Rockets vs Blazers Tonight! Great UH Basketball Win, Tim Benz Joins the Show

Rockets vs Blazers Tonight! Great UH Basketball Win, Tim Benz Joins the Show

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Oh one in Ahtown. Good morning, and welcome to a
Wednesday edition of The Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Half
of us is in cold, rainy Portland, half of us
is in Houston, Texas. I'll let you decide who's who.
Ross Villa Reale, Good morning to you friends.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's like eighty degrees over here.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
So you know, I think a cold friend's coming in
the next couple of days, but right now it's not great.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
See you know it's funny.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
No one I don't think it's ever happy with their
weather unless you live in that city. Since Okay, I
come here, and if I was to go find a
Portlander if that's what they call themselves, or Oregonian if
you will, and said, how do you live with half
the year rainy and forty eight degrees, They'd be like,
shut your boss up. We lived this, we grew up

(00:51):
with this, we know this, We've got great summers. How
do you hell do you live in Texas where it's
one hundred and ninety five degrees with eighty five percent dimmunity? Well,
no one wants to hear you moan about where you
live and what your weather is. That's true, or I
guess we as Houstonians will complain about the weather, but
if somebody else does, we get defensive.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
It's our life. It's like family. Weather is like our family.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
If somebody else is talking mess about it, we're going
to defend it and we're like, you suck, you know what,
shut up. But then when we complain about it, it's okay, Yes,
that's exactly I mean. Yeah, last point about this. When
I first want one of my rare mistakes in radio,
and I don't make very many of them, as you know,
I have got my job at Minneapolis, like this has

(01:33):
got to be two thousand and seven, and I go
on the air and I'm like, how do y'all live
in this? Because it was like eleven below? And they're like,
go away. If you don't want to be here, move.
We don't need to hear this from you. So a
little advice for you young sports people that if you
ever moved out at your market to go somewhere else,
which I did two different places, just don't complain about
where you are. Embrace the weather and the lifestyle that

(01:56):
you're in now as compared to bemoaning what you what
you formerly had. All Right, ROSSI the hell are you today.
By the way, I woke up sick. I don't know
if it's allergies or a cold or whatever. But got
a little more base in by voice today, matt But
the sound good. Oh yeah, on the quiet Storm, on
the quiet Storm. But other than that, I'm doing okay.
I'm gonna make it. I just took some medicine, so

(02:17):
we'll be We're gonna soldier through, Matthew. All right, Well,
we're not going to sold her through a deep dive
into the Texans because they're still taking another day off.
This Monday night game gives them an extra rest day,
so they're not on the practice field at all today.
That's good. No injury report and a kind of stuff.
But we are going to check in Pittsburgh. Tim Bennz
is going to join us from Pittsburgh coming up in

(02:37):
about half an hour from now, as a matter of fact,
and we've had him on a couple of times over
the years, so we look forward to talking with him
about all things about the Pittsburgh Steelers. We can also
get into a little NBA chatter tonight because the Rockets
are playing the Portland Trail Blazers. We can get into
and again my affinity towards the University Houston is not

(02:58):
shared by everybody. And that's so I'm not gonna make
this say a conversation that's gonna last deep into the show.
But a really fun basketball game last night between the
University of Houston and Texas Tech. Cougar's won the game.
Uh great gasonak double double. Uh and and the rest
of the crew there was just outstanding. You were gonna
say something, I'm sorry, I was gonna we we don't

(03:19):
have to break down the Texas Tennessee basketball game. Uh
you know what?

Speaker 2 (03:25):
And Sean Miller calling out his players.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
After the game. Yeah, it's fine. I would just say
this for Cougar fans. We've got two players, Kingston Flemings
and Chris Nak. They're going to go to the NBA Draft,
so I hope you enjoy them. We are now the
duke in Kentucky now of the Southeast. So that's all
we're gonna do now is without the championshipers and win
one and done and then go to go to the NBA.
It's the way the game is played. You want the

(03:48):
best players, you got to get some one and done. Yea,
they were you know coach Kruzhevsky when he was coaching
at Duke many years.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
Agoes like I need program, guys.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
I know he was. He was calling out caller Perry,
he was calling out everybody, and then all of.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
A sudden, by the into it, he.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
Changes to pretty quick to do that.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
I think Kyrie Irving was there for one year. I
think that On Williamson's was there for one year.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
One year.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Yeah, we can go to the list.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, Kentucky's probably the greatest school that does that. But
and look it didn't. I mean they got it. They
I think they won one during that time. I mean
a sneaky one is Texas. They don't win any bat
they don't win any tournament games, but they got a
lot of one and done guys who were in the NBA,
including your best friend Kevin Durant was a one in day. Yes,
I think that's going to change. I think nil is

(04:30):
going to change that. Uh So, if you extend a
little bit, well, I mean put it this way, would
you would you rather make five hundred thousand dollars in
your sophomore year or be a second round pick? You
know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Well, yeah, if you're going to be a first round
pick though you're and that's generally one and done guys.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Our first round picks, right right.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
But there's again there's maybe a little glimpse of keeping
a one or two guys, but the thought of three
and four year guys that are really elite players staying
around is just not going to happen. But there was,
It was even happening before nil. We can also talk
about did you see the deal with the Washington quarterback? Yeah,
I can we get Sam conback on today. Wasn't that
a great conversation? And I want to We need some

(05:12):
more with him. We need like thirty more minutes. So
I got to the airport just as you were starting
to play that, and I'm like, I don't want to
I don't want to miss this because it was such
a good conversation and because I was learning things. And
then like the rockets of people like get out, get
out of your car, come on, let's go, we gotta go.
Oh wow, Aaron Holliday was here and at you, yelling
at you. It might have been Jeff Green, but he's

(05:33):
a g so I have to kind of listen to him.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yes you do. It was four hours and ten minutes
up here yesterday.

Speaker 4 (05:38):
Oh, I mean like, oh, and your private jet and
you wait forget turbulent and you have.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
The woe to your shelf. You pull on the point
for four hours? What do you see? You from another country?
I mean I didn't change planes. You're right about that. Yeah,
I get out of here. You weren't on the tar
bag for four hours. You were in the air.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
I know.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
But I gotta get to pour the baby. You gotta
fight that storm and the jet stream. Yeah, it takes
a while away. We flew right over mountains like Colorado's
mountains and Utah mountains. I'm being thrown around, thrown around
like a rag doll on the plane yesterday. I'm good,
poor baby. Were you nervous?

Speaker 2 (06:19):
No, I just had to fly. Tends to bring me
a hot towel.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Okay, Well, yeah, I think you're okay.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
I think I'm okay.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Yeah, you're nine and a half flight attendants bringing a
hot tel in your private jet?

Speaker 2 (06:29):
You poor baby.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Who's the half?

Speaker 2 (06:31):
That's what I'm curious that that's a weird one. What
did you come from?

Speaker 1 (06:35):
The half got creepy all of a sudden, real quick,
all right, imagine they're attractive.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
I don't know. Oh they are, that's what I'm saying.
Nine and a half. Oh you're coming to them grades
of who they are. Yeah they're not.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, Oh yeah they're They're in a six and a bunch.
I maybe be honest with you, there is no sixes.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Seven plus. Okay, back to focusing.

Speaker 1 (06:59):
Yeah, the Cougar's one yesterday, yes, in the huge in
town and Brian McTaggert's fighting with people on Twitter about it.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
It's fine.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Oh, is you have the biggest Cougar fan on Twitter? Yeah?
I mean I'm the biggest fan on the radio. Probably, Yeah,
that's true. Actually, yeah, most delicious. So I went to
the Thomas Family chat yesterday. Okay, camera went to the game.
Do you have a funny name for it. It's called
Thomas Family. Oh that's yeah, that's real clever. By the way,

(07:31):
I want to do this where do we very careful
how we do this. I want to take a morning
and probably we'll do it once the NFL season is
done with the Texans and maybe even the whole thing.
I would like for people someday and don't do it
today because I don't want to ruin it, but I
do want to talk about you guys and ladies out
there that are in group chats, and what do you
name in your group chats? Because I have a variety

(07:53):
of mind and mine are getting more and more interesting
by the because I'm in likeing ten now at this point.
For some of them I cannot possibly discuss on air. Okay,
I will be able to discuss a couple of them,
but not very many of them. But so to answer
your question, the name of the Thomas family group chats

(08:13):
called Thomas Family. So I texted last night at about
ten thirty when the game ended because the game didn't
start to eight fifteen because they pushed it back because
the first game was running late. How about those Koogs?
Cameron says, boo. Then he texts eight versus five out there? Oh,
I like that, And then Peyton says, who are we

(08:34):
talking about? Cam?

Speaker 2 (08:35):
You know we're talking about the Cougars.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
And I respond back to Cameron disagree, very balanced game.
So apparently efficiently he has left the chat. He did
not respond. I think he went to sleep and disgust,
as my son will do typically, I do believe, and
apparently this happened yesterday between A and M and Auburn
A and m one at Auburn yesterday in basketball. I

(08:59):
don't know any details of it because frankly, nobody in
our audience cares. But apparently Auburn fan went to Twitter
yesterday and we're losing their mind over the bad officiating.
And they were apparently as the referees were leaving the
court at the Auburn game, they were Auburn fans throwing
things at them, leaking the paper cups, that kind of thing.
Nothing like severe, but it was still throwing. I want

(09:19):
to know what the DNA of a person is that says,
you know what, I want to be a college official
or a professional official. Now, let's talk about the positives
to it. Okay, you are you're not working a nine
to five job. Typically, if you are, you are flexible
enough that you can go to this. You are traveling
all across the country or a certain region. They do

(09:41):
pay you a lot of money to do this, especially
if you're a full time referee in the NBA or
your full time major league umpire. Now, college basketball officials
are part time. Prop football officials are part time, But
it's a great part time job. Right you are on
the field with the greatest athletes in the world. It
connects you to us board and it also gives you

(10:01):
a little bit and I think this is the greatest thing.
It gives you a little power trip, does it not.
I think that's one of the things that attracts certain people,
especially the ones that rise to the top. I mean,
we've never seen you've seen a lot of it feels
like baseball umpires especially well Fostrap has a pretty good competent.
That's true. Yeah, I play basketball. Number two, I guess

(10:23):
football third, Yeah, I would say football guys. Can you
name them a referee in football that goes God? The
guy is trying to be the bigger than the game.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Sean Hock.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
I'm just kidding. I don't know. The only referee I
could probably name. Didn't there Shaffers in there? Carl somebody?
Schaffers are Streffler Shaffer? I don't know. But the number
one thing is all And I just gave you all
the positives. The negatives are people hate you, and that
can't be fun running around life being hated.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Refs you suck.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
People throwing things at you, Coaches are screaming at you
at epic proportions. More so than ever we saw Steve
Kirk get kicked out. He was ready to throw it down.
He was ready to throw down. We have Ima Adoka
calling two referees incompetent they shouldn't be in the league,
and one is Starstrucks. Oh my god, that was great.

(11:15):
Was that a fifty thousand dollars? Fine? By the way,
thirty five? Oh that's light.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
I will say the reason why it's thirty five, and
I think I can say this is because they got
ahead of it a little bit, if you know what
I'm saying. No, well, basically they just all right, we'll
call him and tell him we're sorry. It's compared to
them waiting for the phone call. Okay, so they got
ahead of it. He can have been fessed up like
when you It's like this when you get when you
were a kid and you did something wrong, was your

(11:42):
punishment more lenient when you told mom.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
And dad ahead of time?

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Are you away for them to tell you you forgot
to take the chicken out of the freezer? You gott
to fess up when dad gets home? That's right? And
then remember when one time my ma said they needed
glasses out there. I mean that would mean you're just
going right to the core. You're going loves to the jugular,
if you will. Is that messing around at all? Yeah?

(12:05):
I don't want to live my life that way. I mean,
people hate us, I mean me in particular.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
They love you. Uh No, people hate me. I don't
think so. You bite people hate you, but warrented, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
That's not and some of you people hate me too,
which is fine. I don't care.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
That's what's just also bizarre. People are miserable idiots.

Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah, But point being is this, uh we, I guess
you have to be in a profession and you're gonna
choose some that are just gonna know that you're not
gonna be beloved, and people aren't gonna call you by
their name. They're just gonna say refs, you suck, and
they're gonna yell at you. And then they're coaches who
do know your name are gonna yell at you, and
you're gonna toss them out because you have the ability
to do so, you're gonna cause greater things. And most times,

(12:44):
not all, but most times you're gonna win the battle
with the coach. Because even if you toss somebody out
after it was a needless uh ejection or you blew
the call. You want to still calling games? I mean,
take what does it take ross basically for them? One
NBA referee Eric Lewis, he had to basically create burner
accounts to lose his job. You had tip Donny referee games,

(13:06):
except he was throwing games. He kept this job. I mean,
it doesn't it takes once you get to this level
of any level, college or pro. Unless you can't walk
or talk, or you're violent, or you just swallow the
whistle or you're throwing games, you get to keep his
job for a long period of time.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
There's a lot of really bad ones. A lot.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
Well, the problem is, if you really want good ones,
why would anybody goold want to do it? Because nobody's
gonna think you're great all the time? Right No, So so, yeah,
my son is not happy. He thought it was eight
on five, which through my cougar cutter glasses, I saw
nothing wrong with be officiating.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
I did not watch the game, sorry, so I couldn't.
It's okay. I don't have an opinion.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
But the really worst thing about it is we're gonna
get a break on this. So I've said this before
many times. I think Betting on basketball is as dangerous
as it gets. It's fun, though, it's certainly fun, but
it's dangerous. So last night, the Cougars are up sixty

(14:09):
nine to sixty two. Christian Anderson plays for Texas Tech
hits a half court buzzer beater.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
Okay, yes, Houston still.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Wins, but the final score is now for going from
sixty nine to sixty two to sixty nine to sixty five,
the spread was Houston minus six and a half. That's
a color of folks. So if you were on that
side of it, that's the ultimate bad beat. Now you're
spending a lot of money betting on Texas Tech versus
Houston basketball, you probably have an issue to begin with.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
But I just thought that was.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
One of the reasons of many reasons why I would
never bet on college basketball. Because let's say you're doing
a Duke versus I don't know, Florida A and M,
and it's a one versus sixteen matchup and Duke is
crushing by thirty points.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
The line was twenty six.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Well, Duke's put their scrubs in it, get a little
bit of time. They' probably gonna give up some of
the points. That's why. To me, basketball is very hard
to bet on because the game could go one direction
for thirty eight to thirty nine minutes and then the
last minute it all changes. It's some beauty in the curse.
I mean, yeah, we can call it a bad beat,
but in theory probably action was about even and well,

(15:22):
so why don't we call it whatever? The opposite of
a bad beat is a miracle cover, a miracle covery.
Don't have to be so negative about it. What about
the good people? What about people who won? Congratulations to that?
Do you feel bad if you maybe you feel bad
for those people that bet ain't the Cougar's mine of
six and a half. That's some miracle covers In my life,
and I've had some bad beats. Bad beats hurt way
worse than the shout eagles earlier this year. Sorry, if

(15:47):
you're lost, Well, you and I were together that we
were like and there was a third party who had
much more on it than I did. But you feel
that wasn't a bad beat for him. That was a
terrible beat for him. That was that was one of
the worst beats I've ever seen in my life. We've
seen some beatings fourth with him involved seven one three
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two
one two five seven ninety We check in in Pittsburgh
in about fifteen minutes here on Sports Talk seven ninety two,

(16:12):
ten twenty here on the Matt Thomas Show. It are awesome
here Portland.

Speaker 5 (16:16):
Boy.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
The sun has not risen yet, and it.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Also gets dark here at four thirty.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
I feel like, are we mine nor? I I'm really
north right? So does that mean the further north you go,
the darker gets earlier? I'm making I am I making that up? Maybe?

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Yes, I don't know sure?

Speaker 1 (16:33):
Why not? Use? That was a great analysis from you.
Thank you appreciate that. Uh. I think it depends on
the time of the year because I remember being in
Montana and the sun didn't set until like ten thirty pm. Yeah,
so wow, that's really good Like Alaska sometimes what twenty
hours a day?

Speaker 2 (16:48):
It's it's unly something.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
It depends on the year, and it's twenty years twenty
hours a day of darkness or complete darkness for months. Yeah.
Makes you want to go for a hype, didnit? I love?

Speaker 6 (16:59):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Absolutely, You've been by the hiking.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Is the new? Is it what you say?

Speaker 2 (17:03):
It's the new? Thing going on in life today. People
are sing more than I am before. I've been hiking
for twenty years.

Speaker 1 (17:08):
So I had like two of the fund attendants I
was talking to yesterday, they're going for a hike today.
That's great. Yeah, you go out and see it's hiking
is amazing, Matt. You go out, you get exercise, you
can see nature, you can see animals, you can experience
beautiful sites that you will you will never experience in
your life. I mean these hikes, especially like at these

(17:29):
national parks. They put them at these wonderful viewpoints and
scenic views that you literally will never see in your
life if you do not go on the hike. It's
it's unique, it's it's it's lovely, it's wonderful. I highly
recommend it. I'm going to do some walking myself here
in Portland. I'm going to go from the blackjack table
to the craps table, to the UH snack station, to

(17:50):
perhaps the buffet to maybe the backrack. If I want
to learn that sport. I mean, you can your own thing.
You can go to a thousand casinos and see a
thousand blackjack tables, but there's only one view from a
top angels landing in Zion Canyon. Matt. See, that's what
if you're gonna do a podcast, If you were to

(18:10):
do one, that's gonna be your thing, hiking hiking podcast.

Speaker 2 (18:14):
There's not one out there?

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Is there? Not sure? I'm not that serious about it.
I mean there's people who hike literally hundreds of miles.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
You and Craig could do a hiking podcast.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
It'd be good. Well, like a short it'd be the
Short Hike.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, all right.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
We've got Tim Ban from Pittsburgh joining us in the
bottom of the hour. Jim Harbaugh out after eighteen No,
no excuse me, John Harbaugh yesteen years.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
In Pittsburgh or in Baltimore?

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Get this straight?

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Year eighteen years in Baltimore out, by.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
The way, didn't I call it this earlier? Earlier this year?

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Well, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
Did you write it down? A gut feelings?

Speaker 7 (18:47):
Now this I said that they lost that game, he's
gonna be fired, But I feel like that still goes
onto the other.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
No, I don't know if I saw it. I don't,
I don't know. I wasn't here for making this up.
I was on making I was on I'm saying he's
making it up. I was on vacation a lot the
last month, so I cannot speak to this. Oh this
is like in October.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Oh go okay, sure, why not. Let's give him credit.
Let's give you credit. Jonathan all lays.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Jon and we talked about it, I think last week
or yesterday about him about no news on whether or
not he was coming on, So we kind of the
idea was in our heads that he could have been fire.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
I think we talked about it being possible.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, So I wouldn't call it extremely shocking but surprising.
ESPN is like, that's all they've talked about in their
morning show today is about why he's gone out. So
the argument is this, you're firing a guy who has
won sixty percent of his games, won a Super Bowl,
takes a team of the playoffs over and over and over.
Uh huh. And the fact that he's going to find

(19:50):
a job right away with all the different openings that
are apparently he's already the favorite for the New York
Giants job. Okay, but there's also a segment of the population.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
It's as.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Lamar Jackson didn't want him. And if you have a
two time MVP that you can't get along with Why
don't want this guy to leave my team unless you
are in the anti Lamar Jackson club saying this guy
can't win games in the postseason. So that's why I'm saying.
There's there's quite a few different factions running around the
sports world today about why John Horball got lego in Baltimore. Yeah,

(20:22):
apparently Lamar Jackson wasn't getting along with him. He Also
the other story is that they were the Ravens wanted
to fire his defensive coordinator and he didn't want to
do that, so he was standing his ground on that.
So I mean, I think he added all up a
number of factors of getting a new voice in the room.
And also, I mean, he's a good leader, but it's

(20:43):
not like he is some wizard play caller on either
side of the ball.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
So we'll put it this way. I will say, I
get it. I don't.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
I don't think it's the right move, but I get it.
It's a risky decision, I think at the bare minimum,
because he does win games, he does take you to
the playoffs. Now, has there been a lack of success
going to the Super Bowl with a two time MVP? Yes,
how much of that responsibility goes in the players. How
much of the responsibility goes on the coaching staff. We'll

(21:14):
never know the true answers to that. The only thing
I would say in his defense, and I have no
good or bad torch Dohn Harballs. We're seeing young coaches
either massively succeed or further extend the depths of losing. Like,
for instance, Aaron Glenn may never help the Jets win games.

(21:37):
The Jet I'm sorry, he's an image guy, But does
anybody think the Giants or the Jets are on the
precipice of getting great?

Speaker 2 (21:45):
They need to complete all.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
I'm sorry he didn't win games with Brady Cook and
trading away a Sauce Gardner and Quinn Williams and all
their good defensive players. I know, I know, give the
man a chance. Jonathan Gannon was in Arizona, or can ye.
I mean, there's a lot of these guys. You're the
shelf life you are getting is so minimal these days.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Well, yeah, you got a winner or you're out. That's
that's the NFL.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah, but coach killers again, I don't know. It felt
like to me the last two or three years, there
was always a little bit of hint of dis harmony
between the quarterback and the head coach.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
Well, they at the bottom line as they didn't win enough.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
And it's funny enough that the I mean, what if
Tyler Loop makes that kick they would be favorites against
the Texans this weekend wild card weekend, that they would Yeah,
you're right, and then they win the game. I mean,
this is so funny how the dominoes can fall in
an NFL season or anywhere one loss cost him his job.
Or do you or do you think that the Baltimore
ownership had this already in mind, even even if they

(22:49):
would have beaten the I'll say it's in their mind.
But if they if they if they make the playoffs
and then beat the Texans as favorites and get into
the divisional round, he's going to be back next year. Yeah,
So that's a thin situation. Do you fire somebody over
one game? And is that should that be in consideration
as to why you do it? If you if you're

(23:10):
firing a guy after one game, does that mean that
you are you are show so short sighted on something. Yeah,
I mean, I'm sure it adds up. It wasn't the
result of the one game, but it's when you're teetering
then the one game put them over the over the edge. Yeah,
all right, we're gona talk to Tim Bens and Pittsburgh next.

(23:31):
Our time is ten twenty eight. It is the Matt
Thomas Show with Ross seven one three two one two
five seven niney if you want to join our conversation
seven one three two one two five seven ninety two,
Bat and Ross with you here on seven ninety I'm
here in Portland Rockets and the Blazers. Tonight will have

(23:52):
the broadcast for you're beginning at eight o'clock with a
launch Pad Network pregame at eight thirty doll of the
call at nine o'clock. We are joined now by man
who's been with us a few times over the years.
We don't do a lot of Houston Pittsburgh talk because, frankly,
the Astros and Pirates don't play in the World Series,
I don't believe ever, and the Texans Steelers don't have
not played a whole lot over the years. But Tim
Ben's with us practice with Ben's columns for the Pittsburgh

(24:14):
Tribune Sports is also found on Fox Sports Pittsburgh.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
He's a He's got a bigger resume than I do.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Is that right? Tim, Ben's how are you this morning?
By the way, Nice to hear from you again.

Speaker 5 (24:24):
Yeah. The other issue, while we don't talk too much,
is because no NBA team here, which a lot of
people would still love to see happen. I'm not holding
my breath, but uh yeah, maybe somedays. But I think
Pittsburgh has to figure out how to make its other
two teams competitive again besides the Steelers and the Penguins
and the Pirates. So though the Penguins are overachieving so

(24:45):
far this year, we'll see what the Steelers can do
against the Texans to make this say thumb's up with
thumbs down season on Monday night.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
I swear to God, Tim, when the Houston hockey team
plays the Penguins, we're gonna You're gonna have you on
for like a whole half hour. I promise.

Speaker 5 (24:58):
Hey, there's a lot to talk about, there's a lot
of history to go over in a half an hour,
but I'll do my best.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:04):
Hey, let me ask you this. If that kick is made,
what's Mike Tomlin doing today?

Speaker 5 (25:11):
Maybe holding his season ending press conference, or maybe he
would have done that yesterday and we would be at
lock or clean out, and I don't think much else
would change with Tomlin. I think it would take consecutive
sub five hundred seasons before Art Rooney the second ever
actually listened to the outside noise and the calls for

(25:33):
his job. I wrote a column about it not too
terribly long ago, when the Bills came in here and
whooped the Steelers, and you know, people were chanting fire
Tomlin throughout the course of the second half, and I
said words the effect that there were sixty seven thousand
and fifty people at Akrosur Stadium and sixty seven forty

(25:57):
nine of them heard the chance, and the only one
who didn't was Art Runy. So I just think that's
where his headspace is versus everybody else in Pittsburgh. We
can talk about it, but it's not going to happen.
A lot of people have made that analogy. If Todler
Luke doesn't push that field goal, well, why, right, does
that mean Tomlin is out of a job and hardball

(26:18):
is getting ready for a playoff game? Well, the second
part would be true, but I don't think Tomlin would
have gone anywhere anyway. I think it would take consecutive
sub five hundred seasons before that happens.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Okay, Tim, so not to be rude, but we don't
follow the Pittsburgh Steelers all that much.

Speaker 8 (26:34):
No.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
Look, Aaron's been on TV a lot, and the Steelers
have a national fan base, But the Texans Steelers have
not played in a while.

Speaker 2 (26:40):
Before we get into.

Speaker 1 (26:41):
What has been a mediocre season for that entire division,
tell me what's right?

Speaker 2 (26:47):
I mean TJ.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Watt coming back from his ailment and stepping them back
on the football field. What are the things do Pittsburgh
Steeler fans? And they travel well, so we've got Steeler
fans listening to us all over the country. What do
the Steelers do right? What got them to where they
are right now?

Speaker 5 (27:04):
Well, with what out they kept at a float with good
outside linebacker depth, I think they're legit for deep at
that position this year they haven't been in the past.
They have gotten around secondary injury issues better than expected.
Joey Porters started to live up to reputation. They found

(27:24):
a home for Jalen Ramsey by cource of necessity at safety.
The run defense has actually been good in games where
they haven't had to worry about a mobile quarterback. If
there's a mobile quarterback out there, and they've got to
make decisions to stop the mobile quarterback or stop the
big time running back. Big time running backs have gotten loose.

(27:48):
Henry's had a couple of good games, better statistically than
actual imprint, but good statistically against them. James Cook went
off in a situation like that Breese Hall game one
where he at justin Fields flank and them. Those things
they've done well on defense. On offense, they've had good
second halves in the passing game out of Rogers. The
Rodgers to Metcalf connection is sometimes good. The offensive line

(28:13):
play has been better than anticipated, especially after Broderick Jones
got hurt. This Dylan Cook at left tackle has been
a stunning revelation out of nowhere. We've seen that along
the offensive line before with guys here in Pittsburgh. So
those are some of the things that they do well.
The checkdown game to the running backs is good. They
have a good dual threat thing going on with Jalen

(28:35):
Warren and Kenneth Gainwell. But they do not throw the
ball well down the field or over the middle of
the field consistently. Whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
You mentioned TJ. Watt coming back in some of the
depth on defense. How did he look in your eyes
in his return?

Speaker 5 (28:51):
Pretty active? You know, it's a tough read with the
way they play against the Ravens. Those outside edges crashed
down so much, and they've always had a script of
whether Lamar has the ball or not hit him, just
go after him and hit him. So it looks like
what or high Smith in certain games maybe making more

(29:12):
of an imprint than they really are because you just
see him in the backfield so often because they're crashing
so hard. I did think he looked okay. He had
the interception off of a bat ball that high Smith
and Hayward really made the playoff. I didn't mention Hayward before.
He's been great in the second half the season. I
should have brought him up to but he's part of
that run defense I was speaking of. So I thought

(29:33):
TJ was first game back ish, Yeah, But I also
thought that that was a pretty high platform, even if
it didn't show up a ton statistically. I thought he
did enough good things and the outside linebackers behind him,
particularly her Big and Jack Sawyer. You don't see the

(29:54):
dip when TJ goes out as much as you used to.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
Tim Binns with us here on Sports Talk seven ninety
and you talked a lot about the offense, the offensive
line looking pretty good. Just overall, how do you see
this matchup? Because I mean, maybe I've got my Texans
colored glasses on tip, but it just feels like it's
gonna be difficult for them to score points, obviously against
a very good Texans defense. But I just don't feel

(30:21):
like there's much of a dynamic element with the the
Pittsburgh Steelers offense.

Speaker 5 (30:26):
There isn't you know. When we're looking at the prospects
the potential teams going into the weekend, with of course
the Steelers playing last, who would be coming here to
aker sure if they beat the Ravens. I was kind
of playing the game with myself where if this team
came how much would it be fair about if this
team came out? I said three points For the Texans.
It's been at three and a half most of the week.

(30:47):
They are very worthy favorites by that much at home
for the Steelers. You know the Monday night thing. Everybody
always says it means nothing, it's just a historical fluke.
It must mean something that's been going on since nineteen
ninety one. They haven't lost a home Monday night game
that spanned three coaches. You know, the Texans without a
road playoff win. You know, there's something to think about there.

(31:10):
But I do think that if you went unit by unit,
if you took like the four units of the teams,
and you did Steelers defense, Steelers offense, Houston defense, Houston
offense by far and away the best unit of the fours,
the Houston defense. I do worry that for as good
as this offensive line has been over the last five

(31:32):
or six weeks, that Houston's defensive front is going to
cause them problems. And for as slow as the Steelers
have been to start in some games of late, it's
going to be harder for them to come back in
a hurry like they did against the Ravens, like their

(31:52):
most success throwing the ball down the field all season
long basically has come in two games against Baltimore, and
that's because their secondary has been pretty banged up at
times and they don't have much of a pass rush threat.
I do get concern when I think about the Steelers
offensive line. As much as it's gotten better and it's

(32:13):
been arrow up throughout the second half the season trying
to stop two good pass rushers at once, especially if
they're not in advantageous down in distant situations to begin with.
So that's why I give the Texans the edge. I've
been saying twenty three to twenty Houston in overtime all week,
and I'm not moving off of that.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
Tim dk Metcalf has been reinstated, what is his mind
going to be like going into this game? I mean,
tell me forgetting about the situation that involved in Detroit,
But I mean, has he got his blank together or
is he going to be Is he a highly emotional guy.
You don't know what you're getting from one week to
the next.

Speaker 5 (32:52):
Like I didn't even realize the depths of how many
times he had been fined prior to what happened in Detroit,
but he had like six team finds, you know, for
celebrations or in game face mask incidents or fights with
various players. Like he's always been a hot head. I
knew that was the case with him coming here. But

(33:12):
he's literally yes, sir, no, sir to any question that
he's ever asked by the media. He gets a little
prickly at some questions, but he's always politically correct and
how he answers them, at least on the record, and
then he grumbles a little bit after it. But like
to see him lose it like that in Detroit. Not
stunning based on his history, but it did feel to

(33:35):
be a departure based on what we had seen for
the previous fourteen weeks here, he's been contrite. You know,
he was fourthright in speaking with us earlier this week,
he said all the right thing. He even thanked the
NFL for letting him practice, which was bizarre because I
thought they were a little heavy handed in their discipline

(33:56):
and you didn't get with one of that from him.
I think he was tight lift and how he talked
about the situation because there might be something legal pending there,
but he was even you know, tipping his hat to
the league that suspended him for two games. So he
would think that his head is in the right place.
But I never saw that coming against Detroit, So maybe

(34:17):
I should check myself on that. He has, you know,
gotten some post whistle penalties, and he's still barking at
guys all the time, and you know, you see him
wolf out there a lot during games, and sometimes he
does take it too far, So I don't know how
to answer that question. It feels like that answer should
be yes, but past history tells me probably not. And
if somebody gets under his skin, he could lose it

(34:37):
at any point.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah, sure, all right, Tim, I got two last questions
for you. Aaron's pass rush the Texas will be the
best pass.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Rush he probably sees all season long.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
And don't again, I don't know all seventeen what can
if you were to give him a thirty seconds advice
about going against the Neil Hunter and Will Anderson.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Is it getting rid of the ball quickly? Is it
going through progressions?

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Tell me what Aaron's thinking about this week, going against
a team that has really destroyed a lot of quarterbacks,
namely you know Josh Allen being one particular quarterback.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
Yeah. I think one piece of advice I would give is,
and this is maybe more to Arthur Smith than it
is Aaron Rodgers is don't obsess with keeping Warren and
Gainwell back to Chip, get him out in the flat
quickly and let Rogers be his own pass protector. That
worked out better against the Browns when they did it

(35:30):
that way the first time they played him, versus what
they did against Garrett and the Browns the second time
they played them, where they just obsessed over making sure
Garrett didn't get at Rogers and they kept Gainwell, who's
their team MVP, in to eat blocks the whole time,
and it didn't seem to make sense to me, and
I happen it's as good as Gainwell, is it that
I still have to I think Warren's better at it anyway,

(35:52):
because he's a little bowling ball and you know, as
a good blocker. So I would just they love using
those guys in the flat, they love checking it down
to them. But if they're so obsessed with holding off
those two pass rushers and keeping them in the offensive
backfield to do so, they're not going to get out
in time. And by the time that they do, the
rest of the Texans defense is going to flow over

(36:14):
there and they're going to get very little, even less
than they do in the pass game. So that's what
I would say. I think the advice has to go
to Arthur Smith before it goes to Rogers and just
get those guys out in the flat and get it
out to them quick. All right.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
Last question, My good friend Chris Brown used to kick
for the Steelers. Chris Boswell, Wright's kid has been doing
it for a long time for Pittsburgh. Chris told me
many years ago, Tim, that's the worst place for kickers
to kick field goals is at your stadium. And it's
clearly Baltimore's special teams would probably agree with you on that.
Is it still as bad as it was when Chris
was playing? Is there a decided advantage? And the reason

(36:48):
why I bring this up is because frankly, Kimy Fairbarron
has been as big of a part of the Texans
offense as any receiver or c J. Stroud it's been
for Houston so far this year.

Speaker 5 (36:57):
Oh, and that's been talked about this week. People are
aware of that here too. And I Chris the great deal.
I covered him when I first got on the beat
with the team back in one I think it was
And yeah, the feel was terrible. The field was awful
for the first five years or so, maybe even six
or seven beyond that. But I would say going back

(37:19):
the last handful of years, maybe five six, they've figured
things out with the turf a lot better, you know,
Like I would say, yeah, going back to about twenty
twenty or so, right, around COVID, they started to figure
out the field better. And it's no coincidence that Boswell's
been great over the past few years. And there've been

(37:41):
more long kicks from opposing kickers here too, and they've
closed in the outs, as Chris would remember. The open
end of the stadium has been closed in a little
bit bigger scoreboard. They've changed the seating so it's not
as windy coming in off the open end as when
Chris was kicking here. They did have some issue with
the field earlier in the season. I'm not sure they've

(38:03):
gotten all those right yet. It was an extraordinarily dry
fall here and a little warm late, and then we
had one rainy, cold weekend and that seemed to screw
everything up. And there's a lot of action from Pitt
here earlier in the season. And it's been very snowy
here in December two. So it's not great this year.

(38:24):
But Boswell for the most part has navigated that. Okay,
I think his extra point miss was partially blocked. That
was the way it was in the scorebook. I think
that's right, and I don't know. Luke just pushed it.
So Chris has a great point. He's one hundred percent right.
But I would say in the long time since he's
been here, they've gotten that field much better. In Boswell's

(38:44):
career numbers, if you look at He's got twelve to
the thirteen along the field goals in Akrosser Stadium history,
and that's in large part because the turf has gotten
better and it's easier plant for those kickers.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Now, if you want to follow the Pittsburgh perspective of
this game, lean in next Monday, please go to at
Tim bezpg H. He will give you all what you
need from the Steeler advantage. Tim, thank you for the
time and I'll talk with you on Friday. We appreciate
the visit here this morning.

Speaker 5 (39:09):
Awesome, thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Good stuff there from Tim Benn's You thought that was good.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
Rossick. Guess we're gonna have tomorrow what Matthew one of
the all time goats. Our friend Kevin Harlan's going to
be on the radio program to Marrow Luck. Yeah, I know,
I know, Wow, love it he is doing. I'm glad
he texted you back. He did text me back. I

(39:39):
you know, I got a good text group. Kevin and
I and Eagles have texted me back. Somebody else that
works on the network level at Fox did not. I
don't want to mention his name the rhymes with bark
lay erth after really being very polite to him twice,
not even a return text. Now I go to hell. Now,
can't do it? Sorry, leave me alone. That's fine, it
is what it is. Sorry, Matt. But uh, Kevin harlang

(40:05):
by Steve Tasker, I mean, how low is that he's
not even working for CBS or maybe maybe CBS heard
what you do. That's it's like, you know, you don't
respond back to Ross and now you're out. So Kevin
Harlan's gon to join us at one o'clock tomorrow, very
excited about Oh that's amazing. Now this is interesting. He says, Hey,
we need to do it on zoom audio. We've never
done a zoom adio. Uh oh yeah, that's a Jonathan question.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Well, I told Gordy he's gonna help.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Okay, good, because I just know how to send them
the return audio. We can get his audio. I don't
know how he can hear us. Yeah, I was just
figure that out. Okay, why don't we get on that
right away? Because I don't want to blow this. The
reason why he said this is because I don't want
to put words into Kevin's But Kevin lives has two houses.
He lives in Kansas City during most of the year,

(40:52):
and then he has a cabin in Wisconsin. He grew
up in the Green Bayry. His dad worked for the
packers for a long time. Has he got bad phone service? Well,
he said that exactly. He texted me. He says, my
phone service is very sketchy where we I think he's
got some sort of cabin or something in the middle
of Wisconsin, so maybe that's where they are. Interesting. But
all right, so Jonathan, I'm gonna let you go and

(41:13):
give you the full twenty four notice on that to
make sure you get with Gordy on that. Yeah, by
the way, and there's really no easy segue to this.
This isn't a conversation piece. But the least we can
do is and look, when you hear the term thoughts
in prayers with things, you just go, Okay, everybody says
that that's what people in sports say, but legitimately, thoughts

(41:34):
and prayers to Jordan Shipley terrible terrible accident yesterday. He
got involved in a ranch fire, severely injured. They're saying
burns over thirty percent of his body. His wife just
went to Instagram and just give an update, says he
has a lot of pain.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
He's heavily medicated, sedated.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
They're hoping that it is not the burns, not effect
the lungs and infection or whatnot. But just a terrible,
terrible story. And so I will say this, if you
do pray, If you don't pray, sorry, how about just
good thoughts to Jordan Shipley. He is in a hospital
after recovering from a ranch fire. So much to add.

(42:13):
Just hope he's over. No, you don't, you know? Airlifted
to a hospital in Austin, underwent surgery and face looks good,
hands are salvageable, lungs are clear. Doctors are optimistic about
removing his breathing tube soon. That's good. Yeah, he's forty
years old. We're getting older. Ross. I remember when he

(42:33):
was playing just the other I mean literally just the
other day. I was watching his game. I was at
that game in two thousand and eight when he ran
back the touchdown against Oklahoma in two thousand and eight,
the forty five thirty five game. Yeah, let me say this,
I don't look, I've never rooted much to your hit grin.
I've never rooted against Texas. Now you have. The fans
are obnoxious, but the team itself is good. Who's obnoxious?

Speaker 5 (42:57):
You?

Speaker 2 (42:57):
I'm obnoxious?

Speaker 9 (42:59):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (42:59):
What did I do that?

Speaker 2 (43:00):
It's obnoxious? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Just working with me for all these years, you're the
obnoxious fan.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
And they call me mister levelheaders what they call him?

Speaker 1 (43:11):
All right? Anyway, The point being is, there's been so
many great Texas plays. I mean, so what a great
history of trying to but Jordan Shipley in a rarefied class.
But I mean I grew up watching Major and Ricky
and even the very first time I ever watched a
Texas football game, there was a young man by the
name of Earl Campbell that was burning up and down

(43:32):
the field. So many great quarterbacks, Vince Young the college
basketball football game of all time, all time games. So
it's just made me thinking about all the great Texas
games I've seen over the years. I still was shipping
down a lot of concussions in this for his NFL.
I think his NFL career was pretty short. Yeah, a
lot of injuries and concussions, I think.

Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yeah, uh.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
And I still and again, I'm in the minority in
this ROSSI I still want A and M Texas on
Thanksgiving Night. It's never gonna happen again because NFL dominates
football on Thanksgiving Night the day after.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
It's good, it's the problem.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
It's good.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
It's just not great.

Speaker 1 (44:09):
Okay, I just want to I love tra College football
is running from the NFL. I know they're like the
semi games are on like a Thursday and Friday there
and then you do play another ten games ten days after.
There's zero buzz for these these semi final gamesh Well,
the ratings have been pretty good. They have, considering considering

(44:31):
they're getting squashed by Rando Saturday, non playoff NFL teams playing.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
And it's Miami, Ole, Miss and Oregon, Indiana.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Not not the uh not the thoroughbreds of college love
the nil era.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
By the way, I'm sure you do. It's all right.
I gotta let of diversity now in the final fours.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
Yeah, I don't know if Indiana is gonna Yeah, I
don't know if it's going to carry the big ten
part of the country. Well, it probably not. But did
you see they just they just got a big check
from Mark Cuban.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Yes, they how much was it?

Speaker 5 (45:00):
We know?

Speaker 1 (45:00):
I don't think it's said, but I think it's in
the million. I think it's actually I think it's one million.
So a quarter of the quarterback salary. Can I be
petty about that?

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Why we'll do it?

Speaker 10 (45:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (45:11):
What do you want?

Speaker 5 (45:12):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Petty? Okay, be petty petty? EMT Penny MT. That's shocking,
He's stop. It is eleven o'clock on Sports Talk seven ninety.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Is the Matt Thomas Show with.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Ross eleven oh four on Sports Talk seven ninety. Ross
is in Houston, Matt, that's me.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
I'm in Portland. I was just thinking about this.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
You know, the last time that I was in studio
and you were on the roll, I think it was
during the Astros playoffs correct, probably in when I was
in Arlington.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Yeah, when you and Gordy were going on your vacation tour.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, not a vacation tour. I'm just kidding. Jesus, I
knew that was gonna get that response. F for you.
You're so ridiculous. Gordy did have to take a lot
of vacation were you in It's like there was like
one trip he went on with Michael Bonner. Then there
they had like an extra day off in Philly or
something like that, and they took a picture of the
Liberty Bell. And you've been bringing it up for like,

(46:08):
I don't know, six five, what is it now? Five years? Now?
It feels about right to continue to do that, all right,
So here comes petty emt. Let's go all right. So
and look, every school that wants to play big boy
sports has to have big boy money, right, I mean
that just there's no reality. Like when we needed to
rebuild our basketball program, Tilman for Tita cut a check

(46:30):
for twenty million.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Dollars and that's named after him.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Now yeah, I mean I would do that too if
I had twenty million dollars, I'd name it the Thomas
Stadium whatever, you know whatever. They named the urinal after
I believe they did. And the water fountain of TDC
Stams got my name on it. Yeah, that's the Rusty one. Okay.
If you Mark Cuban sold the Mavericks for three and
a half billion dollars, yes, you're giving a million. That's

(46:55):
it to Indiana, the school that got you supposedly were
on your feet. It's a million dollars. You're scoffing at
a million dollar donation a little bit? Could he afford more?

Speaker 2 (47:11):
And I think I don't think this is his first donation.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
By the way, You're probably right, And that's what I'm saying,
And that's why I wanted to preface it, because I
don't believe it's the first time. He might be. I
wonder if he's the one behind all this. I don't
even know. I would need somebody. I mean, Indiana obviously
has come out of nowhere. How much of this is
nil driven. We talk about it a lot with Cody
Campbell in Texas Tech, but it's got to be somewhat
the case with Indiana because frankly, think about this Ross.

(47:35):
Cody Campbell is out there. He wants you to know
he's contributing. That's the philosophy they have. I would be
like that too. I wouldn't be someone that if I'm
cutting ten million dollar checks to get my football program
into the national championship, I want some credit too, right,
because I mean, honestly, University of Houston Ross is doing
very well in the portal, are they? Yes? Oh you

(47:57):
anonymous donor Matthew Bamas.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Well, my point is this.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
I don't know if Tilman's dropping any more money, but
I'm going to presume he's helping a little bit. I mean,
have we don't have five hundred people that are in
his wealth category. Yeah, most of age graduates are like
Chick fil A managers, just good money, good benefits.

Speaker 2 (48:19):
I thought this was a New York resolution.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
You know what, You're you know what, because you said
you reminded me how much Cougars fans hate me. So
now I'm being more vicious and you know what, that's wrong,
and I'm gonna apologize and I'm gonna I'm gonna lay back.
I was a joke, folks. University of Houston a wonderful institution.
And by the way, Chick fil A management good money,
That's what I said. Good bennies too. Oh my god,

(48:41):
you don't work Sundays ever? Yeah? Literally ever, literally They're like,
we don't get we'll charge hey, I'll buy, I will
go to your restaurant and buy fifty thousand chicken sandwiches. Nope,
we don't care. We're closing on Sundays. They're like a
top three chain in America, and they don't They're only
opened six days a week.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
That's incredible. Yeah, point being, Yeah, I would.

Speaker 1 (49:05):
I would probably if I was making the money and
was able to spend I would make sure you knew
where it was coming from. Yes, Cody Campbell, when Cody
when the Raiders came to play the Cougars at TDC
Steam ROSSI he walked around like he was a rock star.
And all he's done is give money. Like he's not
an actor. He doesn't doesn't host a show, doesn't to

(49:27):
have a podcast. He just got in the oil and
gas business, made a blank ton of money and then
spend it on the school that he loves.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
But he's a rock star, you should be.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
I just sometimes I see these gigantic billionaires giving like
chump change and I'm like, come on now, step it
up just a little bit. Yeah. So I tweeted the
uh shade on the Bingo card. You know what, I'm
catering to this Bingo card too much. I need to
mute it. Yeah, back up, Yeah, you're too funny. Uh,

(50:00):
I love it only on sports talks and we have
shut your bostuff coming up at the.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Bottom of the earth.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
Uh oh, this feels like to me, now we have
the three of us have not been together on a
shut show for quite a while. This is kind of
like pent up shut show. We gotta have to have
some Christmas issues real New Year's. Don't you think fireworks
coming people put in your family did not make you
mad during the Christmas hollween I don't have any, So

(50:23):
well that's nice. The Villa Reale family get along, then
that's really good. Yeah, I'll come up with something. I guess.
I'm still mad at that old lady at the blackjack
table who was getting mad at me for playing correctly
and then and then stayed on a thirteen against a ten.
M So when I give you my stories, you just

(50:45):
nod your head. You may be saying Matt with her
this before we're tired of hearing it, But just acknowledge
it and just pretend like you care about me, Okay,
because I generally care about you and the people that
you play blackjack with. I don't think you do. I
do seven to one to three two one two five
seven ninety seven one three two one two five seven
ninety We'll have such a ball mess up. Ain't nobody
got time for that coming up at the bottom of

(51:07):
the hour. I'm still and again, look that we're not.
We're not at the Raven station. But I am still
stunned that John Harbaugh got fired. I just I He's
a winner, he just is. And maybe this was player driven.
Maybe this was we need to change, a changing of
the guard.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
How often do we see this?

Speaker 1 (51:25):
And would have to take us to look back of
teams that fire coaches after being there forever, and it
always works out or in in the long run, it
gets better. Now when guys retire, it's one thing. If
guys want to quit because they've said it's their time,
that's that's certainly an issue. But John Harball doesn't want

(51:48):
to stop coaching. John Harball would have loved to have
State to be the Baltimore Ruts, And which you said earlier,
made a lot of sense. If Loop's kick he goes through,
that's a Baltimore Raven team getting ready to host the
techin the next Monday night, not the Pittsburgh Steelers. It's
funny how how it works, how thin the margins are
in the NFL or in life. Really, meanwhile, you have

(52:11):
a team in the cult. Oh by what did you
I give you a homework assigning yesterday? Did you listen
to the video I forgot.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
No, you didn't send me the long version.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Oh man, all right, I'll do it.

Speaker 2 (52:21):
I looked for it. I couldn't.

Speaker 1 (52:22):
I couldn't find anything more than thirty seconds. Yeah, there's
a two and a half clip out there that just
looks like, well, here's the thing that people are also
saying is that when you keep a coach, why why
do you have a press conference to keep people? Is
that because you're thinking, you're trying to justify your decisions. Yeah,

(52:43):
I think I mean for a message to the fans,
because the fans are upset. I actually like getting in
front of Like, if the fans are upset and you
want to address them, that's cool. No, I was gonna
actually say before you stepped in. I think it's actually
a pretty I mean, yeah, I like my owners to speak. Now,
some of them don't know what they're talking about, but

(53:03):
some do. I mean when Jim Crane had that way
that press conference we carried on Monday with EMI signing,
that was the first time we've seen Jim Crane in
a long time, and he gave.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Us some thoughtful reflection on you know, look, let's be frank. Uh.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
He said, Look, the Japanese market's been owned by the
Mariners and the Angels and the Dodgers and the Giants,
and there's an un we we should get some of
that as well. We have a relationship with Dyke and
Park that's a Japanese company that's you know that there's
a that's a that's a part of the world that
can help us with it. Kind of gave us some
perspective of why things are done the way they are.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
And I like that.

Speaker 1 (53:45):
I like when now Cal and Hannah have not come
over to our station and and never will, and that's fine,
but I think people like to hear from their owners.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
And and Tillman's now obviously busy doing.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
His ambassadorship thing, but we had Patrick on during Medida
and it was gonna cool to get his perspective on things.
I don't again, I don't think you have to have
town meetings or have weekly radio shows like Jerry Jones does,
because all that does is just make you look sound stupid.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
That's great, but it is kind.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Of cool to hear from the owners once in a
while because they show a human aspect and even though
they are gazillionaires and people are kind of crushing the
way that her presentation was. I do give her flowers
for at least saying I'm coming out and here are
the reasons why I'm keeping my general manager and my
head coach.

Speaker 6 (54:33):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Yeah, I'll try to watch it. I'll find it. I guess,
may I help you? This is this is twenty is
twenty three minutes. Maybe the opening statement was to and
a half been. All right, I found the whole thing
in the cults. I'll watch it. Yeah, we got a
break coming up. All right, Well, we want you to
think about who you're gonna tell them to shut your
boss up at the bottom of the hour, So be

(54:55):
ready for that.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
I be her. I bet your colt fans are because
the reply is wrong.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
US are not spectacular, and I would think Indianapolis people
are generally a nice group of people.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
Comments are not nice Indiana people.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
I mean, do you when you if I'm not trying
to stereotype things here, but if I'm going to stereotype,
I would not think among the rudest states in the country.
I don't think Indiana's on my top five list, you
know what I mean? Yeah, they seem pleasant. Who's the
nicest Hawaiians? Although they hate people who come like the tourists, right, no, no, no,
no no no, don't don't don't. Yeah, erase that Hawaii
is is low key, really rude Alaskans. I'm trying to

(55:32):
think of who's nice. Alaskans would be they stay in
their house because it's always saying, so they can't be mean.
Who is the nicest state in the I would say
I'd put Texas in the top five.

Speaker 2 (55:42):
Yeah, we're pretty nice. I don't count Twitter.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
I'm just saying generally speaking, I think Louisiana people are nice.

Speaker 2 (55:51):
Well, yeah, they're drunk, they're happy drunks.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Yeah, but they're always one of the you know, offer
you food and heavy carbs with your meal.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Who else will be nice? George, it seems nice.

Speaker 1 (56:04):
Wyoming? Oh, well, Homing seems very nice. They're just happy
you showed up. Yes, they're like, you really want to
come hang out with us? Yeah, come on in this
TV show we used to have on here. Yeah, it's
helping out our our tourist industry. Come on in, pretend
like you're a cattle rancher for six days. We'll charge
you four dollars a night. Welcome. Oh, but Hawaii, new, new, new, new,

(56:28):
New No, No, New worst place my wife has ever
been to for a basketball and football game. Where was
in the state of Hawaii. I could see that just
yelling at the players, I mean one racial and ethnic
slur at really other.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Oh my god, bad, bad, bad bad.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
All right, eleven fifteen, we got to shut your ball
mass up at the bottom of the hour seven one
three two one two five seven ninety seven one three
two one two five seven ninety eleven nineteen, it's about
time to show with Ross. Let's talk to some people.
Seven seven ninety. This is funny Ross. Do you see
what line two says? Yeah? What about Idaho?

Speaker 9 (57:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (57:14):
What about Idaho? Steve? How nice are the people in Idaho?

Speaker 2 (57:20):
They are extremely nice.

Speaker 11 (57:21):
I was up there a couple of years ago because
my dog's in the Air Force and she was stationed
in Mountain Home in Boise, and we were there for
the Air Force Boise football game and they found out
we were from Houston written for the Air Force, and
they just talked to us the entire game. They're very pleasant,
and I think it's just because of the weather and

(57:42):
everybody's just extremely nice up there.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
All right, Steve, thank you for that. I have been
to Boise probably, I don't know, three or four times
in my life, and really it's very pleasant.

Speaker 5 (57:55):
Up.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
Yeah, that's kind of a I think it's kind of
a hot been for people moving there, people who are
trying to leave California and Denver and places in that
are getting super expensive. Yep, Boise has become one of
the hotbeds for transplants Idaho, Arizona and Texas. I think
about three hot spots for California's leaving. Yes, yes, I
think if yes, Phoenix, Austin, Boise, stuff like that, and

(58:20):
I cannot I cannot add any more to this, but uh,
producer of the Michael Barrett Show, Ramon Robot, has had
a great experience in Boise many years ago. Okay, back
of the phones, we go hashtag sockdor I believe that
is that. Okay, that's that's Zach.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
I've been on this show a long time.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
Maddie. I didn't bring up the sock, but that's that's you.
And by the way, just to let y'all know, the
sock thing still is in play, because when you saw
someone I've never seen any but not in recently, I
guess no, but one of our traveling members of our
crew didn't believe the sock and opened the or anyway.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
What why would you not believe it?

Speaker 3 (59:03):
No?

Speaker 2 (59:03):
I was ing that on accident.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
No no, no, no, no, no with somebody else.

Speaker 6 (59:07):
Not you.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
I just mean you, the royal you. Oh, I see
in general you Why would you not believe that? M
I just know when that was when when the sock
was on the door, I turned around. Oh my gosh, okay, sorry,
I don't know why I reacted out loud, but I
just saw funny tweet. Uh, there's the red the the

(59:30):
Auburn wide receiver is visiting Lubbock and somebody on a
Red Raider message board put please no common or smell
today in Lubbock. Well you know what this is? In
all honesty, I think text Tech will be the first
admit this. They have to overpay, yeah, I think I
think is the the extra price tag and code. It's like,

(59:50):
it's okay, I mean, I'm fine whatever. We got to
see it p this year. We have been never been
there before. Mm hmm. By the way, a husband and wife,
just a guy and a girl just proposed on let's
make a deal, and she said, yes, oh that's beautiful.
Would you propose to your girl on a game show, No,

(01:00:12):
unless you were really into it and like y'all always
watched it together, Like if you and your lady are
always watching the game show, let's make a deal. It
was fun special, you know some people like to have
those really bizar not bizarre.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
How did you do it? I think I've told you
this before. I was really sick.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Yeah, I was going to say that I was going
to I was going to joke that you weren't you
on your deathbed? Is in the recesses of my brain.
I was had a high fever and a cold. I
was at my in law's house and I was upstairs
in a spare bedroom, and you were hallucinating.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Your words, not mine.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
December thirty one, nineteen ninety six, at about eleven fifty five,
somewhere in that range. And I got the ring and
I talked to her dad obviously beforehand, and I proposed
to her. She said yes, she kissed me, and I
went back to sleep. It was the most comactic engagement ever.
And you thought it was Marissa Tomey from my cousin Vinnie.
I thought it was Pamela Anderson from Daywatch Nights. That

(01:01:12):
was a show back then. Yeah, Baywatch Nights didn't do
so hot.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
I don't believe it did not.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
They watched Daytime, great Bay watched Nights not so hot,
Case Woods on seven and eight.

Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
Kso how are things.

Speaker 8 (01:01:24):
Hey, Matt, what's going on?

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
You're in Portland, Yes, sir man.

Speaker 8 (01:01:28):
Oregon is one of my favorite states in the country.
It is the absolute one of the most beautiful places
I've ever been. Actually, one of my buddies from Houston
moved up to Oregon for college like fifteen years ago
and met a girl. They got married and had a kid,
and he never came back to Texas. And they're in

(01:01:49):
this little town called the Dows, which is about like
an hour outside of Portland, and then between the Dolls
in Portland is multi Numo Falls. You ever heard of that?

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
I've heard of it, but I've never been.

Speaker 8 (01:02:02):
It's just basically the old highway in Oregon that takes
you by I think twelve waterfalls and it is one
of the most beautiful routes I've ever been on my wife,
it's it's honestly awesome. So, uh, I was wondering if
Ross has ever been on the Multinuma Falls drive.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
No, I have not. I've been to Oregon, I've been
in the I've been on the Oregon Coast like Florence, and.

Speaker 8 (01:02:25):
Man, the Oregon Coast is just as.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
Good at the California when I did the mid coast,
not the uppers or lower. But I want to go
back and do like the lower coast and the upper coast.

Speaker 8 (01:02:35):
I think it's it's called Mount Hood. I think it's
the only all not only, but one of the only
all year round ski resources that they have a track
through off the Columbia River Gorge. I don't know. It's
absolutely beautiful, and it's true what you say about Idaho.
A lot of people from California. Now, I know a
lot of people in Idaho are pissed at the Californians

(01:02:56):
because they send a lot of their drug rehabs and
in Cisco they send them on a bus to Idaho.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
So they all get pretty mad.

Speaker 8 (01:03:05):
They're sending the final San Francisco and Idaho and they're
just beef and hard right now. So that's that's something
I've learned. But I wanted to call uh for mister
Texas and mister America. What are what are your what
are you looking for tonight? Matchup for Rockets in Portland.

(01:03:29):
Who are you looking at? What positions are are we analyzing?
And who do you think can be maybe you know,
with LP being out, a surprise juice to the team
for tonight because Portland's not a not a great team,
They're not a bad team. This is the NBA. You
can catch a lost on any day, as we seem
to lot. Uh what what what are you? What are

(01:03:50):
you looking for tonight? And Matt and I'll hang up
and listen.

Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
Thanks guys, thank you ky so good to hear from you.
I'm looking for Kevin Durant to continue to score at
thirty points a game and make a three point shot
and go to the free throw on a bunch of times.
Look the injury list for the Rockets, no aut me tonight,
No surprise there. It's gonna be other probably least a
week and a half inb be two weeks. The Blazers
are beset by terrible and everybody. I was checking earlier

(01:04:13):
because I'm doing pre game, and I was like, it's
they got like eight people on the list. I mean,
Jeremy Grant, Scooter Ederson, Drew Holliday, Damian Lillard, matistaieball. Chris
Murray now is listed is doubtful with low back soreness
and he didn't score a whole lot, but he's a
starter for them at least at this point. They don't
shoot well. I don't even know why they've won any games.
There's they don't do anything particularly well. Uh, well, they've

(01:04:38):
got they got a big guy, Donovan Klingon who blocks
a lot of shots, so I would expect maybe the
perimeter game to be a key and the Rockets guy.
Here's the thing for me, real quick, ross is they
got get their three point mojo back. They have not
shot well from three of the last two games. Yeah,
that would be nice. And yeah Portland's won five of
the last six. They have been now at least early
on in the season. I haven't checked the numbers lately,

(01:04:59):
and this would be a question for Ema A Dooka.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
They have been.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
One of the things that have been in vogue this
year in the NBA has been the full court pressure.
So I think we could see more full court pressure.
But like I said, I haven't checked lately. I don't
know if that was under Billips and now Thiago Splitter.
I don't know if he's continued that, but they've been
doing a lot of full court pressure, which can tire
teams out and cause a lot of turnovers, which can
be a concern with the Rockets, who, as you know, Matt,

(01:05:23):
are turnover prone.

Speaker 2 (01:05:25):
They are turnover prone.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
I'm looking right now, look at this, at the at
the numbers for the stats for how team you know,
how things go, and again with you have a when
you have a team that's set by injuries, maybe the
numbers are a little skewed. They they they're twenty first
in field goal percentage, they're twenty ninth in free throw percentage,
they're twenty fourth in UH or fourteenth and get with
three point percentage. They just don't do anything well. I mean,

(01:05:48):
they're lousy, middle of the pack and everything. But yet
they've been able to win some basketball games. Clintland's been
pretty good, Shaton Sharp's played well. UH And the reality
is this ross and this is the thing that probably
bugs Mean or anything else about this young season the Rockets.
And I don't think it bothers ma. I'm sure he's
not pleased, but it's not like you can't sleep at
night over this. I think the Rockets have six losses

(01:06:09):
against the five worst teams in the Western Conferences. Hmmm.
Remember early on this season we're like, they don't have
a bad loss. That was the fun times we're gonna get.
You know what this is. It's a revenge tour. Oh
is that what's happening? Okay, Zach Reno on Sunday? All right,
that has been playing very well. Yeah, da, what did

(01:06:30):
I say? I don't know, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
It was close. Look, I just call him d Man Denny.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
Now it's d E and I by the way, So yeah,
all right, real quick before we get to believe it
or not to uh, shut your bump mass up. Believe
it or not? You got to you got two options today,
what yep? Now, if you can think of something better,
you're more than welcome to choose yourself on this one. Okay. Uh.
Kymie Fairbird was named Special Teams Player of the Week
in the AFC, as he should have been when his

(01:07:00):
when his foot is thriving for overuse, it should be
the AFC Special Teams Player of the Week. Six vehicles. Uh,
he can be our believe it or not. Today, we
I don't think we've ever done in Kyami, have we?
Maybe a couple questions when he was drafted. I mean,
or this is the one you gotta go with. I'm

(01:07:21):
gonna make you you know what. I'm gonna put his
full name in there, make you say it. Adam Clinton,
who just texted me today, Happy birthday, Happy seventy eighth
birthday to Kenny Loggins, one of the all time great
yacht rockers. You know what? He texted me some some

(01:07:42):
yacht rock tweet yesterday. Yeah, it was glorious. I'm sure
it was about George Benson. Yeah, a yacht rock legend.
Terrible made up genre, not real. George Benson didn't say,
you know what, you know what, I'm one of the
great yacht rock artists. I'm gonna make a good ye
rock album. I'm up for the Grammy for yacht Rock

(01:08:02):
of the Album of the Year. No I think, no, no, no,
he did. All right, you know what, I'm ready for
next segment. Shut your ball, mass up is up next.
Sounds like Ross's locking loaded. St Schmadam, schmanten. You're yeah,
you're ready, Smanton, Smanton, You're in trouble. Seven one three
two one two five seven ninety seven one three two

(01:08:25):
one two five seven honey, shut your ball mass up.
Ain't nobody got time for that. It's next year on
seven ninety care Let again here, let.

Speaker 12 (01:08:32):
Me again, here, let again, tamp it, let again, tamp
care let again, damp here, let again here, let me
get here, let me again, damp.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
Are you all out there? It's our favorite half hour
of the week. It lets you say what you need
to say without any repercussion, right, Ross, I wouldn't say
without any repercussions, that's true. Let's you yeah, well blow
off some steam. Yeah, cathartic Yeah, seven one to three.

(01:09:08):
It's the most cathartic thirty minutes of major market radio.
Seven one three two one two five seven NINTI seven
one three two one two five SEVENINTI. If somebody at
the office hmm is just going on and on and
on about that great New Year's Eve they had where
they watched movies and they popped popcorn and they stayed
up to do fireworks, and then they got up the
next morning and had black eyps and they talked about

(01:09:30):
watching all the game and it was this long drawn
out conversation about New Year's where everybody does the same thing.
Tell me, nobody get time for your New Year's Eve conversations.

Speaker 12 (01:09:39):
Hey, nobody get time for.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
Day, or in a particular case where someone cuts you
off on the way to the airport yesterday, or if
someone is ragging on your school, or someone is ragging
on your expertise in food or the way that you
travel across the grein lone Star state, you tell them
to shut their b asses up. Man, shits O, bum

(01:10:02):
ass up man.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
It seems wildly specific. It seems targeting.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
One two one two five seven seven one three two
one two five seven Nutty Ross, what is the matter
with you?

Speaker 5 (01:10:13):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
Yeah, you know what I will go ask sm Adam
Schmanten sending me a text yesterday. It was from some
some account called I'm trying to find it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:24):
It is like yacht rock Daily, and it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:26):
Was about George Benson recording the Breezen album. George Benson
was not recording a yacht rock album. Don't send me
yacht rock stuff just to make me angry, even though
it worked, Adam Clinton. I don'tant to hear from you,
Matt or Adam Clinton about this made up, ridiculous genre.

Speaker 4 (01:10:43):
Shut your bum asses up. Shits o, bum ass up, man,
It's not real. Shits o, bum ass up man.

Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
Yot rock. George Benson is relaxing in his home in
Palm Springs or San Diego, Phoenix. I don't know, but
I'm thinking he's probably going, you know what, whatever pays
the bills.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
Oh yeah, he's taking the royalty checks.

Speaker 1 (01:11:11):
And it absolutely if Breaden's making the hot rock channel, he's.

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Got zero issues with that. Mm okay, all right, there
you go. So that is yours.

Speaker 1 (01:11:26):
Jonathan got more, but we can rotate. We can go
on a carousel, Jonathan carousel to me. You know, this
might be this might be a zoomer, a young take.
But every time I go to the gas station wherever
I'm at, and I go to the pump, there needs
to be a Apple pay or a Google pay there. Okay,

(01:11:48):
Ain't nobody has time to go into the cast, go
to cashier or for your chip reader not to be
working and it says on the side or the top
of the screen, please see a cashier after I already paid.
Ain't nobody got time for that. I'm play some new thing.

Speaker 7 (01:12:01):
Nobody you know, Uh, Wally Warton needs to done that too,
But I'm not trying to go. Let's I have cash right,
but it's a new day and aids, it's twenty twenty six. Everybody,
every pump needs something. I can just boom tap and
I go and it's better but better business that way anyway.

Speaker 1 (01:12:15):
Anybody got time for that? Nobody, I'm gonna go to
the opposite. If you're not willing to take my cash,
leave me alone, even but I got time for that.
People use cash at twenty twenty six. I'm sorry to
tell you that these places that are cash list, do
they really people like cash? Cash is never going to

(01:12:37):
go away, but don't exclude us cash lovers.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
Like when I travel with the wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
What are you a drug kingpins cash use You're the
only person I know walking around with cash and coins.
They call me Captain Cash. They'll tell you, mister seventeen cents.
I'm I'm going to lunch today and I'm paying cash.
Deal with it. Good luck? All right? Back to you,
Ross uh So I put out we were talking yesterday

(01:13:05):
and I said, the Texans are making the AFC Championship game.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Yes, because you are battle at Ross.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
So I put that out on my Twitter account at
sports RV and you know, I know, I tweet for
people who follow me I tweet for people who are
Houston centric, and somehow this ended up in the four
you tab of Pittsburgh Steeler fan.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
Oh sorry for your loss.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
So I'm getting a lot of who is this idiot?
You're the worst. I'm boot marking this. We're worth the
falsities in this. And you know what, Steeler Fan, I'm
not tweeting for you. I'm tweeting for my Houston people.
Shut you, b apples, shuts your my messages up. Shits
O Steeler fan. There's no reason for you to be
coming into my mention. I'm muting all of you. First

(01:13:46):
of all, I'm trying to talk to my Houston people
about the Houston Texans come in into Pittsburgh and beating
your ass.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
I don't need.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
Gifts of Aaron Rodgers fizz pumping, all right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 12 (01:13:58):
Hey, nobody got to put it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
Just remember I don't stereotype, but if I was going
to the average Pittsburgh fan is probably thirty to forty
pounds overweight, They have high cholesterol levels, they probably have
a second chin.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
They probably work overnight shifts eighty percent of the time.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
I think's wrong with that, But just saying they're just
late night shiftworkers, and the women are got like Harry mustaches.
Some of them, not all of them, but some of them.
Cit obum mass up man. I'm staying out of that one.
That's if I was a stereotype. But we don't stereotype
here on them.

Speaker 12 (01:14:37):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
Actually, Pittsburgh's underrated town. I still want to go to
a baseball game there because it looks like it's now grand.
We could goodbye an entire section if we wanted to.
At PNC Park. It's pirates have suck for like thirty years,
ever since Sid Breeman was rounding third and they're safer out.
I forget he was safe. Barry bounds to this like

(01:15:01):
lollipop out from the left field. Sid Bream was maybe
the slowest. Was it sid Bream? I think it was
Sidbreams scrinding third one't it Bream? I want to say, yeah,
But the Atlanta Braves he was a former pirate too, the.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Two n lcs. I'm just kidding. Who yeah, who rounded third?
Was it Sidney?

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
Okay? Yeah? I had this card. He Sidbream runs a
fourteen four forty and Barry Bonds couldn't throw him out
all time. Mustache by the way, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
Big time.

Speaker 1 (01:15:33):
All right. Uh, let's see what I think I'm I
think I'm good. Yeah, captain, I am captain cash. I
appreciate cash. I like cash. I want to use it.
I want to have the option if I want to
use a credit card credit card. I use it when
I'm in Vegas or at a casino in Lake Charles.
And that's it. I don't use it ever, all right,
anybody want to come in with any complaints. It's good

(01:15:55):
for tip jars for bands when you're going to live music.
I like to have cash on me too. You'll be
proud of me.

Speaker 2 (01:16:00):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
I don't ever take change anymore, Like I wouldn't got
a crossop this morning, and I really there was eighty
cents change. I just gave it to the tip jar.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
All eighty cents.

Speaker 1 (01:16:11):
That's medium. I think it's over fifty. You got to
keep it. That's adding up. No, it's like that's the
least I can, I mean the very least I could do. Okay, shit,
so mass up man for tipping somebody. That's not nice seat.
I've actually praised oh for tipping. I was thinking you
were I don't know. I was thinking about the the
take a penny, leave a penny. Oh no, no, By

(01:16:31):
the way, they're not making pennies anymore for that. Anybody
got time for that? I like pennies. Oh my god,
I'm getting more tweets from Pennsylvania. How did this? How
did this end up in the Steelers for you? Tab?

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
This is so annoying?

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
Hey, everybody, do me a favorite glasses tweet at sports
in the Steelers fan form. Yeah, it's got forty five bookmarks,
so it's forty five Steelers. Be coming after me after
you there ready? If you're a bookmark guy, I want
to hear from you. If I'm right, all right, what

(01:17:06):
did you say? Don't beat chicken ho shuts my messes
up because you're trying to bookmark me and trying to
got you if I'm wrong. But what if I'm right,
I'm gonna I'm gonna quote you it right now. You ask, Oh,
I am going to do it right now. This is.

Speaker 2 (01:17:25):
Gonna mute the conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
You can't. We're creeping towards it down. You I can't.
Can you can you mute by one tweet? I guess
you could, right.

Speaker 2 (01:17:35):
Seven ninety ployees have been muted before.

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
Can you name one of them seven seven ninety All right,
we come back. We got Ray wants to tell somebody
each other about myself. Plus we have a story about
a x NFL player suing his soon to be ex
wife for a description of their love life. Hmmm, is

(01:18:02):
that a professional radio teas right there? Yes, very primais.
The story is a little blue. So if your kids
are being homeschool today, you may want to maybe take
a segment off. Eleven forty five on Sports Talk seven
ninety seven one three two one two five seven ninety
seven one three two one two five seven nine.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
Zero Shut your ball mass up? Anybody got time for that?

Speaker 1 (01:18:26):
Eleven fifty here on seven ninety we talked to Ray
in Miami on The Matt Thomas Show with Ross Rey.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
Good morning to you. What's the matter with you?

Speaker 5 (01:18:34):
Oh?

Speaker 9 (01:18:34):
Nothing wrong.

Speaker 5 (01:18:35):
I just want to tell Odell Betham sets your.

Speaker 6 (01:18:38):
Bum ass up and you can live off one hundred
million dollars.

Speaker 9 (01:18:42):
It's not our fault.

Speaker 11 (01:18:43):
Your bond ferraris and mansions for everybody and thirty million entourages.

Speaker 8 (01:18:48):
You really need to shut your bum ass up.

Speaker 6 (01:18:50):
Ain't nobody got time for you coming on podcasts saying
you can't live off.

Speaker 5 (01:18:55):
One hundred million dollars in your lifetime.

Speaker 6 (01:18:59):
You're a.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
H sit so massed up, man. I don't think I
know the whole story to it, but it sounds like
he was complaining about the amount of money that is
taxed by rich players and how it's not as much
as it would be.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
Yeah, I did what.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
I'm googling it right now, and apparently he was like,
twenty million dollars isn't that much after tax?

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
And I get is he broke?

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
I guess, mmm, I don't know. Maybe he's just not
as financially well off as we thought he was going
to be. He suggested living off of twenty million dollars
a year is a challenge, that's a fire.

Speaker 2 (01:19:35):
Can you make that last forever? I would say, yes,
you can. Yeah. You know what's so crazy? It's like
twelve million dollars.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
He says that you have to spend to use, save,
invest and flaunt.

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
Flawning is a huge part of it. I get that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:58):
I think I could make it work. I think I
could too. You know, I did a game that up
for the challenge. We'll take twelve million dollars a year,
I did. I did a game for Odell Beckham Senior.
Did you know that you did? Yeah, he was a
former Houston Thunderberry slash textas.

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
And this is the leather helmets they were wearing. Correct.

Speaker 1 (01:20:16):
Okay, that's not nice. You know what. I wasn't gonna
tweet your thing about the That's that's fine. I muted
the conversation. Thank you, Jonathan. Jonathan shout jobs up, said
it all right, we're gonna we're gonna get this in

(01:20:39):
real quick because it's a little bit of a blue story.
And so I'm not gonna like a blue Christmas no,
like blue is in uh PG thirteen even close to
ar But again, it's a it's a non family friendly story. Okay,
Matt Khalil is divorcing his wife. She is a former

(01:21:02):
sports illustrated bottle. Oh oh no, this is an older story.
I thought I'm seeing this one as of today January seven,
twenty twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
Okay, well the.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
This is not a fake, it's not a fixed story. No, no,
this is cost real all right, let me stay stay
with me just for a minute here, ladies and gentlemen. Again,
this is I'm going to keep this as news newsy
as possible, not like the news in noon but just
generally newsing. So Matt Khalil is seeking a jury trial
and damages of more than seventy five thousand dollars per

(01:21:41):
TMC in the wake of his ex wife, Haley Khalil's
comments that she made on a live broadcast and the
comment was about the size of his manhood. On a
Twitch video last year, the former SI model described.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
His you know what.

Speaker 1 (01:22:04):
As quote two coke cans, maybe even a third, detailing
that intimacy issues was one of the reasons for the
breakdown of their marriage. What Khalil has said, by what
Khalil was a former Viking and a former panther. What
Khalil has said is that because that those comments were made,

(01:22:28):
he has been subjected to quote unwarranted attention in an
invasive commentary from the public, while his family has quote
been forced to endure the ongoing public circulation of these
degrading and deeply personal statements. Gailey has been slapped in
a lawsuit, and she says, quote she's generally genuinely shocked

(01:22:49):
and incredibly hurt by the allegations. Incredibly hurt. You know
I see how that could cause a big divide in
their relationship. It explain.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
I think it's.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
Shits. Oba asks up, man, I really a can't I
just gave you, gave you this as a news. I
don't want to necessarily get into a deep dive onto
to who's right and who's wrong about this suing for
invasion of privacy. But the description, my god, I mean,

(01:23:38):
we all know what that description looks like. And we're
moving on.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
How about those astros in the offseason move seven one three?

Speaker 1 (01:23:52):
We got Tim? We got Tim on hold? I know,
I know, I see, Okay, Thank god Tim's calling Lord,
because if Tim was not calling, what I had three
more minutes of awkwardness. Yeah, that's a say. It's sad
their relationship got fractured like that.

Speaker 2 (01:24:11):
I guess she wants coke zero.

Speaker 12 (01:24:12):
Now, hey, nobody get to today.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
He'll stop.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
Let's stop. Okay, So don't use my tall boy reference.

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
Far two leader.

Speaker 5 (01:24:29):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:24:33):
Tim is with us eleven fifty six on The Matt
Thomas Show with Ross Tim.

Speaker 2 (01:24:37):
What's the matter with you?

Speaker 9 (01:24:40):
Uh?

Speaker 10 (01:24:40):
I just want to say, can you hear me?

Speaker 1 (01:24:42):
Yes?

Speaker 8 (01:24:45):
Uh?

Speaker 10 (01:24:46):
Matt, I have praised you for two things over my
entire life. I'm just a longtime listener follow recu Russa.
It's just like an uber driver in the back of
my mind.

Speaker 6 (01:24:57):
But I love this. Just take on it.

Speaker 10 (01:25:01):
The two things you said in my lifetime that both matter.
One is today you pay with cash, and I love that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:09):
Cash is king.

Speaker 10 (01:25:11):
The other thing, the other thing that happened about ten
years ago. I was up in Tulsa, uh a Quiznos,
and I ordered a sandwich and they burned it like
nobody's business in the airport. And then the next day
I heard you on the radio. You're like widows overfills

(01:25:34):
everything in the airport at Tulsa. So between those two things,
I'm a lifelong follower and I'll have do this. But
thank you for these good advice.

Speaker 2 (01:25:42):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:25:44):
Bread at quiz Nos, you just can't the Quiznos doesn't
even exist anymore? Right? How many are they? I don't
think so like three? You know what was also, I've
also told you this about that Tulsa fly. Did I
tell you about that Tulsa fly? Who was sitting next to.

Speaker 7 (01:25:58):
It?

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
Was it was Don Delawise.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
No, it's not dumb Telawise. I mean that wasn't a
great wasn't a bad pull on your part? The guy
next to me had a hustler and he was looking
at Oh yeah, that's right, you have to you have
to put that. They sell them that they or at
least they used to. They sell them at the Hudson News.
I don't think you can get porn the Hudson News

(01:26:24):
getting some smart getting some smart popcorn and snickers in
a hustler.

Speaker 2 (01:26:30):
I'm like, dude, I mean, Playboy has articles.

Speaker 1 (01:26:35):
We all know that. Yeah, of course Penthouse has fewer articles.
The Hustler doesn't hide what they are. You just can't
bring porn on a plane. You just can't. You can't
bring porn and Matt Khalil on the plane. You have
to get like a longer magazine to the centerfold, triple fold.

(01:26:57):
He had to get like an extra staple. All right,
you're the news that dude.

Speaker 2 (01:27:03):
What's that? You're the worst. No, you're the worst.

Speaker 1 (01:27:06):
Oh my god, These Steeler fans are not stopping. Okay,
I'm doing it right now. Actually I got a center text.
But so in between, so the news of dude is next.
What eight on Sports Talk seven eighty is the Matt
Thomas Show with Ross l Two on Sports Talk seven

(01:27:27):
ninety eight is Hour and every three of the Matt
Thomas Show with Ross. I'm here in Portland for tonight's
Rockets and Blazers game. He may Douk is going to
join us, I believe on the show tomorrow. Kevin Harnibal. Sure,
we'll join us tomorrow on this radio program. But right now,
before we get to what is ahead, let's get to
the News at Noon. Here's a man who's pullugged by
every Steelers fan and gits Burt and he gets Ross.

Speaker 2 (01:27:47):
Hillaryal, thank you, Matt.

Speaker 1 (01:27:50):
Yeah, so I am getting crushed by the Pittsburgh Steelers
fans on my Twitter account at sports RV.

Speaker 2 (01:27:56):
But that's okay.

Speaker 1 (01:27:57):
We'll see what happens this weekend with the News at
Noon does tie in somewhat to what happened with the Steelers.
They are in the playoffs because Tyler Loop missed the
field goal at the end of the game against the Ravens,
and well, now the next domino to fall with that
would be John Harrball surprisingly being relieved of his duties

(01:28:20):
with the Baltimore Ravens. Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bescatti calling
the decision incredibly difficult. John has delivered a Super Bowl
championship to Baltimore and served as a steadfast pillar of.

Speaker 2 (01:28:34):
Humility and leadership.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
He and his family have deeply embedded themselves in this community.

Speaker 2 (01:28:39):
But he's done so okay. Maybe the last part he
didn't say, has Dunzo ever been a part of our
media release statement? No, I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:28:48):
He said he will always be grateful for the extraordinary
hard work and dedication displayed by John Harball and his
staff throughout the many successful years. Rumors have been swirling
around the story Matthews, people speculating that perhaps he was
not getting along with Lamar Jackson. Also a story that
he was not going to fire his defensive coordinators by leadership,

(01:29:09):
with the Ravens wanting him to do so, so he
stood down on his own business and got fired for it.
My belief is this, there has been too many stories
ross about Lamar and Harbaugh having chemistry issues. I think
it just came to ahead. I think there's been too
much smoke to this conversation about those two guys not
getting along. You're getting a new voice. He's been there

(01:29:31):
a long time, didn't want to fire his defensive coordinator,
not necessarily getting along with the quarterback.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
It makes sense.

Speaker 1 (01:29:39):
It's still surprising because of how good of a track
record he has, but it makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:29:46):
So they'll be looking for a head coach.

Speaker 1 (01:29:49):
Apparently, John Harbaugh going to be hot to trot already
reports that he has been discussed with the Miami Dolphins
and he is the favorite for the New York Giants job.
And by the way, Miami Dolphins, yes they do. You
know what we didn't do yesterday, which we should have done.
Gut feelings. Does our offensive coordinator stick around one more year?

(01:30:15):
Nick Kyley, what do you think? I think it would
be a terrible message. And unless you're gonna literally I
mean Stefansk is gonna get ahead of coaching job if
Mike McDaniel comes available, I mean, if you're gonna get
a guy who is an established play caller. It's a
bad look. But you know what, sometimes you got to
overcome bad looks. You have to admit mistakes and you
have to move on. If it's going to improve the team.

(01:30:35):
You can't get buy into what's called the as you know, Matt,
the sunk cost fallacy. If Nick Kayley's a some cost
and you can improve with all these head coaches who
are becoming available. Then improve the team, take one for
the team, rip the band aid, get him out. It's
gonna be a firestorm, but people are gonna be happy
to have a good, established play caller. So just do
it if if that's if that's what you feel needs
to be done. And yeah, it was Josina Anderson who

(01:30:58):
reported Mike McDaniel is, of course still the my Amy's
a Dolphins head coach, but they have been in touch
with John Harball.

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
How do you think my McDaniel fields looking at that
today on the social.

Speaker 1 (01:31:07):
Media, buy me up? Maybe let's go. He probably wants to.

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
Be the head coach.

Speaker 1 (01:31:13):
A head coach, they sagan. He doesn't look like he
should be a head coach. He doesn't look like he
should be. But they rallied at the end of the season.
They finished what seven and ten or something like that.
They actually did okay, they went like a four or
five game winnings trigg ither thing. Yeah, towards the end
of the season. And then they started and then Quinn
you were started playing games and well he's not great.

(01:31:34):
I got you Oh wait, wait you mean former Texas
great Quinn yours a former Texas pretty good. He got
you to the playoffs. Wasn't an All American, wasn't a
Heisman finalist. Colt McCoy was a two time Heisman finalist.
Vince Young once okay, Q when you were zero tier two?

(01:31:57):
Hook him you will retweet it, Sagan. If he does
a hook him little on a social media you'll retweet it. No,
I don't mean depending one. I mean depending on the scenario. Yeah,
he has a long horn for life. Even though we
went and took that Ohio State check his freshman year.
That was smart.

Speaker 2 (01:32:10):
Yeah what else you got?

Speaker 1 (01:32:12):
What else do I have?

Speaker 4 (01:32:13):
Matt?

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):
How about Indiana getting a transfer portal cash infusion from
Mark Cuban, cementing his status as a super booster with Indiana.
Of course they have the reputation as a basketball school,
but a one million dollar donation coming in from Indiana

(01:32:34):
and also Mark Cuban did say publicly, I think in
the last couple of months that he has been putting
some big donations into the Indiana program. He did not
disclose how much, but the most recent donation has been
one million dollars from Mark Cuban to Kurt Signetti and
the Indiana Hoosiers. Now you know that does sound great,

(01:32:55):
But the problem is with that that only will get you.

Speaker 2 (01:32:57):
Now, a million dollars may get you five lineman.

Speaker 1 (01:33:01):
And but don't they need to replace Mendoza in Indiana
the quarterback for next year? I mean, that's that takes
up the salar with that one player right there, doesn't that? Yes?
I mean hell, if the kid from text text getting
five million dollars, you're a national championship contending team, don't
you need more than a million dollars to to replace
what's your what's eventually going to lose? Yes, one million

(01:33:25):
is just a drop in the bucket. That's like Matt
Thomas giving eighty cents. Yeah, for mar Well, I could
have given the tip of my croissant. I couldn't.

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):
But no, I you know that makes me feel bad.
Who deserves it?

Speaker 1 (01:33:36):
The Croissant employee or the my my almaa wnor.

Speaker 2 (01:33:39):
Hm chriss employee. Probably so all right.

Speaker 1 (01:33:43):
The point being is that if if you're giving them,
if you're a regular donator like Cody Campbell, it's a
text tech.

Speaker 2 (01:33:49):
I would tell the whole world.

Speaker 1 (01:33:50):
I'd have a separate account guess what I gave today,
and then put the new dollar amount out there like
a tote board. Okay, because you're branded, you got you
got that this cash, I'm gonna help my team now,
granted if you don't win, like for instance, Cody Campbell's
been wearing it because all the money he spent at
Texa Tech. And they were one and done in the

(01:34:11):
playoff and didn't score a point? Correct, yeah they were
they get shut out or they have a field goal.
I don't ever, maybe they scored at the end. I
think it didn't go so hot for for the most spent.
That's a shame. That is just I mean you really
feel for the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Well that just
twenty three to zero was the final, by the way.
Oh yeah. And here's the thing again, if you if

(01:34:33):
your school is not in it and your best friend
or in my case, my oldest son is at a
school where money is being spent like that, you go,
you know what, man, that was bad money spent. Well,
it's been a it's been a glorious hate watch for
the playoff for Longhorns fans. Oklahoma out and m out
Texas Tech out sec. What I got left ole miss

(01:34:55):
And that's it, seriously, and love this nil money, the
wealth there's more parody. Now you have Miami Ole, Miss
Oregon in Indiana as your final four. The NIL era
doing great things for college football, and smartly the College
Football Playoff deciding to put games on anywhere again, not
against an NFL game because we're going to lose, I believe. Yes,

(01:35:16):
the semi finals game are kicking off Thursday at eleven pm.
Yes they're playing it. They're playing in a Honolulu at
one am local time.

Speaker 5 (01:35:25):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:35:25):
Here's a quick story, Matt that I'm sure you'll love.
Steve Sarkisian not too long ago, a couple of years ago,
actually was talking about the transfer portal and said, the
moment you go this is verbatim quote.

Speaker 2 (01:35:38):
By the way, the moment you go in.

Speaker 1 (01:35:40):
The transfer portal at the University of Texas, you're no
longer coming back. Not so fast, my friend, as defensive
back Derek Williams Junior hit the portal on December eleventh,
but then announced yesterday that he will be returning to
the Texas Longhorns. Of course, they lost Parker Livingston. They

(01:36:00):
just had a linebacker who's an impact player, who's declaring
for the portal. I mean, it's I don't know what
the heck's going on over there with the Texas Longhorns.
But Steve Sarkisian people are slamming him for being a hypocrite,
saying once you're in the portal, you're out, and then
of course welcoming Derek Williams Junior back with open arms.

Speaker 2 (01:36:18):
So my thought is this number one, Steve Niver should
have said that number.

Speaker 1 (01:36:21):
Two, who cares? Thank you, Matt. People change your mind
all the time on things, especially in the portal. Well,
speaking of that, Yeah, if you're not willing to adapt
to the portal rules and how that it's literally changing
by the year by year, then you're gonna be on
the outs. I remember when the portal first came out. Oh,
how dare you want to leave us? You know what
if you are if your depth chart is is lean

(01:36:42):
at linebacker and a kid doesn't find a better spot
some morn he wants to come back, let the kid
change his mind. Well, demon Williams Junior is on your side. Matt,
the Washington quarterback, signed a contract to return to the Washington.

Speaker 2 (01:36:59):
Huskies lastlast week.

Speaker 1 (01:37:01):
I saw that, Yeah, sources indicating to ESPN's Pete Demil
that the deal was near the top of the market
and that Washington is prepared, by the way to us
pursue all legal avenues to enforce his contract because now
mister Williams Junior said on social media last night he
is entering the transfer partle allegedly LSU among other teams

(01:37:26):
among the big named suitors for Demon Williams Junior, the
quarterback of the Did he sign the contract or no,
he signed the contract. Well, that's the contract and he
can't back off of that. Now. The problem is, Okay,
you're gonna hold him to it. What is he gonna do?
Then he's gonna go up there and go be Debbie
down or be the whole time he's there.

Speaker 2 (01:37:48):
What if he didn't want to be there.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
Yeah, it's it's interesting holding somebody to a contract to
where they don't want to be. Last year for the
Washington Huskies three thousand yards, twenty five touchdowns.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
Eight picks For Demon william Junior. I don't even know
how to answer that, because.

Speaker 1 (01:38:06):
You can't have your most important player not want to
be there. But he's also going to sacrifice his opportunities
to maybe become a pro I don't know if he's
a pro level quarterback or not. I mean, I'm assuming
he is based off the numbers and the money that
was Washington was going.

Speaker 2 (01:38:24):
To pay him to keep him there. That's interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:38:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:38:26):
I don't even know how to answer that question. Yeah,
he was a sophomore last year. Well then don't you just.

Speaker 1 (01:38:36):
Now if they had already paid him some money for
this upcoming year, then I could say, we get that
money back soon at the money back.

Speaker 2 (01:38:44):
But if he hasn't done anything.

Speaker 1 (01:38:45):
Yet to earn the new contract, then sometimes you there
are bad contracts that could be torn up.

Speaker 2 (01:38:51):
And that's how that's my initial thought on that.

Speaker 1 (01:38:52):
I mean, maybe I could be wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:38:54):
I mean, it's funny.

Speaker 1 (01:38:55):
Literally, yesterday we're talking about how much of a mess
this is with Sam conn Junior, and this happens that night.
I think we should get Sam con on for how
many hours are we on the show twice? I think
we should get him on an hour a day Monday
through Friday, because it feels like every single day it's changing.
All right, that, my friends is the news at noon?
Uh seven one three two one two five seven nighty
seven one three two one two five seven nine zero. Texans,

(01:39:19):
by the way, are off again today because they don't
start their game until Monday night, which I would then
assume Ross and this is a ridiculously easy assumption that
if the Texans win, they will play their divisional game Sunday,
because they're not gonna put them on Monday to Saturday,
which means a short week of practice, because you're gonna

(01:39:39):
fly home late late Monday.

Speaker 2 (01:39:42):
You gotta play. You're gonna have the guys off Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (01:39:45):
You're back on the practice field Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, maybe
you in a little bit of Saturday, and then fly
somewhere on Sunday. And uh yeah, Roger Goodell saying, shut
your by mess up, we need that ESPN check. Do
you think it's a severe disadvantage for the team. I
don't know if it's severe, but I think it's something.
It's not nothing. I would tend to agree with you. Yeah, well,

(01:40:07):
it automatically puts them in the Sunday spot. But even so,
if the road team wins, I mean, the only thing,
the only benefit that you could possibly get out is
that the team, all the teams in front of the
can the Texans. Yeah, the Texans can play a divisional
home game. That would require uh, the three the two
three and the four is all to lose. Well, you'd
be beating the four seed. Then you would need Buffalo

(01:40:30):
to beat Jacksonville, and you would need the Chargers to
beat the Patriots.

Speaker 2 (01:40:38):
Yes, I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:40:41):
Sorry, Jonathan, the Chargers aren't beating the Patriots. That's not
gonna happen. But it would be Jacksonville. It could be
a good game a week a good weekend of games.
Except for Rams Panthers. Well, according to Jonathan, tho is
gonna ben upset. So we'll see, all right, seven one three,
two one two five seven nine. If you want to
come in and join the conversation. We're talking a little
bit about the Texans. We have the Rockets sign against Portland.

(01:41:04):
We have did ebone go anywhere to yesterday? I mean
with the Rockets game? A couple of nights ago, I
went to the Texans game. Is it?

Speaker 2 (01:41:10):
Where is he? Is he out and about it?

Speaker 6 (01:41:11):
Where?

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Where where is it? He was picking players in.

Speaker 2 (01:41:13):
The SaberCats draft. Actually is it? There's no more favorite Cats?

Speaker 1 (01:41:17):
By the way, may they rest?

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):
They folded seven one three once.

Speaker 1 (01:41:21):
You didn't have anything to do with it. You know what,
you know your Texans, you know what I'm sorry session
want to say everything that pops into my head, which
I don't actually, but yeah, you should keep.

Speaker 2 (01:41:34):
Money your comings to yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two five seven ninety twelve twenty
the man Tom that Joe Ross.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
I'm here in Portland.

Speaker 1 (01:41:46):
Ross back in Justin's nine o'clock for the Rockets and
the Blazers. The Rockets trying to uh get some momentum
after beating the Phoenix Suns. A couple of nights back.
Phoenix will be not seen until later in the year.
Rockets will have Portland tonight. Rockets will have the Blazers
on Friday, then Sunday night in Sacramento against the King

(01:42:09):
seven one three two one two five seven Honey, and
then after that Rossie five home games. You'll have to
give me directions how to get to Tote Center. I've
only been there like a hand full of times so
far this show. You'll be fine, all right, I believe.
Let's go to uh David and umble on the Matt
Thomas shild Ross.

Speaker 2 (01:42:22):
David, thank you for wedding. A good afternoon to you.

Speaker 6 (01:42:26):
Good afternoon, MT. What's going on?

Speaker 2 (01:42:28):
We're doing great. Thank you for calling.

Speaker 6 (01:42:31):
Yes, sir, how's how you doing, Boston.

Speaker 1 (01:42:34):
I'm doing great, Dave. Thank you for asking. I really
appreciate it.

Speaker 5 (01:42:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:42:38):
It just taking one day at a time, one day
at a time, being positive, Uh, looking at positive thing.
I'm a positive person and that means that I'm positive
by our Houston Texans. I believe that the Euston Texans
are going to the super Bowl, the super Bowl this ship.
Wow yeah, why well maybe? Oh well, because Texans have

(01:43:00):
a great defense. They have a great defense. Uh, the
Uston Texans have a better defense than the uh Schatle Seahawks.
They have a better defense than the l A uh
the l A Lambs, and they even have a better
defense against the New England Patriots, or a better defense

(01:43:24):
than the Broncos. They're they're the number one defense in
the league.

Speaker 1 (01:43:33):
And as an argument, the argument is going to be
are they gonna be able to score? There are Let's
think about this right now, David. The New England's offense
is high octane, Denvers is not. Jacksonville has an exemporary
offense compared to what they've done in years past. They're
really moving the ball. Well, Buffalo can score points. The
question is going to be what matchup do the Texans

(01:43:55):
have to have at this point in the postseason where
they're going to have to probably put up thirty to win?
Can they do that if the defense is slightly off
because of the fact that the offense a familiar team
is exemporary as well.

Speaker 6 (01:44:09):
Yeah, well that would have to be the playoff. DJ
strouds if this CJ style can be able to throw
thirty yard passes and hit the yard passes to Nico Commins,
or throw twenty yard passes to Dalton Schultz, or for

(01:44:30):
that matter, can CJ. Stroud make plays with his legs
for twenty plus yards? That's the question.

Speaker 1 (01:44:41):
Empty and we have a month to figure it out. David, Yeah,
he's David mister positive like that. I like that. I
think they're going to the AFT Championship Game. I mean,
if he is, he had them going to the Super
Bowl not winning it. Right. If the favorites all win
this weekend, Texans go to New England.

Speaker 2 (01:45:00):
Is that correct? Yes, Buffalo would go to Denver.

Speaker 1 (01:45:06):
Wait yeah, correct, Yeah, but the Buffalo is Yeah, Buffalo
is just a point and a half. That's a pick them.
I'm I'm a little.

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
Low key nervous about Buffalo.

Speaker 1 (01:45:25):
What do you mean if you're Buffalo Bill's fan and
you've had the same issues that the city of Houston
has had, Baltimore has been in the way, Kansas City
has been in the way.

Speaker 2 (01:45:36):
When you think this would be your year.

Speaker 1 (01:45:38):
This is the greatest because the pressure that Lamar Jackson
and the criticism that he has received over his NFL
career for not taking his team to the Super Bowl.
We mentioned this yesterday, Josh Allen should be filming the
exact same pressure. For as great of a quarterback as
he is. One of the best running quarterbacks in the league,
throws big time offense.

Speaker 2 (01:45:58):
They haven't done enough, Dave.

Speaker 1 (01:46:00):
They've underwhelmed the people in the postseason just as much
as the Texans have. But they're a very vulnerable team,
and I mean the defense isn't very good as certainly
of course the run defense. As we know they're twelve
and five, they've been beatable. I just don't think of
this as I mean, it's Josh Allen, but I think,
especially in the playoffs, quarterbacks get way too much credit

(01:46:21):
for wins and way too much blame for losses. Team
game Matthew. But he's the best quarterback in the AFC.
He's the best quarterback remaining. It's not even close. Who's
the second best quarterback left in the playoffs? Just Herbert,
I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:46:39):
But Herbert's got no posts and wins. So I alway
supposed to.

Speaker 1 (01:46:41):
See what I'm saying if we're looking at quarterback, if
we're doing if this were truly quarterback only league, which
is what the narratives become, then the Bills should win
the AFC.

Speaker 2 (01:46:51):
They should be favorites.

Speaker 1 (01:46:56):
But that's kind of held ranked the last four or
five years back in the AFC was Pat Mahomes and
he got just got to the super Bowl every year.
I get. I mean, well, Lamar Jackson's got two MVPs,
he hasn't made it. Joe Josh Allen won the mvv
last year, right, Yeah, was he last year's MVP. I mean,
they've all been good. Pat Mahomes didn't look anywhere close
to MVP this year, even before he got hurt. No,

(01:47:18):
and there was even some signs of it last year
that you kind of lent. Last year he wasn't very
good and then they got crown. Now, I wouldn't say
very good. He was not to the level that he
was in previous years. But to say they're not very good,
I think it would be a stretch.

Speaker 2 (01:47:30):
Not very good relative to to an elite quarterback.

Speaker 1 (01:47:33):
Right right, right, right right? Okay, uh so that's what
we got going there. But I will say this as
a Texans observer and an NFL observer, I have no team,
and I might have a team with the Texans to
go to the Super Bowl. Yeah, come on, Mack, come
to the dark side. Let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:47:52):
Not only will I have a team, but I'll buy
some gear.

Speaker 1 (01:47:54):
I don't believe that.

Speaker 2 (01:47:56):
No, I will. I swear to god, I will.

Speaker 1 (01:47:58):
Oh my god, I'm getting Ben Roethlisberger gifts.

Speaker 2 (01:48:02):
Let me tell you what I almost did.

Speaker 1 (01:48:04):
You can do it. It's fine. No, I almost tweeted
it at Steeler fan pages.

Speaker 2 (01:48:12):
That would be that would be excessive, but that'd be funny.
That's why I didn't do it.

Speaker 1 (01:48:16):
Oh just sometimes, just sometimes the best sweets the ones
you don't send. And I didn't want to do it.
Thanks you, Matt. I didn't do it, But I'm gonna
hold that against you. If you do anything this week
that makes me mad, I'm gonna do it.

Speaker 2 (01:48:32):
It's too late now I'm alty get crushed, can can I.

Speaker 1 (01:48:36):
You know what we're gonna do? How did this end
up in Steelers for U tabs?

Speaker 2 (01:48:40):
Here's what we're gonna do it coming back.

Speaker 1 (01:48:42):
We're gonna put breezing on by stop all right now,
I'm really gonna get mad. No, no, no, we do
we use breathing as our reading anyway. I didn't bring
up you hot rock, all right? So up next, Ross
is gonna read his initial tweet and the responses that
come with it. I can't do that. I muted like
fifteen of them, so I then I'll do it. Yeah,

(01:49:03):
I didn't mute. I don't believe in muting. I just
go spear the bar. I will read Ross's tweets when
we come back. Twelve twenty eight. Here on Sports Talk
seven nighty, this is the Matt Thomas Show.

Speaker 2 (01:49:14):
At Ross went to you today from Portland, Oregon.

Speaker 1 (01:49:20):
Seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven
one three two one two five seven nine zero. All right,
now the music is up. Let's go to sports Harvy's
Twitter account, where you know he's been batter right what
you been better at for a couple of years I

(01:49:40):
believe since week three of last year when they were
one and two. Oh no, no, no, two years ago
is c J. Stroud's rookie year, right, you were you?

Speaker 2 (01:49:52):
You bought in for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:49:53):
They got crushed by Baltimore. But I saw c J.
Stroud playing well, and I said, you know what, it's
time to let go these old foggy the oilers, especially
with the Titans wearing their gear, right, So I went
for it. Yeah, you did, no regrets and you've not
regretted one moment of it.

Speaker 2 (01:50:12):
Yeah they're O and too. They were oh and too.

Speaker 1 (01:50:14):
They lost to Baltimore in Indianapolis. So this will let
y'all know that we as public figures and sports host
we are not immune from criticism either. Just like the
athletes we talk about in the coach that we talk
about on the show. Is it is part of our business.
Criticize quite often, probably more.

Speaker 2 (01:50:33):
So than we should be. We're the we're the toy
Department of life. But you it way too seriously sassinated.

Speaker 1 (01:50:40):
I got called an effing a hole multiple times by
people last week. Actually, what happened not multiple so what
happened with that? I'll explain that. But this is your
segment here, Okay, I'll go to mind later. Ross Fillery
out yesterday at ten forty eight.

Speaker 2 (01:50:58):
I don't know if that was specific. That was Pacific
Times twelve forty eight.

Speaker 1 (01:51:01):
Since the time yesterday said the Houston Texans are making
the AFC Championship game hashtag hashtag htown made forty five comments,
sixty one retweets, eight hundred and forty six likes, forty
nine bookmarks up to forty nine twenty one thousand views.

(01:51:28):
Let's go to the comments first, and then we'll check
the retweets. No faults. Former producer, one of our nineteen
performer producers, Yes, is this a gut feeling? Or put
your name on it? And he said he put his,
and then you respond responded to put my tweet on it.
Nice stuff, Nice stuff. Zach Steeler, fan eight to ninety

(01:51:50):
wonder what he has to say, says the Texans haven't
played a game under seventy five degrees this year. Laughing emojing,
crying emoji and laughing emoji also wrong. You can read
my response there, or I mean you see my response.
I do see your response. It's the Chiefs game. It
was like twenty seven degrees a kickoff. Yeah. Uh. At
EAC twenty seven zero four is battle at Ross LFG.

(01:52:12):
Good for you at hockey, Deaner says, Ross, my friend,
I've got some bad, bad in caps news for you, Bud.
Where you respond Dean, we are not friends that we've
never met actually just but never met. Oh really that's
a that's a typo. And then he responded, you spelled
never wrong. Ha ha he did. Oh I muted him

(01:52:36):
right after I sweet him, so I didn't see that.
Charlie underscored. Tipsy at the Bar says no, they won't.
Blanksburg has the backing of the NFL and they will
will win. So better luck next year. Hmmm next, thank you.
At jam band, degenerate Gambler says past that blank with

(01:52:59):
a cigarette emoji.

Speaker 2 (01:53:01):
I'm assuming that they think she were smoking something.

Speaker 1 (01:53:04):
Yes, stop, Drop and Roll says delusion is a powerful drug.

Speaker 2 (01:53:09):
They are going to be freezing.

Speaker 1 (01:53:13):
At KLEB nineteen seventy one says they aren't even beating Pittsburgh.
Curtis Hirschberger says the Houston Texans have never won a
playoff game and the Steelers have never lost a home
game on Monday night since the.

Speaker 2 (01:53:29):
Early nineteen nineties.

Speaker 1 (01:53:30):
Well that's not great, Damon says, not with c. J.
Stroud at my Call twenty five says, and you're also
winning the power Ball too. I just got an interesting one.
You don't have to refresh. Okay, it's a Bart and Lisa.
I could just read it. It's Bart and Lisa, and

(01:53:51):
it says, look, Lisa, a bleeping bleep. I can't read
either of those words. One starts with F and one
starts with R. Oh oh, the R is terrible. Uh
At d Chap says delusional. Uh at Jason with a
bunch of numbers says.

Speaker 2 (01:54:09):
L M F A O U. Ivan Brago says, show
us the bet slip or be quiet?

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
Wow you hear that? I texty and a half just
let you know. Okay, uh let's see U you're trying
to read this here. Now I'm gonna go that. That's
the comments. So now let's go to the you got.
You got retweeted quite a bit ross, way too many.

(01:54:39):
You should have been retweeted as much as you were
a lot of it's cake quotes.

Speaker 2 (01:54:43):
Let's see here.

Speaker 1 (01:54:46):
Uncle June says their season ends Monday night. Next uh oh,
here's what de says in Jesus name, that's pretty funny, actually,
And that's about it.

Speaker 2 (01:54:58):
You got again, way too many post did John.

Speaker 1 (01:55:01):
McClain reposters because he reposted you everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:55:04):
He does retweet me for a fair amount.

Speaker 1 (01:55:06):
Actually, since you're a retweet on that good killby, this
is not.

Speaker 2 (01:55:13):
Nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Speaker 1 (01:55:14):
I got called it a f ing r. That's not nice.
Somebody's gonna be positive about it. I think, Yeah, they're
beating the Steelers. I can't give you more than that
at this point. I don't know unless Drake may just

(01:55:35):
wilt them the pressure of the Texas defense. And remember,
you know, the number one thing I keep seeing from
people about the Patriots is they didn't play anybody this year. Look,
it's the NFL gang, you don't They didn't have one
lollipop affter the other. I think one of their their
opponent's strength of schedule is one of the like literally,
but you still have to put the pads on, you

(01:55:55):
still have to make the catches. I mean, it's not
like they were going when I when I hear about schedule,
when you when you start making fun of people's schedules,
That would be like saying a team playing the college
football playoff played nothing but Sun Belt teams. You know
what I mean. You want to hear their wins. Here's
their wins. You want to go through them. Yeah, go Dolphins.

(01:56:15):
Uh at the time, terrible Panthers playoff team eight nine,
eight and nine. That's not good.

Speaker 2 (01:56:22):
But they crushed me.

Speaker 6 (01:56:23):
There.

Speaker 2 (01:56:23):
It's a mid They've got a pyramid one they split
with the Bills. That's the one.

Speaker 1 (01:56:28):
Stints. Nope, Titans, no Browns, no Falcons, no Buccaneers.

Speaker 2 (01:56:36):
Can score.

Speaker 1 (01:56:38):
Jets awful, Bengals with Joe Flacco. With Joe Flacco, probably
was a score in the game twenty six to twenty. Yeah,
Bengals defense blows okay, Mid Giants awful, Ravens good, Jets, Dolphins.

(01:57:00):
So what maybe two really quality opponents, two quality wins.
Who is the playoff team in there was the Panthers.
They eight and nine, Panthers and the Bills. That's it, right, Yeah,
But you can only play which is in front of you.
I mean, you can choose your schedule. Their losses against
by the way, Raiders, oh Steelers, huh oh, Bills, mm hmm.

(01:57:26):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (01:57:28):
I'm just saying I think the schedule.

Speaker 1 (01:57:30):
Look put it this way, if they beat the Chargers,
that will be that's a quality win, right. I mean
the Charger of the playoff team have been in the
playoffs for a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:57:38):
Yeah, they won eleven games.

Speaker 1 (01:57:40):
That should end the conversation about the the Patriots campaign.

Speaker 2 (01:57:43):
You won a playoff game, you beat a good team.

Speaker 1 (01:57:45):
But they also it's also true they have a cupcake
Hey had a cupcake schedule that is accurate, and that's
why people thought were sleeping on the Patriots to start
the year because they were thinking this schedule was so ridiculous.
Now if they lose the Chargers, which you know, Jonathan
are not going to uh, then people could really rip
on the fact that they were just a paper champion.

(01:58:07):
So of all the teams that have pressure this weekend,
I think it's number one the Patriots to back up
what the record really was.

Speaker 2 (01:58:17):
Bill, I mean, Josh Allen and the Bills are under
a lot of pressure. I'd say I.

Speaker 1 (01:58:20):
Think Josh Allen's under pressure, and I think the Texans
under pressed the playoff. Everybody's under pressure to play, of course,
but if you were to side like I for instance,
Carolina loses the Rams. No one's gonna go, oh, there's
the sporting season eight and nine. Not a good team.
They're gonna get blasted by the Rams. Jonathan, Why did
he say to Karen he's the upset king?

Speaker 5 (01:58:40):
What?

Speaker 7 (01:58:40):
No, guys, they've already beat Rams. We already did. They
did when we talked about here. They have a good
legitimate chance. And Bryce Young looks like he's got the
kahon to do. Okay, oh we go hog nos? Weren't you?

Speaker 1 (01:58:54):
You know? I was going to you know, Philadelphia's fouped
to four and a half of the Niners. You and
I picked up. Man, that's yes, And I just don't
get it. I get the Niners. I'm telling you, the
Niners are one in that game. I lived with my
life earning on it. But I'm that's what I'm thinking.
A couple of shekels, boha. Did you hear Clent yesterday

(01:59:16):
and the show ripping on the Niners uniforms? What black
uniforms were sick? They were awesome? I did not hear that. Yeah,
I know what was his problem? He just gives like
this is the other ones. They are are so iconic,
you shouldn't mess with them. They are iconic. Niners are

(01:59:38):
I mean, I would say Tier two iconic. Everybody is
messing with their uniforms. Even the Pittsburgh Steelers were wearing
yellow once a year. Who's that the Pittsburgh Steelers. Oh
like the old stripey ones. No, like the ones. They
they take the black and they just turn it into
yellow and they're on their helmet. I don't know. Maybe

(02:00:02):
I don't mind uniform changes. Cowboys wearing the retros all
the time. I know they even wore black. They were
dark uniforms at home, saying you used to never do.
Texans were always watched town blue. Yeah, it's okay, it's
too much, it's not it's not my favorite. Yeah. No, no,
these black uniforms, I love these with the drop shadow.
The Niners you red red letters with the gold drop shadow.

(02:00:23):
Yeah nice. Yeah. Adam Planning, shut your bo masks and
shut your mass up at him. Yeah, catch him at two,
s Adham schmitten setsbam, mess up man, all right, back
on the Phone's next seven one three two one two
five seven ninety. If you missed our visit with uh
Dave Benz Tim Bins, Dave's a different guy, Tim Is.

Speaker 2 (02:00:43):
They're not related.

Speaker 1 (02:00:44):
Tim Benz in Pittsburgh were gonna play that free in
the one o'clock hour, gave us some really good insights
on what's going on with the Steelers. Will have more
that plus ross. What is today's edition? To believe it
or not?

Speaker 6 (02:00:52):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (02:00:53):
What?

Speaker 1 (02:00:55):
I gave you two options, Kimi fairbaron the AFC Special
Teams Player of the Week, okay, or celebrating his seventy
eighth birthday. I believe the one and only mister Kenny Loggins. Hmmm,
you can't do it. Give me two options, but it's like,
I don't know if I want either of them. You
asked me if I wanted a Vienna sausages or potted.

Speaker 2 (02:01:16):
Meat spam, Yes or no?

Speaker 1 (02:01:19):
I like spam, yes, as long as you don't get
a piece with a bone in it. What m That
happened to me when I was young. They're going in spam.
It wasn't supposed to be in there, Matt, How young
this scarred me? Yay? Yeah, they didn't have the regulations
in Jonathan, Is that what you're trying to say?

Speaker 4 (02:01:36):
Now?

Speaker 1 (02:01:37):
I haven't had spam, probably since I was a young child,
but apparently if you put it on the grill and
you charted a little bit.

Speaker 2 (02:01:43):
It's not bad.

Speaker 1 (02:01:44):
No, it's not bad.

Speaker 5 (02:01:48):
I know.

Speaker 1 (02:01:48):
I don't think I've eaten it in fifteen years or more. Yeah,
I've not had to be in a sausage. I think
I think I've had one in fifty three years of
my life when I was a kid.

Speaker 5 (02:01:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:01:59):
Yeah, I'm also staying away from Wolf Brand chili too.

Speaker 5 (02:02:02):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (02:02:03):
I have had that more recently. Put on some hot dogs.

Speaker 1 (02:02:07):
Nice, but you make this chili on your own. That's
twelve forty four n hour show with Ross Sports Talk
seven ninety nine. It is about Thomas show with Raw
seven one three two one two five seven ninety seven
to one three two one two five seven nine zero.

(02:02:30):
If you want to follow us on Twitter, you may
do that as well at Sports MT and at Sports Rvy.
Tim Bens and Pittsburgh was a guest on the show
very early in the program. And if you missed that conversation,
we have great news for you. We're gonna play for
you today again, fantastic insight. We're gonna have Kevin Harlan's
going to join the show tomorrow. He's calling the game
on national radio. But uh, he's called a lot of
Texans games this year and we look forward to visiting

(02:02:53):
with him. We'll also get a little NBA from him
as well. He's one of the new voices on Amazon
and uh we'll talk to him about mainly about the
NFL and his thoughts about the Texans and the postseason.
The Great Kevin Harlan. I like to only bother him
once per year, and he's going to join us tomorrow
on the show. We'll get some insight as well for
you Friday and Monday and then Tuesday, Rossie, it's wall

(02:03:13):
to wall Texans celebration coverage after their touchdown win over
the Pittsburgh Steelers. Can't wait, all right, or I'll be
eating crow and hearing from about fifty Steelers fans. Can
I politely tweet at Steelers Nation's Twitter account just to
say hey and do.

Speaker 2 (02:03:33):
Whatever you want.

Speaker 1 (02:03:34):
But it's fine. We love the banter. Yeah, it's fine.
It's kid. Just say our girls are pretty here in
Texas and years in Pennsylvania. I'm not here in trash talk.
I just had a sports opinion and getting attacked personally
for it. It's okay, that's what the ex platform is
all about. Let's go maybe Stunna at twelve fifty one

(02:03:54):
on the Matt Thomas Joel Ross Sunna.

Speaker 2 (02:03:56):
How the hell are you?

Speaker 1 (02:03:58):
Hey?

Speaker 5 (02:03:58):
What's up?

Speaker 10 (02:03:58):
Yo?

Speaker 6 (02:03:59):
What's up?

Speaker 9 (02:03:59):
Matt Ross?

Speaker 1 (02:04:00):
Hey? Man?

Speaker 9 (02:04:02):
Before I get started, I thought about Ross a couple
of days ago with that mountain line that suft at
that bank. You know what, let me rephrase that killed
that backing.

Speaker 1 (02:04:11):
But I what, man, where was this?

Speaker 6 (02:04:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (02:04:16):
When it was about when when Ross was out of
town and you had and he was out of town,
I'm like, man, I hope he ain't out there and
the damn safari hunts again out of a Safari adventures
that he does. But it was a mountain lion took
out somebody in Colorado.

Speaker 1 (02:04:34):
Mm hmm. Mountain lions are dangerous. Well, dude, you don't
play with mountain lions. And generally they say if if
you see a mountain lion, it's too late.

Speaker 9 (02:04:45):
Half the time when you see him, Yeah, you're right,
he already on your she already on.

Speaker 8 (02:04:50):
Your feet up.

Speaker 1 (02:04:51):
Baby.

Speaker 9 (02:04:51):
But besides that note, man, I want to say, man,
are we looking for a point guard? Is there anybody
we can pick up like Trey Young?

Speaker 1 (02:05:03):
Apparently, if you believe the media streets that the Rockets
are not interested in Trey Young, that Minnesota and Brooklyn
are the two teams that are showing the most interesting
acquiring Trey Young from the Atlanta Hawks.

Speaker 9 (02:05:16):
But are we But are we, you know, in the
market for anybody?

Speaker 10 (02:05:20):
Can we?

Speaker 9 (02:05:21):
I mean, because I mean Reeve Sippard is really not ready.

Speaker 5 (02:05:25):
He's not ready.

Speaker 9 (02:05:27):
We can't rely on him for a full game, especially
we get in the playoffs in the seven game series,
we got to have somebody. I mean, Reid can shoot,
but ball heiling ain't his forte right now.

Speaker 1 (02:05:42):
Uh No, he's really more h Yeah, the ball handling
is being held primarily by a man Thompson. He's playing
almost thirty seven minutes of game, so there's very few
times that you're looking to fill the spots. Uh, you
got a little ball handling from Kevin Durant a little
bit without friend Shingoon. Read's just more of a into
a catch and shoot or catch and shoot guy. I

(02:06:03):
don't know if that's wherever Read's going to be ultimately,
but right now his role is as certainly as a
secondary ball handler.

Speaker 2 (02:06:10):
But go back to your initial question, not to.

Speaker 1 (02:06:13):
Use your term stunna, but I would be stunned if
the Rockets made a significant move of the deadline.

Speaker 6 (02:06:22):
Good Man, good pot.

Speaker 1 (02:06:26):
I do appreciate you, and you and Rols, thank you, Stuna,
thank you, Sona have a good day. Good Yeah, it's
we're on the same page. I mean, I don't think
any major move is going to be made. And the
turnovers are bad. They're twenty ninth in turnover percentage in basketball,
but they're seven ten points per game. They're third in

(02:06:46):
offensive rating. There are issues with getting into the offense,
and especially with Alt princhting Goon out because they like
to run a lot of stuff through him. But it's
not like their offense is inept or it's bad and
they're they're not scoring any points. Could it look a
little prettier, absolutely, but it's the the end product is good.

(02:07:07):
They're still one of the best top three offenses by
offensive rating, which I like to use because they're a
bit of a slower paced team, so the points per
game aren't there, but their third as far as offensive rating,
I think they're still a pretty good offense. Could they improve, Absolutely,
Turnovers are headaches. They can look clunky and disjointed at times,
but still the offense is very good. It's been top

(02:07:30):
five and scoring all season long. It shoots a three
ball really well. I would not use the last two
games good examples, but that is what it is. They're
getting to the free throw line a lot. Kevin Durant
is scoring at about ninety percent of what he normally
scores at, which is incredible for a guy that his
agent has experience. Albi has become a triple double guy

(02:07:51):
at least thought the thread of now while he's out
it hurts. Reid has been more good than bad, which
would be, you know, a positive side for him in
his second year. It's the first significant amount of regular
playing time he's getting. Dorian Finney was a smith, was
a good three point shooter at least with all the
other teams. He've been not eleap, but I mean good

(02:08:12):
that you can count on him. Have not been able
to do that yet. But he's ramping himself back up.
And Tari is shooting better from three, although I don't
know if that's going to be a long term I
don't think that's necessarily in his repertoire. But again, he's
been number one of the association.

Speaker 2 (02:08:26):
Three point shots.

Speaker 1 (02:08:28):
The offense is there, the turnovers just might be something
we're just going to scratch your head at all season long.
I don't know if that's all suden Ross's going to
change its ways, even if you were to make a
trade to get an additional point guard, whether it be
a guy that would be a starter or that would
came in and give back up minutes to say a
men Thompson. Yeah, Tari Easton's not going to shoot forty
nine three all year long. But I like him too.

(02:08:50):
I mean he gets a lot of wide open looks. Yeah,
just about everyone he takes is open, and a lot
of them from the corner right, So the percentage should
be up and good. If he could settle in at
forty and you get your bar at thirty eight, that's
those two guys helping you out of that particularly story.

Speaker 2 (02:09:08):
Are better than they were a year ago.

Speaker 1 (02:09:09):
They just were. But yeah, I again, I'm not not
that Raffel and I are breaking bread about this a lot,
But just the vibe I get is there's that they're
pretty happy with what they've got. Well, they just don't
have a whole lot of wiggle room, David, if they
wanted to make a trade for an impact player. Fred
Van Vliet's gonna have to be involved. There is no

(02:09:31):
question of my mind that Fred VanVleet would be involved
in and make a trade. Now you can shape payroll
if you wanted to get rid of a third center,
like if Clinton he wanted to release Clint, which would
be a bad sign. And it's not gonna be a
whole lot of teams wanting to pay a guy with
a torn acl forty million dollars. Nope, No, you'd be
probably getting back and return something that would be of
you know, high injury kind of. It's so strange Anthony

(02:09:54):
Davis is being talked about as a trade chip. I
like him, and he was good last night for the Mavericks,
But damn you just you can't rely on him, you you,
No matter what uniform he is in, he can't rely
on him. Yeah. He had one year a couple maybe
a year or two ago where he played like seventy
five eighty games, but that's been the exception rather than
the rule. Yeah, all right, seven one, three, two, two, five, seven, nine,

(02:10:17):
And keep the rocket conversation going. I like it to
them the voice and we carry the games and they're good.
It's a good time to be a sports fan in Houston, Texas?
Is it non sports Harvey and I would say it's great,
best ever what we could have argued that in the
last couple of years eighty four and a half win total.
I'm not expiring a bunch of confidence to the Astros,

(02:10:37):
but we'll we'll talk about that as as the off
season goes along. Yeah, Astros. My first time I've ever
thought about this really fast. Astros won the West and
eighty six play the NL Championship Series, which you know,
they didn't have playoffs in a wild card division. They
just had Championship Series. Eighty six Rockets went to the

(02:10:57):
NBA Finals and the Oilers, I want to say, we're
either in the playoffs for the first time in a
while or close to it. But we've had We've had
Rockets in the playoffs. The Astros won a World Series
and with the Texans making the playoffs the same time too.
I don't think they were at seventeen. Well, they might
have been Bill O'Brien going nine and seven and what

(02:11:19):
nine seven is a bar? Brian?

Speaker 2 (02:11:22):
Uh, those are some good battles. By the way that Brian.

Speaker 1 (02:11:26):
I looked at Brian t s Twitter today, He's endorsing
the Ravens and moving away from Lamar Jackson. All right, kids,
just mute him. He's a two time how you can't
you can't. No, no, No, that's stupid. I'm I'm sorry.
Brian T. Smith love you.

Speaker 2 (02:11:43):
That's stupid.

Speaker 1 (02:11:43):
Oh no, it's stupid. No, it's stupid. You're a two
time MVP in his prime. That's stupid. I'm sorry. So
you're not gonna click on the article then?

Speaker 10 (02:11:56):
No?

Speaker 1 (02:11:57):
Seven one three two one two five seven seven one
three fifty nine Final hour Matt Thomas Old Ross. Here
on seven.

Speaker 2 (02:12:06):
Is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Speaker 1 (02:12:14):
Hi Ross. I found you a Pittsburgh fan. It's gonna
make your dreams come true. Explain just I just quote
tweeted you on it? Oh my god, you did look
out there? I thought you meant you quoted mine. No, No,
this dude named Howard Beta, there's no way. Well it
looks young and what young guy's name is Howard? Is

(02:12:39):
his bio is Avid Ballnoer Steelers run the AFC North Well,
that's actually true. Will Howard is better than your qub
DM to contact him? You want to him, ahead and
do that. No, this is just I'm just tweeted, let's
see what did he do? When did he do this?
He did this this morning. I am so in all

(02:13:02):
caps confident that the Pittsburgh Steelers will beat the Houston
Texans at home in the wild card that I'm willing
to send everyone who likes this tweet ten dollars on
cash app if the Steelers lose, have to be following me.
There's no way the Steelers lose. He's not gonna pay

(02:13:24):
one thousand, six hundred likes. There's no chance. What's the
quick math on at ten dollars a popet at sixteen
hundred likes, it's probably worked for him. I wonder how
many followers he had before this. He's got eighty nine
hundred now sixty nine retweets, which included one of them
was me one hundred and seventy three comments. Why would
you do that?

Speaker 2 (02:13:44):
You're not unless you just have money. You want to
you want to burn.

Speaker 1 (02:13:47):
He's not doing it. He's not gonna pay. He's got
fifty six thousand views and sixteen hundred likes. That's why
you did that. Well, guess we're gonna do. We're gonna
harass him endlessly, so go like it. Oh, your cash app.
I wish there was a better option than this cesspool
that Twitter is right now, anything else is horrible and dead.
It feels like, is threads pretty polite? Uh?

Speaker 2 (02:14:09):
I get, but nobody's on there. Nobody's on threads and
I don't.

Speaker 1 (02:14:13):
I'm not asking. Yeah, I just I don't know.

Speaker 2 (02:14:18):
Say it with your heart sports are we just?

Speaker 1 (02:14:21):
It's just I wish. I mean Twitter became a cesspool.
Every every reply, go to the reply of any big tweet.
It's a bunch of AI bought accounts that are farming
with their blue check marks trying to get their their payments.
It's it's just so. But it's either a bots or
somebody be somebody being an a hole. Like old Twitter

(02:14:42):
back in the day was great, like when at first
you were like headed to the happy hour, what you
guys up to? Like, He's just like it was a
very small, tight knit community and everybody was having fun
and being cool. Here's the reality about it. And we
we don't mean to bitch on Twitter because we use it.
We use a quarterbit for the show.

Speaker 6 (02:14:58):
We just do.

Speaker 1 (02:14:58):
I mean, we can bitch a momobile we want, but
we use it correct When we first got it, I
was hesitant, but then I thought to myself, what a
great way to do a variety of things promote anything
I want to promote, which will most of my promotion
on my Twitter account is as the show. Here's what
we're doing. I'll do some questions, some fan pull questions.

(02:15:22):
I'll put a couple of funny things in there. I'll
retweet a couple of things. But there's never there's never
a in my mind, at least in my mind, a
true super I need to push an agenda. I'm not
pushing for political thoughts. I'm not pushing my religious beliefs
on you. I am using it as an entertainment.

Speaker 2 (02:15:42):
Valve.

Speaker 1 (02:15:43):
And there are lots of interesting news things I see
about it. There's a lot of various funny things I
see about it, and I try to treat it for
what it is, which is just a very loose form
of way to connect with your fellow man. Unfortunately, others
do not see it that way. Others see it as

(02:16:03):
a way too if they something they don't see, instead
of instead of just scrolling right by it or unfollowing
or muting that person, they want to tell you how
awful you are. And I'm not about mean per se,
I'm talking about anything. The number one rule about Twitter,
I would say for twenty twenty six is you don't

(02:16:24):
have to comment on everything.

Speaker 2 (02:16:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:16:27):
And also I think, certainly, for example my tweet, there's like,
I don't know, five or six people being really rude
out of hundreds and hundreds of interactions. So I think
that's something that we will also, and myself included. I mean,
I'm calling myself out. Is remember that most people are
just chilling on there. The vast vast majority of people

(02:16:48):
are just relaxing and laughing and looking at memes and
not being vicious.

Speaker 2 (02:16:53):
You're right.

Speaker 1 (02:16:54):
For instance, when I did D the Year voting, Yes,
I brought this up when you were gone, my we
had the D of the Year candidates, which included Sharon
Moore who won. We had the couple from the Coldplay concert. Yes.
And I'm trying to look, I'm trying to find pep aqua.

(02:17:15):
I remember the last Yeah, it's only one crazy on Matt. Yeah,
oh here it is, I got it right here. This
I said, this guy James j M. Mike seven said,
are you e fing r Sharon Moore up against these people?
You're an efing ugly ass ball clown.

Speaker 2 (02:17:35):
That's rude. I don't even know who he still follows me.

Speaker 1 (02:17:39):
Let's take a look.

Speaker 2 (02:17:40):
Oh he still follows me.

Speaker 1 (02:17:41):
Thanks for the follow uh And I said thanks for
listening to to two and of course for following. By
the way, I think I'm quite handsome. Happy New Year.
I was very polite back to He responds back to me,
just say you're a low IQ individual and keep moving.
The pole was embarrassing.

Speaker 5 (02:17:57):
My food.

Speaker 1 (02:17:58):
Who is backing or well he's saying that Charon war
was the number one D of the year and nobody
else should beund the list. Well, I mean, I don't disagree,
but you have to do a poll. Sometimes you do
pull a question. It's a bit on the show. Yeah,
and then I responded him my last one listen keyboard Warrior.
The suggestions came from listeners. I promise I'll continued this
amazing dialogue. When you start using proper capitalization, that's a

(02:18:20):
loss I've heard from him. Oh that's good. Yeah, Well
it's not showing up. I went to that tweet and
I don't see it, so I must have muted that guy.

Speaker 2 (02:18:26):
Ready, So that's part you're you know, you're mister mute,
and you're gonna have.

Speaker 1 (02:18:29):
All of Northeastern Pennsylvuh was it northeast, Yeah, northeastern Pennsylvania. Uh,
telling you to shut your boss up. Well, see what
happens the Steelers at ratio. If the Steelers, well, you don't,
I don't want you get in ratio. It's fine.

Speaker 2 (02:18:43):
I've been Ratio before. In my first Ratio rodeo, I
got you Lewis and sugar Land on seven ninety at
one to eleven.

Speaker 1 (02:18:49):
Hi, Lewis.

Speaker 3 (02:18:52):
Man, I think you're handsome.

Speaker 2 (02:18:54):
Don't worry about it. Okay, thank you very much. I
appreciate that.

Speaker 3 (02:18:59):
Anyway, A couple of quick questions here, and if you've
already covered this, tell me just, you know, shut my
bumb ass up. But y'all were talking about the turnovers.
Your ear is pretty close to the team. Has you
earned any talk about possibly bringing in Chris Paul?

Speaker 10 (02:19:16):
No?

Speaker 1 (02:19:17):
Yeah, talk, but that's about it as far as it went. Okay,
But to be fair, to be fair, everybody was talking
about it, you know, serious roster construction issues. I don't
I don't know. I don't think it went very far.

(02:19:37):
Doesn't need you know, he's got plenty of assistant coaches.
He doesn't. Chris doesn't need to be another assistant coach.
And the problem is with Chris, his skills have deteriorated
where you know he it's easier for Chris Paul, honestly
to beat the Chris Paul that he was in terms
of being as boisterous as and it's always been that
way Lewis when he was dishing eight assistant game and
not turn the ball over. Chris can't shoot any more,

(02:19:59):
He's slower, can't defend like he used to.

Speaker 2 (02:20:01):
In terms of ball over. It just would have been
I think an ill fit.

Speaker 3 (02:20:06):
Well, I was just wondering because I know back, you know,
and when him and James played together for those couple
of years, you know that, you know we were a
hamstring pull away from winning that thing. So so anyway,
now you got a football question for you. I was
born and raised in Miami, moved here in seventy two,
kicking and screaming, but unfortunately still a Dolphin fan.

Speaker 6 (02:20:30):
What are your.

Speaker 3 (02:20:30):
Thoughts on them? Possibly looking at John the guy from Baltimore,
I'm drawing.

Speaker 2 (02:20:37):
A blank John Harball, John Harball as their new coach.

Speaker 10 (02:20:42):
What are your thoughts on that.

Speaker 1 (02:20:43):
I think John Harvell will be a head football coach
somewhere in the NFL in twenty twenty six. He's gonna
have us pick a two. He can go to the Giants,
he could go to the Dolphins, he could probably or else.
He could go the I mean he's employed, don't you
think next year as a head coach? Yes, oh, you're
talking to me. I'm sorry, I didn't see he hung up.
Uh yeah, I think I think it's gonna be the

(02:21:04):
Giants mentioned as a favorite. They have the best who's
got the best quarterback situation? Of the vacancies? Obviously the
Ravens and well John Harball is now going back to
the Ravens. Otherwise it's the Browns, No Raiders. No, you
was talking about Cardinals and Falcons. No, No, he staid

(02:21:27):
healthy did tackle Baloa in Miami this year. The problem
is he sucked.

Speaker 2 (02:21:31):
He's sucked.

Speaker 1 (02:21:31):
He's a been.

Speaker 2 (02:21:32):
Concussed or sucked one or the other.

Speaker 1 (02:21:34):
Yeah, he's just a guy. I mean Tyreek kill got
hurt and they didn't. I mean this the team was
falling apart. They were winning some games, But I would
say he's gonna end up with the Giants. That's that's
seems like the chalk play, and it seems like the
right play if I were him, NFC East doesn't.

Speaker 2 (02:21:53):
I mean, it's not like a gauntlet.

Speaker 1 (02:21:54):
It's not easy, but Jackson Dart looks like a guy
that you can build around and win with the I've
got some defensive pieces as well. That's where I would
probably go, all right, let's do this really quick, best job. Well,
promise the Giants are just been sough.

Speaker 2 (02:22:13):
Brown's no no Falcons.

Speaker 1 (02:22:16):
You got Jon Robbins, haven't a vacancy yet, so that
you got Robinson and Drake London and they restructured Kirk Cousins.

Speaker 2 (02:22:23):
What I mean, Cardinals are looking for a quarterback? You
would imagine.

Speaker 1 (02:22:33):
I don't know enough about the Giants to tell you
anything except that Jackson Dart, he's mister concusshis sheen too.
How am I building a football team around a guy?

Speaker 2 (02:22:40):
Yeah, he's got to learn.

Speaker 1 (02:22:41):
He's got to say, oh, you look at my high
school tipk my high school tap. This is this is
how I ran in high school. Ya, You're not in
high school in the middle of Utah right now anymore.
That's right, all right, we're gonna go short here because
we do want you to hear what Tim Ben's had
to say in Pittsburgh. You joined us at about ten
thirty this morning, and why we always appreciate you saying
with us for four hours. Know that you're busy doing
your thing. So if you've missed the conversation a good

(02:23:02):
perspective on what's going on with Pittsburgh in about ten
minutes from now. The overriding sentiment to me Ross has
been there would have been a lot more nervous nellies
in Southeast Texas if if the Ravens would have won
the game because the fact that Texans have never beaten
Lamar Jackson in the playoffs. I don't know if it's

(02:23:23):
a sense of relief or a dodging or of an
enemy or whatever the case, but confidence is I wouldn't
say an all time high for a playoff opponent. I
think maybe that game against Oakland was probably even higher
because they had the backup quarterback going there. And it
is a Monday night, it is in Pittsburgh, it is

(02:23:44):
colder weather, it is the grass field. Still, the Texans
are the better football team. They're the better football team.
Accept thing to win. I wouldn't say sense of a relief,
but just more of a sense of, well, it could
have been worse.

Speaker 2 (02:23:57):
And of all the team.

Speaker 1 (02:23:58):
The thing we talked about yesterday, we kind of looked
through all the teams, this is the biggest favorite. They
would have been among the road possibilities. Oh, they wouldn't.
They wouldn't have been favored against the Jaguars, I don't think.
And they wouldn't have been favored against Patriots either. No,
they would have been probably a small favorite against Baltimore.
What do you think I think a dog really Okay,

(02:24:21):
we'll never know. Yeah, I think the people post speculative lines,
but a lot of times those are wrong anyways. So,
but the fact is Baltimore's defense was not nearly as
heralded as it was in years past. No, Lamar was
moving at about eighty percent now eighty percent of Lamar
is still very very good. And those two deep bombs
he threw his eight flowers on Sunday, but those are

(02:24:42):
pretty special plays. And that the fourth and seventh played
a likely was crazy. I mean, it was a decent throw,
but a great catch by Likely. Yeah, they just missed
the kick, not even close, not even close. I mean
thing never in it. You couldn't blame the wind, you
couldn't blame the hold, you couldn't blame the snap. It

(02:25:05):
was before gets talked about that Turrico's little flowery like
when you're setting it up. He was picked for this moment,
Like if I ever go to the Texas Radio Hall
of Fame, I'm gonna have my trek Inde you've got,
you've got, Well, if he's available, you might have talked
to Chaz about that. Maybe chazl invite, Maybe chazl Dune.

(02:25:26):
Think if Chaz gets into maybe my treacle comes out
Chucky Palillo. Yeah, he's got my vote, because I really don't.
You're my planet. He used to get my Turrico on
once a year, so I would talk to him on
the phone, very pleasant. Maybe I don't get Iron Eagle
or I gotta ask Kevin Harlan when he's on.

Speaker 9 (02:25:44):
Why not me?

Speaker 1 (02:25:46):
I mean you're playing b Yeah, Oh that sounds like
plan F But that's okay. I mean I'm always running
upgrade you do the same thing. Who would I have
introduced me? If I introduced you and I can get
Sark to come here with me, you would take Sark
I'm good on that you would take as much? Is
that gonna cost? Major Apple Way? I guess he's available.

Speaker 2 (02:26:09):
Well, let me fight some mobile Austin pretty Pricey or Wake.

Speaker 1 (02:26:13):
Or whatever it is. I don't remember where he is
now this conversation. I'm not making the Hall of Texas
Radio Hall of Fame, and I'm not. It's okay.

Speaker 2 (02:26:25):
I think you have to subscribe.

Speaker 1 (02:26:26):
You have me a member to the Do you have
to be a member to nominate people? I think it's
only fifty bucks, and I believe you get a meat
little a dish with it with every membership too. No,
that's well.

Speaker 2 (02:26:35):
Or chicken fried steak.

Speaker 1 (02:26:36):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (02:26:38):
Those are those are always the uh?

Speaker 1 (02:26:39):
Which would you go?

Speaker 2 (02:26:40):
By the way I go in the CFS.

Speaker 1 (02:26:42):
Oh, you gotta go chicken frint stake for the winn
if you're eating, if you're eating, the Central Texas because
you know, I'm mister Texas would know these things. You
just can't turn out a good chicken fried stay. But
meat little underrated, I say, especial. He's got to catch up.
Crust to it delicious? Nice, all right, I think we're hungry. Well,
you're gonna walk on, believe it.

Speaker 3 (02:26:57):
Or not?

Speaker 1 (02:26:58):
What yes you are? And we're gonna let the folks
hear from Tim Bens from Pittsburgh coming back from the
break you right? Does Logins still have beef with Mesina?
By the way, does his Mamma dance? Does his daddy
rock and roll? M he may have angry eyes. That's
a great song. By the way, only seventy words in
the whole song, but it's fantastic. Hmm all around the

(02:27:22):
World by daf Punk is great. It's only got three
words in it mmmm seven one three two one two
five Seveney. We're gonna play believe it or not Now.
Thing's Kenny Logan celebrating his seventy eighth birthday today. Happy
birthday Kenny. One of the all time goats and one
of the all time great genres of music ever produced,
and of course is at rock seven one three, two,
one two five seven nine zero right now at one

(02:27:45):
twenty six here on the Matt Thomas shold Ross. Before
we get to that conversation we had with Tim Ben's.

Speaker 5 (02:27:52):
Black Thomas show with Ross.

Speaker 13 (02:27:53):
He's in Portland for Rockets against the Portland Trail Bizers
just started blowing hard rain and wind here at the
Portland mecca.

Speaker 1 (02:28:04):
That is the team hotel, all right, all right, so
hopefully there'll be a roof over it tonights arena forty
degrees in rain here in Portland.

Speaker 2 (02:28:12):
Not great, all right.

Speaker 1 (02:28:12):
What is also not great could be the weather in Pittsburgh.
I don't think it'd be a big factor. Texans should
have win the contest. I have him by seven. Ross
hasn't buy more than that. But we need to find
out the perspective of what somebody in Pittsburgh is thinking about.
We had a chance earlier today to visit with Tim Bens,
newspaper writer, radio host does a little bit of everything
in the Pittsburgh are He's been on the show a

(02:28:33):
handful of times over the years, and we had a
conversation with him today earlier. It's good stuff breaking down
the Steelers thing. And first thing we asked was how
things would have been different if besides obviously the obvious
of the Ravens making the playoffs and Steelers out, but
what would have happened in Pittsburgh today and this week
if Mike Tomlin and his Steelers would have lost that game,
if that kick would have been good.

Speaker 5 (02:28:56):
Maybe holding his season ending press conference or maybe he
would have done that yesterday and we'd be at lock
or clean out. And I don't think much else would
change with Tomlin. I think it would take consecutive sub
five hundred seasons before Art Runey the Second ever actually
listened to the outside noise and the calls for his job.

(02:29:20):
I wrote a column about it not too terribly long ago,
when the Bills came in here and whooped the Steelers,
and you know, people were chanting fire Tomlin throughout the
course of the second half, and I said words the
effect that there were sixty seven thousand and fifty people
at Akroscher Stadium and sixty seven forty nine of them

(02:29:42):
heard the chance, and the only one who didn't was
Art Runy the Second. So I just think that's where
his headspace is versus everybody else in Pittsburgh. We can
talk about it, but it's.

Speaker 1 (02:29:52):
Not going to happen.

Speaker 5 (02:29:54):
A lot of people have made that analogy. If todder
Luke doesn't push that field goal, well, why right, does
that mean Tomlin is out of a job and hardball
is getting ready for a playoff game? Well, the second
part would be true, but I don't think Tomlin would
have gone anywhere anyway. I think it would take consecutive
sub five hundred seasons before that happens.

Speaker 1 (02:30:15):
Okay, Tim, so not to be rude, but we don't
follow the Pittsburgh Steelers all that much.

Speaker 8 (02:30:20):
No.

Speaker 1 (02:30:20):
Look, Aaron's been on TV a lot, and the Steelers
have a national fan base. But the Texans Steelers have
not played in a while. Before we get into what
has been a mediocre season for that entire division, tell
me what's right?

Speaker 2 (02:30:32):
I mean TJ.

Speaker 1 (02:30:33):
Watt coming back from his ailment and scepping them back
on the football field. What are the things do Pittsburgh
Steeler fans? And they travel well, so we've got Steeler
fans listening to us all over the country.

Speaker 2 (02:30:43):
What do the Steelers do right? What got them to
where they are right now?

Speaker 5 (02:30:49):
Well, with what out they kept at a float with
good outside linebacker depth, you know, I think they're legit
for deep at that position this year they haven't been
in the past. They have gotten around secondary injury issues
better than expected. Joey Porters started to live up to reputation.
They found a home for Jalen Ramsey by cource of

(02:31:12):
necessity at safety. The run defense has actually been good
in games where they haven't had to worry about a
mobile quarterback. If there's a mobile quarterback out there and
they've got to make decisions to stop the mobile quarterback
or stop the big time running back. Big time running
backs have gotten loose. Henry's had a couple of good games,

(02:31:35):
better statistically than actual imprint, but good statistically against them.
James Cook went off in a situation like that Breese
Hall game one where at Justin fields flank and them.
Those things they've done well on defense. On offense, they've
had good second halves in the passing game out of Rogers.
The Rogers to Metcalf connection is sometimes good. The offensive

(02:31:58):
line play has been better anticipated, especially after Broderick Jones
got hurt. This Dylan Cook at left tackle has been
a stunning revelation out of nowhere. We've seen that along
the offensive line before with guys here in Pittsburgh. So
those are some of the things that they do well.
The checkdown game to the running backs is good. They
have a good dual threat thing going on with Jalen

(02:32:20):
Warren and Kenneth Gainwell. But they do not throw the
ball well down the field or over the middle of
the field. Consistently. Whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (02:32:29):
You mentioned TJ Watt coming back in some of the
depth on defense. How did he look in your eyes
in his return?

Speaker 5 (02:32:36):
Pretty active? You know, it's a tough read with the
way they play against the Ravens. Those outside edges crashed
down so much, and they've always had a script of
whether Lamar has the ball or not hit him, just
go after him and hit him. So it looks like
what or high Smith in certain games may be making

(02:32:58):
more of an imprint than they really are because you
just see him in the backfield so often because they're
crashing so hard. I did think he looked okay. He
had the interception off of a bat ball that Hi
Smith and Hayward really made the playoff. I didn't mention
Hayward before. He's been great in the second half the season.
I should have brought him up to but he's part
of that run defense I was speaking of.

Speaker 12 (02:33:18):
So I thought TJ was.

Speaker 5 (02:33:20):
First game back ish, Yeah, But I also thought that
that was a pretty high platform, even if it didn't
show up a ton statistically. I thought he did enough
good things and the outside linebackers behind him, particularly her
Big and Jack Sawyer, you don't see the dip when

(02:33:40):
TJ goes out as much as you used.

Speaker 1 (02:33:43):
To Tim Binns with us here on Sports Talk seven
ninety and you talked a lot about the offense, the
offensive line looking pretty good.

Speaker 2 (02:33:51):
Just overall, how do you see this matchup?

Speaker 1 (02:33:54):
Because I mean, maybe I've got my Texans colored glasses
on too, but it just feels like it's going to
be difficult for them to score points, obviously against a
very good Texans defense. But I just don't feel like
there's much of a dynamic element with the with the
Pittsburgh Steelers.

Speaker 5 (02:34:10):
Offense, there isn't you know. When we're looking at the
prospects the potential teams going into the weekend, with of
course the Steelers playing last, who would be coming here
to Acker? Sure if they beat the Ravens. I was
kind of playing the game with myself where if this
team came how much would it be fair about if
this team came out? I said three points for the Texans.

(02:34:31):
It's been at three and a half most of the week.
They are very worthy favorites by that much. At home
for the Steelers. You know, the Monday night thing. Everybody
always says it means nothing. It's just a historical fluke.
It must mean something that's been going on since nineteen
ninety one. They haven't lost a home Monday night game
that spanned three coaches. You know, the Texans without a

(02:34:52):
road playoff win. You know, there's something to think about there.
But I do think that if you went unit by unit,
you took like the four units of the teams, and
you did Steelers defense, Steelers offense, Houston defense. Houston offense
by far and away the best unit of the fours,
the Houston defense. I do worry that for as good

(02:35:15):
as this offensive line has been over the last five
or six weeks, that Houston's defensive front is going to
cause them problems. And for as slow as the Steelers
have been to start in some games of late, it's
going to be harder for them to come back in
a hurry like they did against the Ravens, like their

(02:35:38):
most success throwing the ball down the field all season long,
basically has come in two games against Baltimore, and that's
because their secondary has been pretty banged up at times
and they don't have much of a pass rush threat.
I do get concern when I think about the Steelers
offensive line as much as it's gotten better, and it's

(02:35:59):
been arrow up throughout the second half of the season,
trying to stop two good pass rushers at once, especially
if they're not in advantageous down in distant situations to
begin with. So that's why I give the Texans the edge.
I've been saying twenty three twenty Houston in overtime all week,
and I'm not moving off of that.

Speaker 1 (02:36:19):
Tim dk Metcalf has been reinstated, what is his mind
going to be like going into this game? I mean,
tell me, I'm forgetting about the situation that involved in Detroit,
But I mean, has he got his blank together or
is he gonna be Is he highly emotional guy that
you don't know what you're getting from one week to
the next.

Speaker 5 (02:36:37):
Like I didn't even realize the depths of how many
times he had been fined prior to what happened to Detroit,
but he had like sixteen fines, you know, for celebrations
or in game face mask incidents or fights with various players.
Like he's always been a hot head. I knew that
was the case with him coming here. But he's literally yes, no, sir,

(02:37:01):
to any question that he's ever asked by the media.
He gets a little prickly at some questions, but he's
always politically correct and how he answers them, at least
on the record, and then he grumbles a little bit after.
But like to see him lose it like that in Detroit.
Not stunning based on his history, but it did feel
to be a departure based on what we had seen

(02:37:23):
for the previous fourteen weeks here, he's been contrite. You know,
he was fourthright in speaking with us earlier this week.
He said all the right thing. He even thanked the
NFL for letting him practice, which was bizarre because I
thought they were a little heavy handed in their discipline.
And you didn't get with one of that from him.

(02:37:44):
I think he was tight lipped and how he talked
about the situation because there might be something legal pending there,
but he was even you know, tipping his hat to
the league that suspended him for two games. So he
would think that his head isn't the right place. But
I never saw that coming against Detroit, So maybe I
should check myself on that. He has, you know, gotten

(02:38:06):
some post whistle penalties, and he's still barking at guys
all the time, and you know, you see him wolf
out there a lot during games, and sometimes he does
take it too far. So I don't know how to
answer that question. It feels like that answer should be yes,
but past history tells me probably not. And if somebody
gets under his skin, he could lose it at any point.

Speaker 1 (02:38:23):
Yeah, sure, all right, Tim, I got two last questions
for you. Aaron's pass rush the Texans will be the
best pass rush he probably sees all season long. And
again I don't know all seventeen what can if you
were to give him a thirty seconds advice about going
against the Neil Hunter and Will Anderson.

Speaker 2 (02:38:39):
Is it getting rid of the ball quickly? Is it
going through progressions?

Speaker 1 (02:38:43):
Tell me what Aaron's thinking about this week, going against
a team that has really destroyed a lot of quarterbacks,
namely you know Josh Allen being one particular quarterback.

Speaker 3 (02:38:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:38:54):
I think one piece of advice I would give is,
and this is maybe more to Arthur Smith than it
is Aaron Rodgers is, don't obsess with keeping Warren and
Gainwell back to Chip, get him out in the flat
quickly and let Rogers be his own pass protector. That
worked out better against the Browns when they did it

(02:39:15):
that way the first time they played them, versus what
they did against Garrett and the Browns the second time
they played them, where they just obsessed over making sure
Garrett didn't get it Rogers and they kept Gainwell, who's
their team MVP, in to eat blocks the whole time,
and it didn't seem to make sense to me, and
I happened. It's as good as Gainwell, isn't that I
still have to I think Warren's better at it anyway,

(02:39:38):
because he's a little bowling ball and you know, it's
a good blocker. So I would just they love using
those guys in the flat, they love checking it down
to them. But if they're so obsessed with holding off
those two pass rushers and keeping them in the you know,
offensive backfield to do so, they're not going to get
out in time. And by the time that they do,
the rest of the Texans defense is going to flow

(02:40:00):
over there and they're going to get very little, even
less than they do in the past game. So that's
what I would say. I think the advice has to
go to Arthur Smith before it goes to Rogers and
just get those guys out in the flat and get
it out to them.

Speaker 1 (02:40:11):
Quick, all right, And last question, my good friend Chris
Brown used to kick for the Steelers. Chris Boswell Wright's
kid has been doing it for a long time for Pittsburgh.
Chris tell me many years ago, Tim, that's the worst
place for kickers to kick field goals is at your stadium.
And it's clearly Baltimore's special teams to probably agree with
you on that. Is it still as bad as it
was when Chris was playing? Is there a decided advantage?

(02:40:33):
And the reason why I bring this up is because frankly,
Kimy Fairbarn has been as big of a part of
the Texans offense as any receiver or c J.

Speaker 2 (02:40:40):
Stroud it has been for Houston so far this year.

Speaker 5 (02:40:42):
Oh and that's been talked about this week. People are
aware of that here too. No, and I Chris a
great deal. I covered him when I first got on
the beat with the team back in one I think
it was. And yeah, the field was terrible. The field
was awful for the first five years or so, maybe
even six or seven beyond that. But I would say

(02:41:03):
going back the last handful of years, maybe five six,
they've figured things out with the turf a lot better,
you know, Like I would say, yeah, going back to
about twenty twenty or so, right around COVID, they started
to figure out the field better. And it's no coincidence
that Boswell's been great over the past few years. And

(02:41:26):
there have been more long kicks from opposing kickers here too,
and they've closed in the outs, as Chris would remember,
the open end of the stadium has been closed in
a little bit bigger scoreboard. They've changed the seating so
it's not as windy coming in off the open end
as when Chris was kicking here. They did have some
issues with the field earlier in the season. I'm not

(02:41:48):
sure they've gotten all those right yet. It was an
extraordinarily dry fall here and a little warm late, and
then we had one rainy, cold weekend and that seemed
to screw everything up. And there's a lot of action
from Pitt here earlier in the season, and it's been
very snowy here in December two. So it's not great
this year. But Boswell for the most part has navigated that. Okay,

(02:42:12):
I think his extra point miss was partially blocked. That
was the way it was in the score book. I
think that's right, and I don't know. Luke just pushed it.
So Chris has a great point. He's one hundred percent right.
But I would say in the long time since he's
been here, they've gotten that field much better. And Boswell's
career numbers. If you look at he's got twelve to
the thirteen longest field goals in Akrosher Stadium history, and

(02:42:35):
that's in large part because the turf has gotten better
and it's easier to plant for those kickers.

Speaker 1 (02:42:39):
Now, all right, that again, Tim Ben's from Pittsburgh Post
Becaustat also on the radio there variety of TV and
radio show. Is really a good god guy to go
to for all of your Steeler information. Tim Bens, PGH
if you want to follow him on Twitter. Let's play
Believe It or Not? Next up the conversation about one
of the greatest of all time in the yacht rock genre,

(02:43:02):
Canty Loggins celebrating a bird. Who's that?

Speaker 2 (02:43:11):
Is that Gordy.

Speaker 1 (02:43:15):
Goyle series? It's suddenly Gordy Believe it or Not? Next
on Sports Talk seven, Honey All right, final segment here
from rainy Portland tonight Rockets against the Blazers at nine.
Who's doing the launch? Pad at eight, that'll be me Okay,

(02:43:36):
then I would.

Speaker 2 (02:43:36):
Listen to January. You think there's gonna be a game,
it's probably be me.

Speaker 5 (02:43:40):
Hm.

Speaker 2 (02:43:41):
That's true. Okay, that sounds fine. So eight o'clock tonight,
that helps out on the.

Speaker 1 (02:43:47):
Launch pad, and then tomorrow on the show, we'll have
I believe I may Doka for a few minutes.

Speaker 2 (02:43:52):
We'll definitely have Kevin Harlan.

Speaker 1 (02:43:53):
We've tested it out knock on wood that the zoom
audio will work tomorrow for that, looking forward to that,
and we have I just don't get it.

Speaker 2 (02:44:03):
Wonderful.

Speaker 1 (02:44:06):
So we got that's a busy show for tomorrow and
whatever Ross brings to the table besides that, which will
say great, Well, we'll see don't get your host five
minutes up to go on the show. What should we do?
We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show.
We simply call it be Believe It or Not. And

(02:44:27):
here's how it works. You'll call seven one three two
one two five seven ninety seven one three two one
two five seven ninety Today's edition to Believe It or
Not is all things about the legend that is Kenny Loggins.
I'll read your statement about Kenny statement completely notuterly accurate.
You'll say this I believe it if Sam as he
Ronie's full abune commit if you'll say this not.

Speaker 2 (02:44:47):
We got a pair of prizes.

Speaker 1 (02:44:48):
Three prizes actually give away either a seven onty t
shirt if we get two in a row. Right, you
can get a pair of tickets to see Monster Energy
am A super Cross January the thirty first at Energy Stadium,
or a pair of tickets to see Ever Cleared Live
January the fifteenth of the House of Blues. All those
tickets are available by going to ticketmaster dot com. Seven
one three two one two five seven ninety. If you

(02:45:11):
want to play Believe It or Not seven one three
two one two five seven nintie and we will start.

Speaker 2 (02:45:16):
With uh Lindsey on seven Ninty.

Speaker 1 (02:45:19):
Lindsay you ready to play Believe It or Not?

Speaker 8 (02:45:21):
I sure am believe it.

Speaker 1 (02:45:23):
Lindsay good luck to you. Before becoming a pop star,
Kenny Loggins got his start as a funk, jazz and
R and B guitarist, playing sessions for the Tower of Power,
The Tubes and many more.

Speaker 2 (02:45:33):
Believe It or Not?

Speaker 8 (02:45:35):
Believe It?

Speaker 1 (02:45:36):
No, thank you. Let's go to UH Rubin on seven
Aintie Ruben w was your fav Today's ten to two radio.

Speaker 10 (02:45:45):
Show, Loving All the Texans Doug.

Speaker 1 (02:45:50):
Kenny Logins's birth name is Clark Kent Loggins, which was
picked by his older brother, a big Superman fan. Believe
It or Not?

Speaker 5 (02:46:01):
Not?

Speaker 2 (02:46:02):
Oh, come on, how do you.

Speaker 1 (02:46:03):
Not know that? Believe It? That's gotta be on page
Warner Wikipedia writer, It's in the first paragraph.

Speaker 2 (02:46:10):
Bell, what is your favorite Kenny Logins song?

Speaker 9 (02:46:14):
This is it?

Speaker 2 (02:46:16):
Wow, Bell, I'm very impressed.

Speaker 1 (02:46:20):
Before Canny Loggers recorded danger Zone for the Top Gun soundtrack,
Toto was supposed to do it, but the track didn't
Contractually issues didn't allow for it to happen. Believe It
or Not?

Speaker 6 (02:46:32):
Man, I hate y'all.

Speaker 2 (02:46:34):
Believe it Believe it all right? Statement number two for
the win.

Speaker 1 (02:46:42):
Canny Loggins was nominated for three Academy Awards for Best
Original Song, winning twice, earning him the nickname King of
the soundtrack.

Speaker 6 (02:46:50):
Believe It or Not, Happy New Year's Believe It Not.

Speaker 1 (02:47:00):
He was nominated once for Footloose, but he did not
win it. Let's go to Victor on seven Anti Victor.
You're ready to play Believe It or Not?

Speaker 5 (02:47:09):
Believe It?

Speaker 1 (02:47:11):
Kenny Loggins and I'm gonna assume rash you meant to
say if you seen on this one? Messina sure went on.
This is Kenny and Logins. I don't know what that means.
Help me out here. I don't know what this means.

Speaker 2 (02:47:26):
Hold on. I think it's Logins and Messina probably, Yeah
Jim their own version of What a Fool.

Speaker 1 (02:47:32):
Believes and even release it before the Bubi Brothers version,
which became a much bigger hit Believe It or Not
to Believe It?

Speaker 2 (02:47:41):
Sorry, Yeah, Kenny Logins in Messina, you know whatever? Joe
on seven, Nie Joe, You're ready to play Believe It
or Not?

Speaker 5 (02:47:52):
Believe It?

Speaker 6 (02:47:52):
Kenny go ahead for.

Speaker 2 (02:47:55):
Kenny Logan's first soul album.

Speaker 1 (02:47:57):
Jim Messina was supposed to be just a record producer,
pretty became so involved in the album they became an
accidental duo.

Speaker 2 (02:48:03):
Believe It or Not Believe It?

Speaker 1 (02:48:06):
You Believe It Day a number two for the Win.
In twenty twenty two, Kenny Loggins published his autobiography titled
Still Alright, a memoir Believe It or Not?

Speaker 6 (02:48:16):
Oh Man, Okay, not Believe It?

Speaker 1 (02:48:21):
Oh Dave? On seven, Artie Day of your favorite part
of Today's Radio show, Hello, Hello.

Speaker 2 (02:48:32):
Kenny Loggins dated.

Speaker 1 (02:48:33):
A slew of supermodels in the eighties, including Claudia Schiffer,
Linda Evangelisa, and others.

Speaker 2 (02:48:38):
Believe it or not, that is true.

Speaker 1 (02:48:41):
Believe it No. Ross will give away nothing today nice,
not a darn thing, not even for Bill, who had
this is It on his background of his favorite logins
and miss Logins song What is your favorite?

Speaker 2 (02:48:57):
ROSSI?

Speaker 3 (02:48:59):
This is it?

Speaker 1 (02:49:01):
What's your second favorite? I'm all right, okay, now you're
still on my material. Up next, two guys that are
all right, this is it. It's by team. They're gonna
entertain the hell out of you. Between now and six o'clock.
I'll join you for Rockets basketball at nine. Here from Portland,
I'm Sports Talk seven nine