The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Azeez Al-Shaair Suspended 3 Games, Texans GM Nick Caserio GOES OFF, MLB's Golden At-Bat Idea

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Matt Thomas of "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross" and Dan Mathew of "The A-Team" react to the NFL suspending Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair three games for repeated violations of player safety rules following his hit to the head of Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence on Sunday. Matt and Dan also:review the latest comments from Texans general manager Nick Caseriodebate MLB commissioner Rob Manfred's latest idea called the "Golden At-Bat" rulepreview the Rockets taking on the Sacramento Kingsrecap Week 13 in "Connor's NFL Rewind" and more.

Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 10-02 in H-Town. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Dan Matthews is in. This is Sports Talk 790. There's no doubt that Trevor represents that one. Oh, my, that'll be Al Shire, who's flagged for the big hit on the slide,

and that's going to start a little bit of a scrum afterwards as the Jaguars coming to protect their QB. Oh my goodness. This deserves an ejection, in my opinion. Another flag has come down with the activities on the bench, but the bigger concern right now is what's going on with Trevor Lawrence. What can be done is just have to look at all sides, right? And we don't have to overreact just because I think a guy gets hurt. We're not intentionally trying to hurt anyone.

I think there's an overreaction when someone gets hurt, but we just have to look at it all from all perspectives. And the NFL certainly did, and they have suspended Aziz al-Shahir three games. We will discuss that on Suspension Talk 790. Good morning, everyone. Matt Thomas with you today from Sacramento, California. We're later on tonight the Rockets are going to take on the Sacramento Kings. We'll get into a little bit of that throughout the course of the next four hours.

Dan Matthews back in our Houston studios. Nick Casario is going to speak here in one hour. We'll try to catch some of that. We've got gut feelings. We've got the NFL rewind. But I have a simple question. And yesterday, Dan, you guys were on the A-Team when D'Amico was speaking. Do you think D'emiko's comments or, I don't want to say a full 180, but he certainly was defending

Al Zies a lot more Monday than he was on Sunday? Do you think some of his flipping of opinion could have hurt when it came to what the NFL did this morning by suspending him for three games by basically soft peddling the hit on Lawrence? I wondered about that, but also, though, too, I think that if you're going off of his overreaction comment,

then you're not taking the whole comment in context, which trust me, tons of people do because once a part of it fits your narrative, you run with it, and you, effectively deceive people into believing that's the whole story when in reality it's not. But yeah, I mean, I think that it's still less than 24 hours in that case when he said it from when the hit took place. And everybody was still pretty on high. And the moral high horse riders were riding in letting you know how to effectively play the game and how you should play the game,

even though most of them have zero idea of how to play the game. and yeah, I think that probably added a little fuel to the fire. Well, I have, and I think I've made my comments pretty clear yesterday on the show. I thought it was a dirty hit. I thought he would be suspended. I am frankly stunned that it's three games, and I think that we've now come to realize that it's not just because of what he did yesterday on Sunday. It's previous acts and basically saying,

we've got all this evidence against you. We're going to make sure you really feel the pain of what it's, like to have all these things against you. I don't know if that necessarily is the right thing to do. And look, the NFL obviously has an appeal process, and my guess is it'll be knocked down from three to maybe two games. I do want to read you a quote from John Runyon, who is one of the vice presidents of the NFL,

who, by the way, back in the day when he played, was a dirty player. So that's interesting. Well, the video evidence is out there to corroborate that. And we'll certainly get done that minute. But I do want to say this. It has really angered those social media world. And as we've talked about Dan at nauseam, social media generally speaking is angry. But it's really incensed over this situation. You have a section of America that thinks that

Al-Zee's Al-Share should never play again in the NFL. You have a segment of the population that wants him suspended for the rest of the season. And again, I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush here. I'm just giving you just a small sample size of what, you know, when you go to the 4U tab, unfortunately, it's sometimes a day. dangerous spot to be in and I'm guilty of that especially when I'm on a four-hour flight to northern California yesterday. And then you have a second of the population that's Houston media and some is legit media, but most of them are fake media that are just trying to get Christmas cards

for the McNair's that just are not watching the game and with even a glimpse of an objective eye and saying things like, you know what, it's partly Trevor's fault, he should have slid earlier, it's not a bad. a hit it's football you don't want what's he supposed to do yada yada and we've gone into all that at nauseam especially on yesterday's show the reality is it's difficult for what elsie had to do to try to step away from the play and not avoid the hit and we get that but it is happening more and more in the NFL today than it did say 10 or 15 years ago and we're seeing a lot of players that are able to slide successfully and if you watch the video over and over and over again it continues to

a dirty hit. It just does. This is not trying to be hot takish. This is not trying to be hyperbolic. This is just fact checking this thing. If you look at the play, it's a dirty hit. It doesn't mean that Alziu's sorry I'm sure you should never play again. It doesn't mean

frankly, I think three games is probably a tad too much. I would have spent him for one game, but obviously the NFL wants a message out there. But the amount of people that are saying hey, that's a good fine, that's a good penalty by the NFL, oh, you suck, I hate you, go to hell.

Response on Twitter is irresponsible. Just as the same is irresponsible of saying, that's just a football play. Why is the NFL selectively choosing one of our guys? That's irresponsible. I would ask all, hold on, let me finish here with. I would like for everyone to please just for a minute or 10 minutes or 15, if you have the time, look at the play.

And I know he's wearing a Houston Texan uniform. And I know you love the Houston Texans. And I know you want them to win. And I know there's a certain faction of people out there that think that everybody's against Houston sports teams. The reality is it was an ejectable offense. And the fact that D'Amico yesterday took time to say that the Jaguar's overreacted to that. And I'm a huge D'Amico fan. Huge.

But that was preposterous what he said. I would want every Texan if that happened to C.J. Stroud to go kick the ass of every player on the team that happened to on the defensive side of things. The Jacksonville Jaguars were completely allowed to do what they wanted to do yesterday and defending their player. And for him to say there was overreaction

is the worst part of it all. Because D'Amico, if he wants to talk about the slide, and if he wants to talk about how maybe the NFL should change that, I'm in for that. Because people always adapt and change the rules all the time and techniques and whatnot. I can buy all that. But to go on and say that the Jaguars overreacted on this is completely preposterous. If that happened to my quarterback, our quarterback, C.J. Straub, I'd want juice Scruggs.

I'd want even a little small tank dell. I'd want Nico Collins. I'd want them throwing haymakers because you don't do that to my quarterback. That was a dangerous, dangerous play, and I want my teammates having my back, and the bigger issue would have been is that they wouldn't have come to his defense. So for D'Amico to say that, I thought was the worst part about yesterday, is saying that the Jaguars overreacted. Everything else is up for conjecture, whether it's fine, whether it's suspension,

whether it's none of the above, whether Trevor Lawrence slid too late, whether the NFL needs to adapt to changing rules, whether you have to defend the defensive player because he's in the heat of the moment. All that can be up for conversation. But to say the Jaguars overreact to that is wrong. I want my teammates if I get hit like that in a dirty form to come to my back. And I just, I thought that was a massive misstep yesterday by Domingo Ryan. Dan, the floor is yours.

Well, you have to also consider what Damico is, you know, don't we always say all the time that coaches speak to their players through the media. And he realizes he has a real problem with penalties this season. And penalties that cost his team games, too, as well. I mean, the Tennessee game, there's no bigger example than the special team's 15-yard personal foul penalty that set you up for the game-clenching sack for you to be completely out of reach to not be able to win that game. So I think there's a little bit of that. The social media aspect of it, I mean, I've railed against this for the longest time. And I'll even take it a step further. It's twofold.

It's number one. Most people want to just be in a crowd because a crowd is easy. A crowd does not have much resistance. And it's also, too, with that, where you don't necessarily have to necessarily step out and have an opinion that could possibly bring scrutiny on you. And in some cases, some of these people are incredibly fragile. They're not interesting enough to have an opinion. They're not informative enough to have an opinion. But they still want to because they want to be able to matter.

They want to be able to get Twitter clout in the church that is Twitter, which honestly, if that's really how you're going to, to live your life, then you're living a sad existence. But it's also, though, too, you're exactly right. As usually is the case in situations like this, there's always two groups. There's the group that's going to stump hard for the guy that is the perpetrator in this case, or also to the people who are going to stump hard for the victim because they want to think of themselves as being a victim in this case. But the reality of it is, as you said, it was a hard hit. It was a play that probably could have been avoided, should have been avoided. And also, too, as well, I think Adam Wexler did a great job of breaking it down of his personal

fouls that he had the one earlier this season against the Bears. And then he had the unnecessary roughness late hit a few weeks later. And then, of course, the DQ this last week as well as other personal fouls that he's had throughout his career. So, I mean, I think it's also too as well. I say, consider the source quite a bit. I think the NFL kind of looked at it and said, hey, consider the source. This is kind of the way this guy runs on the field. And I think if nothing else, we've got to kind of rein them in a little bit.

All right. I want to read this to you. This is coming from Adam Schepter's tweet. It's from John Runyon, who's the vice president of football operations. Now, granted, he was a dirty player back in the day. So maybe he is wiser. I don't know. I have not mentioned John Runyon's name in 20 years, and that's fine.

I didn't even realize that he had a job like this. But here it is. I'm going to read the statement. And then you guys can comment on it on ladies two at 713. 212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Here is the statement today in a letter about the suspension. During your game against the Jacksonville Jaguars on December the 1st, with 420 remaining in the second quarter,

you were involved in a play that the league considers unacceptable and a serious violation of the playing rules. Video shows you striking the head and neck of the Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence after he clearly goes down in a feet for its slide. You led with your forearm and helmet and delivered a forceful blow to the head-neck area of your opponent when you had time and space to avoid such contact. After the illegal hit, you proceeded to engage in a brawl, which you escalated when you pulled an opponent down to the ground by his face mask. After the referee announced that you were disqualified for the hit and you're on sportsman-like acts, you removed your helmet and re-engaged

with your opponent while walking down and across the field, which started another physical confrontation near the end zone. Your lack of sportsmanship and respect for the game of football, and all those who play coach and enjoy watching it is troubling and does not reflect the core values of the NFL. Your continued disregard for NFL playing rules puts the health and safety of both you and your opponents in jeopardy and will not be tolerated. That again is John Runyon from the NFL's operations office.

Dan, and we got 20 seconds left in the segment, that sounds like a three-game suspension letter. It just does. Well, I mean, it's trying to send a message, but I mean, I think it's also, though, too, as well, from the side of D'Amico protecting his player. he's got about 20 guys coming at him. I don't really understand

how you don't think fighter flight's going to kick in at that point. And, I mean, it was a situation that just had gasoline poured on the fire, and it erupted into even more than just the actual play itself. 713-212-5-790. They spent yesterday looking at the film, the video of that game, the hit, and the aftermath after it. And thus the suspension comes into play. What are your thoughts?

I'll let you all spout off if you'd like to. 713-212-2-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-790. 10-15. Matt Thomas Show with Dan and today for Ross. Ross back tomorrow here on Sports Talk 790. Lunch-timers. This is the Matt Thomas Show.

Matt with you from Sacramento. Dan is back in Houston. Ross is on a plane coming back from Sydney. Hopefully the flight is not too long for him. I'm running out of place for him to go, Dan, I'll be honest with you. I was going to say, I mean, probably short of, you don't want to be an American in Russia right now, probably.

Probably want to stay out of the Middle East, too. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if Afghanistan would not be a place he'd want to be going to. No, no, no, no. So I think you're probably pretty safe in terms of Australia, Eastern Asia, South America, places like that. I think you're good there. All right.

So obviously, there is a, a ton of reaction and again most of it is socially media driven and that's fine and you know that's that's part of this show it's part of what I get the pulse of sports so and you got to take the good and bad with it there is

an easy storyline and it's a fair storyline that the NFL is full of hypocrisy about player safety about scheduling I mean think about what the Texas are going to have an off week coming up this week and then they play three games in 11 days or something crazy like that so if you were really

really overly concerned about player safety, you would not be scheduling that many games and not much of a short period of time. So I get that. I get that there's also been other plays where other players have been hurt and that I've not been suspended. Other players have done things and only been fined. When you are a governing body, Dan, like the NFL, and for that matter, any governing body and anything in life, everybody, there's no consistency in when it comes to rules. How an employee is treated at I-Heart Radio Houston may be different treated the way in our heart Topeka or I heart since any employee would be treated. I mean, it's just, it's just too big, it's too powerful, it's too public that there isn't

a guy to go, if this happens, here's what you're supposed to announce in terms of a fine and punishment. So you're going to get the Dexons diehards. They're going to say this is wrong, this is unfair, what are you doing? Why is John Runyon doing this? He had a career of doing these types of plays when he was a Philadelphia Eagle, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, So I'm going to just wipe that away to say that if you're expecting objective and fair and balance with any decision that any NFL team or any NFL league member makes, you're crazy because there's too many rules, there's too much history, there's too much video, and there is no consistency. So if you're in that category of why is my guy being singled out, I kind of get it. But that's what I want to go back, Dan, if it's okay with you, and just simplify it to its core. a dirty play, a hit that cost a player a game,

suspension was worth in forthcoming, and the stuff that happened after that aggravated the situation, especially when clearly, when I read John Runyon's letter a moment ago, clearly they had tremendous amount of video that said it was not just the hit, it was the aftermath that happened way after the play. Well, it's also, too, I mean, the NFL has FU money, and what's the whole point of having FU money, if you can't tell people, F you. I mean, people, oh, you play too many games. Okay, stop watching.

We know you won't. So we'll continue to play them because we know that you're going to watch. You're going to buy the gear. You're going to support us. And we'll continue to load up our coffers. So hypocrisy doesn't matter to them. When people are in position of power like they are, they'll basically just do whatever they want and you can complain about it all you want. But aside from that, you're going to forget about it. You're going to move on. And they know that. So that's the part of it on that front. But I mean, just in terms of everything else, I mean, with just the play itself and also, too, how you're going to feel about it, I mean, yeah, there is a slight bias about it. But it's also too, what really starts to get annoying about situations like this is everything has to turn political.

Everything has to turn into some sort of issue that's not even close to being related to the issue. And, Matt, it's Tuesday. I just don't have the energy for it. Well, the energy I have for it is discussing the suspension, whether that's going to be reduced, whether this is a situation where any other player would have had those types of things. And basically, if they were really concerned about Al Zaire's conduct, they went deep. I mean, look at Wexler's tweet. If you guys want to look at Adam Wexer's tweet, I mean, there is a graphic amount of rundown of a number of times where he has been fined

but penalized for late hits and pushing and shoving and extra cricketer activities, that that totally came into play on that. And the issue at then point that then becomes, should that have been considered? And again, obviously the NFL said absolutely it should have been. So, again, if you want to chime in on this, whether you are, again, what I don't respect is the blind homerism. I just, you got to have some semblance of objectivity. especially if you have a microphone. Because I'm just, if you're a fanboy and you're a fake media in this town, I don't, I'm not surprised by your takes.

That's what being a fan boy is. But if you are carrying a microphone and have any sort of a responsibility, whether it's airwaves or you're a newspaper columnist or a television reporter, you just can't always side with the home team every single time. It makes you look bad. And I'm not going to worry about anybody else in their reputation, but I'm just telling you, again. Do I think three games is too much? Absolutely. But to shove this under the, it was a hard hit, let's go on. That's not the responsible answer either. It's just not. And I just want to just put that out there. And we're going to move on to other things. But I just, I wish we were collectively

better as a group to say, you know what? We love our local teams. We want them to win. But sometimes, like for instance, I'll go back to 2017. I am as diehard of an astro fan as you can possibly find Dan Matthews and I think you're in that same category. The Astros cheated. And I wasn't, and am I mad? The reason why they got caught? Yeah, because Mike fires a rat. And whether teams doing it absolutely. But they got caught and they got punished for it.

And thank God they didn't get their trophy provoked. But I wasn't willing to turn a blind eye as well just because everybody else doesn't mean they shouldn't get in trouble for it. They got in trouble. The difference was that we had a rat and other teams, it never at. Well, I mean, here's my thing. I mean, for the Astros side of it, it's just more of just, to me, it's incredibly disingenuous the outrage from people. Because if this were the Yankees or anybody else, it would, we had, Matt, hell, we had a case study in it last year with Michigan football.

The amount of absolute stumping that was being done of, oh, well, it really didn't affect the game or anything like that that was being portrayed for Michigan football. I said it numerous times, if that's Florida State, if that's Clemson, if that's LSU, if it's Texas, tech, somebody who's not one of the blue bloods of the game and doesn't necessarily impact the bottom line of the sport for the conferences and for college football in general, then, of course, you're going to have everybody, you would have had every single Pat 40, Dan Wolken column talking about how they've ruined the same people. But that's the point, though, is these people think that they matter.

So then they put out these columns. And then, of course, you'll have other people who parrot it. because again, they don't have the energy or really, honestly, the sheer lack of laziness to come up with their own just individual thought to either go against or to maybe even further what people think about a certain situation. And I mean, in terms of, you know, the objectivity, everything else, I get all of that. Objectivity is great if you truly believe it. If you don't truly believe it and it comes across as disingenuous, then you're just a shill. and I have no interest in listening to a shill. Well, I'm just going to say this for them,

and everybody should be saying the same thing. If that's our guy, CJ, the outrage is just as, it would be just the other direction. And if the guy, and at the player, give me a really good defensive player from any team, Dan, just give me somebody. Well, I'll give you one.

Quinn and Williams last year when he bounced his head off the turf like a basketball on a hit. Yeah. I mean, if it's our guy that's going through this, we're looking for blood. We just are. 1029, Sports Talk, 790. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

If you guys want to chime in, you're welcome to do so. At 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-212-5-790. If you want to visit with us on Twitter, you may do that as well. Just be nice. I don't think I'm mean to many people. At SportsMT, at Dan Matthews, H-O-U, and at Connor D. McGovern. D. M.ico Rines is going to not speak. It'll be up to Nick Casario to speak today at 11 o'clock,

and I'm sure he will address the suspension, and we'll try to grab some of that and throughout the course. Today we got gut feelings at 1130, NFL rewire with the Conner at 1230, and believe it or not today, at 150. We have the Rockets and Kings tonight, and we have one of the most preposterous things I've ever heard of by a sports commissioner. We'll discuss that next. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. Right now at 1030, a word for two Creeks Crossing Resort where if you are,

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beginning with a launch pad at 8 o'clock. Tip time is at 9. Tomorrow I'll join you from San Francisco. There is something way more egregious than the three-game suspension going on right now in sports. And that is Rob Manfred.

He's trying, ladies and gentlemen, to make baseball a pinball game, a bad video game. a bad game for 15-year-olds because I think he's deathly afraid of losing the youth to the sport, to the sport to other things. And he might be, he might be right, he may be losing people to it. I mean, it feels like to me that the amount of young people that are just, you know,

four or five bros going to a game of 25 is less and less, but I don't, I go to every game. I can't verify that for sure. But point being is this, he's trying to spice up Major League Baseball. he was on a podcast recently and said that there is something called the golden at bat rule which has been discussed and again the term of it is golden at bat if you've never heard of it stay with me on this a team could choose one at bat in every game

to use its best hitter regardless of where they are in the lineup so dan let's give them an example runners at first, second, and third, bases are loaded. It's a two-run game. You're down two. You got two outs in the eighth inning, and Jake Myers is the plate. You could scrub Jake Myers and put in Yoran Alvarez or Jose Al-Tuve, or whomever you want, Kyle Tucker. It's a one-time thing. Thoughts?

I have zero problem with it, honestly. I mean, it's pretty much, you know, and again, this is going to be another repeated phrase I have today, consider the source. It's pretty much any time Rob Manfred mentions anything about Major League Baseball, fan bases and people who are never Manfreders

are going to think it's the dumbest thing ever and they're going to absolutely rail against it. But honestly, when some of the things that have already been implemented, I have zero issue with the Ghostrunner and extra innings. We don't need a July baseball game going 18 innings. That doesn't

serve anybody. in this case right here I mean how many times last year did we see the Astros come up with a crucial situation and Chas McCormick is up who was struggling mightily all season Jake Myers who after the first couple of months of the season really leveled off

and now you start to wonder if he should be your everyday center fielder and to be able to put in Jose Altuve or Yordon Alvarez to maybe be able to provide more of a punch in that spot than those guys could I don't have any issue with it But what I will say, fix other things first before we get to this. Like, fix the strike zone and how it's called, fix how calls are made and how replay is done and just everything else that is really, I think, the larger issue is the umpiring in your game.

It's not the on-field play. Jason Stark wrote a story for the athletic about it and says there is confusion already about various scenarios. For instance, do you do it only for the team that's, behind. Number two, what about a hitter that hits one spot before his turn in the lineup? What would happen if he gets on base?

Will the original hitter take his spot on the bases? Would the golden hitter rule allow a batterer in the box for a second consecutive at bat? Now again, this is a lot of things to think about. But obviously, he wants to keep games competitive, he wants to add as much offense. I don't like it. I think it's really...

I'm trying to think of the perfect phrase in this, and I don't know if I can come up with it. I don't want to say it's asinine. I understand why he's wanting to do this. He wants to add more thrill to it. But it goes against... I'm not saying tradition, but it just goes against the fundamental play of the game.

You have nine batters. you don't mix and match you pull a guy he's replaced it's done I mean there's just a few fundamental things about the sport that I don't think should be touched

and I think one of them happens to be the lineup well Matt so that's why I'm I'm not saying that if it happens I'd be like I'm never watching a baseball game again which was absurd

but it just feels gimmicky and I'm and Danny I'm really, I called you Daniel, sorry. No, that's fine. I'm just tired. It's been years, but yeah, you can go with it. Of sports being gimmicky.

I mean, look, Matt, it's not like we're going from Caddyshack 1 to Caddyshack 2 and just the, just, I mean, just remember how patently ridiculous Caddyshack 2 was. And that's what I think, like, people believe, like, you're trying to make this nice country club into a goofy, you know, mini put-putt course with, you know, all these windmills and all these goofy things. out there. That's not what they're trying to do here. They're trying to increase interest in the game. And what was the, you know, a couple of the

biggest complaints that people would have that weren't necessarily hardcore baseball fans. A, it's too long. They've tried to fix that with a pitch clock and they've succeeded for the most part. And two, you don't do enough to promote the individual stars in your game. I think they're doing a better job

of that now. What you just said has absolutely nothing to do what we're talking about. But I'm just saying that some of the other changes that have been made that immediately led to belly aching from people. The pitch clock was one of them. What is this? Basketball? Is this football? But that was a timing aspect of the game. That was

trying to get the games under three hours and 53 minutes because people were checking out and I don't blame them that. I think the pitch clock is too fast. I like to see five seconds at it, but I think I'm falling on deaf ears on that. That doesn't fundamentally change the sport. That just tells you to you've got to get going here.

It doesn't fun. How many pitchers have we heard talk about the rise pitching injuries and they're immediately asked, well, does the pitch clock have something to do with it? Yeah, probably does. But there's no probably, you can't, you can't definitively say the pitch clock is affected. Well, then I would say that you're fundamentally changing parts of the game if people are getting increasingly injured, Matt. No, no, you can't, but you can't.

There's no direct correlation to pitch clock affecting injuries. You might think there is, but there's no definitive correlation to it. So you're telling me if there was no pitch clock, the number of injuries we would have had last year would have been significantly reduced. There's no evidence to back that up. Well, I mean, I think that it has added a different element to the game. I mean, look at Frambervaldez the first year of the pitch clock. People were wondering, hey, is he bothered by it?

But is a gimmick? I think there's, I don't, that's not a gimmick. That to me is I've got to watch the pace of my game being played. That's like changing the timing rules in college football, where you don't stop the clock after every first down. That's the timing rules that you would see in basketball, where you have eight seconds to get across the mid-court stripe as compared to 10. That's timing and pace.

This is a fundamental change to the core element that is a game of baseball and a lineup card. I guess that I'm not necessarily been out of shape about it because the key word here is it's one at bat. It's one at bat. Like people might think, and the only time that people would complain about it is if you're able to enact this rule and say, I don't know, the Astros are playing against the Rangers. and Yordon Alvarez hits a three-run homer right there. And of course, Ranger fans, oh, well, if it wasn't for that stupid rule,

we would have lost this game three to two. Well, it is a rule, and you can either complain about it or you can try to make it work for yourself. You made my point. Let's not have stupid rules then. No. I think this is a bad rule.

Don't complain about the rule. Find a way to make the rule work for you. I don't think I have to like every rule. I don't love every rule. I'm not saying you have to like it. I'm just saying that, I mean, it's a lot of this. I truly believe.

leave is anytime Rob Manfred goes on the record or he has any type of, hey, you know, me and the owners are talking about this. It's immediately met with pitchforks and with blow torches of people saying, you hate the game. We hate you. Well, I can separate. I just, I'm just, I feel like we're just doing too many things in life that are, they're making sports gimmicky. And I think this is a gimmicky move. Maybe I'm wrong. It's also, though, to Matt, One of the issues that baseball had had for the longest time is that people were tired, like we were talking about earlier, with the Al-Shire suspension of, you know, the moral high ground, the high hoarseness and all those different types of things.

People were tired of being preached to about the sanctity of baseball, probably more than any other sport. I equate this to, and we're going to get to a break here. I equate this to a touchdown in the final two minutes of a football game is not worth six points. It becomes worth eight points. You can make games closer. Well, I mean, let's take it to from the overtime rules. We've been talking about it all season long with college football as opposed to the NFL.

Well, college football has their way and people think, man, this is kind of stupid. Where after two overtimes, we're going to basically penalty kicks, whereas one league decides, hey, we'll play almost a full quarter. And if somebody scores a touchdown first, guess what? You win the game. Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying I have to like every rule in sports. I don't like the kickoff rules in the NFL. I don't like the third overtime in college football, but you are fundamentally changing a core part of what is a baseball game

by just inserting a bonus at bat for your star. Maybe, you know, what do you all think? 713, 212, 7.790, if you have an opinion on this, adding the golden bat rule into play. And then what do you do if that golden bat guy is on the base paths? I mean, what do you do? Again, there's a lot of layers to this. it just seems like to me that you are trying to not reinvent the wheel, you are trying to create a new wheel.

And you're trying to do it to add more because I'm going to get it. But man, it just feels very video gameish to me. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Uptown appliance repair is a company that I'm very happy to speak for because they have taken a lot of issues with people's appliances that aren't working and getting them fixed. new piece of equipment. That's why calling 281-758-9-9-78 is the right thing for you to do. 281-758-9978. Your trusted source for reliable appliance repairs, whether you're here in town or all throughout

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A 281-758-9978. Don't know the number in front of you or you can't memorize it? Uptown Appliance Repair.com. That's uptownappliance Repair.com or call 281-58-9978. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. We've had some people try to call the show, and I apologize. We are having technical issues with our ability to talk to you, so we cannot talk to you.

What's that, Matt? What did you say? I couldn't hear you? Our equipment continues to be underwhelming. I was just worried that my joke didn't land. That was just really... You're used to that, unfortunately. Hey, look, it's trial and error. That's comedy.

Because we are a talk show, and obviously Dan and I are leading a lot of the conversation, but I do like talking to y'all. I do, whether we agree or disagree. And it frustrates me to no end that we can't talk. And this happens on a semi-regular basis. So we'll move on. The show must go on. And once we get the phones fixed, we will be happy to tell you because we do want you guys to be a part of the radio show today.

And frankly, Dan and I are talking for four straight hours. It's going to be not as much fun. We want to have you guys interaction. So if you have something you want to say to us, the easiest way right now until we get our phones fixed would be to tweet at us at SportsMT at Dan Matthews, H-O-U, at Conradame McGovern, or you can send me an email at mt at Sports790.com. MT at Sports790.com.

All right, so the main headline is the day. We have Al-Ziza Al-Hiairis out for three games. The John Runyon stance is pretty, intense. Now, as soon as I saw Shepter's tweet about this, and people were talking about John Runyon, there was a video of him launching his body into a player,

an opponent, which made him look like, you know, an ass and a hypocrite for doing that. It kind of reminded me of, well, when I was young, Dan Matthews, I didn't know what was writing, what was wrong, and now that I'm older and in an area of responsibility,

I know that what I did back when I was playing was wrong, and I'm here to fix it Yeah, I mean, that is part that's going to be immediately looked at by at least people here is, oh, that's really rich coming from you. And I mean, like I said, we've seen the videos out there. But it's also, too, I mean, just because you did things a certain way when you're younger, doesn't make you a bad person. And it doesn't mean that you can't learn from the error of your ways. And potentially, maybe he did. Maybe after he got out of the game, he said, hey, look, you know, I played the game in some.

certain cases the wrong way. And enough of that belief was garnered by the NFL and by Roger Goodell and whoever else they wanted to put in charge of delegating such responsibilities that they said, okay, hey, you know, who would know how to look for certain things better than you? Yeah, I'm going to say that again, it was an easy line of let's go rip the communicator and find out something on him so we can call him a hippocry. I mean, yeah, John Runyon, if you see the video, he launches himself blindsides somebody. It was nasty. It was terrible.

And he was punished for that. But, you know, again, if you're going to basically call anybody in power a hypocrite when they make a decision based on a sudden they did 20 or 25 years ago, then all of us are hypocrites, right? It would be like us being parents saying, you know what, daughter, sons, why are you underage drinking? when you did it back in the day yourself. I mean, nobody has an embargo on perfection just because it's not humanly possible. So, yeah, I mean, you're going to have everybody. I mean, that's kind of like,

what do we see during election time of the other candidate putting out a paid advertisement of, hey, look how immoral and how terrible this person is. And then the other candidate will do the same thing. It kind of just comes down to, all right, who do I think is less of a scumbag? And who do I necessarily believe

will do the job correctly? I mean, this is what we do as humans. Yeah. So, again, I'm not going to, somebody has to be in charge of that. And there's going to be a three-person committee that's going to adhere, the Alshahe here, the ruling, you know, obviously he has appealed the decision. And an appellate board is three persons deep. It's all full of ex-NFL players.

So they're going to look at it. And obviously, they're going to be, you know, it's going to take a lot to overcome it because Al-Z's has quite a history of not bad. behaving himself on the football field. Nick Casario is going to talk to the Houston media, which means we're going to let you guys hear from it coming up in just a couple of moments. So please stay with us as the Matt Thomas show continues. We're taking it with Ross until 2 o'clock today at 713-212-790.

7-1-3-2-1-2-790. Nicky C's going to talk. I'm sure he will get into some of it. Now, how much of a word salad? We'll find out shortly. Right now, I want to tell you about underdog fantasy. Did you mop the floor with your selections yesterday with Underdog Fantasy in that Cleveland, Denver game? I mean, if you had a bunch of hires on player stats, you did very, very well of that high-scoring game.

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underdog fantasy, promo code SportsMT. Lunch timers, this is the Matt Thomas show. I appreciate everybody being here. Just a couple things, I think. just from a team standpoint, really good spot. So I think all you can ask for is to play meaningful games when December starts and we're not positioned. So I'm excited about the opportunity in front of us. We'll have a bye week this week, kind of rests up.

D'Amico talked about that yesterday a little bit, but it's really about the rest and recovery and kind of getting the players physically back up to speed and been going at this for how many weeks now. But great opportunity in front of us. That's all you can ask for. You can't ask for anything more than that. we're in a decent position. So we'll see what the next four-week spring. As it pertains to Z's, I'm sure I'll get a question,

so just try to get ahead of that here a little bit. So a couple things. I know D'Amico talked about it after the game. Yesterday, CJ, had some comments right after the game as well, and Z's put something out there. I think the most important thing is the health and well-being of Trevor. You know, fortunately he's going to be okay, so it's in a fortunate playing situation.

I think one of the biggest issues that we sort of take umbrage with, I would say as a team and organizationally is a picture that's been painted of Aziz. Quite frankly, it's unfair. And I'd say one of the biggest issues is that, and I probably speak for a lot of teams, not only Houston Texans, but I think that's all teams asked for is consistency from the league. And I'd say in this situation, I mean, quite frankly, there's no consistency at all relative to the level of discipline that's been handed down. So when you go back, let's look at this season.

Okay, we had multiple situations, multiple examples. All right, two really good players, I would say. Branch ejected against Green Bay, right, plays the next week against us. Okay, Derwin, ejected, all right, got suspended for one game. And Durwin's a great player. Derwin's had some other situations that have come up. And I see even going back here, a player that we know well, organizationally here. Kareem Jackson, Kareem's a good player, was ejected, fine.

ejected, find, ejected, and then suspended after three games. So we're going to say Aziz al-Shayir, who nobody embodies our program more than Aziz, what he's about, what he's been through. You all know his story. They're not a more selfless individual, more about the team who's earned the respects, that represents everything that we want this program to be about. I mean, this morning he was at a United Way event. So we're talking about some of the commentary that has been made about his character,

about the person that he is, about what his intentions are, from people that, quite frankly, don't know anything about Z. Al-Shayr, okay? And for the league to make some of the commentary that he made about lack of sportsmanship, lack of coachability, lack of paying attention to the rules, quite frankly, it's embarrassing. So I think the big thing from our, and they're talking about a player who's never been suspended, never been ejected.

So now we're saying that he's going to be suspended for three games. So, look, it is what it is. I think the big thing from our standpoint, and all teams want this, it's just some level of consistency. And we've talked to the league, quite frankly, but we don't have a good explanation. D'Amico talked to them yesterday. So, I mean, it is what it is. I'm sure Aziz will go through whatever process he's going to go through, and then we'll deal with it accordingly. But I think what we take umbrage is, is just the picture that's been painted about Aziz, his intentions, who he is as a person.

I mean, quite frankly, it's bullshit. And it's unfair to the individual. It's unfair to the organization. I mean, we love everything about Aziz al-Shahir, what he means to this team, what he brings to this team. He was elected a captain after being here for four months. So, again, like, we have a lot of respect for our opponents. We have a lot of respect for other teams in this league. You want to do things the right way.

I think D'emiko's explanation about the situation from a defensive perspective yesterday, quite frankly, was spot on. It's a tough situation. Again, it's an unfortunate play. And, again, going back to the first thing I said, the most important thing is the health and safety. of our players and I'd say the health and well-being of Trevor and you know hopefully Trevor's going to be okay but to speak on Aziz's intentionality about what he intended to do some of the comments that have been made quite frankly it's embarrassing so like we're going to support

Aziz we love everything about him we're glad he's a part of this team so I just wanted to just I'm sure I was going to get asked about it so I figured I might as well address it ahead of time so and at some point we'll probably talk about football which is what everybody's here to do so so I'll leave it there issued the final paragraph in the league statement. I mean, Landry, it's a couple. I mean, I would just say, you know, to make a comment, again, when you put information to make a statement in a letter with A,

not having talked, ever talked to a player, okay, not knowing the player, and then to basically paint a picture, you know, you guys write it, your lack of sportsmanship and respect for the game of football, and all those who play coach and enjoy watching and is troubling, it does not reflect the core values of the NFL. So that essentially implies that Aziz doesn't give a crap about the fans, doesn't give a crap about playing football the right way, is not coachable. It could be further from the truth. But when you make these statements and accusations and then you paint a picture of a player, quite frankly, nobody has a lot of respect for that.

I think that's, I would say, part of the issue here. So, again, everybody's entitled to her opinion. Like, everybody's going to have an opinion. Totally understanding and get that. But again, and going back to what I talked about, like the level of consistency, relative the discipline that's mandated, it's got to match up in some capacity. We're trying to understand it. And again, I speak for the Texans, but I speak for a lot of the other teams in the league

as well. Everybody just wants some level of consistency, a level playing field, just so we have an understanding so we can apply the rules in the right way. And again, I would say another thing that nobody's really talking about, so the way the suspension is designed specifically, so essentially you're saying you can't have any contact with the player for however many weeks, three or four weeks, right? So if the league says they care about the well-being of their players, right? I would say in a time like this, I'm sure Aziz is probably going through a lot of things.

Like we can't even provide support on a multitude of levels. So it's a little bit hypocritical to be able to see, yeah, we want to support the players. But you know what? Organization can't have contact with them for four weeks. Okay, so what do you want to do? You just got to go float by himself. I mean, so there's just a lot of layers of this. And I think we've got to take a step back and just try to absorb it and try to understand.

understand it. And again, I think the big thing from our perspective is just consistency. That's the big, the main thing. What was your pre-OV from that? Go ahead, Land. Just finish up and then we'll go. The after the fact, because it's been well discussed, the defense perspective

and the quarterback and all that. What about after the fact? Because I know DiMiko talked about, you know, Jacksonville might have kind of intensified overreacting. What was your, what was your perspective of what went down there and could that have factored into the decision? Yeah, I don't want to speak for the league. I would say, like,

Football is an emotional game. So, I mean, honestly, I look like I was watching, like, the Michigan-Oha State game. So, I mean, I think, I mean, in all seriousness, I think there's a way everybody needs to handle themselves. And there's a certain professionalism and everybody needs to have. It's an emotional game. Things are going to happen. But there's a right way to handle things. And, again, from Jacksonville's perspective, they're trying to defend their teammate, okay?

And, you know, in the end, you're just worried about your team and the well-being. And, again, even look at Heinz Allen after the game. Like, his comment was basically, you know what, I'm not even sure as these should be to be, to be, fine or suspended. And here's, we have a lot of respect for Heinzell. He's one of the best players in the league. So here's talking about a defensive player, making a comment about a situation that happened in a game

about his own particular player. So again, everybody has an opinion. They're all out there. I mean, I'm sure everybody was talking about this yesterday, which I don't want to say that factored into it, but honestly, I probably factored in the overall decision-making process. So, look, it is what it is.

We'll handle it like we handle everything else. Whatever result is, we'll deal with it. and then we'll move forward. Go ahead, Aaron. Super question. The commentary about him, a lot of the guys that have come to our former defensive players, many of them, you go back and watch the videos. Same kind of hits in a different era, but they're saying, you know, you're talking about him or critical,

they're talking about him, but they did the same thing when they were playing and have to fall up. Yeah, I think in the end, it's all about do they know the person is these all shy here? That's the most important thing. Like the game has evolved. We all understand that. So, I mean, we grew up, some of us grew up kind of a different time and seen football play a little different way. So what the rules are, what the rules are. So we try to play within the rules, try to play good, clean football.

That's how we coach it. That's what we believe in. We never walk on in the field with the intention of trying to harm someone. It's a physical sport. It's a physical nature. Things happen during the course of games. The league has to mandate, you know, the rules and regulations, however they see fit. I think the biggest issue is just the overall level of consistency and just trying to establish some level of precedent, which that's all we're trying to grapple with and understand.

And the follow-up is just that the linebacker, you did have come out for some time with a knee injury. The guys you have filling in and can give us an update on Christian Harris or DiBico said maybe he's back soon. Yeah, we've had a number of players that, to your point, I've played that position. Devon's come in giving us some snaps at different points. I mean, Henry's done a really good job and start to finish him going back to last year's, our leading tackler. And again, I'd say Neville Hewitt, there's a guy that nobody really talks about. But, I mean, whenever a guy goes in a game, he's a tackling machine. He had to hit, he tackles there the other day.

It's one of our best players in a kicking game. And I'd say relative to Christian Harris, I'd say definitely making some progress. I think he's getting closer. I'd say there's certainly a shot. We're going to see him sooner rather than later. So whoever we have available, I think that's the one thing about this team. Like we felt going into the season, when we built the team and put the team together, that we had depth across positions, not only on the roster,

but some of our off the roster depth. We've had a number of practice squad players who have participated in games, even going back to the game the other day. Jared Wayne, we had to elevate him with Hutch's situation. And then when Teagan got hurt late in the week, we were elevated Irv Smith, who'd been here. So trying to have as much depth on the roster and off the roster as well. So wherever the players come from, we'll make the most of it,

and we'll go out there. And, you know, I think the focus right now is just getting ready for a really good Miami team when we come back next week. Do you all plan to where he plan to appeal? Also, aside from that, do you all plan to voice your concerns to the league afterwards? Oh, we have. I mean, D'Amico had a conversation with the league yesterday. I'm not sure.

It looks like it fell on deaf ears, but, I mean, it is what it is. So whatever the process is in place, the players have a process. The players of the PA, they have a process that they go through. So whatever the process is, like, we're for a part of that grade, if we're not, we're not. First question. I mean, obviously, we're talking to delineate. Aziz issue with the after Chicago game, I mean, that's been how. related all around by the hit on the sideline to the quarterback.

And then to go back to his Tennessee Day, they sort of put a compilation of all his greatest hits and following up with that question, is the National Football League still collecting revenues off the greatest hits on somebody on all these that they put out by these big hits and blowing up players on that? Yeah, I can't speak to that. But again, there's been an emphasis on player safety,

which there should be, the health and safety of the players. is the most important thing. Like, we all understand that. Players understand that. Coaches understand that. We understand it from our perspective. It's a physical game. And I think there's a lot of plays that are legal plays, that are clean football, which is what the lead wants to promote, which we're all in favor of.

I would say about the same token, there's multiple hits and multiple games. I mean, again, we can go back to last year. I mean, Quina Williams bounced CJ's head off the ground last year. Okay, no penalty, no late hit, no nothing. All right? So we're saying like we're okay with that hit. So this just goes back to the level of consistency. So you want to play a game the right way,

trying to take the head out of football and all that and the different tackling styles and all that. But it's a physical game. It's played at a high rate of speed. I think what you're seeing on defense especially, you're seeing high-level athletes, faster, more explosive, and contact is pretty significant.

So we all want to do it within the rules. And I'd say even a play that you alluded to going back to the Chicago game, Caleb, I mean, he was. was in bounds. He hit him in bounds. So, again, there's a fine line, and I think defensive players, quite frankly, and I think D'Amico articulated it very well yesterday. I mean, they're in a tough spot. So you're trying to make a split-second decision sometimes, and, you know, things happen. And, again, you're never trying to harm or injure a player, at least most players.

I mean, some players might not give a crap. I mean, they're just, you know, they talk about say one thing, but then do another thing. So as far as what the league does and all that, all our focus is on the Houston, Texan is just trying to coach our players the right way, getting to play a certain way. Like, we want to play fast, physical on defense. I mean, everything starts with swarm. It's about running.

It's about getting as many hats to the ball. It's about getting a ball carrier on the ground. And as long as Damiko Rines as a head coach, that's philosophy is not going to change. So we have to find players that have that mindset that fit that mentality, which I would say we've got a boatload up on defense or on a field, which is why we're pretty good on defense. on a subject that isn't about the suspension.

With CJ in his second year, how would you evaluate how he's played and how he's developed as he continues to lead your team? Yeah, I think he's had a really good year. I mean, his leadership, what he brings to the team, his communication, his ownership of the offense. I think he's, I don't know, fourth in the league in yards or fourth in the completions. You know, I mean, he's ahead in Mahomes in some categories. I mean, Patrick is arguably one of the best.

He'll be going on one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the sport. So we're glad that they see that our quarterbacks made a lot of progress. You know, there's some plays like all of our players that you probably wish they could have back. But happy he's our quarterback, happy with what he brings to the table, played a really good game the other day, really clean game, made a lot of good decisions, and he was a big reason that we won a football game. So glad he's our quarterback. We wouldn't want anybody else leading this team.

How important has Joe Mixen been to your team's success this year? And has he even exceeded expectations that you may have had for him coming in? after that great career in Cincinnati? Joe's been phenomenal. I mean, can't say enough great things about Joe Mixing, what he brings to the table. Just his mindset, the way he plays, his physicality, his toughness, his leadership.

He wasn't named the captain initially, but then we kind of, you know, staff getting hurt and kind of losing a little bit of leadership there. And then D'Amico making Joe a captain for the rest of the year. I mean, that was something that was earned. That's not just we're giving out, like, party favors. That was something that, like, his teammates see that, and they respect that.

But can't say enough great things about. Joe Mix. He's been a good football player. He's a great teammate. He's a good leader. He's a good mentor for younger players. He's always been a very productive player and very versatile. It's kind of been a three-down back, which is not a lot of those in this league, and he sort of fits that profile. So glad Joe's here. He certainly has helped us, and hopefully he can help us here the next four weeks as well, four games. Nick, it feels like last year you guys didn't have the opportunity to maybe put the offensive line you planned on the field. It feels like maybe you had that for most of

this year a good portion of it. What's kind of your evaluation been to the offensive line so far this season? Yeah, overall, it's been pretty solid. I mean, there's been some games that moved on others, probably since a Jets game. You know, I'd say pass protection specifically has probably been a little bit better. I mean, a Jets game, I'm quite a fact that we haven't been to play very well in that game. I mean, there's a lot of things, a lot of factors that went into it. But overall, like, we're a better running team than we were last year.

Part of that is Joe. I mean, but you can't gain, I don't know, 100 yards on a road and six games breaks some NFL record without having a good offensive line. in the way we finished a game there the other day. I mean, the play was well blocked. And basically for the entire day against a good front, like CJ had a pretty clean pocket to throw from. So certainly made some progress.

You know, we've had to move some people around here a little bit, you know, with KG going out, Patterson going in at center. I'd say juice sort of self, juice is a better center than he is a guard. But that was the best thing for the team was to move juice over to guard. And he's handled that really well.

So, you know, overall, we're certainly making progress. So like most areas of the team, You know, we've had some good plays. We had some plays that I'd certainly like to have back, but all we can do is just try to figure out some areas. I think tangibly we can improve, which I think we're capable of doing, and see if we can put that together here in the next four weeks because that's the opportunity that's in front of us.

You all were making a lot of the movies where I made this off season. Did you believe you all were capable of potentially competing for a Super Bowl, and where do you stand on that right now? Yeah, I mean, our philosophy has always been just focused on a present, focus on right now, just try to put together. a good football team that can basically compete in any situation against any team. So that's where to focus is. So anything outside of that, I mean, I've never been caught up in any hypotheticals

because it doesn't really matter. What matters is your work and your preparation that week and just how well you executed against that particular opponent. So we felt we had a good football team. We put together a good football team in the offseason. We feel like we got a good football team. I mean, we've lost two games on two walkoffs. So we've had an opportunity other than Minnesota game where we didn't play very

well, we've basically had an opportunity to win each game, so it's all you can ask for. So in the end, it's going to come down to up how well we execute each week, when the next opportunity for that's going to be against Miami. Nick, you're talking about the amalgamation of this team. What's the up in your quiver? I know you've probably got a board somewhere with some players that are that's skill in your quiver some things that maybe if you've got a chance to maybe improve this team down the stretch from going into the playoffs that you will pull the trigger on.

Yeah, I mean, a tried deadline. It was passed. So really, in terms of adding players to your team, probably limited options. So I'd say most teams are in a situation where either players coming back from injury or injured reserve or on their practice squad. I mean, the chances of a player on the street really coming in and making any significant impact on a particular team,

probably going to be limited. So, like, we'll feel comfortable with the players that are here. The 70 players, or however many people we have in the building. And we think that we can win football games. We have won football games with the people that are here. So we have a lot of faith and confidence. in those people. So once the season is over, I mean, once we kind of turn the page on a 24 season

and start to think about 25 season, then we'll figure out what our options look like relative to sort of improving the team. But got a good opportunity in front of us, got a good football team, a lot of good players. So Indiana is going to come down to our execution. And I'd say two areas, if we can improve them, I'd say limit in the turnovers. We'd second the league in takeaways or I've turned the ball over a little bit more. So if we can just mitigate the turnovers and then improve a little bit in the right area, both offensively and defensively.

Forget about anything else. Like you can talk about whatever you want. In those two areas, we can make some small improvements. We're probably going to be in a pretty good position. So we'll see how it goes. Nick, how much is the team that you built helped develop CJ to a quarterback where you're so happy to have it? How much the team is going around how to develop today's point?

Yeah, it's not about the team that I've built. It's about the team that all of us have kind of put together. but we feel like we have a lot of good players on this football team at all levels. Offensively, got good skill players. I mean, a number of good receivers, good group of tight ends, good offensive line, good backs. So in the end, it's all about our performance and how we execute on a field. So certainly at our moments, we've got a lot of good plays. There's a lot of good out there.

And hopefully we have more good than bad here at the end. So whatever we get, we're going to earn. So right now we've earned eight and five. So you've got four more games in front of us. So hopefully we can go out there and just play good, solid, clean football. and then see where we are at the end of the year. As a gym, you'll always have high hopes for guys that you draft. When you look back in your first draft here,

have an opportunity to bring in Nico in that third round. How cool has it been to see him blossom into the wide receiver that we see right now? Yeah, the credit goes to Nico and Ben McDaniels and the offensive staff. So I'm sure if you've talked to Nico, you know, he was a little bit of a raw player. But, I mean, 6'4, 225 pounds, who ran fast and got behind the defense in Michigan. and didn't play his last year, and then you kind of had to make some projection there. So, you know, we felt Nico was a decent player, somebody that we want to work with. But nobody's worked harder than Nico Collins to improve and make himself a good football player.

And really, it's a good example of a young player who has to go through offseason, go through some adversity. I mean, he didn't have a lot of success, even going back to 22. I mean, you know, he was injured and caught 30 passes, but he never lost faith. Tremendous attitude, like great human being, great person, always upbeat, works his ass off and has improved and gotten better, and he's taken to coaching. And I would say specific to that room, there's been a lot of consistency because Ben's been here kind of from the beginning. So, I mean, a credit goes to Nico, and credit goes to the offensive staff and Ben McDaniels for the work that they put in. So, you know, happy for Nico and just happy for him. He's a great person.

Nick, continued development of Derek Stingley Jr. Yeah, well, go ahead, Aaron. Nick, the continued development of Derek Stingley Jr. Coverage skills, tackling all the things you see from him. Is he even better than perhaps you thought he might be when you picked him? I mean, similar to the question about Nico. I mean, we felt Derek was a good player. I mean, he was a good player at LSU.

I mean, the damn good player. So, I mean, that's why we drafted him. So, I mean, he's similar to Nico in some respects. he's worked and made himself into the player that he is. This league isn't about talent. I mean, it's about talent, but it's really not. It's about work. It's about mental and physical toughness,

and it's about doing it consistently day after day, week after week, after week, month after month. Derek's had multiple consecutive off-seasons. You know, a really good off-season last year. It played well. It really good off-season this year. And honestly, he's improved in some areas, probably in run force and tackling are some of the areas

that he's probably improved the most. So you'd be hard pressed to say there's too many corners playing better than Derek Steenling, maybe other than Insertain. I mean, Certain basically does everything well. I don't think he's given a completion all year. But, I mean, Derek's a good player. We thought he was a good player when we drafted them. And nobody's a finished product when they're drafted.

I mean, forget about what anybody tells you or what anybody thinks. That's a fallacy. So it's about what you do when you walk in a building. And Derek has worked really hard to make himself into the player that he is. So credit to him, credit the deal. Dino, because those are the people that deserve to credit. Based on what you just said in regards to talent, about where you are right now, in five, when you first began the season, is this about where you thought you would be

that you take it if you care, or what you think? Honestly, I never have any idea how it's going to go. Nobody does. Like, for them to tell you, look, oh, yeah, we're going to win this many games. I mean, they're in a wrong business. Like, I'm never going to say that. We're never going to say that. It's all we can do is try to put together a good football team.

try to come in, have the right mindset, and then in the end, go out there and try to be one and O each game. And if you make enough plays and do the right things that are conducive to winning, you will. If you don't, then you won't. There were, going to week 12, 82 games were decided by six points or less. All right. So we have the most competitive league in all of professional sports. I know the Rockets and Astros fans right now probably hate me, but that's the truth. So we get one opportunity each week.

And then you look at this past weekend, 12 a 6th. 16 games were one score, and then if you add in the Denver game, which was nine points, you're talking about 80% of the games are one score games, which speaks to how small the margins are. Everybody's talented. Every team in this league has talent. So it's what do you do with your opportunities? How good is your execution? What are you doing on the margin?

So that's where our focus is. As far as what the record is going to be, how many games are going to win? Honestly, I'm not that smart. I can't figure that out. So all we can do is just try to do the right things consistently day after day. after week, put ourselves into position to have a good opportunity, which as we sit here today, December, whatever it is, we've got a great opportunity in front of us, doesn't guarantee squat. All right?

That's all it guarantees as an opportunity, so we're excited about what's in front of us. Nick, there's a big of a couple more. Nick, there's no secret that, you know, over the last couple weeks his team has had some second half squar deficiencies from your assessment and what you're seeing. How do you think they're coming out of the body that they can get themselves going again? And has there been any talk of maybe, you know, so shared play calling with Bobby? Yeah, the last part is absolutely not. Like Bobby Sloe is a great coordinator.

He's not a great job. He's a great coach. And, you know, we're going to, you know, we've done a lot of good things offensively. And I would say as far as the second half goes, in the end, it just comes out of execution. So the other team makes more plays than you do, then, like, they're going to win. So can we do a better job? Like, yeah, sure, like, do better on first down. All right, put ourselves in second and manageable, which is third to management.

manageable. Take care of the football. So in the end, this league is all about execution. It's about doing little things. It's about controlling field position, which I'd say we haven't talked about the kicking games. Nobody cares about the kicking game. But, like, we're pretty good in the kicking game. Like, we can cover kicks. I think we're second in net punting or third in net punting. Tommy's done a really good job here. So to be able to control field position. The whole kickoff return is kind of a wash because basically the average starting field position is about 29 yard line. So it's about the same. And then Kaimi, I mean, I don't know, he's like broke the record for most 50-yard field goals. So, you know, he's missed a couple short ones. So we've got pretty good in the kicking game. We got a good defense, you know, pretty good on offense. So we put ourselves in a good position. So in the end, how do we execute with our next opportunity, which Miami's in front of us, which is a damn good football team, which we're going to have to get

10, you know, what Miami brings to the table. That's where the focus is. So in the end, good football is about good execution and, you know, second half. It's no different in the first half. Like, there are times we've executed a little bit better than in the first half and we have the second half. on the second half the other day.

Domico got asked about what happened in the first half, so I mean, that's football. So it's an ebb and flow to every game. It's usually going to come down to a handful of plays, six or eight in each game. You don't really know when those plays are going to take place, but you make them or the other team makes them. And whoever makes the most, they're probably

going to win. With that said, I know the expectations and all that. You obviously have one goal, like one major goal, win as many games as possible. From what you've seen from this team, 13 weeks in, what are the improvements that need to be made for the final stretch of the season for you to be able to potentially get to that highest level of expectation? No, it's fair, Leonard.

I mean, I kind of alluded to a little bit earlier. So if we can kind of minimize some of the turnovers offensively, all right, because when you just give the ball the other way, and, you know, again, the correlation between, if you took everything else out, zero turnovers, correlation of winning, I mean, it's pretty high. I mean, it's like 85, 90%. So that's one area and continue to take the ball. away, which again, we're second in the league. So it's one of the things that we do really well. And then red area execution. So kind of offensively and defensively, I mean, we're like,

I don't know, 27 or 28 in a red area defensively. So it's about getting stops, it's about fendent points. And then offensively, it's converting those four-point play opportunities. So I would say those two areas, if we can make some maybe subtle improvements in those areas, then that could potentially help us. Because again, the margins of victory and or loss in our games, other than the minimum. Minnesota game, right, have been basically negligible, right? Three or four points here, six, seven points here. So when you look at those two particular situations, you start to see a little bit of correlation.

But I would say those are a couple things if, you know, we can improve, might have a shot. After the by, you guys have three games and ten days against rather tough competition. Tough competition. How difficult do you think that stretch is going to be and kind of what's the message to the team about, you know, getting through that to get to where you all want to go? Yeah, it's really just taking one, one day, one game at a time. So all we can control, kind of a normal week relative to the Miami preparation. So, I mean, we'll come back. You know, next week, players are off here for a number of days, kind of an extra day on Monday, go through a normal week.

And then play, you know, Miami, and then you kind of lose a day, you know, we're playing Saturday night. So, and then after that game, then you basically don't practice, right? You have walked through in preparation. So I think the focus for the players and coaches is going to be, especially early, you'll be in Miami. we have other people and other resources allocated, staff-wise, kind of preparing, kind of looking ahead a little bit to provide the information to the coaches. So we kind of segment those responsibilities,

but the focus is on Miami. The only thing we can worry about is Miami. Anything beyond that, like, I mean, it's Christmas and all that, but we can't worry about that. Like, well, good news focus on Miami, and then when we get through a Miami game, then we can kind of turn the page to the next, I mean, look, these are good football teams for playing.

I mean, the next four games, good football teams. So, you know, we're either going to earn it, Or not. I mean, not to oversimplify it, but that's the truth. Kalyn and Kamari have gotten significant playing in time. What do you think about the way they've developed so far and how they performed in the first few games? Yeah, we felt that they could make a contribution here at some point.

I mean, Kamari's basically done it since the days walked in the building. So even going back to the spring, even go back to OTAs, I mean, just his mindset, the way he plays, not as competitive as any player we probably have on the football team. he's tough, he's physical, he tackles. I mean, there's a reason Georgia won a lot of games because they had a lot of players down here with that type of mindset.

So happy that Kamari's here. I think Kalen continues to evolve. And then one thing that he's done consistently is take the ball away. He did it at USC. He's done it since beginning of the season. They're both young players who have had some modicum of success.

But what's happened in the past doesn't really have a ramification about what happened moving forward. And they understand that. say most young players, specifically are rookies. I mean, they play a lot of football here. You talk about four preseason games, 13 regular season games, and been playing football for 17 games.

I mean, it's two college seasons already. I mean, with all the playoffs and all the garbage they got going on there. But, I mean, they're good football players, a good young kid, got the right mindset. So we're glad that they're here, and they're going to be good players here for a long time. Thank you. All right, thanks.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we have never in our entire Nick Hissario run ever run a press conference of his. that went 30 minutes. That was by far the most interesting, interesting press conference he's ever had. The least amount of word salad he's ever had is the entire life. My goodness.

We got a lot to chew on. We also skipped an entire brick. We've got great advertisers we've got to take care of. So we're going to mix those in. We're going to push gut feelings back a few minutes. And unfortunately, because you guys can't call us, You can't get your gut feelings in, so we'll have our one segment of that. But Dan and I are going to chew on what we just heard when we return.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. When the phone numbers are working, we'll let you know. I'm just telling you're right in it. When you get a BS drop in a middle of a press conference, Nikki C, not very happy. We continue. The Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Dan is in today for Ross. and we'll take a quick time out, come back, and get to those comments after this on Sports Talk 790. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas Show. 1138, Sports Talk 790. Again, in the history of Nikki C's tenure as a general manager of the Houston Texans, we've never carried a press conference to him more than about five minutes

because it's just a bunch of word salad. Dan, that was the opposite of words out. At least 90% of it was. He's pissed. He dropped the swear word on us. We had to delete it. Sorry. He dropped a couple other dams and whatnots.

He loves him some Al-Ziz al-Shayr. He doesn't like the penalty. He doesn't like the inconsistency. He doesn't like that the history was used as part of it. And this is no surprise because that's his guy. He brought him in. He's D'emiko's guy. D'emico loved him.

Wanted to bring him here. you see brought him here. I mean, this is everything that we thought. This is an organization that's defending their guy that feels like the punishment does not fit the crime. And again, what we talked about in the first hour of the show plays in here,

there is no consistency because it's impossible, I think, Dan, to be consistent when you're talking about rules violations. It shouldn't be, I think it's his point. And my advice to him would be, well, then you better find a way to get on the competition committee, and then you can start to enact that change. Because, I mean, we do

see leagues that do have precedent for punishment. I mean, I brought it up yesterday, college football, with the faking injuries, the SEC, straight up said, all right, you do it once, here's this punishment. You do it again, a little bit more severe punishment. You do it a third time, then guess what, coach, you're the one that's sitting out because clearly you're coaching it. And I think from Casario's side, obviously I understand there's a huge slant to it because, yes, it is their self-interest to protect their player. And I do agree with, you know, what he said about You know, you making character assumptions about the guy and how he plays the game without really any real, you know, digging into how this guy is, which honestly doesn't have anything to do with the play. The play itself probably warranted a stiff either fine or in this case suspension.

And I mean, I do agree with them where it's like, okay, hey, if we're going to continue to do this, then we need to do it with, all right, you know, if it's this first time, then you get a one game suspension. If it's this, then you get a third. I mean, you know, just that's something that I can ride with, and I think he delivered that point pretty perfectly. Well, I think the argument he has is the last sentence that perhaps John Runyon put out with his statement this morning. Your continued disregard for NFL rules puts the health and safety of both you and your opponents in jeopardy and will not be tolerated.

So they're basically saying, we're taking what you did and we're going to add everything else together, and this is the reason why we got our suspension. Now, I don't know if that's what you're supposed to do, but that's what the NFL did. The NFL said you have a history of not behaving yourself, of being fined, and getting personal foul penalties, and we've got an opportunity here to send a message to you, and that message is sent. Now, the narrative perhaps also has been, and we mentioned this at the very top of the show, did D'Amico hurt himself by overly defending Al Z's yesterday?

Don't know about that. And ultimately, how much of the national narrative of it? of this play being put out on every sports television show in America, plus all the websites and whatnot, did that force the NFL to say, we've got to make sure there's a severe punishment. Again, we don't know the inner workings of it, but what I read from John Runyon about an hour ago,

and we'll read again during the news at noon, Danny, is that they're very upset about not only what happened, but the play after, all that plus the past, and that's the reason why the suspension was put today together at three games. Well, it's also, too, they're very upset about it because of perception. I mean, what is the NFL, you know, widely regarded as as being a hypocritical organization, as we covered earlier. But, I mean, this is also one of those that, I mean, we've had litigations happen because of repeated head injuries. Yeah.

That this is a complete CYOA right here. Because this is the next time that they get taken the court, they can be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, there was a guy that had a hit on him and he had a head injury. and we gave out this suspension. So don't look at us. We did everything we could to try to make sure that this is not part of the game. Well, I'll all say is this. We're never going to forget this moment, at least for the forthcoming future plans. And we're going to, as sports fans, we're going to watch to see how the NFL handles the next time this happens.

Because, Dan, you know this as well as I do. This is going to happen again. Absolutely 100% is going to happen again. So now we know what the president is, especially, if that player that gets caught hitting quarterback, like Alzis did, is there a history with it? So we now have complete proof of what the NFL believes should be appropriate fine and or punishment and or suspension for the act that happened on Sunday. All right. Man, this is a day. I wish we could talk to you all, but our phones still aren't working. Oh, well. 713, 21, 2, 5, 790. Keep that number standing by it. As soon as the phones are working, we're going to let you guys talk because there's, again,

a lot to be said on this. But I did put a Twitter question out. What did y'all think of what you heard from Nicky C? Let me know. Send me a tweet at SportsMT of what you heard from the general manager of your Houston Texans. By far, the most animated he has ever been at a press conference. And frankly, it took him a handful of years to get animated. And maybe the Texans are building their reputation that so many people thought they should have had a long time ago. 713-212-5-7-9. Keep that number standing by. So when the phones are working, we will hear. from you. Our time is 1143. I want to tell you about love

volleyball. League 1 volleyball. L-O-V-B is the name. And it's a new league that's starting a professional volleyball in Houston. It'll be this January up at the Fort Bend epicenter. And I want y'all to check it out because it's going to be a great opportunity for those of you that have daughters

that like to play volleyball. Actually, men's game is really growing in Houston as well. If you love professional sports, the next new Major League is in town. It's League One volleyball. International players, top level college players, national team players, all be part of this league, and it starts this January. If you would like to get tickets and get more information about League One volleyball,

L-O-V-B-D-com, L-O-VB.com for Love Volleyball starts this January in Houston. Gut feelings are up next, but remember first, it's Love Volleyball, L-O-VB.com. Lunchtimers. This is the Matt Thomas show. Listen up, girls and boys. Matt Thomas. Yo, they got a good feeling. This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas show.

All right, since we can't take your phone calls it to just be me, Connor, and Dan Matthews on the gut feelings. Guys, let's first of all recap how we did last week. Connor, how did we do? Matt, you said UT beats the Aggies. Okay. Rockets win tonight, yeah, against the Timberwolves and grab the knockout round spot in the NBA Cup.

BYU beats the Cougars. Yes. I said the Rockets beat the Timberl's to advance the knockout round. That happened. Texans defeat the Jaguars. I said Joe Mixon has two touchdowns. I believe he only had one. And Mazoo beats Arkansas and UT beats the Aggies.

So I didn't hit on the Joe Mixon two touchdowns. Everything else. You did very, very well. Nicely done, my man. And Dan, you had UT also beating the Aggies. And you said Texas beats Georgia in the SEC championship. Okay. I think this was a future one, but he said Paul Goldschmidt signs

one-year deal with the Astros, so yet to be seen. Okay. Rockets lose tonight against the Tim Roles, and that didn't happen. The Rockets won. Such a hater. Such a hater. Just didn't know if they were ready for the moment, and they proved me wrong. I'm happy for them. Yeah, very good.

All right. Gut feelings. Our music go away. We lose all control, the audio board. Oh, no, I got it. Okay, I want to make sure. Al-Ziz-A-Shaier's suspension does not get reduced. He misses three games. There's my prediction. I disagree. I think it gets cut down. the two. Okay. So basically of the, you make the suspension long in order for him to come here,

the appeal, so it reduces. So basically they're, they're getting what they want. They just knew that three games might be too much, is what you're thinking. That and also too as well, just kind of let the emotions play out of it. And hey, he's on a bye week, so he's away from the team anyway. So time served. Okay. Rockets beat the Kings tonight. I got that. Rockets go two and one on this road trip minimum. They need to win at Golden State. It has been a long time since the Rockets have flat out beaten the Warriors and anything. Not calling a shot.

Hope and I'm right on this, but I will say two and one for the Rockets on this West Coast Road trip. Boy, I mean, it just must be contrarian Dand Day for me because I'm going one and two on this road trip. I think they win the night. Golden State, they are a little bit of a blind spot for them. And then Clippers have been playing better basketball. They have.

The wall might get the rockets there at the new Kia forum. Damn. All right. Connor, what do you got? I'll say, you know, I'll be a further contrary, and I'll say the rockets go undefeated on the rush. Oh. That's what I'll say.

Oh. You know. It hurts. I understand. But I can respect your opinions. I mean, I agree with them. But I, what else you got? Anything else?

Yeah. We will have finality on Alex Bregg. by Wednesday of next week. Ooh, you're calling the day, huh? I think by the middle of next week, he has done enough of the meetings, he has done enough of the talking. Yeah. And Scott Boris likes to make a splash at the league meetings,

and I think that he will do so twofold. I think he will have Juan Soto delivered and Alex Bregman both delivered. And you're not, okay, so what about, so Soto does it get signs first, then Bregman shortly after, or kind of like the same day kind of thing? I would say Soto first. I think Soto is probably a Tuesday night. announcement and then I think

Wednesday midday. Okay. And you're ready to predict where he's going to sign with? I'm going to go Boston. Oh, that would be painful. I really wanted to go somewhere nationally so we can only have to see him one time. That's my hope. I just think, I mean, for everything we've heard about, he wants to go to a winning

situation. Yeah. And Toronto would not be that. Although it sounds like Toronto could offer a lot of money. It looks like they probably would be wise to start trading guys. Yeah, I don't know they're going to, I mean, the only way they'd have money for him is that they trade a Vlad Guerrero one year left on his contract. But, I mean, I don't know.

Why would you, that Toronto situation was like just a bunch of players making crazy money that have underperformed. And if the Yankees, if the Yankees do enough to sign him, then Brian Cashman is an even larger B than we already knew he was. Good Lord. Listen to you. All right. Anything else from you, Connor?

Yeah, I'll side with Dan. I'll say Texas wins the SEC championship in the first year in the league. Yeah. And how hard will it be to hang out with Texas fans if they win the championship in the first league, first season there? I actually am going to give them credit. I think they've kind of gotten a little bit better, and I think Steve Sarkeesian has helped. Okay. You know, I don't hate Texas.

I think I hate their fans more than I hate them. Sort of like how Aggie people. I can ride with that, yeah. Like Longhorn fans hate Aggie fans more than they hate the Aggies themselves. I would say that probably up until last year, it was more of a general annoyance with Texas fans. where it's like, all right, we get what you were in the mid-2000s, but like, what are you right now and why are you so loud? Yeah, well, you know what it is?

It's bottom line is we just hate fan bases. Like, I don't have a, I don't hate the Cowboys. I'm stunned to how popular they are still with all their futility. We really hate the Cowboy fans more than else. Oh, no, no, no, no. Texas fans bring it upon themselves. The just general air of arrogance, it's brought on themselves. So, I mean, for years, hey, I thought Texas was bad.

Oh, I guess you're not. They're back now. Yeah, they are. They whistle while you work. They were back last year. I mean, they played in the semifinals. They're going to be a top four seat probably in the tournament coming up here. I would say they're definitely back this year because it only took them one year to get to the SEC championship game and A&M.

We're still waiting on you. Oh, the dig at the end. It's fair. Cruel but fair. That's what Jake Snake Roberts used to say when he used to give people the DDT. It's cruel but fair. All right. I'm trying to think of anything else.

Oh, this golden bat rule is not going to happen. It is going to be knocked down eventually because it's first of all, it's stupid. Second of all, it's a gimmicky. Third, it goes to the very core of what Major League Baseball and the fundamental game is. It's just a mess. And hopefully Rob Manfred is smoking some pot with. He was talking to media about this because I just can't see this happen. I would just say get automatic balls and strikes first,

and then we can start discussing other things that you want to implement. You know what? How about just get the better umpires? That's what we want. That would help too. That should be the most important thing that, that Commissioner Manfred should be worried about, is just getting better officiating or betting umpires.

All right, the news at noon is coming up in a matter of moments. You obviously will go through the major headline of the day. And if you did not hear Nick Casario, and I know that Connor is cutting up some of the audio, there is a comment that we're going to have to delete a little bit or at least blurb over because he dropped a swear word. And we've only carried a handful of Nick Assyrio press conferences over the last couple of years. Not much of a swear until today.

It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross is en route back to Houston. He'll be joining me tomorrow. I'll be in San Francisco here. I'm in Sacramento today. Dan Matthews is stepping in and we've got two hours left to go. We have, believe it or not today, which I've not yet worked on. So I've got to get working on that right away.

So if you want to join us, you can do that at at SportsMT, at Connor D. McGovern, and at Dan Matthews, H-O-U. We start hour three with the news at noon next. 1158, Sports Talk, 790 with a word for big city wings. I love talking about big city wings. First of all, it's my favorite place to go for wings. Secondly, for every $25 gift card, you get at any one of their 13 locations. They're going to give you $5 in bonus gift cards. For every 25, you get a $5 bonus.

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This is the Matt Thomas Show. 1204 here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. SportsRV is headed back from his overseas trip back with us tomorrow. We appreciate Dan Matthew stepping in today for him. Right now it's time for the new. at noon. I'm going to have to ask Ross. We have to get to, don't we?

Oh, we do. We have a ton. I'm going to have to ask Ross what it's like to be in Borneo for that long. Borneo, good pull there. Yeah, you know, just figured, came right to the top of my head. All right, Zez-Al Shire. Three-game suspension from the NFL. League VP, John Runyon, says

in part of his statement, quote, your continued disregard for NFL playing rules puts the health and safety both you and your opponents in jeopardy and will not be tolerated. among other things that Runyon said in his statement. But as we just heard in the last hour, Nick Casario, he disagrees. And we've talked to the league, quite frankly, but we don't have a good explanation.

Demiq talked to them yesterday. So, I mean, it is what it is. I'm sure Aziz will go through whatever process he's going to go through, and then we'll deal with it accordingly. But I think what we take umbrage is is just the picture that's been painted about Aziz, his intentions, who he is as a person. I mean, quite frankly, it's and it's unfair to the individual. It's unfair to the organization. And we love everything about Aziz al-Shayor,

what he means to this team, what he brings to this team. He was elected a captain after being here for four months. So there you go. Seriously, Nicky C was pissed. I liked it, honestly. I mean, usually he's kind of surly with us. But I appreciate that his aggression was painted or appointed someone else this time. Can I tell you this?

I think that D'Amico spoke to the league yesterday, and Nick mentioned that. I think Nick probably talked to some people. And I think he's mad, and I would probably understand it, it fell on deaf ears. They're like, we know how much you think of him. We know that he's a good dude. Committed a dirty play against the Jacksonville Jaguars,

and the whole world saw it, and we're not. We're going to protect our quarterbacks, and we're going to make sure that if somebody does this again, they're going to get a very harsh penalty, and we're going to be here to give you that harsh penalty. So I think he was part mad, of the suspension, but he's probably even more mad that his beloved head coach called the NFL offices.

And I hate to use a bit for tomorrow, but the NFL told Demico Ryan to shut his bum ass up. Yeah, I mean, the NFL appeals process is different than what it used to be. I mean, it used to be, basically it was, you know, you got the suspension from Roger Goodell, and then it was, hey, this shouldn't happen. And Roger Goodell just said, well, it did,

and that's the way it's going to go. but now it's part of a committee. And part of that committee are former NFL players like Derek Brooks, Ramon Foster, Kevin Mawai, or Jordy Nelson. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, again, that's the key as having ex-players in there. But it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to change it. It's John Runyon, an ex-player, been around a long time.

But what if it's heard by Derek Brooks, a guy that used to play his position and could maybe even empathize? Yeah, but I think that the mandate from the NFL is if your quarterback sloths, you've got to get out of the way. I want to make sure I'm very clear on this philosophy. I don't think Al-Zahar should have been suspended. Three games seems a bit much. One would have been appropriate. We'll see if the NFL reduces it.

I don't think they are because, again, if I'm reading the lines carefully from John Runyon's statement, which will read again coming up in the next segment of the show, it sounds like to me that they're very serious about what he did, what happened after the hit, and the previous things that Al Shahir had before this hit ever took place. And it's also worth noting that these positions of people who hear the appeals process that is jointly paid by the NFL and the Players Association. So, you know, maybe you want a guy that's a little bit more pro player in this case.

The Rockets are in Sacramento tonight for the Kings. 8 o'clock Rockets launchpad. Yours truly going to be there for you. You're in Sacktown and AC is back here in studio. Adam Clanton's in the studio right now? How's he doing? Well, he's not here right now. Oh, I see what you're saying.

He's got Peloton and all the other kind of things. Yeah, he's probably doing some manscaping of some sort at this point. He ended up time. I did not need that visual, but I was going with, you know, hey, maybe he can stop and grab me some coffee this time. I mean, you hear that, Adam? Get the man some coffee. Well, I mean, what's going to end up happening? is either he didn't hear that or he's not going to see my text and then he gets here and he's got coffee and I don't.

Seems rude. All right. By the way, Rockets are guaranteed a knockout round game next week. They could be easily the number one seed in the knockout round with a victory tonight against Sacramento. All right, college football playoffs, second to last rankings of the season coming out tonight. I have to believe that Texas will probably be in at number two. That's where they are in the coaches and the AP poll. but good enough to maybe even jump Oregon.

I mean, look, the committee has said you can lose a game. We're not going to punish you for losing a game. But it's also, though, too, then you're going to have people like Gordy saying, well, wait, they didn't play anybody. Did Gordy race his voice yesterday when he was on the final hour of the show? Yes, he did. Many octaves. What do you get mad about?

Just about the Texas fans, you know, of his stance on the Texans, or Texans. Texas's strength of schedule this season? Which they can't control, except for the non-conference games. Hey, look. I mean, they played Michigan. That's it, yeah. You scheduled a game away at the big house against Michigan. It's not your fault that they went six or seven and five.

Yeah. Strength is scheduled to me. It's a factor, but if you can't control it, especially when you have so many league games. Now, what the SEC probably should do to make sure that the, you try to get as much heavyweight. is you should probably start playing nine conference games, don't you think? I mean, I think that it's one of those that you want to have as much uniformity as possible. But, I mean, I think the SEC's argument is, well, you know, we also do require you to play a power conference, non-conference game. Right.

And the league is tough enough as is. So it's like, why do we want to punish ourselves even further? Unless you're LSU who wants to continuously get beat in the opening weekend game. That felt personal there. Well, it's personal because it's a personal. personal feeling of, hey, stop playing these first weekend games. They're not working. Yeah.

All right. So, bottom line is Penn State beats Oregon, Texas beats Georgia, and Texas will be the number one seat going into the tournament. Fair enough? I think that's probably fair, yes. And if Oregon beats Penn State, which you're expected to do, then the Texas Longhorn should be the number two seat, provided they beat Georgia. If they don't, they will be, what, six maybe?

Will they fall that far? I mean, two losses. I'm plotting the owner's name as number five. Yeah, I mean, because the non-conference affiliation, that obviously keeps them out of it. But, yeah, I would say that's true. Yeah, I would say Texas is either the two-seed or the six-seed, depending on what they do on Saturday. Counting on big games and James Franklin to win usually does not go his way. So, sorry, Nittany Lion fans.

I don't really have a lot of confidence in you. There's no Nittany Lion fans in Houston. Nothing to apologize. There's probably a couple. I mean, they're everywhere. All right. So do we have time for two more, or do you want the whack? Let's go.

Let's go quick. I won't say it work. All right, quickly. A Rollis Chapman, new home. Boston Red Sox, one year deal for nearly $11 million. Now, the reason why I bring this up is because Chandler Rome kind of floated this out there. You know there's been the rumors about the Astros might be shopping Ryan Presley. He's got that $14 million option this season. It does have a no trade clause. But if the Red Sox are willing to give out that type of money to a Rollis Chapman, who has really not been all that great the last few years,

and I get that Presley kind of struggled last season, don't you think that somebody would probably take a run at Ryan Presley? Geez, the money for him to be a closer. The question is, does he have closer stuff at this point in his career? I don't think so. I don't think he had closer stuff two years ago. He was just crapped enough to get around it. I'm a team in Ryan Pressy's mind.

I like Ryan Presley a lot. I'm a huge Ryan Presley guy. But Ryan Presley to me in this portion of his career, the back, whatever days of it is, is probably as a 7th or 8th inning guy. And I don't know if teams are going to want to spend north of $10 million for a high leverage guy, but not the closer. Perhaps his argument could be, though, of, look, yeah, last season was a bad year, but that was an anomaly.

Look at the rest of my career and look at me as a closer and how good I was. Okay. That seems fair. All right. And you have one more story. All right. So it is sports related. We've got a New Mexico basketball player who reportedly punched a walk-on teammate

during a flight over a seat. This comes from KOB TV in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the family and the attorney representing the walk-on player claims that this happened during the Lobos recent trip to Palm Springs to play in one of those in-season tournaments. The family claims that a scholarship player punched the walk-on player on the flight to Palm Springs. This was allegedly over an argument concerning where the walk-on was sitting on the plane. So it's like, hey, that's my seat. You know, I always have that seat. Well, not today. You don't. And the scholarship

player said, here, watch this. Eat this. But don't they have assigned seats on a plane? I would think so. But, I mean, it's also, though, too. I mean, you know, I know that obviously, you know, football programs have to travel charter. Do college basketball programs? I mean, yeah, a lot of the big ones do for sure. Okay. I mean, I just, you know, I guess I'd have to ask, the guy who used to be there, Eddie Nunez, of, hey, like, what's y'all's, like flights like? He probably wouldn't say anything, but... Yeah, I don't know if Mexico charter is a lot, but I can tell you the Cougars do. Most teams, hell, Auburn, chartered, and then they'd go back as they were fighting on their own plane.

There you go. There you go. So maybe if there are no assigned seats, that now there will be assigned seats of, like, a straight-up itinerary will be given to you. And it's, hey, you're in 13-C. Well, I don't want 13-C. Too bad. Yeah, yeah. I know in college football, they do assign the seats.

So, there you have. that was the news at noon. Let's, boy, oh, boy, oh, boy. Let's go to, you want to play, can we get a couple of sound bites and the best of Nicky C? Because I think it would be,

that BS comment was, hmm, that was as fired up as he's been as he's been a general manager of the team. We'll hear that. Plus, I want to read you what John Runyon again had to say in his letter to the NFL saying, basically, that's the reason why Al-ZZ Al-Shahir got suspended three games.

12-15. It is the Matt Thomas show. with Ross. Dan Matthews in. I'm in Sacramento. 713, 212, 790. It'll be a number you use once. We get our phones working again. Hopefully they will be. Let's tell you about the good folks at Game Day, men'shealth.com slash Houston. That's a website you can type as you listen to me right now. Game Day, men'shealth.com slash Houston. Locations all throughout the Houston area. There are eight of them. And there's more coming in 2025. If your testosterone levels are low, you need to get TRT, treatment right now. You're saying, Matt, I don't know if they're low. Why don't you go get a free T-level test?

That's right. The test at Game Day Men's Health is absolutely free. If you're sluggish, sleeping habits are terrible, you've got no libido, you're not being able to work out, you're moody, you're cranky. You sound like me sometimes. No, I'm just kidding. A testosterone replacement therapy is where it can be done. And if you do it today at Game Day Men's Health, they'll give you a free vitamin boost as well to add it to your situation. Because they want you to be in good health, feeling better about yourself, doing the things you normally should be doing regardless of your age. Gameday, men's health.com, gameday, men'shealth.com slash Houston. Get your free tea levels checked, then start treatment of necessary.

If your levels are good, they'll say goodbye, have a nice day. But my guess is you're going there for a reason because you know that your testosterone levels are not where they're supposed to be. Game day, men's health.com slash Houston. Welcome, good afternoon. The best sports lunch in H-town. Matt's really smart. He works hard.

He has a good grasp of players. He's been around the game. You love him. We love him. So excited for the opportunity that Matt has in front of him, for sure. This is the Matt Thomas show. Thank you, Nick. You see, I appreciate that very much.

He's a good judge of character. Yeah, and he came to his defense of his player. Didn't work out. Three-game suspension. Probably, well, I wouldn't say probably. I think most fans are not happy about this at all. Clearly, Dan, Nick Assyrio, not happy about it. No, and we're actually going to hear from Nick Assyria right now about just how displeased he is with what Park Avenue decided to do.

I think one of the biggest issues that we sort of take umbrage with, I would say as a team and organizationally, is a picture that's been painted of Aziz. Quite frankly, it's unfair. And I'd say one of the biggest issues that, and I probably speak for a lot of teams, not only Houston Texans, but I think that's all teams. asked for as consistency from the league. And I'd say in this situation, I mean, quite frankly, there's no consistency at all relative to the level of discipline that's been handed down. All right. So what would be the follow-up if that wasn't the opening statement from Nick Casario?

It would be, all right. Well, do you have any examples? And you know how people like to bring receipts now, Matt? Well, the Texans General Manager brought receipts. When you go back, let's look at this season. Okay, we had multiple situations, multiple examples. All right, two really good players, I would say. Branch, ejected against Green Bay, right, plays the next week against us.

Okay, Derwin, ejected, all right, got suspended for one game. And Durwin's a great player, and Durwin's had some other situations that have come up. And I see even going back here, a player that we know well, organizational here. Kareem Jackson, Kareem's a good player, was ejected, find, ejected, and then suspended after three games. So there you go. Nick Casario, bringing the receipts on that one and saying, hey, look, you know, you're going to do this to my guy, but you didn't do this to these other people?

I mean, I don't think he's trying to say you have selective enforcement, but, I mean, in a roundabout way, he's saying you have selective enforcement. And explain to us, why are you doing this to our guy, and you're not doing it to these other teams? Because he mentioned Branch, and I can't remember who else he mentioned. Yeah, the reality is that when you have to make so many decisions, decisions, it's going to be hard to be consistent every single time. I'm not trying to defend that.

I'm just trying to be honest with you. If you have a governing body that has to make 100 decisions, no matter what it is, do we expect all 100 of them to be consistent? Do we want some consistency? Of course we do. But the NFL, and this is John Runyon, I'm paraphrasing here, is taking what he did in the past with what happened. happened on the play itself and then the fact that in his mind through what they saw on video yesterday

was they reviewing this dan that the he exacerbated the situation by getting involved in an additional brawl with his helmet off and as he was leaving the field i mean that's again i want to read this comment to you because this is when i read this morning when i woke up i thought to myself my goodness this is actually uh something that they've been holding on to and ready to lay the hammer down, and that's exactly what they've done on this. Let me see here. Here, I'm going to read it to you one more time.

During your game against the Jaguars, you were involved in a play that the league considers unacceptable and a serious violation of the playing rules. Video shows you striking the head and neck of the Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence after it clearly goes down on a feet for its slide. Now, whether or not he slid too late or tried to extend, that's subjective. The rule is the player goes down to a feet for its slide.

You can't touch him. That's not subjective. Number two. You led with your forearm and helmet and delivered a forceful blow to the head, neck area of your opponent, when you had time and space to avoid such contact. Dan, that's football people in the football office making that football decision. You understand that, right? Sure.

Okay. After the illegal hit, you proceeded to engage in a brawl, which you escalated when you pull an opponent down to the ground by his face mask. There's video of that. They didn't make that up. After the referee announced that you were disqualified for the hit and you're on sportsman like acts, you removed your helmet and re-engage with your opponent

while walking down and across the field, which started another physical confrontation near the end zone. Now, we didn't see that because they were shown everything on the field. Your lack of sportsmanship and respect for the game of football and all who play, coach, and enjoy watching it is troubling and does not reflect the core values of the NFL. your continued disregard for NFL playing rules puts the health and safety of both you and your opponents in jeopardy

and will not be tolerated. I mean, I think that, you know, in terms of going after Al Shire with the brawl is I don't really understand what you want him to try to do in that situation. I mean, I think in his mind, it's, again, it's an emotional game. Emotions are riding high right there. I think probably you're not thinking the, clearest, but I think in his mind, he's thinking, hey, look, I made a football play.

What do you want me to do? Like, it's not really my fault that the guy got hurt when most people would probably say, well, yeah, it kind of is. But it's also, again, I mentioned the fighter flight earlier. That's what immediately kicks in. He's got about 20 guys who want to beat his ass. I mean, like, you know, and if that's the case, well, then you need to be prepared to try to do your best to, you know, stay on your feet as long as possible. And that's what he, I guess he was preparing himself to do. And if you're going to say that that kind of fired up the brawl, I would say him being pushed to the ground from behind probably was the first part that exacerbated that. And if you're going to go down this road and talk about how that's not good

for player safety and then all these other things, well, then why isn't Evan Ingram being looked at? And then also, I'll take it even a step further. Why aren't some of those moronic jaguar fans who were throwing things at him as he was coming off the field? Why aren't they being banned from coming to further games. That's accurate. But I will not, and I'm sorry that I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid, I will not begrudge the Jaguar players coming to the defense of the quarterback. Sorry.

As you shouldn't. No, and that's fine. But, I mean, it's also, though, too, it's like, okay, what's the whole essence of a fight? Usually it's one person against another person. Well, in this case, it was many against one before the Texans players could get there. Yeah. And, I mean, so if you're going to try to say, well, then you initiated a brawl.

No, he didn't. He got pushed from behind and reacted. But that was in reaction to what he did, though. Sure. There would not have been a push from behind, if not for the hit on. So it's the retaliation, which I do get. But it's also, though, too. I mean, what did we see the NBA when they finally said,

hey, you know what, we're tired of bench clearing brawls. They finally instituted a rule. You leave the bench. You're missing time. That's the only way that this is going to get fixed then. Yes. So if you're going to try to adjudicate this across the board, then I think the NFL probably needs to come back at the Jaguars and say, hey, Evan Ingram, guess what? You're missing a game. Whoever else that we deemed was somebody that kind of accelerated this, you're missing a game or two as well.

Yeah, I think anybody that leaves the bench should be held accountable for leaving the bench. You keep the extra-cricle activity to a minimum when you evolve just the players on the football field. That's right. All right, 1230 is our time. I'm Matt here in Sacramento. We've got Dan back in Houston. Sally, our phones are not working today, which is tragic as I do want to get your thoughts. I put a question out on Twitter about what you thought of what you heard from Nick O'Sere,

and we've carried it for a full half hour today. I'll let you, we'll respond to some people on Twitter and see what they have to say about what you heard from Nikki C. earlier today, and we'll be mixing in the soundbites as well throughout the course of the next hour and a half. At this point, we're not playing, believe it or not. But if we do, it'll be on John Runyon. So there you go on that. It is 1231. It's Sports Talk 790.

Matt here in Sacktown. Dan back in Houston, and we appreciate you listening to Sports Talk 790. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas Show. 1234, Matt Thomas Show from Sacramento. Dan Matthew's back in Houston. Connor McGovern, for the last time, at least for a while, will handle the NFL

rewind from this weekend. What did we miss? O'Connor D. McGovern. Well, week 13, the NFL began on Thanksgiving day with the Green Bay Packers defeating the Miami Dolphins and the Dallas Cowboys pulling out a win against a struggling New York Giants.

But the day started with the Chicago Bears embarrassing themselves against the Detroit Lions. The clock is running with 15 seconds and it's third and 26. They have one time out left. This is like the light box. could have gotten numbers but just didn't have better hurry oh this is yeah no disaster in the making here

you're gonna have to do something when it comes down to this play incomplete and the game is over completely botched at the end by the bears i can't believe they didn't take a time out you just assumed they would have taken we're looking around like what just happened they had a time out left the clock has struck zero and it is over The Bears were on the verge of a comeback. They were shut out in the first half and down 16 points, but they came back and got within three. But the clock mismanagement cost head coach Matt Iberfluse's job

as he was fired on Friday. The first time in franchise history, the Bears have fired a coach mid-season. The Bears have lost to a tipped hellmerry, a blocked game-winning field goal attempt, losing on a field goal in overtime, and the latest, letting the time run out in Detroit. They just find new ways to lose.

Latest example of when a coach thinks he's smarter than everybody else in the world. It's always my favorite whenever you get retribution for that exact description of a person that you just said. Yep. It's the best. You guys don't know what you're talking about. Well, now you're unemployed, so we'll see who's right. Got that right.

We'll move on to Black Friday, where the Las Vegas Raiders nearly upset the Kansas City Chiefsum, and before a late game fumble ended the contest. It flawlessly moves his offense into field goal range. It would be a 50-yard field goal from here. drops it flag is thrown up flag will stop it four seconds went off the clock but what is the call

this center just he's a rookie he snapped the football I don't know what he thought he heard the Raiders weren't even lined up it's got to be on the Raiders for not even having a chance to get lined up the Raiders have lost their eighth straight but their roster is pretty roughed up

and according to the stat sheet Aiden O'Connell actually outplayed Patrick Mahomes but the Chiefs back-to-back Super Bowl champions narrowly winning against the Raiders this week and the Panthers last week, two of the NFL's worst teams, can they continue to succeed in the playoffs when competition gets tougher?

Could always be worse, Matt. I mean, you know, for all the belly aching we've done about the Texans, there's Exhibit A and Exhibit B that kind of shows you, yeah, trust me, it can be worse. And we shouldn't have such short memory around here that it was that bad not too long ago.

Yeah, once again, the latest example of Bad teams can figure out new ways to lose. I mean, the Raiders, my goodness. Well, at least you got Brock Bowers. That's true. And they're looking for new quarterback, as are many teams and probably one of the worst NFL quarterback drafts in quite some time. Which has been the story of the Oakland to now Las Vegas Raiders

ever since Rich Gannon was their quarterback. Yep. All right, what else you got? We moved to Sunday. Anthony Richardson and the Colts to feed the Patriots. The Steelers closed out a game against the Bengals. The Philadelphia Eagles earned a big road win against the Baltimore Ravens 24 to 19. The Eagles got their eighth consecutive win while the Ravens struggled in the kicking game.

Justin Tucker has gone from the most accurate kicker in NFL history to one of the team's biggest question marks. He continued his season-long struggles by missing two field goals, one from 47 and one from 53 yards and an extra point. So the Ravens' chance of winning the AFC North were a little damaged on Sunday. Unfortunately, Justin Tucker with his recent string of missed kicks has now become a meme, Matt. Is he a Yips guy or is he just lost it? I mean, is it mental to him or is he just, or is he just, the accuracy is just gone? There are some people who wonder if remember before the AFC championship game last year, when he had all his footballs and helmet and kicking tea set up right where Travis Kelsey and Patrick Mahomes were warming up,

and then Kelsey went over there and threw it all to the side? that some people are wondering, has that kind of messed with his head a little bit? Whatever it is, he is a shell of himself, and he's going from becoming one of the greatest kickers, maybe the greatest field goal kicker ever in NFL history to not being goofed on, but you're right, a meme. He's a meme. You don't ever want to be a meme of anything, right? I'll get to the meme in a second, but remember, I mean, we saw it here in Houston. Remember how automatic Chris, God, what was his name?

Chris Brown? Chris Brown. Thank you. Chris with a K. Remember how automatic he was, and then all of a sudden the man was missing the whole net. Remember that miss on Monday night football? What was it? 2010 against the Tennessee Titans.

And it was like, hey, we got a chance to think either tie it or maybe even win the game. And, I mean, he kicked it this section over from the net. And it was just like, oh, God, what's happening? But no, the meme is somebody shared a screen grab of a text message where the wife texts and says, hey, don't forget tonight is your daughter's first dance recital. And the response from, I'm guessing the ex-husband is a picture of Justin Tucker on the follow-through of a kick. And she goes, what does that mean? And he goes, I'm going to miss it.

That's a stretch. Well, I mean, he's, in recent C, he's been missing quite a bit. So, yeah, it gets the message out there. Which, by the way, too, Connor mentioned the Philadelphia Eagles. What an absolute turn of the tide for Nick Siriani? I mean, you're thinking of yourself, there's no way this team still plays for him. I'm like, they were talking about maybe even firing him at the end of last season after a year removed from making it to the Super Bowl. You win that game of Baltimore on Sunday?

I mean, it's Detroit and Philadelphia for the NFC championship, right? I mean, I can't think. Who's the third best team? In the West, maybe Minnesota? Maybe Green Bay? Green Bay, I would count on more than I would count on Minnesota. All right. And look, don't count out the L.A. Rams.

Yeah, I'm not counting anybody in the NFC West. Niners look toast. Arizona's inconsistent. The Rams might be sneaky, but they're going to work so hard just to get to the playoffs. They're going to run out of gas-come playoff time. And I don't really see anybody out of the South either. No, no. I mean, whoever wins that division, I mean, I guess the Saints still have a chance, don't they?

They're 4-8. and the top two teams that are at the lead of the division, the Buccaneers and Falcons are 6 and 6. Yeah, so it's not great, but it's going to probably Tampa Bay or Atlanta, and whatever it is, they're going to be on the road, and they're going to lose in the first round. That's usually what happens. Although Atlanta at Minnesota would be interesting.

It actually wouldn't be if you'd be Minnesota at Atlanta. Atlanta would lose, and it would not, yeah. All right. Anything else for the rewind? Yeah, we've already got another snow game Sunday night football. saw the Buffalo Bills dominate the 49ers 35 to 10. Josh Allen had another MVP-like performance and that wild lateral play from Amari Cooper

to recording a passing and receiving touchdown. Pretty remarkable as the bills have clinched the AFC East. Congratulations to them. Buffalo Bills have been a completely different football team since they lost in Houston, Texas. I was going to say, I mean, probably if you get that team right now, that 9 of 30, was that what, Josh Allen went that day.

Yep. I don't think we'd be seeing another 9 of 30. How is any team going to win in those conditions, except Kansas City? Nobody else, I mean, Baltimore knows how to play in that, but the Texans don't know how to play in that. I was going to say. Those teams don't. Yeah, Kansas City, I mean, you know, obviously at this point has black magic on their

side in terms of, you know, being able to have some sort of voodoo over the other team in certain situations. Like how that game ended against Vegas the other day, I was like, I have no idea how that just happened. Well, I'm telling you, if you are L.A. Chargers, if you are Houston, if you are Miami, you want no part of going to Buffalo, New York under any circumstance. Oh, I think Harbaugh would love it. Harbaugh would be all about it. He may be all about it, but his team's going to lose by three touchdowns. He would somehow try to find a way to get that team into like a sub-zero, like a large enough area for them to be able to at least do a walk-through? Oh, my God,

no. Harbaugh wants that. I think Harbaugh wants to be in Southern California where it's warm and he can win home games. No, he wants the grit. He wants the grind. That's horrible for you. Or he can also come back with a three touchdown loss. And that, my friends, is Conner's NFL rewind. We appreciate that. 1244. I asked you guys on Twitter what you thought of the Nick Casario

get-together. It was happened about an hour and a half ago. We'll give you some of the responses next. If you have not yet responded, let me know. At SportsMT, what did you think of what you heard today from the most fired up Nick Casario ever as a general manager of the Houston

Texans. 1244, it's Sports Talk 790. When I listen to the Matt Thomas Show, I don't even understand the eclectic nature of the show, the dichotomy, the ostentatiousness, the perfunctory that sounds about as smart as LeVar Ball. Back to the Matt

Thomas show. Whoever he is. Time is 1249. Doing this West Coast thing is kind of weird. I started the show at 8 o'clock this morning. Yeah, you had pretty much a full night there in Sacramento, didn't you? What did you do with it? We just went at dinner in a little area called Uptown. You know, every city's got uptown. So we had to dinner, and I was in bed by 9.30 because I had to get up early and got woken up at the house by some things that were

going on back home, but 545 this morning, and so I've been up ever since. The ring doorbell? Is that what woke you up? No, no. It was the wife calling, so. Come on, Kim. No, no. And I'm glad she called me for the situation that she called me for. Okay. So there you go. All right. right so i asked the question um about what you thought of nick asereo's press availability when we carried it here are some of the responses uh k c cipus says good job of galvanizing the team behind him um yeah i mean i can't imagine it didn't galvanized you know thanks for having our back gm uh at live w compassion said he said bs what she did and we had to blur it i hope we

did it um at copper corrosion says putting John Runyon in charge of behavior is like putting ConSanko in charge of drug testing. That's funny. He also came out and said, honestly, he killed it. At Tofer T613 says, loved it, spoke so much truth. At Troy Harris 919 says he's right. Three games is egregious. Time to stop arguing with each other and rally the troops for the playoff push.

And at, let's see, this one is at Colton Numbert says, this is what we need. needed from Nick Assyrio bottom line end of statement H-town made hashtag NFL and that at upstate products says great time to come together to defend each other and need a light of fire during this by week I think H-town comes out on fire against the dolphins James Thomas says it was silly Cush says I love it and that's really the gentleman I mean again I don't think anybody today that found out about the suspension this morning that was anti-suspension is saying, well, you know, the NFL, you did have a point. No, but you know, this is along party lines.

This, does this remind you a little bit of a political debate? More so of just, like, trying to, like, push your agenda out and then, like, who is willing to help you push your agenda out and who's willing to accept it. So I would say that that's probably it. I mean, the NFL side of it, I think they just kind of look at it as the deaf ears is intentional. They don't want to come across at all as being waffling in this situation. situation. If it is changed, well, then it's out of their hands because then it's in the appeals process.

So if they cut it down to two, like I think they will. Or one, then of course, if people go back at the NFL, oh, screw you. You don't care about player safety. They can be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, we have an appeals process here. It was handled. And it's agreed upon by both us and the players. So it's out of our hands at this point. So let me ask you this. I don't really, I mean, at this point, we know what the Houston narrative is, from the fan base and from the fake media that tends to cover the team because they think they've got a YouTube page or something. But let me ask you about the national perspective of this.

Because as much as you don't want to admit this, when you have a national platform, whether that's ESPN, Fox, newspapers, you know, the Shepters, the who else, the Ian Rappaports of the world, if they suspend, if they reduce this down from three to one games or two games, does that give the message? I'm just on the now as an open-ended question.

Does that give out the message that we suspend guys really, really harshly, and we say a bunch of mean things about them, and then we soft-pedal and backtrack because we know that we can only get away with so much? I mean, I think that it's going to have to be a really good case made by the Texans for you don't have any precedence for this, where I guess the NFL could just kind of be like, you know, you're kind of right. So that's why we could have even made it four or five games if we wanted to. So I think that's kind of how that conversation could go.

But if it is to like the outrage part of it, it'll be for a day or so. And then he'll get back out on the field and assuming he doesn't have any personal fouls, any, you know, face masks or, you know, concuss anybody else on the field, then it will be a non-issue when it's all said and done. People only have so much energy, Matt, to be able to keep up phony outrage. Yeah, but here's the thing. Being a fraud is taxing. Well, I put it this way. If they don't change it, this will be forgotten

because the general consensus, the American football fan will say punishment fits the crime. It will create a new firestorm if it gets reduced. Or unless you're in the notion of, well, every penalty in sports handed down by a sports organization

ultimately gets reduced because of the power of the unions. You could also believe that too. Well, sure. I mean, because it is a little bit of a given take and it's also too as well I mean let's be honest here there is an inherent distrust from players in the league I mean that was pretty evident in the

lockout back in 2011 where it was oh man this is getting kind of contentious and you know you continuously had animosity being continuously talked out loud about Roger Goodell and I don't think that's necessarily gone away I think that probably

it's cooled just a little bit because those emotions have gotten out of it but It's interesting, though, that you brought up Casey and Cyprus's point. I mean, maybe that's a little bit of a rallying cry for this team. Maybe Casario took today as, hey, you know what, we've kind of been ho-hum going through the motions. Oh, darn, we just, you know, had another penalty where sometimes you've got to kind of shock the system a little bit. So, you know, maybe it was Casario saying, hey, look, you know, if people are going to perceive that D'Amico's not doing this, fine, I'll do it. he certainly did it he was as fired up as ever been as a general manager for this team i think the only

way he would have gotten even more angry is if you put a piece of brisket in front of him and thank god he swears because a guy eats no fat he's so buttoned up he's so he couldn't be a middler at a party you know what i mean i mean i mean big wrestling guy well again i disagree with his notion and believe that the suspension, not the three game, but one game would have been appropriate, but that's, you know, that's just one man's opinion. At least he showed some emotion on this as compared to going, well, you know, the NFL did its thing with respect its opinion, and we, you know, we support our player. I mean, he was legitimately bad, and frankly, it shows you he's not a robot.

That's the first time, and that's what I think that Ross calls him the robot. That's the first time maybe he was as he was as least robotic as he's ever been in, front of a microphone. Now, does that mean he's robotic behind the scenes? No, we don't see that. Don't get to get the behind the curtain and that's fine. But in front of the curtain, when the microphone's turned on, he's very measured, he's very polite, he speaks in circles. We call it word salad sometimes. But that was as blunt and as honest and as frustrated as he has been, A, because he likes the player. And B, he knows that losing Al-Shire is going to be, is going to cost him three games. I mean, three very important

games coming up. Three teams that want to be in the playoffs. Hey, look, I mean, while some people might think that certain teams created motivation is ridiculous, well, it's only ridiculous if they don't believe it. So maybe he's trying to kind of, you know, fire up his guys that way, but as I was saying, too,

Casario, I'm on good authority. He's a huge pro wrestling guy, and I think today he wanted to cut a promo. And he did, and I would say he didn't cut a promo as a baby face. I think he, inside the ring or talking with mean Gene O'Klein, he cut a promo as a heel. Maybe he's a heel for the first time.

What a dramatic turn. I didn't see the writers having this in the script. Maybe he's, you know what, maybe, you know, we've spent so much time we've got to get to the top of the hour breaking. We've spent so much time looking for non-quire boys to be with the Texans that maybe this is the new look Texans, that we have a bad guy. And we have a, you know, he was James J. Dillon defending his four horsemen out there. That's a little bit of NWA wrestling back in this day for you old school.

Hey, look, I mean, sometimes, you know, you do have to have that character turn, but, you know, we thought his K-fabe was as, say, baby face, but... But also, he could have been mad, Dan, that he was just mad because that when D'Amico called the NFL and tried to plead the case, and they're like, D'emiko, go away, goodbye. You think that's one of those because, I mean, you know, they're still in an office, so you still have hardline phones. Is that a phone slammer right there? No, because he was on Bluetooth, so no, the answer would be no on that. there was no way that D'Amico was holding onto a handset while I was talking to him oh I bet he was you know what I'm gonna guarantee it was a zoom okay maybe maybe he slammed the laptop then after that and you let out a couple of maybe some maybe some

difficult texts were sent back and forth to each other strongly worded do you think that Domingo has John Runyon's phone number or Commissioner Goodell's I mean Domingo did spend time in Philly, so maybe he got... Maybe the Runyon Factor. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, maybe so. All right, an hour left to go. We're going to play a plethora of Nick Assyrio cuts coming up to the start of the next hour. Also, want to get back to what we talked about earlier about this golden bat rule.

Stupid. You have somebody on your side with that, too. Who is it? It's a former astro. Oh, I want to hear about that. We'll talk about that coming up in about 20 minutes. Also, I don't think we're playing, believe it or not today, because the phones don't work. Have we tried on plugging it for like 10 seconds and then plugging it back in? That works with my Apple TV.

We don't even have a plug. That's unfortunate. I mean, we are a talk show that involves listening to talk to talk callers, but, you know, it's in the administration inboxes. Who knew that you really wanted Brad to call in more than ever? But, I mean, we have so many nice ones. Okay, fine, Martin and Engleton. No, we don't need him either. We like saying people to call the show.

I'm not saying that it means insane, but closer to insane and insane. All right, final hour, the Matt Thomas show here from Sacramento. Ross is back with us tomorrow, and Dan is in for the final hour with us here on Sports Talk 790. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. Ross back tomorrow. I'm here in Sacramento. Dan Matthews in Houston.

We don't have our phones working. I don't know that. It's been a lovely day. Pet's heads hadn't fallen off yet, so we got that going for us. Who has it? pets heads have not fallen off I need the reference I don't understand Dumb and Dumber

Ding Yeah it's it's Lloyd talking about We have no food We have no money We have no gas Our pets heads are falling off Don't get me the layout

I mean I kind of have to No you don't Dumb and Dumber is an amazing movie It needs to be celebrated as such So why don't you show some respect It is actually a very funny movie I didn't see the second one I know. It's newer Hollywood, so I knew that it would be quite watered down, so I was like, I can't do this to myself.

By the way, those that are asking, not many have asked, but the few that you have, A, thank you, B, I have downloaded the Yacht Rock documentary, and I'm going to plan on watching it either this weekend or on the flight back from L.A. to Houston on Monday. I thought you were supposed to do that yesterday. What was going on? I didn't download it before we left on a flight. You got to make sure you use the in-home Wi-Fi. It's always stronger. Major party fell on myself. I would say. I would say.

Yeah, that was, that's a long, finally, a lot of Sacramento, it's almost four hours. It's, I mean, we're really far away from you all. Well, it's also, too, you could run into the situation I ran into last Wednesday, where I had charged up my AirPods. Like, I had them ready to go. And I guess I was in a little bit of a hurry to get to my Uber. that was waiting for me out front that I had had, you know, previously scheduled ahead of time.

And once I get to TSA, I start reaching in my pockets. And I'm like, where are my AirPods? Because I easily also, too, after I get through TSA, I want to put my AirPods in because, you know, you just kind of want to be in your own world going through the airport. So then 30 plus dollars later for a pair of wired. Here's my take. I told my kids, and I told my wife, I'm not responsible enough to hold onto AirPods. So I said, please don't buy me any. Last Christmas, they bought me a pair.

I have since lost them. Well, there you go. I also take you as a huge headphone guy. You want to be the, because the headphones, too, you've got to probably put them in a case. No, that's what I'm saying. I don't want to carry that. I'm 100% wired earbuds guy.

Okay. That's just because I can handle back. How Gen Z of you? That's a very Gen Z thing. Apparently, the Gen Z kids aren't really huge on the AirPods. It's just old-pogee. I'm the only person on the traveling party that uses so wired. Everybody else is AirPods.

Okay, well, there you go. Most of your traveling party is Gen Z, so maybe I'm wrong. All right. Let's get to the best of three or four cuts. I think it would be good for the audience to hear about the decision today that Al-Zis Al-Shire is out for three games. John Runyon, we wrote the statement, a couple of times basically said you're a bad guy and we don't accept your answer and we certainly

don't respect the decision that you made to start a fight after the game or during after the play and you push the agenda along saying that you took your helmet off and wanted to throw hands again and then you left the field and you were throwing hands again and we've got a lot of history about you so we're going to make this nice and tidy and we're going to suspend you for three games and then Alshire goes ahead. and files the appeal. And that's where we are until Nick Casario spoke at 11 o'clock local time today. We're going to say Aziz al-Shayr, who nobody embodies our program more than Aziz,

what he's about, what he's been through. You all know his story. They're not a more selfless individual, more about the team who's earned the respects, that represents everything that we want this program to be about. I mean, this morning he was at a United Way event. So we're talking about some of the commentary that has been made about his character about the person that he is, about what his intentions are, from people that, quite frankly, don't know anything about Aziz al-Shayr, okay?

And for the league to make some of the commentary that he made about lack of sportsmanship, lack of coachability, lack of paying attention to the rules, quite frankly, it's embarrassing. So I think the big thing from our, and I talk about a player who's never been suspended, never been ejected. So now we're saying that he's going to be suspended for three games. And he goes even further to us. well where, I mean, right there, it's more or less Nick Casario going after people on social

media, maybe even some of the media who want to do a little bit of the hand-wringing. Well, he also took Umbrage as we let you hear from Casario earlier talking mostly about the NFL statement of just the NFL in general of saying, yo, who are you to hurl these accusations?

When you put information to make a statement in a letter with A, not having talked, ever talked to a player, okay, not knowing the player, and then to basically paint a picture, You know, you guys right, your lack of sportsmanship and respect for the game of football. And all those who play coach and enjoy watching and is troubling and does not reflect the core values of the NFL.

So that essentially implies that Aziz doesn't give a crap about the fans, doesn't give a crap about playing football the right way, is not coachable. It could be further from the truth. But when you make these statements and accusations and then you paint a picture of a player, quite frankly, like nobody has a lot of respect to that. I think that's, I would say, part of the issue here. So again, everybody's entitled to her opinion. Like, everybody's going to have an opinion.

Totally understanding and get that. But again, and going back to what I talked about, like the level of consistency relative to the discipline that's mandated, it's got to match up in some capacity. We're trying to understand it. You know what I almost kind of take that as, Matt, before we hear the final one in this segment from Nick Casario. Sure.

You know how, like, what was the criticism this season at times of Joe Espada? Or even take it further. Dusty Baker. dude get out there and get behind your guy and get thrown out for your team like i think that was kind of nick aserio right there doing the manager of hey i'm going to say what i need to say and i'm going to get run like i think he's kind of telling the NFL right there here i'm going to throw these words at you find me i don't care because nick a nick nick can afford that b it's not going to change their mind i mean i he knew what he could get away with or what he couldn't get away with like by what

Nick said earlier today wasn't going to make the NFL say Alshare or Alshire, however pronounce who's the hell pronouncing it these days. People know you're talking about, yeah. You know what I mean? I mean, they're not going to add a bonus to it because Nick was outraged. Yeah, I mean, I think that if nothing else, it's just his chance to be able to get it off his chest, say it. And in his case, incredibly well crafted, which, I mean, I will give him a ton of credit for

that because, I mean, you could have taken one of two tax right here. could have really kind of been just off the handle and kind of meandering all over the place. He could have meandered. Thank God. You know what? It finally took. How long has he been in charge of the Texans? See, he got here in 21? Was it?

Okay. So it took him four years to not meander for the first time. Thank God. Adam again, look, I'm not happy about the hit. I'm not happy that it's going to be suspended. It is what it is. But it finally, we got some. semblance of a heartbeat from our general manager here.

Thank God. And like we said, you know, we made the wrestling example. He cut his promo and people are kind of like, all right, maybe you're not such a stiff on the mic. Because, I mean, you know, you've followed professional wrestling long enough. There's some who are very good technical wrestlers. And some of those that are really good technical wrestlers are terrible on the mic. So you need a frontman.

You need a Paul Heyman, if you will. Nick told us he doesn't need Paul Heyman. He's no Roman Raines. You know, we've had a number of players that, to your point, I've played that position. You know, Devon's come in, giving us some snaps at different points. I mean, Henry's done a really good job and start to finish him, going back to last year's, our leading tackler. So, and again, I'd say Neville Hewitt, there's a guy that nobody really talks about. But, I mean, whenever a guy goes in the game, he's a tackling machine.

He'd let him head of eight tackles there the other day. It's one of our best players in a kicking game. And I'd say, relative to Christian Harris, I'd say definitely making some progress. I think he's getting closer and say there's certainly a shot. We're going to see him sooner rather than later. So whoever we have available, I think that's the one thing about this team. Like we felt going into the season when we built the team to put the team together, that we had depth across positions.

So clearly you're going to need some linebacker depth now that Aziz Al Shaire is still out. We'll wait and see on Christian Harris. Yeah, I'm tired of waiting and seeing it. See, you know, it's funny you say that because I thought the same thing the other day. Like it's just like, hey, look, either do it or get off the pot. Like at this point, it's, are you going to? going to play and if you do play how effective are you going to be on the field? I mean

this calf issue or whatever he's had has been going on even I think it was even before training camp as well if I'm not mistaken so it's kind of like to your point Matt I can't count on him. And I'm saying and this is if he's hurt he's hurt I mean there's nothing you can do about that I'm not blaming the guy I'm saying I don't

I know it sounds more harsh than it really is but no I just the truth I mean Damico Ryan's as tired of asking about being asked about it and I get that because I mean it realistically you have three game, four games left in the season. Is Christian Harris going to make that big of a difference this late in the year when he's been basically

recuperating for whatever injury he's had for this long a period of time? I mean, if you're thinking that Christian Harris is going to step in and fill out the spot and pick up where he left off, that's crazy. It's just not practical. The NFL doesn't work that way. You have to any sport after being as gone as long as he's been, you have to

work your way back on the football field. So if you get anything from Christian Harris between now and the end of the season, it would be considered bonus. I mean, seeing that's exactly it. I mean, I think if nothing else, you're getting them as a 15 to 20 play a game guy right now. Maybe you can ramp it up for the playoffs, but I just, I can't count on them as being a starter. I think right now your starters are Neville Hewitt and Henry Toe-toe, and probably the first guy off the bench is Devin White. All right. 7-1. Why am I giving the numbers out? That's ridiculous.

All right. Muscle memory. It's hard to break. It is. I'm trying to shake it off. Don't say it. At SportsMT. It's okay. We're a Swifty. We know. Oh, my gosh. I didn't mean to do it that way, but it is what it is. Carly, it would be so proud of you. No, I know, I know. Hey, let's talk about the most ridiculous thing besides this suspension talk we've had today in sports. And that is what's happening with Major League Baseball and Rob Manfred.

We'll discuss that next. It is 1116. It's 1116 in the Pacific time zone. 1-16 back home in Houston. Dan is in for Ross. I'm Matt here in Sacramento. And this is Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas continues on Sports Talk 790

Good afternoon, Houston, Texas It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross, I think is in the air literally right now getting ready to come back after his long trip and look forward to having him in tomorrow. I'll be in San Francisco tomorrow for a game Thursday for the Rockets and Warriors.

Rockets playing the Kings here in Sacramento tonight. All right, so we got to get to this golden bat rule. And I think I soft-played it a little bit when Dan and I talked about it earlier in the show. We always have an ever-changing audience. I've really thought about this more, and I hate it. I mean, I don't like dislike it. I hate it.

Basically, if you've not heard, the golden bat rule would be a situation where you would take one batter that's in your lineup. one time per game and that person would be able to bat again in a situation where you would need obviously a home run or an RBI or something. Whatever the case would be. Maybe you need a bunt to go down or something.

Who the hell knows? You can take somebody that's in your lineup and they can bat a second time one time per game. Or I guess you could be a pinch hitter too but you could use them as a golden bat and then just put them back on the bench. You don't have to necessarily replace him.

I mean, I didn't even think about it from that perspective. Yeah, that's a way. I mean, I told you just from the relative, I mean, there would be no frequency to this in the game. Like, this is two or three times and I'm like, okay, yeah, that's ridiculous. Matt, it's one at bat. I mean, that's why I'm just- Gimick the sport, Dan McNeckney.

I understand the whole gimmicks thing. And you know who agrees with you? Who? Josh Reddick. Read it. I want to have. How many people will stop or how many people stop watching baseball if this golden bat rule is implemented? How can this even be a serious conversation?

He follows up. MLB is not at the SAV bananas, of course the Savannah bananas or banana ball. Leave those rules for them. See, what did the Savannah bananas do to you, Josh? The Savannah bananas is a classic example of it's fun, it's entertaining, but no one takes it seriously. We take baseball seriously. It's absurd. It is ridiculous, and I will never, ever, ever before it.

There I've said it. I mean, look, it's not like they're implementing the, you know, because like one of the rules they have a banana games is if a fan catches the foul ball, the hitter is out. Like, what? Yes. Okay. Matt, I want no more Savannah banana talk.

I mean, seriously. I gave you an example of what they have is one of their gimmicks. Rural. Everybody knows when you go to a Savannah banana talk. I mean, once I start seeing the middle infield and pitchers start dancing before the pitch is delivered, then I'll say, okay, this is starting to get a little ridiculous. But, yeah, that's why people go see them play. They're fun.

They're entertaining. It's a professional wrestling of baseball. You know what we're going to do, Josh Redick, I'm right there with you. We're not going to Savannah Banana Ed is we're not going to do. That's exactly. We're verbing it is what we're doing right there. We just made Savannah Banana a verb. I think that Reddick is, I'm going to have to talk with the power.

hours that be. I think Reddick needs to be a weekly guy. Well, we'll take some of your sour and give it to him. That's perfect. I don't know if I can afford that one. Sorry, Josh. Maybe we'll have to have you as a every so often guest. There you go. No, and again, there's a lot of other things to figure out. Like if your golden bat guy gets on base and then his turn in the line up to bat, does the guy that you replace go to the base pack? Oh, my God. What a stop it, baseball. Stop it.

I'm telling you. You've got a great sport. You've got all that you've got full stadiums. You've got, you just had a very climactic, uh, world series with your favorite big markets in it. You've got lots of people going to games. Television ratings are pretty good. Let's let things be.

You've got a pitch clock that's speeding the games up, so time is better. You do have umpires that suck, but that's never going to change. A lot of things are going right. Don't make this a freaking video game. That's the problem. Let me ask you this question. question, Dan, to simplify it. Is the golden bat rule all of a sudden

going to have a generation of baseball of young people that don't watch baseball going, ooh, I can't wait to see Yordon and Alvarez bat twice in the same inning? No, because it's going to be so insignificant that you're probably not even going to realize it, or, like I said earlier, it's either going to be one fan base loves it because your guy came through with a huge

three-run homer, or if it's the Astros playing against the Rangers, it's going to be people, well, that's not fair. They got to use Yordon Alvarez in that spot. Well, you could use whoever you want in the similar spot and maybe you didn't. Andy on Andy Cashiole on Twitter, I like it. Meanwhile, Pollard's Vision says it's bad enough. We have the stupid Ghost Runner on second.

Golden Bad is ridiculous. I don't mind the Ghostrunner. Again, if you... I don't mind that at all because that's not a philosophical changing of the core value of the game. It's a way to speed it up a little bit by putting somebody there. And it's also equal. It doesn't give anybody an advantage.

And it's, again, you're trying to save yourself from 15 inning games that go 5.5 hours or burn through your players and that you have like 80 people watching on television and in the stands combined when the games goes as long as it does. Here's the thing, though. I know we're kind of getting off topic while staying on topic with the Ghost Runner is you can kind of tweak the rule a little bit. Like how about the 10th inning? You don't have anybody on. But the hitter starts with a 1-1 count. Seconding, maybe you put somebody on first.

No, no, no, no. No. No. No. Wait. Dan Matthews, what are we doing? We don't need to reinvent the damn wheel. It's not reinvent the damn wheel.

It's trying to find a way to make sure that we're not playing 18 in games. You're taking a scorecard and you're taking a alt-delete button to it. Oh, now you're being ridiculous. No, no, you're not doing that. Yeah, you are. You're adding this goofy-ass rule that you can use once per game. That's what it is. You know what it is? It's a goofy-ass rule. So you eventually won a game where if Chris Burke did not happen,

Roy Oswald is playing left field and Jason Lane is pitching for a chance for you to move on to the next round. You know what then? Then Jason Lane get a GD hit then. Let's go. Well, luckily Chris Burke did. Chris Burke, get the hit. That's what you're paid for. Off Joey Devine. And then Milo started to yell out, it's gone. It's gone. It's gone. It's gone. Okay. That was a good day.

Great day. Come on. Seriously. There's a lot of buzz behind it. What stodgy 75-year-old owner of a baseball team says, hey, let's have our main go-to guys hit twice in the same inning or twice in a game out of order. Who's saying that? Well, what do they care? The booze sales don't shut off after the seventh inning anymore, so the length of time after that doesn't necessarily matter.

I don't know. I think he's making this up. There is zero buzz for this. I mean, I guess we could find out next week at the league meetings. Hey, is there like really buzz behind this? Like, hey, Jim, is there really, excuse me, I'll show respect. Mr. Crane, is there really buzz behind this? You know, it is.

It might be calling Jim. I just don't feel like we've built up that rapport yet. So, I mean, I don't want to be presumptuous in that regard. I want to show so, I want to show respect until, you know, I get the door open to, you know, hey, you can call me, Jim. Oh, okay. Because you don't, you don't want to go the other way where I call. call him Jim, and then I get the hand put up, you know, it's kind of like, excuse me. And it's Mr. Crane.

Oh. No, he wouldn't. He's not that kind of person. I'm not saying he is. I'm just saying you just don't want to allow for that awkward situation to occur. We have all the, all the owners in our town can go by their first names. I feel like I've got a decent enough rapport with Cal for my first time here. Tillman introduced myself to him, but wouldn't say that he has any idea who I am.

I can call all three of the owners by their first name. Now, the last person that owned a team in this town that I still called by Mr. was McNair. Hmm. I mean, he didn't even take the Darry-Tact with Les Alexander, Mr. Alexander. He never called him Les. He always called him Mr. Alexander. Mr. A. You know what, that's true.

Mr. A would be right. That's right on that one. Okay. But I don't know, cow, at all. I mean, Cal and I've never broken bread. I've never had one of his hamburgers. I've never, you know, got anything from him free and, you know, hoard it out of him. on my social media account and saying, oh, he's so laughable and lovable.

Well, if this gets to Cal, I mean, it does look like he's got a pretty nice smoker. Unlike your GM, I am a huge barbecue fan. So if you ever want to smoke up some ribs, some brisket, something like that, I would be willing and able. Felipe said Rob Manfred probably had some bad turkey this Thanksgiving. If you want this, might as well call Adam Sovere and start basketball. Yeah, when are we going to see a four-point playing basketball, use once per game? Would you want him Addoco once a night to say, hey, I want to play with six players for one minutes

if I get some more points. You wouldn't want that. Hell no. See, that is having a lasting impact, which, I mean, I guess this could have a lasting impact because you could have the right back go up there and they come through in a massive situation. But again, it's one play. It's one at bat.

That's all we don't need. Let's keep it. We've been playing baseball for 100 years this way. We're good. Okay. When we get to the 15th inning, then we'll be saying, damn, be really nice. We're not doing it. One bat's not going to make it's a 15th inning game.

That's ridiculous. You're nuts. Make sure it doesn't. All right. I got a poll question up right now. Golden Bat proposed rule. Ridiculous or sure why not? Put your voting on Twitter.

I'd have you calling and talk to me about it, but our phones don't work. 1131 on Sports Talk 790. Sports Hutch says, let's take a look here. What do you say here? Oh, how about this? Bigger balls, fatter bats, move fences. in, get rid of bases, home run derbies. Why don't we have a magic ball where you bring in a ball

and if you get a base hit, you get double the bases? That's what we're doing, Dan Matthews. It's what we're doing. It's not turning into basketball, okay? Matt Stone and Trey Parker's vision is not going to come true. Do I hear Jalen? No. Jalen Green?

No, Jalen, as in Jalen Rose from the movie. Bumps. Oh, gotcha. Okay. Sorry, and Conner's worrying by getting her phones back together. God bless him. Ding. Thank you. It's been rough.

I had no idea that's who that was. That was Jaylen Rose. Yeah. Gotcha. Jalen Rose is the greatest regret? Dvorcing Molly Kiram? Dang. If I married, if I married her, oh, no chance.

No divorce. Zero chance. I mean, you know, there is the old saying. They were commuting. They had a commuter marriage, by the way. way. I mean, there is the saying one man's dream is another man's pain in the you know what. Who said that? I've heard the saying before. I think there is a saying out there of, okay. You know, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, the saying goes no matter how good looking she is.

There's somebody out there that's sick of her, you know what. Oh, okay. I got you. That's fine. All right. What else we would not mention today on the show? We have a couple segments of stuff. But this would have been a great day to have callers in about the Manfred Bat Rule, Alshare's suspension. We'll try again tomorrow. How about that? I like it. I mean, I think finally they'll have hit the side of the console enough, you know, unplugged it and been able to plug it back in. And, you know, it's a hard reset, hard reboot.

So, yeah. All right. What else? News headlines, are we missing anything? We get college football playoffs being announced the latest poll, actually not the play. playoffs. Oh, by the way, I mean I mentioned this really quickly. Dan Ademble passed away today at the age of 62. Thank you. You know what? When I was putting together the headlines, I was trying to give myself a note earlier of, hey, mention this. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, obviously his time here in Houston not well remembered because, well, I mean, you thought that he was going to be the guy that turned around Cougar football and he kind of set it back. And then Art Bryl showed up and things were a little bit better for a time. Yeah, I liked Dana a lot, very approachable, very gregarious, quite a lifestyle he probably had off the football field and off the coaching headsets. For the story, we don't have to go into detail.

Okay. Yeah, we don't have to. It's a Googlingable thing. Yeah, it is. And be prepared to get an eye full, at least in terms of the account. And it'll make you rethink about going to play a game of pool again. Show some respect, man. The guy just passed.

Yeah, I'm 62. That's way too young. Yikes. But it's been a longtime college football coach. So rest in peace to a den and devil passing away the age of 60. Always treated me very well. I liked him a lot for the short time. He was a Houston cougar.

I always just remembered him from his M-frame Oakley's. That even if it was a night game or if it was a day game, he always had the M-frame Oakley's on. Hmm. He was just, he was stalled on profile before you could stall in profile. No, Rick Flair was way before him. That's actually true. That's actually true. All right, what else we got going? I mentioned the Rockets against the Kings tonight.

There are rumors about Deerran Fox maybe being potentially traded in next year or so from Sacramento. Is there a fit here? He's a Houston kid. True. Just saying that. I mean, I don't think it matters much today in the world of the professional. Special athletes, but he's really good. He's 26 years old.

Average in almost 28 points a game. I mean, shoots not a great three-point shot, but good overall, good assist man, good free-throw guy, good defender. I mean, I like him. I've always liked him. Sacramento and New Orleans are kind of a cautionary tale of, you know, just because you've got the young upstart team that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to just continue it. I mean, like, New Orleans has just been a sledgehammer to the midsection after another with injuries this year. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're the worst, I think they're the worst team in the Western Conference right now.

Do they even start to entertain some trades? Who would you want? Not saying the Rockets are won, but who in June? Brendan Engram can't stay healthy. Zion can't stay healthy. I almost think that you could get a little bit of a suckers play right there for Zion. like, I mean, take for example to Chicago Bulls,

they would like to get back to being somewhat relevant again, would they not? Yeah. So, I mean, maybe they could look at Zion and say, hey, we'll get them with our, because, you know, it's always that way, too, if somebody that's in a situation like Zion, and then somebody out there says,

well, they're not with our sports med department. They're not with our nutritionists. You know, they're not in our building. So once we get them in our building, then things will change. That happens a lot with baseball. And the Astros are great examples of that, not necessarily on the injury front,

but hey, let's bring you, say Kukuchi into our organization. We'll show him a few things that maybe he's never seen before. And wow, what a difference he makes. Justin Verlander, Charlie Morton. I mean, the list goes on and on. I mean, Charlie Morton probably retires three or four years ago. If even that's if Brent Strom didn't get a hold of him. And yes, it doesn't mean just because Brent Strom left that Josh Miller is basically gravy training on him.

If it's Josh Miller at this point, guess what, Astro fans? Josh Miller is a hell of a pitching coach. End of story. By the way, just to let you know, Dan, 90% of people don't have no idea who Josh Miller is. You should. He's got that mean strut going. You ever notice that?

Like, whenever he walks out to the mound, like he looks like he's ready to give the pitcher a piece of his mind. I always ask him the obligatory when we have him on once a year about, you know, is there anything funny that's ever said on the mound or anything anecdotaling? No, not really. It's okay.

Oh, what? See, if I was a pitching coach, I would go break the ice that way. Like the pitching coach in Bull Durham. That's what I was thinking of. Robert Wool. Yeah. Maybe when... By the way, that's a movie reference by me.

I should get a ding on that. That's very good. But it probably, I mean, you know, you're always thinking Cougars, the U of H variety. Let's not leave me... No, I'm thinking about all Cougars of all Cougars I'm thinking about. That's fair to say, right? I'm glad you walked into it, Matt. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Our time is 11. 143, 143 in the central time zone. Well, for all of you who are looking to play, believe it or not, it's not going to happen today, sadly. I mean, me and Connor, I guess, could play. For what?

Well, I mean, I don't know. I kind of would like to know what is believable or not with John Runyon. Well, we're going to save the John Runyon for tomorrow. Okay. It'll be one less thing I've got to worry about tomorrow. We're going to shut your bum ass up. But if our phones don't work tomorrow, I'm going to be telling some people at our company. shut their bum asses up.

Well, I mean, I think you get a two-for on that. I mean, remember, I've given you a two-for before of ain't nobody got time for that and shut your bum-ass up. Exactly. All right, final segment of the show coming up. And is there anything else from Kassar? We want to play for this 130 audience that has not been heard today. I think is relevant.

I think Nick is bullish on his football team, but he's also realistic saying he's not ready to say we are champion. He didn't say we are a championship material, put it that way. We'll give you some of the insights on that. when we return. 1143, Sports Talk 790. Yo, this is Bun B.

And my wife is the biggest fan of the whitest man in America. Matt Thomas, Matt Troy. Reckless, ratchet, and don't give a fuck. Did I hear you chuckling back there? I mean, look, I've been accused of being the basic of most basic white guys. So I guess...

You're as white as I am, yes. Yes, yeah, I was going to say. If I was even more white, I think they would call me white bread. They call you the pasty game. Thanks, that's what they call you. I like it. We're going to make it stick, Matt.

All right. Nick Casario, on the suspension, how is designed, and basically hypocritical. The way the suspension is designed specifically, so essentially you're saying you can't have any contact with the player for however many weeks, three or four weeks, right? So if the league says they care about the well-being of their players, right? I would say in a time like this, I'm sure Aziz is probably going through a lot of things. Like, we can't even provide support on a multitude of levels. So it's a little bit hypocritical to be able to see, yeah, we want to support the players.

But you know what? Organization can't have contact with him for four weeks. Okay, so what do you want to do? Do you just got to go float by himself? I think he'll be okay. That was a little, come on. I mean, that was a little preposterous. He's a grown man.

He's not like he's 18 years old without family nearby. And it's not like there's not a ton of those sports performance facilities that have weight rooms in him that he can't go and do that. And, you know, I mean, he's a pro athlete. I think he knows how to handle his nutrition. Yeah, I'm not worried about him being away from the campus for a few weeks. It's not like, you know, how a boxer has been away for a while. And then they come back and some people say, oh, you know, is he in good shape?

He's been on the couch. He's not going to be on the couch. I wouldn't think so. Nick was also asked about how you handle yourselves during such an event, big hit and the fracas. Did everybody behave themselves or to do the best they can to kind of quash the fracas after the hit? There's a way everybody needs to handle themselves, and there's a certain professionalism. Everybody needs to have this emotional game. Things are going to happen.

But there's a right way to handle things. And, again, from Jacksonville's perspective, they're trying to defend their teammate, okay? And, you know, in the end, you're just worried about your team and well-being. Again, even look at Heinz Allen after the game. Like, his comment was basically, you know what? I'm not even sure as he should be fine. Or it's suspended. And here's, we have a lot of respect for Heinzell.

He's one of the best players in the league. So here you're talking about a defensive player making a comment about a situation that happened in a game about his own particular player. So again, everybody has an opinion. They're all out there. I mean, I'm sure everybody was talking about this yesterday, which I don't want to say that factored into it, but honestly, I probably factored in the overall decision-making process. So, look, it is what it is.

We'll handle it like we handle everything else, whatever resulted. will deal with it and then we'll move forward. Dan, let's not be naive. The NFL has ESPN turned down in their offices. Sure. For sure. Absolutely. And they saw the reaction nationally to the hit. For sure

they did. Yeah. I mean, that's probably part of what fed into them deciding to give out the suspension they did. Yeah. All right, couple non-suspension conversation pieces. A lot of people asking, Bobby Sloke should be fired. Bobby Sloan has be replaced. Bobby Sloak should lose

play calling responsibilities. Here's Nikki C. on Bobby Sloak. Bobby Sloak is a great coordinator. He's done a great job. He's a great coach. And we're going to, you know, we've done a lot of good things offensively. And I would say as far as the second half goes, in the end, it just comes out of execution. So if the other team makes more plays than you do, then, like, they're going to win.

So can we do a better job? And they're like, yeah, sure, like, do better on first down. All right, put ourselves in second and manageable, which is third manageable, take care of football. So in the end, this league is all about execution. It's about doing little things. It's about control and field position. So this is the word salad part of the press conference.

But again, with 30 minutes, and 28 of it was non-worn salads. I'm very proud of our general manager here. Well, I mean, that's kind of the thing that I think, you know, whenever teams are not playing up to the potential that we all thought that they would, that we latch on to, you know, stop giving us the cutesy sayings, stop giving us like, I'll give you a good example. When I was in my previous stop, Dan Quinn was the head coach. and he would every single week say how mad they were.

He would say we're really pissed. And people were like, all right, well, that has nothing to do with you fixing the problem, dude. Like, you clearly at this point don't know how to fix it. And I think that's kind of where Texan fans were getting a little bit with D'Amico of saying, hey, it comes down that we got to make the plays. It's like, okay, well, then, like, when does that happen, D'Amico? Like, when does it all of a sudden finally, you know, everybody looking around the locker room, hey, are we going to execute this right?

Yeah. Are you going to do it? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. all right, good, here we go. Like, when does that happen? Yeah, I think people were looking, because Nick doesn't do this a lot, so you have a chance to kind of ask him as many big picture questions.

And that was certainly part of, you know, hey, how much of this response, where does Bobby Sloick wear on the fact that Texans' offense has been largely underperforming for about two months? So as far as the rest of the season is concerned, how does Nick Ocero see things going? If we can kind of minimize some of the turnovers offensively, that's one area and continue to take the ball away. Again, we're second in the league.

So it's one of the things that we do really well. And then red area execution. So kind of offensively and defensively. I mean, we're like, I know, 27 or 28 in a red area defensively. So it's about getting stops. It's about fendent points. And then offensively, it's converting those four-point play opportunities. So I would say those two areas, if we can make some maybe subtle improvements in those areas,

then that could potentially help us. Because, again, the margins of victory and, or loss in our games, other than the Minnesota game, right, have been basically negligible, right? Three or four points here, six, seven points here. So when you look at those two particular situations, you start to see a little bit of correlation. But I would say those are a couple things that, you know, we can improve.

You might have a shot. He's definitely a soft player, you know what I mean? I mean, he's not like, hey, I think we can do this. He's like, if it happens, it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't. Well, I mean, because, I mean, you're pot committed at this point. You are what you are. And I know he was asked a question about improving the roster. which I was kind of like, that's not really a possibility right now.

I don't think that there's a team out there. It's just going to say, you know what, we'll let you go so a team can get better out there. Like, that doesn't happen. So, yeah, you finish out what you are and then you try to fix it in the offseason. And then who knows, maybe next year the trade deadline won't be much to do about nothing. Real quick, for we get out of here. The Golden Bad Proposed Rule is on my Twitter account at SportsMT. 157 votes are in, make 171 votes are in.

92% say ridiculous, 8% say sure, why not. So just think about this, Dan, you're in the 8% club. Yeah, I mean, I sometimes will go against the crowd. A lot of times I will. You're not even in the same building as the crowd. There's still time to be able to pick up momentum. I've stated my case, and I believe that my case is valid. We'll see how it goes.

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Ross is back in tomorrow with me. I'll be in San Francisco. Hopefully the rocket's going to win tonight against the Kings. The launch pad starts at 8. We'll have a tip time here from downtown Sacktown at 9. Wexler, Clatner next with the A team on Sports Talk 790.