The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Astros Win The Series But Lose The Lead Sitting #2 In AL West, Texans vs Buccaneers Tonight!

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Astros Win The Series But Lose The Lead Sitting #2 In AL West, Texans vs Buccaneers Tonight!

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. I'm straight up here on Sports Talk 790. Hello. And welcome in to a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. Pitch on the way. And Painea Polly. The 1-0. And that's at high in the air and deep down the run. right field line and if it stays fair it's gone and that is a fair ball and a home run

going nowhere infield back the o one ground ball softly hit right side as it's bobbled by dubon he won't get it out anywhere a run scores as kim comes home to make it two to one braves The 1-0 And that is lined in the left center and down for a base hit The Profar scores Olson around third he will score into third base goes at Cunia Ozzie Albiz drives in two with a single

And the Braves lead four to two When people run in circles It's a very very mad Here's the pitch pulled right field and well inside the foul pole it is and it's gone Sandy Leo

first hit with the Brays first home run and it's 8 to 3 pitch on the way Peña pops it up right out in front of the home plate Leon comes out in front of the plate and said Olson comes in makes the catch

and that is the ball game will the Seattle Mariners please lose a game nine in a row, the Seattle Mariners have won. It really didn't go that poorly for the Astros over the weekend against the Braves. You won two out of three. But here they sit in second place for the first time since the beginning of June.

And the Astros do not control their own destiny in the American League West. Hello and welcome in to a Monday edition of the Bad Times. show without Matt Thomas with me, Ross, with being joined by Chris Gordy somewhere along the way, also joined by Adam Wexer, but solo right now. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number if you would like to get in. 7-13-212-5-7-90. You could also send tweets to at Sports RV if you'd like to get in. That way, producer Jonathan Allen is here hanging out for the duration.

Appreciate him and appreciate him for the other. open. How are you doing, Jonathan? Everything okay? I'm having a blessed weekend. I was a good. Oh, really? Really? You know? I was just watch football all day. Well, you had a blessed weekend from Bervaldez did not. Neither did Arch Manning, but we'll get to that in a second. So yes, there is a big college football weekend. We can talk about you've got the Texans versus the Buccaneers tonight as well. We can get in on that.

That will be the early Monday night game. It is a double header. It is your Houston Texans at NRG Stadium, 6,0. clock kickoff, the early game. Chargers, Raiders will be the later game so we can talk about that. I don't know. Canelo Crawford, I don't know how much interest anybody has in that. Are you much of a boxing fan, Jonathan? Oh, you know, I'm not big on boxing, but I do always watch the big games. Okay, so you watch the big fight over the weekend? Yeah, of course. Okay. You weren't falling asleep? Yeah, you're young. That thing, that bad boy didn't start until about 1145. I've watched all the, the prelims. I watched all the prelims. You watched all the prelums? They were

hype. They were really good fights. Yeah, there were actually some pretty good fights that they put together on Netflix. And then I thought it wasn't like an all-time great fight, but Canella Crawford was a pretty good fight. So yeah, okay. You know what? Maybe we'll have to spend a couple of minutes on that as well for my boxing peeps. I do like to talk a little bit of boxing

and it was an interesting fight and go ahead and check the records. Your boy told you twice last week, Terence Crawford by decision. I'm just saying. I learned from the best. I am going to break my arm patting myself on the back. But I called that one.

But anyways, we can talk some boxing. We can talk some college football. We can talk some NFL. But we also are going to talk about your Houston Astros. A big week coming up. We'll get to the race in just a second. But the Rangers in town tonight. And it's going to be a tough one.

You got Jason Alexander versus Jack Leiter. I mean, Merrill Kelly carved up the Astros for the Rangers recently. He is pitching for them tomorrow. And then you got DeGrom on Wednesday versus Undecided. So not feeling super great about the Asher's. And we've been talking about this the last couple of weeks, but how it kind of just doesn't feel like their year. They've been in this malaise.

They have been for the last 55 or so games. Just not great. They have won three of their last five. They did take two out of three over the Braves over the weekend. The bats busted out in a big way on Friday for 11 runs. Then they followed that up with six runs in the first three innings against the Atlanta Braves on Saturday and you're feeling good and they didn't even use Brian Abrae you in Saturday. So you're giving him a couple of days off.

Everything's lining up. You got Framber Valdez against the Atlanta Braves on Sunday. And then he just quite frankly does what he's been doing lately. I mean, I've been defending the guy all year talking about how, you know, hey, it's a little overblown. He gives up some runs and it's not necessarily like he completely blew up, which I think you could say that yesterday, really? I mean, to me, when he's blowing up, well, when he's intentionally crossing up his catcher and then like throwing a bunch of wild pitches and stuff like that,

then we can call that a blow up, but it's just semantics at this point. The bottom line is the runs were scratched across, just four innings, six hits, five earned runs, four walks, a couple of strikeouts for Framber Valdez. It's not good enough. I think that's like six out of the last seven times he's come out there, he's given up four runs or more. And down the stretch, for a guy who had been so good, for his ERA was hovering around

like 2.4 or so before this stretch started, he'd been really good. Even with the occasional blow up. And that just hasn't been the case down the stretch. I don't know if he's getting tired, or if it's fatigue, or what? Because he can look sharp.

The curveball can look really good, and he looks like he's locking in early in this game he gave up the home run then he then he I think he gave up like a chop single or something like that and then he kind of settled in you're sitting there saying uh oh is everything going to be okay and everything was okay first and second inning but then there in the fifth the wheels completely came apart and then he had to be pulled out of the game for enel del Santos even giving up five runs in in four plus innings isn't necessarily a death now but the offense wasn't good enough yesterday I guess can we say can we give them a pass because

they were good the two previous days? I don't know. Either way, they lose 8 to 3 and the Seattle Mariners just are unrelenting at this point. Credit to them, they've won 9 in a row, they've been good, and the Astros who have been kind of trying to get things together over

the weekend, I'm not saying it's too little too late because there's still a lot of baseball left, but the Mariners are rightful American League West leaders at this moment. They have a better run to They've been better down the stretch and they're taking care of business and the Astros have been scuffling about for far too long. If you could take care of business against some of those Rangers games where it was very close and you had a lot of runners in scoring position opportunities.

Same thing in that Angel series a couple of weeks ago as well. You'd be in a better spot. You'd be either tied or ahead in the American League West and they just have not gotten it done consistently enough. 12 games left now in the season for the Astros. The good news is the guys that you're battling with in the American League West, they're coming to your house. Three with the Rangers now. Day off on Thursday, a huge three-game set with the Mariners coming up this weekend.

And then you got a soft landing at the end of the year, which we've talked about how this sets up well for the Astros. You get to go head to head with the guys that you're trying to knock out of the American League West. and then you get six games on the road against the A's who are playing out the string and the Angels who are probably booking their flights to Cancun. So go out there, get it done, win the American League West, it can still be done.

That's where the Astros are right now. And with all the issues that they've had all year long, like you actually, when you hear Jason Alexander is starting tonight, you're like, yes, that guy that was DFA from the A's should be nice for the Astros tonight. Good battle against you. Jack lighter. It's crazy where we've come and where we've been. And we kind of always say this when it's an Astro season. What if I, what if I had to talk to you in spring training and said

this, this, this and this? But this one is like one of the more doozies. You go time travel to spring training. You're really going to have to sit somebody down and explain everything that has gone wrong this season. There's still 81.69 and they could still win the American League West. But how are you feeling about your Houston Astros right now? Let me, no. 713-212-5-790 the phone number 7-13-212-5-7-90. As I said, we've got your Houston Texans in action tonight against the Buccaneers. Can the C.J. Stroud of two years ago against the Buccaneers play in this game? The guy that threw for like 470 yards and five touchdowns, and we were like, this is the greatest quarterback in Texans history already. And then now it's

been from last year and a so-so start in week one against the LA Rams. So a bounce back night from C.J. Stroud and the Texans offense would be nice. As I mentioned, there was a big college football weekend. You got Canello Crawford stuff we can talk about anything got you guys want to get to here on a Monday. You can do that. 7-13-212-5-790. The phone number 7-13-212-750. Chris Gordy will be joining me in a little bit.

Adam Wexler later on as well. We got our normal Monday bits to tell the truth. We got news at noon. A lot of good stuff. It is the Matt Thomas show. Without Matt Thomas, he is at the NBA. What are they calling it? The broadcast meeting.

So he'll be out today, tomorrow and Wednesday. But I'm hanging out. You guys can get in here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas with you until 2 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790. 1018 in the a.m. You're on Sports Talk 790. Ross Vioria with you. Matt Thomas, not.

Gordy along in the fold in a little bit. Jonathan Allen is here. You can get in. Co-host for a couple of minutes, if you'd like. It's 7-13-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I didn't even mention that Jose Al-Tuve, leaving the game on Saturday,

when the Astros were up 6-0, he was replaced by Ramon Ureus, and you're sitting there saying, okay, is this just like, they're just getting them off his feet? Because this thing is probably over? Nope. Turns out he's got foot soreness, and he is day to day.

Dana Brown doesn't think it will be an extended absence. Actually, let's go in here from him. This is from Dana Brown yesterday on with the Astros Radio Network about Jose Altovae. Actually, this isn't working, so there we go. What percentage of the time does the computers work on a Monday here on here on Sports? Your computers messes up almost every time. I think I got it now. Yeah, they definitely come in bunches.

You see that one that hit the right field. That's when I know he's going good. You know, hit that line drive the opposite way. And, you know, that got me fired up because I know that's when he's locked in. And so I think these two days, you know, give him a little bit of a break. He kind of started to feel it a little bit. I think he started to feel the timing. And so he should come back and still be the same.

All right. Well, there you go. Hopefully he'll come back soon. It sounds like they're not super worried about Jose Altuvae, getting him off his feet. Didn't start the game yesterday. I didn't play the game yesterday. And we'll see what happens when he comes back.

And it's been that kind of season for the Astros where Jose Altuve, he's slumping for a month. He gets a couple of hits and a home run. And then the next day, the next day he gets a hit and then he hurts his foot and he's out for a couple of days. It's just not feeling like it's their year. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number if you would like to get in. As I mentioned, you can send some tweets to Add SportsRV. And you know what? Go ahead and follow me on Instagram if you don't mind.

I really would appreciate it. We've influenced our initiatives up here at IHeartMedia. So I've been trying to post more on Instagram and try to build that up. So if you just do me a solid and follow me on Instagram at SportsRV. I'm trying to post more on there. I would really appreciate it. It's a nice picture of myself and Jonathan, who everybody said he looks really young. which he does.

I appreciate that, guys. It's also probably because you're next to me and my gray beard, but that's okay, Jonathan. All right. As I said, phone lines open. 7-13-212-5-790. Dave in Austin is first up here on the phone lines on the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. What's up, Dave? Hey, what's up, Ross?

How you doing, man? I'm doing pretty good. What you got? Okay, man. Well, so C.J. Stroud, you know, had a great rookie season, and I know, and I know he gets hit in sacked a lot and we all talk about his O line. But I really think there's a couple things wrong. And one of them is that he just isn't making decisions very fast. He's not scanning the field. He's not making his reads. He's too slow. Not only is too slow like making the reads and

getting that ball out, they need to fire it out quick. They need to do quick step passes. They need to get in line with their offensive coordinator. And I mean, if the new offensive coordinator, he looks so boring. He looks like the other offensive coordinator. I mean, can you imagine our defense held us in the game against the Rams? They get down to the red zone with a chance to win the game. You have the game in reach to win. And CJ's like, okay, coach, what's the play call?

What you got? And they're like, we want to go to Agumbo Wale. I'm sorry, did you say Agoomba Wale? Yeah, I did. You don't want to go to Nico Collins, one of the best receivers we have? No. What about Nick Chubb? He actually ran the ball pretty good up the middle. No, we don't want to do him either. What about Woody Marks? Higgins, any of our picks? No, no, no, no, no, no.

What about me? I can run. No, we've seen you run. And you look slower than David Mills. Sorry, man, you can't scramble. We want to hand, we want you to throw the ball to a Gumbawale and he can dive and fumble. That's what we got. That's the play call. That's our play call. Hey, well, first of all, it probably wasn't the complete play design just for Dario Gumbawale. Just because that's where the ball ends up doesn't mean it's like, hey, it's Dario Gumbowali time. But also, if he didn't fumble that ball, they still would have been in a pretty good down and distant situation, correct? I'd have to pull back up the play-by-play. I'm not sure.

But anyways, David, it doesn't even matter about that. Yeah, it doesn't even matter about that. What's happening with Nick Kay? The reason you're saying the offensive coordinator, Nick Cayley, looks boring, is because everybody looks boring. when your offensive line can't hold anybody. And the opposing defense, first of all, is one of the best defensive lines in football, top three, according to pro football focus. And then they're wrecking your offensive line.

And you've got no run game with Nick Chubb, who really didn't get going until what you mentioned in the fourth quarter. And that's when they were just playing soft coverage as far as the run game, because it was the fourth quarter and the Texans needed a touchdown. Yeah, that's right, man. You know, just too, I mean, you have to have a scrambling quarterback or a quarterback that can run, and CJ is just too slow. He looks terrible. He can't run the ball.

I don't think he's it. I think we should move on from him. And if I'm a new coordinator in the league and this is my first NFL game and have a chance to win, I'm not going with undrafted round pick, Gungbo Wally. Hey, man, I like Dario Gubalwale. I don't care what you say. I like Dario Gungbo Wale. You know, hang your head on that guy. Okay.

Well, I'm not going to say hang your hat. Yeah, it was first in 10. I pulled it up. First and 10, seven yard gain with under two minutes to go. So yeah, you would have been in a second three. It would have been a nice situation. They liked Dario Gimbo Wally in those two-minute drill situations.

He's good catching passes out of the backfield. Good pass protector. They clearly like him as a third down guy. They continue to keep him on the team. Unfortunately, it was a perfect punch by Landman, and then it was recovered by the Rams. It was just, I don't know, man. It was just one of those games.

I know. stick with Nico Collins or some weapons that you know are if you're a first time offensive coordinator make it easier yourself man go go with the good guys don't don't try the Anguobalale yeah I appreciate that day thank you for getting in it's just easier said than done

I mean we can all sit there and say why doesn't Nico Collins get 12 catches for 150 yards every single game because guess what the Los Angeles Rams know that Nico Collins is your only real threat on the field as well so he's going to be either bracketed or in zone coverages where guys are every single person is keying in on him and trying to limit how effective he is.

And then of course you can say, well, they know that about Pooka Nakua. He had 10 catches and that's true. So it's just not as easy as you think. Especially when you have no offensive line and you have no run game, it's near impossible. That's why I'm not super optimistic about the start. of this Texan season, if and when, until we hear something about Joe Mixing coming back, unless Nick Chubb can get in some kind of rhythm or this offensive line can play a lot better and gel a lot better, it's going to be a struggle. It is. You're going to see basically what you saw,

maybe not to that extreme level of a 14 to 9 game, but these are going to be grinds of games, in my opinion, until proven otherwise, until we just see a game where everybody's firing on all cylinders on offense and they're busting out for like, you know, 27 points or 30 points, I'm going to operate under the assumption that the Texans are going to grind out a bad run game. They're going to try to piece together a pass game

without a good offensive line and win with defense. It's basically what we saw down the stretch last year. They did not score a lot of points. If you go and look at the back half of the season. Now they tried to retool, they signed Cam Robinson, they drafted Arionte Ursery, they reshuffled the offensive line, and now one weekend they've got a bunch of injuries. I'm just not picturing a world where C.J. Stroud starts to light the world. on fire. Now he could. As I said, we pointed to that game.

2023. Doesn't it feel like we're in a different world? Try to think back to what you were feeling about C.J. Stroud and the Houston Texans. When he comes down in an impossible situation, what was it like 40 seconds left on the clock or something like that, needing a touchdown, and then boom, a touchdown down the scene to tank Dell to get the victory.

in that game. Against the Buccaneers, 470-some odd yards and five touchdowns. Of where you were thinking like, this dude's the truth. That's when the, I don't want to say light bulb completely went on, but that was when he was like, there was just no doubt about it. C.J. Stroud was that dude

in that situation when he came out and won that game for the Texans. And then it's just been a whole bunch of men. For a last year and now one weekend, To this year, one week doesn't mean everything.

But you gather more data as they play more games. And right now what we have to go on is the Texans offense is sputtering to say the least. Hopefully they can turn things around at home tonight. Extra day arrest on a Monday night. Get things going. They are favored in this game. Maybe they can get a victory. Tell me what you think.

713-212-5-790 is the phone number you want to get in. 7-13-212-5-790. Again, tweets at SportsRV, Instagram at Sports RV as well. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. He will be back on Thursday. Chris Gordy should be joining shortly. We got to tell the truth coming up at 1130 and you at 713-212-5-790.

Jake! Welcome back, Jake. The fan club would like to welcome. Welcome, Jake Myers, back to the Astros lineup. Oh, snap. Now, of course, I was wrong when I said that he would get four hits in the Toronto series. He got one hit in the first game, went over four all four times with runners in the corner position, and then got sat in the third game.

However, if we push it back a series, he got six hits against Atlanta. His average is up to 310, baby. Wondering how it was going to be when he came back, just to be honest, you know, some of the batted ball luck was very good for Jake Myers. The fan club was a little worried. We shouldn't have been. He's looking good. Hitting 310.

Unfortunately, didn't make a diving catch in the field yesterday, but that's okay. All's well. Not all as well that ends well, but it didn't affect the outcome of the game. Astros lose 8 to 3 in the finale of the series in Atlanta. And now they're one game back of the Seattle Mariners in the American League West. Look at you folks getting in on the phones. I do appreciate you, so let's go ahead and get after it with you folks. 713, 212, 5, 790 is the phone number here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Without Matt Thomas. Kyle in H-Town has been holding along us. What's up, Kyle? What's up, Ross? Man, I know, you know, I always calling about our Longhorns, man. We don't have to talk about that. We don't have to talk about that. That was a tough watch on Saturday.

But the good thing is with one more of these so-called Cup kick games and see. See what we got. And ideally, of course, Arch needs to play better. Hopefully this game, he got the easy way to say to figures out how to fill the ball. Yeah, it's kind of important for a quarterback, especially when you've got like a bunch of wide open throws and you just like are firing the ball into the dirt. It's not good. Yeah. Ideally, this week, he plays better.

And we get to see at least what Caldwell. And hopefully you can get KJ. Lacey in there a little bit, see what he's got. just to see what they have just in case. But in that Florida game, lined up to be quite the showdown of quarterback. Play the under. Yeah, Lagway looked horrible. I still have hoping to Arch.

I mean, let's see what he got. He hasn't really played football since high school, so it's going to take time. I still believe in him, so we'll see. Hook him. All right, thank you, Kyle. Appreciate it. Yeah, look, I'm not going to say that Arch Manning's career is over,

I'm giving up on him or anything like that. But he has looked progressively worse every week. That is problematic. He looked okay against Ohio State. You're like, hey, he's on the road. It's the shoe. It's a really difficult Ohio State defense. You can forgive that.

Then the San Jose State won. He misses a deep ball early. And then he throws four touchdowns in the first half, and you're feeling a little bit better. Even though he missed some throws. There were some causes for concern in that game. And then the game against U-TEP. I mean, he was 5 for 16 with a bad pick, like just a bad decision.

I can live with bad decisions for a quarterback that's really starting his first year. But the inaccuracy, that's where I get concerned. Because that's not something week to week that is just going to improve, you would think. I mean, you could hope. But, I mean, as you know and you've seen throughout the years, a lot of times inaccurate quarterbacks just don't all of a sudden wake up the next week and they're making every single throw. Maybe it can happen.

Maybe it is some injury that he's managing. But if he's managing injury, then why is he out there against Utep and Sam Houston State? So that's what we have to sit here and wonder. And I don't have that answer right now. But if you're watching Arch Manning, the low-light package was huge.

They were playing it on a loop, And it was like they were just collecting almost every time he threw. What was it? 10 incompletions in a row at one point. 11 to 25, 1114 yards, one touchdown, one interception against Utep where you're 40-point favorites. That's not ideal. And it could just very well be. Now we'll see.

Again, it's early. He can get better. This is his first year starting. But he is a third year quarterback. We have to remember that. And there are already questions that I. addressed on this show in anywhere and on Twitter or wherever that I talked about it. Like if Archmanning is this all world can't miss, no doubt about it, quarterback,

he would have been playing against a head of Quinn Ewers in his second year. You were saying that. When he played that bad at this last game in YouTube, I was like, wow, Ross really did call this. Don't say that. Don't say that. But you did. You were the only one saying like he might be bad guys. He might be bad.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to be right on that. I wanted to be really wrong. So we'll see. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And look, five-star quarterbacks are no guarantee. Garrett Gilbert says hello, if you remember him for Texas Longhorns fans.

He's going against Malachi Nelson, who was the five-star quarterback the same year as Arch Manning. He committed to USC. He was supposed to be this can't-miss quarterback. And now he's at U-TEP, and he's not good. And same thing for Nico Yamaliyava was the number two quarterback when Arch Manning was the number one quarterback. He's awful at UCLA. Just because you're a five-star quarterback, even if you strip the name Manning off that, because some people are putting that on the prognosticators and like, yeah,

he was only hyped up because his name. Well, Malachi Nelson, to my knowledge, doesn't come from a big football pass-throwing family. And he was five-star. So, yeah, sure, we can put maybe there was some hype because of the Manning name. But a lot of his high school highlights were very good. And of course, we know that competition wasn't very good. But five-star quarterbacks, no matter what they're. their last name is,

don't always work out. Quinn Ewers was this five-star, no doubt about it, can't miss quarterback as well. He was good. He wasn't great. He was a seventh-round pick. No guarantees with five stars. And well, as of this moment, Arch Manning looking a little shaky

for the Texas Longhorns. John and Fresno, next up here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. What's up, John? Hey, what's going on, Matt? Hey, you know, I'm doing great. Good, good, good, man. You know, we had that seven game lead here about every two seasons.

And we had a lot of injuries, a lot of pitch, a lot of players, regular players was out. And we took what we had. Even though they was young, we took what we had. And everybody became Nelson stars, Pena, we had. We had Miles and Smith. And then we had some pitches. Like, God's still good. A lot of pitchers, nobody really heard of.

I think our problem is that we let us at the all-star break, at the tread deadline, we didn't really go and get what we needed. When we won the World Championship, we went and got Brennan. He came in and got us to a World Championship. We didn't go get to what we needed. We need it. We need pitching, starting pitches. And yesterday, we went and got, you know, some players,

them that nobody else want and brought them in here and they're not producing and I think everything there's confused I don't I wonder some I wonder some time just my way of thinking how bad did Jim crane want to win because you know we're winning come paying money you got should I hop out no you're good no you're good at 230 if I just don't get it oh I just don't get you sometimes I just I just saying may I just keep the 100 that the mailers are doing what they're supposed to do they win in game we live losing game. So he had to go work somewhere.

He didn't just say I'm in the family business? Yeah, he's like, I'll go there and do suction and don't care. Okay, guys, I'm just saying, don't be surprised if we, if we don't, if we lose, we already a game behind and I can't see us coming out of it. I got, I'm out. I look great, but don't feel great, do you? I mean, yeah, I mean, look at this package. All he hung up.

He called me Matt, so I wanted to play some Matt drops. You confused a lot of people out there. That's a shame. All right. Hey, Gordon's here. What's up? What's happening? Not a whole lot. We're going to take a break. Let's see. The Astros are out of first place. The Texans offense continues to probably be in disarray. We'll see if they can get anything going. Arch Manning didn't look good over the weekend. The University of Houston Cougars won. Yeah, big one for them. And it almost sell out for them in TD ECU Stadium. There's no Rockets news to speak of. and that's all I got right now. Yeah, today's an interesting game because I just kind of checking the pulse on these Houston streets, Ross,

you've got a lot of folks that are worried about the Astros, very concerned. I mean, I said it the last two weeks. This upcoming series, you need to treat it like these two series, you need to treat it like playoffs games, basically. You got six playoff games this week. If you take care of business, you're in the playoffs. Must win games.

Coming up. Drop two out of three, two out of three. Guess what? Your ass is out of the playoffs. So, depending on what Boston and others do. But it's, you got to treat it.

You got a treat it very important. But you got that. And then you got optimism for the Texans. Everybody's excited. Okay, you lose the first one on the road, the Rams, no harm, no foul. But we got a home game tonight against the bucks, maybe. So it's, it's interesting.

But a little pressure too, Ross. Those cults up in Indy, they're two and all out of the gates. Is Daniel Jones good? We'll talk about that. All right. We got to talk about a lot of different stuff going on. Those of you on hold, we see. We'll get to you next as well.

So Gordy is here hanging out until 1 o'clock. Adam Wexler will join me then. We got news at noon. We got to tell the truth. Anything you all want to get to as well? 713, 212.790. 713-212-5-790. 10 to 49 in the AM here on Sports Talk 790.

To tell the truth, I'm whipping up. One truth and three lies halfway through my list right now. Coming up at 1130, that would be fun. With Chris Gordy and Jonathan Allen. Matt Thomas is out. He is at the NBA broadcast meetings. I don't think that means he's doing it. It sounds a lot more important that it is.

He's probably just schmoozing out there in New York, and that's fine. A lot of schmoozing. That's okay. All right. In the meantime, you guys can get in 713, 212-5-790. A lot of Houston sports to talk about today on a Monday. With the Astros having the Texas Rangers in town. I've been asking this, and I do this all the time, I guess.

How are we feeling, Chris Gordy? I mean, look, you took two out of three against the Braves. It's not bad, but the Mariners just won't lose. They've won nine in a row. Right. That's the crappy part. And the Rangers finally lost. They had won, what, six in a row prior to yesterday.

So, yeah, it's a little compounded because, look, we were for a couple weeks there when the Astros were struggling, the Mariners were struggling. So it didn't really matter. But you got to treat these like playoff games. I did post on our social media earlier, Ross. Are the Astros going to slide completely out of the playoffs? Let's take a look at some of the responses. Oh, no. Okay.

Rudy says with only one good starter, 100%. 100%. Veronica says, absolutely. Wow. Jason says, it was a good 10-year run, but I think we missed the playoffs this year by a game or two with Seattle taking the division. Do people know they can still win the wild card?

Johnny says, got to get Valdez out of the rotation, send him to Sugar Land. Oh, he's got no options. Defend the house. Rangers and Mariners for a week that decides that destroys fate. Got to win every series at this point. Ford, hopefully Parades will be back. Is that the latest rumor? That he might be able to contribute, yes. I am still not super optimistic about it.

And to what level you can use them? I mean, you don't need somebody to DH, but, well, you know what? Here's Dana Brown from yesterday. Let me go ahead and, well, actually, the computer's been messing out. Give me a second. You stall. Charles says, yes, hopefully. I'd rather than miss the playoffs than get swept in the first round.

Oh, my God. Team needs to rebuild and the window is closed. You would rather than miss the playoffs. But you can't guarantee they're going to get swept. Shut your bum ass up. You never say, I don't want my team to not make the playoffs. And also, in a wild card series, Anything can happen.

When you're two in barbecue, do we call that a sweep? I mean, it's kind of a... It's like a mini sweep. Yeah, it's like a... Gentleman sweep is like a five games, right? It's like a Tuesday, Wednesday afternoon when Colorado comes to town. And we call that a series sweep. That's always weird.

Dana Brown says Isak Pradis could come back against Seattle. Yeah, I mean, we're kind of targeting potentially him coming back. It may be a long shop, but we're targeting it, you know, the Seattle series. All right. We do have to keep in mind. Dana Brown is always optimistic, and for him to say it's a long shot, but we're targeting that. So take this with a grain of salt. I'm sorry, continue.

That would also be like asking Dana. Dana, what do you think? This lottery jackpot is up to a billion? Yeah, we'll see. I'm hopeful. I got a winning ticket in my hand. It's a long shot, but I'm a billionaire now. Because he's actually starting to swing the bat.

Probably if it come back, it'd probably be DH, that type of thing. But he's, you know, taking some ground balls. and he's running a little bit. Of course, he's hitting, and he's hitting live BP, which is, you know, that's really big. So, and getting that bat back would be huge because he's that guy that sees a lot of pitches, sets the tempo of the lineup,

irritates the pitchers on the opposition. And so, you know, we welcome him back, but we're very hopeful that he can get back for that Seattle series. But that's kind of like what we're targeting there's nothing that's in stone but you know we'd be

excited to get them back at that point I think this is the urgency of the situation they're kind of forcing it a little bit you know what I mean like I think in a normal situation they would go no look ESOC you're done

we'll see it spring training I mean he's still going to have to in theory if he gets on base he's going to have to run the bases right I don't know man you pull him for Zach Cole every time I get to

on base. Hey, I haven't even talked about Zach Cole. The goat, baby. Oh, shoot, I was getting text from a buddy on Friday night that, I mean, he was headed for the Hall of Fame. It was nuts. Yeah, since, I mean, what was it? Three for four with all. Three hits on Friday. First pitch he sees, he hits a home run. No hits on Saturday. Did walk a walk, though,

so you reached base, and then yesterday, a hit and a walk. So, 10 A.A.Bs, five strikeouts, which we kind of talked about, but also some power. BATting 400. It's driven in four. So you give him a little something. I mean, that home run went 114 off the bat. I'm going to tell you, I'm 99% sure.

Alex Bregman and Jose Al-Tuve have never hit a ball 114 in their career. So, I mean, there's some pop in that bat. A little bit of a shot in the arms, 25 years old. Who was the guy, remember when we played the Rangers and the ALCS? And they had called, was it Evan Carter? Evan Carter? Yeah, the shot. They had, like, just called up and he just got red hot for them.

Somebody brought that name up last week. Like, hey, maybe he can be Evan Carter. Also, Evan Carter was the top five prospect in all of baseball, and Zach Cole is 25 years old and your number 19 prospect. But hey, shot in the arm is a shot in the arm. Take whatever we can get. So it's been nice to see that from Zach Call this weekend. Column McHugh was a low prospect at one time.

Okay. There's been a lot of guys who've been low prospects who contributed. But I'm just saying, like, let's not get excited as much as we maybe would for a guy who was a top five prospect in baseball, even though I can't recall the last time the Astros. I had one of those. Silver Boot, baby. Who is the last Astro to be?

a top five prospect in baseball. Kyle Tucker? Oh, you mean like in all of baseball? Yeah. Some of their high picks, yeah, like Correa, Tucker, Breggman. was up there?

I don't know. All right. Kenneth and Orange real quick. What's up, Kenneth? Yeah, we're going to comment about and I want to ask him in with a question with these Texans. Now, we look at what we got, man. We got this face reality and just a sad reality,

man, because we got a rookie play call it. We got a pass. That's work offensive line. And I can't put too much blame on T.J. And I just said, man, I just hope he don't end up like Matt Schwall, man. You know, and that's just about the bottom of mind. Thank you.

I hope he doesn't end up like Matt Schwab either. Or Owen Daniel. Or Kevin Walters. Yep. All right. Well, anyways. Wow, I hadn't heard that in a while. I had to look it up.

2019, the asteros had the number seventh prospect in all of baseball. Do you know who that was? 2019, number seven. They actually had the number seven and number eight. Number eight was Kyle Tucker. Kyle Tucker and Yordon Alvarez. Number seven in all of baseball.

2019. Derek Fisher. Forrest Whitley. That's right. Okay. Well, do not forget the legend. Yikes. All right. Anyway, on that note, we're going to take a quick break. You know what? We do have to talk this. Where are we at on C.J. Stroud? Not that he's going to end up like Matt Schwab, but if we look at that game from two years ago against the Buccaneers, he looked like he was on

the fast track to like a Hall of Fame career since then? Not necessarily since then. He was still good the rest of that season. But last year and the start of this year, not feeling so good. Where are you on C.J. Stroud? We want to hear from you at 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. We'll talk about it to start Hour number two of the Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Hour number two of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas, he'll be back on Thursday. Chris Gordy hanging out.

We'll have T.J. Reeves, Buccaneers Radio Sidelined Reporter. I believe it's Reeves. We'll get a confirmation on that in a little bit. He is coming up in the next segment. Talk a little bit of Texans and Buccaneers. And we were talking about it in the last segment, Gordy. C.J. Stroud, how much, you know, we talk about this, and Joe Borough is a name that we bring up, but he got hurt yesterday with a guy who has a bad offensive line but still finds a way to produce.

Also doesn't hurt that he has Jamar Chase and T. Higgins and the past catchers that they have over there, but he got hurt yesterday. And it kind of just does kind of bring the comparisons here in Houston of a quarterback who has played well, who even that year that C.J. Stroud was. playing incredible. He got comparisons to Joe Burrow for what he was doing as far as being aware of where the opposing defenses are going to be and making throws under duress and stuff like that. But since then, he's just talked about, we've talked about a sophomore slump and then week one wasn't very good. Yeah, I'm not, I can't sit here and just

worry about injuries for CJ Stride. I need them to go out and perform it. I'm a little bit more on the optimistic side of, I'm looking at it. Ross, there are a bunch of teams that went on the road in week one and lost their opener and then came back home in week two and got a win. Cowboys did it yesterday. The lions did it yesterday. Who else did it? Ravens, they went on the road

week one lost. They came back home one yesterday. So I'm just looking at it to say a little bit of role in reverse. Yeah, it's a week to week league. But there were teams, Vikings look great and that comeback against Chicago last week. Last night they put out a big done against the Falcons. So this week can, the NFL changes week to week so much.

I am expecting, like just expectations for tonight, I expect the, the Texas are going to play very well against the bucks. I think they're going to, I think the offense will execute. I think they're going to score points. I think the defense is going to be great. I think they look very different from week one this week. Yeah, 42 and a half is the total, so not super high. Open at 45 and a half. It went down, and then the Texans up to two and a half point favorites against Tampa Bay Buccaneers tonight. It's just one of those things like you said week to week where it's typically play well in prime time too, don't they? Let's see, not on Christmas last year.

Or Halloween. Remember the Jets game? That was ugly. Or the playoffs. So I don't know about this typically play good on national television. Not so sure. I mean like a Monday night or Thursday night game at NRG. It feels like they play.

Sometimes it's probably hit or miss. I mean, it's also about the opponent. And basically what Vegas is saying is this should be around a 23 to 20 game. That's what they have it at. You can look when you look at the total, for those you don't know, and then you look at the spread, there's basically an applied result. The implied result in this game is 22.5 to 20.

Texans win. That feels about right. I mean, if we're predicting the score, if I think the Texans are going to win and we know that Kimee Fairbur and Texans MVP is going to be booting a lot of field goals because that's just what he does. 23 to 20 feels about the way that we would

script the Texans to win this game. But I'm worried about the offense and again I'm worried about a good defensive coach like Todd Bowles where you don't have to respect the run game and you know that Nico Collins is going to be their number one option and then you might

have to turn to some other places to try and figure some things out. Yeah, I just don't want to fall into that. You fall in 0-2. I mean, this thing could get ugly real quick. Yeah, I want to say, yeah, the Chiefs are 0-2 for the first time in like 10 years, and they always bring out the numbers like teams that go 0-2.

They only make the playoffs. They don't make the playoffs, 85% of the time or whatever. And look, I feel different. If you have Patrick Mahomes, I still would like my chances. But with this team, I don't know if they can fall. come back from 02. I think they could, just because of the way that the schedule is.

Who made the schedule for them? Three of the next four on the road? Jaguars is winnable. Titans at home is winnable. At Ravens? No good about that one? Let's move on. At Seahawks? That's always a tough place to play. It's tough place to play, but the Seahawks

it's not like their world beaters, but they had a good win this week, right? Niners and Broncos at home the two after that. Seahawks beat the Steelers on the road. That was a good game. They out physicaled them. And it was a close one against the Niners.

Oh, you know what? I mean, this is... Broncos lost to the Colt, but that defense scares me a lot. That defense is going to wreck the Houston Texans' offensive line. If they don't have their bleak together by the Broncos game, yeah, it's going to be bad.

Let's pin this one as a must win tonight, Ross. All right. Must win a game for the Houston Texans. I mean you're at home on Monday football. Shut. Stop. You need to win this. Okay. If you want to just use the semantics of it

It's a very important game It'd be nice to have it The Buccaneers aren't very good It's not like they're bad But you can be better than the Buccaneers You're favored in this game And you need to come up with a victory at home With hopefully a raucous

NRG crowd But I'm not even necessarily banking on that It's early, it's 6 o'clock We're Houston, Texas There's not a whole lot of reason for optimism And enthusiasm about this team Get your butt in the seats Well you know how long we've been

been saying that, Gordy. We've been saying that since I mean, you were probably in school in Baton Rouge or New Orleans. Which Monday Night crew did we get? Because there's two Monday night games tonight. I don't know. I assume we get Buck Eggman. You think so? What's the other one? Raiders, Chargers?

Chargers, Raiders? Both of those are kind of the matchups. The assignments for next week. Texans at Jags? Spiro Dita. Spiro Degis? I knew it. Adam Archiletta. Yep. Spiro, that sounds like that's got Spiroed.

and Adam Archilada written all over it. And on the sidelines, Adi King Cabala. I think of us out. Bless you. You say the name. All right. 7.13. You didn't get Jim Nance, Tony Romo next week. You ain't getting that.

7.13. You ain't even getting an I and Eagle, J.J. Watt. 2.1.5.790. Ray in Miami, let's talk some Texans. What's up, Ray? Hey, guys. How you, John? All right. First, I want to speak to this guy

It's always kicking out the Astros game. I'll listen on the IHard app down in Aventura, and I listen to everything until first pitch. I think I'm about to listen to the game, and the guy boot you out, and he says, you're not in the area to listen to the game. Sometimes the game goes all the way through, but 80% of the time they kick me out.

I don't know why the I heart. It's a major league game. I know why I can't listen. You're in Miami? Yes, I've been. tour. You're outside of the listening, the listening area. That's why.

You have to, if you want to do that, you got to pay. Well, it's all about your, but you're not supposed to. It's about your location services on your app, and sometimes if it's not turned on, it might sneak through. You're supposed to go subscribe at the MLB app and pay to get the radio broadcast of the game. Yeah, that's out of our control.

We can only stream it to the listening area around Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. Okay, okay. I'm a Texas take. About the Texans, I feel like, as a Eastern Texan fan, we should have a right to not believe in them. We shouldn't be forced to believe in the Texans.

I think C.J. Straude is going to end up turning into a joke. A joke! Nico, I think, no, hear me out. I think Nico is going to end up turning in Tariq. They can't give me the ball, so can you get me out of here? Because,

our quarterback, let's just be honest, our quarterback number seven is a statue. He can't roll out, and I've never seen people lose 50 yards every sack. Why does he drop back so deep and get sacked? I don't have confidence in this guy anymore. He was a one-hit wonder. Why can't we call our own people one-hit wonders?

You can, if that's your belief, but look, okay. Remember that play that he made? He wasn't a statue in that play that he made against the chariot. in the playoffs where he was running for his life and then made a great deep strike to Xavier Hutchinson. Like, he can make plays. And you're right, he does lose a lot of yards sometimes on sacks. And that's because he believes he can make plays. And sometimes he needs to know where he just needs to fall down and give up on the play, which he doesn't do. But I mean, to say that he's going to be just a guy, I'm just not there yet, Ray. And I understand that

we had a thriller and we beat them with a touchdown at the last second. But if Mike Evans and Mayfield are living and breathing tonight, they're beating the Houston, Texans. I hate to say it, but he's going to put up unbelievable numbers on us tonight. The secondary not going to be to keep up with Mike Evans. Come on, let's just be honest. The O line and the D line is not going to dominate up front,

and I think we're going to get embarrassed tonight. I honestly do. We're going to get embarrassed on national television. All right. I'm hanging up on you, Ray. You're bringing me down. I appreciate you. like that's uh that's with the most possible love i can put on a hang up on somebody i'm putting that on

you ray just bringing me down it's not making me feel good about this we're gonna get blown out they're two and a half point favorites what i don't like about that too is it turns people into well that's my take and so now i hope it happens because i want my take to be right as opposed to just being a fan and going i hope i'm wrong let's yeah you know yeah some people just root to be right more than they want to root for their actual team. We see that a lot with Alpern Shingoon and Jalen Green fans. We spent 20 years praying for a franchise quarterback. You thought you had one, Deshawn, turned out to be a creeper.

But then you got one in C.J. Stratton. He's the real deal. He's a total package. And it feels like some people out there want him to fail. Yeah. I mean, and I think that's a lot of fandom in 2025 anyways, is rooting for people to fail. I think a lot of that's happening with Arch Manning, but I digress. But anyways.

I'm rooting for C.J. Stroud. I call me crazy. I live in Houston, Texas. I root for the Houston teams, and I want them to succeed. That's what I want to see from C.J. Stroud. I want to see, not necessarily the guy that played the Buccaneers two years ago, went for 470 and 5 touchdowns, but at least some competency, some accuracy, some confidence to where he's not just seeing ghosts and running away as soon as the ball is snapped.

and unfortunately a lot of that has been the offensive line that he has had to work with. But this is, look, they tried to fix it in the offseason. They did what they thought the best they could. It is what it is. You're not going to miraculously set. You've got to work with what you have. Yeah, I'm curious to see how everything is configured tonight for the Texans against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. All right, T.J. Reeves is the Buccaneers'is' sideline reporter.

He will join us next. We're talking some Houston Texans and some Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We got to tell the truth coming. up news at noon as well. Jam-packed show without Matt Thomas. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross with Chris Gordy and Jonathan Allen. Back in a minute with some more Bucks and Texans talk. Yes, but Matt Thomas is out.

Ross v. Real with you. Chris Gordy here as well. Jonathan Allen producing on a Monday night football Monday in Houston, Texas. Your Houston Texans taking on the Tampa Bay. Buccaneers. Now pleased to be joined by T.J. Reeves at Bucks, Buc, Sidelined guy on Twitter. Appreciate the time, T.J. I want to take you in a time machine, T.J. to 2023. There was this team called the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Do we have to start with that? Yes. Do we have to start with that? Yes, we do. Because I wanted to start with something else, but you can start with that. It's your show. Go. Because I just want to hear something from you. What were you thinking? understand I had to go in that locker room live, live after that. How was that? What you're about to talk about? Okay.

Yeah, it was exactly like you would think it would be, as I'm getting one death stare after another of don't come anywhere near me with that microphone. Well, continue. I hate to derail the beginning of the interview. That's okay. At least NFL players aren't intimidating at all, so you're totally fine. Yes, but I just want to know what was going through your mind about how good C.J. Stroud was in those moments. and then how do we got to where we are right now with C.J. Stroud in Houston, where we literally had a call last segment saying that he's a nobody.

Right, of course, because all the callers, you know, have a five-minute session span, but I digress. So, well, remember in the circumstance, this was a lot like what the Buccaneers did to the Falcons last week, except it was two years ago. Baker Mayfield, let us not forget, got the Buccaneers in the end zone in the final minute of that game with a go-ahead-out. And the sideline guy that you're talking to right now as I go third person says, you know, I like that because we're going to get a happy postgame show. This is a wild win here for Baker, for Mike Evans, for the Bucks,

only to have Stroud do what he did. And he was tremendous in the clutch in the final minute in that game. And over and over again, he has demonstrated, especially with the game on the line that he can get things done. Now, I understand there's going to be criticism when you play poorly, but are we – seriously, are you really – writing him off now? Why would you be writing him off that he's

not the guy after one game of this year? Now it is a big stage. Let's see what this looks like tonight, but that's silly. That's silly to me. Just from the talent that I saw two years ago that's there, you guys would know

better to me, better than me, about this, but this, I mean, this should be a highly entertaining game. I don't think it's unfair to say that the Texans are desperate to get a win. don't want to be O and two. Home opener for you guys. I still haven't figured out yet

how the Buccaneers have won the division four years in a row and won playoff games, and they're on the road for the first two games. I don't ever recall like Kansas City and Philadelphia and the Patriots when they used to win, ever having to open up with the first two on the road after they had one and one and one. But I digress. Nonetheless, we are

here, and let's see what this looks like tonight against the Texas. Well, the Saints, Panthers, and falcons sucking have certainly helped Tampa Bay win that division a lot, but I digress. Are you familiar with the AFC East for the 20-year run of Tom Brady? Oh, yeah. You're talking about sucking divisions.

Go ahead. Continue. I wanted to flip to the other side because Baker Mayfield, I mean, look, everybody deserves a second chance. And we've seen this across the NFL over the years. Some guys just need a different change of scenery. And it has worked since ever since he stepped foot there in Tampa. He's been fantastic for them.

But I go back to week one, I mean, they were very fortunate to get out of Atlanta with that victory. I still don't know how they wanted because you look at the numbers and Baker 17 to 32 for 167. The leading Russia was Baker Mayfield were 39 yards. Bucky Irving got clogged up. How did they get that win? And is it just a tribute to gutting it out anyway, somehow, some way? That's it, the last part of what you said, because they took advantage of the opportunities.

They scored touchdowns when they had to, including the red zone on three occasions. And look, I mean, one other thing that we can get into for this game is the Bucs are without one of the best tackles in football, if not the best tackling football, Tristan works. He didn't play in the game last week. He is not going to play tonight. They hope to have him back after a knee procedure done in June. They hope to have him back for the home opener next weekend against the Jets.

So that's Advantage Texans tonight for Will Allen coming off the end. But what it did is the Buccaneers had to shuffle the left side of the line. They elected to move the center Graham Barton out to left tackle. He had played left tackle at Duke his last two years in the ACC. He played great at center last year, different position, obviously. Well, they moved him to left tackle for this game because they worked on it in training camp and liked what he could do. They moved the left guard to the center, and they plugged a brand-new left guard in.

So three positions were different on the offensive. line, and that affected some things, but they held up pretty well in a hostile, loud environment, not being able to hear the audibles and that kind of stuff. And it's going to be loud again tonight, and they're going to go with that same offensive line set for this game tonight. So I think it's admirable. They drove right down the field in the final minute in Atlanta to retake the lead and then hold the Falcons off on the missed field goal at the very end that could have tied it. So anyway, you don't apologize for road wins. this. You don't apologize for road wins, and the Bucks did gut it out. And I would look for

Mayfield to have a better night tonight. We'll see against the Houston defense, but I think they figured some things out here after week one. Remember, the Buccaneer starters basically didn't play the entire preseason. So week, I don't know what the case was for the Texans. You guys can educate me. So week one is almost like a full-scale dress rehearsal preseason game as a regular season game, because you haven't been playing. It's like a rehearsal for the next 16 weeks. So let's see if the bucks are better tonight in that regard. Yeah, it was a limited

snaps for the Texan and the preseason is at a well. But I think mirrored in what you're talking about is the Texans shuffling a lot of their offensive line and going up a pretty formidable defensive line. How did you feel about the defensive performance of the Buccaneers in week one and

how they can follow that up this week? All right, so it was not great. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that it was great. They were decent. They got to stop when they had to at the end. So on the defensive line, the addition that you want to pay attention to is Hassan Reddick. Reddick, the former Philadelphia Eagle, Reddick, who had the nightmare hold out with the Jets last year, and he only played half the season on the one-year deal, and then they allowed him to leave.

So he has signed a cap-friendly incentive-laden deal with the Bucks, and he's an outstanding edge rusher. Let's see if he makes a difference. He got in for a sack on Michael Pennix last week. We're looking for this guy to be something like a 10-12-sac guy on this defensive line, and if he can be, it's going to help. You got two guys in the middle, Vita Vaya, who is as big as a school building at defensive tackle and is a Pro Bowl caliber player next to a number one pick

and Kalaja Cancee out of pit. That one-two on the defensive line, that will be problems for the Texans and the run game. And then the Buccaneers are strong in the middle of the defense with Levante David, future Hall of Fame caliber linebacker here that not a lot of NFL across the board knows about but the guys had 11-100 tackle seasons in his career

and then a guy from your area in Antoine Winfield Jr. At safety, Pro Bowl caliber safety in the middle of the defense will knock your block off and he's also excellent in coverage so the bucks are strong in the middle of this defense tonight against the Texans. Yeah, that was the one guy that worries me

in that secondary because there's always something about those hometown guys. When they come back here and they're on another team. They like to show up and show out. And Antoine Winfield, Jr., certainly been one of those that's, he's been great. I mean, ever since he fell to them in the second round, 2020, he's been a stalwart on that secondary. And just one of those guys that worries me if I'm C.J. Stroud and the Texans' offense. But is it as simple to say this, TJ, with two pretty good defenses? I mean, like, if the, if the Texans can hold the bucks under, I don't know, say 20 points, like they have a pretty good chance of winning this one?

I think that, yeah, that's fair. And it was a low-scoring back-and-forth game in Atlanta, and obviously Houston lost, what was it, 14-9 in a close game against the Rams. So I don't know. I mean, the game that you're referring to two years ago was in the 30s, right? It was, what, 37-31 or whatever ended up being? So I don't know that it will be that kind of game tonight. I look for Mike Evans.

He had a good game, not a great game last week. Mike Evans could be a big deal with you to try to double-team him. and this rookie that you haven't asked me about a Mecca, Abuka from Ohio State. Yeah, Stroud's former teammate. Okay, so there you go. And Stroud will be the first one to tell you, that guy comes out of the room with Marvin Harrison Jr. And Garrett Wilson and Jackson Smith and Jigba,

and all of those are NFL contributors. And I know it's only one game, but fellas, he did not look like a rookie at all last week. And yes, there may be some ups and downs in this rookie season, but he looks ready to go. And he's a weapon. And the Buccaneers, again, have two backs in the backfield that are weapons that can both catch the ball. So Baker doesn't have a shortage of people to get the ball to.

Let's see if he can get it to them tonight. Well, you also haven't mentioned the Texans' best offensive weapon. That would be kicker Kimei Fairbairn. Well, he's been a weapon. You remember what happened in the game two years ago, though, when he got hurt, right? Dario Gunboale. You remember this? Yeah, Darry Gubo Wai still on the roster.

So he's ready to get some kicks in. That's a former Tampa Bay Buccaneer. And the truth is I'm standing there in that game two years ago at halftime when Fairbaird had gotten hurt. And so they come out of the locker room and suddenly Darre is trying 25 and 30-yard field goals. And I'm like, that's not an accident. They're not screwing around two or three minutes before the second half kickoff. That's because they're going to have him kick extra points.

And sure enough, that's what happened in the second half. And again, that guy's a former Buccaneer running back from back 7, 8 years ago, still around in the league. So wild twist on that. Who had that on the bingo card? That Dory was a kicker, but he was a couple of years ago against the bucks. Well, Kami Fairbairns back and you should be scared, T.J. Buccaneers Radio, sideline reporter, T.J. Reeves. I appreciate the time.

How do you feel this playing out before we let you go? Well, obviously, I do the post-game show, so I want a Buccaneer win. I'm going to say that every week on this stuff. I'm looking forward to whether the Buccaneer defense can do a better job of getting after C.J. Stroud. And Todd Bowles loves the blitz with that. That'll be a factor in this game. Let's see. Should be entertaining.

And again, if the Buccaneers get this two road wins to start the season, you talk about playing with house money, that would be the case. All right. T.J. Reeves, Buccaneers, Radio, sideline. Appreciate the time. And I hope you lose. The feeling is mutual. You always be well on Monday. All right.

Thanks, T. I appreciate it. T.J. Reeves, appreciate the time from him breaking down Buccaneers and Texans. You want to talk some bucks and Texans? You can do that. 713-7190 is your phone number. 713-212-5-790. But when we come back, it's time for to tell the truth, a Monday staple here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. That was my feeble attempt at a Matt Thomas impression. Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Mad Thomas Show with Ross. Matt is out. Gordy is here, but the show goes on with staple segments like,

to tell the truth. Where today I will be giving you four opinions, write this down, guys, four opinions, I believe one. I have it on my Google Doc highlighted. I will show you, I'm not touching it. Hands are up, and then I will show it to Gordy or I can, oh, hold on, I won't show you. Oh, you didn't see that, did you? No, no. Okay, good.

I'm an idiot. All right. I got four opinions. I only believe one of them. Here we go. So to tell the truth, only one you believe. Only one truth. One truth and three lies, folks.

You're on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. All right, guys. I understand they took two out of three against the Braves over the weekend. But the Mariners will not lose. You look at these probabilities as well. I mean, you're talking about Jack Leiter, Merrill Kelly, Jake de Grom. I'm not feeling good about this series. I'm certainly not feeling good about how they match up against the Mariners.

Framber continues to be bad. You only have one reliable starting pitcher. Bullpen is shaky as well. Line up has just not been consistent. It hurts me to say. The Astros finished third in the American League West. I know. Astros third in the American League West.

That is opinion number one. Opinion number two. Framber Valdez, there's been a lot of talk about him signing a long-term contract elsewhere in the off-season. He's just not been good enough. He has been inconsistent. He's been giving up a bunch of runs. He's lost himself a lot of money in this off-season. I don't think he signs a long-term deal anywhere.

I don't think he takes the Astros qualifying offer. I don't think he comes back to the Astros, even though they could desperately need a starting pitcher on a one-year deal. So it could be with the Astros, but I think overall he's going to sign a one-year prove-it deal in the off-season, probably not in Houston, Texas. I will say not in Houston, Texas. Framber Valdez, one-year-proved deal.

The way that he's pitched, he's pitched himself out of a long-term contract, act. One near deal for him in the offseason. Not with the Houston Astros. Number three, this also hurts me. Man, this, you know what? Who came up with these opinions? This sucks. Arch Manning's going to be benched at some point in this season. That takes this long words. There's, look, he's gotten progressively worse. Against Ohio State, he was okay. Then he looked hurt against San Jose State. Then you're even, the more of a favorite they get the worse he looks. Maybe they'll be okay at Florida, but you got big games with Oklahoma.

Vanderbilt is no gimmy on the road against Georgia, Arkansas A&M. At some point, I'm not saying he's going to be benched for good. At some point, though, like the way that Arch came in for Quinn Ewers last year, Arch is going to be benched because he has looked that poor for the Texas Longhorns this season. Now, I'm not saying not due to injury. If he is benched due to injury, that doesn't count. I'm saying benched due to poor play at some point this season, Arch Manning. That's number three.

Number four. I know it was a bad week one. I know it was a sophomore slump in 2024 for C.J. Stroud. But by the end of the year, Ray and Miami who called us other people who are doubting C.J. Stroud, he will answer the questions. I'm not saying he'll have 100% of the backing of everyone, but there will be little doubt that C.J. Stroud is the franchise quarterback for the Houston, Texas.

Nico Collins is going to continue to be good. Jadens and Jalens and all those guys, one of them is going to emerge. He's going to have enough weapons. And C.J. Stroud will have the full backing of Houston as the franchise quarterback of the Houston, Texas. By when, season's in? By the seasons end.

Okay, okay. Okay, to recap, four opinions. I only believe one. Astros finished third in the West. Framber Valdez sends a one-year prove-a-deal in the offseason, but not in Houston. Arch Manning is benched at some point for Texas, not for injury. And by the end of the year, C.J. Stroud will have the full backing as the Houston Texans franchise quarterback. I only believe one, folks.

So start with the first You said the Mariners will not Just not lose and the Astros will finish third in AOLS I don't think you believe that I think you are a Believer in the Astros Them getting this homestand against the Rangers And the Mariners

I think you think the Astros will Finish at least set Talking through Jonathan What do you think Jonathan? No I completely agreeing with Gordy And on to the Arch Manning He's looked that bad So I

It's been really bad. You struggling against U-Tib is a problem. Well, let me come back to the same. Number two, Framber doesn't get a long-term deal anywhere. We'll sign a one-year prove-it deal. It's not crazy, but people, we get to the off-season, and teams get stupid. So I think

somebody's going to be stupid and give him a three-year-four-year deal. Yeah, I think one year is a little too low, especially how he's played during the regular season. It's believable, though. Arch will be bent at some point. They don't have a better option behind him. Matthew Caldwell, came over from Troy. Troy Legend. What do you have 13 touchdowns, eight picks

last year for Troy? It was not good. They just did. This isn't a Quinn Ewer's art situation. There's nobody better behind him. Trey Owens. So, they're riding with orange no matter what. And then the last one, little doubt, C.J. Strauss the franchise quarterback of Texas, I mean,

I'm kind of in that camp right now. So to me, that's the most believable. So I'm going to go with four, although it wouldn't shock me if it's two. What are you going to go with, Jonathan? Four is a good pick, but I think a one-year

provider for Frombard, I'm going with two. You're going with two. I'm going with two. All right. All right, which one is highlighted, Gordy? Four. Gordy got it. Number four is correct. You overthought it. You smiled when I said the Frumber thing, so I was like, oh, that was a good

trip though. Those are good. Oh, okay, thank you. I appreciate you that, Jonathan. All right. We've got to take quick break. David, we see you on hold. Anybody wants to get in? Yeah, your prediction. Texans versus Buccaneers. How is it going to play out? You also want to talk some Astros as they have a huge series coming up tonight against Texas Rangers. It's a big sports Monday here in Houston, Texas. We're talking about it on the Matt Thomas show with Ross at 713-212-5-790.

7-13-212-5-790. Brian on Twitter bringing up, and I had neglected to mention the whole show. That's my bad. Fighting Texas Aggies. That was a thrilling win on the road. Yeah. Over Notre Dame. What was it?

41 to 40 was the final? Yeah. I'm a little... I'll say this about the Ayes. They're 3-0. It was a great win. They got a buy week this week already. I'm a little worried about the defense, though.

Like that's Mike Elko's calling card. And for them to give up... Because they give a bunch of yards and points to Utah State and UTSA the first two weeks. And then how many to give up? the other game, 40, whatever else? So, again, great win, gutty, and the offense has been awesome. Marcel Reed, like,

they didn't run the football great because the passing game's been so good. The additions of Mario Craver and who's the other game, K.D. Concepcion, they've been awesome. Craver had a 200-yard game, but I'm just worried can A&M continue to win with a passing game

and not dominant defense? Yeah, I'm supposed to go to Texas in A&M preseason. I was, I was like, Yeah, it's going to be nice. Good wig. Big win over the Aggies. Now I'm like, oh, no. Oh, it's in Austin. Yeah, it's in Austin. I'm supposed to go to the game with my brother. So I'm going to go, no matter what, even if the Longhorns are like 14-underdogs or something like in the game. You've got to support your squad, but I'm not as feeling as confident as I was, say, preseason that I am now.

But big win for the Aggies. They got another big one coming up this week at home against the Auburn Tagas. No, that's next week. Oh, I'm sorry, that's next week. They've got to buy. Okay. Auburn has to go. It's open week, sir. Auburn's 3-0. They've played like South Alabama and like a bunch of nobodies. They did to be Baylor in week one.

But they have to go to Oklahoma this weekend. That's like one of the big marquee games. And then for saying them the next week. Like that's a pretty rough stretch. Such is life in the SEC. Texans playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tonight. You guys want to get in. We're talking about it.

713-2125. 790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5. 5-7-90. Go ahead. I want to bring this up real quick. Do you remember, do you remember that epic Peach Bowl between Georgia and Ohio State in the playoff semifinal on New Year's? Yes. Just to remind you, it was Stetson Bennett making the big plays for Georgia. Their wide receipt, Brock Bowers was awesome in that game. Ladd-McConkey played in that game. These are guys who are now in the NFL doing their thing. But for the Ohio State Buckeyes

that night, it was C.J. Stroud, throwing for 348 yards. Four touchdowns, his leading receiver that night, Ameca Abuka, who will be playing tonight for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Ohio State has been-Marvin Harrison was second in receiving yards that night. Straight up wide receiver factory, Ohio State. As as T.J. Reeves brought up. Oh, and their tight end was Cade Stover. Kate Stover?

Well, he's got a broken foot. Yeah. He's not doing much of anything. But just got a- Jackson, Smith and Jigba wasn't in that game, was he? He was in the year before? I think he came Before or after

I don't know He had a pretty big day yesterday I think for the Seahawks At least he had one big catch Yeah But it's just funny Because we remember that game Because it was like

Oh that was the game that really I mean Stroud People already knew him But that was the game That's a top five pick In the NFL That was the coming out party And that's what everybody said

Hey if the tape from the Georgia game Is the real CJ Stroud Then he's going to be a star And well he was a star In his first year Not so much in his second year Will he emerge and solidify himself as the

franchise quarterback for the Houston Texans. I have said yes. I do think so. But tonight will be, as TJ Reeves was bringing up, like this defensive line for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, it's no joke. You went up against one of the best defensive lines in football, but like

Vita Vaya eats in the middle there. He mentioned Hassan Redick has been very good for them. I can remember previewing last time these teams played and how worried you were about Vita Vaya. Yeah, Vita Vevae has just been a beast for like ever. He's, I mean, that that defense where they, when they won the Super Bowl with Tom Brady, who only threw for like

230 yards in that game, people forget. They won that game because of that Buccaneers' defense. Like, they were dominant. Oh, and that Georgia went over House State, guy who had a tackle on that game, Camari Lasser. Okay. Now Texan. Well, well, they all got to perform tonight.

That'd be nice. How do we feel about Baker Mayfield? It's great story. I mean, he's been... Yeah, but I mean, on the field. How scared of you are, are you of Baker Mayfield? He's turned out to be pretty good. I was one of those doubting him.

And then even when he had the great run, they were Tampa. It was like, oh, this is Cinderella and it's going to clock against strike midnight. I think he's just a damn good quarterback. It's their system. Back-to-back 4,000 yards passing seasons. 41 touchdowns last year. Yeah, that's going to go down this year. Even as good as week one, he wasn't that great, still three touchdowns.

So I'm not down. I'm not going to say, oh, he sucks. That tension should kill him tonight. he won me a fantasy championship last year, so he'll always have a spot in my heart. I appreciate you, Baker Mayfield. David in Vegas, holding longest here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas.

What's up, David? Hey, Array, Gory. You know, so I was looking for an angle to bet the game tonight, the Texan's game, and I just, I don't really like betting. I don't need to bet the game because I've got plenty of rooting interests, but I don't like that. Under feels good, David.

You don't like the under? Well, you know, Under feels good at almost every, I don't like betting on against the Texans, and I don't feel good enough about it in their bet for them. So total is a good way to go. And you look at the Texans and the way they're constructed right now, and they figure that under always makes sense with that defense and with that bad offensive line.

But, you know, everybody in the world sort of knows that, and I don't really feel like I got an edge playing that angle. Also, there are a couple other problems. First of all, overs have just been romping this weekend. I don't know if you'd notice that, like, 10 and 4, after going only 4 and 12, the opening weekend. everything went under the opening weekend. There's also the last part of the last two teams,

last time these two teams met, they scored 76 points between them. So I'm not nuts about betting the under on this thing. But there's a prop bet, and you kind of alluded to this earlier when you were joking about Tommy Fairbearer and being the most valuable Texan. You can bet over two and a half field goals for the Texan. Oh, slam it!

Slam it, David! That feels like that's a given. they will give you two to one odds for that you get plus 200 you get plus 200 over two and a half hill go let's go to the bank and I'm down the trigger I pulled it already

if you can find a place to get down on that that's my contribution for the day all right thank you David every every time I've made a prediction for something specific to bet on on the Matt Thomas program I think I'm like 0 and 5 over the last 10 years so you know but there's that that's fine

I forgive you David thanks a lot appreciate it we got to hit the top of the hour. Thank you for getting in. Yeah. Oh, two and a half. I mean, that feels about right. That feels like money.

Kami Fairburn hit that in the first half last week. And I just think it's going to be a low-scoring game. This one. I don't necessarily have entered a full-on prediction of the game. But I do think the Texans are going to win. I think somewhere on like 20 to 17, something like that, win for the Texans. Maybe even with Kami Fairbren with a late,

although that's two field goals. All right, fine. 19 to 16. Yeah. Houston, Texas. I feel like that's pretty strong. Somewhere around there. All right, we've got to take a top of the hour break. Hour number three of the Matt Tom.

It's already out of hour number three. Where has the show gone? It's blowing by. You want to get in, you can. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number. 7-1-3-1-2-5-7-90. The news at noon is next on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Number three of the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. He is out at the broadcaster meetings for the NBA rocket season coming up in just a month in change. But we are in the thick of an American League West Division race. Also Texans and Buccaneers will all be part of the news at noon here on Sports Talk 790. Well, that's right, Chris Gordy. I do have the news to bring you as we will discuss. the Astros starting a big series against the Texas Rangers tonight. Jack Leiter versus Jason Alexander,

710 first pitch here on Sports Talk 790. But they lost yesterday to the Atlanta Braves, 8 to 3. Framber Valdez, how are we feeling? Just four innings pitched, six hits, five earned runs, four walks. It was a disaster fifth inning for him as he walked the first three hitters. then he gave up a single that scored a couple of runs, then he gave up another single, and then he was promptly pulled with a game at 5 to 2,

did not record an out there in the 5th. Yeah, we can't blame it on Cesar Salazar. He's not even up here anymore. And, you know, I mean, also, it's funny that, like, unfortunately, it was like full count walk, full count walk. The first one was on four pitches, which was concerning. But he couldn't find the strike. so. I mean, the thing that sucks about this,

Fromber in May, an ERA of 236. Fromber in June, 174. Fromber in August, 216. And three starts in September, Ross. He has an area of 788. You're going the wrong way, Frumber. We would have been fine if you pitched like this in June.

In September, we need you clicking on all cylinders. And he's just not doing them. He's normally been in an Exeter. Obviously, just has been shaky down the stretch. but Joe Espada lining up his rotation to where it's going to be Hunter Brown and Frambervaldez. It looks like Friday and Saturday with the Mariners in town this weekend. How are we feeling? I mean, he still is like on paper.

He's still supposed to be one of your best pitchers. So like we need him to be good. But like what's the confidence level? Not great. All right. Well, we'll see how that goes. Again, Astros, Texas Rangers 710 first pitch. at 6 p.m.

As it is a big sports night here in Houston, you will have the Houston Texans facing off against Tampa Bay Buccaneers. We had talked about this, Gordy, two and a half-point favorites are the Texans. 42 and a half is the total. Now, if you want to look at the Texans'

opponent last week, that was the Los Angeles Rams. They had a very good week on the road against the Tennessee Titans as they got a victory there by double digits. So do you find a little bit more more solace and how bad the Texans looked in week one that the Rams went on the road and effectively dominated the Titans with a 33 to 19 victory.

Yeah, I mean, I said a long losing week one at the Rams. There's no shame in that. But that's where I say like tonight, yeah, this this has to be, your office has to look better at home and the comforts of your own home, primetime football, home crowd should be rocking. And like, this is just one. I'll be, look, win or lose, if the offense doesn't look good and they struggle and struggle to sack five times,

you have some major concerns coming out of this. You should look better at home. Yeah, yeah. Is it a must-win game, Gordy? I mean, you don't want to follow in two. That doesn't bode well for anybody. No, it's week two. It's not a must-win game.

The freaking Colts are two and O. Want them running away with the division already? Well, unfortunately, some bad news. from Adam Schaefter. Cincinnati Bingles quarterback Joe Burrow LSU legend needs toe surgery that will sideline him a minimum

three months. Burroughs suffering the turf toe injury in the first half of Cincinnati's game Sunday against a Jacksonville Jaguars. The Bengals still won that game with Jake Browning as their quarterback, correct? Yeah. 31 to 27

Bengals were still able to get the victory. Honestly, Jake Browning in some spot starts, hasn't looked horrible. Now he did throw three picks, and of course he is no Joe Burrow, but Jamar Chase still had a big game, 14 catches for 165 yards and a touchdown,

and they were able to get the win against the Jacksonville Jaguars. But, I mean, that three months basically puts him out to what, mid-December? Basically, three months from now would be December 15th, yes. Can they keep their head above water? I don't know. I mean, a two-and-o starts good.

Yeah, look, you've banked, So if you go, can you find seven more wins without Joe? I don't know. You got three months to get six or seven wins. And then when Burrow comes back, maybe. But it is funny because remember, was that last year or year before they started like 0 in 3 or 0 and 4 with Burrow? You know?

So it's like, it's just funny how it works. I don't know. Jake Browning's been good. We'll see what happens there. Big college football weekend. And also, you know what? Let's get some LSU news for you. Payton Houston, coveted quarterback,

going to stay home, commits to LSU. How happy are you, Gordy? I saw that. Somebody said, they listed him as six foot tall. Somebody else said, no, he is 5.11? He is 5.10. Like, they basically said his favorite player is Kyler Murray because he's built like Kyle and Murray.

So that's not encouraging? Also, I'd never get incurring. 2026 signing date is in the first week of December this year. A kid's signing for 2020. you know how far off that is. The kid's going to decommit seven more times before then. So there's no reason to get excited. College football action.

Texas is hanging in with a big win over Notre Dame on the road in a thriller. You also have LSU now, 3 and O as they defeated. Is DJ Lagway that bad or is the LSD defense just that good? A little bit of both. But I think the LSU defense looked pretty good. It was discouraging, though, because of that dominant win week one over Clems. and then to see Clemson look like crap the last two weeks, you're like, oh, how good was that win?

But it is what it is. I think LSU is pretty good. I think A&M's pretty good. About Georgia with the road win? Georgia, a huge win for them. I think Texas is going to be fine because of the defense. We need Arch to get his head out of his rear end. Okay.

What did I tell you before the season, though? What did you tell me before the season? I said this is going to be an up and down roller coaster season for Arch. I think Texas will lose three games. They won't make the playoff, but it's going to set up for 2026, where he is the preseason highest favorite. His fourth year.

He's the preseason high as a favorite this year. We were just, we were ahead of the game. We were a little too far ahead. You know if that happens? You can be one year early on somebody. He's going to arrive just on time next time. Now I'm sad.

By the way, how about, well, at least things aren't going. the way UCLA is for UCLA head coach Deshawn Foster has already been fired. That moron. They're 0.3. What did they ask him at media days and he like bumbled through

something about Los Angeles? I didn't see that. But Deshawn Foster UCLA head coach already 0.3 and now you were telling me this earlier, Gordy. There are odds already for the next UCLA head coach? Yeah, John Gruden

is the... John Gruden. So, Virginia Tech also fired Brett Key, Pry, whatever his name is. Now, Key's at Georgia Tech, whatever the Virginia Tech guy is. They fired him. They're terrible. John Gruden, the latest Vegas odds, is the favorite to land either the UCLA or Virginia Tech jumps.

There's no way. You can't hide that guy. He's never coasting college. I would be shocked. Hey, Mike. And who did you say the second favorite was? For which one, UCLA? Yes. Who did I tell you? I forgot already. I believe it was Coach Prime.

Oh, Dion, yeah. Coach Prime going to L.A. I mean, that makes sense on its face, but not for UCLA. Look, it's probably hard. Can you turn them around? You're the college football expert. Can UCLA be turned around? Like, they've never really been a power.

You got to get recruits. USC's getting all the recruits right now. If you can go in there and get the recruits, right? Yeah, but look at what Dion's doing in Colorado. Like, I think he, I think UCLA might actually be a better fit for him. Well, yeah, they got their asses beat by the Cougars. Didn't even mention the University of Houston. Cougars. Congratulations to them. Honor

friggin Wegman. He's been great, man. He's the goat. In front of 37,000 raucous fans at TD, ECU Stadium. It was a good friend. I talked to some people there. Cole Thompson was there. Was he? He called me. He couldn't even no, he was, they're covering it, a credential,

but he called me. He couldn't even get to the parking lot. Well, they always have parking issues. An hour before a kickoff because, you know, there are just so many people there. So, great job by, Coach Fritz, what, first time, three and O since, I want to say, 2017, something like that. So this thing, keep it on to Couges, man.

They're going to get, they get a by week this week. Then they have to go to Oregon State next week. Now, going to Cervalus is typically tough, but this Oregon State team stinks. They should go win that one. And guess what? Sets the table, Ross, for a monster matchup against Texas Tech coming up in a couple weeks. That's here in Houston. That is here.

I've been invited to go to that game in tailgates. might be doing that. Extend the plus one. A neutral party. Okay. Okay, we'll see what I can do. I'll see what I can do. All right, we're going to take a quick break here.

That was the news at noon here on Sports Talk 790. A couple of all in hold of promise we'll get to you next at 713, 212-5-790. Gordy hanging out until 1 o'clock. Adam Wexler will hang out then and then you guys on the phones at 7-13-212-5-790. 1220 p.m here on Sports Talk 790. Ross via real with you On the Matt Thomas show with Ross He is out

He'll be back Thursday At the broadcaster meetings For the NBA He'll be back Then in the meantime Chris Gordy is hanging out Appreciate him Adam Wex shall be hanging out

We'll get a cast of characters I mean it just takes so many people To fill Matt's shoes So Wex coming up at 1 o'clock Gordy hanging out now you guys can get in if you want 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-212 5-7-90. So

able to watch a lot of NFL football yesterday. And it's funny, like, for example, when the Astros can't knock in any runs, and then you watch other teams play, and then they're knocking in runs and scoring position, it makes you upset. That's kind of what was happening to me yesterday. It's like these other teams are coming up with big third downs.

They're making plays. They're not having any sacks. And I know it's one week right now, on the road against a very good Rams defense, but I just watching a lot of teams as we had who was a David in Vegas was mentioning a lot of the games going over this week. I mean, it was like pinball machine scoring happening in a lot of games over the weekend as far as the NFL. I mean, Patriots, Dolphins had a bunch of points, Jaguars, bingles. You see that Giants Cowboys game? That game was nuts.

Russell Wilson was throwing for 450 yards and three touchdowns in that game. A lot of points being scored. And a lot of times you can have that happen with a lot of unders in week one. As T.J. reads, we had the Buccaneers sideline reporter bringing it up. Like, they don't play guys in the preseason anymore. So guys got a little getting into a little bit of a better rhythm. So that's what we're hoping for tonight is a better rhythm at home, able to make some more adjustments and be able to hear your own guys offensively and score some points and put some points on the board.

That's the only thing that's going to really raise my confidence about the tech. for the rest of the season. Not that it all rests on tonight, but seeing some points on the board be nice. Yeah, and that's, that was more of the frustrating part week one. We know the Rams have a good defense, but to only score nine, you know, I think

if you're, if you're, if you're, Will Anderson Jr. and Daniel Hunter and those guys, you're going, guys, we held Matthew Stafford and the Rams to freaking 14 points. I think you'd help us out here a little bit. CJ Stroud, all these weapons you got on offense? Could you help us out a little bit? So,

you know, look, it kind of seems like this, look at the games last year, Ross, some of those games they played. They beat the Bears 19 to 13. They basically lived in the 20s all of last year. There was a lot of 24 to 20 type wins, you know. So like, that's what I'm expecting tonight. It's something where they can kind of just piece it together. And when they were in a lot of one score games.

I would love for them to touch 30 points offensively. But how many times do they do that last year? I think once against Dallas, once in New England, I think that's it. And I think in one or both of those games, they had defensive touchdowns. Yeah. It's just how this team is built. They are defense is the strength. And it's crazy to say because of how good Stroud was his rookie season, we all thought, oh, he's already a top 10 quarterback.

And then last year kind of took a little bit of a step back along. Maybe not. And I get it. It's the offensive line. There's a lot of people other, oh, you can't hate on CJ because he's, the old line sticks, CJ made some questionable decisions last year. I wonder, let's talk about the run game. Because Nick Chubb, now he was able to get a little bit going in the end of the game last week.

But again, that was also, you needed a touchdown on demand. Rams were playing a little bit back on their back foot. And they were a little bit soft in the middle as far as the run game. And it going there. Do you think we see any of more of Woody Marks or Damien Pierce to try to get some kind of spark going in the run game? for the Texans? I mean, yeah, get the screen game going a little bit. Get those guys out in space because

there's not much room to run in the A gap, B gap. I mean, it's you know, Chup's still average close to five yards of carry. And C.J. obviously tucked and ran a couple times, and that's what he's just going to have to do. When there's open space, if it's first and 10, C.J. rolls

out and everybody's covered and there's open space to get four, just take it. Take what the defense is giving you because make second down more manageable. I think especially it felt like in the second half of last year he wasn't doing that as much. I honestly don't believe he was at 100%. I mean, just the way that he was basically since that Jets game

where he was just getting mulled and he was limping all over the place, I just didn't have a super high confidence him on the move. But that's how he was looking so good in that playoff win against the Chargers. He was making plays with his feet. He was taken off and he talked about that. I need to go ahead and be more decisive when I see something in front of me that I can go ahead. ahead and run and just take those yards, take those

eight to ten yards and then get slide. Don't take a big hit. You don't have to be. Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, just take those yards and take what the defense is giving you. Make some plays with your feet and keep the chains moving. I do think it's pretty crazy. I mean, Chubbs' longest run was a 13-yard run.

Ogunville, he had a seven-yard run. Damien Pierce, three carries. His longest run was two. Woody Marks, three carries. His longest run was two. Yeah. I mean, obviously, you can also have situations we'd have to like break down run by run where sometimes things are perfectly blocked or something you know we used to do that what with like ben taiton aryan foster whoever like hey the yards precarries higher for this guy you got to go with this guy's like it's not always that easy

necessarily but yeah if somebody's getting a lot of opportunities and you're never seeing much of anything happen then that that's a concern and what the hell's going on with joe mixon i think we still haven't got an update right does the fact they haven't really signed anybody or made a trade for anybody make you think that maybe it's not going to be an extended year-long absence like some people are thinking or speculating? Well, I think that's how you got Chubb. You got Chubb because they knew

oh, he's going to be sidelined for a bit. Yeah, but you've got a guy who's whose knees are about 45 years old. Would it shock you though if Chubb went out there tonight had a big game? Yes. It's 100 yards? 100 yards on how many carries? 25? No. If he gets 100 yards on 16 carries, I would be shocked. He's not doing that.

Exactly. I mean, can he pile up some volume? I think so. Yeah. And he's a good veteran guy, but you need special players in the NFL, like, players you just can't defend. Players where it's like, you know what, there's nothing we could do there. That's what wins games more consistently. And the Texans don't really have anybody doing that, certainly not in the run game.

I just think, though, if we're going to sit here and bitch about the offensive line, I am. There's nothing you can do about it. Again, this is the group you had. Yeah, they can play together more and they can get better that way. Other than that, I'm not feeling great. All right, 713, 212, 570 is the phone number. Those you on hold will get to you next. We're going to take quick bottom of the hour break.

It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Some Texans and Buccaneers talk coming with you guys on the phones after this quick break. All right, 1232 here on Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. It is a Texans, Buccaneers Monday. It is an Astros, Rangers Monday, as well. well talking about this during the break. As of right now,

the American League playoff picture has the Astros as the six-seed, last team in. They're two games ahead of the Rangers, two and a half ahead of the Cleveland Guardians, and they would be going on the road to take on the Mariners. How are we feeling? Yeah, I wouldn't feel good about that.

Me either. But then again, I mean, you're about to play them, so we'll see what you look like. It would piss me off to have those Mariners fans happy. I don't know why. I just hate Mariners fans. Because they're the worst. You know what they want.

I mean, right now, the four versus five is Yankees Red Sox. They want that more than anything. Well, of course. For a wild card series. But yeah, Astros, we'd have to go to Seattle. The tough part is, okay, you're a game back of Boston. You're, what, two and a half behind the Yankees? Mm-hmm.

Yet in the American League West, you're one game. back of Seattle. Yeah, win the division. I mean, I think the M.O. is still, you want to win this division. Win the division. Get the series at home. Yeah, because that basically guarantees you will be hosting. It's all laid out in front of you. Beat the Rangers, win the Rangers series, win the Mariners series,

and then beat the bad A's and the Bad Angels. That's it. Yeah. It's that easy. Just go ahead and do it. 713-212-5-790 here on Sports Talk 790. Renfro is holding longest. What's up, Renfro?

Hey, what's going on, guys? Look, you got it. I just want you to answer this question for me, Garda. You know, I'm looking at how could the Texas get a, I mean, you know, Texas had a first year officer coordinator with Bobby, and then they come back, son him or let him go, and they come back with another officer coordinator who has never called again, and this is, this is from my understanding,

never called again, it's his first time showing up to be an officer coordinator. So how can our expectations be very high of an offensive scheme or office when we got two guys who I thought they should have killed Bobby for what they let him go for if he took us at least to the playoffs for two straight years. But now we come back with a guy. We haven't trouble with an offensive line. We come back with a new guy who still got to do just as much as Bobby did or probably even better. And you're starting from scratch all over again, starting with someone who has never called a guy. game. His first game, if I'm not mistaken, it was called against now. Whether he being good or not, that's to be taken.

But we do know one thing. The officer line is still the way it is. So what's your opinion on that guard? Yeah, I mean, to keep harping on, he's never called a game before. He has been coaching football for 20 years. You know, he's been a tight-ins coach. He's been an offensive assistant. I mean, he's, he's been around the game a lot. He's a passing game coordinator with the Rams. So, you know, it's not like he's completely clueless in what he's doing. But this was the critique too when they hired Bobby Sloick. And I remember talking with Wex at the time was like, okay, when you have a rookie head coach

in Damico, do you really want a rookie OC as well? Is it better to go get us more seasoned veteran play caller? You know, the same thing here. Do you want to go with one of those journeymen OC that bounces from job to job? Or do you want to catch a rising star? And to me, I'm always going to try to catch a rising star. I'd rather go with a young, up-and-coming guy that you have a chance to spark something with as opposed to one of those old retreads where you know what you're getting.

I'd rather have somebody who is like what they have in Washington. They have Cliff Kingsbury or somebody who has failed, who is a great play caller, good schemer, but who has failed as a head coach and then be good because otherwise you're going to get what you've had so far. Is what you said, the young up-and-coming phenom, well, that guy's either going to get hired away or he's going to get fired. He's going to get fired. He's going to get fired. Would you rather Matt Nagy right now or? I don't know. I'm just trying to think of like a guy that

there's a retread kind of bouncing around. Like would you rather Matt Nagy or Nick Cayley? I'd rather Nick Cayley. Because again, it's a guy that he's been very successful his last couple stops. Like, let's see what he can do. What about somebody? I'm just trying to pull up some offensive

coordinators. Like Zach Robinson's a fired head coach. He's with the Falcons. Their offense is doing pretty good. I don't know. What's Doug Peterson doing these days? You know what I'm saying? Like somebody who has been fired and that you could just hire as your defensive coordinator and then you kind of just don't have to worry about it how about what Wade Phillips came like at the end of his career

Michael Flores with the Rams That's a guy that's been you know he's he's bounced around a bunch of different jobs Yeah he was never had Matt LaFleur has been the head coach right not Michael Flore right he's bounced around a bunch of kubiaks out there in NFC West Yeah how many kubiaks are there But I think with the Niners Clint with the Seahawks Something like a

Cliff Kingsbury would be perfect to me to where he's like, you know what, I've been a head coach multiple times. It hadn't worked out. Look at the league. Like a lot of them are going with, like, you know, we don't have many Schottenheimer's and, you know, like it

feels like they're going with a lot of the up-and-comers. Josh McDaniels with the Patriots comes to mind. I'm out on him. You're out on him. Would you rather Josh McDaniels right now or I'll go with Nick Cayley? You'll go with Nick Cayley, but I mean, we don't know. How's he, Jim Bob Cooters with the Colts? I'm just looking around.

I look pretty good. It's getting the most out of Daniel Jones. Chip Cayley. I'm not a huge Greg Roman guy, although it kind of was when he was hot with the Ravens. Joe Brady seems to be working out for the bills. Yeah, that's true. Since they fired, who did they fire before him?

I can't remember. Guy that was a Frank Reich or somebody. No, it was a former quarterback. Yeah, some former quarterback. I can't remember who it was. But, I mean, look, if you're going with the up-and-coming guy, it's just going to be a turnstile. He's either going to get hired away or, oh, we'll see.

How long to meek-or-R-Ions? Because remember of the year one, it was, oh, my God, we're going to be able to keep Bobby Sloick. And then after, by year two, he sucks. So it's the same thing with Nick Cayley. Either he's going to be gold or you won't last long. Jason and Conroy, what's up? What's happening, my friends? Real quick on the Astros and now I'll get to the Texans.

You got to beat the Rangers because if I'm not mistaken, if it does get to that point down to the wild card and we don't take care of business. I believe they have the tiebreaker and the other team behind them also has a tiebreaker. So we've got to take care of business. Just that's what it is. Now, look, when it comes to the Texans and the game this weekend,

I pay attention to the NFC South a lot because I grew up a Saints fan. And with the Buccaneers, if you're going to beat them, you've got to beat them through the air because they're defense. They're run defense. is pretty much phenomenal.

And they're going to force you to, you know, go through the air, which is going to probably more than likely force them to double-team Nico Stroud because that's what they do. They double-team your best player. So it'll probably open up the door for some of these younger receivers in that court to either have a big game or either not have a big game. So it's going to be fun to watch this weekend. It's going to be fun to see what them younger guys do.

Thanks a lot, Jason. Yeah. And what Jason is talking about, basically everybody knows. You don't have to respect the run game right now. You don't have to respect their past protection. Nico Collins is their biggest threat. And everybody on both sides of the field knows that. Texans, what can you do?

That's why you really need Joe Mixing back. Because he just helped open this thing up last year. Even when there weren't good, right, he has such good vision, change of direction. He's got a good, he's just got. got like an instinct. He's a good instinctive runner where a lot of his biggest and best runs were not necessarily him, you know, running

for 25 yards. It was uh-oh, normal running back loses three yards. Joe Mixon turns that into a three-yard game and where you can kind of stay better on schedule offensively and he can find those creases and be better as far

as a running back than the other guys that they had. He's a good, he's a really good running back. He's a huge piece of this offense who is missing. That said, I think Chubb's got enough in the tank. He can be productive for you tonight. I think last week was just, you're running against a really good defensive front of the Rams in there.

Well, you're going to have a pretty good defensive front going up against, you know, going up against this Buccaneers team as well. And again, they're not going to have to respect your run game. They're going to, they're going to dare the Texans to run, I think, and try to beat them with their front four

and then go from there. Will the Texans be able to do it? Guess we'll take a look and find out tonight. 6 o'clock start for the Texans versus the Buccaneers. 713-212-5-790 is the phone number if you want to get in. 7-13-2125-790. A couple of you on hold will continue to get you guys. Adam Wexler is going to join us coming up at 1 o'clock.

Chris Gordy is hanging out as Matt Thomas is out at the NBA. What do you call it? Broadcaster meetings. He'll be back in a couple of days. In the meantime, we're hanging out with you folks. Astros and Rangers 710 Texans and Buccaneers 6 o'clock. It's a big sports night here in Houston, Texas, and we're talking about it on the Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 7-9.

Thank you, Stephen A. Or Frank Caliando doing Stephen A? Caliando does a better Stephen A than Stephen A does now. Hmm. Okay. I'll take your word for it. The ostentatiousness, the perfunctory, whatever he is. is like, I'll see him on, like, he's on Monday on first take, debating the weekend of sports.

And then, like, in the afternoon, he's on The View, and then he's on Fox News. And then he's on General Hospital. He's like, what in the world is he? Pick a lane, bro. I mean, he's a workaholic. I know a lot of people don't like the way, the way that, you know, his opinions and all that type of stuff. But you got to tip, the man's a hard worker. I also will say that I don't know if this business model for ESPN is going to work in stretching.

you signed somebody to a big deal and then you stretch them as thin as possible. Okay, Stephen A, we're going to put you on this, this, and this, and then we need you on the pregame for the NBA, then we need you this. I'm watching Saturday, Laura, what's her name? Rettledge. Laura Rutledge is in Baton Rouge Saturday morning, sweating her butt off, doing SEC Nation, talking all SEC in college football, and then immediately runs back up to Bristol to do NFL pregame on Sunday,

and then just on the sideline on Monday night football, like, and then you got Kirk Herb Street jetting over to the Amazon Thursday night NFL game then he's got to get back to the college town for college game day on Saturday morning and then get to the game where he's calling the game that night in a completely different state well you know these are corporate types you know

you downsize and then you give the people left more work I just like can we split his salary in half and give that salary to somebody else to do the other job I don't know I don't know man is there just such a limited pool of talent in this country that only three people can do eight jobs? Yeah, talk to Mickey Mouse about it.

I don't know. He's been downsizing. He's been making some cuts. All right, 7-13, 2-1-2-5-7-9. Some Le Corso money left out there. Well, that's true. They couldn't even,

weren't they flying them on Southwest? Didn't they have them like standby on Southwest? They also got over backup. Group C for Lee Corso. They've been over a backup for McAfee. That guy's going to have a heart attack one of these days. He's working all over the place, too. He gets so beat red in the face.

Yeah, is he going to be breaking down the NBA? too? Sure. Sure, why not? All right. Conroe, Conroe James holding longest here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. What's up, Conroe, James? Hey, long time, no C. And I'm enjoying the show. So I want you guys educated opinion. Obviously, you know more than me about sports, but I am concerned a little bit about the mindset of Willie Fritch and our great quarterback, Wigman. Okay, so I listened to the press conference with Willie Fritz. He said when you're not running your quarterback, it's 10 against 11.

So obviously, he's looking at the quarterback position, not only for passing, but also for attack. Okay. With that being said, I watched the game against Colorado. and Wagenham has already been injured twice, okay? I just got the feeling that he's putting himself in the position to be injured again. I know if there's an opening to run, of course you run. But is he a little bit too reckless with attacking instead of passing? is he putting himself in the position to get injured a third time,

and then we're screwed, because I think we can make it to a bowl this year. What's your opinion? I mean, you take what the defense is giving you. I mean, I understand the injury, history concerns, but he's healthy right now. And, like, you guys take what the defense is giving you. Sometimes if you roll out, I mean, 17 carries for the quarterback is a little too many to me.

But he had six-week-one against SFF. 11 against Rice. That's probably the area you want to live in in terms of carries. But look, they're just trying to win games. They're 3 and 0. I mean, you can worry about what you want. Again, if Fritz was worried about him getting hurt, they wouldn't be. But there's also quarterback runs are, there's a difference between a quarterback

runs and he gets hit by three guys and a quarterback runs and he slides and takes no hit. Yeah, I also look, I mean, I had the game on, but I wasn't super invested in it. I think the Astros are playing at that time. so I can't really answer how much of that was design runs and how much of that was. Connor Wegman is just scrambling and going for some runs. I know there were some design runs. I just don't know how many.

But I think, yeah, the nature of college football, especially is you can gain an advantage if you have a quarterback who has some legs, whether it be both scrambling and with design runs or with zone reads. And we've seen that, I mean, throughout the last what? well really throughout the last hundred years of college football if you want to go like wing tea and stuff like that but it can be a weapon i understand we are worried about uh connor weggman taking a bunch of hits but that that's just the nature of football in itself u of h by the way top 15 in points allowed per game and yards allowed per game defense's been pretty good it been good again i get it you have been tested a ton with sFA and rice but colorado is a pretty good program i get it there's a We've taken a little bit of a step back from last year,

but Dion's still a good coach. So that's a good win. And when you look at out of the schedule sets up, we mentioned a while ago. On the road at Oregon State, you've got a buy week this week, on the road at Oregon State next week, who stinks.

Corvallis is a tough place to play, but they are 0 and 3. And then you get Texas Tech in here. That's when you get tested. As of right now, too, not only are the Cougars 3 and 0. I know it's like, okay, Vegas doesn't mean anything, but if you are covering these

games, you're exceeding expectations. They were three and a half point favorites against the Buffaloes. They won by 16. They covered the SFA again. I believe they covered I think it was 12.5.13 against the rice, against rice and they completely blew him out. So by that measure, you're exceeding expectations.

The question is, can you get three more wins? Because I think that's the, you start three and awesome. I would say yes. And honestly, they're going to start four now because I think they should beat Oregon State because they stink. Yeah, let me look a little line on that one. At Oklahoma State is typically a tough place to play, but Oklahoma State's not what they typically are.

They've come back down to Earth this year. TCU, Baylor, UCF, those are all winnable. West Virginia's winnable. So, yeah, I think you beat Oregon State. You only need two more wins the whole rest of the season to get to six and six. Yeah, I don't see a line on the game yet because they get the week off, so it's two weeks away. But either way.

Well, if it's a good coach. Absolutely. He's won everywhere he's been. And, you know, the tough part is if he gets his program back on track, wins big these next couple years somebody else may come calling, but it is what it is. The several years Tom Herman was here, we're great.

I mean, I don't think Willie. I think Willie Fritz is going to, I think that's one of the reasons that they got him because he's 65. Like basically, they were looking for another Kelvin Samson. Guy with a track record who was going to stay here, who's at a certain age to where he's just going to stay and play out the string. But what if Virginia Tech calls? Says we'll triple your salary.

Well, is Virginia Tech going to call a 65-year-old? I think that's what the Cougars were banking on with the hire. He's a winner. That's true. He's definitely won everywhere. He's gone. Tim, what's up? Yeah, hi.

This is Tim Pierce, Woodland's first time caller. I love your show, guys. Thank you, Tim. Want to chat about Astros again. Certainly you guys nailed how the West was won, when the next two series, six games, the last two. The question I have, though, was we're not going to get there without some consistent run production. And what drives me crazy sometimes is a spot is,

obsession of Yordon and the two hole. Maybe call me a traditionalist, but why not get the table setter speed up front, put Yordon back in the cleanup spot where we can knock some runs in? Cleanup spot. The eight, nine, maybe three, but I'm old school. I mean, I'd say four or three, but the two is not working. He's been there pretty much every day, and we're not scoring runs.

What do you? Yeah. We've talked a lot about this, Tim. Yes, you are being old school. it only matters for the first inning. Then after that, I mean, you have guys at the back of the lineup who can get on base, and you want your best hitters to get the most plate appearances, and that's just the way it is.

Aaron Judge bats in the second hole, a lot for the Yankees. Alex Breggman bets too for the Red Sox. Kyle Schwerber bats second for the Phillies. Juan Soto, bat second for the Mets. Juan Philly, yes, Juan Soto. Kyle Tucker, when he was healthy, was batting second for the Cubs. I mean, it is just very widespread. you have the balance of the opportunity

of getting somebody on base in Jeremy Pena but then after that first inning then the lineup just continues to roll over and then or Yordon Alvarez comes up more with an opportunity of guys on base. They've crunched the numbers on this a million times. It's not an accident why they continue to put them out there.

It's I think when people focus on that they focus too much on the very first inning. I appreciate it guys. I just I was thinking one two, three was going to get on more often than 8-9-1. So So anyway, just old school here. Two has not been working for us for 30 games now.

Thanks a lot, Tim. Calaralee's batting two for the barracks. He's been batting second a lot for the merits. In what world are you batting your catcher second? You know, in a turkey. He kept saying I'm old school. Old school don't work no more. Hey, hey, come on, be nice.

I think I saw Angels. Mike Trout led off yesterday. Mike Trout has been leading off. Showyotney's been leading off for the Dodgers. But also, I mean, they have freaking mooky bets and Freddie Freeman. But that still is like, I've watched the Dodgers a couple times this year. Show you how time he hits the lead off home run. You go, so what?

It was a solo shot. You know what I mean? Like, I think I'd rather Otani Bet. You know, if you would have, I would too, over Mookie Betts. But I mean, he gets on base a lot. So that's what you, you just want to put the higher on base you have, the more you want them to come up. And then I'll give other guy. For example, Christian Walker's leading the team and runs batted in.

It's not like he's been some great run producer. generally RBIs are just a function of where you are in the lineup. It doesn't mean like you're, you know, that's kind of talking about old school. RBI is an old school stat. Is Christian Walker been the best Astros hitter this year? Of course not, but he's leaving them RBI's because he's

well, he's been batting cleanup a lot of season. He gets a lot of opportunities. Just about getting on base, that's your best chance to continue to go to four yesterday. To manufacture runs. Well, he's been good. So I want him at the plate more. That's why I put him in the two hole.

All right, Gordy, thanks for hanging out. Appreciate it. You're passing the baton to Adam Wexer. He is here. Hour number four, the Matt Thomas Show with Ross is coming up. You guys want to talk about anything? We've been talking a lot of Astros. We've been talking a lot of Texans, Buccaneers.

Anything you want to get to. 713-2-790 is the phone number. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Hour number four, the Matt Thomas Show with Ross coming your way after this quick break. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Hour number four of the Matt Thomas show. With Ross, without Matt Thomas, with Adam Wexler, is here and coming right at you. Sports Talk 790, where the phone lines are open, 713, 212, 5790, 713, 212, 5790.

You can also send tweets to at SportsRV and at Adam J. Wexler as well. This continues to happen about Yordon. People are upset with Yorda on Alvarez batting second. Second, again, I implore you to watch more baseball than just the Astros. See where Kyle Schwabre hits. See where Aaron Judge hits. See where Juan Soto hits. See where the other many of the best, see where Cal Rally hits for the Seattle Mariners.

Many of the best hitters in baseball are at the second spot of the lineup. I'm sorry. I'm just getting frustrated. Somebody's tweeting me. You stepped on your whole argument by pointing out that Walker leads the team in RPIs. Put a real cleanup player in there who doesn't have a blank batting average and how many more runs are they score and games won because of it. Well, Yoron's been out for 100 games, first of all,

and it again, runs batted in. Quite frankly, it's an overrated stat. Asheros aren't paying attention to it. Many of the more analytic, okay, every organization is not paying attention to it much. We get wrapped up into this whole old-school argument about, well, your best hitter has hit three and you need a good cleanup guy at four. You want your best hitters getting those plate appearances. How is this so hard for so many of you to understand?

Here's the top 11 in homers out of the two spot. And good afternoon. Oh, hey. Kyle Schwarber, Raphael Devers, Juan Soto, Bobby Witt, Aaron Judge, Cotell Marte, Kyle Tucker, Mookiee Betts, James Wood, Brandon Lau, Cal Rale. All but Lau because of Caminero are the most powerful hitters and arguably the best OPS hitters on each of those teams. That sounds like the best OPS like in baseball.

Sounds like you just ran down the best OPS leaders in baseball. Every one of those players I mentioned other than Wood and other than Wood has an 850 OPS or better. Okay. Well, I don't know. Just in the two-hole. Now, these guys haven't all bad. Now, how many different players did you name? I went the top 11.

That was the top. So that's 11 different organizations. And then the Astros are putting the order on Alvarez second. Obviously, he's not showing up there because, well, he's missed 100 games for the Astros. Okay. So we're talking about many of the best organizations in baseball. How many of those teams have a better record than the Astros? A lot of them.

Well, now that the Astros have allowed that opening with how they've played recently, but all these teams like we've talked about all year, especially in the American League, I'm saying Toronto or Detroit has a better record still barely means anything. They're not on pace to win 105 or even 101. There are a couple of games ahead of Houston who's in sixth. There are a couple of games ahead of Texas and Cleveland who are in seventh and eighth. It's just not a humongous number of games. These teams aren't, nobody's blowing everybody away.

So, yeah, today they have a better record. They've had, like, Toronto and Detroit, the Astros have played like garbage for two months, about 50, 60 games. They've gained like a game on the Astros. The two best teams in the American League, they've outplayed them by like two or three games. That's it. There's just not much difference between these teams. Now, when they get to the playoffs, maybe there will be later season injuries, other guys who aren't coming back, other guys who are coming back. I hope the Astros are part of the six.

are currently six. Hey, Wex. Hey, buddy. How's it going? Are they going to be part of the six? I think they're going. We've got a lot of stuff to get to in just an hour here. Well, I will manage to get to all of the things I need to get to.

By the way, Jordan Alvarez is a 902 OPS player as a two-hole hitter, hitting 338. I think that's a player you'd like to hit as often as possible, other than batting him lead off. Again, when people talk about him being third, they're fixating on the first inning only. Jake Myers back of the line? He's been getting some hits. You have, I mean, hey, Zach Cole to back in the lineup.

He's been getting some hits over the weekend as well. You get more opportunities rather than just the first inning to have more guys on base. It's very simple. Other teams are doing it. I honestly don't want to talk about it anymore this show. Appreciate y'all listen. All right. 7-13-2-1-2-7-9 of the phone number.

A lot of you on hold. We were kind of joking about this during the breakwax. Is it a must-win game for the Houston Texans tonight against the Tampa Bay, They need to play good football more than anything else to give their locker room reason to believe that they're not stuck in Quicksand because all of last year they played the way that they played in the opener. They played in one of their two playoff games the way they played in the opener in the previous 17 games. And there should be progress. You realized one of your major issues was your offensive line? Well, I don't care if it's only been one offseason until you really finally realized it.

they haven't had a plus offensive line for such a long period of time. You've had the time to fix it. You've just been very bad at doing it. And this past year, their commitment to doing it was only off the field. They changed all the things off the field that they thought made it bad. And I agreed with every one of them, and I still do. But it doesn't matter a whole lot if the changes you make on the field are not an upgrade. And I'm not even talking about Laramie because clearly he's a more talented player than anybody they have out there.

But that's not the real reason. And the real reason is, okay, it's fine. Go ahead, move on from him. But you've got to put other players in place that are good players. And they just weren't very committed to doing that this off season. They were more committed to spending more money on their other good players. So they finally started saying, well, if our offensive line stinks, why are we paying so much for it?

Let's just not pay for it. They signed Cam Robinson, and that's it. Their offensive line is not expensive this year. Last year it was one of the most expensive offensive lines. But it's not better. Until proven otherwise, they get to run out most of the group they wanted to tonight with Ed Ingram returning, the benched Vikings guard from last year. Yeah, well, you know, things, that's what I'm saying. That's where I am right now. I do feel like things will get better. I don't think they're going to score nine points every single game. But it's hard to convince myself of that. Nick Chubb is still your running back. You're still got, I mean, you're swapping things around the offensive line and the guys who are there aren't good. Arionte Urstery didn't have a great week one. And you're also. going up against a formidable front as far as the as the opposing defensive line.

Now you're at home, so things should be a little bit better and run more smoothly, offensively there. But I'm trying to convince myself, not that we're going to see some kind of breakout, but things will be much better. And I just don't know how that's going to happen. Yeah, just a couple of years of sample. So I don't know how much you want to base it on. But they've usually played significantly better a week after a poor offensive game. Not every single time, but over the last two years now, plus the, following a loss, following a subpar offensive game, kind of regardless of opponent, and obviously

they're coming back home for this one. The offense has been a little bit better. I don't know if anybody cares about a trend like that because there's the new OC and it's week two and you're still missing your slot receiver. You're still missing another slot receiver, which was pretty clear in the game against the Rams. It changed what they had at their disposal because they were not ready to give that workload to Jalen Knoll, who'd been running as the number two slot all camp and that means you're on the field quite a bit and he was on the field enough for them but not enough for me i don't i don't really want to see a veteran receiver that's less talented like justin watson on the field unless you're convinced that they can't handle their assignments and

i don't know if that was part of it i didn't expect it to be um but all of those things only having nick chub instead of joe mixon having to shuffle the offensive line having both the two of your three employed slot receivers unavailable to you. They do add up, but it would be nice if C.J. Stroud left only one other quarterback in the NFL. Only one other starting quarterback in the NFL is yet to throw a touchdown pass besides CJ. He's going to throw one. It's a guarantee. By the way, the guy who hasn't thrown one is on the best team in the NFL. Oh, okay. Would that be Jalen Hertz? That's correct. Every other starting quarterback in the NFL has a touchdown pass. Granted, CJ and the other three quarterbacks going tonight have only played once.

Well, he's got some rushing touchdowns, though. Jalen has the NFL lead in rushing touchdowns tied at the top. How about a touchdown for the Texans tonight against the Buccaneers? Let's go, folks. Bold prediction? That would be nice. Well, I got some more bold prediction. We're going to take quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Let's keep it rolling here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross with you until 2 o'clock, at which point we'll hand off to the wonderful, amazing, entertaining, thrilling a team program with Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton. Got Astros on deck coming your way at 6 o'clock. That'll also be with the tech,

when the Texans will be facing off against Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Big series for the Stroes, Rangers in town for three. I say Jack Leiter versus Jason Alexander, Merrill Kelly versus Christian Javier, and Jake DeGron

versus TBA, how we feel it? Yeah, this is an interesting set of games, hopefully with, I mean, this is crazy to say this. So that's righty, righty, righty, righty, coming into town? Yes. So hopefully Zach Cole will be swinging it well.

Hmm, I like that. I expect him to be in the lineup at least two of the three, if not all three, because while he's not coming in quite as hot as he was after his first three at bats, do you feel pretty good about him standing in the box compared to anybody else that could be up there and that includes Jesus.

I was going to say, it includes Cam Smith. If you want to get the left-handed bat in there, those are your choices. Do you want Jesus Sanchez both playing the field and swinging the bat where he's been, he's just been terrible offensively for the Astero. Let's be real.

He has a five-hit game, and he's got like 12 other hits. He's hitting under 200 as an astro without the five-hit game, well under 200, with no pop. Is that true? So I feel like there's probably at least a couple of opportunities for

Zach Cole to be out there. But that's also at the bottom of the order. What still has to happen for this team to really actually, I think, succeed is the guys batting near the top. We'll find out about Jose Altuve's availability at some point this afternoon. Doesn't mean their lineup will be worse or better. He's

been in, I know he homered. Hey, he started hitting. He's got three hits in two games, then he goes down with a foot injury. That's one more hit than he had in his last 36 at bat. That's what I'm saying. He's heating up, and then his foot gets hurt. Doesn't that feel like very 20-25 Astros? What seems like it's happening, especially lately,

is if the Astros have a good offensive day, then Yordon did nothing. If the Astros have a bad offensive day, he went three for four. He drove in three of their four runs, but then they lost eight to four. That's what it feels like, yeah. I mean, I do like the idea that the Astros managed their way through a nine-game road trip while Seattle was playing

the majority of those nine games at home, and the schedule was much more imbalanced before these final 12 games. The schedule is completely balanced now. The Rangers, the Astros, and the Mariners have the exact same number of home games and road games. The Rangers and Mariners play three of their road games here in Houston. The Astros don't play any of their road games in their ballparks. Obviously, they go to the other two AL West ballparks. There's some of the things that play to, and to me, I just said this to someone outside.

It's not even that the Astros are back home where they win versus it's where the Rangers and Mariners are significantly worse. those two teams are much better at home than the Astros are at home. Well, if they all have the same record, that means they're also much worse on the road than the Astros have been on the road. So they're coming here. You just have to. Obviously, the playoffs begin tonight at Diken Park if you don't think they began last weekend in Atlanta. And the Astros looked up for it the first two games.

Okay, finally, we're tied. Well, we're going to stay tied. And then we're going to stay tied. But the Mariners winning streak continued. Nine in a row for the Mariners. And yeah, I just keep saying they're going to get it done or they're not. They're not going to really have anybody to blame. And we can talk about injuries, of course, especially when the season is over.

But it feels like you have the upper hand with hosting both of those teams, as you said, and then it's the A's and the Angels. I mean, take two series. I'm not asking for a sweep. Let's just say you take each series. Sweep would be cool, though. That means with the Rangers, if the Rangers had two games to one, if you beat them two out of three, well, that means over the final nine games, they would have to outplay you by three games. Unfortunately, only beating them twice would allow the Rangers to still win the season series.

They would still own the tiebreakers. They would have beaten you seven times. But they would still have to outwin you three times in the last nine games to tie you, which in that case would give them the advantage. And if you do the same thing to the Mariners, you win the season series. You have tied them with no regard to the other nine games, three before and six after. I would feel pretty good if the Astros and Mariners were tied when the Mariners leave town and obviously that means you've won the tiebreaker. I'm not saying

I'd feel awesome, but with six games remaining, with them needing to outplay you over those six games, even though they're going home to face the Rockies and the Dodgers. How hard are the Dodgers going to be trying? Let's see. They're two and a half up on the Padres, so we'll see

how that goes. And they're pretty much locked into three if they win the division. They're not going to, they can't elevate the NL West champ is going to be the three scene. They're going to be a wild card hosting team. So do they care much about whether they're at home or on the road for the wild card series? Or are they setting up whatever rotation they have? Do they give a day off to any of their stars in advance of a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday game?

Who knows? All those things are in play. Let's go Padres. Let's go Royals. Is that where we are right now? And how about let's go Astros? How about taking care of your own business for once? I'm doing more rooting against the Mariners than I am for the Astros who have been losing a lot of these games lately. Bobby in Memorial. I want to talk some Stroes. What's up, Bobby? Yeah, thanks for taking my call. I think anybody that's been watching the Astros for the last six weeks would say it's a very frustrating venture.

The main thing, like you say, is knock and runs in with men are in scoring position. And I'm assuming everybody's healthy, which they're not. I think that if we had a lineup with Parades and Penae betting one or two, whichever one you want to put, and Yordaun and Correa betting three and four, I think, you know, assuming, you know, like I said, if they're all healthy, I think that would be good because you use the term, pass the baton all the time. We don't pass the baton very well, but I think those four guys are the best on the team at passing the baton. Parades takes a lot of pitches. Pena is not swinging at balls out of the strike zone.

and hitting to right field a lot more than last year. Yordon draws a lot of walk and uses both sides of the field. Correa's gotten a lot of big hits to right field this lately, and he's got a better discerning eye. And I think, you know, just flailing away at balls out of the strike zones one of the reasons why we're not putting a lot of runners in base. And I think when we lost Paredes, we were doing really well when he was here and when he's not here.

It just seems like there's a clog in the offense. And I'll hang up and listen and love your show. Thank you. All right. Thanks a lot, Bobby. Appreciate you getting in. Yeah. If you could wave of magic wand and make Paradeus healthy, which Dana Brown said it's a long shot,

but he's targeting the Mariners series, whatever that means. Shocked when he said that. I don't think it's very likely because of the manner in which he delivered that line. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're kind of targeting potentially him coming back. It may be a long shot, but we're targeting it, you know, the Seattle series.

What? Maybe a long shot, but we're targeting it? Just put it out there for the Mariners to consider. It's four days out. Yeah, I guess so. Maybe he means Sunday in the ninth inning at four o'clock. So you got even more time. Imagine waving a magic wand.

And you get Paredes back. You get Josh Hader back. You get, who else? You get Ronell Blanco, Hayden Wiseneskie, Spencer Herrick-Ketty. He didn't call those long shots. Man, I would be sitting here saying this team's going to the World Series. I would. Unfortunately, look at the number.

we don't know about the status of some of those players for March of 26 or April or May or June. I have a magic wand, Wex. Come on. Just out of curiosity, since a lot of people are bringing it up and it's been a longstanding theme for any team offensively, how many played appearances do you think the Astros have in relation to the rest of the league and runners in scoring position?

Where do you think they're right? Does it seem like they're always on base and they're not getting them home? Or have they not really been as good offensively as everybody else thinks? They have a per, their OPS. is the middle. I don't know what the on-base percentage is. I'll say they're 15th in baseball. They're 20th in play appearances with runners and scoring position.

So that right there lowers your, oh man, they just stink there. Well, they need more opportunities there. Their OPS with runners and scoring position is 22nd. So both of the numbers are poor. You're 721 with runners and scoring position as a team.

The top six teams at OPS with runners and scoring position are all going to the playoffs. So you're saying when you score more runs, you win more games. Well, when you come through with the opportunities are right in front of you, here's a guy on second or a guy on second and third, go ahead and bring them on in. Yeah.

It's just been poor. And like the caller was saying, I mean, it's been a lot of the guys who aren't. Your best hitter is Jordan Alvarez. He missed 100 games. Your second best hitter this season, I would say,

I mean, you can argue Jeremy Pena as well if you'd like. But Issoc Paredes was up there as well. and, well, his hamstring is off his bone and they're trying to figure something out to see if they can play him this weekend. They're targeting, but it's a long shot. Seattle.

I went through the, when I posted it on Twitter the few days ago. I was actually shocked to see their top plate appearances. Altuvei Walker Diaz Pena Smith. Your top two guys are showing age decline. Yonner Diaz has had a bad year. Jamie Payne has been good and then Cam Smith is a rookie. That's been your top five in plate appearances this year. Brought it up a few times.

It's unfortunate the way things have worked out from a health standpoint. Some of your least productive everyday players have been out there the most. And then it's Paredes, Dubon, Caratini, Myers. Parades has been hurt. Dubon's a utility guy that you're not supposed to play that much. Carrotini is your backup catcher, and Jake Myers has missed two months with calf injuries. And then there's Yordon. And then there's Yordon.

And then it's Correa, right? Who's been here a month? Exactly. What is this? That's crazy that they're even in first place. It just is. Or a second. Oh, I'm sorry.

There's a slip of the tongue that happened over the weekend. In my mind, they're finishing first. I still believe, We'll talk about it when we take a quick break here. Anything you guys want to get to, you can. 713-213-212-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. I forgot we could get your on-site report, Wex. Huh, you want it?

So you were at the game in Austin this weekend, correct? Sure was. Now, were you with your daughter who goes to Tens? Yes, I was. My son as well, and the missus. I hate actually talking to you about your children, because I remember when they're very small. They're still small.

They're just old. Now they're old, and it makes me feel old. But anyways. What about me? You look great. You look the same. Perfect. You look the same to me.

All right, fine. Yeah, we're there. It was warm, but it's a good time. Yeah, people were saying it was like 140 degrees on the field. Why do they have turf at UT, by the way? It's the University of Texas at Austin. You should be able to get, it's an open-air stadium. You should be able to get some grass, install it, and maintain it.

What's the, are there injury-related things? Is it too hot for people to play football on it? Yeah, it's too hot for you to play football, and it's injury-related. Get some nice grass going on there. They had it for, they had turf for years, of course, like in the Rick. William's days. Then they went back to grass for, I don't know, decade plus in the Mac Brown era. Then what, three, four years

ago they switched back to full-time turf. Considering the two-and-one longhorn season to date, where would you place turf or grass on their list of issues? Number one. Number one. What about number one six? I'm sorry, that was from the groundskeeper. He said they're number one. He wants his job back.

Maybe they want to play the groundskeeper. Anyways, my my concern would be, in whatever order you want to put them in, Arch Manning's passing accuracy and the offensive line. Yeah, I don't want to make it out like their running game is good, their offensive line is good, or the receivers are good, or healthy for that matter. But none of that stuff matters, honestly, until the biggest problem isn't what it is.

He's not playing poorly because they can't run the football. He's not playing poorly because their receivers aren't getting open. He's not playing poorly because the offensive line is giving him poor protection. He's playing bad football, period. under whatever circumstance, if they were blocking great, if they had receivers running wide open, which they of course did, or if their running game was lighting up the other team.

That's not, the problem is him. Guys are open, and I cannot believe where some of these throws are going. It's just, I am baffled by the play. I'm not baffled by how badly people missed on their stupid analysis of him, having never seen him play. And even, like, I knew it was going to happen, even though I try to give people credit for it. There's now three weeks of college football.

You've seen these top 15, 18 teams play. I hope. How can you vote Texas where they're being voted? Like, A&M just... Texas is overrated in the polls. Are you new here? Come on, Wicks. But now you...

Come on, man. At the beginning of the season is almost fine, whatever. You don't know anything about anybody. Neither do I. Nobody's seen them play. Their best game of the season by a lot. was the Ohio State game. And that's embarrassing. Why aren't you

playing good football against teams that should not even be on the field with you? And credit to Utep for being there, this is what I saw. Utep's coaching staff said, this guy cannot throw the football, and we know it, and we're going to dare him to do it, and we're going to load up the box, and they can try to run

against us. And what did Texas say, this guy cannot throw the football, and we're going to hand it off all afternoon long, because they both knew it. Well, the good news is he beat a 2023 five-star quarterback. He did not look like a 223 five-star quarterback. He looked like somebody who needs to find a place to play, and he found U-TEP for the Nelson saga to continue.

That's my point is sometimes five-stars washout, and we're not there yet necessarily with Archmanning. I would say, like, if we saw, week one, I feel like I could kind of brush it under the rug. It's like, okay, you're on the road, your first real big start at the shoe against one of the best defenses. Then it got worse. And then how did it, as you've become more of a favorite,

you went from an underdog where he looked okay, not horrible, to where you were like a 37.5 point favorite. He looked bad. And then at least he threw four touchdowns. Then you're a 40 point favorite and then he's had his worst game of the season. Yeah. How's he regressing? Yeah, where these passes are going,

what he is seeing when he's over there or when he's going through his progressions, it's shocking to see a quarter of. quarterback, any quarterback, not just someone with that on the back of his jersey or the level of which he was as a recruit. It's just bad football. And I'm not telling you it's over and they've made a mistake and he's got to be bench. What I'm saying is this is what he's currently playing like. It's certainly, I'm not, I don't know what the next nine games are going to look like. I know what the first three games have looked like. And it's bad. It's really, really bad. There are no excuses that I feel like listening to because none of that stuff matters to the mistakes, physical and mental mistakes.

And I know Sark got his second opportunity to talk about the three games they've played. Obviously, he had post game, and he met with the media again today. Did he mention anything about the bathroom? He did not mention anything about the bathroom, although I don't think he was asked about if he's hurt or not. But he did talk about the idea of moving on to somebody else, benching him, you know, pulling him out. And he said if he was making, you know, missing on his reads or making him mentally not where he needs to be, then maybe that would compel me. Not word for word.

but he's saying he's not doing those things, so I have not given it a thought at all. And I think that's also fair for who's behind him and what they're trying to do and who they're playing. And they have the same type of opponent this week with Sam Houston State. But just, you know, watching that quarterback play, if you walked into the stadium and just some random person wearing an Eli Manning, New York Giants, Jersey, sitting one row over for me and a few seats ahead and just watched him for the first time, you'd say, man, man, this guy stinks. Also, speaking of Sart, I don't know if you caught this because you were at the game. game. The halftime interview, did you see? I've seen it since. Yeah, he's like, we got to get better at quarterback. I was like, wow, he is not mincing words. I mean, but also at that point, he was five for

16 with a bad pick. That was a bad decision. Very bad decision. Long play, buying time, cross his body, middle of the end zone. And again, from my vantage point, being in the stadium. It was also fourth down, though, correct? So, might as well throw it to somebody? That I agree with, but my goodness, after all that buying time, he basically threw it up for grabs. Their defender was just, he didn't have to make a play. All he had to do was catch it.

That's the ball. I bet you they won't have a game this year or maybe in Archmanning's entire career that's left at Texas, where they run the ball 55 times in a game. They are, both teams knew exactly what their game plan had to be, and they just did it anyway.

They weren't successful running the football. They were getting to fourth down, nearly every series it seemed like, because they couldn't do anything offensively, because both teams know the quarterback could not be relied upon to make a throw. Make a throw. Hit a guy who's come out of the backfield, hit a tight end, you know, five feet away from you. He bought time on the other end zone all the way rolls out to his left. He does have a player inside the five-yard line, and he beans it into his feet.

Somehow the player didn't catch it. I mean, I know it sounds harsh, but he's played very, very bad football. Do you know what's funny? Do you feel like it's easier to criticize Archmanning because he's making $7,8 million a year? I actually feel that way. Maybe. I mean, you just feel like he's a professional. Exactly.

Exactly. Like, you know, you say, you know what, hey, he's a kid. He didn't ask for this hype. He didn't, you know, he's young, you were talking about a young person, young man who is trying to find his way through life. But it's like, yeah, he's making $8 million a year. I feel like it makes it, I don't want to say, I don't know if the word easier. I say more fair play to criticize his play on the field

if he's getting paid $8 million to be out there. Yeah, and it's the first time in the three years he's gotten paid that he's gotten criticized at all. He's been there for two years. Yeah. I'm not saying he's played a lot in two years, but he's been getting paid to be there for now his third season. Yeah, I just find myself inherently wanting to hold back because, like,

hey, he's just a college kid. But then I'm like, wait, he's making $8, $9 million, whatever. He's a student athlete, Ross. Yeah, exactly. He's there to get his degree. Like, you know what? I'm going to crush you, Arch, whatever your name is. No, I'm not going to crush him, but it just feels easier.

Will Archie or Arch be the first one to resurrect the question and joke that follows about him staying for two years? Well, hey, he's going to stay. Looks like he's going to stay. I don't know. He could transfer out. Who knows? All right. Well, his replacement season is already over.

Diabelle. Oh, yeah, that's right. That guy got hurt. He had an unexpected minor procedure, as he wrote on the X platform last night, and he is no longer playing high school football. He will be on the 40 acres in January. Minor procedure? Okay, yeah, you know what?

Hold them out. Hold them out. Yeah, he might get forced out just the way that he forced out Quinn Ewers. Diabelle might be forced him off. He forced Quinn yours after never beating him out. Yeah, see, that was a concern. I brought it up multiple times in the off season. If he's so good then.

Why couldn't he get past Quinn, who we all knew his mid? All right, anyways, quick break here. I mean, come on, anybody with eyes. All right, quick break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Adam Wexler is hanging out. Appreciate him. Final segment coming up after this short break. Commander's quarterback, Jaden Daniels, has a knee injury

that has his status for Sunday's game versus the Raiders in question, says Adam Schaefter. J.J. McCarthy also not expected to play versus the Bengals. Vikings are prepping. All right. Those of you playing at home. Who is the backup quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings? Yes, you guessed it.

Carson Wentz. And of course, they're facing off against the Bengals who have Joe Burrow who needs toe surgery, and he's going to be out three months. Jake Browning versus Carson Wentz, week three. Who you got, Wicks? I'm going to go with the better team, which I don't know.

I was going to say. But I'll go with Jake's team. Jake versus Carson Jake and Carson You play nice Seriously The possibility that Jake plays better than Joe Burrow is lower Than the possibility that Carson Wentz plays better than J.J. McCarthy

Did not look good in all but one Of the eight quarters he's so far played in And that one good quarter got them their one win Or else they'd be 0 and two Monday night football With the field goal festival we saw not a whole lot of fun to watch. He did not look good.

And already the questions of, I don't know if these questions really belong there or not, or it's just the nature of the NFL. Like, Justin Jefferson didn't think, oh, great, we're going to be just as good or better. Now that we don't have Sam Darnold, and we're starting a guy who's never played before, this is going to be awesome.

He's not learning that over these two games. He knew that going in. Now, is he more frustrated? Are other players more frustrated that they've been this inept for all but one? of their eight quarters offensively. I mean, what are you going to do even if they are? This is who they are.

What's the alternative? Donald's not there. And Jay J.J. McCarthy, he's your guy. Carson Wentz. I forgot he was even in the NFL when I saw he was going to start on Twitter. Well, that brings me to here to Houston. You have some outlets, many outlets, have the Houston Texans as the 32nd best offensive line in football.

Joe Burrell's been hurt a lot. They basically have never had a good offensive line with Cincinnati Bengals. So not saying that these injuries necessarily raise your concern level, but when you're trotting out an offensive line that, what's a nice way to say in Chambles? That has not been very good? I mean, you've got to be concerned about the long-term health of your quarterback. Joe Burrow this year will miss 10 to 12 games probably, right?

Yes. Which will be the most games he's missed in any season. As far as much as he's been hurt so much. Well, didn't he tear an ACL and miss a whole season? Or not? Just where he got it hurt during that season was further into the season. He's played at least 10 games every year. He's played at least 16 games, three of his five years.

And does his toe hurt because his line is bad? I don't know. He was getting crunched up over there. He's also produced 3-34-plus touchdown pass seasons. He threw 43 of them last year. This terrible, terrible, terrible offensive line in front of him allowed him to lead the league in completions, attempts, yards, touchdowns, and yards per game. He's also been, I mean, well, he's also better than C.J. Stroud. Significantly better than C.J. Stroud. He processes faster than C.J. Stroud.

He's had better weapons than C.J. Stroud. I know. Would need to put a really nice performance together tonight to have anybody look at the first two nights of football in the NFL, weeks of football, and say, yeah, this is still one of the guys near the top of the league. I'm not saying he won't ever be, but I'm not looking at this season blindly and saying, oh, no, he's outplayed this guy, and he needs to do that. That hasn't happened. We did to tell the truth earlier on the program at 1130,

and the thing that I believed was that by the end of the season, C.J. Stroud will have reestablished himself, and the confidence in the fan base will be there that he is QB1 for the Texans going forward. I'd like to believe it too, but I feel like the way this fan base is already with him, when contract talks happen over the offseason, they're like, are we sure we want to do this? Well, I'll be sure. Everybody had his back. Year one, year one, everybody was Team C.J. Shrook.

I think they should still be on the same team. I guess we'll find out a little bit. We'll gather more data tonight at 6 o'clock. I know who's going to be on till 6 o'clock. That will be Mr. Wexler. Thank you for hanging out. I do appreciate it. Thanks to, let's see, no, Dan Matthews didn't hang out, but that's okay. I appreciate him still. Chris Gordy did hang out for a little bit.

Jonathan Allen has been here the whole show. Appreciate all of you folks as well for listening, calling, tweeting, getting involved in the show. I'll talk to you at 6 o'clock for Astros on deck. But right now, it is Adam, the 18, coming your way here on Sports Talk 790. Your home for your Houston Astros.