed it
with a flagpole in play? Imean, like they double down stupid thing,

(31:45):
like should we put a hill onthe playing field? No, we're
gonna do it anyway. Oh,this is gonna be awful. How about
if I add a pole to itin fair play on the playing field,
if people could definitely run into Okay, yeah, I just put a pad
on it. Why don't we puta pad on a pole at the top
of a hill on the playing fieldat a major league ballpark. Why for

(32:07):
years, why don't they put goalpostsback into the end zone like they used
to be in football. There's apad on that too. You should be
fine. Just put a pad runningfull speeds, extra pros to hide a
sharpie if you're Tarrell Owens. Itdoesn't get run into pretty much. Ever,
like one out of every eighty billionplays it gets run into. No,
I'm talking about the old school.It was on the field. Now

(32:29):
it's literally it's right there off thefield. That's such an NFL blitz thing
to do now, just to havethat in play right there, and you
know, I looking at the beforeand after pictures that channel of Rome just
tweeted out kind of brought it intoa perspective, just to see what they'll
be dealing with tonight. Maybe you'llnotice it on TV. I'm sure they'll
show it on AT and T sportsNet for however much longer than be calling

(32:52):
that what it is. There's somenews on that, by the way,
But obviously the Astros salvaging that seriesyesterday still a bad taste in your mouth
coming home from Kansas. You weresupposed to get fat on these six games
and you did nothing of the sortand you gained ground. I still can't
believe how badly both of the otherteams that are duking it out with the

(33:13):
Astros for this, I guess notso coveted Division Crown are playing right now.
It should be being a two seed, having all those days off playing
most teams like playing at home.You would think all those things are uh,
they're enough of an incentive. Andagain we could go back to this.
We talked about it with Blum andeach other and everybody for years.
It's it's just not like the othersports. It's there's no let These guys

(33:37):
aren't just on cruise control. Theydon't think what doesn't matter. Today we're
playing Kansas City. I could closemy eyes and score five runs against them.
They're not playing any I know peoplewant to say that they are.
And until the players go out thereand show me that they're not playing as
hard, then I'm not going toI think fall for that. It's a
hard game to win, no matterhow much better vote unquote, you are

(34:00):
than the other team. And whenthis team keeps showing that we're way better
than everybody else every year for thelast six years, you kind of get
used to it. They made itlook easy. It isn't that easy.
So you don't think I should saythey should care more. To just anneel
you, I mean, I don'tknow if they care more, but I
don't think they're playing in a waythat suggests like it's baseball. It's just

(34:22):
not. If they were playing ona tea, it would be different.
Baseball is hard. It is.It's difficult to come out there and just
bludgeon people every day with your offense, even when it's going great. This
is the best stretch of offense they'vehad arguably during any of these six years.
The past forty five days or so, they went into a complete funk
for six days against the two worstpitching staffs. Yeah, but don't worry

(34:45):
because banging trash cans is the onlyreason they beat the Yankees and the Dodgers
and the Red Sox and your teamif you were upset about losing to the
Astros. I think people proof ofthat what we're talking about. But I
think people believe that with PitchCom there'sa limited amount of it eagle unfair play
going on right now in Major LeagueBaseball. I think you'd have to be
foolish to think nobody's trying to.Okay, well, let's just find a

(35:07):
new way to do it. ButI think it's probably been curtailed quite a
bit. That's a pretty good wayto stop people from ceiling signs. There's
how they hack it. There's nothingto steal. You can't see it,
and there's nothing to see. Andyet look who's winning all the games,
the exact same teams and the exactsame players because they're really good at baseball.
Good teams. It's what a concept. All right? We wrap up

(35:27):
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(35:50):
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(36:13):
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Power Sports Tractors and Outdoors and AlvinTexas tell them the eighteen from Sports Talks
seven ninety sent you in. It'sthe eight Adam, Adam, we find

(37:00):
Sports Talk seven ninety, your rockets, your astros, your voice. Wrapping
up a three o'clock hour on aMonday edition of the eight Teams. Sports

(37:22):
Talk seven ninety, wex in acwith you, taking up until six o'clock
tonight Astros and Orioles getting a threegames set underway. It's crazy. We
get to this point every single yearand you're like, wow, it's the
final homestand of the regular season.It's such a marathon in baseball. But
the fact that there are playoff games, hopefully it's not guaranteed on the horizon,

(37:46):
it's close. I mean, Ibelieve their magic number to go to
the playoffs is only seven, becausethe seven doesn't sound like a lot when
you have twelve games left and there'steams within one and a half and two
and a half games of you,and the Blue Jays are even closer,
but they're playing each other. Butwith seven of the remaining games thirteen or

(38:06):
so for the other two of thoseteams, it just isn't possible for both
of them. Like let's say onegoes four and three and the other one
goes three and four, Well,that means you eliminate that number by three
against each of them. So that'swhy when reality says, well, if
you have two game lead with twelvegames to play, your magic number is
probably nine or ten or eleven,depending on how many they have. But
you get to lop three off itimmediately because of what I just said.

(38:29):
Now, when you make that spreadwider, if Seattle wins five of seven
or the Rangers win five of seven, well then the other team is so
far away from catching you. That'swhy that number of if you can just
get those wins yourself, then you'veeliminated them. Or again, they only
are they're limited to the number ofgames they can win in their other remaining
games because with seven remaining, morethan half of the games left on their

(38:51):
schedules are against each other. It'scrazy because let's just say they hit text
in Seattle. For those that haven'tbeen following, Yeah, I mean,
if you're listening to the show andknow who you're talking about, I don't
really know what's do with you.If they hit won five of six,
Let's just say, with what happenedwith the other two, I mean,
they'd be they'd obviously be sitting prettier. But this, I mean, that's

(39:14):
three more wins than the two yougot. Yeah, your magic number would
be like four, right, Yeah, that's pretty enormous with twelve games to
go, but again that's only toreach the playoffs. Their their division magic
number would still be a touch Well, it'd be comparable, but a touch
higher. I still can't like they'regonna probably still win the division after everything
that happened over the last week.Well, there's a lot of different ways

(39:36):
to look at it, and thereality is there's three games against Kansas City,
a team that you had ahf timebeating the other three games, or
against Baltimore fighting for the number oneseed, Seattle fighting for three spots,
one of them is the division crownand the two seed that goes with it,
and Arizona, who is in thethick of a very very tightly fought
and packed together National League wildcard picture. They're they're in as of today.

(40:00):
Tomorrow, they'll be out the nextday, they'll be back in again.
It's that close. Every single winkind of keeps. Whether it's the five,
six, seven eight team with MiamiSan Francisco's a game or two back
of that, the Cub's long losingstreak, it's just clumped these teams together
even more closely. These games atthe end of the season, on this
last road trip to Seattle into Arizona. At this point now, I'd be

(40:22):
shocked if Seattle's not going to beeliminated for the playoffs. When you get
there, and I don't think Arizonais either. Maybe on the last day
of the season it won't matter tothem. I hope by then the Astros
don't need a win to claim aplayoff spot or a division title. But
it could happen. And if youwere I mean, there's some people that
are just basically hoping that the Oriolesare hungover coming into town tonight because of

(40:45):
their celebration. But if you weretalking about you know, for example,
a team has clenched its division,so they might rest some of the guys,
like you were talking about with theDodgers yesterday against the Mariners. That
doesn't look like it's the case basedon their line up tonight. Yeah,
the guys that they have available,they've been without Mountcastle for a little while

(41:06):
due to injury. He wasn't inthe lineup then, and he's not in
the lineup today. Santon Dare isnormally out there. I don't know if
there's an additional reason beyond maybe he'shappy or celebrating, but he's not in
today's starting lineup. He in histwenty seven home runs. Yeah, most
of the rest of them, includingtheir kiddie corps who are just unbelievable.
They'll be out there tonight getting tosee the first pitchers of the ball game

(41:29):
from jav Would we be talking aboutAdley Rushman versus Jiner Diaz if he had
actually gotten the playing time he shouldhave this year in what regard if Rushman
is almost as good offensively as Yiner, because he's not. I mean,
as much as the national media hasno clue, they have no clue.
He's just sitting a World Series teamand they're so far up the Orioles about

(41:52):
this, Well, he's played allyear, because that's an actual feather in
his cap. I know he knowsif Yer would have been able to play
all these games at such a highlevel because he maybe he gets tired,
Maybe he's been out there all thetime. It's maybe pitchers know a little
bit more. I mean, Ican't, you know, begrudge Ruchman from
going out there. He also begrudging Dusty. Yeah, well again,

(42:13):
I know it's impossible to overlook.And he's not in today's lineup. Justin
Verlander is doing the pitching and you'reDon Alvarez is doing the designated hitting.
So if Jose A. Brew isagain going to back clean up for the
Astros today, which he is,and Iner Diaz is available to Dusty off
the bench. I mean, justquite simply, you can look at all

(42:35):
the numbers you want, and Iguess who does this guy. Ruchman is
a really really good offensive player andhe's having a pretty good offensive year.
And Yiner's, in my opinion,in less playing time is just better.
Like there's I mean, I don'tknow about leaps and by I just said
it into the microphone on live radio, leaps and bounds. I probably would

(42:55):
disagree with that. It's not leapsand bounds. Well, because what's your
talking about? More playing time couldgo one way or the other. Well,
he's not going to start walking more, that's true. I mean he
hits better, he hits for morepower, he gets more hits, but
he almost never gets on base anyother way, almost never, like one
of the lowest margin or ratios inthe league. And Rutchman walks quite a

(43:19):
bit. You know, when Europiaon base percentage jumps by a hundred from
your batting average, that means youprobably take your fair share of walks.
Yiners doesn't. There's really no bump. It's not even a speed bump.
Well, he just hasn't have enoughopportunities yet to He swings at the first,
second, third, fourth, andit's fine. And sometimes there are
head high for him. A lotof times they are, and sometimes I'd

(43:42):
look at it this way. TheOrioles use the number one overall draft pick
to take Adlee Ruchman and hopeful hewas their catcher of the future. The
Astros had their general manager call upCleveland and say, hey, can we
have our catcher of the future forMiles Straw? And he said yes.
Every time I forget that that's whathappened. You so eloquently to remind me,

(44:05):
like my goodness, but really afteryou know what really happens. Hey,
we really need to bullpen help.Well, we could use some center
field help. Maybe we can havea match here. You guys are interested
in Miles, right, yeah,and you guys want Phil right, yeah,
absolutely, But I mean in termsof where they are, and you
know, it kind of feels likewe could we get something more to even
this out. Yeah, take alook at our system. Is there somebody

(44:25):
you want? I don't know,how about your double a catcher like Yanny
Yanny, your die azz, Idon't know I don't even sure how to
say it. Do you know who? Yeah? I know what you're talking
about. Hey, Jimmy, weregood with him? Yeah? Yeah,
we can throw him in. That'sfine. Just rubber stamp it. We're
good, We're fine without him.How many teams around the majors look at
the astros and they're just like sick? Well I was the Astros. The

(44:46):
Astros were pulling one over, pretendinglike they didn't know who he was.
Yeah, I know you. Youchanneled your inner astro's general manager dialogue.
Very well there. Good job,James, click hat tip, Big fat
one to you, buddy, Huge, huge deal. What's you're going to
be your encourt Dana Brown, We'restill waiting right four o'clock hour, straight

(45:09):
ahead here he did trade for JustinVerlander, well Woody trade. He didn't
trade Miles Straw four o'clock hour.Next, teen lifelong Houston sports guys named
Adam talking your Team Adam Clinton andAdam Wexler Barr the aighteen a four o'clock

(45:39):
hour underway here on the eighteen SportsTalk seven ninety wex Ac Dan Matthews with
you on a Monday edition of theprogram. After the Texans get it handed
to them by the Indianapolis Colts inthe home opener yesterday, demik O Ryan's
and company licking their wounds, bothliterally and figuratively. I know that we

(46:04):
always disagree on this guy, like, how bad in your opinion, Let's
just put it this way, howbad in your opinion is Laramie Tunzil's knee.
I'm not answering that. Come on, I've got played. Anything I
say would be ridiculously speculative. That'swhat we do. We're talk is a
football injury that we didn't see.I don't know he didn't get hurt in
the game that I could sell.Oh, he went down and they looked

(46:25):
at him and he was limping,and so I'm thinking this or that.
I mean the same thing with CJ'sinjury, although he did at least shed
a little bit of light on thatafter the game. But you know,
I have to believe to take themat their word. You know, I
saw him on the practice field,not in uniform, but he was there.
He's standing, he's walking. Ican't even see a limp. But
I'm not watching an hour video.I'm watching, but I have no idea.

(46:47):
There's there's I just I'm not I'mnot one to do that. I
just don't see any reason. Where'sthe benefit, Like, if he wants
the money, he's he's got guaranteedmoney. He could literally walk away to
day and he's got that. Buthe's gonna lose that on all the rest
and there's no future contracts. What'swhat's the advantage for him to jake it

(47:07):
or fake it? What is thathe? Maybe they you feel like they
just why do they keep giving intohim? You know, he needs more
money he gets. I think there'sa little bit of that on my part.
I he's he's doing the NFL thingand you should correctly. He's playing
the NFL money making game exceptionally well. And maybe that just means there was

(47:28):
one team he could get to andhe did, and he got to this
team and he's able to say,look, look what you gave up for
me. I'm gonna keep reminding youof that and how much I mean to
you. Texans are a very givingorganization. It's under the same ownership family
but a different general manager. Andhe's gotten money from everybody he's asked for
it from with the Texans, Butyou know, sitting out this game.

(47:49):
I just can't. I can't doanything with that. I have no idea.
I don't imagine why in game twoof the c J Stroud era,
as he's watching him, I mean, look who he was out there with
a Larmie's like, is does hehave a death wish for CJ? Is
he does he want to torpedo hisown chances to earn money and win games?
And I he's gonna earn his money. They're not gonna win any games

(48:09):
if he helps his quarterback in alosing situation by sitting full disclosure. I
do think that's what bothered me morethan anything else. It's not that it's
the home opener, it doesn't matter. This could be impos him anyway.
Well, because he's the left tackle, so what so it's the problem,
it's the quarterback. Well, hewasn't sacked because the left tackle kept getting

(48:30):
beat. He was sacked because everybodywas getting beat. Yeah, but the
left tackle made his ironically made hisfair share of penalty mistakes yesterday, and
it was kind of reminiscent. Ofhis penalties were because he's he was under
talented. And the second of thetwo penalties, I believe it was the
second one in the spin move thatCJ May that turned into a touchdown throw.

(48:51):
I'm never gonna say it's not onthe quarterback. All he's trying to
do is avoid the hit if hego, if he just runs off to
his right the direction he was facing. It doesn't leave the tackle in a
position where while the defensive player isgonna spin and you're going to quote unquote
tackle him and you're gonna get calledfor that one percent of the time.
But he already put himself in abad position. He took away a big
game down to the two yard linewith another penalty very similar. He also

(49:15):
is you know, he's trying toplay a position. He's the reserve.
He's the backup left tackle because he'sworse than Laramie, and everybody on the
line except for Shaq Mason is inthat same position. It's a second guy,
it's a third guy. And that'swhy I opened the show with this,
like there weren't any Oh my god, I think they just killed CJ.
Hits right, because they just didn'trun blitzes like that, or he

(49:36):
caught them, or the running backpicked it up, or the left tackle
from a blindside perfect still got luckyin that regard. I mean, I
guess you can call it lucker orthey did the things necessary to, you
know, at least avoid that withplay calling and with I mean, they
ran the ball enough yesterday in termsof quantity, even though it was useless
because they had to feudal I mean, Damian Pierce wasn't gonna go anywhere because

(49:58):
here's the ball and here's the defender. Yeah, here's the ball, here's
the defender. I mean, it'sjust silly for him to even get the
ball expecting yards. But those playshave to be run in order for you
to keep your quarterback healthy as healthyas can be. But again, go
back and watch where a lot ofthis pressure was coming from the whole pocket
collapsing on him, whether it wasboth tackles or all three guys on the

(50:19):
interior or whatever the case may be. The player out there wasn't Laramie Tunsel,
and you could see it. Andit does matter. And you can
see a difference in what the Ravenswere able to do against Laramie versus what
the Cults were able to do againstJosh Jones. There's a huge drop off.
But if Laramie Tunsel would have beenout there yesterday. I'm not to
discredit his quality because I think it'sthere would have made that big of a
difference in your opinion, It's justhow much can one of five guys do.

(50:44):
He hasn't played with those other fiveguys either. Yeah, that thinks
the biggest part of this, andI think CJ and Robert Woods today same
thing. Your offensive line has tobe considered one person, one unit.
It's five people who have to worktogether. I've got to communicate with him.
He's got to know that I'm leavingthis guy for him. He's got
to know that I'm ready when thisguy stunts across and I'm gonna be there,

(51:05):
I'm gonna let go here and jumpoff here. I'm gonna disengage because
that's the call. And these guys, some of them are playing out of
position, and none of them haveplayed together. It's a it's a recipe
for disaster strikes against you. Putone guy back out there who can handle
his individual work on the edge.It's gonna help, but it's not gonna
likely change a lot. Am Ibeing harder on him because he is,

(51:27):
so to speak, the quarterback ofthe offensive Why are you mad at Jimmy
Ward. I'm mad at him all. Why aren't you mad at Jalen Petrie
for having Lamar Jackson kick him inthe chest. Well, they don't block
for him because it's silly. I'mnot mad at players for getting hurt and
being unable to play, but youknow, a barbaric game. Yeah,
but you know how we always talkabout the quarterback gets the most of the
credit and the most of the blame. To an extent, I kind of
feel like that about you know,the offensive line. Ten times out of

(51:51):
ten, the left tackle is goingto be the highest paid guy, and
he's I guess. I guess withLaramie Tunsell. My problem is that ever
since he's gotten here, it hasbeen what you said, he has Bowl
trips. Yeah, that's great,Pro Bowl. That's so impressive to me.
Anybody Matt job is a Pro BowlMVP. Give me another argument,
like he's one of the hes,you know, he's one of the Yeah.

(52:12):
But so I want him out there. I want him out there in
week two. I know that hisknees hurt, but you're getting it like
he doesn't want to be out there. I don't know. Well, I
mean I think that's but there's noreason to he you're right, and I
might not be able to even quantifythis. It just he gives off a
vibe like it's just not the highestpriority to him. He just does okay.

(52:34):
Well. The only reason I thinkthat ever holds any water, and
I think the only one that thinksis by the way, it's great.
I think the thing that maybe putshim in this situation is what happened during
twenty twenty one. I think hedid maybe do that, but I totally
get it. He's like, whyshould I go out there for you guys?
Now? He I think he wouldhave felt bad if this were really
the case, to do that tohis teammates. But the organization was saying,

(53:00):
we're not trying. You're a joke. The football product is a joke,
not me personally, but this isnot We're not serious, and we
want you to put everything you haveon the line as you work through the
later stages of your short contract inorder to try to get a new one.
We want you out, we wantyou to do You got hurt and
he just stayed out. Do youthink in that regard, if that's indeed

(53:22):
the scenario that was his mindset allthat stuff. Are you basically saying he
did the offensive or that left tackleequivalent of Randy Moss in Oakland? They
weren't. But that was part.That was just him individually doing that going
he went out there and jaked iton the field like Laramie doing that.
He's got that on Laramie. ThenDavis and Tarad would have probably not seen

(53:43):
as much action because they would havegotten slaughtered yea by an opposing team's player.
Look, he might end up proveme wrong. I just I don't
see how he could. You yourmind appears made up because of what is
right now, So what would changeit? I mean, he played Week
one and he missed Week two.What if his season ends with sixteen games
played out of seventeen, Your mind'snot gonna change. You're still gonna think
he unnecessarily sat out a game witha knee injury. You're right, I

(54:07):
know, I don't under it's notI don't find that fair. It's fine,
I know it doesn't. Life isn'tfair, wax millions and millions of
perspectives. You're the fair one andI'm the unfair one. I didn't say
fair, unfair I said, differentperspectives. Like I said, I it
probably comes a little bit down tothe fact that he is the highest paid
guy and all that kind And Ithink maybe because there's so much has been

(54:30):
constantly made in a short time abouthis contract by him, you had enough
reasons to already have a little bitof a dislike for this other highest paid
guy. But the highest paid guyon the team chose to sit out every
single game just a couple of yearsago. Who are we talking about now,
the quarterback, I'm not playing foryou. I don't like you,

(54:52):
i don't like how you handle things, so I'm not gonna play at all.
And the whole se see me like, you know, going hard for
Deshaun Watson. Had all ever thinkabout the other side of it? Were
we trying to figure out why hewas doing that? No, we completely
understood stuff came out. It wasit was on the days that little window
of like, what was it twoor three weeks before from the time he's

(55:15):
like I want to be traded tothe time that stuff came out that we
were actually on this show talking aboutwhat's going on here? Man, They've
done it again. They've bungled hissituation and then come to find out he's
a sick oh, in all likelihoodallegedly probably No, I don't think the
yesterday's game unless Laramie Tunsil's an interiordefensive lineman change as much. Yeah,

(55:37):
because they often. I mean,maybe he could have helped prevent the early
fumble. I mean that was abig part of the game. One series
one fumble, one play later touchdownand it's fourteen nothing. That is a
big deal. And I'm not blamingthis, don't get me wrong. That's
not There's so many other things,especially on the other side of the ball
you could point to. I'd liketo see him out there hopefully everybody,

(55:58):
hopefully including him, Hopefully his kneesget better very very soon here on the
eight team, as we continue thegood, the bad, and the ugly
from over the weekend. We willget to that when we come back.
Right now, though, want totell you guys about Aqueduct Plumbing Company two
eight one four eight eight sixty twothirty eight. Now, when you call
that number two eight one four eighteight six two three eight, there's a

(56:19):
better than average chance that the owneris going to answer the phone. Billy
over there at aqueduct Plumbing Company.That's just not typical where you get to
talk to the owner of the companyright then and there. But that's how
he does things. It's either himor his sister Mary, or any of
the fine folks over there an aqueductplumbing company. When you call two eight
one four eight eight sixty two thirtyeight, doesn't matter how big or small

(56:40):
the job is, they're gonna geton it asap. They're gonna give you
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to give you free quotes on repiping, repairs or any of your plumbing needs.
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(57:00):
jobs they can do for you inyour home, or give them a call
two eight one four eight eight sixtytwo thirty eight tell them. Adam Clanton
from Sports Talk seven ninety called AqueductPlumbing Company two eight one four eight eight
sixty two thirty eight. Adam Clanton, I'm Wexler our eighteen returned on Sports
Talk seven ninety. Your rockets playhere now. The good, oh good

(57:29):
the bad that's not good, andthe ugly don't make me good with the
eighteen we're selling, as WEX wouldsay, sick as your segment time here
on the EIGHTEAM Sports Talk seven ninetyand on Mondays. That means the good,

(57:52):
the bad, and the ugly fromover the weekend. I'm very good,
Dan is very bad, and Wexis just straight up ugly this week.
That is the schedule laid out infront of us. So since I'm
starting, and since we really haven'tgone there yet, I don't think the
way it happened was good. ButDion Sanders is good for college football.

(58:14):
And I'm just gonna go ahead andsay it now, I'm gonna go hot
take on all you guys. I'mgonna rub some people the wrong way,
whatever you want to call it.I haven't seen a phenomenon like this in
college football since Tim Tebow. Nowthat's not even remotely the same. There's

(58:35):
so many differences between the two.I'm just talking about from the standpoint and
again, very small sample size.We're talking three games, But I mean,
did you see everybody that came outfor the game, did you see
the crowd? Did you hear thebuzz. You can always hear the buzz.
That's the most tangible thing in sports. I mean, the place can
be packed, but there also hasto be a buzz and offset the rock

(58:58):
everybody that was there to celebrate thisphenomenon. That's all I can describe it
as it's good for college football thatDion is doing what he's doing. But
it almost it almost got curtailed bythat game the other night in Colorado State,
to their credit showing up even ifthey did a really dumb thing on

(59:19):
the sideline. Yeah, I thinkColorado State it's probably a lot better than
people think. And I think it'sjust Colorado doesn't have overwhelming talent yet or
maybe ever, but certainly not yet. It's nice when your quarterback is one
of the most talented players in thecountry, and they definitely have a few
other players that can make plays,obviously Travis Hunter, the other Sanders defensively,
and a few other players. Gettingthe game to overtime, winning the

(59:42):
game at overtime and keeping a lotof people up because of it. I'm
sure the interest, based on thenumbers and the ratings, etc. Will
be great. It was an awfulweekend of college football just in terms of
the matchups, there were basically noneof great consequence, and that honest he
was another, but it was there'sa rivalry aspect of college football that they

(01:00:04):
have over every other sport, andthis is still one of them, even
though they're playing every year. Hasnot been part of the case. I
thought Dion handle everything brilliantly. Idon't think people might disagree with some of
the things he's still doing. I'mnot sure which ones, but arbeit for
me to tell people what to think. I liked how he handled things after
the game. I liked what hesaid about coach Norvelle at the podium after
the game. I liked how theyhandled things at the half. I just

(01:00:27):
think you're right. Just the simplepart of what you said is as simple
as it needs to be said.It's a good thing for college football.
It's pretty rare that you hire acoach that has other things beyond he's a
football coach. Like mostly the otherguys that get hired. Steve Sarkajian got
hired at Texas, he coaches football. Nick Saban get hired at LSU and
Alabama. He's a football coach.And some of them might carry a little

(01:00:50):
bit of cachet or a tiny hintof celebrity status. You know, maybe
a guy like Lane Kiffin. Idon't know, but it's nothing like this.
I mean, Deon Sanders is oneof the most recognizable famous celebrities who
happened to be an unbelievable football andbaseball player, and I was showing that
he's an unbelievable coach also. ButI mean, who's Knick saman gonna invite

(01:01:12):
to the game. He probably knowsa bunch of people, but they're not
going to come to the game andto have a big it's not going to
turn into the event that it was. And Deon has that. And even
though there's dummies like Danny Cannell outthere, and this is like the five
thousandth time Danny Cannell has shown himselfto be a dummy, it wasn't.
They didn't lose sight of what theywere after with all these other things.

(01:01:35):
They're not going to over talent everybodythey play. They certainly aren't going to
do it this week, and they'renot going to do it the following week.
When we get to the ugly,I'll help explain. But the bad
is next. This bad and itwas what me and WEX watched on at
Saturday night. You h against TCU. TCU is the better team, all
right, find whatever, That's justthe case. They were in the National

(01:01:57):
championship game last year. What happenedin said national championship game another story,
but it was after the game whatDana Holgerson said. Now, they did
not run the ball very well againstTCU, and they also did not score
an offensive touchdown. But granted,he is now in year five, and
they knew that they were coming tothe Big twelve for some time. And
when I heard this SoundBite after thegame, it kind of didn't really rub

(01:02:21):
me the right way. Look,man, we all know this is going
to take some time. Nobody wantsto hear it. And I'm disappointed with
how we played today offensively, andwe have to get better and it's unacceptable,
and we're geting. We expect toline up and play better and win
every game. But for the depthand the recruiting, it's going to take
time. And like I said,you've known that you're coming into the Big

(01:02:43):
twelve for some time. The transferportal is ready and available. You just
talked about Colorado. Dion has madegreat work of the transfer portal. You're
year five, and this thing kindof built at this point for what it
is going to be going forward.What necessarily makes people believe that it's necessarily
going to get any better from thatstandpoint. I think we'll actually find out
something on that end as we kindof combine that and the ugly here what

(01:03:07):
Dane is talking about, and Ican I definitely heard it when he said
it as well and felt similarly.Is I think he believes if I put
my best eleven or thirteen out thereboth sides and take these top twenty six
players or so, and you getyour top twenty six and we go out
there and play a football game,I like our chances. If I'm going
to players twenty seven through thirty fiveand thirty six through fifty, it's starting

(01:03:30):
to change dramatically in your favor.And in this case, TCU a Big
twelve team, a team that playedfor the national title last year, and
in Colorado's case, unfortunately because ofat least one play that happened in the
Colorado State game. We're going tofind out about that. Also, Colorado's
lead players, they're top twenty five, twenty six, top thirty well they're

(01:03:52):
showing at least they can hang witheverybody they've played, if not soundly beat
them, and it's going to beI think more and more difficult to do
that if they are reached into theirdepth and Dana's considering changes along the offensive
line because they flat out can't runthe football. He was very positive about
his play calling on Saturday night afterthe game during postgame at little bit less
so today when he met with themedia, and I was glad to hear

(01:04:15):
it. I was talking with someof the people that were watching the game
with us stand up in the budLight cougar Den and hat tipped to everybody
who both won the tickets from We'regood friends over at bud Light and came
to hang with us, enjoy thegame, enjoy some ice cold bud Light,
John and Jay and Tim and severalof our winners. John specifically,
I was talking to at the timewhen I said, I'm not a real

(01:04:38):
big fan of that fourth and onecall from the five yard line on the
short side of the field with DonovanSmith rolling out to his right. So
essentially there's nowhere to put the ballbecause there aren't any players out there,
and you're about to run out ofbounds. Dana had said Saturday night,
it's not really the play calling.He's a play caller. You know.
We've got to execute better. We'vegot to do these things better. He

(01:04:58):
said today, I was be happywith the play action call on fourth and
one to the tight end at thefive. That's a bad call. I
don't like that call. I'll eatthat one. I like when coaches acknowledge
that's the that's on me. It'snot a Gary, not a Gary.
But he definitely realizes in hindsight becauseobviously in the heat of the moment,
that play call did not work,and I just I thought it left little,

(01:05:21):
very little room to succeed my uglyagain college football. The ugly was
two hits in the Colorado Colorado Stategame, both illegal, both penalized,
but one will send Travis Hunter tothe sidelines for at least these two hugely
important games against Oregon this week andsc next week, probably possibly longer than

(01:05:44):
that, three to four weeks.I believe Skip Bayliss in this one instance
when he says he's been told it'sa lacerated kidney, because I do think
he actually can go to the sourcesince he has a pretty good relationship with
Dion Sanders, who has been onwith them a couple of times already this
year. A last rated Kidney's prettyserious injury obviously, and have it happened
on a play on a hit thatwas you know, that's a dirty hit.

(01:06:09):
I mean, is he a dirtyplayer? I don't know that,
but it was an illegal hit andone that got him fine. And I
do think it came a little bitfrom the emotions and intensity and outside the
field of play type of things thatled into the game. And then later
in the game Shoulder Sanders took acomparable dirty hit. It was called for
targeting. It got the opposing playerKamara kicked out of the game at that

(01:06:30):
point in the game. It's justa play I wish we didn't see.
And I do think those particular playsare avoidable. Not all the hits are
Karreem Jackson's hits are that's two andtwo. What are you doing, Kareem.
You can block me on Twitter allyou want, but you need to
stop killing people. Yeah, butI just wish that that was ugly to
me. This is it really turnedinto a from a football standpoint, it

(01:06:51):
was great. It's good when bothteams think they're gonna win. It's good
when both teams make plays to win. And they had me captivated after we
got home from the Cougar game toto stay up. I watched every single
play that I was home for therest of the evening, all the way
into double overtime, all the wayinto Shirdur Sanders doing his postgame interview with
his Blender sunglasses on. It wasgreat talking about how he's about. He's

(01:07:11):
got a message from Tom Brady becausethat's what he's talks to all the time.
His mentor. I do not havea pair. I will not be
getting a pair. I don't needa pair. I have pair of sunglasses
and they're perfectly fine, but they'renot well. First of all, you
want mine upside down back, Antidonor anybody else. I just Blender.
I just don't don't need him.Blenders makes a red bull racing like a

(01:07:32):
it's like a novelty pair when theyhave orange lenses. Yeah, I'm strongly
in search of getting a pair.Oh, they are very popular. I
think he sold a few units overthe last couple of days. He's I
mean, hey, you can eitherget on board, you can get run
over by the train. That's thething. Everybody continues to like the Danny
Canals and sometimes with these coaches,and even Oregon's coach, although we mentioned

(01:07:54):
it last week, he talked negativelyabout Colorado prior to Dion's arrival, not
after his arrival, because prior tohis arrival they were an embarrassment to the
league. They weren't competing in theleague, so they were of no consequence.
All that mattered was, Oh sweet, Colorado's our matchup this week.
We got this. They stink andnow that doesn't appear to the case any
longer. Not to mention the factthey're not going to be on the schedule

(01:08:15):
any longer because all the teams areleaving and Colorado is among them, heading
to I guess the South. Bybeing a part of the geographically everywhere every
conference, the Big Twelve will betheir new home. That's the good,
the bad, the ugly. Aswe approached the halfway point in the show,
we actually do have a couple ofticket giveaways for you over the course
of the rest of today's show andall throughout the week coming up next.

(01:08:39):
We do have Cougar tickets for theirgame this weekend back at home at TDECU
taking on Sam Houston, and wehave a concert tickets to give away in
about an hour, not yet divulgedwhat musical act will be playing, so
we have tickets for but I thinkyou know them, I think you'll like
them, and I think you'll beinterested. We'll do that at five thirty.

(01:09:00):
Before we get there, we're gonnatell you about UVC Power Sports Tractors
and Outdoors. Ac already mentioned thebrilliance and creativity of the UVC Power Sports
crew. For those of you thatfollow them on social media, and you
should, UVC power Sports is whereyou find them there. I've got great
vehicles and they have gotten really creativeabout showing them off for you. All

(01:09:20):
of your outdoor equipment needs can befound. I would say under one roof,
but that would be a lie becausetheir facility is so massive and they
have a huge test track and amassive parking lot. Semantics would tell you
it's not technically under one roof.There's so much stuff to see, test,
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(01:09:42):
just a bit better when you findwhat you want. Over at UVC Power
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right there in Alvin, Texas.You find them online at UVC one

(01:10:04):
Stop dot com. Better yet,head on down to UVCN Alvin and tell
him the eighteen centin listen to RocketsRadio on your smart device, just as
Great Sports Dot seven ninety on iHeartRadio. We got Cougar tickets for you

(01:10:30):
and happy to be sending you overto TDCU Stadium. We go see the
Cougars play Sam Houston. Hadn't happenedin a while and will happen here as
they dive fully into conference play.Obviously, they opened up Big twelve play
last week with lost two TCU.I was out there and it was really
good time. The weather cleared upjust in time for additional tailgating and Cougar

(01:10:51):
football, and you can head outthere this weekend, uh enjoy Cougar Alley.
It's right there in for the TDCUStadium. The huge led TV screen
out there, the bud Light backyard, Coke fan Fest, and all sorts
of good things to get you readyto get inside and enjoy the game.
For more info on tickets, youcan call seven one three Go Coogs or
uh Cougars dot com slash tickets,or right here win a pair of tickets

(01:11:15):
if you know the answer to thistrivia question seven one three two one two
five seven ninety seven one three twoone two five seven ninety. These two
teams have battled three times in thelast forty years, many more times overall
in their history, but I'm notasking you to go back that far.
The Cougars have won each of thelast three meetings, and one of those
three wins they had a quarterback throughfor three hundred or more yards. Who

(01:11:39):
is it which you have h quarterbackthrough for three hundred or more yards against
Sam Houston State? And your hintis it was nineteen ninety six. If
you know the answer, give uscall seven one three two one two five
seven ninety listen to see the Cougs. Is that what the kids call a
deep cut? Nineteen ninety six?I mean, I can't very obscure,

(01:12:00):
Well, I can't get it tobe much sooner, considering they've played in
eighty seven ninety six five three timesin the last forty years. I like
it. I like it a lot. So how you guys were out there
on Saturday night? Ye had tippedto Jennifer as well. I was hanging

(01:12:23):
with her and her crew. We'lldo it again later this year. I
heard Matt Thomas get a phone callabout this earlier today and it was essentially,
the Cougars are now in the Bigtwelve. They've got all they need,
and so what is Dana Holderson's excuse? And again TCUs different, but

(01:12:44):
losing to Rice, I think iswhat this caller was really driving at.
There isn't one. I mean,I'm being serious, I'm trying to skirt
it, but yeah, there areno reason to make excuses. You did
not win. You can't have losseslike that or games like that, because
they were very, very close tomaking it a win, which would have
probably kept people at Bay a littlebit. But the games still happened.

(01:13:08):
You still played like that, youstill gave this. You were You're down
twenty eight nothing in a college footballgame to anybody. And here's my problem.
I just don't think people will findthat very acceptable. Kelvin Sampson has
proven and I get it. It'sa different sport, yes, much,
it's much easier. Do you thinkyou got how many guys do you need?
No? I get that part.But you start to go get them,

(01:13:29):
Okay, Well you have to sustainit? Well, yes, I
don't. I don't want it tocome across that way. Good building.
Well you go get one really awesomebasketball player. You're gonna win. He's
not gonna maintain it. That's notwhat I'm saying. But you are in
the middle of Texas. Yeah,being they're right outside the door. I
get it. You know, there'sit's it's hard to compete with the filling

(01:13:53):
this power programs of the world.I get all that. There are no
power programs for Dana to compete with. Period. Who's who's the best program
Who are the best three programs inthe Big twelve in football starting in twenty
twenty four. It's a good point. I mean, whoever you say is
okay, but they're not There's they'reeasily compete. You should not at this

(01:14:15):
point with all that's been put in. They made the big announcement last week
with memorial Harmon being a huge partof their new operations center. And you
know, like I mentioned, Iwas talking to John uh this most of
this last game, and he's analum and he's been he's seen all this,
And every time I talked to someonethat I just either just haven't had
a chance to before. That knowsyou of H's athletic history. It's the
conversation turns to marveling at what itused to look like on that campus from

(01:14:38):
an athletic standpoint, to what itlooks like today. And you start at
the end of the end of thestreet. Okay, there's an awesome softball
complex, then there's the awesome baseballcomplex that there's the unbelievable athletics Alumni Center,
then you get to the for TitaCenter, then you get to TDCU
and it just never stopped. Nowthey have the indoor practice filly, the
development facility at for Tita Center.It's all unbelievable and absolutely on par with

(01:15:02):
all of the teams they're going tobe competing with inside their new conference.
Yeah, having walked in Hawfind's pavilionboth around inside and the bowels of that
dump, because that's what it was. Even if it had character and FI
slam a jam. I once hadnostalgia. Yeah, definitely felt good to
go to games there. Didn't lookthen you would walk next door to what

(01:15:23):
I could only describe as the stadiumversion of Alcatraz. And I'm not talking
about Alcatraz when it was running asa prison in the San Francisco Bay.
I'm talking about now when you gothere as it's a tourist attraction. That's
where I get to actually go there. They take you by. It's a
drive by. You don't I thoughtyou wouldn't take a tour. That's what
I mean. I didn't go onthe tour I took. I took a
boat. How could you go andnot go inside? It's just not on

(01:15:45):
the activities list for the day.Yeah you can. You can go to
the rock. No, I knowyou can. I was saying personally,
there's a baseball field too far.One of the most underrated Nick Cage movies
ever. Lose Us, Try yourBest, Wind him out your best,
the guy from Jeopardy He's no longerwith us. That's a really good movie.

(01:16:12):
Yes, you're asking, what's theothers in one? And if if
this season teeters in the wrong direction. That would be a shame. You
obviously built a ton of momentum toget to this point. You'd like to
continue that, and I do thinkthere's an opportunity to be I mean,
maybe it's a lofty goal. Ihope it's not, but a win against
Sam this weekend, even as yourrecord at two and two, a win

(01:16:33):
at Texas Tech puts I mean,I'm not guaranteeing, and I'm just that's
who you're playing. I don't thinkTexas Tech is great by any means.
Could you win that game on theroad, and then you have the weekend
off preceding your Thursday night game againstWest Virginia at home? I mean,
couldn't you get to four and twobefore you welcome the Longhorns to town?

(01:16:56):
And again the Thursday night game allowsyou again have the nine or ten days
to prep for Texas, who,well, obviously they need to be at
Oklahoma to make that happen. ButTexas would come to Houston as a top
five team if they are undefeated,possibly higher than three, which where they
are now after yesterday. That isugly waiting to happen. Oh my gosh,

(01:17:17):
they their weekend game this weekend shouldtell you that's no given. I
know that they were in a dogfight with Wyoming into the fourth quarter at
home. What was the halftime score? Well into the fourth quarter it was
anybody's game. Like they both hadthe same number of points, that's unfortunately,
and they scored three touchdowns by threetouchdowns. We wrap up the four

(01:17:38):
o'clock hour next before making way forour weekly visit with Stan Northfleet at five
o'clock. Looking forward to catching upwith stand here in studio. But before
we do any of that, wegotta tell you guys about joint pain and
why it does not need to bea part of your life, especially here
during football season. You hear ustalk about tailgating. You hear us talking
about going to games and just gettingout and about because I know it was

(01:17:59):
hot again today, but eventually thetemperatures are going to at least become civil
again, and it's the best timea year in my opinion here in Houston
October into November with the weather andwhat it does. You don't want to
be not being able to enjoy allthat because of joint pain. That's where
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(01:18:21):
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QC Kinetics, I'm pleasant, I'mx our eighteen returns and these astros faces
here you hear the woods. It'sjust those crazy Houstonians. Find Sports Talk
seven ninety home of the Stros.Hey wex if Dion Sanders is the Bee's

(01:19:38):
knees of college football head coaching rightnow? What is Mel Tucker? So,
what's the news today on Mel?Well? They've begun the process of
firing him, which is my favoriteheadline ever concerning such a case, because
they haven't fired him yet, they'vebegun the process of it. Don't you
just like fire the guy? Well, not when there's this much Mone involved.

(01:20:00):
The school releasing a statement Monday todayannouncing that it intends to terminate his
contract. Michigan State Athletic Director AlanHaller said, I, with the support
of the administration and Board, haveprovided Melt Tucker with written notice of intent
to terminate his contract for cause.This notification process is required as part of

(01:20:23):
his existing contract. The notice providesTucker with seven calendar days to respond and
present reasons to me and the interimpresident as to why he should not be
terminated for cause. Right, Andyou just kind of just answered your own
question. The contract and this,that and the other, and the point
of this from their step point purelyfinancial, is to fire him with cause,

(01:20:45):
thus paying out the remainder of hiscontract will not occur. It's interesting
that so this is all about theTitle nine complaint filed against him in December
of last year by Brenda Tracy,who is a sexual assault prevention advocate.
As it's described here in this article, I am too right, Like,

(01:21:11):
aren't we all? Just it's weird? She claims he center Gifts, asked
if he was she would date himif he weren't married, and did something
else while she was on the phonewithout her consent. I'll let you guys
imagine what that was. He hasrebutted by saying the two were in a
quote mutually consensual and intimate relationship.So if it's a he said, she

(01:21:36):
said, isn't that reason enough forthem to just hold off on terminating his
contract? Well not if they believethe behavior's behavior they would not want to
support from their head coach, eventhough there's not necessarily anything that says it
isn't. But this is to meand I think too many people, it
could absolutely be taken as a justa total shakedown of mel Tucker by somebody

(01:22:00):
that doesn't want him coaching there anymore. Right now, I'm not trying to
absolve anything that may or may nothave happened. I'm just saying when things
like this come to become much morepublic. And remember you said, this
is from a complaint filed now ninemonths ago, December of twenty twenty two,
and they're already they've met on this. There was a hearing set to

(01:22:20):
take place on this, and thenit became public. And could I connect
the dots to saying there's people withinthe athletics support department, we'll call them,
people with a lot of money thatare paying to make all these head
coaching changes all these times, thatnow want to move on from this at
Oh, we can get out fromunder this contract from a coach we don't
believe in anymore on the football fieldand not have to pay him, and

(01:22:44):
then have all this money that wecan go pay somebody else. Yes.
Could I believe that? Yes?And this is college football where things like
that happen all the time. Idon't know enough to say yes to that,
and I certainly don't know enough aboutthis situation, but you know,
I do think with more and moreinformation to come on this, as in
what really did take la he's claiminga real intimate relationship. Maybe there are

(01:23:10):
items where there are things that suggestwhat he's saying is accurate. Were their
meetings were there between the two ofthem? Intimate meetings? Were there conversations
between the two were there? Youknow? Were they talking to each other
on a fairly consistent basis, whateverthe case may be. I don't know
that. I don't have that information, but I don't know the others that
will and we'll probably have a muchbetter idea of what this really truly stems

(01:23:31):
from. But it's certainly you're acollege football head coach's it's a tough spot
to be if it's fabricated. Butit certainly doesn't look very good. No,
But I think what got my intentionis that he didn't say no,
it didn't happen. Yeah, Imean I said that the very first day.
Because he said that the very firstday that a comment had to come
from him, because it was nowpublic knowledge. A lot of people look

(01:23:55):
at it as sad as it ison the other side of it. So
this was taking place during a phonecall which you felt very uncomfortable with.
So what what really took place there? And how about hanging up? How
about you know? But she didfile complaints. Didn't just straight say no,
this didn't happen. He said,oh, yeah, it happened.
And here's why it happened. Isthat that got my attention. It's not

(01:24:15):
your usual Oh well, she's accusinghim of this and he just says,
no, I didn't happen. Youknow what happened. Here's why. Yeah.
I know this is way more importantthan college football, but I do
wish they wouldn't put themselves in thisposition all the time, these uh financial
supporters of programs. He came thereand went two and five after going five

(01:24:36):
and seven and his only other headcoaching stint and then he won eleven games
and so they paid him unbelievable money. And then he went five and seven
and now without him, they've wona couple of games this year. It's
just why are you doing this?But what it's just these these programs and
the contract for so many other coachesthat, well, how do we get

(01:24:59):
out of it? How many yearsdo we have to pull him off?
What's the buyout? Well? Why, because you're afraid you're going to lose
him and lose the momentum that he'shelped build. He's losing you're losing games.
He hasn't. How has he provedthis to you in six months with
one winning season with somebody else's players. Yeah, unlike ten year deals in
baseball, where you're rewarding the talent, that's very apparent, whether the team

(01:25:23):
wins or not, the talent willbe there. Yeah, do what the
Bengals did. We know we're gonnawin with Joe Burrow. Let's pay him
all the money in the world.It's all good. The Chiefs did the
same thing like that. Well,the Chiefs kept winning after they paid off.
They've restructured it twice. Now.Yes, they paid off on his
wins and now they're paying off onmore of his wins, which they now
finally have one of after beating Jackson. A lot of money over the next

(01:25:45):
three years though. Yeah, absolutelyall right. You know what else is
well deserved a visit with Stan Northfleet. We'll do that when we come back
next here on the eight Team SportsTalk seven nights go Classic Elites, Classic
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(01:26:59):
pushing foot back five o'clock some it'sfive o'clock football professional is a special game,
all right. We have a jampacked five o'clock hour, as we
usually will on a Monday. We'vegot tickets to give away at the bottom

(01:27:21):
of the hour you're not gonna wantto miss. But over the next couple
of segments, we've got the man, the myth, the legend. Look
at stand Northfleet. He's got likecopious notes one, two, three,
Iris. We will be proud ofme. Hey, you're like, so
WEX is like a walking sports almanac. Look at Wex. He's impressed,
isn't he? But I sit nextweeks For those that don't know, during

(01:27:42):
the game, how did that go? Is this your first time to see
time? Okay, second time?So the hundred percent of the games he's
been there with me, Yeah,all two of them. I think I
talk enough for a Wicks and Iboat, So I'm kind of taking your
place. But like, just inthat reasonable amount of time, somebody look
is annoyed with you as he doeswith me. I think he was more
annoyed with the team. But thenI was trying to speak on behalf of

(01:28:03):
the team and he was not havinghaving So I said this at the time,
yeah for real, because they andthey posted a video afterwards. Well
here's the deal, I said atthe top of the show. They lost,
but not for the reasons I thoughtthey would lose, Okay, I
didn't think the defense was gonna besomething you would point to and be like,

(01:28:24):
you guys didn't show up. AndI also didn't think that. I
mean, I thought that the offensiveline would struggle, which they did,
Yeah, but I thought they wouldlose because c J Stroud would struggle because
of the offensive line, which hegot hit. He got sacked a lot,
but he put up monster numbers too. So Friday, we'll wrap up
our show. I'm out running airis just getting ready for Friday night whatever.

(01:28:45):
And I hear the CJ shoulder andLaramie Tonzo questionable at the same time.
And I heard Demiko early today referencedTounzel's knees quarrel. So we may
not be out of this just yet. Four fifths of your offensive line,
at least who you penciled in thatstarter, is out, and your quarterback

(01:29:05):
CJ told us after the game.He said his shoulder didn't start feeling like
he could play, and he thankedGod of course until Saturday morning. So
then we're gonna go out there andlet him throw the ball forty seven times,
sum it up, getting it lubricatedlike you. Defensively, I was
miffed. It sounds like Demiko wasmiffed the effort, like just basic stuff

(01:29:31):
being where you're supposed to be inthe gap, you're supposed to be there.
I'm gonna pick on him a littlebit, Henry Toto. It's you,
Anthony Richardson, and there's a guardin front of you. This is
not Tusca loose. You can't gorun around that. You gotta go put
your face on another grown man thatoutweighs you probably buy one hundred pounds.
That's the job, bro. Sothere were too many opportunities like that from

(01:29:53):
a defensive standpoint that they just didn'twell. Anderson Junior said, they just
didn't have it. The energy wasn'tthere s have to held out of me
guys, especially for a home opener. Yeah, I think that's probably a
little bit overblown. It's not theopener, but you've come home. Yeah,
you know, like he just wanteda little bit more juice. I
think they were surprised wex I goton his nerves during the game. I'm

(01:30:15):
like, wis, look at that. This is how they feel about Demiko.
I got here in February staying wehave to have a quarterback in the
draft. There's no way you cango back out there with Davis Mills and
we don't want to hear about Jonand all these other players. It has
to be a quarterback. Okay,you have one. So you got a
coach and a quarterback that we alllike. Butts, we're not in the
sea. It's not gonna change.And I try to explain it too.

(01:30:39):
I'm sure Christ did, your listeners, did Thomas, and now you've seen
it for yourself. So it isn'tgonna change unless they feel like there's a
reason for it to change. Andthat's not here today. That's not here
in twenty twenty three, it's notcoming in twenty twenty four. They're not
gonna win games, they're not gonnabe competitive for the postseason, and it
is not gonna It is going tobe very evident. I'm not trying to

(01:30:59):
make it sound bad. I'm tryingto tell you what's going to happen.
So here's why I pushed back alittle bit respectively. And again, you
guys are Houston through and through,so you know I stick my head around
here for a few hours a fewyears. I've seen, for example,
what Jacksonville did last year, everyyear we see somebody go worse the first
Look what Washington is doing right nowright, I'm just giving that as an
example of they just popped into myhead the first place commies Magic Johnson's team

(01:31:24):
the best. I'm I'm just acknowledgingship boom. So why can't this Why
can't the Texans be Jacksonville last year? Well, second year, you got
your quarterback, you fill out theroster some more. I'll take this one
because, in my opinion, justbecause we brought Jacksonville, they did have
the quarterback, and they did makea significant change at coach, and that

(01:31:46):
their coach is not Urban Meyer.But I think that you know, the
canvas there in Jacksonville, it wasa lot more painted when the new head
coach got there. This is thetalent level. No, I'm not seeing
Jacksonville was good but Jacksonville No,No, I love you, you know
that. No, they weren't they. I'm not saying they were good when

(01:32:09):
he got there. You're saying thetalent was more robust in Jacksonville two years
ago or a year ago than itI'm saying collectively now with and look,
this is CJ's first year. SoI guess in fairness, I maybe should
go back two years, but Ijust don't. I mean, to me,
what was the first order of businessthat you always talked about WEX when

(01:32:30):
Nickissario got to town, cleaning upthe roster that was doing what every general
manager could do, and the salarycap, which I will commend him all
both of those things much better.And I don't mean to be a jerk,
but I won't. I don't commendhim for that. No, and
if the job. But what I'mgetting at is in so doing, I
mean you talk about a barren cupboard. I don't think Jacksonville was as in

(01:32:56):
dire straits talent wise when Trevor Lawrencegot there. Is the Texans were with
CJ. Stra So let's do this. Think about the fifty three man roster
at the forty six active game day. Think about the twenty two dudes that
went out there that had on whiteand blue uniforms. On Sunday, Denzel
Perriman would start for Indianapolis. Sowould rankings show with Malie Collins, Sowah

(01:33:18):
will Anderson Jr. Soa Derek Stingley, granted he didn't play so with Dalton
Schultz. Yeah, So when youreally but they're just now getting players like
that as opposed to one year guysjust to phil roster spots, because you're
players that maybe they got the yearbefore. I mean, remember Jacksonville had
the number one picking back to backyears. That's how bad they were.

(01:33:39):
And when they went out last yearin the off season, look at who
Jacksonville gave their offense, every player. If I'm not mistaken that Trevor Lawrence
is giving the ball to join theteam after he got there, Travis Ettie
and all of his targets, Ridleykirk Ingram, all of them. Yes,
those guys. Did it come fromelse woodnot etn was a round pick

(01:34:00):
the year after him, Yes,a couple of hours an hour after him.
Yes. So okay, so let'snot get caught in Jacksonville. And
I'm gonna digress to say this,and I'm gonna use an Astros parallel here.
Wasn't it fun watching it get built? Not those hundred lost seasons?
But like as we're in the hundredlost seasons right now, that's the problem.

(01:34:23):
Maybe it's just my type of fandom. I enjoy watching get up close,
like, okay, you get thatguy Will Anderson JUI. So we
brought that up this morning on ourshow, Will Anderson Junior. The type
of dude he is, what we'relearning about CJ. These are two character
guys that know how to work fromreal programs. Yeah, that just go
put like you meet those pieces.I want to be around to like watch

(01:34:45):
them go get next year's class.Petrie's one of those guys, even though
he's not one of like you starta piece and those dudes together. Damian
Pierce is one of those guys.But but and all of that's true and
hundredson accurate, and I agree withyou. They're not gonna win, not
yet. Why because they're just notgood enough yet they're young. Like in
the NFL, you can't do this. There's a billion examples you've mentioned the

(01:35:09):
ones that they were watching it happen. It absolutely can happen. Free agency
can help. There's no way I'mlooking at this GM and this team and
this roster and anything else that goeswith it and saying, I believe that's
what I'm watching happen in short ordertwenty five. Yeah, well I hope
he's gone after this year. Yeah, we can say it again every time

(01:35:30):
he's gone. He's not the guyyou're making me do this. Already had
this in the holster, but you'remaking me send it out now. Omar
Khan was going to be the GMof this team until stupid Jack eastern Be
got on that jet. You realizethat the current GM of the Houston Texans
is the last remaining tie to theeaster By disaster. That's a big tie.
It is like Demiko is the exactopposite. But the guy giving Demico

(01:35:54):
the groceries was brought here because ofa pastor who was running a team.
That's ridiculous. It is, itis, And so that's the dysfunction that
we have put to bed, whichis why you go get another character guy
like Demiko. He's perfect, hischarisma, We trust him, he's genuine
and sincere, and you plug himinto this thing and you can completely start

(01:36:16):
to get away from that. AndI get it whether you keep Casario or
not. But I'm gonna ask youthis. Look out on the other side
of that field on Sunday, theIndianapolis Colts are in the same situation that
the Texans are in. Why didtheir operation in other words, cooking the
meal? Why did it look liketheir meal was served, it was hotter,
it was more fresh the ingredients.And they didn't even have their Damian

(01:36:39):
Pierce, who's much better. Theydidn't have Jonathan Taylor. Nelson is dealing
with a toe. Shaquille Bert isnot. Shaquillet Skill is not the same
player that he once was. Thoseare cobbon copies, rookie head coach,
Rookie Quarterback Division upon it. They'reon the road. Oh, by the
way, he didn't even play thewhole game, because Gardner mentioned shoe is

(01:37:00):
carving your defense. He played eighteensnaps Andrew Richardson, well, two of
those he gave you. Yeah,so, I mean, look at their
drive chart, touchdown, touchdown,punt, punt, touchdown, touchdown.
They scored four tutties before we calledthe TV timeout. Not great, it's
up again. That's not Nick Cassiowas my point, that ain't Nick Well,

(01:37:21):
Nick put those players on the field, that we're allowing that to happen.
Pierramid is here, Demiko told mehimself, and which she may have
been in the room at some pointduring training camp. Demiko I asked the
question specifically about Pyramid after the sackagainst New eng Glenn first preseason game and
essentially, in our paraphrase, payramidshere because I wanted him. That's that's
my guy. Okay, okay,So let's let's go down to roster.

(01:37:44):
Who do we think is over thereplaying that's running around that Demiko didn't want,
Well, we know who he didwant it with a third pick,
you know, does that happen ifDemiko isn't here? That's a good question.
I think already. We'll potder thatduring the break you ever take one,
but we'll come right back. Standnorfully joining us here for a couple
of segments on the EIGHTEAM Sports Talkseven ninety. Hey, whether you like

(01:38:08):
what you saw or not, ifyou had the lasic procedure done at Berkeley
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(01:39:12):
Wex slur my Sports Talk seven ninetyhome for your home teams. Sexans Football
leaves them like nearly all of thefirst year head coaches. Unfortunately, both
of them were at the game yesterday, so one of them Madden to win
no more ties Shane Steike and theonly one of the first year head coaches

(01:39:33):
with a dub so far, SeanPayton and his awful quarterback are O and
two Bird Gang Guy and his quarterbackJosh Dobbs. He's actually not been awful,
but they can't win. They're ohand two and I think later tonight
Frank Reich and his new quarterback BryceYoung will fall to O and two.

(01:39:55):
But we haven't even gotten to thatconversation yet today, and it's going to
be an ongoing one for multiple seasons. We have gotten a game two of
Stroud, and we've seen Richard ourgame two of Bryce. We've seen two
full games of c J, andwe've seen back to back games from Anthony
Richardson where he was not there atthe end of the game. He lasted
most of the first game and cameout late and minor injury that didn't even

(01:40:15):
keep him out from the next game, and then obviously he left this game
after less than twenty snaps. Hislast two plays were both touchdown, very
efficient, spectacular, honestly touchdown runsby Richardson. What would you call the
early returns on each three start withaar. I think we just had the
conversation off here Anthony Richardson and Stykein like, stylistically, that's just a

(01:40:39):
beautiful marriage, and it looks likethey are further along. Didn't that offense
look light years ahead of Stroud andSlowick? Well, when you because they're
coordinator is not a rookie yep,chantych is an offensive head coach who has
called plays before and is now doingit again, and it looked like it.
It made you ask the question andold it to our audience this morning.

(01:41:01):
We should we got the right combination. Now, why personally I'm taking
Tomko ten times out of ten,giving where the Texans work, I'm taking
CJ. Stroud Even if Bryce wasavailable, I'm still taking Stroud now that
Anthony Richardson. It makes you think, because I'm a little jaded come from
Carolina, I've seen how dynamic aCam Newton body can be for a ball

(01:41:23):
club. You can win an MVPand get to a super Bowl. Okay,
But overall, who checks the mostboxes that I was comfortable with?
It's still CJ. Stroud. Wouldyou all do the same thing again if
you had it to do again?Well? This, I mean, I'll
tell you what, all these thingswe've talked about on our show, your
show, and at the game itselfand throughout the day here on Sports Talk

(01:41:43):
seven ninety, I still don't thinkenough of it has been centered on the
only thing that's really truly important.Does this team have direction because their quarterback
can play. And it's only twogames, and I'm dying to say yes
and just be done with it becauseof what I'm seeing from the moment he
stepped on the practice field to thefirst day of camp, to the last
day of camp, to the firstpreseason game to the last preseason game,

(01:42:05):
from game one against their opponent onthe road against Baltimore to what they did
yesterday. The improvement he makes insuch short order is exceptionally impressive. The
accuracy literal not did the guy youthrew the ball to catch it, but
where he's actually putting the ball onhis receivers so they can do something with
it, so the play doesn't succeed. Where he catches it for twelve yards

(01:42:28):
and immediately goes down. If hehas whoever he is, Nico Tank,
Robert Woods, if he has astep on his defender, he's going to
keep it because that's where CJ.Stroud is putting the ball. And this
is on a day where he wasunder a lot of pressure, when the
pocket was clean, when the pressurewasn't there. No matter how bad any
given day is, you're still gonnaget you drop back forty five times they're
gonna be twenty times where you probablyhad a decent pocket fifteen, eighteen,

(01:42:51):
twenty yesterday I believe was twenty sevenor twenty eight. So called good pockets
are not under pressure, and hewas exceptional. And it backs up what
everybody that I've seen or heard talksabout and they said it again yesterday on
the broadcast. What everybody says aboutc. J. Stroud is that he's
a film rat, like a gymrat, only a film rat. Is

(01:43:13):
how they said it yesterday on thebroadcast, Like that's that, that's showing,
it's bearing itself out in other words, And so yeah, you you
know, you'd like to feel goodabout thinking that you have the guy,
which I think I think we're allunanimous in here about that, even though
very strongly against it. See Iwould have taken you will he'll throw the
ball to the other team at somepoint, maybe we'll think. But he

(01:43:33):
hasn't yet in his rookie year,and and considering who he's played against.
And I'm not giving nearly the creditto the Colts defense as I am the
Ravens defense, who looked good againyesterday, although they're playing a guy with
one leg or zero. You know, it's like that's that's an accomplishment.

(01:43:54):
Honestly in my opinion that he hasn'tturned the ball over. Well, he
has turned the ball over like thatin both that's like that. But I
understand what you mean. I thinkCJ of those three right, we just
said it. Anthony Richardson has Stikenat experienced play caller. Bryce's with Frank
Wright, a guy that's been toa super Bowl calling plays Slowik is figuring

(01:44:15):
it out. And so I askedthe question this morning. Think about the
football we've now seen through two gamesfor the pro football team here in Houston.
Tell me what they are. Iknow what I've heard de Miko say
he wants them to be. Butstylistically, give me. Identity is the
word that we used as cliche.What is the identity of the program?

(01:44:39):
I hear swarm. I did notsee swarm on Sunday. That's the problem
is that you would tie the identity, if you will, to the defensive
side of the ball, just naturally, because the same thing we're talking about
with the Colts in an offensive mind. But if they're not doing that,
you know, and again I thinkin both other cases, I'd rather describe
it this way. The Colts identityis Anthony rich On the way he plays.

(01:45:00):
The Texans identity should be the same. He just doesn't run the ball.
It's c J. Stroud. Theidentity of this team is they've got
a guy who can throw the football. They are a passing team. They're
gonna win with passing. They're gonnamove the ball with passing, and they're
gonna be They're gonna matter in thisleague because he can play. How quickly
can they draft that wide receiver nextyear? Like, will it be any
time in between the picks. Yeah, it's whatever they prioritize. I'm not

(01:45:24):
so sure that it's wide receiver withthe number one pick. This Bower's kid
at Georgia at the tight end.I get real comfortable about him. He's
george kid. No, he's Kelseyesque. Watch your back, Dalton Schultz.
Oh wait, he's well, I'mif they draft him. I'm kind
of hoping that Cleveland has a decentyear because if Cleveland has a terrible year

(01:45:46):
and the pick that they give Houstonis a very good pick and they draft
a tight end, oh my god, you don't want to see that stand.
Okay, Lo's better Kyle Pitts atFlorida or brock Bowers at Georgia.
Brock Bows has technically been better.Cow cow Pits is clearly a better athlete.
Who's dumber Arthur Smith or nobody.You can't draft a tight end where

(01:46:12):
you draft him if you're going touse him like that. He's a very
single coach that drafts these tight endsearly, keeps using them like that,
like they're nobody, like they don'tmatter, like they can't help you win
when they why do they do that? When the week one cow Pits didn't
have any targets or he didn't haveany receptions, they may have targeted him
too or three times or something.Andy Ree has shown the blueprint and so
many had before. Nobody else isreading it well, meaning you meaning get

(01:46:38):
the tight ends later if you havean all world talent. I think that's
what he Who's the best receiver onthe Chiefs. It's not even a question.
You don't hesitate. It's Travis Kelsey, but you got yes. But
you gotta dude to my homes asdifferent. So think about it, like
if CJ can be good, let'sbe clear, I don't know that he's
gonna beat my homes. So ifwe're going to down own grade at the

(01:47:00):
quarterback position, that means we mustupgrade at all the other things. So
maybe it's it's a combination of draftand or free agency. I come back
to Bobby Slock and just go,Okay, Bobby, we have a problem
here. You're down four of yourfive starting offensive linemen. So Damian Pierce
running the football. I know that'swhat we want to do. It's what
I'd like to do. But thatsomething unless you design it to be on

(01:47:25):
the perimeter and we're just gonna throwsome runs out there, throw some balls
out there, and let Tank Daleand those guys go jitterbug and try and
create offense out there. I don'tknow how we're going to run the ball.
Bobby Slock is not sleeping well rightnow, and quite frankly, I
don't know it's going to get betteruntil Titus comes back, Larmy comes back.
It's a big reason why the questionI asked was basically unfair grading out

(01:47:47):
CJ or ain't really any of theseguys. It's not fair two games and
it really doesn't even matter what wecan grade out what they're doing. But
for the precise reason that you saidthat Shane Steiken is going to have Anthony
Richardson in a better position earlier inhis career than Bobby Slowik is with CJ.
Straw. That's just a fact.It's just gonna happen. And I'm
willing to be paying to add someof the other things that are also working

(01:48:09):
against him. And you just laidhim out the running game, the offensive
line. So in year two,in year three with Slowik, presumably,
is there really now any difference betweenShane Steike and in year two and three
with Anthony richard And that gap iswide today, It was wide on Sunday
and on display for everybody yesterday atNRG Stadium. It's only going to get
smaller and smaller the more he's worked. But you have to acknowledge the Texans

(01:48:30):
chose this path. We draft aquarterback and we want to do everything we
can to make him succeed. Itsounds nice, but they chose things that
aren't necessarily initially going to make thathappen. Rookie head coach who's defensive minded,
rookie coordinator who's going to be callingplays for the first time, they
don't all really go together. Iknow what they want to do, but
that's not really what's happening. ButI'm here for the game plan, training

(01:48:56):
camp day one. Stay and lookat that line. There's tight as,
there's Tonzo, They're Shack Mason,who's a legitimate starting guard in this league.
Okay, Kenyan Green's Kenyan Green?And then center. We thought we
had Jews. We know Questenbury wentout early. Stand there's Damian Pierce.
There's Devin Singletary. We brought overfrom Buffalo. Mike Boone comes over from
San Francisco. He knows what wewant to do. Dalton Schultz is gonna

(01:49:18):
start at tight end. I canlook out there on the field with all
of those said bodies and go.They should be able to compete in this
league. That's a legitimate offense.Even with a rookie quarterback and a rookie
play caller. They give you ashot scoring twenty points and having two drives,
touchdown opportunities in the red zone killedby penalties turned into field goal opportunities

(01:49:38):
with a line they had yesterday,I don't find that to be a bad
afternoon, all things considered as stupid, dumb, blankety bleak block curse word,
moral victory. Nonsense is what itsounds like I'm saying. But that's
literally what they were trying to doout there. It wasn't it's not awful.
They just didn't do anything. Theyjust didn't put any points on the
board and they were down fourteen nothingin the blink of an eye. Why

(01:49:59):
are your segments always go buy sofast? Because we have a good time
always. Yeah, all right,I appreciate you, know, no,
we appreciate you coming in stand norfully. You can catch him on Next Up
every single day here on Sports Talkseven ninety ten am to noon alongside at
Chris Gordy. We've got another halfhour to go and it's gonna start with
guns n' Roses tickets to give away. Yeah, you're gonna want to know

(01:50:19):
your GNR trivia because you're gonna haveto earn these things when we come back
here on the A team Right now, though, you want to earn the
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it's Craig Visio. Listen to theHome of the Astros in your home.
Just tell your smart speaker play SportsTalk seven ninety on iHeartRadio. All

(01:51:42):
right, I just had to letour good friends slash play us into this
segment. What's uh you Big Gand R Fan? Yeah? Most of
their music slaps. What's the onesong that's not a banger? Uh?
They're all bangers? You said most. I mean I wouldn't even Patience slaps.

(01:52:05):
He didn't like Patience. What doesn'tslap? It's rather slow. So
it's November rain, but it's slaps. It's pretty good long song. It's
like eight minutes, isn't It's prettylong. Definitely a good one, but
it has its moments heat slash,what about Don't Cry? Both versions very
good, They have very very goodmusic. Which was your favorite? Use
your illusion one or two? Thered and yet one when the other one

(01:52:30):
blew blew and purple and then uhyeah redd, and I'll go with that
one yellow. Yeah, all right, you guys want to go see Guns
and Roses and here I stop talkingabout this. September twenty eight at Minute
Made Park. We've reached the timeof the season where people start complaining about
the outfield because of the Guns andRoses show and the Pink Show. Anyway,
you want a pair of tickets andgo see G and R September twenty

(01:52:53):
eighth, Minute Made Park tickets onsale now at Live nation dot com.
But the first person answer this questioncorrectly, it's seven one three two one
two five seven ninety gets a freepair. What is Guns N' Roses?
Lead guitarist slashes government name. What'shis real name? There's no way he

(01:53:14):
came out of the womb and hismom and dad were like slash and that's
it. Now they gave him areal name. I need to know what
that is. Actually, more importantly, Dan needs to know what that is.
It's seven one three, two onetwo five seven nineteen. You will
go see G and R at MinuteMay Park. I've never seen them,
Well, what has I don't.They obviously didn't know it at the time,
and they've planned several minute made parkshows over the course of the year

(01:53:38):
inside the season. This one obviouslywill take place inside the season. It's
a regular season will still be goingon when this concert takes place. They
already knew the Astros would be onthe road quite obviously, but they did
not know at the time how longin between the concert and their next home
game, if there was one intwenty twenty three, would it be been

(01:54:00):
forever. They might not have hadany home games in the playoffs, and
they still might not. But ifthe Astros play at home in the playoffs
next year, it cannot happen forat least a week. They cannot have
a home game during the wildcard roundif they're in it, because they cannot
qualify for the four spot. Technically, mathematically, yes, they can tell

(01:54:20):
me they're going to go on atwelve game winning streak and somebody in the
East is going to lose all theirgames, then yes, technically that's still
there, but they're not going toplay on those dates. You know.
The only way they're getting home gamesis if they win the two seed and
start at home, or win thewild card series and then as the visiting
team or as the non home fieldadvantage team, then get their games at

(01:54:42):
home as the series continues. Sothis concert will take place at least a
week seven days, ten days,not more than that, before any Astros
home game is played. Bonus pointsif you can rattle off the two significant
shows that destroyed the outfield last seasonon the Astro's way to a World Series
title. I can't. I'm stuckon the I went to one of them,

(01:55:05):
Elton John Show. It wasn't Pink. Well they had to cancel it.
Oh yeah, and then Pink playedearlier this year. I believe that
you're making a joke because of whoit is. Well, honestly, I
can't remember who it is. Iremember going to all this, Okay,
I didn't. What's the joke.They're both over the hill musicians who head
out terrible concerts. Okay, that'senough out of you. That's just quite

(01:55:30):
enough. The other one was bad, Bunny, Remember that's right, And
like half the team was at it. It means it must have been a
good show. I get sure thiswill be a good show. I'm impressed
with how he pulls him in.I don't I don't get it. It's
not my my flavor of music,really, but it's fine. He did
a nice stint in WWE as well, and has said he wants to go

(01:55:50):
back. Was there a pop whenhe showed? I think not like the
rock and never that was ridiculous.By the way, if you've seen the
video, it's not just the initialpop because you know, and I think
I've figured out what happened. Thatcrowd went nuts when his music hit,
right. Pat McAfee's in the ringwith Austin Theory. They're having a little

(01:56:12):
dialogue and Pat McAfee talks about thepeople show and what that means and rocks
music hits well lately more often thannot, actually, some wrestlers have been
using the theme song of more popularwrestlers to get a rise out of,
you know, the crowd, andthey come out dressed like them or they
just say, oh, psych,that wasn't really so the crowd heard the

(01:56:33):
Rocks music, but then instinctively they'relike, is he really here? He's
never here, he never does thisanymore. And then you hear when he
actually appears. It actually gets significantlylouder if you've watched the video. So
yeah, that was and he saidit was on his mount rushmore of crowd
reactions, which means there's only threeothers pretty good, and what would those

(01:56:55):
be? I gotta say, Idon't know, man, because see I
was at WrestleMania seventeen in the Domeand Stone Cold Steve Austin came out first,
and his pop was ridiculous. Likethe fact that I was there for
that is a seminal moment in mylife. No, it's not the same
for people like you, all right, I don't even remember it. It

(01:57:16):
was in the domes. I missedall of the rest two thousand and one
and everywhere else they've there was onlyone. I've missed them all. There
was another one next door number nowtwenty seven. The first one was in
eighty five, So you do themath, there's only one a year,
yes, are you sure? Yeah? Every year there's two nights now,

(01:57:40):
but it's the same event this.Wait a minute, they script both nights
out the same. What's the matterwith you? What are you doing?
Are there different matches both nights?There's just the same ones over it again
and you just pretend that no repeatweekend like Metallica shows. You didn't see
that guy win. You're the worst, You're the absolute worst. You know
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(01:59:11):
Adam, and maybe another Adam ifthey get another guy on the show.
That's why they call this splitting theAdam, Adam Clanton, Adam Wexford,
and I don't give us about either. Eighteen Hollollo. That's you're here tonight

(01:59:44):
Blue Monday Night football theme Chris StapletonSnoop Dogg, Cindy Blackman, Santana on
the drums. Two games tonight SatanPanthers, Browns and Steelers. So we
have to hear it twice. Imean, if you're there for the beginning.
Yes, I suppose Barf not afan at all. Like there's some

(02:00:06):
songs that just shouldn't be touched.I'm sorry, Phil Collins, did you
see this is the problem I'm wayto Phil Collins. Guy, obviously I
can't. I don't care. Likein Chris Stapleton. I don't have a
problem with him. I think he'sa great artist. I think he's not
well, No, he's fine,leave this the f alone. Or he's

(02:00:28):
more than fine, he's fantastic.Okay, So you have a man crush
on Chris Stapleton. Stop ruining myPhil Collins songs. Just it's just not
okay. Why is Hank bad again? Why? Why did they get away
get rid of that? What waslike a hundred years ago? Yeah,
after running it for a hundred years, it was by far the best because

(02:00:51):
they actually worked in everything about thatgame. It was great. I loved
it. Then what happened was hedid he get canceled? I don't think
we're canceling people back then. Ithink he just was told first we just
didn't know it. I think peoplewere being let cod We canceled this before
it starts tonight, or we canprobably I mean notton maybe just not care

(02:01:13):
so much. You can't not care. Have you seen American Psycho? I
mean, how much have we talkedabout Carrie Underwood? Well almost none,
But that's just awful. Well,why can't we just do the same thing
now? Well, because Carrie Underwood'sgone now right, they don't do it
anymore. I'm just saying in general, like I'm not she redid it?
She has a new version now?Is it the same song? Yeah,

(02:01:36):
it's still waiting on Sunday night.Yes, I the last two weeks.
I've turned it on late. Ihaven't seen the beginning. It's just a
redone version. I guess if youwill remastered. I guess that Hank song
was just that's slapped a creed.It was a banger. Well, hopefully
the Steelers don't remain winless. Benice to see Cleveland knocked back down to

(02:02:00):
one and one. Obviously that mattersto Houston. That is their first round
pick. Their first round pick isgoing to Arizona, who's now in line
to have two of the best picksin the draft. A lot of games
left, fifteen of them for eachteam, but both the Cardinals and the
Texans picks are for Owen two footballteams, and of course, Bryce Young
gets to play his first home gameagainst the Saints. They're not favored to

(02:02:21):
win, so he, like c. J. Stroud, expected to drop
to Owen two. I feel likethe Saints are gonna go in there and
win that game for sure. Ilike their chances mainly because of their defense.
I think Derek Carr will do hisbest to Kirk Cousins it and keep
it close, but I think they'llstill win. You know, I'm glad
you brought that up because I hadsomething on the rundown last week. They

(02:02:41):
never got that. We never gotto and after this weekend, I would
like to bring it up very quickly. Why don't the Jets trade for Kirk
Cousins because he's the type of quarterbackI with the Vikings trade Kirk Cousins.
Well, they're not gonna win withhim apparently. Well I know that,
but they don't. I mean,there's nothing wrong with the way here,
but there's always be nice of youdidn't fumble. But he's playing just like

(02:03:02):
he always does. He throws theball well enough for you to win.
Somehow they find a way to notscore enough points in the games that mattered.
Last year was a bit of afluke because they won every single game
that was close, and then theplayoffs came and they came up short,
which will happen again. But theVikings like at Oho and two, they're
probably still the best bet to wintheir division Lions one and one. The

(02:03:26):
other two teams lose both their games, the Packers two and oh, but
they're not. Jordan Love looks good. He had a he had a good
game. It looked like they stoppedtrying to put points on the board.
Maybe a little bit too early.But seriously, if you're the Jets and
you're in win now mode, whichthey are, why wouldn't you You can't
tell me they couldn't bring something enticingenough to make the Vikings say yes.

(02:03:48):
And I'm just trying to think ofthe best quarterback. If you're the Vikings,
you're telling you're fifty two other guys. We quit two games into the
season with a totally realistic shot ofhaving not only a playoff team, but
a home game in the playoffs.And what you're gonna lose, Well,
you're you can't. He's not on. They're not taking calls on Kirk Cousins.
Well maybe they should all they're okay, maybe they should, but they're

(02:04:10):
not. You have to if you'rethe if you're the Jets, you've got
to do something. Though, Ifyou if you totally if you think what
you saw in this game, whereyou played the next best defense in the
NFL, or maybe the best defense, so you're gonna base on that.
I mean, they know more thanwe do. But he looked bad against
a great defense. They didn't havea turnover festival until they had to throw
the ball late in the fourth quarter. Bruce Hall I thought was correct yesterday

(02:04:33):
when he was asked why didn't y'all, why couldn't y'all run the ball better?
Or why didn't you He's like,because we stopped running it. He
had four carries. It's like,because they didn't give me the ball.
And he's right, there's no reasonfor them to have abandoned the run at
the point in the game that theydid. But you still, whoever you're
bringing in, he has to bea realistic, capable veteran quarterback because he's

(02:04:54):
got to learn all this on thefly. He might know something about Hackett's
offense, but the guy that doesis already in the building. And I'm
not talking about Rogers. I'm talkingabout Tim Boyle, and he's obviously not
really played in the NFL before,but he does know the offense. I
don't know where this real veteran quarterbackis coming from that can play because they
didn't think they needed one because itwas Zach Wilson. Now he's playing Guys

(02:05:16):
like case Keenum, like Colt McCoy, Those are who you can probably get.
You know, Colt McCoy, youcan get by just making a phone
call and giving him an offer.You know, Case Keenum would cost you
very little and trade. But theTexans honestly might value what he can do
for their young quarterback by not playing, because he's right there standing next to
him on the bench all game,every game as the emergency third quarterback,

(02:05:40):
running through plays, looking at thetablet and everything else that the OC and
Davis are doing there with him.He's there. He has value for this
team even without playing. Would theytrade him for a pick, Well,
they probably have to since Nick's givenaway most of them already, so they
might want some back. He's firedeight oh and two teams out there,
and they're a night or tenth orboth could come tonight. We shall see.

(02:06:03):
We'll discuss that and a whole lotmore tomorrow when we get in here,
including the opener of the Astros andthe Orioles, which is just about
to get underway in about an houror so, and we get you ready
for that with the Astros on Deckshow live from minute May Park, where
Matt Thomas is standing by the host. But not before I tell you about
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Madam Clanton from Sports Talk seven ninetycent. You in. That's gonna
do it for today's program. Appreciateeverybody who participated up to and including Stan
Norfleet. Stop him by in thefive o'clock hour again. You can see

(02:07:31):
him or hear him, I shouldsay tomorrow ten to noon with Chris Gordy
on next up for WEX for DanI may see it is the A team
here on Sports Talks seven ninety Mattthom is up next with the Astros on
Deck Show. We'll talk to youtomorrow three