The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Offseason, Texans Run Defense & J.J. Watt's Worth

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 12-01 and 8thown. What's happening, luncht timers? Good afternoon to you. And welcome to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790.

Ross is out yet to one more day. He gets as much vacation time as I do, except he takes all of his. But I'm not better. Hopefully he's rested, rejuinated, recharged, and we'll be back with this tomorrow on the show. But it's you and me today.

And Brendan Riley, of course, who, by the way, Brendan, nice job on the gut feeling about Derek Henry scoring, rushing for at least 150 yards. You actually under, you underestimated his power and abilities. Yeah, he almost did it all in one. play. So when Ross and Brendan and I are together, like, do we have a good song to play in a Monday to kind of summarize the actions of the game and maybe we go to playing some highlights of the

play-by-play call, of course, of the network or the opposing team because we can't carry, you know, the home call, I couldn't think of anything. I couldn't, I've run out of songs to use to open the show. Now, again, when you do these songs, like there was a song called Bad Decisions by sung punk rock band of the mid-90s. Nobody knows that. You have to play songs that people and understand, you know, there may be songs that are appropriate to what had happened, but if nobody knows what they are, it's hard to play and get a groove to it. I couldn't think of anything. I have one that might be up your alley. Can you, you prepare to play it right now?

Because if you are, I'll fire the highlights. Now, again, this is not a rehearsed act here. It's a little risky because it's not my music. It just came to mind. Quim, it's not your music. Like, what year are we talking about? I have no idea. But you think this song is very familiar to people.

Oh, I know that much. You know, I... Let me get the highlights ready. Let me get the highlights ready. And then we're going to get to it. Okay, so on the show today, I got to be honest with you, I was on the Zoom call with the Texans earlier today

because I just wanted to hear what Romeo had to say about, you know, primarily how awful his defense is in the two points. I can't do what you're talking about Romeo because I've already heard it. So it wouldn't be a good segment for me to do it. So we're going to have you guys do it. You've already come up with three or four sound bites from today's press availability, correct? Yes.

So we need three people at 1 o'clock today, and we'll remind you how it works, and we'll do one sample to kind of get you guys warmed up. But we want you out there in Radio Land to play what you're talking about Romeo, and that'll be coming up at 1 o'clock today. 2.30 this afternoon, towards the end of the show. we're going to hear from Vanessa Richardson. She is the sports reporter over at Channel 2 that was able to secure an interview for Jeff. No, that will air tonight at 630.

If you are planning to DVR like I am and like I already have, your DVR is going to say entertainment tonight. So I better not get news about, I don't know, Christy Brinkley and Pink and Matthew McConaughey and who else? who else would be on, Miley Cyrus. It better be the Jeff Leno interview. So that's going to be in the 630 spot. But Vanessa will join us towards the very end of the show today to get to what she was able to,

and again, she's not going to give away a lot of it, but I do want to have a couple things. I do want to ask involved in that. And obviously give her a chance to promote the interview tonight at 630. All right. So you think you have found the song that will appropriately match the performance of the Houston Texans yesterday. I'm a little nervous,

but I'm excited to see how you feel about it. All right, let me get the audio already because I don't want to mess this up, because if it's good, I'm going to really embrace it. If I think it sucks, then we're in real bad shape. By the way, there's no highlights of here the game in here at all. Oh, there it is. Okay, I found them. Without any further ado, Brendan chooses the song that best summarizes the Texans Titans from Sunday.

Carry on my wayward son. There'll be peace when you are. Lay all we read to Red. Don't you cry no more. On second in goal, Tannahill with time, throwing, touch her with his first touchdown catch of this season. And the Titans are on top first.

On first and goal, Tannahill. Lots of time. On the move. Now, Pugh is making it look easy, but. From their own. Oh, I'll give you a one to give you cry. 36.

I'll tell you what, keep this up. I wouldn't have thought of this, but it kind of fits. Turn it up. It kind of fits, Brendan. Some of me is rubbing off on you. Yeah, me picking 70s music is not. You're not going to count on that very often. Well, it's worked out beautifully.

Sing it one more time. Nicely done. Nicely done. You're actually becoming a part of this show now with a great song pull there. It was really all about that there'll be peace when you are done. Yeah, there will be no peace. There will be peace when the season is. Yeah, they'll be peace when we're watching other teams

compete in the wildcard round and that normal Saturday 330 slot which the Texans normally have will be somebody else. It'll be like the bills spot. Well, how the bills will win the AFC East, probably. Because the Patriots lost again yesterday. That the division sucks too, honestly. But that's their own issues.

All right, let me give you the phone numbers and then you guys got to chime in. We have to get to the two-point stuff because everybody has an opinion on this. 713-212-5-7-90 if you'd like to get in. If you just want to scream and yell about how bad the Texas defense was, I mean, I don't like to use the word sucks on the radio or for that matter on social media tweets. But the Texas defense sucks.

It just sucks. So if you just want to scream that for 30 seconds, I can accept that. If you want to get to the Astros baseball of the weekend losing game seven of the American League Championship series and the future of the Astros. My guess is the Astros future is going to suck, especially when I think two members of the team are absolutely 100% gone. 713-212-5-790. If you want to call in and talk about how it much,

it sucks the Dodgers and the National League Champions, I have never rooted for the race before my life, except maybe move to Las Vegas. I'm going to root for Tampa Bay Race because Dodger cockiness drives me insane. I know John Heyman probably loves it, but we're all built differently. We are your unofficial home of raised baseball for the next week. I don't know if anybody's going to actually care and watch the World Series.

Could you imagine how bad the ratings would have been if it had been if it had been Tampa Bay versus Atlanta? I don't think they're going to be great as it is. On the flip side, L.A. Houston would have been awesome. It would have been sexy AF. You're right about that. Really nothing else. I mean, there's nothing really else going on. Cougars lost on Friday, but I don't think it's going to be a mainstream topic conversation.

It doesn't have to be. So let's get at this two-point thing. And I'm sure Trenches got into a lot of it, Brendan. So I don't mean to repeat any of what they had to say. Here's the most simplistic viewpoint of it. And maybe would we have a different viewpoint of this if Bill O'Brien was the coach? He has nothing Bill O'Brien we thought ever did made sense. So he was never to get the benefit of the doubt.

But the most simplistic thing I can say about the decision to go. for two is this. If the Texans score the two-point conversion, they win the game. That's it. You can complain about what Tennessee was going to do, what they eventually did do, overtime, coin flip, can't stop a nosebleed, any of those, you know, sibs, whatever you want to use. The bottom line is this. If the Texans would have completed the two-point conversion, it would have been a nine-point game and the Titans would have had, you know, under two minutes to score twice, one go in the length of the field, then an onside kick, which doesn't particularly work very well, then score again in field goal range, but by the way, a kicker who was terrible in

Goscowski. The Texans would have won the game if the two-point conversion would have been completed and been successful. Nobody can shake that notion. but the reason why you think about going for the two is one very important thing Romeo Cornell has absolutely and justifiably so zero confidence in his defense especially his run defense who made I've never I always thought that Travis Henry was this big bulking brooding running back he was outrunning multiple members of the

Texans secondary. I'd be embarrassed if I was a member of the Texans defense. I bet J.J. Watt is embarrassed. And if I was J.J. Watt, let me tell you something. This may not be popular of some of you out there, but you know what? I just got to say it. If I was J.J. Watt, I opened the door in Cal's office, and I got Bill O'Brien fired. That's my own belief. You can agree to disagree with me you want to. But if J.J. Watt walks in and says, it's either me or Bob McNair or a Bill O'Brien. Cal said it's you. If I was JJ Wada, I'd ask for a trade.

Because here's the bit. The trade, a trade, would help the Texans get some draft capital back. Got no first, no second round pick next year. How in the hell they're supposed to improve this atrocious defense? They've already spent too much money in salary cap. at Whitney Merciless and Zach Cunningham and I don't know somebody else in that mix. But now Dr. McKinney's making good money.

And oh, by the way, JJ Watt makes a lot of money. You trade him. You probably get some decent value in return as long as Jack Yiseby doesn't make the trade. Somebody else does. And you give JJ an opportunity to go playoff a contender. Because I got news for you. They ain't going to the playoffs this year

and they ain't going to the playoffs next year. This Texan's offense is humming along. Humming! Texan's defense is getting worse by the week. I swear to God, if I put Brendan O'Reilly, my producer, in running back close, you could probably get 75 to 80 yards as as as as as as unathletic as you are. Give me the Titans offensive line?

They got bulldozed. Whatever you want to use. So I'm going to tell you right now. I know it ain't going to happen because you can't trade one of humans' all-time faves, but that'd be the best thing for JJ personally and for the organization. Get something back in return. Free JJ from this terrible cloud of mediocrity. Because he played his ass off yesterday.

Hell, he got a sack and a fumble. Ressie's cats can't stop anything. I know Roby got the I-N-T yesterday. day, you know, doesn't mask the other mistakes where the tight ends and slot receivers were catching everything within, you know, thrown to them. But we can get to that later on. I just want to talk about the two point for me, gang, I mean, you could argue it either way. I'm not, I mean, it's a 50-50 call. Nobody can run to your social media account and talk about, what, that's the worst thing ever seen in my life. And nobody can say, great, balsy move. The reason why I was done was because

of two things. One, if it's converted, the Texans are guaranteed to win the game. As a much as anything can be guaranteed. But two, Romeo's like, my defense sucks. Henry and the rest of the guys are going to run down the field and score a touchdown in a very short period of time. And they did. 1215, Matt Thomas show 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790 with a word here for Woodhouse Day Spas.

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For more to tales, print that gift card out, Houston Whathousepaws.com. Houston whathouse spas.com. Matt Thomas returns on Sports Talk 790. Baseball, football, basketball in Houston. Home for your home teams. It's one of the tougher ones that had. This one really hurts.

It was offense played great. Offense played great. It gave us opportunities to win the game. And we did not finish the game on defense. We had multiple opportunities and we didn't do it. and as leader of the defense, I put that squarely on my shoulders. So this one is very difficult to take.

Yeah, I mean, JJ, it's nice that you're trying to take up your team, but nope, we all watch the game. There's a lot. I mean, it's just getting from bad to worse. Every time I go on an opposing radio show, I was on in Minnesota, I was on in Kansas City. I didn't do one this week because frankly

it was just Astro stuff related but they always ask about the Texans run defense. I'm like, there isn't any. Derek Henry, I mean, we've got to do some serious looking and we'll do this more tomorrow than today, but how many more running backs

are going to have career days at the expense of the Houston Texans? You got Derek Henry at least one more time and hell, they're going to want to win that game because they're going to want to not only win the AFC South, host maybe a first, you know, have a buy in the first round. Green Bay's pissed off because they got beaten like a drum by Tampa Bay yesterday.

Boy, it is, they're going to, I mean, Chicago beat Carolina. The Bears are, I mean, granted, I don't know who their quarterback gets from week to week, nor do I particularly care, but they're surprising. This is going to be of an epic meltdown season, and it's Bill O'Brien and Jack Easterby's fault. I put it on those guys. I don't put it on the players. I mean, you're kind of, you're supposed to, but they're the ones out there for a reason.

They're the ones being compensated because the Texans and Jack Easterby and Bill O'Brien believed in those guys. That's who this, this is all about those guys. The lasting effects of those two gentlemen running this organization will be felt for at least one more season. I'm not ready to say, I'm not ready to be one of those bomb basics.

Oh, this team will never go to the playoffs again. I'm not saying that. I was right in telling you that Bill O'Brien was never going to take the team to Super Bowl. What I should have preface that by saying that the Texans were never going to back to the playoffs with Bill O'Brien's coach, but I don't want to make that kind of grandiose prediction. But no first round pit, no second round pick next year.

How do you build? You build by trading off assets. You move people immediately before the trade deadline. I don't even know, is there, there's a normal trade deadline this year, right? I don't think COVID's had to do anything about that. I'm telling you, I think J.J. Watts got some things. left in the tank. Is he the best Watt in the NFL anymore? No. Can he

help you? Yes. By moving him. For his mental health and for the team's future. Problem is, I would not want Jack Eastwood to make the deal, but he's the interim GM. He'd probably trade J.J. Watt for a pair of conditional

fifths. Well, we've, you know, two fives are better than a four. Oh, whatever. Man. Brendan, I know that you're relatively new to this game, but I just could never be a fan of this team. And there was just a variety of reasons. But ineptitude in coaching in front office was probably the number one spot on the board.

If they bring in a coach that you don't feel that way about, could you buy in? Completely. Especially with someone like Watson. I mean, I thought yesterday was a lot of fun to watch despite a loss. He can throw the football. He looked good. He looked really good. And he's got in, look, remember we talking about when Brandon Cook signed here?

that this was going to be, this was not a terrible deal, especially because the Rams are picking up most of his salary this year. At least I think a good portion of it. He's playing like a guy that's supposed to be in the NFL making catches. Will Fuller has looked really, really good. You've got two receivers that are catching the ball. The tight ends have been used a lot. Now, the running game is putrid, and that's, again, Easterbane O'Brien.

Offensive lines been meh. But Deshawn was fantastic. Two 30-point games. Offense, no one's doing. Defense. I mean, Derek Henry, I don't know this to be a fact,

Brendan, but I believe Derek Henry wanted to still run the football, even though the game was over with. He's like, I want some more of this. You know how you go to a really good buffet? And you go to that Chinese food buffet, because I'm a big Chinese buffet guy. And, man, that Mongolian beef is so delicious,

but you're so full. you're like man I am satisfied this has been a good full meal but you go get one more plate of it because it's just so good that you know they just can't get as good anywhere else he's not going to have that kind of free run to run up and down the field and push safeties

of the side he's not going to score 94 touchdown or touchdown runs often oh but he will get one more chance in that Chinese buffet when the Titans come to play the Texans later this year 713 212 790 Steve's and Huffman at 1226

Hi Steve Steve, you're on. Go ahead. All right, Steve is speechless. Let's go to Craig, North Houston on 7-0. Hi, Craig. Hey, appreciate you taking a call. You know, I got an observation for you.

And I want your opinion because you really know how to look at these things. I look at the Texas defense, and I look at the players. And I only see one, maybe two-caliber NFL starters. The Alabama defense, to me, their players look more cut up, more physically fit than our defense. Our guys just don't seem to be in that weight room. They look little. Is it me or is it just these guys are little, second and third stringers? No, I don't think the team is underperforming in the weight room.

I can't tell you that they're the best at it or the worst at it because that's just a part of the world that we don't. don't see. No, I think they have, and again, I'm by no means an expert on football, and you guys know that. I mean, I just, I enjoy it, but I don't sit there and get in the war room and study tape over and over again. But they're just not fundamentally sound. They look like they take bad angles. They look like a team that doesn't know how to wrap people up. I think they get caught up in the allure of trying to force fumbles and they wind up getting sloppy. And oh, by the way, they're just not very good. that the value that has been placed on the gentleman that are in that starting lineup are not valued by other people.

In the NFL, how many Texans players that started yesterday would start for the majority of NFL teams? Does Eric, um, does Eric Murray start for another team in the NFL? No, because it never has before. Justin Reed, he does. Vernon Hargraves, likely not. got kicked out of Tampa Bay for not being a really, you know, frankly, good team player.

Robey, maybe. Scarlett, no chance. Tyrell Adams, too early to tell, but likely no. Zach Cunningham? Probably so. Dunn, Hall, Wadkins, no, no, no. Watt, yes. It's just not, it's just not good.

It's not an NFL starting caliber group of 11. So they can pump, they can be agile, they can work out like fiends, they can not work out like fiends. On Sunday, they're just not going to be as good as what other teams can bring offensively. And that's why it's going to be a miserable season, watching Deshaun Watson put up 34, 37 points a game, and the Texans are probably going to lose two or three more games in the 40s.

They could be Jacksonville. They'll probably beat Cincinnati. but I don't think they stand a chance against Green Bay. I mean, Green Bay sucked yesterday. But I don't think Green Bay, I mean, they have been the surprise of the NFL. Are they going to come on the road for the second consecutive week and look at like dog crap like they did against Tampa Bay? I guess there's a possibility.

But that would mean Aaron Rogers would be forcing a lot of turnovers. I don't know. He was pretty upset yesterday with the way his performance of his team. And I highly doubt that Aaron Rogers is going to put together back-to-back duds. 1229. Matt Thomas show, 713212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. We'll need some people at 1 o'clock to play,

what you're talking about Romeo? I've already heard the call because I was on it this morning, so I have to excuse myself. But if you've ever heard the game before, we ask you to call in, we'll ask you to call in and try to guess what Romeo had to say about today's press conference. Also coming up on the show,

James Click and Dusty Baker are going to speak, I believe, 1 o'clock today, if I'm right about that. they'll wrap up their seasons. Dusty to me, I don't, I'm not looking to find any sort of nuggets out of what Dusty has to say. I'm very curious what the general manager will have to say about the Astros, especially because he is about to have one of the busiest off seasons that general manager could possibly have in the thought of replacing at least

two members of his outfield. Kyle Tucker's a starting outfitter for the team next year. There's no argument to that. It's who's going to be the other two guys, because I don't believe George Springer and Josh, and I don't believe Josh Redick's going to be here, but it will be because of the Astros, not because of Josh.

And I believe that Michael Brantley will not return to the Astros either. I think those two guys are as good as gone. So how does the new GM, you know, work through that in replacing those guys and how much money will he be able to spend to get guys that you'd recognize and appreciate? We'll talk about that as more as well. 713-212-5-790 if you want to get in. at 713-212-5-790. Right now, a word for bronze roofing. They can be found on the phones at 281-480-9900 and online at

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Take another route. Sports Talk 790. You're unbiased home. for your home teams. 1236, Sports Talk 790. The Matt Thomas show continues. Good afternoon to you. Ross is back with me tomorrow.

Brendan here with me today. You are you, and we're going to play, believe it or not, today at 250. We've got one more Carrava's gift card to give away, and then we have some exciting DVDs, I believe, CDs. I thought you wanted to do the Astros Banners. Oh, that's right, that's right. I'm glad you reminded me.

My buddies at Cromberg's flags and Flykels. I have a few more banners we want to give away. Just some Astro flags. putting in your man cave, put it in your kid's bedroom, put it in your office. I don't care what you do with it, but we'll be giving those away later today as well. And I think we're going to do it based on just one correct answer, right? Yep. So you either get fed or you get a flag.

It's called getting fed or getting a flag. The essence of today's edition of believe it or not today at 250. Vanessa Richardson from Channel 2 is going to join us at 2.30. She is an interview tonight. On the scale of 1 to 10, how interested are you in hearing from Jeff Leno. The answer to me is 15. Honestly, I don't know if I'm expecting a whole lot,

but just to hear from him, after not hearing from him for many months, will be interesting. So I invite all of you to watch it tonight at 630. We'll play clips of it tomorrow during the show. But

I'll be... Here's what I don't know. And this is where Vanessa will help us out in a couple of hours. did he do this to get back into baseball in the part of the recovery tour or is he doing this to say I know I'm probably toast in baseball I might as well just let it all out because AJ Hinch did it quite differently he went to Tom Verducci of MLB Network and Tom obviously an employee of if you don't know MLB network is owned by MLB so in theory in a small way Rob Manfred is

Tom Verducci's boss so you go to that network, you try to clear the air, you try to say, I'm sorry, you try to clear up any misinformation is out there. Because A.J. Hinch, I think, wants to, I mean, he is wanting and yearning to be back in Major League Baseball. It's interesting that Jeff's first conversation would be not to a national audience, to either ESPN, a Fox, or an MLB network. He decided to go with a local angle and good for Channel 2 for that doing that. I'm just, it's a little, I'm just curious why he would go there as compared to, is he afraid that he would get, you know, that if MLB network wanted him on that he'd be grilled

by whoever was hosting a show? I mean, if you're the, if you're the one that has the information, you can set the guidelines of how, where things go. Now, the network that he so chooses, or the TV station for the matter can say, no, if we can't ask you about this, then the interview's off. And I've been around a lot of people that have said, it's happened to me a lot. You can have this person come on your show,

but these are things that cannot be discussed. Well, if they're the things that are the most important things to be discussed with said interviewer, interviewee, then I wouldn't want to do the interview. And I don't know if there were any parameters. I'll ask Vanessa about that coming up in a couple of hours, if there were any hands-off conversation pieces. But he goes local, is it because he thought, he thinks that maybe we need to hear from the Houston perspective first before he goes and runs to Ken Rosenthal or anybody else?

I mean, frankly, I wouldn't go to Buster only because Buster's dragged his name through the mud. So I'd say screw you, Buster. I'd say screw you, John Heyman. Bitter MLB hack. Sorry, I didn't mean to get personal there. Maybe his issue is just all the MLB National guys. Like we talked about that last week, right? Yeah.

They all have opinions. They're not reporters anymore. And that's what the national television group. I mean, you know, Stephen A. Smith was a long time beat writer. And then he became a columnist, and then he got a form of television. So he's not that much different. I mean, columnists basically are television people to just type their words out as compared to what they do here on the radio. I mean, you know, Brian T's been with us a lot and kind of says some of the same things.

when he joins me is what he would write in a column. Beatriders are supposed to be just the facts, ma'am. But that's been long gone from, at least from the ESPN side of things. So I'll, I'm going to watch it. I invite you guys to watch as well. And again, Vanessa is going to join us a couple of hours. So let's get our crystal ball out because you don't like to do that here on the show. Will we come away refreshed?

And, oh, I understand it now. Or do we come out with more questions after, I guess, you know, most of the 30-minute interview will be aired. The entire interview, from what I understand it is 37 minutes long, and they're going to post it on their website. So obviously, the KPRC website's going to get a tremendous amount of clicks today because it'll probably be aggregated nationally. What is to be accomplished? What is there – I guess the bigger question is, for those of you that are astro fans, is what do you want to hear? Do you want to hear, I'm sorry. I didn't know what it was happening in my own department?

do you want to hear that now this makes sense why we thought that maybe you knew all along what you didn't? There is a clip involved, and I think he does say the Yankees and a Red Sox. I didn't understand some of the T stuff that was sent out by Channel 2 in relation to them and the codebreakers. I don't know if it was because it was edited and mixed together or whatever, but is this going to be an opportunity for Jeff to throw the Yankees and a Red Sox under the bus and saying, hey, they were doing it too? which again any of us that are astro followers I think probably would and frankly people in baseball do they're just being super naive to it they don't think the other teams are doing the exact same thing the only difference is and I'll and I'll fall on my sort on this is the reason of the astros are being treated is because they had one of the astro's own decided to ride out the team his old team where nobody from the Yankees would say anything nobody from the Red Sox would say anything and if we know anything about what the Yankees are doing we don't because of the seal letter that is being protected by the the Yankees and by Major League Baseball. So what do you want out of it? Is that I'm sorry going to be good enough?

Do we want all the, I want to be as in, I want to be as detail oriented as I, as I want it to be. But I'm afraid because of the format, I don't know if we're going to get enough meaty stuff. I hope we do. But for him to speak for the first time, it will be meaningful. We'll certainly discuss in the. next couple of days here on Sports Talk 790. We will also discuss how awful the Texans defense is and how I may not be the chairman of the board on this, but I think for the well-being, for the Houston Texans franchise for the rest of this year and certainly for the next couple of years,

their best interest would be to trade JJ Watt to get something in return. He is the only player right now realistically that you get really good value for. Because with JJ on the field, it doesn't make a difference. He's only one point. He's only one. person among 11. I know he wore the responsibility of how bad the team was yesterday, but it wasn't on him. It just really wasn't. 1243, Sports Talk 790, 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Matt Thomas continues on Sports Talk 7-9. Your rockets, your Astros, your voice. 790. It is the Matt Thomas show. We are with you today until 3 o'clock, which talking about Romeo is coming up in about 10 minutes, and this is what we're going to need you to do.

We'll have you call in, and you'll have to guess the answer to a question that Romeo Cornell was asked during his press conference, which took place a couple of hours ago. So, you know, Ross normally does it. I did it last week. I've already heard the answers, so it would be unfair. I almost thought about doing it a bit where I would really get everything exactly right, but then it smelled fishy, so I didn't want to do that. I actually think you'd struggle more than you think. Like, you think you remember the answers? Not really. Like, you'd do better than normal. But I could have written them down as I was listened to the answer. So that would have been, that would have been, you know, that's not the way

this show works. We're honest and true. Yeah, that's right. 790 is honest and true 24-7. Maybe not in the afternoon, but certainly during the middle of the day. All right, 7-13-1-2-5-790. So what you're talking about is coming up. up at 1 o'clock. And then we're going to start playing a little bit of the clips of, I don't know how much dusty we're going to get, frankly. It's more about James Click. And the fact is,

James Click has got a lot of work to do. He's got to figure out starting rotation. I think it's pretty much set. Or Kitty, Valdez, Granky, McCullors, and who's my fifth one. Javier. Sorry, Christian Javier.

And maybe a battle for sixth if Forrest Whitley ever decides he wants to play major league baseball. Boy, the Astros have had lousy luck when it comes to these first round picks not being much the last couple of years. So you've got essentially six guys and maybe there's a seventh. Luis Garcia could certainly be in the mix too. So maybe there's seven, maybe eight guys' tops battling for the number five for one of the spots that rotation.

Your infield is set. Whether you like it or not, Yuleiguriel's got a new brandy one-year contract. Jose L. Tuves at second. You've got Carlos Correate short, you've got Bregman and third. Catching spots clear with Maldonado. It's the outfield.

It's the outfield that is the big, big question mark. Reddick's not coming back. I don't think Springer's coming back. I don't believe that Brentley's coming back. Kyle Tucker assumes one of those spots. So the question marks will be, how do you fill up the Astros outfield with at least two spots? And is Giorno and Alvarez going to be back to full form

to be the D.H for this baseball team next year? So in theory, it's not a lot of work. I mean, every team is searching for middle relief help. So that's, oh, by the way, you need a new closer probably because I don't think I would highly doubt Roberto as soon as he's going to pitch next year. I mean, I know he's trying to avoid surgery, just like Justin Verlainter was trying to avoid surgery,

but that didn't work out particularly well. So you need a new closer if you don't think Brian Presley can do it, moving Presley back to his seventh, eighth inning role. So let's say at worst case, you need one high-leverage late-inning guy. You always need middle bullpen help. That just always goes to the territory for the baseball team. You might need a little bit in the back end of the rotation, but you've got guys that are already in camp that could fight for that.

You've got to fill out two spots and maybe three if Yardon Alvarez is slow to recover from his knee surgery. But those are pretty big. And oh, by the way, you're going to be getting rid of one of the best lead-off hitters in baseball. And a guy that has been synonymous with the return of relevant baseball to your community in George Springer. And Michael Brantley has been nothing but professional the entire way in his two years. So not a lot to do. but boy, are they heavy decisions? And the question's going to be

how much money will George Springer be offered by other teams as compared to the Astros, especially with what the current financial stature and status of Major League Baseball is from team to team with fans at this point not being a lot in stadiums full time? Now, I know there were fans up in Arlington for the National League Championship Series. There will be fans a lot in there, I think, probably

10, 12,000 somewhere in that range for the World Series as well. And if we get to that point by April of next year, that'll be really good. But frankly, how you make money and how these four agents make serious money is by not only having great television deals and merchandise deals, but you have to have people in the stands. You have to have 30 to 40,000 people paying an average of $50 a ticket, buying beer, paying $25, $30, $40 for parking. And all that was gone this year. and I don't know if waiting a year and George saying something short term

is all of a sudden going to make that big of a difference because I don't even know if we're ever really going to see full-fledged crowds in football, basketball, and baseball games until maybe 2022. Just the reality of it. I mean, we are seeing pockets of games being played in college football and pockets in the NFL, but by no means the majority, by no means it feels like even like, I think there were nine NFL stadiums.

this weekend out of the possible 16? There weren't 16 games this weekend. There were probably what? There were 14, probably 13 games that were played this weekend that had fans. So that's better than half, but none of them had more than, say, 25% occupancy. And my guess is unless we have

a vaccine that is readily available, that'll be the same way for the NBA coming up next year and certainly for Major League Baseball. So how much does that impact teams wanting to sign? My simple answer to that is, probably not much because guess what happened over the summer this past year. Mookie Betts decided he wanted to go play for somebody else not named the Boston Red Sox.

He signs a $300 million deal. He signs it in the middle of a pandemic. Or nobody was going to games at Dodger Stadium and nobody will be going to games at Dodgers Stadium at least $45,000 for quite some time. So my guess is George is thinking if Mookie Betz can get it, I may not be as good as Mookiee Betts. But I'm the top free agent out there. And guess what? If I'm the number one guy, I might be getting more money than anybody else.

So anybody thinking that the Astros will be able to slide in and get a cheaper deal on George because of the current economic structure of baseball, I think Mookie Betts is like, no, you need a bet on yourself. And maybe George wants to leave. Maybe George is like, you know what? This is my one great opportunity. And I'm sorry if I repeat myself to some of you because I've been saying this in a lot of the baseball shows. been hosting the last few days. My formula is if you have a guy under your control that has been with you and you don't

sign his contract, his extension before you leave spring training, that's basically an open invitation to say one of the two things. We're really not interested in you being with us long term or the player saying, you know what, I'm a free agent for the first time of Major League Baseball. I'm going to go find out how much I'm worth. And then I'll send it back to the Astros and say, hey, the Red Sox, the Royals, the Reds, the Mariners, they want to offer me this many years of this dollars. If you want me so bad, beat it.

Or it just might be option C in Brantley and or Springer's case. I'm done here. I'm good. I want to know what it's like to be with a different organization. Maybe I can get away from the stench of the sign stealing scandal, which he won't be able to do. He have any of them. As much as I love George, George puts on a New York match uniform.

He's going to have to hear it too. anybody associated with 2017 is going to live with this. Maybe not Jake Mariznick, but he's a part-time player, but we don't know. But I would assume anybody that wears the gear of any team that was associated with the sign stealing of 2017, that's going to carry, that sting was going to carry with those guys for the rest of their major league careers, no matter what uniform they play. I don't think that's a driving force, just a gut feeling on my part. The feeling I have is the Astero's.

had a chance to lock him up long term with a dollar amount, they didn't do so, giving George and giving Michael Brantley the option to say, you know what, let's find out what else is out there. Maybe they were in love with A.J. Hinch. Maybe they're not big, dusty Baker guys. That also could play a role in it too. All right. Here's how what you're talking about Bill O'Brien, what's talking about Romeo Cornell goes. We have sound bites from today's press conference. If you want to guess how he answers it, do we have any prizes given way to the audience here? I know we've got those astro flags. We've got some DVDs, some CDs, something cool, right?

Somewhere in the prize vault. Go deep. Go back to deep in the back of the section of the prize vault. We will give you something. We do have, it's Eagles Live from the Forum CD in full-length concert DVD. That was recently, too. It's 26 song performance. Oh, if you don't love the Eagles, you don't love America.

I would, you know what? If you don't take that CD, I'll take it from you. Is it a CD or a DVD or both? It looks like it's both. Really? We spare no expense around these parts. So we've got a Eagles DVD CD collection, we believe. Bringing up to check on, double check on that. We'll give those away if any of you are willing to participate in what you're talking about, Romeo.

We'll do that next to start the second hour, the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show. It is 102 on Sports Talk 790. Every Monday following a Texans game, we take the thoughts of the head coach, whoever may be at the time, and try to guess what he says in a press conference. Playing just sound bites is boring. We like to make it a small game. We call it this. Right here.

Romeo. All right. We need contestants, and we're going to be playing for a very nice prize. I've done some research, went back and deep into the prize vault, and, and I've done. anybody that plays today, whether you are good or bad at this, will win an Eagles live from the form CD and full-length concert DVD. It features a 26-song performance recorded at the fabulous form in September 2018, features the first Eagles recording with Vince Gill and Deacon Fry. Eagles Live from the form is available everywhere now, and the prize is courtesy of Rhino Records.

So if you love the Eagles, a CD and a DVD concert set can be yours if you do this. What you doing about? What you're talking about? Romeo. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Let's give him a little warm-up here. Brendan, you give me one, and I will try to guess what the coach said earlier today in his press conference. So I want to give you the one that I think is most difficult.

All right. To be kind to our listeners. That's nice. All right. Crenel, I'm leading on the passing game down the stretch. In the game or over the last week? This week. Okay. I will say that he said that DeShall was in a groove.

He got good pass protection. The receivers did a good job of running their routes, and we were able to do some damage against a pretty good Titan secondary. Obviously, it wasn't enough. We came up short, but I was very pleased at how Deshaun was throwing the football, and we had to have it as a big part of our offense. You know, sometimes you do what you're hot at. Sometimes in the game, if you're a high throwing the ball,

you'll continue to throw it. because you can gain yards a lot quicker, move the ball down the field faster. And a lot of times if you're facing a team who bunch up against the run to a degree, it's harder to run the ball. You know, and we tried to run it some, and we gained some yards,

but also we didn't make as many yards that maybe we wanted to make in a running game, but we were making it in the passing game. So we stayed with the passing game. with the passing game a little bit more. Almost like you listen to it. It's almost like I heard the press conference earlier today. I forgot to mention how he didn't want to say it, but the running game sucked.

David Johnson 19 carries for 57 yards. It did score a touchdown, but David, we knew how bad this trade was going to be the moment it got done. I don't even think we could have been possibly anticipated it being this bad. He averaged just three yards of carry. There's nobody in the NFL that gets multiple carries, 15, 20 a game that averages three yards to carry like the Houston Texans do. 713-212-5-790. Terrence in the Galleria is our first contestant today on?

What you're doing? Romeo. Terrence, you think you're up to doing this? We'll see what we got. Cairns, good luck to you. Here's Brendan with today's question. All right, Cronnell on continued run defense troubles. Ooh, how long is it?

This one is 32 seconds. 32 seconds, Terrence. What do you think Romeo Cornell said about as teams run troubles? Defense. Well, guys, I think we struggled the entire game on tackling in the run game. We let them get to the second level on second and threes, giving up a 94-yard run. isn't ever going to get us to the promised land. And I think we need to sure up the front line

in order for this to be fixed. Well, John, we're trying to figure that out, and we're meeting on that today and during this week, we'll see if we can come up with a better plan than what we have. Maybe we have to cut back on some of the things that we're doing to keep the mental errors to a minimum.

And then the physical part of it, I think we have got, who can play physical football. Sometimes we don't always do it. But so we have to focus on those two areas and see what we can come up with. Well, Terrence, as the kids would say, good job, good effort. I want to be fair. I think my description was maybe a little too broad on that one.

Oh, see, Terrence, you're getting the benefit of the doubt from Brendan. How about that? I mean, that was a tough one, but I feel like I hit them all. Yeah. You know what? I'm going to get you an Eagles DVD for playing. I appreciate you playing along with us, all right? Awesome, sweet.

Put you on hold, we'll take care of it for you. Let's do one more. If you guys want a game, we've got a couple more to give away. 713-212-5-790. Now the Terrence the guinea pig is out of the way. You know how this works. Brandon will ask a question. You have to try to guess on how Romeo answers it.

Mike in Northwest Houston wants to play. Romeo. Hi, Mike. You ready? Yes, sir. Mike, good luck. Here is the question for, for Ron. Romeo. All right, Cronnell, on if he regrets, going for two. Guys, I don't regret going for two. I wanted to put the game away, so no matter what Tennessee was going to do,

we would have won the game being up by nine, you know. We have to go for the win, you know. You know, defense is struggling a little bit, and I don't, you know, I wanted to put it away so we could win that game. John, I think I would do it again because, you know what, you're on the road against a division opponent who was undefeated. And if you could get a two-point conversion, you shut the door on them and you win the game. And I think that when you have that opportunity, if you want to win the game, you go ahead and you try it at that time. And so we had a guy open. Unfortunately, the ball got tipped and we didn't make it. And then, you know, they were able to put it into overtime and they got the coin flip and then they win the game.

I would do it again because I think it was a good choice. Excellent work, Mike. Thank you. All right, we'll put you on hold, buddy. I could have done that one. That was the easiest of the group right there. And by the way, just again to make sure my point is, it really comes down to one simplistic point.

You convert the two-point conversion, and any of this argument is moot. You would have won the game. Am I right? barring a complete meltdown in the last 90 seconds of the game, right? I think it was a coin flip call. It's hard to kill him one way or the other. You know why it's hard not to kill him?

Because the team's defense is atrocious. And oh, by the way, I know there's some people yakking up about, well, the Texans got screwed on the touchdown late in the fourth quarter of the game. Well, I didn't. Was there anything on that instant replay on the brown touchdown that made you think, oh, no, he definitely was out of bounds. It was very close. I wish instant replay was conclusive. Unfortunately, sometimes it is not conclusive. And when it's not conclusive, what do they do?

They go with the original call. And the original call was touchdown. But this thought of, well, it had to be overturned. No, it didn't. I mean, you could argue it a legitimate way either way. but the knee to the heel to out of bounds so damn close so damn close but that would have been a a tie turner for sure because they only had what seven seconds left that means they would have basically one more chance to get in the end zone which they probably did because texas defense sucks

that's what i come back to gang and i hate to say this no matter what you want to do in arguing about romeo and how he should have run things whether i don't go to win for two or kick it to go up eight it's hard to make a two-point conversion. Well, in fact, it feels like to me this year it's easier making two-point conversions. It just does. I think teams try them more now, too. Yeah. You hand the ball to Derek Henry. Get me three yards. It's a two or three on the two-point It's two. And by the way, he averaged like nine and a half per carry. I mean, how awful is that that you know when Derek Henry took that direct snap that he wasn't going to throw the football? why would you?

I'm big, bad, badass Derek Henry, and you guys, I push you aside. There was nothing the Texans could have done except win the game on the two-point. They didn't do it, giving the Titans a sliver of hope. And the Texans defense lived up to what they were supposed to be. The worst run defense in the National Football League in an even close.

Thanks to Mike and Terrence for playing what you're talking about. 112 is the time. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. More on the Texans. Although I've got to be honest with you, they keep losing like this. You guys will check out.

And that's sad because we've got no Astros to get to and we don't have any sort of NBA season. And college football on these parts isn't necessarily robust either, although you Aggies are playing well. But of course it's Mississippi State, who hasn't looked the same since beating LSU in the first week of the SEC season. 713-212-5-7-90. Everything is fair game.

It's the Matt Thomas show. We take you until 3 o'clock. We hear from James Click, a little bit from Dusty Banker, and we will hear from Vanessa Richardson from Channel 2, who talked to Jeff Luno for the interview tonight, which you can hear at 630 over on Channel 2. 113. On 10.com, 790.

It's Matt, and he's back. The Matt Thomas Show on 730. Houston's home for Houston teams. Early line on the Green Bay Texans game is three and a half in favor of Green Bay. I mean, I'll say this. If you are the most optimistic Texans fan out there and you don't really care about wins and losses, you just love them regardless. Like your name is, I don't know, Darlene the Ultimate Texans fan,

or you are Darth Texan or you're Texan fan since 2002 on Twitter or whatever, name is, they're going to score a bunch of points. If there's been anything that's been positive besides the sucky-ass ground game and the average offensive line play is that Brandon Cooks is becoming a legit number one receiver, Will Fuller's becoming a legitimate 1A receiver, right? You can't argue those points. They're moving the ball. Deshawn's throwing the ball deep down the field.

They're running the intermediate routes. They just can't even going on the ground. So they're going to be behind in some games and they're going to want to pass into football. And I'll say this. it was a tale of two halves. The Texans had Tennessee reeling for a while. Quick play offenses, the interception that finally took place. And then Derek Henry was like,

give me the damn ball, and I will go 94 yards in one play. 94 yards. He outran 11 people wearing white tops. The first four is easy to do. The next seven, that takes work, right? He ran 94 yards on one play. Somebody that big should, like, should not be capable of his top speed. He ran for 212 yards.

Seriously. How embarrassing is that? That's like the Jaguars doing that. That's very Cleveland Brown-esque. Maybe not this year because they're actually halfway decent. But you know, I'm going with this. I mean, this is what the Jets do. No push.

I mean, you tell me, is the offensive line of the Titans so highly regarded that it was supposed to be that big of a discrepancy between the five guys in the line for Tennessee against the four guys in front for the Texans? I think it was kind of predictable. The Titans are good at running the football and the Texans are awful at stopping it. I mean, just pushing even Justin Reed aside and Murray and Hargra. I mean, and Scarlett, I mean, ugh. God, it's got to be tough. watching that film today, if you're a Texan, in the offices over there in Texanville, and know that there's nothing you can do about it because Derek Henry's going to do that to you again.

Like he does it to most of people. 713-212-5-790. Daryl in LaPorte on the Matt Thomas show. Darrell, how are you, sir? Yeah. Good. What's going on? If you all said anything about it, if anybody else noticed, but a lot of the passes Deshawn Watson threw yesterday were behind the receivers. They came back and made some really good catches and made him look good.

Some of them were really soft. You know, like he didn't put anything on it. He was afraid they wouldn't catch it if he threw it. You know, I didn't slow it down, to be honest with you. I mean, I'll be really honest with you, Daryl. If Deshaun gives me the type of day that he gave me, gave you yesterday, they're supposed to win those games. I mean, he was 28 of 37 for 335 yards and four touchdowns.

I'm not going to really come to this show and say, oh, my God, we could have done this or that better. You know what? This is the NFL. This is sometimes not every pass can be perfect, and sometimes you've got every receiver is going to catch it over their left shoulder or slightly behind or slightly above him. No, I'm going to find very little fault in what Deshawn Watson did yesterday. Oh, he's a good quarterback. I give you that. I just thought he was being a little too soft on very many passes, including the one at the end of the game.

Well, that was deflected. I don't know if it was, it was certainly unintentional, but it was deflected on the two-point conversion. I mean, think about this, Darrell. He had a passer rating of almost 140. I mean, there's not much more than you do. I'm giving to the receivers a lot of a rating on that, though. But anyhow, you're right about the defense. If them guys could just tackle, maybe we could do something.

Yeah, that's always a problem when the team cannot tackle. Hey, defensive coordinator, Anthony Weaver, you're with the media today. Anything you got? Yeah, I think if we just tackle better, like growing NFL players do, we'll be on a pretty good spot. Okay, thanks, coach. If we just tackle better, how about you just don't have players that are NFL caliber-worthy to stop at least as good of players in their side if not better than you? I mean, just, and again, yesterday is a skew number because if you get 90, on one play. It's going to make your average

a little... What was his average carry? He averaged 9.6. In this McNichols kid, the younger, scrappier kid, the guy that's behind him, he was rushing the ball pretty well. I mean, they gave up 263 yards on the ground between those two running backs. The Texas finished with 92.

David Johnson averaged three yards of carry. Derek Henry average 9.6. So let's take away that 94 on the one play. I just did. It's 5.6 yards per carry. even without a 94-yard run. It's still putrid. You cannot allow every time anybody touch the football for an opposing team

to average six yards a carry. And say what you about Tannaham. You know how Tanya Hill got this really negative wrap in Miami? And then he goes to Tennessee to kind of back up Marietta and then, oh, okay, Marriota's hurt again and Marriota sucks.

So let's just put Tannahill in. It's amazing what a great offensive line and an all-pro running back does to your confidence level. He was 30 of 41 for 364 and 4 scores. And you know he found 10 different receivers yesterday? You know what that is? That's seeing the field being able to check off on guys and not have to focus a single throw on a particular person.

That's what that was. He was able to look around, check off guys, his first, second, third options, move the ball around, and he only had 11 incompletion. Again, from an offensive standpoint, yesterday his game was fantastic. If you're a Texan's offensive fan, you love the fact that Brandon Cooks has caught everything that was thrown in. He had nine targets.

He caught every one of them. Do you know how awesome that is? Will Fuller got involved 11 times on targets, caught six of them. Had a beautiful 53-yard catch for the touchdown. Fells was involved. He got thrown to the ball seven times. He caught six. Randall Kopp continues to be.

a terrible mistake by the team offensively in terms of the money they were paid. If Randall Kopp wants to be on the Texans, it's fine, but not an $8 million a year, not for multiple years. He did have a nice touchdown catch, corner of the end zone. Still out.

Great throw. Great throw. Well, again, yeah, everything you just said, not worth it. Underneath slot receivers don't make what north of $8 million a year, and they don't do it on multiple contracts. Because remember what you had in the back?

Remember you had the Johnson Johnson? and these are two great past-catching receivers out of the back. If they can't run the ball, we'll certainly catch it. Well, they've caught two for 14 yards combined yesterday. The running game, receiving, blocking, and most importantly, rushing is an absolute zero for this team so far. That's the reason why, if the Texans are going to win some games, they're going to have to hold up and ultimately give Deshaun enough time to find his receivers downfield. and thankfully the receivers are catching just about everything that's thrown in them so far this year. 713-212-5-790.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. James Click is speaking to the media right now. We will hear some of those highlights coming up in a little bit. I think Dusty Baker's already done. My guess is if we did a witch talking about Dusty would be well. I had a great time managing these guys. They fought hard, yada, yada, yeah, that kind of thing. It's about, I want to hear about what,

James is thinking about right now. You know, if you have a desk at your office or in your home and you have like a to-do list, like I've got to pay taxes, I've got to call my insurance company, I have to pay medical bills, I have to set and get my dentist appointment. I wonder how deep that checklist is for James Click. Because don't you want to get out in front, if you think you can try to keep George, I think you have to show some massive love to him right now if you want to do that. Because here's the thing.

You might have a corner outfield spot available for Kyle Tucker, but you are looking to potentially replace your all-star center fielder, your lead-off guy, your heart and soul, and then Mr. Professional Uncle Jeff, or Uncle Michael, I didn't miss Uncle Jeff. I'm getting all these. I'm getting Lunal on the brain. Don't you think there's a lot of him that should be like, man, if I can keep one of these two cats,

I better try everything I can in my power, because my guess is if you want starting caliber, if you want your opening day center fielder to be your leadoff guy too, it's not going to come cheap. You might as well spend the money on the guy you know as compared to the guy you don't know. 128. It's a Matt Thomas show, Sports Talk 790 with a word here for hoops,

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because you're shooting baskets on one of your own goals, that it comes with a temper glass backboard. It's fully adjustable, and it's got great rust armor protection. All that today with a simple phone call to 281-351-9822. 281-351-9822 or online pro-dunkhoops.com. That's pro-dunkhoops.com. Red Rowdies, Bulls on parade, and Astros fanatics, sports talk 790, your radio home for.

your home teams. 133 Sports Talk 790, believe it or not, coming up at 250 today. It is highly Googledable, so I can't tell you too much about the category, but I can tell you here's a little teaser that there's going to be another celebrity golf event coming up on, I think it's just after Thanksgiving. Let me give you the exact date on this. It's going to be on November 27th, it's going to be Phil Mickelson,

Charles Barkley, Steph Curry, and Peyton Manning on November 27th at the Stone Canyon Golf Club in Arizona. It's called the Match Champions for Change. The format will be modified, alternate shot, and will begin the day after Thanksgiving. It'll be broadcast on Turner Sports. I watched it last year. It was fun.

I don't watch all of it, but I watch some of it. I'm not a huge golf watcher. I do like to watch the majors. but yeah I mean Charles Barclay is entertaining in itself so it's Charles Barkley Steph Curry Tiger Woods and Tom Brady no I'm sorry Charles Steph Steph Bred in as well as

Steph Curry and Peyton Manix there's the four along the Phil Mickelson be good something to watch especially because I think the college football games are on Friday usually the Friday after Thanksgiving usually suck right you had the decent you have the NFL games on Thursday

and you have a bunch of polls Hultery Friday college games, and then the really meaty, like, rivalry games in college football. It's usually Auburn and Alabama on that Saturday after Thanksgiving. Yeah, rivalry weekend. Yeah. The games that weekend are great, just not Friday. Is it Michigan, Ohio State player usually Saturday? That Saturday, too.

That Saturday is usually like peak college football. It makes you want to go to Vegas, isn't it? Bet those games? I would say, yeah. Yeah. It's Thanksgiving. Your kids are home, and they don't want you to say, Dad, please don't go. And then wife's like, you can go.

I'm like, wait, is that because the milkman's coming by or something? like that. I don't know what's going on with that. But yeah. So a highly Googledable edition of, believe it or not, coming up today at 250. Let's go to A.Y and ALEF on 790. Hi, A.Y. Hey, empty. How are you doing? Well. All right. I have a quick take on the Texans. Quite all right. We lost the game.

But this is the first time in a long time I felt good about this team. You saw that they have what they call a spunk. There was that spark in that team, seeing that, yeah, we lost, but the game was interesting to watch. I only frustrated at the end of the day because I knew what Rumi wanted, he wanted to win the game outright.

But, and he was playing, he was transparent with his scores. So there was no iffy about it. So there's no good loss in NFL, I know that. But this loss, I feel good about it. And also about the Astros, yeah, we didn't make it to the world. series, but I'm too good about the team.

I'm proud of the team. At least, they got us far compared to nobody gave us a chance. This saving that we'll get anywhere. So I'm okay. It's not a bad loss to me. At least we will learn from the experience. And as they say, it's but there's always next TV.

So the Astros, go Astros. Thank you. All right. Thank you for the phone call. All right. So, Ayye just said the Texans have Spunk. do you agree with that? I don't know if I would use that word

spunk. Do they have spunk? I will not use that word. I will say they don't have any quit in them. I will say their offense performs at a high level. I think guys

and people that have spunk usually come through when they're not supposed to and surprise you. There was nothing surprising about what the Texans did, especially after Derek Henry started getting his mojo going. They're trying. They're just not good enough. I'm speaking only from the defensive side of things, obviously.

From an offensive side of things, you put a back-to-back 30-point games, it's going to help you win a lot of games in the NFL. I mean, how many teams in the NFL, week in and week out, don't win their games when they score 30 points? I want to look at the NFL scores from yesterday and see how things have looked in terms of how what it took to win points in games yesterday. Because it feels like to me, that's sort of like the barometer of what you have to do in order to win. Titan scored 42, Colts scored 31, Falcons scored 40. There were a couple of lower scoring games. Patriots only scored 18 to beat the Patriots.

Giants scored 20 to beat Washington. Ravens scored 30 to beat the Eagles. Steelers 38. Bears had 23. The Lions at 34. The Dolphins shut out. The Jets, 24, so three would have been enough. And then you had the Buccaneers win and the Niners win at 24. So it feels like to me that most of the games, you hit 30, you're going to win.

But not when you have an atrocious defense. And that's what this team is. It's got J.J. Watt. It's got some Justin Reed. It's got a little bit of some other folks, too. Zach Cunningham. but not much else after that. That's just the reality.

139 on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Is how you reach a show. If you want to reach out through Twitter, you may do so at SportsMT and at Brendan Riley underscore. I will say this,

and AY probably will echo the sentiments of some. When this team continues to pile up loss, loss after loss after loss. And I don't know where it's going to end or if there's any sort of street coming up to the good, but I don't think it's going to get a whole lot better against Green Bay this Sunday. There'll be three sections of fans.

There will be section one that will be, they are so much full of Texans' Kool-Aid. They'll just love being at the games and love wearing their Texans gear and they won't care of the result is because they love their guys. That group won't dwindle. They just won't be nearly as boisterous.

There is a group that will be out there soon enough after that that will say, you know what, I'm sick and tired of watching his football team, and they will check out. And I've seen that with a lot of teams with the Texans that have won two games, that have won four games, that have finished five and 11, that have underperformed, is that you will find something else to watch, whether it be non-sports related or you'll watch another team, you'll watch the best game that weekend.

And then there's a group that's very similar to what Ayy was just talking about. and he's the, hey, that was fun. And at least I'll be entertained for three hours. Because when you're watching the Houston Texans, at times watching Bill O'Brien's listless offense made you hate even watching the games. And no matter what you want to say about Romeo Cornell's decision, think about this.

If that two-point conversion is made yesterday, how strange and how much different is the tone with the city of Houston, the people that have tweeted at me and people that have called this show and my even my own personal tone. Yeah, the Texans run defense was God awful yesterday. But when we needed, when the city of Houston, when the organization owners of Houston Texans needed a big play, their new franchise quarterback, franchise paid quarterback came through. So it's pretty crazy to think that everything turned off of one non-executed 2.1.000.

conversion. Because if they win that game yesterday, that's two games in a row they've won, two AFC South opponents they've won. So if you get into a sticky tiebreaker situation later on in the year, you think to yourself, well, that's exactly where we want to be, that you are able to overcome the O and four start, you've won two consecutive games, and with a win, you are only two games behind Tennessee as compared to four. Instead, you lose the game, you are now four-back of Tennessee, and there's really no aspirations, any thoughts of the division championship, much less the playoff.

It's pretty incredible how everything turned off of one two-point conversion. And that's why, at the end of the day, no matter how you want to argue it, going for the two, probably was the right. right call, not definitively. If you had a halfway decent defense that was forcing turnovers, that was sacking the quarterback that was putting constant pressure on, it would have been the right call. But Romeo looked to that side, he turned around as he took his headsets off and said, I've got a bunch of guys behind me that can't stop Derek Henry, that can't stop

Ryan Tannahill that saw 10 different receivers catch the football. we can't stop this. Only thing that would be able to stop this would be Tennessee themselves with a bad Ryan Tannahill pass or ineffective use of timeouts or a guy dropping a pass or fumbling the football. But our defense can't do it. And that's why it was the easier decision to make.

And that's why you do go for two knowing that if you execute it, you win the game and you're two back of the Titans and you got everybody in the NFL going, man, maybe this tennis, this Texans team is better than we thought when they started 0 and 4, and maybe this Tennessee team had a difficult time playing two games in five days. That's all that's moot.

And now we're thinking about, well, that first round pick that Miami's going to get might be a damn good one. And so might too, that second round pick they're getting as well. 144 on the Matt Thomas show. If you guys want to chime in, you've heard from me, I want to hear from you. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. still ahead. We're going to hear from James Click. We're going to hear from Dusty Baker. We're going to hear

from Vanessa Richardson from Channel 2. She had a very provocative, hopefully a provocative interview with a Jeff Leno that will run tonight at 630 over on Channel 2. And we got, believe it or not today, for a chance for you to either win a Carraba's gift card or an Astros flag from Cromberg's flags

and flagpoles. Right now, a word for bronze roofing. If you've not had your roof inspected in a very long time, then I want you to please pick up the phone. I'd like for you to wait after my show's over but do what you got to do, and call 281-480-9900. If you call bronze roofing within 24 hours typically, you'll have a professional up on your roof giving a thorough inspection and the cost of that inspection is zilch. If you do need some repairs, they'll give you a fair and honest estimate on the spot,

no matter what kind of roof you have. Remember, they had been around since 1987 for a reason, quality work at a fair price. 281-480. next time tell Alexa playing 790 on iHeart radio wherever you are so is matt thomas all right james click visiting with the media just a few minutes ago so too is dusty and uh this is good here one minute nine seconds on the clock james click on what is on well this is not the 109 club this is the one of 39 seconds this gives you a little appetizer here. So James was asked by the media on the Zoom call just a few minutes ago, what is on the front burner right now for the Astros? Yeah, one of the things that I'm

learning about this job is that there is no front burner or back burner. All the burners seem to be on at all times, and you kind of have to cook every dish on all of them at all times. So we have a lot of priorities that we need to address both on and off the field. Neither Dusty or I really got an offseason with this organization before we got here. So there's going to be a lot of catch up on that. On the field, I think it's pretty clear where our priorities are going to be, but we are going to be flexible if we can be to try to address as many of them as possible. All right, Brandon, let's read between the lines on that one.

We got some money to spend. We don't have enough money for everybody to spend, right? Just make sure everybody is taken care of. From what I've listened to, I think there's a lot of that. between the lines of this depressor. That each player they want to keep is at a certain financial threshold where they can feel comfortable with?

And they're not going to go over it. I would say that's a really good assessment. Okay. Because you know, one of the things we talked about on the postgame show Saturday we did our final 10th inning show after the loss was not only do you have this to the sign, but remember I told you earlier in the show

how important it is, I think for guys that you want to keep in your organization long term, you've got to get a deal done before the start of the next season. Guess who plays in that category? Carlos Correa. So not only get to figure out what you want to spend on Carlos, but how much does signing or not signing Springer and Brantley impact that. So he was asked how much competition he expected.

and how competitive he will be in trying to bring George back to the Astros. Yeah, I mean, first of all, let me just say that you cannot say enough good things about George Springer. He's one of the best players ever wear an Astro's uniform. He's a tremendous human being. He's a tremendous leader in the clubhouse. We wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't pursue players like that, whether they were from another organization or from here. But at the same time, we have to contend with the fact that there's,

just tremendous uncertainty in our industry right now. The industry sustained 2.7 to $3 billion worth of losses, and it may take us years to try to recover from this. So our spending is going to be dependent on what we think 2021 is going to look like operationally and what the market bears out as a result of that. But George Springer, Michael Brannley, it's obvious to everybody how good they are at the game of baseball right now, how much they bring to this team on and off the field. The question is always how we balance everything and make sure that we put this team in a position to succeed, not only in the short term, but the long time. They're not coming back.

That's a really long-winded no. So the question I'm going to have to unfortunately ask you is, when do I put the, what was your favorite George Springer and Astro Moment on Twitter? I guess I could do it now, right? I think so. It wouldn't be fair to do it that way. It wouldn't be the nice thing to do. It would be trollish.

And I try not to be very trollish on Twitter. One, I don't mind trolling. But, like, there was one. Can I peel the curtain back on Twitter trolling? Of course. So John Heyman tweets the other day after the Astros lose how it's better for baseball the Astros didn't go the World Series this year, which makes no sense. frankly, in the interest of his own sport in which he covers

and the network he works for in the league that he gets that employs him, it's better the Astros in the World Series than it is the race. Ray's a nice team, but has zero cachet nationally. Say what you're all about the Astros, they've got cachet. It's negative as hell, but it's cachet. Astros Dodgers would have been a filthy, sexy world series. Villains get eyes on the TV, that's for sure. Yeah. I mean, they are the four horsemen.

They are the bad guys. They're the NWO. A little wrestling there. So Ramona Shelburne puts out a tweet. I mean, Ramona Shelburne, Miss Baseball. Does the same thing about, oh, they were so close, but yet they didn't make it. And I'm paraphrasing because I don't follow her. I don't, nothing she does interest me.

It's woe to the ESPN. It's shams, and I have very little respect for anybody else that writes about the NBA. That's just the God's honest truth. I was halfway through, Brendan, the ultimate troll tweet to her back on what she said, and I deleted it. Because I just thought it was best for business. I was like, I don't want to get into this game. This is not why I got into Twitter. This is not why I got in this business to fight with other people.

It's the whole reason I got this business. But, Brandon, can I just be really honest with you? Because I feel it's just you and me right now. I was so close to it and send. Do you want to share here what it is? I think there's a difference between saying it and writing it on social media. Because one of them doesn't go away. No, I'm going to take the high road.

Yeah, the other one doesn't either. Yeah. I have recordings. Well, so you can, this show's podcastable any day of the year anytime. You can go find shows five years ago, my guess. It would take you a while, but you probably could find it. I'm just, I'm losing more and more respect for the national folks who have a really, really, really. good life.

They get to go to all the big games. They get to travel to all the best places. They get to talk to all the superstar athletes. They get the highest compensation. Just be a reporter. But you know what? Twitter wasn't meant for reporting. Twitter was meant for opinion.

The only people I ever see tweet just the facts. Shams, Wodge, Schaefter. Give me somebody else. It's just the facts, ma'am. I don't think that's much out there. But Ramona Shelburne running to her little Twitter account, talking about how the Astros almost got there, and again, I'm paraphrasing,

it's like, you just want to get in there and get your own little jab in, don't you? And my guess is a lot of people that responded to her that don't have the ability to not hit send and delete what they're right. And she probably would have gotten her feelings hurt. Because what I had originally wrote was going to hurt her feelings. And I'm just not built that way, but man, I was pissed.

Oh, yeah, there's no need for that. You control without hurting people, I think. Good luck. Good luck. Because I get my feelings hurt. I'm a sensitive guy, brand. You know me? I don't like to see people take shots at me on Twitter.

It's on fun. So I'm like, you know what? If I don't like it myself, then I'm not going to do it for her. But I just wanted to. But I'm like, no, I can't do it. But I just thought it was very interesting that she needed to put her two cents in on something that she never covers. She can say congrats Dodgers.

She would be a Dodgers fan. That's cool. Or congrats raise, that's right. But it just, it's, we're going to find this narrative of just taking the pot shots at the Astros, and it's not going to go away for a very long time. More from Dusty, more from James Click, and more from you at 713-212-5-7-90. And don't forget Texans fans, your team's defense still is atrocious, and it's not going to get any better. and I'm telling you, I may be one of the only few people that want to say it, in the best interest of the team and in the best interest of the person,

I think they should kick the tires on trading for JJ Watt. Let him go try to grab a ring, get to a deep playoff run, and oh, by the way, let's start to replenish the Texans draft and save some money in the salary cap. But maybe the salary he makes is part of the reason why he wouldn't be considered a very favorable trade chip. 158. Final hour, Matt Thomas Show next on Sports Talk 790. is the Matt Thomas show. In overtime, the frustration continues.

The frustration from JJ Watt on Derek Henry. He's a good player. You got to tackle. We got to tackle. We have situations where we're there, we don't make the tackle. If you don't tackle a guy, he's going to run and score, especially a guy that talented, that good. So we did not do that.

They had a good game plan. Obviously, Henry had a great game. And I had a great game. And we did not. You know what he's doing? Guys and gals, he's running on the things to say. He said what he wanted to say about Bill O'Brien and got him fired. Good for him.

Took JJ Watt to step up and say, I'm the team leader. I got to go in there and say, this guy's crap. He's ruined our team. Our front office is a mess. Our on the field team's a mess. Our future's a mess. we got to change it. And then Jacksonville came up

and Jacksonville is a subpart team who, by the way, lost the Lions. That's how bad you suck. Oh, sorry, Brian. I didn't mean to do that to you. You're right. They lost convincingly too. In Jacksonville. They've lost five straight after beating Indianapolis to open up the season. So they're kind of who we thought they were going to be.

So the Texans have at least one more win coming up and there'll be a victory at Jacksonville. But they suck. So you have a team that is one in five. that you're only victories against them. You have a superstar in JJ Watt who is running out of positive things to say. Set him free.

What do you think you could get for him? He makes a lot of money. And it doesn't, I mean, I can look it up in Spot Trek here. It doesn't really matter what he. I mean, he was one of the highest, he was the highest paid defensive player with four or five years ago. So he's not there now. but he's got to be in the top 10 comfortably.

And his play has dropped because of injuries of the last couple of years. But there's, JJ has been playing at a high level this year. He doesn't have the ferocious numbers that he had early in his career, but there are teams in the NFL that could add a JJ Watt tomorrow and bolster their chances to winning the Super Bowl, whomever that may be. And see, here's where I don't know what fair market, you know, the NFL, they don't ever want to trade their first round picks. They're like gold, literally gold, except the Houston, Texas.

And except apparently the Buffalo Bills who traded a first round pick to Minnesota to get Stefan Diggs. Most teams in NFL, you better be getting an amazing player in return if you're trading a first round pick. So what could you get for JJ? Two-toes? Two and a four? I don't think you get two-toes. A two in, yeah, two and a four, two in change is what I would say. Two in a conditional? Maybe.

Based on his numbers or playoff success. And look, I'm just one, you know, major market midday radio host. Okay, I'm just one voice of many that you hear over the course of the day. Do you think people would really flip their lid if they try to trade JJ Watt? I think some fans would. Well, I mean, okay, forgetting about Texans Debbie or, Texans Karen or Texans Adolfo.

I mean, forget about that 10% that just can't sleep until the next Texans game. I'm talking about the rational 90% the non-traveling Texan person. I think the average Texan fan would be fine

with it, and I'm curious, because I don't know, I'm not, you know, from here. Do people want to see him win a championship? Would there be any of that? Now, I'm saying this. I'm not doing this to help JJ get a Super Bowl. I don't care if JJ gets a Super Bowl. I'm saying I think it can make it more tolerable, though.

What I'm saying is this. You have very few trade chips. You need to fork on the future starting today. You need to get back in the draft game, whether it's adding a second round, whether it's adding some more... you need, well, the first time, you need a smart general manager who knows how to draft players and knows the value of these college players that are coming out.

That's the first and most important thing. I just don't see how you rebuild with so much money tied up into so many players, unless you just cut them, that you don't use the draft to replenish. And you can't replenish and rebuild an organization if you don't have a first and a second round pick. and you did not have a first round pick this year. You've got nothing coming in, and that's part of the Astros conundrum right now. There's nothing at AAA beating the door down.

Get move Brantley, go, get him, go. Springer, bye. They're going to have, I mean, you have been a victim of poor first round picks the last couple of years, and your own loss of first and second round picks. I'm talking about the Astros. and the Astros can't trade for draft picks.

You don't trade for draft picks in baseball. It's not allowed. But in the NFL, you can. I'm saying you could please a bunch of different people here. You could please JJ. He could go somewhere else and have a better chance to win. Now, there may be some people out there that are such JJ fans. They may think, he deserves a Super Bowl ring.

We saw that, and you weren't here, but we saw that with Andre Johnson. Send him somewhere else and go get his ring. I've never worried about that. because JJ's had his opportunities here. No one is holding a chance to go to the Super Bowl back because JJ is on a particular roster. Now, if he goes somewhere and he has a better chance, then that's good for him.

But you need to relieve yourself of some salary cap space and you need draft picks. And unless all of a sudden you put together some amazing run here in the next four to five weeks to get back in this division, you're down four. You're down four after six weeks and my guess is you're going to have to, the bare minimum, get to 10, which would then mean you'd have to go 9-1.

No, 9-2 the rest of the way. So six games, no, they played 6, so that's 10. You'd have to go 9-1. That ain't happening. They're not good enough. Now, again, this is not me trying to be bombasticos. This is the very first thing I thought of today after they lost yesterday. was that this isn't going to get any better.

They're going to lose to Green Bay this week. Now, Deshawn is married to this team because he's the one that's on the long-term contract. David Johnson, you couldn't trade anything for. Duke Johnson couldn't trade anything for, and you need receivers. You need this offense to keep humming along like it's been doing the last couple of weeks. But there's nothing from a defensive standpoint that J.J. Watt can't be eight yards behind the line of scrimmage chasing after running backs. His linebackers and his secondary can't do it. He certainly can't do it.

Let's figure it out. I'm not saying definitively definitely do it. I'm saying it should be thought about. Missed my own two cents. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. On Twitter at SportsMT at Brendan Riley underscore Ross. By the way, back on the show tomorrow.

We'll talk to Vanessa Richardson coming up in about to 20 minutes from now. A couple of things from the Astros. We're quick before we go back to the phones. I'm trying to think here. Oh, about going back to James Click. Because for me, this is all about James Click today. He was asked if his boss and his new boss, Jim Crane, has changed his view about being aggressive in for agency, especially with the uncertain economic times that is Major League Baseball.

That's a good question. I'm not sure if I would say that his sentiment has changed one way or the other. He obviously wants to supplement this team. He wants to be aggressive where it makes sense, but he also recognizes that we do need to balance the present and the future and make sure that we don't put ourselves in a bad spot in a few years by trying to do too much with it right now. What about other teams in free agency?

Because clearly you've got two of the higher, more marketable guys and Michael Brantley and George Springer. Yeah, we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't try to predict what other teams are going to do because we will obviously try to figure out the best path going forward and put a value on every player that's out there. But that value is ultimately dependent on the market. And so part of that job of putting the value in the player for us is putting a value on the player for the market with arch.

Boy, that's very generic, very understandable. I guess what I wanted to hear was we're going to go out there and make sure that at least one of these two guys is back. We're going to do everything on our power. You know, the thing is he just can't guarantee that. He doesn't know what the market is in those two players. He doesn't know the desire of those two players. The only thing he knows right now is what he has been told from his bosses, what he can spend. More on the Astros.

Jeff Linot is going to speak tonight at 630 on Channel 2. We'll visit with Vanessa Richardson from Channel 2 coming up at about 15 minutes. believe it or not, is in less than 40 minutes. It's highly Googling, but it's an honor of the new celebrity golf event happening the day after Thanksgiving. 713-213-212-790. 2.13 on the Matt Thomas show with a message here for Balcones Distilling. I've had a few glasses in the last four or five days and a lot of turbulent times in the world of sports, including our local nine playing all those highly dramatic baseball games.

And thank goodness that Balcones has been there for me. They make some of the best whiskey in the entire. higher world made right here in Houston, right here in Texas, I should say, in Waco, not too far from here, in fact. Their distillery is not automated. Human component is one of the reasons why Balcones, and their distillery, is one of the very best. Baccones taste every one of their barrels for quality, every single one of them. We're talking about Baby Blue, we're talking about single malt, we're talking about the Texas Potsdale Bourbon. And they promise that their malt whiskey process and their American whiskey process is so good that once you taste any of their products,

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I want to try it. And I promise you, it'll be some of the best bourbon and best whiskey you've ever had. That's Balcones Distilling, distilled, to appreciate. This is the Matt Thomas show. Matt Thomas on Sports Talk 790. 218 on Sports Talk 790. It is a Matt Thomas show for a Monday. Tomorrow.

Aaron Reese will be with. with us as he has every Tuesday for our little Texans recap we'll also have our gut feelings that is the fastest growing segment i believe in sports radio in houston gut feelings your gut was right on the mark you had derrick henry rushing for 150 we ran for over 200 what was my gut feeling i should start writing these down i always forget my gut feelings the only one i can remember right now that is still undecided is i believe the next rocket's head coach will have some sort of connection to the Rockets organization. And frankly, if the three names that are being brought up as potential finalists, two of the three

have connections. Jeff Van Gundy used to coach the Rockets. John Lucas is their player development coach. The only one that's not among the perceived finalist is Steve Silas, and he doesn't have a Rockets connection. I think yours was very specific to Tuesday's Astros game. Like you said, they were going to get a big lead and struggle to keep it. Which wasn't wrong.

Definitely. It was definitely wrong. I just got to start writing these things out. I forget what I have for lunch sometimes, much less what I figure out what's going on with the gut feelings. We'll do that again tomorrow at 1 o'clock. And Ross will be back too. I think he went to, I think he went, he loves a camp. You know, I've never been camping in my entire life.

Not a single day. I don't think it's a must-do. Now, see, you know how I feel about traveling. I think ruffing is being in a hotel without room service. I've camped, but I've all, I've done the much, like you're at a campsite where there's like a shower and bathroom. The only way I could wind up ever going to a campground would be if I had my big long-ass Winnebago that had a nice couple of rooms in it with beds and stuff. I'm just, and I'm not against it because I have a lot of friends that love to camp and Ross loves a camp when some of my wife's best friends love to camp.

It's just never been my thing. I can do the tent. I think I need to be in an area where there is some everyday life. accessories. Like the bugs getting into the tent or the bears or armadillos or anything, I mean, anything gross. I just don't like rodents of air. I don't like wildlife of any sort. But that's each his own. I thought my line about not, I think roughing and not having room service at a hotel was pretty good. You just let that one slide right over the top, didn't you? I mean, I don't know. I think we all know what to expect with you when it comes to that. That's the jab I was looking

for. Do you, do you order room service often? Not often. Very few times. that I order it. Either if I'm sick, or we get in super, super late, and I just have no energy to even leave the hotel. You know, we travel, you know, it's 41 road games, and there's a couple exhibition games. So it's 43 plus playoffs. There are sometimes when you play back to back, like let's say you play in Miami one day, and the next day you play in, say, Charlotte or Atlanta or something, that just getting out of your room is a chore because you're so tired as you get in like at three, four o'clock in the morning. There have been times I've been to a city where I've landed, went into my hotel,

slept, eight, got on the bus, wouldn't be arena, and left for the next, not even walking around the city at all for that. You know, I like to do some of that. You have it so hard. It's difficult. There's a lot of people driving around town going, poor Matt. Poor, poor, poor, pitiful mat. And at least you're doing, like, you know, heavy lifting while you're at work, right?

Physical labor? I mean, talking by myself for two and a half hours is an easy, right? I mean, I know it's not, but I don't know that it qualifies as physical labor. It's emotionally. Sure. I have to call the emotions of an NBA basketball game. Sure. You have a very emotionally challenging job, I'm sure.

Yes. Thus, sometimes the need not to get out. The reason why I don't you get room service quite because it's just ridiculously expensive. I don't think I've ever done it in my life. I had some flu-like symptoms last year in Chicago and didn't leave the hotel until very late. I got chicken noodle soup sent to my room. I think I brought this up with Ross.

Chicken noodle soup in my room in a glass of water. I didn't even want a soda or tea or anything. The chicken noodle soup with a delivery charge in a glass of water, and I think they brought me some bread was $21. Oh. Chicken noodle soup. You could get soup delivered from somewhere else for cheaper than that. Yeah, but I just, I was in such misery.

I didn't even want to even go downstairs to pick it up from DoorDash or Uber Eats. And I've done that sometimes. And then the next morning, I was actually good. I wouldn't say well. I was actually able to get out of my bed, go to the hotel and get oatmeal. I put some strawberries in the oatmeal, had a cup of coffee, and that was $24. So, you know, these are the struggles that sometimes, you know, play-by-play guys go through. I don't think I've ever looked at a room service, man.

You don't want to do it. Because here's the thing. First of all, they jack the price up. Then they charge a service charge. And then they add the tip automatically to that. So if you get a hamburger, it's $16. Well, no, forget that. Let's say you get a hamburger at $20. It comes of fries. You got to get a drink that's going to cost you $5. Put you at $25. They're going to charge $4 to deliver. It's $29. Then they're going to tack on 18%. So that's almost and there's $34. That's $34 right there for hamburger fries and a Coke. I mean no insult to people who deliver room service orders. But is that the easiest delivery job in existence? Probably. That's why DoorDash and Uber Eats is the best thing to do in hotels. Because you can just go downstairs and not pay the exorbitant fee. Let's go to a man who likes to spend money on fine quality meals.

Brad and Miami on the Matt Thomas show. Hi, Brad. What's up, Matt? What's up, dude? What's up? So if we discount or completely get rid of, of after one more year Zach Branky and

Mr. Verlander, which both contracts will be up, can't that not equivalent at least one and a half of Springer and Correa? Like, in other words, can both those pitchers contracts

repay for Springer and then maybe half of Correa? It could. Yeah, it could. Because let's think about this, Brad, the rest of the pitchers on this pitching staff are all young and under club control.

So you've got, you don't have to worry about, you know, well, McCullors would be a free agent intervention in a couple of years. But Erkitti would not, Javier would not, and Framber Valdez would not. That's what I am thinking. Well, they got to be thinking that too. Yeah, we got to, hey, I'm telling you right now, Matt, if we can't hold on to these five core players on our fielders, we will be in the. championship match mix every year. But if we start letting them go, man, there's no way we're going

to be back. It's going to be bad days ahead. But the problem is, Brad, it takes two to tango. If these guys don't want to come back, then there's no amount of money that would be willing to take. I mean, maybe they just want to change a scenery period. That's true, too. There's nothing to do about that. But I mean, the way Correa acted, I would think there's no way he would like to, he would rather stay here. Springer. And oh, by the way, that answers your question. You want to know where that money is going from from Verlander and Granky? It's going to the hands of

Carlos Correa. Yeah, you're probably right. He's like the leader of the team. He turned into the leader. So I've got to say you've got to be right between the two. Although I really want them both because you can't replace Springer.

I'm sorry. I don't care who they go out and get. The Springer is like unbelievable. I don't care. He's not He's not as good as Correa was this past playoff, but he's still, when you got to count on somebody, he'll show up. I mean, there's nobody out there to me that can just do what he does. I mean, anyway. All right. Thank you, Brad.

I got a roll. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it. No, he'll be very difficult to replace. Outstanding outfielder, fantastic lead-off hitter, heart and soul the team, all the stuff you know that comes with watching George Springer become a star since the mid-200. All right, let's find out what Jeff Leno is going to tell us tonight. Vanessa Richardson from Channel 2 is going to join us after I tell you about Oops, steam cleaning for great professional carpet cleaning,

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Official home of your Astros and Rockets and Unofficial, Unbiased home of everything else. Sports Talk 790. 2.31 on the Matt Thomas show. This is Sports Talk 790. Believe it or not, coming up in 20 minutes. Right now is our pleasure to have a good friend on the show. She is Vanessa Richardson.

She is the young lady that you see on Channel 2 on Sports Sunday. And tonight at 6.30, she will be conducting, or she has conducted, and will be broadcasting for the first time with their calling. on channel 2 the Leno interview. Vanessa, long time no talk. How are you, friend? It is so good to talk to you. Thanks for having me on your show. Big fan. My pleasure. Thank you very much. Same for you as well. So I don't want to give away too much because you want people to watch, and this is the reason why we're on. So I will get to behind the scene stuff as much as I can, as much as you feel comfortable with. Take us through the process

because, and I mentioned to the audience earlier, Vanessa, when AJ decided he wanted to speak for the first time. He went to Tom Verducci, an MLB network, and we would have thought that that would have been the national thing to do for Jeff to get back out there. He decided to go with a local station and with you. And so kind of take it to the process of you asking and eventually him saying, yeah, I'll visit with you tonight. It's funny you say that because people have said that and they've tried to be nice, but they're like, yeah, why the heck did he do it with you? You're a local reporter. I was able to meet Jeff and his wife, his brother, his extended family back at the 2019 ALCS and we were able to chat a little bit. And, you know, when he was fired, I moved here in

August of 2019. So when he was fired in January, I really hadn't worked here for that long. But, you know, he, I had a conversation with him a couple of months ago and he talked about how he felt he was kind of ready to share his side of the story. But he wanted to wait until the Astros were done playing. So it ended up working out. And I'm really thankful, you know, regardless of how people feel about him, I'm really thankful that he and his family trusted me. Were there any parameters on the conversation or anything you couldn't talk about because he was trying to protect things or was everything an open book? None. There were no parameters. And that's what I really appreciated about it is, you know, you know, this, Matt, but when you interview somebody, maybe after a salacious situation or, you know, something that they might not want to be open about. A lot of times they'll try to control the questions or tell you as a reporter, please don't ask this or whatever.

There were no questions that were off limits. And so that really opened, you know, the full interview is 37 minutes. And we'll post that to click to Houston.com, the full thing. But that was one of the beautiful things about it was he didn't have any stipulations other than he wanted it, you know, to air after the Astros were out of it. So nothing was off limits. And that really allowed me as a reporter to craft questions that I knew, you know,

people have some serious questions. about what went on. I've long admired the long-form shows like HBO's Real Sports. I loved up close when it used to be hosted by Royal Firestone, because you could tell the reporters did their homework and did a lot of questions. Take us through what you had to do to get yourself ready, because all of us could come up with an easy four or five questions off the top. But if you're going to grab 37 minutes of time with Jeff Luno,

you're going to make sure you got all your bases covered. So take us through that process a little bit. Yeah, that's a great question. It was, first of all, it was reading a lot of the articles of what other people had written about this. And then I also covered a scandal extensively myself. We went on live. I think KPRC was the only station that went on live after he got fired. So I had covered this scandal, obviously, from the beginning.

And so a lot of it was just going back through our archives and seeing kind of the high, I guess highlights wouldn't be the proper term. But when it came out that they were cheating, how long the investigation was. was. And then what were some of the lingering questions? And so it was really just a process of going through it from the beginning and even a little bit before that, because there were other incidents that happened while he was GM, and I don't want to get too much into that because you can see that in an interview tonight, 630 on KPRC. But there were a couple of other things that happened while he was general manager that I knew I would want to ask about and I knew I would want to dive into. And so it was a lot of research and it was a lot of a way to ask the questions

in a way that was fair and balanced. And again, to his credit, he didn't say that anything was off the table. So that was nice, and that's why we were able to get into so much detail. So coming off your answer, Vanessa, you did address Brandon Tomlin and all that situation as well? We addressed a lot of things. And I will tell you that I think people will be surprised with how open he is tonight when he talks about those situations and also his message to Astros fans and also how he feels about this team.

yes, he gets into the juicy scandal stuff. Yes, he absolutely talks about who was involved in certain parts. But you also kind of see a human side of him that I don't think people have gotten to see, mostly because he hasn't spoken out. So it'll be really interesting. I think all definitely Astros fans, but just baseball fans in general will want to hear what he has to say on all facets. Vanessa Richardson from Channel 2 with us here, the interview of the Leno interview tonight at 630, and you will post the entire 37-minute clip on y'all station website. later today. The one thing, and I'll only go off your teases a little bit, because that's what you guys

put on your social media as well. Sure. It sounded like, to me, complete stunned when the decision was made about his firing by the team, would that be fair to say? I know that he said that he expected a suspension and didn't know how long it was going to be, but he comes across in your little tease saying, I can't believe that I got let go. And how much of that conversation does it get to the core? And do you see the raw emotions of him being released after putting his team together the last handful of years?

You do see the raw emotions of him being released. And then later in the interview in one of the later segments, because it's a four-segment interview, we circle back and just talk about what the last nine months have been like for him since he was fired on January 13th. So he did get a lot into that, and he does show that emotion. Just a smart guy, right, like he knew he would get suspended. I don't think anybody was under the impression that he wouldn't or that AJ wouldn't. But I think I remember A.J. Hinch in his interview with Tom Breducci saying he was surprised that it was a full year. And so, you know, Jeff kind of echoes that. And, you know, obviously neither one of them were expecting to get fired.

So Dave said that before. And he does go into detail about that day and what that was like and how he felt and how he felt since. You know, one of the things I'm curious about, I don't know if you guys addressed it with Jeff. But I'm certainly that I feel the same way about AJ is that they are both still. residents of the Houston area. I know that from friends have told me that AJ has sticks to the woodlands for the most part and has been playing some golf up there. And clearly his name's been brought up in some potential managerial candidates elsewhere. Did Jeff even, did you guys even talk on air off about how he conducts his daily life? And can he go to the grocery store without people clearly recognizing him? And hey, that's Jeff Luno. Oh, he's the guy that got fired by

Jim Crane. Yeah, we talked a little bit about that off camera. And then on camera, we did talk about his relationship with AJ, his relationship with other people in the franchise, his relationship with the remaining players. And we also talk about what's next. And he has a really interesting answer that I think a lot of people will be interested to hear in our special tonight on 630 on KPRC about what his future plans are. Regardless of how you feel about Jeff Luno, and it's not my job to influence that, it's just my job to share the story. Regardless of how you feel, you know, he's a smart.

guy. He worked for McKinsey consulting. He worked for two, you know, franchises. So I have no doubt that he and A.J. Hinch will be employed. Like that's, that's not a concern. But it is interesting to hear what he wants to do next. So I think people will like that too. All right. So you got Jeff Leno, who's the next big get for you, young lady? I mean, you're all over the place chasing on these people. We'll see. We'll see. I'm plotting my next one right now. Well, you know, honestly, I hope it's not nearly as controversial as this one is because, look, I have tremendous amount of respect for Jeff. Jeff and I did an hour show together for many, many years. He was on my show weekly for a few years. So if there's anybody that got to watch the process, it was me because I was calling postgame shows and doing shows here on the station when the team was in the gutter and its bare minimum.

And then here it is supposed to be the most celebrated time in the franchise's history. And it's the national reputation has just killed this team. And I'm curious if he brought that up to you about how all these people that could, love the Astros enough, have basically blanked, excuse my French on this, blanked on the Astros ever since it's gone down. And the national media has been very vicious, frankly, in their opinions about ending concerning this organization the last couple of years. He does talk about that. And it is, you know, all you have to do is do a Google search to see that,

that he's painted as the mastermind that he's painted as the person that started all of this. And, you know, Jeff Luna sat in a dark room and giggled. Well, you know, there's all these articles out there about. that and that is, I think, one of the reasons why he went local with it, but he does talk about that. And it's interesting you say that because I do know that a lot of people, you know, in his position, I think, would be bothered by the way that the media portrayed that. And whether you think that's fair or not, that would be hard to hear for nine months, right, that you were like the villain in a situation. So he does touch a little bit, a little bit on that tonight. And his answer for that was interesting as well.

Last thing, he brings up the lie detector. Can you put us in context on that? And I'm assuming it's about, hey, you probably asked him, how do we supposed to truly believe you knew nothing about it? And he goes to the lie detector. Is there any more in and around that? Yeah, I'll just tell you at some point that he did make that offer, as you could see in our promo on Twitter, that he made an offer to take a lie detector test because he really wanted to prove his case and prove what he was saying, which he's saying he didn't know about the cheating. He's always stuck with that same sentiment that he didn't know. So, you know, that was one of the things I asked is how far did you go to try to prove this

and to prove and uphold your integrity? So that's where the lie detector comes from. And he talks a lot about his conversations with MLB and a little bit about his conversations with Jim Crane. All right. Very last question. Will Yankees and Red Sox officials be curious to hear his remarks about those two teams during this conversation? I think that anybody who is a baseball fan will want to hear this conversation because you can't talk about the Astros cheating without also mentioning, you know, everything that happened with the Apple Watches and with the Red Sox and with the Yankees. And it's not necessarily like you don't want to paint it with a broad brush like it's all one thing.

But I think anybody that's a baseball fan will be interesting, it will be interested to hear this at the very least hearing the person that's been painted as a mastermind actually speaking out for the first time. Well, as soon as you tweeted it out yesterday, I went to my DVR because I want to make sure I record it just in case I wasn't there. And I had to record, it says on my screen, Entertainment Tonight. So anybody that wants to do that, you are not recording Kevin Frazier interviewing Cher. You are hearing Vanessa Richardson interview Jeff Leno at 630 tonight. So I don't know if the DVR folks didn't catch on to your big interview. But if you're going to, if you're going to DVR, it's entertainment tonight on your DVR at 630 tonight. We wish you nothing but the very best. Congratulations on this.

And we're highly look forward to watching it tonight on Channel 2. Thanks for having me on Matt. I appreciate it. All right. Take care of. Talk to you soon. Vanessa Richardson from Channel 2 with us here on the Matt. Thomas show. And again, it's the Luno interview 630 tonight on Channel 2. I am very much looking forward to seeing it.

Back to play, believe it or not, highly Googlable about golf and celebrities. More on that momentarily. 243 is a time. What's not highly Googlable, It takes you one quick search. Best chicken wings in Houston. Big City Wings and Big CityWings.com. Today, Big City Wings offers their Monday special.

Big Brew Specials, that's first and foremost a great way to start it off. Then their chicken tenders are at $1 a piece. That's $1.00 a piece for chicken tenders. You get five of those, get a side of fries, get some ranch dressing, some carrots, some celery, and you are all set with a delicious, cheap meal. from Big City Wings. They have specials every single day. You will not be disappointed.

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There are eight locations all throughout the Houston area, soon to be nine. Big on wings, big on specials, and big on sports. Big City Wings. Matt Thomas returns. On Sports Talk, You know what we have not mentioned today is we have a double-header money football tonight.

One starts in like an hour and 15 minutes. Weird. Kansas City and Buffalo. That's a sexy game, too. If Buffalo wins that game, they're in the driver's seat for the AFC East. And I think we have to question what's going on with Kansas City. That would be back-to-back losses. They're not losing.

If I had a service, you should call one-7-13 dial Matt. I'd give out that game as my, like my, it's October, right? right? I thought that was a Ross thing. Yeah, it is. But we see Ross steals bits all the time, so that's something really new. Everybody does October. How about an October to remember?

That's November, right? Oh, damn. I think Casey wins the game. I think, like you said, I think it's a good game. Arizona Dallis can be a good game, too. Tonight's a good TV watching night. It feels so weird to go home and watch a football game at 4 o'clock on a Monday, though. I can get used to it. I like I know a lot of people like the Tuesday night football bit.

I didn't like it at all. I think Tuesday is just an awkward night. Tuesday is a night as a night you just, it should be like a rando baseball game or random hockey or basketball game. I don't think college football should be played on Tuesday. The NFL shouldn't be played on. I'm not a big fan of Thursday night football, but I can kind of see that.

They didn't create money. Tuesday is just super awkward. Well, I'm sure we have not seen the last of Tuesday night games. You mean because of COVID? Yeah, I would be blown away. Right. I think you're probably right. But this double-headed today, pretty sexy. Now, this is a good double-hutter because it doesn't make it super late. I remember on the Monday night, they always have an opening week. The second games always starts at like 10 o'clock. We're like, you put it on and you fall asleep within 10 minutes of it. We're going to be fully awake for both these games. I was talking to my dad yesterday, and he's in Michigan, right? So it's a 5 o'clock start. And he was like, I never get to watch Monday night football. I'm excited for this.

Eastern time zone blows, just in general. Yeah, I mean, we're only an hour different, but I noticed very quickly how much I liked it. Like news and sports centers are at 11 o'clock, if you watch a West Coast, let's say that you're a big fan of the Rangers, New York Rangers or the Knicks or anything, Miami Heat, and they're playing the Lakers, that's 10.30 start. I mean, we bitch and moan about 9 o'clock games here. Imagine if all the games out there, they have to go cross-country. No, I hate the Eastern time zone.

The best one, sneaky best, is the Mountain Time Zone. I lived in Salt Lake City for two years. Sneaky best. Primetime Monday night football at six. Most games are at five or six, sometimes seven. And then even those West Coast games, they're eight. Oh, mountain time zone's the best. Central's not bad.

and then West Coast sucks too because they just think they're the East Coast. They do all their stuff just way, way past. And there's your today's time update here on the Matt Thomas show. You know what's time to do with five minutes left to go on the show? What should we do? We should play America's fastest-growing sports game show. We simply call it Believe it or not.

And here's how it works. You'll call 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Today's edition, believe it or not, is brought to you by Houston Woodhouse Day Spas. Print out your gift card for the gift of re-laxation at Houstonwoodhouse spas.com. The category today is, in honor of Charles Barkley, Phil Mickelson, Steph Curry, and Peyton Manning playing golf today after Thanksgiving. Is celebrity golf handicaps? I will give you a celebrity and their golf handicap.

If the golf handicap I give you is completely and utterly accurate, you'll say this. Believe it. If it's erroneous, full of bunk and made up, you will say this. Not. Two, believe it or not, it's right, you've got to get two on these. Golf handicaps are winning your prize. The first person to get it correct today prize, it's a $50 gift card to Karabas. That's good eating right there.

Second place and all others will win flags of your beloved Houston Astros from Kronberg's flags and flagpole. So a double dip of goodness, but you must first believe it or not. Paul on 790. Paul, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Bill Murray's handicap is 7.2. Believe it or not? Not.

Oh, it is. One of the biggest disappointments in my entire life trying to interview Bill Murray. Grouchy, son of a bitch. Sorry, I didn't mean to say that, but grouchy, goutchy SOB. Major, major buzzkill, how unfunny he was. Paul on 790, you ready to play, believe it or not? I believe it. Justin Timberlake's

golf handicap is 1.0. Believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it. That is correct. Statement number two for the win, Michael Jordan's golf handicap is 4.9. Believe it or not. Not.

Not as correct. 1.9. I feel like Paul wins a lot, but this never comes against his prize. This is a feel I have. Did you notice this is back-to-back? It happened last week, two. had two Pauls right at the start.

I did not know these things. Different Pauls, though, so you might be mixing them up. All right, well, whatever. I think also think Paul changes his name, too. But he's got either a $50 gift card to Carrabis or the golf leger. It's his choice. Let's go to line number three. Charles on 790.

Charles, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Steph Curry's handicap is 5.1. Believe it or not. Not. That is correct. It's 0.9. he's a scratch golfer in one of the greatest jump shooters in the history of the NBA.

He sucks. I mean, I sucks because he's so good. Next, Tom Brady's handicap 4.3, believe it or not? Not as correct. 9.3. Congratulations. You've got a Cromberg's astro flag headed your way. Jay on 790, Jay, you're ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. Kevin Costner's Handicap, Eleanor. 11.4. Believe it or not? Not. Yes, it is. You would think a guy was in a golf who had a better handicap. I think he just learned to pick up the sport when he did the Tinkup, but maybe I'm wrong. Who knows?

Matt on 790. Matt, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Samuel L. Jackson's handicap is 10.3. Believe it or not? Believe it. Believe it. That is correct. Statement number two for the win.

Celine Dion. her handicap is 17. Believe it or not. Believe it. That is correct as well. I didn't stump these people very well. Last one, Nico on 790. Nico, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Alice Cooper, handicap, 7. Believe it or not.

We close out, believe it or not. It was a good show. I mean, a little bit of Texans, a little Astros. Tomorrow on the show. we have gut feelings. Tomorrow we also have Aaron Reese. Ross is back. I got to figure out our NFL picks things. I haven't been keeping good track the last two or three weeks. All these things are going to worry about. Plus, you never know. We met ourselves as a Rockets coach in the next 24 hours. And we'll have a reaction to what you think you heard and saw

from the Jeff Linnell interview, which is at 630 tonight on Channel 2. One badass of American, Austin 316, aka Adam Clayton. Coming up on the show next. What's the name of the show you may ask? It's the A team with Clanton and Wexler, and it's straight ahead on Sports Talk 790. Talk to you guys tomorrow at noon.