The A-Team: Not The Texans Free Agency We Hope For and Alpi Update

Adam Clanton and Adam Wexler talk about what's going on in Houston sports and more on March 11th, 2024.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named AdhamTalking Your Teams series, Adam Clinton and
Adam Wexler are the A team Ateam, no mess around. Today it

(00:25):
is time to talk about what therest of the NFL is doing in the
NFL today. Free agency period isopen. Can't sign anybody yet, but
you sure can't agree to terms ifyou're one of the other thirty one gms
and they have been all afternoon long. You heard about it right here on

(00:48):
Sports Talk seven ninety leading up tous with the period opening at eleven,
the possibility that next up was goingto have the greatest twenty twenty four big
player news news of the year,but they didn't. Then the chance for
the crew on the Matt Thomas Showfrom twelve to three today that was without
Matt Thomas, to have the biggesttwenty twenty four free agent news were the

(01:11):
Texans, but they didn't. Nowthat's up to us. On the opening
day of legal tampering in the NFLfour hours plus in what a dumb name,
the Texans have yet to have theword we all love on day one
of free agency in any sport attachedto them. That word is splash.

(01:32):
It's been used a lot today fora lot of different players going to a
lot of different places, a handfulof Texans going to new place, both
of them elsewhere. And the Texanshave agreed to terms with up player.
They'll be playing for his third teamin five seasons. So we will make
sure to get you updated on that. And you did hear about it a
few minutes ago on the Matt ThomasShow. But wex Ac and Dan excited

(01:56):
to be with you, so allowedon the radio. Instead of just via
the X platform, via our cellyour phone devices, via DM or text,
we can do it on the radio, saying do they know that they're
supposed to be trying to make theteam better. I didn't say anything about
money. I said something very simple. Whatever your plan was when you hired

(02:20):
Demico Ryans, whatever your plan waswhen you went to bed Thursday night after
drafting CJ. Stroud and Will Anderson, whatever it was, then you're acting
like it's the same now and thatis a mistake. If you asked me,
could not wait to get on theair today and excited for what the
next three hours on the radio willbring, because I can't quite say I'm

(02:43):
excited for what the next three hoursof NFL free agency might bring because so
far the team has not committed togetting better. How do you feel about
Denico Autry's the latest go ahead,non big spit you have for the people,
two year deal worth ten million,a veteran addition to the Houston defensive

(03:06):
line. No, this is whatyou do when you are in play for
a lot of really talented players,and I don't doubt it. And I'm
also not not going to say thatit's great that they were in on it.
Other people might. I think it'sembarrassing to go along with that,
so I won't being in on itdoesn't matter at all. You have a

(03:27):
telephone and you picked it up wayto go. You don't sign the player.
That's it. That's all there isto it. If you're not the
last one standing, if you're notthe one that come to an agreement because
it's clearly a player you wanted.Great, line in the sand, Great,
we've got a budget. Great,I want to manage my cap.
Fine, but I'm not going tosay great job you tried. Are you
awesome job you try? No.I don't want to hear it from people

(03:52):
when they say that, because itmeans you're not paying any attention, and
you're either too homer ish or youdon't understand how to build a football team.
So I don't want people to thinkit's okay. I'm not saying fire
him. Free agency doesn't open ateleven and close at three. I think
they've already made mistakes two of them, but it's not over yet. Are

(04:13):
those two the ones they let walkout the door and land in Minnesota?
They are? But I'd love tostart where you sent the people. So
tell me something about your feelings,your initial thoughts. If you're giving me
the name Deneko Autrey, what areyou trying to tell me? What are
you thinking about? Well? Howis this awesome? What's the news?
How did they make themselves better today? Well, here's how you need to
know about like So I don't necessarilytake a lot of stock and who sends

(04:40):
these tweets out at any given time. I don't cloud it with that,
But when they write a little editorialline in the tweet, that's usually what
I do. It kind of tellsyou what you need to know about the
player, if they know what they'retalking about. So when I see source
the Texans are expected to sign defensivetackle Denego Archery to a two year,
year, ten million dollar deal,a veteran addition to the Houston D line.

(05:04):
Veteran addition to fill in the blankposition means this guy's fine, but
he's nothing to get all excited aboutother than depth. Well, I'll take
it to a different direction. Thisis a smart signing, This is helpful,
This could make the team better.This is very similar, although not
quite the same player. I don'tthink they've made a bad decision. By

(05:24):
the way, Let's let's be specificto the individual, and we'll talk about
Jeffreal Kuda, the cornerback that theyalso have agreed to terms with. So
the report on Denico Autrey, theD lineman, interior D lineman, two
years, twenty million, ten anda half guaranteed. It's not far off
on an average annual value of thedeal you signed Sheldon Rankins two a year

(05:45):
ago. Granted it was only aone year deal, but it was just
under ten million. This one's justover ten million per season for two years.
Probably again, a two year dealfor a player, he'd have to
be pretty awful and you'd have tobe in a pretty bad cap situation after
this year. To not have himplay out those two years of the deal,
So I think what it gets reportedwill be accurate. They'll be paying
him about twenty and a half millionover two seasons. This is fine.

(06:10):
This is the type of player youwant to add. He needs to not
be the best player you add.But if you're going down the list,
and they had to because over theweekend after we left you with I'm telling
you, the Texans are going tosign one expensive free agent. Who is
it? I told you i'd putthat poll question out there, and I
did, and the two players thatgot eighty plus percent of the vote,

(06:31):
well, they signed elsewhere. It'spretty much a given that Christian Wilkins was
not coming to the Texans if youasked me. As soon as we saw
the money from out of Bouquet,and as soon as we saw the money
over the weekend for Chris Jones,I never thought the Texans would be giving
any individual free agent outsider that kindof money. And I don't even know
what their limit was, but itcertainly wasn't one hundred and ten million or
whatever it turns out to be fromthe Raiders. And that's where he went.

(06:54):
And then you just take another stepback and another step back, And
where you with Eric Armstead, who'sgonna be released by the Niners, who's
coming off surgery though he played verywell in the playoffs despite it, Or
do you go down another notchre doyou feel really good about Audrey? And
they've seen Audrey plenty with what he'sdone in his career, where he's played,
and how productive he's been. Ilike these types of moves. This

(07:16):
is the kind of thing that preventsme from going scorched earth. Because these
moves had not been made by threeo'clock, I wasn't going to, Like
I said, free agency was notfour hours long. The idea of the
Texans getting better after the first fourhours still exists. Is a little disappointing
that certain players I thought made aton of sense for them to have on
next year's team won't be. Buta signing like Audrey does make sense and

(07:42):
potentially makes you better if Malik Collinsand Nico Autrey with John gren are with
Will Anderson and somebody that's not onthe team yet, because their fourth starter
on the D line does not exist, He's not a Texan today. They
don't have anybody on the roster thatcan really truly start at that position right
at this very moment, then maybethey have the makings of a comparable defensive

(08:03):
line. You're gonna have to tellme that Autrey is going to play significantly
better or more than Rankins to tellme they got better. They definitely prevented
themselves from getting worse with a signinglike this. So I can agree with
it, and I'll rubber stamp it. I'll give him a positive grade at
least one thumb up. I don'tknow if both of my thumbs are going
up, but yes, these arethe types of deals I get. I

(08:26):
do think there were players out therethat could have made him a lot better.
A little concerned about his age,but over the last five seasons he's
been awfully six seasons probably, andthose are the ones you saw him the
most. He played three years inIndy, he played three years in Tennessee,
and he was super productive and forthe most part, as d lineman
go pretty healthy. Played seventeen gamestwo of the last three seasons. Again,

(08:48):
he's thirty four, so a littleconcerned, will be thirty four this
summer. But it makes sense.Again, not awful? Is that selling
it? Not awful? Well,I'm I'm waiting until you're done so I
can bestow upon you the next bitof bad news for the Texans. I'm
waiting. Devin Singletary's not going tobe back next year because he's going to

(09:09):
take Saquon Barkley's place with the Giants. And know, by the way,
Barkley's not coming here either, becausehe's signing with the Eagles. So the
free agent running back class, wetold Jo on Friday, everybody knew this
at the time was going to bemassive. The class of talent that was
being allowed to leave their teams wasmassive. Is a really good group.
It's not like you can, Idon't think turn your team around with any

(09:31):
of them, and that includes SaquonBarkley. You know, the Eagles were
awesome running the football two years ago. They were less awesome last year.
I think they're hoping that Saquon Barkleyflips them back to what they once were.
But again, that takes pressure offthe quarterback that they're paying megabucks to
because they're better off being a runningteam than a passing team, even though
they have Davontae Smith and AJ Brown. But that's for them to decide.

(09:54):
Not all that surprising that a suitorlike that was found. Who's the head
coach of the Giants, Brian David. Where did Brian Dabole come from?
He was the OC and Buffalo.Who is his running back Devin Singletary?
But it does already eliminates what Iput out forty five minutes ago, or
less a guess. I think Itook out the word total guess and left
just a guess that the Texans wouldend up with Devin Singletary and Zach Moss

(10:18):
as their running back duo along withDamian Pearce in twenty twenty four. Now
even that is out the window andyou drift further down the list. I'll
say it again from off the topthe money. I do not care about
what it costs for this player whothey got out on because it costs this
much for that player. You cannotgo into year two, even on paper

(10:39):
of CJ. Stroud and Demico Rans, without the thought that we got better
because we have better players. Youhave to get better players when you're in
the situation that they're in from adevelopment standpoint, and if you have good
players, you can't lose them alltoo. Yeah, just to update you.
Both the defensive players that I thinkwere at the top of the Texans
free agent want to keep list arenot going to be kept. Blake Cashman's

(11:01):
day, They'll be able to seeeach other next year. They're more than
welcome to see each other and exchangejerseys even after the Texans beat the quarterback
list Vikings. Next year we shallsee. But Blake Cashman and John Garnard
both got money, good money inboth cases from the Vikings to go play
for Brian Flores's defense. Seventy sixmillion reported over four years for John Grenard

(11:22):
with over forty two of it guaranteed, and in Blake Cashman's case, twenty
five and a half million over threeseasons. Both contracts to me, as
I've said forever, seemed doable forthe Texans. I never knew what the
money would end up being. Wedidn't know what the franchise tag would be
for Grenard, which they declined touse. We saw what other players at

(11:43):
edge were getting or going to getthis off season. During the season when
he was playing out the final yearof his rookie deal, I thought it
made sense to try to get adeal done. Maybe they tried. I
thought it made sense to franchise taghim if you did not get a deal
done, they did not. Ipretty much knew that was and the end
of things for them, because oncehe gets the market, there's one hundred

(12:03):
percent, one hundred percent absolutely guaranteedanother team is going to offer more than
you were willing to. That's theMinnesota Vikings. So two very impactful defensive
players will not be playing here nextyear. We'll see who else besides Deniko
Autry and Jeff Okuda join the Texansafter the first four hours and thirteen minutes

(12:24):
a free agency. Well, yeah, we're only thirteen minutes into the program,
and a whole lot we've already accomplished. And yeah, we'll continue to
discuss what has happened, what doeshappen as it unfolds, and all points
in between. Plus does today's JVupdate also include his former teammate and competitor
for the twenty nineteen Cy Young Award. We'll explain that when we come back

(12:48):
as well. It is the ateam Sports Talks seven to ninety and that
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(13:58):
so Houston and even though they don'tsmoke, they still have twenty five lighters
on their dresser a little bit,Mike, Yes, sir, they've got
to get paid, so back toyou it, guys. No an occasion
that during our pay the bills portionof the program, there will be eleven
more of them that the Texans signedor agreed to terms excuse me, with

(14:22):
any additional free agents. Knew theywere hitting the free agency period with a
host of players of their own thatwould have made sense to bring back.
Based on reports, three of themwill not be back. Maybe based on
a Texans signing, a fourth willnot be back. John Grenard's a Viking,
Blake Cashman's a Viking, Devin Singletaryis a New York Giant, And
because of the Autry signing on theinterior of the Texans line, it would

(14:45):
seem likely that Sheldon Rankins is notgoing to be a Texan. Texans have
signed Jeff Okuda and Autry. Likewe mentioned in the opening segment, they
do have an opening at corner soto speak with Steven Nelson in free agency,
and I've not heard a whole lotof news about him. But no,
the Texans also spoke with him abouta potential return. But that's normally
the case when you're a good team. But how about that commentary we had

(15:07):
the last several weeks. The Texasjust won seven games. The Texans just
won a playoff game. The Texanswere just one of the final eight teams
still playing for a chance to winit all. People, players and their
agents, they will want to playhere, It's one hundred percent true.
But if somebody else pays them more, they'll want to play there. And
that's what's happened for the pursuit ofseveral players that were reportedly showing interest in

(15:31):
the Texans and vice versa, theinterest from the Texans in them. We
know they were after Saquon Barkley basedon reports in our own understanding of the
situation, seems likely they were obviouslystill involved, along with the Raiders and
probably two other teams with Christian Wilkins. He ends up agreeing to a deal
for well over one hundred million withthe Raiders, and again the list goes

(15:52):
on and on. You have anopening, a big, big opening,
gaping hole at the edge opposite WillAnderson. So as I said earlier today,
they have to address it. Ifthey hope to land that newcomer to
take over that in the draft.Only that's silly. They're gonna sign several

(16:14):
players before we get there to dothat. It's just a matter of do
they actually sign a player that likelyis impactful in the way that Grenard,
if healthy, likely would have been. Daniel Hunter is one such player.
Obviously, to me, that wouldmake sense. Just wonder, if you're
gonna spend that much money on Hunter, why wouldn't you have just spent it
on Grenard unless you have your reasons, And I'm sure they'll explain him to

(16:36):
us if and when that comes topass. I just I'm torn because I
know what Nick Cassario's trying to do, or I think I know what he's
trying to do in Hotel well,in the letting them walk, letting them
pass scenario, letting them walk beinghis own guys, letting them pass on
to other teams, in the caseof, you know, the Saquon Barkleys

(16:57):
of the world. Way did Inot say on Friday, I was starting
to get a feeling that Chris Joneswas just going to go back to Kansas
City. He was really the firstnot that on Friday was the first day,
he said that it seemed like you'vebeen on that train for a little
while, and I thought it madesense and you were definitely right. Well,
I didn't really have any football reasonto it other than just there are
guys they let walk and have highprofile guys Tyreek Hills probably at the top

(17:22):
of that list. But just fromall indications and the way he was conducting
himself and the way they had talkedabout it, and I know that he's
no Dion Dawkins. Well, youknow, Chris Jones was sending out some
very serious trolling tweets for days,right, not every day, but over
a course of several days. Absolutely, and then today Dion Dawkins sent out,

(17:44):
well, I had a great runhere, can't wait to see what's
next. Moments before the reports cameout that he was resigning with Buffalo,
he was making it out like hewas going to be a surprise release.
But Chris Jones ended up getting paidan enormous amount of money. And I
don't want to make xgms who areon the X platform that hate when people

(18:04):
like myself say that the cap isso easy to manipulate and you get gms,
yeah, like Andrew Brent Okay,who I like, but he wants
to tell us. Here's for thoseof you who think the cap is pretend.
I don't think it's pretend. Butif you're an NFL team that just
won the Super Bowl with Pat Mahomes, Travis Kelsey, and Chris Jones,

(18:25):
and you've extended all of them atleast once each, if not more so
than anybody can do it. Thebest three players on your team, the
most important three players on your team, at three very different spots on your
team, are all making megabucks,even Pat Mahomes now, and you can
always find a way to do it, and they have. And so it's
other players that will fall by thewayside, but they believe they'll be able

(18:45):
to stay at or near the topof the league. And maybe Mahomes makes
up whatever the difference is. Thiswas the best player in free agency if
he had hit free agency instead,he's the highest paid player at his position
at the time, and he stayswith the best quarterback in the NFL who
with him they've won three titles withIt can be done. Other decisions have

(19:07):
to be made. Take a lookat the Tyreek Hill situation for his new
team. The Dolphins haven't won,but they have also lost to everyone in
the last forty eight hours because theytried to do what all these other teams
are going to try to do,including Houston. They signed all these players
or traded for all these players,and paid all these players. While what
Tua was on his initial rookie contractafter being a top five draft pick,

(19:32):
that is what c. J.Stroud is on right now. They went
out and got Tyreek Hill, andhe's the highest paid wide receiver in the
NFL. They paid a boatload ofother talented players at a Jalen Ramsey obviously
waddle these They've paying so many guysand they didn't win a playoff game and
it didn't work. Yet they're stillgoing to have their quarterback. They're still
gonna have Tyreek Hill, but theydid have to make some hard decisions,

(19:53):
and they've let a bunch of guyssign elsewhere. It's pretty clear their defense
will be worse. We'll see aboutoffensive line with the Hunt signing for a
hundred million elsewhere. That's just whathappens. When it doesn't work out,
you're even less compelled to stick withit. Kansas City could have let Chris
Jones walk. But why didn't theybecause they won, you know, not

(20:14):
because they're trying to win. Theyknow they can win. It's already happened.
Yeah, they have the recipe ifyou will. And back to the
Texans. I know this is probablygoing to seem hugely small potatoes. See
what I did there? You meanBigley, big Lee small potatoes. In
fact, these are spuds. CamJohnston to the Steelers. That might end

(20:37):
up hurting more than you think becauseone of the reasons the Texans were so
successful is because their special teams wasbasically perfect this year. Yeah, you
say it like it's everybody's aware ofit. So again with the news.
If you want to tell everybody whatthat is. Cam Johnson's gone to the
Steelers. How's that? How's thatfor breaking it? Excuse me? You?
You employ likely you employ three specialistsevery year. Some teams foolishly carry

(21:03):
two kickers. I don't think anyonewho carries two long snappers or punters.
But it's normally a three man group. They hang out together, they practice
together, they try to become thebest three man specialists in the NFL.
And you could argue that Texans hadthat with Weeks and Kayimi Fairbairn and Cam
Johnston. They've been together the lastthree years. Obviously, Weeks has been

(21:23):
here forever and Kaymi's not working ona second contract extension. But they will
be in the market for a punter. And I hope a lot of you
didn't laugh when it was reported atthe Senior Bowl that while some of the
punters were working out, Texans generalmanager Nick Cassario was paying attention. Well,
he'll be cheaper than the one thatthey just let walk. Yeah,

(21:45):
that is one way to save somemoney. Again, paying your specialist does
not prevent you from signing players atother of the twenty two starting positions.
I hope. But three to fouryears with a punter has kind of been
the Texan far longer than Nick Cassariohas been around. I'm not a big
fan of it. I hope itdoesn't burn them because just like when Kayimi

(22:07):
was out last year, they've hadJohnston miss games too, and the punters
they've brought in have not been good, not been able to punt the ball
nearly as well, And it impactsyour ability to set yourselves up from a
field position standpoint the way that theyhave because Johnston well not being a pro
bowler is a very good punter,Yes, a loss probably one that is

(22:32):
you're able to overcome. But usuallythe market for punters, I mean,
it's not like there's five really goodpunters out there every year. You're kind
of just taking a chance or you'reactually investing in a draft pick on one,
which to me is even worse.Can can I can I make an
observation on the best I guess humorousobservation on the non noteworthy Texans free agency

(22:55):
period. Thus far from our goodbuddy Greg Jean, it appears the most
free asient buzz the Texans have gottentoday is people noting Cam Johnston's resemblance to
Bill Burr. Yeah, no offenseto those Texans fans, good beat or
otherwise you're in the otherwise category.If Cam Johnson's been here for the last
fifty one regular season games and you'rejust now figuring out that he looks like

(23:17):
Bill Burr, what kind of Texansfan are you? Well, maybe he
had his helmet on more often thannot when he saw him. I mean,
when you're a punter, Yeah,you don't really agree. Picture that
gets posted? Why is it gettingposted at all? There aren't any it
only gets posted the day you signa new contract with somebody else. Yeah,
I went to the Steelers. He'sprobably angry about it. Bill Burr.

(23:37):
Yeah, I hopefully everybody even thinkshe looks like Bill Burr thinks Bill
Burr is hilarious because he's hilarious.He's pretty funny. He is pretty pretty,
pretty funny. We'll continue with freeagency discussion, and hey, if
something happens in the next several minuteswhile we take a quick time out,
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Jesse, that's just my device toplay Sports Talk seven ninety on I
Heart Radio. Ay team rolling alonghere on Sports Talk seven ninety. Do
we miss anything? Do we getWas there anything that happen to any earth

(25:51):
shattering? Do we miss it?Do we miss it? Do you hear
a breaking new sounder? Well notyet, but it's only five seconds into
the segment. Well, if itwould have happened in the last however long
our stopt was, you would haveheard it. Listen to me, jerk,
what a j e r k.You know. I had to have
a conversation with the son this weekendabout that word. He's playing his games
on his iPad and he goes,these jerks are getting in the way of

(26:14):
me. I go, what hegoes, These idiots are getting in the
way of me. And I can'teven be mad because that's how I talk
when he's in the car with me, when I'm in the truck. That's
exactly what I say. Is heplaying a learn how to drive game?
He's playing a racing game. Thereyou go and then he ratted me out
to his mother yesterday. He's like, dad speeded, Like, well,
yeah, that's the same thing assaying dad has a car. Hu I

(26:34):
told his I told his mother.I said, look, that's not very
Italian of him to rat out hisown father. He should be going to
the grave with it right. Hedidn't survive his first pinch. He wasn't
even pinched. He gave it upfreely, he tells. He tells Teresa
that I speeded and broke all therules and gave him two donuts. Whose

(26:55):
family does he really think? Islike, who's the head of the family?
He tried to stay loyal. Toadsa family. That's the problem with
this scenario. She thinks she's thehead of the family. Two alphas there
you go. Yeah, when twoalphas get married and have a child,
then you're right. He thinks he'sthe head of the family, and who
probably really runs things is Brooklyn becauseshe's perfect in every way. It's for

(27:18):
we're gonna have a little conversation.He was a good kid this weekend though.
That's good. I'm glad that hewas good. We obviously there's some
other things on the table, butthis definitely takes center stage. You're trying
to win, You're trying to atleast repeat as division champions. You try
to at least reach the same spotyou did in the postseason. Again,
saying it like that almost sounds likeyou're accepting of it. But if you

(27:40):
win any more than the Texans did, they're playing in the AFC title Game.
If the Texans win more than theydid last year, there's only one
other AFC team left to be andyou're going to the super Bowl. That's
how lofty a perch they're trying toreach and how close they actually already are.
And the issue again becomes the obvious. You're still playing against the competition
of the AFC. You're still playingagainst teams. One team's getting Burrow back,

(28:04):
one team's pairing Justin Herbert with amuch better head coach. Another team
has Pat Mahomes, another team hasthe MVP, another team has Josh Allen.
I mean, if the list goeson and on and on, they
manage to get rid of every teamin the AFC except the one with Lamar
Jackson, that team beat them,the one with Pat Mahomes that team won
the AFC, and the one withJosh Allen again, all these other quarterbacks

(28:27):
and teams the AFC two, Ididn't even mention. I definitely didn't mention
the team from Cleveland something on thatfrom over the weekend that nobody cares about
that share. But the last fourAFC quarterbacks in the playoffs this year were
Josh Allen, Pat mahomes Lamar Jacksonand your quarterback and c J. Stroud.
Get better real quickly. Though.This is why when people like us

(28:52):
to an extent and others are talkingabout how they're going to be Super Bowl
contenders, there's no because they've gotc J. Stroud. Yes, that
is the biggest uh domino that hasto fall, and it fell last April,
and it's going to be fantastic barringinjury for a long long time here
at the quarterback position. Well,I should say barring injury and a nasty

(29:14):
quarterback contract dispute that's in the comingyears, because that could happen theoretically,
but I'll just I'll paint the rosypicture and say they're going to have CJ.
Forever. Let me one the onething on that there has not been
a single quarterback at their level,that level that has lesscked. Yes,
they all signed, that's correct,the team always in their career, and
then they have Lamar Jackson had issues, Dak Prescott had issues as close as

(29:37):
we got sure, but at themess and then he came back and won
the MVP and they had the bestteam in the AFC exactly during the right
Here's the deal when we talk aboutyou know, being a Super Bowl contender
because you have CJ. Stroud,while in theory that is true because you
do have the most important position takencare of, and to an extent,
I think you can say you've gotthe head coaching figured out, because after

(29:59):
one you can't say he screwed up. But when you are in free agency
period and you're watching other teams aroundyou get better, and you're watching some
of the guys that made you dowhat you did this past year walk out
the door, it is easy toam not panic, not sky is falling,
but a little bit, especially forthe fan base. It's very early

(30:22):
on. But at the same time, like, okay, this guy tweeted
us during the break folding Aces signHunter sign Henry all is forgiven? All
is forgiven? What did they do? I mean, I get it.
You let two guys that were contributorsto the defense walk, but maybe you
didn't want to give them the moneythey got. Right now, he's in
disagreement with saying, well, youcan't do both. You can't let him

(30:44):
walk, not want to give himmoney and not do anything in return.
So his suggestion is, best caseyou signed a better Edge Rusher and Daniel
Hunter. That could be I don'tknow who's gonna have a better next couple
of years. Who's to say anDimiico's defense, he won't be, he
very well could be all the oh. I would say, it's hard to
be much better than Grenard was lastyear. I still don't think people were
really gonna try. How good he? I mean, Hunter was awesome.

(31:07):
He's done it for more years.He's been a better player consistently and healthy
a lot longer than Grenard has.But again, so now you're signing him
and basically the same money, Iwould assume, and you're bringing Derrick Henry
in to give you a better runningback than Devin Singletary. Putting checks by
both of those is very easy,even if it's wrong. Sitting here today
saying I like that you can spinthe order of how things have happened.

(31:30):
What if they signed Derick Henry fiveminutes into free agency for whatever they end
up signing him to, and thenyou find out Singletary walked, And what
if they signed Daniel Hunter twenty minutesin a free agency vision. Yeah,
but again reasons why it happened,Like, I think Hunter was probably gone
from Minnesota, but now he's definitelygone from Minnesota because they've already replaced him
with Jan Grenard. I felt likeSingletary was probably headed elsewhere because of where

(31:53):
we were, because he was notalready re signed. He wasn't Dalton Schultz,
he wasn't Kyme Fairbairn. They madesure to not let them get to
free agency for this wole purpose ofnot having this happen. But the amount
of running back activity that has happenedtoday. Gus Edwards is also a player
that's moved Harbaugh to Harbaugh apparently,Derrick Henry and Zach Moss is an Austin

(32:15):
Eckler I suppose. And Aaron Jonesobviously he has been released or told that
he's going to be released because thePackers signed Josh Jacobs. That's what you're
looking at now. And again,if you look inside the door of your
locker room. The running backs inthere are players you did not want running
the football last year. No offenseto Damian Pierce, but that is accurate.
Devin Singletary was healthy. They didn'twant to give Damian Pierce even a

(32:37):
carry, So they have to dosomething to address that. And it's the
same thing at d End. Youcan't just move on if you don't replace
those players in free agency. Nowyou take a serious step back because the
guarantee that you're gonna do it ondraft days is silly. No, it's
that that is good happen. Yeah, but you can't make it happen because

(32:58):
then you're mcgamble. Yeah. Idon't think they'll let that now. I
look, they could. They couldbe letting some of these players walk because
they think they will. But whenyou're picking at twenty three or the later
pick, let me let me askyou this. How many picks? How
many guys do they get with picknumber twenty three? Is it one?
Two, three? Just the onethat I'm aware of? Like how many?

(33:20):
Granard's a third round pick? Okay, well let's replace him with a
third round pick. That might work, you know, Devin Singletary is a
free agent addition a second round pickyears past. Maybe you can find the
same think he's performed better in thisdefensive scheme versus the last one they had.
I mean, I think that's allthose things are probably fair and true.
But you just had a year wherewhen Blake Cashman was not healthy,
you weren't very good as a linebackingtrio. And bringing back Denzel Perriman,

(33:45):
which they may do, doesn't helpthings, doesn't do anything for me either,
by the way, in case you'rewondering, I mean, that's not
doesn't really factor into things, butit wouldn't do anything for me, wouldn't
move my needle. So, yeah, this is what's fascinating about it.
I do love when the initial skyis falling happens. Every team's fan base
is doing this today, by theway. Yeah, and let's there's some

(34:05):
very important, even obvious statement tomake about free agency. It's a playoff
on the sky is falling. I'llexplain to you what that is when we
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we want to be, their coast. Back to our home grown Adams the
eighty find Sports Talk seven ninety Notvery surprisingly, news continues to come in.
Initially as we left you, thenews of the Texans adding a special

(35:57):
teams player, also a cornerback,Mike Ford, reported by Ian Rappaport fifteen
and five seasons over the seven yearcareer for Ford, but he's been a
great special teamer everywhere he's been,and it's very likely that's exactly what the
Texans have in mind for next season. The much much better news and I
had been trying to get an understandingof where things stood with this for quite

(36:19):
some time. If you recall lastyear, the Texans rookie defensive end Dylan
Horton stepped away from the team latein the year and did not return.
Personal matters cited for the reason theteam and he released the statement today a
very good news statement from Horton todaythat says, on December one, twenty
twenty three, I was diagnosed withstage four Hodgkins lenfoma. Through God's grace,

(36:40):
I'm blessed to say that I'm currentlyin remission, grateful for the love
from family and friends, and supportfrom the Texans organization and my doctor's My
next objective is to complete my treatmentsthen get back to playing the game that
I love. Thank you for yourprayers and support as I continue this journey.
Initially, when he left last Iknew that it was something very serious

(37:01):
and was uncertain of exactly what itwas, stage four Hodgkins lymphoma, which
he is now currently in remission.Again, this very little is certainly today,
hopefully in the future it has alittle bit more football worthiness from a
news standpoint, but personally, obviouslythis fantastic news for Dylan and his family,
above and beyond anything else. Healso, again from the football standpoint,

(37:24):
happens to play defensive end, thethinnest position on the team. I
thought losing him last year was impactful, unfortunately for the team, but obviously
much more important for what he wasdealing with personally and heading into a second
season and the timing of maybe whenhe's able to try to get back to
football activities, if everything continues togo well with his treatments, then I'd

(37:45):
certainly a player they would hope canbe, somebody that they had a lot
of hope for drafting him out ofTCU in last year's draft. No,
it's absolutely fantastic news. And yeah, that's the tricky part about this,
I like crazy and that the Texanshave had an inordinate amount of this in
recent years. I mean, I'msure you can't help but remember the story

(38:07):
of David Questenberry and then obviously morerecently a current teammate of Horton's with John
Metchi. Yeah. One, there'sthirty two teams with you know, seventy
to ninety players, and even onestory seems like a lot for two to
be on the same team at thesame time, which is what the Texans
have, and Horton and Mechi,that seems like a lot. And three

(38:28):
in the last not quite five years, but almost. I mean, Questenberry's
diagnosis is a lot further back thanthat. I'm further back. He is
still in the NFL. He resignedon the last handful of days before free
agency opened, and his long careeris just phenomenal. That's a late round
pick of the Texans, finding hisway into playing time here, finding his

(38:49):
way into spots on multiple different teamsand starting at times for those teams.
That's just unbelievable. His brother isa Texan currently, Scott Questenberry n fortunately
missed all of last season as analignment when he got hurt during training camp.
But yes, this, you know, any number above zero definitely seems
like too many, and when itreaches anything above one, you're like,
that's hard to believe, even whenit's luckily hit so few in the NFL,

(39:15):
certainly among current players. Yeah,I uh, it's like I said,
great news for the Texans in themidst of a crazy, crazy time
from a roster standpoint, and they'reyou know, two completely separate situations obviously,
but uh, just waiting for thebig domino, the big splash,

(39:36):
the big whatever it's going to be. And I just going back to the
biggest name that was probably attached tothe Texans, that being Saquon Barkley.
I was going to ask you this, your initial feeling when you heard he
wouldn't be coming here because mine wasI don't want to say it was complete
relief, but I just if whatif what was reported was the case,

(39:58):
here's where the offers good. Ifthey went above that, we were out.
I'm good with that, especially atthat position. So you're okay with
them spending eleven million dollars for sureover two years, and then maybe the
full thirty three over three, Butyou're not okay with spending thirty seven and
a half over three years. Yes, what's the difference? I don't know.
I just feel like at the runningback position, it's so so your

(40:21):
calitary is hurt by a million anda half dollars this year, and another
million and a half the next year, and another million and a half the
next year, and you can't overcomethat. I know what you're saying.
But on the flip side, tellme how it guarantees the Texans are going
to be better. Honestly, Well, you're asking me to make an argument
for the sake of an entertainment program, which happens all the time, So
I will oblige even if I don'tbelieve it. You know how that goes,

(40:44):
right? Right? I know yougot five minutes to the show,
you're gonna argue this side and you'regonna argue that side. But I don't
think that doesn't matter. That's whatwe need for you guys today. I
think because of his ability to beexplosive, because of his ability to command
attention. I mean, if DevinSingletary is, you know, in the
backfield, they're going to defend him. He's a running back. We've got

(41:04):
to have our eleven guys defend theireleven guys. Someone's obviously responsible for him.
Whether you're playing some sort of zoneor whether you're playing man demanded,
somebody's responsible for him. But it'sdifferent when that player is Saquon Barkley.
It's different when that players you know, every level up from Singletary, there's
no offense to Devin, a reasonwhy each of the last two off seasons
he's been available to any team inthe NFL that wants him. The Texans

(41:25):
were the team that signed him lastyear, the Giants are the team that
signed him this year, and theGiants likely wouldn't have been the team this
year had Saquon Barkley not signed withthe Eagles, putting him in a backfield
on an offense with Bobby Sloak's playbookand C. J. Stroud at the
controls and now Saquan's behind him orlined up out wide or going in motion

(41:46):
and confusing defenses with Nico Collins,with Tank Dell, with Dalton Schultz.
Now it's definitely on the surface andwatching what the Niners did before they got
Christian McCaffrey, Yes, and afterthey got Christian McCaffrey, you can actually
say that with straight face. Bythe way, with this guy, they

(42:06):
could win a Super Bowl without McCaffrey. They almost did even with Jimmy Garoppolo.
But they're much more dangerous and muchmore difficult to deal with when all
those players are out there, andthere's so many different weapons at brock Perty's
disposal. No matter how good orbad Purty is is the same thing,
no matter how good or bad Stroudis. There's so many weapons, and

(42:28):
in that offense, they're always open, and their OC is so creative at
finding the best ways to get themthe ball where they can do damage.
I mean case Keenum's arguably his bestplay of the season in his two games
was a pass to Devin Singletary inthe flat that he then ran another thirty
yards with yeah, because he couldnow think about what Saquon does. He

(42:51):
might not make that play. Hemight make that play, but he probably
has ten others during the season ifhe's healthy, where he just has a
matchup nightmare situation with a linebacker thatjust can't stay with him. That's the
argument for him. I did notthink they should have signed him, and
I did not think they should havesigned him even as free agency continued where
more backs were coming off the board. But it did get to a point

(43:12):
where we are not signing Gridard,You're not signing Wilkins, You're not signing
xxxx. At some point, well, aren't you going to do something that
makes your team better? When wecome back, I'll tell you what.
That might not be the exact phrasingof what this decision would be, but
it could be a decision that ispossible because of some of those other moves
you just mentioned were non moves inthis case, we'll explain. To start

(43:36):
the four o'clock hour next, twolifelong Houston sports guys named Adam Talking Your
Teams series, Adam Clinton and AdamWexler are the A Team A our number
two of three here on the eighteenSports Talk seven ninety as the legal tampering

(44:01):
festivities continue. By the way,wex I think that's the dumbest name ever
for this stuff. Rename it.What am I supposed to say? NFL
free agency periods underway? It's not. Yes, it is now, it's
not. They can't officially sign thesedeals yet. Yeah, but free agency
means finding new players for your team. That's what each team is doing.
I'm okay with calling it that,completely, totally okay with calling it that.

(44:22):
That is exactly what you're doing.And oh, by the way,
we haven't even mentioned Kirk Cousins signing. And here's why we should have mentioned
how fast man These people work fast, because they definitely had no idea he
was going to Atlanta for several days. Did you see these social media extravaganza
that he put out upon signing?I didn't see it. It was the
Star Wars. You know how StarWars opens up with the long stream of

(44:43):
text and a galaxy far far away. It gets smaller as it gets to
the top of the screen. What'sthe name of the little flying object that
Chewy and Han are in all thetime? Oh? You would like?
This is where we need Blummer becausehe's a Star Wars dork. Okay,
since you don't know it's called theMillennium Falcon, I'll tell you. I
didn't know that's what it's called becauseStar Wars dork. I like the soundtrack
and that's where. Now, sowho did kirk Cousins sign with the Atlanta

(45:05):
Falcons? The Falcons? So heput out a tweet that was all inclusive.
You must have loved that, thekirk Cousins and a dad joke.
I mean, he's going to playfor the Falcons. And they had this
whole write up about how he wastalking to the Vikings and talkstalled, and
now he's a Falcon. And I'mjust amazed that he has enough people on
staff in the kirk Cousins social mediadepartment, like the Wexley research team,

(45:27):
they were able to cobble that alltogether. After talks fell apart with the
Vikings. He gets one hundred andeighty million to become the Falcons quarterback.
Now my first thought was not,man, kirk Cousins continues finding new owners
to steal money from. My firstthought was, actually, how mad on
a scale of one to a billion, is Arthur Smith's mustache? He gets

(45:52):
his first head coaching job and rollsthrough the remnants of their Hall of Fame
caliber quarterback era into Well, youcan start Desmond Ritter, or you can
start Taylor Heineke. You're gonna loseand we're gonna fire you, and then
we're gonna go out and get KirkCousins while you get hired by the Steelers
to get with Russell Wilson, whichalso happened over the weekend. By the

(46:15):
way, so much happened today.It's a chance for us to catch up
on where we got how we gotto today. Russell Wilson, for the
vet minimum will be the Steelers quarterback. Do not do not be a respected
NFL writer, a respected NFL newsbreaker, a member of the NFL network,

(46:36):
ESPN, or any other entity.Do not embarrass yourself and anger me by
saying it's gonna be quite a competitionat Pittsburgh this next year. Stop Well
that is being said about Gardner Minshewgoing to the Raiders. We'll get to
Gardner Minshew being not the backup forAnthony Richardson this year inside the AFC South.

(46:57):
He will be a Raider, Sothat is noteworthy. But that is
a social media reveal that I didget to see today, which is Russell
Wilson's using Renegade Yes by the waywith sticks, a very popular current song.
But that's fine. Our the lyricswere clearly part of the message.
Allow me, as a person whofancies himself a pretty above average video producer

(47:22):
when it comes to this kind ofthing. Uh, maybe not my NFL
Free Agency destination landing spot necessarily,but I know how to, you know,
rile up the masses in a goodor bad way if you will.
If you're going to do a revealthat says you're going to the Steelers,
then maybe don't have I don't know, ten to fifteen seconds of people waving

(47:43):
terrible towels around before you put ohmy god, it's the team's logo at
the end, I had no ideahe was going to Pittsburgh. The entirety
of this video got to the end. I'm being so sarcastic. Terrible towels
is a giveaway. It's good togo with that. Make them black and
white, that's all you had todo. Did so you're telling when the
chorus hits, you bring up thecolor and the logo and they're waving their
terrible towels and you're a Steeler becauseanybody could have seen fans waving towels around

(48:07):
and wouldn't have known that it wasthe Steelers if you just made that black
and white or went a completely differentroute. Don't use the towel waving until
you get to the logo. So, yes, if you recall he was
told to we don't want you anymoreby the Broncos, they are committed be
contractually to pay him nearly forty milliondollars and signing for the VET minimum means

(48:30):
the bulk of what he makes thisyear comes from the Denver Broncos still,
but he will be the quarterback inPittsburgh barring injury. I was saying all
that to say, don't tell methat he's competing with Kenny Pickett. Don't
tell me that any other quarterback that'seither there or will be brought in is
in an effort to compete with him. If he's not hurt, he's starting,
he might get benched. He obviouslyalready got benched this past year,

(48:51):
so it's certainly something that could bein his future. But he's not competing
with Kenny Pickett. He just isn'tthe people that were there last year that
were awful. We're competing with KennyPickett, all of them, Mitch Trubisky
and Mason Rudolph, because Kenny Pickett'snot good enough to quarterback your NFL team
where you want to go, especiallyone as talented as they are. And
you could argue if Russell Wilson isjust slightly better than Pickett and Rudolph and

(49:16):
Trubisky and he will be well,then maybe the Steelers are slightly better.
How About one more win. Onemore win puts them in a different playoff
atmosphere, stratosphere. One more winmight send them to the next round of
the postseason. I don't think they'rea super Bowl caliber team because Russell Wilson
is so far down the list.Like CJ or anybody else, they only
have to beat two or three otherAFC quarterbacks to get to the super Bowl.

(49:38):
In Lamar Jackson's case, he onlyneeded to beat two. He only
beat one, He beat CJ andlost to Mahomes. Everybody else needed to
beat three, and Mahomes was theonly one that was able to do it.
But that's all it takes. Ifyou can out play your team,
cannot play that team three times you'rein the Super Bowl. As long as
you're not the number one seed.Again, that number dips to two,
but that was probably the biggest newsover the weekend. Along with the Chris

(50:00):
Jones re signing by the Kansas CityChiefs. The Texans have lost both Blake
Cashman and John Grenard to the sameteam in free agency. The Minnesota Vikings
and their DC Brian Flores their offense, which will now be led by an
undetermined quarterback because Kirk Cousins is goingto quarterback the Atlanta Falcons. Falcons have
spent their last three top picks ona trio of tremendous offensive talents Kyle Pitts,

(50:27):
Drake London and Bjon Robinson. Decentenough offensive line anchored by Jake Matthews.
You would think that they believe theycan win a division that had the
Bucks spending all their money to keepMike Evans and then to keep Baker Mayfield.
Those things have become reality. Andyou're right when terming this free agent
period. You can't sign players,but you can agree to terms with players,

(50:52):
and the difference being we can seeplayers change their minds. It's happened
at least once every year. Sometimesit happens more than others. We have
now seen it happen this year.According to earlier reports, the Jacksonville Jaguars
were making a change at kicker andthey had reached an agreement with kicker Will
Lutz, who has since changed hismind and in fact will remain with Denver

(51:13):
to kick the football through the uprightsfor them remain with Denver to kick the
football through the uprights. Yeah,Denver is a place where players are defecting
left and right because the team appearsto be all in on let's get to
the top of the draft. Allin on a legit? Do you think
get me the bleep out of here. I don't know that he said it,

(51:34):
but I think having his agent didwell. He's got a big cap
figure, our big contract figure thisyear in the fifth year, so that
was more about finance. Yeah,send him out. I mean Cushion Barry
is now signing with the Titans.Obviously they're taking a massive cap hit to
not have Russell Wilson play for themeighty five dead again, who's their quarterback
right now? It's the worst quarterbackin the AFC probably, And that's even

(51:57):
after that. We discermine who itis. Do you feel like, and
this is so dumb, because thereis still somebody paying the ticket, do
you think Russell Wilson might have abig season because he doesn't have any perceived
pressure on him in Pittsburgh. He'sstill getting paid, but it doesn't look

(52:19):
like that. In other words,he didn't come to Pittsburgh with all this.
You know, Bally who and here'smy thirty you know, here's my
huge deal to me, he hasthe same pressure he had two years ago.
Why did he go to Denver?Why did they trade or Denver?
Why did Denver go to get him? Because they thought they had a super
Bowl caliber team or at least aplayoff caliber team at a very low end,
and he fell flat on his face. They also hired Nathaniel Hackett,
which didn't help. That's how he'sgoing to Pittsburgh. The difference is,

(52:43):
we know Mike Tomlin can coach.We know their playoff dalla roster they are
fielding is better than the one thatBroncos had two years ago, is it
not? It could top to bottom. I mean I'm not just talking about
offense. Both sides of the ball. Their defense was hard to believe the
Denver's defense this year was not muchdifferent personnel wise than it was a year
before. But they had started alreadystarted getting rid of players, and you

(53:04):
know when Chubb makes his way toto the Miami, etc. They had
the talent they I thought their teamwas very comparable talent wise to Denver or
to Pittsburgh. Maybe the biggest differenceis as good as your team is,
you still don't have TJ. Watton that defense, but you know,
player for player on offense, they'rewide receivers between Sutton and Judy and Patrick
who just unfortunately kept getting hurt eachof the two years Russ was there.

(53:28):
That's a comparable group because at thetime Pickens wasn't even on the team yet.
Now he's heading into his third yearthis upcoming year, so I think
he's in. It's not the pressure, You're right about the pressure that most
people think, because if you lookat the AFC, how could you possibly
have high expectations for Wilson and theSteelers. But he's being brought there specifically
because they're trying not to waste thetime of the rest of their roster.

(53:53):
It's exactly what the Jets didn't dolast year when Aaron Rodgers went down.
It's kind of what the Browns weretrying to figure out how not to do
when it was clear that Deshaun Watsoneither was too hurt to play or couldn't
play, and they kind of luckedinto finding Joe Flacco. But you're too
good to let that year of talentand the guys on your roster slip away.

(54:15):
And I think that's all that Pittsburgh'strying to do. I think that
could be a possibility, not predictingit. In fact, the betting money
would say the opposite. Well,I mean, just right before he hit
the break, he got four teamsin that division. Put him in order
right now for the twenty twenty fourseason. Baltimore, Cincinnati, Cincinnati,
see Higgins there. I don't thinkso. But you know, Stone is

(54:36):
signed today from the Ravens to theBengals and then probably Cleveland Pittsburgh. But
I could easily see those two flipfloppings. So your best case or likeliest
case, is he takes Pittsburgh allthe way from number three to number three
in the division, because that's wherethey were this past year. Now he
doesn't have the Super Bowl champs inthe division to contend with. He just
hesitated loss to them. They weren'tcontending with them last year. They just

(54:58):
weren't there to viditioning with anybody exactly. It will be interesting because like I
said, I told you I wantto see Mike Tomlin and him get together.
I think it's gonna be fascinating.Well, they are getting together.
They are quarterback and head coach,the duo in Pittsburgh. Moving forward,
we'll get our signature segment in thegood, the bad, the ugly that
is on the way next the goodis what's going on over UVC Power Sports

(55:21):
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here. On Sports Talk seven ninetyit's business in the front, party in
the back, because stone Cold SteveAustin said, so Adam and Adam are

(56:29):
so Houston that they also have scarsfrom ice skating at the galleria, not
on their knees, but they're rejectedlittle hearts. You go away, No
couples skate for these two. Backto Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler on Sports
Talk seven ninety. Now, thegood, oh good, the bad,

(56:51):
that's my good and the Ugly don'tmake me good with the eight We're selling
you the good the bed sign yoursegment time. It is Monday afternoon.
First show back from the weekend.Left you Friday with the Astros rolling through
spring training. We are just abouttwo weeks away from baseball, two weeks

(57:13):
and a handful of days before theyplay games that will count in the standings.
Obviously, we left you Friday withanticipation of free agency from a tampering
standpoint on the horizon, and thatbegan earlier today at eleven AM. So
plenty of news on the Texans andthe NFL at large. Between then and
now, Rockets played a couple ofbasketball games. They had an opportunity to

(57:34):
have a nearly have a five gamewinning streak just the loss of the Clippers
the only one they've suffered over theirlast five, but a bigger loss suffered
in last night's victory on the scoreboardwith the injury to Alpa and Shngoon.
Final diagnosis unknown. Initial diagnosis isnot good. Just if those of you
were watching or listening to me,don't steal my ugly, our respective broadcast

(57:55):
last night and anything else that mighthave happened in the world of hair pulling,
good, bad, and ugly.I'll have the bad. You mentioned
you had the ugly, So Dan, you start us off with the good,
Well, I mean, I've gotto pay him back since I believe
it was the ugly the last timethese two played. And that's the University
of Houston Cougar's outrights Big twelve champsin their first season and absolute thrashing of

(58:19):
Kansas seventy six forty six and addedas a highlight to this senior round,
rock Cedar Ridge product Ryan Elvin,fan favorite, knocking down a three in
his final game inside for Tita Center. Another undefeated season for the Cougars at
home. I was a little takenaback several weeks ago when you call the
offense for the Cougars such trouble andKansas victory over them was so troubling because

(58:45):
I knew this was coming. Notan absolute thrashing, but not an indication
of what the Cougars are. I'mhopeful TCU wins their opening game in the
Big twelve Tournament on Wednesday, soThursday, the Cougars can complete their perfect
season when they beat them. Andthat's who they would play if TCU wins.
They've lost three games this year.One was to Kansas, whom they
have beaten since, one was toIowa State, whom they have beaten since.

(59:07):
And TCU remains now the only teamon their schedule that they have not
beaten, only played them once andlost that game. So an opportunity to
go through the entire season before theNCAA tournament and say, well, we
beat everybody we played. Can't beany better than that. You can't do
any better. They're beating every teamthat was on your schedule. Granted you
also lost to a couple, buton Ryan Elvin. I was watching the

(59:30):
end of that game and was callingmy daughter home from spring break. We're
about to see something awesome here.There's a little over five minutes left in
the game, and I said,they're gonna bring Ryan Elvin in off the
bench, and this place is gonnaabsolutely go berserk. They're gonna be chanting
for him. You're gonna get chillsfrom it, and they're gonna do everything
they can to get him. Looksat the basket wide open or otherwise,

(59:51):
and when he makes a shot,the place is gonna absolutely light on fire.
And it was absolutely awesome. Sixseniors is not normal in college basketball
anymore. They were able to havean awesome senior Day for those six some
who have come to the program laterthan others, like Dunn and Cryer and
Wilson, Others like Elvin, likeShed and like Jaywon Roberts have been a

(01:00:14):
huge part of why they are asa trio, winning one hundred games during
their time there. And I don'tknow if it behooves them to even win
the Big Twelve Tournament, because you'regoing to be asked to win three games
in three days with a team that'salready a bit broken down from other injuries.
But they're the best team in thecountry. I still cannot figure out,
for the life of me, whatthese projections from the bracketologists are doing.

(01:00:37):
How they're not projected to be thenumber one overall seed in the tournament.
I just don't understand. And Iknow Yukon and Purdue each have the
same number of losses, just thosethree I just don't understand. It's a
very very minor detail. It makesno difference how they get to the tournament.
They will be a number one seed. I've been there for Senior Day
before. I've been there for SeniorDay when they close out and win and

(01:01:00):
cut down the nets and that's whysports is awesome. Hat tip to their
creative department as well their digital team, just like they have years past.
The videos they put together leading upto Saturday's game against Kansas for those six
seniors where you can hear from theirparents, you hear from their teammates.
It's tears jerking stuff. It's unreal. As Kelvin Sampson said after the game,

(01:01:22):
we don't take a back seat toanybody, and I'm hoping they don't.
I'm talking about at the end ofthis madness, we're about to get
it away with. I hope thatfor the first time ever you're talking about
a championship squad, because even witheverything that's happened both last year and this
year with regards to injuries, forexample, man, it would have felt

(01:01:45):
it would have feel like such aculmination for especially Kelvin Sampson and what he's
done over there. Can you believehow long he's been there already? He
was just on the rocket staff lastweek. Well, it's true, he's
had some really good runs everyone wherehe's been at each of his collegiate stops.
He won Coach of the Year ateach of the previous four He's won

(01:02:05):
the Coach of the Year five timesin the last seven years. It's unbelievable.
Where their program is, their facility, which is unbelievable. Will just
say one of the best places togo watch college basketball for the atmosphere they
have at Fortita Center, and itabsolutely has also become the place to be.
Jim Nantz was honored there this pastweekend game. It's on me is
what it is? Play seventeen toeighteen games a training day? Uh yeah,

(01:02:29):
just like that, Just like that, exactly the same. Well,
one of us has remedied their problemand it's not me. Yeah, I
could remedy at any day of theyear. You only have a select What
do they play about twenty five?About thirty five home games every calendar year.
Well, we were supposed to doa live broadcast over there, so
I'm gonna blame you. That wasn'teven this year. I know it was
last year. All right, whereare we at? That was the good?

(01:02:52):
It was so good. I thoughtit deserved that amount of time.
Since I've tried to not go offfull cocked, just half cock to open
the show about how poor the feelingwas for the Texans through the first four
now five and a half hours offree agency, so I'll limit it to
the bad Daniko Autry can play.My only concern is his age. He's

(01:03:15):
had nothing but productive seasons for thelast handful, both in Tennessee and Indianapolis.
Coming here to Houston in an areaof need. If they're not going
to bring Brack Sheldon rankins, thatis a good move. Taking a bit
of a flyer on Jeff Acuda ismuch more of a question mark than a
sure thing. So they have notsolved the who's starting opposite of Derek Stingley

(01:03:35):
Junior? Question? And I knowthey also signed it Re signed des King,
So I'm only leaving it as badas we sit here today with free
agency still far from over. Witha player like Derrick Henry or Aaron Jones
for instance, and a player likeDaniel Hunter for instance, could solve their
edge and are running back and edgeemptiness problems if they end up signing those

(01:03:58):
players. Other than calling it ugly, I'm not giving them benefit of the
doubt. I'm not pausing on Ithink they've done a poor job, so
I will call it bad letting theJohn Grenard sign for nineteen million dollars a
year elsewhere, letting Blake Cashman signfor eight and a half million over three
years elsewhere. I think in eachcase, individually or combined mistakes, I

(01:04:20):
think they've made mistakes. It isbad. It's not ugly ugly. It
would be what happened last night.With the ugly would be if the texts
I've received throughout the day turn outto become true, and I'll just cite
you the last of them. Basedon these losses so far, I'd predict
our record at seven and ten.If we have another great draft and sign

(01:04:41):
a few key straggler free agents,maybe we get to eight and nine or
nine and eight. Somebody's texting throughit. That would be ugly. You
took a ten and seventeen and personneledthem into a seven, eight or nine
win season. That's exactly so.If that happens, we're back to where
we were two years ago. Atthat point, you get your wish.

(01:05:01):
We rolled through the good and thebad and lengthy fashion, as we often
do, especially when the Cougars arein front of it. Definitely worthy of
our time and attention, and theygot it. So we certainly need to
get to the ugly. On theother side, there was another free agent
available coming from the worst team inthe NFL that I thought would have made
a lot of sense for the Texans. He has since come to terms on

(01:05:25):
a deal and it's not in Houston, and it's not in Houston Stocking.
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Radioports Talk seven ninety It's home ofyour rockets all right. Time to wrap

(01:07:23):
up the good, the bad,the ugly. You've got the ugly ac
Then we'll get to the latest onthe NFL front. Then I'll entertain everybody
with, Oh my god. Ifyou think free agency is over, wait
till you hear about these still unsignedthese these available players in free agency,
these available players. It's nutty howawesome they are, both of them?
All right, what do you got? I'll branching guns right leg. We

(01:07:45):
don't even know how bad it isyet, that's how bad it is.
Does that make sense? It does, unfortunately make sense. The Rockets trying
to finish off the Kings last night, and they were in a pretty good
position as the Kings kept missing allof their shots to try to get within
closer than six or try to makeit a one possession game. Demona Sabonis
was headed up to for a bucketat the rim outbrnd Shengoon jumped up and

(01:08:09):
when he came down, he severelytwisted his ankle, his right ankle.
He basically landed on his leg withhis ankle turned all the way to the
side, made it appear that healso may have hyper extended his knee.
Was unable to even land on anythingafter that. Other than his side and
never put any weight on it.Beyond that. You could hear the audio.

(01:08:29):
AC was doing radio, I wasdoing TV for the game, and
you could. I don't know ifeverybody could, but I could. Most
people did that. We're paying attentionbecause you saw it. You could hear
what some of the staff that wasa side Shngoon was talking about, like
do y'all have a wheelchair or canwe get the wheelchair? Almost immediately after
reaching the court and he was explainingto those fidgeting with him medically about what

(01:08:55):
exactly it was bro his ankle,and no official word yet after the game
said X rays tonight and reports ofMRIs today the San Antonio Spurs in San
Antonio tomorrow night with a seven thirtytip. It's possible Wemby will score more
points than him this time and thatAlpurn won't even play. We'll have to

(01:09:16):
wait and see. Now, I'mjust playing a doctor on the radio like
you do many times, man.Where there were a lot of X platform
doctors yesterday, No, I meanreal doctor, a real doctors, and
that's fine. Again, That's whyI'm saying I'm playing one because this could
be a completely naive statement. Butwhen they're extending his leg back and forth,

(01:09:39):
to me, that's a good signas far as they're not being serious
structural damage and or a break.Clearly the break part of it, but
I don't know if I'm right insaying that. Now. The ankle is
a completely different thing to me.If you see that and you saw the
angle that I saw and the onewe've all you know, if you if
you know what I'm talking about,you know what I'm talking about. We're

(01:10:00):
is he landed. His foot wascompletely sideways, and so that is actually
what I'm more concerned about, andthat's what he referred to when he was,
you know, making the comments thatyou were talking about that were picked
up on the television cameras. Butas far as the knees go or the
knee goes, I would think thatthat is a good sign that it's not

(01:10:20):
serious structural damage. They're moving hisleg back and forth, bending it,
straighten it out, bending it,straightening it out. I know he didn't
put any weight on it, Butlike I said, I'm more concerned about
the ankle than I am the kneeright now, because to me, it
was like, well, if it'snot broken, which it wasn't and it's
not structural damage in there. Maybeit's a serious, serious hyper extension.

(01:10:45):
But I'm totally hoping for the besthere. Clearly, Yeah, we hopefully
tomorrow, I would assume with theteam being available both before the game then
obviously after, at some point duringthat time period, we should get whatever
the latest is. Might not bea final word on where things stand,
but they would likely have completed today'sscheduled MRIs, which I don't believe have
taken place, and would have alittle bit more of an idea of what

(01:11:09):
things look like. There's a monthleft in the season. Basically last game
of the year is on April fourteenth. They do still mathematically have an opportunity
to slide into the play in tournament. The win yesterday certainly helped, but
more than likely their season does cometo a conclusion on April fourteenth, and
they would not play a game againuntil late October. Yeah, I'm not
worried about that so much as I'mworried. Okay, this is a long

(01:11:31):
term injury for a guy who's buildingtowards the future, and how much is
that going to cut into next season? Yeah, he's a week ago had
a forty five point game, He'spixteen rebounds, don't forget the sixteen rebounds,
and the next night he said careerhigh and assists. He crashed Wimby
too. He's been playing some ofthe best basketball of his career, and
it's not so coincidental that they've Thisis probably the You know, they had

(01:11:55):
a six game winning streak at thebeginning of the year, they had a
five game winning streak during early December, and it had been a long time
since they had played well for anyserious stretch of games. Last five games
have been excellent. They never shouldhave lost to the Clippers, and had
they not, they would have wonall five. We even winning four out
of five is something they have onlydone two other times this whole year.
Yes, very much ugly, butthe NFL free agency period still at center

(01:12:19):
stage, so much so that wehaven't even given you your daily staple of
your JV update. The Astros didalso play today already, but you will
get your full fix of You're gonnaget framburized tonight on tape delay. He
was your starter today against aj Hinchand the Tigers. He's obviously back.
Spoiler alert, What do you meanhe's back from the dead. We killed

(01:12:42):
him earlier this spring because no,no, not at all. Man Framber,
Yes, he was out there pitchingtoday. Essentially the A team was
behind him with your typical top fourof a'l Tuo, ve Alvarez, Bregman,
Tucker, A Bray You has beenout for a couple of days out
of the lineup. I wouldn't quotecall him out, but they are trying

(01:13:02):
to monitor his knee. So JohnSingleton was over at first. Everybody else
essentially as your your A team group. So you'll get your full fix of
that a little bit later the NFLfree agency period, I mentioned that there
was another player. I'm not sayingthey were heavily tied to him per se,
but he was a free agent thatto me would have made a lot

(01:13:23):
of sense for the impactful football heplays. Frankie Louvu, who was I
don't know, all over the placeduring the Texans loss to the Carolina Panthers
this past season. Somehow he manageda second consecutive one hundred plus tackle season.
He was incredible that day. Ifyou recall I don't know how many

(01:13:44):
other Panther games Texans fans were payingattention to unless they're playing daily fantasy sports
and taking the over on Louvu combinedtackles, or you play a fantasy football
league that includes individual defensive players.But between he and Brian Burns, I
don't know where panther types feel.I felt he was the best player on
their defense, and seeing him hitfree agency at an opportunity to go elsewhere,

(01:14:09):
he took it. He's going tobe a comedy dan quinn is adding
him to the Commander's defense three years, thirty six million. Uh. Well,
in that situation where I'm not goingto say the rich get richer because
they're not rich. We're not richat all. They are actually in the
poorhouse. But it's just another whatare we doing? Well, It's just

(01:14:30):
at some point you can't This isold news for every NFL team, and
I go all the way back towhat they did with Dante Robinson long after
he wrote words on his shoes tothe GM pay me Richard, pay me
Richard, and then they didn't,which is okay, but you can't do
nothing to respond to the loss ofa starting plus starting caliber player, not

(01:14:53):
a great player, not a ProBowl performer, but he was at the
time clearly your best corner. Youcan let him walk, it's fine,
but you can't do nothing when hedoes. And it concerns me a little
bit that you're seeing both Blake Cashmanand John Bernard leave. And I'm not
talking about what they're gonna get inreturn, because they will. The compensatory
selections were handed out this past weekaround the NFL. As per usual,

(01:15:16):
when your team stinks and doesn't haveany good players that you lose in free
agency, you don't get any compensatoryselections. The Texans have perennially been near
the bottom of the list in receivingcompensatory selections. They got none this past
year. The formula is a littlebit unknown, but it's fairly clear on
the surface. They're losing two keyplayers who are likely to have a ton

(01:15:39):
of snaps in their future home andimpactful ones. They're probably on the plus
side pending what continues in free agency, and so yes, you'll recoup something
in the twenty twenty five draft forthese losses. Again, yippie, I'm
looking at yippy CJ. Stroud's secondseason making no money when you're the defending

(01:16:00):
division champion and a playoff game winner, Tell me how this team is better
next year when you've made moves tomake them better. So so far,
you got nothing to say to me. I tease this forty five minutes ago.
It's on me for not paying offon that. But I'll tell you
what one of those moves probably isin light of what we've seen or in
this case, not seen all daywhen we come back. But first,

(01:16:23):
I'm gonna tell you about people whodo make moves. They make moves to
get Kawasaki's in stock. They maymake moves to get every sort of outdoor
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(01:16:43):
on and get into the all newKawasaki Ridge. It's one of the best
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well Stone Cold Steve Austin. Basically, when you get into this thing,
or even when you're in the presenceof one, you're gonna grow a mullet.
Not really, but in the commercialthat's what happens, and you can
get into the Kawasaki ridge and startdoing what you need to do from an

(01:17:08):
outdoor standpoint without having to worry aboutit not being able to handle a job.
And if you don't believe me,go out to UVC Power Sports Tractors
and Outdoors in Alvin, Texas andtest drive one of these Kawasaki ridges,
or any of their Kawasaki side bysides, or any of their other equipment
on their fifteen plus acre test trackto truly experience what it is like to

(01:17:29):
see what these machines are capable of. You can check out that inventory online
as well at their website UVC oneStop dot com. Give them a call.
It's two eight one eight two foureleven ninety eight. But most of
all, go on down to UVCPower Sports Tractors and Outdoors in Alvin,
Texas. And remember when it comesto that new Kawasaki ridge, it's business
in the front, party in theback. Because Stone Cold said, so

(01:17:53):
Adam and Adam are so Houston,Houston that it's weird to not to be
wearing shorts. Well marm queuing onChristmas Day. Back to Adam Clinton Adam
Fine Sports Talk seven ninety So theTexans aren't doing anything. Do the meme.
If you had to read what thatmeme sounds like, you know the

(01:18:15):
one I'm talking about. Explain itto the people. Stick figures are involved.
There's a stick figure holding a stick. It's poking the other stick figure
and it's saying do something. That'sNick Cassario right now. I have sent
out a three updated free agency scorecardTexans Free Agent Scorecard. Tweets posts throughout
the day. I've had to waituntil some items happen and try to keep

(01:18:39):
people updated. There are some nameslisted in the added section. There's also
other names in the John Weeks doesn'tlost. We love him. That's in
the retained section. Okay, sothat's a whole nother thing. Yes,
they retained Weeks and fair, barnand Shultz, and they've now lost Singletary,
Grenard and Cashman, while they've addedtoday at least Jeff Acuda, a

(01:19:01):
cornerback number three overall pick in thetwenty twenty draft. Sweet He is on
his third team, he blew outhis achilles, and the opener of the
twenty twenty one season he was available. They have signed Denico Autry, who's
been very good on the defensive linefor two other teams in this division for
three years each. Last three yearsin Tennessee, last three years prior to

(01:19:23):
that in Indianapolis. Texans have seenhim a bunch. He's very good.
He'll be a thirty four year oldplayer next year, so hopefully he continues
to be very good on that twoyear deal. They've lost Cam Johnston,
their punter. He's going to kick. I'll probably have plenty of opportunities with
going to Pittsburgh. Hopefully he getsto share an introductory press conference with Russell

(01:19:45):
Wilson's Let's Weld. Yeah, thatwas what everybody was trying to get him
to say today. Why Steelers Country, Steelers Nation, That's Weld. What
a cornball? All right? Sothis actually would be the most old schools
it's pre We need to start callingthis AD or BD in this case,

(01:20:10):
you know there's an adm BC.We need to do BD before Demiko,
and then AD would be after Demiko. This is a very b D scenario
to unfold. The Texans don't bringback some of their biggest free agents,
haven't signed anybody of note on theactual market, but all that money that

(01:20:31):
they save by not doing all thatstuff henceforth the meme do something poking with
a stick figure, they use iton Nico Collins, big time extension,
and then everybody's supposed to feel betterwhen everybody's like he's already on the team.
So that's something I pointed out earlierthat these are some things that have
happened so far today and over thelast couple of days that are worthwhile for

(01:20:56):
Texans fans to pay attention to.And that item was another player that was
hit with a franchise tag now doesn'thave to play under it because his team
has now agreed to him on along term deal. We saw it happen
with Jalen Johnson of the Bears,we saw it happen with Justin Mattabuke of
the Ravens, and today it happenedwith the Colts Michael Pittman. And I'm
not sure what numbers people were expecting, but it probably weren't the ones that

(01:21:18):
we now are attaching to Pittman,three year extension, seventy million dollars,
forty six million guaranteed. He's aplayer that had played out of his four
year deal. It was a secondround pick. We were talking about that
quite a bit last week a coupledrafts ago, four years, reasonably low

(01:21:39):
money, no fifth year option fornon first round picks. So they didn't
want to lose him for nothing,so they put the franchise tag on him.
Now, three years, seventy million. That's twenty three plus million per
year. If he plays out thatcontract, and again with some incentives that
likely get it to seventy million,that's you know, twenty three million plus
a year. Is that the neighborhoodyou're looking at for Nico Collins? In

(01:22:00):
advance of playing his last year hiscontract year? Do you sign him to
a deal that's comparable to that forthat amount of money? Right now?
How's it going to go down nextyear? How badly would his season have
to go for it to be lessthan that? And if it's not going
to be less than that, becauseit's not going to have a season like
that, then why don't you justsign him right right now? That's again,

(01:22:27):
I don't want to be looking backon this, the first pivotal off
season of CJ. Stroud's rookie contractand have to say, man, I
wish they would have done this,or I wish they would have done that.
Conversely, though, I think there'sa better than average chance that we
look back at this offseason the sameway. In some respects, we look

(01:22:49):
back on that off season where NondiAwesome Wall was available, you didn't get
him, He went to another teamfor big time money, didn't really do
much of no after that, andyou got two for the price of one,
including one defensive starter and Jonathan Josephwho basically ended up carving out the
majority of his career with you,albeit off injured the last several years.

(01:23:13):
But I mean the first handful ofseasons that him and Danielle Manning were,
Texans defense was one of the bestin the NFL. So if you look
back and you're like, man,I'm glad we didn't waste all that money
on Saquon Barkley, even though youknow on a day when Devin Singletary walks
out the door for the kind ofmoney he got, I don't know,
maybe it's harder to say that rightnow. Yeah, if you think you

(01:23:34):
could have just brought back Devin Singletary, I mean, I think that's a
reasonable thought to have. But nowyou see that there's another team that was
willing to give him sixteen and ahalf million, possibly as much as nineteen
million over three years to go bethe replacement there. The Giants now had
an opening because Barkley became agreed tobecome an Eagle, and now Singletary takes
the spot. That's big a changehis mind. It seems like a lot

(01:23:55):
more money than the Texans would havebeen and maybe should have been willing to
spend on Singletary. You wonder whymaybe you didn't look at Singletary last year
and say, well, why don'twe just sign him to a two year
deal at this low rate because themarket for Devin Singletary was depressed last year.
Four years with Buffalo, nothing great. Honestly, I've told you this
three top four times already in thelast week. His season last year was

(01:24:16):
the same as the year before andas the year before, and the team
that had him said, you cango hit the market, see what you
can get, and all he couldget was a one year deal from Houston.
And again there's a little bit ofhis side. Maybe it was intentional.
He went to the Texans felt like, this is an opportunity for me
to increase my value in their offseason, so I want to be back
on the market, which he wasand it did pay off. Now you

(01:24:39):
can look at it that he signeda four year, twenty million dollar deal
instead it took him two contracts toget it. But again, you can't
have multiple key contributors walk out thedoor if you're not actually putting a plan
in place to replace them. Beyondwell, we'll figure it out. Well,
we'll sign then twelfth best free agentin a week, draft somebody with

(01:25:00):
the sixtieth, seventieth, eightieth,wherever they end up trading up to.
After the first round next year,you only have so many players that are
coming in. You're probably gonna havefive guys that you expect to impact the
team next year from the draft.That's a huge number. Sometimes it's three,
sometimes it's two. I'll go fivebecause that's the kind of roster they
have right now, and it's actuallywhat they've been able to do. Overall.

(01:25:20):
They've had eight to ten players impactthem for the last two real drafts
the Nick Cassario has had. Well, now you're actually slotting these players in.
They have to play these specific positions. If you haven't accommodated for we
do not currently have an edge playerstarting opposite Will Anderson. We currently don't
have three starting linebackers. They probablyhave two Henry Toatoa and Christian Harris on

(01:25:45):
the roster, on the whole rosterright, and similarly losing Steven Nelson.
Even though they brought Dez King backbefore the Akuda signing today or agreement today,
they really didn't have a guy youwould be comfortable starting opposite Derek Sting.
There's moves that they haven't made yet, also m J Stewart, Robert
Woods, maybe others, maybe JimmyWard, that you could save a bunch

(01:26:10):
of cap space on and then turnthat into what we have even more money
to spend on these players. Buttheir lack of cap space is not a
that's not it. They don't lackspace. They don't lack the ability to
reach out and come to agreements.They have just been reluctant to cross their
imaginary threshold on any individual player otherthan Autrey and Okudah. And I should

(01:26:31):
also mention Mike Ford, although thatcornerback that they've agreed to terms with is
much more likely to be a hugespecial teams contributor than in their secondary where
he also takes an occasional snap ourfootball at five conversations. Agay, we
finally get to talk football. Iwonder what we'll talk about when the third
and final hour of a Monday editionof the Eight Team gets underway. Good

(01:26:51):
talk about Classic Elite before we getthere. My good friends over at Classic
Elite Chevy Sugarland and Classic Elite ChevyHighway six doing great things for you.
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(01:27:36):
you head on over there you askfor the owners Jeff or Tiffany Sebastian,
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Classic Elite Chevy Highway six. Headon over there, telling the eighteen cent
you by two lifelong Houston sports guysnamed at we're talking your team, Adam

(01:28:03):
Clinton and Adam Wexler are the Ateam A. You're right if fruscial football
five o'clock some five o'clock football,professional football in America is a special game.

(01:28:30):
I didn't wait for it. Ididn't wait for it, Dan,
I talked over it, breaking news. Wex This is about as good a
news as we've gotten in a longlong time. I know nobody heard it.
I heard it in my ear.You told me to wait for you
to play that sound effect, andI didn't do it. I didn't do
what I was told. I'm fightingthe man. I'm fighting the power.
You know why, Dan, becauseI'm so excited to tell everyone that.

(01:28:54):
According to Football at five, Hereon Sports Talk seven nine, Adrian Wargowski,
the football injury suffered by Albrea andShingoon under the baseline with less than
a minute to play, and lastnight's win over the Sacramento Kings. Is
merely a severely sprained ankle and abone bruise on his knee. That is
outstanding news. Yeah, little todo with our thoughts about what the rest

(01:29:18):
of the season holds or even thebeginning of next season. But more big
picture long term, did he suffersome sort of significant injury that requires a
lengthy rehab, a lengthy questioning periodof time, a month or a year's
worth of what will he be likewhen he returns? Presumably most players who

(01:29:39):
return from severely sprained ankles and bonebruises returned to the exact same player they
was provided the amount of rest hasbeen given, they have about a month
left of basketball. If he needsmore than a month of rest, than
he misses the rest of the season. Nothing about what this report from Wojnarowski
suggests that he has any issue beingready for whatever the offseason needs are for

(01:30:00):
him within reason. Oftentimes he isasked to play internationally for his country,
and then the season comes along forthe Rockets, year number four? Are
you happening again? I'm not surewhat responsibilities might be there. Last night
in the game, Jalen Green,when he scored his fourth point that meant
four thousand points in Jalen's career.He's the first player from the twenty twenty

(01:30:23):
one draft to reach four thousand points. There's only three other players from that
draft that even have three thousand points. Suck it to Cad Cunningham and Albert
Shangoon is one of those other three. They got two of the three and
the other guy was out for anentire year. Of the four, Franz
Wagner is also in the three thousandpoint club. Bronze Hans and FROs to

(01:30:44):
pump you up, but yes,this is about as good of news as
you could hope for. Hopefully theRockets in light of the fact that well
a reporter is reporting it, hopefullythe team is aware of this the MRI
and X ray results, and thusthey can deliver that information themselves in some
form or fashion between now and thestart of tomorrow night's game. That you

(01:31:05):
should have an availability in San Antonioat shoot around, and obviously the head
coach speaks before every game. Thelocker room is open before every game.
So when we each speak to youagain on Rockets Radio for you, Rockets
TV for me tomorrow night, wewill have much better news than each of
us closed out our respective broadcast withlast night real quickly. Do we have

(01:31:29):
any official word on whether or notthe French Broomstick is playing. There's no
reason, even with him missing somegames recently, that he will not be
active and available and a full gofor the San Antonio Spurs tomorrow. The
French Broomstick thing, ever, wouldbe to have a quote revenge game without
the guy who bodied you even ina lineup. I guarantee you he's gonna

(01:31:53):
go off and it's gonna be themost meaningless empty stats ever when they lose
anyways, and Shingoon doesn't even plaplay. Get ready for Jock Landell up
your ass, that's what's happening tomorrownight, Spurs fan. I hope Emy
writes that on the board that issome I just gave you bulletin board material.
Suck it, spurs, Hey,Boby, and put that in a

(01:32:14):
promo next. Wemby is participating tonightin a basketball game for the Spurs,
so there's always a possibility that ina back to back he can't play in
the second game. He's not listedat all for tonight's game that will be
played against the Steph Curry. Listen, what was his injury, famishment.

(01:32:35):
It's not a lack of rail finitnessisThat's what it is usually hereditary. It's
not a lack of nutrition, skinnykid. That was his injury, right,
He actually did have an injury goinginto He was injured going into the
game and then has had an ankleissue out of the game. That's why
he's missed some time. But thathad nothing to do with how he Remember

(01:32:56):
he left for the locker room withabout three minutes ago before halftime, hussed
in all honesty because he got noSeriously, I'm not even being funny now.
I was earlier, but not now. He got hit in the head
and it was way down on thecourt, I believe, so it was
like a glancing blow. I can'tremember who it was. It might have
been Shingoon, but I think itwas someone else whose elbow hit his head.
And so when he didn't come out, but there was no like,

(01:33:18):
you know, plausible reason for therebe like a leg injury or something like
that, I honestly thought we weregonna hear any second. Well, you
know, Victor Wabanyama is in concussionprotocol, which just I mean that recently
happened to someone else on another team. I can't remember who it was,
but uh that wasn't the case.And so yeah, but yeah, the
most, the most Victor one banYama thing ever would be to put up

(01:33:40):
a bunch of monster numbers tomorrow nightagainst the Rockets who had to start Jacques
Landell or Jeff Green or Bobon oryou whoever? Would you consider that if
your emys let me tell you.Let me tell that because I could defend
Victor waban Yama. Unlikely. Ithink it's pretty like they would start you.

(01:34:00):
I'm not saying you couldn't do it. Okay, thanks, but yes,
this is a pretty significant news,significant enough for it to take up
eight minutes and forty five seconds offootball at five. Well, we spent
the first two hours on football.Yes, escaping major injury, that is
the report for major and Woljenerowski onRocket center Alprin Shanngoon describing the injury as
a severely sprained ankle and a bonebruise on his knee that's on his right

(01:34:23):
leg. Rockets got the win lastnight. They won four out of five
San Antonio to wrap up what couldbe a sweep of the road trip of
three games for a team that hadbarely won any road games this year,
already swept the Kings the King withoutDaron Fox for two of them. Well,
it was without dearon Fox in thesecond half last night. He made
a basket in the second half oflast night's game. That's it. He

(01:34:45):
is so man and he's from here, I would him, Yeah, and
I really I thought about it duringpostgame and obviously got two locked in talking
to Calvin last night that I forgotto say it. I don't know if
you noticed it on the box score, but I was going to reference it.
I was gonna point to it,and I was gonna say, I'm
looking at it right here, Calvin. It says nine times Demanda Sabonis turned

(01:35:08):
the ball over nine times, nineturnovers. And last night's game for Sabonis,
Yeah, I mean, well,and you saw was it Portland or
last night where they trailed by five? Last night? They trailed by eight
on Friday? How many times inboth of those first halves? And I'm
guessing the monies on the Portland game. Did Calvin in the studio with you

(01:35:30):
off air say the phrase? AndI quote, goodness, gracious he had
to have said it at least once. The effort level against Portland and they're
starting five of Anthony Simon's and fournobody four never was just so low,
dude, Baton. That was theone that made people right. Banton averages

(01:35:50):
five points per no stop, I'mgonna say this, averages five per game
and twenty five percent from the threepoint line. And I don't care how
many games he hasn't play it in. In this case, he had thirty
points and shot it at like aseventy five percent clip from distance. That
is, and what's crazy about thatis still on March eleventh, the Rockets

(01:36:14):
are a top ten India and theRockets are a top ten NBA defense cheerio.
They could stalt teams, but theyis dope. It bothers me.
Benton had attempted a grand total ofthirty three pointers before this month. He's
attempted thirty seven more of them becausehe's playing. He didn't play it all

(01:36:34):
this year. Now that everybody's hurtfor the Blazers, he's starting. He's
getting thirty minutes a night. Somebodyhad to score, and yes, that
was pretty alarming. But then theRockets turned on their defense in the second
half and finally put them away.And they did the same thing to Sacramento
yesterday, thirty two to fourteen advantagein the third quarter. The Kings made
four shots in the entire third quarter. The Rockets went on a forty five

(01:36:56):
to fourteen points. And this isone of the top scoring offenses in the
league. And they were healthy.Yep, Fox, Monk and Sabonis,
their top three offensive talents were allout there and at times forces offensively,
but not together. By the way, this is a great NBA trivia question
for you about that team. Andanother one. So you had two major
trades in the last several years thataffected the Western Conference. You had the

(01:37:20):
Tyrese Halliburton deal, the Aaron Fox, I mean Demotis Sabona, Sorry,
the Aaron Fox was already there,so Sabonis and Halliburton basically switching teams.
And then you had SGA and PaulGeorge. And you can argue that all
four teams won those deals also,and I don't know who won each of

(01:37:40):
the respective deals yet, and Idon't know that we're going to be able
to know for another like ten years. Yeah, four teams were involved,
and four teams are happy that Kings. Kings are happy that they were able
to pair Fox with Strength with Sabonisinstead of Fox and Haliburton. Do you
think Oklahoma City is happier than thelast major deal they did that involved James
Harden and the Rockets, because Iwell, that wasn't the last major deal
they did with the Rockets. Oh, I'm sorry. They traded for Paul

(01:38:02):
George from the Pacers and got nothingand liked it the last major deal they
did with the Rockets. Oh,well, that's true. They do get
their pick this year. On oneside, they get what's it going to
be? Number on twenty three?Like the Texans have the Rockets pick.
Yeah, what's it going to bea lottery pick? So it's going to
be the last pick in the lottery. The Rockets don't have the last position

(01:38:25):
in the lottery or even close,nor will they King pong balls. Buddy,
Come on now, it'll mean youhave to get the best pick or
a better pick. It'll if Iwere to guess, they'll probably get the
tenth pick from Houston. Oh it'syeah, it's not the work. You're
right. It didn't turn out tobe as bad as it could be but
the top four protected, so Daryldidn't completely screw his old franchise on the

(01:38:45):
way out the door. Right now, Brooklyn, who gives their pick to
Houston unprotected, that's gonna be agood pick. That is the eighth worst
team in the NBA a twenty sixpercent chance of landing in the top four.
The Rockets are tied for the tenthworst record. They have an eleven
point seven percent chance of going topfour, which would then become protected.
And then we're going to laugh sohard when both of those things happen.

(01:39:09):
Well, like I keep saying,if the Rockets drop one spot to nine
all of a sudden, the percentagechance of it being top four is twenty
another spot, it's twenty six.Stop winning games. Al Princhagan likely to
be out tomorrow night. We'll haveto let that go. Say, first,
go down, we got in caseyou missed it, coming up next,
as we always do here on theA Team. On a Monday edition

(01:39:31):
of the program, plenty more NFLnews likely happening in the next forty five
minutes, a recap of what hasalready taken place, including a Texan added
today that we have not even mentionedonce. All part of In Case You
missed It. Next Adam and Adamare so Houston they still can't successfully manage
their roundabouts on made Hey, thisis h Town, not London Town.

(01:39:57):
To Adam Clinton, Adam work findSports Talk seven ninety's that time where we
get you caught up on some ofthe things we've not yet had a chance
to discuss or have chosen not tohere. On the Monday edition of The
A Team, it's in case youmissed it, I mentioned I had an
item for you regarding the Texans tokick things off. The fifty fourth overall

(01:40:18):
pick in the twenty nineteen draft spentthree years with the team that drafted him.
We're going to Kansas City, thenTennessee, then New Orleans, and
now he's back with his original team, the Texans. Lonnie Lonnie Johnson junior
junior, veteran corner, veteran safety, former Texans, former Rockets, former

(01:40:45):
Astros. On social media platforms,you didn't you didn't unfollow a lot noe?
Do you know how fast I slammedthe unfollowed button today on Jonathan Grenard
beat it. Enjoy your sub zerotemperatures. This is great news for the
person. Yeah, he ain't playingfor me, and he's playing against me
next year. He John did takethe NFL right up the graphic of him

(01:41:11):
signing with the Vikings and post thaton a story on his ig. So
I took that as confirmation. Lonniealso took to his social media. Actually
saw it first on Twitter, wherehe re or quote tweeted a report that
he was signing back with the Texanson a one year deal. Well bye,
that's Jonathan Garnard, very much so, but no good It's always good
news for the people and the players. And John Garnard for four years here

(01:41:33):
in Houston, extremely well liked inthe locker room. And I don't know
if I said this on the airor off the air. You realize he
was drafted four years ago, sohe played here for four years. So
he played for Demic o'ryans, LoveySmith, Dave Cully, Romeo Crenell,
and Bill O'Brien as his head coachin just four seasons. I wonder you

(01:41:55):
left. Now he's gonna play forKevin O'Connell. Wow, The average says
twenty cent of my time here wasgood and the rest was absolutely awful.
What else do we have today?End? All right, Lance mccullors,
now is the time when we getto hear from you. The astros writ
he was on with Foul Territory TV, that of course, is the vehicle
with Eric Kratz, former astro ajPriznski, Blummer's buddy, and he provided

(01:42:19):
an update on what his potential timelinecould be for a return to the field.
So I guess we could call thisthe LMJ update. Go ahead,
Lance, I have a goal.I had surgery in June. It was
June thirteenth of last year. Goinginto surgery, it was looking like a
six to eight month recovery, butjust the mylbow is more more banged up

(01:42:40):
than they thought. So then whenI came out of surgery, I don't
really remember it, but apparently Iwas upset because I was being told thirteen
to fifteen months. So I'm tryingto aim for that thirteen month timeline.
You had surgery in June, getout for rehab sometime, and you know,
if I co get out for rehabitsometime in late junearly July, that'd
be a big w for me.So hopefully late June early July for Lance

(01:43:03):
McCullers to get back on a competitivemound. That's an upgrade the same.
Can you not rain on this parade? Let me assume what he's gonna be
there on July thirty first? Isthat not what he and the Astros have
been saying. Actually it's probably Julythirtieth, since there's only thirty days in
July. But it's a leap year. You never know, you never know.

(01:43:24):
I mean, it's nothing has senthim back, and every time we
hear news like that regarding Lance jvJP Luis Garcia, that is good news.
So as of the latest March eleventh, he is still on schedule to
be within the timeframe that he wasgiven, unhappily to hopefully be back in
thirteen months, which would put himback on the Astros roster, maybe as

(01:43:47):
early as August, maybe as earlyas late July, if as he said,
he can be rehabbing on the moundin late June. You know who
is it? Were you guys talkingabout earlier today where it wouldn't hurt him
to consider a John Smoltzian role,the talent of his career. I said

(01:44:09):
it apparently he doesn't like it,but I mean, of course he doesn't
like it. Well, I mean, look, do you want to pitch
or do you not? I justdon't understand these. I get wanting to
make a change, But what basisis there for? Well, why can't
he just pitch out of the bullpen? Why is that different because he's throwing
less of his arsenal? Yes,I mean I guess, but now he's

(01:44:31):
throwing more often. Actually, thebeginning of that sentence is the key here.
He's throwing less, which is what'sbeen the problem. He's throwing fewer
pitches and fewer innings, but he'sdoing it more often. Not necessarily,
well, the one hundred percent necessarilyunless you're one of guy in the bullpen
that only makes thirty appearances earlier everyfifth day. Him throwing about one hundred
pitches is not working for him.That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's

(01:44:54):
that's that's strip it all away,That's what I'm saying. Okay, I
mean at some point, like okay, here, if he comes back and
something significant happens again, what ishe gonna be thirty five by the time
he comes back from that, Likeyou've got to admit now, I'm not
saying now if he comes back andit's all good, it'd be like great,

(01:45:15):
But I just don't anticipate it happeningbecause his track record of his own
body says it won't. Also adifference between a Smoltze and like, dude,
what did Smoltz do when he wentto the bullpen? Tom much killed
people? Became the closer? Who'slance doing that for? Not Josh Hater,
not Ryan Prest Again, he wantsto pitch. I'm sure if there's
a way for him to pitch,he'll pitch. The goods is already better

(01:45:39):
than Rafael Montero. That's ridiculous.I said it else. I mean,
chances are how much you're gonna getout of him as a starter this year,
So it's something to consider. Youcan always go back. It's not
permanent according to Dave Roberts Well,I mean because he doesn't know the definition.
Say, how is Dave Roberts stillemployed by that team with recular season
victories? But I doubt that partof today's In case you miss the Dallas

(01:46:00):
Cowboys, what is Yes, theYankees, Garrett Cole gonna undergo an MRI
for right elbow discomfort, apparently notrecovering well between starts. Yeah, it'd
be a shame if the best pitcherin the American League, and I mean
this sincerely was not available to pitch, certainly not on opening Day when he
faces the Astros. Yeah, you'dlike to win, and granted, your

(01:46:21):
chances probably go up no matter whoyou're facing, provided it's not him.
But it's just these things are notgood for the game. I'm a little
bit of a fan of the gameitself, not looking to have competitors outplay
you, not looking to suffer losses. But you know, it's better if
players that are the face the front, the people that put butts in the
seats, caliber guys are out therethrowing pitches. And when the schedule came

(01:46:45):
out Verlander, or if the schedulecame out after the Astros reacquired Verlander,
I'm sorry I cannot recall, butyou know, the Astros with JV and
the Yankees with Garrett were on theschedule to open the season, and now
it's very possible neither will be youropening day starter. It's already a given
JV will not be that guy forthe Astros. He will open the year
on the EIL. What a lacklusteropening day matchup between the Astros and the

(01:47:11):
Yankees. For the Yankees, Imean Bramberveldes in line to start the opener
against Astros Marcus Stroman. I don'tknow. I mean I think that's probably
where things how things would line upfor them personally. I mean, that's
that's what I would do, AndI don't know how they've placed things in
order in order to accomplish that.But Radon's had a tough spring already,
Cortes off of his last outing andwhat he's working on and coming back from

(01:47:34):
injury not good. But he's healthy, right though, Nest he should be.
Yes, he's pitching your second starter, not because I think he's not.
I don't think they consider him healthy, full strength, ready to fire
on all cylinders healthy. We're skippingover the most important part of this.
We were already saying they're going tosign somebody. You don't think they're going

(01:47:55):
to want to get Blakes now,I mean, come on, but he
won't be ready, that's the bestpart. Probably not for the ass I
got him. Oh those guys,I thought you were saying the Yankees,
Yes, probably not ready for theactually twenty eight through thirty first of March.
If it's March eleventh, today andhe is not participated on for anybody.
Oh, they're definitely going to gosign him now so that he can

(01:48:15):
also not start the opening series.Again, it's if it was an NFL
season, it would be a littletougher to take because one of your seventeen
is tough, four of your onesixty two is manageable. What kind of
deal do you think Blake Snell gets, even if it's a one year deal.
Let's just say he gets paid alot, but it's just one year.
Thirty five million for a year,and what did Garrett Cole get three

(01:48:38):
sixty for ten something? That's howmuch. It's a little less average annual
value. But he's less of apitcher in my opinion than Garrett is nearly
seventy million. I know we're talkingabout Garrett Cole getting an MRI, but
he's pretty much been a workhorse,take the ball, every fifth day guy
for ever. Why he's getting anMRI right now probably because it wasn't Justin.

(01:48:59):
Justin's been a take the ball,every fifth day guy for a lot
of years. Then he got olderapparently, and again this is breaking news
to me. Apparently it's not normalfor you to throw a baseball at one
hundred miles an hour, over andover and over and over and over again,
and have nothing happen to your arm. So they're not all like Nolan
Ryan, that guy they put theycreated him in a lab. I love
that man. When you met himwith me, when the first time you

(01:49:23):
met him, when I re methim, I mean you didn't take a
picture with him until that night,right, I see, probably see you're
right. Wasn't it like meeting yourlong lost grandfather that you didn't know was
basically an old Well, what thefunny thing is talking to him very like
late in his career and early inhis baseball management career. He sounded like
that twenty years ago. He talkedlike that forty years ago on the air

(01:49:45):
conditioning spots, just in every inevery just the way his manner. How'd
you feel like you did tonight?It worked like a giant screw. You're
talking about all this a couple ofdays after both Roger Clemens and Royal's while
it took them out at Minute MayPark in banana uniform. It was awesome.
It really was a show. Greatstuff. Again, my favorite part
of meeting Nolan Ryan was Reid hisson, who I had actually met and

(01:50:06):
known for a much longer time,saying you've never met my dad. You've
worked in this business how long.I'm sorry, Reid. Thanks for making
that happen and the documentary was fantastic. All right, We've got plenty more
free agency to discuss when we comeback next here on the A team.
You like free stuff, We alllike free stuff. Guess what our iHeartRadio

(01:50:30):
app is free and free never soundedso good. Obviously, a full slate
of NFL news over the course ofthe last handful of hours now six plus
hours into NFL agreement period. Dosomething, do something as something that has
been told to the Texans by ourlisteners, by our followers, by x

(01:50:51):
by Instagram, by fans in general, they haven't done nothing. Denico Autry
will likely start opposite Will Anderson astheir other edge rusher, and he has
been very productive. He has beenon the field quite a bit. I
don't know where people really view him, but the numbers are what they are
in terms of how often he's beenin the backfield, how many sacks he's

(01:51:12):
had over the last four or fiveyears, and he's at the bottom end
of the elite group most of theother elite players do have more, but
he is not far off from that, and they're paying him, accordingly a
little over twenty million, likely overtwo seasons. And that's the most significant
addition of the Texans have made.And so I've said something about one thing's
clear to me, and maybe youdisagree. The Texans did not go into

(01:51:35):
this offseason with what has happened astheir first plan. As they're a plan
of attack, this is exactly wherehe wanted things to go. There's no
way that's what has happened. It'snot going according to plan right exactly,
and doesn't mean they they can't havea good offseason. Doesn't mean they can't
make their team better, and Audreycould certainly do that. An addition at

(01:51:58):
running back still needs to be madethat has NFL rushing yards in their back
pocket, whether it's a Zach Mosscaliber player or a Derrick Henry caliber player.
That has to happen before they getto the last basically the last phase
the offseason of player acquisition, whichis the draft. They almost to me
have to add at least one otherdefensive player of substance. I don't even

(01:52:21):
believe Jeff Okuda prevents that need.I think another corner has to be signed,
or another safety has to be signed, or another linebacker has to be
signed of significance because of just theirlosses and just what they knew was going
to be walking out the door.So the Autry addition, it was a
pivot. It was an alternate opportunityfor the Texans. I don't think it's

(01:52:42):
fair to say, Ah, theymissed out on Jones, they missed out
on Barkley, they missed out onrunning back Run. You can't say that
they weren't necessarily even in on anyof these players. They weren't ever their
plan BCD or E. They justhappened to be available free agents. Were
they in on Swift? Yeah?I believe that they were, and I
think Swift got a good deal.I'd really think the team that signed him
was stupid in doing so, becausetheir backfield is perfectly fine without him for

(01:53:05):
a far less money. But letthe Bears do what the Bears are going
to do. It'll look good onpaper that now Swift plays for their team.
Caleb Williams will probably be in thebackfield with him. We haven't mentioned
what the market looks like for justinfields. If you have an empty space
with no teams in it, that'swhat it looks like. Well, Pittsburgh's
out and it Ran is out.By the way, we haven't I haven't

(01:53:29):
asked you a very important question.I would assume the Raiders are out since
they spent twenty five million on GardnerMinshew and could still draft a quarterback.
How do you feel about Kirk Cousinsbeing the fourth highest earner in NFL history
right now? It helps to explainto people without details of how the NFL
salary cap works, how the franchisetag works, and commitment. Nobody really

(01:53:53):
this is a pretty sizable length commitmentto Kirk Cousins, who's thirty five.
Yeah, and the Reds at thetime they made a lengthy enough commitment to
him because they drafted and he playedthrough that contract and then they kept him
around on the tag after that.Briefly, do you think the last few
years of Kirk cousins deal in Atlantaare going to be like Dennis Quaid in

(01:54:13):
any given Sunday. No, he'staking the knife or not the knife.
He's he's taking the spike and he'swatching Willie Beeman take a starting job.
At the end of his deal,he'll be Aaron Rodgers current age. Mm
hmm, no problem. Everybody thinksAaron Rodgers is going to put a big
numbers against I mean Kirk Cousins.Really, statistically, at least he was

(01:54:33):
awesome last year. He's the bestquarterback in the division right now. He's
better than any other quarterback in thedivision right now. Run through them for
the listeners real quick. Bryce Youngbetter than Bryce Who's who's even the quarterback
of the Saints now, Derek Carrhe's still there still. I thought they
released him, not really, butthey took him out back and gave him.

(01:54:54):
He's still there. So it's betterthan him and Baker Mayfield, who
also signed will not officially, butwe'll re sign with the Put Kirk Cousins
in Tampa. He puts up betternumbers, Yeah, especially with Mike Evans.
Uh probably so, I think soso, I think that's fair to
say. But yes, well again, Kirk Cousins as a guy that can

(01:55:15):
make your offense work should be reallygood. It's like a given the Falcons
are going to put up offensive numbers. They might even win the division.
He might even be the fourth bestquarterback in the conference, by the way,
But are they going to win inthe playoffs, because that's what he
never I want. I can't reallysay never because he has a single playoff

(01:55:39):
win as an NFL player in hisentire career, just one. So I
can't say never. But all theseteams that have put faith in him,
Washington, Minnesota and now Atlanta,and year after year after year faith in
him, it's pretty much a given. It's bad faith. It's not going
to happen. Yeah, but Idon't think Atlanta made a mistake either.

(01:56:02):
I think those things can still beaccurate. You would have so you would
have taken this scenario versus drafting somebody. I think they were reluctant to believe
they could get to where they wantedto go in the draft. That's my
gamber three. Well, that's wherethey would need to go. Oh they're
number seven right now, right,they're eight. Giants are six and one

(01:56:24):
two three need quarterbacks. Who's sevenththe Tennessee Titans. Okay, in light
of that, if you didn't thinkDaniels may or Williams were going to be
the selection while you have a team, you went out and got Jesse Bates
a couple of years ago. Youhave those three offensive players we've mentioned,
and I don't think you draft JJMcCarthy or somebody like that as opposed to

(01:56:46):
Kirk Cousins. JJ McCarthy is likesuper awesome Desmond Ridder, but he's also
a rookie, So I'm not readyto do that. No one's c J.
Stroud's not having another season like thatnext year. In somebody else's body,
this isn't a bad move by theFALCONSA. I don't disagree with it
at all. You said the simplestway to put it. They're the favorite
to win the division to day overTampa and clearly over the other two teams

(01:57:08):
because they're just not gonna winn agame when they get there, but they
get a home game like the Bucksthing, all these things I keep saying
about CJ and the Texans last eightstanding, last four in the AFC.
So were the Bucks. All youhave to do is win one playoff game
and you're in that group. Sowhat are the Texans gonna do? That's
where we're That's what else are theTexans going to do? And when you

(01:57:30):
have a GM that assuredly like theother thirty one. He had a plan
when the season ended. He hada plan as they approached the franchise tag
deadline. He had a plan asthey approached today's tampering period opening, which
is why they signed Dalton Schultz andKymi Fairbear and in advance of that,
and he had a plan as todaybegan. There's just no way this was

(01:57:53):
it. There's no way what theyhave accomplished today or have has seen players
leave with players coming in. That'sjust there's just no way. That was
probably not even playing c I don'tknow which planet it was. And there's
still time to make your team betteron paper, at least before the end
of all of this, which isnot the end of today. It's not
the end of tomorrow. I meanDerrick Henry Daniel Hunter, two of the

(01:58:15):
more prominent players that do not havedeals in place. We quickly should mention
the Carolina Panthers no longer have BrianBurns, the player they put the franchise
tag on, because they just tradedhim so he could agree to a one
hundred and fifty million dollars deal withhis new team, the New York Giants.
They keep trading guys to other teamswho either perform there or get paid

(01:58:39):
or both. Carolina won traded theirway to the number one pick in twenty
twenty three. They lost their wayinto the number one pick, which they
gave to the Bears in twenty twentyfour. There's a real chance they could
lose their way into the number onepick a second consecutive year. But this
time have it on the This timethey could take a franchise quarterback with it.

(01:59:01):
Probably not all right. When wecome back, we'll tell you if
the Texans make a huge splash duringthe commercial break. Adam and Adam are
so Houston. Thank you for asking. They too have received spankings after staining
their good school clues rolling down thehill at Miller Outdoor Teater. Bad Adams.

(01:59:24):
Go to your room, Adam ClintonAdam work on Sports Talk seven ninety.
It is the A team here onSports SOX seven ninety. Good news
Texans fans, just kidding. Theydidn't do anything during the break. I
told you we would give you anupdate. What. Don't get mad at
me. I'm just the bearer ofbad news. Don't act like on Nick
Cassario not doing anything, to dosomething. Relax, So nearly three hours

(01:59:47):
worth of discussion about the team.We never really focused on the GM good
batter otherwise, But for the mostpart, you'd probably agree that he's not
looked great over the you know,nearly six hours nearly seven hours of free
agency today so far. Correct?Yeah, so would you at least share
with our listeners what your friend andmine, Hey k Adams, had to

(02:00:08):
say about him today? Yes?Hold on, so I'll read the tweet
that was sent to her really unprompted. She was talking about free agency and
the top players that she felt wereout there at the time earlier today,
and someone, just again unprompted,sent her way a message on the X
platform. K can you please takeover the duties of Nick Cassario and get

(02:00:29):
us someone to be happy about.This was several hours ago, and she
responded several hours ago as well,I'm trying to find it. I can
read it if you'd like. Idon't know. I want to get to
it because I want to read it. I love Hey k Adams. Yeah,
I can't find it. Oh,I got it, got it,
got it, got it. Casariobrought this entire organization back from death.

(02:00:49):
Period by period would have been better. She went thchx on. But that
was last week after she was toldshe didn't have a certain part of the
anatomy that this guy would have likedfor her to have. Remember that that
was uncomfortable, Yes, I remember. Why do people do this credit to

(02:01:10):
her for outing them? So it'sbasically grace he has purchased by winning ten
games last year, by drafting CJand Will in the same draft, by
being part of the group that hiredDemiko Ryans, he has purchased a little
bit of leeway for how long?And again, let's keep I do not

(02:01:33):
like what they've done today, althoughI do like the Autrey signing, But
I can't. I can't just sithere and just rip them up one side
and down the other, because it'snot over yet. If there were zero
players available that could help this teamthat are out there and they had no
more money to spend, it wouldbe different. They have the ability to
not kill themselves in the future withwhat they spend a couple of years down

(02:01:55):
the road, and similarly, theyhave the space to make this year's team
better long before they hit the draft, even with what is only left in
the marketplace, and there are notthat many players left I do like Jonathan
Jones of CBS Sports, but Iactually could not gotta believe what he had
said earlier today, when Kirk Cousinsfinally got his deal done with Atlanta and
we knew where he was going,we knew how much money he was making,

(02:02:15):
he said, Well, with KirkCousins going, I actually talked to
an executive today. He said,you know, now we can see the
rest. It kind of lets therest of the quarterback movement now take place.
I'm like, what is he talkingabout? And he expanded, He
goes, and now he can findout about maybe Sam Darnold, where Jacoby
Brissett is going, or maybe youknow, the Jets can get a late
or a seventh round pick for ZachWilson. I'm like, nobody's waiting for

(02:02:40):
this quarterback market to get going bywaiting to see where Cousins goes. Nobody's
interested in those players. None ofthose players matter to anyone's bottom line,
even as a we're really good,we need a backup to make sure we
don't fall on our faces next yearif we need a backup for three games.
They're not a part of the quarterbackmarket. They're players who shouldn't bear
beyond rosters. Ryan Tannehill is stillavailable. You know why, because nobody

(02:03:03):
wants them to play for them.They might want him in the room,
but they don't want him to play. It's not a market. By the
way, he's top five on thelist of all time earners too, Ryan
Tannehill's number five. Yeah, it'stiming if you hit, If you play
and are on a team that isdesperate and knows there's nobody else out there,

(02:03:23):
you get resigned if you hit themarket when nobody else is out there,
like Kirk just did. Again,like Baker Mayfield could have been a
free agent, and you just saidcorrectly, Kirk Cousins is light years better
than him, right, And hewas also on the market by himself.
As it turned out, he gotone hundred and sixty million, probably because
I don't think see why you wouldn'tplay out that deal. It's only four

(02:03:45):
years. How much of this too, you mentioned something? How much of
this is nick looking at the future, like we're right back here next offseason
at this rate. One more runningback that I didn't mention off the board.
Also not becoming a Houston Texan.I'm trying to think of who it
would be. He played for theteam formerly known as the San Diego Chargers.
Austin Eckler is going to be aTitan commender. Hollard got him,

(02:04:10):
Uh wow, sire at the commander'stwo year deal worth less than twelve million
total. That would have been agood pickup. That is neighborhood of shorter
term to what Devin Singletary just got. You know what he's good at other
than running catching? Yes, Ihave aware. Well, I mean that's
it's a huge upgrade for the Chargerswith their commanders, going from the combination

(02:04:32):
of Robinson and Gibson to Eckler inmy opinion, and for not a whole
lot of money. What are thePackers doing with their running back situation by
side Josh Jacobs? Uh huh,you had Aaron Jones on the team and
aj Dillon who also became a freeagent, So what are you doing?
They think Josh Jacobs and whatever elsethey have, and they do have a
third stringer that was capable, they'llbe fine. He'll now be a second

(02:04:54):
stringer. I mean, they're nota bad team, just ask the Dallas
Cowboys. But you just had sameguy you paying more for Josh Jacobs than
you would have. Yes, howmuch longer commitment to a little bit they
went through the contract is comparable.Jacobs is younger he is. Yeah,
Why do I feel like Josh Jacobshas been around a lot longer than that?

(02:05:16):
I mean he just played the fifthyear of his career with the Raiders.
I guess Jones is in what yearfour? I mean six? Jacobs
is in year six next year,and he'll be twenty six. Just turned
twenty six last month. Aaron Jones, soon to be reunited with Mike McCarthy,
turned twenty nine in December. Nextyear will be year eight. I'm

(02:05:40):
gonna ponder all this and more onmy drive home, and I'm gonna do
it in an elite vehicle from ClassicElite Chevy sugar Land. Matter of fact,
it's the most elite vehicle, thetwenty twenty four Chevy Silverado ZR two
Midnight Edition. Oh wait to goget it. It's the best truck out
there. You can get it toone at Classic Elite Chevy Sugarland or Classic

(02:06:02):
Elite Chevy Highway six. Right now, Jeff and Tiffany Sebastian, the owners
at both locations, standing by andif they're not there for some reason,
ask for my guy Lloyd, orask for Zach or any of the amazing
staff and crew available to help youout and show you what it means when
they say together, let's drive.You can do that at the GM Dealer
of the Year thirteen consecutive years.That's the Classic Elite Chevy Sugarland location.

(02:06:27):
And you could have done it yesterdayon a Sunday afternoon when you walked into
Classic Elite Chevy Highway six, becausethat is when they are also open on
Sundays for your convenience. Either way, you've got the best inventory possible fifteen
thousand dollars off select Silverado's right now, for example. And how about employee
pricing for everyone. That's just whatthey do out there, along with giving

(02:06:50):
you a lifetime engine guarantee, lifetimeof car washes in two years of free
maintenance when you purchase a new vehicle, tell them. Madam Clanton from Sports
Talk seven ninety sent you into eitherlocation for Dan for WEX, I may
see the A team here on SportsTalk seven ninety reconvenes tomorrow. I'm sure
there will be a big splash madeby the Texans between now and then