Texans Victory Monday, Chandler Rome In-Studio, GBU and Aaron Wilson Joins The Show

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Two lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam Talking Your Teams series,
Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A team eighty.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I never realized the Charger's gotta buye.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
They've been limited to eighty seven yards of optense by
the ball is three scooped up by Stroud, circled.

Speaker 4 (00:36):
Drows to play on a busted.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Player Hutchinson, just like they drew it up. Thirteenth play
of the drive, a minute two on the clock, Stroud
laser's up.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
Tucks that ud Naico collins Texans on the board.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Off second down, Stroud steps up. Stroud will tuck and run.
Stroud goodag sat Jay. Stroud takes it into Los Angeles territory.

Speaker 4 (01:13):
Herbert pump Frow intercept it.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
Eric Murray pick six, tucks down Texans extra point Dicker.
It gets popped up in the air. Dicker knocks it
away and gets clubbed on the play, and they've got
it running with it DiAngelo Ross taking it all the

(01:39):
way for two, fourth and one. It's mixing first down
and more. Mixon hits the Polon cooks down Texans. Herbert
deep shot picked off fourth of the day for Houston.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
Derek Stingley his second. I'm sorry, Houston.

Speaker 5 (02:12):
As your half ass apology Texans fans from the self
professed and next coach of the Jets.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
I don't know what's going for him.

Speaker 5 (02:21):
I don't think any sort of bad prediction for a
playoff situation has any bearing on whether or not a
team hires you. But that's how the weekend went for
Rex Ryan, which meant it went very well for all
of you listening out there.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
Good Monday afternoon.

Speaker 5 (02:37):
It is a victory edition of the eight Team Sports
Talk seven to ninety. It doesn't feel like it happened
already two plus days ago, but it did, Texans over
the Chargers thirty two to twelve. Wex is out today
and tomorrow, so first and foremost we know that he.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
Is definitely dying inside. Not dying.

Speaker 5 (02:56):
He's fine, nothing's wrong with Wex, but he is dying inside,
having not been able to be in here the day
or the first day after a playoff victory for the
Texans to talk about it, and then a day after
that for good measure. But he will be back on
Wednesday in his place. The one, the only, the legend
that is Chandler Rome. I got so much good feedback

(03:17):
after I had you in the last time that I
was like, let's do this again.

Speaker 6 (03:21):
As much as Rex Ryan would like it, I'll try
not to put my foot in my mouth.

Speaker 5 (03:24):
Oh see, we are like two minutes in and the
foot jokes are already starting.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
You know.

Speaker 5 (03:29):
How mean people after I, you know, put my little
video up. That's my little shtick. We're like, oh, I
forgot about the foot thing. I'm like, how is that
not the first thing that comes to mind. It's not
a Super Bowl victory.

Speaker 6 (03:40):
I think of Mark Sanchez, and I think of feet like.

Speaker 4 (03:43):
A fumble, a fumble and foot. Yeah, that's that era.

Speaker 6 (03:46):
Yeah, Like I mean, I think of his brother more
than I think of him, because Rob Ryan was the
Saints defensive coordinator when I was like in high school
and stuff like that. So I just remember seeing him
his flowing Maine just like big beer gut just rumbling
down the.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
Oh geez, don't start with that.

Speaker 6 (04:03):
Dan.

Speaker 5 (04:04):
We were staying right around the corner from South Beach
when the Super Bowl was in Miami, you know, the
last few days before the world lost its mind and
COVID happened, and Wex and I were there a bunch
of the guys from the station had gone, but Wex
and I were sharing a room and we wound up
eating at this like hole in the wall deli like

(04:26):
every meal, like before the show, because we were doing
afternoon and at that time I was actually eating more
than one meal a day, so we wound up It's
like Ocean Deli or so.

Speaker 4 (04:34):
It was nothing. It was basically a fancy bodega.

Speaker 5 (04:37):
And uh, one night, we're walking back from whatever and
Rob Ryan is sitting on a bench just randomly on
the street, like outside our hotel. I mean literally across
the street from it. It wasn't like it was in
the vicinity of this place. He was not a party,
nothing social going on there. He is and he was

(04:58):
the nicest guy. Just sat there and chatted about nothing
having to do with football most of the time, which
doesn't really surprise you, I'm sure, But yeah they are.
They're an eclectic pair and obviously their dad was certainly that.
But yeah, I got a little bit of pleasure out
of that. And I'll be honest, I got a little
bit of pleasure out of you know, kind of the Texans,

(05:21):
I guess, surprising the naysayers, But if you heard any
of our show.

Speaker 4 (05:25):
Going into this this weekend.

Speaker 5 (05:27):
It wasn't really a surprise if their defense played like
that which they are capable of. So yeah, the Texans
beating the Bills not surprising. The Texans defense being really
good also not surprising. I'll be honest. I think the
most surprising aspect of that game was CJ. Stroud seemingly
getting his mojo back. And I think it might have

(05:49):
happened on a busted.

Speaker 6 (05:50):
Play, you know, I thought I felt the thing that
surprised not surprised me, but just what we haven't seen
CJ do all year. He ran him being more mobile
than we've seen and I think I don't know who
had it, and I want to give them credit, but
someone had a quote from him after the game that
he was watching film and saw that the Chargers didn't
have a spy and so he knew going into the

(06:11):
game he wanted to use his feet a little more
in it. You know, again, this is twenty twenty ten
thousand feet hindsight, but you wonder like where that's been,
especially with a line that can't protect him, with Diggs
and Dell out, with John Metchi not being able to
hang on the football, with one receiver you trust, Like,
where has him using his feet been and being mobile

(06:34):
and moving the pocket? And I thought, you know, obviously,
look the the fumbled play and the the fumble and
the play he made to recover. I mean that was
the turning point of the game. But you really start
to you started to see him get his mojo back
to when he was able to run a little bit,
keep them guessing and because Joe Mixon couldn't get much

(06:55):
going and them.

Speaker 5 (06:56):
Gesually through the first had nobody can anything go on
the first half getting CJ going running the ball, and
I don't think I think the Chiefs are gonna plan
for that now.

Speaker 6 (07:05):
So may not be a whole may not be a
thing that they can do going forward. But I thought
that was the biggest thing to me was that CJ
was unafraid to whether it was designed runs or whether
it was he went to his first read, didn't see
it and just took off Like that really opened it
up more than more than anything for me.

Speaker 5 (07:21):
Yeah, I listen, it is a it's certainly a steep
step up in competition.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
It's it's weird.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
I don't I'm not gonna say I feel confident going
in there. I mean I was just there a few
weeks ago and it did not go very well, and
like half the defense got That's what's funny. The defense
played so well. I think two of their starters were
lost in that game at Kansas City, and they had
lost Jalen Petrie. I want to say either the week
before that or maybe two weeks prior. But I do

(07:52):
feel good about things. From the standpoint of that is
that's that's the type of defense I expected the Texans
to have all season long. And that is the type
of like you brought up the running, that's the type
of skirting around the offensive line no pun intended, but
kind of literally that I thought we would see from

(08:12):
CJ this year. You mentioned it the wheels. Why didn't
we see that all year from CJ. That's a huge question.
Is it because they're trying to keep them healthy? They
don't want to get them hit. I mean that has
to be the number one priority.

Speaker 6 (08:24):
Yeah, all bets are off now. I mean you're in
the playoffs, like you have to win or you go home.
Rip right, let it rip and go, like you don't
want unless you're Jayden Daniels, unless you're one of those
guys just with elite speed that that is part of
your game. You don't want to try seventeen weeks to
be a running quarterback unless that's like really part of
your game. And that's not been part of CJ's game
as a pro. So I mean, now the playoffs are here,

(08:47):
like you do anything you can to win a game,
like it doesn't matter. And I mean I think you
saw that. You know, I think CJ needed I mean,
dumbest opinion you'll here all day, Like CJ needed, I mean,
and they needed him to be the alpha, to be
the guy to put that team on his shoulders. And
he did it. And credit to him, you know, he

(09:07):
had I was texting with a friend of mine throughout
the game, and you know, we just kept talking about it,
especially in the first half. We kept talking about he
has looked mid for two months. Yeah, and it's just it.
It was kind of sad to watch. You were like, man,
is this the real regression from year one year two
that we were hoping we wouldn't see, And then he
just turned it. He put that team on his back.

(09:28):
I mean, he's got receivers around him that are fumbling balls.
He's got Joe Mixon, that's not doing anything. He's got
a line that's in nept and he put that offense
on his shoulders and he made stuff happen. That's what
you want out of the guy you've taken second overall
and that's your franchise quarterback.

Speaker 5 (09:43):
Yeah, and the guy that was you know last year's
you know Jaden basically the magic that we're seeing with
the Commanders and what happened last night the dooint card round,
well at least the nation's capital. But you had that
guy here in Houston last year. I don't even think
it was about taking people by surprise once the playoffs
got here. Maybe the Cleveland Browns were taken by surprise

(10:04):
because they thought that he was case Keenan, which is
who they had beaten earlier in the season.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
But you weren't getting that.

Speaker 5 (10:10):
There's obviously lots of tape out there, and you mentioned
the Chiefs are certainly going to and Andy Reid if
anybody is going to game plan accordingly for CJ and company.
But you do feel a little better going into that
matchup now they could get absolutely wrecked. We do know
it's Saturday afternoon at three thirty. By the way, in
case you were wondering or you've been under a rock,

(10:32):
the schedule is set as much as it can be.
There is still one more playoff game to be played tonight,
by the way, but we will certainly go over everything
that happened from yesterday. We will hear from Demico Ryans,
We'll hear from CJ. Shroud, we will get into some
of these subplots, and of course we will hear from
Rex Ryan.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
You heard a little bit there in the open. Yeah,
he did give a half hearted apology.

Speaker 5 (10:54):
We'll kind of give you the context of that coming
up in the next segment, because it was glorious to
see him kind of eat his words there. I don't
know if he just did that simply for television or
if he really believed it, but it sure was delicious
watching him eat that crow after what he said about
the Texans giving the Chargers essentially a bye week. So
all of that and so much more coming up here

(11:15):
on a victory Monday edition of the A Team Channeler
Rome in for Adam Wexler. I'm Adam Clinton. It's the
eight Team Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
The eight on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
Back to Adam Clinton had Adam Wexler the eighte.

Speaker 4 (11:31):
On Sports Talk seven ninety. All right, the eight team,
we're rolling along here.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
On a Monday edition of the program Sports Talks seven ninety.
Chandeler Rome in for wex Ac with you as well,
take you up until well, We're gonna go until five o'clock,
and then I'm gonna make Ross work for me since
wex is out today and I've got Rockets tonight over
at Toyota Center, I will step aside, like whichever one
of us does the game normally does, and then Ross
will takeover for that final hour. But Texans get the

(12:04):
win yesterday and they get to kind of rub it
into Rex Ryan's face. And normally I wouldn't even say that,
but in that locker room after the game, they were
very aware of it. No one other, no one more so,
I should say, than Joe Mixon. Who was he went
live on It's either I think it was Instagram with
the victory cigar.

Speaker 6 (12:24):
Can I defend Rex Ryan for like a half second? Okay, fine,
did you watch the Texans play for the last two
and a half months? I know, like, I mean, come on,
like they played like garbage for two months. It's true,
like they won the worst division in football and played
like absolute garbage for two Like the criticism was founded.

(12:47):
It wasn't as if this was some completely off base
remark by someone that didn't watch the team, that didn't
know what they were talking about. Now, was it a
little much? It's a bye week and they're gonna walk
over I'm sure. And you know what, you know who
I thought gave the most insightful answer. What's the head
hunting linebacker's name?

Speaker 5 (13:05):
Uh oh as Ziz Auschaier. Yeah, the one that the
whole head hunting linebacker, the.

Speaker 6 (13:09):
One that the whole city like lost its mind over
because he got suspended, because he got suspended once. He
basically said, yeah, he has to do that for TV,
Like this is an entertainment product. Like yes, Like I
think for the players, sure, it's another like level of
motivation that they can use. But like, if the players
needed Rex Ryan crapping on them to motivate them to

(13:31):
win a playoff game, then there are far bigger issues
within that organization. If they needed Rex Ryan to go
on ESPN and say that to motivate them to win
a playoff game.

Speaker 5 (13:40):
Yeah, no, I agree, there is something to that now,
it's weird because if you if you well, let's get
this out of the way.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
First, Rex did eat his crow.

Speaker 5 (13:49):
Let's get his response, because clearly he was gonna have
to say something. And you know it's radio, so you're
not gonna be able to see the prop that he
brought to the set.

Speaker 6 (13:58):
But it was it was good.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Who had a worst day? Me or Justin and Herbert.
It's probably right there, But I gotta tell I mean,
you got to tip your hat to him. If that
team played their absolute asses off.

Speaker 4 (14:11):
Look, if you.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
Guys were going to play like that, I would have
taken you to win the super Bowl.

Speaker 4 (14:16):
But I'm seeing the games going up into it.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
One and five against playoff teams. I'm seeing all that
and I'm sorry, Houston, I'm not picking.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
You next week either. Well maybe I will. Yeah, So
it's funny.

Speaker 5 (14:36):
If he knew they were going to play like that defensively,
he would have picked them to win the super Bowl.

Speaker 4 (14:40):
That's a joke.

Speaker 5 (14:41):
That's obviously, you know, tongue in cheet, whatever you wanna
call it. If they play like that defensively, they can
they can't probably beat anybody not named the Ravens.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
Are you know how happy I am. They're not playing
the Ravens this week.

Speaker 5 (14:54):
You should be because, like I know that they'll probably
lose to the Chiefs. Vegas thinks they're going to lose
to the Chiefs, But they have a better chance against
the Chiefs, in my opinion, than they have against the Ravens.

Speaker 7 (15:04):
Right.

Speaker 6 (15:04):
The Chiefs just I mean, it's kind of robotic at
this point. They just find a way. It's a bunch
of one score games. It's a bunch of who does
the little things right. And obviously, you know, if Mahomes
has a Mahomes type of day, then it doesn't matter
how good of defense you're playing. He's just that good
of a quarterback, Like it won't matter. Like they could
play as well as they played on Saturday. And if

(15:27):
Patrick Mahomes has the kind of days we've seen him have,
it may not matter. But I don't think this is
a chief This is not the same Chiefs team that
we saw, you know, rampage through other seasons and go
to the Super Bowl. This team looks a tad more vulnerable.
That's really funny to say, given that they lost what
once or twice all year. So it's one of these

(15:50):
things where if they're going to win, the defense is
going to have to do to Mahomes what they did
to Herbert, but I'm not sure that that's possible. We'll
just given and that's no disrespect to the Texans defense.
That's just how good Mahomes is.

Speaker 5 (16:04):
Well, I mean just to kind of sum this up,
and we'll go back to Saturday night first, because obviously
Demiko Ryan's has spoken with the media today, but sometimes
I like to hear, you know, in the emotion, the
heat of the moment, in the immediate aftermath, what some
of these guys have to say, including Dimiko, and we'll
hear from some of the we'll get to your head
hunting linebackers thoughts.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
As a matter of fact, on Rex Ryan, we'll hear
what he had to say.

Speaker 5 (16:27):
This is what Demico had to say about that very
defense in the immediate aftermath of Texans thirty two, Chargers twelve.

Speaker 8 (16:34):
They dominated today and that's what we that's who we
want to be. They played our brand of football like
talk about stopping the run first. That's what I'm most
proud of, is how we stop the run. And we
stopped the run. You make teams want demensioned on that's
when our d line just calls havoc. So we're very
proud of our defensive line, but more so proud of

(16:56):
our dds like Stingley, and he's been outstanding all year.
He steps up again for us today, gets two picks
when we needed the most.

Speaker 6 (17:05):
He made you know, outstanding plays.

Speaker 8 (17:07):
E Murray with the touchdown, I mean, Kamari with the
man for us to have off of the turnover.

Speaker 6 (17:14):
Kamari goes out and you.

Speaker 8 (17:16):
Talk about a momentum ship for him to pick the
ball off. There was outstanding play by him. So just
the way our dbs are playing, it just opens up
a lot for us defensively. Really proud of our entire group.

Speaker 4 (17:26):
Yeah, and he should be.

Speaker 5 (17:27):
I mean, this is when you start talking about, all right,
the Texan's got to make some changes this offseason. Offensive
line's got to go Bobby Slow, it's got to go
new offensive coordinator. You gotta revamp the offense, gotta get
CJ right again. Blah blah blah blah blah. And that's
all well and good, and maybe there's some truth to
some of those thoughts. And it does not give Demko
a pass, but he is a defensive minded coach, and

(17:49):
that is his defense. And when his defense was by
far the most dominant, well, it was the most dominant
unit of the game, all though special teams once again
having an amazing day as well.

Speaker 6 (18:01):
Yeah, one aspect of the television broadcast that I thought
was funny. Who's the who's the defensive who is the
I'm using air quotes defensive coordinator of the Texans?

Speaker 9 (18:12):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (18:12):
Why am I drawing a blank on his name for uh?
Matt Burke, the guy who is just going absolutely insane
on the sideline. That's Frank Ross the special teams. That's right,
Frank Ross, Special Teams. Matt Burke, defensive coordinator.

Speaker 6 (18:24):
They kept showing Matt Burke every time the Texans defense
did something spectacular. They just they kept showing Matt Burke.
Demiko's the one calling the defense, and Matt burch is
kind of just standing there, silent, like looking around like
he's a he's a spectator. He's loving that, he's loving this,
and Demiko's like on the side, like going and I'm like, man,
this dude is getting a lot of run for stuff

(18:44):
that Demiko's doing. But yeah, I thought that was funny.
But yeah, I the special teams after that block punt.
When the block punt, then they tipped the punt and
it still somehow took a thirty yard bounce. That's kind
of what I thought. It wasn't gonna be their day.

Speaker 5 (18:59):
Yeah, it was like even when they screw up, they
still get a good, good role.

Speaker 6 (19:02):
Even when the special teams does what it's supposed to
do and the breaks just go against, You're like, oh man,
this is gonna be one of those days. And then
I mean, and look to beat the Chiefs, you're probably
gonna have to make a player too on special teams. Yep,
You're probably going to have to have CJ have a
dynamic sort of game like he just had. You've got
to be perfect on all cylinders. And as good as

(19:24):
that was, as good as Saturday's performance was, they won
by twenty would not say that they played particularly perfect.
I mean, the first the first twenty nine minutes of
the first half were not particularly.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
Enjoyable to watch and not aesthetically pleasing. Nothing about it
was good. I even I think I.

Speaker 5 (19:43):
Put a poll, a Twitter x whatever poll out towards
the end of the first quarter.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
Might have even been into the second quarter, Like.

Speaker 5 (19:52):
Should I leave inn RG stadium at halftime, and it
got overwhelming response. One of the choices, by the way,
was why haven't you already was yet no, and why
haven't you? And I was like, I was texting with Wex,
who wasn't there and was obviously observing from afar, and
it's like this thing, it feels like it's already over.
That was before obviously the big play, the busted play,

(20:14):
but I mean the defense had made plays when I
was thinking and saying this.

Speaker 6 (20:19):
Right, they holding them to two field goals felt like
just monumental wins, just given how easily they drove the
ball down the field on the script to start the game.
And then you know CJ turns the ball or wasn't
It wasn't Stroud, it was Mechi. Mechi fumbles the ball
in the first play, the first offensive, and that puts
them in plus territory and the defense does its job

(20:40):
and holds to a field goal. So you kind of
were holding on to hope. You were like, all right,
like if the defense can keep them within striking distance,
because you kind of thought if the Chargers go up
two scores, you kind of though, all right. JK. Dobbins
like they keep start giving him the ball and look,
no matter what, they still couldn't cover lad McConkey.

Speaker 4 (20:57):
Yeah, like, oh he was open, he was all day
and even when he was in.

Speaker 6 (21:01):
Open, he was catching the ball and Derek Stingly makes
some unreal place, but he had trouble with lab McConkey.
So it was going to be, you know, if they
got up two scores, like, all right, they're gonna give
the ball to Dobbins and then you can't cover lad McConkie.
Like if you get behind two scores, like you were
gonna be really really struggling to comeback.

Speaker 5 (21:17):
And they would have done what the Texans wound up doing,
which was wearing down the line like good running backs do.
And even though he had what like nothing at halftime,
you get twenty five carries for over one hundred years.
I think it was one hundred and three for Joe
Mixon and all of a sudden it looks like he
had a great, great day at the office, which he did.

Speaker 4 (21:38):
I think the over.

Speaker 5 (21:38):
Under on rushing yards for him before that game, and
we were looking at Stone Cold Locks was like seventy
and a half or something like that. But yeah, it was.
It was one of those things where it felt like
everything kind of came together. And yeah, you at one
point I also said in the first half, and if
you're this defense, how long until you start getting into

(21:59):
some of the offensive players on the sideline?

Speaker 4 (22:01):
I was literally encouraging internal strife.

Speaker 6 (22:03):
Well, well, what you're worried about? Honestly, you worried about
the defense just tiring out, right, You you worried about
them being out there too long. And that's why, I mean,
we can that fumble, the fumbled snap play will be
talked about forever. And what was that third and twenty,
third and sixteen? I believe, okay, third and sixteen, Like
they don't get that. Defense comes right back on the field,
and I mean justin Herbert did not have a great

(22:24):
second half, but still like the just by being out there,
they were going to get exhausted. And that's you worried
about that. Honestly, you worried about not playing what Damiko
Ryans usually talks about complimentary football, right, and that was
not when you ask your defense to go out there
and play sixty five seventy snaps, that's not it. And
that's what that was my big worry because they were
playing well, but you're like, man, if the offense just

(22:46):
keeps putting them back on the field like this is,
they're gonna JK. Dobbins is gonna be getting what he wants,
like midway through the third quarter.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
Yeah, and that's why I you know, you're talking about
Justin Herbert and all the narratives, Oh, he can't win
in the playoffs and all this stuff that you don't remember,
like Rex will put him in the Hall of Fame.
Before the game, everybody's like, all right, it's hardballs in
charge now, so this is going to be different, and
you can if you're a Chargers fan, it's easy to
fall back on that and say, oh, the Chargers were

(23:11):
being the Chargers, were being the Chargers because this is
what happens in the postseason. That is taking all of
the credit that's due to the Texans defense in this
game and just not placing it properly, because they absolutely
not only kept the team in the game in the
first half, like you mentioned, holding the two drives to
field goals as opposed to touchdowns, but then I mean
making plays to seal it.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
And obviously the pick six was electric.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
That place was about as loud as I had heard
it in quite some time, so we will continue to discuss.
We'll do what we always do as well at this
time of the day, we'll get to the best of X.
Someone else given the Texans defense some love on the
old social media, so we'll get to that when we
come back here on a victory Monday edition of the
A Team, It's Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (23:54):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (23:58):
Shout out again to Big City Wings, not only for
being a sponsor of the program and you know, sponsor
here on the station for even longer than that. We
love Sam and everybody at all thirteen convenient locations around
the Greater Houston area, but shout out to them for
bringing basically half the menu and more up here last week.

(24:20):
Good etns in here. The studio was crowded, and rightfully so.
The other side of the console from where I'm sitting
was completely covered with food, kind of like the thirteen
area locations are covered wall to wall with TVs to
watch all the games. Did you check out the Texans game?
Did you check out all of the games over the
weekend at one of the Big City locations. We hope

(24:41):
you did, because they are the only wing joint to
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(25:02):
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big Citywings dot com.

Speaker 4 (25:19):
It's Big City Wings.

Speaker 6 (25:22):
Hey, it's running brown.

Speaker 4 (25:24):
Catch every ashes game on Sports Top seven ninety four,
the iHeartRadio app Home of your Ashs. Did you all
see this? We're putting out between five and fifteen.

Speaker 10 (25:38):
Posts a day.

Speaker 7 (25:38):
Four hundred people were arrested for things that they said
on social media.

Speaker 11 (25:42):
History repeats itself type bang, You'll succeed.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
Never doubt that you're the one who put for no one.

Speaker 11 (25:50):
You believe yo the best best, Nothing's gonna ever top.
You know, yore the best of it posting ever seen day.
If you're the best of it breaking the entire Internet.

Speaker 5 (26:13):
It just ages like a fine wine every time we
hear the soothing tones of the vocal stylings from one
Adam Wexler. He is out today and tomorrow Chandler Rome
in his stead. He can find his work on the
Athletic and of course on X at Chandler Underscore Rome.
By the way, you haven't gotten any Twitter spats with

(26:35):
Astros fans lately that I need to go investigate.

Speaker 6 (26:39):
Do I know they haven't done anything?

Speaker 4 (26:40):
That's true?

Speaker 6 (26:41):
What's there been for Astro's fans to like spar about
that they haven't done it? Since they signed Christian Walker?
They haven't done anything.

Speaker 5 (26:48):
I love it all right, And you know what, I'm
pretty sure baseball will somehow sneak itself into the conversation.

Speaker 4 (26:55):
But that's how good Chandler is.

Speaker 5 (26:57):
I can have him in a day or two after
a tech Wildcar victory and he can absolutely hold his
own talking all things infl and listen when it comes
to this type of segment.

Speaker 4 (27:08):
You find things on.

Speaker 5 (27:09):
The Twitter streets, on the X streets. I'll never completely
go away from calling it Twitter and listen. There was
some love, believe it or not, for the Houston Texans,
as much as people were trying to pile on and
dog them going into this weekend. When your performance looks
like that, and specifically, when your defense performs the way

(27:31):
it did, you're going to get some love.

Speaker 4 (27:33):
And that includes the.

Speaker 5 (27:36):
Former longtime producer of The Jim Rome Show turned Good
Morning Football host Kyle Brant.

Speaker 4 (27:44):
Small story.

Speaker 5 (27:46):
One time I was put up to prank calling the
Jim Rome Show as Jim while Kyle was hosting, and
it was funny to hear his reaction on radio when
he realized.

Speaker 4 (27:57):
Who it was. I'm such a mean person, but anyway,
I digress.

Speaker 5 (28:02):
He was downright bullish, I'd say, on the Texans defense.

Speaker 4 (28:07):
Listen to what he had to say.

Speaker 5 (28:08):
This is just an example of the type of talk
that was going around this morning about your Texans defensive unit.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
So you know what Herbert did.

Speaker 12 (28:15):
Herbert, the guy who does not throw interceptions and does
not really get sacked, did all of them the worst
he's ever done in his career. The Texas defense against
Josh Allen this year, Josh Allen went nine of thirty
with an interception. It's arguably the worst game of his career,
not a season. Jared Goff threw five interceptions, It's arguably

(28:35):
the worst game of his career, not a season. To
a talk of Ailoa, another franchise guy, three interceptions, the
Dolphins scored twelve points, arguably the worst game of his career.

Speaker 4 (28:46):
You want, how about somebody totally.

Speaker 12 (28:47):
Different, A young guy Anthony Richardson Okay, went nine of
nineteen and checked himself out of the game against the Texans,
the worst game of his young career. Guys, the meme
is not the Dragons or the soldiers. It's about the
Texans defense. And it's that one where the grim Reaper
is walking down the hallway, opening each door and like

(29:08):
you're dead, and you're dead, and you're dead.

Speaker 4 (29:12):
You know the meme he's talking about.

Speaker 5 (29:14):
Look, first of all, we didn't bring up the last
couple or the last segment, last couple of segments about justin.
Herbert's interception numbers are lack thereof going into this game
three all year and then he throws four in this game.
I don't care if one of them's you know, garbage
time that heave that kind of thing It wasn't like

(29:34):
the one that Jerry Goff threw where it was like
you want to say four and a half, because it
was right before the half and it didn't really count
for anything because the clock was winding down. These were
all and again, a pick is a pick as a pick,
but some of these interceptions were insane by the Texans.

Speaker 4 (29:50):
Secondary.

Speaker 6 (29:51):
Yeah, he threw the one in garbage time, and then
there was another one that was I mean, he put them.
He put the ball. I think it was on Maconkey
or their other white receiver. I don't know who. I
don't know, I don't know who it is, but I
think it was mcconachie or the other one. And and
the ball the ball hit him in the hands and
went through his hands and it was a pick for
the Texans. So I don't know how much of that
you put on Herbert, But like you said, a pick

(30:11):
is a pick as a pick. The picks were great,
But like I think the thing that I think Jim
Harbaugh talked about it after the game, and something we
haven't talked about either, is the rush that they got. Yeah,
like Will Anderson, daneil Hunter, like they they were coming
off of the edge. Deniko Ausry got in there a
couple of times, like they were coming off of the edge,
and and that leads two picks, like when you have

(30:33):
to flush it out, flush him out of the pocket,
when you have to make him have happy if you've
seen that with CJ. Shroud too much this year because
there's been too many defenders in the backfield. But the
Texans reverse that, and I thought that was a major
key too. Is just the pressure that they got them
against a very good offensive line too, like the Chargers,
that's one of the better offensive lines in football. And

(30:55):
Daniel Hunter, will Anderson, I mean, their their linebackers are
outside guys. They they had their way with them.

Speaker 5 (31:01):
Well, chances are if you're going up against an offensive
line in this postseason, it's going to be better than
yours if you're the Houston Texans, because they have one
of the worst in football. But speaking of that, uh,
here's Jim Howerball talking about that very that very issue, the.

Speaker 4 (31:15):
Edge of pressure.

Speaker 13 (31:16):
Those are really, uh.

Speaker 6 (31:20):
The best, the best we've seen. I mean that was
the pressure on the edge.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
The pass rush was uh was outstanding.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
Look, this was my probably biggest critique about the loss
in Kansas City. It wasn't that, you know, the Chiefs
were able to get after CJ.

Speaker 4 (31:39):
Stroud.

Speaker 5 (31:40):
It wasn't that anything offensively happened. It's that going into
that game, I thought, all right, I know it's Mahomes.
I know that he's got a stout offensive line, went healthy,
and it's gonna be tough. But so what, I always
feel like the Texans have two of the best bookends
in the game, and supplement that pass rush, they should

(32:00):
be able to get after or at least if they
don't sack the quarterback, they should be able to make
his day uncomfortable, up to and including the best quarterback
in football, Patrick Mahomes. That didn't happen this last time.
I'm hoping this this game on Saturday, that is the case. Well,
it's gonna have to be the case if they want
to have a chance to win.

Speaker 6 (32:16):
And you have to remember too, like Justin Herbert's not
gonna take off and run like he is the He
is the prototypical like just gonna stand back there and
go through his reads and stuff, and I mean you
don't have that with Mahomes. So they may get the
same amount of pressure, but Patrick Mahomes is a superhero.

Speaker 5 (32:30):
So Aziz al Shaier was suspended for that game in
Kansas City.

Speaker 4 (32:34):
He will be on the field this time.

Speaker 6 (32:35):
And Patrick Mahomes probably thanks his Lord and Savior every
night that Aziz was suspended.

Speaker 5 (32:40):
If if Aziz al Shaier, I should probably shouldn't go
down this road, but I don't care.

Speaker 4 (32:44):
I'm gonna do it.

Speaker 5 (32:44):
If Aziz al Shaier gets after Patrick Mahomes, is it
worth it? You know what I'm saying, Like if he
gets after him, Like if you're calling for him to
be a head hunter, I'm not Greg Williams with two g's.
I've just he wasn't a factor in the game last

(33:06):
time because he wasn't on the field.

Speaker 6 (33:08):
No, yeah, it'll help. I mean it will help obviously,
and then they'll be all together and you know, but
I think what we have to coming back to is
like they could have the same amount of pressure success
that they did against the Chargers against the Chiefs, Like
they could run the same stuff. They could get in
the backfield just as much. But like Patrick Mahomes just
a different cat, right, Like I mean, he's going to escape,

(33:30):
He's gone, and you'll see some of those broken plays
that turn the tie like the broken play that CJ
turned into the completion of Hutchinson, Like you'll see that
a little bit here, and it could it could backfire,
and you so, I while, yes, they're going to need
to get after him and they're gonna need to rush
like they could do all that and it still may
not work, just because Patrick Mahomes is that good.

Speaker 5 (33:51):
He is and it's going to be a tall task
for your Textans to get the victory again on the
road at one of the loudest stadiums in the entire NF.
We will discuss more on that. We'll hear from Aziz
al Schaier. We'll also go down some of the other
results from over the weekend Wildcard weekend, and there's still
a matchup to be determined tonight. All that coming up

(34:12):
as we continue here on a Monday edition of the eighteen.

Speaker 4 (34:16):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 1 (34:21):
Back to Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler. The eighteen on
Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (34:34):
It is the A Team Sports Talk seven to ninety.
Chandler Rome in for Adam Wexler on a Monday edition
of the program. After the Chargers, well, they found out
that the Texans are not exactly a bye week thirty
two to twelve, primarily the offense. But look, there was
all sorts of things that were going well for the
Texans out there, you know, other than the first half.

(34:57):
For the majority of the first half. It was relative
late in the first half, second quarter when CJ got
loose for that that long completion on third and sixteen
uh to Xavier Hutchinson and then Nico Collins the rest
of the way what ended up being a ninety nine
yard drive. And so the Texans after everything that was
so non esthetically pleasing, trailing six nothing, and of course

(35:21):
you look up at the half and they're up seven
to six.

Speaker 4 (35:24):
Just not exactly according to plan, but you'll take it. Mention.

Speaker 5 (35:27):
We would hear from a ziz Al Shair So Saturday
he makes these comments about Rex Ryan and that was
a theme or going around the locker room. Joe Mixon
fires up the victory cigar and Aziz Al Shaier, who's
you know, had his share of controversy this season as
a member of the Texans. He said, basically, look, Rex

(35:50):
should and does no better.

Speaker 14 (35:53):
Simon Hill, I mean, he's coaching his league, you know,
you know, that's just him being you know, TV guy.
I don't take a personal because in the day he's coaching,
is that he knows how this league is. It's a
week to week league. This is the best of the best.
So he could say what he wants, you know, it
is what it is.

Speaker 4 (36:07):
But I take that.

Speaker 14 (36:08):
I don't even take that that person. I think maybe
he was just you know, trying to hype himself up
for TV or.

Speaker 6 (36:12):
Someth I one hundred percent agreep.

Speaker 5 (36:14):
Yeah, yeah, I'm like ninety five percent of the way there.
Maybe he deep down believes some of that. But what's
he do for a living right now? He doesn't coach.

Speaker 6 (36:22):
He's on TV and he's on it's an this is
an entertainment product, like you have to keep fans and
viewers coming back. And also like there may be a
part of his house shy here. Like I mean again,
I've never met the man, but like you sounded pretty introspective.
They're like like all of us. He's probably watched his
team play for two and a half months and he
was probably like, you know what, like we probably deserved

(36:43):
a little bit of criticism, right, like, no, why should
we be favored?

Speaker 5 (36:46):
Like I think the defense that he once again rejoined
became a part of Remember he was he was out
for three games. That's basically a month for all intents
and purposes, and when he came back, it was the
freaking time Titans, you know, absolute throwaway game that the
Titans probably wanted to lose for draft purposes.

Speaker 4 (37:06):
They wind up with the number one pick of the draft.

Speaker 5 (37:08):
And so you've got a guy that that that's his
first game back after missing three that you would have
killed to have a guy like that.

Speaker 4 (37:16):
Uh, yeah, you're not going to have him for.

Speaker 5 (37:20):
Tua Tagova, La Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson slash Derrick Henry.
That's not a that's a murderer's row of at least
quarterbacks going into the game where you'd like to have
that guy. Now, you know, Tua got basically put, you know,
held in check by that same defense without a he's
al shair. But Mahomes put it this way, if you

(37:41):
told me you weren't going to have him for the
regular season matchup, but you can have a rematch in
the postseason. It's going to be at Arrowhead and he
will be in the lineup. I'm loving that for the Texans.

Speaker 6 (37:49):
Yeah, I mean, as much as you can love it
going up against Patrick Mahomes, but I mean, look, they'll
be as full strength as they can be. You've got
the You wonder how the rest versus rust factor goes
with the Chiefs having been on a buy. They just
they just had a buy. And they didn't play their
starters in the last week of the regular season either.
So there's any guys on this team that hadn't played

(38:09):
football in three weeks? And I mean rest versus russ Yeah,
you wonder honestly, I mean the Texans, if you believe
in momentum, the Texans are going to ride into here
with more momentum, more carrying more momentum than than the Chiefs.

Speaker 5 (38:23):
Like since I've got you here, and you know Chandler's
day job, he writes about the Astros in baseball for
the Athletic He's a baseball guy.

Speaker 4 (38:31):
This this was.

Speaker 5 (38:32):
A huge sticking point in twenty twenty two because it
was the first time you were going to have all
these teams in the new playoff format have this long
layoff going into the postseason, and the Tech or the
Astros were one of those teams because they had, you know,
the record that got them that seeding, and it ended

(38:52):
up not being a big deal in my mind though.
I mean, they're two very different things, very hard to win.
Although I still think baseball is the hardest championship to
achieve just because of so many variables and games obviously involved.
The NFL might be the one league where, even if
you do have some of the rest, you definitely need
the rest this time of year.

Speaker 6 (39:13):
Oh for sure. It's it's such a more and this
is no disrespect to baseball players, but like it's just
such a more physically demanding game. I mean, just the
physical punishment that your body takes when you play football, Like, yeah,
you need to rest, you need to like heal yourself.
And you know, obviously the Chiefs know what they're doing.
This is not a situation where you're playing a team

(39:33):
that like has never had this happen before. Like they've
had layoffs in the last and during their playoff runs,
you know, the Super Bowl. You get two weeks off
for the Super Bowl, and they've somehow succeeded in the
Super Bowl with having time off. So I'm not really
sure that matters, but you do kind of wonder too,
Like the Texans, like they just if you want to
say they shocked the world, they shocked the world that

(39:55):
they're going to go in there with a ton of momentum,
and they're going to go in there feeling really good
out themselves, And you just kind of wonder how much
longer they can keep that going before just everything with
the Chiefs, just the entire aura of the Chiefs, how
much before that takes over?

Speaker 5 (40:12):
And part of me wonders if having that game up
there just a few weeks ago, not even a month ago,
helps in that regard with what you're talking about. But
I mean, it's the bottom line is you're gonna have
to stop Patrick Holmes or at least contain him. You're
going to have to play your best on offense. CJ
probably will have to use those wheels again. It just

(40:33):
so many things have to go a whole lot better
than they did the last time you played them up there.
Speaking of the playoffs and everything else, thought, I mean,
the Ravens beating the Steelers was no surprise.

Speaker 6 (40:44):
Thee Russell Wilson is trash.

Speaker 5 (40:47):
Yeah, well that's what I was saying all season long
before he started. Then he got the starting job and
they just kept finding ways to win, but you never
felt like they were any sort of threat. And that's
the one team that I don't think anybody wants a
part of right now.

Speaker 6 (41:00):
Like I like the.

Speaker 5 (41:01):
Bills, I think Josh Allen's great. If he wins the MVP,
I'm not going to exactly be surprised because I think
in a weird, messed up way, Lamar Jackson somehow getting
penalized for having Derrick Henry added as a weapon like
doesn't take away from any of the numbers he's put up.
But I still feel like, for whatever reason in the
debate between those two, he's going to get penalized by

(41:23):
voters somehow, and Josh Allen winds up winning the MVP.
But you know, Bill's Ravens is going to be absolute cinema,
absolutely electric.

Speaker 6 (41:35):
Yeah, no offense to the city, But I'm much more
looking forward to Bill's Ravens than I am.

Speaker 5 (41:41):
Well, I think yeah, and I think the League is
as well. That's why they put them where they did.
But yeah, the Lions and the Commanders might be more
entertaining than maybe we're giving it credit for. They are
the biggest underdogs are the Commies as of this moment.
We still don't have the matchup with the Eagles. They'll
play the winner of the Rams and Vikings tonight.

Speaker 6 (42:01):
I'm wholeheartedly and I on a bash, I'm wholeheartedly I
want the Lions to win the whole thing.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
I think a lot of people are saying that they're
such a good story.

Speaker 6 (42:09):
I mean, they seem like they seem like they just
seem like a fun team to root for. Dan Campbell
for like some of the cliche crap he does, like
he seemed pretty genuine, like seems like a pretty genuine guy,
Like I mean, that team. It just it's fun when
perpetually bad teams just have their renaissance. It's fun to
tell the Saints where at the beginning, right, It's fun

(42:32):
to wat like the Saints were probably America's team when
Drew Brees took them to the Super Bowl, like I
love I love the Lions, like they have my full endorsement.
I hope they win it all.

Speaker 4 (42:42):
Yeah, I can't.

Speaker 5 (42:43):
I can't really argue with that looking forward to all
of these matchups really, but yeah, this was a pretty
good Wildcar weekend except for the Broncos.

Speaker 4 (42:51):
They scored a touchdown and their season basically ended.

Speaker 5 (42:53):
After that, as the Bills absolutely outclassed them. We've got
another hour and it's simulcast next.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety two. Lifelong
Houston sports guys named Adam Talking Your Team series Adam
Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A Team.

Speaker 5 (43:20):
A three o'clock hour underway here on Sports Talk seven
ninety and simulcast on Space.

Speaker 4 (43:28):
City Home Network. It is the A Team.

Speaker 5 (43:30):
It's a victory Monday edition of the program. And as
you can see, wex is not here. Channel room in
for Adam Wexler. He'll be out today and tomorrow. Actually,
Blummer coming in tomorrow. I should probably let you guys
know we're gonna drag him out of the house and
make him shave third day.

Speaker 6 (43:47):
Dude, The Texans are good.

Speaker 5 (43:48):
That's not bad, dude. Why have you waited this long
to drop your Jeff Blum impression on it?

Speaker 6 (43:53):
We do it all the time.

Speaker 14 (43:55):
You should.

Speaker 6 (43:55):
I guess you need to be around like in season,
like when we're just like when me and mctaggard are
just like going back and forth with mctagger does a
great blomb too.

Speaker 5 (44:03):
Okay, he's been okay, I've been sleeping on all of this.
I did not know that. See, I like to do
Todd callus impressions for Blum because it just kills him.

Speaker 4 (44:11):
You know, it's like he's.

Speaker 6 (44:12):
The twenty seven train.

Speaker 5 (44:15):
Well, you have to do it like Todd though there's
a base hit, you have to the twenty.

Speaker 6 (44:19):
Seven train has just left Union Station. I love Todd
kallus about the only that's about the only number he
has left. That's about the only no number he has left.

Speaker 4 (44:28):
Right, So let's just get it out of the way.
I'm kidding.

Speaker 5 (44:30):
We'll get to We'll get to the Bregman, Boris Tech
or Astro's offseason in a second. But uh got to
reset everything that happened over the weekend, not just with
the Texans, but the wild card weekend as as on
the whole. But clearly the Texans are top of mind.
Rex Ryan eating the crow, all that stuff we've been

(44:51):
talking about on the station all day long. I think
a lot of people around the country, at least if
they were invested in Rex Ryan Television, have been talking
about it. Cause look, let's face it, he is on TV.
He is doing it for effect. But anytime the team
in question demonstratively responds in such a way. It's fun

(45:11):
to see him meet a little crow. And we've played
his half hearted apology somewhat in the aftermath of thirty
two to twelve Texans over the Chargers. But I feel like,
you know, and I said this to somebody, and you'll
appreciate this, going into the locker room after that game
and being in the clubhouse after so many victories in

(45:34):
the postseason for the Astros, it really does show you
the difference in a organization that's been winning for a
long time and the Houston Texans because even though they
did this last year, all those guys in there, for
the most part, a ton of them are kids. Joe
Mixon's not you know, Joe Mixon's been to the super
Bowl with the Bengals. You know, there are obviously veterans

(45:56):
up and down that roster, but you know, Demiko as
a coach has had some success clearly with the forty
nine ers, but CJ year two, all these got Will
Anderson on the defensive side.

Speaker 4 (46:07):
You know, year two, these guys.

Speaker 5 (46:09):
Are still learning how to win and they want to
get to where the team they're gonna play this week,
which has drawn so many parallels during this same run
to the Astros. The Chiefs are there every year, and
the Astros have been there every year to the point
where when they clinched the division this past year or

(46:32):
even the year prior, and they had some resistance to
do that. You know this, I'm guessing it was business
as usual these last few seasons.

Speaker 6 (46:41):
I mean, remember in twenty twenty three, with the whole
controversy with they clenched a playoff spot in Arizona on
the same night that the Rangers clenched one. And yeah,
the Astros did a champagne toast the Rangers raged in
their clubhouse in Seattle, and then the next day the
Astros won the division the Rangers, and that was a
whole to do. But I mean, yes, that shows kind
of where the Astros are in their life cycle. And

(47:02):
I've thought about that, like when it comes to the
other two Houston sports teams, Like I gave Matt some
some crap the last time I hosted with him. It
was right after the Rockets had beaten the Warriors in
the in the whatever they call the Cup tournament. They
acted like they won the NBA title. Yeah, like they
were running like they were confetti coming down.

Speaker 4 (47:19):
None of those guys were here the last time it happened.

Speaker 6 (47:21):
Well, great, but like, what are your what are your aspirations?
Are your aspirations to beat the Warriors on a random
day in December or are they to like make the playoffs
and be a factor. Like if you're the Texans, are
your aspirations to win at home in the divisional round
as you've done a ton and then like go get
beat by the chief Like I do wonder like this
is the question I've had for a while, Like if

(47:43):
they go up there and lose to the Chiefs, is
this season of success?

Speaker 4 (47:49):
I think this is not a cop out.

Speaker 5 (47:52):
I think how they lose would probably determine the answer
to that question.

Speaker 6 (47:57):
Because look, before the season, like let's let's let's all
be truthful with each other. Before the season, they were
talking like this is the year, like we're going to
as championship game, like we are a legit Super Bowl contender,
and this team has not looked like one for the
last two and a half months.

Speaker 5 (48:11):
And I think, in fairness to anybody who was saying that,
whether they were fans, pundits, whatever.

Speaker 6 (48:17):
Them, it was the Texans.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
It wasn't definitely the Texans by the way.

Speaker 5 (48:21):
I have to get your take on something Texans related,
and we'll go ahead and do that here. But before
I get to it, I think the fact that the
NFL is such a quick turnaround type league. There is
so much parody that it is possible. It's so not
like MLB. It's not a process. Especially the way the
Astros went about it. We're gonna lose, We're gonna lose
a lot. We're gonna do it for several years and

(48:43):
then hopefully we'll see the fruits of our labor.

Speaker 4 (48:45):
And boy did they.

Speaker 5 (48:46):
But still, after all that run, after all that dominance,
you only have two World Series championships. I say only,
but considering what they did and how they built it,
it shows you how hard it is to do it,
whereas in the NFL you can be really really poorly
managed and turn things around quickly, you know, like the Texans.

Speaker 6 (49:03):
Look at the Texans exactly. You think kl got to
stay up past his bedtime to celebrate on Saturday?

Speaker 4 (49:08):
Well, was he able to after all of the barbecue?

Speaker 2 (49:11):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (49:12):
Did you say they put the slime helmet on? I
bet I would bet my mortgage that they had the
nickelodeon broadcast on in the McNair suite. One of the
sisters had to turn it on the Nickelodeon podcast. There's
more than two, you know, one of them had to
the other one probably had to translate what was going on. Oh,
I love it.

Speaker 5 (49:32):
I just I love the I love the fact that
there is someone that might be even darker than I
am when it comes to the humor surrounding the sports
in this town at times, and that is one Chandler Rome.
You can find his work at the Athletic and of
course on X at Chandler Underscore Rome filling in for
WEX today Again, Blum's going to be in tomorrow. But yeah,

(49:53):
going back to this situation yesterday, and you know, looking
ahead and back sort of to the Chiefs, you do.
You have to look at that game that happened, you know,
in December, just before Christmas. If we only knew that
that was going to be the better of the two
by far, because it came home and absolutely laid an
egg on Christmas Day with the Ravens, Which is why

(50:15):
I said what I said, I'm so glad that it's
not Baltimore in the matchup here in the divisional round,
but it likely will be. I think Baltimore is going
to probably win the War of Attrition against the Bills,
and it's you know, then you're left with, Okay, if
the Texans are able to pull this off, and they could,
it would not surprise me.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
Their defense is that good. But everything's going to have
to go right.

Speaker 5 (50:39):
It feels like, especially on the road, especially an arrowhead,
especially against Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 4 (50:43):
But then you take your chances. That's it.

Speaker 5 (50:46):
Kind of feels like that twenty twenty year, the COVID
year where the whole season I was like, I don't
want to see the Astros in the playoffs, and then
they are like a whisper away from going back to
the World Series again, losing Game seven against Tampa and
we know how that went. Whereas at any of that
playoff run, they looked absolutely dead on arrival every single night.

Speaker 6 (51:04):
Well, that's where you draw comparisons to the Chiefs, Like
the Astros just their muscle memory kicked in. That team
knew how to win, even if they didn't show it
in the regular They went twenty nine to thirty one
in that regular season, like they didn't show it, but
like lights come on when the playoffs are going like
they just they just know how to win. They it
had been ingrained in them. They have been in the
playoffs of three past years, like in one two World Series, Like,

(51:26):
I mean, they knew how to just like this Chiefs team.
Like we just talked about how this Chiefs team is not,
you know, may the record is what it is. It's
obviously great, but like they're probably not the more dominant,
one of the more dominant Chiefs teams that we've seen.
But like again, they've done this over and like they
just know how to win. I mean, it's like the
last time the Texans went up there, Yeah, the Chiefs

(51:48):
went down twenty four to nothing, and we're like, all right.

Speaker 5 (51:51):
Funny you bring that up because it would And it
was around this time, back in twenty nineteen that really
these two franchises set each other's course for the next
era of football in their respective cities. I do believe
I think that was the first that the Chiefs had won.

(52:14):
Maybe I'm I'm trying to remember at this point, but
certainly that run was set up by the second half
comeback by the Chiefs over the Texans. The Texans come back,
Bill O'Brien being the GM Deshaun Watson, who just continues
a spiral out of control with his career. All of

(52:35):
that was set in motion, you could argue by a cold,
overcast day in Kansas City at the stadium. These Texans
are now going to go up to and play this
playoff game on Sunday.

Speaker 6 (52:45):
Yeah, it's two teams that are in completely different points
of their organizational life cycle and until one of them
does something to move to the next piece, like, you
just have to go with what you know. And I
think for the Texans them winning this game, I mean,
would it be the biggest winning franchise history.

Speaker 5 (53:05):
Easily because they've never gotten as far right so never
been past the divisional round.

Speaker 6 (53:10):
Do you dethrone them and you get to play in
an AFC Championship game, win or losing, THENFC Championship game
like interrseasons. Definitely, it's a success and you have moved
into the next portion of your organizational life cycle to
where you can legitimately go into next season and say
we are Super Bowl contenders.

Speaker 5 (53:27):
And you have your quarterback take the next step be
considered in that next level potentially even with the offensive
line issues and this was Demiko Ryans talking about CJ.
Stroud's play and how it made such a difference in
Saturday's win over the Chargers.

Speaker 8 (53:42):
Yeah, when you have the big players made it, does
you know, lift everyone? I think just the energy, the
morale of the entire team, even though it's not going great,
when you see that one play, can it sparked the energy,
sparked the enthusiasm for our entire team, and it was
a difference maker for us and our guys fed off

(54:03):
of it.

Speaker 5 (54:03):
Certainly did. And you know, it's going to be exciting
to play Kansas City. But again, as Demko's going to
stay here and we've been saying they are absolutely going
to be tough to beat.

Speaker 8 (54:13):
We're excited about the opportunity we have. We understand what's
in front of us. Great team. Case has done a
great job for the past few years of really dominating
the league, you know, being there at the end. Have
great coaching staff, great players, great team all the way
across the board. So it's a really tough challenge for us.

(54:34):
We're excited about the opportunity we have versus KSE. We
know it's a tough, tough team to beat, right, It's
going to take everything that we have it's going to
take all four quarters. Similar to our last game, we
just have to state the course, remain persistent throughout the game,
and find a way to win in those critical moments.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
There you have it.

Speaker 5 (54:51):
We will continue to discuss this because it's going to
be a very very interesting matchup at Arrowhead this weekend,
and the best version of the Texans defense won't even
play in that game and still hasn't yet.

Speaker 4 (55:03):
We'll explain next the ag on Sports Talk seven.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
Nike, you guys are very well aware at this point
if you haven't been already listened to us for a
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Speaker 1 (55:49):
Back to Adam Clinton at Adam Wexler.

Speaker 4 (55:53):
On Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (56:02):
A team rolling along here on a victory Monday edition
of the program, Texan's Over the Chargers thirty two to
twelve Texans Chiefs. This upcoming Saturday afternoon at three point thirty.
Chandler Rome of the Athletics sitting in for Adam Wexler
as we take you up until five o'clock. Ross will
take over at that point. I'll be off to Toyota
Center Rockets in Memphis tonight. Oh, by the way, the

(56:24):
Rockets didn't play over the weekend like they were supposed
to because of icy conditions in Atlanta, which, again, when
a southern city is dealing with that kind of stuff,
it's probably smart. Let's face it, let's probably smart. I
don't know that there's ever been a sporting event here
canceled because of those type of conditions, but I'm probably
just not don't have the information readily available, because it

(56:45):
feels like if there was ice everywhere in Houston, that
would be something that would happen. My only question is,
and you're from Louisiana originally, right, correct, So you've dealt
with this kind of stuff too. When people up in
the Northeast deal with that kind of stuff. It's not
that they have some like special way of driving that's
different from people down here.

Speaker 4 (57:06):
I guess they're just the cities.

Speaker 6 (57:07):
Are more infrastructure, right, it's the infrastructure of they're not prepared.
Like no one knows, Like I mean, I'm sure it's
not as easy as literally pouring salt on the road,
but like no one knows, like because you never have to,
like in Texas, like you can't salt a road.

Speaker 5 (57:22):
I was in I was in a store when we
were up there in Kansas City, and there were things
on the shelves that weren't even offered here, like stuff
you put on your driveway to like get the salt
or the snow and the ice to kind of dissipate
sell that stuff.

Speaker 6 (57:38):
I mean, the t I mean, I don't know. Again,
don't ask me like what the specifics are, but like
you can do different kinds of tires, weather tires, and
those climates that drive better on ice, that drive better
on snow, and like again, like it's just an infrastructure
down here that just can't sustain that. And I mean
not granted, hurricanes are a little different, but like, yeah,
we know how to drive in hurricanes, we know how

(57:59):
to look. We can handle hurricanes. We can handle that
sort of stuff like better than most. Like if people
up north get hit by a hurricane, like it debilitates
them a lot more, maybe because again they don't really
have to prepare for it like they're in Louisiana. Like
there are you have hurricane shutters, like you have things

(58:19):
with your foundation, You have things with your house that
can hurricane proof it as much as you can. Don't
have that up north. So likes, I think those two
things have have pretty even parallels.

Speaker 5 (58:29):
But we'll always have tornadoes in common with Kansas City
when it comes to these two cities, both very well
versed in that kind of thing. All right, So we
keep talking about this Texan's going to Kansas City for
the second time this year. It's not even the best
version of the Texans defense coming in yet. It will
be in some respects, and I think especially in the

(58:51):
most important one, this will be a better version of
the defense than the one that faced the Chiefs the
first time around. Jimmy Ward got hurt in that game.
He was playing for Jalen Peatree, but Aziz al Shaiir
is not only a guy that's going to be out
there on the field. That wasn't the first time around
because he was he was serving the second of three

(59:13):
games in that suspension. But so many times he's been
called the quarterback of this defense. And when you got
a guy like Demiko Ryans, who's a defensive minded coach
and that's his bread and butter. The offense is Bobby
Slowick and everybody around CJ. Stroud and what they want
to do there. But if you take away the quarterback

(59:34):
of your defense, and you're going up against the best
quarterback in the NFL year in and year out. Traditionally,
you know, if it's Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson this year,
well you know, Pat Mahomes is sitting there like, yeah, well,
you guys were playing in the first weekend. I wasn't,
And there's a reason for that. It's gonna be nice
to have him back out there. And yet I still
don't even think that that'll be the best version of

(59:55):
the Texans defense, simply because of some of the.

Speaker 4 (59:57):
Guys they're missing.

Speaker 5 (59:57):
But you would love to see the type of effort
you got this weekend up at Arrowhead, and I would argue,
you're gonna have to see it if you want to
have a chance against that guy, because, like you said earlier,
justin Herbert and Patrick Mahomes, like nobody's confusing those two
even a little bit.

Speaker 6 (01:00:16):
Yeah, you don't want to say that they have to
play perfect, because I think that the defense and the
special teams can be good enough to like mask a
couple of mistakes. But you can't play the first twenty
nine minutes this Saturday how you played the first twenty
nine minutes last Saturday. I mean like they were, like
they were inept minus the defense. I mean the defense
played well, but like the defense still got carved up

(01:00:39):
on the opening script. Like you can't because the Chiefs
are not going to only score six points if you
play that poorly, right, Like you're not gonna be down
just six to nothing if you play like you did
for the first twenty nine minutes against the Chiefs in
their house. So I hesitate to say that they have
to play perfect, but they're going to need like superhuman

(01:01:03):
plays from their defense, and they're gonna need a couple
special teams plays, like they're gonna need to block a
field goal or a kick. They're gonna maybe a Goomble
Wallee or Pierce you know, can get you a big
return and set you up in plus territory Like this,
like they're gonna have to make some special teams plays
to keep to keep in this because again, like even

(01:01:24):
though it was thirty two to twelve, like, I still
don't think their offense played that well.

Speaker 5 (01:01:28):
Well six you know, six of those seven essentially came
from the defense.

Speaker 6 (01:01:32):
So and then two more so that's nine right with
the returned pat So thirty two minus nine. I mean
they scored what that twenty one points? Mm hmm okay,
So I mean, you know, I still don't think the offense.
I think the offense just kind of is what it is.
Like at this point, they're not gonna like Stefan Diggs
and Tank Dell aren't gonna get their knees repaired in time,
and like the line's not gonna get better and.

Speaker 5 (01:01:53):
See the only difference being if CJ gets out in
space and uses those wheels that we.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
Saw on Saturday.

Speaker 6 (01:02:01):
And I do wonder how much the Chiefs now have
to plan for that guy. Again, I can't break down football,
like I don't know if they use spies. If they
don't use spies, I don't know if they're gonna use
a spy here. I mean to me, I would because
who else on this offense scares you really? Like I mean,
Nico Collins is great, but like obviously they're gonna put
best on best on him, and then if they can
stop mixing, then it's like who you worried about?

Speaker 5 (01:02:23):
Dalton Schultz. Yeah, Joe Mixon has to have a big game.
One's interesting is CJ. I mean, Demico today was talking
about discipline, but he was talking about discipline when it
came to facing off against Mahomes.

Speaker 4 (01:02:39):
Listen to what he said today about that.

Speaker 5 (01:02:41):
Very aspect and then I'll tell you why that's kind
of ironic going into a game like this.

Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
It's a cut six from today.

Speaker 8 (01:02:50):
Whenever your task with playing eleven on eleven football with
the quarterback who was able to run the ball, it
just presents different challenges, Like you have to be sticky
in coverage. You have to plaster I said, think you
think you cover guys once and the play is still
going on and you have to look to cover them twice.
So guys have to be very disciplined when you're playing

(01:03:13):
and coverage versus Mahomes because we know his escapability and
not just him running the ball, but also the threat
of the run and him still being able to keep
his eyes down field and make passes. Guys are wide
open a lot on their film right because of the
threat that he poses. And he just requires so much
attention because he's such an elusive guy in the pocket.

(01:03:36):
He's such a man, a unique playmaker with the different
angles and the way he can throw the football, the
way he gets the ball out with his underarm side
on however he wants to get it out. He has
the confidence to get the ball to his playmakers.

Speaker 5 (01:03:50):
Okay, here's Mike conundrum about all that, everything that Demiico
just said about the Texans defense needing to be disciplined,
of all words against Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs offense,
all that's true. Can't dispute it. It's absolutely the case
they've got to do.

Speaker 4 (01:04:06):
That on that side of the football.

Speaker 5 (01:04:07):
When I think about the Texans not being disciplined, that's
not in the side of the football that I think of.
I think about Laramie Tunzel's false starts. I think about
dumb penalties up and down the offensive line. I think
about receivers lining up in the neutral zone. How the
f do you not check with the official on the
line every single time and not let that should never
happen no matter.

Speaker 4 (01:04:27):
What your position.

Speaker 5 (01:04:28):
Illegal shifts a legal man down the field. I'm just
going through, off the top of my head, the stupid
penalties this offense has gotten at any given time, during
any given day all throughout the season. And that being
the word that Demiko chose to talk about as far
as his defense, is just ironic to me, even though

(01:04:49):
everything he said is right, I have zero problems with
what he just said. I'm like scared to death of
the offense and the word to discipline in a place
like Arrowhead Stadium against Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 6 (01:05:05):
This is a team that has had discipline just undisciplined
stretches of play this year. But with Demiko just said,
like everything he just talked about again, I'm not gonna
sit here and say I'm a football savant, but like
everything he just talked about, they didn't have to do
last week because everything we just talked about, like justin
Herbert is as is, as immobile and as sedentary and

(01:05:28):
just kind of a statue back there, Like he can
move around a little bit, but he's not You don't
have to account for the threat of the broken play
with him. He can escape a little bit, but that's
just not his game. Like he makes good decisions, he
makes throws in the pocket. He's got a report of
those receivers. Like that's the thing, man, If if they
get pressure on the Homes and we talked about this earlier,
like they can get the same amount of pressure on

(01:05:50):
Patrick Mahome, on Patrick Mahomes that they got on Justin Herbert,
that doesn't mean that they're gonna get him to the ground.
That doesn't mean that everything's gonna break down in the
back end. Like mahe is so good with his escapability.
And I love what Dimiko said about you know, he
can throw it like a little shortstop, like a little
side arm throw. He can do kind of little he's
done the little kind of push push passes sometimes, Like

(01:06:11):
he can do that and they didn't have to worry
about that Justin Herbert, And it's gonna be it's gonna
be a big adjustment. Not that again, they've played Patrick
Holmes already this year, so it's not like they've never
seen this before, but it's gonna be a different way
of playing.

Speaker 5 (01:06:23):
I think it's what's interesting is that if the Texans
are able to pull this out and then Lamar Jackson's
sitting there waiting, you will absolutely see the trajectory of
the mobile, the mobility of the quarterback as the rounds progress.
Arian Foster was back in the house on Saturday. You're
gonna hear from him on his favorite moment inside NRG Stadium.

Speaker 4 (01:06:43):
Next the a t on Sports Talk seven ninety.

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Speaker 6 (01:07:46):
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Speaker 4 (01:07:48):
To work at your command, mister Bunbee, that's right.

Speaker 15 (01:07:51):
Jess asks you just my device to play Sports Talk
seven ninety on I Heart Radio eighteen.

Speaker 5 (01:07:58):
Rolling along here on a Monday edition of the program
Sports Talk seven to ninety Space City Home Network. Chandlerome
kind enough to sit in for WEX today. He's out
today and tomorrow. Jeff Blum will be in tomorrow. We've
got Aaron Wilson joining us at the top of the
hour to talk all things Texans. He was in the
locker room and covering the game over at NRG Stadium

(01:08:20):
on Saturday afternoon. Ran into him as per usual, and
so get him on to give his thoughts on what happened.
Speaking of NRG Stadium, there was a playoff game. Obviously,
it was another raucous environment, great atmosphere, crowd able to
finally cheer about something late in the first half, and
that continued obviously into the second half, especially with what

(01:08:41):
the defense was able to do. But Texan's able to
put some points on the board as well, and they
did that a lot during Arion Foster's tenure.

Speaker 4 (01:08:49):
He was the what's the term. I never know what
they call it.

Speaker 5 (01:08:53):
I don't have it in front of me, but it's
basically the Texans former player slash legend or celebrity or
musician or local whatever that kind of leads the team
out onto the field unofficially before the team actually takes
the field and kind of gets the crowd riled up.
And so because it's not the first time Arion Foster

(01:09:14):
has been back, but it's the first time he's been
asked to do this, and you know, getting to to
chat with him a little bit before the game even
started was a lot of fun because in addition to
just talking about where the team is now versus where
it was when he was here, and you know, the
reminiscing and all the kind of stuff that goes into it,

(01:09:35):
I was able to ask him what I thought was,
you know, probably something he hadn't really thought about.

Speaker 6 (01:09:39):
In a while.

Speaker 4 (01:09:42):
You have a favorite memory in this building? Have you
ever thought about.

Speaker 6 (01:09:45):
That in this building?

Speaker 4 (01:09:48):
Including the field?

Speaker 16 (01:09:50):
Yeah, this is it is where we like practiced and
meetings and all that high lot of funny moments in here.

Speaker 15 (01:09:57):
Sure, how was that?

Speaker 16 (01:10:01):
I think it was no pun intended, but it was
the first playoff game that Houston had and we was
against the Bengals, and uh, you know, selfishly, I think
when I had that run on a on the on
the sideline and our stiff on.

Speaker 4 (01:10:17):
That dude, public's doing well.

Speaker 9 (01:10:23):
Nah.

Speaker 4 (01:10:23):
But that was just a magical.

Speaker 6 (01:10:24):
Moment because I think the city felt the energy.

Speaker 16 (01:10:28):
It wa we were talented like that that that team
was talented, right, and I think we were on our
like third stream quarterback with Tja shot out to him.
But I think if we if we stayed healthy that year,
we're a hard team to beat. But you felt the
energy in the city and that run. For me personally,
it was like it was just ye know, it's hard
to explain. You feel like a gladiating kind of hard,

(01:10:48):
but you feel like a gladiator in the costum where
you're looking up and just that energy is hard to replicate.
And not only that, all my family was in town.
So we left the stadium and we're celebrating. You know,
I helped you.

Speaker 6 (01:11:00):
I was a part of.

Speaker 16 (01:11:02):
A franchise's first playoff point. I gu's a big deal,
and my family members in night do too. I think
that was probably the best culmination of memories.

Speaker 4 (01:11:10):
As so a couple of things.

Speaker 5 (01:11:12):
In case you're wondering, it was a forty two yard
touchdown run against who else at the Bengals, because that's
all the Texans played for like the first ten years
in a row of their postseason appearances, it seems like,
not really, but first two years in a row. And
it was Chris Crocker who got absolutely obliterated by Arian
Foster as he made that forty two yard touchdown run
down the sideline. I'm assuming he's doing well for himself

(01:11:34):
these days, but Arian Foster kind of reminds you of
a different well, it's definitely a different era.

Speaker 4 (01:11:44):
I don't know what were what were you.

Speaker 5 (01:11:46):
Doing in twenty eleven twenty twelve, other than well, I have.

Speaker 4 (01:11:54):
An idea what you might have been doing.

Speaker 6 (01:11:55):
I graduated high school in twenty eleven.

Speaker 4 (01:11:57):
Oh my gosh, so you're such a big yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:12:00):
So, I I mean, I know who Arian Foster is.
I could not I could not sit here and tell
you what his meaning to the city or the franchises.
But it was obvious he was one of the uh
he was one of the early just kind of faces
of the Texans. And maybe you can educate me. Why
was it such a big deal that he can't like, well,
had he been had the relationship been strained, or what

(01:12:23):
had happened there?

Speaker 5 (01:12:23):
He I don't know about that part, because there are
guys like Andre Johnson was not happy with the Texans organization. Ironically,
in the middle of the whole Deshaun Watson's standoff before
could people forget sometimes the order of events with that,
even as recent as it was, Deshaun Watson signs an
extension Sean Watson's you know, crying at the same podium

(01:12:46):
that Arian Foster just spoke from. Happy to be a
part of the Texans organization, wants to be a part
of the future and lead this team as the quarterback.

Speaker 4 (01:12:56):
And on and on and on and on and on.

Speaker 5 (01:12:58):
Then things go poorly in his last season, and then
you know, before all of the lawsuits came out before
all of the sexual you know charges or you know
accusations came out. In that little window between when he
had signed that contract and the accusations, he decides he

(01:13:21):
doesn't want to play for the Texans anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:13:23):
And that's just.

Speaker 5 (01:13:25):
The ironically that set the Texans on the course for
getting CJ. Stroud and getting to a day like Saturday
where they've got this playoff game here for the second
consecutive season, and it's been long enough to where a
guy like Arian Foster, who was you know, on that
team with the first playoff run that was JJ Watts
rookie year he had to pick six against against Andy Dalton,

(01:13:48):
and you know, everything that went into the Texans being
around for you know, almost a decade or a decade
before they get that first playoff appearance, let alone get
the win and hosting the game and all that. And
Arian Foster was a big part of all that. He
was the best running back in football for a good
four years in a row, not named Adrian Peterson if

(01:14:08):
you want to go there.

Speaker 7 (01:14:09):
But he was.

Speaker 5 (01:14:11):
He was ridiculous and he would do things like pay
homage to Hakim Olaijuan he would he did the Dream
shake in the end zone. He always did the Namas
Day bow when he would score a touchdown. At one
point he shaved the Texans logo into his hair. I mean,
he's a guy that is as intricately you know, he's
the best running back the Texans have ever had in
the history.

Speaker 4 (01:14:30):
Of the franchise. It's not even close.

Speaker 5 (01:14:32):
And you know, whatever Joe Mixon goes on to achieve,
notwithstanding Arian Foster is that dude. A lot of people
are wondering why he's not in the Ring of Honor already.
But yeah, you're right. You talk about players that maybe
had a strained relationship with the organization. I don't know
if it ever got as bad with him as it
did for Andre Johnson because he was posting on Instagram

(01:14:55):
and he never posts on anything about anything, and he
was posting on Instagram about the Deshaun Watson situation. He's
in the Hall of Fame and it took you know,
I think it helped that the team kind of reconcile
with him and kind of pushed and helped that effort
to get him there.

Speaker 6 (01:15:08):
Yeah, I think I think you just hit on something.
I think we kind of know why Andre Johnson came
back to the Texans. I think I think he had
Canton in his mind and he knew he had to
get his face out there, and he knew he needed
a partnership with that. And you know what, you can
bury hatchets if you're going to get immortalized in the
Hall of Fame. And that's probably had something more to
do with that than yeah, than because like what has changed?

(01:15:30):
I mean, they got Jackie Easter to be out obviously,
but like and Deshaun's gone, but like what has changed?
Like the McNair still like the owners, they still own
the team.

Speaker 4 (01:15:38):
I do think, and I don't listen.

Speaker 5 (01:15:41):
I don't know about the intricacies of how the day
to day operations are done. I know that it's definitely
different than when Bob was around. However much Hannah has
taken charge of everything from a hands on standpoint, I'm
sure it's a lot more than it was.

Speaker 6 (01:15:58):
But you're right, the.

Speaker 4 (01:16:00):
Same family owns it.

Speaker 5 (01:16:02):
Same you know, many of the things are the same,
but I think many of the things are different about
how the Texans go about their day to day operations.

Speaker 6 (01:16:08):
I'm just gonna say that you see this You see
the same thing in baseball. When these players start to
get either their first year eligible in the Hall of
Fame ballot or when they start to get eight, nine,
ten years, when it's nearing the end, you see them
becoming more active on social media. You see them you see.

Speaker 4 (01:16:24):
It rangely enough.

Speaker 6 (01:16:25):
You see them doing more media appearances. You see them
being more friendly, you see them being more putting their
face out there. There's a reason for that. They're trying
to get into the Hall of Fame, and that that
I mean, maybe I'm cynical, maybe I'm just not repping
H town like Cal wants me to. But I just
think Andrew John's wonted to get into the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 4 (01:16:41):
Chandler Rome always repping H Town.

Speaker 5 (01:16:43):
Before we get to Aaron Wilson at the top, we
will talk about Nico Collins record setting performance.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
Next the A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (01:16:54):
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Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
Adam and Adam Well, I'm sorry, Adam one in top buildings,
so excuse me here. Adam and adamata back too.

Speaker 4 (01:18:00):
I'm playing that.

Speaker 1 (01:18:00):
Adam Wexler Fine Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 5 (01:18:16):
Athletic MLB and Astros writer Chandler Rome here talking football
all day. You guys, forget though you covered you covered
Alabama during Saban's heyday.

Speaker 6 (01:18:27):
I did. I'm trying. I was trying to figure out
on that on the field on Saturday if there was
anybody on either of those teams that were on the
Alabama teams that covered, And I do now that I'm
thinking about it. Bradley Boseman the center for the center
for the Chargers. He was offensive lineman on the team
I covered. Actually, the last Alabama game I covered was
the two walk off championship touchdown at DeVante Smith. Bradley

(01:18:50):
Boseman proposed to his now wife on the field after
the game.

Speaker 5 (01:18:54):
Did a Fox reporter ruin the proposal? Like what happened
in the well Lazy State OU game?

Speaker 2 (01:18:59):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (01:19:00):
I thought you were going to talk about the other
Fox reporter that had a proposal, which one am I missing?
You're missing Carlos Korea and Dane Well? That was not
Ken didn't ruin that. Ken, Ken like made that happen.

Speaker 4 (01:19:11):
Ken actually absolutely did make that happen. I like Ken Rosenthal.

Speaker 6 (01:19:14):
Ken. I cannot say enough good things about Ken Rosenthal
as a teammate, as a co worker, and as a
person to just a top flight human being.

Speaker 5 (01:19:23):
He's definitely my favorite coworker of yours if I'm ranking them,
because there's another one that I'm not a huge fan of.

Speaker 4 (01:19:28):
Well, I guess he's Is he still with the Athletic?
Where's he at?

Speaker 7 (01:19:31):
Now?

Speaker 6 (01:19:32):
Who? Who are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (01:19:33):
The co author of the scandal article. I'm not going
to say his name.

Speaker 6 (01:19:36):
Evan still works at the Athletic. Evan still works at
the Athletic.

Speaker 5 (01:19:39):
I'll never forget the time I booked him on the
show and then he just magically decided not.

Speaker 6 (01:19:42):
To do it, no matter why. Maybe maybe he was busy.

Speaker 4 (01:19:45):
I don't think he was.

Speaker 6 (01:19:47):
Did you read his book? No, it's a good book.
I highly recommend it on the scandal. It's not even
about the scandal or just his book on It's not
even about the scandal. It's about the Astros organizational culture
that as the consultant type culture that infiltrated you know,
has infiltrated other organizations, and just some of the culture

(01:20:08):
problems within the Astros that honestly that led to the
scandal happening.

Speaker 5 (01:20:13):
People that are a certain age like mine and not yours.
When you say the term consultant, I immediately think of
office space, which is a great I'm sure you've seen it.

Speaker 9 (01:20:24):
I have.

Speaker 5 (01:20:24):
And the Bobs, you know, come in and they're going
to be a consultant and they sit down with Peter
and they think he's just got upper management written all
over him because he doesn't want to do a lick
of work. But when you say consultant culture, it cracks
me up because I feel like there are.

Speaker 6 (01:20:39):
Now you got me thinking of Jeff Luno in office space.

Speaker 4 (01:20:42):
That's what I'm saying. That's exactly where I'm going with
this A little different.

Speaker 5 (01:20:45):
Well, yeah, he's smarter than the Bobs for starters a
little bit and probably like ninety five percent of everybody
else that was.

Speaker 4 (01:20:51):
Involved in Major League Baseball management.

Speaker 6 (01:20:53):
He very sharp, very sharp guy, and look, he did
a lot of good things. But I think Evan's book
does it opens a lot of eyes to what led
to the sort of culture that that that that it
was towards the end, because i mean, let's face it,
like what happened with Brandon Toman at the in twenty

(01:21:14):
nineteen in the clubhouse after the ALCS, Like, that's not acceptable, right,
and that's an outlier. Not well, that's this is why
I'm saying you need to read the book.

Speaker 4 (01:21:23):
I want to because if he didn't write it, maybe
I would Chandler.

Speaker 6 (01:21:27):
Because if you read the book, you would come out
and you would be like wow, Like you wouldn't say
you understand why it happened, but like there's a lot
of stuff that led up to that that, Like you
can understand why Brandon Tollman just kind of exploded, do you?

Speaker 5 (01:21:39):
But do you conversely understand why people think that Evan
wrote that book as an axe to grind against the organization.

Speaker 6 (01:21:47):
I mean, I think if they read the book, I
mean it is it is down the middle and thoroughly fair.
It's fair. Yeah, it's it's vetted, it's reported, like you
don't write like there were other people that wrote books
about the skin Handle that came out like immediately right
that like that had a turn like that turned them
in six months and some of that was wrong. Some

(01:22:07):
of the stuff in there was wrong, Like this book,
like it took Evan like three years to write it,
Like this was not some acts to grind sort of that.
It is a there is no objectivity in the book,
Like it is a rational, well reported story of you know,
how this thing came to Bay and how you know
it fell apart, and it's certainly worth reading.

Speaker 4 (01:22:28):
I feel like if I didn't have.

Speaker 5 (01:22:29):
To pay to read it, I would I mean, how
horrible is that for me as a person?

Speaker 6 (01:22:34):
Can does Teresa not have like a Kendall account? You
can just like buy it on.

Speaker 4 (01:22:38):
I don't want any I don't want any of our money.

Speaker 6 (01:22:40):
Oh I was about to say, that's your money anyway.

Speaker 5 (01:22:42):
That's leaving that alone, man, I am leaving that alone.
Speaking of money, Nico Collins was money on Saturday. I
know this is a huge shock to everybody. I kept
thinking about this. There were people talking about team's situation
going into this weekend, and during the game, Oh, well,

(01:23:03):
he's you know, he's missing these receivers and this that
I'm like, you know, we've been bagging on the Texans
all season long, specifically their offense, and I can't in
good faith say, well, CJ's just completely regressed. When A
the offensive line is hot garbage more often than not,
and b not one but two of his wide receivers

(01:23:24):
are done for the year, and all of them never
really got on the same field at any given time
this season other than very very early on.

Speaker 4 (01:23:32):
If Stefan Diggs was out there.

Speaker 5 (01:23:34):
Well, then Nico Collins was going through his month long
stretch where he wasn't out there, and then you know,
he gets back and Stefan Diggs goes down for the year,
and then of course we know the last time the
Texans were at Arrowhead a gruesome injury that Tank Dell
is going to be recovering from from a long long time.
So that does factor into it. But when you got
Nico Collins out there and he's doing what he's doing

(01:23:56):
like he did on Saturday, you've got a chance. And
he talked about a record breaking performance, uh best production ever.
He eclipsed DeAndre Hopkins seven catches, one hundred and twenty
two yards and a touchdown, best wide receiver playoff performance
essentially in Texans history.

Speaker 16 (01:24:14):
It's a blessed you know, he haven't Stuff and Drake,
so it's great to be you know, Pad, you know
what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (01:24:21):
But man, Tim Dus and I still want to day.

Speaker 9 (01:24:23):
You know, I'm.

Speaker 4 (01:24:24):
Always looking to prove my game all around. You know, Tee,
you to get better, keep paying post cards. Man, I
feel like it's no roof in Stiller. You know, I
gotta continue to go, continue to be myself continues to
keep making players for this team.

Speaker 14 (01:24:37):
Man.

Speaker 5 (01:24:37):
You know what's funny is before he started giving that SoundBite,
Dalton Schultz, the way that the lockers are situated.

Speaker 4 (01:24:44):
You come into the locker room and Nico's right there
on your left.

Speaker 5 (01:24:48):
Dalton Short Schultz's locker is kind of like across the
way the next one on the other side, moving down
the line. And he made a comment to Daltons or
to h Nico's he's finishing getting dress. He says, what's
it like to wake up and bleep excellence every morning?
You know, it's an obvious Talladega Knights reference, and so

(01:25:08):
Nico was kind of wondering if if I knew what
that was, which is funny because he's the one that's
way younger, and I'm the one that was like, you know,
coherent when that movie came out in two thousand and
five or whatever, and I'm like, yeah, he's like top five.
I'm like, top five comedies ever Talladega Knights. He's like,
I think, So, I'm like not even close. For that
decade he had wedding crashers coming out, you had old School,

(01:25:32):
I mean, and those were like consecutive years I believe,
if not like a couple of years apart. I'm all
about that movie and Will Ferrell in his prime and
everything about it. But I don't know, Nico. I don't
know if that's top five. No, no, but he's got
the number one performance for a wide receiver for the Texans.

Speaker 6 (01:25:48):
Yeah, when we were talking earlier about like the Texans
are going to have to have like some some guys do,
like some elite superhuman things to beat the Chiefs. Like
Nico Collins to me, is up like he's got a
He has got to be wide receiver one like Unquoe,
Like he has to have a huge game because I
don't trust anyone around him. Like I mean, we just
talked about it. They don't have Tank Dell, they don't

(01:26:09):
have Stefan Diggs, like like John Metchi just has not
left a good taste in your mouth that some of
the stuff he's done. You know, did Deontay Johnson even play?
He was out there like he was out there barely. Yeah.
So like they they they have Dalton Schultz, they have
who's the other tight end Stover like Kate Stover.

Speaker 4 (01:26:27):
So they've got the Brevan Knight's been out.

Speaker 6 (01:26:29):
So none of those guys, None of those guys didn't
cite you so like if if because you know whoever
the Chief's best corner is gonna be on Nico the
whole game, like he's got he's got to win, He's
gotta win his matchups because I don't trust anyone around him.

Speaker 5 (01:26:42):
All Right, we'll see what Aaron Wilson has to say
about things is he joined us. Joins us to start
the four o'clock hour. Next the A Team on Sports
Talk seven ninety two lifelong Houston sports guys named at
him talking your Team. Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler are

(01:27:06):
the A Team A. It is the A Team Sports
Talk seven ninety Space City Home Network. As we are
simulcast for the remainder of the program, Chandler Rome sitting
in for wex He's out today and tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (01:27:23):
Jeff Blum will be on tomorrow.

Speaker 5 (01:27:24):
But as promised, we are joined by Aaron Wilson, who
was obviously on site there at in our G Stadium
on Saturday, in the locker room afterward, and has plenty
of takeaways from that one. That was an absolute domination
defensively for the Texans, and Aaron that's before the offense
kind of woke up. They were basically keeping the Texans

(01:27:48):
hanging on by a thread long before CJ. Stroud and
company were able to get it together.

Speaker 2 (01:27:53):
Right.

Speaker 7 (01:27:53):
Yeah, I was just writing about Kamora Laster and it's
not for his interception on that Quinton Johnson attempt that
they were a force. I don't know what happens in
this game. That and some other happenstance like the way CJ.
Stroud alertly picked up that loose football that could easily
gone into the end zone and picked up by the
Chargers and then it's a two score game. So yeah,

(01:28:14):
a lot of things went right for the Texans after
that rough start and they were able to weather the
storm and you look at where they are. That was
a couple of resilient moments and a little bit of luck,
a good bounce, and good job by c J. Stroud
making something out of nothing. And really I call that
broken play. Brilliance was my headline for that one I wrote.

(01:28:35):
But you look at CJ. And I think it was
like a wake up call for him because after that
he really started to play like, hey, let's just kind
of loose and play football. It reminded me. Was reminiscent
of his rookie year when he was the Rookie of
the Year, and that's kind of football you need from him.
Kind Of been waiting to see that, and it was
good to see that the defense, offense, and special teams

(01:28:56):
all complimenting each other. They were excellent on special teams
kind of been overshadowed a little bit, but defensive flex
offense with a couple of timely plays and a dominant victory.
I mean, that's a blowout thirty two to twelve and
not something people saw coming, especially Rex Ryan. He thought
that it was a bye week or something, but since apologize,

(01:29:18):
I think he's sort of a Texans fan now. But yeah,
Texans advanced. Now they got to see the champs Chiefs.

Speaker 6 (01:29:25):
Hey Aaron, good to see you. Good to talk to
you again.

Speaker 7 (01:29:27):
Hey, good to talk to you.

Speaker 6 (01:29:29):
Adam and I were talking a little bit earlier. The
thing that impressed me the most and I that I
hadn't seen from CJ all season is the plays he
made with his feet, like and I'm not talking about
escaping the pocket, like he had some forward runs, some
stuff that looked a little designed that really helped open
the offense up. I guess a two parter. Where has

(01:29:50):
that been all year? And do you think that was
Charger game plan specific or do you think we see
that coming up Saturday in Kansas City.

Speaker 7 (01:30:00):
I think it's been encouraged for a while to step
up in the pocket when nothing's there, and he's in
hesitant to do so, and sometimes he hasn't had enough
time to be fair to CJ where he's under so
much duress. Chandler, he's in sacks the TG times the
regular season, and they were all over him a lot
of times. You know, there's a high number of hits,
high number of sacks. Very fortunately he never suffered a

(01:30:23):
serious injury. But I think they did encourage him to
step up in the pocket and occasionally just go with it.
As far as design runs, you know, he's always had
an option to run the football if he sees it
and it's there. And I think finally he just decided, hey,
this is the right thing to do, and he saw
gaps in the defense. They should do more of this.

(01:30:44):
I mean, it really does keep the defense from committing
to one particular area and adds an element of hey,
this is an underrated aspect of the game. You know,
you obviously saw you know the sec for so many years.
How he played against Georgia. He didn't win that game,
but he was running the football and that was against
the fast defense. I'd say his feet, his legs are

(01:31:05):
an underrated aspect of his game. More running of CJ
and being careful obviously you know in terms of the
hits he takes. But I think that that has been
a missing element of offense.

Speaker 5 (01:31:16):
Well, two part question on that very subject, because I
was asking Chandler about this earlier. You know how much
of that is the the Texans just obviously you know
understandably the concern of keeping him upright and healthy because
once your quarterback, your franchise player, is running in space,
anything can happen. And in that vein how important will

(01:31:38):
it be having you know, Aziz al Shair available to
your defense against them A Holmes in just those type
of situations, How important will that be for the Texans
on the other side of the football if you can handle.

Speaker 7 (01:31:50):
Both of those Aaron right, having him and another fast
linebacker next time, Christian Harris, it gives you the ability
to close down space and cut down the amount of
time that Patrick has to find the angle to find
the open receiver. He's so elusive and he has played
against defenders that run well like those guys before. But yeah,
you look back at the suspension. They did miss him

(01:32:12):
during that three games, and obviously, you know, within the
rules he's got to, you know, when he gets a
chance to hit Patrick Mahomes and keep Monus out there.
Patrick is someone that wasn't one hundred percent that last game.
Curious how his mobility will be now weeks later, and
you know how that will be a factor in this

(01:32:33):
game too. But yeah, as these he tends to erase
a lot of real estate quickly. He is just eat
of space all the time, and he takes really good angles,
good pursuit, and he's got playoff experience. You know, he's
not too someone that were the moments too big for
him because of his time with the forty nine ers.
So yeah, I think that he's a real ace of

(01:32:54):
the whole for the defense and an extension of Demico
Ryans leadership.

Speaker 6 (01:32:58):
Aaron, We've been talking about what they're going to have,
the challenge that they're up against on Saturday, and you know,
they won thirty two to twelve, and I'm not trying
to diminish that, but certainly the offense did not look
really in rhythm at all until towards the end, and
a lot of that was CJ being CJ Stroud. I

(01:33:19):
guess I wonder, can they go up there with this
offense functioning as it just did and win this game
or are they going to have to have some guys
step up and make kind of superhuman efforts because to me,
that game on Saturday was was c J. Stroud just
elevating his game and being the best player on the field.

Speaker 7 (01:33:39):
Absolutely, Chelli, you know, I asked that question Jamika Ryan
and he did make the point. Yeah, among other people
complimenting Nico Collins who set a record passy Andrew Hopkins,
but I met you the third fumble to start the game,
we saw Deantay Johnson just one catch, looked upset afterwards,
not involved more. They aren't getting a lot out of

(01:34:01):
the other guys, and you know, there's got to be
some defense that can contain Nico Collins. I'm sure that
the Chiefs, Spagnola, they're coming up with something. So I
look at the matchup and I think, who's going to
be the guy, Because right now, I have doubts about them,
and that's fair because of these guys just haven't emerged

(01:34:22):
since they've been without Tank, now without the Stefan Diggs,
what's the second element and Dalden Schultz hasn't been that.
A lot of guys haven't been the guy they need
to be, and it does limit the play calling and
it's something that has affected what Bobby Slowik's doing. I
think he's kind of got one hand behind his back
as a play caller because of that situation. The only

(01:34:46):
other guy I really see that you can do more
with and that's more Joe Mixon, and Joe's coming off
one hundred and six yard game. Chiefs are very stout,
but I think you've got to be able to run
the ball. I mean, you throw it from a little bit.
He's an excellent receiver at this point. You know, if
it hadn't happened by now, is it going to happen
with the other receivers. You know, you got to you know,

(01:35:06):
at this point it's kind of be logical and say,
well maybe not. Maybe it's just going to be Nico
and Joe and a couple of throws for some of
these other guys. Hudgson showed me something, but yeah, Metchi,
that was a rough, rough game. Can now fumble the ball?

Speaker 4 (01:35:19):
Ever?

Speaker 7 (01:35:19):
And especially the playoff game.

Speaker 5 (01:35:21):
You know, I'm looking back at the first time these
two teams got together, and there was so much about
that game that day, and you and I were both
there in the locker room afterward. It just the Tank
Dell injury just overshadowed so many other things that probably
would have been talked about more at in depth if
it hadn't been for that situation. And looking at Mixing,

(01:35:43):
fourteen carries fifty seven yards, he was on his well,
on his way to having one of those forgettable afternoons
in the first half on Saturday, I think you know,
my question would be, how do you in so many
ways reverse your fortunes, especially a few weeks after being
up there on that very same building. But how specifically

(01:36:03):
can the Texans get Mixing going against the type of
defense the Chiefs play?

Speaker 15 (01:36:09):
Right?

Speaker 7 (01:36:10):
One thing I've found about the Chiefs is you have
to find an angle to run away from Chris Jones.
They call him stone cold and is the reason why
he makes so much money. He is an outstanding edge
guy and he can play inside, So identify him in
your blocking assignment and try to find a way to
get Joe in some space. I don't know if necessarily.

(01:36:33):
You know, that's always his forte. He's fast, but not
the fastest man on the field. But they're going to
do something to try to get him loose. And I
don't know if just running straight up the middle, if
they get enough push with Jared Patterson, the undersize center,
inexperienced right guard in Je Scruggs. This will be his
third game at right guard, and Titus Howard here and there.

(01:36:55):
He's all right at left guard. But you know, the
offensive line they put a little better lat game. They
got to build on that. And you look at where
cj was then the first one against Kansas City. He
has hit too often. He's in here some drafts and
he threw a couple of bad interceptions form mcduffey. But yeah,
I would say with Mixon, you just cannot run right

(01:37:18):
at that wall, which is Chris Jones.

Speaker 5 (01:37:20):
Yeah, Chris Jones is a one man wall. That's probably
the best way to describe him. Well Erin We really
appreciate the time. Is good to catch up with you
after the game on Saturday, and yeah again here today.
I appreciate you coming on and we will catch up
again very soon, I'm sure.

Speaker 7 (01:37:35):
Thank you. Yeah, I feel like an honorary member of
the A Team because of my name and beat on
your show. So thanks a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:37:41):
Absolutely, aerin anytime you are a member of the A Team.
We'll continue to discuss all things Texans as we roll
along here on a Monday edition of the program Conspiracy
Theorists Uniting already, I will explain you all know what
happens when the Chiefs slays him up in an NFL

(01:38:02):
game these days, Right, You've seen the memes, You've seen
the jokes, all the chatter. It's already starting, and now
they are pouring gasoline on this fire. I will explain
when we return here on a victory Monday edition of
The A Team Sports Talk seven ninety, Space City Home Network,

(01:38:22):
The A.

Speaker 1 (01:38:23):
Team on Sports Talk seven ninety, Adam Adam the eighteen
the afternoon what.

Speaker 4 (01:38:30):
He came up with that idea?

Speaker 1 (01:38:33):
Possibly Adam went back to Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler
Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (01:38:41):
All right, this is where if wex were here, which
he's not. Channel Roama, The Chronicle filling in for him.

Speaker 5 (01:38:48):
Whoops, who love the Chronicle Bud formerly of the Chronicle
now with the Athletic. If you're you know, I mean
how many times we had you on that? I said
that before you even got to the Athletic.

Speaker 6 (01:38:59):
If you're tuned in on Space City Home Network, you
can see that I am. I am a walking billboard.
I have the brand on and you still couldn't get her.

Speaker 4 (01:39:05):
I know, I know, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:39:07):
When you first walked in, I was like, why did
he wear an Arizona gear? Because I just glanced at it.
But it's not it's not the same. It's the Athletic.

Speaker 4 (01:39:14):
I didn't know they had clothes.

Speaker 7 (01:39:16):
Oh we have.

Speaker 6 (01:39:17):
We have uniforms and everything is like.

Speaker 4 (01:39:20):
An Amazon driver. How many are Is it comfortable?

Speaker 6 (01:39:24):
A great hoodie?

Speaker 4 (01:39:25):
As if it would as if you would say it
wasn't if it won no?

Speaker 9 (01:39:28):
And I like this.

Speaker 6 (01:39:29):
I mean, I wouldn't wear any logo on my body,
but like this could have anything on and I'd wear this.

Speaker 5 (01:39:33):
This is Yeah, I'm shocked that you're not Jersey guy.
I roll in here with a logo like every day.
This is the most this is the least loud thing
I own.

Speaker 6 (01:39:41):
I thought Gordy was the Jersey guy of the station only.

Speaker 4 (01:39:44):
If it's LSU or SEC related, but mainly LSU.

Speaker 6 (01:39:48):
Yeah, you know, I but me, I am.

Speaker 5 (01:39:51):
I am all about you know. I am the Houston guy.
So I come by it honestly. And I'm from here.
I went, you know, I grew up here all that
kind of stuff. So I just happened to be a
fan with a microphone. And I never try and shy
away from that. I am not a journalist, nor do
I want to be. But you are good at that,
and we were. We just spoke with another one and
Aaron Wilson. Thanks again to Aaron Wilson for joining us

(01:40:11):
last segment. But here's the deal. I don't even know
if this is true. I'm actually kind of skeptical. I
had this sent to me by two different people, and
so I'm gonna just pawn it off on them. I
will keep them anonymous just in the event that this
is not true, because I don't know, like Dan, you
might know this, how early in the week do they

(01:40:35):
assign officials for games for NFL games? I mean, so
that's why I don't even like with NBA stuff, you
usually find out like the day of I think that's
why I'm skeptical already.

Speaker 4 (01:40:50):
But because it's the NFL.

Speaker 5 (01:40:52):
And because this comes from a site called at Underscore
mL Football and they have like just under three hundred
and twenty two thousand followers, I'll go ahead and say
it's the gospel truth. Don't know, might be completely wrong,
but let's just say, for the sake of argument, this

(01:41:12):
is correct that Clay Martin is refereeing the Chiefs Texans
games this weekend, and that the Chiefs are undefeated when
Martin is officiating, and I'm assuming this is playoffs because
it's six and oh is the number. This has been
something that's been going on in definitely in the NBA

(01:41:34):
for a long time, probably a much lesser extent in
Major League Baseball. And just since I'm sitting here next
to Chandler Ome, I know without a shadow of a
doubt that even if he doesn't agree with it, he
knows the usual suspects names. He could go down the
list of umpires past and present where if fans find
out they are behind the plate, especially for their playoff game,

(01:41:56):
they are losing their ever loving minds.

Speaker 6 (01:41:59):
Well, Angel's gone, right, as is Joe West.

Speaker 4 (01:42:01):
Who took two runs off the board in the eighteen ALCS.

Speaker 6 (01:42:04):
I don't think it would have mattered, but he would have,
could it. Cebe Buckner is still around awful. Seebee's probably
the one at this point that he's probably ascended the
Angel Hernandez role. And I mean he's not a Cbe
Buckner is not good, but he's better than Angel Hernan
It's a low bar to clear, but he's better than Angel.

(01:42:25):
But it's yeah, it's not good. It's just it's like,
it's like and it's the rule of thumb. Right, if
you know, if you know a referee umpire, if you
know a referee or umpire's name, then it's bad.

Speaker 4 (01:42:37):
And I've said this to Wex on this show many
many times.

Speaker 5 (01:42:41):
There's like a handful of NFL officials names that I
even do know for better or for worse.

Speaker 6 (01:42:48):
Like the only the only exception is so, do you
know who Jim Joyce is?

Speaker 2 (01:42:52):
Uh?

Speaker 6 (01:42:52):
Huh? He made the call against Armando Gala Raga costs
him the perfect game, right. What a lot of people
don't know is Jim Joyce is regarded by players past
present players that play as one of the best umpires ever.

Speaker 5 (01:43:05):
And best dudes. Yes, he was so contrite and felt
terrible a one bad call.

Speaker 6 (01:43:10):
And that's I mean, that's the thing with these jobs,
Like one bad call can ruin your career. And like
I mean, I'm not gonna say it ruined his career,
but everyone knows him because of that, and that's the
only exception. Like everyone knows who Jim Joyce is, but
Jim Joyce like is was a really really.

Speaker 4 (01:43:25):
Really good on by Like you know who Tim donahe is?

Speaker 6 (01:43:27):
Well? Was he a I mean I guess he was
a good official for himself, very much.

Speaker 4 (01:43:32):
So, and for several members of the underground gambling circuit.

Speaker 6 (01:43:36):
So who's the who's the NBA ref that none of
the rocket No one likes Scott Foster so he so
is he a good official or no?

Speaker 5 (01:43:45):
Probably probably, Like I'd give him like a sixty five
to seventy ranking on actual officiating. But the problem is
he he is these guys because the NBA is so
much like the crowds on top of you. Everybody that's
spectating is closer than any other sport by far, it's

(01:44:06):
not even close. You've been in an NBA game, You've
sat court Sylee, you did last week or whatever it was.

Speaker 4 (01:44:11):
You know how close that is.

Speaker 5 (01:44:12):
You could probably hear conversations that were going on with
officials during that very game. Those conversations are what people
have a problem with with guys like Scott Foster. For example,
Game seven between the Rockets and the Warriors in twenty eighteen,
they could have won Game six and gone.

Speaker 4 (01:44:27):
To the finals. They were up three to two on
the Warriors.

Speaker 5 (01:44:29):
Chris Paul rips his hamstring in Game five, So you've
got to win one of the next two games to
go to the NBA Finals, where you will obliterate the
Cavs with Lebron because that was the de facto championship
that year. And when you saw the officials that day
for Game seven on your home floor against the Warriors,

(01:44:50):
this juggernaut team, you already felt behind the eight ball,
not just because Scott Foster was there, but because Tony
Brothers was there. But the thing about that is in
Thomas being the PA, was a lot closer during those
days than he is now where he's up with me
halfway up the arena. He said, a difference between Scott
Foster and a guy like Tony Brothers, they're both regarded
as bad officials, Like they make bad calls, they make

(01:45:13):
it about themselves. But the conversation you can have with
Tony Brothers is much different than the conversation you can
have with Scott Foster.

Speaker 6 (01:45:19):
It's kind of like I mean, in college basketball, Teddy,
h is it TV? Teddy Valentine? Okay, college basketball makes
me sick. It's a rough watch. But but TV Teddy,
like he has the demonstrative charge call, has the demonstrative
block call, like Joey Crawford used to tea coach up
from across the court, and like he's generally regarded as

(01:45:41):
a decent official, but because of his antics, like everyone
just you hate to see ted Valentine on your on
your doing your game.

Speaker 5 (01:45:48):
But in this this happened with the Patriots, and I
know you're well aware of that. The Chiefs have gotten
this reputation. And I would say it's even more so
because even though the Patriots had not only Spygate and
deflate Gait, but none of their fans ever seem to
care about that. When Red Sox fans are coming after
the Astros for cheating, even though it's done because the

(01:46:10):
ringleader is now their manager, nobody talks about that nearly
as much as the astro scandal.

Speaker 6 (01:46:16):
Do you see Cora this weekend at their whatever their
version of FanFest is.

Speaker 4 (01:46:21):
Well, I heard about Larry getting after him on Twitter?
Who Chipper Jones?

Speaker 6 (01:46:26):
I did hear that? But no, like this weekend, like
he was he's trying his best man to get Bregman there.

Speaker 4 (01:46:33):
What do you mean? Like he said something like he.

Speaker 6 (01:46:35):
Was on Nesson, he was on their equivalent of Space
City and you know, let the host left it pretty
open and it was like, oh, we know Bregman's still
out there, but like, what do you see for this?
And the whole answer was, you know, we think Bregman
can be a gold glove second baseman, like we know.
I've known this for a while, and like the he
it is so clear that he is pressuring people above

(01:46:57):
him that maybe don't want Bregman, that he wants Bregman
very bad.

Speaker 5 (01:47:01):
They don't want Bregman because of the numbers declining. I
don't know, I don't know the money. It's maybe it's money,
maybe it's years, Like I don't know enough. I do
know that Alex Korra has wanted him for a while.

Speaker 4 (01:47:12):
How but again, if you're a blue blood club like that.

Speaker 5 (01:47:17):
Like, I don't ever want to hear the Yankees or
the Red Sox or certainly the Dodgers say it's not
about it, that it's about money.

Speaker 6 (01:47:24):
Well that's the that's the argument that a lot of
like writers and pundits and people that cover the Red
Sox have right now because the Yankees are spending three
hundred million dollars, the Dodgers are spending a ton of money,
and the Red the Red Sox are not operating like
the big market team that they are, Like the Boston
Red Sox should never like, obviously you're not they're not
gonna run a four hundred million dollar pay roll, but

(01:47:44):
like the Boston Red Sox should never be worried about
what their payroll is, Like that's not how they are,
Like they are a legacy franchise in a huge market.
Like and so that's what like is confusing everyone because like, look,
they may not they may not like the Bregman numbers
like year money that are out there, but like it's
not just him, it's like they have passed on numerous

(01:48:05):
like like this year instead of going out and signing
Corbyn Burns or Max Fried or one of the big
pitchers out there. They traded for Garrett Crochet. Garrett Crochet
who is going to be cost controlled and they're going
to keep for longer than for you know, five or
six years. But they went the cost control route. They
gave up prospects instead of showing out money. And they
haven't made you know, they gave a rold As Chapman

(01:48:27):
eleven million, They signed Walker Bueller for twenty million, Like
they've made like little marginal stuff. They haven't had that
big deal that you're like the Boston Red Sox tould
be able to do this. So that's the big thing
is that they're not acting like a big market team.

Speaker 5 (01:48:40):
So if you know, you're keeping track at home, and
as we bring the the segment to a close, I
don't think this guy being the official means anything, but
I do understand and I have seen it, and it's
gotten more prevalent.

Speaker 4 (01:48:55):
Chiefs have a way of getting a lot of calls
go their way.

Speaker 5 (01:48:58):
They did in the Super Bowl against the e that
late flag basically sealed it. So something to keep out out,
you know, keep an eye out for, and certainly something
that was a part of the Texans loss earlier last
month in Kansas City. But I don't know that it's
going to be a determining factor on Saturday, and I
certainly hope not.

Speaker 4 (01:49:17):
Speaking of Witch, is it good, is it bad? Is
it ugly?

Speaker 5 (01:49:20):
The officiating this upcoming weekend, well we won't talk about that,
but we will talk about those three things as it
pertains to this past wild Card weekend when we return.

Speaker 1 (01:49:30):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety, cannon Ball weekends
are better with Astros Baseball.

Speaker 4 (01:49:39):
Just tell your smart device Alex up play Sports Talk
seven ninety on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (01:49:45):
Now the good good, the bad that's not good, and
the ugly that's getting real ugly with the A team.

Speaker 4 (01:49:57):
All right, we love to do it every single Monday,
some more than others.

Speaker 5 (01:50:01):
I think today's probably a little bit more of an
enjoyable experience seeing as how the Texans kick the crap
out of the Chargers on Saturday afternoon.

Speaker 4 (01:50:10):
All right, it wasn't that.

Speaker 5 (01:50:11):
Easy, and things were looking pretty bleak there early in
the first half, but ended up being thirty to twelve.
So there's probably lots of choices surrounding both that and
Wildcard weekend in general or whatever. Because we're not gonna
We're not gonna make it as strict as possible on
Chandler Roam when he's filling in for Wex. The Good,
the Bad, and the ugly on a Monday edition of

(01:50:31):
the A Team Wex is out. So Dan has the good,
Chandler will have the bad, and I will handle being
ugly on this edition of the segment, Dan, You're up next.

Speaker 10 (01:50:43):
Yeah, I mean you mentioned the Texans game. I'm sure
a jacket girl in the press box really enjoyed the
way that that game went, especially the way that it finished.

Speaker 4 (01:50:51):
Well, we have to explain what you're talking about.

Speaker 10 (01:50:53):
Well, I was gonna leave that for you because you
and somebody else in the press box were more adept
to Because I'll just go ahead and give you a
little secret. Unless I'm like fully listening, I cannot hear. Okay,
if I'm paying attention, then I can hear what someone's saying.
But if I'm not, it's just it's it's white noise
at that point, Like I don't know what's being said.

Speaker 5 (01:51:14):
I've had somehow I've been blessed, and now my wife
will tell you the opposite, but she.

Speaker 4 (01:51:19):
Doesn't know.

Speaker 5 (01:51:21):
For the amount of loud music that I listened to
just on average in my truck, and then of course
the amount of loud concerts I've been to. My hearing
is very very good. Most of my senses are. I
haven't ruined them with substances over the years, for example.

Speaker 4 (01:51:36):
So there's this.

Speaker 5 (01:51:39):
I think they were members plural of the Chargers social
media staff, but I don't know that for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:51:46):
They're openly cheering in the press box.

Speaker 6 (01:51:48):
Oh they fit right in in Houston.

Speaker 4 (01:51:50):
Wow, I'll just let that marinate for a few more seconds.
But they were.

Speaker 5 (01:51:58):
They were agreed just about it, namely the one that
Dan described. There's two females. One of them was wearing
a I mean bright gold Chargers jacket. I may or
may not have taken a photo. I couldn't help myself
because it just got.

Speaker 6 (01:52:15):
So out of it.

Speaker 5 (01:52:16):
You have to understand, like Dan can't hear as he said,
And the person to my right, who i'll keep anonymous
for their own innocence, is a headset during game type
of person, so they weren't hearing what was going on.

Speaker 2 (01:52:29):
Me.

Speaker 5 (01:52:30):
I was like, okay, you might not want to be
demonstratively pumping your fist and saying yes, as loud as
you were repeatedly throughout the first half, and the culmination
ended up being they both left, kind of like the
walk of shame type thing. Midway through the fourth quarter,

(01:52:54):
they say to another person who was clearly with them
from San Diego, Hey, we'll see you downstairs.

Speaker 4 (01:52:59):
They knew it was over, and they were not cheering
as much as they had been in the first half. Yeah,
take the l all the way down to the service level,
and they did. They did.

Speaker 10 (01:53:07):
So the good is last night's Wildcard game because for
the most part, I think we can agree that the
three others.

Speaker 6 (01:53:14):
Were just not competitive.

Speaker 10 (01:53:16):
You knew who was going to win with about eighteen
minutes left to go in the game, so it just
wasn't competitive. But last night's game was awesome. Jane Daniels
is awesome. Like you touched on it earlier, I think
you and Chandler did about how Washington is now getting
to experience what we did last year with CJ, very
very similar, and it's just awesome to watch. And I mean,

(01:53:37):
it's gonna be an interesting game up there in Detroit
with all those defensive injuries that Dan Campbell and the
crew have. That's not gonna be an easy game for Detroit.
I could totally see the Commanders going in there and winning.

Speaker 5 (01:53:47):
If the Commanders get blown out in that game, it's
going to be tough for me to pick against Detroit
the rest of the way.

Speaker 4 (01:53:52):
That's how I'm feeling they.

Speaker 6 (01:53:54):
Get blown out. If the Commanders get blown out.

Speaker 5 (01:53:56):
Because what Dan's talking about, you can kind of sneak
up on some team, surprise him and all that that
magic in a bottle. That's what happened to the Texans
last year. Though the script is kind of going according
to like he's been a little bit more flashy this
year than CJ was last year. But Detroit's just a

(01:54:18):
different Like Detroit to me is kind of like in
the Baltimore last year.

Speaker 6 (01:54:22):
In that building too. Yeah, Like I mean you're in
a dome. That's a dome, Like they're lit, like it's
loud like that environment.

Speaker 4 (01:54:29):
And wells Detroit, they have nothing else to live for
up there, so.

Speaker 6 (01:54:31):
It's like minus twenty outside the right all bundled up
in there, getting their whiskey jackets on, and it's gonna
be a raucous environment.

Speaker 5 (01:54:38):
Yeah, I'm I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of that.
And if the Kammis can make any sort of noise.
All right, Chandler, You've got the bad.

Speaker 6 (01:54:47):
I've got the bad. I'm down bad like Taylor Swift.

Speaker 4 (01:54:50):
Oh jeez.

Speaker 6 (01:54:51):
Probably I hate to go to the Texans for a
game that they won. And Aaron Wilson alluded to this,
so I'm I'm just going off of what Aaron said.
Everything around Nico Collins, Oh my goodness. Yeah, Like they
have got to find someone to step up to take
some pressure off of CJ. Stroud and Nico Collins. Whether

(01:55:11):
that's doing some different things with Joe Mixon, getting him
in a screen game, getting him, you know, running vertical
as opposed to you know, straight up into into the line,
whether it's one of the tight ends, whether it's John
Metchi holding onto the football, whether it's Deontay Johnson, you know, appearing.
I'm not sure what it is, but.

Speaker 4 (01:55:31):
They the bad to me, you.

Speaker 6 (01:55:33):
Know, in a game that they won, in a game
that but I'm looking more at like what is going
to maybe cost them or what's going to hold them
back against the Chiefs. And I think that's the one
thing to me is that if they if the Chiefs
can find a way to neutralize Nico Collins. I don't
know who else steps up. So the bad for me
is everything around him, all right.

Speaker 5 (01:55:52):
So the ugly is pretty easy if we're gonna just
kind of peel it back a little bit, kind of
go further and not just concentrate on the Texans game,
but the wildcard weekend in general. And look, I'm not
trying to pick on them while they're down, but since
Chandler said it earlier in the show, Russell Wilson not
great the Steelers. This is why people like Wex were

(01:56:15):
absolutely salivating at the prospect of something somehow, some way
it all unfolding and the Steelers would find themselves at
NRG Stadium, because I don't think anybody would have been
talking about it being a bye weekend for them, and
maybe Rex would have said it was a bye weekend
for Houston Steelers, for a team that just kind of
kept finding ways to win. And again, granted, they're going

(01:56:37):
up against the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens very well could
be going to the Super Bowl this year if you
were to tell me they were going to knock off
the Bills and the Chiefs take care of the Texans,
because their favored the way they are, and then the Ravens,
you know, tear up this version of the Kansas City Chiefs,
even at Arrowhead. Not going to say that I would

(01:56:57):
be completely surprised, and Dereck Henry is the reason why.
But a team like the Steelers had absolutely no chance
in a game like this, especially there in Baltimore, especially
with Russell Wilson, and just not not a lot went
their way. I'm actually surprised that Russell Wilson's numbers were,
as I guess decent as they were, actually they were

(01:57:20):
above average, to be honest with you, and he didn't
throw a pick. But it's just that the talent on
the other side was overwhelmingly better. And Derreck Henry's over
undergoing into that game was ninety nine yards. Turns out
they know what they're talking about in Vegas. One hundred
and eighty six, two touchdowns. His longest run was a
forty four yarder. And oh by the way, Lamar Jackson

(01:57:42):
did his fair share of damage eighty one rushing yards.
He also threw for two touchdowns. He had one hundred
and thirty two rating. I mean, he was just it
was it was a whitewashing. It was a lopsided a fair.
It was very ugly for the Steelers, and they've once
again got some question marks as to what they're going
to do to long term replace Ben Roethlisberger at quarterback

(01:58:03):
very quick.

Speaker 6 (01:58:04):
Should Mike Tomlin be in trouble.

Speaker 5 (01:58:07):
If he coached for any other franchise, But they've had
three coaches in franchise history.

Speaker 4 (01:58:12):
I just don't think he will be.

Speaker 5 (01:58:13):
Should he be, They gotta get him a quarterback, you know, honestly,
But wex likes to say it on the show all
the time, bad quarterbacks get coaches fired.

Speaker 1 (01:58:26):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety Adam Clinton
and Adam Wexler.

Speaker 4 (01:58:34):
The A Team now continues. It is the A Team.
Here's the thing about chandeler Rome.

Speaker 5 (01:58:54):
We got one more segment together, and thanks again for
stopping by and filling in today for wex We'll be
back on Wednesday. If you guys hadn't heard, Jeff Blumb
will be in tomorrow. Who will be in tomorrow?

Speaker 4 (01:59:05):
Again?

Speaker 6 (01:59:06):
What you got your dude, I've turned my mic on.

Speaker 4 (01:59:10):
Chandler's been holding out on me this whole time.

Speaker 6 (01:59:12):
I hit that one home run once.

Speaker 5 (01:59:14):
You and I could do an entire booth conversation. We
could probably do an entire inning of Astros base fake baseball,
and I could be Todd and you would be blumb
and nobody would know the difference.

Speaker 17 (01:59:24):
I'll giggle, like Julia, well, you have to throw it
back to the booth like she does TK Plumer, you
said TK way too slow. Yeah, yeah, you have to
say like fifty thousand miles pro you see.

Speaker 6 (01:59:37):
The weird thing is like I don't watch the broadcasts because.

Speaker 4 (01:59:41):
Oh, yeah, I guess you're always there.

Speaker 6 (01:59:43):
I'm always there, and like I'll be completely honest with you,
I should probably not say this on Space City Home Network,
but like I don't have cable, so I don't get
Space City Home Network.

Speaker 4 (01:59:51):
So technically you don't have to have cable to have
Space City Home.

Speaker 6 (01:59:54):
Now I'm not paying for Fubo.

Speaker 4 (01:59:56):
There's a life thoot of confidence.

Speaker 6 (01:59:59):
But like, yeah, I don't watch the broadcast, like I
watch the highlights when I get home, Like I'll I'll
go back through like MLB dot Com. MLB on their
YouTube does like the highlights of every game, and I'll
watch them, and that's how I'll hear a lot of
TK and Blommers banter in the booth. Sometimes it gets back.
Sometimes it gets back to me. Sometimes when there is

(02:00:19):
a when there is a specific special advisor that joins
the broadcast, I'll get I'll get I'll get some.

Speaker 4 (02:00:27):
More trying to get me in trouble.

Speaker 6 (02:00:29):
I'll get some more insight about what is said up there.

Speaker 5 (02:00:31):
But see, I have to keep coming back and doing
a show on Space City Home Network every single day.
I can't just say whatever I want about everything at
all times. I try to like mix and match and
kind of you know, spread it out a little bit.

Speaker 7 (02:00:43):
Man.

Speaker 6 (02:00:43):
Well, but we made until four forty nine today without
well just figure.

Speaker 5 (02:00:49):
If I don't, if I don't bring up certain elements
of the organization, then you know, neither one of us
get in too much trouble.

Speaker 4 (02:00:55):
You're not gonna get in any trouble andent show.

Speaker 6 (02:01:01):
Well they tried that once.

Speaker 5 (02:01:02):
Well that worked out for Oh my gosh, So the
Cowboys and Mike McCarthy are getting a divorce irreconcilable differences.

Speaker 4 (02:01:11):
Well, this is the thing Jerry when he's not what
what uh is it? Lamb?

Speaker 5 (02:01:17):
What was what's the show with? What's his face? That
Jerry just did? The the whole scene, yeah, where he
was really good.

Speaker 6 (02:01:24):
I didn't watch it, but I know the Turnpike Troubadours
like play their whole soundtrack.

Speaker 5 (02:01:28):
And well, I'm Mike, you missed your calling, Jerry. You
could have been a deeply serious playing in a professional
sports owner on television career for a long long time.

Speaker 4 (02:01:39):
If he had some chops. I don't know how much
he was acting or how much that was scripted.

Speaker 6 (02:01:44):
Some I did read something again, I have not watched it,
but I did read something that wanted like the produce
I don't know if it was a producer or a
star of the show, said like, it was not scripted.
Really it was off the cuffs.

Speaker 4 (02:01:55):
Let him go, Let him go, didn't Scoresese's mom?

Speaker 5 (02:01:58):
Did that do that in Good Fellas at the dinner
scene when they come in after stabbing Billy Bats to
death and beating him to death, and they come in
and she makes them a nice meal.

Speaker 6 (02:02:05):
I've not seen Good Fellas. Can't help you on that one.

Speaker 4 (02:02:11):
Wan't you find you a nice girl?

Speaker 6 (02:02:12):
Tommy?

Speaker 4 (02:02:13):
I don't even know what to do. I don't even
know where to go from here.

Speaker 7 (02:02:16):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (02:02:18):
Chandleron hasn't seen Good Fellas.

Speaker 6 (02:02:20):
Okay, I've let you down. I've let you down.

Speaker 5 (02:02:23):
I mean there are movies where people react that way
and they're like, all right, calm down. Like I was
a little bit too much about that with regard to
Wex having never seen Training Day.

Speaker 4 (02:02:33):
But that's not Good Fellas, even though it was.

Speaker 5 (02:02:36):
An Academy Award winning performance by Denzel as a bad guy.

Speaker 6 (02:02:39):
That's not the one where the kid has the heart issue.

Speaker 4 (02:02:43):
No, it's John Q.

Speaker 6 (02:02:44):
Okay, all right, I got them.

Speaker 5 (02:02:45):
But a very good meme came from that movie, a gift.
You know, he's where he you know, pounds his chest.
But no, have you seen Training Day?

Speaker 18 (02:02:52):
No?

Speaker 6 (02:02:54):
Man, all right, I don't what to do with you?
All right?

Speaker 5 (02:02:57):
The statement from the Cowboys throughout Mike McCarthy here, including
the last several weeks, that's my favorite part. I have
been very complementary of the job he has done. That
has applied to our record over that time period, our
team unity and culture, Mike's qualifications and track record of success,
and on a personal level, when we all know that
because we saw the introductory press conference. As a tremendous
human being, I have great respect for Mike, as he

(02:03:21):
has led the team through some very unique and challenging
times during his tenure. Yeah, you were responsible for those.
Over the past week, Mike and I had the opportunity
to conduct a joint review of all aspects of the season,
our players and staff, and also spent considerable time discussing
the road forward for the team. These discussions were thorough
received an appropriate amount of time and death to cover

(02:03:42):
prior to reaching the point of contract negotiations, though, it
became mutually clear that it would be better for each
of us to head in a different direction. I think
Mike and wish him, his wife, Jessica, and their family
the best. They have been a wonderful part of our
community here. We will commence a search process immediately to
hire the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. So
that's from Jerry Jones, the president and most importantly general

(02:04:03):
manager of the Cowboys. That to me, And you've seen
in these maybe not these, but you've seen statements made
by teams a million times. Mike didn't want to be
there anymore. Jerry didn't want to fire his good buddy.
I mean, they basically needed to get a room. At
the introductory press conference, So this is how they went
about doing it. The problem was there's jobs being filled,
including one that you and I both think he's going

(02:04:25):
to go for in Chicago. Why waste all this time?
And most importantly, they didn't allow him initially.

Speaker 4 (02:04:33):
To go do that interview.

Speaker 6 (02:04:35):
It's just it's just a bad way to treat people,
Like just like this is like a people to this
is like a person to person thing, Like this is
a poor way to treat people. I'm like, look, maybe
maybe it was one of those things that they were
trying to negotiate a contract and it like whatever the statement,
Like you can believe the statement whatever you want, but
like maybe they were in air quotes negotiating a contract
and just could never come to terms, or they were

(02:04:57):
just like some impact that they couldn't get over. But
like you can't tell me that when the season ended
last week. Between then and now, like there's been so
much that's changed that he wasn't going to be the
coach next year, Like like why delay this, why drag
it out? And why inhibit him? Why inhibit his ability

(02:05:17):
to seek other employment? Like that's that's just a bad
way of doing business. It's a bad way of treating
people well. But that's that is the cowboys. I mean,
for better or for worse.

Speaker 4 (02:05:29):
They just haven't. You can say they haven't.

Speaker 5 (02:05:32):
You know, it's not totally a bad way to go
about doing business over the ten years since I'll just
say since Barry Switzer stepped aside, even though that's probably
the first major example of not really doing business very well.
Can't bear the hatchet with I mean, other than Tom Landry,
which I know that's a big other than Jimmy Johnson

(02:05:53):
was like, boom, let's go, let's do this three super
Bowls in four years. But they can't get on the
same page. They're both you know, gloryry Hoggs and you
know Jerry's gonna win because he's the owner. And here
you are, thirty plus years later, you haven't gotten any
closer than you were.

Speaker 6 (02:06:07):
Did you say the word glory hogs.

Speaker 5 (02:06:09):
Yeah, it's different than glory holes, which is that's his words,
not mine.

Speaker 6 (02:06:14):
Jerry.

Speaker 4 (02:06:15):
You know you've heard the SoundBite, right, I have not. Yeah,
that was a thing. That was absolutely a thing.

Speaker 5 (02:06:21):
Jerry's has several interesting soundbites that are actually in our system.
We could play them if we want to, but I'm
not gonna do that. Yeah, they both could not decide
it was gonna get more credit for those Super Bowls,
even though the players are the ones that were actually
working together to do it. They put them on the
field together and that was a big part of Jimmy's success.
I just if you're the Dallas Cowboys and Mike McCarthy

(02:06:45):
doesn't want to coach you, who's going there? That's my question.
But we're gonna have to leave that for another day
because we're out of time. Ross is going to come
in and handle the final hour. I'll be off to
Toyota Center. But I gotta thank you for coming in
and everything about what you brought to the table today.
People pigeonhole you as a baseball guy. You're not coach Prime.

(02:07:06):
Coach Prime to Dallas. We didn't even scratch the surface
of where he ends up going. I don't think it's
gonna be Dallas, but stranger things have happened.

Speaker 4 (02:07:13):
That's Chandler Rome.

Speaker 5 (02:07:14):
You can find him his work in the Athletic You
can find him on social media at Chandler Underscore Rome.
I'm Adam Clinton, Ross Virial coming up next. We will
see you again tomorrow. At two o'clock as Jeff Plum's
gonna stop by.

Speaker 4 (02:07:29):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety two.

Speaker 1 (02:07:36):
Lifelong Houston sports guys named Adam talking your team. Adam
Clinton and Adam Wexler are the A Team?

Speaker 10 (02:07:48):
A Okay, there's no Adam Wexler, there's no Adam Clanton,
there's no Chandler Rome. There is me Hi Rosby Reale

(02:08:11):
with you for the final hour of the show. Adam
Wexer out, Chandler Rome out as well. Adam Clanton has
to go to the arena the Toyota Center with the
Houston Rockets in action. Later today six o'clock Rockets launch
pad with Dan Matthews, who is with me now, and
then seven o'clock Rockets taking on the Memphis Grizzlies at

(02:08:32):
the Toyota Center. That'll be here on Sports Talk seven
ninety in the meantime. Yes, I was here from ten
to two. I am now here from five to six.
It is football at five, so we're gonna be talking
some football. You can get in as well at seven
one three two one two five seven ninety seven one
three two one two five seven ninety and of course

(02:08:53):
on a Monday after the weekend where the Houston Texans
roundly defeated the Los Angeles Charger. We're gonna be talking
about those Houston Texans in this segment.

Speaker 4 (02:09:03):
So where are you at on the team right now?
Is where we have to feel.

Speaker 10 (02:09:07):
Matt Thomas and I talking earlier today about how we're
feeling about this weekend coming up against the Kansas City Chiefs.
How do you feel about the season as a whole?
Is this now a successful campaign for the Houston Texans
after defeating the Los Angeles Chargers this weekend, we can
get in a secon.

Speaker 4 (02:09:26):
Let's just talk about recapping the game.

Speaker 10 (02:09:28):
Where are we at, Like in the middle of the
second quarter of that game, because it was such a
disastrous start. I mean, you hold the Chargers that are driving,
you hold them to a field goal, You're feeling pretty good,
You get the kickoff, all that type of stuff. Boom,
first play of the game, John Matchie fumbles that ball
and I'm sitting there saying, is this about to roll downhill?

Speaker 4 (02:09:53):
Is this about to be one of those.

Speaker 10 (02:09:54):
Avalanche scenarios where the first domino to fall is this
fumble and then it just ends up being a disaster
with this Texans team with where we have been, with
the expectations, the way that they started the season, and
then of course, I mean tumbling down and down and
down the hill to the bottom of the year with
that thirty one to two loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

(02:10:17):
And then okay, you beat the Titans on the road
with Davis Mills. They weren't really trying. They were trying
to get the number one overall pick, and they did.
Was satisfying because they were wearing Houston Oilers gear in
that game, and I adorned their entire stadium with Houston
Oilers stuff. But it wasn't like it was this big

(02:10:38):
bounce back victory that really left a good taste in
your mouth for the end of the season. The last
game the Texans played and actually tried in they got
destroyed on Christmas against the Baltimore Ravens. And clearly we
saw that evening or that afternoon that they were not
in the Baltimore Ravens class.

Speaker 4 (02:10:56):
So we did have a lot of question marks. I
was a little bit worried.

Speaker 10 (02:10:59):
I did predict the Texans to beat the Los Angeles Chargers,
but I mean, and then you have all of that,
As I said, and then you fumble on the very
first drive. And then thankfully the defense, who really we
can talk about CJ. Shroud, Nico Collins, all that type
of stuff. I think it was the defense that really
set the tone kept that Texans team in that game
early on. Then you have a punt, a punt, an

(02:11:23):
inexplicable interception from CJ. Stroud, and then another punt, and
that's where it felt like, I don't know what's gonna
happen today, but it doesn't feel like the Texans are
going to win this game. Then the ninety nine yard
drive by the Texans, then they finally rally. Then they
start to look like themselves justin Herbert starts throwing interceptions

(02:11:44):
basically every other pass, and you end up with a
thirty two to twelve win. You gain four and twenty
nine yards in that game. One of the best offensive
performance performances of the year by the Texans, one of
the best defensive performances.

Speaker 4 (02:11:59):
Like this is total football.

Speaker 10 (02:12:01):
This is what we had been waiting for the entire
season long, where even when they were ripping off wins
at the beginning, including the win over the Buffalo Bills,
it's like, yeah, they're winning games, but it's by the
skin of their teeth. They're not blowing people out, they're
not looking their best. And throughout the season I kept
saying to myself, maybe the Texans best football is ahead
of them, Maybe it's ahead of them. In Saturday, maybe

(02:12:25):
we saw it, Maybe we saw this is the team.
This is the twenty twenty four now into twenty five Texans.
We have been talking about this entire year, and they're here.
So that's what we're hoping for. That's where we are
right now, where this Texans team is coming off that
was their best game of the year. That was the
best performance by yards they did four hundred and thirty

(02:12:46):
five in Week four against the Jacksonville Jaguars, the four
to twenty nine against the Los Angeles Chargers, who had
the number one scoring defense in all of the NFL,
that was their second best by yards off into performance
and so by the way, they turned the ball over
three times, so it could have been a lot more
yards of the way that it was. So where are

(02:13:08):
we now on the Texans with the Chiefs coming up
this weekend?

Speaker 4 (02:13:12):
Is it? Well, they're probably.

Speaker 10 (02:13:14):
Gonna go in on the road and Arrowhead and they're
gonna lose or if you're like May, I'm feeling like, Okay, yeah,
you're underdogs in this one, but you got a shot.

Speaker 4 (02:13:22):
I was a little shocked to see the number open
up at eight and a.

Speaker 10 (02:13:24):
Half go down a little bit there, down to seven
and a half eight depending on where you look, but
a pretty surprise there. I think the Texans got a
shot and certainly if CJ. Shroud is going to play
like he did on Saturday, which Tamika Ryan says was
the difference in the game.

Speaker 8 (02:13:40):
Yeah, when you have the big players CJ made it,
does you know, lift everyone? I think just the energy,
the morale of the entire team, even though it's not
going great, when you see that one play, it can
it sparked the energy, sparked the enthusiasm for our entire team,
and it was a difference maker for US guys.

Speaker 6 (02:14:00):
Fit off of him.

Speaker 10 (02:14:01):
Twenty two of thirty three two hundred and eighty two yards,
did have that inexplicable interception, also through the touchdown to
Nico Collins ended up with a pretty solid day. Joe
Mixon also twenty five yards. I'm excuse me, twenty five
carries for one hundred and six yards and the defense
doing their thing without Tanked Dell, without Stefan Diggs, which

(02:14:22):
we know that they're not going to have for the
rest of the playoffs, but not the team that Nick
Cassario and Vision coming into this offseat are coming from
this offseason into this year, and still CJ.

Speaker 4 (02:14:33):
Stroud did his thing and looked about as confident and
kind of I.

Speaker 10 (02:14:40):
Would say, like loose, free wheeling CJ. Stroud more of
what we saw last year, where he's not getting happy
fee he's not seeing ghosts with pass rushers, he's not
rushing throws even though there's really no rush coming, but
he's anticipating it.

Speaker 4 (02:14:55):
It just seemed like, especially.

Speaker 10 (02:14:57):
When that play where he fumbled the ball there in
that second quur rolls to his right find Xavier Hutchinson
down the field, that feels like one of the big
plays where he was able to kind of flip a
switch and start looking like himself. And then also the
rushing element. That's another thing where throughout this year to me,
especially like remember how he was hobbling around in that
Jets game, and how much has c J. Stroud really

(02:15:20):
been running all season long? Six carries for forty two yards,
including that long twenty seven yarder.

Speaker 6 (02:15:27):
If CJ.

Speaker 10 (02:15:27):
Stroud can use some of that, which is a lot
of what people knocked on him when he was in
college at Ohio State, using his legs, not necessarily to
get downfield and be a Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen
or anything like that, but maybe more of a Pat
Mahomes Vein. Pat Mahomes not super fast, but he can
avoid rushes. He can usually keep his eyes downfield and

(02:15:49):
make throws, but also run scramble for a first down
here or there when he needs to. That was what
we saw is from c J. Stroud on Saturday, is
what we've been hoping to see for weeks and weeks
and weeks, And to me, for someone as c J.
Stroud had talked about being banged up throughout the season
and not one hundred percent, that is as good as
I've seen him look just walking and running and scrambling

(02:16:12):
and avoiding rushes in weeks. So that to me has
me optimistic for this weekend coming up against the Kansas
City Chiefs. I don't know that the Texans are going
to go up there and win, probably not. They are
significant dogs. But if CJ. Stroud can play like he
did on Saturday against a defense that is maybe not
as good as the Chiefs defense, but was number one

(02:16:32):
in scoring. Defense is a top ten defense depending on
what kind of metrics you look like as far as EPA, DVOA,
stuff like that. I'm feeling pretty good about where CJ.
Stroud has been, and he even talked about it. He
decided to start running after that first touchdown, after that
first interception that he threw where there was apparently a
lane that he possibly could have ran. He decided, Hey,

(02:16:54):
I'm going to use my legs and he was very
effective doing it on Saturday.

Speaker 13 (02:16:59):
The intercession, I think that was in the second second quarter,
but I kind of looked on the things, you like
that I had a running hole, so that next play
I didn't like really like just have it in my
mind's gonna do it. But once I seen him kind
of back up and I just took off and you know,
trust trusted my slow speed, but yeah, I thought, you know,

(02:17:20):
and I kind of you know, I felt my you know,
my joy coming back and after I got up just
that That's one of the best feelds in the world
is after you make a play, you know, you just
turned up, you know, and then your teammates turned up
with you. That's one of the best friends in the world,
and I think that kind of gave our team juice.
So yeah, I think, you know, just me using my
le's definitely gonna be helpful to this postseason.

Speaker 6 (02:17:39):
So there you go.

Speaker 10 (02:17:40):
Sounds like he plans to use it a little bit more.
It's not something you necessarily want as much as like
I said, at Josh Allen uh Or or Jaydon Daniels,
Lamar Jackson, those types of guys, But just make it
an element of the game, something the other defense has
to prepare for and be aware of.

Speaker 4 (02:17:57):
And if they're not prepared for it, they're not aware
of it.

Speaker 10 (02:18:00):
Take off down the field, don't take any unnecessary hits,
know when you need to slide, all that type of stuff,
which c J.

Speaker 4 (02:18:06):
Stroud does.

Speaker 10 (02:18:08):
And even as he said his slow speed like, it
look like it was moving pretty well out.

Speaker 4 (02:18:12):
There on Saturday.

Speaker 10 (02:18:14):
So I'm excited that he said he's gonna keep that
as part as a part of an element of his
game because he was effective and he was extending drives
and even you know, on a second and ten, if
you can get three four yards to make it a
third and six. That's huge because to me, where this
Texans offense has really struggled this year, it's been a

(02:18:34):
lot of pressures, it's been a lot of it's been
a lot of sacks given up.

Speaker 4 (02:18:38):
But you limit that when it's.

Speaker 10 (02:18:40):
Third and manageable, third and four, third and three, where
you do have the option of passing or running. The
defense can't just pin their ears back with third and ten,
third and twelve and then start pressuring everybody and beating
up over this offensive line that's been much beligned. So
definitely a step in the right direction for the Texans
this weekend, this past weekend, now taking on the Kansas

(02:19:03):
City Chiefs, I want to know where you are for
this weekend and the team. Has the season been a
success already in your mind or do they need to
win this weekend against Kansas City seven one three two
one two five seven ninety seven one three two one
two five seven ninety Here on Sports Talk seven ninety
as you're listening to the A Team without Adam or Adam.

Speaker 1 (02:19:27):
The A Team on Sports Talk seven ninety, We now
return to Adam Clinton and Adam Wexler.

Speaker 4 (02:19:35):
On Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 10 (02:19:44):
Five seventeen here on Sports Talk seven ninety. It is
the A team with Adam Wexler and Adam Klanton, although
neither of them are here. I'm here ros Vey out
with you alongside Dan Matthews on the phone lines at
seven one three two one two five seven ninety if
you'd like to get in seven one three two one
two five seven ninety. So I just put the poll

(02:20:07):
up on my Twitter account if you want to go vote,
because we were kind of talking about this, as I
mentioned earlier on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross ten
am to two pm here on Sports Talk seven ninety,
Live It, Love It Listen. I'll give the results maybe
a little bit later on in the show when we
get more of a sample size. But is the Texan
season a success in your mind?

Speaker 4 (02:20:26):
Or do they need to win more? I guess my.

Speaker 10 (02:20:29):
Initial answer to that is is you kind of hit
the floor of expectations. So where's It's not a disappointment
to me. If they'd have lost this Saturday, it would
be a complete disappointment. Now we're kind of in that
middle gray area where I can't necessarily decide if if
I feel satisfied.

Speaker 6 (02:20:47):
With the season.

Speaker 10 (02:20:47):
So far, and you do have to recalibrate expectations as
you go along with the season, kind of like we're
doing with the Rockets. Right preseason, my expectation was, all right,
forty five wins, let's get a play in spot. Now
the Texans are winning a I'm excuse me, the Rockets.
The Rockets are winning a bunch. So now my expectation
level has raised as we near the halfway point of

(02:21:08):
the season. As a recalibration, I want them to finish
in the top six. If they keep winning, I'm gonna
want them to finish in the top four. The Denver
Nuggets have been coming on at some point, the Dallas
Mavericks will be getting healthy. They're not catching the thunder.
And we'll see what happens with the Memphis Grizzlies, who
they play tonight at the Toyota Center seven pm. Tip
here on Sports Talk seven ninety. But in the middle

(02:21:30):
of this season, when they started losing games, and certainly
when they got a muddle stomped into them by the
Baltimore Ravens, I wasn't sure they were gonna win a
playoff game. I wasn't sure that it was gonna be
they certainly didn't. I certainly didn't expect them to be
as impressive as they were on Saturday. So right now,

(02:21:50):
I say the level of expectation at least was to
win one playoff game. You want another one, but you're
going on the road against the Kansas City Chiefs. It's
funny and off as we were talking about, there have
been the last few days. I feel more confident going
on the road against the Chiefs and rather playing the
Ravens or the Bills. But it's kind of a crazy
thing to say out loud. I'm more confident against the

(02:22:12):
back to back Super Bowl champions who are the one
seed and got to buy that's where we are right
now because of how hot the Bills and Raves have
been basically all season. Although the Texans, of course scoreboard.
It's a fact they have beaten the Buffalo Bills this
year seven to one, three two one two five seven ninety.
The phone number if you would like to get in

(02:22:34):
seven three two one two five seven ninety. Let's go
ahead and go out to Chris on the southwest side,
holding longest.

Speaker 6 (02:22:40):
Chris, go ahead. The floor is yours.

Speaker 4 (02:22:43):
Hey, thanks for having me on Ross.

Speaker 6 (02:22:45):
Really appreciate it.

Speaker 9 (02:22:46):
Uh. I just have one comment and a question. The
first comment, I think, answering the pole question. I think
the one way we make this year successful is really
just being competitive in the divisional game. I don't know
if we've ever been competitive and the divisional games.

Speaker 4 (02:23:01):
So for me, it's just being probably not really as
I think about it.

Speaker 6 (02:23:04):
Go ahead.

Speaker 9 (02:23:06):
Yeah, So that's that's answered the poll. And then my
question is and and I'm excited about the win and everything.
I'm really interested in your thoughts is going into Kansas City,
and I hope I'm not bringing a downer on the game.
What ways you see that we could start off the
game offensively better? That's that's really what I'm looking forward
to seeing.

Speaker 10 (02:23:24):
Yeah, thanks a lot, Chris, appreciate you getting in and
making the call here on the A team on Sports
Talk seven ninety. I think I actually liked the way
that the Texans did start the game well outside well,
it was a John it was a throw to John Matchie.

Speaker 4 (02:23:41):
If John Mechi could secure and keep the ball.

Speaker 10 (02:23:44):
Then we're talking about a game through the air on
first down, and then really the first couple of drives
before they kind of stalled out as well, there was
some mixing in of some play action, and I think
that's been one of the number one complaints about Bobby
Slowik and and the play calling has been being too
predictable on first down and trying to establish a run

(02:24:06):
where you've done a really good job with Joe Mixon,
and especially as the games have gone along, teams have
worn down and you've been able to be successful as
far as a run game. And then also is that
the Bobby Slowick coaching tree with Kubiak, Shanahan, etc. Has
been the running with the outside zone, established the run
and then run some bootlegs and play action off of

(02:24:28):
that predicated on the run game. But I really thought,
even though they weren't exactly successful, to start off offensively
in that game, I liked. I'd have to go back
through play by play and all that type of stuff,
but I liked what they were doing for a lot
of that game as far as starting offensively with some passing,
with some play action looks, getting CJ. Stroud's eyes down

(02:24:51):
the field, giving them something to think about. And I
wonder if that will happen this weekend against the Kansas
City Chiefs, where you you have a defense that I'm
kind of scared of, honestly, where the times that the
Texans have struggled have been on the road, loud environments
where you have a a offensive line, which, even if

(02:25:15):
if they're going to be consistent depending on what happens
with Shaq Mason in this this weekend, you haven't had
a consistent offensive line all season long, so you're gonna
run into communication issues. So you're an allowed environment. The
Steve Spagnolo defense is kind of like, you know, mad scientist.
Let's get seven eight guys at the line of scrimmage.
How many of their coming I don't know?

Speaker 7 (02:25:35):
Is it four?

Speaker 4 (02:25:35):
Is at three?

Speaker 6 (02:25:36):
Is it five? Six? Seven?

Speaker 10 (02:25:37):
And then did the offensive line has to communicate who
are you picking up? Who are you picking up? And
then whether it's Joe Mixon or whoever, or the tight ends.
You have to have so many moving parts and everything
has to be perfect to where if there is one
missed assignment on the offensive line or among the running
backs of the tight ends, boom, that's a free pressure.
That's a free runner somebody coming straight at CJ. Stroud unblocked.

(02:26:02):
And how many times have we seen that this year?
It's been a lot, So maybe you go straight with
trying to attack as far as the run and stay
on schedule. Get three four yards on that first run,
get three four yards on another run, or maybe you
do some of what Bobby Sloke was able to do
and very effective doing against the Chargers this past weekend,

(02:26:23):
quick hit passes, whether it be to Nico Collins or
you know, you feel like Cad Stover caught a couple
of them as well, or just boom, three strip, three
step drop in rhythm, don't let the pressure get time
to get there, especially if they're going to be in zone,
and look at look at the defense and find somebody
with a with a quick hitting passing game that can

(02:26:44):
be very effective. So I think it will be some
of that in a mixture of all things, just not
necessarily being predictable, which I think if I had a gripe,
not saying I always know what coming with Bobby Slowick,
because as I mentioned, he started off the game kind
of surprising me with some play action, some passing games,
with some passing stuff, but established the run, but also

(02:27:05):
just mix it up. Just be unpredictable and and staying
on schedule is gonna be paramount if you end up
with Chris Jones and George car Loftus and that in
that Kansas City Chiefs front, and you get off schedule,
and there's a lot of third and longs at Arrowhead
Stadium with an offensive line that hasn't been afforded the

(02:27:26):
opportunity of playing together a bunch of weeks in a
row the way that they're currently constructed, you're gonna run
into some issues. So we'll see, of course, as we
go along. We're more Monday the games, not till Saturday.
We can still bask in the glory of the win
on Saturday, but just just mixing it up, which I
think Bobby Slowan did a pretty good job of this

(02:27:48):
past weekend. Didn't hear he didn't You didn't hear his
name a lot in a bad way, in a bad light,
which is what you have been getting after a lot
of these these Texans games. As I mentioned in the
last segment, four one hundred and twenty nine yards this weekend,
the second most all season, long only to buy six
yards four and thirty five against the Jaguars in Week four.

(02:28:10):
So the offense was humming despite turning the ball over
as much as they did, despite the first five drives
as I as I brought it up, fumble, punt, punt, interception, punt.
That's not a good way to start a football game.
I'm no football savan expert. That's just not the way
you drew it up. That's not the way you wanted
to go. So mixing it up offensively and really if CJ.

(02:28:34):
Stroud's gonna throw like this, not being afraid for him
to let it loose and get downfield and use his
legs as he said he's willing and ready to do.

Speaker 4 (02:28:44):
So I'm feeling a lot better about the state of
this offense.

Speaker 10 (02:28:47):
With the fact that Stefan Diggs and Tank Dell aren't
coming back, You're still going to be limited as far
as pass catchers. They decide to bracket Nico Collins, other
guys are gonna have to step up, so we'll see.
But I would just say mixing it up, being unpredictable,
going and staying on schedule going to be the best

(02:29:08):
practices for the Texans. And then to your first point,
Chris about the season, I think I kind of fall
with you to where I don't necessarily need to have
this hardline stance like, yes, the season is a success
or no, it's a failure. If they lose on the
road to the number one seed back to back Super
Bowl champions, there's no shame in that. But if they

(02:29:30):
go out there and they get thirty one to two
like they did at home against the Baltimore Ravens, then yes,
it'll have a bitter taste in your mouth. It was
a little bit of easier pill to swallow getting physically
dominated by the Ravens last year in the divisional round
because you didn't really expect to be there. They were
underdogs against the Cleveland Browns, and then to start the

(02:29:51):
season with CJ.

Speaker 4 (02:29:51):
Stroud.

Speaker 10 (02:29:53):
It wasn't like they were expected to make the playoffs,
let alone win the division like they did. It was
found money at that point, and it easier to stomach
because of that. But if they get dominated the division,
and as you're pointed, I'll have to bring up all
the division games. What's the closest the Texans have been
in any divisional game? Then yeah, it will feel more

(02:30:15):
like a failure of a season. If they're not competitive
this weekend, which the odd makers odds makers having about
eight and a half eight point dogs. All right, quick
break here on the A team on Sports Talk seven ninety.
Back in a second.

Speaker 4 (02:30:29):
The eighteen on Sports Talk seven ninety. You like free stuff.
We all like free stuff. Guess what Our iHeartRadio app
is free and free. Never sound It's so good.

Speaker 10 (02:30:58):
Five thirty three in the PM on Sports Talk seven ninety.
It is the A team without Adam Wexler, without Adam Clinton,
without Chandler Roam without Aaron Wilson, without Dan Matthews.

Speaker 4 (02:31:08):
My goodness, is anybody around here anymore?

Speaker 7 (02:31:12):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (02:31:12):
I'm here. Hi, I'm Ross Viyel.

Speaker 10 (02:31:14):
Normally on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross, I am
the Ross Part with Matt ten to two here on
Sports Talk seven ninety and well, I'm also here with
you for the next couple of segments alongside my producer
Josh c normally around five thirty around these.

Speaker 4 (02:31:31):
Parts we do in case you missed it, Well, Josh,
what have I missed?

Speaker 2 (02:31:36):
So?

Speaker 19 (02:31:37):
After a kind of crazy and weird situation, Mike McCarthy
officially won't return as a Cowboys head coach. Some of
those weird situations where they wanted to keep them on
past when normal coaches be fired and didn't even bother
having contract discussions with them. Do you think it's smart
to get rid of them or do you think you
should have gotten another year?

Speaker 10 (02:31:56):
And then also didn't they decline? They were like, he
wanted to interview with the Chicago Bears. Yeah, Jack John's like,
now he can't, he can't interview what the Chicago Bears.

Speaker 4 (02:32:05):
He's my coach. And then he didn't even he didn't
even allow him to. You just let him go.

Speaker 19 (02:32:10):
And now I believe he's set up for an interview
with the Bears and Saints, the Bears.

Speaker 6 (02:32:14):
And the Saints.

Speaker 10 (02:32:17):
Can the Cowboys resign him or is this like totally
he's gone, This is totally he's gone.

Speaker 4 (02:32:21):
Okay, they could resign him, but they're saying he's totally gone.
This is I This is the way I feel like.

Speaker 10 (02:32:29):
The way I feel about Mike McCarthy is probably the
way I feel like about most basketball coaches is that
you can win with him if as long as you
have the players. I think Mike McCarthy is a good coach.
I think he's a certain baseline level of coach. You
know what, I'll even go, I'll go Quinn yours on you.
You can win a national championship with Quinn Ewers. Everybody
else around him has to be great. You can win

(02:32:50):
a Super Bowl with Mike McCarthy, and he has done that.
But Aaron Rodgers was like out of his mind, one
of the old time greats. We only got one super Bowl,
by the way in his career, and they won the
Super Bowl with Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 4 (02:33:02):
So I like Mike McCarthy. I think he's a good coach.
I don't think he is a.

Speaker 10 (02:33:08):
Game changing, all time genius coach, which is also clearly now.
Just because you say the Cowboys agree with me generally,
that means you're probably wrong. But I think this is
the right move for Jerry Jones and the Cowboys. I
think he's a good coach. I don't think he's a
great coach. That doesn't mean that to me means very well.
The next candidate they hire can be worse, but he

(02:33:29):
also could be better because he's just not an all
time innovator. He's just to a certain level. With the
right roster, which Jerry Jones thought they had, you can win.
But as a Houston Texans fan now battle Red Ross
and somebody who wants the Cowboys to.

Speaker 4 (02:33:46):
Be bad, I'm like, dang Cowboys could get better.

Speaker 2 (02:33:50):
Now.

Speaker 4 (02:33:50):
I think that's like the true litmus test for me.
Who would you go after if you were the Cowboys?

Speaker 10 (02:33:55):
Oh gosh, who are some of the top candidates that
Ben Jonson of course makes sense the offensive coordinator.

Speaker 4 (02:34:02):
The X theory is bringing in Dion and then trade high.

Speaker 10 (02:34:05):
All right, now, see that's very Jerry Jones, like top
Cowboys fans should storm at and T Stadium if that happens,
and and wrestle control.

Speaker 4 (02:34:17):
They need to stage their own coude ata. If Jerry
Jones fires a good.

Speaker 10 (02:34:23):
Coach and Mike McCarthy hires Dion Sanders and then goes
all in and shade on chaudere Man, that would be
like his Steven Jones can't allow that to happen. They
got like they gotta have a stage in intervention. Something
has to happen. They got like, what is it, power
of attorney. There has to be something has to happen.

(02:34:45):
There's no way it would draw headlines box office back, they.

Speaker 4 (02:34:48):
Would draw headlines. It would be fun to watch.

Speaker 10 (02:34:52):
Jerry Jones clearly he likes being fun to watch as
far as a dumpster fire rather than winning super Bowl championships.
What they haven't done since the night, so maybe they
would do that, but you know what, I want that
to happen. There's probably Cowboys fans like listening right now.
It's like, no, oh God, please, no Deon Sanders, Dallas

(02:35:16):
Cowboys head coach. I think it would be at least
fun to watch. The press conference would be good where
Dion gets mad at all the all the opposing writers
and beat reporters like he was in Colorado. It'd be interesting.
It'd be great theater. Kick up my feet and watch
that because I don't think they would win.

Speaker 4 (02:35:34):
What else?

Speaker 19 (02:35:34):
What else have we missed? Possibly Josh c So the
big A lot of people would say Bragmant and Pete A.
Lonzo are still the big free agents left. But a
big name that's been out there is Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki.

Speaker 4 (02:35:46):
Yes he has been.

Speaker 19 (02:35:47):
I believe it was about ten teams that he was
rumored to be mean with and all that. Well, today
the Yankees, Rangers, and Mets were officially kicked off, and
now the final teams left that are actually vying for.

Speaker 4 (02:35:59):
This's like a bachelor situation. Did he hand them roses?
It seems who got the roses?

Speaker 10 (02:36:04):
Roses? If you're still in ors a year out. I
don't watch a bachelor. Yeah, I think if you're a rose,
you're still in I believe. So, okay, who's got Roses
right now? So right now the Dodgers, Padres and Blue Jays.
Dodgers signed for your services Andres and Blue Jays. So
when do we get the announcement he's signed a five
hundred million dollars deal with the Dodgers and four hundred
and seventy five million and has been deferred. And then

(02:36:25):
Jeff Passing, well, actually, other teams can spend like this,
just like the Dodgers do. Shut up, Jeff, No, they can't.

Speaker 19 (02:36:33):
Yeah, it's apparently a lot of people believe it's gonna
be this week, it'll be done. But honestly, the whole time,
it's kind of seemed felt like the Dodgers were gonna.

Speaker 10 (02:36:41):
Dodgers, Padres, Blue Jays. I'm gonna root for Padres Dodgers.
I've had enough of it. Padres has been spending a
lot of money, They're on the West Coast, they're in
the same division, so you're not gonna have to see
both of them. If in a potential of where in
my mind, who would I rather the Astros in this
fictional world series if they can even get there again.

Speaker 19 (02:37:01):
So I'm love Padres And I mean, did you do
you remember him from the World Baseball Classic?

Speaker 7 (02:37:06):
No?

Speaker 19 (02:37:07):
So he was Actually I watched most of those games.
He was by far the most impressive. I stop watching
after jose L TV broke his thumb. Soured you a
little bit on it, Let's not talk about it.

Speaker 4 (02:37:17):
I'm sorry. So he's really good.

Speaker 10 (02:37:19):
Yeah, I mean he throws ninety nine dollars. How we
hadn't signed yet, what like before this year. You're saying
I was making decisions. Yeah, I know, he just posted.
I'm saying that he's been posted for a while, right,
And I guess some teams are in, some teams are out.

Speaker 6 (02:37:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 19 (02:37:30):
I think it's just he is just kind of way
trying to find the perfect spot. I don't believe it's
a oh we're trying a little bomb, or we don't
think he's worth them out this amount of money. I
think it's just he's trying to find the right fit
for him. Maybe he's waiting to see where Alex Bregman
signs could be. No, I don't think that's it either,
all Right, what else you got, Josh?

Speaker 4 (02:37:46):
All right.

Speaker 19 (02:37:46):
So lastly, Mike Rabel said Drake May is a big
reason he took the Patriots job.

Speaker 4 (02:37:51):
I don't there's no way that he's not true.

Speaker 19 (02:37:54):
Drake May look great, but it also seems like, hey,
because I played here and had a lot of success
here and I want to come back home, seems like
a bigger influence than Drake May.

Speaker 2 (02:38:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:38:03):
I mean, look, Drake May made some nice plays. He's decent.

Speaker 10 (02:38:07):
Uh, he's at least I would say one of the
more attractive jobs just because of the viability of the
quarterback is certainly the job in New England. But yeah,
is he gonna pretend we don't know that he won
three Super Bowls with the Patriots and he hadn't been
there his entire career, cut ten touchdown passes over there,
I'm sure a previous relationship with Robert Kraft, who clearly

(02:38:29):
just tabbed him as the guy he was gonna he
was gonna be the guy all the way despite them.
Did you see the two for one graphic that the
Patriots went They're like, uh, yeah, we interviewed Byron Lefwich
and Pep Hamilton. Anyways, here comes Mike Rabel, like, oh
Jesus is this is not the spirit of the Rooney
rule of what you're trying to do here? Yeah, I mean,

(02:38:50):
I guess he's got to He's got to sell it
as something, does Mike Vrabel and go with, Yeah, it's
Drake May and we're all just gonna completely ignore that
he had been there his entire career and he's a
perfect fit.

Speaker 4 (02:39:02):
And by the way, I think a really good coach.

Speaker 10 (02:39:04):
I think some of those rosters with the Tennessee Titans
that he had and making an AFC Championship game not
anywhere as close to good as some of the teams
that they beat. All right, quick break here on the
what is this the A team with Adam and Adam
back in a minute?

Speaker 15 (02:39:21):
Yet us rite this to trilo Gee bubb Beetle getting
the Babe boom. We rolling with the A Team, Adam Wesband,
Adam Clint Right now, let's go two Adams for the
Price Award. All Sports Talk seven to ninety.

Speaker 10 (02:39:40):
Five, The PM final segment of the A Team with
Adam Clinton, Adam Wexler, and Dan Matthews.

Speaker 4 (02:39:49):
None of them are here. Chandlerome was filling in today
he's not here either. Geez, these guys what a life.

Speaker 10 (02:39:56):
Rossby Real with you after doing ten to noon The
Tomas Show with Ross here on Sports Talk seven ninety.
Coming up after this, we will have Rockets launch Pad
seven o'clock tip your Houston Rockets taking on the Memphis Grizzlies.
It is a big one tonight. I don't know what
the latest on. Do we have the latest josh on

(02:40:16):
Jah Moran. I know he was questionable with an illness.

Speaker 4 (02:40:19):
I have not seen it. Okay, so nothing there. Look,
I don't want Ja Moran to be sick.

Speaker 10 (02:40:25):
But you know what set this one out, Joe, get
yourself some vitamin C, get some chicken noodle, soup, ginger ale,
whatever you need. Just go ahead and take this one
off so the Houston Rockets can beat you at home.
To you, you and your team, the Memphis Grizzlies. That's
coming up at seven o'clock here on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 4 (02:40:43):
Ross VIIa with you for a few more minutes.

Speaker 10 (02:40:45):
And also, apparently we were talking about this in the
last segment in the in case you missed it segment
what have we missed? Also with the Cowboys, there's some
new news there's an update, Josh.

Speaker 19 (02:40:56):
Yes, So, Adam Schefter actually just said on air some
names that he would or he is hearing that could
potentially be the next Cowboys head coach.

Speaker 18 (02:41:03):
Can and will conduct a search here to try to
find the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. It's
just new, it's just beginning. We'll see where that brings them.
A lot of names floating around out there. I think
at some point in time they could have some level
of interest in the Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, potentially
maybe Jason Witten, an old time franchise. Great, but this

(02:41:24):
is very early on, very preliminary, and we'll see ultimately
where Jerry Jones goes with this search.

Speaker 4 (02:41:30):
But the Cowboys are now in.

Speaker 6 (02:41:31):
The market for a new head coach.

Speaker 10 (02:41:35):
If I missed it, is Jason Witten been coaching somewhere.
I believe he's a high school coach. Okay, well have
they been doing?

Speaker 7 (02:41:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (02:41:42):
I'm pulling it up here, HM.

Speaker 10 (02:41:46):
Liberty Christian High School twenty one, Toyd twenty twenty one
to present. Is this gonna be a uh? What was
that guy's name that jackiees to be wanted? Josh McCown
he's gonna be a Josh McCown situation. Is Jason Witten
going to go from high school Texas football all the
way to look, we can hate the Cowboys all we

(02:42:09):
want in Houston. That's top five job in theory in football.
It's the number one brand in football, even though they
haven't won a championship in thirty years. Just look at
the Forbes valuation year by year and look at the ratings,
even if they're terrible. For whatever reason, the nation loves
to tune in and watch the Cowboys. You know a
lot of them like tune in to watch them lose.
But rating numbers are rating numbers. Jen, there's no way

(02:42:32):
I'm calling bs in the whole situation. Adam Schefter, why
he Why would he even float out the name of
Jason Witten, who's only coach to high school that I'm seeing,
unless I've missed it somewhere.

Speaker 19 (02:42:41):
It kind of reminds me of the Jeff Saturday Colt situation,
and that one extremely well.

Speaker 10 (02:42:45):
Jim Hersey hiring his boy at least when Red Robert
krat has hired his boy. That guy's been a head
coach before and won with the Titans teams as I
mentioned to me, good hire by the Patriots.

Speaker 4 (02:42:56):
I don't think that that he he a bad coach.

Speaker 10 (02:43:01):
The situation with Tennessee obviously, it's very toxic over there.
Look how bad the Titans have been with Amy Adams
Strunk running the ship over there. So that'll be interesting.
Kellen Moore makes sense. Kellen Moore was there previously. Correct, Yeah,
it was oc until this year, I believe. Okay, So
I don't know if they Jerry's gonna welcome him back,
or is he gonna go for the swing of the

(02:43:22):
fences totally off the board, crazy, ridiculous, should not do it.
Dion Sanders higher, that would be certainly interesting, to say
the least.

Speaker 4 (02:43:31):
That's what I'm rooting for. Like, if I'm just rooting
for pure entertainment value, I don't want the.

Speaker 10 (02:43:34):
Cowboys to win. I don't care about the Cowboys. It's
better if they lose here in Houston. But hm, Jason
Witten mentioned, all right, that is interesting.

Speaker 4 (02:43:45):
Dann Matthews just chimed in.

Speaker 19 (02:43:46):
Apparently Jerry said that, Uh, Jason Witten reminds me of
day Jason.

Speaker 4 (02:43:50):
Waite, and hey reminds me of Dan Campbell, who wins
with the Lions.

Speaker 10 (02:43:53):
I'm gonna hire him, all right, Cool, all right, boss
down here, and then we can go to the zoo
and watch the monkeys dance around. All right, Jerry, Cool,
Let's get you back to bed. Papa, Come on now, Geevez,
he's still in control of the Dallas Cowboys.

Speaker 6 (02:44:10):
I have no idea.

Speaker 10 (02:44:11):
Well, that's one team in Texas that is not still
playing football. The other team in Texas the best team
in Texas. Thirty four to ten. Look it up, Monday
Night Football. Take that, Jarrah and Dallas Cowboys. Houston Texans
still in action this weekend against the Kansas City Chief
Dimiko Ryans did speak.

Speaker 4 (02:44:29):
To the media earlier today.

Speaker 10 (02:44:31):
Here's what he had to say about being excited for
the opportunity against Kansas City.

Speaker 8 (02:44:37):
We're excited about the opportunity we have. We understand what's
in front of us. Great team. Casey has done a
great job for the past few years of really dominating
the league, you know, being there at the end. I
have great coaching staff, great players. Yeah, great team all
the way across the board. So it's a really tough

(02:44:57):
challenge for us. We're excited about the opportunity we have
versus kse. We know it's a tough, tough team to beat, right,
It's gonna take everything that we have, is gonna take
all four quarters, similar to our last game. We just
have to state the course, remain persistent throughout the game,
and find a way to win in those critical moments.

Speaker 6 (02:45:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (02:45:14):
So taking on the Chiefs team, which, again, as I say,
it's like if you're picking a team left for the
Texans to play, all of them would be on the
road because every team left had a better record than
the Texans.

Speaker 4 (02:45:25):
It's crazy, it's I'm still scared to say it out loud.

Speaker 6 (02:45:30):
The back to back.

Speaker 10 (02:45:33):
Super Bowl champion, number one seed Kansas City Chiefs is
my preference.

Speaker 4 (02:45:38):
Maybe no, maybe I'd maybe I'd say the Bills three
just scare everybody because of how much they see. Dude,
the Ravens beat us down.

Speaker 10 (02:45:47):
The Ravens have beat down the Texans already enough the
last two times they played, knocked them out of the
Divisional round last year, and I just I don't know
how they lost. How do they lose five times this year?
How did it happen? I just don't understand. They have
Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry when he got signed as
a thirty year old I was hoping with past his prime.

Speaker 4 (02:46:07):
Clearly he is not.

Speaker 10 (02:46:10):
How do you stop them? How do you stop them?
I mean their defense is good, and maybe not to
the level of the Chiefs, but it's better than the Bills.

Speaker 19 (02:46:19):
I was gonna say at the beginning of the year,
a big issue for them was their defense, especially their secondary,
And it seems once they've moved Toyle Pepleton too safety
at see.

Speaker 10 (02:46:26):
Marlon Humphrey was hurt for a while and came back
as well. So maybe that's part of it.

Speaker 7 (02:46:32):
Man.

Speaker 4 (02:46:32):
I don't even know how we're sitting here saying.

Speaker 10 (02:46:34):
Maybe, yeah, maybe because you beat the Bills, we would
choose them, But that that game, I think the ray
I picked up when the playoffs started preseason, I picked
the Chiefs, and when when the playoffs started, I recalibrated.
We're always recalibrating on the show. I think I would
go Raven's Eagles is what I ended up with, and
those are two really good teams. Honestly.

Speaker 19 (02:46:55):
The big thing, too, is if you're going on the road,
all these places are likely to be freezing gold, so
the weather you're just gonna have to get used to
you're not getting a cheap oh we get a dome
statum potentially.

Speaker 4 (02:47:04):
Here, you're gonna be free people.

Speaker 10 (02:47:06):
People are gonna be getting frostbite in the stands and
no matter where the Texans go and the rest of
the playoffs, which is unfortunate, well at least until the
super Bowl in New Orleans, but uh yeah, I would
say maximum entertainment would be Chiefs Ravens or Chiefs Bills
and then after that.

Speaker 4 (02:47:23):
Ravens Lions super Bowl. Is that probably the most.

Speaker 10 (02:47:27):
Sex appeal for lack of a better term, what gets
uh where's even the supersent a Fox this year? I think,
I think, or I don't even. It doesn't matter. You're
gonna watch it, tune into it wherever it is. Whatever
network has the super Bowl this year, they got I
would say maximum eyeballs gotta be Lions and Ravens Detroit, Baltimore.

(02:47:48):
That's the beauty of the NFL. There's just brands all
over the place, no matter what the market says.

Speaker 4 (02:47:54):
All right, that's gonna do it.

Speaker 10 (02:47:55):
For my one hour on the A team without Adam
or Adam or Dan, my name is a virial. Thank
you so much for listening. Thanks to Josh c for
stepping into produce. Thanks to Dan for being here earlier.
Coming up next, it is the Rockets launch Pad here
on Sports Talk seven. Out of your Home for your
Rockets

Speaker 4 (02:48:12):
The Age on Sports Talk seven ninety

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