The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Greg Bishop From SI Talks His Article On DeAndre Hopkins

Episode Date: April 21, 2020

No games. There are no sporting events. But around here, your Houston Sports Talk never stops. No list radio. No celebrity birthdays. Wait a minute. Not even Beyonce. Not even Taylor?

Isn't that all? The Houston Sports Talk continues on Sports Talk 790. Time is 1232. The station is Sports Talk 790 here in Houston. I'm Matt with Ross and Joe. Nice of you guys to, ladies to hang out with us today. We've got a lot of great guests coming up, including Robert Covington at 1 o'clock from the Rockets, Julian Morales from AT&T SportsNet 2.

Right now, we say hello to a gentleman who put out an excellent piece for Sports Illustrated. Greg Bishop on DeAndre Hopkins will define himself in his future. Greg, it's Matt. Thanks for spending some time with us today. Let me ask you first and foremost, had this been pre-planned or did DeAndre kind of start to feel a little resentment towards some of the allegations about who he was when he wasn't playing on Sundays, it kind of felt like they needed to clear the air a little bit. You know, it's interesting you mentioned that, because I could definitely see it coming

across this way, and I appreciate you having me, first off. But DeAndre is actually someone I've had on my story list for over two years. He's a guy that I've always found interesting. He's a guy that I thought would be interesting to profile. And we even talked about doing a piece last year, but it was sort of sheled once the ESPN story came out because it was so well done. And, you know, I thought really compelling and dramatic. And it just felt like, you know, it wasn't going to be possible or in the cards for last season.

And so what's really interesting in light of the question you asked me is that, you know, essentially we decided that we could use DeAndre in the magazine this month. And we reached out to his people, you know, essentially the same week that we did the story. And so usually this process for me would take three to four weeks. It would involve going to visit a guy, sometimes going to see him two or three times. And between the time I asked if DeAndre would be open to it, when I interviewed him and when I closed the magazine story, it was a total of five days. So it was really condensed and different than most processes.

But when we started talking to the question that you asked, I think there were some things you wanted to get off his chest. Yeah, I am extraordinarily bothered. My audience knows this about everything about this. The compensation that the team got back, that you would trade away a guy, very much the problem of his career, with a lot left in the tank, how a general manager and a coach could get sideways with his best player. and I was really, really blown away. I'm sure as you were, Greg, when I don't know if any of it was innocently or intentionally, Michael Irvin goes on ESPN and speaks to his conversation.

That had to really perk your ears up when that went down. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think everything you just said is totally fair. Like, this didn't make sense on the surface especially. You know, why you would take a receiver who's 27 years old, who's been a three-time first team all pro, so that's, you know, one of the two best wide receivers. in the entire league. It's a very hard distinction to win, even for great players.

You know, a guy who played through injuries, a guy who didn't miss games, and a guy who, you know, had had had a special performance in the playoffs with torn cartilage in his ribs and a busted index finger. And you just looked at that and what they got for him. And it was just hard to make sense of how that all came to be. And so I think that was one thing that attracted me to the story in the first place was this idea of how did we end up here, what factored into it. And I think, you know, what really emerged are two different.

stories, one being that he didn't want to play in Houston, that they didn't want to pay him what he wanted, and then, you know, the reaction to the trade itself and the value that they received in return. So obviously, one of the best parts about that are the biggest quotes is DeAndre Hopkins saying he had no relationship with Bill O'Brien. Did you get any more from DeAndre about that? How does that happen? How does a man who was the head coach of the football team with somebody as valuable

is DeAndre have no relationship with him. Is there anything other than, obviously, the Aaron Hernandez comments and things like that? Did you get anything from how the friction started or anything about the relationship with DeAndre and Bill O'Brien? You know, to me, that was a really interesting facet of the story. I think, like you just said, it was very unusual. I don't think there are many teams that would have a player that's an all-pro, a pro bowl or a perennial star where they don't have some sort of relationship with the coach. Now, it's possible that Bill wouldn't characterize it exactly the same way that DeAndre did, but I don't know that because I wasn't able to get Bill to talk to me for the story

to weigh in on some of the things that DeAndre said. And so we definitely tried, and it definitely didn't work out. And, you know, I think that beyond the unusual nature, I think it's really important in terms of that meeting because, you know, what DeAndre did tell me is that they had not had conversations about his personal life, that they had not had conversations about, you know, any of these sort of concerns. And then he sits down for this meeting. And again, this is their characterization.

But, you know, he feels sort of blindsided. It's not just that there was a comparison made to Aaron Hernandez. It's not just that there was this baby mother's term that was, you know, allegedly thrown around. It's that these things were all done after there's no relationship. When there's not really even friction, there's not even, there's nothing, you know. And so then to have sort of a personal bent to really sort of, you know, go in on somebody and how they live their life when you don't have a relationship with them. I mean, if that happened as he said it did, then you could see why it would lead to more hard feelings. So it's not even just the contents of the meeting or the fact they met at all.

It's the fact that they didn't have depth to the relationship that, you know, there wasn't a closeness between coach and star player. And however that came to be, you know, whatever the sort of genesis of that was, like what matters is the difference is the difference. to me, at least, is that they didn't have a strong relationship to begin with. I mean, that, to me, is super unusual, and I don't think you'd see it many places outside of, say, you know, New England. Well, because that would fit, for sure. We're visiting with Greg Bishop. His article can be found.

It's definitely worth a good read at s.i.com. Greg Bishop, the author of DeAndre Hopkins, will define himself in his future. One of the things my partner, Ross, who just asked the last question brought up to me, and it was interesting, was the reality. reaction of Deshawn Watson. And look,

he came across and your article is shocked by this, but there's no way in the world that DeAndre Hopkins and

Deshawn Watson couldn't have had conversations about DeAndre's need to make more money, right? I mean, it may have

sounded a blonde-sighted that he got traded, but he had to have known there was some tension between the two people, correct? I mean,

I would assume that. I don't actually know that for fact, but, you know, this is something DeAndre thing, you know, DeAndre's team

believes that he had been being shot for over a year. You saw him say that on the conference call in Arizona last week. It's definitely something that came up in our interviews. Like, he knew that there was, you know, that it seemed like to everybody that he was, you know, out there and that they were looking for trade partners. I think that part, nobody is denied. And then I think that the idea that he wanted to leave that, you know, this, you know,

that he knew it at the end of that crazy playoff game last year, that he would not play next season in Houston. You know, to me, I would guess that Watson would have some sense of that as well. I think two guys that are going out to dinner should at least have that level of understanding about each other, you know. But I think the shock is more, you know, when it finally happens. You know, here are two guys in their mid-20s, two prime, you know, two guys are smack in their prime, two guys who could end up in the Hall of Fame one day. And they're not only together, but they have this great connection.

And they're playing really well. And the team wins the playoff game and they have this cool comeback against Buffalo. And, you know, it's just Irvin sees them out to dinner in London. and he says, this is me and Emmett Smith, these guys are going to win rings. And, you know, I think the shock comes more from, like, not that he didn't expect it at all to happen, and more from knowing he's not going to have a player of that caliber, knowing he will be approaching the season in a different way.

And I think on some level, both those guys have got to be thinking about what could have been, you know, championship rings, dreams, all the things that I imagine two guys with that level of skill set would talk about. And so I don't have any direct knowledge of that, but I think just putting the dot together, that's kind of lined up for me. Greg, what if DeAndre goes to Bill and says, I want to redo my deal? Because he thought that would be the thing that would push the trade along. And Bill says, look, DeAndre, we may not be best friends. I may not like your practice habits during the week.

But you're a hell of a player. Let's revisit this in a year from now because it is certainly very much unprecedented that most teams, even the Texans especially, won't renegotiate a player's contract with three years left to go. If he would have gotten that message from Bill O'Brien, could that have stayed their relationship or did he just not want to be a Houston Texan, no matter if it was a year from now or two years from now that he got the money that he thought he deserved? That's a really good question. I think the answer is in some ways is sort of both.

Like I do think that he's aware of the economic realities. I do think that people around the team have to know that the only time they've done that with three years left was for Andre Johnson, who's obviously one of the best receivers of a generation. you know, to me a Hall of Fame kind of guy. And I think that, you know, on some level, he had to understand that they have to pay to Sean Watson. They've got to pay tons. So, like, there are economic realities involved here. Now, I think if O'Brien had approached him the way that you just said, I do think they would have at least maybe been able to have a conversation. Like, who knows what comes out of that?

You know, I think the way that it was handled and the lack of relationship and the sort of like both sides being entrenched in how they felt made certain that there was no chance that anything. could be done in some sort of reasonable fashion beyond shipping him somewhere where you could get something in return. And so it's hard to say exactly how that might have looked if they had sat down and talked. But I think if they had had a different kind of conversation than maybe there would have been, you know, different machinations in terms of, you know, how they were going to approach it. But that doesn't mean he wouldn't have still been traded.

It doesn't mean he wouldn't still be playing elsewhere. Like I think he knew by the end of the last year what he wanted. And I think, you know, that conversation would have been. better off in the middle of last year in place of the Aaron Hernandez baby mother's one. Last question, and I'm glad you brought up that up. Any clarification on the baby mother's thing? Because that's a, the presumption to me, and we were trying to figure that out when Michael said it, was that these women were going to the facility, causing trouble, calling his cell phone during practice time, causing a distraction because once you leave,

I mean, I'm sure Bill O'Brien didn't spend a lot of time, especially if there was no relationship between him and DeAndre, Bill O'Brien wouldn't care about what DeAndre did when he left the facility. When he would bring that up, my thought would be, well, these women are obviously causing problems that affect DeAndre's practice ability, going to studies, a variety of things that might interfere with his preparation for game week. Where is a clarification on why he would bring that up to begin with? Yeah, you know, I wish I could tell you, but anything I've heard on that, I wouldn't be able to share publicly on the radio. And so, yeah, it's just, You know, so far there's nothing out there in terms of, at least that we could find,

or people we could talk in terms of public comments that there were any kind of issue, which I think is part of what bothers DeAndre's team, you know, that there, this isn't a guy who's had issues like the way that we've seen it publicly with other receivers. Now, that doesn't mean by any stretch that there isn't something there. It's just I didn't come across it. I didn't, you know, nobody brought something specific up to me. There's not something, if I had something more to it, I would have put it in the story. And so the idea is that like clearly they felt something was wrong with that

situation or they wouldn't have approached him that way or traded him for what they got. And clearly he took issue with how it was framed to him or he wouldn't have pushback so strongly. So, you know, my experience with doing a lot of these kind of longer stories on guys is usually there's something to both sides there. And generally, you know, you tend to find that like there was something that had worn out both parties. And, What we do know is the Texans traded a top three wide receiver talent, if not the top receiver in the NFL, for a relatively low return. And that never happens by accident. So, you know, something even in terms of perception had to have gone on there or we wouldn't be sitting here talking.

The name of the piece, DeAndre Hopkins will define himself and his future. The author is Greg Bishop. Greg, excellent, excellent piece. Thank you for covering a few minutes. And we look forward to reading more of your material down the road. again, thanks for spending some time with us here today. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Greg Bishop, Sports Illustrated, go to sI.com right now.

And it's a very worthwhile piece, lengthy, but very informational. And you want to get in on that? 1244 is at time. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-790. The Matt Thomas Show takes you to 3 o'clock. Robert Covington and the Rockets to join us in 15 minutes here on Sports Talk 790.