Welcome Back Trent Brown, Rockets-Warriors, Jeremy Pena has a Finger Injury

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Edition of the A Team Sports Talk seven ninety. He's
wex I may see.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Josh Jordan is our producer as we take over following
an Astro's loss in spring training. Just like yesterday, nobody cares. Okay,
it doesn't count. Okay, I'm trying to I'm dressing it up.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
I didn't explain myself very well yesterday when you tried
to do what you're doing right now, I'll explain myself
very clearly. It does matter. The result of the game
does not matter. Yes, what matters is what happens in
the game, not that the score, not the winner of
the loss. There's no standings for us to update. There's
really Again, pointing out who won or lost the game
is totally irrelevant. What would you say out of today's

(00:40):
game is congratulations to Zach Cole. He had a hit today.
I just ran through the entire list of Astros players
who had hits today. He only had one. Offense is
going to be fire this year? Well, I mean, I
could tell you that none of the regulars are out there,
so it's no big deal, But then you'd have to
call me a liar because they were all out there,
all the ones that essentially are available. So not Jeremy Pania, right,

(01:02):
but Altuve and Alvarez and Perettis and Cole and Walker
and Diaz and Smith and Myers, we're all out there. Today.
They faced major league pitching for all of there at
bats with Sandy Alcontra and Snelling out there for the Marlins,
and they just simply got wiped out today. And it's
been very much the story of their spring. They have
had an exceptionally poor showing, really truly exceptionally poor showing offensively,

(01:27):
no slug They're getting on base via walks more often
than anything else. They got on base five times today,
four of them were not via a hit, so this
is absolutely something to at least consider as they move forward.
Pitching usually ahead of a hitting so no panic button then,
nothing like that. But the facts are what they are.
They've done absolutely nothing offensively, and that does now include

(01:49):
a reasonable small but reasonable sample size of their regulars.
The actual news from the game that I would put
some stock in is two pitchers who I think will
start the season and the Astros rotation both through today,
and you got Spencer Araghedtty up to three innings and
fifty five pitches toatsu Emi thirty pitches and got through
his two innings of work, allowed just a couple of

(02:11):
base runners, struck out three, got a bunch of swing
and miss with his very unique stuff and arraghetty. He
only gave up one hit and one run. He did
walk three batters in his three innings of work. But
they're going to be a part of this team when
they break camp. Steven Okert probably will also, and he's
probably gonna hope to pitch a lot better results wise
than he has in these first three appearances for him,

(02:34):
But you gotta always temper that too. What's a reliever
working on. What's he trying to do is there's more
to it than meets the eye. But yeah, I wouldn't
call it super sharp. Through a handful of spring training days,
we have three weeks from the Astros opening up the season.
Three weeks from today, we will have just wrapped up
our four and a half hour pregame show beginning at

(02:55):
ten o'clock, the Matt Thomas Show with Ross, which we
will co host that day from on site over at
Dyke Park, and a little bit after three o'clock, Hunter
Brown expected to throw the first pitch of the season
for the Astros against the Angels. The World Baseball Classic
has arrived in Houston. Workouts throughout the day, a bunch
of media availabilities for the teams that are participating here,

(03:17):
and that includes Captain America's team Alex Bregman, and as
an opportunity to catch up with some very familiar faces
teams that have fallen by the wayside at the Astros
expense many many times Cal Raley's Mariners during the regular season,
many many times Aaron Judges Yankees in the postseason. All
of those people hit the podium today or the table

(03:38):
in the press room over at Dike And Park, among others.
So we'll sprink a little bit of that flavor in there.
The tournament itself, pool play actually has already gotten under
way overseas last night overnight and again tonight overnight. Shay
Whitgam just hitting bombs left and right. He had a
two homer game for Korea. Zach Decenzo is in town

(04:00):
with Team Italy while the Astros his teammates are all
in West Palm Beach or wherever the day's game would be,
so we'll get a little bit into that. We have
Rockets basketball coming your way later on this evening, a
six thirty tip, another national audience for them, and of
course the best audience right here on Sports Talk seven
to ninety. I'll get you into that with our launch

(04:21):
pad at five thirty ACNMT from the place that Steve
Francis built, Downtown Houston. Warriors and Rockets tonight, a host
of Warriors unavailable, and we'll at least go along with
what it says on the Rockets injury report and say,
guess we'll have to wait and see questionable for men
Thompson and questionable for Jabari Smith Junior, and questionable for

(04:42):
Alpera and Shingoon. I think let's see six thirty five,
four forty five today, after you've made your exit to
get yourself down to the Downtown Stadium, we'll hear from
Imio Dooka, and I believe he will give us a
status update on all three saying yeah, he's good, Yep,
him too, and he's good. Although I will say they

(05:06):
might consider they do have a back to back and
maybe they will play into it a little bit. So
we'll get to all those things. And as we discussed yesterday,
it's not gonna go anywhere for at least the next
ten days, at a bare minimum, the number one news
making sport of those three, now I bring the third
one in. It's the NFL. The NFL's new league year

(05:28):
has not yet begun. Teams have not yet been forced
to be compliant with the salary cap, and that's why
things are happening. The Texans were busy again today, will
tell you what they reportedly have done. A bunch of
other teams still cleaning things up, and we get to
play grade the trade again. And another major NFL trade
was pulled off unofficially today.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, you mentioned the way the NFL does not have
an offseason.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
We make that joke all the time. It's not a
joke though.

Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
And the days outside obviously, as we've seen, as soon
as they are outside the combine and before the league
year truly begins, and technically it begins officially on the
eleventh next week, But once the ninth rolls around and
they open up the quote unquote tampering window, oh, that's
when we know where the best players in free agency,
more often than not, are going to agree to term,
so we'll know where they're headed. And all these teams

(06:20):
will still be working on trying to get compliant and
make the necessary moves to fon Diggs yesterday, a bunch
more today, A lot of restructures the Texans will be
involved with. That also extensions all those things you'd brought
up the Cowboys the other day. Three massive restructures opening
up an enormous again expected, but it's still an enormous

(06:40):
amount of room. And it just means, like the figures
for the future when you do those things, which may
or may not end up being actual because we're not
there in twenty seven or twenty eight or twenty nine.
But as we sit here, as soon as it all
becomes official, you got Dak Prescott sitting around with like
a seventy eight million dollar cap number in twenty twenty

(07:01):
seven and eighty million number in twenty twenty eight. We'll
see what it is when we actually get there. But
business as usual the NFL is king.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
I mean, listen, if the league calendar hasn't begun and
there's this must miss this much interest as there is
all year round about this very sport. Well, when the
other two teams can say that about theirs, that's when
they can start comparing themselves as leagues.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, the NBA, most teams have a bunch of time
off before the finals. You know, two teams just finished
their season, four teams finished a couple weeks before that,
and on and on. All the other teams finished in
early April. But as soon as the finals end and
there it is the final buzz bang, another shot went
in and the draft is like immediately after that. If

(07:48):
you have a seven game postseason series in the finals,
the draft is often within the week. Yeah, and so
a lot of things have to happen. Free agency is
a week later. Could you imagine if the NFL was
like that at the Super Bowl? Though, that would be
amazing awesome because injuries that happen are rarely minor. I
think that's why it makes much more well. First of all,

(08:09):
if you can command the tention of your audience for
an entire year by said, it's not an accident. No,
the Super Bowl is the beginning of February, the combines
a couple weeks after that, you got all these pro
days to get you to the draft. And in between
the draft and the combine, what we're in right now.
The new league year begins, Free agency at large begins
as soon as the draft is over, your players are there.

(08:29):
Rookie mini camp is usually the week later, a little
bit of time off, then you have OTAs and then
your mandatory mini camp. All right, the players are off
for for maybe five weeks and training camp begins off
and running season. Yeah yeah, and it's well, you can
take a longer off season if you decide not to
attend the non mandatory portion of your team's off season.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Especially if you're a big money making veteran who wants
to set the tone.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, good news. Here in Houston. For many, many years
pre Demiko for sure, but definitely during his run here
have such amazing attendance at all of their all season workouts.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
It has been a good locker room from the beginning
and it remains one, and I think it's going to
remain one, even if some of the familiar names and
faces might be on their way out of it, because
that's life in the NFL.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, not very many. I mentioned this the other day
when Titus Howard was unofficially moved to Cleveland. He's already
talked about it. The team has already talked about it.
It has not been made official obviously. For where we
sit in the calendar, but it meant next year's offense
and next year's defense for the Houston Texans will be
one hundred percent Nick Cassario players. It's the first time

(09:40):
it's happened because he was the lone holdover on the
roster on the offense or the defense. I obviously have
to say it very specifically that way, because there's one
other player on the roster that's been a Texan longer
than Nick Cassario. It's Kyamie Fairbairn. But that's it. Now.
Everybody else has been brought to this team unless after
Nick Cassio came aboard, the entire roster, the entire group

(10:05):
of futures contracts that they have. Every single player that
is involved with this team outside of Kaymie Fairbairn is
here because the Nick Cassario era brought him in.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
Yeah, and that's it's fine. I think that getting rid
of the last remnants of the Bill O'Brien era is fine.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
I mean, I definitely wasn't it that way. He's been
here five years. Sometimes it takes less time to do that,
and with a good team sometimes it takes more time
to do that. But they were not a good team
when he arrived not even close. They were in the
dregs of the league, and he kept them that way
for two years smartly, so they would have this opportunity
very similar, quite honestly to what the other two franchises

(10:48):
also did. You know, the Jeff Luno era Astros were
not going to become an unbelievable outfit unless they drafted
extremely well, had an amazing development system, check and and
the Rockets were hopeful that they could do the same
thing by landing the right place in the draft, landing
enough players, and maneuvering enough throughout that first round. Remember

(11:09):
it wasn't just the first picks that they were able
to use inside the top four for multiple seasons in succession.
It's the players outside of that that also have helped.
I thought we were gonna get more help from Cam Whitmore.
Didn't work out that way. Clearly, this team has gotten
tremendous help from Alpria and Schengoon, who was not only
outside the top four, he was outside the lottery. So

(11:31):
three years of downtime for them, three years of extreme
downtime for the Astros, three years of downtime for the
Houston Texans, and now we're all back. Yeah, we're all
competitive at least. Well, do you think it's gonna have
more postseason series or game victories? As we start with

(11:53):
what the Texans just did, so their number is one,
or the Houston Rockets in this upcoming postseason, or the
Houston Astros in the upcoming postseason. Ponder that for a minute, people,
as we recognize this is a good time to be
doing what we do, hopefully it's a good time for
you to be joining us while we do it here
talking sports, enjoying everything that's going on out there. I

(12:14):
will also have to update you from the story we
brought you here last week. There appear to be a
couple of new invitations out for the Donald Trump excuse me,
President Donald Trump, excuse me, President Donald J. Trump his
college Sports roundtable. A couple of invites were declined and
a couple of new invites have been sent out, And

(12:36):
we will definitely share with you who is expected to
be on this world class, elite level panel to help
clean up and expand the awesomeness of college sports. President
of the world's prob I mean, I don't know if
he'll end up having it, because he seems busy right now.

(12:59):
Maybe the meeting will still happen and he just won't
be there, But if there needs to be another update,
we'll get there. And the most important update, we'll tell
you that right at the top of the three o'clock
hour when we come back on the other side. We
were here yesterday and I was very diligent in giving
you updates on what was happening in the World Baseball
Classic exhibitions before the exhibition games the Classic itself, with

(13:21):
Jeremy Panya noting that he played in the opener coming
off of the bench their opening exhibition game, noting that
he played yesterday as a starter and seemingly normally was
pulled from the game, which technically he was, but he
did get hurt in the game, and we found out
about that late yesterday afternoon. The Astros have indicated we
have some information for you updating Jeremy Paania's status both

(13:45):
for the World Baseball Classic and for themselves as the
season openers three weeks away. So what's up with Jeremy
p We'll tell you about it next here on the eighteen.

Speaker 4 (13:57):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 1 (13:59):
And I I am looking at somewhat updated Jeremy Paania
news as we speak, but as we get into the
three o'clock hour here, that's probably first and foremost. Listen,
tell me if you've heard this before. We're doing the show.
The World Baseball Classic is.

Speaker 2 (14:19):
Going on and a prominent member of the Astros infield
has a finger injury that pisses me off because it
didn't have to happen.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Does it sound familiar? Sounds very familiar to me because
I always paused then with the Altuve incident in twenty three,
as I will pause now with what she said now
it didn't have to happen. Astro shorts up. Jeremy Pania
does in fact have a fracture in the tip of
his finger. The expectation is he will be reevaluated in

(14:49):
two weeks. He will be wearing a cast and is
no longer expected to participate in the World Baseball Classic,
obviously in a cast in two weeks until he gets
rea event evaluated. The tournament is over in that period
of time, and he's going to be back with the
ball club and West Palm Beach obviously doing whatever's necessary
to take a look at it. I don't imagine this

(15:11):
cast is expected to be on a specific or a
particularly long period of time, and hopefully tomorrow when Joe
Spottam meets with the media before their next afternoon game,
which again we will have for you on Sports Talk
seven ninety, maybe has a few more details about the
timing of this. And you know the expectation because, like

(15:32):
I said earlier, three weeks from today, the Astros are
on the field in a game that does count in
the standings. It's game one of one to sixty two.
It's the opening of a seven game homestand the twenty
twenty six season begins three weeks from today. And you
know three weeks plus one day yesterday is when Jeremy
Payin you got hurt. How did he get hurt? He
got hurt in the field, rocket up the middle, went

(15:53):
down to field. It kind of a quirky hop that
he wasn't expecting, but he was in the right position
to make the play field at the ball and fired
on over the first roughly right behind second base, and
clearly noticed something was wrong because the video that I'm
sure many of you have seen, he was looking down
at his hand on his ring finger is where the
tip of his finger was hurt. The nail was hurt

(16:15):
and he looked at it. It was kind of doesn't
seem right, and obviously not obviously, but it did bleed
a little bit, and he stayed in the game, finished
the inning. He even took one more at bat, and
then he was lifted from the game. Dana Brown telling
Brian McTaggart, and I should note the information I gave
you on Jeremy Pang. It comes from Brian McTaggart's recent posts.
Is that precautionary. Obviously he shouldn't be playing with a

(16:37):
broken anything, and once I think that was determined with
multiple sets of imaging. That's where we sit. He is
sitting right now. He's out of action, and his preparation
for the season clearly is taking a huge turn getting
early work, which the Astros intentionally did so. When he
went to the World Baseball Classic, however, he is used there,

(17:00):
he would have a lot of work under his belt already.
Now he's not gonna have any work moving forward. Certainly,
there's only so much a baseball player who's right handed
can do when you have a cast on your right hand.
So even if he is available when the season begins
or very close to it, this obviously, is something that
now your preparation for the season to try to be
at your best for the season. Well, it's gonna happen

(17:22):
in season instead of prior to the season. Well, here's
my first question. Matt Kawahara tweeting that he will have
a splint on his finger, Well, which is it? I
think it's the same thing, Brian, saying the same thing
as splint okay, versus a cat.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
I mean when I think of a cast, though, I
think that's much more cumbersome, more insistent that It's.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Like sometimes when we see a player, NFL player, even
a NBA player, they go and they play, and they
leave the field. They don't return to the game, and
then we go into the locker room after the game,
or we're in the concourse the corridors underneath the arena
or stadium. Oh my god, he's in a walking boot.
It's over. No, it's you know, what kind of stability
is necessary to allow that player's ankle or in this case,
Jeremy's finger to heal best as I mentioned some of

(18:07):
the things that like you noted with Matt of the
Houston Chronicles, said Brian, now saying the exact same thing,
he'll be wearing a splint staying with the Astros, and
that takes him out of the WBC. But this didn't
have to happen. Why didn't it have to happen because
the players at the WBC hit the ball too hard?

(18:27):
Because if he wasn't playing in the WBC yesterday, pretty
good chance he would have been in the lineup against
the Orioles for Joe a spot as Astros yesterday. He
ball got hit up the middle, he fielded it, he
threw the guy out. He didn't get hurt at Duffy's
Sports Bar and grill. He didn't get hurt on a motorcycle.
He wasn't washing his monster truck. He didn't get hurt
in a hot tub. He didn't get hurt at the

(18:48):
movies sliding glass door. He no sliding glass door. I
mean he got hurt playing or like if nobody if
he didn't get hurt on a box world famous grill
either true both of those happened to Michael. If these
players Jose a couple of years ago and now Jeremy
this time around, if their preparation for the season did

(19:11):
not include playing exhibition baseball games and then out of nowhere.
They decided, Hey, but this year, I'm gonna go out
there and play baseball. That's how I'm gonna get ready
for the season. I'm gonna go play for my home
country and this thing called the WBC that's about twenty
years old. And I hope I can stay healthy because
otherwise I would have just been lifting weights and throwing
medicine balls around and I'd be ready for the season.

(19:32):
They're getting ready for the season, just in a different
arena playing baseball games. Getting hit by a pitch, I'll admit,
is extremely ridiculous, unfortunate, even though it all comes within
the framework of the game.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
This was a game seven of the ALCS that season.
This is a good omen.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
There you go. See now you can always spend it positively.
I like that this, you know, for a player to
get you know, have a broken a fracture and a
finger on a ground ball, that was very unique. It's
obviously happened before, but it's just it's unfortunate. Oh, you're right,
no question. Hundreds and hundreds of them, not only during

(20:09):
games or during workouts. I mean, you could get hurt
fungo with your third base coaches, you know, liner shots
all across the infield during you know, before BP, before
a game. It could happen anytime. I will acknowledge the
one thing we do point out, especially uh when it
happened with Altuve. The World Baseball Classic EXCELF can be
a nice tool to prep for the season because of

(20:31):
the timing, but it also happens right before the season.
What if it happened right after the season. I mean,
we tell you that Jeremy Pana has a finger injury,
and we'd say, yeah, he's probably gonna be back sometime
in early November when they don't have any games. He'll
definitely be ready by December when they don't have any games.
He'll probably be ready in January when they still won't

(20:51):
have any games. Now we're three months into him being healthy,
and then he'll go to West Palm Beach, Florida, and
he'll be super healthy because they'd be going in the
off season. What if I mean it could happen during
the season. It could happen before the season, could happen
at the end of the season. The timing of the
World Baseball Classic now has been plunked down in this
part of the schedule right before the season well.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Here's I mean? Is it too soon to make the obvious?
It's not a joke, it's just an observation about the situation.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
This solves your infield glut that is enormous and absolutely
a factor, and they'll be trading in East sac Now. Again,
I don't mark down every single thing. I say, date,
time and everything. I could probably go back and on
the reel to reel and find it somewhere. But I
didn't think they were gonna make a trade. Right long
before they arrived at spring training, obviously we were watching

(21:41):
the news stories. Are there match with Boston? Is there
a third team? Are they gonna be a team that
go gets Brendan Donovan? All the things that were happening.
The more I thought about it, the less I thought
they were gonna move anybody. So with what has happened now,
I don't think it. I don't think it means for
sure they're not moving anybody because Pena might be back
and all the sudden on March twenty sixth, the same

(22:02):
problem that we had two days ago, if you're the Astros,
is the same problem they have then. But I didn't
think anybody was gonna get moved and I still don't
think anybody's gonna get moved in this infield and Alvarez group,
they can make some other trade, They could go find
an outfield or some other way they could move on
from some other people. But Peretis, Walker, Altuve, Korea and
Jeremy Pania I thought for weeks would all be Astros

(22:25):
on opening day, and obviously I still think that today.

Speaker 2 (22:29):
But once he comes back and he's healthy, then it's
just depth, very very expensive depth.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
Well, then you have to wonder if they're really going
to start the year and continue weeks into the year
with reluctance to move somebody into left field, with reluctance
to play Jose Altuve in left field, with reluctance to
play ord On Alvarez in left field. Because if either
one of those players is your left fielder, everybody's in

(22:55):
the lineup, Walker's at first, Korea and pay You're on
the other side of the infield. Whichever player I said
was in left is in left Esach, Perettis is your
second basement, and whichever player that isn't in left is
your designated hitter or Altuove can stay at second, Alvarez
can play left and Perettis is your designated hitter. If
if they play Alvarez and Altuve more in left field,

(23:18):
then they have let us led us to believe they will.
Then everybody's in the lineup. They may just decided it's
just not what we're doing. It's not as important to
us to get everybody in the lineup. It is just
to put the lineup out there. I guess defensively that
we can work with. I really don't understand that personally,
because Alvarez is a better left fielder than Altuve, for sure.

(23:42):
If now you're putting some kid out there in left field,
Cole Smith, Descenzo Low Perfido, well now you're guessing that
they're going to be able to hit major league pitching,
which none of them have ever done before with any
kind of consistency, just to keep Parrettis on the bench.
Just I mean, it's just I really don't I don't
really understand the reluctance to a put one of those

(24:03):
two guys that I mentioned in left field and b
playing esoc Perettis at second base. He's gonna be bad.
So what is it gonna cost you runs? It's gonna
cost you pitches, It's gonna cost you games. It might
cost you all of those things. But I would think
with the roster they currently have, that's I know, that's
what I would do. Yeah, no, I mean, what's the
better option is the question asked? And the better I mean,

(24:26):
I'll give Joe and Dana a little bit of credit
for at least maybe having something ready, Like we talked
about it with Kartini for two years. You know, it's
a shame one of your better bats isn't in the lineup. Well,
he is available every day. And when you get to
the eighth inning and the tying runs on second base
and they've got a right handed reliever and a stable
of right handed relievers, Well here comes Victor Krottini and

(24:48):
the you're making sure a good player gets one of
the most important at bats of the game. I mean,
I don't want Esok Perettis to get one at bat
every other day when it matters in the eighth inning.
It's nice to have him there, and maybe it does
steal you some wins, but he's an everyday player. All
these guys are everyday players. They need they should want
them all to have. If healthy five hundred and fifty

(25:10):
six hundred and fifty plate appearances, and if they're all
here on this roster, that that's probably not happening unless
you use left field. As they indicate, they will not be.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
A fascinating situation to watch unfold, not just for the
remainder of spring, but into the regular season and then
hopefully so the bats come to life because they haven't
so far in a very small sample size.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
Yeah, they're saving all their hits. What's wrong with that?

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Speaking of personnel moves, did the Texans GM Nick Cassario
make one of the right one of the right move?

Speaker 1 (25:44):
No, as it says, the right move, it's a it's
a dad joke for everybody, Right, Nikki c make the
right move. With the reported deal that the Texans may
happen today, we will discuss next all right, On a
scale of one to ten, How surprised were you?

Speaker 5 (26:06):
Take?

Speaker 1 (26:06):
Seventy? Oh that's his number? Sorry, I mean this was
pretty expected. The Texans reportedly Aaron Wilson among others, reporting
that they have re signed Trent Brown to a deal
that could reach seven million dollars. Offensive tackle Trent Brown
was signed last off season by the Texans. There were

(26:27):
some health concerns that they were definitely aware of. He
was not ready for their off season program, but as
soon as the season began, he came off the pupp
list and they hoped to get him back in shape
to where he might be able to help the team.
He was asked to help the team as the season continued.
Seven starts during the regular season. Texans won all those games.
Then he made a playoffs start in the wildcard game.
They won that game too, and then he missed the

(26:49):
second playoff game, the Divisional round game. They reached off
of the offensive line and they lost. He is now
back again. The figures exactly what they will be and
what some of those can be as much as seven
million dollars will actually work out to be, that's to
be determined. But very unsurprised. If you're asking me for
a number, I guess if ten is fall out of

(27:11):
my chair with my mouth hanging at the floor.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
A gay.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
No, I wasn't. It wasn't a ten. It was probably
more like a probably more like a three. I did
give you an update on what the Texans new starting
offensive line is now that they've made a move, and
in my opinion, it remains unchanged. You have one starter
and his name is Ariante Ursery. Trent Brown started roughly

(27:40):
half your game last year. Trent Brown played well last year.
I don't think there's any question about it. The best
five person offensive line they used all year included Trent Brown.
And as I mentioned to somebody when I reposted it earlier,
I said, so not an upgrade. And someone's I think

(28:00):
is he played very well last year, And I'm like,
I agree, but he was on last year's line. How
is this an upgrade? This isn't an upgrade. This is
just putting another player back in the mix. It's a
smart move. Again, I'm not trying to knock this move
at all, but if you're gonna tell me you want
to if you want a better offensive line, then you
got to put better players out there, presumably not necessarily

(28:23):
the same player, and certainly not a player who's not improving.
Trent Brown's not improving. Trent Brown is what he is.
He's very good, he's very capable. He's gonna help this team.
He might even be on the field and help this team.
But again, it's about that bar. What is it that
you're trying to do nothing wrong with this move? But
when they open the season with Trent Brown and Tay
Urserie and on the two tackle spots, and I don't

(28:46):
know what on the interior. Maybe it's three all Pro
caliber players. Then maybe their line will be improved. But
until that happens, they have not upgraded yet. I'm not
trying to go crazy here, but I am saying what
I what I believe the upgrade of this offensive line
is what they should be after. This move does not
help you do that.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
And calling him a spot starter to describe him should
give you an idea of what you're saying being the truth.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
You do have one starter, well, I mean if he
was healthy, If he was healthy during the off season,
he probably I think there's a good chance he would
have started the year as the starter because they would
have known that the best Who am I kidding? They
didn't know who they had for weeks, but maybe they
would have realized, well, Titus Howard is with Trent Brown

(29:34):
on the field, is a better five man group. I mean,
is Trent Brown better than Titus Howard at right tackle?
Maybe maybe not, but it doesn't matter if he's better
than him. Titus Howard is way better on this line
at guard with Trent Brown on the field, and that's
why I kept saying that the best alignment included both
of them. Probably he could have started much more than that,
but that's also a concern. Why would you expect him

(29:56):
to be healthy for seventeen to twenty games. I wouldn't.
He's only spots because of injury, and he was only
a full time starter when healthy because they don't have
anybody better, which, as we said here today, is still true.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Heavy, heavy, heavy trenches draft coming up both sides.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
I totally I've well player acquisition. It does not have
to all be in the draft. It just has to happen.
It can be in free agency where it's gonna cost
you an enormous amount of money, very heavy focus with
your free agent money. If you're trying to reshape the
offensive line and free agency, then you would feel better
about it for who those players are because they have

(30:33):
a track record, you know what systems they play best,
and you literally know what they can do at the
NFL level. But it's gonna cost you. It's gonna cost
you a ton of money because that's what teams. If
you're trying to make sure your line gets better, you
can guess in the draft. You can hope you have
a draft pick that can do that for you. And
I think this draft is very top heavy when it

(30:54):
comes to tackles before it falls off a shelf. But
it's gonna cost you. And the worst part is everybody's
looking for the same thing. Ed Ingram's a fifteen million
dollar a year player. If somebody offers him fifteen million,
then yes, and somebody probably will and it might not
be you. That's the thing I had read earlier, that
that he might price himself out. You just have to

(31:18):
pinpoint the right hope you pinpoint the right guy that's
willing to sign with you for that because they have
really good option. This is I think this is a
pretty nice group of free agent interior offensive linemen and tackles,
which I still think they should consider. Probably not at
the high end anymore because they've sunk some money into
Trent Brown. It doesn't preclude them from doing anything in

(31:40):
the draft or free agency, but it's gonna be super duper.
Connor McGovern, the name I mentioned yesterday that maybe is
at the top of my list. He's probably more expensive
than Ed Ingram, or very close to it. I mean,
we're talking about a deal that's three for forty five,
four for sixty something. But is he marketedly better as well?
I hope so, and probably he would be the center

(32:02):
for you.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
I don't mind spending if you're improving vastly.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
It's a like, just say it again, I don't mind
spending a ton of money if you're getting a lot better.
This should be what they're trying to do. It's gonna
make other things more difficult. It's gonna prevent you from
maybe doing this with that player, this with that player immediately.
It's gonna put you in a bind. But did you
get better? And that's what they should be after. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
I mean, look, this goes back to the original discussion
we've had about the way they draft this particular group.
Though you save yourself, you literally save yourself money and
you just save yourself so many headaches if you just
effectively draft in later rounds, especially at this position, which
you can do in other positions very well.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Yeah, but that's it kills me. I wouldn't expect that
most teams. I mean, you might find one lineman outside
the top four rounds every year. It's just mad.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
Because one offseason, the Kansas City Chiefs had to retool
their offensive line, and they did it well.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
They hit on one player outside the top four rounds
that was Trey Smith. They hit on another player inside
the top fifty and Creed Humphrey. But then they also
wisely went out and got other players, and a year
or two later, Joe Thuni's on their offensive line and
he was an elite at tackle and on the interior.
And the Texans saw that firsthand multiple times. Every time
they had an injury were like, well, this is gonna

(33:26):
really hurt them. And then Thuny would just fill in
for that player. He'd move a spot and he'd move
They did both things well that offseason. They added veteran
talent that could play, and they correctly. It's why they
are who they are. It's also why they made this
deal with Trent McDuffie. They have extreme confidence that their

(33:46):
DC Steve Spagnolo and their general manager Brent Viach, along
with Andy Reid, they're just going to replace him like
they replaced Lugerius Sneed before him, like they replaced Marcus
Peters before him. They don't mind not being the team
that pays a guy after the first four years when
you're getting him for next to nothing, even though he
was a first round pick. McDuffie. They're just gonna go
get somebody else they think they can have played just

(34:09):
as well, if not better, at that same spot. And
the Texans have been able to do that at defensive tackle,
no question. There's some other spots on the team where
they've clearly drafted exceptionally well at all rounds, just not
at this one. But few teams on the offensive line
are fighting. Like the kid from Green Bay that's hitting
free agency this year. He was a very late round

(34:32):
pick and he's basically been a starter ever since. And
I'm not sure why the Packers haven't figured out how
to pay him, but he's probably gonna get more money
than anybody else on the market, and he was an
absolute fine in the later rounds.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
All right, We will continue to keep an eye on that.
There's also some restructures coming, according to Aaron Wilson and
others that are interesting when you think about you know,
we've heard a lot about a lot of teams that
restructuring deals to make things work under the KI app
just talked about Dallas Cowboys. We've been talking about the
Chiefs and any number of teams that do this this

(35:05):
time of year. What are the Texans doing in this regard?
We'll tell you some of those names when we come back.
The A team on Sports Talk seven night.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
And I did something the other night. I was trying
to get Junior to come down. He was on like
level twenty and he's very artistic. So guess what I
showed him on YouTube? I introduced him to Bob Ross.
What level is Bob on point six twenty? Well, that's
the whole point.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
I was trying to get him to do something that
would get his creative juices flowing, but also calm him down.

Speaker 1 (35:41):
To littal serenity. Now, guys, I used to watch if
I couldn't fall asleep, I would watch The Joy of Painting.
They always had an episode that's what it's called. I
wish you wouldn't have said that. Why because I could
have gone the rest of my life knowing Bob Ross
very very well and having no idea what the show
was called.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
How it's still in big bold letters every time he's
about to never see it a masterpiece.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
I know what he did. I've watched him do it
many times, like the paint Man go others like this,
guy got it, gets it done, gets it done every
time in a half hour. Go back and look at
them edited on YouTube. The But again, how is it edited?
I mean it's it's like what many people now they
break out at the wedding. They have a painter come

(36:27):
out there and paint a picture that they're like, man,
this looks this is awesome. It's like a photograph. Obviously
you need to be done at some time during the
reception else kind of defeats the purpose of the happy
couple saying a masterpiece.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
But again, if it's edited, you're gonna be able to
see progress instantaneously on the screen from the last clip.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
Due to time constraints. Well, but they never say that
this guy's actually getting it done in thirty minutes.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
It looks amazing. And now Carson is gross.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
And pressure little lake there, maybe there's a tree. Maybe
there's a tree.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
Do you ever see family guy Bob Ross? I can
only imagine we're probably gonna have to play that.

Speaker 1 (37:04):
So Bob was brought in to bring Junior from level
twenty down to a more manageable level. How'd that work out?
It was awesome? He goes, Wow, he's an amazing painter.
Oh yeah, as he put falo blue and mixed it
together with a little white, very nice, regular white, very nice. Yeah.
So it was a winter painting in case you were curious. White.

(37:26):
I thought maybe winter happy little trees. So anyways, that's
what's going on in my house right now. What's going
on here in our studios.

Speaker 2 (37:35):
We've been talking a lot about the NFL, not surprisingly,
and we we kind of knew that there would be
some restructures. I don't know to the extent that just
for this is just for example. Aaron Wilson sent this
list out. The original tweet was that the Texans are
planning to restructure Derek Stingley Junior's one hundred and thirteen

(37:57):
million dollars deal. Other pending salary, recap updates, extension candidates,
free agents are included.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
But just to give you the cliffs notes version, he
goes through player by player of guys that are one
way or the other need to be addressed, and not
only says you know, like Ziz Auschier mutual interest in
a potential extension, same with EJ. Speed, But then guys
like Christian Kirk, huge surprise, Nick Chubb, Denico Autrey Foley Faticassi,

(38:31):
Christian Harris, and Braxton Barrios aren't expected to be back. Yeah,
he signed Dniko Autrey to a two year deal two
seasons ago. He had the suspension unfortunately last year and
then much of this year. All of the offseason he
was unhealthy, but he was able to get out there
limited work played through injury. He didn't. I don't think
he had a full week of practice the entire season,

(38:52):
but on game day he gave him a lot. He
was what turned out, in my opinion, to be a
very good signing. I hoped it would be, and it was.
But as they usually do, they feel pretty confident about
what they have in mind on the defensive line, and
they've been remarkably successful at adding players or keeping players,
finding players that will make their defensive line at least

(39:14):
as good, if not better. Every offseason they've made some changes.
They've done the right thing three consecutive offseasons. I think
this will be the fourth. But Audrey, outside of that deal,
I think that's probably the direction they needed ahead. Nick
Chubb was never going to be a second year Texan
to begin with. Fotocosi didn't play last year. Basically he
played a little bit early in the season, then got
hurt and never came back. Christian Harris, if he was active,

(39:36):
it was only because he was going to be a
part of the special teams, and he actually wasn't active
for every game he was healthy for last year. And
obviously Braxton Burials just never really found a role here.
He's a player kind of like Nick's had a history
of this, the pre draft portion of free agency. He
just signs a bunch of wide receivers. He doesn't know

(39:57):
what he's gonna get in the draft, he doesn't know
how things are going to play out. They sign guys
that have zero chance to make an impact on the
Texans when they get to training camp. He does it
every single year. Justin Watson wasn't any different. And those
are both the guys that they signed to this offseason.
They're never going to contribute to the Texans because by
the time the draft has now been completed, you don't
need fifteen wide receivers under contract. But he does that

(40:18):
almost every single offseason, and I'm sure this next offseason
will have several new names of wide receivers that he's
going to sign to a one year, two point four
million dollar deal. And this one's guy's gonna get two
years six million, and they won't even they might not
even make the roster, right, but that's how he likes
to do it. So all those players that are expected
to not be here, not a one of them is
a surprise. And Christian Kirk isn't either, But it's probably

(40:41):
worth noting even though you traded for him, he's in
the last year of his deal. He'll have a cap
ramification a hit next year in dead money, pretty significant
one most likely, So just something to keep in mind.
They'll have a pretty sizable amount of dead money. At
top of the list, hopefully will only be Titus Howard
because his dead cap hit is very large. It's still, though,

(41:05):
less than what you would have been paying him if
he was on the team, So some ap savings.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Yeah, exactly. Some of these other names, one way or
the other, get your reaction. Texans want Sheldon Rankins back
and he's interested too.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah. He was signed three years ago, played great, thought
he could turn it into a big contract. He did,
got a two year deal with the Bengals, got hurt
and wasn't effective and they let him go. So he
was a free agent again, and I think, very very quickly.
He is agent and Texans realized is a great fit.
He came back and played great football. He was one
of their leading scorers last year at the defensive tackle position.

(41:43):
And I think it makes a lot of sense for
both parties. He's extremely well respected in that locker room,
lockers right next to Deniko and Will Anderson, and I
think that's a match that they'll probably they'll be able
to find a common ground. He could probably make a
pretty good chunk of change out there on the market,
older player, and I think the fit and a reasonable
offer will get him back here.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Tim Settle Junior fresh off the Liz Frank foot surgery.
He's the second player in franchise history to have that
foot surgery, probably more and you named the first. Uh No,
it was not p D. He's expected to test the market.
How here's the thing about a guy like him. While

(42:27):
he seems like he's a plug and play guy.

Speaker 1 (42:30):
Suffered a foot injury in the first quarter while making
a tackle, the same List Frank injury that cornerback de
Marcus Fagan's had last year. Yeah, but he's not the
most high profile are You didn't say most high profile?
And I have to say, Mario Williams, well, when did
PD Fagans actually that injury he just had? He said,
foot problems? What year was it? Don't it was? All

(42:50):
I know is PD had a foot it was during
the Koubiak era.

Speaker 2 (42:53):
Well, of course, I'm just wondering if it was before
or after their starting quarterback had that injury.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
All right, So yees, so Liz Fronk injury. Remember, Tim
Settle was having I mean, probably his best year as
an NFL player, definitely his best year here. But all
of his years here had been good and productive. This
one was the most and then he went down and
the Texans again, they're very well outfitted. They had really
good depth at that position. I'm sure they will again.
I'm sure they want him back, but it probably makes

(43:20):
the most sense if he knows, and his agent knows,
they can convince everybody out there, the other thirty one teams.
He's healthy, he played well enough in a system that
he's a good fit for. He might be able to
get more than this team could offer him. It'd be
tough to lose him, but I have confidence they could
replace him.

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Texans expected to adjust David Montgomery's deal at some point
with more guarantees.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
That's not a surprise. His next season neighborhood of six
million dollars the small small guarantee on twenty twenty seven.
Otherwise he's due to make about eight and a half
nine million dollars. But because there's not much of a guarantee,
the player doesn't want to play this season without it,
and the team also then has the ability to kind
of get the cap numbers however they best see fit

(44:03):
if they go ahead and put together a little restructure
or an extension. And I think most people figured that
was likely where they were headed. When they went out
of their way to go get him. They had to
trade for him, They had to trade a fourth round
pick and other assets to go do that. I think
this is probably where they're headed.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
A couple more names plus a big, big trade for
a second consecutive day in the NFL.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
We'll give our thoughts on that the eighteen grades of
the trades in the NFL. Next, a couple more names
off that list that Aaron Wilson put out there. The
ed Ingram aspect of this ed Ingram and the Guard
market overall, as wex mentioned, is going to be expensive.

(44:46):
I e they're good. Uh, it's a good time to
be a free agent. I would definitely say that because
that Ingram is a really interesting case. He's had one
good year as a starter, who was last year, He's
in his fourth, finished his fourth year. The Vikings had
enough of him after three years and traded him to
the Texans for a late round draft pick. And then
he came in here and he played well. Missed just
a couple of games two different times, one game each

(45:08):
with an injury, but otherwise I wouldn't call it any
kind of concern. Very good in the run game. I
think everybody saw the many, many pancakes that he had
throughout the year. There needs to be a little bit
better work in the pass game. But I think that
with Kole Popovich and that leadership position in the offensive
line maybe helped the Texans better identify some skills that

(45:32):
offensive linemen need to have to play in the system
that they want. Because it's really one of the first
times they've went out they had gone out and found
a player that did fit and did play well and
did play up to what they needed. So I've said
a couple of times I feel like they have to
sign him But I mean when I say that is
they have to sign someone at that level. If it
isn't him, well then they can't strike out on the

(45:53):
guard market, and he's gonna get paid. He's probably average
annual value is not going to be less than fourteen million.
And I don't want to hear or read or get
nick to them. Well, the priced himself out of the
market or outside of our budget. Well, then that means
you didn't sign anybody at that position at that price range.
So how did you get better? I won't be able

(46:17):
to I probably will have a hard time understanding that.
But again it could be, well we spent on our center,
or we spent on another tackle. The money again, if
it's not all in the draft, which it absolutely should
not be, that is, it's a concern that he could leave.
But it's only a major concern if you don't sign
a replacement level comparable replacement level player.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
As he is being priced out of the Texans budget
because he gets money from someone else, because they think
he's gonna repeat his performance here in Houston.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
Again, you know more about it than they do. You
already know the fit question. You know the player, he's
only played for two organizations and neither you know, Minnesota
is not going after him, so you have a leg
up on intel than everybody else.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
And then here's the part that is kind of fifty
to fifty because we know some of this and then
the others we haven't really talked about. Besides Derek Stingley
Junior heading for a restructure, other restructured candidates include one
we've talked about, Danil Hunter, who wants an extension, Nico Collins,
which I actually thought we would hear that name sooner.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
We've talked about all these guys. Yeah, because if you
are a highly paid player because you've been extended by
the Texans or signed a big free agent contract, you're eligible.
You're on their list. It's such a matter of when
do they have to do it and why if they
don't sign anybody, They're not going to extend and restructure
all these deals. They're going to do it when they
have to. And Nico Collins a couple of years removed

(47:41):
from his extension, meaning it's time for another extension. If
you believe in him, and I sure hope they do.
Oh I think they do. Dalton Schultz, do you believe
in him? Well, you can't. You don't really have much
of an option now unless you're going out and spending
on somebody else. Would you rather spend it on the
guy that knows your system? And probably, while he's definitely
coming off his best year, he's coming off one of

(48:02):
the most productive tight end seasons in franchise history. And
then Jalen Peatrie is the last name on this list.
Same thing, You signed a new extension before he hit
his fourth year as a rookie contract, so you took
care of that. And that's one other somewhat of an
advantage to paying guys in that first available window to
do so, because that means you're even closer to the

(48:24):
restructure or the next extension. It's good for both sides.
It's not so good that you could potentially lose him
if you never agree to one, but it's good in
that if he plays at the level you want him back,
you're going to have another extension in front of you,
and then you're able to manipulate the money on this
year's cap. Nick Cassarro has done a good job on
the twenty twenty seven cap situation, and any GM wants

(48:45):
to always have that in mind when they enormously full
of cash and cap spendings is inside that can when
they kick it down to twenty seven and kick it
down to twenty eight. But you want to be able
to do that, and when you sign someone in the
first year you can, well, then that speeds the window
up to when is he eligible for an extension? When

(49:06):
is he eligible for a restructure, because you're far enough
removed from when you originally signed it. That is an option.
Every player at the top of the Texans cap table
is basically someone we'd be talking about for either a
restructure or where they are on their contractually just more
likely an extension. Collins gets the end of the year,
Hunter gets to the end of year. Instead of having

(49:27):
them play in the final year, you extend them, which
I think they'll do in both of their cases if
they need to, which they will. Let's quickly grade the trade.
The Bills are getting DJ Moore from the Bears, and
if you know nothing else other than this about DJ
Moore from last season, you would say that's a good pickup.

(49:50):
What an amazing end to that regular season game between
the Packers and the Bears, who ended up playing in
the postseason again. But the Bears had that walk off
forty six yard touchdown pass to DJ Moore just a
sensational play. I think the most impressive part about that
whole thing was that Bill's fans were in sub zero
temperatures and none of them left the building like thirty

(50:12):
minutes after that play was over with.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
I don't think Houston would do that, and they're in
air conditioning. But I digress. Two things about this. It
gives Josh Allen an amazing weapon, and that amazing weapon
also isn't going to either Baltimore or Kansas City.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
I don't really thought of it that way, keeping him
from somebody else. Love this move for the Bears, love it,
love it, love it. Really good player, but they have
what's necessary to replace him. I think they drafted extremely
well with Luther Burton, and he did not have a
huge role last year, and he will have a massive
role moving forward, I think, and you already saw signs

(50:51):
of that as the season war on, and DJ Moore
even had a lesser of a role than I thought
he would. Obviously, Romadonsay, a first round pick, has been
very very good when he's been out there and healthy. Mean,
DJ Moore had a fifty catch season. He played in
all seventeen games. I mean, I guess he's still a
wide receiver one and he probably will be in Buffalo,

(51:12):
and I do think it's a good fit. But you
also can't ignore the finan financial part of it. It's
great for the Bears on that regard. Also, they get
out from under this big, big money contract players one
of the top fifteen highs paid receivers. And most people
who've looked into the numbers of what this will likely
be and the information they have from Buffalo about what
their plans are for Morre's contract is basically to guarantee

(51:32):
the first two years when that wasn't the situation on
his way in. And for that reason, most people are like,
I don't know about this. I don't really like this.
DJ Moore is a young enough player, he'll be thirty
when those two years expire. Good player. Buffalo's they're going
for it. This is very similar to a move that
the Rams just made. They went out and got Trent
McDuffie wide because they want to win right now. I

(51:55):
bet you Buffalo's new head coach is happy with this move.
His team just got better.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
Yeah, and he worked with him in Carolina, as I
recall Joe Brady. So we'll have to see how this
affects the hierarchy of things. Because again I was talking
about Stefan Diggs going to the NFC yesterday. This is
a big time wide receiver coming to the AFC from
over in the NFC.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Four o'clock hour.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Coming up next, we will discuss the Rockets not only
needing to take care of BIZ, but one NBA head
coach is absolutely done with the antics of Shay Gildess Alexander.

Speaker 1 (52:31):
That's next team Sports Talks seven to ninety and Space
City Home Network. We are getting you ready for Rockets
Warriors later on tonight on both entities. You'll hear it
here on Sports Talk seven ninety. You will not see
it on Space City Home Network. Like I said, not
both entities. My program director over here always has to
keep me in line when it comes to that.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Speaking of the Rockets, though we've been talking a lot
of NFL, I do want to take this opportunity to
put a PSA out there. Got the Warriors in town
with no Steph, no kristavs Perzingis, no Jimmy Butler, no chance,
no chance, no way, no how I don't care how
much Draymond Green barks at the officials tonight. I want

(53:16):
you to beat them by about thirty, and I think
you should. I'll take twenty that you're getting a little
bit more realistic. If they're winning, it's because you've let
Brandon Pozemski go off on you.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
He went off and had a huge first half against
the Clippers. Then he and his team got whacked in
the second half, and so they are coming into town tonight,
losers of their last two, both by wide margins, losers
of three of their last four, losers of five of
their last seven, and will be just a five hundred
basketball team if the Rockets take care of them this evening.

(53:49):
Their record without Steph Curry stinks. They're eight and fourteen.
That means when he plays is regardless of whoever else
is not out there, they're twenty three and sixteen. That's
some games without other teammates, one of them being Jimmy Butler.
That's still pretty good. But when he's not out there,
they're awful. They're clearly not a very good basketball team.

(54:11):
They dropped to eight and fifteen.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
How many of those twenty three wins were Jimmy Butler
also a part of it.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
I'd have to really go back and look, but he's
not going to be a part I don't. They might
not win another game together period in the history of
their NBA lives. That would be real, sad, real, real, sad?
Can you tell I'm sad? I know you're not. They
do have a lot of injuries, clearly you mentioned the
most significant They did decide to take a chance on
Kristaps porzingis because they know their window is small. So
if he could possibly maybe find it in his heart

(54:38):
to be healthy, then maybe they found something at least
for the very very short term. But it doesn't have
any impact on tonight. The Rockets and the Golden State
Warriors do have another game still later this season. I
don't know if it'll make much of a difference. It's
during the final week of the season. But tonight, the
Rockets would like to put themselves in the same position
they have been in now for a little bit of time.

(54:59):
They are the third best team in the West based
on record, that's how we rank them, and they have
a really good chance to make that stay that way
if they now take advantage of what the schedule has
in front of them. They got to the final twenty
two games of the season, They got to out of
that last Eastern Conference swing. They only have one more
road game against an Eastern Conference team. Fourteen of the
final twenty two are at home. They have been exceptional

(55:23):
at home, one of the best home records in the NBA.
And that's even with a recent bevy of losses at home.
But yeah, still to the minuscule number of home losses
they had. Yeah, they're in a very good position. And then,
like I said, we'll find out definitively from email Udoka
a little bit, although I think we already have a

(55:43):
pretty decent answer because he spoke with the media following
yesterday's practice. But the actual listing of the Rockets on
the injury report, same three guys that have been out
remain out Tate van Vliet Adams, but three other would
be starters all listed is questionable illness with Alpy he's questionable.
You know about the right ankle sprain from Jabar that's

(56:04):
cost him in the last two games, and a men
Thompson left their last game, the victory over the Wizards,
in the fourth quarter with an ankle sprain of his
own right ankle. For both of those two players listed
questionable yesterday, he may seem to indicate they will be
good to go, and we're probably within the hour we'll
have an answer on that.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Yeah, and look this game tonight, particularly because of the
injuries the Warriors are dealing with. But again, we talked
about the Blazers a little bit yesterday. That's another game
that you need to take care of.

Speaker 1 (56:35):
So he was probably a little too comfortable saying the
Blazers aren't a threat, because I keep forgetting they're not
in the group of we hate winning games. They're actually
they're still trying and they're going to be in the
play in tournament because of it, even if their head
coach goes to prison.

Speaker 6 (56:53):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Yeah, but he has been there with them for none
of the season after the opener. He has been gone
since the open, which they lost. They've been very good
ever since. They are only two games under without him.
They were all get the games under with him, all
of the games. Okay, Aaron Holliday's brother is trouble. Hopefully
that won't be the case tomorrow. He was a monster

(57:16):
in their last game, went for thirty five and eleven
in their victory. He still got it. He does still
have it. I bet the Bucks wish they still had it.
I mean, he's an Olympian, he's he's a he's a
great player. Drew Holliday. He's no Damian Lillard, though, No,
he's not. All right, he's playing games. So here's he's healthy,
he's active. Hey, Lillard took took part in the very

(57:38):
important three point shootout and one that's more than just
taking part. That's dominating the competition. Action he's seen all season.
So okay, uniform on and everything. Shake gildess, Alexander, And
I'll admit I didn't really even notice it as much
as I do now until my co host here brought
it up. You you put it out there. I can't

(57:58):
wait to hear what I did. I don't think it's
a good thing. I can sense it was not a
good thing.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Every time he goes to drive in any way, shape
or form, he pushes off. Every time. There isn't a
time he drives where he doesn't push off. It's just
a matter of which one of these hundreds of times
per game. All right, maybe that's a little much, just kidding,
It's not hundreds of times per game, the official is
going to actually blow the whistle. Now, Mike Brown, who's

(58:26):
the head coach of the Knicks, and that will come into.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
Play here in more than one way. He's at it.
He is tired of what SGA does. Assume it.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Basically, he gets away with murder more often than not.
And if you don't believe me, listen to Brown himself.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
SGA is he's a tough cover and he does a
great job of convincing the referees, probably better than anybody
in the league that you know he's getting hit. And
you know them shooting eighty four percent from the free
throw line compared to our seventy three was a factor.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
Yeah, maker free throws, Mike. I mean, they just played
the Knicks last night if you were unaware, very competitive game,
three point win for the Thunder at Madison Square Garden. Now,
his description of what SGA does is the one you're
talking about. He does a good job of making the
officials think he's getting hit. Mike Brown actually got a

(59:29):
technical in the game for a completely different SGA related play,
and I think there could be both sides of it.
He was not called for a charge on the guy
who draws more charges than anybody else in the NBA.
Jalen Brunson. He ran him over. Some people think there
wasn't a lot of contact. Some people think it's okay
for a no call. He didn't, And most people at
the time also agreed and said, what he just My

(59:52):
guy's standing there waiting for him. He just went right
through him and threw the ball up. Why is this
not a charge? It's a charge for every other player
in the And that's why I kind of separate the
SGA problem versus the officiating problem. He's not making he
didn't do anything. He ran over a player. He committed
a foul, so the referees need to do their job.

(01:00:13):
He's not. That's a different different play than he pushed
off and they're missing it, or he pushed off and
they're letting me away with it. This just flat out
what are This isn't even him, This could be anybody.
But yes, it does seem like the officials giving him
the benefit of the doubt on even this play. It
seemed pretty cut and dry in the heat of the
moment and on replay, and otherwise maybe you could, like
I said, you could debate it wasn't a charge, but

(01:00:35):
Obviously Mike Brown did not agree.

Speaker 2 (01:00:37):
We where's the thing, Mike Brown and what he's saying.
There's nothing wrong with it because this is what SGA does.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
This is what SGA gets away with.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
And until the NBA and its officials decide to start
calling this stuff, you didn't keep getting away with it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Yeah, it's an officiating problem in my opinion. They've let
it get to this point and they're not doing enough
about it to stop it. So there's no reason for
the player to want to stop it. There's no reason
for the team to look for him to him to
stop Why should I Why should Greg Maddix throw the
ball over the plate? They're giving me out the outside,
not the outside corner, outside of the plate. These are
outside of the rules. These are fouls. These Why do

(01:01:14):
you think he doesn't have a shot blocked? Ever? Fadeaway's
are one thing, but he's creating space with his off arm.
He drives left so often it's his right arm that's
in the chest of these players. And if you recall
their game against Denver, where so much was you know,
coming from that game because of the lou Dort play.
He got early technical himself when he threw the ball
at Jokic because he was screaming at the officials. The
whistle blew, he continued his drive and he and Jokic

(01:01:37):
bumped each other and he screamed me at the rest.

Speaker 6 (01:01:39):
He hit me after the whistle, after the whistle. Guess
why he hit you even after the whistle. He's so
used to doing what he does. He leaned into him
like he's trying to draw charge. The play was already
over right.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
That's why Jokic, in your mind, hit you because you
leaned in to create space like you do so often.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
Here's the problem. It's Mike Brown saying this. Who's Mike
Brown's best player?

Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Jalen Brunson.

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
What does Jalen Brunson do all the time, hundreds of
times a game falls, draws chargers, same thing SGA does
to an extent. He baits the officials to get calls.
He shouldn't get.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Uh far he doesn't. I don't. I wouldn't say. I
wouldn't single him out like any other regular star player
that gets calls. Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, Cade Cunningham. I
don't think so. SGA is in a class by himself
without in my opinion. Yes, absolutely, you don't think they're
similar at all. Well, because they do attack the basket
so often. As I mean, SGA is not undersize obviously

(01:02:42):
Brunson is. But no, I really I'm trying to be
as mean to SGA as I think you. I do
think he he's like Harden. He really is. It's a
different manner in which they go about. As Mike said,
he does a good job of making the officials think,
in sir, this is a foul. James did it for

(01:03:02):
six years in Houston before they changed the rules, duping
the officials because the officials are dumb. There's no I
mean again, it's hard, he said. It's hard to do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
I cannot sit here with a good conscience and think
that NBA officials aren't aware going into a game that
he's playing in that this is happening.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Get the lot. You can't do an SGA plays for
the thunder. Huh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
But I'm saying, how is it not a point of contention?
How has it not been made made out to them?

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
Maybe they're like Major League Baseball umpires and they they
don't think it's an issue. They're saying it differently. I
doubt it very very seriously. We mentioned who's in town,
the Warriors. You'll never guess which one of them a
Warrior has thoughts on Magic City Night, Well, that's next.

Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
The A team. On Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:03:55):
We were just talking about the Thunder and Knicks game
from the other night. Somebody said this could be a
finals preview. I love that because New York would be
in the finals. They hated this last year. If I
were to make a wager today on March fifth for
zero dollars, what about MT Bucks. We don't play with
those here. I don't even know if they do anymore.

(01:04:17):
I hate the Matt Thomas Show with Ross Nah, that's
it's fine program. I would not put stock in one
of those two teams arriving in the finals, and it's
the Knicks.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
And is it because that James Harden is a Cleveland
Cavalier or is it just because Jayson Tatum's coming back,
or I'm just gonna keep going down the list.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
I'd as well mention that odds seem now likely. Two
major NBA returns to the court could come Friday Night.
One of the major returns, Cooper Flag could play again
for the Mavericks. Coming up on Friday Night and their
most important game of.

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
The he should probably do that. Since he's already squandered
the Rookie of the Year award, there's a chance he
might not win it now that's winning.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
Konkinippile probably has taken over for that, considering he's playing
great thrash the Celtics, and over the last twenty five
games in the NBA, nobody's been better than the Hornets.
They're awesome. If won nineteen of those twenty five games
a loss and a win to the Rockets. But Maps
should get Cooper Flag back. And like you mentioned, Jason Tatum,
he's now listed on the injury report today day before

(01:05:22):
the game is questionable, and the people reporting out of
Boston seem to think he might make a season debut
in Game sixty three, which is Friday night for the Celtics.
The Celtics are five back of Detroit, a game and
a half better than New York and two and a
half games better than Cleveland. Jason Tatum's team, James Harden's team,

(01:05:43):
and Cad Cunningham's team, I would put more stock in
one of them making the Eastern Conference Championship banner a
new home in their city over the Knicks, all three
of us. Why don't I believe in the Pistons more.
I think I would probably agree. I probably because they
look at a particular reason. I just don't feel like
a reason. I think their depth is a major issue.

(01:06:08):
I think their frontline players are really good. I think
they lack a definitive second score because Jalen Durn's an
All Star caliber player, but I don't know that he's
gonna go out and get you twenty unless Caid sets
him up ten times. He's probably more like fifteen and twelve,
which is fine. He's a good defensive players, a physical
he sets a tone for who they are, and Cunningham's
MVP level talent, so maybe you don't need that guy.

(01:06:29):
Tobias Harris is probably their number two score. I don't
think that's awesome. I think that's a negative. And Duncan
Robinson no shows way too often. He's a one trick pony,
and those nights where he falls off the pony, they
can't even have him on the floor as you have
to show up against the Rockets this year, So that
to me is one reason why if Caid's in foul trouble,

(01:06:50):
if the game gets away from him because they're too physical.
I think that's something that one of those other three
teams could take advantage of. And I don't know, what
do you think about last year's postseason sperience? It was,
I mean, they got to the playoffs last year. They
finally got things turned around, but they didn't win in
the postseason. They didn't win a postseason series. They don't
have that success, I guess some success. So they're gonna

(01:07:13):
go out and win three playoff series, the first three
playoff series for most of these players that have been
Pistons for their whole life. I feel like they're gonna
match up against like the Celtics because the Celtics have.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
Been good but not great because Tatum's been out. That's
what's gonna happen. Somebody's gonna match up against the Celtics
and they're gonna be playing the Celtics instead of Diet Celtics.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Yeah, I mean, it's I think it's I don't know
how Joe Mizzoula can't win Coach of the Year. They're
forty one and twenty one and tennis plays zero games.
They have a star and then a bunch of other
role players who have been incredible, so if they become
an even better team, they should lock up the two seed.
I think the Knicks and Caves are gonna battle for

(01:07:51):
the three seed, which might end up being important because
of maybe matchup issues. The Knicks might actually prefer to
play the top seeded Pistons over the second seeded Celtics.
If Tatum is playing, it doesn't matter where the Celtics finish.
They'll be the favorite to win the Eastern Conference even
if they're not the team with the best record, because

(01:08:12):
nobody's gonna really care what they did in the first
sixty two games. If they look awesome in the final
twenty with him out there, that's they just might not
make up a five game disadvantage in the standings by
the time we get to the end of the season.
Speaking of disadvantages, Draymond Green, he's offensively disadvantaged on a
nightly days.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Yes, and he's just a loud mouth at this point
with very little else to offer.

Speaker 1 (01:08:36):
Yeah, I would say, well, don't give him a microphone.
That's not really applicable here in twenty twenty six. If
you want one, you can get one. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
Fortunately for him, he absolutely uses that to his advantage,
and he touches on a wide variety of topics, a
myriad of subjects, if you will. And so when first
of all, the Magic City Night promotion was revealed at
the with the Atlanta Hawks as they host the Orlando Magic.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
We talked about that we're eleven days out, Yeah, the
countdown is on.

Speaker 2 (01:09:08):
And then of course Luke Cornett of the Spurs wrote
a substack about how much he really really disagreed with
the misogynistic ways of this promotion and what it does
to women, and you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
He's super feminist. I just paraphrasing. Now, now, of course
we get to the real deal who we've all been
waiting for, Draymond Green's opinion on the Magic City Night
promotional event going on with the Atlanta Hawks when they
host the Orlando Magic. I object to what Luke Cornett

(01:09:43):
is said.

Speaker 7 (01:09:44):
And the reason I object as a man with a wife,
as a man with daughters. Magic City is an establishment
that was built by mister Magic, a business that he
has half for over thirty years now, extreme success with
an option forms to work there. I think to point
out that they have the steam issues because that's the

(01:10:07):
line of work they choose I actually think is less
protective of what it's actually a form of art.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
All right, where do we begin?

Speaker 2 (01:10:18):
First of all, stripping is a form of art. Let's
just start there and go backwards. Come on, man, they
have to work at their craft. They come up with
a you know what am I going to dance too?
What are the moves choreographed? The they could dance with
what they're going to dance to? No, they don't.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
Somebody must strip club DJ over there says, all right, guys,
report to the size stage their dance. She doesn't take
the song and it's pour some sugar on me. Not accurate?

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Oh did I just stereotype a bunch of different assets
of a strip club?

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
I'm sorry. Cultural, Well, let's taken literal or real for what.
This is not some about to get put out of business,
super sed ridiculous. I can't believe we even walked in
the door of this place. This is awful. Yeah, I
mean there are levels, there are more quality than others
and more money put into the business, which this would

(01:11:12):
definitely apply it at Magic City. So they don't just
walk in the door and throw their bag down and
here's some glitter. Now, head on, out there.

Speaker 2 (01:11:20):
Yeah, it's amazing your works hot, topless or nude women
have brought people in as customers. I can't believe that
this is a non failure of a business venture.

Speaker 1 (01:11:34):
Well, strip clubs out of business all the time too,
not the good ones, not as being told. I think
there I knew there would be. First of all, I
think it's I think most people, certainly most NBA players,
and I think a lot of people around the league
are taking this for what it is rather than taking
it too far one way or maybe too far the

(01:11:55):
other way. I mean, it isn't your tip. It really
truly isn't your typical establishment.

Speaker 2 (01:12:01):
I mean, with the Rockets have Schmeasures night at Toyota Center.

Speaker 1 (01:12:05):
I doubt it because the place you mentioned in Houston
is no different than ten other players you could mention
in Houston. There's no such establishment in this city on
the level held in different regard instant. Mean, Charles barks
there is. He doesn't discriminate. Oh there is one. Where

(01:12:26):
is it all like one in particular more than others?
But I think most people would agree there's nothing. There's
not that many cities that have a place like that
really is different. It really is regarded different and has
a history of like where do people here that come
to town?

Speaker 4 (01:12:41):
Where?

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
Where are all the celebrities going to here in Houston?
I probably do go, but I don't know which one,
and it's not one in particular. It definitely is also true.
It's that's all those things are true. This Lemon and Pepper.
We brought it up the other day and I said,
until the NBA has a team in Vegas, I don't

(01:13:03):
think another city could even would never even come to
the boardroom table. It could be a number of places
in Vegas. But where would it be if you're in Chicago?
Where would it be if you're in Orlando the opposite
side of where Magic City is? Because Atlanta is hosting
the Magic that night. Pick an NBA city. A couple
of them might have it. I don't know all the
NBA cities like that, but I don't think this city

(01:13:26):
has one. And I think that's right normal, Yeah, but
I wasn't. It doesn't mean I know the city in
terms of the strip clubs. That is not what I
had on my Here's I doubt this comes as a
big surprise. Travel with the Rockets, fly on the team plane,
get to the hotel, go to my room, do the
game the next day, do my show before the game

(01:13:47):
the next day, get on the bus, go to the
airport and fly back. Did I miss all the other
things I did? Nope, you never went sightseeing or anything.
I ate. Meals were not long. Most of these trips.
I went on, We're not and the words zero down
days because I was on the radio. So if the
game wasn't being played that day, at a show that day,
that's brutal, just like MT. Yeah, well he finds ways,

(01:14:10):
he finds time. No napping for me, though, of course
not all right. We've got our signature segment straight ahead.
Leave the artists alone signing they're artists?

Speaker 4 (01:14:27):
What's up with that? What's up? If I say it was.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
That signature segment time here on the A team on
Sports Talk seven ninety also the time where Ac has
to make his way to Toyota Center for Rockets Basketball
will take you the next hour and into Rockets launch Pad,
getting into Rockets Cutdown, and getting you into Rockets Warriors
this evening Rockets in search of win number thirty nine.

(01:14:57):
But our signature segment on a Thursday is as you
heard somebody singing what's up with that last couple of weeks,
the news was really good and really fun and this
is neat and look at these two. Chloe Kim, United
States Winter Olympian was performing and doing her thing and

(01:15:22):
doing some you know, some great things on the snow,
as she always does. And for those that did not
know at the time, most of them found out that
she and Miles Garrett were together and they had some
nice Instagram posts and they obviously were seen together in
at Milan if you hadn't already seen her on the
sidelines during this past season, as he was going out

(01:15:44):
and winning Defensive Player of the Year unanimously this past year,
as he broke the NFL's sack record, he had another
monster season. His Browns were terrible. Again, There's only so
much defensive player can do. But just his season in
and of itself was outstanding. What he also was doing
last year while he was winning the Defensive Player.

Speaker 4 (01:16:04):
Of the year.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
What as he was preparing for the season a year ago,
just before the twenty twenty five NFL season took place,
he was issued a citation for speeding in a Cleveland suburb.
You guys may remember this. In early August of last year.
It was clocked going one hundred miles an hour. Sixty
miles an hour was the limit, the speed limit in

(01:16:26):
that area. He was cited. It was two o'clock in
the morning to a one to be exact, and he
got a fine, didn't have to appear in court as
long as he paid for it. And that was that
February twenty first. Several months after that August incident, and
now less than two weeks ago, Miles Garrett was sighted

(01:16:48):
again and pulled over and I say again because that's
two right, cited again. This time he was going well
over one hundred miles an hour, one hundred and one
at least, but the officer issued a citation for going
ninety four, so it made it not mandatory to appear,
and you know he was able to. He is able

(01:17:09):
to pay the fine. It also helped people recollect and
remind everybody else that this is ticket here in February.
There's another ticket back in August of last year, and
you can make those tickets number eight and ticket number
nine for speeding in Ohio. Since he joined the Cleveland Browns,

(01:17:29):
the only team he's ever played for in the NFL
nine times, nine times he's been pulled over and been
issued a speeding ticket. And lest you forget, he was
involved in an accident where he was cited to cited

(01:17:49):
four failure to control his vehicle, single car crash. He
hurt his shoulder, hurt his arm, his bicep, His vehicle
went off the side of the road, it flipped over.
I wonder how many times every day, every time he's
behind the wheel, every night where he drives between one
thirty This incident in February was one thirty in the morning.

(01:18:13):
The incident I mentioned from August two o'clock in the morning.
I don't mind being out at that time. I've been
out at that time. You've been out at that time,
and I've probably, like many of you had, maybe right
now at four thirty seven in the afternoon on the
Houston Highways, there are people driving more than fifty five
or forty five or sixty five. That's all true, well
and good. I don't know how many people are driving

(01:18:34):
one hundred miles an hour as often as it would
appear that Miles Garrett is. It's dangerous to everybody, and
clearly the tickets are not a deterrent. It's why we
have them. I'd like to keep everybody safe. It doesn't
seem like he does. Hopefully there won't be any future incidents,

(01:18:55):
and hopefully I'm sure there'll be more speeding because after
nine times being cited for it. I don't know these
specifics on the miles per hour over the limit he
was going, or what parts of town and where the
limit was to begin with, but I gave you two
of them, and both were for driving more than one
hundred miles an hour. Come on, man, seriously, it's not

(01:19:21):
that difficult. You don't have to go sixty four and
a half miles an hour. I'm a realist, I get it.
But that seems a bit excessive. It seems a little silly,
seems extremely dangerous, over and over again. Very pleasant stop.
If you've seen the video, no issue with you know,
anything other than didn't have proper documentation, at least up

(01:19:44):
to date. But there was no real issue there. Obviously,
was very compliant and he was in no bad shape.
He's just striving too fast. Again and again. I'm gonna
count them, as they say, again and again and again
and again and again and again and again and again.
First time was in and again, but the other eight
times in nine years is another again, So if he
keeps playing for the Cleveland Browns and people of Cleveland,

(01:20:06):
especially in the late hours, just be careful, be very
very careful. No indication that Miles Garrett was going to
stop doing this, none whatsoever. So a few other items
that probably make you scratch your head. That's a big
one and one that is very easy to control. But

(01:20:28):
you can't that we probably are have to get to
sorry that Ac is not here for this, unable to
weigh in on this particular story that probably from a
sports standpoint, it probably was the biggest story of the
day out there, and it's not from anywhere you might
have otherwise thought. I doubt very seriously any of you

(01:20:49):
gave much thought to this particular athletic program that was,
at least until you saw what the story was at
cal State Bakersfield. A little bit of a coaching problem
when I'm not sure which was the side hustle, the
coaching that was being done, or the pimping that was
being done alleged to have been on the side a

(01:21:12):
coach on staff with the basketball team, that's what he
was alleged to have been doing. On the side handling
a business that again, they'll just read you the highlight coach,
a headline coach allegedly moonlighted as a pimp. Like I said,
I don't know which one would be the moonlighting side

(01:21:34):
of it, but that's how the story goes pretty entertaining.
I guess details about this story being uncovered. Obviously they
have made some changes, but this actually goes back from
an athletic department standpoint at cal State Bakersfield, they've had
some incredible I guess upheaval is a good way to
put it within their athletic department. Lawsuits, investigations, firings, and

(01:22:00):
all sorts of issues because of other things that happened
in that athletic department, even on the softball side of things.
But held without bail. Mister Mays, Kevin Mays working as
a pimp allegedly across not one, not two, not three,
but four different states felonies. I don't know if you

(01:22:21):
know this. It's a felony pimping as they like to
call it. And his rap sheet there's only eleven criminal
and misdemeanor charges that he will be faced in. Not
to worry, he's pleaded not guilty to all charges. We'll
definitely have all necessary updates on this story about a
coach allegedly moonlighting as a pimp. As your home for

(01:22:43):
stories about a coach allegedly moonlighting as a pimp, all
those stories, You're home right here on the EIGHTEM on
Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:22:52):
The eight.

Speaker 1 (01:22:55):
Three more segments with us, and then we'll get you
into Rockets basketball. Actually have that four as well. So
many football items still to dive in on. Is the time,
and the calendar is probably as busy as any other,
especially for NFL gms and players who are looking for
new homes and new contracts. While none of the moves
that essentially are getting made from team to team are official,

(01:23:17):
team's official moves are essentially these kinds. We have released
this player, We placed these players on waivers, and those
will come through on the transaction wire, and those are
in place, and players and teams obviously can act accordingly.
We know the Texans are trading Titus Howard to the Browns,
and we know that David Montgomery will be on the
Houston Texans and things like that, and the Move today

(01:23:38):
reported that Trent Brown is going to re sign with
the Texans. All get filed as necessary, and many of
these moves that we expect to make are going to
be made very specifically. Sequentially, we're talking about some of
the extensions and restructures that the Texans players could be
in line for this offseason. The Derek Stingley Junior one

(01:23:59):
is at front of the line for the one of
the amount of one because of the amount of money
that they can take off of this year's cap by
restructuring it. And that move's already been made, and the
other moves that could follow, they're gonna get made and
get made officially when necessary and if necessary. You know,
the Texans can create an enormous amount of cap space

(01:24:21):
this offseason, and thankfully that's the case because in my opinion,
they need it because they go into next season without
any significant free agent additions or trade editions which could
come with a player with a large sum of money
do them, then they're doing their whole franchise of disservice.
They knew where they were three seasons ago when they
left the postseason in Baltimore. We're on the rise. We've

(01:24:44):
got a starting quarterback that we can win a super
Bowl with, and it looks like we've got the makings
of a very very good defense, and those two things
were still true after year two. We've got a quarterback
we think we can win with. And to their postseason
at the same spot against Kansas City on the road,
this time in the divisional round, and they probably thought
even more highly of their defense, and they were one

(01:25:05):
of the last four teams in the AFC. They're in
the same position now, even with whatever you think about CJ.
Stroud situation individually at the quarterback position, which is of
great importance because that does pretty much dictate what you're
going to be able to do, but their defense is
even better. Contractually and the way that Nick Cassario has
put it together, they're in an unbelievable position, probably the

(01:25:26):
better position than anybody in the end of the NFL
related to both their talent and production and where they
are financially. They're into a long term, big money extension
with one player, Derek Stingley Junior. He's the one who
they just restructured short term big money with Daniel Hunter.
Likelihood is he will be playing under a contract that

(01:25:47):
is very different than the one he's working with today.
Whether it is an extension which I firmly believe it
will be. It'll help them this year and then they'll
be kicking the can down the road for future years.
Will Anderson's probably in line this season, and I think
he gets done this off season with an extension, all
of which they can do, and then you deal with
the al Shaire and how you want to have his money.

(01:26:08):
He's in the final year is the three year deal
he signed a couple of years ago, and you're probably
I would hope you liked what he did last year.
He was healthy last year, he was part of a
great defense. He's the quarterback of the defense. He matters.
They should want him. He wants to be here. I
think they'll work something out for the long term, longer term.
Petree signed his extension a couple of years ago. Now
he's in position for a restructure. They're obviously looking at

(01:26:31):
Kamari Lassiter and Kaylen Bullock as two players entering year
three of their respective non first round contracts. Everybody outside
the first round from a year's and commitment standpoint, they
signed the same deal. It's a four year deal. It's
at different levels of pay depending on where you got picked,
but there's really not much there's no negotiating with it,
and there are no five year deals for players that

(01:26:52):
weren't drafted outside the first round. There's no option yere
with it. They know where they stand, they know where
they're likely to be in two years off season, like
they did with Jalen Peatrie going into his fourth season
before he got there, they extended him, and I'm pretty
sure they want to do that with Kamari Lassiter, and
I'm almost as sure they want to do that with
Kalen Block. I do believe when they say they can't

(01:27:14):
keep everybody, that is for the most part true, and
that's probably why Titus Howard isn't here. You cannot keep everybody,
especially if you've done a really good job drafting. But
because you've done a really good job drafting, you believe
you can keep doing a very good job drafting. And
if you look at the history of Nick Cassario's draft

(01:27:35):
in certain areas, and the secondary would probably be the
first area you would look at, he probably has confidence.
He and the staff probably have confidence they could do
that again. They drafted two players in the secondary last year,
Jalen Reid and Jalen Smith. Reid's gonna start at safety.
This year, Smith would start for maybe a few teams
next year. He didn't play a whole lot, so it's

(01:27:56):
a little bit presumptuous, I think, to act like he
would be a starting level player a third round pick
a year ago because he basically didn't play. He was
a backup to two corners that obviously never leave the field,
and his limited opportunities because of injuries. He only played
in four games. Both of those players I think were
good selections the year before that. We know there are

(01:28:16):
two players in the secondary they drafted were good players.
That's last year to forty two and Bullock at seventy eight,
a second and a third. They've been starters from day one.
They've been great players from day one, and they're probably
only getting better as they headed new year three. The
players you would like to keep if you can for
as long as possible. These two players might put the

(01:28:38):
Texans in a situation they've really never been in before
with Nick Cassario, the franchise tag, the transition tag, these
are two weapons they will have and then plug in.
The players hate them and we all know why, but
they might be in a position and I feel pretty

(01:28:58):
confident Nick will avoid it, but they might dangle it,
and you know, use it as it is. You have it,
you might as well make note of it. And obviously
a couple of years before that, they drafted Jalen Petrie
and Derek Stingley Junior. In the twenty twenty two draft
with a first and a second, and then the twenty
twenty four draft with a second and a third. You

(01:29:19):
put together one of the best secondaries in the NFL.
Because they have five dbs on the field most of
the time, as most NFL teams do, they drafted two
more in the players I just mentioned first, Smith and Reid,
and Reid was a sixth round pick and I basically
put him in their starting lineup next year, and I
firmly believe that will be the case. Hard to find
a team in the NFL. I doubt you can't that

(01:29:39):
has had more success under their current general manager drafting
players in the secondary that deep. He might go six
for six, he's definitely gone five four for four or
four four six. We'll find out about those most two
recent picks as you move forward. And Bullock's coming off
of his best year, Petrie's coming off of his best year,

(01:30:00):
coming up they're getting better only year two for two
of those players, but year three, year four, I should
say for Petrie, I mean, they're doing nothing but get better.
So you might have confidences. You can repeat that over
and over again. A little bit dangerous game to play.
It's absolutely the game that Kansas City is playing. But
as the Texans get through these few days before free

(01:30:21):
agency opens, and they'll have an idea of what kind
of money they have to spend. They've talked to the
agents for these players. They want to restructure and extend.
Everybody knows where they stand. But they don't have to
necessarily do this until they need to make that other deal,
until they know that Connor McGovern wants sixteen million a
year for four years with the first forty six million

(01:30:42):
of it guaranteed. Well, now they know what they need
to clear up. Now they know what they what makes
the most sense for them to want to do in
year one, twenty twenty six, year two and twenty twenty seven,
what they do with the rest of the money, much
of which might not be guaranteed. So then they all
go ahead and execute one of these restructures of the
these extensions that they already know they can, so to speak,

(01:31:04):
in their back pocket going into this. That's how Nick
has operated before. If I were a GM, that's exactly
how I would operate, and I think most of them do.
There's a lot of work that has to be done
to know what you're capable of, to have a better
idea of your budget when it is so flexible like that,
and it's really still much of an unknown. They can
go in and budget We've got fourteen million AAV to

(01:31:25):
spend on at Ingram, to spend on an offensive lineman,
to spend on a guard, to spend on a center. Well,
if the market for the four best players, the only
four players that you think makes sense to sign, puts
them in the sixteen or sixteen and a half or
seventeen million dollar range, you got to figure out how
to make it work, or you reluctantly bow out and

(01:31:45):
don't improve your football team at the most important position
that needs improvement. And I think I feel differently this
year than in any other previous year that that because
I walked you through at this whole segment where they
were a couple of years ago, where they were two
years ago, and where they are now. If you want
to try to win. If you are absolutely invested in winning,

(01:32:08):
there's no more ignoring the problem. There's no more guessing
at how to fix it. There's no more moderately trying
to fix it, you know, bringing in Cam Robinson and
going out and getting Lake and Tomlinson. Those days should
be over. And they're in a position now because of
the strength of the rest of the roster, both through
the draft now and through free agency. If that's how
they want to make the team better, and they should,

(01:32:29):
they're absolutely in a position to do it. They'll lead
us into Football at five, which kicks off the five
o'clock hour, what they have actually done to this point,
and what one former teammate of David Montgomery's has to
say about the new place for Demo here in Houston.
That's next.

Speaker 4 (01:32:48):
The ad on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
To get us through Football at five plenty to discuss
spent much of today's program talking the football side of things.
A couple of other no we'll get to in the
next segment in more detail, where things stand with astro
shortstop Jeremy Pagnia and his fractured finger. I'll tell you
here WBC is now over and it never began for

(01:33:12):
it Jeremy Payna. But we'll have more details. I'll tell
you more about that coming up in the next segment.
Football at five has arrived report earlier today from Aaron
Wilson and others that seven million dollars is as much
as Trent Brown could earn next year to be back
with Houston Texans. One year deal for as much as
seven million dollars. Obviously some bonuses incentives in there that

(01:33:36):
we'll see what they are and then we'll see if
they're earned by Trent Brown. It's not quite the same value,
but somewhat similar to when he came here last year,
signed a one year free agent deal and ended up
getting on the field about half the season, and late
in the season he was their starting right tackle. I'm
not sure if they intend on him being their starting

(01:33:59):
right tackle this year, but they also want to make
sure if he is, then they're okay. They want to
make sure that if they don't add somebody better, they're okay.
And okay is literally what that word means. What was
the Texans offensive line like last year? They were okay.
They were clearly not as poor as they were the

(01:34:20):
year before. And this was after trading away Laramy. Tunsel
also helped by not having to play Shack Mason anymore.
So a little give, a little take, but where do
you want this offensive line to be? Do you want
him to be a lot like last year? And I
was a little I was taken aback by somebody who
I follow, and I think he does a really good

(01:34:41):
job of covering the NFL how he does, and was
talking about the offensive line and kind of put together
the line, not really as it stands today. I did
that to me as the way the Texans offensive line
as it stands today, they have one starter. If forced to,
they could use other players that are current on the
roster and start them, but I certainly hope they don't.

(01:35:03):
But this one particular layout of it says, okay, So
the Texans planet O line might be ursery with Blake
Fisher swing tackle behind him, Brown at right tackle obviously
same with Fisher at the swing tackle behind him. Left
guard Patterson Jarrett Patterson's heading into the fourth year his
fourth years with the Texans. Andrews's back again starting at

(01:35:26):
center and Ingram question mark because he's obviously a free agent,
and he's back at right guard with rookies behind them
in each of those situations, Fisher obviously a tackle, and
maybe you're able to land some rookies in the draft
and they would play behind them. So it lays out
this offensive line ursery Patterson, andrews Ingram and Trent Brown.

(01:35:47):
And my thought is if the Texans play any games
this season with that as their alignment, then I don't
know how you care about winning football games. What else
did you do this offseason? If that is your five
persons starting offensive line group, where did you spend your
money or did you just keep it? Did you just

(01:36:09):
want to spend Obviously he's putting ed Ingram on the
team and that costs some money. Is this where's the
money being? Are you changing a wide receiver room? You
might add one player, and I think they should. I
think they should add a veteran and I they can
play and be on the field, and I think they
should probably utilize draft app capital to do it. They've

(01:36:29):
saved some money on the Howard move, They've spent a
tiny bit of money on the Montgomery edition. I don't
really think they're going to spend any money defensively, just
basically a defensive tackle, you resign, Sheldon rankins, you might
resign Tim Settle, a couple guys out, a couple guys in.
I don't think there's a whole lot of real, actual
outlay of money going at those positions. Every other position

(01:36:52):
has a starter on it. You bring back EJ. Speed,
that's not free, but you probably have to rework the
manner in which he's playing for you next year. I
get it. Restructures, extensions. It's great. If the money you're
spending to make your offensive line better in twenty twenty
six is re signing two players that were already on it.
It's laughable. I don't want to get too worked up.

(01:37:15):
It's May fifth. I get it. Free agency has not begun.
They're not receiving visits from players, even though a couple
of players, because of when they were released, have actually
gone on visits elsewhere, a couple of offensive linemen as
a matter of fact. But yeah, I'm sure I'll be
singing a different tune. I really feel pretty confident I'll
be singing a different tune, probably as early as our
first show of the tampering period on March ninth. Next Monday,

(01:37:40):
the Texans will be linked to, if not already in
agreement with an offensive lineman. Very comfortable sitting here and
saying that, you know, four days out, I just don't
really think they have an option. I don't think there's
any other way. They should absolutely positively not want to
play the same offensive line they had a year ago,
and it clearly won't even include Titus Howard. Presumably that

(01:38:01):
means it's worse Erstrie could be improved, Ingram could be
slightly improved. Trump Brown's not gonna be improved. He's gonna
be the same as he was last year, which was
perfectly fine. But they should not be aiming for perfectly fine,
not being among the worst offensive lines in football. That's
where they improved from from twenty twenty four to twenty

(01:38:22):
twenty five. Probably most would look at them as somewhere
inside the top twenty five, outside the top twelve. Some
people might think more highly of what they did as
a combination of run blocking and pass pro and maybe
you're ranked as high as fourteenth, Maybe you're considered good
enough to be in the top half. It's probably a
small group of people that would evaluate him that way,

(01:38:42):
but I wouldn't say nobody, And then the majority of
them probably have him somewhere between sixteen and twenty five.
Who wants that You shouldn't want that, that's not good enough.
Have an offensive line that's in one year? Can they
do it all? Maybe not? And with all the other
players they have on the team, I get it. You
can't have the best players at every single position on
your fifty three men roster and among your twenty two starters.

(01:39:04):
I'm not trying to turn Dick Cassario in some kind
of roster making magician, but you absolutely are in a
position to put better players in front of CJ. Stroud
and give Nick Kaylee more to work with with his playbook,
knowing that I can run these plays now, and I
can run these plays without having to put a sixth
lineman on the field. Thirty percent of our snaps every

(01:39:24):
single week. This best five person group that I've talked
about over and over, Trent Brown being a part of it,
Titus Howard moving inside, and Ingram being healthy, and Andrews
along with Ursery. Yeah, it was their best five man
group and roughly twenty five to thirty percent of the
snaps they took during their winning streak and during the
last part of the season the last eight weeks or so,
they had a six lineman on the field because that

(01:39:46):
was the best way they could operate. Most teams will
do it on occasion. Most teams will do it a
little bit less than Houston. I don't know the numbers
off top of my head, but I would imagine they
ran more tackle eligible plays than anybody in the NFL.
I know the Lions do it a bunch, and they're
a great offense, so it's not necessarily a mark of
a bad offense, and you can be really good even

(01:40:07):
if you do that a lot. It obviously takes a
skill guy off the field, or instead of having a
tight end who's in there to block, you have an
offensive lineman in the block. That actually makes some sense.
Second part of the story is who they're blocking for.
What are they doing up front for this player. They're
going to have a new running back next year to
work with Woody Marx be awesome. If they turned into
anything close to what demo David Montgomery and Jamiir Gibbs

(01:40:32):
were in Detroit a season ago, that would be tremendous.
I am not expecting that. I do think Woody Marks
is capable of a better season in year two than
year one. Might not be in total yards, might be
more in how effective he is with his carries, which
probably are going down with David Montgomery here if they're
both healthy and similarly, Montgomery's carries might go up for
what he was playing alongside Jamiir Gibbs, his former teammate

(01:40:55):
Amon Ross Saint Brown there in Detroit has a podcast
had some things to say about David Montgomery. Did not
like to lose him, as you'll hear here.

Speaker 5 (01:41:04):
Selfishly, I'm sick because I love Demo, one of my
favorite teammates. I feel like he was no matter what
the situation was. We all knew that, you know, he
wanted more carries and wanted to play more. He never,
you know, never made about himself. He was always, you know,
all about the team, which I know is hard sometimes
and especially in his position, like he's a he's an

(01:41:25):
RB one on thirty one other teams.

Speaker 1 (01:41:28):
Man, you had so many good things to say, and
we got to take it at your word. RB one
for thirty one other teams. He's in the NFC, Aimon
Ross Saint Brown. I would imagine sometime it is more
than half a decade long career. The lines have lined
up across from the Diners or the Eagles. I mean,

(01:41:50):
David Montgomery's a nice player and all. Probably not RB
one in Philadelphia, probably not RB one in San Francisco,
and he's obviously not RB one in Detroit, which he acknowledged.
He said, thirty one other teams. And I don't want
to pick it to death, but come on, man, he
would start and be a true RB one for a

(01:42:13):
small handful of teams. As David Montgomery enters year eight
in the NFL, he was RB one in Chicago. Chicago
drafted him to be that when he was their third
round pick. Again, you don't have to be a first
round pick to walk your way work your way into
that role, and I do think when they picked him there,
that's what they hoped for and that's what he was.
He was a heavy use back when he was with

(01:42:35):
the Bears three consecutive two hundred and sixty five plus
touch seasons to open up his career. He's been a
two thirty five or less every year since his last
year in Chicago, when they elected to not re sign
him after his rookie deal went out ran out, and
three years in Detroit. Most of which he has spent
sharing the field with a lower time share than Jamira

(01:42:58):
Gibbs about forty percent of thirty five percent of the
snaps per game. Usually he would get the whole series.
They wouldn't necessarily bring him in on third down obviously,
Jamiir is a fantastic third down back and first and
second down. Honestly, that's what Montgomery was his whole career
in Chicago. Again, very nice player, Absolutely helped this team.
Totally reasonable pay scale, and if the Texans just went

(01:43:19):
flat out into free agency, it would be much more costly.
They might also have a better player. I don't know
that for a fact. I can't tell you with one
hundred percent certainty twenty twenty six will be better for
Kenneth Walker than it will be for David Montgomery, or
twenty twenty six will definitely better be better for Travis
etti En or Breise Hall over David Montgomery. But he's

(01:43:42):
probably the fourth best running back of those four. But
they don't have to hit free agency with desperation for
a running back anymore because they have one now, and
that's how Nick likes to operate. Lastly, from Amon raw
on Montgomery, I don't know if it sounded like I
had a glowing review of what I expect for Demo
here in Houston. His former teammate definitely thinks he'll be

(01:44:04):
great here.

Speaker 5 (01:44:05):
I'm really happy for Demo because I know how much,
you know, he wanted to have a bigger role on
an offense, and I think he's going to get that
in Houston. They got a crazy defense, they got you know, receivers,
they got a good quarterback, they got a good team.
So I think he's going to a good team where
he's gonna be able to, you know, be the primary back.

Speaker 1 (01:44:25):
I think he's gonna make a lot of noise.

Speaker 5 (01:44:26):
That's everyone Like people are telling me yesterday, Hey man,
I'm sorry to hear about the news. I'm like, yeah, man,
it sucks. But I told everyone like, I'm happy for
Demo and they're like, yeah, man had him on the
fantasy team. I told him you better keep him because
he's about to go aeping crazier.

Speaker 1 (01:44:38):
Oh, everybody knows about NFL players because of fantasy football,
even more than they probably think. It's what people view
as that just an fyi. Last year, in terms of carries,
he and Woody Marks essentially were healthy all year. I
know Woody left a bunch of games early, but he
was out there for sixteen of the texans seventeen games,
and Demo was out there for all of the Lions games.
One hundred and fifty eight carries a season ago for Montgomery,

(01:45:01):
one hundred and ninety six carries for Woody Marx touch
tootal at two twenty. When you add in the catches
for Montgomery last year, who is, like I said, very
capable in the passing game. He had just twenty four
catches last season, one hundred and eighty two for him,
So Woody was more used here and that maybe you
want to look at snaps versus how many touches they had,

(01:45:22):
But either way you want to look at it, one
of them is likely anticipat or is probably headed towards
a very different role. Woody Marks down, David Montgomery up.
Aaron Wilson's talked to Woody Marks a couple times since
this deal has gone down, and he seems pretty enthused
about it. Obviously, the Texans are so from a team standpoint,
not just individually Woody versus David Montgomery. That running back

(01:45:45):
situation is as it's definitely in a better situation than
it was, maybe even going back during the Joe Mixon
time and Mixing was obviously the lead dog. Last year,
they just really didn't have that, and the combination of
Chubb and Woody Marks it got better. The combination of
Montgomery and Woody Marks should be decidedly better. Presumably they

(01:46:07):
will run behind a better offensive line. Also, we'll get
to a couple final notes to mention an update on
Jeremy Pania when we come back here on the other side,
here on the A team in and on, and you know,
we can't go an entire show as brief as it
might have been. Came on a little bit late with
the Astros game taking place early, and we'll get out

(01:46:27):
a little bit early with the Rockets game tipping off early.
They got a six to thirty tip, so we will
get you into Rockets Launch pat in about ten minutes.
But we're not going to go a whole show without
running you through some new mock draft. We'll do that
in a moment first, as we usually do in the
final segment of the show, whatever that might be. We
want to give you listeners, we love you, and we

(01:46:49):
actually just got a note from a listener who run
one tickets to see Rodeo Houston on opening night earlier
this week one, I'm right here on the A Team
had a great time. We have Rodeo Houston tickets to
give away here. We got actually a pair of tickets
to go see Cross Canadian Ragweed. Their performance at Rodeo

(01:47:09):
Houston is March sixteenth. You can get the full entertainment
lineup or buy tickets right now at Rodeohuston dot com
for that night or any event in the future of
this year's Rodeo Houston lineup. We also have a pair
of tickets to see Breaking Benjamin and Chavelle with Cammi
Kiho and Star Set. They're gonna be at the Woodlands
Pavilion on October tenth. Tickets also available for that via

(01:47:32):
ticketmaster dot com. All you have to do is answer
this simple question. You'll know the answer because you've been
listening to the A Team. Usually, I like to give
you something that we recently talked about. I will do
that here. Just this last segment, we were talking about the
Texans their new look in the backfield, with David Montgomery
coming over from the Detroit Lions to pair with Woody

(01:47:52):
Marks we'll find out who they are both running behind.
Beyond Trent Brown and Arianta Urseri and other players that
are currently on the roster. There'll probably be newcomers uh
in the next week or so. But we're talking about
David Montgomery, and very specifically, we had you listen to
somebody else talk about David Montgomery. Former teammate of his

(01:48:13):
played sound from him, about how happy he was for David,
about how well he thought he would play in Houston,
about how much he likes the Houston Texans ballers on defense,
really good football team. I have a chance to win.
Which former teammate of David Montgomery's in Detroit did we
just hear from? If you are listening right here on
the A team, Very simple question, very simple answer, and

(01:48:34):
you call in a seven one three two one two
five seven ninety seven one three two one two five
seven ninety if you'd like to win a pair of
tickets across Canadian Ragway to Rodeo Houston or Breaking Benjamin
with Chavelle, Kammy, key Hill and Star set seven one
three two one two five seven ninety What former teammate
of David Montgomery's did we just hear from? On the

(01:48:57):
A team told you I wanted to give you an
update on Jeremy Paine. We've done that throughout the day
today if you had not heard yesterday, during the Dominican
Republic's second preparation exhibition game for the exhibition that is,
the WBC that has already gotten underway, but only for
four teams playing outside the United States of America, he

(01:49:19):
left their second game after starting and get into a
couple of abs. I didn't think anything of it at
the time. I didn't really have any reason too. When
I saw he left early, I figured a it was
either a typical replacement pattern, because unlike a regular spring
training game, the players that don't start are awesome, and

(01:49:40):
getting them playing time is something you'd want to do
in an exhibition game. Jeremy Panna, she was on the
other foot in their first game. He did not start
their first game, but came in because they want to
get everybody on the field, and I thought that was
what was happening here. I didn't see that he was
hit by a pitch. I didn't see that he was
hurt running the bases. There was no injury delay that
I had noticed anywhere. And then you come to find
out out that as he was fielding a grounder, a

(01:50:02):
nice hot shot right behind second base. Basically I fielded it,
picked it up, threw it on over to first made
the putout, and then when the camera went back to him,
it looked like he was grimacing a little bit looking
down at his right hand, his finger. Something was clearly
not quite right. He did not leave the game. Then
he actually had a final hit bat after that, and

(01:50:23):
then he was pulled from the game. And then you
started hearing reports about an injury and a potential fractured finger,
and with them getting a look at it yesterday, more
imaging done today, the Astros have given you an update,
not a very good one, but I think everyone is
kind of scarred from what happened with jose Al Tuvey
when he was hit by a pitch in the World
Baseball Classic and cost him better than forty games at

(01:50:45):
the start of the twenty twenty three season. Jeremy Pina
Pegnia does in fact have a fracture at the tip
of his ring finger on his right hand, and he's
got it in a splint. He's back with the Astros
in West Palm Beach. That's where he will remain. He
will not be a part of the Dominican Republic team
and the WBC, both for their initial games and pool

(01:51:08):
play and any other games they might have advanced to
which I still think they will. I think, honestly, if
their pitching is remotely capable, and that's the biggest question mark,
they have the best roster of position players. I don't
even really think it's close. I think Tosa is great.
I just think their team is even better. I think
the advantage on the pitching side, especially the starters, goes

(01:51:29):
to United States. We'll see if they meet up and
end up playing, but Jeremy's pinion is not going to
be playing in any games. Two weeks. That's when they
will reevaluate what's going on with his finger and see
where things stand at that point. The season begins in
three weeks. His availability for the season opener at home
at Dykin Park here on Sports Talk seven to ninety

(01:51:50):
with that just after three o'clock first pitch against the
Angels is absolutely in question. Is not a certainty anymore,
and that is very very unfortunate. Leadoff hitter and a
multiple an All Star capable player, and as I pointed
out many times, both during the season last year and
here as we head into his next season, he was

(01:52:11):
one of the three or four best leadoff hitters in
all of baseball. Certainly show Heeo Tani on the National
League side, and I think it's fair to say he's
the best. He's batted lead off enough now that yes,
he's the best leadoff hitter in baseball American League. Byron
Buxton had a pretty good year when he was batting
lead off. Jeremy Panna had an equally strong year when

(01:52:32):
he was batting lead off for this team. That would
put it in question, what is it? What else does
it do? Does it answer the question, at least initially
of how to get everybody at bats well? Now you
don't have a logjam on the infield if he is
missing time significant or otherwise, because Carlos Korea and Joe
Spot has said today, probably gets work at shortstop now,

(01:52:53):
and that opens the door for Esak Perettis to just
go back to playing where he was before he got hurt. Remember,
there's no law jam in the infield if he doesn't
get hurt last year, if he's not set to miss
two months or so and possibly the rest of the season,
which is what they thought was going to happen when
he had that hamstring injury. They're obviously not trading for
Carlos Korea. There's nowhere to put him. There's no reason

(01:53:13):
to add him. There's no reason to take on his salary,
even with the twins eating up a big portion of it,
and the fact that you didn't give anything up to
get him. But he's not on the Astros and you
just play the same guys you had when the year
began in twenty twenty five. Walker's the first peretis is
at third. You probably would have made the decision to
put al two Bay back on the infield. You got

(01:53:34):
Alvarez a DH Paineses at shortstop. You fell out the
rest of the roster. Every day, the lineup every day,
it's not very difficult. It becomes more difficult when you
trade for a player because of an injured player and
now everybody's healthy. They knew that at the time. This
is not a surprise that Dana Brown. They were hopeful
that they would be faced with this problem. I think
they were also hopeful they would have found a different solution,

(01:53:56):
whether it was moving Christian Walker, whether it was moving
Esak Perettis for somebody else who would be a starter
on an everyday basis, an outfielder who swings a left
handed bat. None of those things have happened, and as
we sit here today, we don't know what the starting
lineup will look like because we don't have full health
on all of the players that would be under consideration

(01:54:16):
for your Houston, Texas. When we get into Rockets launch Pad,
which is immediately following this, give you an update on
where the Rockets stand with their players headed into the
game tonight against the Golden State Warriors. We'll do all
that next here on Sports Talk seven ninety

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