Yordan on Fire, WCF Game 6, Adam Silver is Atrocious, Texans OTAs

Thursday on The A-Team, Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler react to Yordan Alvarez's huge game against the Rangers, share some takeaways from Texans OTAs, question the latest comments from NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, and more!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thursday edition of the A Team.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
It's Sports Talk seven ninety WEX and AC with You
Thursday edition.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Of the program.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Another night, another couple of bombs from the sports god
that is Jordan Alvarez.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I admit it.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
I had to choose my wardrobe carefully today. I was
gonna put on my air yord On T shirt no
sooner than I located it in the closet. There was
nothing else I was gonna be wearing today. I'm a
big fan of what this guy does. He is must
see television. You know what this feels like right now,
even though the Astros aren't winning as much as they
have in recent decade, this feels like when he first

(00:39):
came up in twenty nineteen, when you know, he was
healthy basically every season since, and there wasn't something nagging
from a physical standpoint. This guy's at bats, you stopped
everything you were doing to watch them because something good
was gonna happen. And finally, at his final at bat
last night, the Rangers figure out what a lot of

(01:01):
people have already done, which is that you just don't
pitch to this guy. And he was even set on
the broadcast. Blumber was like, you know, maybe don't, maybe
don't pitch to him because he just hits nuked. I
love that it came against the Rangers. That's fun and
all that good stuff. But I saw a little argument
on social media between Yankees fans and everyone else. Basically,

(01:24):
I mean, this guy is going to be a better
hitter than Aaron Judge if he keeps going on like that.
The only reason he's not considered a better hitter than
Aaron Judge is because Aaron Judge stays healthy more.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
That's it. That's the only day.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Because you can't convince me that ord On Alvarez is
not one of, if not the best hitter in baseball
and he's a better hitter than Aaron Judge.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
It's good debate. I mean, seriously, can you debate? Just
take the other side?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Can you absolutely why is Aaron Judge a better hitter
than youord On Alvarez and start with the postseason and
then go backwards from there.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
That's not that's the car on to play.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
I would present the argument, why what's a Judges on
the other side of it?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, exactly, what's Aaron Judge's biggest signature postseason moment?

Speaker 3 (02:08):
What's the I mean you can point at it that way,
the kind of the Mike Trout way. You know, Mike
Trout's done nothing in the postseason. He's only been there once.
He's totally useless. He's one of the worst postseason players ever.
He's really never even business. Aaron Judges are every year.
That's true, but he's also won a bunch more MVPs
and been in the top two, a bunch more like
he actually has a better regular season career, which probably

(02:31):
shifts now with time than Aaron Judge.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
But we wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
Again, I'm not just trying to bag on him. I mean,
just ignoring what Aaron Judge has been in the regular
season is you win the argument, But I don't know
what why you'd ignore it.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Well, if you want to, like, go down to.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Remember yesterday when I ran through Jordan as leading the
majors in batting app or on base percentage, slug ops
ops plus all that stuff. And now as of today
he's leading the American LENCOLN batting average. And then I said,
and all of those things are things he's never led
the league in, right, And none of them are counting
stats except for total basis. They're all averages. Numbers that
he could have led the league in any number of times. Well,

(03:11):
Aaron Judge has led the league in those categories twenty times,
twenty five times.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
I don't even know. I can lose and count.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
So, since you're arguing for Aaron Judge here in this
hypothetical that we didn't plan on until just now, you
have to get a hit. Forget the situation. Just you
have to get a hit. Who are you taking if
it's the postseason? There's really nothing to discuss.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
I didn't say, I said, you've got to get a hit.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Well, I think you think Aaron Judge is like a
two forty hitter.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
No, I don't. Aaron Judge's led the.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
League in hitting before He's hit three p thirty one
last year. His career number is two ninety two, and
that's not even what anybody cares about anymore.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
His career ops is ten twenty four. Like, what's your on? Unbelievable?
It's a little bit less. Yeah, I just and maybe
I am jaded. Or it's nine seventy one. That's not
a little bit less.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Ten twenty four, nine seventy one. One of them is
better than the other. But I'm not like, oh, my god,
Look how.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
I'm bullying over it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
I may be jilted or swayed by the postseason, not
the Astros versus Yankees things I can I can separate
myself from that. I mean, I give credit to Sho
Heo Tani all the time when it comes to anything,
except for letting a guy take the fall for you gambling.

Speaker 3 (04:27):
And truthfully because you can't. I'm just making a point here, everybody.
It's five minutes into the show. The Astros won yesterday,
They're playing their best baseball of the season. But forgive us,
this is what we sometimes do. There's no discussion needed here.
I can end it right there. You ask a good question,
who would you rather have it beat? End of discussion.
If I need a hit, if I need something good

(04:47):
to happen, if I want to put the fear into
a pitcher, all I have to do is turn the
calendar to October in case closed. And that makes a
huge difference when you're debating about the careers of players.
What also makes a huge difference is one guy has
been there. You can pick any course you want. I mean,
the number of games played by Iron Judge since Jordon
Alvarez became a major leaguer in twenty nineteen. It's overwhelmingly
in favor of Judge. Just hasn't even been super uninjured,

(05:12):
like he's.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Missing some chunks that he's missed.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
He's also got three He's got five seasons of one
hundred and forty eight games played.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Jordan doesn't have any.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah, and that's also plays into what you're talking about,
which is the MVP Awards and the regular season accolade.
You can't get those if you don't attend.

Speaker 3 (05:28):
Yeah, Jordon Alvarez has finished top eight for MVP one time.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Well, it's gonna change this year.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Aaron Judges finished top eight six times. He's won it
three times.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, I mean with with uh, Jordan Alvarez staying relatively healthy,
I'll even give him, I don't know what's a minor
injury and how many games would it cost him?

Speaker 3 (05:51):
No, See, we can stop the count. We don't have
to do that kind of so that kind of I'm
not here for that. Well, I don't want that to happen,
and we it's our show. We don't have to do that.
But it's the only moon of the postseason numbers. Aaron
Judge in the postseasons, Louise.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
It's the only thing that keeps him from not undoing
what you just said.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
So lock in on twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
He's gonna be top five, top three, top two, right,
So talk about twenty twenty six only. I'm not there's
no player in baseball. I'd rather have the dish. No
player in baseball, not show Hey, not anybody who's having
an unbelievable year, not Schwarber, not Ben Rice, not anybody,
not Aaron Judge, nobody. And I don't think I'm saying
something that they wouldn't honestly, if they know anything about

(06:30):
baseball this year, wouldn't say in the other twenty nine
Major League Baseball places that talks baseball, there's no debate.
And this is with him having, you know, a short
period of downtime. We talked about that quite a bit
when the Astros weren't scoring runs and he was not
playing well or.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Not hitting well.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
That's the other if this is a real discussion beyond hitter,
which you did not phrase it as you said, who's
the best hitter in baseball? And it's it's a little
bit difficult to pedestal him when he that's all he
does now he does it better than anybody else, But
he doesn't do anything for his team in the field
and the player you're comparing him to, even though he
can't catch the ball in center field and the fifth
inning of the World Series, he's an awesome fielder.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
He's a gold Glover.

Speaker 3 (07:08):
There's big, big attributes to give to your team that
one guy does and the other guy does not. But
yard On Alvarez is in. I don't know if this
is one of those hot streaks. It does seem different.
They're throwing him pitches that they know he's not going
to hit out, and he's hitting them out. It's unbelievable.

(07:29):
Six games against the Rangers, six home runs against the Rangers,
going for a third straight game of two home runs
in the game, which would put him in an incredibly
small company. If he's able to do that today, and
most likely if he has another two home run day,
the Astros will have won the game. Crazy that they
only won one of his two homer games. They lost
the ten to seven game two days ago. His home

(07:49):
runs yesterday obviously were huge when you only scored four
runs and both of his home runs were solo shots,
but it helped you win four to three. It helped
you take two of the first three, and you have
a chance to win three games in back to back
series three against the to sweep your last series coming
into this Ranger series and it's a four gamer, so
a chance to win three out of these four and
really start doing the things that allow you to actually

(08:09):
say you're competing for something, competing for the division. Sure,
the math is there, they're three games out, they're competing
for the division, but putting together a team that makes
you think in a short series of three games or
five games, or seven games, if it's longer, then you
might actually have a team that can compete doing that.
Josh Hater was on the bump last night, you know,

(08:31):
Joey Lo Brafito played yesterday. We're just shortly going to
see Hunter Brown pitching for a second time on his
rehab assignment, and we're very, very hopeful and have plenty
of belief that we're gonna see tonight from Spencer Araghedy
is just more of the same Spencer Araghedty in game
two after Hunter Brown in game one. I mean, doesn't
maybe scare anybody, but you can certainly win those games.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
Yeah, we'll get to moron on the what the Astros
are doing right now, As you mentioned, playing their best
baseball of the season. The bar was low, but they
are doing that right now. I don't care about the competition.
I just I'm glad they're winning games, and because of
the division being in the it's sad state of affairs
that it's in. Basically, I love the affairs that it's in. Well,

(09:16):
yeah you would if you're one of the two teams
that's bringing up the rear at the moment, but you know,
still anybody's division.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
All that good stuff, and we'll get to some of the.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
Likely historical greatness I'm talking about from an astro's perspective
a little bit. Next segment, Western Conference Finals Game six tonight,
which means, at this time tomorrow we either talking about
the Spurs salvaging their season and sending it to a
do or die Game seven and OKC, or we've got

(09:47):
the already been penciled in by the NBA's marketing campaigns
and merchandising people, NBA Finals matchup between two teams that
were blue and orange, the Knicks and the th Under,
which is what I think it's gonna happen. But in
that vein, I don't know, like I don't know whose
idea it was or how it got put together and

(10:09):
all that, and it doesn't really matter. All three major
are all actually four I guess major sports commissioners went
on their kind of media tour for a state of
Sports thing with Pat McAfee. And the only reason I
bring that up is because, obviously, if Adam Silver is
talking and it's in the middle of the Western Conference Finals,

(10:30):
where officiating has been at the forefront of the series
the entire time, to the point where I think you're
talking about it more than you're talking about the series
or where the series is headed, or where it's gone,
or how competitive the games have been. If that's at
the top of the list, that's a bad thing. And
if I were to tell you that Adam Silver was
darn near tone deaf when it came to the state

(10:52):
of affairs and officiating in his game, how would that
How little.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Would that surprise you? I guess is the best way
to form that question. Curious how people think about that?
How little does that surprise them?

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Because the commissioner's not admitting it or the commission and
I get it, you got to say the right thing,
or you don't want to say the wrong thing, or
you have to toe the company line, or whatever you
want to call it.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
I get that, but people have eyes. It's also mid series,
you know, within the series. Something to consider speaking about
how a series that is current is being officiated from
the commissioner right, Probably.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
He had to tread lightly sure, and he could.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
Tell he was and in a week he could say
something completely different, and probably will. He probably will wait
three weeks until the NBA Finals are over.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
But does the commissioner have a State of the Union
during the finals every year in the NBA? Yes, yes,
So it's I wonder if the Thunder are involved in
the finals especially, that's definitely gonna come up.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
Somebody's gonna ask that. Quite at least somebody should ask
a question like that. I doubt the people that cover
the New York Knicks will get into that. When they're
in the finals against the Thunder, They'll probably just not
have anything. Yeah, they will will be before the should
be before the finals begin.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Should be Yeah, true, that's true. I forgot about that.
I couldn't remember if it was during I swear I
watched David Stern talking about the state of affairs in
the NBA during the Rockets Magic Finals before and it
was they were talking about it before Game four, could
be as if the season had or the series had
already begun when he when he spoke, I don't know,

(12:28):
we'll get to some of what al Adam Silver had
to say. Oh, by the way, I think I mentioned
this when it happened or shortly thereafter that. Al Twovey's
a fast healer. I mean that's not like just a catchphrase.
It's kind of been how he's done things throughout his career.
I think he might be doing it again. So we'll
get to that. And oh, by the way, OTAs today

(12:50):
one of us was out there. One of us was
doing a great job covering the Houston Texans and getting
caught up on all things off season activities, and then
the other one was me. So we'll get to that
at some point as well as we continue here on
a Thursday edition of the program Sports Talk seven ninety
the eight. It is the a team Sports Talk seven

(13:11):
ninety Thursday edition of the program. So I lied, I
want to get right to this because it became official
in the last several minutes and we talked about this
a little bit the last few days, But now that
the NBA has crammed this through, we can now talk
about the just disastrous way the NBA is trying to

(13:34):
handle a disaster. That's the best way I could put it.
You're trying to fix tanking. You're trying to keep teams
from tanking. You're trying to keep what happened this last year,
and it was basically an epidemic of it from happening again.
But the way you've gone about doing it is basically

(13:55):
making it so bad for the absolute worst teams to
ever get out of that rut by getting a high
draft pick that I feel like you've opened up a
whole other can of worms or problems, or I don't
even know how you want to describe this. Shams tweeting
the fact that the NBA has made an unprecedented move

(14:15):
in American pro sports leagues by punishing the very worst
teams in the draft lottery in creating a new system
to incentivize winning. This comes after months of meetings, conversations
among league ownership, team stakeholders, a radical response from the
NBA to radical behavior, with nearly eight to ten teams

(14:38):
jockeying for lottery odds down the stretch of this season.
The new three two one lottery starts next draft and
lasts through at least twenty twenty nine. This will expand
the draft lottery from fourteen to sixteen teams, a relegation
zone where the bottom three teams get penalized with lessened

(14:58):
chances for the number one pick and flattened odds as well.
The numbers nine to ten playing seeds in each conference
received two lottery balls each losers of the seven eight
playing games rez EVE one. All sixteen teams will be
in the drawing. No one will be able to win
the number one in consecutive years or be able to

(15:20):
win three consecutive top five picks. My favorite response was
no one will be able to win the number one
in consecutive years or top or consecutive three consecutive top
five picks. And he says, right on time, with the
screen cap of the Spurs having the number two, number four,
and number one overall.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Picks in consecutive seasons.

Speaker 3 (15:39):
Right on time, NBA, Yeah, just after the Rockets did it.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
Yeah, it's right.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
It has happened twice in the last six seasons.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
Well, they'd get punished now because you're bad, we don't
want you to get better.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
Well, what will happen is you'll hope you're lucky in
the year that you couldn't do anything about it or
tanked because you teams will still tank even though this
is your anti tanking. We're tanking. Let's not act like
they weren't. Yeah, they absolutely were.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
They were.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
So it was not just a this year problem. And
it's never really a this year problem. It's always a well,
we're not gonna win this year or next year or
the next year. So I don't know that we're gonna
get the best player that's ever walked the planet in
this year's draft. Maybe we will in next year's draft,
or maybe we will in the year after that's draft.
The Rockets got him, got him in none of the
three drafts. The Spurs got him in one of the

(16:25):
three drafts, so one time in those five drafts, because
some of them overlapped or four drafts, there was a
player of that caliber. Maybe Cooper Flag is another. It's possible.
I think he's more in line with he's like any
other really good player. I don't know that he's much
different even at the highest level. He's a number one
overall pick. He's he really that much gonna be that
much different than say Anthony Edwards.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
Anthony Edwards is awesome.

Speaker 3 (16:48):
His teams have been in the playoffs constantly, They've been
in the conference finals. He hasn't sniffed an NBA championship.
That seems pretty normal, And tonight I could start saying
the same thing about as we head into year four
of Victor wembin Yama. Yeah, just like Anthony Edwards, he's
been able to put a team together around him. They've
been able to that gets to the finals of the
conference and that's it so far. Both of them are

(17:10):
young in their career, and Cooper's even younger. So it
does that one thing. It's going to really make it
hard for you when you're bad in a year where
there's nobody to change the fortunes of your franchise. You
might get good players. The Rockets have a bunch of
good players, so does every team in the league from
those that were drafting in the top five. But if
they're not transcendent, if they're not franchise caliber players, they

(17:32):
might even be worthy of extensions. But if they're not
more than that, Well, then you're really not getting anywhere.
And that's going to be difficult for these teams when
they only have now one shot at it or two
shots at the top five. Because this year the number
one overall pick probably will be great. The number six
overall pick could be the next best player in the draft.
Hecky could be the best player in the draft. I
think this year's draft class is that good at the top,

(17:54):
and a bunch of teams are going to get a
really good player. Maybe that pushes them out of this zone,
which will immediately begin. The thing that stood out to
me the most about all of their proposals and then
the one that they have ultimately voted on today. You
mentioned it briefly, flattened odds. That's to me, like, if
you're lessening the odds for the worst teams, that's one
way to say it. I'm gonna say it the other way.
You're increasing the odds for the teams that aren't that bad,

(18:16):
And that is what's happening with flattening the odds. You're
gonna take these teams that are on the cusp, that
are already getting better, that did just draft one of
these caliber players like the Mavericks aren't even in the playoffs.
The Spurs just made the playoffs for the first time
and they got a player of that caliber, and their
odds of getting another one are better than the worst

(18:37):
teams because of those stupid odds. That's so dumb, that's
so counterproductive to what you're trying to accomplish here.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
And that's the thing. This is what happens when you
have dumb people in charge. I'm sorry, Adam Silber. He's
not in charge of this, no, but he is. Owners
are telling him this is what we want, and he
answers questions about it.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
He's still involved.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
He's involved, but they're the ones bringing the proposals up
and tweaking the proposals and voting on the proposals, saying
this is what we want for our thirty teams.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
And the watch and Rob Manfred he's the face of
whatever ends up happening. So he's trying to answers, well,
he's not going to do that, because he already proved
he wasn't going to do that, and then this came out.
That's so perfect the way you said that, though you've
got not quite the worst teams, but teams that were
the worst ones that theoretically got one of those top

(19:27):
three picks, and now they have a better chance of
getting another one than the actual worst teams, all for
the sake of we don't want you to tank, and
I get not wanting your league to be full of
teams that are tanking.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
Does the NFL tank? I really ask.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
It's harder for them because the players that are not.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Directly responsible as much for wins and losses individually like
an NBA player.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
No, they're going out there to win, and you, I mean,
how many of them can you look at? They don't
bench players. Let me put it that with.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
The Texan we're trying to win that game.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
When everybody here in Houston wanted them to lose against
the Colts, they could get the number one pick and
screw up their franchise and draft.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
Brice Young right, and Lovey Smith said to the team
right before they hit the left for Indianapolis on Saturday, goes, well,
here are our best players that I'm sitting today.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
No.

Speaker 3 (20:16):
No, actually didn't do anything, dude, he said, just here
are our players, and we're going to call plays and
we're gonna play it the way.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
So again, shouldn't you, you being the NBA, you being
Adam Silver, since he's the face of this, shouldn't you
be asking yourself why your teams aren't doing that, Why
your teams aren't approaching your game that way? Shouldn't that
be the biggest, most important question?

Speaker 3 (20:39):
It is, but it's just not the same. If the
NBA had had a twenty five game season, a thirty
five game season, we probably wouldn't see quite what we.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Do at games mean more and all that.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
But if you refuse to reduce the schedule too because
you're losing money, I know, always money, every as it
should be. It's a business, every single player that's in
the NBA, and then when you're talking about the higher
level players, it's even more so. What I'm getting at is,
I've got i gotta go out there and play. I've
really got to earn the money that's already guaranteed to

(21:10):
me for.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
The next four years. Not like that in the NFL.

Speaker 3 (21:13):
No, even players do have contracts for the upcoming year
or for the next two or three years, well it's
really only a one year deal because it's kind of
only just guaranteed through twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Only if you're Deshaun Watson. Can you say otherwise?

Speaker 3 (21:25):
Yeah, And quarterbacks are still not a fully guaranteed position,
and clearly no other positions are unless it's a really
short term deal, like essentially, Will Anderson signed a three
year guaranteed contract.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Listen, but it's a short term deal.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
I'm not gonna sit here and not be forthright, and honest,
I don't know what the solution is. So yes, I'm
just someone sitting in this chair with a microphone complaining
about something I'm not giving a solution for.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
But I know this ain't it.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
I do know that it seems like you could have
maybe changed next to nothing and then just said, well,
here are your lottery odds, and if you land in
the number one spot for the second consecutive year, we're
just gonna bump you back and we'll redo, and then
we'll pick again and pick again and again until we
land on the teams that are actually eligible for it.

(22:10):
And it might take, you know, the accounting firm to
sit in the room a little bit longer, but I
do think they're gonna see again the unintended consequences could
see a team that was a championship hopeful when the
year begins and their star misses forty games, and now
all of a sudden, they went forty six and thirty
seven or forty five and thirty seven, and they landed

(22:31):
in the nine spot and they got two lottery balls
out of that. I think it's thirty seven, and they
landed the number one pick or the number two pick.
And this super talented team now just got another super
talented player to go on the guy who super talented
team maybe in a super big market, to just bury
these other teams and owners who don't have that.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
You basically just describe the Pacers.

Speaker 3 (22:53):
It's a maybe who knows, Yeah, pacers are Well, they
didn't already say well, we're not interested in our pick
this year.

Speaker 1 (22:58):
They didn't. They didn't know, but I'd forget about that.

Speaker 2 (23:01):
But yeah, I just I mean, and again I say
that I don't have a solution. I said yesterday, I don't.
I don't hate just going back to slotting them by
based on record.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
And then there's a bunch of coin flips. That's how
the rock The.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Rockets got back to back Ralph and Hakeem with that
method of doing things.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
One of them was a transcended Wemby like talent, and
then he got they got two chances to get one
true which is now outlawed.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
And they could have also gotten Michael Jordan.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
They could have and which shows you it isn't always.
It's very infrequently in the NBA only about the number
one player in the draft, like Wemby's draft class. Is
he going to be the only player from that draft
class the wins at NBA title that was worth anything.
Probably not. It's possible, but it's not necessarily going to
be the case. And Anthony Edwards maybe his class might

(23:51):
have been worse, but obviously a Men Thompson is in
Wemby's draft class. You know, Evan Mobley's in Jalen Green's
draft class, and Cad Cunningham is. They don't have any
titles yet. Is somebody gonna win one for the I
don't know. Not happy, not happy.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
One little bit should infect the Rockets anytime soon, though hopefully,
I mean.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Well, it does affect them in the other side of things,
the Brooklyn picks and other picks, because they did it
did help them. What happened in this year's with this
year's a lot of results with the pick that they
have coming up in the future.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
All right, Best of X is next. I'm completely switch gears.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
This is NFL related, but it also is political related.
It's Wex's favorite thing that I do, mixing sports and politics.
I'll tell you about that for Best of X coming up.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
Next, the eighty time of day where we head on
over to social media and we find the best or
the worst depends on what we're talking about. I mentioned
before the break that I'm gonna do the most the
thing that Wex enjoys the most. So when I take
sports and then I mix politics into it, he just
loves it.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
He lives for it.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
It doesn't seem like best I want to see on
the rundown that you're the one doing it. That's true.
It happened, that is true. It's the people involved that
did it.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
See and if nothing else, I will say this about Wex,
he will always point out.

Speaker 1 (25:15):
The difference when it comes to that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
I mean, I can bring things into things and sometimes
that's how it goes, and then other times like this,
I was just an innocent bystander.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
I think that's what happened here. So here's the deal.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
You guys have probably heard that not only did Jackson
Dart introduce President Trump at an event in New York
last week, but the fact that Abdua Carter went absolutely
ape bleep about it on social media and tweeted it out.

(25:49):
And he's honestly the one that probably turned this into
things a little bit, you know, to go down this road.
I guess more than they would have been. I don't know,
I could be wrong. I just don't think that if
Jackson Dart had gone to this event, introduced President Trump
and went on about his business, I don't know how

(26:12):
big a deal it would have been. But the fact
that Abdul Carter went on to social media said I
thought this belief was AI what we doing man. That's
what made this a big thing. That's what blew well,
that's what made this a big thing.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
Publicly right, I would I don't know this publicly right, No,
I don't mean to.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
I'm saying Jackson Dart introduced to President Trump's public What
made people get involved in this discussion was the fact
that Abdul Carter brought it a teammate.

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Yes, I can't tell you unless he's already addressed it,
and I don't know that that he would not have
done something in the locker room anyway, because that's all
that he was saying. But he brought it to the
public's attention. We might have thought it. We're not in
there locker he is. He think he thought it, and
he told everybody what he thought. So absolutely, that's why

(27:05):
it became a public discussion of you know, you got
two teammates. Obviously they're they're all aiming for the same goal.
And he was very unhappy about it based on what
he posted.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
By the way, your narrative definition is going to come
into play here, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:19):
I mean it's going to come up every day. I mean,
the word gets used so often more than literally. Well,
it was used again today and I'm already forgetting where
it was. I'm sure it'll come to me soon, but
it became here. I don't know if the word was
used in his answer. I'll double check.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
After the the whatever you want to call it, the
explosion on social media.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
You said he exploded, and then you just gave our
listeners his very extensive seven word post.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Well, go to the post and read the comments.

Speaker 3 (27:51):
Though it became viral, he didn't he didn't really explode.
It was just extremely highly seen and discussed. Well, it
definitely had a slant to it. Yeah, he was upset
about it. Yeah, got this bleep? Was ai?

Speaker 1 (28:05):
What were doing? Man?

Speaker 2 (28:07):
Then after all the blow up, he comes back and says,
me and JD six are good. We spoke earlier as men.
Y'all can keep y'all narratives.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Well that's the thing right then and there, we can
keep what It would have not been anything for us
to keep if you didn't say something publicly on social media.
Just what did he say in the second post? We
talked about it like men, which you might have already
planned on doing.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
Just leave it at that, or we wouldn't know anything
about it. I don't even say it at all, Just
go speak.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
We would have been left with, I wonder if there
are people in his locker room that don't really agree
with him standing up there and introducing him, and we
probably would think, I'm not really wondering. I guarantee you
there are people in his locker room, maybe a lot
of people in it, and they'll take care of it.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, just like there is a lot of people in
his locker room that don't care at all and maybe
even supported it. Like that's the other side that you
never hear about because everybody's so busy squawking about the
one side of things.

Speaker 3 (29:02):
Well, it's also it's not everybody's not tied to their
in this current era, tied to their political beliefs strictly
by the color of their skin or their background. But
a lot of people are. As they fill you in,
they tell you what they think, and that yeah, there
are a lot of people that are. And their locker
room clearly is like every NFL locker room. If you

(29:25):
put all of the people on a scale, and you
put a certain group of people on one side and
the other group of people on the other side, just
based strictly on the color of their skin. The side
the darker side, the other people are basically going to
be on a trampoline on the other side how far
they're going to be.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Thrown so in that vein Mike Garafallo. Giants quarterback Jackson
Dart addressed teammates in a meeting yesterday to discuss his
wait for it, introduction of President Trump blast week, sources

(30:01):
tell me and Ian Rappaport other team leaders spoke up
as well, and Dart and the players worked through it.
They are moving forward what did they work through.

Speaker 1 (30:15):
I'm dying.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
I'll tell you, in my opinion, this is what it is.
This is we're not telling you not to support him,
even though we don't. And obviously most people think, well,
if I don't support him, I'd like for most people
not to. But more about all, he probably could have
avoided all of what should, in your mind be nothing.
And that's a perfectly reasonable standpoint to have on this.

(30:37):
Hey man, just a few guys knew, or if I've
told a few guys are center out a group text,
I'm introducing him, and it's gonna go. And here, this
is just something I'm doing. He could add whether he
supports him or not. I assume that he does. He
could tell them that he could not tell them that
they could already know they could not care. But I
think maybe not having not knowing anything about it, and

(30:59):
then taking theos, taking what they feel is obvious and
getting super upset about it when they don't really know
the obvious. Oh look at this guy, this guy from
our locker room, who probably knows we don't like the
president is supporting the president. Great, this is gonna be awesome.
Come on back, let's go do some practicing. Well, maybe
that's not what he thinks, and maybe they shouldn't have

(31:20):
taken that route. Maybe they need to discover well, it's
okay for him to feel this way. Like that's the
other part of it. I mentioned the difference in skin color.
There's ninety people in this locker room. Do you think
they all share the same beliefs on anything? No, ninety
to nothing.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
No.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
I also think this is hilarious in light of not
just let's just go with Josh Jacobs yesterday, regardless of
whether you think that.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
God, that wasn't best of X today, why the other
person involved and her video message?

Speaker 1 (31:55):
Oh yeah, yeah that, Or let's.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Just take Mike Vrabel and Dieanna Russini, Like what's more
of a distraction those two things to a football team?
I mean, what do you think is more likely, I
guess to be a distraction those two things or this,
which is a nothing burger?

Speaker 1 (32:12):
As Jeff Passon would say.

Speaker 3 (32:13):
I think at this point I didn't think it would
ever become a discration, Like how bad would it have
to be unless he's really like, if you've got somebody
in the locker room who is pushing some sort of agenda,
I don't know why they would be that you're not.
You're there to play football and bond and you know,
I'm I've got your back, You've got mine.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
I blocked for you.

Speaker 4 (32:31):
You do this.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
I do my job.

Speaker 5 (32:32):
You do.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
It's just a vibe in there where it's rare where
you have issues in the locker room, and it's common
that your locker room does not agree on politics, very common.

Speaker 1 (32:46):
So don't talk about them.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
No, it's just it doesn't have to be some sort
of rift that ruins your ability to win.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
And it won't be.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
And I don't think that Jackson Darth thought that this
would become this. But again I think that, you know, Abdul,
that tweet is what made it something, not him introducing
the president, because if it's about introducing the president, we
can go down the list of all these. I mean,
Chris Paul did it with with Obama in twenty fourteen.
Nobody said anything. Did he have to address his teammates,

(33:15):
you know, none of that. Oh, but that's different. Why
why is it different? It's only different in the numbers,
likely numbers. I mean, again, I'm trying not to say
that it's a fact, but obviously the numbers do back
it up numbers the number of people in the New
York Giants locker room that support both Jackson Dart his

(33:36):
presumed political beliefs and our current president, versus the number
of people in or percentages in Chris Paul's locker room
that support Chris Paul and his introduction and or support
of Barack Obama.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Is that a skin color thing too, or is it
just a political thing?

Speaker 3 (33:50):
Well, it's probably I don't know. It's hard for me
to dive in. It's really hard for me to dive
into this particular conversation because of my I know a
little bit more about a lot of other things than this. Like,
I don't my beliefs are are not strong enough for

(34:11):
me to create some wild argument about this. But I
do think that probably exists in some locker rooms, like
Chris Paul's dealing with eight people. I mean, if the
fourteenth and fifteenth player on the Flippers at the time, Yeah,
don't like that he did that? So what Yeah, does
Blake Griffin care? Does DeAndre Jordan care? I'm coming to

(34:32):
any of his teammates that are on the court care Well.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
I'm coming at this from a completely like two main
points is how as I approach things like this, and
this guy's response is one of them, because that's what
this is actually all about. Best of X, the fact
that this is an issue is absolute insanity. People need
mental health checks.

Speaker 1 (34:51):
That's me.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
That's one hundred percent me, Like, why is this a story?
And and the other thing is it's only one sided.
It's only one sided. And I'm talking about parties now,
I'm not talking about skin color or any of that
kind of stuff. Because if Jackson Dart had introduced Joe
Biden two years ago or whatever, there wouldn't have been
a peep about this, especially from abdual Carter. I guarantee it,

(35:15):
bet my mortgage on it, promise you. That's not a thing.
It's one sided every single time.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
I don't again, we don't have I don't have the
brain power, truthfully, Yeah, you do have this discussion.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
You're selling yourself short, all right, texans Ota. Speaking of
Wex's brain power, he was there with his notebook.

Speaker 1 (35:37):
We'll discuss next.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
Did you have to dust off the notebook today?

Speaker 3 (35:46):
First practice of the new season, basically rookie minicamp.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
No offense to.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
The majority of the players that were at this practice.
There were a handful of tryout players that didn't make
it here. This is the first practice of the new year.
It's a new notebook.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Oh okay, well, but I didn't know if like you
had a special holder for it when it's not in.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
Use, like no, Usually the day before I go out there,
I will say where did I put it? Is it
on this desk because there's under these papers? Is it
in this mail stack? Is it under the chair? Did
somebody move it? I went with a new one, and
it's not like it's a huge item. So well, considering
if it is as a real notebook, which means it's

(36:29):
got the paper you can flip over, the metal brads
or whatever it's it doesn't go on a stack of
other things. Flat, No, very easy to find. Most spiral
viral bound.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
L on the on the left side, though that's discriminating
against left handers like me.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
They do make them for the other side. It's stupid, hmm.
So it's discriminating if they make it on the side
for the majority of the planet. But it's stupid if
they offer you the alternative that you're asking for.

Speaker 2 (37:01):
Options, c use the one without the spirals? Oh yeah,
those are made too, not stupid, great item either way.
Talk about what you wrote down, yeah, I mean most
of what I wrote down was just trying to keep
up with the questions asked of Tamiko.

Speaker 1 (37:16):
Ryans and c J.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
Stroud and Jalen Petrie and Kamari last year I think
were the first group of people we had a chance
to talk to but did actually see what they were
doing on the field, and it's real work. No eleven
on eleven, no pads, just T shirt and shorts and
helmets for most players. Everybody that was participating, super high attendance.
There were a couple of players that were not in attendance,

(37:38):
but I don't know the reason why, and then I
seriously doubt it was anything of consequence, and I one
hundred percent sure it was not contract related. Two of
the players that were not there both got new deals
this offseason, so it definitely was not anything like that.
In the Texans have been remarkably free of that for
their entire existence. There have been a couple of extremely

(37:58):
short and non substances contract disputes between the team and
their players. I mean, heck, Dante Robinson's was the biggest
one off he see Rick, he Abdul cartered his shoes.
So I mean that's there's been an Andre Johnson one,
a DeAndre Hopkins one, and that's for the most part,
that's about where it lasted. Number fifty one was out there.

(38:19):
It's it's impossible, and multiple people talked about it, and
we'll get to that sound a little bit later.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
It's impossible to practice.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
When he's on the field, he's dominated, he's unbelievable, and
again without the ability to truly maybe grapple the way
you'd want to as an offensive lineman, it makes it
even more difficult to stop him. But blowing up plays
and getting obvious sacks, we saw it all all morning
long when he was out there with the ones. Still
just the three quarterbacks on the roster, no change to

(38:47):
that same three they had throughout last year.

Speaker 1 (38:49):
CJ.

Speaker 3 (38:50):
Davis Mills and then Graham Mertz getting the third string reps.
Got to see David Montgomery on the field for the
first time. The two newcomers that are expected to start
on the tech offensive line, we're both out there and practicing.
For the most part, Braden Smith got very little work,
as did Trent Brown behind him. I think he actually
left practice early and then came back, and then Wyatt

(39:10):
Teller starting on the interior, both of them out there
and working at Ingram recently re signed and out there,
and I'll give you a little look at what we
saw from Jackson Rutledge and their new tight end room.
Very very different with three players who were not contributors
last year, either because they weren't here or they were hurt.
So a few things to get into a couple of spots.

(39:30):
In this three o'clock hour, we will jump back in
on the Texans. We'll open up the hour with one
important note about the Astros win last night that we
did not discuss at the open of the show. We'll
do that first at three.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
The eight fuck Hour is underway here on a Thursday
edition of the program Sports Talk seven to ninety SCCHN
simulcast underway. He's wex I Mac talked about a lot
of Astros, baseball and NBA basketball in that first hour.
New draft, new three to two one NBA draft lottery

(40:06):
to be employed. We'll probably get to more of that
as the afternoon goes on. We'll definitely hear from Commissioner
Adam Silver.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Also talked about the fact that well Jordan Alvarez is
on another planet right now.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
He's an absolute heater. He is a heater. He's not
on a heater. He is a heater. And the Astros
beating the Rangers again last night, looking to take three
out of four in the finale tonight before they return
home after this long, long road trip. And you mentioned
there was one thing we did not get to in
an entirety of the first hour about the Astros win

(40:41):
last night.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
Yeah, first thing before that, you mentioned this long road
trips coming to an end, and it's the last such
long road trip of the season for the Astros. Two
ten game road trips within the first fifty eight games
of the season. Tonight's game fifty eight as they close
out this second ten game road trip seven games under
five hundred heading into play tonight. Essentially the reason their

(41:04):
season isn't in first place is they had an awful
ten game road trip to start the year. They won
one time, had an eight game losing streak. Their season
went out of control on one to ten day stretch,
basically eleven days. They were five and two when they
left Houston, they were six and eleven when they returned.

(41:25):
They were able to beat Colorado two out of three. Okay,
everything's fine now. Then the lost four in a row again.
But that one and nine road trip, with the eight
game losing streak, with their inability to keep the other
teams from scoring as they ascended or descended to the
worst pitching staff in baseball. It all came because of
that road trip. Eleven runs allowed, twelve runs allowed, losing

(41:45):
a game in extra innings when you scored nine runs,
nine runs, nine runs, eight runs, over and over and
over again, just destroyed. They headed into play today for
the first time, I believe since that road trip, not
thirtieth in era in Major League Baseball, Hey, twenty ninth.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
And Mike Burrows.

Speaker 3 (42:03):
That was the other thing. That was the tease. We
did not mention. They got seven. This is why you're here.
Innings out of Mike Burrow and that Burrows and now
you've seen that twice recently. In between it was more
of the same. I can't keep the ball in the yard.
I'm walking too many hitters. But he walked one batter.
He really had no troublesome innings after the first. He

(42:24):
obviously gave up an additional run after the first, but
he just kind of I was considering whether or not
they were considering does he even go back out for
the eighth. I don't think there was any debate about
the seventh whereas pitchcount was and how he was mowing
through hitters. And obviously they did go to the bullpen
in the eighth inning, and after Brian King said let's
make this a one run game, they got anield Losantos

(42:45):
out there for a five out save.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Basically, the only blemish of this entire series is that
they've resurrected the corpse of Jack Peterson.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
What is this guy doing hitting three home runs in
two games? What they might be doing is getting him
out of Arlington. If he has a more of what
he did done to the Astros in these couple of games,
they're moving him.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Yeah, I guess something for him. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
I mean, he's not a very good player and he
really should only be dhing, but and he's fat. He's
in a couple of balls over the fence against the Astros,
and obviously in yesterday's game, which turned into a one
run game, it mattered and luckily the Astros had yard
on Alvarez. But I do think it's not clearly only
about seven innings, two runs for Burrows. That that's great
and definitely means you should win that day. But I

(43:30):
think that was the best he's thrown. The ball definitely
went where he wanted it to pretty much the entire game,
and even on one of the home run that he allowed.
I actually think that's where he wanted it, and I
don't know if he addressed it after the game. It
just you know, the player can be ready for a
pitch you want to throw, and if they are, and
they're on it, and that's what's going to happen. It's
happened to him too much. And his season long numbers

(43:52):
are still poor, and they're not flukish. He's had way
more poor starts than good starts. But just look at
how you perform as team overall when you're getting more
of these starts up and down your rotation than not.
The ace of the staff is pitching today. And in
two of the three games of this series, your starter
has basically won you the game. I don't know what

(44:12):
the other what you've scored that day, but if your
starter gives you six no hit innings and then your
starter gives you seven innings with two runs, you win.
You should win that game. They have won you the
game the other game you gave away. Yeah, you've had
very few of those starts over the most of this month. Okay,
so we've gotten the good news out of the way, right,

(44:33):
what's the bad news?

Speaker 2 (44:35):
You're not having a season next year? Why not the
Major League Baseball side of things, yea.

Speaker 3 (44:42):
Yesterday yesterday I said we should have a it's not
even really a counter I think they already had their
proposal ready. MLBPA gave their proposal to the Major League
Baseball yesterday and we ran through some of the parameters.
We think the least paid, lowest paid players on the
team need to double their salary. We've got to some
competitive taxes to get teams up to one fifty on

(45:04):
their payroll. And the counter proposal, essentially the first proposal
from the Major League Baseball side, was sent on over
Curry eared over on a bicycle.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
What did the PA have to say? That's an upgrade
from a pigeon?

Speaker 2 (45:17):
All right, Baseball has gotten stronger because we listened to
the fans. I want to stop right there, because I
pointed that out yesterday that when the Players Association came
out with their proposal The immediate response from Kaplan, what's
his first name, Greg, George whatever?

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Said, you know he.

Speaker 2 (45:39):
Mentioned the fans, I think twice in his counter.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
As we've gone through this two days worth, and there's
a lot more days to come, one hundred and eighty
seven of them. Yeah, plus then a season, then the
CBA will expire. I'm getting like a vibe from someone's
just won the contest. You are major League Baseball's number one.
And here's how we're gonna celebrate you. Here's the PA.

(46:05):
They're on your left. Hold out your left arm. They're
gonna grab it. Here's major League Baseball on your right side.
They're gonna grab that arm too. Hold your arm out. Now,
you do nothing, and they're just gonna pull as hard
as they.

Speaker 1 (46:15):
Can, oh, very hard. And they are whose side? Are
you on a fan? You're you're you're with us?

Speaker 5 (46:21):
No?

Speaker 1 (46:21):
No, no, you're with us. I said, listen to you.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
I've already changed my mind after one day, I said,
smarter them to say this. They're both gonna say it, yep,
and they're gonna make the fans even more.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
Disenfranchised.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
We get a third group of people together, the fans.
Do we need a spokesman fat fans.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Nobody speaks for us but us. What do you guys
really want? Who's lying? All right? So I'll start over.

Speaker 2 (46:44):
Baseball has gotten stronger because we listened to the fans
and made necessary changes on the field, like the pitch
clock to quicken the games, and abs challenged to get
the most important calls right. And they didn't mention that
they left a gift runner out there off some gimmick
COVID thing.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
They didn't that.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
The biggest issue we need to solve next to continue
to grow the game off the field is fixing the
payroll disparity unseen in any other major US sport.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
Ultimately, the game is about hope and competition, and too
many fans in too many markets have too little hope
their team has a fair chance to win. Fans overwhelmingly
support a salary cap and floor like in the other
leagues because they don't believe a four hundred and forty
six million dollars spending gap from top to bottom is
a fair fight. Also true, our salary cap and floor

(47:37):
proposal levels the playing field while sharing baseball revenue with
the players fifty to fifty. As we grow the game together,
so funny. Further, by sharing media revenue equally as part
of our proposal, we can address another top fan concern
of local TV blackouts.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
This is so delicious. We look forward to.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Working with the MLBPA during the bargaining process to continue
improving the game for the fans.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
End of quote. Now.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
Evan Drelik tweeted this out with basically the cliffs notes
bullet points here twenty twenty seven CAP two hundred and
forty five point three million, floor one seventy one point two.
That's a significant increase from one point fifty. As you mentioned,
was the Players Association yesterday fifty to fifty split revenues

(48:30):
more to come. They're not having a season in twenty
twenty seven, So.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
Let me let me make sure I heard some of
the things correctly, and our our listeners did as well.
You said there was a I think you said.

Speaker 2 (48:38):
Four one hundred and forty six million dollars spending gap
from top to bottom, and I don't.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Think that's a fair fight. I don't think that. I
don't know where they're I could be wrong. I don't
have numbers from so what they're saying is the highest
spending team spends four hundred and forty six million more
than the lowest spending team. Does that make any sense
to you?

Speaker 5 (48:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (48:59):
I don't understand that language at all. Just lowest spending team.
Let's put it at seventy five million, Okay, it's probably
in that neighborhood for the Marlins.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
Maybe it's seventy eight seventy. Sure, you told me that
Astro spent twenty five ten years ago.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Yeah, but that's just insane to me. That's like, did
they even turn the lights on?

Speaker 1 (49:15):
Anyway?

Speaker 3 (49:16):
I apologize. So let's say it's seventy five million for
the Marlins. Maybe it's sixty. I think it's more like
seventy five. So if we add four forty five to that,
we're way over five hundred million. Nobody's spending five hundred million.
No one's spending four hundred and fifty million. I think
that it's because they've deferred it all. It's just it's
not accurate. I'm misunderstanding what they're trying to say. And
when you're talking about this in front of the fan,

(49:37):
here's what we're saying, and we want you on our side,
you're with us, Well, the figures have to be a
little if they're this far out of way back lie,
So I'm not sure if I'm just missing something there.
And I think the midpoint is right where the players
put it, one hundred and fifty million. I think roughly
half the teams are under that and half the teams

(49:58):
are over that. It really is not a huge difference.
If you go to one seventy five, I think it
makes another three or four teams drop under that figure.
You know, a bunch of them would have no problem
getting there, but a bunch of other teams would have
a lot of trouble getting there. I think we may
have as many as ten teams spending about one hundred
and five or one hundred and ten or less. Now
you're saying you gotta get fifty more, sixty more million

(50:18):
on your books. Starting in twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
The number one.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
Team in total payroll is the Mets, followed close well,
I say closely. It's all relative sure by the Dodgers.
But it's three hundred and thirty four million, right.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Those are the numbers I was seeing, So that's I mean,
they're not even close, so I must missing something, and the.

Speaker 2 (50:40):
Dodgers are just they're like three hundred point five. But
so bab this guess. This guy says the same thing,
the one that's providing this list. He says, I'm pro
cap and floor, but these numbers seem off. Currently nine
teams would be compliant. Nine it's just they're not having
a season.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
Again, that's the ownership group saying we want more of
our ownership group to spend money. So we're gonna tell
these guys you got to spend much, much, much more money,
even though there's a cap on what we can all
spend together the overall spending, would it go down or
would it go up? Would the players get more money
or would they get less money?

Speaker 2 (51:14):
And by the way, this is a good point. Let's
say they agree on a two hundred and forty five
million dollar hard cap. Does that go into effect immediately?
How it teams reduce revenue if they have agreed upon
contracts with players.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
What a mess.

Speaker 3 (51:26):
I'm sure they've got all this figured out to start.
It is just the beginning of it all. We will
have all of your necessary updates over the next eighteen months.
I hope it's only six months, but we will see
a little yord on Alvarez slander, I think everybody in
Arlington knew what they were watching with yord On Alvarez,
not only last night, but the night before and pretty
much this whole season, well except for one rather important person.

Speaker 1 (51:48):
Who's that that's next the eighteen WEX.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
What's one of your favorite yord On Alvarez postseason home
runs in twenty twenty two that happened against the Seattle Mariners.

Speaker 3 (52:01):
Uh, the one that had Scott Servis visiting the mound
and requesting Robert Ray to get onto it and throw
a baseball towards home plate.

Speaker 1 (52:11):
And Robert Ray throws with what hand left.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
It's interesting seeing as how we're going to discuss that
topic this segment. How would you rate or assess Skip
Shoemaker's brief tenure as manager costume wearer of the Texas Rangers.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
I think he's like most managers. He costumes up when
it's below the waist and then he goes with the
managerial T shirt on top. So he's only just about
out his forty five fifty five percent costumed spikes and everything.
But it's rare. But I think this is pretty definitive.
Bruce Bochie managed them last year. Yes, they downgraded. I

(52:56):
don't really even care how good a skip shoemaker might
end up being. They absolutely downgraded. He's an outstanding top
five manager of the of this generation.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
Could they have hired where it wouldn't have been a
down Ye.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
Yeah, it has nothing to do with the skipper who's
now their skipper, But that's where they are.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
I mean, I think he's okay.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
I don't think it was a bad hire, but they're
not better because of it.

Speaker 2 (53:18):
By the way, you bring up a very interesting point.
The spikes really.

Speaker 3 (53:22):
Most of the time, so a lot of especially pitching coaches,
especially Bruce Bochie, he was definitely not wearing spikes on
his I can't imagine how much this hurts. While he's
walking out to the mound, he's almost there, almost almost.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
Just wheel him out there, almost gosh.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
Yeah, he's not the wearing sneakers for the most part,
I would hope. So, yeah, he was there managing last
night for the Arrangers. Well, what did you make of
some of his late game decisions?

Speaker 1 (53:54):
I mean, I don't know what what was he supposed
to do?

Speaker 2 (53:58):
That's a good point. That's a good point. Do you
think at this point you've seen Scott Servis go to
Robert Ray. You've seen Skip Schoemaker go to a lefty lout.
You've seen a countless manager say, well, we're gonna go
with a little lefty on lefty violence.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
That'll definitely Outsmart.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Jordan Alvarez, the immaculate hitter when he's healthy, There's nobody
that he'd rather see than a left handed pitcher coming
out of that bullpen, because he's going to annihilate whatever
they throw up there, you know, basically masquerading as a
good pitch, he's going to turn it into an absolute meatball.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
I mean, there's an element of that that's true, but
really it doesn't I know, for the sake of our discussion,
he's the A lot of managers have brought in lefties
to face him, specifically.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
It hasn't worked out very well. No, not for them. Yeah,
it smarts out gray for Jordon and Astros. But this was, uh,
this was Shoemaker addressing that very topic following the Astros
one run win. I think this is the tenth one
run game the Rangers have lost this year.

Speaker 6 (55:14):
By the way, Albres is on a heater right now,
There's no doubt about it.

Speaker 5 (55:18):
He's burned us a few times. This year, we.

Speaker 6 (55:21):
Wanted to pitch him inside to kind of back him
off a little bit. We did that ball with balls,
and then we threw a three oh slider that wasn't
It wasn't a terrible pitch, but three oh slider didn't
want him to beat us if we walked him.

Speaker 5 (55:35):
We walked him.

Speaker 6 (55:36):
Yeah, hindsight, if maybe I should have walked him. It's
tough to walk the leadoff hitter, no doubt, with an
a tie game in the eighth inning.

Speaker 5 (55:44):
I don't know if I've ever done that before.

Speaker 6 (55:46):
The way he's hitting, hindsight always is you know, maybe
we should have just put him on at that point.
But the three oh slider was the way to try
to you know, we knew he was green light three
to zero.

Speaker 5 (55:57):
Try to get it off the barrel.

Speaker 6 (55:58):
Maybe, you know, something happens, he pops it up. I'm
not too sure how many guys hit a three to
zero homer left on left, and you know he did
it tonight.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
He's one of them.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
I know you're not I know you're not sure, but
you can be sure he's one of them. And the
part where he was like, I leadoff hitter, all that
kind it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
He has hit at a ten sixty three OPS against
right handed pitching. That is awesome, that's elite. Twelve of
his home runs have come against right handed pitching. All
those numbers are well first in baseball. Ten sixty three
OPS against right handed pitchers, that's the best, he said,

(56:41):
twelve of his twenty.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:43):
Well, he's got more at bats against right hand so, yeah,
he's number one in baseball with measuring by OPS when
a right hander's out there. We don't want to do that,
all right, good, good thinking. I like the way you think,
let's go ahead and send a lefty out there to
face yord On Alvarez. Well, his OPS goes up against
left handed pitching. It's it's not first in baseball, it's fourth.

(57:08):
Like we laugh when they bring in a lefty, we'd
laugh just as hard as they brought in alrighty.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
Yeah, now he is. It doesn't matter. He is a specimen.
And again the uh, the twenty home runs through the
first fifty seven games of a season, that's a club record.
And again there's been some good home run hitters on
this franchise. Okay, it's it's not a fluky thing. That

(57:35):
is not and he's like you said earlier, he's obliterating
all of his own paces.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Yeah, you bring that up.

Speaker 3 (57:42):
There was one other statistical figure for the Astros all
time that I thought heading into this year and watching
him earlier this year was wild, and I just never
brought it up. I think as you talk about the
pace he's on and obliterating his pace and numbers like that,
and yord On Alvarez's seasons as an Astro, and we
noted earlier in the show he's obviously missed some time.

(58:03):
He's had some seasons that were not what we would
call complete. The top home run hitting season in Astros
history is forty seven. It's one of seven forty home
run seasons in Astro's history. Bagwell has three of them,
Lance Berkman has two of them, Doggie has one of them,
and Alex Bregman has the other, the most recent one,

(58:24):
the only one since two thousand and six. Okay, well,
obviously Jordon Alvarez is not on that list. Then we
get to the rest of the top ten, technically top
eleven because four players are four seasons with thirty nine
or the next. Bagwell did it three times, including the
strike year and George Springer did it in twenty nineteen.
You gotta go another run down the list before you

(58:45):
get to Jordon Alvarez's best single season. Obviously all with
the Astros. He's not in the top ten with any
season he's had in his major league baseball career.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
Hashtag injuries. It's a big part of it.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
But even in his healthy seasons, he's played one hundred
and forty plus games with a thirty seven homer season,
he's out a thirty four and a thirty one.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
He's played a lot of baseball in those seasons.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
I do wonder how much of that had to do
with people intentionally walking him.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
I don't believe he's ever led the league in intentional
walk So you're really only talking about ten or twelve
or fourteen at bats. You might be talking a little
bit more about protection because it's not termed an intentional
walk when they throw four pitches that aren't hittable, but
the catcher didn't stand outside or as we do now,
hold four fingers.

Speaker 1 (59:29):
Up, so performative.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
He's definitely in line for all of this. He's not
just in line to finally crack the top ten. He's
going from outside the top ten to number one. With
the way he is hitting, He's on his way to
having the best offensive season in Astros history. And it's
why I have already long since dubbed him the best
hitter that's ever put on an Astros uniform.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
That's not unfair. I don't think he's.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Played enough baseball where there's I don't know what kind
of argument you could make. You've got some good stuff
from Jose Altuve in the postseason that augments his unbelievable career. Here,
you've got Korea Springer, Bregman, Tucker Bagwell, Bigio, anybody else,
Asar Sadanyo, Jimmy Whin, anybody you want to say. Some
of them are more home run hitters than not, some
of them more average hit or some of them are

(01:00:16):
accumulation of counting stats.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Nobody's like this guy.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
I mean, moist as ALUs should be in the conversation
for just the best pure hitter, and he had a
monster season or two. Jordon's better than everybody in my opinion,
and it's already decided.

Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
Thanks for thanks for that, Dodgers, no kidding, I mean,
just just a blessing, Just a Dodger's blessing. Wearing orange
here in Houston. Technically he's in Arlington. One more game.
I love they love to see him coming him and
al tuve alto. They owns that gym, by the way.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
And it is it's definitely already to the point you
mentioned his last at bat, they decided not to pitch
to him.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Were you waiting for?

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Because of what else is there? That was a night
where Esak Perettis was only used as a pitch hitter.
He was bumped up to the tool hole. So Christian
Walker provides him protection as the number three hitter, and
Walker's obviously picked it up here on this road trip
a little bit, so there is some protection.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
At some point it doesn't even matter.

Speaker 3 (01:01:11):
But it's nice that the Astros pretty much this year
have felt good about those hitters hitting behind him. And
remember they bumped him down to three when Peretis was
in the tool hole for some time, and they may
go back to that. I like that he saw so
many pitches and it was just brilliant. It worked out
sometimes it works out really well during a broadcast radio
or TV TV side. In this instance, you know, TK

(01:01:34):
and Julia and Jeff were talking about and they had
the graphic up how many of his home runs were
hit in his first at bat, or his second at bat,
or his third at bat in a game, oftentimes seeing
the same pitcher each time, or certainly a different part
of the game. He already had eight home runs in
his second at bat when they put the graphic up
before his second at bat, and he hit went over

(01:01:54):
the fence. Having seen him in your first at bat,
having gottenn intel from all the other hitters who faced him,
having spent time as the designated hitter, So you're on
the bench of the whole game looking things over, making adjustments.
He makes them and crushes pitches when he sees them
the more he sees them. So maybe seeing a few
more pitches before even at bat number one, because partis
is batting in front of you and you're providing in protection,

(01:02:16):
is something they would consider doing a little bit more of.
Moving forward, we'll check in on the line up here
in a bit and get you set for the finale
of the ten game road trip and the four game
set with the team in Arlington as the Astros try
to take three of four from them. As we continue
next up, is it the end for the San Antonio
Spurs at home in front of their adoring fans. Is

(01:02:38):
it all coming to a crashing end tonight?

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
Yes? Good tease.

Speaker 3 (01:02:42):
You already have your answer from one of us.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
You know, we were talking about Jordan Alvarez being on a
heater right now? What's an anti heater referred to as
a cold streak?

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
One of his former teammates. Which one's that?

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
The one that played first base before Christian Walker? Oh,
that's mean he's on an ubrall you. So, Adam Silver's
on an U brall you now right now? Well, let's
see if can we create our brave you of mass proportions.
I mean, I don't want to crush anybody locally, but
is there an NBA or that you would a bray
you treatment? Since he's this is the NBA commissioner, What's

(01:03:25):
what's he rolling? What's he rolling on right now? What
NBA players? What bricklayer? What mistake maker?

Speaker 1 (01:03:31):
What?

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
I can't believe this guy anymore? Probably a noteworthy player,
but someone who can't play that's tough, like who just
completely lost it?

Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
What if it's somebody who was awesome in the regular
season then went completely during in the postseason.

Speaker 3 (01:03:46):
Wow, you just James hardened him. Well, maybe he shouldn't
have been playing that poorly.

Speaker 1 (01:03:50):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:03:50):
We talked about Silver a little bit earlier. They've pushed
through this lottery reform, this anti tanking reform, and we
are possibly eight and a half hours away from having
our NBA Finals matchup set. The New York Knicks are
going to be NBA champions or the thunder or Spurs
are going to be NBA champions. As we head into
the parade season, the draft season, and the draft is

(01:04:12):
unchanged this year, and NBA free agency and the Summer
League and everything else that takes place. But those three things,
first three things there This month free agency negotiating window
is this June. This next month feels like we're already there.
We're on the twenty eighth of May, so all that
stuff is happening immediately. What questions was he asked about

(01:04:35):
this particular series. Apparently we have talked about it more
than I wished we had, And I definitely think Game
five flipped me a little bit. The officiating and the
foul they're foubating the officials into calling it as much
as they're foulbating these players to getting too close to
them to have no foul being called. Just it's it's
not pleasing to the eye. These guys are so unbelievably

(01:04:57):
talented at putting the ball in the basket and preventing
teams from putting the ball in the basket. So just
do that. Just give us that play great team defense,
run a great fast break, take wide open shots because
you threw five passes on that set. Don't fall down
and look at the referee all game long.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Stop being so Canadian while doing it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
It gets It's not restricted to just one guy, or
even just one team, but this particular team is at
the fourth.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Discriminate against the Canadians. By the way, I just want
everybody to know that. Do you like Dylan Yeah, well
he didn't play for the Rockets anymore, so I go
back to discriminating.

Speaker 3 (01:05:34):
Send me into some Adam Silver sound all right, Well, if.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
You don't believe that he is completely delusional on officiating,
just listen to him.

Speaker 7 (01:05:42):
I would only say that there's a difference between selling
a call exaggeration and a true flop, which is where
you're actually fooling the referees. I think sometimes even as
I sit in the stands at games. Players may be
falling down, players may be reacting to a call. But
then to me, if they're not fooling the referees, it's like, okay,
that's like the players are taught to sell calls these days.

(01:06:03):
I mean, can officiating get bad? Can officiating get better?
Of course, we're always working on that. Ken officials get
fooled occasionally, we're always looking at as well. But the
officiating is incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:06:16):
Oh wait a minute, wait a minute, let me hear
that last part again, because I think something happened to
our system.

Speaker 7 (01:06:23):
The officiating is incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
Did he get did it break? Did we just have?
Did our power go out? Honestly, you cut out him up,
You cut it out?

Speaker 3 (01:06:31):
What happened? He thinks the officiating is incredible, and we
don't get to hear.

Speaker 2 (01:06:35):
Him say that that last part you just replayed is
the second most offensive thing, he said. Can you do
me a favor and just play the first like five
to seven seconds of what he said again?

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Absolutely, that's what I'm here for.

Speaker 7 (01:06:47):
I would only say that there's a difference between selling
a call exaggeration and a true flop, which.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
No, there's not. They're the same exact thing.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
If you're selling a call, you're flopping because the act
of selling in and of itself dictates you're not actually
being contacted as badly as you would like the official,
who's stupid, by the way.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
To believe. I think you're you're acting.

Speaker 3 (01:07:14):
I understand that, but you I don't think you can
list any great player and say they don't do that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
They all do that, right, Well, everyone needs it's a
league wide problem.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
Well no, it's a foul, and you want to make
sure the official didn't miss it because you don't believe
they're any good.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
We're going to how do you like that? That's really
nasty work.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
We're going to get to something that another prominent NBA
media member said, and then we're going to make fun
of that person by using evidence contrary to what he
was trying to say.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
We'll do that a little bit later.

Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
You don't have to say evidence contrary to what he said.
That's what I would do. You would say receipts. That's
actually true, thanks, we have receipts. Well, I was trying
to be more uh wexy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Yeah, people. I think people probably think I takalk too much.

Speaker 3 (01:08:00):
I just say a lot more words than are necessary,
Like I could just say receipts.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
I don't talk too much. It just takes me too
long to get to what I'm trying to say, dumb.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Instead of just saying, hey, look it's Kim Kardashian, I
would say, oh, look it's Robert Kardashians, moms, Bruce Jenner,
I could just say who it is.

Speaker 1 (01:08:18):
I love it when you do that, though. That's funny.

Speaker 2 (01:08:21):
Now, one thing he did say that is interesting to me,
if for no other reason, then I actually think after
this litany of trash, just garbage, bleep juice ideas he
has spewed out in the last forty eight hours, whether
it be annihilating the lottery and making it worse, where
the consequences we haven't even foreseen are going to probably

(01:08:43):
be They're going to level his league.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
That's what's gonna happen. I'm just gonna say it. What
was the beginning of the end lottery reform? Lottery reform?

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
Sure, but again he's had some bad ideas, and he
had another one just now that you heard this. Contrary
to what I think a lot of people think, I
think I might be in the minority here. I think
using AI to make certain calls in the NBA.

Speaker 7 (01:09:10):
I think that's a great idea, and I think where
just like you know, if you're a tennis fan and
they have what they call Hawkeye and it's like the
animation and you quickly see you know where the line
was and oo's and as of the crowd and touch
the line or was out of bounds. We're going to
move to a system like that where that whole category
of calls will be automatic. Those calls will be done

(01:09:32):
by an AI automated system with cameras lined around the court,
and it'll take all of those so called objective calls
out of the hands of the referees.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
What could go wrong? Get terminators out there.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
I'm not smart. I'm not a smart man, Adam. You're
trying to figure out how they're going to do it.
I don't know what calls he's talking about. Out of
bounds plays, which so you're there's going to be bang bang,
especially if you're reviewing it. Well, I can envision the
cameras recognizing, YEP, confirm the ball in fact did cross
this line, it's out of bounds. I'm struggling with did

(01:10:06):
it go off Chet's foot or Wemby's fingertip. Yeah, no,
I guess this is the only part of the call
where you're having trouble with Kurr. You're having to actually
debate the block charge. I'm not sure how AI is
going to fix that, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
But since you asked, don't you think AI would do
a better job than these jamokes. They have employees officials
because they haven't figured it out in like sixty years.

Speaker 3 (01:10:29):
Followed through from yesterday's conversation, Tyler Ford official number three,
James Williams Official number two, and Zach Zarba is tonight's
crew chief.

Speaker 2 (01:10:39):
So that means that the extend start. Well, you can't
extend a game seven, it's do or die. That means
Scott Foster will be saved for a pivotal Game three
in New York when the Thunder have a two to
zero lead.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
Oh, you could be back for Game seven of this series.

Speaker 1 (01:10:57):
Well, yeah, but he's not gonna be the extender. If
he's there for that, then.

Speaker 3 (01:10:59):
We can continue the unnecessary debate and act like, well,
is he the extender.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
Or is he the execution SGA is gonna have nineteen
free throws and the Spur season will will end in
a twenty point loss on their home floor.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
This, I can assure you will actually analyze the basketball.
We will talk about the game that is being played
tonight and adjustments that need to be made and someone
who needs to step up for both teams. A little
bit later here on the show. Back to the football field. Next,
how CJ. Stroud feeling about his contract situation. We'll hear
from him on that. Next the eighteen on oh Man.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Real quick before we get to the OTAs.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
In twenty fourteen, the Thunder aggressively lobbied other teams to
vote against anti tanking rules. Now that they've completed their
multi year tank and it no longer suits them to
lose on purpose, they voted to install tanking rules.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
Funny how that works.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
Do we know who didn't because it obviously was pushed
through Memphis Grizzlies. Okay, they're the only same team out
there apparently, which is a shock to me.

Speaker 1 (01:12:10):
They run their team quite poorly.

Speaker 2 (01:12:11):
Yeah, but I mean, and again, as a team that
runs itself poorly, I'm sure they are.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
Opposed to not getting top picks.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
I just think there's so many unforeseen consequences that will
definitely be seen. I think they're going to absolutely all
rear their ugly heads and it's going to be a disaster.

Speaker 3 (01:12:29):
It's three years, it's not necessarily a trial period, but
it is in place for the twenty seven, twenty eight,
and twenty nine NBA drafts and any you know, we
hardly got into draft protections. You know, when teams are
making trades, it's protected to this point, protected at that point.
The Indiana Pacers protections this past year have been discussed

(01:12:50):
a lot because of how it did not work out
for them and that pick went to the Los Angeles Clippers.
But there's a bunch of other elements that just get
rammed into this new draft system that were executed prior
to being in place, and that's for some teams going
to be really tough to stomach and how they set

(01:13:10):
apart their future.

Speaker 1 (01:13:11):
This is what we want to do.

Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
These are the assets we've accumulated, and now they're not
necessarily could work out better, could work out worse, but
it certainly won't work out the way you intended it
to because some of the things have changed. So yeah,
well I'll try to get a little bit better handle
on this. Since the league has actually released all the
information on it, and there really isn't that much, so
it's probably not super complicated. But I haven't had a

(01:13:33):
chance to walk through all of that. Did have a
chance to go start working all my tan not a
cloud in the sky today over at the football practice field.
Nice Bass Wex, thanks man. Just getting started. Probably be
out there a couple more days next week, and the
week after and the week after. Take a little break
because I definitely don't do anything fun outside with the family,

(01:13:53):
But then the Texans will hook me up once again
with training camp and I'll be able to get.

Speaker 1 (01:13:57):
Back to work. Do they know you feel this way?
I mean we do.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
I mean we're probably not going to the beach. Maybe
we'll take a vacation.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
I don't know. That doesn't sound like fun for you.
I'll do it over there.

Speaker 3 (01:14:10):
Well, vacation is you're not supposed to work on vacation.

Speaker 1 (01:14:13):
You don't understand that concept.

Speaker 3 (01:14:14):
I can always try, you don't try very hard, not
very hard, all right, So anyways, you were out there today.
They did just again. It's nice to see where they
might line things up. I don't think there's much I
don't think anybody who's really questioning what Wyatt Teller and
Braden Smith are here for They're here to play, there
to start, and they are in that position as we
watch them go through some workouts today.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
Not much.

Speaker 3 (01:14:37):
Again, I don't think I'm telling you anything you didn't
already know. Demiico Ryans did comment on the center position.
Jake Andrews was out there today and did not expect
it to be otherwise, nor did anybody else. But he
did sound pretty clear when he talked about the situation
that it sounded much more like an open competition from
his comments on it, and I think that's exactly what
they should be doing based on who he was, how

(01:14:59):
he played, and hopefull maybe he's got a little bit
better season and him if he's in fact the starting center,
if he's healthy, because I think that definitely impacted him.
But there's a possibility that we'll see Rutledge over there
Kieln Ruttledge on the field in front of us for
the first time. It was day two of OTAs for them,
but the media did not get the invite for day one.
We got the invite for day two, so we were
out there after they've already gone through a lot of
what they did today. He was working on the interior

(01:15:22):
where he played at Georgia Tech. They had a little
bit of a mix with Trent Brown and Braiden Smith
at one of the tackle spots on the right side.
Obviously Tay Ursery handling things. On the other side, Blake
Fisher actually got more work than either one of them
at right tackle, and that I think they're cognizant of
the where both Trent Brown and Braden Smith are in

(01:15:43):
their careers, and.

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
I think that had a little bit to do with it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:47):
When we play later, what people had to say about
will Anderson Junior, not his contract, how he plays, you'll
hear about it, and I'll tell you here he was
going up against Blake Fisher during most of that. Dimiko
Ryans was one thing of I thought it was interesting
for our listeners to hear before we get to CJ
just about how his three years have gone, and does
he look at and think of how I could have

(01:16:08):
done this, or maybe I should have done that, or
could have gone about things a little bit differently, And
he got into a little bit of reflection over his
first three years. Remember, Demiko always says one thing when
he's into the next season, that season's over with there's
no carryover. We're not building off that momentum. We start
anew every year in all common ways. But this is

(01:16:29):
what he said about his three years there.

Speaker 8 (01:16:30):
Initially I could have asked for a better and a
three year start. So everything is gone and way better,
and I could have ever hoped for him. So I'm thankful.
I'm blessed with the people that I get to work with.
It's this, I'm blessed, thankful for this opportunity and looking
to continue to grow it to make Houston a very

(01:16:50):
special place, which it is already. When we're trying to
do something very special here and we got the people
to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:57):
I can't argue with him when you consider that, even
though his tenure has been short itself, and the Texans
tenure as an existing franchise has been relatively short. I mean,
he obliterates all of his predecessors. Yeah, he's the jord
On Alvarez of Texans coach.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
Yes, that's a very good way to Is he on
a heater right now? Heater? Yeah, he's saying the obvious.
It's the best three year run in Texans history. He
happens to be the head coach of that run. They've
had some firsts with him, winning on the road for
the first time in the postseason when they had a
great fourth quarter against the Steelers to make that into
a lopsided affair. That was win number one on the

(01:17:35):
road in franchise history.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
For as long as they've been around, and everybody makes
the playoffs every couple of years in the NFL pretty much,
and they had not done that before. I do think
they have a very good group of players. I think
their roster is among the best. It does obviously lean
heavily defensively from a roster standpoint, and that brings us
to the other side with the C. J. Stroud among
the questions he was asked right near the end of
his availability, quite obviously needing a comment from him about

(01:18:00):
his contract situation. He does not have an extension. He
has the fourth year of his rookie deal, which is
this year, and he has the option year year number
five is the first round pick, which was exercise. That
is what he's under contract for with the Houston Texans
this offseason, the first offseason he was eligible to receive
an extension, and Will Anderson was in the same boat.

(01:18:20):
Will Anderson has a new boat that he fishes in
because he got an extension three years, one hundred and
fifty million.

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
Strout as we sit here today, has not and I
don't believe there is one coming before he plays his
next game. So when he was asked about his contract situation,
this is what he said.

Speaker 9 (01:18:36):
I let my agent annlet you know, and you know,
if it's time to do it, than it is if
it's not. My job is football, So that's what I
focus on, is just getting better. And I think I've
held my bargain up on that age. So you know,
I'm you know, you know, whatever happens happens. You know,
I'm excited to be a textan this year and you
know I'll go from there.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
He's living it up to Jerry maguire.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
Well, he has a very good Jerry working for him
and with him, and someone who has a very good,
long relationship with Nick Cassario and the Houston Texas and
the NFL for that matter, with athletes first, and David Muligetta.

Speaker 2 (01:19:07):
I think Lagetta is more of a Bob Sugar guy,
if you ask me, than a Jerry McGuire guy. Many
many clients, does very very well for himself.

Speaker 3 (01:19:16):
But Bob's just a guy at the firm basically, right.

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
No, he was an agent.

Speaker 3 (01:19:21):
No, I mean, he's just just an agent. He's not
like the guy. Oh, David Mulagetta is one of the
top three two one agents currently in the NFL.

Speaker 2 (01:19:32):
I guess I thought that because he was taking all
of Jerry's clients, he became that guy.

Speaker 3 (01:19:38):
I mean, I only kind of was taken aback by
that comp because I think we're supposed to look at
Bob Sugar as the bad guy, a scoundrel an a
sports agent. That's not what I mean. Yeah, sure all
of them might be that, but he was.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
I don't think if David liked that at all. It's real, Jerry,
you should say something. I don't think took it to
a pub book restaurant where he can't make a scene. Now,
I think they will.

Speaker 3 (01:20:02):
It's as Demiko said earlier this offseason, contrasts take care
of themselves by how you play. He plays well, it
will absolutely take care of itself. He'll have an extension.
It will be one year from now.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
I wonder if Nick Cassario is going to be Glenn
Frye driving up the prices on Jerry.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
I hope not. I hope for his sake than that
we will get into receipts. With one NBA broadcaster next.

Speaker 2 (01:20:29):
Here in h Town, it is the A team Sports
Talk seven ninety sc HN over on the Telly.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
You want to check us out.

Speaker 2 (01:20:36):
WEX and AC with you about halfway home on a
Thursday edition of the program. As we've been talking about
all things NBA Western Conference Finals, all right, not really.

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
We talked a little bit about that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
We've talked a ton about two ginormous stories breaking during
the show, the fact that they are going or they
have passed. The lottery reform. I'll call it reform loosely.
I mean it's definitely reforming it. It's just making it worse.
I mean, seriously, just gut feeling. You feel better or
worse about the draft lottery moving forward if you're an

(01:21:12):
NBA fan in general, I.

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):
Mean, I feel worse.

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
But I, like I said last segment, I think I
need to look at it a little bit more to
make sure that's how I feel. But yeah, initially before
I definitely have one hundred percent of the details, I
feel worse. I don't want good teams drafting the best players.
I want the bad teams in order to make the
league what it needs to be, or else nothing would
ever change. I mean, same teams would be great all
the time. Like you're not necessarily bad because management is bad.

(01:21:37):
Some teams do have inherent disadvantages. We talk about that
all the time. I mean players are I don't really
care how much they win, and none of them ever
have these small market or bad places to go play basketball.
It's just why has it never happened? Like Sacramento has
been around forever. I mean, I don't think Sacramento is

(01:21:58):
somebody we would bring it to the conversation. We got
another hour to get through, but it's gonna take us
a long time to talk about the top ten free
agents signed by the Sacramento Kings.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
All right, that's next.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
Does it make you wonder how they ever put that
team together that should have won the Western Conference in
two thousand and two.

Speaker 3 (01:22:15):
I mean yes, it does. But they have the same
avenue that every team has. Well, in order to get
good players, we have to either draft them or trade
for them, because they're not signing here.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
Did they did any of those guys sign?

Speaker 2 (01:22:29):
I mean, Bibe got traded there. I think from the
Grizzlies correct.

Speaker 3 (01:22:33):
The idea that it's going to happen a lot and
that you're going to be the team that they choose
when they're a free agent is so small, right, you know,
Memphis is probably the same way, and you could probably
argue at this current point in time, Portland's probably going
to be that same way.

Speaker 1 (01:22:46):
Who knows where they're headed with their hockey owner.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
But yes, you can still take care of things the
same way as everybody else can. You can trade for players.
You have the same ability to do that. Players don't
have a no trade provision there that prevents it very often,
obviously with the draft.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
Which is what this lottery reform is all about.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
And by the way, under this new lottery reform, it
will help out the Rockets because those nets picks best
case scenario Nets and Suns finish as a bottom four
through ten team three lottery balls best odds at the
number one pick.

Speaker 3 (01:23:21):
Well, the other aspect of it, which seems simple, these
are anti tanking rules. We're telling the teams there's no
reason for you to tank. There's no reason for you
to intentionally lose anymore, which on its surfaces Well, that
stinks for Houston because now Brooklyn's not gonna intentionally lose anymore.
There's no benefit to them. They can't help it. There's

(01:23:43):
no talent on their team. They can't win games. They
can play their butts off, they can believe in their
coaching staff, which they continue to do so by re
upping with them, but it's not going to matter.

Speaker 1 (01:23:54):
They can't win.

Speaker 3 (01:23:55):
They don't have talent enough talent to win any kind
of reasonable Well, maybe they're not the worst team, but
they're certainly going to be among the worst teams in
the league, and the Rockets should be ecstatic that they
have a piece of that Brooklyn Nets future asset pus.

Speaker 2 (01:24:09):
Maybe they can flop more and they two can win
in the NBA Finals.

Speaker 3 (01:24:11):
Last game of the NBA Finals tonight, If in fact
the victor Wembin Yama led San Antonio Spurs do not win,
they lost one in twenty seven to one to fourteen.
They've lost three of the last four games after winning
Game one in double overtime in Oklahoma City. A fourth
loss obviously ends their campaign, and victors play in this
series is probably trended in the direction you would not like.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
If you're a Spurs fan.

Speaker 3 (01:24:34):
A forty one point, twenty four rebound game in the
opener twenty one and seventeen, along with six assists in
the second game, he's he was pretty good in their
win and their defense was incredible. In their win, which
came in Game four when they evened up the series,
he had thirty three points, eight boards, and he didn't
have to play very much. He only played thirty one
minutes because they blew the Thunder up and the thunder

(01:24:56):
never fought back, so they won by twenty one points.
That could be regarded as an awesome game because he
didn't have to play thirty seven, thirty nine, forty eight minutes,
which is what he's done in each of the other
four games. We talked about the forty one rebounds he
had in the first two games, like, well, yeah, he
needs to or he should go out there and do that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
Well.

Speaker 3 (01:25:14):
The last three games combined, and if you recall our
comments before Game five, last three games combined, he has
eighteen rebounds. He's played over one hundred minutes of basketball
in those games. He has eighteen rebounds total. That can't happen.
They cannot win that way.

Speaker 1 (01:25:29):
Let me tell you something about him, because they do have.

Speaker 3 (01:25:31):
One win in those three games, though I just said
they cannot win that way. The only way they win
with him on that low number of rebounds, they shoot
a high percentage that he barely plays it right.

Speaker 2 (01:25:40):
And here's the thing, what are his Do you have
his all his his minutes played in these Yeah, just
rattled them off.

Speaker 1 (01:25:47):
What was thirty eight in the first game or he.

Speaker 3 (01:25:48):
Played forty eight in the first game it was a
fifty eight minute basketball game, right, double overtime. And then
he's played thirty seven or more and three of the
four and then the game they blew them out, they
only had to use them for thirty one minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:26:00):
He's he is the great, uh, not a enigma. I'm
trying to think of the best word for this. He's
damned if you do, damned if you don't, because you
need him to be out there in order to win
these big games, because that's how he puts up these
big numbers. But all season long, you've been training his
body to not be out there this much so that

(01:26:21):
you can keep his body from getting injured. And I'm
shocked it hasn't. To me, it has not impacted them
at all until this series.

Speaker 1 (01:26:30):
No, because you could argue that he's.

Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
Had one bad offensive showing it was last game he
was four of fifteen, So.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
The latest game in the series, after he's played all
these extra minutes, this is not I'm not even being
funny about this. Like if you have a guy who's
only used to playing X amount of games or X
amount of minutes in a game, and all of a sudden,
he's playing ten twelve more minutes every single game that
he hasn't done all season long.

Speaker 1 (01:26:57):
I know they're all world.

Speaker 3 (01:26:58):
Class athletes, well none of them are back to B
They obviously had rest the highest possible level too, though
if you can't. And I know that we just got
through a series that involved Mike Brown's team against James
Harden's team, and I don't know if we ever even
played the sound, but after one of their games, he
talked about when he was at Golden State and they
counted his dribbles and they he's the a thousand dribbles.

(01:27:22):
You know, our best guy KD had like three hundred
in a game. He's this guy's got a thousand. Whatever happens, however,
we you know, win lose these first few games in
the series. He's gonna wear down. We're gonna wear him
down by the end of the series. He did, He's
gonna be worn down. Did it again this year, And
I don't know if that's part of what happened in
this last game. This he basically he's only had a

(01:27:43):
year in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 (01:27:44):
This is it.

Speaker 3 (01:27:45):
He's played fifteen playoff games in his life, Victor, So
it's not the worst thing in the world. Oh my god,
he had the worst playoff game of his life. He
shot twenty seven percent. It's true, it was his last game.
It was the worst playoff game he's played so far.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
You do have to pay attention to this with him
because it is so prominent in the Victor winmbin Yama
experience that this guy is going to have a minute's
restriction in the regular season for the rest of his
career as long as he's healthy.

Speaker 3 (01:28:14):
Maybe, well, he's not going to be at the top
of the heat, but he will. I think next year
he probably plays a few more minutes per game, probably
not a lot. So it's probably I shouldn't even balk
at what you said. You're probably right. He's not your
typical one of the best players in the league, logging
thirty five thirty six minutes a night, thirty four minutes
a night, playing forty three minutes because I really never did.

Speaker 2 (01:28:33):
I hope they play him more. I do because he'll
be out of the league sooner. Well that's the other part
of it.

Speaker 3 (01:28:38):
You keep going on and on about how he's going
to be hurt, and just just in this series, just
in the five games that they've played, and the Thunder
only played eight games before they got to this series
because they swept both opponents. Both teams have had two
players hurt in this series and neither are him. Yeah,
none of the four are other still time all right,

(01:28:58):
all of this is to say SGA flops line.

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
I mean we all have eyeballs.

Speaker 3 (01:29:03):
Well, like I said, the game itself, if they push
him around and he lets them, which is what happened
in their last couple of games, he doesn't rebound the ball,
well you're gonna have to rely on some unforeseen spectacular
shooting to go ahead and get that done. And I
don't feel that guy's happening. And there's been a little
bit of shift the beginning of the series. Isaiah Hartenstein
was really just pushing him but not being effective himself.

(01:29:25):
He started to become a more effective player. Caruso's coming
off another outstanding game. They just won a game where
Shay was seven of nineteen and he made sixteen free throws.
I think that's more of what we're gonna see tonight.
The Thunder can win without this, or if this doesn't happen.
There's no If this happens, the Thunder can't win. But
I just gave you what If this happens, the Spurs

(01:29:47):
can't win, and I think that's the biggest difference. I
think it's gonna go seven games, but I think it's
gonna be a miracle type finish, some sort of game winner,
some sort of last thirty seconds shift or something the
Spurs have to do.

Speaker 1 (01:29:59):
I don't think that.

Speaker 3 (01:29:59):
I think this will be hyper competitive, and I hope
we see that in game seven. We've seen some elimination
games this year that have just been unwatchable.

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
Well, speaking of unwatchable, Mike Breen he is I've never
really been a huge fan of how he goes about it.
I'm definitely not a fan of how he sees SGA.
This is a quote does Shay Sell calls sometimes absolutely,
but so do two hundred and eighty seven other players

(01:30:28):
in the NBA. When they weren't a championship contender, nobody complained.
They only complain now because they are winning.

Speaker 3 (01:30:36):
No Mike, they complain now because he's the floppiest flopper
in the history of flopping. There's nobody who has flopped
more in high profile games than SGA. And we have
video proof and statistics what happens when you're not winning.
Nobody sees you. That's why they're not complaining about it,
because you're not winning, because you're not on the court
in the primetime games, in the playoff games, extended playoff game,

(01:30:58):
because you're not out there. They're not complaining about it
because you're not watching it. Except they were complaining about
it two years ago. Chris Finch, whose team was eliminated
by the Spurs, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:31:09):
Saw what was happening with SGA and called him out
on it.

Speaker 10 (01:31:12):
You know, it's so frustrating to play this team because
they foul a ton, you know, they really do.

Speaker 5 (01:31:17):
They foul. They foul all the time, and then you
know you can't.

Speaker 6 (01:31:22):
Really touch Shay and it's a very frustrating thing and
it takes a lot of mental toughness to try to
play through it.

Speaker 3 (01:31:29):
That was from when two years ago before they won
a championship. My thoughts were more about the fans complaining
about it, because it's obviously been a bunch bigger deal.
We see Academy awards being handed out front a front
and center court side. That's the aspect that the league
knows it, their teams know what, the coaches know it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:45):
And definitely the players know it because they're the victims
of it. And so for Mike Breen, who by the way,
is about to get a nice front row seat to
all of this flopping, I would love to hear him
ask or answer that question again after his beloved Nicks,
who he called games for in the regular season, get
ousted by SGA in large part due to all the
flopping he does, because that's what will probably happen, or

(01:32:07):
the Knicks will win the championship and I'll have to
shut my mouth.

Speaker 5 (01:32:09):
We'll see.

Speaker 2 (01:32:12):
I'm just all know if you guys are aware of
what a sick individual Matt Thomas is, and I'm just
gonna leave it at that. Unbelievable love that dirty uncle
of mine, Matt Thomas, all Right, wex and ac with
you here as the four o'clock hour continues here on
the A Team SPORTSTOK seven ninety sc h N.

Speaker 1 (01:32:31):
Did you what did you think?

Speaker 2 (01:32:33):
I mean, I know that we all saw how the
JJ McCarthy situation is unfolded up there in Minnesota, and
I know that Kyler Murray is probably not the answer
to many of life's problems. But under the circumstances, you
could have probably done worse at the quarterback position, if
you're the Vikings right.

Speaker 3 (01:32:53):
Well, they set themselves up for this by taking JJ
McCarthy with the tenth pick in the draft.

Speaker 1 (01:32:57):
No, that's true. They put themselves in this bed, and
now they will have to like it.

Speaker 3 (01:33:00):
I mean, he's been awesome ever since he's gotten there.
I don't know why they had any interest in Kyler.
It's crazy. He's been so good, so healthy.

Speaker 2 (01:33:07):
And the way you say that sounds like you are
voicing JJ McCarthy's inner monologue.

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
Yeah, I'm not sure.

Speaker 3 (01:33:15):
What's what's up with this gentleman who had quite the
life at Michigan playing for coach Harbaugh, coming to h
town winning a national championship. All things were great, everything's
been good and had a girlfriend at the time. They're
now married. Life is good tenth overall, pick and the
money that comes along with it sweet. And I get
to work with Kevin O'Connell, a so called quarterback guru,

(01:33:36):
a quarterback himself. This is sweet. He's heading into year three.
He's been a stink bomb in years one and two.
And the Arizona Cardinals said, we've had enough with this
fifty million dollar quarterback Kyler Murray, so you guys want him,
it's all yours. They centered a free agency and Minnesota said,

(01:33:59):
we love so unlike Houston. And it's been unlike Houston
pretty much all the time here. Other than the Brian
Hoyer Ryan Mallett quarterback competition, hadn't been a whole lot
of quarterback competitions here in Houston. I really don't think
Tom Savage v. Deshaun Watson was a quarterback competition, even
though we saw how that played out.

Speaker 1 (01:34:19):
Yes, what are you doing, Bill O'Brien, But.

Speaker 3 (01:34:22):
This one did line up as a potential legitimate Let's
get into the off season and to camp and we'll
see what happens. You got a veteran quarterback in Kyler Murray,
at least from he's been on the field quite a bit,
and you got a younger guy who's barely played. It's
only played a seen action in ten games during his
two seasons. The injury in year one, lack of effective
play partially in year two.

Speaker 1 (01:34:43):
So OTA's have begun for Houston.

Speaker 3 (01:34:45):
We talked to their quarterback all We talked to all
of the Texans quarterback who might start for them, all
the Texans quarterback all one of them in Minnesota. If
you want to talk to a quarterback who might start
for them, you have to talk to two different people.

Speaker 1 (01:34:58):
In the media did that today.

Speaker 3 (01:34:59):
They talked to both Kyle Murray and JJ McCarthy, and naturally,
one of the questions asked and then answer wanted is
about what's the relationship between you two guys. We'll hear
from Kyler Murray first. Kyler Murray is the veteran. He's
started and been in some interesting situations with Bird Gang
guy over the years in Arizona and now here. He's
been in the playoffs and now he is he's in Minnesota.

(01:35:19):
He would love to continue his starting quarterback career. Very
very possible that he is QB one in Arizona. JJ
McCarthy thinks he should be QB one. I imagine most
players do that. We're drafted tenth overall and we're QB
one for the very team they are currently playing for.
So what's the relationship like between you two, Kyler?

Speaker 5 (01:35:38):
It's been great, obviously.

Speaker 10 (01:35:40):
I know he's a younger guy, so any any way
I can help him. Obviously, I feel like, you know,
I've played seven years now, going on eight, so I'm
considered a veteran, even though I don't see myself as
that give him any knowledge that he needs. Again, you know,
we're both competitors, and I know you know we both
won with Special Team.

Speaker 1 (01:35:57):
Has he been receptive to hearing?

Speaker 3 (01:35:59):
Of course?

Speaker 10 (01:35:59):
Of course he's overly exceptive, you know, and he's always communicating,
asking questions, stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (01:36:05):
So it's been good, do you I mean, whether it's
typical or common or what we expected brilliant perfect? I mean,
as long as he's telling us all the truth, it
sounds great.

Speaker 1 (01:36:17):
Sounds like a good vet, good locker room guy.

Speaker 3 (01:36:19):
And it does sound like in terms of quarterbacks, as
long as you're not Brett Favan Aaron Rodgers that you
get it. I had somebody there helping me. I'm gonna
be there to help him. I know what he's here for.
He's here to have the job, even though in this situation,
you came here to take his job. One note on that,

(01:36:40):
just because we're over Texans today. Before we hear from JJ,
McCarthy was asked basically the same questions. Jordan Hicks is
part of the Bill Walsh Coaching Fellowship. He's one of
the coaches working with the Texans through their off season program.
He was an Eagle. He was drafted when Debiko was there.
Demiko was basically a mentor of his a linebacker, Jordan

(01:37:00):
Hicks was, and he's hoping to become a coach, and
I get the sense that he very well might do that.
And when we talked to Tamiko about him today, he goes, yeah,
we know, it's great to have him here. I definitely
think he's he's got what it takes. It's gonna be
great working with him. And he talked about their time.
He goes, yeah, when they drafted him and we got
on the field and I saw him, I know what
they got him. I'm about to be out of here. Yeah,

(01:37:21):
this guy's gonna take my job. But he regarded himself
as his mentor which NFL players for whatever faults they
might have or locker room issues we talked about earlier,
they do usually seem to have a pretty good vibe
for even though this guy's going to end it for me,
at some point, I'm doing the right thing because that's
what the team needs, and somebody usually has done that

(01:37:43):
for you before. That absolutely is JJ McCarthy when asked
about the relationship between these two.

Speaker 5 (01:37:48):
Quarterbacks, what's your relationship been like with Kyler so far? Yeah,
it's just like two guys in a classroom.

Speaker 6 (01:37:55):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:37:55):
He sits on one side.

Speaker 9 (01:37:56):
I sit on the other side, and it's the coach's
responsibility to teach us and coach just.

Speaker 6 (01:38:00):
So, is there any awkwardness like between you two?

Speaker 5 (01:38:04):
Awkwardness?

Speaker 6 (01:38:05):
You know, it's just like the same feeling you know
when you're in high school and there's another person on
the other side of the room.

Speaker 5 (01:38:11):
That's just kind of how it is. So if I
wouldn't say there's any awkwardness.

Speaker 3 (01:38:14):
Dude, what is there any awkwardness? What do you mean
in this interview?

Speaker 2 (01:38:20):
You know how sometimes I'll say something and then wex
will be like, I know.

Speaker 1 (01:38:24):
This is a huge surprise.

Speaker 3 (01:38:26):
But I look at that same exact thing that you
watched that I watched too, and I look at it
a completely different way.

Speaker 1 (01:38:33):
I don't know why you sound like a drunk loud mouth,
but I can get there. We got another ninety minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:38:38):
That's I'm joking because I mean, that's totally different than
two guys competing for the starting quarterback of the Minnesota
Vikings gig.

Speaker 1 (01:38:47):
They could not sound like they were less on the
same page.

Speaker 3 (01:38:51):
He's been very receptive, he's been good, he's asked questions.
Those are all the things you would.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
Expect in high school. One guy sits a one sid
one guy sit down the other.

Speaker 3 (01:39:01):
I mean, he was basically saying we're adversaries and this
that's how it's gonna be.

Speaker 1 (01:39:06):
But not only that.

Speaker 2 (01:39:07):
He could have just said that right, but he had
to go put it in a bro tone.

Speaker 3 (01:39:12):
It's only been out of high school for a few years.

Speaker 2 (01:39:14):
Oh my gosh, this guy. I could not get him
out of town fast enough. If I was the Vikings,
who cares if you took him with a tenth overall pick?

Speaker 3 (01:39:21):
You know, well, this guy taking murray because they're ready
to acknowledge.

Speaker 1 (01:39:25):
Oops.

Speaker 3 (01:39:25):
You know how Murray got his first gig in Arizona
replacing a guy a year after he had been taken
with the high draft pick. It happens all the time.
Who was a I don't remember his dash Rosen, Yes,
who was awful.

Speaker 2 (01:39:37):
But you know what, Arizona at least didn't wait around
like JJ McCarthy sucks.

Speaker 3 (01:39:42):
So if you're there in Minnesota and you've gotten those
two answers, would you put in a request for later
on during OTA's like tomorrow, if they have availability, and say,
could we get Carson Wentz?

Speaker 1 (01:39:55):
We talk to him.

Speaker 3 (01:39:56):
Why do you want to talk to our third stringer?

Speaker 1 (01:39:58):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (01:39:58):
No reason, just kind of cure is how he sees
thing in the quarterback room on which side of the
room he might be sitting on like this. In reality,
it's not a bad You know, Brozmurg got time on
the field last year and he's still there. You added
two veterans, one of whom is now already played the
backup role multiple times Carson Wentz, and he's he's ready
for the rest of his maybe seven to eight years

(01:40:19):
in the league as a backup quarterback. Holding a clipboard,
I mean I almost feel like he is probably spending
some time with Kyler saying, man, you're doing a great
job here. It's it's awesome to have you here, DUDEO,
our family should get together, And then he waits for
Kyler to leave and he goes over to JJ's. You know, man,
I really think maybe things would be a little different
if you do this and maybe you know, listen to
him a little bit or and got like, I almost

(01:40:39):
feel like he's gonna end up in the middle of
all this. How about this, JJ, read the room? If
you were so good the one he's on, I guess
that's the one. You're so good? Like, if you were so.

Speaker 2 (01:40:49):
Good, maybe they wouldn't be bringing in a bunch of
veterans to compete with you.

Speaker 1 (01:40:54):
Like just a just a scenario, just a suggestion.

Speaker 3 (01:40:58):
I wait till they ask Justin Jefferson about this stuff.
Like it's only gonna get worse. You know, he wants
to be playing with Sam Donald again, so bad. That
was the last time he was as effective as he
can be. Sam Donald, Kyler, Murray Carson wentz, Nah, you're
gonna play with JJ McCarthy.

Speaker 2 (01:41:15):
You know he's he's he's praying that Murray gets the
starting job, which he will, by the way, I think
so he's better. I think so you know, he's so
smarter and also not as dumb.

Speaker 1 (01:41:29):
So cover it, do you?

Speaker 3 (01:41:31):
I haven't looked at their schedule, but I know the
Texans and Colts play that Thursday night game November nineteenth,
the very special November nineteen.

Speaker 1 (01:41:40):
I know what day it is. You don't have to
remind me. I'm not gonna be watching.

Speaker 3 (01:41:42):
Based on his im it, on his history, it would
stand to reason that Kyler Murray would also know what
day it is.

Speaker 2 (01:41:49):
He's not going to be starting for the Vikings, so
therefore he'll be playing GTA six for me.

Speaker 3 (01:41:53):
On Thursday night. He should be clear. Yeah, okay, why
even show up to the stadium? Got gaming to do?

Speaker 5 (01:41:59):
Well?

Speaker 1 (01:41:59):
They don't have a game? Showing up to my job
that day?

Speaker 3 (01:42:02):
I mean, is it a veteran off day? Maybe he
should he work that in. Yeah, but you know what,
do what I'm doing. Give a several months notice. Hey Kevin,
I'm not available on the nineteenth. Why are you unavailable
on a random day in the middle of the season
this year? Medical procedure? Oh, no, family commitment.

Speaker 2 (01:42:23):
By the way, yeah, I was trying to think about
this if I see November, November November, Yeah, so the nineteenth,
Oh yeah, back to back Thursdays.

Speaker 1 (01:42:32):
I'll be off. CJ.

Speaker 3 (01:42:34):
Stroud walked into practice and when he took his helmet
off and walked out of practice and into the media
attempt for his interview, he was wearing a baseball cap.
Subject of our conversation for what's up with that? Necessarily
but has a little bit to do with it.

Speaker 1 (01:42:50):
That's next the eighteen on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 2 (01:42:55):
Ninety Hey wex, Yes, sir, do you remember once upon
a time when David Carr got a haircut on live television?

Speaker 10 (01:43:04):
Ah?

Speaker 3 (01:43:05):
I don't remember it being on live tele I was
on live television across the country. I do remember walking
into the locker room many many times to await his
arrival in the middle of the locker room, not at
the podium, not at his locker. Hey, we all needed him,
so he would come to the middle of the one
end of the locker room and he would speak with
us about the future performance the team had the week

(01:43:26):
before largely because of him. And then it became a
deal when his hair grew long and a haircut was forthcoming.

Speaker 2 (01:43:33):
Did you let me ask you this way, how hard
did you roll your eyes that day?

Speaker 1 (01:43:39):
I was younger, so what it probably aiged you?

Speaker 3 (01:43:43):
I think I was strictly radio at the time, so
maybe it wasn't a big deal.

Speaker 1 (01:43:49):
I was on TV.

Speaker 3 (01:43:50):
Oh my gosh, would we have had to get that video?
How old were you when that happened? This is what
two thousand and five, maybe two thousand and five born?

Speaker 1 (01:43:59):
And how old were you when Samantha was born? Because
that was the same year, right, I was twenty one
years ago. Because we were working together, I reason I
remember that early thirties.

Speaker 2 (01:44:09):
So let me starting to do an early thirties impression
of WEX hearing about the fact that David Carr had
his haircut on live television.

Speaker 3 (01:44:17):
Oh this is not for public yet, but David Carr
is gonna get a haircut on a Thursday if you
guys want to go ahead and set up in the
work media workroom.

Speaker 2 (01:44:27):
And you turned to the closest media member that you
actually like all of them, okay, and you said, and
I quote.

Speaker 1 (01:44:36):
I mean, come on, man, they're still going back.

Speaker 3 (01:44:42):
Yes, Television, we thank you today.

Speaker 1 (01:44:44):
We do.

Speaker 3 (01:44:45):
Space City Home Network has us so you can see
all of that CJ Stroud, as everybody knows, because as
soon as it happened this offseason, those that were close
enough to him at the time, oh my god, look
at CJ Stroud. The dreads are gone. Got a haircut.
Most people get haircuts all the time, and during the
off seasons not uncommon to change your hairstyle. Maybe he

(01:45:06):
has the dreads coming back, maybe he doesn't. For those
that remember c J Stroud prior to his most recent
look in twenty twenty six, not always what it came
off his head. He had the hair he has now
for much of his life, actually for more of his life.
One of the questions asked of c J. Stroud, and
presented in this way earlier today as we're into what's

(01:45:27):
up with that, was that he had been considering doing
this for a long time. That was presented to him,
and then when he answered the question, he acknowledged, yes,
this was something I had considered it doing for a
long time. But he got into what are the reactions
been to it? Because obviously a lot of people were
reacting to it. It was really close to the end
of the season. The end of the season obviously was

(01:45:47):
extremely disappointing for the team and at least equally so
for CJ. Stroud, the quarterback of that team, based on
the way that he and the offense performed. So he
was asked about the reactions and the fact that it's
been something he'd been thinking about doing for a while,
and this was his initial answer on that.

Speaker 9 (01:46:02):
I honestly didn't see the reactions. I mean, I was
told that people thought I was like depressed or like that.
I was like, I wasn't. I was doing okay. But
I've been thinking about cutting my hair for a long
time and I was actually gonna do it much prior,
but I just didn't know how my helmet was gonna fit.
So nothing really too serious. I mean, I'm kind of
used to this. Haircut is how I grew up. The

(01:46:23):
dreads were kind of a new thing, so but you know,
I hate everything in my life. It's so public, but
then the people just have narratives. But it's the life
I've chosen to live, so it's all good.

Speaker 5 (01:46:34):
But yeah, I like my haircut.

Speaker 1 (01:46:36):
Narratives. The word narrative was used there.

Speaker 3 (01:46:38):
Now that's a smart thought process for any NFL player.
I was considering doing it earlier, like during the season,
but I was concerned about how my helmet would fit.
Also smart, I'll do it after the season.

Speaker 2 (01:46:54):
Would have gone over if he did get a haircut
in the season and then follow that up by a
terrible performance.

Speaker 3 (01:47:00):
You mean like Brian Cushing's hair, Thor's power.

Speaker 1 (01:47:05):
Yeah, well no, no, not Samson, but like.

Speaker 3 (01:47:08):
Well remember when another famous Texans I'm aware, But here's
the deal, like what a franchise.

Speaker 2 (01:47:15):
David Carr could have cut his hair at any time
during the season and likely would have followed it up
with a terrible performance because he was David.

Speaker 3 (01:47:24):
CJ considered cutting it after the Pittsburgh game, But that's
the thing, or before the Pittsburgh game.

Speaker 1 (01:47:29):
What if he.

Speaker 2 (01:47:30):
Does cut his hair in season, So it's already a story.
He's already answering questions about it, and his teammates might
be asking or being asked questions about it too.

Speaker 1 (01:47:39):
I know, small thing.

Speaker 2 (01:47:40):
It's not like their head coach had an affair with
an NFL reporter or something. But thenny he does have
a poor performance, it's gonna be a thing.

Speaker 1 (01:47:49):
Hopefully perfect time.

Speaker 2 (01:47:50):
To do something like this when he's not playing and
when he's coming off his worst performance ever.

Speaker 1 (01:47:57):
Change it up.

Speaker 3 (01:47:58):
That's like, like you said, you know, I live a
public life. I totally get that. I wish it wasn't
that way, but I understand it. So but I'm not
depressed in the off season. I can go get a haircut.
I can completely change my look that this group of
people know me from. And it's not going to be
a huge deal because I'm not talking to the media
every day, I'm not going to practice every day and
blah blah blah. Now the question there was a follow

(01:48:18):
up question to kind of explain the point of it all,
and Jonathan Alexander with the Chronicle that asked him that,
and he reiterated, say, well, what I was actually getting
at was the people you're closest to, the people that
you know, the people that you're with all the time
to see you all the time, just how it was
for them. And CJ gave a little bit different perspective
in answer to that particular haircut question.

Speaker 9 (01:48:40):
The team like people who met me in the recent
like three to four years, like, yeah, they're like, dang,
you look different. But my brothers, my sisters, my mom
or my dad, my you know, my close friends from home.
They're all looks like you. Everybody says I look younger,
so I hope that's true. So I try to grow
a beard so it's a little scruffy.

Speaker 1 (01:49:00):
But get right, he does. He is right. He looks
way younger for whatever reason.

Speaker 3 (01:49:06):
And today, like I said, he had an h Houston
Texans hat on both on his way into practice and
they walked across the bridge, across the field and into
the practice bubble. And then when he walked into the
media tent for his media session, he had that hat on.
He looks exactly the same as he did last year
with a hat on. Yeah, And because I'm not that's
I'm talking to C. J. Stratt, I don't know, and

(01:49:27):
he does look different to us. I'm in that group
of team and media. I've seen him up close and
personal since he was a Texan for the most part.
I'm a little bit as a collegiate player, but I
didn't seehim hardly at all when he was in the
Elite eleven and you know, growing up and playing AAU
and out in California.

Speaker 1 (01:49:47):
But this is what he's always looked like.

Speaker 2 (01:49:49):
Basically, Snoop saw him like, Yes, I'd say this is
a bold prediction, but it's already come to pass, so't
I can't really characterize it as that you were by
far the first member the media to get over this story.
It was like whatever, not even hours or minutes ago, whatever,
seconds into this story, you were over it after you
rolled your eyes.

Speaker 1 (01:50:09):
Yeah, they're back in place now, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:50:11):
Some of the other things that CJ talked about the
off season kind of went about things as he has
I'm not quite ready to make my in, you know,
off season proclamations that everybody in the media will do.
Myself included you look bigger this year?

Speaker 1 (01:50:26):
What you what'd you do? How much do you weigh now?
Which you way last year?

Speaker 3 (01:50:29):
I do think he'll probably end up saying, yeah, I'm
a little bit bigger.

Speaker 1 (01:50:32):
I worked, you know, did a couple of different things
with the body.

Speaker 3 (01:50:34):
Demiko actually said it this way, and I'm curious why
he said. This is really his first real off season,
you know, doing what he needed to do. And I
mean last year, we obviously know he was on a
pass count. I'm not gonna make the pitch count reference.
He doesn't play baseball and he didn't throw during the
off season program as much as he would normally No,

(01:50:56):
it's evidence of that. This year came off of a
very disappointing finish. I'm sure he was very focused to
go get after it this year, but around the facility
at least as much as he was in any other offseason,
maybe a little more. And going into year two, which
he's only done once, of the same offensive system with
Nick Kyley, I will get in a few more of
those things, specifically CJ on maybe some motivation this year,

(01:51:17):
if it's any different because of how last season ended
and the thoughts on will Anderson football at five is
when we're going to dive deeply into the terminator.

Speaker 2 (01:51:27):
Will Anderson, this is kind of odd. The NFL's X
account two hours ago. I actually want you to see
this so you can react organically live on air.

Speaker 1 (01:51:42):
All right, I'm ready to right at two o'clock.

Speaker 2 (01:51:47):
It's clearly a scheduled tweet, especially since at the top
of the hour, a high powered Dallas offense goes up
against an elite Houston defense in a Texas showdown Cowboys
versus Texans schedule release twenty six, Sunday, October fourth.

Speaker 1 (01:52:08):
One pm Eastern Man.

Speaker 2 (01:52:12):
They again, going back to my original point, I think
I'm just gonna do this until a flex.

Speaker 1 (01:52:15):
It that's not too early to flex, is it? Yes,
it is.

Speaker 3 (01:52:18):
Why it's a terrible matchup that night, both night a
portion of the season where they flex games. This is
a mistake if you were not aware, it has to
be right. Yeah, this is a schedule I'll mean literally
on the picture. It's a schedule release that they made
a graphic they made during the schedule release, which was
weeks ago. Also, I'm curious why this Texas sized showdown

(01:52:42):
ended up a noontime game. Game seems too good not
to be on primetime or even an overseas game. A
few opportunities to showcase this game on a larger scale
seems like a missed opportunity.

Speaker 1 (01:52:54):
Watch it be the super Bowl anyway. Lol. That's one response.

Speaker 3 (01:52:57):
Oh I thought that was your response. No response would
have been much more demonstrative. Well, remember there are if
I don't know that this is true, but there are games.
Fox in this case could have said, is okay, if
we just get great ratings at noon for this game,
maybe please don't take this from us.

Speaker 2 (01:53:15):
Yeah no, I remember you saying that, But I also
remember reading Leopard's tweet that says, why are the Panthers
on prime time over this game?

Speaker 3 (01:53:24):
Do you think they did the right thing with who
they portrayed on the graphic? Three members of the high
powered Cowboys offense and three members of the high powered
Texans defense. I think that was the way to go.

Speaker 2 (01:53:36):
Well, why is Dak Prescott a little bit higher than
Will Anderson Junior in the graphic? When Will Anderson Junior
is going to be standing over his dead carcass after
he sacks him for the seventh time that day?

Speaker 1 (01:53:45):
That is the matchup I think the day.

Speaker 3 (01:53:48):
Who do you think has more success against their opposition?
Not Cowboys offense against the Texans due or the Texans offense.

Speaker 1 (01:53:55):
Let Cowboys d If.

Speaker 2 (01:53:57):
You think I've never really I long long time ago,
Quit trying to get into that whole Dallas versus Hit.

Speaker 1 (01:54:04):
They don't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:54:05):
Like I know, WEX will talk about TV number or not,
but in the grand scheme of things, Dallas is never
gonna do anything as long as Jerry owns them, They're
not gonna actually matter as far as wins and losses
when the game really matters. Now, you can tell me
all you want how the Texans have never even been
to the Super Bowl, and on and on and on
and on and on. But when it comes to this

(01:54:26):
matchup this season and the way they have built it here,
high powered Dallas offense. No one's offense is high powered
against the Texans defense. No ones like who scored the
most points against them last year.

Speaker 3 (01:54:40):
That's right, that's exactly why they are a high powered offense.
And we all know what they're about to run into.
Let's watch it unfold. Watch how many picks he throws
is more like it. He's gonna throw three picks in
this game. We'll see three. One of them is gonna
be a pick six? Who gets it?

Speaker 2 (01:54:56):
And there are gonna be so much Jalen Petrie and
there are gonna be so many finer s today in
the stands.

Speaker 1 (01:55:01):
I know of CJ. Yes he did, but that's okay
because he's not a high powered offensive guy.

Speaker 2 (01:55:07):
I wish that weren't the case. I just I actually
think it's gonna be a nasty game for the Cowboys.

Speaker 3 (01:55:16):
Coming into Reliant Stadium and trying to take down the Texans.

Speaker 1 (01:55:20):
Couldn't do it the last time. Are they winless at
Reliant Stadium? I don't remember them winning any game that mattered.

Speaker 3 (01:55:25):
Yeah, the rivalry aspect of it, the fan aspect maybe
a little bit, but they've been around so long. That's
why the fans are the fans of the Cowboys, and
the Texans didn't really steal their fans. I'm not about
to steal their fans. I don't think, not to any
kind of reasonable degree. But there's no rivalry between the
two teams. They don't see each other very frequently. They're
not there just rarely is when you're talking about AFC

(01:55:48):
NFC for for one thing, and obviously haven't been around
very long, and that the Cowboys have.

Speaker 2 (01:55:53):
I do believe. Yeah, I was right. I knew the
year too. The reason I knew the year is because
it was Kareem Jackson rookie season.

Speaker 3 (01:56:01):
Why I was being super literal to the name of
the stadium.

Speaker 2 (01:56:04):
Well, September twenty six, twenty ten, at Reliant Stadium, Cowboys
won twenty seven to thirteen. That was when we realized
that the reason Tony Romo was throwing for nearly three
hundred yards is because Kareem did never never turned around
to look at the football.

Speaker 1 (01:56:20):
It was just always going over his shoulder. Sure, that's
what they coached that's why they got Wade in there
the next season and JJ, yeah, which which one helped more.

Speaker 3 (01:56:30):
Wade's got an incredible pedigree, but as he said many times,
and he's had a lot of good ones, and JJ's
the best he's ever had.

Speaker 2 (01:56:37):
On his defense, Matt Schaub two hundred and forty one yards,
one touchdown. He was twenty three of thirty two. He
had two picks Romo before he started yelling. Jim was
twenty three of thirty for two touchdowns. Marian Barber was
the starting running back that day, had fifty five whole yards,

(01:57:00):
and Foster had one six on seventeen carries. And then
Andre Johnson had sixty four yards receiving on four catches,
so they were clearly this is when Roy Williams was amazing.
Five catches, two touchdowns, one hundred and seventeen yards. Oh,
the wide receiver. Yeah, not the safety who dated a
member of Destiny's Child.

Speaker 1 (01:57:22):
Hey man, I don't know that.

Speaker 3 (01:57:23):
I want to say Roy Williams. Well, you say a
member of Destiny's Child. Yeah, clearly wasn't Beyonce if you're
saying it that way. No, she's she's wiped up to
Kelly or Michelle. I want to say Kelly and him
dated each other. That was her boo before she sang
it with Nelly.

Speaker 2 (01:57:43):
Yes, okay, for a while she's saying, oh, Nelly, Well,
he wouldn't date her now she's not famous enough anymore.

Speaker 3 (01:57:50):
Yeah, that is correct? Is he Kelly Rowland in NFL safety?
Roy Williams?

Speaker 1 (01:57:53):
Why do I remember these weird things? Sure?

Speaker 3 (01:57:56):
Very important? Bring it to the show on Thursday.

Speaker 1 (01:57:58):
Knowledge.

Speaker 2 (01:57:59):
By the way, Bernard Pollard had fifteen tackles in that
game Baller, and then I guarantee you he went to
the locker room afterwards and walked around naked as long
as possible. I've never met an athlet and let me
take let me have less clothing on.

Speaker 1 (01:58:19):
He loved being naked.

Speaker 2 (01:58:20):
I've never seen an athlete who loved being naked more
than Bernard Pollard. I tell him that to his face
right now. We actually asked him about this in the
locker room. Why what was off the air? Were you
trying to get him to do it differently preferably? Well,
you remember when Ross goes over to ugly naked Guy's
apartment and he goes, I can't help but notice how

(01:58:41):
naked you are and that was Winston.

Speaker 3 (01:58:44):
Who's at that guy's apartment? He lives alone. Well, they
were trying to mister what's his name again, the cornerback
we're talking about. Uhll yes, not alone. Plenty of towels available,
and your clothes, both the ones you were wearing and
the ones are walking around and without cameras. It's okay

(01:59:07):
if you want to, dude, cover up. Loved being naked.
I've never seen anything like it.

Speaker 1 (01:59:14):
Luckily you haven't had a lot to compare it to.

Speaker 2 (01:59:15):
I hope Football at five coming up next and we'll
get we'll check in on the Texans OTAs. Plus also
in the five o'clock hour, one of my most favorite
stories ever, Underdog Fantasy, basically go went and told SGA's
agency to go screw.

Speaker 1 (01:59:32):
We'll get to all that next. The A on Sports
talk to.

Speaker 3 (01:59:40):
Actual Football on the Field to discuss today. Because teams
around the NFL run through OTAs a couple more days
of this over the next couple of weeks. The media
will be out there for a few of those. They'll
have the mandatory mini camp and they'll say get lost
to everybody. The media and the players will be able
to take their off season vacations if they it already,

(02:00:01):
and then get their bodies ready to go for the
excruciating training camp and the exceptionally long soon to be
longer NFL season. It's currently eighteen week's worth of regular
season football with one weekend off. It will soon be
twenty weekends of NFL football and weeks because they'll play
so many games during the week and two weekends off.

(02:00:22):
Texans were on the field today, was out there for that,
ran through some red zone drills, a little bit of
seven on seven, nothing eleven on to eleven. There are
no pads on the majority of the players were there
and in attendance, and the majority of the players in
attendance were also available to practice. Nothing on that front.
I think he's going to be divulged from the Texans
other than players we already know about Tank Dell for instance,

(02:00:45):
not practicing, but he was there today. A lot of
video of him going through some of their stretching drills.
Who was out there with the wide receivers and the offense,
but he was not taking part in drills. Dimiko Ryan
saying he will be out there when it's time. Niko Koala,
I would say probably didn't take all of the reps
that he would otherwise normally take in season, But it's
not injury related. It's more about who he is and

(02:01:07):
the work that needs to come at this point in
the offseason. And you could say that about a couple
of other veteran players basically the situation there. And he
did comment on the loss of EJ.

Speaker 8 (02:01:18):
Speed.

Speaker 3 (02:01:19):
I'm not sure what the actual timeline will turn out
to be, but you know, varying degrees of We hope
to get him back at some point this season is
basically what I think we're led to believe, but I
don't know if that means he'll be back early in
the season, later in the season, maybe even before the
end of training camp after he is a workout injury
over at the facility this last week.

Speaker 1 (02:01:37):
But other than that, for the most part.

Speaker 3 (02:01:38):
The guys they expect to be ready and on the
field are currently out there and ready on the field.
Definitely like what might be in the future with their
two wideouts, which are basically a wide receiver one caliber
and body type players Jaden Higgins and Nico Collins, both
like I said, I think there that might be the
player I'm most looking forward to his upcome season, not

(02:02:00):
just because he's a second year player, but because I
think there could be very big things in his future.
And I think playing them both a lot together somewhat
in the way the Bengals play t Higgins and Jabar
Chase together. Those are two first Those are two wide
receiver ones that Joe Burrows is working with. Joe Burrow
is working with in Cincinnati, and I think there might

(02:02:21):
be a time this season where we look at those
two wide outs here in Houston that CJ is working
with in a very similar way, just some of the
work that was done in the red zone first time
they went out there, and seven on sevens three passes
from CJ, three touchdowns for CJ put the ball where
it was supposed to be fitted in a tight window
on one of the three throws one two Dalton Schultz

(02:02:42):
one two David Montgomery who was right in front of
basically right in front of him front of the end
zone and filtered into for the score. And he also
drew a touchdown pass to a second one to Dalton Schultz.
This play basically was made, in my opinion, because of
Jaden Higgins. He runs the corner route, takes that part

(02:03:03):
of the defense with him obviously his man, which in
this case was Derek Stingley Junior second level two levels
to throw to. Throws to the second level of the
underneath level, and that's where Dalton Schultz is there in
the end zone. We mentioned earlier, CJ Strade did throw
a ball to the other side the Texans defense wearing
the whites. He threw a ball to a guy wearing
a white jersey. Jalen Peatree didn't really undercut the route.

(02:03:26):
It kind of looked like CJ didn't see that he
was there. He probably under threw or threw it a
little bit behind Dalton Schultz. Is very easy interception, didn't
need to run it back for a touchdown. They really
weren't in that mode today, but it would have been
a print seventy one yard touchdown maybe for Jalen Peatree.
But what we also saw there and I mentioned this earlier,
the offensive lineman that they were not using very much today,

(02:03:48):
probably just due to their veteran status. But we'll see
if there's anything up with Trent Brown, who was there
at the early portion of practice dressed and ready to
go and participated and then came back later and practice.
Braden Smith had a limited use today and work load,
but like I said, I don't think there's any reason
for that from an injury standpoint. So Blake Fisher got
a lot of the reps over at right tackle and
the Texans lined up number fifty one on the opposite

(02:04:12):
of him. Did not go well for the offense, and
there were several plays it was very clear it's ruined,
it's wrecked, and that phrase got used over and over
and over again when we spoke to Demiico, Jalen Petrie,
and Kamari Laster. This is Dimiko's thoughts on Will Anderson Jr.

(02:04:35):
Wrecking their plans on offense at practice.

Speaker 8 (02:04:39):
Will continues to wreck practice. I'm probably gonna have to
see him out here so we have to be able
to actually practice.

Speaker 1 (02:04:46):
So he just keeps wrecking practice. So I just keep
doing that.

Speaker 5 (02:04:50):
Keep cause a havoc.

Speaker 1 (02:04:51):
That's what he does.

Speaker 8 (02:04:53):
And I was showing God that's what he does on
Sundays as well, So it's no surprise. But Will is
the guy for everyone to watch the intensity at which
we operate. That's how Will Anderson plays, That's how I
want everybody to be.

Speaker 3 (02:05:06):
I think you could tell he's not serious. He's not
going to tell him to stop. He's not going to
take him out of practice, and he's going to keep
wrecking it for the offense.

Speaker 2 (02:05:16):
Don't you feel like just by default that should help CJ. Yes,
can't be this bad during the real games where you
play the opposition, if you're practicing against that menace.

Speaker 3 (02:05:27):
Yeah, And I tried to lay it out for you.
He played against a player who probably is a not
the caliber of player he'll play against a most practices
or most of the season. I don't believe Blake Fisher
is a starting right tackle caliber talent. Maybe in year
three and after another offseason, things will be a little
bit different for him, but that remains to be seen.
Jalen Petree on Will Anderson Junior, kind of taking the

(02:05:51):
he wrecks everything even further Will as will.

Speaker 4 (02:05:54):
He gonna wreck practices, rec games, w rec meetings.

Speaker 5 (02:05:56):
He gonna wreck everything.

Speaker 4 (02:05:57):
You know, That's what That's why he's the bet because
he shows up every day ready to work, ready to
push others, inspire others, and you know he's a he's
a great leader for this team, a great player for
this team.

Speaker 5 (02:06:08):
And you know he's definitely already.

Speaker 4 (02:06:09):
Like you said, Rik and Havoc out there on T
shirt and shorts. You know, coach is always on a
tip and point of like do I slow him down?
It is like that's just Will, Like you can't really
slow him down.

Speaker 3 (02:06:19):
He's been a demon for three years at practice and
leadership wise, that's what you can see.

Speaker 1 (02:06:26):
We can even see that.

Speaker 3 (02:06:27):
You know, the ones have come off the field and
they're working through the twos, they're working through the threes.
Before the ones go back out there, most of the
defensive players are lined up along the sidelines. He goes
from one end of thirty defensive players all the way
to the other end, screaming in their face, not anything,
you know, let's go get it. Let's go get it.
You the man, one after the other, after the other
after the other, all the way up and down the line.

Speaker 1 (02:06:48):
You know, high five with these guys. Shake Han' just
he's leading.

Speaker 3 (02:06:51):
He is clearly the leader of this defense, and much
more so with his actions and words than the quiet
leadership they get from a bunch of players. They get
quiet leadership from daneil Hunter. He's not out there today.
They get leadership. Why would you need to say anything
when you look like that, No kidding, but he's definitely
not the kind. He doesn't do the same things verbally

(02:07:11):
and from a leadership standpoint outwardly that Will Anderson Junior
does as he's Al Shires a phenomenal leader, and he's
even a little bit different than Will Anderson Junior. They
got enough leadership to go around, and they have more
than enough talent to make that happen. We'll keep it
with the last level of the Texans defense. Kamari Lassiter
on Will Anderson Junior. It's not surprising him, that's for sure.

Speaker 11 (02:07:33):
Nothing that Will does surprise me, like nothing during football
outside of football, nothing he does surprise me.

Speaker 5 (02:07:39):
He's he's one of a kind.

Speaker 11 (02:07:41):
So I feel like whenever I see Will record play
up and practice or in the game, just like, good job,
do it.

Speaker 5 (02:07:47):
Again, like because I.

Speaker 11 (02:07:48):
Know he's like he's gonna do it again and again
and again. So I feel like he hasn't even tapped
into the level that he really wants to tap into.

Speaker 5 (02:07:54):
And that's the scary part.

Speaker 1 (02:07:56):
Hay Ley, He's probably right.

Speaker 3 (02:07:59):
He's if he's out there and healthy in year four,
he's probably going to have a more impactful, productive season
than he had in year three. And you keep asking
me how they can be better, and there you go,
that's what you probably should have said, and I would
have stopped asking. And I don't know, it's so obvious,
but it doesn't seem real. One player he finished behind

(02:08:23):
one player for defensive Player of the Year this year. Well,
that certainly can be a goal. He knows him, well,
it was Miles Garrett. They work out in the offseason
last year and this year and in the years past.
So I do think there is more there. I do
think there are more wrecked plays for opposing team as
all offenses. And Week one is a great time to
start because that game, if anyone around the country wasn't

(02:08:46):
aware of how much he's in the opponent's backfield, the
game against Buffalo last year in prime time in those
suite unis was really all you needed to see. Even
it was the first time you'd ever watched the Texans
defense play. And they get Buffalo to kick things off
this year, Buffalo and Cincinnati back to back, that's not great. Well,

(02:09:07):
you can announce your presence with authority as a defense.
If Joe and Josh performed poorly because of how you play.

Speaker 2 (02:09:13):
If you're two to zero after the first two weeks,
the Texans are going to be just it's gonna be
nauseating the coverage they're gonna get.

Speaker 1 (02:09:22):
And I hope it's not.

Speaker 2 (02:09:23):
I mean, I don't think it would be like you
remember how it was for the Colts after like Week
four last year they hadn't lost. They were I think
they ended up going like seven to oh to start
the year or something like that, and everybody was saying, well,
Daniel Jones is definitely taking the calls to the show.
They were bombing away.

Speaker 3 (02:09:39):
There were thirty forty point wins, and they would come
back and beating the Broncos. They were playing some dominant
scoreboard football. So it wasn't just they'd managed to win
all their games. They were literally they're blowing teams out
pretty regular. I want Will Anderson and company to ruin wreck. However,
you know, Demiko described it. Those quarterbacks right out of

(02:10:01):
the game.

Speaker 2 (02:10:01):
I mean, it's no better, it's no better start to
the season than to do that against some of the best.

Speaker 3 (02:10:05):
Their first seven games pre off Week three at home
out of the first four Buffalo and Cincinnati. Then they
go to India and then welcome Dallas. Those a your
first four games all at noon. They go to Tennessee
and then play Jacksonville in London and then New York
back here in Houston, and all those games are at noon,
other than the eight to thirty local time here the

(02:10:25):
game in London. If you're telling me they're beating the
Bills and Bengals, which they'll be favored to do so,
I think by the time we get to the season,
in both games, then I can only imagine what kind
of seven games start they're gonna have. They play three
division games, they're not losing more than one if any

(02:10:46):
of those three they play jackson darts team or Abdul
Carter's team.

Speaker 1 (02:10:51):
However they're going to be referenced this year. It's Jackson's game,
It's not Abduall Carter's. It's John Harbaugh's team.

Speaker 2 (02:10:57):
It's actually whose team it is? Yeah, I bullish on
the Texans this year. I think with good reason. And
that guy right there that we were talking about is
the number one.

Speaker 1 (02:11:07):
Reason he might be their number one player.

Speaker 3 (02:11:09):
It's certainly being paid as such after this offseason's contract extension.
Dylan Brooks an underdog in their postseason series this year,
but his relationship to Underdog is a little bit different
this off season. And uh, if you were unaware of
that story, it's a good one.

Speaker 1 (02:11:26):
It's next.

Speaker 2 (02:11:30):
Eighteen rolling along here on a Thursday. So all of
the talk about the Western Conference Finals has been very
little about the basketball and very much so on the
flopping of Shay Gildess Alexander and company.

Speaker 1 (02:11:46):
By the way, he's not by himself. Underdog Fantasy.

Speaker 2 (02:11:53):
Got to cease and desist from Shay Gilgess, Alexander's attorney
saying the company is unlawfully using his name, image, likeness,
and persona without permission as he was part of it.
And I can't remember, of course the social media post

(02:12:15):
that I wanted to link to is not coming up
right now, but you had mentioned it had to do
with Dylan Brooks.

Speaker 3 (02:12:20):
Well, they just got him to play the game. It's
a game of operation. For the people that are Matt
Thomas's age, you're probably familiar with that gap takes a
very steady hand, and if you don't have a steady
hand when you go into reach for the assorted ailment
bone or whatever on the body, it buzzes and you lose.
But in the Underdog mock up of the game he's playing.

(02:12:43):
It's obviously based off Operation. There's a player on the court,
and if you try to extract the basketball from the hole,
but you hit the metallic buzzer on the side where
it says leg kick or whatever it might say, then
the buzzer goes off and you lose. Now there's a
person in the hospital in the game Operation, Well, that

(02:13:06):
person has been replaced by a basketball player in a
white head band and a white uniform wearing number two.
The uniform has the blue ticking and orange ticking around
the shorts and shoulders and neck hole of the jersey,
and the white head band on the dreaded player looks

(02:13:32):
a lot like he's also got a right arm sleeve
a left arm wristband. It says across the left front
completely covered by left leg sleeve is there as well,
all across the front. It doesn't say thunder or OKC.
It says unethical. Because this game was created, it's called unethical.

(02:13:52):
Basketball comes in a nice box. He played the game.
If you, you know, set off the buzzer, you can
try to extract the basketball, but it says don't reach
phantom contact rip through lean and push off, head snap
hook and cook shoulder bump, all the things that we
talk about that happens. It is quite obviously and very
clearly intended to be SGA, no question about it.

Speaker 2 (02:14:18):
That's why his lawyers sent a cease and desist saying
the company unlawfully using his name, image, likeness, and persona
without permission and demanding the company quote destroy the copies
of the game.

Speaker 3 (02:14:31):
There's a hundred of these that have been made. Yeah,
they turned it into a contest. If you respond or
tag three people or whatever, will raffle off a hundred
of these that.

Speaker 1 (02:14:41):
We might mucked up.

Speaker 2 (02:14:42):
The winner's set to be announced tomorrow, which I'm far
more interested in than so.

Speaker 3 (02:14:47):
They sent a season desist letter. How is it received
by mister underdog?

Speaker 2 (02:14:52):
Fantasy Underdog is refusing, That's how it's being received.

Speaker 5 (02:14:58):
It.

Speaker 3 (02:14:59):
Honestly the case the season assists all that stuff, It
doesn't matter from an Underdog Fantasy standpoint. Mission accomplished. Yeah,
they got the price that they want, shall thereafter. This
is not a real game. They're not gonna start boxing
this up and sending it to toy stores and or
having people.

Speaker 1 (02:15:15):
Ordered it online.

Speaker 3 (02:15:15):
I'm where it's twenty twenty six. It's just something they did.
It was kind of just a fun thing to do,
they thought, and they got all this run. They're getting
more additional run. They've actually said no. But I don't
think if it ever got to the point where, okay,
then we're about to here's the lawsuit, I don't think
they're gonna let it get to that point because there's
really no reason to fight for it. I actually think
they would lose. But I don't think it's clear as day.

(02:15:39):
It's obvious to any person it's Sga. All the things
I just told you about, literally everything about him, it's him.
But in illegal proceedings. I wonder if there is a
way they could say no, no, it's not it's just it.
I just don't think they have any interest in doing that.
I think they said no because they can, and then
as the lawsuit gets closer and closer, they yeah, all right, okay.

Speaker 1 (02:16:00):
We'll do it.

Speaker 3 (02:16:01):
Well, we'll see if we can repossess those games. But
like you said, if they set the season, desist and
ask them to destroy the games before the winners have
been announced, they obviously haven't sent them out to anybody.
Dylan has one, and that's that is what I think.
At the end of this, this would all be They're
gonna season assist is gonna happen. They're not gonna send

(02:16:22):
these out to winners. They'll send them something else instead,
and that'll be that until Dylan Brooks make sure we
all know he has this.

Speaker 1 (02:16:31):
I wish games on the formal line in.

Speaker 3 (02:16:34):
A year, in two years and three years when he
keeps bringing it out on social media.

Speaker 2 (02:16:39):
I just love the fact that they called it Unethical Hoops.
That's the name of the game. Video was posted on
May twenty first. This has been out for a week
and it has absolutely done exactly what you said. It's
stirred up conversation for all the wrong reasons if you're SGA,
and for all the right reasons if you're a fan

(02:16:59):
of Ethical Hoops. Eric Fishman of the law firm Aaron
Fox Shift LLLP asked Underdog to quote permanently, cease and
assist from any and all use of mister Gilgos Alexander.
Hyphenated names are just awful. They just are. They're just such.
I can't wait for this fad to end in any

(02:17:21):
and all media. Yeah, it's a fad.

Speaker 1 (02:17:23):
Don't worry. I said it.

Speaker 3 (02:17:23):
It's a what a fad. It's been around a long time. No,
it hasn't.

Speaker 2 (02:17:28):
No, it hasn't, including but not limited to your website,
including the unethical Hoops website, apps, social media accounts, digital
marketing and advertisements, promotional emails, push notification. They're just they're
going to make sure they've covered all the bases. As
Underdog says, Nay, they don't care. They it's and again

(02:17:52):
on this particular article about this story. This may have
been a big misstep by Gilgious Alexander. If he wants
this to go away, he's put the streisand effect on
the game to the point where it now has risen
from an April Fool's Day prank that might be mentioned
in Passing and turned it into the thing that his
lawyers want to fight. Anyone who missed the game will

(02:18:14):
probably hear about the lawyers getting involved.

Speaker 1 (02:18:17):
That's the thing. Just ignore it, leave it alone.

Speaker 2 (02:18:20):
You're probably gonna win the NBA title again, You've already
won the MVP again, and all the haters you'll have
the last laugh. Even though nobody's gonna remember you for
your championships, they're all going to remember that you flop
your way to them.

Speaker 6 (02:18:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:18:32):
Probably still like he's going to be the least regarded
star the NBA has seen in generations. Like even the
most ardent Lebron hater has to say this guy was
a specimen.

Speaker 3 (02:18:49):
Well, then you've got to go and actually take it
to that level and say the only reason he has
championships is because of this. I don't think people are
going to go there. I think they're going to recognize
it's part of his game and that's unfortun and it's
seemingly unethical. I think they're going that far.

Speaker 2 (02:19:03):
As mad as I am for him for the way
he plays basketball unethically, I'm way more mad at the
idiot gms around the association who kept giving Sam Presty
draft picks that turned into gold. You don't build this
monster if you're not giving one of the best talent
evaluators these valuable picks.

Speaker 1 (02:19:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:19:25):
All that being said, two of the key figures in
this series are SGA they traded for many years ago
and Jared McCain, who they were gifted in trade at
the deadline this year.

Speaker 1 (02:19:36):
Absolutely gifted Darryl did that not to mention he gave
them a first rounder in the Chris Paul deal for
Russell West.

Speaker 3 (02:19:44):
A lot of the first round picks are part of
why the rest of the roster is what it is.
But they're backcourt who's been crushing in this series, and
Alex Caruso for that matter, a free agent signing, and
Isaiah Hartenstein a free agent signing for that matter.

Speaker 1 (02:19:55):
And I know some of your other moves.

Speaker 3 (02:19:57):
You can make these because of what else you have,
but they're not all just a result of what everybody
else has given them.

Speaker 2 (02:20:03):
That well, the stupid Clippers did give them Sga. Yeah,
I mean broken down. Paul George would you.

Speaker 3 (02:20:11):
Would you say the same thing about Presty giving the
Rockets James Harden? And I wouldn't know, because it was
clear James Harden was going to be good.

Speaker 1 (02:20:21):
I know some people say they did.

Speaker 3 (02:20:22):
I did not think he would rise to the level
of he was one of the five best players in
the league.

Speaker 1 (02:20:26):
For eight years. I did.

Speaker 3 (02:20:27):
I have no idea Sga was going to be this.
No even less of an idea that his rookie seasons.

Speaker 5 (02:20:35):
Like this.

Speaker 1 (02:20:35):
Though, Okay, he might be pretty good. This's a nice
player to add to the deal.

Speaker 2 (02:20:38):
He would like take a layup and wouldn't crash to
the floor like he was shot out of a cannon.

Speaker 3 (02:20:43):
So he played the ethical basketball. I can't watch it. It's
so bad. He's such a bad it's a bad product.
They have a maximum of nine games remaining.

Speaker 1 (02:20:53):
I won't watch any of them. I won't. I haven't
watched any so far. I will only watch all of them,
I know, and then the Press Cotton Night exactly, and
you'll be all over it and you'll want to talk
about it tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (02:21:04):
I'll mix in some seeing what the Astros do without
Christian Walker. I mean, that's interesting to me.

Speaker 2 (02:21:09):
I'd rather watch all ten of that horrible ten game
road trip the Astros had earlier this season. You were referencing,
Then watch a minute of SGA play NBA playoff basketball.

Speaker 3 (02:21:22):
You think the Astros cleanup hitter tonight will hit their
first home run of the season.

Speaker 2 (02:21:28):
Who are we talking about here? That can't be a
good cleanup hitter. It's it's a fact, that can't be
a good cleanup hitter.

Speaker 3 (02:21:35):
He's got the best batting average on the team.

Speaker 1 (02:21:37):
So who is it?

Speaker 3 (02:21:40):
It's Taylor Trammel. Oh my gosh, Well he's missed a
lot of the season. He's had a good start back.
I can' kind of look at you right now, all facts?
Is it in three seventy Wayler Trammel your cleanup hitter
as you're going for the sweep. Yeah, he's operatics back
in the lineup giving protection to jord On Alvarez. He'll
be looking to hit his twenty first home run and
twenty second and probably will.

Speaker 1 (02:22:01):
In case you missed it is next which we have
to giveaway today.

Speaker 3 (02:22:05):
That'll be The Fix July third House of Blues tickets
on sale via ticketmaster dot com. If you don't win
them from us here in the final segment of the show,
which is when we'll give them away, then you can
go ahead and go purchase them via ticketmaster dot com.
If you want to see The Fix July twenty third
at the House of Blues, have a pair of tickets
to give away to their show coming up in the
final segment. If you were listening to the show this hour,

(02:22:26):
you will certainly know the answer to that question that
we ask you in our next segment. But halfway through
the final hour of the show, we also get you
caught up on a few items we have either not
discussed enough or not discussed at all.

Speaker 1 (02:22:37):
In case you missed it, What do we have today? Josh, Yeah, I.

Speaker 12 (02:22:40):
Wanted to start out here with some Houston Texans. Jayden
Higgins looking bigger, faster, stronger. According to Namiico Ryans, I'm
expecting a big gear. We looked back to last season,
five hundred and twenty five yards, six touchdowns, forty one catches.
So I'm wondering what would be a number you'd be
excited about as he steps up in year two? For comparison,

(02:23:02):
DeAndre Hopkins eight hundred and two yards in his rookie year.
Would you be satisfied with an eight hundred yard season
from Higgins?

Speaker 3 (02:23:11):
What about DeAndre Hopkins in year two?

Speaker 1 (02:23:14):
That year he went twelve hundred and ten yards. See
where I'm going, Well, he's an all time great in
Texans history at least.

Speaker 2 (02:23:23):
If not, I mean, eh, I don't know where he
is in the greater pantheon of wide receivers all time.

Speaker 1 (02:23:28):
He's great, He's good.

Speaker 2 (02:23:31):
But if you get eight hundred yards out of Higgins
in year two and Nico does Nico things and they
both stay healthy, you're probably you're probably pretty solid.

Speaker 3 (02:23:43):
I would think eight hundred yards is a health permitting
a given. I'm not looking for him to get eight
hundred yards in seventeen games. I'm expecting him to get
over eight hundred yards and seven.

Speaker 2 (02:23:56):
What are you expecting to get out of Collins? If
those are the numbers he puts.

Speaker 3 (02:23:59):
Up, of the same numbers he had last year, he
had eleven hundred yards, seventy catches, seventy one catches, eleven
seventeen yards. They both had six touchdowns. I'm expecting them
to use Higgins way more regardless of Nico Collins availability,
but it also goes way up when Nico Collins isn't available.
He only missed two regular season games. Nico and Jayden

(02:24:21):
played in all of them. But remember at the beginning
of the season, I'll remind you if you don't Jadan
Higgins catches in his first six NFL games, and he
played in all of them healthy two, one, one, one,
four and zero. And he only didn't he caught every
pass that was thrown to him in four consecutive games.

(02:24:42):
During that stretch. They did not throw him the football.
He did not get enough reps, I thought, and maybe
as a rookie that's kind of how it went, and
then the second half of the season came around, or
at least the portion of the season where they did. You,
I mean, I have five straight weeks where he saw
five targets or more.

Speaker 1 (02:24:59):
It's gonna see that at most every game this year.

Speaker 3 (02:25:02):
I think this and their personnel groups this year might
change dramatically. I don't know that they're gonna have three
wide receivers on the field quite as much as they
did last year, and I think when they have too,
it's pretty clear who those two will be. But Foster Moreau,
Brevin Jordan, and Marland Klein caught zero passes last year
for the Texans. They're all going to make the team

(02:25:23):
this year. I think, I'm not sure because Cad Stover
and Dalton Schultz still exist. Klein's a rookie. You just
signed Moreau for a reason, and I'm not expecting him
to go crazy with catches. But they might carry five
tight ends this year for that very reason. And I
do think we're gonna say a lot more of those
personnel groups on the field. Two tight end sets commonplace,

(02:25:47):
So that's taking a wide receiver off the field.

Speaker 2 (02:25:50):
Well, you drafted this guy with your first pick last
year instead of an offensive lineman, so I would hope
that he gets more involved.

Speaker 3 (02:25:59):
Well, I mean instead of an offensive line. It took
an offensive line and fourteen picks later. I don't care,
but they take flicked them over and you wouldn't. I mean,
there's no difference.

Speaker 1 (02:26:08):
I just go ahead.

Speaker 12 (02:26:09):
I was just say, if we believe then they want
to be more run heavy. The defense is that good.
Maybe they're not pushing for points in games. That's why
I tempered expectations a little bit, because maybe they're not
trailing and they don't have to throw as much.

Speaker 3 (02:26:22):
I'll tell you, I think Dalton Schultz numbers are gonna
go down, and that's where a lot of these yards
are gonna come from. I'd love to see their running
backs pass catching numbers go up. Nick Chubb was basically
non existent in the running game, and I think they
dramatically underused woody marks in the past game. David Montgomery's
going to be a part of the pass game as
they're number one, much more so.

Speaker 1 (02:26:42):
Than they were last year.

Speaker 3 (02:26:44):
But they didn't throw for many yards last year. That
number's got to go up no matter how much they
run the football. So I'll put eight hundred as my baseline.
I think it's going to be higher. I'm fine with that.
I mean, it's all systems go if that's the case,
So I'm here for it. What else do you have?

Speaker 12 (02:27:01):
All right, you were talking about this the UFC event outside.
Joe Rogan has some concerns, mostly due to the heat.
Looked it up last year. Apparently there's about one hundred
degrees that day last year. And the bugs, apparently a
lot of gnats are a problem. He made the point
of if you're going for the world title, you wouldn't see,
like a basketball NBA championship go from being in a

(02:27:22):
gym to being held outside. For me, I just want
to watch. I don't really care, but it's interesting. Maybe
if you're a fighter, do you see it differently. We're
gonna have misters installed. There will be no bugs.

Speaker 3 (02:27:33):
Are we worried about someone? And this is very unlikely
because it's at the White House. It's not your typical
outdoor event in Vegas, let's say, which mainly were boxing
events where someone crashed into the scene.

Speaker 2 (02:27:49):
Oh well, if someone tries to do that on the
lawn of the White House.

Speaker 1 (02:27:53):
There's not going to be much of him left probably now.
And here's a thing.

Speaker 2 (02:27:57):
If you don't think that these fighters are going to
be in an air conditioned environment right up to the
moment they go out to the octagon. You don't know,
Dana White, this thing's gonna be is.

Speaker 3 (02:28:08):
That part of what there is? There's the ballroom close
enough for them to be set that up.

Speaker 1 (02:28:11):
In the ballroom will be done. Where are the wayans?
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:28:15):
Well, that's gotta be at the Lincoln Memorial, right, something
over the top.

Speaker 1 (02:28:19):
Right, Like, think about it.

Speaker 2 (02:28:22):
If you're Dana White and you're having this event in
DC on the White House lawn, where else would you
want to have a way in considering how non public
basically the event is.

Speaker 3 (02:28:32):
Yeah, everything else you can have around the event, it
will be as public as possible.

Speaker 2 (02:28:38):
The fighters should be in the exact same spot as
Forrest Gump when he made that speech in front of
the reflecting pool and then they cut his mic.

Speaker 3 (02:28:47):
You mean when Jenny came through the water. Jenny worst
character ever? I mean, what a piece of crapshit was.
I've tried to not say anything as Josh was walking
us through this item, but I wanted to say, why
do we care what the guy from news radio thinks
about this UFC event, Like I did, not everyone get

(02:29:07):
introduced to Joe Rogan on as a small cast member
on news radio.

Speaker 2 (02:29:12):
I remember Joe Joe Rogan as the what's the what
was the stupid game of the Factor? Yeah, that's what
I first remembered seeing him. I knew he was around
before that, but that's when I remember.

Speaker 3 (02:29:23):
Seven seasons worth of having people bathing roaches.

Speaker 1 (02:29:27):
What a stud show?

Speaker 3 (02:29:29):
The things that watches shocking that it lasted so many years.

Speaker 1 (02:29:33):
The show itself, it lasted a lot more than seven years.

Speaker 2 (02:29:37):
Like, you can make fun of me for watching pro
wrestling all you want, I still win this.

Speaker 3 (02:29:42):
I think it probably would be better served if I
said podcast host Joe Rogan, he's.

Speaker 12 (02:29:47):
Got a great podcast to help get me elected. Lastly,
you hit on it last segment. Wex Christian Walker out
of the lineup today. He started what fifty six a
fifty seven games, so he could probably use the day.

Speaker 3 (02:29:59):
On last astro And it's not a given yet that
he won't play, but he's the only astro that's played
in every game. And Josh noted he did not start
one of those games. He played and I wouldn't be
shocked if he played in this game, if it's warranted.
But he's not in the starting lineup tonight. We've teased
it a couple of times, Payna Alvarez, Perettis, and Perettis
is your first baseman, Tremmell Smith, Shoemake, Shoemakes got third.

(02:30:21):
Tremmel's in center. Descenzo, Bryce Matthews and Christian Vasquez doing
the catching for Spencer Arraghetty. They will try to beat
the Alvin Express. Now Nathany Valdi are doing He's the
Ryan Express. Jock Peterson once again leading off.

Speaker 1 (02:30:40):
Looking out for the lightning bolts. It's about to strike you.

Speaker 2 (02:30:46):
The A Team eighteen Sports Talk seven ninety final segment
on a Thursday.

Speaker 3 (02:30:51):
Here got tickets to give away, and we talked about
something last segment that you, if you listen to, will
know the answer to. We've got a pair of tickets
to see The Fix live July twenty third at the
House of Blues. Tickets are on sale now at ticketmaster
dot com. One of the items we discussed was about
two hundred and fifty the big event UFC Freedom two fifty,

(02:31:15):
the event at the White House coming up, helping to
celebrate our great country in the two hundred and fifty
years we've been crushing it. It's right there on the
White House lawn, big UFC event, Dana White, Donald Trump,
and everybody else involved going to put it together. Somebody
had concerns about it being outdoors and warm. That somebody

(02:31:35):
was Joe Rogan. Josh brought that up, and in case
you missed it, and I said at the end of
the segment, we should probably refer to Joe Rogan as
podcast host Joe Rogan. Earlier during our commentary about young Joseph,
I said, a lot of people remember him from this,
and you said, but a lot of other people remember

(02:31:56):
him from that. Will take either answer either this or that.
Where did we suggest you should have already known who
Joe Rogan was because of what he had done earlier
in his career. Either of the two things he was
associated with shows he was associated with are acceptable answers
here to win your tickets to the Fix seven one

(02:32:18):
three two one two five seven ninety even know the
answer to that question. Two very specific shows that we
mentioned on the on the our show last segment UH
tickets July twenty third, House of Blues the fix. If
you don't win them here, you can get them via
ticketmaster dot com. Calling out with the answer, where'd you
know Joe Rogan from before he was Joe Rogan podcast

(02:32:40):
host and UFC commentator, the two very specific shows that
each of us individually mentioned last segment seven one three
two one two five seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (02:32:49):
We did not get to the Players Players Association's response
to the counter proposal or from Major League Baseball.

Speaker 3 (02:33:02):
Was it Kramer like Cosmo Kramer, like the owners, they
immediately shake hands.

Speaker 2 (02:33:07):
No, The owners responded today with a demand for a
salary cap system, something generations of players have fought against.
Here they're phrasing this, I love it. Generations of players
have fought against this slavery. That's how they're making it sound.
Didn't use that word. That's what it's making it sound like.
The last time the owners made so they don't want
to cap. The last time the owners made such an

(02:33:29):
explicit push for a cap, over thirty years ago, it
led to the longest work stoppage in MLB history. For generations,
our members have fought against cap systems because they harm
players at all levels, erode or eliminate contractual guarantees pit

(02:33:50):
player against player, actually the game. Does that lead to
more work stoppages, not less, and get worse for players
over time. Caps don't lower ticket prices for fans, eliminate tanking,
or ensure teams are run with equal competence. They suffocate
competition by offering owners an all purpose excuse for inaction

(02:34:15):
and mediocrity.

Speaker 3 (02:34:18):
Really well stated, you think so. Absolutely, it's a very
strong position to hold. It's a strong position to hold.
It's not well stated.

Speaker 1 (02:34:25):
It sounds like someone's in favor of the billionaires.

Speaker 2 (02:34:29):
I'm telling you right now, we are not having a
season next year. This is day three exactly. Proposals could
not be further apart CAP. No, yes, no, yes, that's
how it's going to go all summer.

Speaker 3 (02:34:47):
Believe you said the last time they asked for one
thirty over thirty years asked for this before. Yeah, it's
been declined, but and we've played.

Speaker 1 (02:34:55):
The owners are demanding it. The we're putting our foot down,
but they all of the money that we have as.

Speaker 2 (02:35:02):
We continue to address the real problem here, which is
the vans and the workers who don't make millions of
dollars are the ones that are gonna be the victims here.

Speaker 1 (02:35:10):
Why are we playing in twenty twenty eight?

Speaker 2 (02:35:13):
They might not be that Well, that's basically lost so
much money in twenty twenty seven, So who's caving the players?

Speaker 3 (02:35:20):
So there is gonna be a cap and the players
are gonna stand strong for an entire year because they
don't want one, and there's gonna be no baseball, and
then you're gonna say, oh, but now we need baseball
so you can have it.

Speaker 1 (02:35:30):
Yes, okay, I mean.

Speaker 3 (02:35:32):
I'm laughing not at your anthem, because it really could
happen that way.

Speaker 1 (02:35:36):
Why wouldn't it?

Speaker 2 (02:35:37):
These are the two I mean, honestly, major League Baseball.
We talked to Blum off the air all time. He's
not gonna care that I share this. I'm like, you
don't want a cap to you? He goes, Nope, they
are lock step on this. That's why I know we're
not gonna have a season. But then after they don't
have a season and they lose all of that, I mean,
that's when that's always when stuff happens. That's always when

(02:35:58):
stuff gets done.

Speaker 3 (02:35:59):
How about if they just miss March, they won't April, Well,
they'll miss March in April okay, good May one and
twenty game seasons July and August, in September and October,
and a World Series.

Speaker 1 (02:36:13):
So which team is gonna get to have?

Speaker 7 (02:36:15):
Like?

Speaker 3 (02:36:15):
Will the team that won this year? Will they parade
again in twenty seven? No, there will be no parades,
but they won't. They'll still be their Rangers, never their
hunk of metal mean less. Yes, they got to keep
it for two years, not a Stanley Cup. They're not't
drinking out of it.

Speaker 1 (02:36:30):
That's pretty difficult too. There's no reservoirs in it.

Speaker 2 (02:36:33):
And again this happens on the same day where Adam
Silver still stepped in it.

Speaker 3 (02:36:37):
More like, do you think they actually was this response
pre prepared? Probably, like I assume the proposal was like, like,
we got an email from the league, the NBA, here
are the parameters of the new lottery reform. And now
that I've run through it makes a lot more sense
and it's not very unlikable, not good, but it's one

(02:36:59):
page's worth of Else, do you think the proposals that
they sent back and forth were brief or lengthy?

Speaker 1 (02:37:04):
They used emojis.

Speaker 2 (02:37:06):
One in particular, it's got all the fingers down except
for the middle one that's up.

Speaker 3 (02:37:10):
What about the emoji of the face where it's red
and that you can't really see their face, their their.

Speaker 1 (02:37:18):
Lips because there's X.

Speaker 3 (02:37:20):
There's an executive Yes, I feel like that emoji is
lewis black basically screaming as the fire of inside out
of the five feelings. Yes, but this is Boom proposal.
Boom first proposal back from us Boom our answer, this
is standard stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:37:40):
None of it really means anything.

Speaker 3 (02:37:41):
No, they call that they were both sides were acting
asking for.

Speaker 2 (02:37:44):
The protocol standard the deep chasm deep that's that's the
first time that word has ever been used on this
show or will ever be used again.

Speaker 1 (02:37:56):
That is where the problem lies.

Speaker 3 (02:37:57):
So March twenty seventh and twenty eight, yesterday and today,
we've got proposals going back and forth and an answer
to one of them, so to speak, when's the next
time we hear of them exchanging ideas, sitting down at
the table, if you will, which they really haven't.

Speaker 1 (02:38:12):
Even done yet.

Speaker 3 (02:38:13):
We have all of June, July, August, and September of
regular season baseball. We have October November of postseason baseball,
and December first is when the CBA expires. They have
to have more discussions. How about immediately? How about that's what.

Speaker 1 (02:38:29):
We always weeks in ten days?

Speaker 2 (02:38:30):
Remember, how about when there's work stoppage actually going on
and we're saying that, hey, you guys should get together.

Speaker 1 (02:38:37):
You don't have a labor union agreement. Yeah, we'll wait
till next week.

Speaker 3 (02:38:41):
Why should we bang our heads against the walls. Just
said that a week ago. We need a recess. But
we're all gonna get paid while we're not working, but
not very much. I heard this last week or two.
They don't make very much money.

Speaker 1 (02:38:51):
Well, well we did. I don't know. I don't know
about that. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:38:57):
I just know that we're gonna be sitting here and
there's gonna be a lot more are off the rail
segments this time next year if there's not a baseball
season going on. So you have that to look forward to.
I'm I am looking forward to. You should be looking
forward to.

Speaker 3 (02:39:08):
The table will be plenty to talk about me bringing
up my year one of the modern Reform console to
play during the show.

Speaker 2 (02:39:14):
That's gonna happen like every day if there's not a
baseball season.

Speaker 1 (02:39:18):
The A team simulates the twenty twenty seven season. Duh ooh,
you get MLB the show. I wonder if it'll be.

Speaker 3 (02:39:24):
Released, No question about it. We do have Astros Baseball
coming your way. Right after we slide aside, the Astros
on Deck show begins Arraghetti and Evaldi, the opportunity to
make it six of seven, to take three games and
two straight series for your Astros, and of course you
got the tenth Inning Show after that.

Speaker 1 (02:39:41):
Tomorrow morning, don't forget.

Speaker 3 (02:39:43):
Start your day with the Morning Drive with Dan and
Cole Tomorrow morning at eight thirty. They will be welcoming
in a very special guest. Ted Cruz joins the Morning Drive.
Grayson Allen joins the Morning Drive tomorrow morning at eight thirty.
We'll talk to you tomorrow at two