The A-Team: Astros Lose In Seattle, Abreu Back, Nico Paid and Bye-Bye Angel

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sportskies named Adham TalkingYour Teams series, Adam Clinton and Adam
Wexler are the A Team. Ateam just like that. Back at it
again on another week of the ATeam. Here on Sports Talk seven ninety

(00:23):
wex over the air, AC righthere, Dan Matthews, the show killer,
our producer. As per usual,as we take you up until six
o'clock tonight. I hope everybody isstaying safe and somewhat dry out there.
Just another five hundred year flood thatI drove through to get to work for
the second time in as many weeks. As Houston's weather continues to be bipolar.
But I digress. I don't know. Coming in here, I was

(00:49):
thinking about the weekend that was,the holiday weekend that was, and how
the Astros had us, you know, good spirits going into that Seattle situation
despite some of the things that happenedover the course of the weekend, but
taking two out of three against Oakland, which I guess isn't the best you
could have hoped for, but goodconsidering that they did drop that game.

(01:10):
And then well, last night happened, and I said this, last night,
I was texting with somebody wex,and I said, you know,
I knew it was coming, wetalked about it, and yet I still
got irrationally angry when I saw thatJose Abrau was being jammed into the lineup
at the expense of Joey Loprafido.And it's less about low Perfido being sent

(01:34):
down, because I think that's actuallysomething that can benefit all parties involved.
It's just what was said and thenwhat was done and how it was rushed,
and everything about putting him into thelineup last night, and then of
course he strikes out in his firstat bat, so I'm like, a,
yeah, that's what I figured,But then he drove in a run,
and so I don't know. I'mjust like, it's weird. It's

(01:57):
bizarre. I've never seen anything likeit, at least not from a contending
team. From the standpoint of theAstros are right in it to compete for
this division and yet and make yetanother deep playoff run. And yet I
feel like the people in charge ofthis organization in some ways, some shape
or form, are downright sabotaging attimes. That's how I feel. I

(02:20):
am amazed as well that so manypeople focus in on jose abrew. Quite
honestly, I'm not sure why,Oh, you wanted me to get out
to the pop out You wanted meto get to the pop out city that
we experienced last night with the offense, with all of those runners left on
base. Yet again, Oh,we could do that, because that's what
actually matters. They didn't have aton of runners left on base because nobody
got any hits. A top ofthe lineup was a total zero except for
one hit. Got five guys atthe top of your order, all batting

(02:45):
in front of Jake Myers and JohnSingleton and jose O braw and Victor Karattini.
They got one hit, you lose. It isn't that difficult to figure
out. And it's not a joseA Braw thing, and it's not a
sabotage thing. There will be changesto the lineup tonight, Joe Spotta,
you heard that right now here onSports Talk seven to ninety. I just
don't I really don't think people whoclaim to be fans of the team or

(03:07):
understand baseball can take that to theirphone calls and to social media without it
all getting lost. From point Ato point B. Absolutely baffling. But
if you want a whipping boy forwhy this team is this far under five
hundred, by all means, bedumb and focus in on that's that's your

(03:28):
prerogative. I don't I don't haveanything to help you with that, but
I'll do my best. The Astrosare going to lose games. They're going
to lose a lot of games.Everybody is going to lose a lot of
games. Their focus is as itshould be. They got to win series.
They need more sweeps than they havehad because they've been swept so often.
Considering they've won sixty percent of theseries they've had since they went to

(03:50):
Mexico City, and they're still thisfar under five hundred, because that's how
badly things went to begin. Youwere twelve games under. You're still six
games under seventeen and eleven is exand that's more than half their season,
more than half their season. They'vebeen the best team in this division.
If it continues this way the restof the year, and they don't get
you know, slaughtered by Seattle inthe season series that they now trail three

(04:12):
games to one, then they'll stillwin this division, all while having major,
major falloffs from major major contributors.You know, Joe spottam makes his
visit to the Matt Thomas Show,and how come somebody doesn't ask him about
why doesn't go back to last yearand put a guy's where they were,
as if that will solve the problems. Where was Jordan Alvarez so successful last

(04:36):
year batting third where he had anine to ninety ops. He's batted third
for the majority of this season.He's got a seven to sixty one ops.
Exactly. That's Joe Spott's fault.Fire him. He's a wet noodle
of a manager. Smart thinking,good sound judgment on people thinking and saying

(04:56):
things like that. You can justdislike the manager and say what you want,
that's why we have this conversation.But you can't. You can't really
truly believe that the manager is tellingjust run through the lineup. Al tuve,
He's had a fine season. It'snot overwhelmingly good, it's not overwhelmingly
bad. It's basically what he's beenthe last several years. Tucker best season

(05:17):
of his career, never really badat two before, he's having the best
season of his career. Credit toJoe, No, that's credit to Kyle
Yes. Jordan Alvarez worst season ofhis career by a ton Joe's fault,
of course, not Jordon's fault.Yes, that's always the player's fault,
and I don't mean to hammer jordon it's just a fact. Bregman worst

(05:40):
season of his career, Joe's fault. No, can he help it impact
the team less, Yes, whichhe's finally doing again. And I'm not
applauding him for moving Bregman to thefive hole, which he said he will
do for tonight's lineup. It's abouttime. I'm not sure what they thought
was going again. It doesn't meanhe's gonna get this, doesn't mean this
fixes Bregman, doesn't mean he's gonnastop popping out all the time, doesn't

(06:02):
mean he's gonna leave runners on baseall the time. And also, by
the way, if you want toknow how many players are performing below expectations,
Alex Bregman's been pretty awful since theMexico City reboot, and one teammate
has more RBIs than he does duringthat time. That's it. And the
offense isn't even the problem on anygiven night. Yeah, sure, a

(06:25):
couple hits two runs a fourth straightgame where they scored in only one inning.
Yeah, yeah, that's not ideal. But over these twenty eight games,
when they've gone seventeen and eleven,the offense has been a top five
offense pretty much every which way youwant to slice it and run scored,
ops, home runs, batting average, a runners in scoring position has obviously
continued to improve overall. Big picture, it's not really the problem. And

(06:48):
honestly, there's kind of two waysto describe an ACE for me, and
most people won't like it. Buteither you go out there, you dominate
and you win because you pitch themto a win, you give them seven
innings, you gave up runs,one run whatever, you're ace, or
you don't really have it and youstill manage to get through six innings pretty
successfully. He gave up three runsin a road game against the team leading

(07:10):
into the division fromber did He'd liketo think, maybe you find a way
to put a couple more runs across, maybe hit your average and run scored
on the road, which is fourand change, and you get out of
the opener of that series with awin. You didn't three more chances starting
tonight. Jose A Brady did makehis return last night. Did have a
hit, did strike out. Youcan probably debate whether you think he looked

(07:32):
better or not, but much ofwhat do I opened with has a lot
more to do with the speed withwhich he got here, or the minor
league at bats being scrutinized or otherwise. It's a good way to get things
started here. It is a stormof an afternoon, rapidly coming in and
rapidly going out. Hopefully you guyswon't have to deal with the lingering effects

(07:54):
of this latest storm as long asyou did the last. I'm so tired
of the bipolar weather in the city. But that's living here. Yeah,
how can you be tired of It'sjust not it's constant. It's like being
tired of the sun. I don'tremember having this ridiculous amount of flooding all
of the time, this frequently whenI was growing up here, though,
So you think maybe this year they'reforecasting even more hurricanes than ever before.

(08:18):
Yeah, because it's changing a littlesomething about the uh temperatures and I don't
know. I'm not a meteorologist,I just play one on the radio.
I have to push back, though, I'm not like it's it is okay
to It's very much. Okay asa matter of fact, And it's not
dumb at all to say, Hey, I know that this guy and this
guy and this guy are not playingup to their potential in this lineup,

(08:39):
but I would like to not addanother automatic out to said lineup. I
don't think I's dumb at all.So who should have been in there?
I don't know. John Singleton playedwith him, so any number of combinations
where how about this? Who shouldn'tbe in there? Jose Bray You he's
proved that already. I don't needthem to send him to the Astros factory

(09:01):
and then play a couple games ina Sugarland series and then I gotta be
back in the line now, LikeI don't need that. They were playing
their best baseball almost like to theeighth second that he left the team.
Not saying that's why, but Imean, if it's not a coincidence whatever,
like they were playing their best baseball. I feel like you're just forcing
him in there, because why whatis the reason? It's not because he's

(09:22):
good. It's not because he's young. It's not because his bat speed's awesome,
it's not because any number of things. It's not because he's awesome defensively
because lebal found him the first twotimes last night and it was like,
here we go again. I'm notsaying they were both his fault, but
like, what does he bring tothe table that he's got to be in
the lineup more often than not otherthan that they paid him a bunch of

(09:43):
money and Jeff Bagwell says he looksgood. I'm tired of this. Yeah,
we can certainly address that, becauseI do think there are answers to
it. I don't think they're allgood, and I definitely don't think people
want to hear them. But wehave them and we'll share them with you
and multiply that over the course ofthe rest of the show. Obviously,
we'll keep an eye on what istaking place out there. It was a
remarkably dark day, and normally whenyou hear that on a sports talk show,

(10:03):
we're talking about something in jest,or some team that lost, or
the Celtics fallen foes in front ofthem, a dark day for the Pacers,
or a dark day for the Heat, or a dark day for any
one of the ill equipped teams theyface so far in the postseason. On
their incredibly non dominant run to theNBA Finals, where you can see them

(10:24):
again about ten days when the NBApicks back up again. They'll play tonight,
the Timberwolves will pretend that they're competing, and then at the end of
the game, the MAVs will win, and then they too will be off
until next month. Another week ofOTAs will begin for the Houston Texans tomorrow.
Have a chance to see them onthe field on Thursday. Two pretty

(10:45):
interesting NFL topics. A one peopleof course, are paying less attention to,
even though it's a much much biggerdeal than the one they were paying
attention to. And I'm talking aboutkicker stories this offseason, one that should
not be drawing so much interest inI and one that should be drawing much
more interest and ire. And thecalendar. The NFL calendar always scrutinized by

(11:07):
the players, the owners, thegeneral managers, and the coaches. This
is an interesting twist on what couldbe in the very near future for our
twelve month a year news cycle forthe NFL. I don't think the players
are in favor of it, butwe'll get into all of those things.
A bunch of other things from overthe weekend some actual dark things from over
the weekend and very sad. Andthen the other thing, We'll bring you

(11:31):
some angel talk at some point thatwas not sad at all. That was
awesome. You know what else isawesome going to Tom's Watch Bar and seeing
what all they have to offer you. Now, when the Astros are on
the road, good place to headon in with free parking by the way,
and you know, just parking thatgreen street garage, head on over
to the corner of Carolina Polk andeven on a daylight today, I mean,

(11:52):
they have windows there. It's notlike it's always open and the storm
blows through and you can't enjoy yourselfinside. In fact, if you're inside
Tom's Watchbar right now, you're probablyin a pretty good place considering the weather.
It just blew through downtown. Butwhatever is going on outside, there's
always fantastic parking situation and drink specialsinside. Not to mention, the menu

(12:13):
is second to none. I cannotwait for us to go back out to
Tom's Watch Bar so I can takein some of that food out there again.
And when the Astros are in town, you cannot beat what they have
to offer at Tom's Watch Bar.My guess is there are some wings of
some sort going down on that upcomingvisit. Honey Barbecue, Nashville Hot Korean
Barbecue. Lots of good stuff there, Burger's tacos, salads, you name

(12:35):
it. Great stuff coming out ofthe kitchen, great stuff to enjoy in
front of the TVs both inside andout. Fantastic seating arrangement, and again
the big screens always have whatever's onover at Tom's Watch Bar. The best
deal in Astros baseball. As wetell you, when the team returns home,
like they will this weekend, youhit the Green Streak garage park there,
get that parking validated at Tom's,and then they will shuttle you to

(12:56):
and from the game so you getto see the ball game. Don't have
to worry about out the ballpark parkingor it's the expenses that go along with
it. You just enjoy everything Tom'shas to offer, all the games you
could want right there at Tom's WatchBar, twelve one Caroline Street, buy
one, get one drink specials aswell at downtown's ultimate sports bar, Tom's
Watch Bar. We now returned toAdam Clinton and Adam Wexeler on Sports Talk

(13:20):
seven ninety It is the eighteen hereon Sports Talk seven ninety Tuesday edition of
the program. Hope everyone had asafe holiday weekend. As we get in
here on a Tuesday, are youhaving the thing where you see I'm not
dealing with it as much today,but yesterday, the whole day, I
thought I felt like it was aSunday. It was weird. Normally it's

(13:43):
like the other way around. Isometimes three day weekends throw me off that
way. But I think it hadmore to do with the fact that the
Astros were on the West Coast andit was Memorial Day and they didn't play
a day game for the first timein like forever. I don't even remember
the last time. No everybody elsedid. Yeah, why was that?
Though? Here's for the day ofbaseball. Well, actually there'll be another
one in about three hours. Wait, is there any rhyme or reason to

(14:05):
that? I'm sure there was areason. I never found it out.
Could you get in, like,could you delve into that police? I
know those games in the books,research same, It's a lot better things
to do, Like what all numbersrelated? Much better, much better thing.
Tell me the number that was gonnamake me mad? I mean,
there's lots of them, But Iwas truthful when I was asking, so
what should what should they do ifthey want to put their best lineup out

(14:28):
there or give their team of thebest chance to win. I mean,
you could keep trotting out the sameguys, or you could keep trying to
give some of them a chance toget their season going. But if you're
doing that, then there's no reasonnot to do the same thing for jose
A. Bray, which is whyI don't think him playing for this team.
However, he does and Joe Spotaddressed that, so we'll hear from
him this segment addressing those things.But truthfully, last night's lineup included both

(14:50):
jose Bray and John Singleton. Ididn't hear and not sure if he'll be
asked this today. If there wasa reason they wanted him holding his glove
and playing defense during the game,maybe some sort of mental thing, like
just go out there and play ballinstead of take a swing and then sit
on the bench for forty five minutesand think about your swing and then go
take another one and then sit onthe bench for another forty five minutes.

(15:13):
When you're the DH, it isa little bit different mentally, speaking,
So I think there was probably areason for that, because I don't even
I can't believe there's any analytics thatsay, yeah, John Singleton's first base
played defensively over the last twenty sevengames while he was not twenty five games
while he was not here, suggestswe need to get him off of his
feet and have him put his gloveaway. And he did the DH because

(15:33):
got to get jose A Bray outthere. But also remember when jose A
Bray did speak while he was inSugarland, he noted how out of it
mentally he was everywhere. Couldn't hit, couldn't swing, couldn't field, He
just could not get straight mentally,and it was pretty clear it was affecting
him out there. So if youwant to quibble about whether he should have

(15:54):
been the DH or or Singleton,that's perfectly reasonable. There's plenty to back
that up. If John John Singleton'sin the lineup and jose A Brad who
comes back to the team, fliesup a day early, meets him in
Seattle and watches that game last night, you probably would have had Yiner as
your DH. You would have hadChas McCormick as your DH. Those pretty

(16:15):
much your your only options. Prettysure they weren't gonna have Greg Kessinger get
his third at bat during their postMexico City portion of the season. Man,
their usage of him has been somethingthis year. But that's my point,
Like, are they forcing Jose Oa braw back into the lineup?
I mean, it sure seems likeit until you realize who's he playing for.

(16:36):
Who's who's got to be out there. Everybody that has to be out
there, including him, would besomeone they're doing the same thing with.
We hope they can get going.We hope Chaz can get going. We
hope Yer can get going. Wehope a bre you can get going.
There different levels of it, butthere's no difference. I look, I

(16:57):
just want honestly, you're right aboutthe ABRAI you part. It's so far
down the list when you've got Imean, Alex Bregman, you talk about
it like a tease. He hadlike a week and a half long stretch
where you're like, all right,he's back and now LEAs hey, I'll
give Joe a spot of credit.At least he's not batting cleanup tonight.

(17:18):
Well let's hear what Joe exactly hadto say about that. Earlier today when
he was on with the Matt ThomasShow, addressed the Bregmant situation. Obviously,
Matt introduced the subject with the factthat he simply just not has been
been particularly productive. Obviously, iscontinuing to play stellar third base defense again,
well on his way to I'm suresecuring the Gold Glove for the American

(17:38):
League. But as a cleanup hitter, they've got some of the worst production
out of him. Their record asa team is significantly worse when he is
the cleanup hitter versus when insert nameof anybody on the team is the cleanup
hitter. So it's pretty stark.And he addressed that and answered that question
about what he's going to do inthe immediate future and the hope for the
foreseeable future with Bregmant, and Italked to Bragi yesterday. I'm gonna drop

(18:03):
him to fifth today. You know, if we look, you know,
if we looked at his last twoweeks of production, you know, he's
ops. He's close to eight hundred. He doesn't appear to be, but
he's got bat actually have been slid. He's has walked more, he's gone
you know, he's hitting the ballhard, just no no luck behind him.
He's done from fits. He's justwe haven't seen the Alex pregnant of

(18:25):
consistency and Alex pragmant that we've seenin the past. And and I get
that, but the quality of thebat actually have been there. He just
falls are not falling in there forhim. So the plan is now to
probably put him back in that fifthspot somewhere where we got him going a
couple of weeks ago, and hopefullywe could get him going and and get

(18:47):
some production from those guys in themiddle of the lineup, because you know,
we need we need, we needsome big hits from those guys for
us to take, you know,the load off some of the some of
the guys that right now have beencarrying the team for the first two months
of the season. He got itinto the bigger picture, and I applaud
him saying that it isn't about aBrallion only, or Bregman only or anybody.
It's about the middle of the lineupfor the most part. Last night

(19:07):
I pointed it out as it unfolded. They got one hit from the top
five, They got five hits fromthe guys batting six through nine. Bregman
obviously in that top five, hadnone of those one hit and this Bandana
Bregman, remember when that was athing. It lasted for like forty eight
hours. There wasn't a week orten days or two weeks where he was
going well. He found a fewsingles, and then those two back to

(19:32):
back games where he hit the ballover the fence three times and had five
hits. That's not a long stretchof success, and it's specifically why they
had no business moving him back intothe five or the four spot then either
it made no sense. Oh mygod, he's fixed. He was doing
that from the sixth hole, notthe five hole, correct, anywhere,
but the four hole, and hehas batted six the little bit. It

(19:53):
just it made no sense. Itdoesn't make sense now anyway. I hope
this isn't a well he got twohits today, so I better and back.
It's about let's get the team producingin the situations where we're failing so
much. And the game before wasn'ton him exclusively. They had three at
bats with the bases loaded and twoouts, and in all three instances they
left the bases loaded, and abig picture again it's the offense really is

(20:17):
not the problem, certainly not forthe last twenty eight games, or they
won seventeen times. The majority ofthe reason why they won is because they
have found their way. And Iknow I just said they've only scored four
times in their last four innings oftheir last thirty six, but all of
them but won are multi run inningsand they won two of those games.
They lost two of those games,three to the A's and that three game
series and last night's game. It'smuch bigger than that. I don't think

(20:41):
people realize that the difference between AlexBregman going from a high seven hundred z
ops or eight hundred ops, whichis what he's been for the last couple
of years, to where he isthis year, which is about a two
hundred point dropoff, is essentially theexact same thing as Jordon Alvarez. Jordon's
a nine to eighty nine to ninetyone thousand ops guy. Career wise,

(21:03):
He's seven sixty this year. Itis a massive drug. It's not a
little bit. You're not losing.Your three and four hitters are not what
they once were. Again, nota managerial issue, a player issue,
a batting coach issue, a timingissue. Potentially there's something hindering them.
Maybe there is a small issue injurywise we aren't aware of. You know,

(21:23):
Jeff Blum, I thought was kindof alluding to nothing injury related.
But it's it's so close because allthis time where I'm talking about how poorly
he's played lately, now switching toAlvarez, he's still hitting like three to
ten. It's just with a bunchof singles and doubles right the fence.
Well, but yeah, but he'salso he's also not only struck out in

(21:47):
some don't it's not questionable. Idon't know the word I'm trying to think
of it, which as he wouldn'tnormally either miss or let go right down
the middle. He has been doingthat year one of them. But I'm
talking about expanding the zone, whichI'm not saying he's never done, but
he's just it seems like he's donethat more. He has done it more,
there's no question about it. Andthen you know, just some of

(22:07):
this, some of the swing andmisses that well, like you said,
looking at just meet prime shedder downthe I mean whatever you want to call
it, Yeah, Well, orjust looking at it, just looking at
it, and then and then yeah, it's I don't I don't sit here
and say, oh, he's nothitting home runs, he's having a terrible
season, because I know he's agood hitter, not home run hitter,

(22:30):
a hit. That's why that's honestly, that's the main difference in my opinion
between him and Aaron Judge. Ifyou want to start comparing like the big
men for these two teams, andyou know what they do, and we
all know about the home runs,but like you're on Alvarez, as we've
said for many seasons, he's agood hitter. And so that's why the
drop off is just all the morealarming because I don't look at him as
a one dimensional guy at all.Yeah, he has value to him in

(22:52):
seven sixties and again that's just overthe twenty eight game stretch that I'm talking
about. He's at seven ninety onefor the year, which is also the
very very low. But to whatwe started the conversation with Alex Bregman,
no longer at least tonight bat andclean up doesn't mean the new cleanup hitter
is gonna get it going. Doesn'tmean they're gonna score runs in the first
And I know how fun it wasfor everybody that stayed up into the early

(23:12):
portion of last night's game to catchAc on the X platform talking about the
Mariners bad offense that I kept tellingyou they had. Well, they did
tie their season high and run scoredin a first inning, and they had
twenty percent of what they scored allyear in the first They scored in the

(23:32):
first against the Astros fifteen runs scoredin their season in the first inning before
yesterday, and then they got threemore in the first inning off Fromber.
They didn't get anything else right,which is what sucks more about this good
job by him to get through thenext five. He was in a little
bit of trouble in the second,a little bit of trouble in the sixth.
We got out of it. Monterousual, Montero decided to put himself

(23:56):
into trouble by just throwing balls whenit's not necessary. I know you're throwing
trying to throw competitive swing at mypitch with two strike pitches, but it
puts a couple of runners on base. He gets out of trouble, They
get a key double playball. Theydo their thing in the ninth inning,
or in the eighth, the lastinning from the bullpen, the last two
innings, and they just don't getthey got nothing going against Munos, who
has been exceptional this year. Yeah, that sucked. And the problem is

(24:21):
tonight you've got another matchup, whichI think is lopsidedly in favor of the
Mariners as far as pitching. UnlessHunter Brown keeps on the trajectory he's been
on, that'd be nice, butit's not gonna matter if you don't get
any of the offense that we're talkingabout them not getting. So we shall
see and we'll continue to discuss that. Also, I know that we were
going to talk about Angel Hernandez andwe will. But last night, really

(24:45):
really major League Baseball. We're doingthis again. It's just like a long,
endless list of these guys, andthere was someone else at it again
last night. And honestly, I'llask Wex about it when we come back
because it's it might be some somethingthat I'm not used to. I'll explain
for five. Hey, it's CraigVigia. Listen to the Home of the

(25:06):
Astros in your home. Just tellyour smart speaker play Sports Talk seven ninety
on iHeartRadio. It is the Ateam here on Sports Talks seven ninety Tuesday
edition of the program. I thinkmost of the weather has cleared out from
what I've heard, but man,it was nasty for a while there,
just like it was last night attimes in Seattle. Now, strike zones

(25:30):
are going to be criticized from timeto time because until Major League Baseball,
and particularly Rob Manford pulls his headout of his backside and gets this into
an automated strike call situation and notjust a challenge. And I get it
he's trying to He's basically trying tosay, well, the players, I

(25:51):
don't know if they're going to beon board with this, like it matters
if he wants something to happen.I know the players Union is going to
be a part of decisions, bigdecisions like that. But at the end
of the day, if Rob Manfordreally wants something to happen, particularly as
it pertains to calling balls and strikesin Major League Baseball, I'm guessing he
could get it done. But Idigress. So last night, on a

(26:15):
day where admittedly a lot of uswere rejoicing that Angel Hernandez decided to just
suddenly retire and we'll get some moreof that in a little bit. Larry
Vanover's zone was beyond horrific, oras WEX would call it, dreadful.
And again I always kind of Ilistened to the broadcast, and if you
know, in this case, I'mtalking about the television broadcast, but we

(26:37):
always encourage you to listen to iton Sports Talk seven ninety, particularly the
free iHeartRadio app if you can,which I do a lot of times,
especially if I'm outside, but Iusually wait before like commenting on it and
see what the reaction is to,for example, the broadcast crew. And

(26:59):
again again it takes a lot forJeff Blum, for example, to just
go out of his way to saysomething. But I mean, he was
getting caught mid sentence. And inone instance, they were talking about something
that Julia had done in the past, and I think it was something.
Was it running around with a fiftypounds head on her shoulders? No?

(27:21):
No, No, that was inOakland. I'm talking about last night when
he eat a cricket. Yes,the grasshopper, I think is what it
was. I don't know if hismic was still hot. Well, I
don't know what the scenario was becauseAdmdedly. I was walking into the room
as it was happening, so Iwasn't like sitting in my chair and seeing
the whole thing unfold for context.But what I think happened was they were
running this you know, video package, and his mic was still hot,

(27:47):
and the call for a strike ona ball that was I don't know,
fifty feet off the plate was sohorrific that Blum just like you know,
subconsciously reacted to it and is eitherhis mic was still hot or I don't
know what the technical side of thingswas, but he was saying what we

(28:07):
were all thinking, are you kiddingme? Right now? And again I
said it like on a day whereAngel Hernandez is retired. This was basically
a hold my beer moment for Larryvan Over last night. It didn't seem
like anything, But I don't oftennote it's but I did last night on
social media that it was bad andyou missed it earlier. Today you hear
what Joe spott I had to sayabout it. I did not. Let's

(28:30):
hear what Joe spott I had tosay about last night's home plate umpire,
and I think he was correct onall counts. Again it's easier for us
to go all rogue and complain aboutthem, a little less easy for a
manager to do it for obvious reasons. But it was discussed today during his
appearance on the Matt Thomas Show.Listen. I tried. I tried.
I think, you know, Igave Larry a piece of my mind.

(28:52):
I think he knew that he missedsome pitches and he had a he couldn't.
He couldn't throw me or Scott's surveysout of the game last night.
Yeah, we both tried. Theyboth tried again in a little bit of
tongue, and che tried to basicallyget ejected, to support their players,
to let Larry van Over know hedid a quite poor job. And last
night's game according to the umpire scorecards, and I'm sure most of you

(29:15):
are familiar with them, so sounfortunately it's become very very popular because many
of these umpires are very very badat calling balls and strikes. There were
forty three pitches that he had todecide, don't cause the strike, all
I don't know what to do,and then those were the called strikes.
He called a strike forty three times, he called a ball ninety five times
on pitches that were not swung.Out of those forty three called strikes,

(29:38):
he got thirty four of them correctaccording to the usage of umpire score cards.
And again Major League Baseball has alreadytold us that as much as we
like to pay attention to this andthe technology that shows us where the strike
zone is, stop because that's nothow we grate our umpires. We let
them off the hook by saying,I know the plate is small, but

(29:59):
we give him a inches off bothsides and top and bottom. So what
you're saying and the inaccuracies you're believing, that's not what we believe. But
point being, nine of the fortythree called strikes were not strikes. They
were balls. They were thrown outsidethe strike zone. In my opinion,
seven of those nine, we're sofar out of the strike zone that they
shouldn't be missed. Some of theothers that catch a corner or are right

(30:22):
off the corner or miss the platebarely have lots of movement, are still
moving as they reach Raleigh's glove orKeratine's glove. I get it. I'm
not expecting perfection. We're not evengonna get perfection when we go to the
ABS system, or we get toa challenge system where we get to row
oumps. But we do and shouldreasonably expect, And this is where Major

(30:42):
League Baseball needs to say the same. They should reasonably expect the blatant misses
to become almost none, not sevenout of nine, not seven out of
or nine out of forty three.That's way too many. Seventy nine percent
accuracy. He got four out offive called strike correct. So every two
or three batters he was missing acall for two and a half hours.

(31:04):
That cannot be accept That's malpractice.It's just it. And again they they
will go back to it's they won'tever say it. We know it to
be true, and Joe just admittedit. It. They don't even think
so negatively of it because they believe, well, they both have the same
bad ump that night and they bothhave to deal with it. They want

(31:26):
the players to deal with it.The only thing I hate about Umpire's bad
umpiring performances behind home plate. Wesee all the video and we're flooded with
it because of Angel's immediate retirement.By the way, when that story came
out from Bob Nightingale had tipped toBob this time for being in front of
everybody, and he was corrected.There is a retirement. It wasn't even

(31:48):
presented like it should have been.It's effective immediately. He's already done.
He hasn't umped a game in twoweeks and he's not going to ever again
again, and he's been out.All they were doing was ooceiating a financial
settlement. But to what irks methe most is you go back and watch
these best of Angel, which ofcourse means worst of the worst part about

(32:09):
it isn't the missed calls. It'sthe I don't have anything to do but
walk back to the dugout. He'sawful. That was not a strike.
I did my job. I shouldbe seeing another pitch. I should be
going down to first. I shouldn'thave killed my team here by striking out
with two runners on, but Idid. And they don't even say anything

(32:30):
to them. They just walked backto the dugout like it's okay, because
there's nothing else for them to do. Sometimes people remember the Kyle Schwarber blow
up mm hm. That was againstJosh Hater in a one nothing game in
the ninth inning, and it wasnot a strike and hater's reaction was so
well I missed. I just walkedhim. Oh oh okay, yeah,

(32:51):
awesome, throw it around the horn. We were up against it. I
have several things to add to thisconversation, and we will get to them
as we wrap up the three o'clockhour now, cause it's just it's unacceptable
and it's not going anywhere until theyintroduce the umpire is not going anywhere.
The umpires that are here are notgoing anywhere unless they retire, which is
what happened with one of them.One down, minute to go. All

(33:14):
right, you know what else?Is it going anywhere? Tom's Watch Bar
right there at the corner of Carolineand Polk. It's not going anywhere,
nor should it. Why would youwant it to go anywhere. You can
buy one get one drink specials atCaroline and Polk every single time you walk
through the door at Tom's Watch Bar, not to mention an amazing menu,
and there's always something going on foryou to watch, obviously, whether it's

(33:35):
sports or otherwise. They've got iton the many many mini screens inside.
But when you head on over todowntown and Tom's Watch Bar at the corner
of Caroline and Polk Park in thatGreen Streak garage, and Tom's is going
to validate your parking. And ifthe Astros are playing that night at home
over at Minute May Park, They'vegot a free shuttle to get you to
the game and to get you backto Tom's right after, so you don't

(33:57):
have to mess with any sort ofparking situation and a real rarity. Over
at Tom's. They're actually able toshow postseason Dallas games almost every night because
it's not football season. The otherteams can be found on these screens over
at Tom's watch Bar. Obviously yourStros he mentioned, when they're at home,
you take advantage of those buy one, get one drink specials. Your
Green Street garage park and gets validatedover at Tom's. They got to shuttle

(34:19):
to and from games UFC three tozero two this weekend, so you know
it will be on at Tom's WatchBar mentioned it's on the Carolina corner of
Carolina and Polk. That's twelve ohone Polk Street. It is Downtown's ultimate
sports bar, great place to enjoyeverything. We will see you over there
at Tom's Watch Bar. Adam Clinton, I'm Wexler. Our eighteen returned on

(34:42):
Sports Talk seven ninety exit your Rocketsplay here. What I would deem very
good news for your Houston Texans.Per Diana Rossini of the athletic Nico Collins

(35:02):
in the Houston Texans, lay'd likeeach other a lot good everybody do a
contract extension over the next three seasonsworth of an extension at about seventy two
points seventy five million dollars max valueseventy five Adam Schefter adding some of the
monetary deats fifty two million guaranteed fallsright in line with almost everything else that's

(35:27):
happened this offseason with wide outs andtheir signings Michael Pittman, Calvin Ridley,
among others, the Amon Rat SaintBrown deal. This is year four under
a four year deal for Nico Collinsand now a three year extension for Collins,
who was definitely one of the topten receivers in the NFL this year.
He could argue about where exactly thatfits, probably couldn't argue about where

(35:49):
he came from, way off thelist for his first two seasons, and
sometimes that would scare people, andI'm glad he did not scare the Texans.
In my opinion, it's well youmay en up. Oh my gosh,
look at what they're saddled with.The Texans continue, for the most
part to sign relatively short term dealsand extensions where there's pretty much no where

(36:12):
you're going to be in this dealand say, I cannot believe they did
this, not all of them,but the majority of them. And sometimes
at the other side of it,there may be some problems because the players
still incredibly good. So then you'regoing to have to pay him at an
even higher rate sooner. But ittakes a little bit of the risk away
from you. And for a playerlike Collins a four year rookie deal as
the eighty ninth overall pick in adraft three years ago NFL wise, he

(36:36):
wasn't making very much money. Hewas one of the lower paid Houston Texans
players period, let alone stars.And now that will change when this extension
kicks in, and he will hitthe field presumably tomorrow as he did last
week, for their first round ofOTAs, and then for their mandatory mini
camp next week, and then he'sgot his time off and then he'll be
set to try to duplicate at leastfor one more year. But now they're

(36:58):
saying at least for four war years. His status as one of the best
receivers in the NFL and within thisoffense, I wouldn't categorize him as any
particular type of wide receiver, becausewhatever type of wide receiver you want,
he is. You want a goodred zone wide receiver, good, he's
it. You want a deep threatwide receiver, good, he's it.

(37:20):
You want a tough receiver, good, he's it. How about one with
good catch radius? Okay, howabout Nico you name it? He does
it pretty darn well. And that'sjust a matter of repeating that when maybe
more dcs are focusing in on him. Good, go ahead, wide open,
Stefan Diggs, there's thirteen yards wideopen. Tank Dell, there's thirty

(37:42):
yards. Man. Look at allthe room Joe Mixon has to run with,
go right ahead offense. Dangerous tothe nth level, your Houston Texans.
Well, I think the first thingthat came to mind when I heard
the news is that the scenario thatwe had been discussing throwing it out not
that much because it was depressing,frankly to think about it. I mean,
you've got a situation where all right, everybody eats everybody's happy Texan's going

(38:06):
a deep playoff run and you havea possibility of not one but two of
these guys walking at the end ofthe season. Because of what you did
with Stefon Diggs contract situation, youdon't have to take you don't have to
think about that anymore because that's nota possible scenario after this year. Yeah,
I mean, they always have thefranchise tag, and the way this
team was set up, it wasI mean, nobody would have wanted it,
but it was totally earmarked for Nico. It was going he was gonna

(38:29):
get hit with franchise tag if therewas any issue I think with the negotiations,
any issue with keeping him here becausehe was gonna have a good season
this year. You were already lookingat the free agent status of Stefan Diggs
because you chose to work with Diggspeople and agree to Yeah, we will
undo the contract that he's playing under, so it is over at the end
of this first season with our organization. But Nico Collins going into a fifth

(38:52):
year, which would be you know, going after his fourth year into free
agency after back to back monster seasons, you would not be I wouldn't assume
watching him play for another team,because then you have to consider the alternative.
Can this team succeed without Stefan Diggs, Well, we already know that
they can. I'm not asking themto, and they don't have to in
a year, but they already knowthat they can. And that's not even

(39:14):
knowing what any of the other nonNico Tank Dell players do. You don't
know if John Mechi is a littlebit better player. You don't know if
there's another veteran and Noah Brown thathelps you a lot, or Hutchinson or
anybody else. But you do knowyou can survive, you can thrive in
the passing game without him. You'reprobably not really well suited for twenty twenty
five if Tank Dell is your oneand you don't know who your two is.

(39:37):
And now they've essentially avoided that barringinjury, So I definitely applaud them
for it. We'd been watching theother contracts, which I just alluded to
earlier in this segment, and whatit kind of looked like it was shaping
up for the Texans. How wouldthey then have to kind of proceed with
negotiations and did they feel like theywere, I don't know, being priced
out or it was out of linewith what the performances have been for these

(39:58):
players that were landing these that we'regiving them all this money that was putting
you know, I think a prettygood blueprint for what it would take to
have Nico Collins remain with the Texans, and they were able to get it
done. And like I said,it falls right in line with nearly all
those other deals, whether it's thisplayer's getting you know, twenty three,
twenty four, twenty five, youknow where the guarantees are, there's not

(40:20):
much difference between them, and heeven for just one year, proved that
he belongs to that class. Yeah, it's Look, it's a good thing
all around. It's I never thought, like, what are we talking about
every night with Alex Bregman. It'sdifferent because it's baseball. There's so many
more games. But contract year doesthat get? Does that factor into a
guy who is always tweaking, alwayslooking, always in his own head so

(40:45):
to speak? In Alex Bregman.I don't think that happens as much with
NFL players because there's no mental sideof it unless you're dropping balls. Well,
but no, I don't agree withthat because, like, what do
we talk about last year with exactlythe CJ is trying to throw passes he
can catch. The pitchers are throwingto throw pitches you can't hit. Yeah,
I mean, I know what you'resaying, but I just don't think

(41:05):
I think that's why we don't seethat. Sometimes we see the other side
of it. After they get thecontract, they're not quite the player.
But going into a contract year infootball, it's almost I mean, there
are probably some examples, I bet, but it doesn't seem like it's it's
a thing. Well, Ceenee Lambwasn't in a contract year, but much
was made about, you know,something wasn't connecting, whether it was you

(41:28):
know, Dak Prescott whatever. Duringthe postseason. They had all this awesome
regular season and then for whatever reason, they get in their own heads.
I'm just saying that that's not goingto be. That's also a scenario that's
not out there. This guy issecure, he's had Frankly, I mean,
this was not a lock up untillast season. I really believe that

(41:51):
if Nico you should If Nico Collinsdoesn't have the season that he had last
year, you're very much saying,okay, two three years from now,
oh, look at what he's doingover here for this team over here.
Why didn't he do that here inHouston instead? He has the season that
he did in large part because hehad CJ. Stroud throwing to him and
not you know, Davis Mills,but he's on the field. He was

(42:12):
a big part of that as well, because he was all like, yeah,
you know, you don't let meget to it. He was out
there, he was producing. Andnow, I mean, if anything,
just having another weapon in that lineup, having TANKDLL back obviously everybody, like
I said, that's the phrase Iuse, everybody should absolutely eat in this
offense this year. And if securityfinancially and otherwise helps Nico Collins produce even

(42:38):
bigger than he did last year,I am absolutely all for it with the
Houston Texas because I think it's goingto make twenty twenty four a very very
successful campaign for them. All Right, We will continue to discuss this and
many other things as we continue hereon a Tuesday edition of the eight Team
four o'clock Hour. Coming up next, two lifelong huge sport skies named at

(43:00):
him Talking Your Team, Adam Clintonand Adam Wexler are the A Team A
four o'clock hour is underway. Thestorm clouds have cleared, and lo and
behold out of the clear skies.Here comes a Nico Collins extension. Happened

(43:24):
at the very tail end of thethree o'clock hour. The news broke.
Diana Rassini had it first, aswe've been discussing it ever since it happened.
And the fact that three years,seventy two million dollars is the extension
that Nick Cassario and company put infront of the reps for Nico Collins and
he said, yes, I wouldlike to sign that, I'll put inked

(43:45):
paper. And as a result,you've got one of C. J.
Stroud's best weapons, the best weaponundoubtedly based on last year. He was
on the field for the majority ofthe season. Yes, he was,
just from a pure production endpoint,and each of these receivers is a little
bit different, although I think theycould all play in every spot. Truthfully,

(44:07):
they're not relegated only lining up hereor there or X or y or
is he But yeah, I meanyou got to base a little bit on
production. I mean, no,you can't really say much about Steffan just
because he wasn't here and there wasn'treally anybody even close to what Nico did
last year. He was unbelievable.Well, I only say that because Stefon
Diggs was added, But until StefanDiggs puts up meteoric numbers in a Texans

(44:29):
uniform, it doesn't necessarily count.And look if they got if these two
want to outduel each other, becauseStefon Diggs knows he's still waiting on his
big, big, last big payday, if you will, probably his last
big one at the stage of hiscareer that he's at, then that's all
the more better. And CJ.Stroud's like, yes, let me help
both of you guys get lots andlots of money from somebody, whether it's

(44:50):
here in Houston or somewhere else.But just good good news if you wanted
to make sure that at least oneof as I mentioned, probably the best
weapon for CJ. Stroud stays righthere in the city of Houston for at
least the foreseeable future, immediate future. I'll put it that way, because
you never know the NFL. Thelifespan, if you will, of these

(45:10):
careers is so so short. Butevery game under that contract he'll be a
Texan for I feel pretty Yeah,NOA was how old is he right now?
Twenty seven? I don't even wantto change the answer. I want
to leave it at that. Okay, I feel like that's it doesn't matter.
I'd like the way that sounds.Well, he's on the right side
of thirty, is what I mean. He's only going into his fourth year.

(45:32):
Man, of course he is.I know. It's the fond Diggs,
isn't he just turned twenty five.Oh, he's even younger than I
thought. Excellent. Yeah, heonly got drafted three years ago. He
didn't play a full complement of collegeseasons, didn't actually play the COVID season
either, and then was drafted.I feel like he's been here longer than
he has, and it's probably becauseof the attendance that we talked about in

(45:52):
the last segment. Yeahc thereof hemissed two games last year, but the
year before he had missed seven games, missed three games the year before,
and obviously that being a rookie becausethey were so awesome under coach Kully offensively,
it was hard for him to geta ton of production going. Was
He basically doubled and then some hiscareer in one season. His first two
seasons. Double them up, addmore and you're almost to what he did

(46:15):
last year. The value of hiscatches, because it was only an eighty
catch season, there's a nothing eyepopping from a number of catches. But
he also cut eighty passes. Onjust one hundred and nine targets, he
averaged eighty six and a half yardsper game. This is where you start
seeing him higher and higher on everylist. You know they play to open

(46:35):
up the Indianapolis game. The eighttouchdowns he had in just those fifteen games,
the fact that he was a factorwhen they needed him. He had
eleven more catches in the postseasonnother onehundred and sixty four yards. Nine of
his eleven catches went for first downs. He is a real number one in
every like I said, every possibleway you would look at a number one

(46:55):
receiver. If you're telling me DevantaAdams is number one, well this whw
Nico Collins plays football. If you'retelling me you know Brandon Ayuk or Deebo
Samuel or any number of any gettingAmon Ross ain't Brown, and they're not
all the same player, but it'spretty clear they are number one players.
They're the number one receiver WR one. That's what he is. They just

(47:17):
locked him up. So to me, again, it's only a three year
deal. Maybe you'd say, well, if they lock him up for five,
then they have you know, definyou've got concrete figures on what he
made, what he's making. There'sless variance in it down the road.
But if you know anything about theNFL and its salary cap variants, down
the road is every day, it'sMonday at work, it's Friday at work.
It's all that there is in theNFL with their salary cap and how

(47:40):
they're able to manipulate it. Now, many different loopholes there are for it.
Think about the amount of money thatthey've committed to their product just this
offseason, and not all of itwill hit this offseason. But that's kind
of how I always get mad atthe cities or fans or GM that complain
about their cap situation. You canalways find a way. Oh yeah,

(48:05):
always in the NFL. I mean, these void years are ridiculous. Yes,
you know, Brandon Bean was talkingtoday about the Bills situation and they
said, you know, obviously weknow what kind of players Stefan Diggs is.
Being the GM of the bills.We know what kind of player is,
but did we want to keep kindof kicking this down the road?
You know? Do we want tobe looking at our situation in a year
and two years and saying we're stilldealing with this money? And so we

(48:27):
decided we'll just take the hit now. They're going to reshape their wide receiver
room at far less committed lower percentageof their cap, a lot less future
commitments, clearly, and take thehit now and believe that they don't have
to take a step back in product, don't have to take step back in
a prime Josh Allen year, andmaybe even in a year they feel like
they could be in an even bettersituation. That's the goal, and that's

(48:50):
the challenge. And I'm not sayingit's easy, but there's always a way.
Cap cleaned up here in Houston afterthe previous regime, and Nick has
prevented himself, I think, fromgetting in and kind of bad situation.
You just spent forty nine and ahalf committed a guaranteed dollars to Danneel Hunter,
and you just spent zero dollars onDanneel Hunter. In twenty twenty six,

(49:12):
he signed a two year deal.There's always a way, and he's
very specific about how he feels likehe can and they can basically beat or
handle the cap. They'll have topay the piper again and again and again,
but he thinks that that's a betterway to do it. I mean,
this comes down to and correct meif I'm wrong, because I don't
know. CJ's gonna end up beingby far his longest deal whenever he hands

(49:36):
that out, and I'd be shockedif the day he signs it he's not
the highest paid quarterback in the NFL. Well, he would have to be,
because they always are. It's kindof like JJ Watts deal. It
was like, oh, one hundredmillion, great, can't wait till Aaron
Donald or whoever's next gets it andthe quarterbacks money is out of control.
But yeah, they like the Chiefs, maybe they start thinking that way.
I mean, Pat mahomes Is wasvery quickly not the highest paid quarterback in

(50:00):
certain ways that you look at it, whether it's aav or different areas,
but his length of his deal wasincredibly long. It's gonna get renegotiated,
maybe even more than once. Butit allowed them to do certain other things.
They still have managed to while theyship the you know, the Jerryus
snead away. You know, theystill found a way to have Travis Kelcey
get a bump this offseason. ChrisJones still be a part of them moving.

(50:22):
There's always a way. And yeah, the length of the deal.
CJ's deal will probably be the lengthiestto date when he signs it. He's
only going into year two. Probablydoesn't need his deal after year two either,
twelve years at sixty per so afteryear three, after the second Super
Bowl trip, they'll probably get downto business. Well you say that,

(50:45):
and it's not a joke. AndI was talking with somebody over the weekend,
got some hot takes out of GalleryFernsure on Friday I said this to
somebody though that I was talking aboutthat very subject with Today earlier. And
this is obviously before this news.I always thought Nico Collins would be re
signed. It was just a matterof win and for how much and for
how long and all that kind ofthing. But I was like, I

(51:06):
don't I feel like the Texans aregonna surprise everybody or it's going to be
a spectacular disappointment in year two forCJ. Stroud and I don't mean c
J. Stroud will play disappointingly.I just mean that the teams, whatever
they end up doing, I reallydon't think there's an in between. Like
I and I know that's kind ofprobably crazy to say, given the jump

(51:28):
in their schedule, competition, andeverything else that comes with that, But
I just I just feel like,either your toe to toe with the Chiefs
and you're you're trying to make historyhere in Houston, big time sports history
here in Houston, or it's it'sjust a blow up for a variety of
reasons. Maybe somebody gets hurt,maybe somebodies get hurt, or maybe it's
just things just don't go well forwhatever. But I don't I don't tend

(51:50):
to think that's gonna happen. Andby the way, since I brought that
up, and since we're talking aboutNico Collins, yeah, I'm aware of
what's going on up in Dallas rightnow. I'm aware of what happened this
last fall. I'm aware of whatcould happen here in the early months of
summer. And I'm here to tellyou right now, they can have all
the titles they want outside of theCowboys winning anything. If the Texans win
a Super Bowl before the Cowboys doagain. Oh my god, you were

(52:13):
talking about convincing and converting, converting. Yes, I said that generation of
football fans in this state. Whywould I want to root for this team
over here that's perennial failures and constantlygets me excited for nothing when I could
root for this team down here.And I'm not the first person to talk
about this aspect. Steven A.Smith and Ryan Clark had a conversation about

(52:36):
this last week on the Four LetterNetwork. That's why it's the It's just
it's bubbling at the surface. AndI'm telling you CJ's the guy to do
it. And if he gets itdone, look the hell out what cities
are you looking for? You're lookingfor like Tyler, Denton, Beaumont.
You feel like you have Beaumont wellbecause you're what you're saying. San Antonio

(52:58):
and Austin are already in the podcastMary Jones, do you think you're getting
you're getting conversions from San Antonio andAustin? Do we really care? But
I know that's your point, butI mean, look, here is the
like, Okay, for example,in my opinion, here has been the
prototypical sports fan in Austin, Okay. For the better part of three four
five decades. You are an Astrosbaseball fan, you're a Spurs basketball fan,

(53:22):
and you're a Cowboys football fan.That's pretty much the letter of the
law if you're in Austin or SanAntonio. Honestly, I think that's how
it's gone. And then, oh, the Rangers, they went to the
World Series a couple times at theend of the two thousands. I'll root
for them while the Astros are down. Oh, the Astros are winning again.
All right, I'm back with theteam that I usually root for.

(53:42):
I can't know about you guys thatare locked in on your your reels,
your stories, your tiktoks and everythinglike I am. But I cannot get
enough of the Dallas stuff going onright now with the Stars, the MAVs,
the Rangers, and the Cowboys.I'm doing my part. I'm doing
my part. I'm doing my part. I ain't doing nothing. It's so
good, so good. So everybodycoming together in all sports to get down

(54:07):
on the Cowboys, to keep themdown while they're down. But you know
what I mean about that, LikeCowboys fans, Dallas area sports fans.
Okay, they can act like theycare about the MAVs and the Rangers and
even the Stars all they want.At the end of the day, they
will trade all that bleep because it'sjust noise for the Cowboys to matter,

(54:29):
and I mean really matter. Notoh we're put on TV every year because
we get good ratings, actually dosomething as much as we hate it.
They're pretty much like the Lakers froma do they matter standpoint? Yeah,
no, I know, and everybodyand the talkers they can't not they cannot
stop themselves matter from talking. Wellthat means you matter, but they're not.

(54:50):
They don't win anything, is whatI'm saying. True, And deep
down, the real ones, notthe T shirt bleep Riders and all those
people, people that are just doingthis for a fat because oh the Rangers
want to pray. Well, let'slet's throw together the worst parade ever.
That just shows you nobody cares aboutthe Rangers for real, nobody. Nobody
cares about the Texas Rangers. Nobodycares about the Mavericks. They don't.
They're just a thing to get youto Cowboys season. If the Cowboys keep

(55:15):
coming up short or can't win,and they won't because it's Jerry, and
then the Texans do that will stingmore than five Stars Championships, ten MAVs
Championships and whoever else wants to win. The Rangers mattering for flashing the pan
here more, they don't care.Compared to the Dallas Cowboys, they don't
and deep down they know I'm right. All right. We will continue here

(55:37):
on the eighteen A signature segment ona Monday. Just kidding, it's Tuesday.
That means say what is next?The good, the band and the
ugly? You don't get it thisweek, fans back to Adam Clinton and
Adam Wexler, the eighty What what? Bro? What are you talking about?

(56:01):
Man? Dare you saved? Whatone moment? It is? As
you guys heard at the tail endof last segment, Tuesday signature segment here
on a Tuesday, say what?And it was pretty much a staple of

(56:25):
any broadcast that he was going tobe a part of. Uh say what
is almost what you thought his partnerwould say to him. Unfortunately, over
the weekend, the sad news thatBill Walton, at age only seventy one,
passed away. I was on theair with the pac twelve network throughout
this past year with his work alongsideTed Robinson, his work alongside Dave Pass

(56:50):
ESPN for years, two men whoagainst shared a lot of airtime with him.
Hannah Storm a long time back withthe network that maybe rejoined the nb
A family so many people in thesports world, whether it was while he
was on the court in Portland,Boston with the Clips, or certainly during
his college career in Westwood at UCLA, and then for so many others.

(57:15):
I said it in my comment yesterdayon social media, just unique in every
way with his love, appreciation anddesire to have everybody feel similarly about the
game of basketball is something we willnot see duplicated. Certainly for us.
Bill Walton, especially when he calledin on his cellular phone device, was

(57:35):
pretty popular with us over the years. Creating a Bill Walton on a mobile
Walt on a mobile a staple ofsome of the programs I've done over the
years for obvious reasons, thanks toAC I know what you're talking about,
but well, because you thought itwas fun too, and so you said,
yeah, that's a great idea.You should do that. You guys
should call him up. You guysshould make that happen, and we did.

(57:58):
But just a couple of things.Bill Walton clearly loved the game of
basketball. His analysis as a colorman was about basketball almost all the time.
He was in the booth for abaseball game with Jason Bennetti not too
long ago and was describing the whatit would be like with Bill at the

(58:22):
dish being served up basically a taterthat he would launch into. I'll let
Bill Walton describe his home run whenthey bring that high, hard one in,
I stand in and lean back andthen just bam, and it sails
away out through the universe like aradio wave that goes past Saturn and Jupiter,

(58:44):
Pluto, through the black Hole,and into many other galaxies yet named.
It was exactly say what for ouraudiences, though, especially our particular
audience not only out there listening onthe Eye radio app or right there on
Sports Talk seven ninety, the audienceright in here that has friends of the

(59:06):
program, like the great Frank Caliendo. Frank has has a Bill. Frank
did a Bill while he was sittingnext to Bill as they were doing college
basketball together. As you hear DavePash introduce both of the Bills, Bill
Walton is here along with Bill Walton. How great is this enjoying ourselves,

(59:27):
enjoying the energy happening here inside thearena, outside, the beautiful but the
landscape that is Arizona. But inside, how loud get it? The look
on your face, Bill is thatof under frustration. Finally some inspiration,
the negativity that I have to fightevery single moment. And now someone here

(59:50):
who can shine the light, someonewho can appreciate the beauty of a Sonaro,
somebody who knows about the grandeur ofthe Sonoran Desert, somebody who he
knows that rivers can flow uphill.You never know when to talk when he's
going through you. You never knowwhen there's going to be a break.
He continues to go the entire timeinto three. Was that green? It

(01:00:12):
wasn't even looking It was a twoby a LUNs Over. It's just amazing.
He actually did kind of talking aboutFrank there shine a light on what
it is like to broadcast with himand Dave Pash working alongside him all those
years. It was pretty clear thathe understood what his role needed to be,
which is not a typical play byplay guy. And what Frank was

(01:00:35):
also saying is what Dave had toknow that this is what we're here for.
It's on TV. They can seewhat's happening. It's okay if I
don't tell them what's happening. WhenBill's talking NonStop about nonsense for forty five
seconds to a minute to two minuteswhatever, why they've done it. Yeah,
now listen, if you ever watched, that was the thing. Like

(01:00:59):
he became kind of more of acaricature over these last few years, especially
on the college basketball side of things. But I mean, for me,
and I don't know if you feelthe same way about this because you're a
tad bit older, but not thatmuch. But I mean, you're talking
about the Rockets winning back to backchampionships. He was on the call.
He was on the a team ofthose NBC crews, it was Marv Albert,

(01:01:22):
the JJ Reddick of his day.I wouldn't call it that, the
Doris Burke of his day. Thatthe team keep going. I'll tell you,
when you get to a good crew, there's the only one, but
it's just Jeff Van Gundy. Likeeven Jeff Van Gundy's crew I had problems
with because Mark Jackson was on it. Keep this in mind, the A
team I described is accurate. Yeah, and one of the two members of

(01:01:45):
the A team has yet to calla finals game, Like when they get
to this year's finals, it'll bethe first he'll call his first Finals game.
Talking about JJ Reddick and I just, I mean, you're I think
exactly right. And I bet youa lot of people listeners agree they're two
different broadcaster Bill Waltons. The BillWalton that went to at it with Steve
Jones was calling NBA or was analyzingNBA games, was much more of an

(01:02:07):
analyst and less of Bill Walton thecharacter. And as he moved away from
the NBA and into college basketball intothe you know, PAC twelve after dark,
and he just kind of continued withit because that's who he is,
right, and he was when youassociate his voice, it's about Marv.
I mean, let's face it,Marv was on the call. Thank god

(01:02:27):
the Rockets didn't have to have thoseBob Costas finals the Lakers got those.
It meant something, It felt bigger. I know that kids these days,
kids are thinking the same thing aboutMike Brain because he says, bang,
just they don't know how much they'remissing. They just don't like Marv Albert
in his prime. That's the guythat called Michael Jordan's six championship, well

(01:02:49):
five championships. Bob did the lastone, but he was there. It's
part of that crew for a lotof those, and he was there obviously
for the two of the Rockets one. He's gonna associate that guy. I'll
never forget. Like the first fewminutes of the game for broadcast against the
Magic, this is the clincher.If the Rockets win this game tonight,
they're gonna sweep their back to backchampions And so what do you do,

(01:03:13):
Bill Walton? What do you doif you're the Houston Rockets? Twenty five
shots for Hakim Elaijuan Run, Run, run. His worst shot is better
than most guys' bad shots. AndI'm sitting there as a fourteen year old
and Elise's and I'm like, wait, what did he just say? And
why does it make sense? Sortof? But he did, and like
he I know a lot of peopleI got this over the weekend. You

(01:03:36):
know, rip Bill Walton. He'ssuch a Rockets hater. He's such a
lot I'm like, I don't knowwhat you're talking about. He loved Takim
and think about something. You know, it's pretty rare, It's not impossible,
and we see something a lot moreon the local broadcast. But they
had a legitimately good, elite,top flight center doing the games. M
hm, he's he played legend,he played center. He knows what that's

(01:04:00):
like. He played during the heydayof his college basketball quite clearly. He
did also win an NBA MVP andwin an NBA Championship in Portland as a
focal point of that team. Quiteclearly. We know why his career was
derailed, but for him to becalling a final series and to be a
part of the postseasons where even thoughthe Knicks didn't win, where Patrick Ewing
is in the middle of it orDavid Robinson's in the middle with the Spurs,

(01:04:24):
and obviously dream like that was great. That was a great asset to
have, and he's totally right,like think about the other team's game plan
would basically be exactly what Bill Waltonsaid. How do we prevent this Any
shot from him is better than anyshot from anyone else. How do we
prevent him from taking all their shots? How do we force him to get

(01:04:45):
the ball to the other guys.Now, clearly the other guys all stepped
up both years with all the shotsthey made. I mean, we've got
a moment from everybody, whether it'sOri or Ellie or Cassell or Kenny,
you name it. Clyde clearly inone of those two years. But the
story is still holds with anything fromdream was great. Rick Carlisle, whose
team's season ended yesterday, naturally,he was at the podium pre game before

(01:05:10):
the Pacers Pacers Celtics game last night. He was a teammate of Bill's with
the championship eighty six Celtics, andwith the amount of time each of them
have spent around the game of basketball, they've stayed friends. He had said.
He even talked to Luke yesterday justchecking on, you know, the
family and how they were doing.But in a very long story about how
Bill got he and his first dateat the time his wife to be.

(01:05:33):
He didn't know it at the time. Bill got him into a dead show
and he ended up sitting down withthree of the members of the band.
One of them was named Jerry andHarry Garcia. How cool all of it
was, but at the end ofit, he kind of just said he
defied. This was his exact quote. He defiantly competed for every moment in
life to be the greatest it couldpossibly be. What an amazing man.

(01:05:55):
There will never be another. Andthat's a really good description of how he
kind of I saw that he attackedeverything. And I know his career was
spent just in their rehab nightmares withthe injuries that he tried to get through,
but that kind of was how heattacked everything. He's this is again
someone who was pretty close to himat certain points in their life. I
thought there was a pretty good descriptionof Bill Walton well. And again bringing

(01:06:17):
back to the Houston Angle, acouple of quick things before we take a
quick one here. In that finalseries, ironically the ninety five to one
game four, I think Elijah wantedhad to hit a few shots in a
row. He was having an awesomegame because Elijuan just had an amazing series
that entire four game stretch and reallythat whole postseason and every you know,

(01:06:40):
Bill knew it as well as anybody, and at one point during the broadcast,
you know, it was like alwayslooming, It was always over the
shoulder of Rockets fans. This MJthing I couldn't stand Michael Jordan for years
because of this. I had nothingto do with Michael, I had everything
to do with I thought the Rocketswould have won if those two teams have
played each other. And he's sittingat home he had been eliminated. For

(01:07:00):
those who forget, he had playedthat postseason against those Magic and had gotten
beaten. And Bill Walton goes somewhereMichael Jordan is saying, I've got to
get some of this right now,and he did. He came back and
he won seventy two games and threemore championships. So that was one thing,
and then another thing was what derailedhis career foot injuries? Right what

(01:07:23):
derailed the career of a big manhere in Houston foot injuries at Yao Ming
Yao Ming is on record, andhe posted this on his Instagram account as
saying when he woke up from hisfoot surgery, Bill Walton was the first
guy to call him and check onhim and see how he was doing,
and was helped him be an ambassadorfor the game, not to mention kind
of coaching him up a little bit. There's pictures of the two of them
over at West Side Tennis Club witha big gallery furniture logo behind them when

(01:07:45):
Yao Ming was a rookie. SoBill Walton has a lot of ties to
the Rockets and to the city ofHouston sports scene as it pertains to the
NBA. And yeah, he'll bemissed. He was a larger than life
character for sure, and as entertainingas it gets as well. But he
knew a lot of basketball obviously.Yeah. A four picture Instagram post with

(01:08:09):
caption from Yao, the first twopictures of which are Bill and Yao on
the court at west Side. Whata great big man, and I do
mean big cheven foot shicks. Hekind of makes Bill look short. Actually
seven to five I think y'all was. Yeah, it was crazy and Bill
made me look short in my picturewith him. All right, four point
thirty here on the eight team.Good time to tell you guys about where

(01:08:30):
you can watch Rockets games, whereyou can watch Astros games, and specifically
let's talk about the Astros when you'rewatching these games, even late at night,
as these Seattle games will be.It's no secret everyone's house is different.
And maybe you over the holiday weekendwere like me. You were watching
the games outside because you were grilling. That's what the holiday weekend entails for

(01:08:51):
a lot of people. And Ican tell you this, it was nice
being able to not have to worryabout any of the speeds, the connection,
and every part of the house,even outside of the home. Thanks
to Exfinity, they will they willhook you up with their Waldwall Wi Fi
from Exfinity right now. It's onlyon the Exfinity ten G network. And
there is nothing worse when it comesto Wi Fi in your home than not

(01:09:15):
having fast speeds in every single room, a reliable connection in every single room,
and of course, perhaps most importantlywhen it comes to your family,
especially if you've got kids, youwant to have power for all those devices
even when every single person in thefamily is online. Well with Theinity Exfinity
ten G network, you can dojust that. Waldawall WiFi from Exfinity and
now through June twenty first Astros fanscan get started with gig speed internet for

(01:09:40):
just twenty five dollars a month fortwo years with no annual contract, and
they're going to give you free WiFi equipment included when you add unlimited mobile
Go to Exfinity dot Com call oneeight hundred Exfinity or visit a store in
person today to get started. Exfinityproud sponsor of your Houston Astros. Hey
Sparky from the Astros broadcast team.Catch every Astros game of Sports Talk seven

(01:10:08):
ninety and iHeartRadio ass home of yourAstros. As has been the case most
of the last several weeks. Here, we're nice to you, our listeners,
and we will be again today.Got some tickets to give away in
about an hour to Stone Temple Pilot'sSoul's Asylum, a little show in the
h coming up on August twenty second, a Woodland's Pavilion. So over the

(01:10:30):
next hour, we will continue ourdiscussion about everything Nico Collins, the Astros,
trying to get a win in Seattle, the Texans, ensuring that Nico
Collins will continue catching pets passes fromCJ Stroud for the next several years,
and any number of other items thatcome up over the next hour. Something
we say during that period of time, we'll ask you to say, oh,

(01:10:50):
yeah, that's what they were talkingabout back then during the last hour
of the show. We'll do thatat five thirty. So stick with us
throughout the afternoon as you always do. We always appreciate that. Here on
the A Team on a Tuesday edition, first show of the week, and
we will get you through the remainderof this Astros road trip. The Astros
are playing the first place Mariners,kind of felt like it could shift the

(01:11:13):
fortunes of either team depending on thisyear how this series goes, should one
side win three or more games.Obviously, if the Astros were to take
this series and win three out offour, they would make up two games
on the Mariners. So the Marinersend up winning three or four games of
this series as they won the opener, That clearly would put a sizeable amount
of room between themselves and the Astros. Would slow the Astros charge a little

(01:11:36):
bit. Probably wouldn't prevent the Astrosfrom passing the Rangers because the Rangers have
really fallen into it recently. Butnonetheless, all those things upon our plates
here. Last week we got intoa handful of the list's off season lists
where we stand now from PFF bestquarterbacks in the league, top three players

(01:11:58):
per team. Noted how Nico Collinswas on that list along with second year
players Will Anderson and CJ. Stroud, and no team in the NFL had
a so called best three players viaPFF at that young a stage in their
respective lives and careers. So itcertainly painted a very nice picture for the
Texans and didn't get into the actualwide receiver list of where they all ranked.

(01:12:24):
And I did notice it and whyI thought it painted a very good
picture for the Texans as well.And when you group me know there,
you can have one great receiver,which is nice, but if you have
two and or three, that certainlychanges the fortunes of your passing game.
And I would think most people wouldbelieve the Texans probably have a pretty good

(01:12:44):
look on this list. If youlook at the top fifteen receivers that PFF
lists, there are two teams thathave two players on that top fifteen excuse
me, three teams that have twoplays in the top fifteen. The Rams
are one of them very similar receiversCooper Cup and now second year player Puka

(01:13:06):
Nakua. Niners have two Deebo SamuelBrandon Ayuk. Texans have two Digs and
Collins at eleven and fifteen. Sotwo of those three teams I feel like
are threats to do something. Forlack of a better way of putting it,
or you know, I just Idon't look at the Rams. One

(01:13:27):
of those three has recently won aSuper Bowl. Yeah, exactly exactly,
and they very much look like theytook a gamble, it paid off and
then that was a one and donesituation. And that's you know, what's
crazy is saying that considering they're oneof the two NFC teams on that list,

(01:13:47):
because the NFC is this is likethe anti nineties right now. The
NFC is as weak as I canremember it, and the AFC is loaded.
Even the fringe quote unquote AFC teamsare so much more talented, in
my opinion, than anything that NFChas to offer. And it's been this

(01:14:09):
way for a handful of seasons.I know that Tom Brady led the Bucks
to a Super Bowl, and likeyou said, the Rams won one.
So that probably puts a little littledolls around my argument. Winning a Super
Bowl doesn't mean your conference is good. It means you're good, correct,
It means that once you got tothe final game, like the Eastern Conference,
when if the Celtics win the title, then the Eastern Conference is awesome.

(01:14:30):
Yeah, it's well, you know, the Eastern Conference not only stinks,
everybody that could have possibly beaten theCeltics. Injury injury, injury,
injury, injury. I could literallygo on forever. Lillard and Jannis,
the teams they actually played, everybodyhad a major injury. And I know
they're missing Porzingis, but man,the least impressive run ever in a Halliburton

(01:14:50):
Porzingis. That's not that's not evenremotely the same. Well, it's why
you make your team almost injury proof. They've Jalen Brown won the MVP of
the East barely over Jason Tatum becausethey were both unbelievable and played. I
still don't understand how they didn't embarrassthe Pacers. Credit to them and all

(01:15:12):
their six, seventh and eighth bestplayers on their team for playing so well.
But you were talking about the it'sbeen an easy, easy ride anyway.
Uh. The NFC is certainly thatthey are the Niners, and then
everybody else trying to catch the Ninersand and probably not going to succeed.
It would be a I mean,I know how good Kansas City is because
clearly they keep winning Super Bowls.Is it a bigger upset if somebody beats

(01:15:35):
the Niners in the NFC to repthem in the Super Bowl versus good point,
because the Niners aren't as good asthe Chiefs, but the people chasing
the Niners are way worse than theteam's chasing the Chiefs, right like,
which makes what the Chiefs are doingall the more impressive. Honestly, I
hate it. It's exceptional. They'rethey're doing what the Astros have done.

(01:15:57):
They've had an additional title to it, but they they're just lock them up.
They're going to the AFC title game. That's where they will be playing
this year and every year, itseems like, barring injury, and they
have not had one too Mahomes,but the list itself that has you know,
I'm sure you could probably guess thenames, and some of them,
interestingly enough, are among those whohave signed extensions this year. But these
are again statistical and numbers based places. They're not saying who do you think

(01:16:21):
is good? This is what theirnumbers produce. And Niko Collins a breakout
season. He was behind one playerin yards per route Tyreek Hill. He
caught fifty percent of his contested targets. So when I was running through all
that list of all the things he'sgood at and things that make him a
number one and things you have tohave out of somebody you want to call

(01:16:44):
a number one. He has allthose things and he's rated behind Stefan Diggs
because Diggs has a lot of thosethings too. That's why I say,
I just don't think there's any inbetween this year. I think it's just
to the moon or what happened,and that one year experiment with Stefan Diggs
was terrible. Like, I justdon't see any gray area for a CJ.

(01:17:08):
Stroud healthy CJ. Stroud quarterback Texansteam. We'll wrap up the four
o'clock hour coming up next here onthe A Team Sports Talk seven to ninety
On a day where Nico Collins islocked up long term. I mean it's
a three year extension, but that'slonger than it was gonna be after this
season. So good news for CJ. Stroud and the rest of the Texans
organization is they get that done withNico Collins. Speaking of money, speaking

(01:17:32):
of good news, I've got bothfor you. Well, I'm not gonna
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Visit PRIMEWAYFCU dot com. Today,I'm planting at Adam Waxler our eighteen
returns the Astros fans here. Youhear the woods. Oh, it's just

(01:18:58):
those crazy Houstonia Fine Sports Talk sevenninety eight team rolling along here on Sports
Talks seven to ninety as we winddown the four o'clock hour, we'll take
you up until six o'clock tonight,Game two of a four game set between
the Astros and the Mariners in Seattletonight, as it will be Castillo v.
Hunter Brown. You mentioned, Ithink it was last week we were

(01:19:23):
talking about, uh this road tripfirst in Oakland and then Seattle. Uh
the order with which the Astros weregoing to be facing the I guess the
meat of the rotation. I mean, you're already facing four to the five
when it comes to that, sinceit's a four game series. But I
guess the order with which they werefacing these pitchers consecutively. Was I guess,

(01:19:45):
top heavy or ranked in the suitabledominance if you will, of the
four that they're saying that Roxy wouthat I thought they were facing the fourth
best, then the third best thenthe second best, then the best,
and not necessarily he probably accurate tohow they're currently pitching, like can one
of them be had? Maybe theyhad good success against Miller in the past.

(01:20:06):
Took him till the fifth inning toget a hit and that was the
ending. They ended up putting acouple runs on the board, but those
are the only runs they scored inthe game. A Luis Castillo has been
good this year and has gotten youknow, his first three outings, he
gave up four runs in each ofthem, and then essentially since then it's
been one quality start after the next. Other than his most recent starts,
since he only went five innings,but you remember that streak of starts where

(01:20:29):
their starting pitchers had hardly given upany runs. He's given up two earned
runs or fewer in eight consecutive startsheading into tonight's game. That means you
probably know about where you're gonna beunless he's really off, and I know,
so you'll maybe look at his recordor look at his era. Three
thirty one is good, four andsix is not good. Well, he
also started the year on four.He is then four and two cents.

(01:20:53):
Then the team is six and twoin his eight starts since then, so
there's a lot of things to like. If you're Seattle, it's the same
story. And I don't care howmany runs they scored in the first inning.
That's why the Astros were able tonot just shut them out, but
they really shut them down. Overthe final seven innings. They barely got
any hits. They had base runnersbecause the Astros walked some guys. It's

(01:21:14):
not a good offense, there's noway around it. And you hope you're
not the team that they kind ofstart catching fire against. Julio Rodriguez a
little bit like Alex Bregman, althoughhe's started to come around a little bit
more. Most of their guys justsimply aren't good offensive players. And maybe
with Hunter there, considering what theydo, a lot of nobody strikes out
more than the Mariners. I'm notsaying that Hunter Brown is going to blow

(01:21:38):
them away, but he could.But that's the kind of stuff that he
has. If he can hit hisspots, maybe have a who know,
it's a favorable umpire behind the homeplate. But bottom line this last night,
you know, league wide, it'sstill true even Seattle, if you
scored two runs, you don't win. Very often in Major League Baseball in
this day and age. The Astrosscored two runs. It's kind of as
simple as that. How many didthey leave on base last night? Because

(01:22:01):
I felt like it was more thanyou were alluding to in the first segment.
Well, like I said, theyonly got their first hit right in
the fifth inning. But I feellike the latter stages of the game,
it was like, like, didn'tthey leave the bases loaded at one point?
I don't know if you're thinking ofthe game before, where the un
lest the bases loaded, not once, not twice, that's what I'm saying,
but three times without scoring in anyof those instances, it all runs

(01:22:23):
together. Yeah, they had maybeyou could say they had an opportunity here
or there to get a little furtheron his pitch count. Once they got
the fourth, fifth, sixth inning, they finally did that. They left
five guys on base. They onlyhad five at bats with runners in the
scoring position, got hits on twoof them. I just feel like,
you know, and I've said thisat nauseum, and my wife the other

(01:22:44):
night, she's like, you justseem like you're more frustrated every time I
see you watching these games more thanusual. And I'm like, because I
would almost rather and I don't wantthis to happen, but I would almost
rather you not get on base atall than get there sometimes all bases full
and not do anything with it.I just I know that's like the COVID

(01:23:06):
year. Yeah, I would ratherthem not go. They're twenty nine and
thirty one, they stink? Whybother? Yeah, I get it.
Yeah, they are down oh threein the American League Championship Series. Yeah.
I mean it's like, you know, would you rather lose before you
get to the title game? Isit harder to lose before you get to
the Super Bowl? I mean,what you know these teams that are undefeated,

(01:23:27):
well maybe it would be helpful forthem if they lost a game before
they got to the NCAA tournament.Okay, I mean none of that stuff.
I really do hate all those things, Like, you know, you
can't score runs, you can't havea three run homer with nobody on base,
you can't do damage, and reallyget to a pitcher and constantly have
him pitching in pressure situations. Imean, they're probably best opportunity with the
guy up they wanted, even thoughthat there were two outs, was when

(01:23:49):
Tucker came to bat in that runscoring inning, Jose Altuve. I mean,
there weren't many players that could havebeen at first base that would not
have scored on al Twove's double withtwo out. Jose Brady was one of
them. And he happened to bethe guy who had just driven in a
run, so he was over atfirst base, so he didn't make it
all the way around. So KyleTucker's up with runners on second and third.
You've you've done some damage, You'vefinally got one. It's the guy

(01:24:11):
you want up right. He hada you know, and even in a
I believe it was a situation.I think it was a two oh count
and he has done it many timesthis year. He rolled over on one.
Yeah, it was a two ozcount, rolled over on one,
and simple ground out to first wherethe patented I'm not even going to touch
first base. I'm so mad atmyself jogged down to first from from Kyle

(01:24:32):
Tucker. You know, you gotthree consecutive singles, you got the sackfly,
you got the double for mile twoBay to extend the inning, and
he was clearly on the ropes.It was the eighth or seventh batter of
the inning that he was facing,and he just grounded out weekly on a
on a hitter's count. That istextbook Kyle Tucker. That were the deal
where he doesn't go to first basebecause he's just disgusted. I needed a

(01:24:54):
break a bat. Didn't somebody breaka bat against the Astros in the Oakland
series and they struck out, youmean like broke it over their knee or
flung it into the ground and itsnapped. I think it was over their
leg. I heard it. Iwasn't watching the screen at the time.
I don't know why any of theA's players would be that mad. They're
probably just happy to be there.What happened to uh Loriano? He was

(01:25:15):
with the Guardians and they said,you're not real good at this major league
thing, so we're gonna go aheadand DFA you. I just don't remember
when he left Oakland, uh beforethis year, And I think he's the
type of player that probably, youknow, someone will like b Lack.
The Astros got cash for b Lack. They'll be might be a team that
offers them up some cash that justyou need somebody out there to see if

(01:25:35):
they can harness something. But He'slong been a he's a very feast or
famine hitter, and he doesn't haveenough power to support that really good arm,
but not a very not a greatdefensive player. He's just a bottom
end of the roster guy that youknow, two teams have now said we're
moving on to somebody else. ChasMcCormick, Well, he's actually had a
season. I don't know of anyLoreano season that matched any you know the

(01:25:58):
good Last year was a good yearfor chess. Yeah, a productive offensive.
He was one of the ten besthitters against left handed pitching and baseball
last year. He's been bad thisyear and hurt one of many lackluster performances
in the Astros lineup at any giventime. Here in twenty twenty four,
all right, five o'clock hour,coming up next to our football at five
conversation. Right around the corner,two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adham talking

(01:26:26):
your team series Adam Clinton and AdamWexler or the A team A right if
brush footballs five o'clock, some fiveo'clock football. Professional football in America is

(01:26:51):
a special game. If you missedit earlier, hand delivered a great football
at five topic for a Tuesday afternoonwas reported that the Texans and Nico Collins
had agreed on a three year extensionmax value of seventy five million fifty two

(01:27:12):
million guaranteed DOLLARINIS and he will nothead into free agency following the last year
of his rookie deal after Nick Cassionabbed him with one of his first ever
draft picks. Even though it wasa third round pick, they did not
have a whole lot of booty intheir little treasure chest his first season at
the draft, nothing in the first, nothing in the second. Made a

(01:27:34):
deal to move up in the draftand drafted Nico Collins. First two years,
he wasn't on the field nearly asmuch as he would have liked to
be. Their offense was being runby both coaches and players, it probably
weren't ideal for producing. And thenlast year all those things changed. The
offensive system that they run, thetalent that there was on the field,

(01:27:56):
and certainly the quarterback play was verygood. But more important than all of
that stuff, it was healthy enoughto miss only two games, only two
of their nineteen games, as theyplayed twice in the postseason last year,
and he was the number one receiveressentially every time he was out there on
the field and showed it with severalmonster games obviously some super memorable plays and
catches maybe one above the others,and that it opened up the we're going

(01:28:20):
to the playoffs by beating you todaythe opening play of the Indianapolis Colts game
against the Texans in the final weekof the regular season. Those dollar figures
and it took me a while tofind it. I appreciate all the work
that the Wexler research team does.Sometimes they're not the most organized group.

(01:28:41):
I have a group of spreadsheets thatkind of just whatever's going on, I'll
just put it in that document.I got twenty different spreadsheets going in one
document. It'll be there somewhere.But these numbskulls decided to open up a
brand new document to chart the offseasonwide receiver contracts, and it took me
a while all to find it.Amon Ross, Saint Brown, Devontae Smith,

(01:29:02):
Calvin Ridley, Michael Pittman, MikeEvans, and Nico Collins have all
signed deals this off season, differentstages of their respective careers, different lengths
of each of those deals. Andthe one wide receiver who wishes he was
in that group is t Higgins.He was franchise tagged and decided I'm not
going to voluntary mini camp in Cincinnati. They just franchise tag me. By

(01:29:27):
the way, his teammate Jamar Chasewould also like a new contract, not
franchise tag because he's still under contractas a top pick. He will probably
get his deal sometime soon. Sothe other guys, the other six receivers,
kind of laid the framework for whereyou might slot in Nico Collins.
Two guys got four year deals,Saint Brown and Calvin Ridley, and their

(01:29:48):
average annual value twenty three for Ridley, thirty for Brown, and I think
that's pretty fair considering raz Saint Brown, excuse me, is quite a bit
better and more productive and five yearsyounger than Calvin Ridley. The three year
deals now DeVante Smith, Michael Pittman, and Nico Collins. Pittman was also

(01:30:09):
franchise tag but not long after thatthey were able to agree to a long
term deal. And that's where Ireally thought that the floor for Nico Collins
was set seventy million for three years, forty six guaranteed twenty three zero point
three to three three three million peraverage annual value. I thought, there
is no way if the Texans geta deal done this year it is for

(01:30:30):
less than that. It absolutely positivelywill be for more than that, but
probably puts you in that right ballpark. About a month later, DeVante Smith
signed his three year deal seventy fivemillion for three years, twenty five million
average annual value, fifty one millionguaranteed. That's almost exactly the deal the
Nico Collins ended up getting, whichis, you're totally agree with how this

(01:30:56):
off season spending went and how theTexans felt like Nico Dollins was put in
there. He's not the highest paidreceiver in the league, but he is
from an average average annual value standpoint, he is in the top ten now
at twenty four point twenty five.If you know, you don't take the
max value, take the actual valueof the deal, and that puts him
there at number seven, right behindSmith's twenty five million per year. And

(01:31:20):
remember a couple segments ago, Isaid two of the Texans receivers landed in
the top fifteen from a PFF standpoint, Just who are the best receivers and
who rate out the best and wheredo they stand? Two of them were
in the top fifteen. Well,the Texans are now the only team in
the NFL with two receivers in thetop fifteen from an average annual value standpoint.

(01:31:45):
You're telling me that's the going rate, though it's absolutely the going rate.
Two of the three guys at thetop are three of the four guys
at the top of the list.Take that back, four of the top
five guys at the top of thelist, they weren't even signed this offseason.
Aj Brown, Tyreek Killdavante Adams,and Cooper Cupp had deals already and
we're already making more than twenty sixper Nobody on the market this year got

(01:32:05):
as much as they had were alreadygetting, except for Saint Brown. And
then it's a list of a bunchof guys who signed this offseason, Smith
Collins, Pittman, Junior Ridley,presumably T Higgins, Mike Evans a little
bit further down the list. It'snow at nineteen NFL wide receivers drawing twenty
million per season under their current contracts. So again, I go back to

(01:32:29):
what I said before with today's news, and I, by the way,
I was thinking this long before today'srevelation that Nico Collins was tied up or
locked up? I guess in thiscase, you make it sound so bad
like he's trying to play football forthem and you either want to get out,
you know, tie him up,or you want to lock him up.
Why can't it just be nice tohim? I think they were.

(01:32:51):
I think they were very very niceto him. Is there a nicer way
to say it besides the boringest way? He's under contract? It's it's so
we do say they locked him up, they tied him up. That's there's
such such negative negativity there. We'retrying to think about some of the other
phrases. And they backed up theBrinks truck. That's the nice way they
say do that with him. Well, it wasn't full. It was pretty

(01:33:14):
full. There's a lot in it. There was pressure on the on the
tires. Back up a Brinks truckthat's not full? What are you even
doing? Okay? How about NickCassio signed Daniel Hunter, committed less money
to him. He's He's signed abunch of people this offseason. Right.
He's a coupon clipper. He's afrugal shopper, but overall spending and guaranteed

(01:33:39):
commitments. And I know this guaranteeis only fifty plus only, but this
for him, just this, You'restill talking about a general manager who the
majority of his tenure in that positionhas still been cleaning up the cap situation
that butt Chin left him behind.Yeah, I said it earlier myself.

(01:34:04):
It took about five seconds of thoughthow to do that? Well? But
yeah, but it was going tolose on purpose. I know you're good
at football, so get out ofhere. It's not that hard if your
plan is to really be awful andnot try make a mockery of the coaching
process and the hiring process look likeidiots. Take all the heat for it.
Anybody could clean it up like that, because that's literally what they did.

(01:34:26):
Yeah, but what I'm saying isthe majority of his tenure has still
been that versus trying to win.Right. But I'm not hat tipping him
for it. I'm not either.I'm just telling you that's just no,
It's it's about half and half threeseason, two seasons of that. I
guess. I hope at some pointwhen they you know, if not before,
if it was only when they draftedStingy that they begun, let's try

(01:34:46):
to win because that's at least twodrafts. Yeah, but as long as
you're trotting out Davis Mills at quarterback, you're not trying to win. I'm
sorry, You're just not. Youmight you could actually find somebody who it
was worse, maybe, but notmuch. And I get it. You
had Tyrod Taylor, but he knew. He was not saying they were trying

(01:35:08):
to win on the field. Theywere trying to put a team together though
by then. But the point ofme saying losing was smart really was that
you know, you have you're talkingabout these like short term deals or in
this case not overly long term longterm deals. He's he's giving himself or
he's keeping I guess in this casethe flexibility to you know, maintain a

(01:35:30):
winner. If that's what they stayto, obviously you're gonna have to pay
CJ eventually. He's not doing dumbcontracts. And that's the thing I keep
going back to. I know JoeMixon's who they got. Would would it
have been a dumb contract no matterwhat the contract to get Sakuon Barkley here

(01:35:53):
or is that how he's looking atit? I guess not when you consider
it short term, three year deal. How dumb can it be? So
you think the main reason they lostout on him is because it wasn't a
long enough turn deal. No,he was. They were offering a three
year deal, and he accepted athree year deal. That actually was not
what turned them away. It wasthe amount of money at some point,
even for him. I mean,I don't know what that figure is for

(01:36:14):
Daniel Hunter when they went, youknow, twenty four and a half million
or almost fifty for two years.But there was a you know, a
point where the Eagles didn't just beatthem by a little bit. It sounds
like they beat them by a lotof bit and that's why he landed there.
But even even like, I don'tbelieve the Eagles are ever going to
regret it. Even if he getshurt, if he's not hurt for an
entire season any of these upcoming seasons, it will really feel bad if when

(01:36:36):
he gets hurt is at the endof the year or the postseason. Otherwise,
if he misses a handful of gamesover the course of each of his
seasons, ends up playing you know, forty three, forty four games instead
of fifty one or thirty nine gamesinstead of fifty. I don't think they'll
consider it a bad deal, andI don't think people are too concerned.
But once you push past well,now he signed it for the next sixty

(01:36:56):
eight games, so the next eightyfive games, four seasons, five seeds
seasons. For a player, he'sa little bit further in his running back
career than most, not further alongthan Joe. But to that end,
again, I'm not going to continueacting like PFF is the Bible of football.
But they did also they had alist for quarterbacks, they had a
list for wide receivers, and wehad not yet mentioned their list for running

(01:37:18):
backs. Starting running backs. There'sthirty two teams in the league. There
are thirty two running backs. Nearlyevery team was on there once a couple
teams had two players. Where doyou think Joe Mixon was is a question
we will answer later on in theshow. I told you already though.
The Texans Nicocollins newly sign on thePFF list of best receivers in the NFL.

(01:37:43):
He came out at number fifteen,and they just backed up part of
the brinkstruck, but not the wholething. But not the whole thing.
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They've got you covered. It's Men'sTea Clinic and Men's t Clinic dot
com. The A Team continuesus onSports Talk seven nineties. You know what
that means. Time for us toget you caught up on some things you

(01:39:38):
may not have heard over the courseof the show, or some things that
we touched on earlier in the dayon the program. Three to six s
each it every weekday afternoon here onthe A Team, it's in case you
missed it? What do we havetoday? All right? So Joe West
and you know, normally whenever westart off in case you missed it,
it kind of can come across asthat I'm trying to get AC's bood pressure

(01:40:00):
up. But it's really not intentional. It just so happens this way.
So Joe Wes was on six seventythe Score earlier today in Chicago, and
of course he joined them to talkabout Angel Hernandez. One of the things
he did was give praise to AngelHernandez and defend his career ac try not
to lose it. Thank y'all gavehim a raw deal. And I will

(01:40:21):
tell you this. He retired thisweek and he put out a statement,
and his statement was that you knowthat he enjoyed what he did for all
these years, and whether you wantto believe it or not, he was
he was good at it. Andyou can say, well, he missed
his pitcher, he missed that picture. You can do that with anybody.

(01:40:42):
And when you get on a rantlike that, it's it's easy to follow
a guy and say, oh,he missed his pitch, you know,
all right? So I saw thevideo that accompanied the audio, because like
many radio stations do video with theirshow, and one of the hosts immediately
backed away from his microphone, like, you've got to be kidding me,
No way, I can't do this. So a guy did he say to

(01:41:03):
him? After he said that hechallenged him on that. Not sure.
I only saw his thirty second clip. I think we know the answer.
A guy who missed balls and strikesroutinely and was one of the worst in
the game is praising a guy whowas the worst at missing balls and strikes
and being bad in the game.They're both retired now. It is possible,
especially for a retired umpire. Imean, he didn't have to do

(01:41:26):
it if he doesn't believe it,but it is possible for him to have
come on and said and I understandwhere everybody was coming from. I wouldn't
say he made us look bad,but there was just so much negativity around
him, and I know why.I mean, it wasn't because people didn't
like him. It was because therewere calls that were missed, and they
were constantly missed. We talk abouthis balls and strikes, a lack of
acumen, lack of ability to formulatea proper strike zone, but his calls

(01:41:50):
at the bases, his calls ascrew chief on home runs with and without
review, that made little sense thatyou could even sense. The other umpires
were like, I can't believe we'rea part of this crew that's making these
calls. I don't remember which gameit was, and I hope it wasn't
a postseason game, even though Ifeel like it was. He was down
at first base. It was anAmerican League postseason game, and they had

(01:42:13):
to review three different you know,safe out calls at first base. He
missed them all. Review helps getthem right. But you know, if
you've watched enough baseball, I thinkyou can see that of all the things
that umpires do that are difficult,and I think it's difficult, calling safe
out bang bang plays at first baseis hard, and I think the majority
of them are exceptionally good at it. We think we see it naked eye,

(01:42:36):
Oh he was safe. They gotto challenge this. We see the
first replayer like no back of theglove, then the foot hits. He
got it right, and he was. He wasn't even particularly good at that.
He rose to being the level ofa crew chief. And yes,
you could have told us. Ithink we could have guessed. Hey,
guys, one of the umpires that'snow retired came to Angels defense today.
I guess who it was. Ithink we probably could have guessed me right

(01:42:59):
themselves. And again, Major LeagueBaseball and the NBA, you know more
officials' names than often than you don't. It's and that's not good. You
don't know that in the NFL.If you know it in the NFL,
it's because they're on camera making youknow, play call or officiating calls with

(01:43:20):
a review and that kind of thing. All right, that makes me laugh.
Let's let's make the other sports likefootball, so there's seven guys out
there or gas because there are plentyof female officials now in the NFL,
women you hear from one of them. What if that were the case in
let's just start with basketball, everysingle call would only be made or given

(01:43:45):
to the official score or by oneguy that's the only one you'd ever see
making calls. Well, the crewchief does, he does the reviews,
he makes the announcement. But there'susually two people on headset, even though
they're not doing as much as youthink they are because the people caucus is
doing all the ground work. Nowtake it to base baseball, like the
crew chief behind the plate makes he'sgot to do everything like, there's no

(01:44:05):
way to compare it. I'm I'mmocking myself. You can't the guy at
the in the back through a flagHey, hey, Jim, it's pass
interference on the defense. You cantell the fans now, like that's literally
what happens. They they're thirty yardsaway and they're making the arm motions to
let the official know what he needsto announce, and then he's, you
know, trying to hide his micand say what player was it again?

(01:44:27):
What number? What number one?I'm supposed to say he had nothing to
do with the call, you know. And what's funny is you said something
earlier about you know, the automatedautomated system not being accurate twenty four to
seven hundred percent whatever. Why wouldn'tit be If it's calibrated for every person
the same way, with the samebox, how could it not be?

(01:44:47):
No, I meant more, thesystem they put in place and will not
be foolproof in that when we firstget it, it's gonna be like the
minor leagues. It's going to bea challenge system. Right, there's gonna
be two hundred and fifty pitches inagain, they'll probably be twenty twenty five
pitches missed, and six of themwill get challenged. My goal is for
the challenge system to negate the pitchclock. I know, it won't.

(01:45:12):
It won't, but all the effortsthey've made to speed up baseball, it's
by default it's going to slow thegame down a bit with these challenges.
And it's it's noteworthy, but youyou've been out there now, and I've
been out there a few times overthe last few years as it's been in
place. It is so unnoticeable froma time standpoint. It's great. The

(01:45:32):
time between pitches is so minimally effectiveeffected because the hack of the hand goes
on the head. I want tochallenge it, whether it's the catcher or
the hitter. The umpire turns aroundto the official score, they or the
person running replay, they get thevideo ready, they show it on the
board, they tell them what's up, and he makes the call and they
move on into the next pitch clockbefore all the videos even been seen in

(01:45:54):
stadium. Not that I ever dothis, but you want to hear a
conspiracy theory that I'm going to makeup here. I'm I even actually believe
this one. That sounds like ahockey. But yes, they're going to
go to that challenge system sooner ratherthan later. And they know that if
that system's in place, n AngelHernandez is also in place. How many

(01:46:15):
times is that guy gonna get challenged, like twenty thirty, forty. This
is where you do, Michael Cohenfifty, of course sixty. It will
start avoiding what happened. We playedyou some of what Joe Spot said about
Larry Vanover. He additionally added tothat later we know players, no managers,
no people in baseball. No,he has a large strike zone.
Yeah, that's what has to go. You are an umpire. You don't

(01:46:39):
get to take your preferred strike zoneto every game. There is a strike
zone. It is in the rulebook. You're not supposed to say,
well, I like to two inchesoff the plate. That's my strike zone.
And that's how it looked like itwas officiated from behind home plate last
night. What else do we have. Let's stay in baseball because the National
League MVP for twenty twenty three isdone for the season. Over the weekend,

(01:47:00):
Ronald the Counyu Junior tour his ACLNow, I know locally not a
ton of people care about that,so I'm going to local Liz. It
seems like Chas McCormick might be aplayer on the outside looking in with this
astro starting lineup right now. Now, the Braves are a lot like the
Astros. Not a great minor leaguesystem, but still a chance to be
able to help them and maybe helpyou. Would you think about it if

(01:47:24):
you're Dana Brown calling up your oldmates and saying, hey, I hear
you need an outfielder. Yeah,I think you would think about it if
you're the Astros, unquestionably if youlook to the not too distant future.
If you don't. I mean,it has a little bit to do with
Kyle Tucker, but I'm fairly certainthey would view Jake Myers as part of
their future because they loved him alreadyand now he's done what he's done here

(01:47:45):
in May, Jordan's under contract andJoey low Braffito did nothing to suggest his
future isn't very bright again, thelow Braffito going down for a Brave.
We touched on it at the beginningof the show, never really got into
it. Low Praffito based was alreadynot playing. He hadn't he hadn't played
in a week, so he didn'tget sound down for a Brave. He
got sent down so he could playthere. There wasn't any room for him

(01:48:08):
already but yes, I would considerit because if you think you can resound
Cal Tucker, then it becomes aslam dunk. Well, that's your outfield
already. That's four guys for youroutfield and your DH low Perfido Myers,
Tucker and Alvarez and all of thoseplayers are definitely going to be on next
year's team. So yeah, Ithink you think that that's an opportunity if

(01:48:30):
I'm the Braves, though, there'sgot to be a list of five,
six, seven, eight nine guysbefore you're getting to a player who's really
struggling, even though he's under clubcontract for another two seasons. I think
there's probably for a team that wouldbe willing to spend. I know your
point is probably part of it.You can want talent from other teams all

(01:48:51):
you want. If they don't wantanything you have to offer, then it
makes it very difficult to trade forthem. And if McCormick a little bit
further down the list, then yeah, I could see that happening. I
don't know that it will happen,and I'm pretty sure they're compelled to make
a move to try to make upfor that, but there might be some
pretty talented players available, which theBraves might. I mean, I don't

(01:49:13):
know if anyone else is paying attention, but since I kind of look at
the numbers a lot, the Bravesoffense with Acunya Junior the last twenty five
thirty games awful, second worst inbaseball. They cannot score. That's crazy
too, because they're loaded. Theyare loaded in names, and I love
the way they put it all together. I like the you know, keeping
so many of the young players undergood deals, and Dan you mentioned their

(01:49:35):
system is kind of limited on talent, and you compare them to the Astros.
It's a good reason. It's thesame reason their players are on the
team. Their prospects are playing andplaying well for them and have earned contracts.
And their system was so good theywere able to do a lot of
those things. Both teams winning WorldSeries in the last three years, one

(01:49:56):
at the expense of the other.I still can't play the Rangers want a
way World Series? Should we?Should we check in briefly here in case
you missed it on the scoreboard today? Sure, well, let's do that
here. There's one game going on, and unfortunately, the Dodgers scored in
the eighth and ninth to send thegame to the bottom of the ninth against
the Mets, trying to avoid theirsixth straight loss. The almighty can't be

(01:50:21):
beat Dodgers are at the Mets inthe ninth, tied it to trying to
avoid a six game losing street.They didn't score through seven incs. I
know. That's why I thought maybethey were going to lose to nothing.
But they got me. They tiedit. How did they tie it by
scoring twice? Yeah? I saidthat already. Who math? Come on
now, I want to know whodid it? The players in their uniforms.

(01:50:45):
Duh. I mean, I'm gonnarun out of ways to say it.
You done? I mean, ifyou ask me again though? So
was it like? They scored arun in the eighth on a on an
RBI single, and they scored arun in the ninth on an RBI single.
Who hit those singles? Let's see. Fred Freeman has an RBID,
Chris Taylor has an RBI. AhMan, Chris Taylor is still there.

(01:51:09):
Mm hmm. He's batting almost asbadly as jose A. Bray. I
mean he was before the hit.Now he's hitting one to ten. Chris
Taylor. There a lot of guysleft from that seventeen team are there,
but they'll still I mean, eventhe A's are still booing Jose al tuove
they're stupid, and Mariners fans booingAl two A is even dummer. They

(01:51:32):
didn't boo Alvarez at all. Andhe's the one that crushed their souls.
Bowing is fine. The cheering atninety five mile an hour fastballs at his
face not as good, nor itis last night. The fat guy on
Twitter who was championing at last night, I enjoyed that way too much.
All right, we will continue hereon the A Team Sports Talk seven ninety,

(01:51:53):
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(01:53:18):
Sports Talk seven ninety Yeah, that'sthe big news of the day. Three
years seventy two point seven five million, I believe is the exact amount that
he signs for. Fifty two millionguaranteed, and it's I mean, let
me play it this way, andI saw this earlier. Does this guarantee

(01:53:41):
that it's just one and done forStefan Diggs. I think some people will
assume that because of the deal,and I'm not sure why. One is
is why this needed to happen.If he was going to be back,
well, there's no way Nko wasgoing to be gone right right, Well,
the franchise tag for a wide receiverthis year was twenty one point six
million. Under no circumstances was Nicogonna make less than that next year,

(01:54:04):
because at the very least, Ithink they would say, well, we
got it. We couldn't come toan agreement. We got a franchise tag
him. So he's probably gonna maketwenty two to five. I don't know
what the number will be, butlet's just say it's twenty two even.
Okay, well, now it's gonnabe twenty five. What's the difference.
I mean, Nico Collins, evenafter that year, we're not gonna let
him walk in year six? Youwant him back again? Right? Well,

(01:54:25):
presumably you've either then reached an agreementon a long term deal, you
had to franchise him a second time, which again maybe that means, Okay,
he's so mad at you, youhave to trade him. So are
you suggesting that they would potentially franchiseDigs. No, And I don't even
think he's eligible for it. Igot to say, I know, I
would imagine it that in part oftheir discussions to eliminate his contract additional years

(01:54:46):
and get him down to you're justplaying for one year with US at twenty
two plus million, and you'll bean unrestricted free agent. I'm sure in
the agreement was we cannot use thefranchise tag on you. Like I said,
I don't. I don't think itmeans he's gone. I think he
was probably going to be gone becauseTank Dell is about to be a Nico's

(01:55:08):
situation. Next year, when heplays the season, he'll be halfway through
as a contract, halfway through hiscontract. I think we assume he'll be
healthy and have a great year.So when he does it his third year
in twenty twenty five, I wouldimagine the Texans would be thinking of signing
him to a long term extension.That the time that Stefan Diggs would have

(01:55:28):
a long term deal with the Texansbasically coincides with the time Collins and Dell
would have long term deals at somepoint and during part of their careers.
They've already paid Dalton Schultz. They'venow given more money to Joe Mixon.
If you're only looking at the offense, I think he was probably lining up
for a good enough, big enough, monster enough season where he was a

(01:55:49):
great teammate, He helped him wina lot of games. She was good
in the playoffs, and he's worthgetting one more big deal. It just
wasn't likely coming from Houston. Sothe Texans have an unbelievable year. Nico
Collins absolutely, you know, heballs out, so does Tank Dell,
but so does Stefon Diggs, andthey win the Super Bowl. What do

(01:56:12):
you do in the offseason. You'regonna let Stefan Diggs walk anyway, I
believe you are. And then whatare you gonna do to replace his production?
You probably in the scenario are justmapped out. I mean, maybe
there's a third, your third widereceivers on the roster right now. It's
probably a bit of a stretch becauseI don't believe that any of those guys
will fulfill that role even in twentytwenty five or more likely, you have
gone outside the organization to get aplayer that's not comparable to Diggs and not

(01:56:36):
comparable to Collins and Dell, andhe's just capable of being the next guy.
Tyler Boyd's going to be a thirdwide out probably in Tennessee this year
Ridley, Hopkins and Boyd. Imean, if you add a player of
that caliber in twenty five for twentyfive to go with Collins and Dell,
aren't you fine? Well? Okay, he makes a lot of money,

(01:56:58):
not a tremendous amount of yea,not Stefan dig money. Okay. Now,
I let me give you the morelikely scenario. Again, everything happens
from a production standpoint, and youmake a very deep postseason run, but
you lose to the Chiefs in theconference championship, for example, and it's
a heartbreaker, and you lose bya fuel goal or less. Okay,
so you're this close? Did Iwatch the thirty minute breakdown all sorts of

(01:57:25):
slow mo, dramatic music and interviewsof the Texans fifty one to thirty one
loss to the Chiefs this weekend?Yes, why what are you doing to
yourself? First of all, DookieFingers was the quarterbacks? You don't even
you just block that out like Ihave. It never happened. It was
awesome, except but half first halfwas awesome. I just mean that.
The production of the broadcast, thespecial. Who is calling that game?

(01:57:47):
Was it? Harlan? No?It was a CBS game. No?
Yes, so nance, No,I can't remember they had their thirty was
iron Eagle. That doesn't sound rightin my head either. That's all I
got. They mixed in a lotof the local radio side of it too,
in the midst so you got tohear everybody. But again, if
it's that scenario, that's even morecrushing if he walks, because there's no

(01:58:12):
way you can say realistically that you'rebetter, which you would need to be
the next season to kick that someyou know, down all of the oilers
in the late seventies, But justlook at the team you're losing to.
You can I think you could finda way to say the same thing about
it. Then No, they keepsell telling players you're done here. Yeah,

(01:58:36):
they traded very Patriots Tyreek Hill.Right, Well, they've told lugerious
sneed we're not paying you because whenyou have a stud quarterback, it just
well, last year's roster, youwould have said the exact same thing that
you're pretending you could say about thetext and in the future. The Chiefs,
while they did win the Super Bowl, they did not get better roster

(01:58:56):
wise. People probably thought that,looked at that and said that, and
then they won the Super Bowl again. Yeah, because their quarterbacks all again,
you're on top. It is alittle different. You lost, You're
trying to get better than the otherteam. You just got to get better
in other ways. Better ways tospend your money is a better way to
probably say it than you didn't getbetter. You just found a better way
to spend your money. Yeah,I just I do. To an extent,

(01:59:20):
I kind of feel like that's Ithink that's what the Texans think.
Let's see what this is. Ihad a discussion this afternoon about that very
did our roster? Did the Texansroster get better? I believe there's actually
a debate to be had. Theychanged a lot of players, and they
spent a lot of money. Youjust did it, definitively get better.

(01:59:41):
I think that's more of a questionon the defensive side of the ball.
I think on the offensive side ofthe ball, no question they got better,
I really do. I think theyunquestionably got better at one position group
it's a wide receiver. I thinkit's debatable pretty much everywhere else. I
need to see what Joe Mixon hasleft in the tank. But the fact
that I'm saying left in the tankwith regards to him is already kind of
a red flag. Did my teasearlier where he landed on the best running

(02:00:04):
backs in the NFL list? Youshould make good on that team? Will
when we come back. You've gotmore a t Adam Clinton and Adam Xler
fine Sports Talk seven ninety home foryour home teams, all right, tell
me how disappointing I will tell youhow disappointing things are tonight for the Astros.

(02:00:27):
Same lineup as last night, essentially, and much more of this coming
on the Astros on Deck Show ina bit since they play late night,
but almost the same as last night. The changes are paying you up to
four, Bragman down to five,and the nine hitter is still the catcher.
But tonight it's yiner Ds, sobring you back at first betting eight
Singleton back at designated No, don'tdo that yet. Why it's June.

(02:00:55):
It's been two months. Yes,exactly, don't do that yet. Well,
you are not going to be wrongabout Guyner. He will be perfectly
fine as an offensive catcher in MajorLeague Baseball. He is better than Maldy.
I'll give him that. Barlow islow. So yes, pff,
top thirty two rbs in the NFL, says well, I gotta do it

(02:01:17):
my way. Oh sorry, socoming in at number thirty. In at
number thirty. Devin Singletary, theplayer he replaced, said to be the
starter in New York, most likelysigned a multi year deal with them,
and he was pretty good for thefinal handful of weeks last year when he
took over the starting job the Giants. To be clear, in New York,

(02:01:38):
yes, the Giants. The otherstarter in New York is a top
ten running back Hall. The threeother starting running backs in the AFC South
are all ranked in the top fourteen. He is not, okay, Travis
Etten is at eleven, Tony Pollardis at fourteen and higher than everybody but

(02:02:00):
two players. Is Jonathan Taylor anumber three when he plays? Yes,
when he plays. I mean seriouslyso. Saquon Barkley, who they chased,
came in at number six. He'llbe playing his football for the Eagles.
Bunch of other running backs that changedlocations. Aaron Jones to the Vikings,
he's eighth, Josh Jacobs to thePackers, he's tenth. The Dolphins

(02:02:25):
have a pair of running backs,both of whom are ahead of Joe Mixon.
The Steelers have a pair of runningbacks, both of whom are ahead
of Joe Mixon. The Lions havea pair of running backs, both of
whom are ahead of Joe Mixon.Remandre Stevenson and Rashad White rank ahead of
Joe Mixon. I don't think you'rekeeping count of how many names I've read

(02:02:48):
off. It's a lot. Yeah, he comes in at twenty seven.
That's not good, but it's betterthan last year. Which number scares you
more? Twenty seven where he ranks, or twenty seven the millions of dollars
they offered him in his three yearextension. Wish he signed now. He's

(02:03:10):
not guaranteed to make it all,but if he plays three years in Houston,
he'll make twenty seven million. CanI do options? See I don't
know what other twenty seven because he'snot wearing it. He wears twenty eight.
No, it's higher than that.Go ahead. It's his age,
right. Well, he's played sevenyears pretty much full bore. I mean
he's been on the field team.Hardest position on your body in sports.

(02:03:32):
Well, yes, in the wayit affects your career, because I think
offensive linemen are tortured, but somehowthey play twelve thirteen. If you're a
fourth year running back, you're playingwith house money. You just are.
Yeah, seven years with the sameteam, so multiple contracts with the Bengals.
Was under contract with the Bengals tocontinue. They decided to go in
a different direction. They also signeda running back who does not rate higher

(02:03:55):
than mix it on the list.He wasn't even on the list. That's
weird, yes, but I understandit. And this is why that whole
conversation we just had is I knowwho the names are. I know Daniel
Hunter is a text, and Iknow Alsha here is a text, and
I know Deniko Autry is a text, and Dalton Schultzer's resign. They have
Joe Mixon, they have Steffan Thenames are great there, they're probably able

(02:04:18):
to slightly improve at every spot andthen significantly improve at mixing at Diggs's spot.
But Audrey and the free agents theysigned plus Hunter on the defensive line,
they're not gonna be worse. They'regonna be different, and I hope
that they're a little better. Theirlinebackers probably aren't worse with the loss of
Cashman and the addition of al shaHere, but they're probably not noticeably better.

(02:04:40):
And they didn't do anything in thesecondary to guarantee that they're better.
They actually opened the door for beingworse. If Akuda is worse than Nelson,
which is clearly a possibility, thenthey don't really have an answer at
corner where Nelson will not be thisupcoming year. And I think in the
backfield, I know what Devin Singletaryis and probably capable of doing as a

(02:05:00):
number one. I don't know thatJoe Mixon is either. Mixon is going
to make life easier for CJ.Stroud when he's not handing the ball off.
In the passing game, I'm hopefulhe's a good enough blocker, and
that's probably debatable that he's also goodin that regard. I know he's a
great pass catcher, good enough routerunner will create mismatches, and I don't
even think they utilize Devin Singletary enoughin that role. I think there's no

(02:05:24):
way they will miss the opportunity touse that with Mixon in that role.
But explosive runs and averaging four pointfive of pop and being near the top
of the league in his performance,it's the things that Sakuon Barkley would have
done for you, it's probably unlikely. And what he is good at though,
which is valuable and probably underrated.I have a feeling when they are

(02:05:45):
running the ball inside the ten,inside the five, that he'll he's pretty
good. I think he does havethat so called intangible of nose for the
end zone type of back finding away, finding that crease there's a little
bit of a hole I can getthrough there, or getting the edge and
getting the corner. Not because he'soverwhelming with his speed, but just that
I think he can be would beregarded as a guy who finds the end

(02:06:08):
zone. That is an underrated assetto have in your backfield. Well yeah,
I mean, but again, ifyou're not with what you've done and
with it being just the one anddone, probably with Stefan Diggs. I
don't know if you had gotten SaquonBarkley, would you have gotten Stefan Diggs.

(02:06:29):
It seems unlikely, But what ifyou had Again, it's not an
impossibility. I do think that thereare people that would have been penciling them
in for a Super Bowl run.And if he's under contract for three years,
it's defense. Like Joe Mixon,this year is as much of a
question mark as it will be inthe next year and the next year.
Saquon Barkley's only question, even thoughhe's deep into his career now as a

(02:06:51):
back, is his health is it? Yeah, if he's healthy, he's
top well, top six in thiscase, I was going to a top
five. I think that's probably aboutright. I mean, if I tell
you the top five, I wasabout to say, who are the five
in front of them? Well,I gave you Jonathan Taylor, McCaffrey's one,
Henry's two, Nick Chubbs four didn'tplay last year, Henry's two on

(02:07:13):
that list, it's a Christian McCaffrey. Oh, you think he should be
lower? Yes, like worse?Well, he's old, he's too old.
He's pretty good though. Yeah,But like Okay, look at the
threat the other teams faced in Tennessee. Oh my god. We don't have
a time. We don't have timeto game plan for Derrick Henry. They've
got Ryan Tannehill throwing the football.We've got to focus all our energy on

(02:07:34):
that versus oh man, he's playingwith Lamar Jackson. Now, how do
we even pretend to care that DerrickHenry's back there? Because we care about
him. We're done, it's over. But doesn't that prove my point that
I'm saying? And again, thisisn't like that. And he's a giant,
sexy decoy now, is what you'retelling me. His life's just gonna
be different. Like he's not gonnarun into five thousand player boxes five times

(02:08:00):
game or five times a series ofdowns. Your goal should be to make
those two run into each other everysingle time. Oh Jackson down again,
looks like Henry brought him to theTurf'd be awesome, hope not. I
like good football, like good players. Yeah, but ultimately the Ravens aren't
gonna win anything beyond Robinson was theother player ahead of oh and see that
makes sense, but Derek Henry's number, we know what this is based on.

(02:08:24):
It's not necessarily who's my favorite runningback? And who do I think?
This is? Number is driven?You know the other thing that's funny
is that you don't ever talk aboutthousand yard rushers anymore, especially like I
could tell you Joe Mixon was athousand yard rusher last year, which like,
awesome, what did he do?Yeah, he got just over a
thousand yards rushing. But I meanthe barometers should be fifteen hundred yard rusher

(02:08:46):
at this point, right, That'sthat's pretty that's too much. Why what
am I gonna say twelve fifty?I mean, there's an extra game on
the calendar. Were running out oftime here, but before we hand things
off to our next program, right, Angel is all done bye, So

(02:09:07):
upon his retirement, some of ourfavorite musical songs and homage to Angel Hernandez
on our way out the door today. We'll be back tomorrow at three o'clock

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