The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Longhorns QB Declares For NFL Draft, Another Team Interested In Bregman, Rockets At Nuggets

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal of "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross" react to breaking news that Texas Longhorns quarterback Quinn Ewers is declaring for the NFL draft. Ewers went 21-5 as a starter the past two years and brought the Longhorns their only two College Football Playoff appearances. Matt and Ross also:discuss MLB free agent rumors that have the Chicago Cubs interested in Alex Bregmanpreview the Texans taking on the Chiefs for an NFL Divisional Round matchup with Sam McDowell, sports columnist for The Kansas City Startalk about the Rockets facing the Denver Nuggets on the road with head coach Ime Udokatell people to "Shut Yo Bum Ass Up, Ain't Nobody Got Time" and more.

Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 10-01 and H-Town. What's happening in Lunchtimers? Good morning, everyone. And welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross, we work for a wonderful company, correct? Yes.

And we travel from C to shining C, putting on great programmers. Some travel more than others with their second job. Yes. That's true. Well, we have a little bit of a communication issue. Oh, okay. Is there a technical snafews, if you will? It's a technical snafew without getting into great detail. I have a unit that I travel with that helps me broadcast in crystal clear programming. And the audio that I'm getting back from the radio station is the Michael Berry Show.

Michael, you know, do you like snow? Or, excuse me, Ramon, do you like snow? because it's about the snow here in Denver. Have you ever spelled your name in the snow? How far can you get? Do you extend your arms all the way out when you're doing a snow angel? So needless to say,

when I punched up KBME on my remote unit, I'm hearing Michael Berry. So thus, as much as it would be great to hear me in stereo, it would not be great for me to communicate with Michael Barry because Michael Barry, first of all, doesn't follow me on Twitter. And secondly, is not listening to my show. That's rude. Yeah, I feel that way.

How the hell are you, sports, Harvey? I'm doing great, Matt. It's fantastic, spectacular Wednesday here in Houston, Texas. Yeah, we're getting snow back home next week? Is that still the forecast? Let's see it's possible in the forecast. It's not necessarily probable. You know how it goes.

This is what happens. The models a week out will say it's possible for snow, and then everybody runs with it. So I haven't seen necessarily the latest. There are people I trust. actually as we mentioned Matt Lanz a friend of the show and what is he saying

he says no one knows if it will snow or ice next week no one is there a chance yes but that's literally all we can say about that specifically right now that's why I like Matt Lanzah he's not going to sensationalize

and promise snow and ice and get everybody on a well he go on a TV station when it's like five miles an hour wind and throw his body all around to give out the sensation he's scraping the ice elements to report for us.

No. Can you name three news reporters at any TV station in our market? I cannot. Can you name the sports reporters in our market? Okay, Randy McAvoy? Uh, uh, the, uh, Ari Alexander. Yep, so you're so far two for two on Channel 2. Oh, okay. Thank God. Um, uh, Will Cuncle?

Yeah, he's, I think he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, He's the guy at 26. There was a guy at 13 that was like the show and he left. What was his name? Oh, that dude. Rip Van Winkle, Van Winkle, Van Kinkle? Adam Winkle. Adam Winkle.

He's a friend of the show. Okay, Winkler. Yeah. Okay. That's good. Matt Musell? So nobody. Nope, he's in private sector now.

Oh, dang it. Yeah, I'm tapped out. So you cannot name any of a friend, Channel 11, and nobody from 13. I don't watch the local news. I'm sorry. I don't watch the local news. Who's on 11? Jason Bristol, I believe. Oh, Jason Bristol. Yeah, I know Jason Bristol.

You know what? That's my bad. Sorry, my deepest apologies to Jason. It's early. I woke up late. Did you really? Okay. So you were up watching late night West Coast basketball, I'm assuming? No, I just slept in. Oh, very good. All right. Ross, we've got a very busy show today.

Okay. By the way, I'm here in Denver, where the Rockets are going to take on the Denver Nuggets tonight. All right. Nuggets last night played in Dallas and absolutely annihilated the Mavericks. So maybe they're not in their nice and tired. They didn't get here to Denver to talk 2 o'clock in the morning, so that's going to be a good sign of the rockets. We were resting in our warm, cozy beds while they were playing in Dallas, Texas. That's good.

Yeah, I'm happy about that. We are going to go to Kansas City and check in on the cheese. We're going to check in with them today and Friday. We're going to give you a double dose. You know the one thing I've noticed so far as I was hate listening radio before I left town. By the way, you and Gordy did a great job this show. I was very pleased with y'all's production. Oh, you were?

Thank you. We just taught college football. Yeah. I don't think he, did he turn the knife into your stomach when he was mentioning all the Texas players leaving? Yeah, I think another one just declared. I believe it's a record 25 starters somehow have declared now. That's crazy. No, I'm just kidding.

I mean, do you have any players left? Yeah, Michael Taffis Day. It's Michael Taff. and it's Arch Manning. Maybe they hate Arch Manning. Maybe that's part of the bit. I'm actually kind of wondering,

because guys like Jane Blue, there's another that wasn't coming to my mind. Like, oh, is it? Benda, the linebacker. He hardly played. He wasn't a starter by the end of the year. Maybe he's out of eligibility.

Actually, I think he's out of eligibility. Yeah. I'm like, is something happening? Do people hate Sark? Why are, maybe Sarks is on the NFL? Maybe the whispers are out there.

I like that conspiracy theory. I'm wondering if there's something to this or this is just a bunch of guys declaring because, I mean, a lot of them are ready. Most of them are not surprised. Surprises. Because, all right, so let's be honest. Of the players that you've seen the list, most of them are just declaring for the NFL draft, correct? Yeah, a lot of them are out of eligibility or also very much draft ready. It could be as many as 10 Longhorns drafted in the upcoming draft.

Yeah, which again, that's great because many years you had zero. So you're kind of like bouncing things out of the last. But it just makes me upset that you're going to have 10 draftees and you didn't win the championship. That happens a lot. I mean, doesn't that happen a lot with like Duke basketball where they have a bunch of first round picks that don't? They don't win championships. Oh, the greatest example that is Kentucky basketball. Yeah, it still doesn't make me feel better.

Yeah, that's true. Hey, so the reason why I brought this up is because I was thinking, if Texas is losing players to the portal, what does that say about? the whole thing, that the crim della crem, one of the blue bloods of academic, athletic excellence is losing players. So as long as you're telling me most are going to the draft,

then I would not raise a flag of concern. I think it's eight have portled out. The only real marquee one was Jonte Cook, the wide receiver who quit on the team in the middle of the season because he wasn't getting his, he was a five-star player and it sounds like there's already issues. He had committed

to the Washington Huskies in the portal, and now he's decommitted from the Huskies. Yeah, well, ultimately, too, you could also be a five-star recruit. You go to Texas or go to any one of these awesome schools and you don't play. Well, all of a sudden you got like, I don't know, ball state says, hey, you can be a starting a wide receiver tomorrow and we got some money for you. Come on and play. I mean, you don't just, if you load up a school with all of the superstars, every one of those superstars can't play. So a lot of them would go to a smaller school for the opportunity to compete.

Yeah, I think it's eight. Last I looked, eight players. transferring out they're all about three-star level for the Longhorns, but it's so you're not sweating bullets on this. Not in a big way, no. Okay. All right, we got it. We're going to check in in Kansas City coming up

at the bottom of the hour. We are going to have shut your bum ass up at 1130 and hopefully my equipment will be ready by then. If not, I'll be telling I heart engineering to shut their bumasses up. But I don't think they would do that because they're such nice people. We've got EMA Adoka joining us very late in the show at 1.30 because you know we're in the different time zone. So everything's a hour earlier. He's got his pickaball games

in. Well, you know, it's funny, and I don't think I'm speaking on a turn. We got iced or snowed or whatever, so we basically didn't leave the hotel last Friday. So they offered us an opportunity to eat a meal down in the meal room, and

we get down there and there's this, you know, obviously buffet station or whatnot of various foods. And there was a pickleball court that was taped up. They played pickleball inside. They're a pickleball, a That seems dangerous. Did you get a pickleball in your food? No, there was separation between the court and the food.

Okay. Are we on the outside on this? You and I are not pickleballers. Are we missing something here? I think it's good, healthy activity for people who just want to move around and you're like, man, I want to play tennis, but I don't want to do all that running. Let's play some pickleball. But, I mean, Emead Doka doesn't come across to me as a guy that would like to shortcut anything. I mean, he's first of all, he's built the ground.

That's true. Second of all, he scares me half to death. And third, he just, I mean, he'd be full tennis guy. I would imagine so. He'd want to play a full 94 feet of pickup court and would blank talk you the entire way up and down the floor. I'll play a little tennis. You want to play something, Matt? You want to play a little doubles match going? You mean you and me on the same team?

Yeah. No, that's true. You'd be frustrating me. No, you swing left-handed too, right? No, I'm a righty on the gum. Oh my God. You're always swinging both ways. It's confusing. Excuse me?

What? Aren't you? You're left-handed some things and right-handed the other. Yeah, I throw left, I right, right, I bat right, I swing golf right. Yeah, see, you swing both... Yeah. That's not rude. You're swing in both ways. It's confusing. I normally swing just one direction. But sometimes the other. Not much of a swing. It's more like a maneuver.

Whatever you want to call it. All right. So if we gone through the entire show, we get the news at noon coming up today. Yes. And what else we got? I think that's it. We got a lot of time to talk to the great people of Houston

as are getting ready for the game between the Chiefs and the Texans. Because, again, I don't know why other people on the market are not even previewing the game. And they're not even counting it. They're like giving up on the game. Not giving the Texans a chance. Uh-oh.

Yeah, I think there was a certainty. I'm not even going to mention the network or the pundit. It was, they called it a practice instead of a buy. Oh, no. No. Yeah. Not getting shot on this show, Matt. Not on this show.

That person is not getting... We're not even rhyming this person's name. No, I refuse. He used to work in Houston, though, right? Matt! No comment. I used to own him on... Oh, right.

Right. Is that who that is? Okay, just want to make sure. All right. I won't say anymore. All right. 713-212. 2-790 is how you reach our show today if you want to get in the conversation.

We'd love to have you. 713-212-5-7-90. If you're on Twitter, want to follow us there. We greatly appreciate that. At SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Connor D. McGuhrin. That's our producer of the show, and he will navigate you. You call them. Make sure you conjugate your verbs properly.

And we will have you on the show to add to what should be an exciting rest of the week in sports when it comes to both the Rockets with two big games this week tonight against Denver. and the nuggets tomorrow night in Sacramento against the Kings. We've got the NFL playoffs, a lot of things going on. And Rossi, real quick, the Dean rumors to Dallas aren't going away. Are you surprised or is this just TV people trying to fill multiple hours of airtime? I'm a little surprised. I want it to happen.

For the train wreck aspect of it basically, right? I will take being wrong on and put my name on it for the train wreck. Yeah, it's going to be entertainment. I just, I can't see Dion listening to a word that Jerry says. Unless Stephen, his son said, hey, Dion, come here real quick. Dad's going to say a bunch of crap. Don't just nod your head and say, that sounds cool to Jerry, I believe you, and then just do your own thing. Dion's a strong personality in his own right.

Yeah. He's nuts too, but Dion wants, I mean, that's the thing about college for me, for him, that makes the most sense is that he controls about 95% of what's happening. at Colorado football. He decides what players he wants. He decides what players get what money. He decides when they practice. He decides how they travel. He depends.

He is the culture of the franchise. Well, you don't have cultures in the NFL. You have salary caps and you have drafts. And that's why the general manager of an NFL team, or for that matter, any sports team is huge. And I just, I can't, you know, is there going to be pressure to have his sons play there? I mean, who the hell knows what? But you know what?

You're kind of right, Rossi. I'm there for it. 1014, Sports Talk, 790. 713-212-5-790 if you want to join us. 7-13-213-5-79. I'm here in Denver, Ross, back in Houston. We thank you very much for listening to the Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790.

Hey, Rossi, how the heck are you? I'm just doing great, Matt. How are you? amazing here in beautiful Denver, Colorado. This is a, and I don't, I'm not saying that we're not a good sports town, but this is a great sports town. I mean, they've got four major league franchises. They have a college team actually, you know,

that, you know, the state schools here in Boulder, not far from here. I mean, this is a big sports town. Now, granted, if when the Nuggets won their championship a couple years ago, it was, hey, congratulations, the Nuggets won the championship. When does Broncos's training? camp start. Yeah. Can you be a great sports town if nobody cares about the championship nuggets?

Yeah, that's true. I would have to say in all my travels, and you tell me, and you've done a little bit of traveling yourself, the most balanced sports town when it comes to loving all their teams equally, I'd have to say it would be Boston. That's because they all win. But I mean, generally. They're all storied. Yeah, they're all storied.

They all have won. But the Red Sox have been a while. The Southwark's one, obviously. last year. The Patriots are in full rebuild, I guess, whatever, how do you want to call it? But they're pretty damn consistent. Now, it's not a great sports, college sports town. They don't really

jump on the Boston College bandwagon. Hey, what's Bill O'Brien doing over there with that Boston College? You know, I think people should resent the fact that you consistently go to the stereotype of what somebody sounds like based off what the conversation of the teams we're talking about. Sorry.

You don't do that when we talk about the Seattle. Seahawks. I don't know what a Seattle accent is. That's what I'm saying, won't you figure that out? That really diversified your repertoire. You know what Seattle guy sounds like. I'll tell you what's here. Hey, bro. Do you want to head to the, what was that zone called?

The, the, the militarized zone? Police are overrated. Yeah, man. I'm going to Eugene this weekend. Got some new shrooms. My shrooms came in. I would say of all the radio shows in a marketplace that don't stereotype, we are probably number one on that list?

Correct. Three things we are. We're fair. We're balanced, and we do not stereotype. Oh, the CH, the Chas, the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone. Yeah, I was over to the Chaz, man. Things get pretty wild. Picked up a couple of chicks.

I think it's going to go well. Why does Seattle, why does Seattle guy sound like he's about to go surfing? Yeah, I don't know. It's dreary today, right? Yeah. I'll be close to Seattle this week. A Friday show will be from Portland. I love Seattle.

It is really a beautiful place. It's a little far, and the weather is... There's a reason why they have much as much depression as they do. It rains all the time. Not like steady downpours, but the steady, like mist, gloomy... I was lucky. I got one day of gloom and mist, and then it was sunny the rest of the time. It was in September.

Yeah, you're very lucky. I know. That's what people told. me literally people were like you came in the right time i think i told you one time i did a college basketball game there in december and it was part of 21 straight days of rain it was a record at the time wow could you imagine raining 21 days in a row no and then you're knocking back coffee because you're now you're jittery and depressed and sad the weather's so bad that's seattle for you all right 713 212 570 we love houston that's why i said rossi let's get as hot as

it possible i'm looking for a 75 degree day soon let's go no i like this cheetahe chill in the air. It's good. You want it 80 degrees in muggy like it was on Christmas? Damn, Skippy I do. You're sick. Now, I don't want 115 in the summertime, but I... Well, it's going to happen. I know. I know. I just don't want the ice

and snow because we in Texas don't handle that very well. Like, we basically we tell people don't go on the roads and yet we still do, and we have accidents all over every freeway. Yeah. I would say it'd be nice to have the day off, but we get bullied into coming into work, so we'll see what happens. Well, we'll be at the Toyota Center on

Monday for MLK Day. Oh, crud. I don't want to... No, I'll be in studio. All right, you can do the studio. I'll be at the toilet side. If it's icy, I'm not driving all the way down there. Okay.

I might Uber from Kingwood to come down there. Well, you better get in an Uber plow. It's not going to be that bad, I don't think. Yeah. Look, we're putting the fear of people on our weather. Remember, I'm the trusted weather source of seven-nine. No, you're not. Yeah, I am.

When hurricanes come, what does the KTIH do? Yeah, you're there after the hurricanes hit. No, I'm the official meteorologist. You're not helping anybody prepare. No, I'm the meteorologist. Yeah, the rain's here. Hi, I'm Matt. How's it going? Let me know in Madagorda Bay

how the water's looking. Oh, Brian Erickson's listen to this. You do a great job, Matt. Keeping the people informed of what's going on. All right. Before we go to checking in Kansas City, I want to talk to Richard and Link City. The subject line on his call says, drama of the Texans and Rockets.

I'm very curious about this. Richard, good morning. You're on 790. Hey, good morning, guys. I'm just, I mean, the reason I wanted to call is I just feel like we're set up. So first off on the Texans, I gave up on them after probably the fourth game of the season. I was so excited. When they were three and one? Yeah, well, I don't know. They weren't convincing three and one. And I just, I don't know. I had a lot. I don't remember exactly.

where I was at, but I was like, this is not, I'm not, not feeling this. And in the last game, it felt like the season started over, all the hope that I had at the season came back. It's like new season playoffs now. They just got to win the next one in front of them. And that happens to be Kansas City. And you know what? I've decided to treat this like my Super Bowl. As far as I'm concerned, this is Super Bowl weekend for me. And I'm going to have my wings and I'm going to have my nachos. If the Texans go up there and they beat those chiefs, it's going to be like we

won the Super Bowl. And I'm just, I would feel so sad for all of those fans like me who kind of given up who didn't come back to the table because I'm not saying the odds are we're going to win. But

if we do, I mean, isn't this the reason we become sports fans in the first place, like this type of drama? And while I'm on drama, two things about the rockets. If you left the rockets, you need to come back. Or if you're kind of a sad

sports fan in Houston right now because the Astros and Texans, you know, they're not as predictable or maybe moving in the right direction. You've got to come back to the Rockets because, man, that game the other night against the Grizzlies, Matt, I was watching it on TV.

I was in home. I wasn't listening to you. Oh. And I was, I know, I know, but after the game, I thought, I wish I'd heard Matt Because I imagine There were some blocks

When I'm in Thompson Like when jaw pushed off I'm in and he just like bounced back and swatted their ball I thought I needed to hear that on the radio Like that That was drama And you gotta get on the Rockets band

Got to get on the Rockets Thank you for the phone call Richard By way Ross we should take care of Richard's needs As soon as his interview is done with Kansas City We should play nothing but highlights of mine for the last 50 minutes of this first hour of the show. We probably like six of them yesterday.

That's enough. I would say probably maybe we hit a limit actually. No, we hit the limit. To get people fired up for the game tonight? No, that's okay. All right. I believe we're on KTRH tonight. Is that correct for the Rockets, I think?

You know, I'm going to start pulling the Ackerman highlights. Those are so good. Oh, he gets enough run on social media as it is. Yeah, he does. That's enough. It's crazy. All right. Let's go to Kansas City next.

We'll talk to the columnists for the Kansas City star. because I want to kind of feel what's going on. Sam McDowell from Casey Starr joins us in just a minute. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I want to tell you about the Two Creeks Crossing Resort. These wonderful people have said, hey, the weather is good. This weekend will be fine.

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matt thomas what up what up that's what i am real pale texans talk continues on the Matt Thomas show. What up? What up? Wow. I continue to be flabbergasted by the lack of respect. My company gives me with these horrific liners,

but that's a different issue for a different time. Matt Thomas show with Ross. I'm here in Denver for Rockets and Nuggets tonight. We say hello to Sam McDowell, who is the columnist for the Kansas City Star with us here on Sports Talk 7A. Sam, it's Matt and Ross. Thank you for joining us. First question out of the get-go.

I guess we're all trying to count the number of days since the last time the starters played for the chiefs. Are you worried about this supposed 24, 25-day layoff, or is this just a storyline that people are trying to figure out how to make time before the game coming up on Saturday? No, I mean, it's a great question, man. I mean, I think that at some point there is too long of a layoff, right? I mean, you couldn't take two months off and expect the guys to be fresh. So there is a point where it becomes too much.

I mean, but over Andy Reid's history, and this is what would have guided my decision had I been Andy Reed, he performs extremely well when his guys get time off. And he's even better when he's the only team with time off. So over his career, Andy Reid is 29 and 3 when he's the only team operating with a buy week. Now, obviously, this is two buy weeks, essentially, when you give the starters week 18 off, and then they have the natural buy and the playoffs that they earn with the number one feed. And so that's where the equation potentially becomes a little different. But the Chiefs did switch up practices, a little bit. They actually played ones against ones, which they had not done since training

camps. So there's some, you know, at least attempt to try and replicate what the speed of a playoff game will be like. But yeah, I mean, I think regardless of what happens in this game, people will use it as a sample for whether or not it worked, even if maybe the correlation doesn't necessarily equal the causation of the result. Among players, skill position players that we know and recognize, who was beat up during this time off and who was getting the most recovery and again the number one question would be is how is pat feeling going to this game i'm sure practices have been light and they'll start to ramp up the last couple of days yeah i mean i you patrick's ankle was obviously an issue earlier in the season actually

you know kind of late in the season but but he's fine i mean he looks fine at practice um the guys that i think really benefit from this are one chris jones missed the last two games now the last game of the season against the texan now uh against the steelers sorry versus was the and then against the Broncos. Now, part of that, the reason he missed the Broncos is just because that game didn't mean anything. I think he would have pushed it had the Chiefs needed him. But certainly that's a guy who can take advantage of a buy. But the other guy who hasn't been heard that can take advantage of it is Travis Kelsey. I mean, it's no secret that Travis Kelsey is on the older side. He's 34 years old. And a year ago, it made a statement in the locker room when Travis Kelsey voluntarily took the last game off to end his streak of consecutive 1,000-yard seasons. But, he looked in an entirely different player once the postseason arrived because of that week off. So I think you'll see a different Travis Kelsey, even if it's

more minimally so than the drastic difference we saw from him in the postseason. I think he's really the guy that could benefit from, you know, this 24-day layoff that they've got. What about in the backfield, Sam? We saw last year Andy Reid really rely on Isaiah Pacheco to be the bell cow.

How do you think things shake out this year as the playoffs come along for the Chiefs? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, We saw a lot of Cream Hunt in the last matchup, particularly to try and close out that game and prevent the Texans from getting the ball back late in the fourth quarter. And Cream Hunt's going to be part of the game plan. And there's some similarities with the way they run, you know, as far as they both don't shy away from contact. But I think that's deceptive because I do think they are different runners. You know, Cream Hunt is a guy that does not get explosive runs, but he does not lose yardage.

You know, he tends to fall forward. when you look at success rate and rushing in terms of getting four yards on first down and getting two-thirds the way there on second down, Cream Hunt has a very high success rate, even though his yards per carry isn't great. Well, that's a product of the fact that he does not lose yardage. And I think when you're playing against a team like the Texans that has the third best run defense in terms of DVOA in the league,

I think that's a really important thing to have. So I anticipate that Cream Hunt's going to be every bit as part of this game plan as I say, Pacheco will. with us here on Sports Talk 790. Let's just flip to the defensive side and how it fits against Houston as far as, what do you think you saw in the first matchup and the Texans whose offense has been really bad all season long. It's coming off literally their best performance of the year.

Saw a lot of blitzing. And if you know Steve Spagnola well, the Chiefs defensive coordinator, that's not going to change. And particularly in this matchup, I mean, as you mentioned, the Texans' offense hasn't been great this year. Well, the primary reason hasn't been great is because they haven't been able to protect for C.J. Stroud. And he's not performed well when he faces extra rushers. And that's not all on him. It's the fact that they haven't picked up Blitz as well.

But I think some of that, you know, I'm sure the Texans coaches diagnosed it in the offseason. They're probably going to try and educate him better on how to get his linemen better situated for blitzes and oncoming extra rushers. But the fact is right now in the playoffs, they haven't performed well against the blitz all season. And that's a matchup that I certainly anticipate that the Chiefs will try to exploit regularly. Sam, I want to ask you about, and we had a guest down from Kansas City earlier this year when the two teams met during the regular season. A lot of close games, a lot of fortuitous bounces, the field goal blocked, the field goal made, the call made late. Your interpretation of that as slippage or just creative veteran teams finding a different way to win every single week. How did you see it as the team was not putting away teams like many folks thought are on the league they should have?

Yeah, well, I think it can be both. You know, I don't think that this team, you know, the starters went 15 and 1. I don't think this was the quality of a 15 and 1 team. But I do think that there's something to the fact that they don't blink in the moment. And, you know, you mentioned a couple of the examples. They won six games on the final snap of a game this year. And that does not include the game that I'm sure a lot of people watched against the race. Raiders on Black Friday, where it was technically the second to last snap that the Raiders

fumbled, and then they knelt it on the last nap. That's seven of those 15 wins that they've got this year. So I think, you know, it's totally reasonable, though a lot of people are looking at this Chiefs team is more vulnerable than they have been in the past because they have been vulnerable. Some of those games that I'm talking about came against the Panthers. They came against the Raiders. I mean, they came in overtime. And so they came against a non-playoff Bengals team before the Bengals had figured it out late in the season. So, yeah, I definitely think that the Chiefs are susceptible. I mean, they've proven that they've at least can make it a game with anybody.

And the Texans are certainly not just anybody. They're a playoff team. They're a division champion. There's a reason that they're here. They've got a terrific defense. So I know the line is what it is. The spread is what it is. But it would not surprise me at all if the Texans could, you know, be very competitive

with the Chiefs and make it interesting in the fourth quarter because I've seen that all year. Final question. Is there anybody that you? you have spent time looking at this year that needs to have a better postseason than they had during the regular season. I know you brought up Travis and, you know, age is maybe starting to work off him a little bit? But is there anybody else that you're like, you know what? If this team's really going to three, Pete, these players have got to step up and maybe do more than what they did. Maybe you saw them during the course of the 17 game schedule.

Yeah, sure. So it's kind of a TBD answer because my answer is the left tackle. And I'm not exactly sure who's going to play left tackle. I think it'll be the matchup that The Texans saw last time they played at Arrowhead, you know, last month, which is having Joe Tunney and all-pro guard play tackle, in which case your guard replacement for him, Mike Calliendo has got to step up because he did not play well against the Texans. And the Texans have a terrific front. And so they've got to protect Patrick Holmes better than they did in that first matchup. Now, the other option that they have, and the reason I said it's uncertain who's going to play left tackles because they signed DJ Humphreys late in the season after he'd been, you know, recovering from a knee injury. He played three quarters against the Chargers, and then he got hurt, then he missed three weeks, and then he played the finale against the Broncos while all the rest of the starters set,

as they're trying to evaluate him, and he's not playing with Patrick Mahomes, but he's still playing for a starting job. So Andy Reid has been coy so far this week on who's going to have that starting job at left tackle, but however that that shakes out, it's going to shake up the left side of their offensive line. And you guys know better than I do the way the Texans can get after the passers. So that's absolutely going to be key, not just against the Texans, but whoever the Chiefs play in the postseason. Sam McDowell is a columnist with a Kansas City Star worthy of a read this weekend

if you want to get an out-of-town perspective on this game. Are we holding it, what, 25 degrees for kickoff? Is that seem about right on Saturday? Yeah, it seems warm compared to last year, because last year about this time, it was like negative 5, so we'll take the 20s. Goodness gracious. Thank you, friend, for the time. We really appreciate it.

looking forward to reading your work over the weekend and stay warm we really appreciate you joining us on the show today thanks guys enjoyed it all right sam mcdow joining us from the kansas city star he is a columnist which is strange ross because we're losing columnists left and right which is weird it's just a part of the industry like the chronicle doesn't have a columnist right now isn't that weird don't don't nope once you step right in there matt i mean i could do it Yeah. I'm a wordsman on the radio. It could be a wordsman in front of a computer.

Words Smith? And a wordsman too. Don't worry about that either. I can do both. Proper nomenclature. You got that right. All right. So there's a little perspective on that.

When we return, we have some breaking news, sports RV. Don't look. Did you look at Twitter already? I see it right now. It's only because Chris Gordy retweeted it. Dang. Otherwise, I normally try to look away for entertainment value. Yeah, well,

Unfortunately, there's no entertainment value in this. That's a gut-feeling L! Yes. For Matt Thomas, and a gut-feeling L for me. Should I make a tweet about it? When you hit gut feelings, you tweet everybody, so I guess I should do it. You absolutely should. No, that'd be, no.

No, go do it. I don't mind. I'm good. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-2-1-2-7-90. I want to tell you about my friend Scott Callahan and his group at Scott Callahan and Associates. Unfortunately, there are accidents that will happen in life.

There are through no fault of your own, that you are suffering, loss of work, you're injured, a member of your family got hurt, and you want to rely on somebody when it comes to personal injury that you can trust that people around the city, Houston, and Texas can trust. And that's why you're going to go with Scott Callahan and Associates. He is board certified in personal injury law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. Less than 10% of Texas lawyers are board certified. That's right, and Scott Callahan is one of them. He's also been voted as a Texas super lawyer. Every year since 2011, only the top 5% of Texas attorneys are selected in that group.

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principal office, Katie, Texas. Matt and Ross, return. Return on Sports Talk 790. Talk 790. 7-1-3-212. at 790. Wait a little bit of... That's one.

That was two. Oh, it was two. Okay, I think one interrupted. Do you want to go to third Rossi? What are we going to do? I think two's fine. All right. Give up the news.

Quinn yours has declared... Oh, this isn't the one with Matt singing. Come on. Oh, no, we don't want that. That one's the greatest piece of audio in the history of this show. Quinn Ewers has declared for the 2025 NFL draft. According to his agent, he will not be transferring, although as Chris Gordy pointed out,

he does have until February 7th to pull out of the draft. But he's declaring for the draft. Agent Ron Slavin tells ESPN 21 and 5 as a starter. two final fours destroyed the Sooners a couple of times and also won at Kyle Field

in the resumption of the rivalry so good career great career from Quinn Hewers just could have been greater yeah I don't I don't sense a lot of despair in your voice

I don't hear the raw emotions it's fine the longhorns kid in the look Archmanning could be very well well worse than Quinn yours. It's certainly possible, but they could also do better. He's the Mike McCarthy of coaches,

of quarterbacks. Is he the raring of the coaches? Oh, okay. Gets the job done, but not elite? I'm trying to think, I want to think of a good comp. Okay. And let's go on the NFL because it makes more sense because I think more people would recognize

an NFL quarter. What would be? Kirk Cousins? Quinn wins more than Kirk Cousins does. does he I think so I mean 21 and 5 that's an impressive Mark now again yeah that's also Louisiana

and Rose and stuff yeah I mean Lord knows y'all play a soft enough schedules it is well yeah I mean like going to Alabama and winning in Tuscaloosa Quinn Ewers did do that that was great and obviously he didn't want to play against the University of Houston because he left the game because he was he was so scared of the Cougar defense

did he leave that game oh that's right that's right the Cougars were cheap shot in Quinn Ewers No, he wanted some time off. And then they lost. He waved the towel and said, hey, can you put me off the bench for the rest of the game? Yeah, okay.

All right, so Kirk Cousins is a fair comp. Russell Wilson's not a fair comp, correct? I'll give you a fair comp. Sam Ellinger. No. Who's better? Sam Ellinger or Quinn yours? Quinn yours. By a smidge.

By a smidge. It's closer than it should be. It's closer than it should be. He was supposed to be one of the, he was, you know, these recruiting services, all we put him out of 92.1087. This is the second greatest quarterback recruit in the history of football. Right. So he should have been better.

I mean, made a lot of money. Now, so what it makes me also think is that that report of $6 million waiting for him to go in somewhere was completely erroneous. Like I told you. Oh, somebody's already put an AI picture of him working. at H.E.B. This is not right. I did put it on Twitter. What was your favorite, Quinn, yours of the Texas quarterback moments? If you want to put that out there and let us know,

we'll be happy to. Of course, it's a University of Houston fan. Well, I mean, you have. You of H's obsession with UT. We don't care about you, bro. We're not obsessed by UT. We're discussing. Literally, Adam Wexer told me he was at the U of H basketball game

and multiple people around him, Cougars fans, were streaming the Texas game. I can't remember what football game they were playing streaming the Texas game rooting against them. Obsessed. Because the Cougars. Obsessed. Listen to me. We were destroying yet another opponent by 40 points. We had to find something else to watch.

Okay. We're scared of you. No, there's nothing scared. Nobody's scared. We're disappointed. We're disappointed that you failed to play us in a lot of sports. We beat your basketball team like a drum twice. We would have won the football game if not for Big 12 officials that were University of Texas grads. Fishing in the U of HU.

U.S. Yeah, there is more conspiracy theories. Take that L, you lost, look in the lost column. You've never won a championship in football ever. Never won. Basketball school. That's never won a basketball championship. How does that work out? You know, we are very successful in a variety

of things. We don't pigeonhole ourselves. Yeah, except for 15 championships in the 70s and golf, and that's it. Loser athletic program obsessed with the Longhorns. We're not obsessed. We don't even care. This is a passing note.

You're such a liar. Especially Old Guard Coogs, I think. Southwest Conference Coogs. Yeah, because we beat you in 76 for that perfect season. Thank you very much. Perfect season. The Cougars won the Southwest Conference in 76. Oh, they were perfect in conference.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I know they didn't win a national championship because they've never done it. Well, we're getting there, though. We're on the way. Coach Fritz. Let's go. I like Coach Friends. You should.

He's America's coach. He's not America's coach. Yeah, he's a coach. He's a coach. He can be your friend. He can be a disciplinarian. He could be a tactician. He's just America's coach.

He could sell false teeth. He takes naps in the mid-afternoon. Who doesn't? When this show gets over at 1 o'clock mountain time, guess what I'm doing at 101? I'm falling asleep. You've got night responsibilities. Mark in Humble on the Matt Thomas show at 1054.

Let me so if I can punch him up here with our great technology. It is punch. Mark. Go ahead. Hi, Mark. Hey, what's up? I will say this. You put Manning in there and the Longhorns won a national championship.

And as far as Quinn yours, he would be one hell of a backup for CJ Stroud. And I will make a prediction. We will win the national championship next year. your hookum horns. All right. Thank you, Mark. You know what? I want you to get to your computer right now.

It's got like three returning starters. I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, go down 10 pages, like something like way in the future. Let's do a quick. We can certainly change our opinions about it. But what do you think? What am I doing? Quinn Ewer's NFL futures.

What do you mean? Back up? Like, what is it? Yeah. What do you want? You want to write it down. We'll see how close we get. He's a backup for a few years, and then he's in coaching.

We're doing whatever. I don't know. He's made millions in the NFL. He's going to be like millions in the NFL. I'm going to give you five different factors. Is he in the NFL five years above five point zero zero zero one years in the NFL? Where's Sam Elker? Is he out of the league?

I mean, look. Does the UFO account? That's fine. Nothing wrong with that. You can still collect a good paycheck. Oh, yeah. Sam Ellinger's still in the Colts, apparently. Yeah.

Oof. But he didn't play because, what's his face? Joe Flackle played over here. He was the third quarterback in Indianapolis that had it. He could be knocking around the league in five years. I'm going to go over five years. Okay. Okay.

Hold on. Am I writing this down on gut feelings or what is this? Yeah, this is like a deep gut. This is deep cut gut. Is deep in your gut? Yeah. Let's go. Interesting.

Will he throw for 4,000 NFL career yards? Yes. Okay. No, no. No, you're going on. Okay. And then here's the one that's the most immediate. What rounds are getting drafted in?

Second or third? I'm going to say third or later. Me too. Man, we're not disagreeing in any of this stuff. This troubles me. Why? Yeah, it's actually extremely troubling to me. I'm probably wrong now.

That's why I believe the NIL deal of $6 million was complete fooey because his pro-contract is not going to be worth $6 million. He can go make $6 million one year to go play somewhere for one year. Health, and that matter of Ross, if it was $4 million, I would have taken out of the college. I'm telling you, Matt, you don't, you're, this is why I've been saying this this whole time. You and I don't believe Quinn Ewers is going to be a good NFL quarterback. Quinn Ewers and his people think he's going to be a good quarterback. He's going to the league. This is not shocking me.

Yeah. Well, he's not thinking about this. oh, this is more than a third round or fourth round draft pick. He's thinking, I'm going to go to the NFL, I'm going to prove the doubters wrong, and I'm going to have a good career. And he may well do it. I just don't think he I don't think he has the arm strength or the poise. To me, it's more about the arm strength.

Because I think poise will come with more maturity, but the problem is you're also going to face He's a cash rush. He's like 22 years old now. Yeah, it's true. I'm kidding, by the way. It's 21 actually. It'll be 22 in March. And he's got plenty of money right now, right? Between Ohio State and Texas, he's done okay for himself. I would imagine.

He's got some cash, stashed. You're telling me somebody from U of H sent you an emoji or a photo of him in an H-E-B uniform? No, I was searching Quinn Ewer's on Twitter, and some Kug fan on Twitter did it. Oh, that's very rude. Sam Ellinger was a sixth rounder, so Quinn's got to be better than that.

Real quick, for the top of the hour, what is Sam's career earnings in the NFL? Oh, God. I don't know. Talk. I'll plug your Twitter account. We got shut your bum ass up at 1130 today. We have Rockets and Nuggets tonight with the Amaya Doca joining us at 1.30 this afternoon. We believe it or not today.

Wi-Fi is down. No way. It's working now, I guess. Okay. We'll tease it. We'll give you Sam Ellinger's career numbers. Career earnings $3.5 million. Yeah.

Go to the NFL, Quinn. Go ahead and start your career. year. Yeah, I mean, inflation costs, you know, the quarterbacks are going up. So I would assume he'd make at least that, if not more. And so that caller's point is, that caller was saying Quinn, Art starts at the national championship. Steve's Harkiery's Keyesian clearly did not believe that.

No, he didn't, because we should have seen a lot more of them, honestly. Because there would have seen him. We would have seen him. There were times that Quinn struggled. Yeah. All right. Second hour, the show starts, Rossi, after you explain to the audience about how they can make some money.

Yeah. We've got the playoffs coming up this weekend. or that we're actually in the thick of the playoffs. Getting into the division around, you better get on it if you haven't played pick six from Draft Kings yet. My two picks went two and oh. We'll have more of those coming up on Friday. The official daily fantasy sports partner of the NFL is Draft Kings and PICSix.

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Limited time offer. See terms at pick6.draftings.com slash promos. Launch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. I don't know if one of our listeners, King of Prussia, was kidding. but he's like, he texts, he says on the Twitter, he says, he's going first round, be better, Matt. So I was like, wait a minute, maybe I'm misreading the room

when it comes to Quinn Ewer's ability, and I looked at two mock drafts, both of them have him going late second round. Okay, so he can second round draft pick. The one I saw most prevalent was Pittsburgh at 59. Pittsburgh. Second round country will be okay. for him. What?

Kenny Pickett, Mitchell Trubisky, Russ Wilson, Justin Fields, and now Quinn yours. Enjoy Pittsburgh Steelers fans. Hey, we have one Pittsburgh Steelers fan that she may or may not be listening right now, but I hope that she is. And for any of you that are Pittsburgh Steelers,

I want you to do this again. Ross, I want you to run through that list and just say them nice and slowly. So everybody that would be a Pittsburgh Steeler fan can just embrace what is about to head to the Steel City. I forgot to throw Mason Rudolph in there. Kenny Pickett, Mitchell, Trubisky, Justin Fields, Russell Wilson.

Can I know some old school in there? Sure, if you want. Bubby Brister. Now, since Ben Rothlisberger. Mark Malone. It's been pretty bad. Wait, Rathlisberger played in 21. I forgot about that.

So it's been Rothosberger, Bradshaw, and the rest of sucked. to Marr? Is that pretty? Cornel Stewart? Neil O'Donnell? Who wasn't he? Neil Donald was okay? Yeah, Neil Donald. And they made an ASE championship game. They made a Super Bowl with him. Yeah, Cordow was more of a receiver, but he would throw the ball occasionally for them.

How do you feel about a Mike Tomzak? Oh, touchdown Tommy Maddox was decent. Touchdown Tommy Maddox. I mean, Steelers have a legacy, and they have Super Bowl rings and multiple. But they've done it with some... I mean, look, Rathlisberger is a Hall of Fame or yes or no? Yeah. Okay.

Two Super Bowls. Yeah. But it actually was good. Not like two Super Bowls and was terrible like Eli Manning. Yeah. Not terrible. He was, he had the same success. That's for sure.

That's for sure. Quinn Ubers were in Pittsburgh Steeler gear. Oh. That makes you feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside, doesn't it? Doesn't it? Yes. All right. There you go.

So Quinn of yours is declaring for the draft. And again, I would say, I'll go ahead and say it. Put my name on. There's no chance, no way, no how he's a first round pick. I don't care what he does in the combine. You heard me, I didn't stutter. I didn't stutter. I didn't stutter.

I'm going to write it down. I mean, you're probably going to be right, but sometimes. It's not like I really went on a limb on this bad boy. Will Levis got taken at the end of the first, right? Or was he a second round? No, he was first pick of the second round. And by the way, I can tell you this very, very positive. I'm still bullish.

Definitively? Or what? With complete certainty. You're still bullish on Will Levis. All right. Well. I like this. That's what I like to hear.

Thomas Sports Enterprises will not be hiring Quinn U.Rge as a client. Let me write this down. You write a lot of things down. It's funny. The things you don't write down, the things I get right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to write all the stuff down. Yeah, that's not my job to write down what you got right.

That's your job. I lose things all the time. What are you talking about? I started this file because you tried to act like you were a prediction Jesus. I am prediction Jesus. You see like I said. That's why the streets of Houston call me Nostra Thomas. All right, 1231.

This one will be interesting. Ashton Gentie will never rush for a thousand yards. Did I really say that? I didn't put my name on, did I? Yes, you did. I got the time, too. I can check the tape. Oh, God.

Was I under the influence of something? 11.22. And I had to be AM. I wrote down the time for that one, case I needed to air check that one. Case you tried to call BS on me. Okay, so I really said Ascentia never 1,000 yards, huh? And we'll be just a guy in the NFL, you also said.

You know what? I got to stay true to form. You can't win them all, Rossi. I know. Hey, this is a good one. You got Joe Alt, TSE, Perennial All-Pro. Bingo. Brock Bowers.

TSE client. Yes. T-Lance is a bust is still on the list. It's TBD, but it's looking good. That's going to be a win. Yeah, that okay. By the way, I got bad news for you, man. I was on Zion Williamson's

basketball reference page the other day. Yeah. It listed 70 games played in that year. Well, I mean, it took him 83 to play it, so I guess if you're meant to go and then I will. He's already out for 70 games this year. Yes. Here, I got some stuff you got right.

You want to tell you to make you feel better? Vlad Jr. No Chance, No Way How being Astro. I was with you on that. Jose or Kiti will never pitch for the Astros again. I feel very confident about that. Yeah, it's over. He got, yeah, he's got let go. Let's see. U of H covers the 4 versus Rice.

I don't know. Oh, that was football. And we did. LeBron resigns with the Lakers. Yep. Bobby Sloak, no way, no chance is a head coach. It wasn't No Way, No Chance, but he wasn't a head coach. In the last cycle. Yeah.

And I got another one for you. chance he gets fired by the Texans. Yeah, I'm with you on that. He called a good game on Saturday, by the way. Nobody's really talking about it. It's funny how we crush Bobby Sloop when the offense isn't doing anything. When they get 429 yards against the top 10 defense, it's nothing, it's crickets. And Rossi, the reality is this, there's a, there is just as much chance of the Texans losing the game by two as there is 24 points.

I mean, Kansas City could go in there and win the game 35 to 10. I mean, and it wouldn't be a complete shock in NFL. I'd be shocked. I don't think I'd be just completely shocked. Battle Red Ross would be shocked. Well, Battle Red, but regular Ross would not. The one who's eaten his fiber would not be shocked. But it's not going to, but I swear to God, I will out every person that starts ripping

on Slowick if the Texans don't score enough points this week. It's about who you play. It's about going up and, it's about who you're playing, up in caliber, up in competition. It's a divisional playoff game on the road in cold weather, all the, against, much better team. Kansas City is much better than L.A., and it's been that way for, I don't know, 10 straight years. Yeah.

Kansas City is the dynasty right now in the NFL. Yes. So, you know, Sloa could call the game of his life, Rossi, and they still can't. If the offensive line doesn't execute, the Texans are in trouble. If John Metchie drops on their pass again and

wants to be interception, Texans are in trouble. He had a bad drop, And he had the fumble. Yeah. Yeah, I think John, I mean, look, major flowers for John to overcome what he's overcome physically in terms of the leukemia. But they're going to, they need an overhaul in the receiving core again. Well, two of their top three guys are down, Matt. Well, let's deal in the realities here.

Tanks not coming back, not playing next year. Probably not. Stefan Diggs probably isn't coming back for the Texans unless it's an a really, really, really small deal. I'd take him on a small deal. was an ACL tear. You can bounce back from those. Hutchinson Woods, utterly just replaceable people. Just guys. Yeah, just guys. And

John Mechie, in the limited opportunity, he's had to play major snaps, has not performed very well. But okay, but he's been decent. He gets open. He still doesn't secure the ball. Not great hands, which is, I think, part of the requirement of being a receiver is having been, quote-unquote, good hands. Well, Terrell Owens disagrees.

Yeah, but Terl Owens in the Hall of Fame, no. No, you know what? He made it finally. Was he the one that got him but didn't go? Yeah, he staged his own he staged his own induction ceremony or something like that. Okay, very good at him.

713-212-5-7-90 is the ready to reach this program today. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Rockets and Nuggets here tonight from Denver. We have shut your bum-ass up coming up at the bottom of the hour. Quinn Ewers is going to declare for the NFL draft. And, God, I wish we could play an Alex Breaker. Breggman update, you know, with the music and everything, Ross, but we have no new, there's nothing to report on him.

As the eerily quiet Breggman reports continue to not surface. Oh, there was something. You know what? We have a small smidge of an Alex Breggman update. I did see this like Twitter yesterday. Okay, real quick, though, I was looking this up, so I just wanted to get it in. The last round of the second round, which Detroit has that pick right now, I guess, it would be a six, it's a $6.7 million contract. Now, let me ask you this.

know if you can do this real quick. What is, what's the drop off of the third round after that? Third round, it starts at 6.4 million. Bottom of the third round is 4.3 million. Okay, so that proves to me that there was no $6 million deal out there for sure. And probably $4 million would have been a little adventurousome to pay viewers to go play somewhere else for one more year. He's making the right decision.

Because he was going to lose his spot in Texas. There was no way Archer was going to be on the back and the sideline for third year or even split time. Because Arch would transfer. Right? Didn't you say Arch? Oh man, now I've got to go back to the archives. Didn't you say Arch was going to transfer out or not finish his career in Texas?

I was doing that just a needle. You? That wasn't I heard of position. No, yeah, I don't believe you. That was a straight up needle. No, I don't believe you. I injected you with Texas hate right there with that needle. Oh, here I have it. Oh, never. Arch Manning will throw a T. T.D. pass for a college, not UT Austin.

Well, he did throw some interceptions. He did throw a pass to somebody else. July. He didn't go. It wasn't a pick six. July 5th, 2022. Well, I've gotten credit for that if it would have been a pick six? No. You know what? You don't keep that still aboard.

You will throw a touchdown pass. That's a gut feeling. I'm not going to hit you too hard on a gut feeling. No, but he throws a pick six. I win that one. Oh, you doubled down. He said he's going to transfer out on November 7th of 2023. No, that was tongue-in-cheek on that one.

It's a gut feeling. Yeah. I didn't put my name out, but thankfully. 7-13-212-5-7-90. A small Alex Brickman update is next after i tell you about the shell federal credit union where right now you can get a new vehicle financed at 3.99% interest for 36 months you can also get 250 dollars in cashback you can also get to skip a pays you can also get deferred payments all these incredible things that i received when i

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We got Shuttle bum ass up coming up in about 10 minutes from now. If you're angry or mad at somebody, irritated about something that's happened in your life, you have a half hour to tell them to shut their bum ass up on a major market radio show that it is Sports Talk. Time now for an Alex Bregman Update. No? Bregman Update on Matt and Ross's show.

The bit's never going away, much to the chagrin of some. Bruce Levine, he is a baseball analyst for a show. Chicago radio station. Oh, these are kind of scare me a little bit. He does have 62,500 followers, Rossi, so there is some people that are good at them and stuff. I love you. You have to vet everything

these days with this all the misinformation. Yeah, it is a true. Yeah, it is a true. Bruce, what now? Levine, L-E-V-I-N-E. You can also spell Levine, too. I don't know which one it is. Bruce Levine. What's his Twitter? M-L-B-B-B-B-B-R-V-I-N-E. M-L-B-B-B-B-B-B-R-E-V-N-E.

He was on 670 to score in Chicago yesterday and said that apparently Scott Boris has had some casual conversations with the Chicago Cubs about Brevin going to the north side of Chicago. Okay. But, however, it would be on a short-term deal, two-to-three-year range. Oh, that'd be a, oh man, that'd cost me a lunch. Scott Boris, stop screwing this up. You're going to cost me a lunch. Dang it, Scott Boris. Yankees, Red Sox, Tigers, Mariners, Cubs have all kicked the tires.

But we are still looking for a new home for Alex Spregman, who will turn 31 late in the month of March. He won it, according to Bruce Levine, he wanted to stay in Houston. But, and I'm just paraphran, now I'm just editorializing, scoffed at 6156. Well, I could see that. Let's see. Cubs, he's going off of history with the Cubs have done. The Cubs signed out, Fielder Cody Bellinger,

to a similar contract before the 2024 season, then traded him to the Dodgers in December after he chose to opt into a second season of a three-year deal. Short contract with opt-outs is a bad idea for a 31-year-old. they're going to have to swallow their pride and sign whatever five, six year deal they can get to me. Oh, man, what? Oh, God, and you know, you know what, we don't hide this. You and I, especially me, I'm just a huge personal fan of Alex Breggman. Yes.

So I want everybody to get their bag. Who's always had an ego, by the way. Me or him? That'd be both. But I was talking about Breggman. You're 30 years old, you're coming off of a gold glove, and you hit 26 bombs. This is, I mean... How do the market soften, I guess, is what it should be?

How did the market harden up for a guy that had that... Are they worried about the age? Are they worried about the fact that he has been a notoriously slow starter? Are they worried about the skills dropping off? Because what you just said in that first sentence before I started talking, 30-year-old go-glove 25 with his eyes-closed home-run campaign guy, that seems like you'd want to invest some dollars in the guy,

any guy like that. Well, I'm also saying my point is that I don't know how much better the market's going to get for him. And he's had some injury problems. I mean, he had the elbow issue. Yeah, that was that he was missing some time and play a game taking it off. But I think, honestly, he fought through a lot of pain.

And so you get credit for that, but man is this oh man we we barred this phrase on the show did the back of the baseball card hurt or help Breggman on this one it should be helping

it should be helping the numbers are really good the OPS what was the OPS last year? 768 OPS plus is 118 that's pretty good if you're 20% better than the rest of the field and a gold glove third base you have one stat that backs up the fact

that is above average and you have another one that puts Now, I remember the OPS numbers of this year compared to previous years. That's why I like OPS Plus. 1-18 is pretty good. But, you know, Kyle Tucker is 180, but also he played half the season. I didn't think Rossi that Scott Boris. Now, remember, Juan Soto was an outlier in this one.

One was a, I don't want to say generational player, but a generational contract. I think there's a difference. There's a generational contract. Yeah. For a guy that I think will not be worth the money that he's being spent. I mean, he's a below average outfielder. I'm going to literally break the bank for a player, I need to be five tools of amazingness at everything he does.

And clearly the Mets think he's going to be that. But if Boris doesn't get 6156 from somebody, that's two straight years that Scott Boros has screwed clients over. And you're supposed to hire Scott Boris Rossi to... He is like your Jim Adler, you know, the Texas Hammer guy. I can't believe the Astros slapped you in the face with 6-1-56. We're going to get you way more than that. We're talking to the Yankees and the Mets.

Alex, we're going to stuff these people in a locker. I would never say that Scott Boros has lost his fastball, because when you sign Juan Soto, you get him as a client. But would it make you think if you weren't the super, super, super mega star to maybe think going with somebody else? Because Jordan Montgomery, Rossi, he was great for the Rangers. He reinvented himself. He helped the Rangers win a damn world series and nobody cared about in Dallas.

Yeah, but he was terrible last year. And then the Diamondbacks GM said that was the worst mistake of the offseason. But Montgomery was so mad at Borisi fired him. Yeah. But also, if this report is true, which I believe, I mean, I'm not saying, I'm not calling the guy a liar. I would believe that Alex Bregman would scoff at a deal that's only $5 million more than Matt Chapman. I don't disagree with that because he's thinking I'm better than Matt Chapman.

The market set with Chapman, I'm above of Chapman player replacement level and I'm worth more. So now that the bar is set, the teams that want me know that it's going to take more than what Matt Chapman signed it to stay with the Giants. Yeah, so how much of this is orders from Bregman? How much of this is Scott Boris? You have to wonder. If he's that insistent on being that much more than the Matt Chapman deal and nobody's willing to give it. maybe Breggman needs to loosen up. How about the fact that Boris didn't hide the fact that

Breggman would be willing to go to a different position? Yeah, that was to get more team. That was to drum up market. But it didn't do anything. Yeah. At least in this point it hasn't. That was just carnival stuff. All right.

Breggs, I love you. You know that. I want you to get everything you can. But, God. Remember? I had Chandler come in today one day when you were gone, Rossi. He thought $6.15.

156 was not a genuine offer, that there was going to be significantly more money out that that was more of a token offer. Yeah, it sounded like, what was it, 5-160 was the, the Correa offer? Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of a, it's a, I don't want to say slap in the face, but close to a slap in the face. But it may be the best offer he got this entire off season. I wonder how much of it is Boris trying to say, that soda reset the market for everyone and a team's being like no no sorry yep

713212 5790 713 212 5790 if you are mad at somebody i don't care who it is it could be a host of a of a radio show not this one because you you like us i think you it could be your your boss at work is making you come into work next week when it's going to be like sub zero Well, it's going to be cold. It could be anything. It could be the next door neighbor who puts his music on too loud at night. Whatever the case would be. You want to tell them to shut there about my ass up?

We're here for you. Right now, you call in 713212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. 1128. Matt Thomas Show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. Ain't nobody getting time. Ain't nobody getting time for day.

Ain't nobody getting time for day. Ain't nobody getting time for day. 713-212-5-790, 7-1-3-2-2-5-790. It is time now for you to just tell us what's wrong with you. We're here for you. It's the most cathartic 30 minutes in Houston Sports Radio every week. It's time for you to tell some people to shut their bum-asses out. Shut your bum-ass up, man.

And if you have been involved in four meetings at your office, where you could have on cold calls, you could have been visiting with clients, You could have been doing some of your paperwork. A meeting that could have been an email. Yes. A Zoom call that was basically asking about what everybody did for New Year's. Ain't nobody got time for that. Ain't nobody got time for that.

We're here for you. 713-212-5-790. Ross, I'm going to go first if you don't mind. I say to any so-called national media analyst in sports, if you say a team has zero chance to win or it's a bye week or don't show or a practice or a practice

I say with complete disrespect shut your bum ass up shut your bum ass up man we won't take you seriously we never will we won't respect you yeah you make more money than we do enjoy it

at least I have have my dignity. Shut your bum ass up, national people who should be working as a fried cook or a barista instead of giving off terrible, terrible football opinions. Shut your bum ass up.

Shut your bum ass up, man. I would also say, Matt, that's kind of on the audiences as well, because we, as you know, Matt, we get data on ratings and people push things that work and they shelve things that don't work. And unfortunately, just in in 2025 and increasingly.

We have shorter attention spans and we have, well, less educated people and just as an audience, I feel like in general people need to be a little bit smarter, do some critical thinking, and I would appreciate that from everyone. And I and hosts as well.

That was very thoughtful, Rossi. That's like the anti, ain't nobody got time for that. I tried to fit anybody to get time for that somewhere in there, but it just didn't work. We should do it like the anti- segment of this where it's nice. Everybody's got time for that. Helping out

at your local homeless shelter. I got a time for that. No, well, I haven't. You know, you can do next week if you wanted to. We could flip it. That'd be funny. And we'll get to have, I have plenty of time for that. Or please keep talking some more. I like that. Well said. Kirk Bowles.

Oh, God. Kirk Bowles. Where does he even work? Didn't he retire from the statesman? What is he now? He's, he's the. Chronicle Texas writer now. All right. Kirk Goals. This is your boy.

I'm going to die. He had him muted for a year. When he was on the Longhorn beat, I had him muted, he was. I say Ewers is the most underappreciated longhorn quarterback in school history, and it's not even close. Okay. That's not the hottest of his takes. Okay.

So we will not tell him to shut his bum ass up then. That's fine. Underappreciated? I guess. I appreciate Quinn. You know what? I think he does get a lot of undue hate. People act like he's terrible and he's costing the team every single game.

That's not true. He just, and many times in big moments, doesn't come through. He did against Arizona State. Credit to him. He's no James Brown, put it that way. Is that a deep cut? You're talking about the guy of famous flames fame? No, I'm talking about the quarterback of the University of Texas.

You're talking about the Godfather of Soul? Nope. Talking about the quarterback of Texas. Oh, yeah, he won a conference championship. I guess Quinn won a Big 12 championship. All right. So, Ross, you have nothing else except just being polite towards those national folks? Nah, you covered what I was going to say.

Okay. Connor, what's the matter with you, Connor? See, contrary to a lot of people in this town, I kind of do like the cold weather. But I don't like it when it gets below freezing and then you have to go cover the plants and do all that. I feel like I just did that, and then you got to uncover him, and then cover him back up again. So you know, nobody got time for that. Hey, nobody got time for that?

Connor, how old are you again? 24. 24-year-old who's concerned about the plants. That's good. That's a good young lad. You got a girl now, but if you didn't have a girl, that right there would melt the hearts of every female listener of our radio show. I'm thinking.

Mm-hmm. I mean, I'm surprised you didn't say, hey, let's get all of our pets inside, too, and make sure we keep them bundles. I mean, you... General courtesy. Yeah, but I mean, it was just... He just showed a softer side of himself. Is it that soft, taking care of your pets and plants? Matt, are you leaving your pets outside?

No, no. Are you kidding? My dog stay in the house 99.9% of the time. I take care of them in 24-7 regardless of temperature. But how many times we talk about plants in the show in the history of the 15 years of this radio program? I don't know. It's been less than three. Okay.

I mean, we talk about weed. That's a marijuana. That's a plant, I guess. Yeah. That's true. All right. So that's all you guys got is you got plant consideration and use off adding on to my stuff. Okay.

Maybe we're in a counter society this week. Maybe the New Year has given us some more optimism about how people are treating better at each other better. One quick note about Quinn Ewers. Dane Brugler of the Athletic, who is really pretty good at mock draft. evaluation does not have Quinn Ewers in his first mock draft that has two or his first two round mock draft. Okay. So as long as he gets to the third round, he's going to make at least, what, $4 million

we figured out, but that's not all that is guaranteed, correct? I think it is. Or most of it. Yeah, I mean, for a backup quarterback, $4 million is nothing, especially when you're spending $50 million on starters. Yeah. Save your money. He's got Jalen Milro going 34th.

No, I'd take Quinn yours or a Jalen Milro in a heartbeat. Dane Bruegler disagrees. Well, they can shut his bum ass up, may. Who's like to move ass more tape on Jalen Rillow? Matt Thomas or Dane Bruegler? Who's had more picks right? Me or Thomas Sports Enterprise or Dane Bruegler? Okay, maybe so.

713-212-5-790. Uh-oh. What's on line two? Oh, boy. Hi, James. Hey, how's it going? for taking my call governor and that young call checker man

he's a good young fellow man he's got very much a good future ahead of him and everything in the business and everything in their life he sound like a cool guy I'm gonna get straight to my point I keep hearing them talking about that PD guy you got over there Mr. Gordy

the LSU guy and your side kick right right beside you are empty but I'm already annoyed man beyond belief I wish they were Stop talking about so much about that Eli Manning is not a first Ballet Hall of Fame because the bottom of line is you guys have one over here, Andre Johnson, and he was a great player too. But he didn't amount to much except that he tried it hard as a player on his team that was inept beyond belief. Eli Manning, he still was a team player and he produced.

And remember, when he won those two Super Bowls, he beat a litany of great quarterbacks. and most of them are Hall of Famous or borderline Hall of Famous. So you, Chris Gordy, and your sidekick over there, you both are you guys, you should shut your bum ass up. I know you guys root for the Texas Longhounds over there, and that other guy, he's an LSU proud graduate. I got nothing against each organization. I'm rooting for Archie Manning to do well for the Texas.

I'm never rooting for a college team, but I'm going to root for him like hell because I got respect for the Manning family. And thank you for taking my call. Jay, I got a quick question for you, James. What was Eli Manning's record as a starter? 117 and 117. How many times did he lead the NFL interceptions? Three times.

How many times was anybody like, oh my God, Eli Manning's coming into town. How are we going to win? Never. Shut your bum ass up. Eli Manning is overrated. They went on two magical runs where they scored 21 points and 17 points in those Super Bowls.

So it ain't like he was lightening up. I don't think he threw 300 yards in either of. of those. Eli Manning, overrated, and he shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame, and shut your bum ass up. Shut your bum ass up, man. Thank you, James, for being a part of the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Goodness. You tell me that no one feared Eli Manning? No. When were you, during his career? When was anybody like, oh, my God, what was a defensive coordinator? What are we going to do? The guy who's leading the league in interceptions is coming into town.

That's funny. I mean, you do have a point. I knew this is going to happen. I've been saying this for a decade, and I knew if people are going to forget. Just don't respect the New York athletes. You better not take any shots at Carl Anthony Towns anytime soon. Eli Manning, good quarterback, not great.

In the Hall of Fame, yes or no? No, but he's going to make it, but he shouldn't. He's going to make it because he played in New York, and they won two Super Bowls, and as we go along, we collectively forget, we only forget the highs. We're not going to remember the lows. Like I said, 117,

and 117 as a starter. Wins are not necessarily a quarterback stat, but that to me, over that long of a career, your 500, two magical playoff runs, not a Hall of Famer, in my opinion. And what station could you hear Giants games on? The best sports radio?

66. WFAN, your giant station. All right, there you go. All right, last chance for you guys to get out on some gut feelings. If you got something you want to get off your chest, let it be heard right now. at 713-212-5-790.

7-13-212-5-7-90. Gut feelings taking you today. Up until the top of the hour, we've got the news at noon. E-Mey-A-Don't-Cat at 130, and Rosswood is today's edition of Believe it or not at 150. Eli Manning's crappy career. Oh, gosh, believe it or not. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Very happy to tell you about Game Day men's health.

This is a group of clinics around town that are worried about your testosterone levels. If you have had sluggish nights, sleeping problems, if you have had libido issues in a bedroom, if you are not able to work out, you're constantly tired, you're constantly cranky, there could be some things involving your T-level count that is of huge concern. And that's why you get today with Game Day Men's Health. locations are popping up all over the Houston area. I believe they're up to eight. There's many more coming in 2025 because they have been a success nationally,

and now they're making their way here into the Houston area. Find the location near you by going to Game Day, men's health.com slash Houston. Game Day, men's health.com slash Houston for a wonderful opportunity to get a free T-level check. Free, free, free. If your levels are good, you move along. If they're not, they'll set you up with a licensed provider to get a free. those testosterone levels regulated. Game Day, men's health.com

slash Houston. More Matt Thomas show with Ross. Now on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790. By the way, Ross, the tweet of the day coming in from a listener and it involves our friend

Connor McGovern. Oh, I saw that. That's pretty funny. Connor McGarden line. I mean, that is very, very, funny. I like that. I mean outstanding Yon Easy. Good call. Good pull on your part. That's pretty funny. Also

I like Jeremy's tweet, Eli Manning is essentially Derek Carr with rings. Damn. I like that. Good? Not great. By the way, I did some digging. Eli Manning four time pro bowler two times he was an alternate replacement. So 16 years in the NFL, two time

pro bowler, Eli Manning. Well, here's one that showed up on a for you tweet. Texas Longhorn fans who are arguably on the Mount Rushmore of overinflated sense of self-fan bases one day really regret how many of them treated Quinn yours.

I mean, I say good, not great with Eli, with Quinn yours. Isn't that how this whole conversation started maybe? Yeah. And it fits. It wasn't being disrespectful. Am I wrong? There are a lot. Look, look, in any fan base there's going to be a sector, some bigger than others. Of it is. Much larger.

There's idiot Longhorn fans, absolutely. Absolutely. No question. There's idiot Aggie fans. Yep, agreed. And there's no U of H. Cougars fans, so, I mean... No, they're all... You know, we are a much more refined group of people. They can barely have to fill their 40K stadium.

I mean, this is embarrassing. So we don't have to talk about those guys. All right. 713-212-570. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Let's go to Felipe on 790 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Felipe, good morning to you.

Good morning, guys. My first point I'm going to go off is, hey, man, ain't nobody got time for the weather to be this cold. I understand the winter, but man. Blessings. Yep. Give us a break, please. And number two.

Number two, ain't nobody got time for Longhorn fans. Always hating on the U of eight Ugers. Yes, get them. We're living your heads. Free. That's right. Red free, suckers. Shut your bum ass up.

Longhorn stand. Yes. Everybody got time for that? Yes. That's your bum ass up, man. I have never once been to any longhorn function where anybody has ever mentioned the cougars. And as Adam wants to told me, you know why? Because you're in silent jealousy is what you are.

Jealousy of what? Academics. Women. Less culture. friendliness, traffic flow issues, academia. The traffic is better, I guess.

Yeah. That's funny stuff. Love you, Cougars fans. It's all love. Oh, wait, I got one for you. It's all fun and love. And this is, yeah, for that, for sure. I love Felipe, too.

I love you, Felipe, too. I love you, Felipe. Yeah, we love, let me tell you some. Felipe, you can join the Thomas fans. He calls in and crushes me like every other week. I'll shut your bum ass up. Thank God he does. Everybody else is crushing me. Okay, back to what I was saying.

For those of you that don't want to watch the Rockets, because all they do is shoot threes and dunks. I mean, come on. Let's shake ourselves with the NBA stereotype. No, look. Anybody got time for that? To each his own. And I guess, Matt, we're different because we both love basketball so much.

Yes, we do. The Rockets play fun to watch brand of, watching them in Thompson go up and down the floor. Jalen Green in that game against the Grizzlies, I mean, my goodness, that speed that he showed, that tough bucket over Zach Eady. Yep. I mean, or was it, no, Zach Ead was in it had fouled out by then,

but whoever it was. Brandon Clark, maybe. Yeah, yeah, Brandon Clark, I think. 42 points on 18 shots. They don't chuck a lot of threes like some other teams. Like the Celtics take over 50 a game. The Rockets are well under that. It's fun.

And they play hard-nosed basketball. A lot of what people say, oh, I wish we had physical old-school basketball. That's what the Rockets play right now. As under-key-cochukkah, they're physical, they don't take nothing from nobody. They start a scuffle about every other game. It's fun to watch.

I mean, why don't you want to go to a basketball game with good defense, some amazing dunks, and guys are willing to throw hands? I mean, what else could you ask for? They're number one in rebounding. They're number three in defense. they're so physical and play sound fundamental basketball. If you're really paying attention to their defensive possessions,

five, six times a game, you go, wow. Look at all that, the switching, the harmony of switching the pick and rolls and covering everything and closing out and not letting guys get by them. It's good basketball. I love it. Couldn't have better myself. Just give it a look. I mean, again, I wouldn't force you to watch something that you thought that was bad programming,

but I'm giving you a recommendation. The Houston Rockets have the second best record in the Western Conference, and I believe that the fifth best record in the NBA overall. 363-pointers per game that's 19th in the league. They don't take a ton. Hey, they're up to 28th and making them. They were 29th all year. Now, if you like good free throw shooting, we're not having a great spell that lately.

26. We'll talk to EMAIDOCA coming up at 1.30 this afternoon. Sal and Pearland, your last up. What's the matter with you, Sal? Hey, what's up, Matt? So I have two Shirt your bum ass up. The first one is going to be

to Stephen A. Smith and not giving us a chance this weekend on Saturday at the divisional round. That's going to be my first shut your bum ass up, man. Shut your bum ass up, man.

My second one, this is for you, Rob, this is for my soccer fans. For all the Barcelona, all the Barcelona fans that think that there are out of just because they beat Madrid this weekend

or last week, Shut your bum ass up. But when the last time I won any champions championship It's been It's been about 15 years He's got won in a day

So let me know When y'all won at these three In the past five years Laminia long's the truth though Isn't he? Yeah, no, he is though He is though He is though

He is up All right Shut your bum ass up man You got it Dang Matt You didn't think you were going to get A Spanish SuperCopa Smack in the

This segment did you I mean I got to be Brutley on I'm tuned out and it's just hard talking about it. It's a great game. Barcelona beating Real Madrid 5 to 2 in the Super Copa de Spain. You watch all of it?

I did. It was on during one of the games on Saturday. No, it was on Saturday. Or Sunday, sorry, Sunday. All right, the news at noon is up next. 1158 on Sports Talk 790. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show.

12-0-2-H-town. What's happening in lunch timers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to the third hour of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. We're every day at this time or thereabouts. We give you the main headlines of the day. And for that, we present to you the news at noon. All right, folks, it's the news at noon here on Sports Talk 790. Hope you're staying warm out there.

Make sure you bundle up and wear your scarves. We might have a hard freeze coming in this Monday. More on that with weather. they're cutting up. Let's go ahead and start with the Texas taking all the Kansas City Chiefs this weekend, but one piece of the team will not be there. Head coach Damico Ryan's cutting Deontay Johnson. Here's what he had to say, very short and sweet,

on what happened there. With Deontay, unfortunately, it didn't work out, and we're all into the chief. Didn't wish him well, didn't say he's a good guy. May. May editorialize something here real quick? Yes. You get the music up right now. There were a lot of people that were covered.

The team has said, this is no surprise. Wait a minute. No one said anything about him having a meltdown after the game on Saturday. So when we found out that Deontay Johnson was released, it was a surprise. Or unless you didn't want to report it because you didn't want to get in the bag races of Hannah.

help me out with that. Or, you know, sometimes, man, man, you've seen stuff in the, in the locker room that you feel stays there and you don't want to go and run with specifics as well. But then, that's the truth. Then don't tell me it wasn't a surprise. Like you knew it all the way. Well, then if you knew it all the way, then you report it. But if you didn't know it or you didn't want to report it, don't tell me it to surprise. You know stuff that gets reported and it wasn't a surprise.

Come on now. But I don't go on and say, I'm not surprised by this. There's lots of I know right now in my head that I cannot report. But I'm not going to brag and talk. told you, well, I wasn't surprised by this. Okay, man. A little a little fake I told you so's when there was no need to forget, I told you so.

That's all right. I'm sorry. Who hurt you, Matt? You're all right? No, I just think that false bravado is ridiculous. I don't even know who you're talking about or but there was some reporting from I think DJ BNamy and Aaron Wilson and others about

yes, Deontate Johnson. And if you look at his body language, actually as well, A lot of the times where he wasn't getting the ball, you could just look very defeated, not looking good. Hanging is, you know, just the body language, not good. And clearly, Texans said it wasn't worth it. One catch for 12 yards on Saturday for the Texans.

They will be without his services this weekend up at Arrowhead. What services? He didn't do anything. One catch for 12 yards, something. He didn't catch a punt, too, right? Yeah, I think was that on Saturday? I can't remember. Well, good for him.

Yeah, I mean, everybody else is smoking cigars. You know what? Fake it. Smoke a cigar. Tick. Smoking. Mix my impact. Yeah.

All right, Matt, let's keep it going. But we will stick with the Houston Texans. C.J. Stroud also speaking to the media yesterday said it should help to be familiar with the Kansas City Chiefs. Yeah, you definitely got to go back and, you know, see, you know, things that work, things that didn't work. you know, and I think that definitely helps playing them so recently, but, you know, they also have that advantage as well. So, you know, we got to be able to, you know, still have a new game plan and do things that are, you know, new.

But, yeah, it definitely does help to see a familiar team again. And, you know, they're, you know, they do a lot of great things. And, you know, we didn't really see a whole bunch of it. I think it was like their exotic things. So, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if that stuff started to show up. So, yeah, but it definitely does help that we seen them not too long ago. Yeah, I mean, it was an important game for them. They wanted to solidify home field throughout the AFC.

Texans came in as a team that was trying to wrap up an AFC South championship. I mean, yeah, I do think you take some things away from that game. Yeah, I also think a good point by him that Steve Spagnolo probably has a few things in his back pocket that he didn't bring out in that game that he might. And we talked with Sam McDow earlier, the Kansas City Star columnist about the Chiefs game as well. And he said, we asked him basically what do you expect? He said blitzing. Blitzing and a lot of blitzing. It's going to be exotic stuff.

That's what Steve Spagnolo is known for, what he does. Going to try to confuse matters at the line of scrimmage. Who's coming? Who's not? So the offensive line is going to have to be prepared for that. In a loud environment in Arrowhead this weekend, Matt. Speaking of Steve Spagnoll, I believe he interviewed for the Jets job. Am I correct on that today?

Yes. Let me get your, we've never really talked about this. Do you get bothered by the fact that coordinators who are still coaching, talk to provide other jobs? Do you think it takes away from them? I say no. I think it would probably take more away. For instance, if I was Andy Reid's defensive coordinator,

and Andy Reid's have gone for jobs, and Andy Reid said, no, I don't want you talking to New York, that would probably bother me more because I've been like, man, I want to talk to them. Or at least if you get it, if you get the Zoom call, you get out of the way, and at least you know how they feel about you, and they say, hey, when our season's over, we'll get back to you. Okay, I'll throw a question at you that I don't know if either knows the answer to. Is it easier to prepare for

opponents in the NFL in 20, 4 and 5 because you have Back in the day, you'd have to go back to the tape, you'd have to dig out of tape, you'd have to get on the VCR, like everything, I'm sure there's a database that the chiefs have. Third and three, every Texans third and short play this year, boom, you click it, it's all there. So can you spend less time preparing

so you have more time to do things like job interviews? The technology and the research and the video stabs have gone on probably 300% in the NFL. Yeah, so everything's up to a T. So how much? Let me tell you, I'll give you an example of the Rockets. When Rockets will play a game, like we play Sacramento tomorrow, 90% of the tape is cut up already for the game. Yeah. Maybe even 100%.

I mean, they're going to get on, we're going to get on the plane then I go to Sacramento, and these guys will have everything they possibly want. locked and loaded in for preparing for the Kings, including the previous matchup and the last on the Kings played a game. So, yeah. Video, the dollars and hours spent on video preparation, at least for coaches, has gone on. Does it still go in one ear or not the other for most players?

I still say yes, but at least they're fully prepared in this show all different angles. That's what I'm saying. If it's not eating into Steve Spagnolo's preparation time, it's fine. If it is, then maybe it is a problem. It also depends on how well prepared does he need to be for the jet job. How serious if a candidate is he for the? the Jets job. I mean, is he making like a, you know, 300-page dossier for what he would do as

Jets head coach? I don't know. Well, if you're going for a head coaching job, even if it's an introductory conversation, you've already got your coaching Bible already typed up and written. That's true. But you're not like, but you got to delete Aaron Rogers's name out of it. Say that again? You got to delete Aaron Rogers's name out of it. But I mean, you have that in your desk drawer ready to go. How do I prepare? How do I show a team that I'm ready to be a head coach? I would say it probably doesn't eat into his preparation time. No, I would agree with you.

Bobby Sloick's still waiting, though, until after they're out of the playoffs, right? He has not interviewed with the Jets, but he's like on the hook. Yeah. And if you're the Jets, I mean, you can wait until everybody's done. You just can't. Things aren't going to change. The draft's not until April. Forange, he doesn't kick for a couple of months.

You can wait. Yeah, unless you feel like the top candidate is going to get snapped up, who I don't even, only Vrabel's been hired. and that was, he was tailor made for the Patriots. Yeah, especially being an ex-patriot, yeah. All right, let's keep it moving along, Matt, with the news at noon. Your Houston Rockets taking on the Denver Nuggets tonight. It's the Joker versus Baby Joker.

Denver Nuggets, a minus one and a half point favorites in this one. That shows a lot of respect to be for the Houston Rockets. That means on a neutral court, the Rockets would be favored over the Nuggets who have been surging with four straight wins. Yeah, Rockets have been. playing better on the road. Rockets were here in town relaxing while the Nuggets last night were in Dallas playing the Mavericks. So, look, we're all a byproduct of back-to-back.

I would think tomorrow night, even though the Rockets are a significantly better team than the Sacramento Kings, the Kings are going to be probably nicely favored because the Rockets, the NBA, and I know geography you can't win every time, but Denver to Sacramento is an over-two-hour flight. I mean, it's not like his run around the corner. And so, you know, Yeah, teams that are off a back-to-back

are automatically going to lose some points. I think that's what Denver's a byproduct does. Yeah. I'm just kind of, this is a fully healthy Denver Nuggets squad, right? They got Yokic and Murray and Michael Porter Jr., Aaron Gordon, Russell Westbrook's been in the starting lineup,

and the Rockets, only one and a half point dogs. That's some respect from Las Vegas. And by the way, extra juice on the rocket side. So that's some real respect there for the Houston Rockets tonight. in Denver. One last note, Matt, Justin Verlander on his introductory press conference for the San Francisco Giants talked about no hard feelings in Houston, but most importantly, it was on Zoom, and well, somebody had left their mic on during the Zoom meeting. I have always admired the way that he takes care of it.

Look at Justin's name. If you guys can just, all the media on here, if you can just mute yourselves, please. I'll change it. All right, I'll change it. The name on that, on the Zoom call, it said, I believe it said Kate. It said Kate Upton, yes. Yeah. That's just a humble break is what that is. He said if you don't know, now you'd know. If you forget.

I'm here to remind you. Let me remind you. I mean, what an all-timer life. I mean, there are very few people I want to change lives with. I mean, I'm having. with mine, but I mean, if you had to flip a life, JVs would be it, right? A lot of hard work. Did have to recover

from Tommy John, but probably I'm sure he would tell you all worth it. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Yes. As one of the sexist women in the world as his wife. He's the highest paid earning pitcher of all time, of all time. And took a discount to pay for $15 million this year.

Man, his life good for him. He's doing all right. All right, so if changing Verlander, let me give you my short list. We're going to flip spots with Derek Jeter. We've been through this before. David Beckham.

Justin Timberlake. Timberlake. I think we literally did a fantasy five of this. I think I picked Frank Sinatra in one of them. Oh, I bet. 1970. He was doing okay. He was doing just fine.

Yeah. Pre-uncurable diseases? Yeah. What are these things that you've given for protection. What are these things? What are what's a condo? That's what the old blue eyes was saying back to the day.

Not necessary, baby. Start spreading this news. You know what? That's one of your best lines of the year. I'm going to write that one down. That was, I'm that is full applause for me, Matt. Thank you. It was so where I get to a reward it from you.

All right, that was the news that dude. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Very proud to speak for Uptown Appliances Repair. I would love for you folks to not worry about various malfunctions with things in your home, like refrigerators or ice makers or a wine cell that's not working or a washer-dryor, combo, dishwasher, microwave. I go on and on. I want to tell you about the premier appliance professionals here,

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7-1-3-212-5-7-90. One thing about what's going on in Dallas, and I want to get back to Houston for a second. Micah Parsons went on a podcast Tuesday, Rossi, really distraught over Mike McCarthy being let go in Dallas, which I'm stunned by.

Let me just read this to you, and now it kind of makes a little bit of sense of why Mike McCarthy probably is going to stay in the NFL. Listen to what he says. I'm obviously very sad because of the relationship we have with Coach McCarthy and everything he's done for our program. Three straight 12 and five seasons,

playoff appearances, and obviously an unfortunate year due to injuries. It is devastating. Coach Mike is a great father, a great coach, one of the most winningest coaches. He's always been good to us as a unit, coaches players, losing a great coach like Mike Hertz. I mean, that's a lot of praise for a guy that you didn't hear much of that during the course of the season at all. Well, man, maybe Mike McCarthy better than I think. Maybe not better than what Jerry Jones thinks, though. Yeah.

Is Mike McCarthy the Quinn Ewers of NFL coaches? Good, not, right? I said that earlier today. Well, 12, 3, 12 and 5 seasons is pretty good. No NFC championship games got destroyed in the wildcard last year. By Green Bay, you know. I like him more than maybe you do. But I'm not ready to put him on some sort of pedic.

I mean, he's no Andy Reid. No. Not even to Mike Tomlin, frankly. Okay. Should we go through the list? All right, let's go, let's not go through 30. Let's go to 10. Let me pull up a ranking.

All right, do you want Sean McVeigh or do you want Mike McCarthy? All right, let me pull up something from, let's just go down this list that the Pro Football Network put together. They have Andy Reid one. Sean McVeigh, just tell me when you start disagreeing. John Harbaugh, Kyle Shanahan, Dan Campbell, that's five. Tomlin, Jim Harbaugh? Harbaugh is too high. Jim, okay.

Matt LaFleur, Green Bay? Or Kevin McCarthy? I mean, Mike McCarthy. Mike McCarthy. 5149. Matt LaFleur destroyed him in the playoffs on the road. Yeah. Kevin O'Connor.

I'll go with the L'Floor. That's fine. Kevin O'Connell, Vikings. By the way, there is a lot of nastiness right now going on in Minnesota with Kevin O'Connell. Dang, where is Mike McCarthy on this list? Oh, my God. I mean, are you ever to go to the second page? that?

This is, they have him 23rd behind Kevin Stefansky Shane, behind Shane Stuyken? No, come on. This is preseason. Oh, well then okay. Well, then this is, yeah, this is dated then. We're going to reevaluate this then.

You know, this will be our, we'll help, we'll do this for pro football. D'Amico Ryan's or Mike McCarthy? Mike McCarthy. It's got the skin on the wall. Super Bowl championship. Sean McDermott, Buffalo Bills. How about this? We can have this D'Amico Ryan's conversation flip in a millisecond.

You get to the Texans of the Super Bowl. He supplants McCarthy. Just win, baby. It really is about wins. It's not about how good of a person you are. It's about how many banners you've got in terms of division championships in conference titles and Super Bowl appearances. And wins, for that matter.

And he's got one. Dang, yeah, this list hates Mike McCarthy. Who was the coach you just brought up a second ago? Shane Steichen? Kevin Stifan. I mean, Kevin Savansky multiple time coach of the year. Yeah. He's got Todd Bowles ahead of him.

Mm-mm. No. Jonathan Gannon and the Cardinals 17? Stop. What? This poll. This survey is no longer valid. Okay.

So no love. All right. How about a C. How about a, oh no. Oh, no. Did I get a virus now? What's going on?

I would put him in the 11 to 15, maybe top, maybe between 10 and 13 somewhere in that range. Yeah. I think that it starts getting arguable. There's six to me that are inarguable. The CBS list has him 17th behind Doug Peterson at the time. Okay. Yeah, I would say 10 to 13. And Peterson has a championship too.

He does. He does. How about this? The Cowboys were completely healthy. Are they the NFC East champions? No. I don't think they're better than the Eagles. Did Washington and Philadelphia,

would they have taken steps back to what they finished the year with to not make the playoffs and for Dallas just to come in and take one of their two spots? I mean, they won seven games without Dak Prescott. Man. Dak wins. Dak plays 17 games. He wins you 10, right? Probably.

Help me out with that. Commanders are 12 and 5. Eagles are 14 and 3. So they would have been battling for the last Wal-Card spot, which would have been what the L.A. Rames. He was swept the Cowboys. Maybe you take one of those back. That's 13

and 4. They're probably still first place. I don't think Washington was fluky at all this year. They played really, really good. Now, they did win a miracle game against Chicago. with the very last second. So let's take that one away from them. Maybe they sneak around Washington, but that would be it.

Felt off he was going to win the division anyway. All right. Just something to throw at. You very rarely get to hear a player speak glowingly of a coach that just got let go, and obviously Michael Parsons did that. So I was just worthy of reading. Did get an interesting text or a tweet from a listener,

and he sent it to me on DM, so I don't want to give out his name. But it goes to what we were talking about earlier, in the show, Rossi, about there's no slot given to Bobby Sloick at all. And this listener, and he's listening, we love you. Can we get

someone from, and he mentions Rinreed or Bonster Bob's to do a free resume review for Sloick, so that he has a better chance of a head coaching job with the Jets? Ren, Reed, Bonzer Bob. In Reed. Or Bonster jobs. I think Inreed is Bonster jobs.

Well, he's saying, he's saying, either one of them. Maybe that's the same company. Didn't Monster turn into Minreed? He could have. These mergers are happening all the time. So how about Minkton? Okay, Minkton. Do we want to bolster

his resume? So Bobby, I mean, is the Bobby Sloic H.S. Unbelievable? I guess. I liked what they did. Really, over the weekend, in that game in Saturday, there were multiple times where the

Chargers were completely bamboozled by what the Texans were doing out of certain formations where they had free runner. I mean, Joe Mixon had opening lanes where he didn't normally have them. They did confuse the chargers multiple times over the weekend. And they started off three of the first four drives.

They threw on first down. Unfortunately, one of them was fumbled by John Mechie. I think the other two were first downs are close to it. Yeah. All I'm saying this, and I feel like I'm a broken record on this, is that you don't go from a guy that you were

desperately hoping to hold on to praying that he doesn't take a head coaching job to all of a sudden don't at the door hit you in the ass. The NFL doesn't work that way. Coaches don't work that way and I don't think organizations can work that way. You won the AFC South,

you won a playoff game, you've lost two incredible wide receivers. Your offensive line was a hot mess, frankly, this entire season because I think it was neglected. I mean, What was he?

Who's the greatest, I mean, would Bill, the late Bill Walsh may rest and peace, what do you come in here and all of a sudden reinvented the Texan's offense to do some things that Bobby Sloick couldn't organize? No, did Bobby become predictable at times? Sure. Yes. But did also, did D'Amico want Bobby to get conservative,

knowing that a big part of the Texans offense, especially inside the opponent's 35-yard line, was the fact that he had one of the best vehicle kickers from distance, bring you in guaranteed three points most times? I think Bobby Sloak is a good offensive coordinator. I guess we're just not going to get, they got 429 yards against the charges, one of the better defenses in the NFL. And nobody's going to give them credit. If they've got 250 yards, everybody would be talking about Bobby Sloick.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I just, I think it's the same rationale of the Astros ERA went from 3.27 to 3.85. Let's fire the pitching coach. I would agree. 713, 212, 579. jump into the conversation. 713 212

5790. 713-212-5790. If you want to follow us on Twitter, you may do that as well. At SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Connor D. McGarman. Ross, what is today's edition of Believe it or not, which is coming up in about 90 minutes or 90 minutes from now. 80 minutes from now. Mike McCarthy. Wow.

No, no. We'll come up. You don't have to. Denver? I think we've done Denver. yeah by the way they're expecting like minus 15 here in a couple days we're going to get some time for that good luck with that i don't worry about that i don't worry about that sacrament will be better uh sacramel's like i can be in the 40th i can live with that Portland will be chilly but that's not there no there oh yeah i forgot about Portland now you're off tomorrow i'm off tomorrow because the travel is just terrible got to get tomorrow so you're on the johnny carson schedule on january

you can blame the NBA for that No, I don't like Johnny Carson. I will work in the summertime. That's true. We appreciate you. Astro fans need me. He comes baseball season, Rossian. I'm there for them. Unlike the show follows us. We never hear during the summertime because the games are in their spot.

That's okay. That's fine. It's board certified and personal injury trial law, and he is certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He has over 25 years of experience taking care of clients, not only here in the Houston area, but all throughout the state of Texas. His goal is to help people like yourself get treated fairly after serious injuries or wrongful death, whether it's an 18-wheeler wreck, work injuries, car accidents, construction, wrongful death. You're going to pay zero money up front or out of pocket, and you will do much. most of you're communicating through Zoom. Makes it nice and easier for you to stay home, get your recovery going, get your family

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If you want to learn more about them as well, it's wehelptexas.com. That's 713-888-9,000, or We HelpTexis.com for Scott Callahan and Associates, principal office, Katie, Texas. 1236 on Sports Talk, 790. We'll visit with EMAIDOCA coming up in less than an hour from now. Believe it or not, again, coming up at 150 today, 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. We had a conversation earlier in the show today with a member of the Kansas City media, and it was nice to visit with Sam McDowell of the Kansas Star.

And you think we should play some of that in the next segment, Rossi? What do you think to kind of give a little – I don't want to paraphrase what he said. Yeah, it was good stuff. Yeah, it was – he knows what he saw this year, and it was a really good football team that lost two games. Now, the last one doesn't count because they didn't play any starters. But still 15 and 1 when the games counted, we're 15 and 1. 15 and 1 they got the buy

that buy is huge by the way they win one home game they're in the aFC championship yeah you win one home game you're hosting the aFC championship game yeah so we're gonna play we'll play some of that for you coming up in the next time it's good to sometimes get the perspective and we're gonna check in with the soren petro on friday show

that's a that's a station that calls ross like three times a week are you on their payroll yet i would like to be but no it's not that often but i appreciate them always having me on yeah i mean You are the Texans insider of Sports Talk 7. I can't be doing that bad of a job, but maybe it's just because I always say yes. It's almost like we should do.

We should actually record you someday and hear you and see how you do and see how much stuff you make up. Oh, no, no. I give more inside information on that show than I do this one. So you save yourself for other markets. No, I'm just kidding. I don't have any inside information. Okay, so we're going to play that conversation with Sam McDuffie coming up in just a few minutes. McDowell.

Al. Sam McDuffie was a rice player, right? Oh, Sam McGuffie? Wait, that was the running back that played briefly at Rice in Michigan? Yeah. The Chiefs, the Trent McDuffie is the Chiefs cornerback that's really good. Famous McDuffies. Oh, the big, whole, Trent McDuffie, one of the finest

shadow corners in all of the land. Yeah. They call them the mirror, it's with the mirror coverage. Do you think when we have people of Irish ascent that hear our show, they go, That's a pretty good impersonation or that is They're rolling their eyes. Like do you ever, have you ever been to London before and heard?

Oh, thank you. Thank you, Connor McGovern, one of the finest lads and the, from Limerickie is. They're always after me, Lucky Charms. I think Steve Spagnolo and the Chiefs defense is really going to give a tough time to C.J. Stroud and those Houston Texans. The Chieftains from Kansas City.

are going to do quite a fine job licking them with their shellailles. Are we Dublin sports leader? I guess so. I don't think they play folk Irish music on... Do they do that? We're on Kdub. Give us a call on Kdub.

I'm looking for the biggest sports in Ireland. Oh, Gaelic football. And Gaelic... What's Gaelic handball? Gaelic handball. That's the pickleball of the 14th century. That was that game you and your dormates played in college. right?

Yeah, oh, by the way, I got, speaking of doing, we were talking about playing spades yesterday day. Uh-huh.

At a couple of people with the Rockets game. Okay. One person said you can absolutely call it a possible when you're talking about number of books you're going to get

and the other person said you can't do that. So it's, I told you, it's yeah. Yeah. One of the people said, yeah,

we used to call it, we used to have a strong four or a week four. It's the same thing as a possible. Yeah. Exactly the same thing. So, You just never know who's listened to the show.

I've heard of that rule, Matt, but the possible doesn't fly in the houses I've played in. Yeah. We should have a Spades tournament. I'm good. I like I told you, I'm shaky. I haven't played consistently in decades. Let me say, you're a smart, you're a good poker player. You'll take you two minutes supplies.

When we're around Christmas last time I played that, I got picked last. Oh, so it was kind of remembering like your days when you were playing pickup basketball. No, that's not true. And you had to be, don't forget I was... You had to be a skin and your layers of fat were all all over the place. Oh, that was me. That was you. I was six foot two when I was 14.

I had a little game. The only time I didn't worry about showing my belly was when I, we were in, when I was in high school, we'd go to McDonald's. We'd work at McDonald's so midnight and we'd go play, you know, midnight basketball like at 1 o'clock in a morning. I didn't care if people didn't see me at that point. But yeah, during the daytime, I don't want anybody seeing this gross body. I always had my secret weapon. I was left-handed. So the first few drives, I would act like I was right-handed.

then I would bust out to left and then that's when I would dominate Matt. Oh, so you, you, uh, play possum. Did you, did you warm up in a different way too? Yeah, I would always dribble to the right and shoot hooks with my right hand. And then when the game started, I'd go lefty on them. So wait a minute, you would shoot the ball with the right hand when you weren't making very many shots. So no wonder you were being picked last. I was you.

I was never picked last. It's because I was tall. If I watched you shoot right-handed, you're not making anything outside of three feet. why would I want you on my team? I don't care how tall you are. Because I can rebound, Matt. Putbacks, baby. I can make shots with my right. Okay. You know, it's funny in the NBA, there are still guys in this league that can't shoot with both hands,

even on layups. Like Luke Canard of the Memphis Grizzlies, not to get all minutiae here, but he had a driving layup right side of the lane against the Rockets a couple nights ago that he would have had a clear path to the basket, but he couldn't, I think a men Thompson came over late, and he couldn't go to the right-hand, he'd go left, so he had to pass it to the baseline, I want to turn of the ball over.

So I went from a free layup to a turnover because he couldn't use his right hand. James Hardin makes about, made about one right-handed shot a week or a month. Yeah. He could do it. He could do it. Yeah, it just adds to your divert. Like Alper and Shingoon. I mean, I know that a lot of you don't watch.

Alpe does both. Alpe does both from about seven or eight feet, both hands. Jaylen Green as well, by the way. Yeah, good finisher. Really good finisher. All right. 713, 123, 1,2, 5. 7.

By the way, we will talk to EMA docker coming up. and 12 at 130. I'm in the wrong time zone here. 1.30 for that. And then we got, believe it or not, come up a little later on. One of the thing,

before we get to the interview, our friends in Dallas are wigging out. You know, these local TV deals, these networks are going away. Rossi. Yesterday the Rangers announced a digital only package for Rangers baseball.

They don't have an over-the-air television partner yet. Really? And everybody is flipping the F out because I'm not able to watch the Rangers. Everybody? Well, I get the 19 people that care about the Rangers in our office.

I was going to say six. But, you know, it does hurt us because if you have cable or satellite and you got the old, which is now Fandul Sports Southwest, you used to get every Ranger game. We've lost the Rangers now that you want to watch them, but if you wanted to watch a baseball game,

you now have lost the Rangers opportunity because they're not on that cable network anymore. Now you're doing yourself a favor. Yeah, but Dave Raymond's funny. I like him. I do like Dave Raymond, even though Houston hates him. Houston hates him. But he's got such a lot of,

self-deprecating sense of humor. It's so dry. It's really, really enjoyable. And I also like watching the Rangers give up five-run leads in the seventh inning of games, too. Yeah. We'll miss that.

All right, we did check in with Kansas City earlier. If you did not hear that conversation, we're going to play it for you next because it is good stuff, getting you ready for the Chiefs and the Texans. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713-212-2-9-190. 11-144-7-190.

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For more information, go to 2Creekscrossingresort.com. That's to TWO, creekscrossingresort.com. Where do we go? Coach Bum Phillips said, you fail all the time. But you aren't a failure until you start blaming someone else. Or now, pitch for the A's. Hey, this is Mike Fires. Sometimes.

I'm getting fired up for more Houston Sports Talk. Back to Matt Thomas on Sports Talk 790. Astros baseball is here. Zand McDowell. was a guest of the Matt Thomas show earlier today with Ross, and we visited with him. He's a columnist for the Kansas City Star, covers the Chiefs among all the teams in the area.

And I asked him about this long layoff and how big of a factor, if it's even a factor it would be for the Chiefs, they've not played the starters have in several weeks. At some point, there is too long of a layoff, right? I mean, you couldn't take two months off and expect the guys to be fresh. So there is a point where it becomes too much.

I mean, but over Andy Reid's history, and this is what would have guided my decision, And had I been Andy Reid, he performs extremely well when his guys get time off. And he's even better when he's the only team with time off. So over his career, Andy Reid is 29 and 3 when he's the only team operating with a buy week. Now, obviously, this is two buy weeks, essentially, when you give the starters week 18 off, and then they have the natural buy in the playoffs that they earn with the number one seed. And so that's where the equation potentially becomes a little different.

But the Chief did switch up practices a little bit. actually played ones against ones, which they had not done since training camps. So there's some, you know, at least attempt to try and replicate what the speed of a playoff game will be like. But, yeah, I mean, I think regardless of what happens in this game, people will use it as a sample for whether or not it worked, even if maybe the correlation doesn't necessarily equal to causation of the result. Among players, skill position players that we know and recognize, who was beat up during this

time off and who is getting the most recovery? and again, the number one question would be is how is Pat feeling going to this game? I'm sure practices have been light and they'll start to ramp up the last couple of days. Yeah, I mean, Patrick's ankle was obviously an issue earlier in the season. Actually, you know, kind of late in the season, but he's fine. I mean, he looks fine at practice. The guys that I think really benefit from this are one, Chris Jones missed the last two games. Now, the last game of the season against the Texan, now against the Steelers, sorry,

versus the none against the Broncos. Now, part of the reason he missed the Broncos is just because that game didn't mean anything. I think he would have pushed it had the Chiefs needed him. But certainly that's a guy who can take advantage of a buy. But the other guy who hasn't been heard that can take advantage of it is Travis Kelsey. I mean, it's no secret that Travis Kelsey is on the older side. He's 34 years old. And a year ago, it made a statement in the locker room when Travis Kelsey voluntarily took the last game off to end his streak of consecutive 1,000-yard seasons.

But he looked in an entirely different player once the postseason arrived because of that week off. So I think you'll see a different Travis Kelsey, even if it's more minimally so than the drastic difference we saw from him in the postseason. I think he's really the guy that could benefit from this 24-day layoff that they've got. What about in the backfield, Sam? We saw last year Andy Reid really rely on Isaiah Pacheco to be the bell cow. How do you think things shake out this year as the playoffs coming along for the Chiefs? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, we saw a lot of Chris. Cream Hunt in the last matchup, particularly to try and close out that game and prevent the Texans from getting the ball back late in the fourth quarter.

And Cream Hunt's going to be part of the game plan. And there's some similarities with the way they run, you know, as far as they both don't shy away from contact. But I think that's deceptive because I do think they are different runners. You know, Cream Hunt is a guy that does not get explosive runs, but he does not lose yardage. You know, he tends to fall forward. when you look at success rate and rushing in terms of getting four yards on first down and getting two-thirds the way there on second down, Cream Hunt has a very high success rate,

even though his yards per carry isn't great. Well, that's a product of the fact that he does not lose yardage. And I think when you're playing against a team like the Texans that has the third best run defense in terms of DVOA in the league, I think that's a really important thing to have. So I anticipate that Cream Hunt's going to be every bit as part of this game plan as I say, Pacheco will. Sam McDowell with us here on Sports Talk 790.

Let's just flip to the defensive side and how it fits against Houston as far as what do you think you saw in the first matchup and the Texans whose offense has been really bad all season long. It's coming off literally their best performance of the year. Saw a lot of blitzing. And if you know Steve Spagnola well, the Chiefs Defense of Coordinator, that's not going to change. And particularly in this matchup, I mean, as you mentioned, the Texans' offense hasn't been great this year. Well, the primary reason hasn't been able to protect for C.J. Stroud. And he's not performed well when he faces extra rushers.

And that's not all on him. It's the fact that they haven't picked up Blitz as well. But I think some of that, you know, I'm sure the Texans coaches diagnosed it in the offseason. They're probably going to try and educate him better on how to get his linemen better situated for blitzes and oncoming extra rushers. But the fact is right now in the playoffs, they haven't performed well against the blitz all season. that's a matchup that I certainly anticipate that the Chiefs will try to exploit regularly. Sam, I want to ask you about, and we had a guest down from Kansas City earlier this year when the two teams met during the regular season, a lot of close games, a lot of fortuitous bounces, the field goal blocked, the field goal made, the call made late. Your interpretation of that is slippage or just creative veteran teams finding a different way to win every single week?

How did you see it as the team was not? putting away teams like many folks thought are on the league they should have. Yeah, well, I think it can be both. You know, I don't think that this team, you know, the starters went 15 and 1. I don't think this was the quality of a 15 and one team. But I do think that there's something to the fact that they don't blink in the moment. And, you know, you mentioned a couple of the examples. They won six games on the final snap of the game this year.

And that does not include the game that I'm sure a lot of people watched against the Raiders on Black Friday, where it was technically the second to last snap. that the Raiders fumbled and then they knelt it on the last snap. That's seven of those 15 wins that they've got this year. So I think it's totally reasonable though a lot of people are looking at this Chiefs team is more vulnerable than they have been in the past because they have been vulnerable. Some of those games that I'm talking about came against the Panthers. They came against the Raiders.

I mean, they came in overtime. And so they came against a non-playoff Bengals team before the Bengals had figured it out late in the season. So, yeah, I definitely think that, Chiefs are susceptible. I mean, they've proven that they've at least can make it a game with anybody. And the Texans are certainly not just anybody. They're a playoff team. They're a division champion. There's a reason that they're here. They've got a terrific defense. So I know the line is what it is. The spread is what it is. But it would not surprise me at all if the Texans could, you know, be very competitive with the Chiefs and make it interesting in the fourth quarter

because I've seen that all year. Final question. Is there anybody that you have spent time looking at this year that needs to have a better postseason than they had during the regular season. I know you brought up Travis and, you know, age is maybe starting to work off him a little bit, but is there anybody else that you're like, you know what? If this team's really going to three-peat, these players have got to step up and maybe do more than what they did. Maybe you saw them during the course of the 17-game schedule. Yeah, sure.

So it's kind of a TBD answer because my answer is the left tackle. And I'm not exactly sure who's going to play left tackle. I think it'll be the matchup that the Texans saw last time they played at Arrow. head, you know, last month, which is having Joe Tunney and all pro guard play tackle, in which case your guard replacement for him, Mike Calliendo has got to step up because he did not play well against the Texans. And the Texans have a terrific front. And so they've got to protect Patrick Holmes better than they did in that first matchup. Now, the other option that they have, and the reason I said it's uncertain who's going to play left tackles, because they signed

DJ Humphreys late in the season after he'd been, you know, recovering from a knee injury. He played three quarters against the Chargers and then he got hurt, then he missed three weeks, and then he played the finale against the Broncos while all the rest of the starters set as they're trying to evaluate him and he's not playing with Patrick Mahomes, but he's still playing for a starting job. So Andy Reid has been coy so far this week on who's going to have that starting job at left tackle, but however that that shakes out, it's going to shake up the left side of their offensive line. And you guys know better than I do the way the Texans can get after the passers. So that's absolutely going to be key.

just against the Texans, but whoever the Chiefs play in the postseason. Good perspective there from Kansas City Star and the Chiefs media up there in KC. Again, temperatures are expected to be basically 24, 25 degrees. Coldest game I ever went to, Ross, I think was a Dallas Cowboy Philadelphia Eagle playoff game. This had to have been since when the Oilers left and before the Texans started, It's got to be like late 1990s. It was like 15 degrees of kickoff. It had been like 1998 or 1999.

It was terrible. Wow. Okay. Sounds terrible. Just saying. It sounds. But you know, some people live for that stuff. They just do.

Like, Buffalo fan can't have it cold enough. You know what I mean? Well, yeah, I guess. That's what some of the cheese fans thought. And then a bunch of them got frostbite. And lost their fingers and toes. Thoughts of prayers of those folks. Oh, man.

we didn't ask Sam McDonnell if he had all of his fingers and toes No hopefully he does Probably on the warm press box Hmm Arrowhead Stadium They have some corporate name on it That I don't even know how you pronounce it's on him

Oh I don't know what it is It's just Arrowhead It's fine It's always Mile High Stadium I don't care what field it is At Mile High Stadium It's My High Stadium That's right

That's right All right All right final hour of the show We'll feature EMA DOCA in 30 minutes Believe it or not in 50 And right now, Ross is here to get you to that final hour. Yeah, well, you know what? If you're lacking in energy, we're on to the fourth hour.

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you need to go to. That's S-Y-N-E-R-GenXHealth.com. Cinergenicshealth.com. Launch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. Time is 104. It's. the Matt Thomas show with Ross. I'm here in Denver, where the Rockets and Nuggets are going to play tonight. We'll have it for you. I believe that game is over on KTRH. Am I correct on that, I think? I got double check on that, but I think it's a T.R.H game.

Yeah. The information, good for me to have. Whoops. Well, it would be good for me. I'm calling it. I want to make sure get the... Yeah, I'm on the pre and post. I'd like to...

What's happening tonight? Oh, is there Longhorn basketball? Who y'all playing? I don't know. It's been a rough year. If you checked out on Texas basketball, right? No, I haven't checked out. It's just been everything's going on.

I still want to watch. I'm still a fan. I caught some of the game against Auburn. That was bad. Oh, yeah. Tonight it's UT at Oklahoma on 790. Ooh. Which means the rockets go over to KTRH.

That's right. You know, you got to bump that little basketball squad for them longhorns, Maddie. Well, it's a question of putting the rockets or the longhorns on a nice signal or putting on the, and you want to put the rockets in the blowchurch? you go, Rockets Blow Torts. It's what you go with. Mark Levin fans aren't going to be happy. Oh, no.

Will you be taking some of those calls, I think? I don't know. Great. I don't even think Mark Levins on our station anymore. I think it's Michael Barry at night. Oh, I have no idea. Yeah, Texas at OU. I'm with to lock in.

Oh, you're favored by two and a half. That is correct. By the way, I'm not check. I want to check this for a quick. I'm not looked at the lines for the, NFL playoff games. Ooh, Kansas City now out to eight and a half. Longwoods have lost three games in a row.

Well, we're not worried about that. That'll conclude our Texas basketball talk for the day. Chiefs now eight and a half point favorites over the Texans, Rossi. How are we feeling if we wanted to go to the year? It went back up to eight and a half? Give me that. We'll make our official predictions on Friday. Okay, now my gut feeling yesterday said two and a half,

seven and a half, because you wanted me to have the current line. So can I switch it back? I'm going to amend it. you can change it yeah that's fine nice well actually no you can't change it once you bet it so yeah but i didn't bet if you wanted to i would have waited until the end of the week that's true lions are up to nine and a half point favorites over the commanders they just must think that the commanders think can't stay point for point with detroit

no and i you know like i said we'll make our final numbers uh rams are a six and a half point uh underdog at philadelphia a one point favorite at home excuse me Buffalo one point favorite at home against the Ravens. That line went back to it opened up Buffalo minus one swung to the Ravens minus one.

Now it's back to Buffalo. No, it's Baltimore minus one. Oh, so Baltimore, okay. Baltimore minus one. Yeah, I think I didn't miss it. I missed a coin flip game, so. Hmm. That is, in that situation,

if you're going to bet that game, not that we do a lot of betting and out, you just can bet money line on that one, right? You don't need a damn point. what's the purpose? They're not going to tie. Because you can get a push. I guess.

Sliver of a chance at a push. Yeah. All right. So, we just played the conversation, Sam McDowell up in Kansas City. Samuel. They don't,

and again, not that media decides things, and that's the one that we've got to continue, but we have to get a perspective from him that, you know, they're available because Pat Mahomes is not going to be on this show. I'd love to have them on them, but it's not going to happen. We'll talk about the Texas Tech Red Raiders killing it in the portal with his money. Kansas City, Ross, he's been there, done that.

Unless there is something from a deficiency standpoint that they didn't do during the regular season or didn't do in last year's postseason run, they're different today than they were a year ago. I mean, okay, so father time has caught up with some guys. He mentioned Travis Kelsey not going for 1,000 yards. He mentioned that Pat Mahomes, you know, they have had a variety of games where they haven't looked dominant. And I think KC fans kept looking for a Supreme beatdown against opponents and it just wasn't happening.

But they also got some huge road wins this year. If there's a term, ain't scared about anything, it's Kansas City. They respect, I know for a fact they have to. They have to respect what the Texans are doing. They have to respect that they took Justin Herbert. and he threw more interceptions in one game than he did over the course of the entire regular season. That says something about what the Texans did,

beyond the fact that Herbert had a bad day throwing. You have to respect Joe Mixit. You know, who is going to be the one in single coverage against Nico Collins? Who covers the tight end? Because I think Jolten Schultz, in my opinion, Ross, has to be the second favorite target to go to. I'm not putting a lot of eggs in the Zerian Hutchinson Basket or Robert Woods or anybody else who may or might not be playing.

I just, to me, or John Mechie for that matter. This team's, if the team's going to pull up the upset, it's going to have to be because Nico Collins gets past defenders a couple of times. The Texans get a pick six, force and out of turnovers. The turnover battle, to me, is everything. Because from an offensive standpoint, not only can Ross and can Kansas City score with the best of them, but they can also go on 12-play, seven-minute drives,

and keep your offense off the field, limiting your opportunities to score, which then puts a lot more pressure on the Texans of score every time I step on the field. Yeah, I mean, and Cade Stover, I know some people is kind of a running joke with Catover, but he was a good safety valve for C.J. Strath and the game on. He was a good, yeah.

I mean, you're going to have two tithes you want to go to, and he's out. He's done. Yeah, he broke his clavicle, so he's out for the year. And, I mean, so you're down. Okay, Kate Stover is certainly not the level of impact of Diggs or Dell, but... So yesterday, here's how yesterday worked out, practice. So as a no report, no report injuries coming up in a minute.

Al-Zis Al-Shire did not practice yesterday. Jack Mason didn't, but he didn't play in the last game. No, but he used Scruggs has a bad ankle. Robert Woods is a bad hip. Those are four guys that did not even participate in practice yesterday. Limited was to Nico Autry. They rested Nico Collins, and Dalton Schultz is battling a little bit of a shoulder issue. He was limited in participation.

I mean, there's some pretty decent, Players, you're kind of counting on. Now, remember, it's also midweek, so it's not the end of the world. But today is really, today and tomorrow are the main practice days because Friday they're traveling. Actually, tomorrow is really kind of a lighter workout day. Yeah, tomorrow will be the real full D&P limited to kind of keep down on. Yep. So, you know, look, and we've kind of exhausted this question a little bit the last few days on the show.

What is the terms of a success? I mean, Kansas City was the favorite going in. Kansas City, yeah, didn't look sexy at times. But Rossi won games matter. They played 16 of their 17 games that they gave a damn about. They went 15 and 1 on those games.

And they're back-to-back Super World champs. I mean, I don't want to create a, well, we're Houston and the Texans did so well. I don't want to create a narrative. Now, what I will tell you is this. again, if you're foolish national media saying the Texans have no chance, that's ridiculous, because the Chiefs look more, look human. And I know we mentioned this earlier this week that I thought we were all crazy, but honestly, I'd rather play the Chiefs and play the Ravens.

Or the Bills. Or the Bills. Ravens certainly. But the Ravens are a road favorite in a playoff game. That means that people around America and people that watch football respect the hell out of them. And all by the way, the Texans were embarrassed by them, you know, less than a month. to go. I still, I think the Ravens are winning the Super Bowl. Let's see.

I think. I have Ravens and lions and I didn't, I don't think I predicted a winner. I'd go with the Ravens there. I just think the narrative is too strong. I just can't imagine what Lamar Jackson's life's going to be like if he throw, if he can, if he has a dud playoff game, I think he's he is super laser focused

on willing his team to victory, whether he has to run the ball 15 times himself. Because man, I, and I don't look, we watch a fair number of Ravens games. But his zero to 60, when he takes off, especially against the Texans, which is a good defense, we saw that case in point last week. It was like he was sprinting Ross and everybody else was in slow motion. He's different.

But Josh Jones is pretty good too. Now Mahomes' great thing is his escapability and his ability to complete a pass when there is, you think no one's around, or you think he's about to fall down, or he's got to turn his body twisted and contort it, or he's got to throw a sidearm pitch like it's a submarine base. baseball pitcher. He has the insane knack of getting to the receivers when there was nothing open. And you know what, Rossi, CJ's got a little bit of that too. He does. He was running a little bit on Saturday. He talked about it. And then when that shotgun snap failed and the ball bouncing, he had to go run around and chase after before throwing the ball up in the air to get a 45-yard completion or whatever it was. I mean, that's, that's tier one, unbelievable. I got that guy on my team. I'm going to win. type quarterback.

Yeah. Xavier Hutchinson found the right spot in the field too. You got to give him some credit. No question. But C.J. Stroud gave, yeah, he, I mean, he could have thrown the ball away. He could have

crumbled. He could have fallen on the ball. He picked the ball up. Luckily, it had back into his hands. Yeah. Made that huge play. He also had that huge scramble. And then he ran a few more times in that game. He had six carries for 42 yards. That was an element of the game. He looked good running, too. And I'll give credit

to the Texas offensive line. Those are types of plays when they break down like that that linemen tend to go up field to go block because they think their quarterback's going to run. You could have very easily had an eligible receiver downfield play. Yeah, but they also had it. I didn't think, looking back on it, the offensive line wasn't great.

Bobby Sloak did a good job with some quick hit pass stuff to where the pressure was going to get there, but they didn't have the time because of the scheming and because of the run game too. I need you to apologize. You said something nice about Bobby Sloak and Houston wants no part of that. Bobby Sloak did a good job this past weekend for the Houston, Texans.

Deal with it, Houston. 115. Sports Talk, 790. Ema Adoka joins us at the bottom of the hour here on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. We have a freeze coming. I don't know how hard of a freeze it is, but when it's coming next week. And that means affordable tree service is going to be really busy taking care of people's trees

because you guys didn't get ahead of the game. So the thing I want you to do is I want you to call Martin Spoonmore at Affordable Tree Service right now at 713699-2663. Tell them what your current tree situation is, either in the front or back of your home, and say, hey, can you make sure my trees can handle what is coming next week? Because they can't because they've not been taken care of. They've been in business since September of 1999,

taking care of Houstonian trees, taking care of my trees. They're full-service tree care. No matter what part of town you live in, the folks at affordable tree service will come out and see you. 713-699-2663. 7-13-699-2663, whether it's pruning, whether it's maintenance, whether it's deep root feeding, whether it's stump grinding, whether it's root barricading, whatever we've got to do to make sure your trees survive what could be some very tough weather. You've got to get affordable tree service involved. 7-13-699-2663. That's 7-1-3-6-9-2-6-6-6-9-2.

2663 affordable tree service. Matt Thomas, Ross Villariel. It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. A couple of quick text, notes from practice today. Al-Zu's Al-Shahir. Word is, he is back today. Juice Scruggs back, Shaq Mason back. Robert Woods in attendance, doesn't mean if he'd necessarily practice,

but this is from Jonathan Alexander of the Chronicle, about five minutes from now. Main football story today, obviously besides getting ready for the Texans game against the Chiefs, is that Ross's favorite longhorn of all time, Quinn Ewers, has declared for the NFL draft.

No, let's see. Where would I put him? No, yes, he has. He has declared. He's not my favorite quarterback of an all-time. Of course, that's Vincent Paul Young, Jr. Over Major Applewhite? What?

It's not even close. I'm just kidding. Major second. Major made all of course. appearances with us. I don't know. I do like Col McCoy. I'll go with Vince.

Major Colt. James Brown. Gerard. James Brown. Tyrone Swoops. James Brown. David Ash.

Sam Ellinger and then Quinn yours. No James Brown. No. I was like 12 when he was doing that. I was, no. What else? What are Texas? Todd.

What was a Todd? I was a high school coach. Todd, I'm drawing a blank, Texas quarterback. Todd Dodge. No. No?

Not on your list? No. Okay. You know what? I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Woodlands legend, Chance Mock as well. Chance Mock,

yeah, Chance is out there, too. He's on those sweater streets. Loving his horns. Okay, so this is a case of point. We're, once again, Porter again, giving you stuff to put out there just so people can get clicks. There obviously was no $6 million offer. Oh, I thought you were talking about Chris Gordy.

Oh, God. Wow, what did that come from? He's still holding on to the Quinn Ewers is going to come back. Let it go, Gordy. For the record, today was a deadline. Yeah, he's got an agent. His name is like Ron. Yeah, Pete Dammels mentioned his agent, Ron Slavin.

Yeah, he's not coming back. So, Gord, we got, you know, I thought he was our, it was our, college football guru. I'm tweeting Gordy right now. You sign it with an NFL agent. You're done. You can't. You can't. You're done. Finito. Well, Gordy's trying to see if it's an NIL agent or if it's his NFL agent.

Maybe Gordy's got sources. You never know these things. Yeah, he might, but I don't think so. Okay. So if it's NFL agent, he's done. So the NIL stuff was out there was erroneous. And, oh, look, I'm getting chance mock tweets. multiple Chance Mock tweets. Now, one's from his brother. That's expected.

I mentioned it before I even saw your tweet. Is there internal fighting with you, U.T. brethren? No, that's fine. Trevor Mock, friend of the show, Chance Mock's brother. Yeah, we love the Mocks. I mean, can't get enough of the Mocks. We're Mock Radio 790. Mock for Life.

Mock for Life. Okay. He's going to get, my guess is, unless he has the most amazing combine, which he very well could. I mean, he's going to go. get some professional quarterback coaching. He's going to have a personal workout guy. He's going to he's going to work on his 40 times. Obviously he's a smart guy. And but there are just going to be some things that are limited to him. But I think he's going to find himself, he should be thinking

how Colt McCoy felt when he was leaving the University of Texas, right? If you you carve your way into an NFL camp, make a couple of throws, make couple of starts here and there. You can, you can create a nice seven or eight, nine year career being his backup quarterback, make seven million dollars, call today. it's time. Wishing him the best. I mean, my philosophy was he was either going to transfer again

or he was going to the NFL draft because there's no way that Ars would have left. There's no fans or butts. But he didn't. And now he's yours. Wow, signed sealed and delivered. He's the RPO quarterback of the future. Well, we'll see.

Of course, he doesn't know he's throwing to yet because I've got to replenish the team. What do you mean? then you lose like every player What's his name? What's his name? It's still there. It felt like they were being, you know,

Mendley and they were being, you know, Mendelian. That'll be fine. It's nice man up, baby. If any school can go through it, it's them. Texas looking to reload, not rebuild. You mean, you are the bridesmaids of college football. Not even. Actually, no, you're not the bridesmaid.

You're like, you're in the wedding party. Well, you know, bridesmaid works. There's a five or six of them. Yeah, I mean, you have to make a good of honor. I mean, Gordy had like eight bridesmaids. That was a big wedding, wasn't it? Oh, my God. I'm glad.

I only made the cut his grooms because he's like, well, my wife's got eight people. Ross, you're in. You know what I have noticed, and I've done a couple of wedding introductions. You're not, you don't have to match anymore. Yeah. Because the women are. It used to be a proper country. The women are, first of all, you should be, you should near, if I was a wedding

coordinator, you'd be like, you get four a piece, call it a day. Here's here's the automatics. You best man, your father, if you got a good relationship with him, your brother, his siblings, Herman, her sibling,

if you got one, so that's four, maybe one more, maybe five a piece. That should be the rule, five a piece on the wedding side. Some people get like 10 or 11. Oh, my God. I've seen it. You better serve, then you'd have an intermission before the introductions of everybody so they can get something to eat and drink go to the bathroom. Nobody wants to hurt anybody's feelings.

You've got to whittle it down. At the very most six. But five feels like the right number. Because again, if you're throwing in some family equations, there's some automatics and then you have to put in there. Yeah. And I do think even though today's kids are not doing even numbers, like they're doing like six bridesmaids and four groomsmen.

Yeah, I think it'll look better for the wedding pictures if it's even. I mean, girls always got more friends than the guys. Yeah, because you're asking. guys who rent tuxedos and bought and, you know, it's a lot of work. And you get a flask with their initials on it and you just stuff in the back of your cabinets at home. Or you have to, or the women are like, I want to be in the wedding because I want to find my special somebody there because I'm going to be single and ready to mingle. Or they give you some lame like calculators.

They were engraved. Oh, okay. I swear to God, how lame was my gift? I fully admit. And that's the thing about me. You might appreciate it is I gave engraved calculators to my guys. That is the horse blank gift of a lifetime. What was wrong with me?

But that was also 27 years ago, so cut me some slack. All right. E. Mae Adoka is going to join us next. Talks from Rockets Basketball. Rockets and Nuggets here from Denver coming up shortly. After I tell you about Big City Wings, today is Wednesday, which is a big day for Big City Wings, because they probably boast about how delicious their hamburgers are.

First of all, their wings and their chicken tenders are always good. Salads and sandwiches are outstanding. but the burgers are awesome because they're $8 today. Choice of toppings, mushrooms, onions, guacamole, cheddar cheese, whatever you want to put on it, bacon. $8 at any of the 13 Big City Wing locations you get a sign with it as well. It's also Whiskey Wednesdays with discounts on the whiskies after 5 o'clock tonight.

So want to watch the Rockets Nuggets game and eat a $8 hamburger with the choice aside? You're going to do that today at Big City Wings. If the folks that you're with aren't in the mood for what, burgers, the wings are to die for. The best wings in Houston, I've been telling you for many, many years. Taking my advice on the burgers, it eight bucks a day today, or the wings, or the salads, and those fried oriels for dessert are to die for. All from Big City Wings, 13 Houstonary locations. Go online to find the location near you, bigcitywings.com. The Matt Thomas Show with Ross continues on Sports Talk 790.

134 on 790 Matt Thomas show with Ross I'm hearing Denver Rockets and Nuggets tonight and let's spend the next 10 minutes talking about that and all things Rockets with the head coach of your Houston Rockets in May Adoka so coach if I was to play a pickup game in Denver today with this thin air would I feel extra tired after working out or would I feel just fine give me the honest answers

you feel fine if you're in shape well you see me That's another great thing to say, Coach. Thanks very much. I appreciate that very much. How are things? Are you guys ready to go for tonight? It would be a good match.

If Denver came in after beating Denver pretty bad last night. Yeah, they had a good back-to-back against Dallas. Obviously, played really well last night. We've been playing well lately, one, eight out of their last 10. You know, had some lumps early with some guys in the other lineup, and others were stepping up now, so it would be a good challenge for us tonight. Hey, great wins against Memphis, your last two games. 16 to 31 from 3-point range, and obviously that's not happened to a lot so far this year.

How good was it to feel that to see the guys not only getting those shots, getting the open looks, the extra pass, but knocking them down as well? That was great. I think, you know, a lot of these teams are packing the paint. You know, when the ED is out of the game or certain guys, they try to protect the paint by committee. And us being unselfish, you know, getting the paint touches, kicking out the wide-open shots is a good recipe for us.

But then just like that, we have guys. attacking downhill getting to the basket. So it was a nice mix of all those things, getting to the frithal line as well and making them at a higher clip than in Memphis and had to guard in the fourth quarter to get back in it. Feels like we talk about a men Thompson every week on this show

and we're going to do it again. With him in the starting lineup in lieu of Jabari Smith Jr., I guess philosophically I was wondering how it was going to fit with the lack of shooting, but it has worked and the offense has been really good. Why is that? Well, we have a lot of our really good shooters in the first

group anyway. So although Jabbar is not there, we get at a different at a different rate, I guess. He's handling a lot more. Fred is being the recipient off ball, some. Obviously Jaylen's shooting the ball extremely well. And then Dylan's one of our most consistent. So we still have the shooting there. We just have

another pace we can play out with him in the lineup. Obviously, defensively, we're not going to have any drop off with them in in there. Actually gives us more versatility to put him on some guys that we traditionally put Dylan on, and Dylan can guard some of the bigs and take care of those actions. And then like I said, he's just getting other guys going in pace and transition.

He's another guy that can break down the defense and make passes. And so a lot of guys are benefiting from him being in the lineup. Last six games, 30 points on average from Jalen Green. What's working for him? And it feels like we've seen these runs before. What does he need to do to sustain it? Well, his confidence is aggressiveness, but not just settling for threes or whatever the team is trying to give him. He's still getting downhill, getting to the basket, get to a free-the-line, 11-for-11 from the free-the-line last game. And then he's reading the defensive better and making plays for everybody.

And so all those things on the offensive end are great. He's taking the challenge defensively and had to put him on some tough matchups over those games you mentioned and held up really well there. And so just a combination of everything, becoming a more well-rounded player, competitive on both sides of the floor, but ultra-confident and aggressive on offense is always a good thing for him. Fred has not had the type of shooting season. I think he would be happy about it as compared to what he's done in the past,

but there have been nights where he's taking over games. Didn't shoot a lot against Memphis a couple nights back. Is that a, hey, I like you doing more distribution, get to other guys the hot hand, or is it that he just, he has still free reign? And you said, you don't want a night like this, I got to let the other guys eat. I think Fred is always going to take what the game gives him.

And if it's a night where he has to be a facilitator and get everybody involved, he'll do that. sadly. If teams are trying to take away Jaylon and Alpi and some other guys and he has to score more, he'll do that as well. And so you've seen that obviously. But I think inserting a man into the lineup gives us another ball handle that creates for everybody. And so he's not getting the same amount of reps as he was, you know, as far as the ball handling duty with the men and Jalen doing their part as well. And I think he's totally fine with that. He guards certain guys. He guarded Bain extremely well, five points in the first half and really well at their place. And so he'll take on some certain matchups on that end. But I think it's good for him to have a break. offensively at times and be a recipient of some of those passes and plays that guys are making. So whatever it's called upon he'll do and obviously he saw him make a big three down the stretch for us and he's done

that throughout the year. As a dinner last night with Ryan Hollins and he was like, I love the men and Jaylen are on the floor at the same time. And obviously you guys chart every different possession who's out there for how long. They play a lot with each other. So maybe this just latest run

is not even worthy of note. But do you notice something different when those two guys are each touching a ball every trip down the floor when they're on the floor for a significant period of time together? Yeah, well, even before a men started starting, him and Jalen were really good tandem on the floor together. We have seen that. That was a great trend for us, and so it's just more of the same now that they're starting together, playing more minutes together. And so we'd like to pair them on the floor when I'm able to come out the bench. And like I said, they compliment each other very well.

Both guys get out in transition. High Flyers can get out and run. and push the pace. But I think a man creates a lot of attention for guys, and he can make those passes. So he's freeing it up for Jalen, for Fred, and some of those guys. That's why when you said, Amin being in the line, we haven't really missed a beat. Like, he's going to compliment guys on both sides of the ball, offensively, defensively,

and plug him into any position. He'll make it work. Yeah, six, seven guys are supposed to block shots occasionally, but he had, what, five that are night. His just guessing just feels like the right thing, right, in terms of he just knows when to jump, he knows his opponents, he knows their tendencies, and that's what makes a really good shot block

and not necessarily being always seven feet tall and bigger than that, right? No, I mean, his timing and instincts are great. You know, he blocks shots that normal guys can't get to. He blocks a lot of jump shots, which is one of the hardest thing to do, obviously. But the weak side block was a big one late in the game as well, and so his timing is great, his instincts are great, and even when he's out of position, he can still make up for it

with his athleticism and physicality. And so reach for the one on my, Morant didn't get it and still was able to go off the floor, get his first and second jumper so fast that he can contest a lot of shots. Made Morant travel on one that he hung in the air too long, so he didn't get the block there, but contested that as well. I like to put him on a lot of matchups, athletic guys that he can contest and use his strength and physicality

and not surprised at all by anything he's doing defensively. Last question. We mentioned the Nuggets are playing a lot better. They destroyed Dallas for a second straight game in Dallas last night. We know about Murray. we know about Yokic, we know about Porter. Tell me about what it's like watching Russ as a Denver Nugget.

Yeah, he's really infused energy and spark into that team. I think he's playing really well, you know, starting out when Gordon was out and he does a lot of what a man does for us as far as changing the pace and the energy and electricity brings that line up and so I think it was good for him to

really infuse that into the team for them when Murray had a slow start or some guys were injured and so he's been very consistent and has a nice two-man game going with Yokic, whether he's handling or the recipient of the passes. And so, yeah, you still got to worry about the other guys, but what he does for that team on both ends the floor

has really elevated them lately. But then you add in Jamal Murray, you know, with the 45-point game last night, and their natural scores, that's why it makes them such a tough matchup. All right, get some rest because we've got a tough road trip coming up, Sacramento tomorrow, and then Portland on Saturday. Thanks, coach, for the time.

As always, we'll see at the arena later this evening. All right, thank you guys. You got it. That's him A-Doka. Coach with us weekly here on Sports Talk 7 out of here. Time is 142. Real quick, Ross, we got a nice tweet from our friend Ryan listened to show. He says, Matt Ross, we went with groom suits instead of a tuxedo.

Our gift of the groomsmen was that we bought the suits from a chain and shipped these suits to the chain closest to the groomsmen's house. We paid for the tailoring, so all my groomsmen got a free tailored suit as a gift. Wow, that's nice. Major shout out to Ryan. Outstanding. A suit is not, first of all, not shorthy. second of all you're going to wear it for a long time so that's great value to the guys you care about them and you you dress them up nicely great call wonderful we had a choice

for us back in the day go with the jop down payment for a house hmm or have the wedding of the dreams you're doing great what would have like the down payment on the house that's fine One fine line, tend to pay the down payment for the house. You're doing great, Matt. We're all proud of you. All right, believe it or not, what is today's category? I don't know.

Oh, what is this? Next. Oh, gosh. On Sports Talk, 790. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Believe it or not, straight ahead. As Matt Thomas show, Ross continues here on 790.

Quick cannibal fact number 233. Most whales don't. Don't watch sports. They're Dallas fans. And when I think of whining, I think of Dallas. Oh, and speaking of whales, back to former whale, Matt Thomas. I'll be back to my girlish weight of 286. On Sports Talk 790.

Thanks again to EMA Adonka for joining us. Rockets and Nuggets here from Denver. And look, you know, I don't get paid to promote a team. I get paid to call the games And when things are going well, I want to talk about them. And I do want to talk about the rockets. I get asked all the time about how much rocket chat are we getting at that. And I know it's going to take a long time.

We never really got Ross, even when the heyday, we never got super, super rocket calls until the postseason, right? Your post game shows were pretty full, weren't they back in the day? Yes. There's been an uptick, though, Matt. It's an uptick. We'll take an uptick. Let's go, rockets.

I'm ready. I don't want the stereotype. of what people think the NBA is as an excuse not to watch it. People want to quit on the NBA, that's fine. To me, it's still a great product, and it's fun to watch. I love the brand of basketball, the Rockets play. Tough, hard-nosed, physical, rebounding defense. And then when Jalen Green's going off for 42 points on 18 shots, it looks pretty fun.

There's electrifying dunks, layups. Stephen Adams threw a pass at the elbow to amend Thompson for a flush. It was one of the best passes I've seen a big man thrown a long time. That was great. We've got a lot of great make big man passes tonight between Alperin, Shangoon, and Nicola Yokic. Yes. So I'm just telling you, gang, it's going to be... I don't know if they hold on in the second spot.

I'd love for them to do so. Denver's playing really well. Memphis is not going away, but they're going to the playoffs. And I'd like for those of you that used to be Rocket fans, just give a little sample. watch it on TV, listen to radio when you can. You know, call the show once in a while. I'd be all for all of any of that stuff. But we got, I mean, I know we got Texans in the brain right now

in spring training not far behind. But this is a very good product by the West Virginia and the Cougars playing college basketball tonight over inside the Fertita Center. So lots of basketball tonight. Your longhorns are playing. My Cougars are playing. Rockets are playing.

You know, it's a good time to be a basketball fan this community, at least for the short term. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports radio game show. We simply call it B. Believe it or not, and here's outwards.

You call 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe or not, the category happens to be I'm looking it is Quing Quing yours you did a Quinn yours

Believe it or not today Yeah why not Yeah I mean it's just a mid A nice send off Nice send off I'll read you statement about Quinn Stamins completely utterly accurate

You'll say this Believe it If your statement's erroneous Full of Bunk and made up You'll say this Not Two believe or not in a row And all things about Quinn Ewers

Win's your prize Connor what are we playing for today We got a four pack of tickets To the 2025 Houston Auto Boat of Show happening January 29th through February 2nd Energy Center and some 790 t-shirts. All right. 7-13-212-5-7-90.

How well do you know Quinn Ewers? 7-13-212-5-7-9. Let's talk to Paul on 7-90. Paul, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Paul, Quinn Ewer's major while at the University of Texas was health communications. Believe it or not. Not. Yeah, it was physical culture and sports.

Ross, you ought to be embarrassed. Physical culture and sports. Why should I be embarrassed? What kind of made-up degree is that? What a great, wonderful, wonderful major for Quinn Ewers. Embarrassing. Statement number two for the win. Quinn Ewer's First Division I scholarship offer came from North Texas,

where he was in the, when he was in the sixth grade. Believe it or not. That is correct. Congratulations. Nicely done. You can't offer kids in a sixth grade anymore, I don't think. That stuff's long gone. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-212-5-790 West.

You ready to play, believe it or not? Let's go. In 26 starts at Texas, Quinn Ewers finished with a record of 21 wins, five losses. Believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Quinn Ewers cut his mullet off in order to become more marketable at the urging of his NIL agency, Equity Sports.

Believe it or not. Believe it. Not. Why did he do it, Ross? He said it was time to grow up. And that he did. 713, 212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

Jeremiah on 7-90. Jeremiah, what was your favorite part of today's radio show? I'm getting ready for the rocky game tonight. Quinn Ewers is third all-time in Texas passing yards behind Colt McCoy and Sam Ellinger. Believe it or not. Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Quinn Ewer's girlfriend is UT volleyball player, Rella Binney,

but he does not answer questions about her interviews, her in the interviews, citing his privacy. Believe it or not? Not. That is correct, congratulations. Let's go to Sam and Magnolia. Sam on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not, Sam?

Believe it. Quinn Ewers was the first amateur athlete to sign an NIL deal worth $1 million. Believe it or not. Not. Belize. He was. No, he was going to have that the same.

Last one belongs to Brian and Alvin. Brian on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Out of over 250 quarterbacks rated, pro football focus ranked Quinn Ewers as the 125th best college passer in

2024, 125 out of 250. Believe it or not. Not. Believe it. Set back. It's good, not great. It's worse than good, not great.

It's bad, not fair. That's true. He's just the epitome of Average. All right, Ross has got a message for you before we get you out of here. Yes, I do, Matt. We are midway through January. They call January 10th Quitters Day. Have you quit your New Year's resolutions?

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Cinergenicshealth.com. That's S-Y-N-E-R-G. Xhealth.com, synergenicshealth.com. All right. Ross, we have a minute to go here in the show. So let's promote what you guys are going to do tomorrow

between 10 o'clock until 2 right here on Sports Talk 7. Dan Matthews will show up at some point. I think I'm going to fly solo for some of it. Man, makes you want to listen to that for four hours, other than not. It's going to be great. Great guest. Analysis.

I just don't get it on the show tomorrow. Is that tomorrow? I mean, it could be. Look at your show page. And we'll figure it out. Up next, Clanton. Waxler's back. It's the team.

Talk to you tonight at 8 o'clock for Rockets and Nuggets on KTR. Yeah.