Welcome Back To A Loaded ALS! Texans Ready To Strike On Road??

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam Raised.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
My girl.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Nolan Multified the magnificent roller coaster ride.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
That is Houston sports.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Chill Lage down for the only home grown afternoon team
is Talking Your Teams.

Speaker 3 (00:29):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the eighteen.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
A What's going on Houston, Texas?

Speaker 5 (00:52):
It is a Thursday edition of the eight Team Sports
Talks seven ninety. He's wex I may see. Cole Thompson
is our producers. We take you up until six o'clock
and then immediately after Rockets pregame festivities as the preseason
finale will wrap tonight, and then the countdown begins to
which will finally happen first the next Texans game or

(01:15):
the next Rockets games that counts, and we know that
for a fact will be the Texans game, but just barely.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
They'll be kicking off.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
Very very late Monday night and then right into Rockets
basketball season opener the very next night.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
So it's almost here.

Speaker 5 (01:28):
We're almost in that perfect little sweet spot the second
half of October where the Rockets, Texans and the Astros
are in the oh just kidding, they're not playing, but
at least last night wex. We finally got by We,
I mean me, finally got what I was looking for.
An absolute wood shed job by the Toronto Blue Jays

(01:49):
who waited until he got to Seattle to release the hounds.
That was fantastic. It kept getting better and better with
each passing inning. And it wasn't fluky. It came against
George or at least the beginning waves of that offensive
juggernaut that was the their their lineup last night. So
they're right back in that series. I mean, I hate

(02:09):
to say I told you so. I did say they
would send it back to uh Toronto tied at two
games a piece, and we're halfway there.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
They'll be back in the series if they win today.
You don't think they're back in the series after after
a like you have to beat them three straight times.
If you don't win today, I don't, I don't. I
don't know that that's gonna happen. But if you if
you went to Seattle and you didn't show up and
you meekly went out and you're down three, it's like
the sweep is inevitable.

Speaker 5 (02:34):
Whereas and I don't know if it's the case in
baseball as much as other sports because it's again, everything
about baseball is so weird and quirky. But if you
like dominate a team like that, does it really matter
or is it? Is it just like everybody tries to say, oh,
there's another game the next day, even though you're not.

Speaker 4 (02:51):
They don't get to face up. They don't know who
they're facing today. Is he gonna be good? Is it
gonna be bad? Are we gonna get to them? Are
we not? Is their bullpend gonna be good? Same thing
on the other side. That's why I love it. Doesn't
mean anything. It doesn't sound like you love it. That
doesn't mean a thing. I mean the Blue Jays are
back in the series. You know they're going to send
it back tied two games apiece. And here's how you
know it, because you absolutely love that. Max Schurzer is

(03:13):
starting for the Blue Jays today after not pitching in
three weeks and being one hundred years old. I'm totally
there with you. I have a feelia like he could
pitch great today for the four innings they'll let him
stay out there for or he could pit get six
outs if he goes four innings and he's matching George
Kirby's effort.

Speaker 6 (03:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
I mean they got to him in one inning basically,
and that turned out to be the ball game. I
gave up the two run shot early to Julio, but
had answers this time and that has not been the case.
Narrowly missed two home runs, hitting a couple balls off
the wall, including of Vladimir Guerrero Junior coming alive finally
in this series. He was a monster in yesterday's game,
and like you said, they just kept adding on and

(03:48):
adding on, and that does take the life out of you.
But I do think it's just for one day. I
think it's just a one day thing in baseball. We'll
see what happens today. I doubt there could be carryover
from your confidence level. The batters might be confident, but
if Luis Castillo is dealing, and you also have to
deal with who's behind the plate and where the strike
zone might be today, all those things are at play.

(04:09):
It's a great sign. It's something that I'm absolutely hopeful for.
The short series are usually pretty unfun, and having the
Blue Jays meekly go out to the Mariners would definitely
be on fun. Hopefully this is a sign of things
to come. You got another postseason home run from George Springer.
That is three this postseason. He hates singles, if you

(04:30):
weren't aware of that, He's yet to have one this postseason.
Every one of his six hits is an extra base hit,
half of them doubles, half of them homers. He is
now tied with Bernie Williams for fourth on the all
time list, the only one still in the playoffs this
season that is on that list. At four or better,
I could pass Kyle Schwarber. If he passes Jose Altuve

(04:52):
this year, then we can go ahead and plan the
World Series parade for North of the Border. He still
needs five more to tie him. I do want him
to pass or at least ty Schwarber. Yeah, Schwarber had
a short run but added to his total and Springer.
The longer it goes, the more likely it is he'll
keep hitting him. Obviously, it's not ballpark dependent. You hit
this one last night to dead center field, luckily, just

(05:15):
just enough over the outstretched glove on the jump from
Julio Rodriguez to put another run on the board. And
like I said, they just kept going. It was at
five and then six, and then eight, and all of
a sudden it was twelve. A couple of late Mariners
homers made it look a little bit different, not any better.
They got smashed, but both teams offensively, I would imagine
have confidence going into this game. The Mariners have been

(05:36):
pretty good in this series overall. Obviously Shane Bieber the
early trouble and then got them into the late innings.
The Blue Jays finally came alive.

Speaker 5 (05:44):
Yeah, well, in the middle of football at five, the
NLDS or NLCS, I should say, we'll get underway with
the Dodgers looking to take a commanding three games to
none lead.

Speaker 4 (05:56):
Yeah, that series is over if it goes three games
to none. And if they do win, they'll do something
that nobody has done this round, win a home game.
Isn't that crazy? It's just kidding, it's not. It's not crazy.
We've seen it before.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
I kind of want this pattern to continue in the ALCS, though,
just so I can say, you know, the Astros weren't
the They really were the only team involved there, right
that had that nobody won a home game. I know
they're the only team to do it in the World Series,
aren't they? Who the Astros against the Nationals aren't the
Nationals also one of the teams, then.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
Well, I guess the only team will lose it like that. Okay, yeah,
I think that's the only time it's ever happened.

Speaker 5 (06:34):
I feel like that should have happened way more with
the way baseball is, and then for them to do
it too or whatever three four years later in the ALCS.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
It's not It shouldn't happen. That's why it hasn't happened.
It's the same thing with Boston beating the Yankees four
straight games. I mean, we can't if the Dodgers win
tonight and take it three games to none lead. Every
series in the history of baseball has been over at
that point except for one now, and it's hard to
believe that even happened.

Speaker 5 (07:00):
There is some other American League news we'll get to
also tonight. I feel bad for you when it comes
to Rockets basketball here in the preseason.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Do you know why? Yes, I do, because the theory
that we both kind of have shared about Kevin Durant's
playing time I think is going to bear itself out. Yeah.
I don't really care. I work, it doesn't matter who's
out there on the court. Matter very unlikely that Durant
and a host of other regulars are going to play tonight.
We talked to you about that yesterday because I may
essentially mentioned that after their third preseason game. There's not

(07:32):
a new plan. This is kind of the plan they've
had all along. They just slowly make it public. I'm
sure when he speaks before the game late in our show,
he will mention that a handful of players, like I said,
a handful of rotation players, they don't need to see
them out there anymore. And it's it's not a coincidence
that this would have been the plan. It's also nice
that most of those players, especially those two in the

(07:53):
front court or for the Rockets, maybe I have to
say the backcourt KD and Jabbari, if they are two
of them, they've I've loved everything I've seen from both
of them. Probably not talking about Jabari Smith Junior enough.
We have four hours today to rectify that, so we
likely will a Friday show, Monday show, and Tuesday's show
to continue giving Rockets thoughts before the season starts. Of course,

(08:16):
Tuesday night, it does all begin. It's the second preseason
meeting with the Hawks, a team that will only see
twice during the regular season, and a team that probably
will win similar number of games to Houston and is
nowhere near as good as Houston, but they're in the
other conference. They do things differently over there, as in,
they don't compete, and they don't have the talent, and
there are a ton of major injuries. I hope the

(08:38):
West doesn't try to catch up during the course of
the season because it'll make for an unbearable season if
that's the case. But we'll obviously get you ready for that.
And it was over at Texans practice earlier today. They
are getting ready for the Seahawks finally on the field today,
Tomorrow and Saturday before they fly out to Seattle for
their game Monday night at Loomin Field against a very
good Seahawks team, a Seahawks team that, like another twelve teams,

(09:00):
maybe as many as twelve, think yeah, this could be
our year. This is what we did in the off
season to put together a team that we think can win.
They obviously changed quarterbacks. Sam Darnold's gotten off to a
very nice start to the season. They can do some
things defensively, very very well. I don't think it should
be lost that they don't do a lot of things
defensively very well, just some things a little bit different

(09:21):
from the Texans, in some good ways for the Seahawks
and in some bad ways for the Texans. We got
that to get through. Also, nothing of note on the
injury front, and I don't think the injury report first
one of the week that comes out today will suggest
anything otherwise. There could be some players that will be
listed as limited, but the Texans are pretty healthy the

(09:42):
active roster. All of them are out there and practicing
today to some degree, and hopefully that will be the
case for as much of the season as possible. They
managed to get through the first five twelve more to
go outside of their off week, which came very early
in the season, just the second of the off weeks,
and now on through the the rest of the next
several weeks. Everybody else will play catch up on Well,

(10:03):
we don't have to play every week while the Texans do. Yeah,
I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 5 (10:06):
I'm ready for it to get underway, because then it's
just like the snowball effect and we can get into
the meat and potatoes of the calendar.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
Even though they've played quite a bit already.

Speaker 5 (10:16):
I'm just you know me, I'm very I feel like
talking it to death after two weeks and then going
an additional day, I'm just ready to get it underway.
I'm always ready for the next day. I'm always ready
for the next thing. And in this case, I think
it's even more so because of what we've been talking about,
and we have another slate of people picking against the
Texans in this game, which I don't necessarily have a

(10:38):
problem with. They're on the road, they're playing a good team,
they're playing a good quarterback, they're playing a very good defense.
But I just feel like there's in the NFL more
than any other game, maybe even more than baseball, the
whole any given Sunday cliche really does come into play.
In this case, of course, it's Monday, and I feel
like the Texans are probably being slightly disrespected.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
If I had to use a strong word, I'm hard
to imagine the two and three Texans who've beaten nobody
are being disrespected.

Speaker 5 (11:07):
Okay, conversation, what if I rephrased it and said their
defense is being disrespected?

Speaker 4 (11:12):
Is that does that? The defense played great the first
three weeks, they went on in three.

Speaker 5 (11:17):
Just you're always there the blankets always there. Do you
have a basket full of them?

Speaker 4 (11:21):
I mean they are the ninth place team in the
AFC playing on the road, so I mean the disrespect
is palpable. Well, what has Seattle done that's so great?
Win twice as many games, so a lot of teams
have done that. I think that's a pretty good answer.
I mean, the Colts have done more than that and
are No, they're not planning a parade for them. Texans
would be underdogs at Indianapolis as well. Probably what about

(11:43):
what about here?

Speaker 6 (11:45):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (11:45):
They probably they'd probably be pretty close. I'd be curious.
I would say the Indianapolis Colts might be favored here,
but it'd be pretty close.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
But of those two teams, Cults are way more of
a fraud than the Seahawks right just based on the schedule.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
They've already played their US best football. Then, yes, we
already know the Texans have not.

Speaker 5 (12:03):
I hope not because that would suck. It'd be a
very long season, all right. So I'll have more here
on a Thursday edition of The eight Team. It's Sports
Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (12:13):
The eighteen. On Sports Talk seven ninety, I'm friends with.

Speaker 4 (12:18):
The Monster, the Sun of my bed. Get on with
the vote. It is the eighteen Sports Talk seven ninety
Thursday edition of the program. All Right, Week seven gets
underway tonight. It's the old Man River game. Who are
you going for? Aaron Rodgers or Joe Flaccos's carcasses?

Speaker 5 (12:36):
Because that's what tonight's matchups all about. I've seen great memes.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
By the way. Yeah, forty year old's going to battle.
It's not often you see. It hadn't happened often. Breeze
and Brady did it multiple times, and I guess these
guys could do it. Aaron Rodgers probably not retiring after
this year, and there are a bunch of really idiotic
general managers in the NFL, so Joe Flacco might have
a job next year starting for somebody. This is already
the second team he's gonna be starting for this year.

(13:02):
Pulling for kind of got into this yesterday. Clearly. It
seems like, Oh, just have an AFC team lose. That's
that's good for the Texans, right, you know, wanting them
or the better AFC team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, to lose.
I just don't think this team matters to Houston. I
guess if you think somebody else is going to pass

(13:22):
them in their division. And it's not gonna be Cincinnati.
They're not gonna win any games. It's not gonna be Cleveland.
They're not gonna win any games. And there's already a
huge gap in between both of them. That's a one
win team in Cleveland, a two win team in Cincy.
So tonight would put Cleveland to bed four games back
with a terrible team, and they've already lost to them once.
So unless you're telling me the Ravens are competing with

(13:44):
the Steelers for that division crown, if all you're trying
to do is get to the postseason, then it really
doesn't matter.

Speaker 6 (13:51):
Now.

Speaker 4 (13:51):
If you're trying to position yourself in the postseason the
way with the way seating works and things like that,
and you still believe you can win the division, or
you can have a record better than the Steelers, which
is another way to improve your seating, then yeah, absolutely,
pull for the flaccos, Pull for a miracle, pull for
something that I can't believe we've even seen yet this
year one time, but we have. Thanks Green Bay. I

(14:15):
thought you had more to say right there, but I mean,
eighty two points for the Browns this year. They can't score.
They're the lowest scoring team in the league. They've started
two different starting quarterbacks. Nothing has changed. They've got almost
a full season's length streak of scoring eighteen points or
fewer than eighteen points. If the Steelers decide not to
show up, they'll probably win.

Speaker 5 (14:37):
Well, you're gonna get Shamar Stewart back, but you're not
gonna have Trey Hendrickson as you try to chase down
forty year old Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
Yeah. I hope some of the other players that aren't
ninety on the Cincinnati Bengals line can do something, But
I don't. I mean, the Bengals defense with Hendrickson not
real good.

Speaker 5 (14:57):
Yeah, nothing, Well, nothing about the Bengals season has been
real good since.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
Yeah, I said the Browns a bunch of times, I
meant the Banks. I know you, they don't. These teams
don't matter. They're all the same, by the way, less
division unless they're playing somebody that's in your way. And tonight,
if you think the Steelers are in your way, and
technically they are because records do matter this year a
little bit, regardless of division championships from a seeding standpoint,
then absolutely. You want the Flacco led Bengals to win, well, they're.

Speaker 5 (15:23):
To a lesser extent they are. I mean, anybody that's
ahead of you and the standings right now is in
your way. If you're the Texans, we're just taking the
Texans because that's that's obviously the city that we're sitting
in here. But I just I've we talked about this
yesterday with both the Colts and the Steelers schedules, both
what they've already played and what will they play, those

(15:47):
are just gonna have to be. At least in the
Colts case, you're just gonna have to assume you're going
to be able to work your way past them at
some point with as much season as left as there
is to play. Unfortunately for you, if you're the Texans,
you do play them twice head to head, so that
goes a long way towards that.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
But yeah, it's a it's been one.

Speaker 5 (16:05):
Of the more weird starts to an NFL season from
the standpoint of nothing is going as predicted, and it's
not even about oh, injuries effect you know teams, because
Joe Burrow being hurt actually isn't that that's something that
people could have predicted because it just always seems to happen.
But I'm just talking about like who's on top, who's

(16:26):
not winning games. The amount of injuries. Injuries have been
huge for Houston. Two teams that would otherwise be in
the race are not, and they're probably not going to
be unless Lamar Jackson goes on a long run. The
Bengals would be in the race. The Bengals would be
a tough team to get out of your way. They'd
be a tough team to play every week. Whoever, whichever
AFC contender would be against them. And now they're not.

Speaker 4 (16:45):
They don't matter anymore except to be, you know, hopefully
not be a spoiler to anybody that they're not playing
for the playoffs. They're playing to be a spoiler. That's
a huge, huge deal because there's only sixteen teams to
begin with, and two of them, potentially two of them
don't matter almost exclusively because of injuries. I'm sure I
do remember Lamar Jackson played four times and they lost
three of those games. But you could see how they

(17:06):
were playing the likelihood of them losing and losing and
losing while they're scoring thirty and thirty five points and
forty points. It just didn't seem likely, no matter how
bad you think their defense is going to be. But
then you got two more gifts, and that he missed
two games probably comes back out of their off week,
but they just have so little room for air if
not for those two quarterback injuries. In my opinion, that's
just two more teams you'd have to deal with, and

(17:27):
now you don't in terms of the winning and you
know the standings. You have to deal with him for
playing them, because the Ravens will still be difficult to
beat because Lamar is going to be healthy. But as
long as they don't essentially go undefeated, they shouldn't ever
be ahead of you. They are two losses behind you already, right.

Speaker 5 (17:45):
And I don't know what to make of the Derrick
Henry situation because we've seen a million times where a
player at his age, at his position finally slams into
the wall. It's not a gradual situation. I don't know
if that's what's happening here, Like I'm still holding out
hope that he's not at that point.

Speaker 4 (18:04):
Well, I know they are for sure. This is I
don't think that My opinion is that is not what
we're seeing. What we're seeing is the Ravens playing really
poorly on offense, with their play calling and with what
they're committed to. The game last week and the game
the week before should not have been any different, but
they chose to make it a little bit different. I
know the Texans defense is better than the Rams defense
and top terms of stopping the run, but they just quit.

(18:26):
They quit on Derrick Henry after the first week of
the season, and it was stupid. I told you that
before the Texans game. I told you that after the
Texans game, and look what they did. After the Texans game.
He had his highest carry total of the season. He
had his second highest yardage total of the season. He
had another game where he averaged five yards per carry. Now,
they didn't win because they called some really stupid, idiotic
plays in the red zone at the one yard line,

(18:47):
including one that didn't involves any of well, they did
include him. He was asked to push a tush that
was pretty stupid. That's why they didn't get any more
than three points. I mean, their offense handled themselves so
much more effect in that game. And then the other
thing they figured out is ah Man. I guess Cooper
Rush is a backup for a reason, and they finally
benched him in favor of Tyler Huntley, who probably should

(19:09):
have been their backup quarterback all along, because they don't
have to change nearly as much of what they're doing
with Lamar when they go to Huntley, and I assume
he will, I shouldn't assume. I don't know if he'll
be made the permanent backup because he's only on the
practice squad. But they're just a different team, and so
is Derrick Henry. You know, the two games he was
arguably used the least, the Texans game and being one

(19:32):
of them the Kansas City game the week before that.
How do you rationalize that if you're the chief if
you're of the Ravens. Well, he was used less in
the Texans game because the score got away from you
and Cooper Rush was out there and so they could
key on stopping you. Well, why did you not use
him against the Chiefs? The Chiefs are that awesome that
after he gained five point three yards of carry on
his eight carries, you said, nah, enough of that. This

(19:53):
is a Baltimore problem. In my opinion, I could be wrong.
I do not think it's a Dereck Henry problem.

Speaker 5 (19:57):
Yeah, but I just never thought we would be talking
about John har like this.

Speaker 4 (20:01):
I mean, he's not calling the plays, but he should
be telling the person calling the plays they need to
rethink things.

Speaker 5 (20:05):
But that last part, that's it right there. You're you're
the head coach, and the buck is going to stop
with you. So if your coordinator is screwing things up
on the offensive side, I don't know, maybe step in.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
You're the head coach, right, I'm citing one issue. The
other issue is, Man, I don't have time to tell
you what plays to call. Our defense is giving up
forty one points and thirty eight points and thirty seven
points and forty four points. Help, I gotta talk to
him first. Yeah, and bigger fish to fry. I guess yeah,
it's like the worst fish fry ever. Well, I'm glad,
I'm not delicious. You know what sucks about this?

Speaker 5 (20:39):
You have the Bengals and the Ravens who have all
these injuries and you haven't been able to take advantage
of it because you didn't fix your offensive line this offseason.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
Yeah, I said it. I'm talking about the Texans. How
did they not take advantage of it. Well, they haven't
won some of these games, they played them and beat them.

Speaker 5 (20:53):
No, I'm talking about the other games this season, beating
up on the Ravens without Lamar Jackson.

Speaker 4 (20:57):
They should have done that.

Speaker 5 (20:58):
I'm talking about you would have been in a better
position to take advantage of both Baltimore and Cincinnati's injuries,
amongst others, if you had won more of these games
that you've played over the.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
Five life is we will find out that losing those
close games, while it's unfortunate, was not necessarily a sign
of things to come the rest of the season. Because
if that is a sign of things to come, because
I think they're going to play in a close game
at least the next four weeks, this onehow Seattle, Jacksonville,
and the Niners not in that order, over the next

(21:30):
four games. I don't expect the Texans to get blown out.
I don't expect them to blow out those teams either,
like they did the last two weeks. If they also
haven't figured out how to be the team making the
play in the final three minutes of a game, then
the season will be in the mud. It will be
in disarray. They have to win. They're going to play
close place. This team has shown, unless they're playing a

(21:52):
completely inept outfit, which they have the last two weeks,
they play close games. And in the two years prior
to this year, they won a lot of them. In
twenty three, that won enough of them. In twenty four,
they've won none of them in twenty five.

Speaker 5 (22:05):
Yeah, trajectory is not great as far as that goes.
But what you're saying is true, and hopefully they just
give themselves a chance, especially on the road. We shall
see coming up on Monday night. Speaking of the Texans,
we're gonna hear from Demico Ryans. We're gonna hear from
what they've got cooking over there. Is they mercifully in
this draft of action. As far as games, it's killing me.
Wex you know it is. We'll talk about all that

(22:26):
and more as we continue here on a Thursday edition
of the program.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
Did you all see this? We should be putting out
between five and fifteen posts a day.

Speaker 4 (22:43):
Four hundred people were arrested for things that they said
on social media. History repeats itself type Anuels succeed. Never
doubt that you're the one too. Pus will go one
build You're the best. Nothing's gonna but talk. You know, yo,
the best posting every single dab, youre the best of

(23:08):
the breaking the entire internet.

Speaker 5 (23:17):
Well, I'm gonna lead off this segment by passing along
to everyone that the w NBA All Star Game is
returning to Chicago. I just found that out on X
Any any takers. Are you excited about it?

Speaker 4 (23:27):
WEX become more excited about it if it matters to
Houstonians at some point in the near future. Otherwise, just
another way to show off your league. I think what
will end up happening is they'll get a w NBA
team here, But I hope what happens is they get
an NHL team here. They could get both be pretty
difficult to do, but I think both parties individually are

(23:50):
obviously interested. There continue to be things written about the
possibility on the NHL side because of where things are
with the league. What they'd like to do moving forward,
a number of markets where they think A it would
work and B they have people there with the financial
wherewithal and plan in place to make it work. In
similar things with the w they have a bunch of

(24:12):
other markets they would like They've already set in motion.
Adding a couple of other markets and the next couple
of seasons probably want to stop with the they're producing
basketball that people actually are watching a lot more now
than they ever did before, but they're trying to counteract
that with their own inner workings of we hate you

(24:34):
signed the league sent to the commissioner. I know what
they're fighting for. I know what they're trying to do,
and it's admirable to stand up for what you believe
you can do a lot better, and they're not even
entirely wrong, But there's some things that just as a
league in and of itself, that's a tough place to
be when you're trying to do something that for multiple
decades you've been unable to do. It is clearly a

(24:56):
different time in the WNBA. It's absolutely the time to strike.
I don't mean go on strike, I mean strike as
a league. Because the iron is as hot as it's
ever going to get. It has been so ice cold,
you have the most wrinkled clothes in the history of sports.
But now you have a chance to actually walk out
the front door looking sharp. So take advantage of it.

(25:19):
If that league is going to grow and really have
any opportunity to get further onto its own two feet,
because we know they've had multiple other feet holding them up.
It's the same league as they are, so you just
take the w away from it. That's who's been holding
them up for such a long period of time. And
they do have some things that are marketable. They do
have some players and teams that put people in the

(25:40):
seats and have eyeballs watching their games. That was very
evident this year and last year. So if they do
things in a much smarter financial way for all of
the parties involved, including people that do want to buy
into the league, spend money as sponsors on the league,
which has not happened before for some of these new
business opportunities they have, don't mess it up.

Speaker 5 (26:01):
Well, if one thing the WNBA does, it messes up
a good thing repeatedly consistently.

Speaker 4 (26:05):
But anyways, this is their first opportunity. No, they had
Caitlin Clark, they that's the opportunity. They messed that up repeatedly.
They're in it right now year too.

Speaker 5 (26:15):
And that all of their players routinely assault her. Well,
they don't really tend to re act this year because
she missed too much of the year. That's true. Okay,
let's get to what I really wanted to get to.
One of your favorites, John Haymon writes The Falling Manny
Ramirez is getting word out to all thirty teams. He'd

(26:37):
love to serve as an MLB hitting coach. He wants
to bring his greatness to teach the young guys. According
to his agent, Hector Zippetta, five hundred and fifty five
home runs, three twelve batting average, nine to ninety six ops,
and the Astros.

Speaker 4 (26:54):
Have an opening. I just wanted to slide that last
part in, Oh, so you're for it, I mean, not
part of the comments. Gonna give us something?

Speaker 5 (27:02):
I hope, My god. He would be such a vibe
for any team. I would love the Red Sox to
grab him. His experience with the team World Series champ
personality would be great for the Boston youth movement. I
will forgive Craig Breslow for everything if he hires Manny.

Speaker 4 (27:22):
That's the one of the first comments.

Speaker 5 (27:24):
Bring this White Sox legend back to the White Sox
old school.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
Right there are the raised fans jumping on board to
bring this raised legend back. Is he really a raise
or White Sox legends, he put their uniform on like
the other three teams. Are the Dodgers fans to engrossed
in their postseason to say, bring Dodgers legend Manny Ramirez back.

Speaker 5 (27:46):
While two people back to back comments said the following,
it's basically the same thing. The first one said, pretty
sure part of his greatness is now illegal, followed by
step one take peds.

Speaker 4 (27:59):
Those were two commons in a row. Well, if you're unaware,
both ped users prior that were notable in their work
on the field became hitting coaches. Barry Bonds has been
a hitting coach. Mark McGuire has been a hitting coach
to varying levels of degrees of success and also length
of job. A lot of four Major league hitters that

(28:19):
were that have become hitting coaches aren't like those guys.
Very infrequent for the best players to land or want
any of these jobs, not just hitting coach, but pitching
coach or manager. What Albert Poolhols is doing is not normal. Also,
the players at that level don't want to manage, or
they've made so much money it seems almost silly to

(28:40):
even want to. Manny Ramirez is a hitting coach. I
do think his numbers probably were inflated a little bit
from the usage, but I also view him as a
user like I view Barry Bonds. If you can't recognize
Manny Ramirez as an unbelievably unique elite hitting talent, and
you think he was good because he took performance and

(29:01):
answers only and he doesn't understand what to do with
the bat, how to handle things, what to do in
certain counts, how to handle certain pitches and pictures, then
you're just not paying attention. He's an elite individual hitter,
But what kind of teacher is he and how does
he convey that to others? And how much belief is
there in him because of who he is and what
his personality is. If we're treating this seriously, and I'll
do that momentarily, like does he come in and you

(29:25):
would think, well, of course he has the players respect,
is Mana Ramirez? But is he far enough removed? Like
put him in the Astros dugout right now? I think
Jose Al Tuvey would respect his major league career and
he's well aware of it, and Carlos would try to
teach everybody else about it, and Jordan would be there
Jeremy Paine, you probably haven't mean you're getting he's not

(29:45):
super old. But I don't think a lot of these
people are like man MANA Ramirez unbelievable. They're more likely
think man or Ramirez. Manny being Manny. That's what most
people of this generation know about him exactly.

Speaker 5 (29:57):
And that is where I would ask the following question.
It's still Joe a spot as staff to craft and create.
Would he fit in with his personality with you know
all that kind of stuff?

Speaker 4 (30:09):
I mean, if those are two very different. Seriously, I
would be shocked if this were the team that gave
someone with man I'm not aware of any real hitting
coach experience that Manny has internationally or otherwise you're going
to PLoP him onto your major league coaching staff. That's
why Jeff says, start and single I improve yourself. Yeah,

(30:29):
he can start. They don't have to. It is possible
somebody would hire him and put him on their major
league staff immediately. More likely than not, someone would if
he really really wanted to do this and do it
the right way. Yes, at least a little bit of
being a hitting coach before you get to the major
leagues would be something that he would be willing to do.
I don't know about his sincerity with this. You can

(30:51):
maybe you can get it. He might be able to
get a job off his name alone. He might be
able to convince a gm A staff saying I think
this guy can help us, and he's part of your staff.
I don't know that anyone wants to make him there again,
top Dog. Everybody follows his lead major league hitting coach
out of pretty much out of nowhere.

Speaker 5 (31:08):
It is interesting, though, that as the Astros for the
first time in forever have an opening at that very position,
that this guy, this personality of all people, is letting
it be known to all the teams out there. Hey,
I'd like to do this. Social media is powerful and
that's it. The best of X right there. We'll continue
here on a Thursday edition of The A Team. If

(31:29):
Sports Talks seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
One through a body in MC in jail, it is
the A Team.

Speaker 5 (31:50):
It's Sports Talks seven ninety simulcast on Space City Home Network.

Speaker 4 (31:54):
Coming up at the top of the hour.

Speaker 5 (31:55):
Wexac Cole Thompson with you on a Thursday edition, Week
seven of the NFL Getting underway tonight, old Man River
versus old Man River Flaco Rogers. By the way, when
these two were in their primes, I still wouldn't have
felt this was a delicious matchup. I would have been
excited to see Aaron Rodgers, and I would have been
as bored as ever watching Joe Flacco with the Ravens.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
Most unlikely performance, in my opinion, in the history of
the NFL, as Joe Flacco's one good postseason. He was
illegal said when he was in his prime. There's no
such thing, except for that five week run in the playoffs.
That's true. He played four games, he threw eleven touchdowns
through no interceptions. They won the Super Bowl. He was
Super Bowl MVP. He's never been among the best quarterbacks

(32:37):
in the NFL. I don't know. Can't explain how that happened.
He did play well, they needed him to play well.
It helped them win and helped them win a Super Bowl.
He wasn't really all that good before then, good enough
to start, and he definitely wasn't very good after that,
good enough to keep Lamar Jackson on the bench for
almost half a season before they realized, wow, this is
not just an upgrade we're going to be better than

(32:58):
we've ever been offensively, and he's been bouncing around the
league ever since as a very very far below average quarterback,
which he currently is. So yes, not a delicious matchup,
good team versus bad team, good quarterback against bad quarterback,
even for you because you were skeptical. I'm just going
off Stealers has done this season. He's played well this season.

(33:19):
I'm not going to be blind to it and just
stick to what I've said. I did not expect him
to do this even through five games. They've had their
off week. Also, like Houston, I don't know why he
can't continue it because they've kind of shuffled around the
backfield a little bit because of the Warren injury. Game
well has been good. Warren's been good when he's been healthy.
It was smart to go out and get DK Metcalf
in light of them moving on from George Pickens, so

(33:41):
he has an elite receiver. I thought they could get
more from some of the other guys. Have been some
issues with them from an injury standpoint, but they have
figured out how to kind of grind out points offensively,
while what do you know, the Steelers defense is good
again like almost always. And what do you know, Mike
Tomlin's team knows how to win no matter who the

(34:02):
quarterback has been, and he's light years better than anybody
Mike Tomlin has sent out there since Ben Roethlisberger. But
the results are the same. They just win. They can
beat teams like the Jets and the Browns.

Speaker 5 (34:15):
For two of their four wins, and he gets I knew,
you get a little tongue, a little light And.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
They played the team the Texans are playing this week.
They lost to them by two touchdowns, all right in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 5 (34:28):
Oh so, at least the Texans will have an excuse
if it happens to them on the road.

Speaker 4 (34:32):
I'm not expecting it, but sure they can use that
excuse when they fall to two and four, clean onto
those excuses. It's gonna suck if that happens. If they
fall to two and four, they're not good. That's four
games against competitive teams and four losses. Ma'am can't argue
with any of that.

Speaker 5 (34:46):
Okay, So in that vein, I don't think you've looked
at this graphic yet, but I'm just going to tell you,
off the top of your head, who do you think
has the best Super Bowl odds currently going into Week
seven in the NFL.

Speaker 4 (34:58):
The according to one outlet, that's a tie yes with
another AFC team or a NFC team AFC the Chiefs yep.
Plus six fifty for those two. That leads the pack,
but it's a crowded pack. Remember, the Chiefs got a
big win against the Lines, somewhat unexpected to get to
three and three. They're a five hundred team, but as

(35:21):
we continue to pound this point home, that puts them
exactly one win behind everybody else in the entire conference
except for one team. There's one team with more than
one more win than Kansas City and the AFC, just
the Colts. After as mediocre as it can get, they're
three and three. I don't find fault with that at all.

(35:43):
They know how to win. Just like we've been talking
about Tomlin's teams, they're trending in the right direction with
how they've most recently played. I would say something stupid
if I were stupid, and there are a lot of
stupid people saying these things, but I'll say something more factual.
They're being allowed to bring Rashi Rice back onto the

(36:03):
field to play football for them because he's no longer
suspended for something that he did. They're not fraeing him.
He's not making some sort of magical comeback. He's not
overcoming injury. He was suspended because he did something he
definitely should not have done, and then did something right
after that he definitely should not have done when he
ran away. But he's now eligible to play. Well, I'll

(36:26):
help their football team.

Speaker 5 (36:27):
Common sense isn't that common, So some people that's a
hard concept to understand.

Speaker 4 (36:31):
But I'm glad to see you're not one of them.
All right, I didn't if let's say I took a
couple of shows off or a week off, let's say
I had a station imposed suspension, I probably wouldn't gather
my social media team together and put a video out
of me crunching numbers on my computer waiting for my
rearrival behind the mic, like hashtag free WEX, something like that.

(36:54):
I would actually do that now. Would also likely that
could never happen relate to something that sent me to
court over as it did in Rashi's case. I mean
it would more likely be Man, we really wish you
didn't hadn't have done that on your social media or
between two and six that day when your mic was on.
So we're gonna need to take you off the air

(37:14):
for a minute.

Speaker 5 (37:15):
Of the time I've been in a motor vehicle with
you over the last two plus decades or however long
it's been, I've been driving. But the few times you
have been driving, I don't remember a leadfoot tendency.

Speaker 4 (37:27):
Uh. I mean it's getting heavier by the moment. So
you're in your older age or as you get older,
you are starting to speed more. That's good. I wouldn't
say it that way. I'm just I've got my biggest
driving beef that's been there forever and will remain there forever.
My belief as I watch other people drive is why

(37:49):
don't you want to get where you're going faster? They
don't even want to get there, they're out for it's
I promise you this doesn't just happen on Sunday when
they're actually out for a sun day drive. Happens every
day of the week. I'm like, what are you doing
all nowhere to go and get there? You're in your car,
You're headed somewhere. You might even be in a hurry,

(38:10):
or you might just want to get there On time,
or you're leaving work, which probably was. I mean, I
think a lot of people have jobs they don't like,
so you're probably ready to get They probably have people
at home that they love and that's where they're headed.
Don't you want to get there? I mean, I know
you want to get there safely, but I can ensure that.
I feel confident saying you can get there safely while
driving a little bit differently, And by differently I mean better,

(38:33):
and by better I mean faster. It's not always faster,
it is with me always more likely. Just just better.

Speaker 5 (38:39):
Get out of the left lane, get off your phone
while driving slow in the left lane. I'm not even
going to tell you to not do that, although I
should and most people should. But if you're going to
insist on doing that, don't make it so obvious that
by the time I pass you angler angrily on your
right hand side because you're in the left lane. I
don't see you like looking strictly at the screen as

(39:02):
you hold it in front of your face. So that's
the most obvious thing ever. Why you are driving like
such an idiot? Yeah, I out loud in my vehicle
with nobody else in it. I asked myself rhetorical questions
about the drivers, usually in front of me or next
to me, and I say, why are you breaking? And
then my answers again it's rhetorical when I pass them, Oh,
of course, because something is being held by your hand

(39:25):
in front of your face, and it's not the steering wheel,
and it's not a helpful driving device. It's actually a
device that distracts you from driving. Come on, now, people
get it together, especially you Houstonians out there all right,
three o'clock hour coming up next to Simulcast. Like I mentioned,
at some point we will be hearing from both Tamico
Ryans and CJ.

Speaker 4 (39:44):
Stroud.

Speaker 5 (39:44):
You're also gonna hear from Kevin Durant, who's gonna catch
up with an old teammate who's a very familiar face
in these parts. They reminisced. We'll pass that along to you.
All that and so much more on a Thursday edition
of the eighteen.

Speaker 1 (40:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named at him Talking Your Team's.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the eight team.

Speaker 4 (40:18):
What's up Houston?

Speaker 5 (40:19):
It is our number two here on the A Team
Sports Talks seven to ninety and now our number one
on Space City Home Network, as we will be simulcast
the remainder of the show, and then before you know it,
both entities bringing you the finale of Rockets preseason basketball
later on tonight. They've already played and beaten the Atlanta
Hawks once in the game that didn't count. They'll look

(40:40):
to do so the same tonight. I'lbeit in Atlanta, and
i'lbeit probably a little bit lighter in the lineup. No
for a fact that Katie is not going to be playing.
It could be a skeleton crew. Let's just put it
out there like that. That's okay. Means everybody's gonna be
healthy for Tuesday night by all accounts, and you're gonna
need all that health when you take on the defense

(41:00):
NBA Champion OKC Thunder. I meant to tell you this
off the air. I'll just tell you on the air
now because I told Cole about it earlier. We will
be getting Noah Eagle on at some point this season,
relatively soon. I was shooting for Tuesday. He's not doing
that game. He's doing the later game, and because of
that schedule, he could not join us on Tuesday like

(41:23):
I wanted to. Kind of preview the season and talk
about the return of the NBA on NBC. Mike Turriico
is going to be obviously doing that game between the
Rockets and the Thunder as far as the play by play,
but Noah Eagle is going to be doing the second
game that night, Lakers Warriors. So he's like, I'm down
to come on anytime. We'll do it soon. So just
be on the lookout for that because it's like having
a clone of his father.

Speaker 4 (41:44):
YEP. Can't wait to reminisce about his greatest memories of
the NBA on NBC. How old was he? He wasn't born,
There's no way that's too bad. Well, seriously, I don't
know what he was born, but barely remembers it right, No,
he's really super talented. Hurt a little bit of one
of his pre season games that they had earlier this
week that he was doing. It's he has a really

(42:05):
really good voice on top of it, not very surprisingly,
but yeah, we should have a host of different national
basketball analysts and play by play guys over the course
of this upcoming season. There are a lot more voices
that we haven't not had before doing games around the
league because of the new entities that are part of
the NBA.

Speaker 5 (42:23):
Now, it's about time, especially seeing as how you and
I are the hosts of the show that Tracy McGrady
makes his debut on the A Team. All he did
was covering him, cover him during his prime here in Houston.
He's part of the Tuesday Night crew. Also, he'll be
the analyst in studio for the second of the two games.
I think that'd be a pretty easy, easy thing to
make happen. But yeah, Noah's just a great dude too,

(42:45):
Just a really nice guy like his dad, who's been
on the Matt Thomas Show a million times. So he's down.
It'll happen sooner rather than later. Just want to put
that out there. We will get to some reminiscing between
a current Rocket and an ex Rocket, both of which
were teammates elsewhere. But just real quick from last segment,
going over some of those Super Bowl odds, just out

(43:06):
of curiosity, you're probably wondering where the Texans fall.

Speaker 4 (43:10):
It's not good. Yeah, I don't know what the numbers
would be, but I imagine they're no better than twelve.
They've got to be in the teens, early teens. Yeah,
that's that's exactly right. Seventeenth. Yeah, I mean they're ninth
in the AFC right now, they're under five hundred. I
think there's enough teams closely packed together that the belief

(43:31):
in the Texans that existed before the season could still
supersede what their record actually is. Thus, a few other
teams that maybe are a little more surprising of a
three and three are a little more surprising of a
four and two haven't generated the necessary buzz from an
odd standpoint, or money from that standpoint. Similarly, but that
I really do think these next four weeks will tell

(43:52):
you all you need to know, and we'll kind of
cement where their odds will be. Even if they only
go to and two, I think you'll have a very
very good idea of what realistic odds they have of
actually accomplishing more than they have. That's really all we
should be talking about. Are the Texans better? Have the
Texans improved two straight years? They had the same season
The first year was obviously massive improvement. They were the

(44:13):
dregs of the NFL. They were an embarrassment, they were
a laughing stock, and then they were a winner and
they were division champ and they were a playoff winner,
and they were one of the final eight. Last year,
they did not improve. They were the exact same team
this year. They haven't shown the necessary signs of improvement
as they're trying to get their offense on track and
trying to win some close games and they're two and three.

Speaker 5 (44:33):
Semantics technicality question for you on this on this topic,
do you count like if there's the same odds for
multiple teams, do you rank it that way?

Speaker 4 (44:43):
Because if you did it that way, then they're only ninth.
They're still time for ninth. That's however. Yeah, of course
I'll tell you rank it. But that also says, just
tell me which NFC teams are ahead of them.

Speaker 5 (44:52):
NFC teams you have the Packers, the Lions, the Eagles,
the Rams, the Bucks and and the Commis and the
forty nine ers and the Seahawks.

Speaker 4 (45:05):
Then how are they ninth because of all the ties? Well,
then some of the teams you just said aren't ahead
of them, right? You said how many NFC teams are
ahead of them? Yeah, and you listed off like seven
or eight teams.

Speaker 5 (45:17):
Yeah, Well, the Bulls and Chiefs are plus six fifty,
the Packers and the Lions are plus eight hundred. The
Eagles are all by themselves at plus twelve hundred. Then
you have the Rams as well, just behind them thirteen
hundred plus thirteen hundred. Then the Bucks the Colts are
both fifteen hundred. Then the Chargers and the Broncos are

(45:43):
plus eighteen hundred. Three teams are plus twenty five hundred.
One of those is the Ravens, the Commis and the
forty nine Ers or the other two. Then at plus
twenty eight hundred is the Seahawks and Steelers, and then
the Texans and the Patriots are both plus thirty five hundred.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
So they're nowhere near twelfth. I said ninth. Actually that's
what I mean. There's that sounds more like it, And
seventeenth was the original number. Look how many teams have
a better record than them? Look how many teams have
a win? They can at least one win, they can
hang out, don't have any You know who they're ahead
of by not a significant amount, but I mean it's
it's it's five hundred more. Plus thirty five hundred is

(46:22):
the Texans and the Patriots. Right The next team are
the Jags at plus four thousand, even though they've beaten
them head up and they have a better record significantly. Yeah,
that's what I figure. That's what I was kind of
saying at the beginning. The Texans had some belief before
the year, the Jags had none, So they're gonna get
some of that carryover from what they think they're going

(46:42):
to be, because there's also got to be some recognition
of we're five games in, this is probably this is
probably not the best hardly anybody is going to be
this year, unless there's an injury reason that they're they're
better now and we don't know what that injury reason
will be later because that player is currently healthy. But
everybody should be looking to be better, Like the Texans
have done one thing well that clearly the Bills and

(47:05):
the Eagles and a few other teams haven't. The Texans
and the Chiefs would be another team that has done
this well. They're playing better football week to week to week,
even through the three games like the Jacksonville game is
kind of makes the actual path up the Mountain a
little stagnant because you didn't play better against the Jaguars
than you did against the Bucks to the Rams and
you played comparably, if not worse, Because that still stands

(47:29):
out as the worst game the Texans have played this year.
That's not a team that should have happened to them against.
But you clearly played better in the following two weeks.
I don't really care who you play, That's not what
this is about. You played better football. You did things
that you weren't able to do before. Clearly you're playing
against somebody that's that's that's part of the whole the
whole analysis. You can't just go out there and say
and do whatever you want, no matter who the opponent is.
The opponent does matter, and their opponents the last two

(47:50):
week were terrible, but you got to do things well
for yourself. Said, you know, as much as it probably
pains people to hear Demiko say, we're worried about us,
you know, what is it going to take for you
guys to match up with the Seahawks and what they
like to do in the passing game. Well, we're more
worried about what we do, and if we do the
things we know we can do, then there's less to
worry about because we're gonna be able to get done

(48:11):
what we want to get done. It's about execution. I
know today he already mentioned their eyes are a big deal,
and if you've heard him this year, he said it
a bunch i discipline because Sam Darnold is going to
make you think one thing is going to happen, and
then one of his receivers is gonna run right past
you and he's gonna throw deep over your head. They've
got to have better eye discipline in that regard. That
got to not guess. They've got to not bite on

(48:33):
some of those where the eyes are set to deceive you.
It's quarterbacks do it well, and the better quarterbacks do
it the best of all of them. It's one easy
way to win a rep. The receiver runs his route
effectively and makes his cut and makes his wiggle, and
then the quarterback gives you the I nonsense. That's when
you get beat sometimes, and it's happened to the Texans

(48:53):
on a few times. And Dimiko's pointed that out to everybody.
We probably didn't need him to, because if you were
watching the game that way, and especially when they show
you replay, you can see the dB well he's looking
at the quarterback, which isn't the worst thing in the world.
It's part of what you need to do. But you
can get burned by it as well, when you think, oh,
I see where he's headed. I'm gonna drop off this
receiver so I can go get that receiver. It happened

(49:15):
to CJ. Stroud in the Texans against Jacksonville because CJ.
Stroud essentially was staring down the same area and so
when Dalton Schultz defender realized, well, he's not throwing it
to Dalton, he's throwing it behind me to Christian Kirk, Well,
I can get a head start on falling off of
this player my responsibility and getting into the empty zone.

(49:36):
It almost look like CJ threw the ball right to them.

Speaker 5 (49:39):
I'll tell you what kind of jumps out to me,
because we talked about this yesterday. I was talking about
the two top teams currently right now in the AFC
record wise, because it's the Colts, the only five win team,
and then the Steelers are right behind them, each of
them with one loss. But on this graphic, and this
is Fox, the NFL on Fox, it's not like it's

(50:00):
it's not some betting odds placed or anything like that.
It's just a let's throw this out there going into
week seven through week six, you know, basically it's Bills, Chiefs, Packers, Lions, Eagles, Rams, Bucks.
Those are the real, I would say, contenders, even though
they've got the Colts with the same odds as the Bucks,
who I think have the leading candidate for MVP right

(50:21):
now in Baker Mayfield, but the pay or the Steelers
are all the way down at plus twenty eight hundred
and as far as the two, I don't think these
teams are going to be sitting here at the top
of the conference after another six weeks, for example. I
just think that's an interesting disparity, especially when you consider
that the Steelers as an organization I think are probably

(50:44):
a whole lot more stable. Their head coach is a
whole lot more accomplished, as is their quarterback, even at
his advanced age.

Speaker 4 (50:52):
Take everything you said into account and whatever else you'd like.
Aaron Rodgers is going to win the Super Bowl? It
right now?

Speaker 5 (51:01):
Do you know how stupid that sounds? Almost as stupid
as saying Daniel Jones is going to win the Super Bowl.

Speaker 4 (51:06):
Aaron Rodgers is not going to win the Super Bowl
ever again, unless he's on somebody's bench and they have
a really good quarterback, then neither is Daniel Jones. I
don't think Daniel I would say it this way. There's
four one loss teams, the Steelers, Aaron Rodgers, Colts, Daniel Jones,
the Packers, Jordan Love, the Bucks, Baker Mayfield. I'll take
the other twenty eight teams to win the Super Bowl.

(51:28):
You can have those four, Tafield, which one would you like?
What are my choices again? Steelers, the four to one
loss teams, Bucks, Packers, Steelers, Colts. That's that's kind of
my point to where let's not decide what's going to
happen this year except for the Rodgers comment until we
see more football certainly not going in the year is
so it's the widest open anybody I think has seen

(51:50):
the NFL in a long time.

Speaker 5 (51:52):
And that's just another reason why I'm upset about the
offensive line of your Texans.

Speaker 4 (51:56):
But we'll leave it at that.

Speaker 5 (51:57):
Kevin Durant catches up with James hard and they discuss next.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
The a T on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (52:14):
WEX, which one of your Houston organizations in your past,
of all your years watching all of the games and
all the leagues here in town, is your favorite one
to reminisce about. And that's that's kind of a tricky
question considering what's happened recently, But.

Speaker 4 (52:29):
It's definitely not the Texans, that's the right answer. Well,
there's nothing to reminisce about. Yeah, I mean it could
be the Oilers. The Oilers right higher than the Texans.
I have lots to reminisce about the Texans. Unfortunately, it's
mostly the painful Houston sports history that most of our
listeners are far too aware of. Yeah man, they were awesome.
They made the playoffs seven straight years. Yeah man, they
were awesome. Love you Blue. They made the conference title

(52:50):
game back to back years, which is always met with
And you know what, tell me about the breaking where
all of those season ending losses that just probably shouldn't
have happened.

Speaker 5 (52:59):
So if they're a single team now that could pack
its stadium for a welcome back after a loss, I say, no,
no chance. I mean I know that that's that's a
perfect storm of Definitely the time period for sure. I mean,
you had three channels to watch, no internet, no cell phones.

Speaker 4 (53:22):
That's a huge part of that. It's impressive. It's the
most one of the more unbelievable things that we've seen
here in Houston sports Unfortunately, again, like most everything else,
it's attached to a heartbreaking loss. So it wasn't just
a few pere Sexans would be at the bottom. If
I rank the four, giving them football two slots, I'll
put the Oilers third because they can't rate any higher
than that because they don't even exist anymore. This is

(53:43):
where the rubber meets. They do not exist anymore, right,
do you guys? Hear me? The Oilers do not exist anymore.
No matter what Nashville tries to play in another city,
they're not still an NFL team. The Oilers do not
exist anymore. There's nothing to reminisce about for the people
that are watching a team that is owned by the
same family that once owned the Oilers.

Speaker 5 (54:03):
The other sevens don't dress up like the Browns twice
a year or whatever.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
No, they don't. I would say it's probably the Astros
rating one and the Rockets rating two just because of
the sport like it just feels like. And you also
the MAC, the U and the number of opportunities the
Astros have provided, like every time we say, well, let's
run through jose Al Tuba's best moments, we'd be here
all day. We could do it with Korea. We could

(54:28):
do it with Bread over and over and over and
over again. It's just you can't. It doesn't there's no
there's no comp to the NBA. There's no you just
you play fewer games, there's fewer moments. There's almost no
regular season moments. But the Rockets won a couple of titles.
The James Harden Rockets clearly were at the precipice of
winning an NBA title or a Western Conference title for

(54:50):
multiple years on end, they mattered as much as any
team in the NBA. And there's tons and tons of moments,
and we're obviously a part of that, both as fans
and part of all that era of broadcast. And it
lasted a long time, like all things considered. I know,
the Astros had three years in particular where it was
really bad. The Rockets had two years in particular right

(55:11):
before Ralph where it was particularly bad. The Rockets have
been one of the most competent, winning basketball outfits in
the league for forty five years. Yeah, I know they're
older than that, but they've been a reasonably competitive team,
a forty four win team, not thirty win team, not
a twenty five win team. For almost their entire existence

(55:35):
over that forty plus year preer, there's lots of good
things to reminisce about.

Speaker 5 (55:37):
Yeah, I just start if you just wanted to start
with the eighties, cause they got here in what's seventy
two from San Diego and the summit was built in
seventy five. But like the first final appearance was eighty one,
then they went again in eighty six, and then ninety
four to ninety five they went and won. But throughout
that time, and a lot of it has to do
with the fact that Les wouldn't allow Darryll to tear

(55:58):
the team down like they just got done doing. You
got to stay competitive on the fly, even if it
means we're a sub forty win team and we're just
outside of the playoffs and we're not getting great draft
picks either, And he did it.

Speaker 4 (56:10):
He wasn't getting great draft picks by his own decision
most of those years, not early draft I wouldn't say
not great draft picks, but not early picks.

Speaker 5 (56:17):
But once the heartache, as you mentioned, because there's plenty
of it, of the Yal Tracy McGrady era was gone
because both teams were either retired or on other rosters
for various reasons, you had to kind of wait for
that next step. And that's when those sub forty win
teams were. That's the Kevin Martin era, as I like
to call it.

Speaker 4 (56:38):
Not a lot of fun, just not good enough to
do anything, not bad enough to get a high draft pick.
And then on October twenty seventh, twenty twelve, we're all
just mining our own business around dinner time, and oh,
there's like five hours left until the NBA season begins,
and you just got James Harden. Nobody saw it coming.

(57:00):
Stunned everybody, including the participants or members of the organization
that he was coming from, especially and one of those
guys was obviously Kevin Durant because James Arden and him,
along with Russell Westbrook, were fresh off.

Speaker 5 (57:16):
Of Finals appearance. And you love to talk about this
with Sam Presty. He basically parted ways with James Harden
over five million.

Speaker 4 (57:25):
Bucks and in favor of Serge Ebacha and in favor
of making his Western Conference championship team worse. Intentionally by
the decision he made without any other influence. No other
team came to him and pried him away. He decided,
I don't like this winning thing, and I'm going to
do what my owner allows, because yes, clearly finances were

(57:45):
at stake here, but that's the wrong way to do things.
I said it from the moment it happened. From their standpoint,
we weren't talking about it much then because we're like,
this is awesome. Yeah, this team really, this is what
they wanted to do to repeat as Western Conference champs.
We got James Harden for Jeremy Lamb. Honestly, we didn't

(58:06):
know it at the time. We knew how good he
could be, but the ceiling was way lower than what
he actually turned out to be.

Speaker 5 (58:13):
Yeah, Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb and what would wind up being, ironically,
Steven Adams was the deal for James Harden, who won
an MVP, should have won at least one other if
not two, and was this close to bringing your third
championship if it weren't for Chris Paul's hamstring in Scott Foster.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
Yeah, I mean eight years of Rockets basketball where he
was pretty much no worse than the top seven player
in the NBA for five I mean, he didn't make
All NBA First Team enough for me to say, of
course he was top five, even though I think we
both know that he probably was. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (58:46):
Yeah, So Kadie and James got together and reminisced about
the day that James Harden was traded to Houston.

Speaker 7 (58:53):
To me, as like bron and d Wade and so
many dudes around the NBA sent TUIs like, congrats to
my bro, James.

Speaker 4 (59:03):
He got his like he going to Houston.

Speaker 6 (59:05):
He gonna kill it.

Speaker 7 (59:05):
When they was just happy that we wasn't together. Away
was so happy, I know Brown that was so happy
that we wasn't together no more because we was on
they ask everybody in the league. Was like, man, James,
I'm so happy you and he was said, Man, you're
gonna kill it.

Speaker 6 (59:20):
Bro, my bro.

Speaker 7 (59:21):
I was like, shut the fuck. Yeah, I just I
just yet scared, y'all. I knew he was on the way.

Speaker 5 (59:29):
You know what's interesting about that though, because they went
to yet another Western Conference Final. I think it was well,
it wasn't the very next year, but it was soon thereafter.
I think twenty fifteen or no, it's twenty sixteen, because
then Kevin Durant signed with the Warriors in free agency,
and it just further deluded that team that I think

(59:50):
is one of the great what ifs in NBA history.
They actually went to the finals and who talk all
he went about the greatest team never win a championship
being the Rockets are on that short list. I mean,
the Thunder were in the finals and then they had
a three to one lead on the Warriors before Kevin
Durant said all right, I'm gonna join them.

Speaker 4 (01:00:10):
They had two more finals appearances Conference Finals appearances the
Thunder after the James Harden trade. So it's not like
they weren't good good they were, but it's just so silly,
like you're not trying to be really really good. You're
not trying to Okay, this was fun. I loved winning
the West, but that's all we need to do. You're
trying to I think, and of all people like why

(01:00:32):
were they that good? Because they like this Big three
era that we're been in for a long, long long time.
They didn't have to go out and find any of
them after the team was already put together or remake
the team with these free agents and trades. I just
drafted three players that became the what could have easily
been the best Big three of this era of basketball

(01:00:54):
the last twenty five years, very very easily could like
they've just had no championships and they were only together
for three seasons.

Speaker 5 (01:01:00):
Yeah, but they've done like Presty's done it again, albeit
through all sorts of first round draft pick opportunities. I mean,
it's kind of like the Astros.

Speaker 4 (01:01:09):
Well, the best player they have wasn't a draft pick
of his right.

Speaker 5 (01:01:12):
It was a trade, but you were giving up at
the time, really really good superstar Paul George was awesome,
and I remember that at the time. It was like,
I mean, yeah, shake Gilgess. Alexander might be something, but
you don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
Yeah, listening to what I'm sure some of you've heard
a lot of read a lot already about what Kevin
Durant said about the situation, what we just heard there,
and what we've heard from him and a number of
different articles, what we heard from him when he was
on with Matt and Ross, when he was meeting with
the media here, and all the things that have led
to where he is now, through Phoenix and Brooklyn and
Golden State and onto Houston. He sounds a lot like

(01:01:50):
the Last Dance nonsense from Michael Jordan that a lot
of people love, and I took that personal, like everybody
in the league is sending texts out to James or
posting stuff, and this is great, man. My boy's gonna
go out and he's gonna get his he's gonna kill it.
And Kevin's seeing and hearing this and getting this and saying,

(01:02:14):
I know what you're trying to. I know what you're
trying to do, and I'm not having it. You're not
happy for him, You're happy for yourself. You're happy you
don't have to deal with us anymore. And it ticks
me off.

Speaker 5 (01:02:25):
It's like another candidate deluding the votes that the other
guy who sucks wins because there was two people splitting
the vote. That's basically what happened here, only you're deluding
the team that was going to, in his opinion, run roughshot.

Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
I mean together. It's clearly correct. Kevin Durant didn't win
any titles with the Thunder and James Harden didn't win
any titles with the Rockets because Sam Presty broke them up.

Speaker 5 (01:02:47):
Yeah, that's as succinct as you can put it, and
that's exactly what happened. Hopefully he does win a title
with the Rockets this time.

Speaker 1 (01:02:57):
The a on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (01:03:14):
It is the eight team Sports Talk seven ninety Space
City Hall Network. Wex ac Cole Thompson with you on
a Thursday edition of the program Rockets.

Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
As we were talking.

Speaker 5 (01:03:23):
About Kevin Durant not gonna play tonight, but Rockets and
Thunder the two teams tied to that trade, and I
just feel like they're I feel like Sam Presty and
Darryl Moury were such a rivalry, like a Cold War
type rivalry for so long because they were both analytical.
They were both trying to, you know, feel the team

(01:03:45):
that would eventually lead to NBA supremacy, and they just
kept coming up short. Now Sam Presty has that title
and it's with a very young core, and I really
hate him.

Speaker 4 (01:03:56):
I really am jealous. I mean, I know everybody doesn't
necessarily see it this way, but to me, it's actually
seemed pretty obvious. They were both really good at evaluating
talent and really good at evaluating where the NBA was
headed and how to cultivate that talent. You know, the
Rockets went through a bunch of different coaches under Darryl
Mory's watch, they clearly put together multiple versions of a

(01:04:18):
James Harden led team, many of which were really good,
and obviously one of which was extremely good. And Sam
Presy's eye for talent. I mean, I don't question that,
I question the sanity of this one deal. I don't
question this eye for talent. It's remarkable. I mean, if
you put together a list of the you know, best
general manager runs in the NBA in the last twenty

(01:04:40):
twenty five years, I separate his two runs because they
are extremely separate times in the NBA, even though Kevin
Durantz played through both of them, and his two eras
of putting together a championship caliber team would rate as
high as he'd probably be on the list twice in
the top five. He's been incredible at eyeington talent, finding

(01:05:01):
the deal for SGA, drafting Jalen Williams outside the top ten.
I mean, they've been really, really good. Clearly, the opportunity
to draft some players chet specifically come through the stockpiling
of assets, which some general manners have done and succeeded with,
and other general manners have just done. There's a couple

(01:05:23):
teams right now that have absolutely stockpiled future draft assets.
They don't only mean a whole lot to me. Unless
you win basketball games at some point, and most of
them are into this era where they've started using them, Well,
unless you start winning games, it doesn't really matter. Obviously,
Sam's teams have started winning games at a very high rate.

Speaker 5 (01:05:41):
But unlike that last trio we were just talking about,
He's locked these guys up.

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
They're not going anywhere. Yeah, unlike that last trio. So
in addition to all the good things I just said
about Sam, he and ownership learned from their mistake.

Speaker 5 (01:05:56):
Oh, it must be nice to have such a quick
turnaround to do such a thing, because I mean, relatively speaking,
ten years, I hadn't been that. Yeah, but there's some
teams that are still spinning their wheels. No, there aren't Sacramento.
But that's a that's its own case. That's like almost
organizational malpractice almost, Why do you say almost? That's organizational malpractice.

Speaker 4 (01:06:17):
It's one misstep with management, GMS, coaches, personnel after the
other is going to lead them to the promised land. Well,
they are the NBA gift that keeps on giving. Yeah,
Spending that amount of money on Keegan Murray, who's the
worst basketball player than Jabari Smith, is criminal. And putting
the team around him that's supposed to be better than
him is more criminal. Like that's what's that place where

(01:06:39):
it's in the middle of nowhere out in San Francisco
and you can only swim to it. It's a famous jail, Alcatraz. Yes,
it's criminal to some people. Kegan Murray, that deal you
are operating out of Alcatraz with the rest of the roster.
I mean, I know somebody else said this, but I
believe we had said it before. Look at who their

(01:07:00):
leaders are, the basketball playing leaders and individually speaking, these
two players are very, very talented players. But they've already
been teammates before in the Sucky Conference and they can't
win there. So why would they be able to win
now because Zach Lavine and DeMar de Rosen are playing
with Demonis Sabonis and Kegan Murray.

Speaker 5 (01:07:22):
Okay, I'm not I am not anticipating DeMar de Rosen
getting over on the Rockets like he did last year.
It really that irritated me. They get his but I
don't want to do. Kings won way too many games
against the Rockets last year.

Speaker 4 (01:07:38):
I mean, you can have a bad matchup, you can
have a team that you beat, but when you don't
beat anybody else, it doesn't really matter. Yeah, but I
just don't want to be the team they do beat.
I wouldn't expect that we'll continue, all right.

Speaker 5 (01:07:50):
Speaking of awesome draft picks, team was a pretty good one, right,
number one over off choice nineteen eighty four obvious choice.

Speaker 4 (01:07:56):
Best compliment everybody knows that.

Speaker 5 (01:07:58):
Well, the best compliment you can pay him and the
Rockets is that nobody questions that he was taking two
spots ahead of Michael Jordan, with.

Speaker 4 (01:08:04):
The number one spots ahead of Michael.

Speaker 5 (01:08:08):
Well, when Portland takes Sam Bowie, they get all the grief,
as they should. Hey, this guy's got some issues.

Speaker 4 (01:08:15):
The all time greatest draft picks in Portland Trailblazers Braziers
history are not Michael Jordan and Kevin Durant, though they
could be Sam Bowie. And who is the other guy
that was it? No? No, no, who was the guy that
they took instead of Greg Odin? Oh my gosh, not good.

Speaker 5 (01:08:37):
I say all that because we enjoy mic up in
the NFL. We enjoy kind of getting a peek at
what it's like during the course of the game. And
that's exactly what was the case with Travis Kelcey this
past week.

Speaker 4 (01:08:50):
As the the.

Speaker 5 (01:08:53):
Chiefs are trying to get back to what they have
been for the majority of the past decade or so
elite title contending, whatever you want to call it, they're
having to do it with a guy in Travis Kelsey
who has definitely past his prime, definitely on the way out,
very very much more closer to the end of his
career than anything else. But of all people to pay

(01:09:15):
homage to Hakeem Elijahuan and do so while being miked
up during an NFL game, I would not have had
Travis kelce on my bingo card. But that's exactly what
happened in week six.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
Under Here comes a blitz to his right, He raids it,
throws it right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Nice move by Travis Kelcey, stays on his feet, he
gets nine yards after contact.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
You wasn't even a part of the nineties.

Speaker 7 (01:09:42):
You would have sold the kim Eliza want to hit
him with the company dream, Say you have research, you
gotta do ever research?

Speaker 4 (01:09:47):
Kelsey did that dip the hip shoulder turn that we
really haven't seen all year.

Speaker 7 (01:09:51):
Just turned thirty six last week, still got some wiggle.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
To his game.

Speaker 8 (01:09:55):
Good sign of him doing that drop the hip NBA
pivot move.

Speaker 4 (01:10:00):
Wanted in that, so I emulated that shout out to
the dream.

Speaker 5 (01:10:03):
Travis Kelsey grew up watching Hakim Olaijuan. I had no
clue until today. I was today years old.

Speaker 4 (01:10:08):
Well, if you pay, I mean not everybody is locked
in on the Kelsey's and I think we're slowly moving
away from that. But they got super popular, not overnight,
but through their podcast and if you listen to them
talk and if you've watched them at least a little
bit during Jason's final years and Travis's continuing years, this
family of their sports fanatics. Yeah, they have huge history

(01:10:30):
with Cleveland sports because of where they're from. And I
think part of that is from an NBA standpoint because
they were in Cleveland at this time, So NBA background.
I know Travis played basketball. I don't know if Jason
played basketball. But these guys are sports nerds and I'm
glad to hear. I'm not that surprised it's Travis. If
you told me somebody in the NFL was miked up

(01:10:52):
and they were talking about a chem Olaje one and
the Dream Shake, well, first of all, I would know,
it's got to be somebody old, and it's be somebody
that's probably a position, a skill position player, because normally
you're micing up the skill position players. Somebody who's probably
pretty talkative. That's Travis Kelcey too. I hate that Hakein
doesn't get as much love as he still probably should.

(01:11:14):
He gets a lot of love, but he doesn't get
nearly the amount that he should, uh, even from this
current generation, just because I just don't think he was
a demonstrative personality, So that doesn't lend itself or just
I think he's old now to this current generation. He
stopped playing elite level basketball twenty some odd years ago.
Don't remind me.

Speaker 2 (01:11:35):
The a on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (01:11:42):
Who weren't Who were we talking to the other day?
Oh no, you weren't there. I was having a conversation
about Fenway Park and the person I was talking to,
who I'll protect the innocent. They were saying, they gotta
tear it down. They just it's gotta be like he's
like hot, take unpopular, take whatever. They gotta tear it down,

(01:12:06):
like all the charm, all that kind of stuff. Build
a modern stadium. And I wonder sometimes how long that's
gonna last? Because Finway, Wrigley, and Dodger Stadium are the
three that are by far the oldest, and Yankee Stadium
can get torn down. They can get torn down. That's

(01:12:27):
kind of how I look at that.

Speaker 4 (01:12:30):
So will you tear them down and build new ones
so you can make more revenue?

Speaker 6 (01:12:33):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:12:34):
Well, I would assume that's at the top of the list.
Why but seven hundred and fifty two million and twenty
twenty four in revenue for the Dodgers, Yankees at seven
twenty eight, Cubs at five eighty four, and coming in
in fourth the Red Sox at five hundred and seventy
four million. So a fourth and revenue across Major League
Baseball at five hundred and seventy four million isn't enough then? Yeah,

(01:12:55):
by all means you could spend more of your revenue
on your payroll. They ranked twenty third in Major League
Baseball in that regard.

Speaker 5 (01:13:03):
Yeah, but you can make those numbers, and that's all
fine and well and good. You're going to make way
more because the people are gonna go see the team.

Speaker 4 (01:13:11):
I know they're going to see the state owners will
put it in their pockets. That's fine. It'd be fun
for us. Where are the fans we get to enjoy
a bunch of baseball experience. The conversation wasn't about the
quality of the team. I don't give a crap. They're
not the Astros. Doesn't affect me.

Speaker 5 (01:13:24):
But what does affect me if I go to Fenway
Park is the splinters I'm gonna get in my backside
of the seat that's too small. That was the whole
point of this conversation, which then turned into oh, Dodger
Dogs or like.

Speaker 4 (01:13:38):
What's what before we get to Dodger Dogs and the
awesome food we never talked about that Seattle was bringing
to their fans here in the postseason this year, Like
what's the what is finally going to make this happen?
Because Fenway didn't just get old in the last five years.
They're fifteen or twenty or thirty. It's an outdated, non
elite revenue producing outfit, and they've they've made I mean,

(01:14:00):
I've seen Wrigley Field relatively recently had taken a tour,
so not just the stadium that most everybody sees, but
some of the things that they've done to generate more
income their club level seats now include it just absolutely
phenomenal suite set up and club set up and bar
set up right behind home plate. I mean, you'd never
know you're at the stadium, but it's like the coolest

(01:14:22):
thing ever. It's just an I'm sure they do generate
a tremendous amount of revenue from what they charge people
to have access to it, and then just the amount
of money they make from it. So there are other
things you may not realize some of the ballparks have
been able to do. But yeah, there's so much more
money to be and it's not even there's no way
you have a debate. You don't need to get in
the conference room and hash it out. It's a given.
It's no question about it. There's nothing to argue. We

(01:14:44):
would make a lot more money no matter how much
money we spent. Finding a place and getting people on
board and convincing people getting rid of history is what
we want to do. Has obviously been a big hurdle
that none of those three places have either pushed hard
enough for or care to in the And since we're
talking about those three specific places, Dodger Stadium is much

(01:15:07):
much younger than the other two relatively speaking, you know,
it's not when were the Dodgers, When do they move
from Brooklyn? But you're also getting to a point where
just go around, go to everything else. First, this stadium's
five years old. This is ten, This is twelve, this
is fifteen, this is fourteen, this is seventeen, this is
twenty two, this is twenty four, this is twenty two,
this is twenty one. They're eighty and ninety and hunt

(01:15:28):
means right, it's a different it's a different five. They're
not just old, they're everybody else has at least a
reasonably new stadium or is on reasonably new stadium number
two or three.

Speaker 5 (01:15:39):
And society like literally has outgrown these stadiums. Like the
people that are going into these stadiums are three times
the size of the people that were apparently the size
they were when this was built for these tiny.

Speaker 4 (01:15:54):
Tiny seat Have you sat in their seats? Yes, so
I've sat in there, Wrigley and Finway. Well, no, I've
been Dodger Stadium two. I've sat in seats and Wrigley.
But it was a billion years ago and it's probably
the same. Didn't seem too bad, changed them, Yeah, it
didn't seem too bad, not in terms of how big
the seats were, but in how much room that you had.
It's just definitely worse than a lot of other places.
But think about some of these other the current stadiums.

(01:16:16):
You really think they've done everything they can in all
of the seats and all of the levels to say
we want these people to be comfortable up here and
have leg room. No, no, let's get the cheapest plastic pop.
I mean, look, dyke In Park's a great place to
watch a game. I'm not gonna sit here and talk
about how comfortable the seats are because they're not unless
you're in the Diamond Club. So what are the Dodgers

(01:16:37):
selling to their fans tonight and tomorrow in Game three
and four? Spicy rice cakes? Spicy rice cakes. I'm definitely
not down for that.

Speaker 5 (01:16:45):
So this guy, Tim Newcomb tweeted the following new at
Dodger Stadium for the NLCS from Levy.

Speaker 4 (01:16:53):
Yes it's their Is that their era? Mark? I guess yeah,
they've been here too. Okay, spicy rice cake? How do
you say that? Mochy? I don't know what sets? Okay,
it's mochi Mochi rice cakes tossed in spicy sauce, torda melanisa.

(01:17:14):
I have no idea what is probably okay? Sure, but
really with an A on the end. Well, I don't. Again,
I don't. I'm not visualizing the words smashed blake, smashed
black beans, breaded beef cutlet, queso fresco, avocado served on
telara bread and chicken, yaqui soba noodles, grilled chicken and

(01:17:35):
yaqui soba noodles. I mean, and there's pictures of all
three of these.

Speaker 5 (01:17:41):
I don't know that baseball makes me want to eat
noodles out of a bowl.

Speaker 4 (01:17:47):
Well, these stadiums baseball for sure, because of the time
of the game and the active time of the game.
Very easy to eat the baseball game. They'll serve you
anything there. I'll give you two items being chopsticks at
a baseball game, though you're not it's not mandatory. Well,
I can't use them. You know that I'm not culture enough.
Then you don't have to. I'm gonna use a fork
for your fingers. I'm not eating pasta of any kind

(01:18:10):
with my fingers. Which of these two items do you love?
At T Mobile Park being offered in the postseason? So
tonight Game four late night. You could have the PNW
Pretzel or the No Mood Cheese Steak. You might not

(01:18:30):
be able to answer yet, so I'll tell you what
they each are. The pretzel is a giant Bavarian style
pretzel with cheese sauce, wild huckleberry, mustard, d'l salmon spread.
It's offering a couple different places. The No Mood Cheese
Steak is a plant based twist on the ballpark classic,
featuring pulled oat protein and cashew based cheese sauce. No, listen,

(01:18:52):
come on, Seattle, stop calling it plant based and just
say it's crap, because if it's not real meat, Teresa,
I don't want it. Are you pretty much bringing it
into the house and telling me but it's better for
you because it's plant based, So you can bring it
into the house and put it in front of her seat, right,
not yours? Right? Okay, even if she's the one cooking,

(01:19:14):
I feel like at some point, and I know, look,
she's a great cook, and she manages somehow to have
something on the table every single time I walk out.

Speaker 5 (01:19:23):
I don't ask her to do it. She's just awesome
at it. And he's got to you anyways, is the
real reason. Well, come on, man, I draw the line there.

Speaker 4 (01:19:30):
I'm not going to complain about anybody making me food,
so I didn't have to do it unless it's plant based,
and she knows you like plant based stuff. I do not.

Speaker 5 (01:19:40):
I'm taking that, Thank you, Mike Frtello, and I an eagle.
I'm taking that Bavarian pretzel every time, including at Toyota
Center where they're awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (01:19:52):
Ninety, seeing lifelong Houston sports guy's named at him talking
your team.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the eight team.

Speaker 4 (01:20:15):
It is the A team.

Speaker 5 (01:20:16):
It's Sports Talk seven ninety Space City Home Network, four
o'clock hour underway as we are halfway home and almost
to week seven of the NFL Bingals Steelers tonight and
the whole entire weekend's worth of college and pro football,
and another game kicks off, and then late on Monday night,

(01:20:38):
the Texans will finally get off of their bye week
and take on the Seattle Seahawks in the Great Northwest.
Just real quick, going back to last segment, I got
a got a text during a break and this person,
who also remain nameless, said, uh so, if you say Finway,
Wrigley and Dodger Stadium can be basically be called it nerved.

Speaker 4 (01:21:03):
Do you want the dome taken down?

Speaker 5 (01:21:05):
And I was like, yeah, I mean if they haven't
done anything with it at this point, I felt like
we just do this cycle like every so few years
or months, what would you do with it?

Speaker 4 (01:21:15):
Which it never comes to anything. It's it's a yeah,
totally agree. I mean I'm not. I don't know how
you could be tied to it. It's not in use.
It's it's not nobody does anything there anymore. It doesn't
bring back memories because nobody's going there to recreate new ones.
It's it's an out of date what happens to most
of them. You build in the same spot and it

(01:21:36):
gets blown up and everybody moves on. And people in
Seattle still having heartbreak over the King Dome, Detroit with
the Silver Dome, and I could go on and on.
It's Metro nor Minnesota. It's what happens. It's exactly how
things should happen. They have a new stadium already, you
can create something out of it, even build something on
the site. You can make this the current active tenants

(01:21:56):
on site right now I imagine you could better than their
experience and the people that visit their grounds experience. When
you consider how many other events are held at the
Energy Area, Energy Park, et cetera, the rodeo being the most,
the biggest one, the lengthiest one, and the most number
of foot traffic that rolls through there. I mean, think
about what. Just make that space empty. Pretend you have

(01:22:20):
this home model and there's the astrodome. Won't just pry
up the astrodome and lift it off the page and
put anything else you want there and then have put
your little model people all over the place. Not saying
you have to build something inside the framework of the
astrodome to make this awesome new shopping slash ski lodge
slash experience. Just put anything else you want there. The

(01:22:41):
building's not going to carry any value anymore. That's been
ten twenty years now. I'm not saying moving forward. I'm
saying that's already happened. Well, a couple things at play
here in the same vicinity. Remember when all we heard
about is how valuable the land was across the freeway
and that's why they were gonna raz Astra World. Yeah,
they've done a lot with that and so that's number one.

Speaker 5 (01:23:03):
But number two, if you want to go the sentimental route,
I'm willing to bet right now. And this could be
a hot take Houston sports thing to say I and
a lot of other people. And I'm not talking about
young people because they don't know any better because they
weren't alive. I'm talking about people who were in both
venues right, saw games that mattered in both venues of
both varieties.

Speaker 4 (01:23:22):
Talking about baseball and football.

Speaker 5 (01:23:24):
When you're talking about the Dome, I would have more
sentimental attachment and be more sad, wistful, whatever you want
to call it. If they tore down in Ron minute
made dyke in Park, then I would be about the Dome.
You know why because there was actual winning championship moments
multiple inside that building. And I'm not talking about divisions.

(01:23:47):
I'm talking about like those two teams. Conversation should be
held in New York. Yankee Stadium is gone where they
won all those titles, right, it's gone. Right, Yankees fans
unable to who remember the titles because the stadium isn't there?
Are they unable to reminisce about it. It's the same
thing we could say about any place here. I'm not
unable to remember love you Blue, not unable to remember

(01:24:09):
the trip back home from the Conference championship loss. I'm
not unable to remember the nineteen eighty Phillies Astros series
or the eighty six Mets Astro series. I've got all
those memories, whether the building exists or not, I love
them all.

Speaker 4 (01:24:24):
So again. I know there's other reasons why they haven't
been able to get anywhere, and I don't know if
people all agree on doing this and how we want
to spend the money and what we truly want to do.
But the memories are I have them. They're not going anywhere,
whether or not the stadium exists in any variety moving forward,
I don't need to say I'm talking for me. I
do think I should be talking for more than just me,
because I have a hard time understanding why it would

(01:24:45):
be different for other people. My memories are mine. I
have them. I don't need the building to remind me
of them. They're not going anywhere.

Speaker 9 (01:24:53):
That I know.

Speaker 4 (01:24:54):
I'm getting old, but I hope you won't go anywhere.

Speaker 5 (01:24:56):
Having said all that, I would really like to get
in there and take a picture for it is.

Speaker 4 (01:25:01):
That'd be nice.

Speaker 5 (01:25:02):
I mean, my vision would be to take one during
the day with the light actually coming through the what
do they call them, translucent glass the panels. Yeah, I
want to go right to the middle of the dome,
take a low angle picture with the dome over my head, and.

Speaker 4 (01:25:19):
Then have him blow it up, blow up the picture. No,
I might, I don't know. We'll see now, I know
what you're saying. I do think, and some people have
had that opportunity for different events over the last handful
of years, or some auctions and things like that, But
it doesn't it doesn't serve any purpose. And I think
it's pretty obvious everybody knows that that land could be

(01:25:39):
used for a better, more useful purpose for those that
are current tenants, all while one of the current tenants,
and there's only two of them, is clearly investigating the
options on a new facility, practice facility, operations facility, office facility,
and or moving entirely out of the Energy Park complex,

(01:26:04):
all while a lot of the Energy Park acreage is
unused right in the middle of it. It's just a
that whole part of town's inn iesore. I don't really,
I mean, I'm sure I'm in the minority I don't.
I don't view it as an isore. It's just not as.

Speaker 5 (01:26:20):
Ens it could be, like the Medical Center is. Actually,
if you drive through there, it's actually nice. Even though
it's the medical center.

Speaker 4 (01:26:27):
It'sremely unfun to drive through there. Well, yes, but I'm
just mean. I'm talking about strictly esthetics. It's like a
small downtown. It looks well. The Energy Park area is
just like everywhere else in Houston. Here's a strip center,
here's a retail center, here's a bunch of restaurants. Here's
every single chicken restaurant in the history of Houston. Eateries
on Kirby, on Buffalo Speedway, on Maine, they're every single one,

(01:26:51):
which is awesome. I love it. Any anyone you want
sounds like somebody want some chicken. But well, they're all there.
You can't miss it from just all the way down
and I drive it every three times a week, so yes,
I see them all all the time. But it looks
like anywhere else in Houston. And then you look to
your right and there's a stadium, or you're driving on
Kirby and you're on the stadium, or you're driving on

(01:27:11):
Fan and you look to your left, and you say, oh,
there's a stadium and there's a convention center, but to
your right are nothing but apartments, and you're on your
way to the medical center, and same thing on Kirby
to your left. It looks like any other retail center
anywhere in the city, or it's outskirts, it's it's I
don't know how you'd create it much differently. If it
like downtown, you still have the same pop. Oh my god,

(01:27:34):
there's the stadium and there's Discovery Green. They've tried to
do some other things. I don't think the handling of
the downtown itself was done very well.

Speaker 9 (01:27:44):
Here.

Speaker 4 (01:27:44):
Let's let's tell everybody to go build their restaurants and
we're gonna have everybody downtown. But then we're gonna do
a bunch of construction and nobody's gonna go downtown, and
you're all gonna go out of business, and then we'll
pretend we can start it back up again, and we're
in that area now, and for all we know, there
could be another relatively speaking, downtown football stadium, so to speak,
not true downtown, but not far from downtown. If they

(01:28:06):
end up choosing to move and ultimately maybe getting there.

Speaker 5 (01:28:10):
I just we've talked about that a little bit, just
the aspect of the Texans in the new stadium.

Speaker 4 (01:28:15):
I just.

Speaker 5 (01:28:18):
Having it downtown would not be I wouldn't be opposed
to that. I think that'd be cool. We've got the
other two major venues down there. Many cities in America
have that setup in some way, shape or form.

Speaker 4 (01:28:28):
I'm fine with it.

Speaker 5 (01:28:30):
I just don't know if there's any way the Texans
can convince Houston to do it. That's where I'm like,
wherever it is. I'm not sorrying about downtown. I'm talking
about Sugarland, Katie. We're all these outsourced areas that people
are talking about just because.

Speaker 4 (01:28:45):
There's more land spread out. I guess which.

Speaker 5 (01:28:48):
By the way, if you were going to do that,
I would think that sugar Land would probably have the
most options. There's a lot of not being used land
out that way.

Speaker 4 (01:28:57):
I can tell you, if I have it correct, there
ten in use NFL stadiums that were built after two
thousand and two. Only ten, like NRG Stadium. For all
that we clearly know can be upgraded, needs to be upgraded.
It isn't, in my opinion, anywhere near old enough to

(01:29:20):
have been done so badly that it requires it. Nope,
and that's the last thing that the McNair family probably
wants to hear you say, and anybody say. But it's
the truth, I mean, and I don't blame them. It's
still nice too. There's no reason not to It really
is no reason not to attempt it. If it works,
you just made yourself a bunch of more money. Yeah,
at whoever's expense. That's this is part of business. You

(01:29:42):
are trying to make money. Jerry World, so Fi Minnesota.
That's three right there, MetLife that's four. Gosh, I'm not
gonna be able to name them all. But wasn't there
another one in La? Or is it just so fIF
they built? It's just so Fa, that's right. They share
that one. Jacksonvill's got a new one, the O they're getting.

Speaker 5 (01:30:05):
But I'm talking about ones that have been built, like
he said, since two thousand and two.

Speaker 4 (01:30:12):
Well, and the Titans are another one. Stadium been built,
buys one of them. Yep, that's one. Just think about
where the super bowls. Yeah, that's all in places. Met
Life's had a Super Bowl, Lucas Oil's had a Super
Bowl or two. Obviously you said US Bank they've been
to Atlanta because of Mercedes Benz Stadium. They just went
to Allegiant Stadium. Oh yeah, Vegas. Those are the two
built most recently, Allegiant and Sofa in twenty twenty. But

(01:30:36):
that we've already. State Farm is the only other one,
I'm sorry. And Lincoln Financial. Those are the other only
stadiums in use in the NFL built after Lincoln. I
believe it was the next year, two thousand and three. Allegiant,
by the way, is awesome. Have you been there? Not inside?
It's awesome. He does look like the death Story. I

(01:30:58):
know it's a It's right there was you presumably if
you're coming from this way right as you roll in
on the highways right there.

Speaker 5 (01:31:04):
Like I think if you're not so far, all the
interiors of these stadiums are more or less the same.

Speaker 4 (01:31:10):
If they're all interior and it's an indoor station, right right.

Speaker 5 (01:31:13):
But like the outside of that thing is absolutely unique,
looks cool, and only so Fi rivals it in my
opinion as far as like, you know, aesthetics and just
walking up ability to it, that kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (01:31:23):
It's it's very cool looking.

Speaker 6 (01:31:25):
All right.

Speaker 5 (01:31:25):
We will uh, we'll get off the stadium conversations we continue.

Speaker 4 (01:31:29):
We still have what's up with that?

Speaker 5 (01:31:31):
There is a I guess future Hall of Famer Apparently
it was a future Hall of Fame partier back in
his younger days, and he went on the record about that.

Speaker 4 (01:31:40):
That's all still coming up next here on the eighteen.

Speaker 1 (01:31:44):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 8 (01:31:53):
It is the A Team Sports Talk seven ninety Space
City Hall Network Thursday edition of the program, as we
get you to six o'clock and Rockets preseason finale basketball.

Speaker 5 (01:32:04):
Demiko Ryans meeting with the media today. Finally, the Texans
are getting closer and closer to resuming that calendar. Got
the Seahawks in Seattle, and all we've heard about all
week long and all of the picks against the Texans
and all the reasons for those picks is the defense

(01:32:25):
that's going to be on the field, And everybody knows
the best defense on that field this week is going
to be the Seattle Seahawks. I'm just kidding it's actually
the Texans, but you wouldn't know it. Everybody loves the
Seahawks d coming into this matchup, and Demiko Ryans spoke
about that earlier today.

Speaker 6 (01:32:43):
Thehawks defense line is definitely the strong group of their team. Right.
They are relying on their D line and get out
of the quarterback, and they can do it without pressure.
They do a really good job of just executing their stunts.
I think when you want to run the games and
the stunts, you gotta have guys who can really open
and they got big guys inside who can really play

(01:33:03):
fast off the ball, really penetrate and open it up
for guys to you know, create havoc up the middle
of the pocket. So we just have to be aware
of where they're aligned. We got to be aware and
we got to finish. That's the main thing, I guess
not gonna be anything that we haven't seen before. We
just have to be on that. We have to be
able to communicate, and we have to be able to

(01:33:23):
just t train the finish.

Speaker 4 (01:33:26):
When he said, we need to know where they are.
That's probably the most important thing there. They do a
really really good job of making it difficult to just say,
here's the guy in front of me, go physically win
your battle and move on to the next play, especially
on the interior or maybe better than any other team
in the NFL, and disguising where the rush is actually
coming from not needing to bring additional rushers in order

(01:33:47):
to do so, you know, games and stunts and things
like that. With that group up front, a pretty young group,
some of the guys obviously recently to the NFL, and
they've done a really nice job. And to think all
the pressure that they had really new against the Jaguars,
because there's some recognition for some of the pressures aren't immediate,
and last week that was a big part of their

(01:34:07):
pressures against Trevor Lawrence. It was more of he either
didn't see where the openings were quickly enough, he didn't
see the receivers he should have been throwing to early enough.
Obviously the coverage in some instances was good enough where
he didn't want to make the throw, but then having
as much time as he did have to throw, which
was more than the average amount of time, but still
seeing seven sacks and seventeen quarterback hits in addition to

(01:34:31):
basically facing a fifty percent pressure. Right, Remember, if the
quarterback is running for his life, obviously he was pressured.
But on that particular play it's being tabulated as a pressure.
Did he drop back and look and look and look
and look and look and then leave the pocket and
then get chased and then throw the ball away. Well,

(01:34:54):
that's not like your offensive line failed, it's something else failed.
Either your vision or your receivers. All those things are
all part of it. And I think a lot of
that did happen last week because Seattle's defense has not
been overwhelming six times this year, and I don't know
if I would call them overwhelming last week, I would
definitely say they had their way with the Jacksonville offense.

(01:35:15):
They were the better unit out there. And I think
the commentary that you've been talking about all week is
is that's why they have been getting that type of narrative,
because which of the two matchups do you think has
the favors one of the two teams the most? Does
the Texans offense against the Seattle defense, does that favorite
Texans the most? Does their defense against the Texans offense

(01:35:38):
does that favor Seattle the most? Does the Texans defense
against the Seattle offense does that favor the Texans defense
the most? Or conversely, does the Seattle offense against the
Texans defense? Does that favor Seattle the most? If you
take those four individual unit matchups, I think you would
rate the Seattle defense against the Texans offense as the

(01:35:59):
largest advantage we see on paper for one of the
two sides heading into the game of those four.

Speaker 5 (01:36:05):
Yeah, I mean the Texans two wins have come against just.

Speaker 4 (01:36:10):
Like it's not that the Texans defense against the Seahawks offenses.
The Texans defense is hosed. They can't stop them. They're screwed.
Way do you get a load of what the Texans
defense looks like against a really good offense. Forget it,
They're not gonna be any good, it's far from it,
but they are very good, and very good defenses don't
just automatically shut those offenses down. And they're not even

(01:36:31):
a great balanced offense. They're a pass happy offense. They're
a successful passing offense and elite passing offense. They're not
an elite running offense. I'm sure the Texans are gonna
stop the run. I'm also fairly certain we're not gonna
hear from Demiko, and he says, well, as always, we
got to stop the run, and we got to force
them to do one through, make them be one dimensional.

(01:36:53):
I mean, you might get some interceptions because they're throwing
every down, really, but that's the strength of their offense. Yeah,
I don't.

Speaker 5 (01:37:00):
I mean, look, I'm all for touting the Texans defense
and even doing that on the road, I don't think.
I know, everybody keeps talking about Seattle being this difficult
place to play, and it is loud from a decibel standpoint.
You're a numbers guy, you know it's legit one of
the loudest places to play in the NFL for opposing teams.

(01:37:21):
But I don't think that has any effect on the Texans.
The Texans defense is going to do with the Texans
defense does, and if they're able to get to Sam Darnold,
which they're just as capable as any of the top
defenses out there to do just that, they'll have some success.
And I don't just mean, like, you know, getting to him,
I'm talking about I think they will cause him to
make a mistake or two.

Speaker 4 (01:37:42):
Which a former Texans quarterback should c J. Stroud talk
to about what it's like playing in front of Seattle's fans.
Uh shob uh. No, he didn't play there. Nope, I'll
just here, so you're gonna tell me that they've played
there twice, correct, that's it. And both of them were

(01:38:03):
just random quarterbacks because of injuries. They've only started four No,
not because of injuries. They were that season's starting quarterbacks.
Brock Nope, every four years and it's twenty twenty five, now,
twenty one, twenty seventeen, twenty thirteen, two thousand and nine,
and two thousand and five. Or they're only five games
against Seattle and only two of those were in Seattle.

(01:38:23):
And yes, in two thousand and five they played the
Seahawks for the first time ever and it was a
road game, and it's the only time the Texans have
played the Seattle Seahawks that they have not had their
quarterback throw for three hundred and thirty yards or more.
It was David. He was not real good. Oh that's right.
DeShawn did have a good game up there. They had
an awesome game. He did throw the ball to the
other team three times, but he threw his ball the

(01:38:44):
ball to his team in the end zone four touchdowns,
four times. He had a four hundred and two yard day.
This was part of that season where when you have
a quarterback like that, you're like make all the mistakes
you want because the great players are going to outweigh.
That was a at farv game. That was a chuck
the ball all over the field, let some of your
receivers make plays. That was also a Will Fuller game

(01:39:05):
and a DeAndre Hopkins game, wasn't that.

Speaker 5 (01:39:07):
Within a week of the soul crushing loss at New
England where he like, I feel like those.

Speaker 4 (01:39:16):
Well it had to be he only paid seven times,
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 5 (01:39:18):
The early part of that year where he was like
making he was just he was his big splash season.

Speaker 4 (01:39:23):
He's coming onto the scene exactly. So he and David
Carr are the only two Texans quarterbacks to start gae as.

Speaker 5 (01:39:30):
I recall that five game was U hugly like most
games were that year because they got the number one
pick in.

Speaker 4 (01:39:37):
The draft stoms last year. I will say this should
have been David's last year, didn't They put up like
Kubiak's dad. Kubiak is the OC for Seattle. If you
were unaware, Oh yeah, Demiko talked about him. Demiico talked
about him today. The other thing I wanted to get
to this segment from Demico was the aforementioned Sam Arnold,

(01:40:00):
because I mean, he carved the Texans last season in Purple.
He was playing for the Vikings then, but now he
plays for the Seahawks, signed there in free agency, and
Demico shared his thoughts on one Sam Darnald.

Speaker 6 (01:40:12):
Sam has done a great job this year of hitting
his targets. A very explosive offense, one and foremost because
he's able to deliver the football at all three levels
of the football field right, does a really nice job
of throwing the ball deep. JSN did a really nice
job making plays on the football as well, and they
protected Will So he's done a good job of spreading

(01:40:34):
the ball around, making good decisions with the football, and
that's why he's been having a really good year.

Speaker 4 (01:40:39):
Six years of NFL football from Sam Donald when he
entered the league, three with the Jets, two with the Panthers,
one with the Niners, and through all six of those seasons,
and there's a ton of football being played in that
amount of time. Well over fifteen hundred passes throwne he
completed less than sixty percent of them. That's Joe Flacco thinks.
That's good. It's awful, you're never playing again kind of

(01:41:00):
stuff if you do that over that long a period
of time. Then he went to Minnesota and worked with
Kevin O'Connell and last year he was completing sixty six
percent of his passes, and now he's in Seattle working
with Clint Kubiak, he's completing almost seventy one percent of
his passes this year. The very short list of the
quarterbacks who have played the best this year in the

(01:41:21):
NFL includes Sam Darnold. Where did you say he played
before uh Minnesota? He was with Shanny in San Francisco
as their reserve, got a little bit of field time
late in the year. And you also said the Panthers
for two years. That's where he went immediately after the Jets. Gosh,
when I remember all this stuff last week when people
were saying to Baker, do you and Sam reminisce about

(01:41:42):
your time in Carolina together? And he said, oh, no,
I actually didn't see that, but I just had.

Speaker 5 (01:41:48):
I completely had blanked out on the forty nine Ers
and Panthers Sam donald eras.

Speaker 4 (01:41:54):
Yeah, he got a chance to start in Carolina, initially
didn't play well, and then he became a backup quarterback
until he was the starter year in Minnesota and obviously
played tremendously well until the last regular season game and
his only playoff game. But he's recovered nicely so far
this year. Sam Donold very good NFL quarterback, maybe facing
the best defense he's seen this season, coming up against

(01:42:15):
the Texans on Sunday. What's up with That? That's next.

Speaker 1 (01:42:19):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:42:24):
Where now a new signature seven called.

Speaker 2 (01:42:31):
What's up with? What's up with Hell? What's up? I
say it was up who that.

Speaker 4 (01:42:44):
WEX?

Speaker 5 (01:42:45):
Do you remember back in the day when Charles Barkley
was I believe he was with the Sixers at the time,
and they used to put him or attempt to put
him on these strict diets so that he wouldn't have
all that extra weight going into the season.

Speaker 4 (01:43:01):
You go back and look at some of the video
of him running the break and throwing down vicious dunks.
He was extremely athletic, and he wasn't as big as
everyone thinks he was, but he was still dowe. I mean,
I mean at times during his career, no question about.

Speaker 5 (01:43:19):
It, Like he would never look at Charles Barkley's physique
and say, oh, he's cut up.

Speaker 4 (01:43:23):
No, you wouldn't. So that's the difference.

Speaker 5 (01:43:25):
And I bring that up because I mean, there are
times where he'd be like sitting on the stationary bike
pedaling away while eating pizza kind of defeats the purpose.
That's like the you know, he gets all his nicknames,
the round Mount of Rebound, all that kind of stuff,
because he would do things like that and then still
whether Shack playing his way into shape drove Kobe crazy

(01:43:46):
because he'd show up the camp like as disciplined as
the assassin that he was, and here comes Shack to
play his way into shape over the first month of
the season.

Speaker 4 (01:43:55):
You can't earn the Prince of Pizza nickname unless you're
eating pizza on a bike. Give me another one. That's fake.
You can't earn the Crisco kid nickname unless you're not
of great physique. I actually heard that one. You can't
earn the nickname the Leaning Tower of Pizza for the
reason I already gave me one. You can't earn the
nickname bread Truck unless you're built like a bread truck.

(01:44:19):
No one called him Tony bringing it down. Sees the
bread truck to his left, throws on the ball, and
he jams it down with authority, and he's fouled. Give
me another one. I was like twenty known as food
World unless you like food. What a food world? You
know where he's from, right, Yeah, Leads, Alabama. You can't
be wide load from Leads unless you carry a wide load.

(01:44:40):
That's awesome. What about black chet? What's that thing that
usually flies over stadiums in the eighties and nineties, blim
you can't be the good Time blimp unless you are
shaped like a blimp. Good time instead of good years.
He's a good time. You want to party with, Charles absolutely.

Speaker 5 (01:44:56):
So all of this is to say NBA player, whether
they're you know, huge stat stuffers or just role players
or role players extraordinary, they do things in their younger
years that as time goes on and as the playoffs
come around in this case, you probably want to like
calm down with And that's where Draymond Green comes in

(01:45:20):
because apparently back in the day he liked to.

Speaker 4 (01:45:23):
Drink a lot. Although he had a stopping point and
a reason for said stopping point. This was Draymond Green,
uh talking about that very subject.

Speaker 9 (01:45:35):
So you think because obj Non went to that, you know,
went on that trip, you think.

Speaker 4 (01:45:39):
That's why they lost, no question, no question.

Speaker 9 (01:45:42):
And by the way, I've been out night before a
game drink till six o'clock in the morning, I have
a triple double. When I was impressed like that, But
during the playoffs, I don't really do too much of nothing.
When you in the playoffs, as you know, you can't
give some want to like one small age and that.

Speaker 4 (01:46:03):
Can be everything for us. It's seven games, right for
y'all is one game. So if I'm playing against.

Speaker 9 (01:46:08):
That group, and I know y'all was just in Miami
on the boat, you better believe as soon as I
come out. That's the first thing I'm saying to you,
Like you can go back to Miami after.

Speaker 4 (01:46:19):
This, like you want your way back to that.

Speaker 2 (01:46:22):
You couldn't wait one week?

Speaker 4 (01:46:23):
You that thirsty to go to Miami. You was that thirsty.
I'm gonna send you there to night.

Speaker 9 (01:46:27):
If that can't wait one extra week, you really don't
want three.

Speaker 4 (01:46:32):
There's a reason that a lot of teams have bad, bad,
bad win loss records on South Peach against the Heat. Yeah,
because pat Riley's a great jam Eric s. Bolsa is
a great coach. Nope, that's not the reason. Nope, that
story that Draymond told it is so hard to believe.
Is that wasn't a lead into that reason.

Speaker 5 (01:46:50):
I told you about the story about Mike D'Antoni and
James Harden, didn't I Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:46:55):
Mike D'Antoni was ready to call it a night and
finish up his crossword puzzle, while James Harden was ready
to begin his night opposite.

Speaker 5 (01:47:03):
Oh okay, Mike D'Antoni was ready to start drinking his
morning coffee and get his day underway. And James was
coming in from the night before, and he said in
the hotel lobby something to the effect of, you guys,
don't you guys get your butts kicked tonight over this Essentially,
it's not happening anymore. And they did. James was awesome,

(01:47:26):
but everyone else sucked because apparently a bunch of them
had gone out with him.

Speaker 4 (01:47:30):
Yeah, maybe some people wish this weren't true, but this
is not news. This is not surprise. Elite level basketball
players for sure. So their schedule is very, very different
than the other sport. It's like, it's amazing how different.
Like the baseball teams travel a ton, but you play
a game and then you don't travel, and you play
another game and you don't travel, and you play the

(01:47:50):
third game of the series, and then you move on
to the next place. In the NFL, you really don't
do any travel. You fly out the day before the game,
you go to your hotel room, you wake up the
next morning. You're playing at noon or one. He get
come home. Yeah, it's it's just so dramatically different. The
NBA players are in and out of cities, barely doing anything.
But I'm gonna use a couple of the hours in

(01:48:11):
the afternoon to get some sleep. I'm gonna go to
the arena and play the game. We're right back on
the bus heading out to the next place, or you're
staying that night, so you leave middle of the day
next day, which a lot more teams are doing now
than they used to do. But if you're in the
you know, coming to a city and then knowing you
have to play the next day, Well, if you get
to if you've played in the same coast or the

(01:48:32):
same time zone, I should say, and you get there
at a reasonable for an adult, reasonable time, eleven thirty midnight,
twelve thirty, Yeah, plenty of time to drink till six am,
like Draymond's talking about. Guess what. Draymond wasn't drinking by himself,
and he didn't find random people in the city who
was in to hang out with, or he didn't call

(01:48:53):
ahead and say, Hey, I'm gonna be in uh gonna
be in Sacramento tonight. You guys meet me out. He
has teammates, he's drinking with him, guaranteed, and this league
wide totally normal. Now, I'm not saying every player you
heard at the end there what he said, though, right
when did he cut back on this? When the games
mattered more in the playoffs? They just meant more, you

(01:49:15):
know the huge asterisk on that.

Speaker 5 (01:49:19):
Basically, I think it's uniform. I'm sure guys did stuff,
but not MJ. MJ's like playing eighteen thirty six holes
on the day of a game in the NBA Finals
and then lighting them up that night.

Speaker 4 (01:49:31):
What else was he doing on the golf course, smoking,
drinking a lot, carousing, smoking like cigars, Different kinds of
smoke might have different impacts on your body, whether it's
legal cigarettes, legal cigars, illegal smoke of some kind at
the time, they do very different things to you, especially

(01:49:52):
when done like he smoked. Cigars don't have the sun. Yeah,
that's not ideal to how do I want to be
at my best for this extreme important game. Absolutely spend
all my time out in the sun smoking cigars and drinking,
and he was so good in his body. That's all
these statistical comparisons and things like that. Both of the

(01:50:12):
two players that are in that conversation the most, Lebron
and MJ for different physical reasons. They pretty clearly have
an advantage over everybody else, which is inexplicable. Their their
bodies are different, like Michael's ability to do the things
he did physically should not have been capable, as you've
heard so many of these stories, these Olympic team stories,

(01:50:33):
et cetera. And obviously Lebron is just we've just never
seen a physical NBA body at that size for this
long ever before and probably never again.

Speaker 5 (01:50:42):
As impressive as Michael was physically, mentally, that psychopath was
way more impressive on that side of it.

Speaker 4 (01:50:48):
I'm not drunk while I'm playing. I'm not drunk while
I'm playing, as he was able to do.

Speaker 5 (01:50:51):
That just a legit. He's a psychopath. He still is
to this day. And he took that personally when I
said that.

Speaker 1 (01:51:00):
On Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (01:51:10):
It is the eight Teams, four Socks seven ninety Space
City Home Network, WEX is actually looking more forward to
Monday night's game between the Texans and the Seahawks than anybody,
because then I'll shut up about this being such a
long layover for a bye week.

Speaker 4 (01:51:25):
It's the longest bye week ever. You know, their off
week is longer than it should be. I think an
off week should probably not be followed by a Monday
night game, but it was in this week. Monday night game, Yes,
very important.

Speaker 5 (01:51:37):
Well, if it was seven o'clock, I wouldn't have to
wait two more hours to see them play. That is
a fact, and I'm not the only one so in
that vein Dimiko Ryans asked about the relatively early bye week.
I know you said the Steelers and some other teams
have had bye weeks already.

Speaker 4 (01:51:52):
I'm always curious.

Speaker 5 (01:51:53):
About, like we know what coaches are going to say,
what player is going to say into a microphone, into
a camera, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:52:00):
I wonder what would be the perfect.

Speaker 5 (01:52:03):
Bye week in a seventeen game and soon to be
eighteen games schedule. You don't if you're beaten up at
the end of the year like the Texans were last year,
probably wish there was a later bye week just to
get some guys who are going to be able to
come back a little bit more rest and relaxation. And

(01:52:23):
I'm always curious when teams have bye weeks as early
as the Texans do this year, if they wished it
hadn't been further down the schedule, nothing you can do
about it now. I don't think other than like Derek
Stingley Junior, as far as guys that are still able
to play, I don't think that.

Speaker 4 (01:52:43):
I'm sure when the Texans get around to releasing their
injury report, he'll be listed as a full participant because
I think that's where things are at. He looked pretty
spry when I saw him out there. It doesn't really
mean that's true, and they might list him as limited
because maybe they'll want to put that into Seattle's mind.
But he's good to go.

Speaker 5 (01:52:58):
Like for example, year, at this time going into Week seven,
were we not I feel like we were and I
could be wrong on this. Were we not in the
middle of the four game absence from Nico Collins for
hamstring injury.

Speaker 4 (01:53:12):
He got hurt at the beginning of the Buffalo game,
which I believe is Week five. Yeah, so would have
been great to not have to have a you're asking
this question, which my answer to is you really if
you choose it begin at the beginning of the season,
you're allowed to do that, and you can pick it
whenever you want, and there's a draft, and as soon
as those spots are full, you gotta go somewhere else.
You'd probably pick it somewhere relatively speaking in the middle.

(01:53:34):
But when you just are handed it to you, and
this is when you're having it, you don't really know
what it's going to mean. Anyway, even if you picked it,
you wouldn't know. What you know is it allows you
to split the season up. But if it helps you
in some injury situation, like somebody misses three games three weeks,
if your bye week falls in those three weeks, now
you only miss two games, is your team in shambles?

(01:53:56):
Like you've got a Baltimore level of injuries on your
roster and it happens to fall during your off week.
Almost did for Baltimore. They're on their off week now.
And it also it will allow them to have Lamar
Jackson miss only two games where more than likely he
could have missed three. But the third of those three
games is this Sunday. He's not gonna play because they're
not playing, and so you've he plays fifteen instead of

(01:54:19):
fourteen games. That's pretty darn important. Where it comes is
relative to the unknown. I don't know if it was
a good bye week or not this year because we
don't know the circumstances until they unfold.

Speaker 5 (01:54:29):
Well, let's see what Dimiko says on the record about this,
since we can't do the whole truth sering thing off
the record. This is Demiko ryans on having in early
bye week here in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 6 (01:54:39):
Week has been the same for us. We came in,
we got a couple of days of working, and we
let the guys just you know, get out of here
just to recharge, reset. So there's nothing different. It's just
a matter of now, when you have a bye week,
you know every team has to fight this having a
bye week is how do you get back into football right,
making call, right throwing and catching the football, tackling those

(01:55:03):
fundamental things of football that you miss for a few days.
It's like, how quickly can you get back to that
and execute that on game?

Speaker 5 (01:55:10):
Not surprisingly, it's all about football, the literal blocking and tackling.
There has nothing to do about the schedule, where it falls,
all that kind of stuff. It's just all right, it happened.
Now let's get back to doing what we're here to do. Yeah,
it's one hundred percent like you would expect. It's they
don't really look at it that way.

Speaker 4 (01:55:29):
It's an off week during your schedule, and the players
take advantage of it physically by doing exactly what Tmiko said.
They don't want to lose anything they've gained through all
the work they've put in daily for the last four
months minimum by doing nothing. But they're not doing anything
on the field as a team. They're not doing anything
really on the field, even individually here in Houston, unless
they really want to. Last year, the off week came

(01:55:51):
the second week of December. They only played four games
after their off week. They only played five games this
year in front of their off week. Buffalo game last
year was the fifth game of the season. Tomiko didn't
or a Niko didn't play for the five games that followed.
Some use their off week to propose, like Derek Stingley Junior.
He's now engaged to be his longtime girlfriend. Yeah, I

(01:56:12):
saw that on Instagram. Congrats to the two of.

Speaker 5 (01:56:14):
Them, but yeah, He's just the name that came to
mind because he was the only one of someone who
you know, it's not a season ending situation, that's that
had a significant injury, Like, all right, this guy's got
something going on with his ribs.

Speaker 4 (01:56:28):
He also didn't miss He missed some of some games,
but no game entirely.

Speaker 5 (01:56:34):
Yeah, And that just added in at the time when
they were losing more games than they were winning over
this first slate of games, and he's over on the
sideline looking frustrated. You know, it all played into it.
But you know he'll be as fresh as he possibly
can be. And you're gonna need them in a game
like this because, like I've been saying, if they don't

(01:56:55):
if the Texas defense doesn't show up, it doesn't really
matter what the offense does.

Speaker 4 (01:56:59):
To me, Like, I do you think I want to
say it? I know it's a little bit much. I
think they lost to the Rams because they couldn't stop
pokin Akua. I think because they just could not keep him.
He won the game for him with one else can
no one else can't. Well, he's now unfortunately for the league,
he's hurt. Except for he Fortunately for the Jaguars, he's
probably not gonna play this weekend, but they couldn't do

(01:57:21):
enough to stop him. And when the Texans had their
late turnover, they did have a chance to get the
ball back, but they couldn't stop him on the final
pass play that got them into kneel down mode and
it was just too much for them. I don't think
JSN is quite like that in terms of how he's
being used or even a skill set. I think he
has some other skills that put him at the top
of the league, and that's the ability to run every route.

(01:57:42):
And CJ could not stop talking about him when they
were there together at Ohio State, and today was really
no different. Was asked a couple of questions about that
and did have some extremely positive things to say about him.
Why wouldn't he He knows him as well as as pretty
much anybody that's not a current teammate of his. There
in Seattle, he's been very difficult for teams to match with.
He's been very difficult to keep from the big plays

(01:58:03):
that this Seattle offense in the passing game keeps coming
up with. You know, ten twelve to fifteen yards a
pop is what this team has been doing so often.
He's obviously in the middle of most of all of
that stuff. And that's what the challenge is. It shouldn't
fall on the shoulders of Derek Stingley Junior. The way
Derek Stingley Junior has a monster game, slowing him down
is limiting the targets because Sam Darnold doesn't have the

(01:58:26):
time to make that happen. It's because Will Anderson Junior
and Tim Settle and Sheldon Rankins are batting passes down.
They're getting him off of his mark, They're making that
pocket unstable for him. It absolutely has to start upfront
for the Texans against that particular player. And it really
didn't against Matthew Stafford. That's the part of not slowing
down Puka Nakua that I think hurt the Texans maybe

(01:58:48):
more than anything else. It really didn't do anything to
matt Stafford that made him play unlike he wanted to,
that forced him to do things that were uncomfortable for
how they wanted to attack the Texans with their pass
I think that was step one towards what And even
though they only scored fourteen points, and they did do
a good job overall defensively, and they did have, you know,

(01:59:08):
three sacks against him, but he didn't. He didn't have
much to worry about. I didn't think that day. And
if that's the case for Donald on Monday night, then
Donald's gonna have a good game. Well I hope he doesn't.

Speaker 5 (01:59:19):
I hope he has a terrible game because the Texans
defense gets after him up front and in the secondary.
We shall see a few more days to go and
we'll be able to do just that. A few more
minutes to go, and we'll be into the five o'clock hour,
which means, as per usual, football at five, right around
the corner.

Speaker 6 (01:59:35):
The eight.

Speaker 2 (01:59:36):
On Sports Talk seven ninety