The A-Team: Geoff Blum! Texans Still Camping and The Real UT?

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adhamtalking Your Teams series. Adam Clinton and
Adam Wexler are the A team Ayou look at it, look at it,
look at us. Oh yeah,this is radio. You listened to

(00:24):
it on Sports Talk seven ninety Astrosbroadcaster Jeff Blom on seven ninety is drought
to you by Low T Center.Wait it all week for this can't wait
any longer. Both Astros Baseball returns, and so do our weekly visits with
Jeff Blom, Adam Wexley here withyou, and Jeff Blum here with all

(00:46):
of us. As the second partof the season begins for the Astros.
Game number ninety seven the sixteenth gameof the second half of the season,
and it begins with the two teamsbattling for first place. The winner of
this series will be in first placewhen it ends on Sunday, and the
All Star break finally has come toan end here on Friday. Jeff,

(01:06):
great to have you back here withus. Your break was filling the blank.
It was exhausting. It's good tobe back on with you, guys,
because I am kind of excited aboutthe second half, but at the
same time, I'm grateful to beon a road trip and in a hotel
room by myself so I can actuallyget some sleep, because, you know,
I might have earned Entertainer of theYear over the last three or four

(01:30):
days, you know, touring LakeHavasu City, Arizona with I think we
had eight teenagers with us. Butit was a good time and I'm glad
to be back with the ball club. So both in reality and literally,
you were the adult in the room. Yeah, literally, yeah, well,
I mean it depends on who youask. You asked my wife,

(01:51):
and obviously she's gonna think I'm justanother twelve year old or maybe the youngest
in that group. But always entertainingto say the least. You know that,
I definitely do know that we're gota house full here for the summer
as well. Although that is rapidlycoming to a close. The baseball season
feels a little bit similar because it'sso uneven. Thus I refuse to call
it first and second half. That'sjust not accurate. There's only sixty six

(02:14):
games left. The Astros only haveso many opportunities against the team they're chasing
in Seattle this series and then oneother. Just six games remain the teams
in the wild card race that they'rechasing, many of whom their season series
has already concluded with. In thecase of Boston, they'll be able to
get back on that because they've notyet seen them, So there are plenty
of things to play for. Astrosand Mariners have obviously set their rotation for

(02:38):
this upcoming weekend, trying not toput too much magnitude on it because there
will still be sixty three games remainingafter this series. But it almost feels
like we don't need to not lookat this like a huge series, because
in reality it is. No Ican actually completely agree with you. I
think it's kind of interesting the waythat the Astras kind of stumbled out of

(03:00):
the gate, and if you're settingup the storyline, the way they stumbled
out of the gate and eventually hada ton of injuries they've able to overcome
that. They go on that runin June and you know, most of
the way through July, and they'replaying very good baseball going into the break,
and you heard them say out,you know, out loud, that
they were trying to get back tofive hundred before the All Star break,

(03:22):
and they did better than that goinginto the break four games over five hundred,
So I think these guys understand thatthey still got a little bit left
in the tank. They still haveenough to compete for the American League Division.
Even when they don't have guys likeJustin Berland or Luis Garcia, de
Lance mc cullors, the you know, the Kyle Tuckers and some of these
guys, they still have enough togo out there and compete. And I

(03:43):
think that's what makes this whole second, you know, second part of the
season compelling is the fact that theydo have sixty six games left. They've
got six more with the Seattle Mariners, both this series that we're playing now
and the series that we'll have tofinish off the season. But I think
that this is a real for theAstros because, you know, as well
as I do, a lot ofthe you know, a lot of the

(04:03):
things that we're hearing out of Seattleis like, oh good, the Houston
Astros lost. So they're thinking moreabout the Astros, I think, than
the Astros are thinking about the Maritors. And that's what makes this series that
much more interesting is knowing that theyhave the Astros on their heels, and
we all know how Seattle feels aboutHouston because of what they did in twenty
twenty two. They love Houston.They can't get enough of the Astros.

(04:27):
They're super excited that every time theythink they have a good team, and
this is the fourth year in rowthey've thought that, well, there's Houston.
They are, as some say,inevitable. It was. It doesn't
seem like it when you're going throughit, and I imagine you can attest
to that, just like the playersgoing from seven to nineteen to a fifty
win team to winning forty three outof seventy games, going sixteen games over

(04:48):
five hundred, it really from abaseball calendar standpoint, it didn't take that
long. I mean, they werestill twelve games under five hundred at twelve
and twenty four and are sitting atfifty and forty four before they lost the
last two games before the All StarBreak to the Rangers. So there is
a lot of season left. There'sactually, as you pointed that out,

(05:09):
I don't think people realize there's aton of time in between this Seattle series
and then the final Seattle Series.And I can't help but think it's still
gonna matter when they finally do seeSeattle at the end of the season.
So while this is a huge series, it also provided because of the break,
the Astros the opportunity, I thinkto set things up. I don't
know if there's a right way orwrong way, or whether or not it's

(05:29):
worth too much thought about. Ithink they did exactly what I would have
done myself if I reset the rotationwith the days off, with trying to
keep guys from throwing too much,too many innings, and we'll see Hunter
Brown go first, from Brevaldez gosecond, and Renel Blanco go finally on
Sunday, and that gives all ofthem the additional rest that maybe sometime down

(05:50):
the road they'll constantly get if theyever get enough healthy bodies to get a
six man rotation. But I haveto imagine you like the way that they
set this rotation up the break,No, I really do. And you've
got to protect guys like Spinisher,Arraghetty, Jake Blost. These guys are
getting into portions of a big leagueseason that they really haven't seen too much.

(06:12):
And Renel is another guy that youcould put in that category as well,
you know, not being a fulltime starter through a full Big League
season, so I think you dohave to protect those guys a little bit.
I do like that Renel's going tobe that third starter in this series,
kind of coming out of the break, has a chance to close it
out and win a series if theAstros are able to take one of the
first two. But at the sametime, you know the way that Hunter

(06:34):
Brown has kind of turned his seasonaround, and some of the vaunted right
handed hitters, I mean, ifyou can say that in the Seattle lineup,
the way that they're going, youknow, he sets up I think
very good because you've got a powerright hander in Hunter Brown, then you
have a left hander in from ErValdez, and then you have a right
handed pitcher with a very good changeupin Renel Blanco's setting up in this series.

(06:57):
So it's going to make it kindof tough for Service to figure out
how to manipulate his lineup to goout there and give them the best chance.
And it's kind of interesting to lookat this point with the Seattle Mariners
leading the division. You know,they've played a couple more games in the
Astros, but they their run differentialis thirty runs lower than the Astros.
They're pitching is elite, yet theiroffense is the worst in baseball. So

(07:19):
it's going to be kind of interestingto see how the Astros can take advantage
of these three games right here beforeJerry Depoto, the GM of Seattle Mariners,
might actually make a decision to tryand go get some offense to get
these guys going. Yeah. Tothat end, I mentioned the gap in
between these two series, one beforethe All Star breaks starting tonight, one
are excuse before the trade deadline,and one after the trade deadline. I'm

(07:41):
pretty sure the team that they seeat the end of the year is not
going to look like the one theysee over the next three days, specifically
offensively. For all the reasons youjust laid out, we know there are
some teams that will feel compelled notjust because they're winning, but because of
the opportunity to be buyers, andit seems almost impossible that that doesn't fall
right into Seattle's plan of attack overthe next two weeks. I'd be shocked

(08:03):
if they aren't buying multiple offensive players, finding multiple guys to be in their
everyday lineup to give them a littlebit more punch, And just from a
scheduling standpoint, the Astros head tohead, We'll only see whatever that team
looks like at the end of theyear, and the hopeful that you can
just take care of your own business. If you start that this weekend,
then you really don't even have toconcern yourselves with that. If they can

(08:24):
take, you know, have agood series to open against Seattle, They've
got Oakland immediately after that, andyou'd like to think, well, heck,
maybe they'll even begin to sell beforewe get there, but the Astros
have handled them six out of seventimes thus far, and then you do
get to go back home, whereclearly the Astros are back to being a
fairly dominant team there. I stillthink all things considered, as long as

(08:45):
the break didn't slow these guys down, I would think they're in a pretty
good space to get the final sixtysix started. Yeah. No, I
completely agree with you, and Ithink you mentioned something in between there.
I do think that the Mariners maylook a little bit differently the second time
play them after that trade deadline,or at least they should try to,
because you know, you know,mentioning that their offense is hitting two nineteen

(09:07):
as an overall ball club, andyou know they're towards the back of the
pack as far as hitting with runnersin scoring positions, So they need to
find a way to score runs tohelp out this pitching staff. The other
one I liked it you said,and it's something that we hear a lot
from this clubhouse this season, isthat they can only control what's ahead of
them, and they're not looking,you know, they aren't looking at what

(09:30):
the Seattle manners are doing from afar. They're looking at what they're doing by
themselves. And that's why I thinkthat turnaround happens so quick for the Astros
is because they just put the pedaldown, played good baseball. They got
great pitching and the offense matching upthe defense was going great. But that's
glad they were able to close thegap so quickly is because they weren't paying
attention necessarily to what the Seattle Marrierswere doing. They were going out there

(09:52):
and going, Okay, we havean opportunity here to score a run.
They take advantage of it. We'regetting a great pitching performance from whoever's on
the MA today. Let's take advantageof that. And that kind of snowballed
and kind of isolated them and kindof galvanized them to go out there and
play their game and not worry aboutwhat the Seattle Mariers were doing or how
close they were doing until they gotto this All Star break. And I

(10:13):
think everybody kind of in that clubhousegot to this All Star break, looked
at where they were at and said, Okay, we busted our ass to
get to this point, let's goahead and finish it off. And I
think they're looking forward to these nextsixty six games to try and prove their
point. Yeah, even though theAstros ended up winning just half of their
final eight games going into the break, of those final seven when they went
four and three, the pitching,which now hopefully got a little bit of

(10:37):
a break as they reset up forthe final sixty six, the pitching was
really really good. The last gameagainst Seattle, excuse me, against Minnesota,
gave up only three runs another threeone, three, three, two
and four on the final day ofthe first part of the season. They're
really in a good spot as theyheaded into this a break for a brave
new Hater and Presley and Taylor Scottwho deserves mentioned with that group as well.

(11:00):
So I like to think that everythingis set up very well. Quite
obviously, I'm aware that Seattle hadmany days off, also didn't have many
players, any players it seemed likesent to the All Star Game, nor
did they need to, like theAstros pitcher on Sunday being off for the
All Star Game, Logan Gilbert andAll Star but unavailable to pitch. So
I do think both of these teamsprobably see things similarly. Because we'll get

(11:24):
to the fact that while I'm surethe Mariners are going to be buyers,
I feel pretty confident the Astros willbe. Also, it's just a matter
of how do they outbid other teamsfor what could be at their disposal,
hopefully on the pitching side. Jeffand I will get back into both of
those things. We continue with thefirst hour on our Friday A Team,

(11:45):
back to Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler. The eight team Friday edition of The
A Team has arrived, and ofcourse the first hour of the program spent
with our guests home Network TV analystsfor your Houston Astros. It actually again
tonight, beginning the second part ofthe season, with three games series late

(12:07):
night Baseball in Seattle for the Astrosand Mariners. Jeff Blum is here with
us, and I know I openedwith a question about the All Star break.
Curious about the All Star break,which was a little different during your
major league career in that it wasrarely the full four days off that everybody
got this time Monday, Tuesday,Wednesday, and Thursday. Nobody plays.

(12:28):
The Astros have had that taken fromthem recently when they had to have that
rescheduled a doubleheader. But for themost part during your career, if I'm
not mistaken, it was a littlebit shorter, and if I have the
timing right, your personal All Starbreaks were both a little bit pre family
and kids and post family and kids. What was the best way in those

(12:48):
situations for you to get away fromthe game for a couple of days.
Man, we took full advantage ofthat. That was one of the best.
I mean, we love our kidsto death, but at the same
time, trying to get that manypeople into one area for a quick trip
is always kind of tough. Butyou know, pre kids, I love

(13:09):
me somem Mexico, man, whetherit be Cabo or you know the cant
Coon sign, or you know thatyou have to tamp Pinentula going down to
Mayacoba and to loom, but wewere we were big on the Cabo trip,
so we would always you know,evacuate the country and head down to
Mexico for some margaritas and guacamole.Man, That's how we usually spent it.

(13:30):
Did you need or want teammates alongfor the party or nah, I'm
good. Yeah, I'd be anegative ghost writer. Yeah. No.
I think when you when you spendsix seven months with a group of guys,
you get to know them pretty well, and you also appreciate your time
away from them as well. Andwe always would kind of make fun of
it. You know, there's there'sfew opportunities when you're playing in the Big

(13:50):
league. There's a few opportunities togo and pick your own friends, and
there will be guys that you willsee in the offseason. But for the
most part, you kind of enjoythe time that you can go out pick
your own friends and kind of catchup and re establish some acquaintances that you
made along the way. Understood impossibleto look at this Seattle series and not
pretty much always go back to whattook place in the postseason. I think

(14:13):
everybody remembers Game one a couple ofyears ago, where the Astros nearly fell
down one game to none, apoor start and the fantastic finish on the
swing from Jordan Alvarez. We rememberGame three in that there was one run
scored and again a late inning,last inning swing for the Astros won the

(14:35):
game with Jeremy Pana in the eighteenthinning. And I actually think people might
forget essentially the same thing happened inGame two in between. The Astros were
down again in the sixth inning,bottom of the sixth inning at Minute Made
Park, and it was Jordan whoput them in front where they stayed.
And while I say a lot ofpeople that might be listening might forget the

(14:58):
Mariners, don't the Mariners know howthe Astros have been in their way for
the one sixty two, for thelast four years, and in this case,
in their way for the postseason.I just think something like that is
in the back of so many oftheir minds. Scott Service as well,
that it makes these games even morefun and intense. Oh absolutely, you
know. I think the way thatyou know, rob you know, the

(15:24):
big managerial move bringing in Robbie Rayand then the subsequent you know, upper
tank game winning home run and thereactions from both sides. You know,
it almost felt like and I getsee out a lot of credit because they've
fought, you know, they've triedto put together a team, they fought,
they put themselves in positions to goout there and win ball games.

(15:45):
But it just seems like, youknow, the the Houston Astros just have
that one last punch. You maythink you've knocked them around a little bit
or got them up against the ropes, but they always find a way to
punch out of the corner and buryyou. And that's you know, that's
been jor Don Alvarez, and Ithink it's for the fans, you know,
just watching some of the you know, the the interaction on social media

(16:07):
is that, you know, we'vebeat you guys the last two years,
and the Astro fans just kind of, you know, during the regular season,
the Astro fans just got to go, that's cute. You know what,
what's your record in the postseason?And you know, I think that's
just kind of ultimately what at theAstro fans have been able to do for
the last seven or eight years isjust say, hey man, that's great,
you beat us in the regular season, show us what you do in
the postseason. But I think that'skind of the difference in how some organizations

(16:32):
have been built, is that theAstros have kind of been built to play
extremely good during the regular season,but to be an absolute menace in the
postseason. And I think that's kindof where these guys are at now.
They're kind of real they're they're reimaginingthat they do have an ability to kind
of red havoc on this league.And that's why they're only one game back
of the Seattle Mariners, who can'tyou know, can't ignore the rear view

(16:53):
mirror. Yeah, some of thatlead they actually built themselves, because they've
eat the Astros five out of theseven game they've met, and all those
things you mentioned from all the yearsthat have proceeded so far, what's happened
in these seven games. It's kindof been flipped. The pitching has been
great for both teams. Essentially inevery game of the seven games that they've
played thus far, no team hasscored more than five runs in any of

(17:15):
the games. There have been threeone run games, the Mariners have won
them all. There are another twogames decided by two runs or fewer.
It's been exceptionally close they have comethrough. The Mariners have come through with
either shutout innings from their bullpen latewhen the Astros couldn't or vice versa for
them to come from behind. Idon't think that this group of Mariners is
maybe unwilling to believe they can winbecause of what's happened. But I also

(17:41):
think they realize we still had towin by kind of getting a runs that
we don't often get. And Iwonder if that's something that as a team
that doesn't score a lot of runs, it kind of weighs on you,
you know, some hundred games intoa season. Yeah, and you remember
when those those six games you're talkingtalking about that the Seattle Mariners have played
the Ashros. That was a differentteam I feel like compared to who the

(18:04):
Ashros are now or who they've becomein June, in June and July.
So it'll be really interesting to seehow they go out there and do that.
But I really agree in the sensethat you know, they didn't steal
any games in the in those previousseries against the Astros. I think they
earned them, and I think theyearned it because they did get a couple
of timely hits or maybe you know, a couple of runs that maybe they

(18:25):
shouldn't have, but they pitched extremelywell, and it was a time when
the Astros back into their bullpen,really wasn't firing on all cylinders and shutting
out games like we've seen here inrecent you know, the recent what six
weeks where you've got Hater on arun, You've got Ryan Presley on a
run, Brian Ambray who's getting someof that strength back from pitching so much
in that first half. So Ithink it's going to be kind of interesting
to see these two teams, youknow, hopefully you know, playing up

(18:48):
to the caliber that they are.But I think it'll be a different look
for the Seattle Mariners, just inthe for the Astros, just because they
haven't seen them really firing when theoffense has gone well in the pitch has
gone well, and they've kind ofmarried those two together. But I really
hope out of the break that theAstros are kind of invigorated. I know
that they were a little tired goinginto the break, but how about getting
four days off and then playing thedivision leader at division rival to kind of

(19:12):
stir things up a little bit andget them going pretty quick. Out of
the gate. I think it's goingto be a fun series. Now.
That would be nice if your tripto Seattle was preceded by games played out
West. Let's say, if you're, you know, maybe catching Seattle on
the backside of a road trip orthat flight there wasn't Houston to Seattle.
In the fact that you're catching itout of the break and you fly at

(19:33):
a time that's much more normal ifyou so choose. And no doubt the
Astros did. Is that a littlebit of a minor advantage in that they're
not flying in late night Thursday nightto begin a series Friday against the Mariners.
Yeah, And I think it kindof speaks to maybe the Astros,
I know they've got a pretty goodhealth department, but also speaks to you,
maybe Joe A Spot of the managerof the Astros, saying, you

(19:56):
know what, let's get out there, let's get acclimated. You know,
they flew in yesterday, they wentstraight to the ballpark, kind of got
the band back together in the clubhouseand went out there and worked out and
got the blood flowing a little bitin the atmosphere of being in that stadium
so that when they do show uptomorrow. It's not going to be you
know, they've been there before.I know that, but it's not going
to be as abrupt. It's goingto be a little more normal, a

(20:17):
little more routine. And I thinkthat's the idea of getting out here early,
is spending that entire day off,kind of acclimating to what's going on,
and spending the time here in Seattle, so you do get used to
that time change a little bit,because you're right. Sometimes, throughout the
course of the season, some ofthese time changes can be pretty drastic.
They can affect the body, theycan affect the mind. And I think
these guys are in a good placegetting here early enough to be able to

(20:41):
relax and enjoy the city with thesun out. We'll get to the baseball
on the other side of this.One question about what I'm sure you were
not locked in on Monday night orTuesday night, So I'll just ask you
about all of it, between theanthem before the derby, the derby itself,
anything that took place during the AllStar Game, anything that caught your
eye or ear. No, I'vegot to be brutally honest. I didn't

(21:06):
watch any of the home run derbyI mean, it was kind of cool
to see Tioscar Hernandez win it justbecause he's an ex astro. I know,
he's wearing a probably not the uniformthat we would like to see him
in, but at the same time, I thought that was kind of cool.
You know, there's there's an astroingredients all over the league and they're
very good ballplayers, so it wasgood to see Tioscar honored. I did
not watch the All Star Game,and I've got to be brutally honest,

(21:29):
the uniforms that they wore were otrocious. I didn't realize that they were
going to go full UNI for thosethings because I grew up in an era
where you know, they wore theirhome your team's home white uniform, and
I really thought that was kind ofcool because you were repping your team,
you're repping your city, and youactually it wasn't it was a team,

(21:51):
but it wasn't like you're an astar. Where were your team uniform?
I just thought that those uniforms wereterrible. I thought the color combinations were
atrocious. I don't know what Salmonand Tan, I didn't know if Vinyard
By made probably going on nailed thesentiment that just about everybody had. Yeah,
we have to have an all Starfor every team. Yeah, let
them wear their uniforms much more.With Jeff Blum still to come, Hey,

(22:14):
it's good listen to every game anywhereon the iHeart Radio Sports Talk seven
ninety it's Home of your Rockets eighteenFriday. Jeff Blum wet here with you
to get you ready for the rebeginning of the baseball season. Sixty six

(22:37):
games remain the first three between firstand second place in the American League West
tonight, with Hunter Brown and LuisCastillo getting the ball for their respective teams.
Coming your way from Seattle. We'vegot coverage for you right here on
Sports Talk seven to ninety. Ofcourse, Jeff and his crew will do
the same over on Space City HomeNetwork, and the Astros hope they continue
what they did heading into the break. A lot of what they did heading

(23:00):
into the break, offensively, wasdriven by the why guys, and I
think everybody's struggling to create a nicknameif there even needs to be one,
but Janer Diaz and his persistent threehit games and yord On Alvarez and his
nobody wants to pitch to me againattitude. Over the last couple of weeks,
they have been outstanding in having thisoffense really make a pretty good showing

(23:25):
without Kyle Tucker been done a verygood job, and I think that Yiner
is doing an admirable job of tryingto protect jord On Alvarez as Jordon gets
the you know, the prototypical BarryBond's treatment. When he's going extremely well,
it's only a matter of time beforehe's just getting straight up the Jordon

(23:48):
treatment. I know we compare himto Jeff Bagwell because I mean, I'm
sorry to Barry Bonds, because he'sa high on base percentage, he's selective,
he's a good hitter, and atthe same time, if you make
a mistake that he can get thehe's gonna end up hitting it about four
hundred feet. So you've got tobe very careful, and especially when you
start to look at this Astros lineup. Guess one through nine. They have
been producing here in the last monthand a half. But at the same

(24:11):
time, when you look at thislineup and you're preparing for the Houston Astros,
there's one guy in that lineup thatyou say, I do not want
this guy to beat me. Itis your Don Alvarez, I would say,
almost every single day. Even whenyou have the likes of an Alex
Bragman or Jose Altuve in that lineup, he's the guy that can do the
most damage. So you've really gotto be careful around him. And when

(24:32):
you're careful around him, you yourisk the opportunity of putting him on base
and having to pitch to a guylike Yaner Diaz who's been hitting it.
I want to say three hundred orbetter in the last you know, month
and a half. Because of whatyou're talking about, Wex. It's crazy
how it's It's not surprising, butit's crazy to me how often he can

(24:52):
go out. Yander Diaz can goout and get hits in bunches. You
know, he'll have one at batwhere he'll go out and swing in a
slow in the other batter's box andyou're going, oh boy, here we
go again. You know, ayoung hitter chasing a pitch and then all
of a sudden, you know,he pulls one down the line, or
he gets a mistake and hits ithard up the middle, and next thing
you know, he's got two hitsand he comes up in his fourth or
fifth bat, punches one the otherway for an RBI, and he's got

(25:15):
three hits. Again. It's amazinghow quickly he's been able to rack up
those three hit games. So he'sa good hitter when he stays inside the
zone, obviously, But that's justpart of the growing pains of Yaner Diaz
is him realizing that I don't haveto expand my zone these guys. If
I'm going to get my hits,I have to hit the stripes in the
zone. And when he does allowthem to do that, he takes advantage

(25:36):
of every mistake. But man,I don't know what that nickname is going
to be either between those two guys, but they have been you know,
you know why two. I don'tknow what it is, but they've been
very good back to back. AndJoe Spot, I know for a fact,
is grateful that he's found somebody toinsert behind Jordan Alberts, because if
you think about it, if theonly other guy you might think of might

(25:59):
be Alex Bragman. So if youare backing up Jordon, you're able to
keep Alex in that two spot.Yeah. What it's also I think we've
all seen show is this is probablythe construction of the lineup you're going to
want to keep, kind of regardlessof what else you have, and assumes
that when Kyle Tucker comes back,I would think he goes for or again,
if you felt like putting him five, I guess that's fine. I
doubt he would do that. Butthe bottom line is there's really not any

(26:22):
indecision about al two eight, Bregman, Alvarez beginning things at one two three,
And when you're talking about Yiner hitting, Jordon's hit three twenty five since
and including the one at bat thethirty five games that they've played without Kyle
Tucker, Jordon's hitting three twenty five. Yanner's hitting three thirty three in that
exact same time. Stan, overthose thirty five games, he has been

(26:47):
right. He's also exactly to yourpoint. You know, he has the
same number of strikeouts during that timeas Alex Bregman and fewer than a handful
of his teammates. So his batshave been productive. He's just one RBI
shy of what Jordon's produced during thistime. Jordan's got twenty seven in those
thirty five games. Jiner has twentysix during that same time. And that's

(27:07):
I know it sounds old school,but I still think you can win baseball's
thinking about it this way. Yourthree and four hitters are driving in the
bulk of your runs. Yeah,that's kind of how you draw it up.
And you know that I completely,you know, disregarded the fact that
he is, you know, wellup over forty RBIs and chasing ord On
Alvarez in those opportunities. And it'sbecause you have guys like Alex Reregman getting

(27:30):
on base. Ye who's theale twoday getting on base? And then if
they do get careful around Jordan Alvarez, Yanner is there to clean up the
mess. So I think it's reallykind of fascinating. And it's a credit
to this lineup too, having asmany guys as they do. And we've
seen this in the past with theAstros, you know, we talk about
how many times they've had guys withseventy five plus RBIs in their lineup,

(27:51):
and that's because they have depth.It's because they don't strike out, it's
because they get on base and theycreate all of these opportunities. And the
more opportunities you get, even thoughthe numbers may not dictate that you're the
best team at it. The numbersdictate that you're getting the most opportunities at
it, and I think that's kindof the idea of the Astros, and
all these guys are taking advantage ofit, most notably Yaner Diaz, because

(28:12):
Yer hasn't really done it with thelong ball like we saw last year.
Last year we saw him driving inruns with the long ball. This season,
he's had to be a little bitmore of maybe a better hitter,
because he's not getting those pitches hecan hammer and hit up onto the train
tracks. Yeah, nineteen homers andfifty two RBIs for the team leader in
RBI, Jordon Alvarez just seven homers, but forty nine RBIs for Diaz,

(28:36):
who again stands second to yord Onand RBIs. This season, they now
have seven players with forty or more. Kyle Tucker is among them. I
think the thing that still stands outabout Tucker season, which even if he's
not quite himself, whenever it isthat he comes back, and I suspect
we actually might be seeing him backsometime in the relatively near future. I

(28:56):
wouldn't expect this road trip, butyou know, maybe there's an opportunity for
him to get on the field forone of the minor league teams here soon
and before they leave again. Afterthat, maybe he's back. He still
leads the team and walks, doesKyle Tucker after missing all this time,
And it's not necessarily now, thisteam has walked a lot less this year
as a whole, but in thiscase, my point would be Kyle Tucker

(29:18):
has walked so much more that he'shelped this lineup even when he hasn't been
hitting the ball over the fence.Yeah. No, it's a real credit
to what Kyle Tucker's done to starthis season. Another reason why you want
him back because Tucker was basically carryingthe offense for the first two months,
and then since he went on theinjury list, we started to see a

(29:38):
lot more of what this team overallcan do, and that's what doing extremely
well. But it is a lotof fun to watch the Iardz take advantage
of opportunities jump up to that fortynine run plateau. And like you said,
when Tucker finds himself back on thefield, this offense is only going
to be that much better and maybeit does kind of push you know,

(29:59):
a Yuiner into the five hole,and I don't think it takes away many
more RBI opportunities. I think he'sstill going to get plenty of opportunities when
you do get a Kyle Tucker back. But I think that you know,
Troy Snicker, Alex Cintron, andI'm sure Joe a spot as well.
But we're all kind of looking atthis lineup going, man, they're scoring
this many runs and playing this wellwithout Tucker. What happens when they do
get Tucker back? This could easilybecome the best offense overall in the league

(30:23):
going into the last couple of months. Righty, righty, righty. This
series from the Mariners, they'll seeWU for the first time when he goes
on Sunday, real quickly here,would you think it might be a good
opportunity to have your lefty low Braffitoin the lineup Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Yeah. I think it's going tobe really interesting because you know,

(30:44):
Chas McCormack hasn't really performed up towhat he did last year or as much
as we hoped. But at thesame time, you know, I think
Joe's going to have to kind ofmanipulate Mauricio Dubon, Trey Cabbage, Chas
McCormick. But I would imagine outof all those guys, low Berfdo's got
that guy that's gonna go out thereand get some regular events. Low Braffdo
eighty eight at bats so far inhis first major league season, hitting two

(31:06):
seventy three seven to fifty zero psfifteen stakes. In those thirty one games,
he's come through in some pretty goodsituations. He's hit a lot of
rockets. His batting average on ballsand play has been spectacular. It started
off incredible, it's still very verygood, and those things usually even out
a little bit. And he wasa big strikeout guy in the minor leagues
and that has not changed here atthe major leagues. Interesting in some of

(31:29):
the pitches he's taken versus some ofthe swings he's made against pitches that are
in the zone, which I thinkactually over these last four days kind of
his best opportunity to also catch hisbreath. We'll see what jo Aespota intends
for these writings. And again Imentioned they'll throw at the right hand.
That's nice information. There are alsothree exceptionally good right handed starting pitchers,

(31:49):
so the task at hand for allnine hitters in the lineup will be a
big one. One final segment herestill in the opening hour of the Friends
Friday edition of the eight Team withJeff Blum to go the eighteen Adam cleansing
that Adam went for the afternoon teedcovering your team slives this day to left
Center fail. This is Sports Talkseven ninety pom of Astros Baseball. Final

(32:17):
segment opening our Friday edition of theprogram. We's here with you in studio,
Jeff Blum joining us as he alwaysdoes on Fridays on the phone line
here as they get set the Astrosdo to take on the Mariners tonight.
Something on the pitching side. Iwas curious if you could help share some
knowledge about. Heard an interview withthe Astros current backup catcher, Saysar Salazar,

(32:38):
and we will check in on theprogress of Victor Caratini, who's with
the Astros FCL team over the lastcouple of days to try to get back
to the roster. But Seysar wastalking with the guys over to pollow our
friends over there and about nasty pitcheson this Astros pitching staff. Two of
the starters throwing this weekend, HunterBrown and fromber Valdez, Hunter tonight and

(33:00):
fromber tomorrow. He'd mentioned, especiallyin Hunter's case, having not caught him
kind of before he threw that twoseemer. He described it as even when
Hunter told him the kind of movementit would have, it was hard for
him to kind of not guess butget a handle on what that two seemer
from Hunter does before I get tothe other two pitches. He mentioned,

(33:22):
what is it that you see andhave heard others talk about Hunter's two seem
that has kind of turned him intothe pitcher that he's been the last two
months. Well, I love that, you know, Saysar was able to
tell you something about it, getthe opportunity to get his voice out there.
But you know, it's one ofthose things where you're you're watching the

(33:42):
pitch be used and you're wondering,you know, man, these guys can't
get to it. But then youhear you know, a big league catcher,
and Saysar Salazar saying, you knowwhat, the thing's got pretty damn
good movement and it's tough to catcheven when you know it's coming. So
I appreciate him kind of trying toyou know, quantify or you know,
value what this pitch has been ableto do. And I love the fact
that some of these guys in thisrotation and some of the guys that he

(34:04):
did talk about are guys who areyou know, they're you know, Hunter
Brown has established himself in this rotation, yet he's still trying to be better.
And I think he understood that hewas having a tough time getting to
the inside corner on right handed hitterswith his four seen fastball. Now he
decided to go with the two seamfastball, had no idea how it was
going to work, found a gripand is able to execute it. And

(34:27):
it's made him a tremendous pitcher.And it's allowed him to throw a pitch
to the inside without you know,having to bury a forcing fastball or risk
it floating back over the middle partof the play, because that's a big
fear with the forcing fastball guy isthat if you go to the inside corner,
you miss and it leaks out ofthe plate, it gets hit hard.
Now he's got a two seamed fastball. If it misses the plate,
it runs even further in and blowsup some of these right handed hitters.

(34:51):
So I think it's kind of coolthat he has developed that pitch. And
I think it's even better that,says arsalas Aar has given us an opportunity
to really realize that it is alegit good pitch, essaysar. The one
of the other pitches he mentioned wasthe curveball from Fromber. We've seen it
in action for such a long timenow. It is a put away pitch.
There are days where he can justthrow it over and over again,

(35:12):
and these hitters not just swinging andmissing, they're missing it by a mile.
He described it as heavy a bowlingball. What does he mean when
he says that, Yeah, usuallythey'll mention that about sinkers. You know,
guys that have a bowling ball sinkerand it means that they've got a
lot of movement on that pitch.But it's a lot of late movement because

(35:34):
in order to kind of create thatheaviness to it, it's got to stay
off the barrel. And when youhave that kind of late movement, and
as a hitter, I've already startedmy swing and I get to that pitch
and it hits off the end ofmy bat, it feels like you are
hitting a you know, an anvil, it feels like you're hitting into,
you know, a cinder block wallbecause it basically stops the bat. You

(35:55):
do kind of follow through, butyou'll see a lot of broken bats off
the end of the bat if youhave one of those good bowling ball sinkers.
Kevin Brown was really a guy fromme that I find comparable, even
though he's from that right side,who had a really good sinker with some
late movement to it and really kindof created that heaviness to it when you
hit it off the end of thebat, because if you don't square that
up, it feels like you're runninginto a brick wall. And that's exactly

(36:17):
what some of those pitches look like. But that's what Promber needs to do
is throw that filthiness up there andjust let those pitches work for themselves.
I think that's what's fascinating is that, you know, Hunter Brown his two
steamer, and the current ball andsinker for Frober Valdez is that you don't
have to force those into the zone. You just kind of let that pitch
work itself out and you're going tobe successful. And that explains why these

(36:39):
guys are so good, so frequently. Last pitched he mentioned, I think
we've all seen its effectiveness was theslider from Brian Abray. Is part of
its effectiveness the fact that he stillbrings the other pitch that looks just like
it out of his hand at ninetynine miles an hour or better. Yeah,
yeah, no, I figure exactlyright. And you know, I

(37:00):
really do believe, and I thinkCaesar said, you know it's right around
that eighty nine to ninety mile anhour. You know, velocity on that
slider that makes Briana Breer super effective. And it's almost to the point where,
if that thing is on, youcould literally tell the hitter, I'm
going to throw you a slider righthere, and you're not going to have
the ability to go get it becauseif he's able to release that with the

(37:22):
same trajectory and kind of tunnel withthat fastball in the upper nineties, that's
where you run into the issue becauseout of the hand it looks like it's
going to be high velocity, straightand you start to start your swing and
then you eventually pick up the rotationof that pitch and go, oh damn,
here comes the slider. And whenyou make that adjustment. By the
time you do it feels like it'sbroid. You know, there's enough vertical

(37:45):
tilt to that pitch to be ableto get underneath the swing of the hitter.
And that's where you find yourself introuble. You either get weak contact
or what we see most of thetime with Brian A. Brerier is that
swing amissibility. And I think that'swhat's a lot of fun. So at
what time of the day, especiallyfor a late start nine to ten Houston,
time for first pitch to you andand Todd start thinking about who your

(38:06):
pick is going to be tonight.Yeah, I mean I look at some
of my notes. I've already killedout my scorecard and I've kind of taken
a peek at the notes and tryingto figure out, you know, Louis
Castile. But it's usually when yougets to the ballpark and you figure out
what you know, what order we'repicking in, and then you kind of
have your dark horse. But youhave your first pick, and usually it's

(38:28):
Jordan Alvarez and I know, youknow, he's had some good swings against
Louis Castile in the in the past. Who's starting for the Seattle Mariners,
and you look at the matchups andyou kind of My thing is I look
at the matchups, but I alsokind of look at uh batting practice and
where the swing has been recently becausea lot of recency bias for me in
what goes into my pick for pickthe stick understood. Looking forward to the

(38:51):
coverage tonight as always, and thankgoodness they're back. It's it's a mid
season annual tradition of no baseball forone, two, three, four days.
Let's get to it and the Astroshopefully can continue and pick right back
up on the momentum they had headinginto this portion of time. Jeff,
we always appreciate your time and certainlyappreciate those who make it all possible.

(39:13):
Yeah, first of all, youknow, the Jeff Witzet Vision Group has
been fantastic to me, and it'sbeen fantastic to a lot of people patients
out there who have made the decisionto go out there and make their eyesight
better. If you're going to goto somebody, go to one of the
best in the U scenario, that'sdoctor Jeff wits It. He will give
you a face to face personal conferenceto figure out the best move moving forward.

(39:35):
And of course the FDA appreciates himbecause he has done a lot of
clinical trials and succeeded in them.But he does fantastic work. And of
course low Ti Center dot Com iswhere I go to keep my energy going
throughout the course of the season.It is a long season, it is
arduous, it has a lot oftravel, but I get my good sleep,
I recover from my workouts, andI have the energy to go out
there call games and also work outon a consistent base. And so tell

(40:00):
us, trust me, go tolow t Center dot com. Check them
out. They're all over Greater Houston. The best thing to do in Seattle
versus best thing to do in Oakland, Well, you got to get out
during the daytime. I highly recommendwhen the sun's out and you get out
there and go. It's beautiful weatherhere, seafood in the Northwest and coffee

(40:22):
in Oakland. You got to pickyour spots. You gotta be a little
more careful. I understand that nextweek we will dig in on what you
plan on doing in Sacramento. Now, with the twenty twenty five schedule out
for your flatting, my ass offI believe that will be the case.
Jeff, We really appreciate the timeand obviously look forward to the ball game
starting again tonight. Thanks ellas,got it Jeff Blum as he always does

(40:45):
each and every Friday afternoon here onthe A Team joined just for a weekly
discussion about Major League Baseball and theAstros an opportunity on the other side as
we get the four o'clock hours.Started to dig in on day two of
Texan's train camp padless of course,as every NFL training camp is at the
onset for each Texans still ahead ofthe game a little bit with getting in

(41:07):
these early practices as they prepare forthe extremely important football game on August.
First we talk Texans. Next,two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adham Talking
Your Teams series, Adam Clinton andAdam Wexler are the A Team A Team.

(41:32):
Great conversation as usual as Jeff Blum, and now time for us to
take a look over at the Texansfor a little bit as we get set
for practice number three tomorrow. They'lltake day off on Sunday and reopen back
things up the remainder of the week, an opportunity for fans to come out
Beginning on July twenty third of nextweek, and then they'll be ready to

(41:53):
take on to the Bears, whothankfully have gotten their quarterback signed. What
a ordeal that must have been.Wexen Dan in here with you over the
next couple of hours, talk alittle bit about what has been seen over
there. And I was honest withyou yesterday, as I'll be honest with
you again today. They went lightagain and they still don't have pads on.
By rule of the NFL and theNFLPA, you don't put the pads

(42:15):
on when you begin camp couple daysafter the first practices, then you can
do so. So they should bedoing that, I believe in the first
practice of next week after Sunday's aday off that is at their discretion.
So not a whole lot of practicing, to be quite honest with you,
going on out there. Today's vibehad a very similar vibe to yesterday's,

(42:36):
which I described as a comparable oneto the vibe from the off season.
They had such unbelievably good attendance andhealth during most of the off season workouts,
even the mandatory mini camp, thatit really felt a lot like that,
And there's just not a lot ofnewness to what's going on out there,
because all these players have all beenon the field already so much and
the tenor of these practices just hasn'tbeen tremendously different. It's all about when

(43:00):
the pads go on and being smartabout the fact that the preparation for the
season really doesn't change. The preparationto make it through. An additional preseason
game just from a calendar standpoint hasto So there's no real reason for the
Texans. It's not like they're goingto look at their schedule for preseason games,

(43:20):
get to start training camp early.They start the season just like everybody
else at the same time Thursday,Sunday or Monday of the opening week of
the season or Friday. But theydon't really need to practice more. They
don't really want to practice more.I don't think the teams or the players
are saying, man, I wishtraining camp was longer. I wish we
had more time to run drills.I wish we have more time for seven

(43:44):
on sevens and eleven on elevens andspecial teamwork. It's not necessary and it's
certainly not wanted. And again,what you push up against is the risk
of injury. Every team's gonna loseplayers over the course of training camp,
different varieties of levels of injuries,et cetera. And whatever you can do
to minimize that is the goal,and I think that's why what I've seen
out there these first couple of daysit's a pretty good indicator of that.

(44:07):
I mentioned yesterday there was a limitednumber of seven on seven reps for their
four quarterbacks and respective offensive and defensiveplayers, same with eleven on elevens.
There were less today, even fewerreps run today. One thing they did
yesterday they worked a little bit onpunt returns and they were able to watch
the ball come off the leg ofnew punter Tommy Townsend, hangtime, immense

(44:30):
ability to hit his spots in whatwas a rare windy Texans outdoor practice.
I was pretty impressed by that.But we'll see what and how they deploy
him this season as they've gone fromCam Johnson to Tommy Townsend. But the
punting roles haven't changed, the kickoffreturn rules have changed, and today the

(44:50):
Texans actually went through some of thosedrills with their coverage teams. With the
setup the way it is, itdefinitely looks weird even at the speed there
going at even without pads. Butthat's what they have to work with,
and that's what the thirty one otherspecial teams coordinators have to figure out.
What's the best course of action forour coverage teams. What's the best decision

(45:12):
to make with where we want ourplacekicker to or kickoff specialist potentially to put
the football, and who do wewant back there? Two players back there
you'll have basically, I would thinkevery team will do as the rules suggests.
You got to have two men inthe return zone and you work from
there. And we saw a littlebit of that today and it's pretty easy

(45:32):
to see what could be. Mostof the players that you see in a
return situation at the NFL level havedone it before, whether it was at
the NFL level for some other teamor at the collegiate level, and usually
that means they were awesome at it. You know, Steven Simms has a
good history of returning kicks, punts, and otherwise. He obviously found the
end zone in the postseason game againstthe Ravens. He has been the guy

(45:54):
they might go to first if he'son the roster. Des King has returned
a lot of punts for this teamand been on their kick teams. Devin
Singletary is a player that they've usedbut now is not here. And you
always have to be concerned with yourtop guys, your top skill corners,
potentially your top skill wide outs,potentially your top skill running backs. They

(46:15):
might be your best options in termsof pure ability to make a play on
special teams with their return skills,But at what cost, At the cost
of the additional reps, at thecost of the additional exposure to injury.
It's something coaches usually have to weighon pretty heavily when they make those decisions,
and as this particular rule changes thisyear, it's pretty easy to see

(46:37):
that Tank Dell is one of theplayers, at least initially. Last year
was the same. This year sofar has been the same. He's back
there. He is catching kicks andtaking off with him. He is part
of the group that's usually about sixplayers, a little bit more this year
because of the way it's set upfor kick returners. But obviously we saw
him back there and he was askedabout how he and he thinks other teams

(46:59):
might deploy their players under the newkick rules. With the new kickoff rule,
I think you'll see a lot ofteams using many more skill players at
the return position because you're gonna beable to run return the ball and it's
gonna hit pretty quick. So Ithink as many guys as you can get
who can catch the ball back therereturning, whether there's receivers or running backs,

(47:22):
like, we're gonna try to useand try to use all of our
guys to see who's best at reallycreating explosive plays, because that's what I
think will happen on that playoff.It's one of two situations Dan that he
mentioned, like to see more explosiveplays. We'll get to the other one
and what group of players he wastalking about then. But Steven Simms had
a touchdown today if I can sobe so bold to call it that under

(47:45):
these practice conditions, but it's tome, I think it's gonna be.
Teams are gonna find out, especiallywhen they see other teams skill guys specifically
back there. I think we're gonnasee a ton of awesome field position.
We're going to see a lot morescoring if teams are feel compelled to give

(48:05):
the opponents the opportunity to return kicksbecause the way it's set up is all
for action and is all for seeingteams with awesome field position after scores.
You know what example immediately comes tomind for me is the spots that Major
League Baseball was running last year ofHey, the pitch clock is great,
Hey look at this, there's gonnabe more guys on base. Hey,

(48:27):
they're gonna take off, They're gonnasteal. Like I kind of feel like
that is going to be something thatthe NFL is going to start to pass
along of, Hey, don't goanywhere when the ball is kicked, because
instead of the return man just walkingout of his end zone with his arms
out in the form of a teeto let his coverage team know like,
hey, you can stop blocking yourguy. I'm not even going to touch
this football, You're actually going tosee probably return men catching the ball and

(48:52):
running it out. Well, theydo have some stipulations on that. I
think this may maybe it will beregarded as an intended concept. I don't
think so. I don't think that'sthe intention. I do think they didn't
want to see this as a nonplay, just as you described. I
definitely think that was one of thegoals has to be balanced against how dangerous
this play has long been considered,and how they weighed that. They again,

(49:14):
this is not the first time they'vechanged the kickoff rules. The last
time they changed it was pretty easyto calculate the downturn in significant injuries that
took place on this play, Butwhat came with it was well even when
there were returns, and it didproduce fewer major injury plays, collisions,
et cetera. Too many of theplays just didn't exist. It was a
kick and then that was it.There was no action after the ball hit

(49:37):
the foot or the foot hit theball, because there was no play that
followed. Because teams were not returningthese kicks. They were going into the
end zone, and teams were perfectlyfine with just giving up possession right there
at the twenty five and it savedthem the negative possibility of seeing a return.
And I do think this is tryingto prevent it. But I almost
wonder if teams will just say,I'm just gonna kick it in the end

(49:57):
zone. You can have the ballat the thirty. I don't want you
to return it. You might havethat too. I mean, it might
be kind of the new weapon thatis. I mean, I think we
remember, you know, kind of. It's one of those things that special
teams is a forgotten commodity in thegame. But I want to take people
back to twenty ten when the Texanstook on the Ravens and Sam Cook,

(50:19):
for all intents and purposes, thepunter of all people for the Ravens,
was the most valuable player of thatgame because of how he flipped the field.
And in this case right here,it's going to be that maybe you
are up by six, or maybeyou are up by ten, and you
don't want to become a one possessiongame where you just tell your guy,
hey, I don't care about touchbackhere, put him at the thirty.
We'll take our chances because that guyor those two guys to your point that

(50:44):
they have back there, they cantake it to the forty fifty are fifty
or or excuse me, are fortyor thirty and much worse. Yeah,
see that's where I think they canthey get it to the forty. The
answer is yes, and if theydo, it's a touchdown. That's the
problem. There aren't going to bewe gave up a few too many yards
on the return. You're giving upa ton of yards you kick the ball

(51:07):
into the landing zone, and forthose that don't know, it's between the
goal line and the twenty yard line, or the twenty and the goal line,
so beyond the twenty, but notinto the end zone. And once
the player fields the football, thekicking team's coverage team, which is standing
at the forty yard line, canthen begin. They're standing with one foot
at the forty. They can't goanywhere until that ball is caught. So

(51:30):
let's say you kick the ball andit lands at the absolute edge of the
goal line, and the player standingas close to the end zone as he
possibly can, but decides to goahead and field it and run with it.
Let's say that player's Tank Dell,for instance. You don't think he's
gonna beat everybody to the twenty.Just if nobody else was on the field,
he would beat everybody else to thetwenty. And then you're giving him

(51:52):
nine other blockers plus the return manwith him that didn't block. To me,
it's a recipe for tremendous returns,tremendous offensive field position. And I'm
sure they're aware of it as muchas you know. Someone like myself is
trying to analyze it. And theyhave some data from the other football league's
professional football leagues that have put thisinto use. But I that's one of

(52:13):
the very few things I do wantto see in preseason, not just with
the Texans games, with everybody's games. That is something that we're going to
have to find out about. FrankRoss is going to have to find out
about every team is going to becauseif you're finding out the teams are going
to be willing to kick you thefootball to return it, well, then
put those guys out there and they'regoing to return it and you're going to
be in great field position. Onenice change I think this NFL season.

(52:37):
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website Men'stclinic dot com. That's Men'sTclinic dot com. DA team continues eighteen

(53:44):
Friday. Wexen day in here withyou. It is an opportunity for us
to visit some of the things thattook place over all the practice fields of
Houston Texans training camp and mentioned yesterday. I had the opportunity to catch up
with the leader of the offense,CJ. Stroud, the defense, Will
Anderson Junior, and the I'm notsure where everyone will rank them preseason,

(54:07):
pretty sure where they'll rank them postseason, but they're wide receivers. One of
the leaders of the wide receivers,Nico Collins, spoke yesterday. Today.
We had the pleasure speaking with Tagdell, Daniel Hunter, and their new lead
running back Joe Mixon. Clearly,one of the topics has been about the
additions to this team, what theywere a year ago versus what they might

(54:29):
be this year. Two fairly significantexpenses beyond Nico Collins on the offensive side
this year re signing Dalton Schultz.They signed me to a one year deal
last off season and worked out wellenough that they gave him a multi year
deal for this and the upcoming seasons. Very poor free agent market in terms

(54:51):
of tight ends, I think theTexans were more looking at We'd love continuity.
We definitely want someone that can continueto build a good offense CJ.
They really didn't have any other options, so they went ahead and just gave
it all to Dalton Schultz, whomade very very good money. Obviously.
The other major outside acquisition offensively wasthe man behind him, Joe Mixon,

(55:12):
who seems destined with the group ofsix running backs they currently have to be
not only the replacement for Devin Singletary, but the likely heavy use number one
running back for the Texans. Clearly, the guys behind him can make the
Texans change that plan, and theyhaven't explicitly said that, but it seems
fairly obvious that Joe Mixon is hereto be in every down back. He
might not take every snap in agame, he's not coming off the field

(55:36):
for every third and passing situation byany means he is a third down back,
and that he can catch the ball. So well, those two players,
Schultz and Joe Mixon, along withwhat is obviously one of the most
talented trios of top three wide receivers, in my opinion, the best group
of three wide receivers any team inthe NFL employees Stefan Diggs, Nico Collins,

(55:57):
and Tank Dell. Those five yesterdaywere called something very specific and awesome
by C. J. Stroud.If you forgot, he described them in
this manner that for somebody who definitelycan't open up your playbook. But we
have all of those guys around,he'll say that too, you know.
So it's five hited monster, youknow. So it's definitely a super dope
to have, you know, justa bunch of options. When players talk

(56:21):
to the media, the media issupposed to be listening, the media is
supposed to be using that information,and TV hits, radio shows, their
write ups podcasts, and they usuallydo. The players on the team,
they probably don't have any idea what'sbeing said there unless it's something absolutely outrageous
or contentious or negative about somebody intheir own locker room, which is pretty

(56:43):
rare and extremely rare here in Houston. So for that to be discussed a
second day today, yeah, itwas on us, and several times it
was brought up back again to theplayers we were talking too, specifically the
two offensive players, Joe Mixon amongthem. Does he feel like with CJ
said about this group those five specifically, is it a five headed monster?

(57:06):
Well, Joe, what do youthink? I honestly don't think CJ is
lying. I mean, I feellike everybody over here agree with that.
I think that we have a lotof great talent on this YIR offense and
really on the team. I've definitelybeen on a championship team before, and
I know what it's like, Iknow what it takes to get there,
and I feel like we have nodoubt we have the best talent that I've

(57:30):
seen here, you know, ina long time, And I honestly feel
like the team that we have here, I know that we're ready to you
know, go and go for thatlong run. Man long run he's been
on before, and he mentioned thatas well, kind of knowing what that
type of team looks like. We'llget to that in a minute. I
thought it was an interesting spin onhow to take an answer from that from

(57:52):
Tank Dell when he brought up somethingthat we talk about from time to time
here when we're looking at, youknow, distributing the football, you know,
playing with great talent, does doesthe quarterback make those players around him
better and specifically at the college levelwhen you're trying to scout them for the
next level? Or is it theother way around? Or is it either
or is it both? Tank Dell'scomments on the five Headed Monster, he

(58:14):
took the opportunity to point out somethingwhich I think we all know here in
Houston and those in Columbus as well. First Off, CJ was in college
with like finding one whence he wasin the league right now, So it's
like we know what it come with, we know what CJ capable of,
we know what coach Slow is capableof. He's gonna call the place for
everybody dial it up. And Ijust feel like with that, you know

(58:34):
it's gonna be like everybody gonna havegames. I feel like like one game
he might be high, or thisgame he hid, this game, both
of them might be high. Younever know. So it's just we got
so many monsters. Like CJ said, if I hit the monsters, then
we could just come at people likein different ways. He's one hundred percent
nail on the head with that comment. And there were different reasons for what
I'm about to say last year,but there wasn't another team in the NFL

(58:55):
that had three different wideouts blow upin a game like the Texans did.
You had. Noah Brown had twohumongous games better than one hundred and forty
five yards. Tank Dell did thesame, Nico Collins did the same,
And again, I think last yearwas a little bit for different reasons with
who wasn't available and who CJ waslooking at on those days. But that
comment that I just made and thecomment that Dell made is exactly what's going

(59:19):
to happen this year, at leastin my mind. I'm throwing the ball
where we're going to move the football. I'm throwing the ball where we're going
to take the ball into the endzone. He's not going to play favorites.
He doesn't need to play favorites.He didn't play favorites last year because
he's good and because his OC isgood. Chris Olave, Garrett Wilson,
Jackson Smith and Jigba Marvins, HarrisonJunior and Mechogbuca the five he was talking

(59:42):
about Ohio State, they're good andlike Dell said, CJ's used to playing
with players that can make plays.Yeah, I mean Traveon Henderson, a
lot of other players that he hadat Ohio State as well. That kind
of fed into that, and Ithink that kind of feeds into what I
think, even though it's only twoin the training camp. I thought about
this earlier that the Texans I thinkhave pride, but they're not boastful.

(01:00:06):
The pride is they know that theyhave a good football team that can win
football games. I don't think there'sany doubt about that. But they're not
boastful in terms of feeling like thework is already done. Kind of what
you talked about in the first segmentafter we had Jeff blummeall on last hour
about how it's kind of run ofthe mill on practice right now. That's
good because they know how to practiceat this point, and to some people

(01:00:28):
listening to us right now, WEXthey might think, well, Dan,
they're pros. Of course they knowhow to practice. Not always the case.
I think in the first year aTamika Ryans and I think he even
talked about this a few times,WEX that they had to kind of learn
how to practice. And you think, oh, well, you're blocking,
you're tackling, you're doing all thesedifferent types of things. How hard can
it really be. No, there'san etiquette to do this. There's a

(01:00:49):
way to do it, and championshipteams know that. That's why they talk
about practice as much as they do. Yeah, the group of coaches that
had come through here to try tokind of guide them into how to practice
at the NFL level, there aren'tthat many players who've been here more than
four years or five years, sothey've been here for all these changes.
I couldn't help but think about itthe other day, when you know,
kind of looking at the schedule andknowing that the Texans are going to see

(01:01:13):
you know, former teammates throughout oneof them, specifically that third week of
the season on the road when theygo see John Grenard in the Minnesota Vikings.
You know, Demiko o'ryans walks ontothe practice field yesterday and I noted
this is his second training camp withthe Texans. He's also the first head
coach to say he's coaching his secondpre training camp with the Texans in four

(01:01:36):
years. And John Garnard going toMinnesota is going to be playing for his
sixth head coach in five seasons withO'Brien and the interim coach Romeo Crenell,
and then David Cully, and thenLovey Smith and then his one year with
Demiico and now he moves on toKevin O'Connell. Some continuity is one thing,
but to the point that you're making, you got to have the right

(01:01:59):
people in place to make sure theyare understanding what it's like to practice.
And a lot of this is teaching. It's pretty clear where you know the
interests and these skills from a coachingstandpoint. Live with your coaches. Willie
Fritz was in studio with Matt Thomasearlier this week for an hour and he
was talking about some of the coachinghires that he made and some of the
older guys and younger guys. Ina little bit of mix of both and

(01:02:20):
kind of where his personal focus is. He had a focus with special teams.
It's what he's always assisted with becausethat's in his mind and accurately so
his area of expertise. He's donethat in previous stops. He's doing that
here as well. Tamiko Ryans,I mean, I can't say he's going
to do this through every training camppractice all year. They got three practice
fields. The first one is wherethe rehabbing players are working out. The

(01:02:43):
second one in the middle is wherealmost all of the drill work goes on,
all the seven on seven and elevenon elevens, and then when they're
in individual spots, the far fieldhas the cornerbacks, the linebackers. Off
the back of both fields is wherethe defensive linemen workout and offensive linemen workout,
and then all the skill position guysare again with each other in the
middle field, that backfield where thelinebackers are and the guys that are scheming

(01:03:07):
up the defense kind of in awalk through mode. That's where Demiko is
so far each of these two days. It's where he was throughout practices last
year. He knows where he needsto focus on, and I think the
team. Yes, you can saythey're pros. They know how to practice.
It does still come from who's leadingthe show, who's picking the playlist,
who's setting the tempo. I meanthe players can do that to a

(01:03:27):
certain extent, but for the mostpart, it's the head coach and following
Dimico seems pretty easy. Well,it's also too. I mean, this
is the process that you even mentionedright there. That's what happens when you
take over a team. The firstyear he set the foundation. After that,
the expectations are there. They arethere, and I don't think it
was easy to win last year.And that's the difference between expecting to win

(01:03:51):
and the phrase that you used about, you know, puffing out their chests,
prideful versus cockiness, so to speak. If it were that easy to
win as many games as they did, wouldn't have had so many close games.
They also wouldn't have lost to Carolinaand Atlanta, but they did.
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(01:05:15):
It's so good talking Texans here inthis hour number two of the A
team WEX and Day in here withyou on the program today seven one,
three, two, one two five, seven nine. You've got a question
or two about what might have beenseeing over at these rather lights brief first
two practices for the Texans practice threeTomorrow off day, Sunday four, five

(01:05:40):
and six, Monday, Tuesday andWednesday. Tuesday and Wednesday the first two
open to the fan practices. Texansobviously have vouchers tickets for those practices long
since given away, and the atmosphereis certainly different and certainly will be a
little bit more than I think whatwe've seen. Soon enough, the pads
will go on as well. Obviouslynot been on yet. Would like to

(01:06:01):
be able to at least pick aplay of the day for every practice.
Wasn't too difficult yesterday, a littlebit more difficult today. As I mentioned,
they really did not do a wholelot of team versus team work seven
on seven or eleven on eleven.But there were a few things of note.
I said earlier that what I wouldhave called a touchdown on a kick
return from Steven Simms Junior. That'sreasonable. I would call that the play

(01:06:27):
of practice today. There was alsoa nice catch and run from John Metchi,
nice throw from one of the backupquarterbacks to him over the middle of
the field. But I again,I try to chart most everything that happens
in eleven on eleven or seven onseven. Then they're just I didn't even
have two full pages today worth ofactivities going on out there. Nothing different

(01:06:49):
with attendance from yesterday, which isa good thing, and no new reports
or needs to have players sidelined oron a program that keeps them off the
field. Yet I think the setupof training camp actually allows for them to
maybe not need to do that asmuch. They won't have more than three
days in a row of practice theentire training camp. They have a lot
of off days mixed in there.The travel, the Hall of Fame game

(01:07:12):
and the extended stay in Ohio playsa little bit of a role in that.
Titus Howard was back out there againtoday. He and Blake Fisher are
running as the respective tackles at thenumber one spot, Titus and his familiar
spot on the right and Blake Fisherhis new spot on the left Laramie Tunsel.
He arrived to practice as he didyesterday. He and a couple of
the other alignment being escorted across fromthe other side via the cart and he

(01:07:36):
went to his side of the fieldso he could again continue his work in
preparation for the season. But haveheard nothing but the same story from all
participants. It's just the plan thatthey have for him this offseason. We'll
see how it changes throughout training camp, and he's going to be ready to
go, barring anything out of theordinary and something unexpected to be there,

(01:07:57):
ready for Indianapolis, Chicago, Minnesotaand the rest of the seventeen games slate
for the Texans. Dan something Imentioned that the close of last hour.
You know, they won ten gamesin CJ. Stroud's rookie regular season,
nine of which he was the quarterbackfor missed two games and they went one
and one in those two games,and then you had the playoff win in
there. So he was out onthe field for seventeen to their nineteen games.

(01:08:18):
They won ten of those opportunities,but there were a lot of close
games and they did win their share. They also lost quite a few a
bunch of last play losses. Thereare oftentimes when you'll see a team,
you know, Minnesota with Kirk Cousinsprobably a pretty good example, go from
one year where they just couldn't couldn'tlose a close game, and it didn't

(01:08:41):
seem fitting of a team with thatkind of talent, meaning they weren't good
enough to have such a lopsided closegame score record. And then the next
year we kind of saw why,a little bit due to Cousins injury and
a little bit due to them comingback to the pack. The Texans.
I don't really think next year willbe much different than this year. Gonna
have close games, it's gonna beagainst better teams, probably, but I

(01:09:03):
don't have any reason to believe they'renot gonna win there more than their fair
share of those. Well, it'salso too, I mean, it's part
of the buyer beware that Nick Casarioand Demiko Ryans have tried to build into
this offseason, right. I mean, we heard Casario bring that up at
the Combine where he was like,hey, look, you know, yeah,
on paper, we look like wegot a pretty good team, but
we also got out pretty scott freein some of those games that maybe in

(01:09:28):
some years we would not, Sodon't take you know, don't take that
for granted. And another one isthe SoundBite that's kind of making its rounds
right now. You know throughout differentpeople promoting training campus, Tomiko Ryans sing
talk doesn't win games, and Ithink that it's more than anything, kind
of a indirect message to the restof the team of don't take for granted

(01:09:49):
that you won those games last year, Like what you need to focus on
is how you won those games.What did you do in order to win
those games? And what did youdo to make yourself comfortable in those six
situations, because I do think arelative sense of comfort is built into it
of realizing when you're in those spots, hey, this is what we thrive
on, as opposed to we're inthat spot again. I hope we can

(01:10:12):
hold on this time. Seven andthree in those one score games last year,
and again one of those one scorewins was the Keenom game against the
Tennessee Titans. So ten of thosegames, nine of them with CJ.
Stroud at quarterback, last play fieldgoal losses at both Atlanta and Carolina,
hanging on to beat Cincinnati, comingback in spectacular fashion with the extreme passing

(01:10:36):
from CJ. Stroud against Tampa Bay, coming up short in the second game
against Jacksonville after you went there andabsolutely handed it to them for the first
win of the CJ Stroud Demiko ryansEra. There's probably one reason why you
may have heard or read the talkdoesn't win games elsewhere, maybe even on

(01:10:57):
other shows here, but not onthis one. I don't I don't really
understand the need to tell us thatwhat is our job? And I feel
like both Nick and Tamiko were Idon't really think they were talking to their
team. I think they're talking tous. Players don't fall for that anymore.
They're not listening to everyone hyping themup and saying, oh my god,
we're awesome, this is great,We're we don't even have to try.

(01:11:17):
We got eleven wins in the bag. Everyone's saying, we have the
best chance to knock off the Chiefs. We're gonna win the AFC South,
we got a good chance to reachthe AFC Title game, and once we're
there, maybe the Super Bowls inour future. So yeah, both Nick
and Dimiko, at their first podiumappearance this training camp said, you know,
it's about action, it's not abouttalk. Talk talk doesn't win games.

(01:11:39):
It's yes, we're we me sittingin these seats with a microphone in
front of my face. I amtalking about it NonStop, because that's what
I have to do. I'm nottrying to sell you on them winning games,
just talking about what it takes towin games, why they will win
games, and it doesn't have anybearing, of course, on whether or
not they do win games. They'renot talking about winning thinking that that works,

(01:12:01):
and it almost sounds like they're tryingto prove that to us. They're
practicing to play football well because theythink they can. Well I'm no.
I mean, there's no magic wordsto making either the good or the bad
things happen. But I think youkind of just answered your own question in
there. It's better left said thanjust glossed over and not addressed. And
what you brought up was you haven'tbeen to the AFC Championship game. Like

(01:12:24):
that is what is the crux ofthis entire message of Yeah, what you
did last year was awesome, butyou've also done what other teams in the
past in this city have done.Now you have a chance to do what
they have not done, and maybethose teams might be more talented than you.
That's not the issue here. Whatthe issue is is that there is

(01:12:44):
still a lot more for this organizationto accomplish. I think that kind of
is where all this is centered on. Yeah, I happen to think they
think otherwise, and I hope theydo, and I definitely think otherwise.
They don't care what they did intwenty twenty two, let alone two thousand
and seven, eleven, fourteen,two, any of Demiko's years, especially
because of who Demiko is, butmainly who Nick is and where they are,

(01:13:08):
they don't ever care about that.I mean, Dimiko was saying it
during the season about last year whenhe wasn't here. He's already said it
multiple times this offseason and again attraining camp. None of that stuff matters.
I don't think they're trying to outperformwhat a franchise that most of these
guys and heck a lot of thesefans don't know anything about, don't care
anything about. A comparison to aprevious edition of a Texans team doesn't mean

(01:13:32):
anything. Now. Granted, thisfranchise, as you said, they haven't
done that, But I don't thinkthis group cares at all. It's it's
kind of like when you have along standing rival. Right now you haven't
beaten this team and so long,or they've got a winning record against you,
over the last ten years and whateversport, Well, the players that
are currently on the team only careabout what's happened since they've been there.

(01:13:54):
Only care about what's happened since thegroup that they are has played together.
And honestly, I think everybody that'son this team more than two years doesn't
care about anything they've done with thisteam except for last year, except for
this era. This era is totallydifferent. And you did bring up the
idea of the talent that they have. This is the most talented team they've
ever had. Because the quarterback isthe best they've ever had. The rest

(01:14:15):
of the team is close enough.I'm willing to debate the merits of who
you know Aaron Foster's backfield versus this, and you know JJ Watts line versus
this, and I'm all for that, but you can flip it by one
position the position they have in place. I'm not ready for some drop off.
I don't think anybody else is either, and I don't expect to see
it with CJ. Stroud, AdamClinton. Adam Wentler continues on Sports Talk

(01:14:40):
seven ninety goes up Stars, RocketsBasketball lives here. One thing we haven't
really done today that we certainly spenda couple of minutes on here before he
gets to football at five and acouple of other items. Is kind of
put a rap on your week atSEC days, the Omni Hotel opening up

(01:15:01):
its doors to sixteen SEC team somepowerhouses, some otherwise. Today the media
poll preseason poll for the first,second, and third teams and the predicted
order of finish was released. Sevenof the sixteen teams got at least one
point as SEC champion landslide. Thoughvote was in favor of Georgia winning the

(01:15:27):
sixteen team SEC this year, Texasway behind them but still the second most
popular choice, followed by Bama,Ole, Miss LSU, Vanderbilt in South
Carolina Vanderbilt two points. Okay,I guess David Cully submitted his vote.
Appreciate him joining us earlier of thisweek. But what I was looking at

(01:15:48):
here beyond that was the overall onethrough sixteen based on that vote, with
Georgia first, Texas second, Bama, Ole, Miss LSU, Missoo Tennessee.
I give you those top seven aswe look ahead to coach Sark and
Quinn Eewers and arch Manning and Baxterand Blue and everybody else their first season

(01:16:09):
in the SEC. I mentioned thoseseven very specifically to what the Longhorns have
in front of them on their schedule, the seven teams that receive the most
votes thus predicted order of finish onethrough seven. They play Georgia and that's
where the statement ends. They couldplay one of those other teams in the

(01:16:30):
SEC title game or Georgia a secondtime. But on their opening first year
schedule, they don't see Bama,Ole, miss LSU, or Missouri this
year, or tennessee the next sixteams around them in this order. Next
five teams before you then see Oklahomaand Texas A and M. Obviously both
are on their schedule. I sayobviously because I hope everybody knows that A

(01:16:53):
and M is back on their schedule. Red River rivalry comes from just before
they play Oklahoma and Texas A andM game. Kyle Field is right there
at the end of the season onNovember thirtieth, Thanksgiving weekend on that Saturday.
Similarly, of note, at thebottom of the rankings Arkansas, Mississippi
State, and Vanderbilt, all threeof them are on the Longhorn schedule.

(01:17:15):
Taylor made absolute gift thought it whenI saw it the first time in the
schedule or released have to believe they'regoing to take advantage of this well,
I mean, and that's why they'regetting the benefit of the doubt amongst many
in the media is for the reasonthat you just laid out. And that's
why Oklahoma is being told you're amiddle of the pack team. It's not
Oklahoma's fault, it's Oklahoma's going togo through a gauntlet this year. I

(01:17:39):
mean, I believe somebody told methe end of the season for them is
LSU and Alabama and either order yeah, good luck with that and have fun.
I mean, they're still going tobe are still not coming off a
season where they played in the playoffs? Right, No, and that's true
too, But I mean, luckwex We talked about this a couple of
days ago. Soft schedule or not, it's still the s and it's still

(01:18:00):
a road game at Arkansas, wherefor everything that we've talked about this week,
that's going to be a huge gamefor Arkansas. Now, is Sam
Pittman coaching that game at that timeor is it Bobby Petrino. That's another
discussion to have. But still thatis a hated rivalry at their place,
and that effect is something that we'veseen all throughout the SEC over the years.
Let's take you back to a coupleof years ago where South Carolina was

(01:18:24):
not a good football team by anymeans, and Tennessee goes into their building
with every opportunity to still get intothe SEC championship game and maybe even with
the loss to Georgia, find theirway into the College Football Playoff and it
was a hostile environment on the roadat night, and they got absolutely whacked
by South Carolina in that game.I mean, the point is home field

(01:18:46):
matters in this league. And thegood news is they don't have a ton
of tough games on the road thisyear. But it also too, you
know, feeds into don't just thinkthat because you're going to play these teams
on the road that it's going tojust be an easy win. And the
other part of it as well,even though they've recruited incredibly well, there
are still a lot of really hugeholes to fill on this Texas team.

(01:19:11):
Yeah, and even my comment aboutwhere oh you was a year ago,
and I could have said it aboutany team, good or bad, that
is not going to mean a wholelot, certainly not what it used to
mean with how things change year toyear in college football, because it's now
like pro sports, there's free agency, and your contract in college sports is
different than your contract in pro sports. It is a one year contract.

(01:19:32):
Every single year. In theory,you have to re recruit the players on
your team. You have to rerecruit players that you didn't land previously.
You got to go through there.It's amazing how things change. And you
know, these teams that go throughone season with a pretty good quarterback or
a great quarterback, have a greatseason and not sure what they have behind
him, and then can go geta better quarterback to transfer the following year.

(01:19:56):
So it's not always what last yearwas and what this year might be
from a scheduling standpoints. In OU'scase, and they were predicted by the
media, who, as you know, Dan knows nothing. They have been
wrong way more often than they've beenright in the SEC poll over the last
thirty plus years. The finishing scheduleprobably is playoff team, playoff team,

(01:20:18):
and LSU Oklahoma finishes at Missouri homefor Bama at LSU in their first year
in the SEC. Dramatically different thanthe Longhorns clothes well, I mean,
and yes that is true, butit's also as well. I mean,
if we believe Creig McElroy, whojoined us the other day, LSU's can

(01:20:39):
be a hell of the team thisyear, possibly even really in that spot
right now of was anybody necessarily talkingabout them coming out of SEC media days
in twenty nineteen, I'll go aheadand answer that question. They weren't.
They thought it was going to bea typical what LSU had been nine and
three, ten and two. Yeah, Joe Burrow showed some nice things,
but I don't think anybody saw whatwas coming that seaton from that offense and

(01:21:00):
just that team as a whole.So it's the third year of Brian Kelly.
They really need to prove they canwin that first game against SC.
If they can do that, Ithink that sets up their team to possibly
be six and oh when they takeon Alabama, Oh, by the way,
in Tiger Stadium this year. Onthe fun the player side of it,

(01:21:20):
Carson beck quin Yours, Jalen Milroe, Georgia, Texas Bama. They
get the nods first, second,and third team among the sixteen teams.
Quarterbacks on the All SEC Team.I tend to agree with all three.
Yeah, I don't have any issueswith it. I mean, I don't
think anybody had any designs of BlakeShapin or Jackson Arnold or anybody like that

(01:21:43):
squeezing their way in. There's alot of people that believe that Carson Beck
could be the odds on favorite towin the Heisman this year, and the
same deal for Quinn Ewers. AlthoughI think with yours, it's kind of
like something that we talked about thisweek. You got to stay healthy,
you got to stay on the field, because the first two years that you've
had the opportunity, you've missed likethat can't happen this year. So I
think that that's the other part thatkind of leads into this. And you

(01:22:05):
know, I know I brought upyou know, Sarkesian's line the other day,
and people might have taken that tome. Noh, he's already counting
on Quinn's gonna get hurt. No, he's trying to get arch ready for
if indeed he does get hurt,or if maybe just maybe they have to
go a different direction at quarterback.I'm not saying that would be the case,
but that's why you have to havethe other guy ready to go.

(01:22:25):
Yeah, I think he's he hasreason to believe he could be hurt because
there's clearly history. But if Iwere coaching a team with this much overall
talent, with this much ability asa full team to win big this year,
I would do the very same thing, and it wouldn't even matter who
the backup was. There's an opportunitywith what the first four games of the
season sands in the Michigan game mostlikely to get your backup quarterback on the

(01:22:47):
field, and there's really in collegefootball, especially with the potential extended season,
some of these teams might play.Yeah. Absolutely, I would play
whoever it is to make sure thatthey've had some field time. And in
their case, their back up carriesa name, but he's also barely played.
He's got two career completions. ArchManning. You want Garrett Gilbert in

(01:23:08):
two thousand and nine to play meaningfulsnaps. You don't want Garrett Gilbert to
play those meaningful snaps in the NationalChampionship game. I still can't believe they
didn't win that game. Quite honestly, I mean, they had every opportunity
at the end. It just wassuch a huge mountain to climb. After
the hole they dug themselves into.Well, I mean, it would have
been nice if their quarterback had feelingin his arm that they decided to run

(01:23:30):
into the line to get hurt.Well whatever, also, quin you wers
quickly, I would actually if theLonghorns went undefeated, maybe it's hard to
not make him your Heisman Trophy vote. Statistically speaking, I just doubt,
very seriously, he's going to havethe type of season that suggests he's the
best player in college football. Alot of times these quarterbacks have to just

(01:23:51):
put up eye popping numbers, andhe's certainly not a dual threat quarterback to
do both. I just don't seehim maybe producing those numbers. Even though
I have a ton of respect forthe new group of wideouts, he's going
to be throwing two in the amountof offense they're going to produce. I
just think as a offensive unit,they're exceptional. Football at five comes your

(01:24:11):
way next right here on the ATeam A Friday edition of the show.
Chance for me to tell you aboutmy good friends over at Classic Elite Chevy
Sugarland. Elite means something to Jeffand Tiffany Sebastian, the owners of Classical
Elite Chevy sugar Land and Classic EliteChevy Highway six and for that matter,
Classic Elite Buick GMC. It's whatthey provide for you. Elite inventory.

(01:24:31):
You want that vehicle there when youwant to go for a test drive,
when you want to settle in onthe vehicle of choice, you want Elite
pricing. They can do that foryou as well during the rev Up Summer
sales event. And of course Eliteservice can speak to you from experience having
purchased vehicles from a Classic Elite Chevysugar Land, Classic Elite Chevy Highway six.
A plus people to deal with allthe way across the sales floor,

(01:24:55):
the people and parts and service,the people in the finance department, everybody
there as they say, together,let's drive and super excited. They continue
to be able to say they arethe GM Dealer of the Year now thirteen
years in a row, Classic EliteChevy sugar Land and Classic Elite Chevy Highway
six. Tell them Adam Wexler sentyou by two lifelong Houston sports guys named

(01:25:18):
Adam Talking Your Teams series Adam Clintonand Adam Wexler are the A team.
Ah, You're right is special football. It's five o'clock football. Professional footballs

(01:25:43):
in America is a special game,so we talk about it five o'clock each
and every weekday afternoon here on theA team. A lot of Texans talk
already and there's plenty of time formore. A few other items said by
the four gentlemen we spoke with today. Again, you're also allowed to enter.
Few other people on the side notyet done that, danil Hunter,
Joe Mixon, Tag Dell, andthe head coach Demiko Ryans get a chance

(01:26:05):
to talk with coach Ross, Slowickand Burke tomorrow along with some players after
the last of their three practices.The first fan open practice is scheduled for
Tuesday, which is a fifth practiceof training camp for the Texans. They'll
be back on the field both tomorrowand Monday for practice three and four.

(01:26:25):
Expectation is that Tuesday practice, onthe morning of the twenty third, will
be the first practice the team putsthe pads on and gets a little bit
more ramped up, and all kindof goes hand in hand with the atmosphere
that'll be going on out there withthe fans in place and the team again
shifting over. I kind of setthe stage for their three practice fields.
Field one currently is basically unused.That's where the five or six players that

(01:26:50):
aren't currently practicing work on the side. At any time of the year,
that could be five, six,twenty players. Right now, it's just
very few. When the fans areat practice, they usually utilize that field,
which is closest to the fans,which is where all the stands have
been put up and your ability toreally get pretty close to the action.
Well, then they shift there ateam drills seven on seven and eleven on

(01:27:13):
eleven over to that side of thepractice facility, and that's why there's just
that much more entertainment for everybody there, because it's like football is being played
and fans are being entertained, andit is a very nice atmosphere. I've
got to tell you, these firsttwo days of training camp don't seem like
any other I've attended here in Houston, but much more like the training camp
attended at the Greenbrier, because it'sso ridiculously unscorching hot. It's barely even

(01:27:40):
your sweating weather. It's unbelievable.So I do not expect that to continue.
I know training camp has started alittle bit early, but our entire
summer has been a little different.It has been hot, but not like
in recent years. And again I'msure saying anything about it will mean it
immediately comes. So there's plenty ofTexans talk still to come here this hour.
But I couldn't help but bring someother story in from the AFC South.

(01:28:03):
We talked about this when it happened, and we mocked them for how
it happened, talking about the JacksonvilleJaguars and their inability to prevent their own
employees from stealing their money to thetune of twenty two plus million dollars.
Now, this individual who worked forthe team and did steal twenty two million

(01:28:25):
dollars a little bit more than themthat from them, did plead guilty.
It was federal court. He actuallytook more than twenty million of it basically
in just eight months. He wasin charge of what it was called their
virtual credit card program. And I'msure you'll never guess if you don't recall
what he used it for. Hehad gambling debts and he needed to pay

(01:28:47):
them, and he needed to gamblemore, and he needed to pay them.
The money was transferred to a coupleof the major gambling outfits, and
he was very high volume gambler.So yes, it seems pretty bad for
that to happen inside your organization,and you look pretty foolish, and you'd
think you would know and they didn't, and whatever. There's plenty of other
things we've mocked about the Jaguars,most of it football related, and a

(01:29:10):
lot of it stems from Urban Meyerand everything else that went on in the
years that Trevor Lawrence has been there. Well, the Jaguars are suing this
individual. He stole twenty two millionfrom the team. They're suing him for
sixty six plus million, which Imean, on first glance that obviously seems
rather excessive and also not I don'twant to use the word foolish, but

(01:29:33):
I feel pretty confident that this oneindividual is probably not going to be able
to give them, I don't know, even six million, rather let alone
sixty six million. But if youlook a little further into this case,
being that they're in Florida, it'sbasically the reason why that figure is what
it is, because it's triple theamount you're allowed to file suit in this

(01:29:58):
manner, in this civil suit forthe damages. That triple the amount,
and that's essentially twenty two to sixtysix is exactly that. What it really
does is it allows the Jaguars tonot rely on the federal government to get
their whatever portion of the money theycan get back, but rather allows them
to kind of I wouldn't say,do it themselves, but they can just

(01:30:19):
go after it themselves and garnish wages, they can freeze accounts, and this
is I think what they're ultimately tryingto do. I again, recovering twenty
two million isn't gonna happen, recoveringsixty six million isn't gonna happen. But
procedurally speaking, I think that's whatis really truly behind this, And I
mean, I guess if they wantto continue, I'm not even sure why

(01:30:40):
that what with the real true purposeof it is because I don't know what
the monetary figure is they expect torecover. But it just goes stands to
reason for me that I have ahard time. It shouldn't have anything to
do with the football. It reallydoesn't have anything to do with the football,
But they're not. They just don'tseem like they're ready to be for
real. They never really have andthey've had more productive seasons in their years

(01:31:04):
in the NFL than the Texans.I think that's fair to say, considering
at least they've attended a conference championshipgame and the Texans still have not.
But they drafted number one overall withTrevor Lawrence. They have committed to Trevor
Lawrence. It's probably about fifty tofifty from analysts that think he is going
to ascend and he's going to beone of the top six or seven quarterbacks

(01:31:26):
in the league. It's a farsmaller group that believes that over CJ.
Stroud, And when that is yourcompetition, that's a pretty big block,
pretty big roadblock, And I'm definitelyin that camp that is on the side
of others are better. I don'tnecessarily think it was a mistake to pay
him all that money, because Istill think you have a better chance to

(01:31:47):
do it and win with him thanby going the other route. The other
route is simply letting him play outhis first four years, You pick up
the option on his fifth year,you have him play unhappy for that year,
You franchise him again, You franchisehim again, he's unhappy through all
of that. Maybe it gives yousome flexibility to build the roster around him,
but the roster around him is alreadyfine. The roster around them is

(01:32:09):
in place to win. I thinkthis is a monster year for that program.
Nobody thinks they're going to win thedivision. Their roster says they should
absolutely be in that spot. ButI agree, I don't think they're going
to win the division either. Meand you were talking about it the other
day that I mean, it seemslike at least if you listen to everyone

(01:32:29):
out there, kind of like whatwe're talking about with the SEC preseason,
you know, predictions in terms oforder it finish and everything that a lot
of people look at it and sayit's Georgia and Texas's league. Well,
in this case, they think it'sthe Colts and the Texans league and that
they kind of have left Jacksonville outof this. And I think a huge
part of that as well is someof their players added either through the draft

(01:32:54):
or free agency over the last fewyears have not hit, and the Texans
the other way around, they've hit. I mean last year, almost every
single free agent acquisition they made hadmeaningful, good contribution to that team winning
the AFC South, the first twopicks. I think we can agree because
that's the foundation of your organization rightnow, and I think that's kind of
been the issue for Trent Balkey andthe crew in Jacksonville. Yeah, I

(01:33:16):
think people have probably a little bitmore negative viewpoint because you can make a
pretty I think a pretty reasonable comparison. You know, Texans drafted at two
to three over the last couple ofyears. We look at only one draft
and they drafted it to C.J. Stroud, their quarterback foundation for
the offense. They drafted Will Andersontheir defensive foundation. Well over the last
three drafts. Essentially, the Jaguarshave done the same thing. It happened

(01:33:40):
to be at number one overall intwo different drafts. They drafted Trevor Lawrence
number one overall. They drafted TreyvonWalker number one overall. I mean,
even though it's clear that Aiden Hutchinsonhas had a better first couple of seasons,
Treyvlan Walker is not a bad footballplayer. He's actually a very good
football player. He just didn't havean awesome first season. Very much like

(01:34:00):
Derek Sneeley Junior. In the comparisonand competition with Sauce Gardner and so people
are just forgetting about him entirely.I don't know that Trayvon Walker is even
the tone setter for their defense.And that's not a bad thing either.
Because Josh allens Hines is still there. They have re upped with him.
Their ends are at They're pretty good. I'm not gonna say they at least

(01:34:21):
as good as any other duo.I don't even think they're as good as
the Texans duo. But there's notmuch of a gap this team with the
loss of Calvin Ridley super smart playto try it for one year. He
didn't turn out to be a gamechanger, so they moved on. They
could be better this year. Inthe wide receiver group, Christian Kirk is

(01:34:42):
very very good. I think BrianThomas Junior is just like so many other
young wide receivers. He's going tostep in be ready to play very easily.
Could turn into the number one targetthroughout this season. This is an
eighty catch, you know, ninehundred and fifty thousand yard eleven hundred yard
receiver in year one, which isno different than what you got from real
and people don't care what the nameis and the number. They care if
you can play and I think teams, as the first few weeks play out,

(01:35:05):
will need to prep for Thomas inthe way that they prep for Ridley
Travis etiens a front line running backEvan ingram is because they use him an
extremely useful, productive tight end.Their offensive line is it probably actually got
better with Sheriff playing at least aswell as could have been expected. I

(01:35:27):
think adding Morse is going to hashelped. That's really the only area of
their offense I wouldn't be super stokedabout. But I know these other teams
are good. Indian Houston, theydon't have any excuses. Well, Trevon
Walker too, I mean, getto his point. It was kind of
the same mindset that Nickosario has.Add a really good football player, that's

(01:35:47):
what he is. I think theirthought process was, Okay, he didn't
show us the sack numbers in college. We can produce that out of him
here at this level. We'll seewhat their futures hold. Obviously, like
Stingley and Gardner, they're never gonnato be separated. And I think it's
kind of cool. Walker and Hutchinsonsame thing. They're never going to be
separated because they were drafted in themanner that they were, and one of
them is not only playing well,his team is exceptionally good and is one

(01:36:11):
of the threats to keep the Ninersfrom reaching the Super Bowl they nearly did
it a season ago. Spend alittle bit of time over training camp,
of course, on the other teamsin the AFC South and the AFC at
Large. In case you missed it, comes your way next Adam Clinton,
Adam weck for it the A Teamthat means it's sign for In case you

(01:36:36):
missed it, here on the ATeam Friday Edition of a couple of items
either we got to earlier in theshow and need to revisit, or have
not gotten to at all. I'vegot a couple of things right out of
the gate. I mentioned this onmy social media accounts for a moment ago.
The Astros, in their game notesannounced that they've transferred Victor Krattini to
the Corpus Christy Hooks to continue hisrehab work. A couple of game games

(01:37:00):
with the Florida Complex leave over thelast week, five at bats, couple
of hits, and now probably ashort period of time with Corpus Christy Hooks.
No setbacks thus far, and providedthere aren't anny with him trying to
recover from that left hip flexer strainwould suggest he's probably capable of rejoining the
team when they get back from thissix game road trip. The Hall of
Fame game for the Houston Texans,of course, is August first. Two

(01:37:25):
days later that Saturday is the enshrinementceremony for the twenty twenty four Pro Football
Hall of Fame Class, and theyhave announced the order of speeches for these
seven members of the twenty twenty fourclass. Colts Dwight Freeney, Bears,
Steve McMichael. I'm not sure who'sspeaking for McMichael in his condition, obviously

(01:37:45):
unable to Broncos. Randy Gradisyard.Devin Hester from the Bears goes next,
Patrick Willis from the Niners. JuliusPeppers not from the Texans. They took
David Carr from the Panthers. Hegoes sixth. Well, that means Andre
Johnson, seventh and final speaker honored, coming up on Saturday, August third.

(01:38:06):
I think it's easy to know whydo tell Andre is not going to
be long winded like it wouldn't surpriseme if that's no more than a ten
minute speech. So what does itmatter if he's first, fourth, or
seventh that you know that you're notgoing to have a long winded final speaker,
where at that point probably everybody isall right, hey, this has

(01:38:26):
been awesome, let's go ahead andput a rap to this. They're going
to be like that pretty much regardless. So hopefully Andre can bring it on
home. But you say that younever know. Andre Johnson clearly is emotionally
moved by this honor every time we'veheard from him about it, and clearly
his meeting with Chris Carter initially tolearn of his enshrinement. It's a little

(01:38:48):
bit different, Andre, even thoughwhen he was at the podium talking to
us about it a couple of timesalready since then, he did seem very
much like the same quick, tothe point and emotionless Andrey Johnson. But
it'll be very very fun on alot of fans here have made their plans
and will be a part of beingthere for that, just like they were

(01:39:08):
for all of his activities here athome and on the road in his Texans
career. Should be a lot offun. Yeah, we shall see.
Maybe he's been saving up the wordsfor this moment alone, all right,
so wex, you're now a memberof the SEC, you being a proud
Texas Longhorn, So now you getto enjoy Shenanigan's reading between the lines,
unintentional comedy, everything that me,Gordy and others who have been fans of

(01:39:31):
SEC teams for years have enjoyed wellin this case right here. We talked
about it earlier the preseason all SECteams and also order of finish those were
announced earlier, but somebody pointed outthat the SEC, with the initializing of
schools, decided to maybe go aheadand decide who is the true ut because

(01:39:53):
that's been a battle on social mediathis entire offseason of Texas fans saying it's
them, Tennessee fans saying it's them. Well, for the thirteen that were
on the three preseason teams for Texas, next to them tex for the ones,
Hold on, can you repeat thatnumber? Thirteen thirteen? So that's

(01:40:13):
the point of your story. TheLonghorns in the first year in the SEC
have thirteen members on the first,second, or third team all SEC.
That's the story, right, It'sa mention, but it's what's next to
the plague? Tex was next tothem for the Tennessee, which I didn't
count them up? Ut why not? Why didn't you count them up?
Just? I mean, once Isaw that and I saw how many Texas

(01:40:35):
had, I was like, well, whatever, what does our audience care
the most about? There are twothere, you go, two that say
ut. Now, I did doa little tiny bit of research. Its
weekends already started for the Wexley researchteam, so I actually did this on
my own. Each of the lasttwo years. In the actual release,

(01:40:56):
they did not shorten the names ofthe schools. If a player from Auburn
was the first teamer, then itsaid player's name Comma Auburn in Kentucky and
Tennessee, et cetera on down theline. This was the first year that
I've noticed, at least over thelast three, they wanted to shorten up
what they were typing on their release. So each of the schools has either
two or three letters uf UASC orLSU or t e X. I actually

(01:41:23):
think this means the SEC will bemoving forward with this, which is not
even meaningful. Doesn't mean anything tothe people who wear regular orange or the
people who wear burnt orange or not. I mean, what do some of
the people call the university they callit ut Are they gonna start calling it

(01:41:45):
te x This means nothing, nothingat all. Well, I mean,
I guess the only way to settlethis is on the field, which at
least in the initial schedule is nota possibility at least this year and next
year, who knows, maybe not. It's actually something that I think is
unfortunate with the sixteen team conference.It's it's inevitable, but the number of

(01:42:06):
times Texas plays Tennessee, I'm notone hundred percent on the schedule make risk
over the next two, four,six, eight years whatever it is already
in place, it's such a tinynumber. There's a handful of schools that
you're not going to create any meaningfulrivalry against because you never play them well
so to speak. Yeah, Imean that's also been the discussion of the

(01:42:28):
downside of realignment, is that rivalriesare dead, that they're gone. And
you say that, and I'm totallyon board, even at the very moment
where the the rivalry is being broughtback here with Texas and Texas A and
m oh, they can be createdtoo. I mean, like this is
not created. It's where have youbeen? No, it's why did you
let it go. Let's see somethingfun again, right right. I mean

(01:42:50):
we know about that here, butI mean it's also too. That's the
fun of the SEC is that youknow, you have one cross interaction with
the school and their fans, andwell they never forget it. And Tennessee
is definitely one of those. Letme go ahead and warn you ahead of
time, looking forward to it.Yeah, it's gonna be a lot of
fun for on Twitter. It's areal thing. I get Rick Barnes in
on that conversation. I don't thinkRick is gonna be adverse. It's been

(01:43:13):
at UT for four decades. Hm. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
Now that's a good point. Ittook me a second there. So
I'm sure, like many you noticedthat the Microsoft outage had a real strong
effect on air travel, banking,whatever it might have been. I mean,
I'm aware of it, clearly,I walk and talk and I'm on
this earth, but I haven't seenit. I have not that I'm aware

(01:43:38):
of, been truly impacted by it. I'm sure in some form that I
should be aware of, I have, but I understand it's it's fairly large,
and some people are saying, yeah, remember back twenty four years ago
or so, when we thought thiswas gonna happen. We went from nineteen
ninety nine to two thousand and wedidn't know what Y two K was gonna
do to us from a coding standpoint. Is that what we're seeing here now?

(01:44:00):
Well, I mean possibly, Imean I did see that on Twitter.
Somebody said that. But if youwere watching ESPN this morning and you
were hoping to watch Get Up,you could not because they didn't have graphics
or b roll no Greene. Orif you wanted to watch Randy and former
KPRC two anchor Gary Streiski on themorning Sports Center, same deal, you

(01:44:20):
could not watch him because of theMicrosoft outage, which of course was caused
by a defect in an update byone of their security software that they had
sent out. Well, Streiski andRandy Scott could not be on air at

(01:44:40):
that time, so they were havingfun about it on Twitter and also too.
If you were hoping to find thosethings instead, you found unsportsmanlike with
Freddy Coleman and Courtney Cronin. Yeah, I'll mock Greeney, I won't mock
Gary. Gary' is awesome. Ithink what he does and what he's done
is hilarious. I love watching him. On two. Are you saying that

(01:45:02):
somebody somewhere or somebody's somewhere should havesaid no when they were asked, would
you like to install this update?I think they should have maybe just made
sure, hey, like we gotall the defects out right, like we're
good, Like you know, wecan finally go live with us. Uh.
Yeah, maybe you're ready and maybeyou're not well in this case right

(01:45:25):
here I got I'm wondering if acoder or coders out there probably at the
very least got a stern talking about, well, aren't we just in this
day and age of the world welive in, thinking that's clearly something nefarious
is underway. Oh and of coursethat was out there too. The conspiracy
theories are always there, as theyshould be running rampant. But I think

(01:45:46):
someone will get it all fixed,be back on track. We live our
lives. Hey, it's the weekend, people, Relax, Everything will be
just fine. Mentioned there was afew other Texans items to get to surround
their new running back is where we'llhead next deck segment here for both Joe
Mixon and Tank Dell on what itmeans to have Joe Mixon on his team

(01:46:08):
and in that backfield. Next hereon the eighteen, this is Joyce Spotten.
Listen to the Astros on your radioand on the free iHeartRadio app.
Sports Talk seven to ninety is yourhome for Astros Baseball. Astros Baseball does
in fact return to our airwaves thisevening nine ten. First pitch eight o'clock

(01:46:30):
for Astros on deck, and RobertSteve will take you from there. About
halfway through that eight o'clock hour lineupfor the Mariners probably about what you would
have expected, even though it isremarkable that this is the first place team
with a host of offensive performers havingremarkably poor seasons. The top ops for
any of the nine players in theirorder tonight is that of the last batter

(01:46:56):
in the order, Victor Roblis withhis seven to forty three ops. That's
the best they've got to offer againstthe Astros tonight. But they're pretty healthy
team. Rojas, Rodriguez, RaleiGarver, Bolanco, JB. Crawford at
the top. The usual suspects.I suspect we'll see something very usual from
Joe Aspota when the Astros produce theirlineup Luis Castillo go's for the Mariners,

(01:47:17):
and Hunter Brown makes the opening startof the second part of the season for
the Astros tonight. To trip backover to the Texans practice facility talking with
a couple of their offensive players abouta little bit of their new look,
Joe Mixon and Tank Dell about theparts of their offense that you know it's
a little bit better in their mind. I think the proof will be in

(01:47:38):
the pudding. As many people wouldsay, I definitely have not been one
to completely jump on board with They'veupgraded their running back position clearly by not
resigning Devin Singletary and rather trading forand extending Joe Mixon. It's not that
I think he's bad. I don't. I'm just wondering what will be different

(01:47:59):
than the last couple of years ofhis work in Cincinnati that will enhance what
the Texans do. Cincinnati was oneof the worst running teams in the NFL
last year. That doesn't really fallall on Joe's shoulders, and he was
very polite when answering a question moreabout the difference between the group he was
running behind in Cincinnati and the grouphe'll be running behind here, which most

(01:48:19):
people believe will be an upgrade,and if it is, I definitely think
that's where we'll see Joe Mixon producea little bit more than we did previously.
Joe very pleased with what he hasseen here in Houston. Interesting that
when he was in Cincinnati, hewatched the wide receiver group essentially get built.
He was there first, and thenTyler Boyd came aboard, and then

(01:48:43):
the receiver who they will not committo long term but rather have franchised him
instead. He's not very happy aboutit, but he will play. T
Higgins was added, and then JamarChase was added, and the group he
played with the last couple of yearswas arguably one through three one of the
best in the NFL. And nowhe comes to the Texans immediately has a
group that is arguably the best trioin the NFL. And in the Texans

(01:49:06):
case, you know Nico Collins,a recent draftee, he's going into year
four, Tech Dell a recent draftygoing into year two, and obviously they
added Digs this offseason. He thinksthis group. You listen to how he
says it, sure sounds like hethinks he's playing for the most talented team
he's ever been on. I thinkthat we have a lot of great talent

(01:49:28):
on this air offense and really onthe team. And in terms of the
comparing the contrasting, I'm not hereto you know, want to compare my
team compared to Cincinnati's you know,old teams. But I've definitely been on
a championship team before, and Iknow what it's like, I know what
it takes to get there, andI feel like we have no doubt we

(01:49:53):
have the best talent that I've seenhere, you know, in a long
time. And I honestly feel likethe team that we have here, I
know that we're ready to, youknow, go and go for that long
run. Man. But at theend of the day, we just got
to, you know, take itone week at a time, one day
at a time, and everything elsewill take place. We will see,

(01:50:14):
he was pretty He's trying not toget into too much about, you know,
what they saw versus what he willnow see on his offensive line.
They won the AFC Championship. That'senough. That's you can say you're a
championship team if you did that right, didn't win a Super Bowl, got
there. That's a fair statement.To make right. No, it's absolutely.
I mean, because it's more thanthis organization has done. Yeah,

(01:50:34):
I mean, this is more aboutwhat he's you know, he knows what
it takes. He's been on thefield with a team that's won in AFC.
He's a team that has Again Igo back to this all the time,
give him a little credit for it. Also, Joe Burrows the only
AFC quarterback that's ever beaten Pat Mahomesin the conference playoffs. It's it.
It's a list of one. Ithink it will grow. I don't think

(01:50:57):
they're going to reach the super Bowlevery remaining season of Pat mahomes Kansas City
Chiefs career. Burrows still in lineto potentially be a quarterback who can add
to it. But Stroud Jackson Allenprobably lists a little bit longer than that,
little hesitant to say Tua or Herbertor some others. Even Aaron Rodgers
maybe briefly here the next couple ofyears. But Joe Mixon was a pretty

(01:51:17):
big part of what they were doing. Then had a very good game against
the Chiefs to help them get tothe game against the Rams. So he
believes he's going to be a betterplayer this year. Also had some serious
pushback when given I thought a veryreasonable question about running backs tread on the
tires the age of still capable runningbacks, He said he looks at the

(01:51:38):
league and guys that are twenty nine, thirty thirty two, they're still running
very well. They'll still be ableto do their thing. He is now
in that group quite obviously. Thenumbers, again, it's all that you
can see some of what's based onhow they ran it, why they ran
it, who they were running itbehind, what defenses are king on his
numbers the last couple of years andlast year included not among the best in

(01:51:58):
the NFL. People here are seeingmixing and rankings, and that he's not
top ten, maybe not even topfifteen, barely in the top twenty.
I don't really see anything wrong withit. I actually agree with it,
but it doesn't sound very promising whenyou're trying to improve your running game.
Take Dell on the subject definitely seemto say otherwise and expects that they're running
game will make them a much morerespectful offense, meaning teams have to respect

(01:52:25):
both aspects of what Bobby Sloan's gonnathrow at him, the run game and
the pass game. So mix gonnamake some respect to rank game. All
right, Olin gonna do that job. The receiver's gonna do that job blocking
Joe me. It's got like that'sgonna help the receivers get open, like
like people say, you know,receivers help running backs get open. Running
backs hell, receivers get open.Man. He running the ball, well,

(01:52:45):
we could throw the ball. Well, we're throwing the ball. Well,
he can run the ball well.So it's just a it's a hand
and hand thing. So he's gonnabring good element. I sure believe they
believe that. I'm definitely a seeit to believe it in this case,
No, one hundred percent. Imean, it's exactly like what we were
talking about earlier this week as well, is that this was a group that

(01:53:06):
last year had to kind of earnthat trust that they could run the football,
because early on in the season theycouldn't. And then there were also
a lot of games where you justlooked at it and said, what's our
best case of senate, what's ourbest case to be able to win this
game. It's being able to throwthe ball down the field. And that's
how you get Nico Collins having theyear that he had and Dalton Schultz and

(01:53:27):
all of the other players that thisTexans offense had that they felt like,
all right, we've got that inour back pocket. I think that what
was the real just kind of courseof action this offseason for Bobby Slowick and
for the rest of that offensive staffwas they were told, you need to
find ways for us to be ableto if we need to be able to
chew up four minutes here at theend of this game, we need to

(01:53:48):
know that it can come from thebackfield. Yeah, it was a little
bit different last year in what theydid in free agency or additions. They
added Singletary and free agency they tradedfor mixing, but the same goal certainly
in mind last year though, itwas we need a guy to help Damian
Pierce. We need to augment whatwe have. We needed potentially a guy

(01:54:10):
to spell him, and it clearlyworked out very much the opposite way.
Devin Singletary should have probably taken overmuch earlier than he did, and once
he did, they were a respectablerunning team. He did run the ball
well and that actually makes me think, well, Joe Mixon might be able
to do the same. There weresome numbers from his season a year ago,
and I don't want to make himsound quite as old as it sounded

(01:54:30):
like he might have been saying he'sonly going to be twenty eight during this
upcoming season's birthdays in a couple ofdays. It will happen during practice next
week, so he's not quite onthe He's definitely not on the wrong side
of thirty. But he's also eightyears into his career, having played the
bulk of the snaps for each ofthe last three and those things tend to
slow guys down as they continue toage, and most of the numbers suggest

(01:54:55):
that very thing. I'm curious ifif I'm putting too much into some of
the numbers. When I saw thiswrote about it on our blog post the
other day, it did alarm me. He avers two point six yards per
attempt before contact last year. That'shis highest total in the last five seasons.
So there were holes and he washitting them, so they did a

(01:55:16):
good job block It kind of soundswhat that's telling me. But then he
had one point four yards after contact, the worst of his career. Those
two numbers together don't excite me ifI'm understanding them and viewing them the way
I think I am. It doesn'tsound promising, that doesn't sound like things
aren't slowing down. We'll see.Numbers are only what they are. He's

(01:55:39):
never run behind this offensive line.He's never been on an offense quarterback by
C. J. Stroud or ledby the play calling of Bobby Slowick.
Maybe the Texans know what they're doing. We will find out when the season
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Tribe dot com, a non suppressivepowerhouse blend. It's gonna enhance you if
you know what I mean. AdamClinton, Adam Wexler continue continues, They
fall football Asall Sports Talk seven ninetyhome for your home teams. First things

(01:57:06):
first, as we get into thisfinal segment of the program, want to
give you an opportunity to enjoy yoursummer and summer of fun here on the
A team continues fun in terms ofsending you off to see some of your
favorites perform, like three eleven Aone Nation, Neon Trees performing together.
It's part of the Unity Tour Augusttwentieth, seven to one to three Music

(01:57:29):
Hall. We have two pairs oftickets to see them. Tickets are also
on sale now at ticketmaster dot com. If you've been listening to the show,
you'll know the answer this question.You can call it and win seven
one three two one two five sevenninety seven one three two one two five
seven ninety. A lot of theshow's conversation after three o'clock after our visit
with Jeff Blum is centered around theHouston Texans. I'm mentioned over each of

(01:57:53):
the first couple of practices and hopefullymoving forward, I'd like to give you
what I saw as the play ofthe day out there on the practice field.
What was the play of the dayaccording to me at Texans practice today?
Set it a couple of times earlier. Some of the drills they were
doing today that they did not doyesterday. Some of the work they needed

(01:58:14):
to put in because of what's upcomingin the twenty twenty fourth season that was
not in place before. So,yeah, that was on the field today.
What was the play of the daythat you heard me talk about earlier
here on the show or what playermade it? Seven one three two one
two five seven ninety seven one threetwo one two five seven ninety. Of
course, Major League Baseball begins againthe second part of the season. Ninety

(01:58:39):
six games already in the books forthe Astros, ninety eight games already in
the books for their opponent tonight,the Seattle Mariners. Those two additional wins
that the Mariners have creates that onegame cushion that they still hold over the
Astros. Hunter Brown against Luis Castillotonight. It is July nineteenth. From
June nineteenth until today, that's whenthe Astros made up all the ground.

(01:59:01):
They were ten games out. Thenthey are one game out. Now they've
gone seventeen and six since then.They've obviously matched the Mariners on a handful
of days here, recently matching winswith losses, and thus they weren't able
to gain any more ground, orelse they'd be headed to Seattle already in
first place. But because of thosetwo additional games on the Mariners, Ledger

(01:59:23):
percentage points will dictate whoever wins thisseries is in first place. If the
Astros win all three, quite obviously, they'll have a two game advantage on
the Mariners. If they win twoout of three, they'll be tied in
terms of games behind, but theAstros would have a higher winning percentage.
Granted, the tiebreaker would still bein the hands of the Mariners, but

(01:59:45):
they wouldn't have the same record,so that's not what they would go with.
Mariners would still have played two moregames. They've beaten the Astros five
out of seven times. Should note, since Blumber and I were talking about
the two thousand and two postseason whenthe Astros got all three of of those
late home runs to win all threegames, two coming while they were trailing.
The last one, of course fromPena, came in a nothing,

(02:00:08):
nothing game in the eighteenth inning.Well, since then, it's been very
one sided between the Mariners and theAstros. They've played twenty times, thirteen
times in the twenty twenty three seasonseries, and seven of those games so
far in this year's thirteen game series. Twenty times. The Mariners have won
fourteen of those twenty games, verylopsided. They went nine to three against
the Astro nine to four against theAstros last year. They've so far gone

(02:00:30):
five to two against Houston this season. That essentially could produce the Mariners Division
championship if they continue and win anotherseries or two against Houston this year.
Quite obviously they would win the tiebreaker, but even just two small series victories.
They beat the Astros two out ofthree now and beat them two out

(02:00:51):
of three later this year, wellthat right, there is a three game
cushion with the tiebreaker regardless of whathappens in all the other games. So
that's something the Astros clearly, inthese head to head matchups, have to
flip a little bit. We talkedabout how close these games have been already,
and I don't expect much different tonight. The Astros pitching has been excellent,

(02:01:11):
even though the names might not bewhat the Mariners can boast. They've
had the best pitching staff in baseballsince late April, since that forty three
and twenty seven run I keep talkingabout, since the Mexico City reboot.
Their starters have actually been even betterthan that slightly. And yet you go
into a matchup like this, You'velined up your rotation arguably as well as
you could have hoped, with atleast the five guys in it staying healthy

(02:01:33):
and Hunter Brown and fromber Valdez andRenel Blanco get the ball. I don't
even know that you have the advantagebecause Luis Castillo all star caliber pitchers not
having an overwhelming season, but youessentially count on Hunter Brown like work.
Hunter Brown's thrown six innings and tenstraight starts. Luis Castillo, that's what
he does. He had one ofthe longest stretches of the season doing that,

(02:01:55):
and that's what you'll likely get fromhim tonight two runs, three runs,
hopefully not shut out baseball. He'llturn the ball over to George Kirby,
who has pitched exceptionally well against everybody, and it seems like he's pitched
even more successfully against Houston. Andthen for the first time this year,
they'll see Brian wu So when theymissed over the first seven games. He's
been very good this year, justnot able to answer the bell throughout the

(02:02:16):
entire season due to injury. SoI'll put this on the table as we
roll out the door, a littlehomage to the very hard working Ross vi
Real who appeared on multiple shows formultiple hours all throughout the week, filling
in on the Sean Salisbury Show andsitting in this otherwise empty studio with MT

(02:02:38):
on the air but not in studiothe last couple of days. How we
feeling about the Astros going to Seattletonight, tomorrow and Sunday. It's a
second chance. I mean, it'sa second chance at writing what you did
wrong at the beginning of the season, where you just could not win,
and seemingly whenever the Astros had theopportunity where you were looking at him and

(02:02:58):
saying, Okay, if you getthis one. Oh they didn't. All
right, that's awesome, Like that'swhat you can look at as you talked
about the tiebreaker scenario, like you'vegot to start turning those things around.
And I kind of hope that thesefour days off was a little bit of
a refresher for this team to say, look, first half went the way
it went. We can't fix it. We feel good about the way we
finished it, but there's still alot of work left to be done.

(02:03:21):
And I think that this is theopportunity for you to be able to right
some of those wrongs and kind ofrid yourself with some of those demons.
Yeah, hopefully they aren't true,hard hitting, scary, dangerous demons.
The Astros have only been outscored byfour runs by the Mariners. Again,
all those scoring close games and thefive wins in those seven games, all

(02:03:44):
of those games kind of, asyou noted, they were played before June.
They were played before basically the Astroskind of got it together. They
weren't awful in May. Were theAstros not like they were when they were
seven to nineteen or even twelve andtwenty four, but they still hadn't kind
of put together any real true winningstreak or stretch of that's seven in a
row, that ten of eleven,that fourteen of eighteen, which they're technically

(02:04:08):
currently on having won seventeen of theirlast twenty three games. That's what's different.
Beyond that they get to catch anAstros team still without Kyle Tucker.
Obviously, JV's not throwing in anyof these games. The two young Astros
pitchers in the rotation also are notgoing to be used in this series,
but ratherdetermined how they pitch them againstOakland. But I'm sure it will be

(02:04:29):
Arighetti going in the Monday game andJake Bloss going on Tuesday. Presumably Hunter
Brown gets the ball in the lastgame of that series, and a day
off on Thursday, and then theLA Dodgers open up the second part of
the Astros home schedule with a tripto Minute Made Park excited if baseball is
back excited That Monday, we'll haveAc back in the saddle to handle things

(02:04:51):
as we roll through week two oftraining. Camp'll put the pads on on
Tuesday morning, and again we'll havea practice from tomorrow to rec app and
we get you both with that andthe Monday morning practice when we get back
here with you in studio on Mondayfor another edition of the A Team.
Appreciate Dan all week. Most ofthe week spent in Dallas or Arlington handling

(02:05:12):
things on SEC media days and withthe All Star Game, working with us
here Trey earlier in the week andJosh c as well looking forward to it
all. I can't believe the weekendIt's finally arrived. A long week without
baseball ends Astros nine to ten,First pitch tonight right here on Sports Talk
seven to ninety. Have a greatweekend, everybody. All Star break is

(02:05:34):
here. Are you doing it ina vehicle from Classic Elite Chevy Sugarland or
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