The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - KBNR’s Greg Silver Joins Talking Texans vs 49ers

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

KBNR’s Greg Silver Joins Talking Texans vs 49ers 

One half of the morning, midday show on KNBR, the sports leader, the legendary station 680 in San Francisco is Greg Silver. Greg would call me, Rossi, when the Rockets and Warriors were playing all the time. So I thought it was only fair that Greg came on the show today. That's beautiful. Simbiosis. Yes, we are the Bay Area Sports Leader and the Houston Sports Leader all in one. Greg, how are things?

Hey, good to talk to you guys. And yeah, I certainly am overdue for this home and home. So I'm glad we get to chop it up about the Texans, the Rockets, and any other intersection between Bay Area and Houston. Yeah, real quick, forget the Niners. What is the reaction of Tony DeVito, the Giants do manager? I'm just curious. Vitello.

Vitello. Vettelo. Vettelo. Vettelo. Is he one of the crime family members of the year? Oh, that's terrible. That's terrible. Tony Vitello.

Tony Vitello. Tell me about him. What do you like? What do you like? Yeah, interestingly enough, we actually had Tony Vitello on with us in the middle of July, just because the Giants had drafted Gavin Keelan as the first round pick. And this was even before Drew Gilbert and Blade Kidwell, other former Tennessee volunteers came over to the organization at the trade deadline.

So there's a little bit of a slower time a year. We're looking for ways to shake up the content. And Tony was gracious enough to give us 15 minutes of his time. And I loved it. I mean, you could see the energy, the passion, the baseball IQ. And it is certainly a massive swing in a roll of the dice by Buster Posey. Now, I think it's fair to acknowledge that maybe not everybody gets the leisure and the leeway of getting to roll the dice like this. But if you're Buster Posey and you're a three-time champion with San Francisco and now you're taking over as president of baseball operations,

I didn't expect the first year and a month to be this active for his tenure on the job. But here he is hiring a coach who has no prior majorly managing experience coming from the college. level. He made a massive trade to get Raphael Devers and take on all of that salary as well. So, I mean, now that we got the Dodgers in the World Series tonight, I think it's pretty clear that Buster Posey hates losing. He wants to do what he can to turn the Giants back into a contender and the type of team that he won three World Series with, but we're doing it in a very, very different way. And I'm really excited for what it brings because I think at the very least, it's going to be a fascinating story to follow. But yeah, there's no question.

this is a major risk here for the Giants. Is Verlinder coming back, by the way, in 2026? Do you know? I don't know for sure. I would venture to guess not. I mean, you know, I think the way he pitched in the second half, he's probably going to get a deal, maybe a multi-year deal elsewhere. He'll probably want to be a little bit closer to home. And as we sort of half-jokingly said, too, on the station, look, Verlander was probably due for a lot more wins and for a lot more help

on the starts he had. And in the second half of the year, it picked it up a little bit, but he got a lot of bad luck here, too. So no, on top of that, I'll also just throw in that Tony Vitello, his most successful pupil back when he was on the staff at Missouri is Max Scherzer. So I think we're all expecting somebody like Max Scherzer, depending on what happens here in the World Series, to maybe come and fill that Verlander void in San Francisco. That makes a lot of sense. Greg Silver, KMBR in San Francisco, joining us here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. All right, look, Ross and I, my partner, we always argue about Vegas and how it's only a metric, but it's not the most important metric because Vegas can be wrong just as much as they can be right. We are still stunned, and I don't mean to go to this Vegas card here, but the Texans are favored.

How in the hell they favor? Is it because Mack Jones was so porous last week against the Falcons? Explain to me why you think that those folks that do watch these things very closely have the Texans as a small favorite, especially because of the fact the Texans have. many of their offensive threats unavailable to them. There's no ground game to speak of. And oh, by the way, on a short week, they got beat up in Seattle last Monday night. It's a great question.

I was stunned to see the line as well. But what I will say is that as frustrating as it's looked for the Texans this year, and particularly on the offensive side of the ball and now maybe not having Nico Collins. I don't know if there's an official ruling, but I know he hasn't practiced in the last two days. I would just say that even though it's a cross-conference matchup, you can make the case that this is a little bit more similar to a division type of game just because of the familiarity between these coaching staffs.

Now, Robert Sala originally was the defensive coordinator when Shanahan came over here in 2017. Then he went off to be the head coach of the Jets to make O'Reyans. Phil's in does a fantastic job. He earns this opportunity in Houston. And so Shanahan is seeing one of his old assistants. Now, Shanahan, when it comes to his old assistants, He hasn't had a ton of experience with it as a head coach, but I would venture to think that he still probably has the coaching advantage in this.

So maybe it's got to be something to do with a lot of the injuries, the 49ers are safe. I mean, if we're just speaking about it, logically, logic shouldn't be a five and two team here in San Francisco with the injuries to Brock Purdy, Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, Ricky Pearsall, now missing time. Brandon I.U. has not played a snap. George Kittle just came back after missing.

And essentially the whole season minus a quarter and a half leading into Sunday night football. So I think with San Francisco, maybe there's a thought that kind of like we saw with Tampa Bay at some point, it just catches up to you. But I do expect this to be a fairly low scoring game. So I don't know about the spread in terms of the Texans being favored, but I feel pretty comfortable with an underplay here. Ross with you here as well, Greg. And you mentioned all the injuries that are piled up. And then we talked about Mack Jones as well. How do you assess him the last couple of weeks hasn't been his.

good just at least numbers wise looked really good earlier on in the season. What do you think about the way that he's played? Is it the book has gotten out on him and how they want to run the offense with Mack Jones in San Francisco? Or do you think it's just a bad couple of games and he can bounce back this week?

I think Mac has been spectacular for the most part. Again, they're not five and two without having two capable quarterbacks to run this game. And as far as Jones and the numbers, I mean, this last week guys, this was the first time the 49ers were able to run the ball effectively.

And they got Christian McCaffrey on this team. And even well before Christian McCaffrey, that's always been the cornerstone of a Kyle Shanahan offense is that, hey, at the very least, they're going to be able to run the football effectively. So it was a really strange sight to see for a good six weeks where the Niners just couldn't find a way to crack the run game. Kittle comes back.

And Matt Jones just didn't have to do as much this last week. As far as the other games, I think he's been getting beat up a little bit too much. both Purdy and Jones have been getting hit way too much when they've been on the field. So the offensive line has been a little bit shaky. I do worry about Will Anderson, Danielle Hunter, and this Texan's defense that they got to go against because Mack Jones for the first time this last week finally seemed to have a game to where he didn't sustain any new injury or find himself not really mobile at the end of the game when,

by the way, to begin, he's not the most mobile quarterback in the first place. So I think Mac, as long as he can stay upright, goes a long way in terms of the trust with Kyle Fanahan being able to run the offense as they get reinforcement. But as far as Mac Jones, it's not to me as much about the numbers as it is being able to protect him and keep him on his feet because that's exactly what they did against Atlanta. And he had his easiest outing by far. And you mentioned all the defensive injuries that have piled up, but only 10 points surrendered to the Falcons.

Have you seen Robert Sala? Is there any sort of changing in philosophy, maybe blitzing more, mixing things up? Or how are you seeing it? How is the defense continue to win this way? It's a great question because I think we're asking ourselves the same thing every time we watch this unit play. But they're certainly blitzing more because when you have Nick Bosa, you have the luxury of being able to generate pressure without having the blitz. When Nick Bosa was healthy, this team really has never been much of a blifting team. So that right there changes it up in a lot of ways.

Fred Warner, I mean, for all the injuries that the 49ers have had over the last five, six years and looking at the stats of most injured teams in the league, Fred Warner was still that one constant. He'd only miss one of his 122 starts prior to that ankle injury he suffered in Tampa Bay, which ended his season. So Tatum Boussoon did a great job stepping in at the Mike Linebacker position. You might see a little bit of Curtis Robinson take on that role. He also is just coming back from a torn ACL. So it's a lot of new faces. And they've got young guys that are coached up. They've got good energy.

Chase Lucas is another corner who spent some time with the Lions. He was on the 49ers practice squad. And he was sort of their preseason hero. He made this incredible fourth down breakup play to get in front of a ball an undercut one that was intended for Drake London. So yeah, anytime you have a defense that's this young, it's a bit of a wild card. I know that Houston's offense has really struggled for the most part this year, but now Robert Sala has done a terrific job. He's obviously got the comfort and the chemistry with Shanahan, but I really do feel like every week is kind of its own adventure because, yeah, you held that Atlanta offense and all those top 10 picks and that talent to 10 points.

But every single week presents a new challenge. And these are guys that are not only learning how to keep up physically, but also all the mental edges of the game. And that's where I think Robert Sala, Gus Bradley, and this. defensive staff has been irreplaceable. All right. So to put things to perspective to wrap up our conversation here with Greg Silver at KMBR. Starting quarterback for this Sunday will be Mac Jones. Is that correct?

I believe so. I haven't seen an official designation on Brock, but I just got into the studio. And I think it's very likely that we're going to see Mac Jones for the sixth time. Yeah. Okay. Now, Christian McAfre. We've certainly appreciated him from afar. A lot of us have him in fantasy football.

The number one thing about him is when he's on the field, He's dangerous as a runner. He's been an excellent pass catcher out of the backfield, but attendance is part of the grade. Does that always scare Niners fans about really wanting to make a deep run knowing that McCaffreys had these injury bug hits about once per year? Oh, 100%. Matt, I mean, this is where the 49ers, when we had all these conversations in August,

leading up to the season, we're getting ready for football, this was a team we knew was going to rely on youth in a lot of these drafts. also had so much invested in their top seven, eight players. And I've seen a couple of these guys go down. But all the while, before they'd even played a snap, we had said repeatedly over the air, the most irreplaceable piece on this team is number 23. It is Christian McCaffrey. And losing Fred Warner hurts in a major way, losing Nick Bosa hurts in a major way.

But McCaffrey, as long as he's out there and available, it's been able to provide some coverage in the receiving game. It's been able to get you that extra couple of yards even when the team is not running the ball that well. So, yeah, this team is going to go as far as Christian McCaffer could take him. And that was the case with or without all these injuries they've suffered. Now, it certainly hurts to lose some of these other top guys, but I will always stand by that the most irreplaceable team, number one, sorry, most irreplaceable player on the team, number one is Christian McCaffrey. And so if he has even a slight injury, all of a sudden, the narrative completely flips on the side for San Francisco. Well, that will let you go.

I saw Steph Curry last night hit a long-range bomb, so Warriors are off to a great star. Congratulations on that. Really happy for you. Jeez. Why'd you bring that up? One of the Warriors are going to get old and go out to pasture for the love of God, please. It's my time, Greg.

It's my time, not yours. I mean, I was there last night in the building, and that's, felt like the opposite of many times that the warriors have faced Denver, where the warriors seem to have a lot of control in the fourth quarter. And then Yokic and Denver kind of hang around and end up doing just enough to take it in regulation or force overtime. But no, he is the greatest showman in all of sports. He's an alien. And all I would say to people out here on the West Coast is to never, ever take watching him for granted because I can understand why anybody else is driven crazy by it. I don't even understand it. I can't put it in the words.

But it doesn't mean we get tired of watching it. Yeah, yeah. All right, Greg. Thank you for the time, as always. You know where to find me. I appreciate your conversation. Great guest, and we hope to catch up with you down the road, friend. Thank you.

Absolutely, Matt. Thank you. We'll see you later. Greg Silver. KNBR Radio.