The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Lovely Weekend For Houston Sports! Rockets vs Pacers Tonight, AFC Seedings Still Unsettled

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

Lovely Weekend For Houston Sports! Rockets vs Pacers Tonight, AFC Seedings Still Unsettled

This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Oh, what a lovely Saturday. Oh, sports RV. How the hell are you? Welcome to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Doing great, Matt. On the KBME, the best music. ever here on sports talk 790 well let's just be blunt uh there's like nine of you out there today it took me 41 minutes oh that's a long time to get from uh the back of kingwood to the palatial

1233 west loop south which is um that's like a sunday to me yeah it took me like four minutes to get in yeah someday we were looking at high-rise apartments in the upper kirby area oh really and the aneurysm as soon as we saw the first round of prices. Don't forget the HOA fees, too. Oh, I forgot about that. And sharing of walls, which we've not done in 25 years.

Why? What's the big deal? I mean, what's the big deal? It's fine. Well, I mean, I've been doing it my whole life. And rate your current apartment in terms of too much too loud. There are some neighbors that blasts music usually on the weekends, like Sunday mid mornings, but other than that's fine.

That's too early for you. That's fine. You're not up until 11.59, until those 12 noon kickoffs. Other than that, it's been quite pleasant. All right, well, good for you. And again, I would like to be in that world someday. Someday. Someday.

All right, it is Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713-212-5-790. If you'd like to join the radio program today. Are you okay? Just to make sure it's working. Why is there a leaf blower in here? That's...

7-13. 2-1-2-5-7-90. Normally we don't spend a lot of time talking about things that happened two days ago because we're, you know, we'd like to be up front of the-hustling and bustling. But so much of the Houston sports scene was yesterday, or on Saturday. First of all, the Houston Texan secure a playoff spot. I never, Ross, we have, I'm putting up the, I'm laying the law down in the show. We are never going to talk about a team that goes 0-2 or 0-3 that doesn't make the playoffs.

That number comes out every single. year and the Texans said, shut you a bum ass up. Yes, they did. They went on incredible. I mean, I didn't think they were going to make the playoffs at 0 and 3. I didn't think they were going to make it at 3 and 5, and then they ripped off 8 straight wins. Yeah. And are going to be at least

a wild card team. And if Jacksonville loses, I can't forget who I said. Jacksonville isn't in Tennessee. I mean, I would think not, right? Probably not. Cam Ward's been playing a little bit better for this couple of games. Yeah. But even so, I mean, if you're Jacksonville and you have...

Where is that game? I'm sorry you asked that. I feel like I should have known that. I shouldn't have put you on the spot. No, no, no, no. That's my fault. No, it's all of our faults. All right, let me look at it up real quick.

You should know, too. It's in Jacksonville. Okay, so it's 11 and a half. So let's put in perspective. If the Jacksonville Jaguars lose at home to Tennessee with a chance to clinch the AFC South, yes. They will be a one and done playoff team.

They may still be one and done. But that's not they're here. or there. We've got to move forward on that. So the Texans probably are going to be a wildcard team. Right now, as it stands, they're the number five walled card, which, by the way, I had to tell the truth a few weeks ago, and you may have been gone on this, because I think you've not worked much of the fourth quarter. I'll be off the next two days. This is my last day of the year. Bye.

You don't know. You'll be back. I get a lot of time. When you say goodbye. I take a lot of time. Yeah, yeah. was I going with this. Oh, I said the Texans could be a five-standing.

And I was like, Nivikun, you don't know your AFC solid math. Yeah, I know my math. There was a chance I could slot up to five. So the thought is, you might have an opportunity to see the Texans play either Pittsburgh or Baltimore. That would be the preferred option.

Now, Pittsburgh lost yesterday to Cleveland, which gives you a lot of hope that if next week if Pittsburgh does be, beat Baltimore that you can go to Pittsburgh in the following week and beat up on an old man. Could you imagine DeNeil Hunter and Will Anderson going against 57-year-old Aaron Rogers? This sounds amazing.

I mean, I've never seen a double-digit road favor in the playoffs, but I would be a surprise if there is one. I don't think it'll be that far, but you get my drift. Now, the Baltimore one is a little sketchier because of a variety of things. One, Lamar Jackson will obviously have played well enough to get the Ravens in. Number

two, Baltimore has had a lot of playoff games in a past against the Texans and number three, the Texans have always gone to Baltimore and not done well in the playoffs. So a lot of bad juju on their side. So I would say if you are a Houston Texans fan, you are rooting hard for the Pittsburgh Steelers to win that game next Sunday night. Yes.

Or Saturday night. No, no, it's Sunday night. It's the Sunday night game. I mean, Baltimore, Pittsburgh for the division. So how about this? NBC's slopping that up. So week 18. Now, ABC, ESPN pay a lot of money for games.

Yes. You have NBC pay a lot of money. And then you also have CBS and Fox are like, you know, hey, I'm over here. Remember, we're the ones that carry your Saturday games. A little prime video in there. A little Netflix in there. A little NFL network, which we will get to today on the show. So there's three essentially sexy matchups between next week.

And that's about it. I mean, there'll be a little bit of seating placement here and there. ESPN gets the two of the three sexy matchups. NBC gets the other one. And meanwhile, Fox and CBS are like, oh, we'll let you have as much of the Jets and Bills as you want. We'll let you have as much of the commanders and Eagles game if you'd like. Oh, by the way, oh, Fox, you want Chargers, Broncos, you can have it.

You know what I'm saying? Chiefs Raiders on CBS. Yeah, the total is 36 and a half in that game. Just go home, everybody. Chiefs Raiders. who wants, I don't even think Kansas City wants to see that game. 36 and a half in an NFL game is an embarrassing. Well, wasn't the Texan Chargers 39 and a half or something else?

Yes. And it barely beat that number. Speaking of that, I would like to thank the Fine University of Texas for helping the Texans win a playoff spot. Explain. Cameron Dicker. Yes, the kicker. Who, by the way, I'd heard at nauseam about he's never missed a field goal kick inside 40 yards. It's one of the greatest kickers of all time. After you, baby.

And he missed. Yes, he did. And then, oh, he doesn't miss extra points. He's Mr. Automatic. And he missed. Those four points decided in some regard of the game. They were the difference. They were the difference.

Sometimes you've got to be lucky. Sometimes you've got to be good, which the Texans clearly are. Yes. Sometimes you've got to be lucky. And the Texans were extraordinarily lucky with those two. I don't want to care about the illegal contact call in the end. It felt like, at least from Texans' Twitter, that every call was going against the Texans during the course of the game.

Yeah. I can't get too much of the minutiae on that. I just know that... Kurt Werner is acting like somebody shot his dog. Yeah, the illegal contact call, and if you trust what the officials say, which those officials that are hired by the networks tend to always lean towards the officials. Yes. They all said it was a good call.

So, again, I don't think one call makes a difference. It just happened to be that was a big one because you had Sack Stroud, gave the charges one last hope, and then all of a sudden, wham-bam, thank you, ma'am, It's legal contact. CJ Strong can take some knees, and the Chargers lose the game. I'm going to lunch with my buddy Ed, who, those who know over the years,

is a die-hard Charger fan. If you think it's tough being a Texans fan, just be a Charger fan for your life. They've been pretty snakness. Now, they have Leaves gone to Super Bowls. Yeah, but. But, isn't it just won? Have they been more than one?

I think they've been to two of them, but they've lost both of them. One was a blowout. Yeah, one did they got destroyed. Reds Commanders, yeah. I mean, yeah. Or they got destroyed by the Cowboys, right? Or something?

I don't remember. We'll look at it. We don't have a huge San Diego or slash it. Who cares. But if there's a way to lose a game, the San Diego slash Los Angeles Chargers can lose it. Oh, there's a nineers. Yeah, they've been to one.

It was a blowout, correct? It's hard, because Big Philly never took him there to Super Bowl, did he? No, they went to an AFC championship game, which he played on a torn ACL. admirably, but they lost. By the way, did you see? How much that Colts game did you see yesterday? Very little.

Philip Rivers, okay, it'd be like Nolan Ryan in his prime would throw fastballs on 101 miles an hour, right? Mm-hmm. And then maybe Nolan towards the end was throwing Ephes pitches.

Yes. That's what Philip Rivers is doing. He's throwing Ephes pitches. He's throwing sidewinder wobblers. They have no velocity to them. You and I have more zip on it, and that's why they're so easy to intercept. They somehow find the target a high percentage. though more higher percentage than i would think yeah all right uh 1012 is our time here's the show

today uh we've got to tell the truth at 1130 this morning looking forward to that we have the news at noon yeah that's a lot of news a lot of news to cover 147 wonderful timing on that at 1230 we'll be announcing our d of the year candidates oh really we have four as we normally do every year okay three are sports related one or not so be ready for that Chris Gordy is going to call it 1050 because he wants to tell the whole world LSU didn't care about the game

LSU didn't want to want I watched that LSU second half against Houston look like they wanted to win the game Yeah they're trying to win Yeah But the LSU narrative if they don't win Is that they weren't carry Correct

And so he decided he wanted to go to that And he got squashed by all of America Including Cougar fans I thought SEC it just means more Apparently not here And how about Lane Kiff and not even staying for the whole game.

He's like, I got to catch a flight. That makes sense. So we'll get to that. And then the best of believe or not today is coming up at 150 today. That's correct. That's the best of the best questions that we've used over the course of the year. Wonderful. Now, if you'd like to be a part of the show, 713-212-5-790, 7-13-212-5-790.

It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 7-13-212-5-790. 1020 sports talk 790 remember we love you and we especially love you if you've taken time to spend with us today because as I said 41 minutes for me it's like uncontested from my house to here really yeah it's 30 like a layup line it's 38 miles so I can only go so fast I mean I have a helicopter hmm even if I did I wouldn't be in it's like the rocket's defense against the kings okay let's go talk about about the Kernan now. Okay. Let's talk about how they dispose of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Yeah. And the Lakers. And the Lakers. You and I'm not really talked about that much at all.

Well, because we haven't been on since Wednesday. Was I telling you... Who was I telling to about this? We haven't done a show in a while. You and I. Tim Legler was like... I've never seen a more unprofessional performance from the Los Angeles Lakers on Christmas Day. He's like, they had no...

They don't like each other. They don't look like they have any interest in playing any defense. Did you hear JJ Redick after the game? Oh, yeah. He's like, we're going to have a hard conversation. He said, I'm not doing 53 more games of this. It's like he's already begging out of the job. But they won yesterday, so they're feeling better.

Well, apparently there is a lot of talk about Luke and LeBron not getting along, too. Luca having an attitude problem. Never heard that before. Is there any chance? Is there any chance that Nico Harris, the recently fired general manager of the Dallas Mavericks. Ooh. Could have a little bit of a...

I told you so. I get where you're going. We'll be proven right by the end of when it's all said and done. So, you can still have that. Mm-hmm. And you might ultimately have that. You just have to open it up to other teams. You have to say, all right,

Luke and we're just not getting along. You've got to open the world. And as I was talking to somebody about this over the weekend, him. If you didn't want the world to know that Luca Donchich, you're about to trade him, then just lie to everybody. Rumors have it that the Mavericks talk with the Knicks. Rumors have it that Mavericks talk with the Bucks. Rumors have it that Luca talked with, the Mavericks talk with the magic.

Just deny it. Or even if you let it, you can get it, let it get out and then deny it. And then you can try to drum up some kind of market. But you just, you just narrow what you thought were. an opportunity to go get really good value for one of the great franchise S-type players by dealing it with one team. I mean, Max

Christie's okay. Anthony Davis is really good when he plays, but he's always, I mean, he's literally always hurt. You didn't get enough. His nickname is street clothes. Yeah. For a reason. He's out again. He's out again. I mean, you just can't live

by being that stubborn of a general manager because you're afraid it's going to get out. when in doubt he's fired lie that's a big part of the reason why he's gone yeah okay so uh if they're not getting along that isn't surprised because they come across two massive egomaniacs i mean lebron's second greatest player of all time you kind of have an eagle at that point yeah he's past his prime and then but donchitch is a big idomaniac and then i mean j j reddick calling them out completely like reaming them yeah that seems like a toxic situation over there yet they won they're they're 20 and 10 games but are they going to be able to hold the glue together and then try to make a playoff run i don't

think so i i would i would put them fourth place among the top four in the in the west i would love to play them uh you know what promise i should say top five i was going to say there's a five team tier in the west i would say fifth i would put them fifth personally yeah all right so we will not really do a lot of standings watching on this show until the counter your turn you're such a You're checking. You know right now how many games back the Rockets are of the team they're in front of it. I might, but it doesn't mean I'm going to bring it up. Okay.

All right. So let's go back to Saturday. We've got a lot of stuff to get two on Saturday. First and foremost, go cooks. Yeah, go coogs. And we'll get to Gordy come up in 25 minutes because he's going to have to just, he's going to backpedal and he's going to do all the things that we know that Gordy will do.

Yes. Number, it just means That's right. Someone's a wise man once told me the SEC bowl season. Number two, the Texans diversity in offense was amazing in the first quarter and then they went away from it. They just like, yeah, we put those plays in the first quarter and we'll not use them again. I thought Nick Cayley called a bizarre game. I thought he called the Houston Texans game.

Maybe that's what we're just getting accustomed to it up and then they try to go and if they pull a parachute for a soft landing and try to hold on to a small lead with the defense. That's what they do. I don't know how much of that is Nick Cayley. I don't know how much of that is Demico Ryan's. It could be a lot of DeMico. DeMico Ryan's coming back from the half.

I was listening to the broadcast. And he said, we've got to get back to Texas football. We got to establish the run. We got to not turn the ball over. We got to do a quick passing game. That's what DeMiko Ryans wants. And we have two coordinators back to back now who have done that.

So at some point, do we have to say, is this our Nick Cayley and before him, Bobby Sloick, under orders from Domingo Ryan's to not throw the ball down field and to run on first down basically every time and try to take the air out and try to win with the defense? So that's very Texans football. So what essentially is happening is you're losing, you get two football coaches that are getting reputation hits because of the fact that Sloick was not considered a great offensive mind last year. and frankly people are the lowest of hanging fruit is let's rip on Nick Haley for the lack of diversity in the Texans offense. Yes. And I mean, yeah, it's just like

a lot of first down runs or first down quick passes and not a whole lot of inventiveness. Play action works. It just does. Even without a running game, it still works. Yes. Pass rush got until a little bit as we would expect with the chargers.

And again, you rely on your defense, to bend but not break and they were bending quite a bit as you would expect i mean look justin herbert even though he's got down to one arm working i mean the hand is just in a bad spot uh he can still throw the football he can still get a downfield they don't have much of a running game so they were kind of basically living off of the pass themselves these are the these are the first down play calls since the two touchdown drives four yard pass run run run run run run run run very predictable Yeah. Yeah.

So, like I said, I don't know. We're not in these meeting rooms or whatever. It's just, it's Texans football. And I know a lot of people are upset about the offense and all that type of stuff. The bottom line is it's working. They've won eight games in a row. They're 11 and 5. Nobody thought they were going to be here.

There's a lot of Texans fans pissing me off and the hand-wringing and getting all mad and defeat. like, I have never seen a team go on an eight-game winning streak and people so pissed off about it. Yeah, I would say, if I'm D'Amico, I would say, leave me alone. We were only saying, check your bum ass up. He's got a scoreboard, literally. Right, he does. But the reason why fans are doing that is for because, again, this feels like a very familiar storyline.

The difference is this year's storyline than in previous years, you don't have Kansas City, you don't have a dominant Buffalo, you don't have a dominant, Baltimore standing in front of you. You don't even have Cincinnati for that matter. You have Denver, New England, and Jacksonville. Not necessarily going to scare the hell out of. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, yeah, those teams are dangerous. Not saying they're all good. They're all good. They're all good. Yeah, but for right, for sure. But nobody's thinking the Texas are going to be a cakewalk. No.

You know what it would be? Let me ask you this. If we were to go to a city or a state that had casino, it wouldn't it would be the worst thing to pick all four of them for small. wages, right? And hoping the longest of the odds cash is? I don't know. You tell me. But it's so wide open. Like the four biggest contenders when the AFC. Well, yeah, you're probably going to lose money on that, I'd think. A little bit. I guess. It just feels like to me, I'm looking at a Kentucky

Derby where there's four horses that are like 7 to 1, 8 to 1, 9 to 1, 11 to 2. Wow. It took to December 29th? For what? That was a great analogy. Wait a minute. I am Mr. Analogy. Wow. I'm impressed. Well, I'm sorry, I'm giving you a compliment. Yeah, but it took you until December 29 to do it.

Well, it took you to until December 29 to say something good. I've got more analogies. Don't worry. They won't be as good as that one. But the field looks good for the AFC. It just does. Yeah. And if I'm the seventh team, whoever that may be,

I don't feel like I've got a, I think I've got just as much chance of the number one seed. Now, well, I do believe that weather will be a factor. And they will put Denver and New England. England in the latest games possible at night. Have you noticed the NFL loves to put games at night where snow and rain and wind can be factors? But more than anything, they love big names. So Texans Jaguars has more of it.

I mean, well, it's not going to snow in Jacksonville, but we'll see. I will guarantee you. What did we bet? Because I have 3.30 and you have the field. I go look it up. It was something very small. I think it was like chips or something. I guarantee you.

You'll be a deli lunch, by the way. Denver, New England are playing at night. Guarantee it. They want Denver at 14 degrees and maybe some snow. They want rain and sleet at 29 degrees in New England. Oh, I didn't write down a bet. Was it a gentleman's bet? How are you?

Bragging point. By the way, how's Kyle Tucker's contract kept along? I don't know. I still got a shot. Do I feel better, don't you? No. Mm-mm. Because Bregman doesn't have his deal yet.

who else Frommer doesn't have his deal yet that was a gentleman's bet we have a drive-thru lunch on Yordon ever playing 130 games ever in his career We should have bumped that up because that's a 10 year bet You can bump it up right now if you want

I'm ready and available No let's see how this a bodge it goes first It's 1030 The Matt Thomas Show with Ross 713-212-5-790 7-13-212-5-790 1030 27, Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Now, let me tell you what's going on the rest of the week. Tomorrow, Ryan Hollins is going to hang out with us for a couple of hours, hopefully celebrating a big win over the Indiana Pacers. Ross is off tomorrow, and we will also, I think we're trying to get EMA Doca for a few minutes on the show tomorrow, and then we're going to announce our D of the Year winner. We'll announce a D of the year finalist today at 1230. That's kind of a time old tradition.

here on the show where we have, I've selected four people, three in the sports world, one in the non-sports world, that are just the definition of a D. And this weekend, somebody's got to be the D of the year. Yes. So we'll have the D of the year nominees coming up at 1230 today. Wednesday, I am leaving earlier than I thought for New York for New Year's, the Rockets game, New Year's Day against the Brooklyn Nets. So Cole and Dan are going to hang an extra hour.

Really? Yes. And then Wex is going to come to 11 to 1. That's beautiful. Before the Texas pregame show at 1 o'clock when they take on Michigan in the cheese it. Citrus bowl. Whatever. Because when I think cheese it's, I think citrus.

Correct. By the way, Kyle Winningham took the Michigan job over the weekend. Yes. I was the play-by-play announcer for Utah, Kyle Winningham's first year. Okay. That was 20 years ago. Can you believe how long ago that was? I cannot.

excellent excellent choice there are very few coaches that I've dealt with in my life that were as professional and accommodating and polite as Kyle Whittingham he's on my he's on my top five list Willie Fritz is on my top five list former Rice Al Ken Hatfield is on my list Mike Dan Tony certainly on my list I mean just have them all in your top five no you can't You have to limit. And again, I've never had a bad experience, per se. I mean, Dana was kind of tough. Go cogs, Matt.

Yeah. But. You have any Red Bull? So just to put things in perspective here. Oh, I'm sorry. I'd like to apologize to the University of Houston. No, no. You're fine.

They're not mad at you anymore. They moved on to Gordy. As well, they should have you. I saw Ian McTagger going at it. You cannot tell me how you don't care about a game after the game is played. You may want to think that. You may want to tell your LSU bros that.

You just don't publicly say anything about it. You just don't. I actually didn't even catch all that. You know, I'm trying to keep the drama out of my life, Matt. So I don't know exactly what the... You do look drama free today. I am drama free.

I'm relaxed. It's my last day of the year. I'm working hard this week. Putting in a one day's work. I'm putting in tomorrow. I'll put the four in and then I'm going to take the rest of the week off. But okay, so back to my point. So Kyle Whittingham has been either a player or a coach.

at you, BYU or Utah for like, I mean, all of his life. I mean, he has, he's lived the Utah life. I think he's been somewhere grad assistant somewhere else. But, I mean, he's lived, imagine being somewhere Rossi. And I did this in my younger life. I lived, you know, between the ages of seven and third. I live 23 years here in Houston. And I decided to make the change to move because I was hated my boss here at the company.

And that person's long gone. So I'm happier for now for that. But Kyle Winningham could have had a job where he could have retired whenever he wanted to. he did he said yeah he said like yeah i'm kind of over it and then the university of michigan pops up i thought the scuttlebutt was that he was forced out of utah because the other guy whoever it was had been the coaching waiting for like a decade morgan scaly yeah uh i don't know it's good question coaching waiting since 2020 that's what i'm pulling it up yeah well he's not having to wait anymore because count winning ham's gonna make six and a half million dollars a

year to be the coach at michigan which is really good value that's a really good value yeah it's also 65 so who he's the coach in waiting for the next can I just tell you though but in holding that is such a culture shot going from Salt Lake City, Utah where if you go 8 in 4 Utah they love you yes and you got to be by you that's

the big rival he's a good coach he's a really good coach but the pressure is going to go up 500 Kyle doesn't know Ohio State Michigan legends are either made or destroyed based off of how you do against Ohio State now they have won a lot in the last handful of years and I think it's two in a

now for Ryan Day? Or is it one in a row? No, it's just one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right? It's just one. But point being is, you're going from nice friendly Mountain West to Big 12, or Pac 12 to Big 12 to the jargonaut that is the big 10th. I mean, you are you are a

what would you call it a thoroughbred? Would you call it a Blue Blood? Blue Blood. Blue Blood of college football. University, I mean, going from a nice job to an amazing job. Yes, that's huge. Michigan, Ohio, State, Alabama, Texas. Now, I wonder if the question would be, if Sharon Moore, were still there, would he have

thought about going somewhere else or would he have stayed at Utah or just stayed retired? I saw a funny tweet. It was like good news guys. Kyle Whittingham only follows 11 people. Five girls on Instagram and they're all around him or his family or something. So that's good news.

Yeah. Super guys, I'm super happy for him. He's not getting thirsty on IG. I don't think so. Not to say that people in Utah don't get thirsty off of IG because they do. Probably. But not as thirsty to say a 65-year-old is married with multiple children. Sharon Moore? Not so much. He's very

busy. Let's talk to our buddy, Ray and Miami. Ray, it's like 50 degrees here in Houston. What's it down in South Florida today? It's like, you only like 78. Oh, love it. 50's good. Quit your whining. You've got a bunch of winers. Put a sweater on and enjoy a little brisk breeze. No, no, no. Give me 78. You guys are a bunch of winers. This is good stuff.

It's December 29th. It's supposed to be cold. Give it to me hot. I like it hot. Yeah. Flip that, Jonathan. Get John and get that. I heard you say

LeBron is the second best player of all times. That is correct. Can I tell you something, brother? If Michael was on the court playing three on three, and he had to pick between LeBron and Kobe, he would pick Kobe every time.

Kobe Bryant is the second best player in the history of the NBA without a doubt. Oh, I have a doubt. Ray, I love you like a stepbrother, but there's plenty of doubt. No one has ever said Kobe Bryant's second greatest player at all time. Not a single human being, unless you're a like your fan. Kobe stands. Kobe stands will say that. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. Now, now, about the Texans, after watching that thriller last night with Caleb and Brock going up and down the field like that, matching touchdown for touchdown. And, you know, we only scored like six points in the second half. I don't think it's CJ because I think CJ's beddling Caleb and Brock Party. I think it's to the office. It's somebody on that sideline overthinking because CJ can put up 35, 27. He can do that to Nico get two touchdowns of the guys give one, you know, somebody run one in.

He can run up 28 points. So it's not CJ. I think it's the office. offensive coordinator, and, you know, not firing a guy. The only Nick that we're going to get out of here is Nick Chub, Nick, you're done. You're done. You're not going to be a Houston, Texan, and all this. See you, and I wouldn't want to be you.

And we want our money back, Nick. No, no, no, Nick, here's the thing. Thanks, Ray, for the phone call. I don't, if anybody, and you and I were the first ones to say anything, because, again, you got the water carriers for the Texans, and you got those fake media that go to the press conference of Dakota. kiss the Texans' ass. Nobody thought Nick Chubb wasn't coming in a rush for 1,000 yards.

That was stupid. They signed him in like July. Yeah. There's a reason he is available. He is a camp body because they probably knew that Joe Mixen was not going to be available for a long time. Or ever, as the insider me said totally. Okay. Isn't it funny?

We haven't had any Joe mixing questions lately? No. Could be available come playoff time? And see, that's another thing. I mean, everybody gets all upset. Oh, the offense is terrible. They're not good. Yeah, they've got no run game

and no offensive line all season long and they're 11 and 5. I mean, that's a miracle. It's a miracle that they've been able to do what they want. And yeah, C.J. Stroud has had some bad games and he had some bad throws and some bad picks that he had on Saturday.

But, I mean, you got club-handed Arionte ursary out there, and then Titus, you've got a different right tackle every week. And Trent Brown has been hurt. And the interior has been bad. And Blake Fisher actually great out very well. This is my friend's at PFF. Oh, did he?

Yeah. In the last game? Yeah. Okay, because he's not been good all year. He's been fine as what he is. The jumbo tight-end run package, extra linemen. He's okay for that when he's got to run block only. Look, let's be brutally honest. It is a significantly better offensive line today than it was six or eight weeks ago.

But you're still nervous. You just are. man and you should be and you know what my guess this is a lot i mean for instance buffalo has had a better job of playing run defense the last few weeks uh especially against the eagles yesterday it was a low scoring game yeah but if i'm a buffalo bell smash play that's right if i'm buffalo uh am i still nervous about the run defense you absolutely should be let's talk to gordon next he's going to tell us how much he loves his houston cougars 1046 on 790 one more snap wakeman takes a knee

And the game is over. The Houston Cougars pick up their 10th victory of the season. And what a turnaround it has been as the Houston Cougars beat LSU 38 to 35. They claim the 2025 Kinder's Texas Bowl. Easy peasy in front of a huge crowd of the Texas Bowl. Shout out to all the Cougars. And for that matter, LSU fans that apparently care. about the game because they actually spent their money on tickets they came from Baton Rouge

or from their shacks down on the bio yes and decided they want to come to Houston for a little bit watch football game uh-huh so they obviously cared about the game what about the well the team fought back from uh well they got up early right or they were 14 nothing yeah so they must have said we're up 14 nothing we don't care about the game because that's what Chris Gordy says yeah hi Gordy how are you happy new year Hey, congrats to Matt. Can I, I try to give you some sage advice on occasion. And you don't tend to take it from you very often, but I'm going to give you some now.

Do not tell anybody, whether it's in group text, whether it is on your radio show or on the, in the Twitterverse, how your team, when they lose, didn't care about the game. Because they were clearly caring about the game when they were at 14-0 on the opening, and 7-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-op. Well, but here's the difference, Matt, was the two weeks leading up to the game. I said LSU didn't care. So there's a difference. It wasn't after the fact I said LSU didn't care. I said all the two weeks leading up to the game, LSU didn't care. I picked Houston to win.

I was picking them all the whole time because I said, I tweeted it again. The game met way more to Houston than it did to LSU. Congrats. And how was the reaction on the Twitterverse to that comment from you? Well, you know, Brian McPaggart and some Cougar, some blinded Red Cougar Red fans They came out and like, oh, you're a sore loser and all this I'm going, guys, this would be like you beating Mahomes right now

With that third string QB that no one even knows his name Like, it's a good team you beat But it ain't the best version of the Chiefs, right? Well, that's because again, your LSU players are unhappy They probably hate themselves, they probably failed out of school and are thinking about some sort of a technical career. And that's fine. But just know.

It will go down. It will go down as one of the best wins in U of H football in the last decade. Anytime you can beat a seven-win LSU team with a fired head coach, an interim coach, an interim OC, a backup quarterback, and 12 opt-outs, six starters out on defense, you celebrate that way. I mean, you have to. That's a marquee win. So you're telling me that Garrett Nussmeyer would have done a lot better against the Cougars defense. what you're trying to tell me? Oh, well, I mean, look at what he did to Baylor in this game

a year ago, yes. The name of your podcast is Locked on Sour Grapes. I'm not sour at all. Now, Mizzou fans might be sour losing to Virginia, but again, they're back-up quarterbacks in and their O.C. left for Washington State. So the problem is when you're an SEC team, everybody wants your players, everybody wants your coaches, and then you play a full-strength Big 12 team. Or your coach got fired in a disgrace.

Or you fired your coach and you went up there and said, hey, there's no way that LSU's going to have to pay out that contract when a certain LSU insider, hashtag me, said that LSU's going to have to pay every dime, and I was right about that. Hey, you also said they weren't getting a power for coach, LSU Insider. You also said they weren't getting laid Kiffin, LSU Insider. LSU Insider can't be. No, I'm talking about Matt.

Matt, you shut your bum ass up, Matt. I can't bet a thousand gordon. Well, I just, I'm so excited that Elaine Kiffin decided to stick around. How many of the early third quarter trying to beat the traffic? Why did he leave so? Matt, he ain't coaching any of those guys. They're all going to the portal. He's going to get his actual team for 2026 already.

He was actually looking at, I heard, he was looking at some of the guys over on the Cougars side, like going, who don't want to pluck on Friday? No, no, no, no, no. They don't know. Once a Cougar always a Cougar. So, by the way, when did Halsey decide not to play in the game, huh? What's up about that? he said he wanted to do willie fritz a favor he didn't want to embarrass him

oh okay i got you i got you so not on revenge against his old team all right so i just want to give you a little heads up what you saw on saturday is going what you're going to see opening day of two thousand twenty seven just get ready for that so get ready for lane kiffin in season number two open up the year at oh and one look i'm happy for you of age i was like i said i bet on them i was rooting for him all week i it's a big wit it meant more for you of A's to get a 10th win in all honesty. So I'm happy for them. But I'm telling you right now, the team that will open LSU in 2027,

going to look a lot different, that's going to look a lot different. Yeah, they're going to have lots of problems with the range. Okay, we'll look at that. Did you give me some Lafayette in there, boys? I love that. That was good. I mean more of that. All right, locked on Gordy.

That sounds cool. All right. I am in New Orleans, so the Cajun accent comes out a little bit more here. Seriously, there's a rule. Anytime you're in the state of Louisiana, you have to speak in full Cajun or full New Orleans or whatever that link, whatever that dialect is. Hey, wait, yeah, we were over at mothers, having breakfast. Where was your mom in there?

By the way, don't ask for bacon and mothers. They will look at you dirty. Ooh, Lord, a dirty look there at old mothers. Yeah, they will give you sausage, roast beef debris, no bacon. No bacon. All right, Gordy, happy holidays. We'll see you next week. All right, in all honesty, though, congrats to you of it.

I am happy for them, and that was a big win, and I think they are going to be a contender for the Big 12 next year. I like to hear that. By the way, our schedule next year, thanks, Gordy, is a lot harder. We have at West Virginia, at Texas Tech. Oh, man. At West Virginia.

At Utah. At Utah. At Kansas State, I think. Who's this voice? Oh, it's Cole Thompson for the morning show. It's the college football expert. It's the morning kickoff. Listen, I picked the U of H to win by 10.

Piping hot takes, six to ten here on sports stock 790. No, just correct takes that Larry and Stafford has to call. and understand that I'm better than who's takes are hotter yours or Dan's tell the truth mine 100% mine I am going scorching I still do not believe in the jacksville Jaguars they are a fraudulent team oh my god oh here we go they're not going to do anything because Trevor Lawrence is a bum all right Stephen A Thompson 6 to 10 here on sports talk stuff and we can call uh Dan we're going to call Dan um is he is he is he mad dog mad dog uh mad dog actually has terrible takes mad Dan

we'll work on it Even watch that show with Mad Dogg's on there Every reference is to 1974 Bob Coosie You know Johnny Bench We're not allowed that ball to get by him What?

Yeah Luca Don since you can't hold John Havillet checks Jack Yeah You know I saw that passing Trevor lawns through He's no John Brody You don't know John Brody

Is serious points to you Yeah that's the Offensive coordinator for the Buffalo Bills No no no That's John Brady, Sam Brady, Joe Brady, it doesn't matter. All right, we're at one hour, and we'll talk to Willie about the cougars. We have to tell the truth.

Is Willie going to yell at? I hope he does. You hear that, Gordy? Get ready, because Willie's going to yell at you. I hope he yells at you. She. She, she, she, it's definitely a she. All right, 713, 212. Oh, look at him with a cat drug in. Okay.

Happy holiday, John. A lot of holiday traffic. A lot of holiday traffic. That traffic took me 40 minutes. took you two hours and 41 minutes. Jonathan, good morning, do you? 713-212-5-7-0. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 11-03 on Sports Talk 7-90.

Matt and Ross with you here. We have to tell the truth coming up in about to 25 minutes. Gentlemen, and by way, Jonathan, good morning to you. Hope things are well. Morning. They're well now. I'm getting in the groove. is there a really good story to this or is it just you just you know no good story i can tell you off air though

oh i have to come see you in the break anyway so i want to hear this story off air i got you jonathan uh decided he thought our show was only three hours today as compared to the full four not true i tease i tease i tease i tease all right to tell the truth at 1130 rossel the news at noon 1230 we have the uh announcement of the candidates for the day of the year four d of the year candidates three are sports related one or not you'll have that at 1230 and then rossy had the best believe or not today at 150 that's a cut and paste can't wait that's easy peasy no it's not easy piece really i have to sift through a year of questions and whittled down the list yeah we want 10 normally do 15 you only want 10 yeah

because i figured that last thing would be kind of short so all right uh to tell the truth coming up at the bottom of the hour i will believe three of the four things i will only lie to you about one of them is that easier or harder when i lie i don't know okay you usually have some wacky-ass take so who I think it's difficult either time. And you loved my analogy. Yeah. The good tidings between the two of us lasted a very short period of time. 713-212-5-790.

7-13-212-5-7-99. Let's talk to our friend Willie about the Big Cougar. When, Willie, were you at the game on Saturday? Of course. And I'm going to tell you, I am so proud of our Cougar Nation. I was praying for a good question. proud and it was spectacular. It felt like being in an

NFL FLL game there. The last game I was at in that stadium was when Coach Herman was around and we upset Oklahoma because Oklahoma didn't want to win either, right? Exactly.

Anytime that a bigger school gets beat by the Cougars is always because they don't want to win. Florida State, afraid to play us at the Peach Bowl. Oklahoma afraid to play us. Louisville, afraid to play us. You know what? You know why?

Because they are afraid to play us. That's why Texas begged out of the playing in the Big 12. They were tired of playing the Houston Cougars. They were tired of having to pay off officials at TDC Stadium to get the calls. I get it. It makes perfect sense. Yeah, and the first five minutes of the game was a little bit shaky for us. And the crowd was going, oh, no, don't tell me it's going to go like this.

But the Cougars, I think they had some nerves and playing it for, In a crowd like that and great expectations, they stepped up, and that Wigman, I'm going to tell you, he was spectacular. Now, LSU kept coming back, and it didn't take long before they came back and tied us. Or, you know, I made the game close. That's amazing. Their quarterback is amazing. And I'm just going to tell Gordy that, you know, I like to just gloat and gloat and gloat over this, but I'm going to be humble. Oh, I wouldn't. Are you kidding me? No. Look, we're trying to kill time here during the holiday week. Take as much time as you need.

No, I wouldn't say, you know, it's hard to leave a cougar game when we've lost and people walking out of the stadium gloating and saying, yeah, I'm going down, got you, cougars. You know, it's not a good feeling. So I just can't get over. When we went to church on Sunday morning, there were smiles on people's faces. A lot of people's faces. A lot of people. people, you know, watched the game on TV. They went to the game. And I sat with some people that came from Edinburgh because they wanted to see the game. I sat next to a couple who's moving here from San Antonio because of a job transfer. And they came just because they wanted to see the game. And they were, and they were rooting for us. So it was really, really nice. And we had a Rice student there that was with his dad. And I said, what are you doing here? He said, I always root for the cougars so it was just a beautiful time and um we came home and watched the

replay on tv we were up until three in the morning well that went to church that feels like a little extreme thank you willie and happy holidays happy to hear church that's nice yes you know what she's so dedicated she double watched the game yes and uh and then she went back and got a few hours of you sleep and got up in church and said thank the low for couga football America you are blessed by cougar football now I have some blessed I'll always say this they they want a bowl no one really cares about uh 67000 people care about it's gaudy they don't care about the ball oh my god that's the last person I'm asking about that um here's a thing we got to do that at home games there's no reason why look I don't expect 45000 look

our non-conference home game schedule is wretched it is what it is but you're going for that you're going Alabama still put 75,000 people and there's to 80,000 people in their same when they play Austin P. You're not supposed to worry about the opponent when you are a fan of a particular team. This team won 10 games last year.

We've got Connor Wigman coming back next year. We have Sean Trell, what's Henderson. Deshaun? No, it's Henderson's first name. I'm mispronouncing his name. Fred. No, son, stop. Deshawn.

No. Kishon. Sean Henderson. That's right. Dual threat quarterback. Some kind of Sean. It's fine. Number one high school recruited quarterback coming to the University of Houston. Okay. So we got a chance and we got a good not good as good, good difficult big 12 slate. We're going to back like big boys. Let's go. We're not going to be scared. You got like almost a half a million alumni base here in the city. Yeah. Here's the crazy part. You know, so my guess is this is going in more into the weeds of anything. You know, each school. it's $20 million to pay its athletes. That's over the entire program.

Now, that thing that number is going to go up next year. That does not include NIL. That's just straight cash, homie. This is what the kids would say. Okay. My guess is we're probably spending $2 million on two quarterbacks between Henderson and Wigman. Well, it's the most important position in football. It is, but you talk about it, you know, how

the salary cap in the NFL is kind of a skew? Our chance is making like 9-milly or something. Yeah, but he's not getting all right out from the school. He's actually worth it. He will be an extra year. been favorite. Is he? Why wouldn't he be? He's the highest been favorite this year. Oh, but I think that worked out. Um, you're going to have a nice one. You're going to the Cheez-it Bowl. He got better as a year went along. You did

get better. I know. If I was, if I'm as a Texas fan, I'd be bullish on him. Are you kidding me? I am bullish. Bullish. Now, will you pull a Gordian if you lose to Michigan? Will you then say, well, we didn't care about playing in the game? No, their favorite. They're supposed to win. We're going to do that. You're supposed to play the They've had a lot of, I mean, a lot of guys have hit the portal. They've got no running backs right now. Did you see the story today?

It was on MSN, which I don't know if I'm supposed to believe or not. No, MSN, Yahoo, Sports Illustrated, Sporting News, all unreliable now, unfortunately. Okay. But it could be true. But let me say. And maybe you can back up. I just say, investigate further. Okay.

I just saw it flash, you know, they have the, and you're going on the MSNs on page. Yeah. It says all 11 starters from James Madison are in the portal. Oh, really? I mean, I could believe that. I mean, it wouldn't be. be far-fetched if it was true, correct? No. That seems cruel. That seems cruel. Does it not? Good for

them. The coach went to the portal. No, he did. He long gone from the portal. He was in a portal like two weeks. I've got to sit it out for a while. Yeah. Am I Yeah, I'm looking at up there. I see 9 of 11, but this is from yesterday. Bro Bible says, I mean, they're also an aggregator. Right. Yeah, none of the 11 starters expected to play nine of them in the portal Or maybe this is updated

Yeah, that sounds more accurate Than I think all 11 are gone Or graduation apparently Yeah, slash opt out So needless to say, it's the James Madison team that play Yeah, within the last day, two more It was nine and then two more We're like, all right, well, let's make it a few

I can't stick around for this I don't go three nine next year Yeah But that's what James I mean, I have some of my closest friends in my life are North Texas fans and went to school in North Texas

as I did my freshman year well that North Texas team got depleted too how about the Rice quarterback is leaving after two years through for a bunch of yards not even going to quarterback rice in a bowl game

not granted it's it's they're playing Texas everybody wants to be the Jefferson's Matt they oh what a great cross-reference thank you Jonathan you understand when he said he wanted Everybody wants to be a Jefferson?

Not at all. They're moving on up. We're going to play the theme song coming back. To a deluxe apartment. Can you find the song for him? In Lansing. East Lansing. Or wherever.

Michigan State? I've been to East Lansing. Isn't that great? I don't know. It's kind of crime-ridden. Don't throw stones now. Hey. U.H. Guy.

We're getting there. We've got some trees that are planted. We're good. 1112 We're moving on up next That's Matt Thomas Sherwood Ross 713-212-5-790 Where we're moving on up

To the side To a deluxe of heart moat in the sky We're moving on up To the side We finally got a piece of the pie Fist don't fry in the kitchen A bean don't burn on the grill Took a whole lot of trying

Just to get up that hill Now we're up in the big leagues Getting off turn at best As long as we live It's you and me, baby There ain't nothing wrong with that Forever moving on up To the east side

To a deal of a apartment in the sky We're hoping over to the side We finally got a piece of the fight Oh, such a jam I believe we have two brackets

In the all-time theme song contest Oh, okay, I know what you're talking about. We have the instrumental Yes, and then we have the spoken word With lyrics. I want to say this is the number one seed We did TV themes before Fantasy 5 back in the day

And I believe I took that number one So in my mind That's the number one spoken theme song Okay It's a two-headed monster For number one on the Just music only Sanford and Son

Dugge Houser In Dallas Duggy Houser does not make the list mash no i got a hot take for you mash largely overrated show i never watched i know insanely piped up by my parents and their parents friends but god i just i'm gonna watch them like yeah me ma'all didn't like yeah so many other shows all right um okay so we have to tell the truth coming up at the bottom of the hour w5 oh my god that's another good one if you want to go with iconic not necessarily a great listen but iconic twilight zone

Yeah, but pleasing to the ear I'll tell you what the sopranos Even though Oh, that's a good one There's words in there There's words, but that's another pleasing the ear song Oh, Night Rider No

Night Rider's great Shut your bum ass up man I love that song I wanted a transam when I was a kid Because of Night Rider I loved, yes But you didn't do it because of the song You did it because of the show

Both Yeah, I think it's Dallas, Samford & Sun, Hawaii 5-0 is another, man, it's a man. Hawaii 5-0 is short. Classic. Magnum P.I. Okay, so if the Jefferson's the number one spoken song, I have a list somewhere. What's another great spoken song theme song? I mean, the Simpsons, oh, instrumental Simpsons.

That's a great one. Full House. good times full house is good good times is good good times excellent fraser's like tier two eh eh yeah not good that's good cheers ah cheers oh cheers is growing pain show me that smile again b j thomas all right we're i think we're we're now gonna get a bunch of calls and tweets no we're not we are we are we did oh maybe we we never know it's all it's okay we're sure if you're here we thank you thank you thank you send a tweet Let us know you 11 o'clockers are there.

Go like my Texans being. I'm trying to get to 3,000 likes. Last television thing. So I got back home the day after Christmas after the long road trip, and we had a bunch of stuff saving our DVR. One of them was the Christmas Saturday Night Live special where the best Christmas skits of all time. And the last one, which is a classic,

was the Schwady Balls segment. Yes. 27 years ago. Mm-hmm. That's about right. But, man, it still hits. Wasn't there Mr. Robinson neighborhood where he was in Santa? Yes, he was in there too? Yes, he was in there too. And was the Will Ferrell one where he's spinning around and throws up everywhere.

You must have seen it. No, I didn't. And then there was one, there was the... I used to watch all the reruns. You've done great. You knocked out three ones around there. E-network used to play the reruns. And I used to just sit down and watch them for hours. And there was the Justin Timberlake, Andy Sandberg, D. in the box blank in a box is a

bad short list you can say d in the box that's fine all right I'll see where here come these suggestions succession great instrumental theme love it uh rock for files love I have rock for files on my phone

Simon and Simon didn't watch it I'm not from over that one Magnum PI people think it's pretty good yeah yeah Dynasty for 80s drama oh yeah what about the days of our lives

Which one's Nadia's theme? Oh, that's Young and the Restless. Young and the wrestles. Yeah, that's not bad either. That was a hit back in the day. Early 70s. Henry Mancini. Yeah, good for you.

All right. We're doing to kill time. We're trying to use this. We're trying to do sports and more sports. We could. Oh, you know what? Since we're doing sports, I had a little inside Aggie investigation. Oh, hold on.

The Aggie insider? Okay, hold on. The ground journalism right here. Okay. Okay, so let's first of all, what sport are we talking about here? Football. Are you a little under the weather, by the way, you sound hoarse. Guys, how hard did you, how hard did you enjoy your son?

I had a good, I had a good, look, Christmas was fine. I had a good break. Hold on, let me get to the journalism, all right? Look, okay, so I met, I'm not going to say the names, but I met an Aggie football player. And I, you know, just try with him, you know, he's the old year producer, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, all right, man, tell me what's going on with this Miami game. Like, what happened? Straight up tells me, he's like, we weren't going to win.

We didn't want to win. half the coaches that weren't even invested in the game. Wow. And I go, are you serious? Like, is that, like, you're not, you're not BS. That's what you say after you lose, though. All right, let me ask you this. All the coaches didn't want to, like, they were all going to leave.

They didn't really care for the game at all, and no one had any motivation for the game. Now, let's put things in perspective here. Colin Klein is the offensive coordinator, who is now the head coach at Kansas State. Now, I don't know how many other coaches left, so I can't speak to that. But did you do your due diligence? did you look up this guy's name and was he a player

or was he a bench warmer that was like I need to play where would you put him and do you know I'm gonna say he was if I gave if I went to look it up

don't say too much don't say his name I know I'm saying but like he I'll say don't say the position either he's in he's in the conversations you know what I mean

he's not like some walk on and like you know okay so he definitely played Yes, in some point of time Or is the right backup for somebody Did he play in the Miami game? No. So I'm just telling you all

I was like, I know, I know, I know. I was like, man, look, that's some crazy information because I didn't think, I don't know, I feel like the vibe for A&M, like, you know, playoffs like Russia said, I was like, you know, they're going to be. And he was like, no, man, we didn't care for that. Like, all our coaches left and all that's like gourdies sour grapes we lost, we didn't care.

See, that's what I'm saying. You got to do, well, I appreciate your enterprise. Yes. surprising right there. He's working sources. But I want to teach you things along the way as a major market radio host. Is this an underclassman or is this a guy who was graduating? Underclassman. So is he

planning and going back to A&M next year? Yes. Okay. So I don't know, I just kept thinking about what Ross was saying how Mike Elko isn't going to be there. And after that conversation, I was like, man. But Mike Elko is going to be there. But, like.

But Colin, now here's what I'm thinking. Now, I'm trying to deduce who this is. We're not going to do it on the air. Well, I'll ask you no way you can guess off the 90 man well but i mean if he's saying the coaches didn't want to be there my i'm assuming that this is an offensive player because colin klein is going is now a kansas state i mean he he literally took the job and was running the offense and the offense was kind of frankly non-existent he's got a nice three points you know who you know who did a better job of playing

in the special teams was the kicker that had the overalls on for the for the big kickoff that pat mac if he was going on i didn't catch that I'll take your word for it. He nearly made one, which, by the way, why were there no playoff games last week? Because they want to wait for January 1st, I guess. They want to give him my two weeks to prepare. I'm squirmish like you are.

I don't disagree with you. Let's play the game. There wasn't, okay, there was bowl games on Saturday. There were a couple of NFL games. Look, you weren't going to lose to a championship game or quarterfinal was not going to lose to Baltimore Green Bay. It just wasn't. I don't think it would have, right?

I guess, yeah, you want to avoid it. It was on Peacock. Oh, by the way, we have not gotten to something we'll do after, to tell the truth. Rich Eisen. Okay. When we come back? Nope. To tell the truth next.

Ooh, and to tell the truth. No, it's not into tell the truth. This is a side commentary. Okay. So we got to tell the truth, Rich Eisen, news and noon. That's the next half hour. You want to join us, 713, 212. 5-7-90

But I never know why you don't know how to tell the truth You don't know how to tell the truth Yeah But I do I do tell the truth Now I'm also a good liar And I'm lying to you on one of these four.

Okay. Three of the four, I believe. Three out of four. That means, Jonathan, how many truce are in the mix? He's on the phone. That's fine. All these Aggie fans are. Who's the unhappy Aggie?

This always confuses me. Three truths? Because you switch it up every week. Yeah, I know. It's messed out. It's hard enough as I did come up with a bit. I know. All right, Jonathan, three truths, one lie.

Three truths. One lie. One lie. One lie. Let me boldness. line. Here we go. Which one of the four

am I not telling the truth? Number one. Part of what makes me a good radio host is the ability to not fall on my sword on certain takes. Hmm. Some things I don't move off of. I'm best with you.

Here comes one I'm going to. Okay. I watched the second half of that Philadelphia and Buffalo game. Yes. Momentum shifted big time towards Buffalo. Philadelphia couldn't move the ball at all

in the second half. Buffalo got the touchdown. that followed behind 1312. I'm glad that the Buffalo Bills went for two. I know they didn't get it. But you know I'm me, I'm always Mr. Let's go for the tie. Let's go to overtime. Buffalo made the right call.

Even though it didn't work, it was still the right call. Okay. Okay. Number two. They have something in the NBA called the Sixth Man of the Year Award. Yes? Reed Shepherd will be in the top three at that Sixth Man of the Year award. I think

I think Lou Williams and Jamal Crawford are the favorites Eric Gordon, too, don't forget that Yeah Number three I think the Ravens will go to Pittsburgh next weekend and beat the Steelers

Sorry, Des, Texans play at Baltimore in the Wal-in-Card round Hmm and that can very well be a night game because Baltimore weather sucks too. They're putting Jacksonville at 3.30 on Saturday. So you're catching a break here on this one.

All right. I think you're going to win your bet. Yeah. But I don't know what we bet. It's a hand-checking out of boy. Ravens win in Pittsburgh. Texans play at Baltimore in the wild card. And number four, Janus Adentacompo will be traded by the NBA deadline.

Hmm. Okay. So let me recap the four. There are three truths and one line. Number one, I'm changing my tune. Buffalo made the right call going 13 to 12, going for the two-pointer. As a matter of fact, if the pass was better thrown, they'd have won the game. Number two, I think Reed Shepard is going to finish top three in the sixth man of the year award in the NBA.

Just my take. Okay. These aren't facts. Okay. Number three, I think the Ravens win in Pittsburgh on Sunday. Texans play at Baltimore in the wild card And number four, I think Yannis is going to be traded by the deadline

Which one of those four am I telling you a lie? You're the three, I'm telling you The truth. This is kind of a tough one because None of these takes are crazy. Thank you, John, thank you very much. I mean, Johnvin, you won last week I heard. See? Usually Matt's way out of pocket.

I'm trying to. I mean, the first one is a 50-50. You can argue both ways whether or not the bills should have gone for two. I mean, yeah. Say they have all the momentum. I mean, you need to get two yards and you have Josh Allen. And you need to go for the win. It's week 17.

Yonis getting trade by the deadline? To where, though? That's what I'm saying. I don't know if that's going to happen. It feels like Milwaukee. I don't know how in tune Matt is with the, with the, this is another thing. I don't have the information. How in tune is Matt with the sixth man of the year race?

I mean, he does call all the Rockets games. Top three, I guess. I don't know Matt's frame of reference. I don't know if he knows who the favorites are for six men of the year. Matt, who's the favorite for six men of the year? Right now, it is a Nikiel Alexander Walker of the Atlanta Hawks. You must be Googling this. I did.

I'll go with I mean Ravens could win at Pittsburgh Texans could play at Baltimore Four seems just kind of blare Two seems bleh I'll go with two You don't believe that I think that

Reed Sheper are going to be a top three or six man in the year Okay What do you say, Jonathan? I'm going with the honest I'm going to four Okay I do believe

the Ravens will win in Pittsburgh on Sunday. Okay. I mean, you... Now, look, the Steelers have pulled off some big victories this year. But my God, Cleveland's terrible. You couldn't score in Cleveland at all? It's not about the defense. It's about the fact that Aaron Rogers can't move the ball down the field.

That's embarrassing. Sorry, Pittsburgh fan. I mean, 9 and 8 is just Mike Tom. Mike Toml with a bad quarterback going 9 and 8. Ravens are the better football team. They will win. In Pittsburgh, they'll play, and the Texans play the Ravens in Baltimore. What's the line on that bad boy?

I just care. I have not looked. All right. I'm going to get, let's guess. I'll say, uh, Ravens minus two and a half. Is Lamar supposed to play? I'm, I'm pulling it up. Oh, Ravens three and a half.

Pretty decent on the road. Three with a hook. Hmm. Next. Um, uh, let's see, which, oh, what, what do I believe? Uh, I do believe, sadly that Yana is going to be traded by the deadline. Sorry about that, John. Jonathan, your winning streak is over with it won.

I feel like Jake Myers right now, man. I think it's going to be a super, super busy trade deadline. Just like in the NFL, there's about 18 to think they can win the whole thing. Now, whether Oklahoma City will allow that or not, but the east is wide freaking open. San Antonio has done something to show that there is a chink in the armor of the Oklahoma City Thunder. I think he's going east. I think the east is a completely wide open, and I think Janice is going to move out of the middle. This is my thought

on me. Okay. The last one, boys. I do believe Reed Shepard is going to finish top three and six man of the year awards. You know what?

What? Here are the candidates. Nikiel Alexander Walker, Nas Reid, Anthony Black, the magic are going to fall out of but no one will know who he is. Jaime Hakez,

the heater going to finish eighth or ninth in the east. Reed Shepard is going to get a lot of national run and national TV games do affect these awards. Okay. I'll hold you to that one

It's fine Make fun of me if you want to I am not changing my tune Even though The pass was thrown poorly See you're still results They're already in thinking I almost went with one

No because here's the thing I almost went with one Momentum was on their side Philadelphia could not move the ball Momentum's on your side You can get two points You can get two yards But I don't want any game

To go down to one play How long is the momentum on your side And you're saying that argument means you should go for it because you can get two yards with Josh Allen. Just because you have momentum doesn't mean you can't be perfect momentum and perfect perfection are two different things. They literally just missed the extra point.

That's why they, that's why they were down one. They literally just missed an extra point. With Michael Badgley, their backup picker. Because they still had momentum. So I want to take the momentum. I want the big picture of the overtime over the small sample size of a missed extra point. What if you lose the coin flip and they go and score?

Then you don't have the momentum. No, you each team gets a chance out of time. I know you get the ball back, but then you haven't you? Momentum, I think, is totally overblown and overrated. So I'm just talking about your argument. In this particular case. If you have the momentum, then you lose the coin flip and the Eagles get the ball first and then score, didn't you lose all the momentum?

You say you have? Because that's more of a macro view. That is, you're thinking that you're going to allow Philadelphia to score when you didn't allow them to score in the second half? Like I said, I'm okay with the argument, but to say they had all the momentum, that means you go for it and get two yards, especially when your kicker just missed an extra point, and it's Michael Badgeley, your backup. I just hate for all that momentum to go for nothing when you, on one single play.

That's when you use the momentum. I'm not a, no. You got Josh Allen, you need two yards. I'm macro. Don't try to argue, Ross. I know, you're right. This is bad. You already have a term for this.

Wait a minute. Thomas Brain. Don't look at me. All right. Okay, Mr. Alarm clock. All right. Get them. I said audience.

Get them. Don't say you didn't say nothing when you said something. You know what you did? You pulled a Ross. Matt Thomas. No, and it's funny because all the guys on the Fox Postgame show said, what do you do? And I'm not using it.

It's a 50-50. It's 50-50. Really, you can argue either way. Of all the people on the set, the only person said go-for-two is Terry Bradshaw. Michael Strahan said, don't do it. How it long didn't say it. Rob Grunkowski didn't say.

I think if they got it, there would be a lot less. you may be right. There would be a lot less criticism. You go for it. You're also, it's, you're this late in the season. You haven't been moving the ball all game. It's rainy. Your kicker just missed the two points.

But Philadelphia hasn't moved the ball at all here. Your kicker just missed the extra point before. You have Josh Allen and you need two yards. Yeah, I don't understand. I understand. I just, I thought if I'm Philadelphia, I am really, really happy that I played as poorly as I did. I came up with one play.

and I was able to save the game where Buffalo dominated the second half of that contest except from the final play when it counted. That's tell the truth. Don't hate me. Too late.

We're going to do something and love. Oh, we got to talk about Rich Eisen when we come back. Richard Eisen. I'm going to be careful when I do the analysis on this. 1143 on Sports Talk 790.

48. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Hope you guys are enjoying. And ladies, a nice off week. It feels like, again, traffic was minimal. If you're working, go tell your, ask your bosses why you are. Secondly, you deserve some extra time off. Maybe a little bit of a bonus hourly wage increase on this, whatever the case may be. All right, we have the news at noon coming up in 10 minutes from now.

We'll have our D of the year nominees will announce at 1230 here today on the show. And the best, believe or not, at 150. All right, Rossi. Rich Eisen, a remarkably successful career. Long time at ESPN, long time at NFL network, long time radio hosts, not my cup of tea. In the I heart family? No. Oh, ESPN family.

No, no, no, long gone from that. Oh, sorry. That's okay. And I would, even if he was, I mean, we have crappy hosts and Premier family. I mean, we had that horrific odd couple show that we've run. And then Ben Mowler is a disgrace, but that's a different issue of a different time. So, bottom line is this. He has a wonderful national, big-time career.

And he's worked at the NFL for a long period of time. And the NFL a handful of years ago, remember starting carrying some NFL games. And they'd let him do the play-by-play with Kurt Warner, who I think Kurt Warner's very good. Kurt Warner does the Westwood won radio games with Kevin Harlan and Monday nights. And they have a good combination. They really work well. And I think Kurt Warner's an excellent. analyst.

Rich Eisen is an apply-by-a-play guy. And there are a lot of things that you have to determine in your life. You can be a great salesperson, but you may not be a great sales manager. Yes. You might be a good accountant, but you're not going to go out on the oil fields with the guys and complete the task. For instance, I'll give you an example of my broadcast career. I think I'm a pretty good talk show I've been able to do it for a long time

I think I'm a pretty good play by play guy I've been in the NBA 10 years in college for on top of this about 25 I am not a good analyst I've been in the analyst chair a handful of times and I suck at it

it's not I don't I am more about the meat and potatoes not how it was cooked okay wow that's pretty good right it's not bad but you get my drift

you are a little more analytical than I am yes I don't, I've never tried play by play. But for instance, I don't think I would be great at it. Yeah. Because you have, you need more attention to detail, let's say, that I have. That probably ends a conversation right there.

So, but, go ahead. So if I was asked to do color analysis on a basketball, football, or baseball game, I would not be very good at it. I could, I've done it before. And, you know, if you pinch any, but I, to do a full-time analyst would not be where my strength would be as a broadcaster. Now, I can analyze enough things to have conversation in the show, but if you watch, you know, like Tom Brady's improved, if you see, you know, Kirk Herbstry, they're dialing up where the blitzes are coming and the cover twos and the, all the minutia of having played the game. And I think to be an analyst and not play the game puts you at a severe disadvantage. I mean, there's some guys that can't do it, but most people that are analysts have played the game at some point in their life. So with that being said

Rich Eisen is an excellent studio host His talk show to me is more about celebrities And it is about sports And interviews and interviews And that to me Seems like a good interviewer Yeah It's a lot of people

Again he is That's his forte He was getting annihilated And it wasn't just from Houston fans I went and looked at Rich Eisen on Twitter Oh no well Oh social media Was crushing somebody

We don't Let me tell you We don't we don't crush Kevin Berkart, we don't crush Mike Tarrico, we don't crush Mike Brin small amounts. I mean, nobody's immune from crushed being crushed. Adam Clinton hates Mike Brin. But Adam Clinton hates everybody. That's true.

My point is this. There are fans across the country, like, get Rich Eisen off my television. He is NFL. If I say he's NFL replacement level, what would you say to that? He's not terrible, but he misses small things. I noticed a couple of times, for example, Woody Marks would get a little bottled up

and he would call it as a one or two yard run and then he would run, but it looked like he would see kind of the end of the play and he'd start looking down at his board to try and, I don't know, find out who made the tackle or he was maybe checking with his spotter or something. He wasn't keeping his eyes on the action.

There was a couple times where he missed things that were, like he didn't finish the call. of the play a few times, like where he just wasn't, he just wasn't all there. And here's the thing, it's not a one-off for him. He does five or six games a year. So you would think, and maybe it's the, he doesn't have a play-by-play voice, which is part of the requirement. It just is what it is.

Either you have the voice or you don't. You're giving it to you by God or whomever or cigarettes. I don't think he's replacement level. I think he's worse. He's, it's, he's the worst play caller. in the NFL. Wow. And he was calling a really big game between two playoff teams.

It was given a prime spot. I mean, the NFL network got to choose the two games they want. The NFL scheduled it for a reason. They put that game on because they wanted people to see it. Lots of people across the country. I thought it was a disservice. Oh, wow. I just didn't think it was very good.

I think it was that bad, but also, yeah, he's not good. I mean, like I said, replacement level. He's at the Mendezza. Let's give a baseball example. He's, well, it's a playoff game, and you go get Scott Van Pelt to do a play-by-play. Scott's an excellent sports center host. Scott is an excellent interviewer. Oh, okay.

His play-by-play probably is a little bit desired. I thought you were going to say he's the Nick Allen of broadcasting. I thought we were going to go that way. Who's Nick Allen? The guy the Astros traded for from Marisa or Dubai. Oh, my. I don't even know who that is. It's fine.

It is fine. It was just a real tough watch. It was like a backup replacement level. Like Billy Spires. But it's December, Rossi. I understand. It's the playoff games. Yeah, you want better.

You could have plucked anybody from either one of the two networks because other networks, Fox has given NFL to NFL network. But also NFL networks probably, I mean, they've been shedding payroll, especially since ESPN got them. So, I mean, they're probably not looking to cut extra checks. I don't know. Make rich eyes and do it. I mean, but Rich Eisen ain't doing it for his health, is he?

I mean, I would think he wouldn't be. I don't know if it's in his deal. I don't know what it's, I haven't checked his contract. And remember again, this is, I don't want this to come across. Well, Matt, you'd love to have his job. Of course I would love to have his job. Yeah, Matt, jealous. Yeah, this is about pleasing to the ears.

Yeah, he's not very good. And I just thought it was, I thought it was a miss by the NFL Network. Like Spiro Detus didn't work this weekend because NFL and CBS and only had a handful of games. Case and point, we got a week off from the AFC South. Yeah, there were four games on CBS this week. Two of them were really awesome. Yeah, you sucked. I mean, you had three Christmas games, two Saturday games, and you have a Monday night game.

You had Kevin Harlan and Trent Green doing the Giants or Raiders game. I mean, those poor men. Now, granted, they're making millions of dollars, but that's not what they deserve this late in the season. Pretty rough. All right. We had a lovely day in the city of Houston. Yes, we did. We had the Texans.

We had the Cougars. We had the Rockets. We'll play that. Plus the news at noon next 1157 on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Yes. Oh, a lovely day, sports RV. Chris Gordy's Cougars winning.

Yes, congratulations to the Cougars. Battle Red Ross's Texans won. Seasoning Bowl. Seasoning Bowl champions. Texas Bowl. Well, the king of the lone star state? I don't think so. It says Texas Bowl.

If you're a Texas Bowl champion, you are a Texas. Two teams in Texas made the playoff. Yeah, one only scored a field goal. And one's got a grumpy player. Probably a few more grumpy ones, too. Especially if you didn't play. All right, it is 12.4 on Sports Talk 7 and 8. I'm kind of anxious to see, well, you guys,

remember, you guys get votes for D of the Year. That's coming up at the bottom of the arrow. Who are the nominees? You'll find out in 25 minutes. Okay. Can you hear that sounder? It's been a while. D of the year.

Now, normally I'm out for D around this time of year for D of the year voting. You know what you guys are going to be able to do? I will put it on the Twitter. Jonathan, you and Ross should be the first two that get to vote. Okay, great. Kind of said an early trend. Sure, why. There are four nominees.

Oh, really? Three of the four are sports-related. When do you put? When are we posting these? 12.30. Okay. Well, now it's them first, and I'll put them on Twitter after that. Wonderful.

All right. Let's get to the news at noon, please. And with that, at 1205, Sports Talk 790, we present. A little is that noon? Yes, Matthew. Well, you mentioned it was a lovely day on Saturday. The Houston Texans getting the victory over the Los Angeles Chargers. Now, got a little close.

back-to-back long touchdowns on the opening two drives. You get up 14-0-0, then you could only muster three points in the third quarter, three points in the fourth quarter, but the defense held on for the Houston Texans. They have won eight games in a row. They are 11 and 5, clinching a playoff spot. And Matt, I was asked this over the weekend on the Twitterverse. I'll discuss this further, too, by the way. If Domingo Rines is the greatest coach in Texan's history, we will discuss later on.

Just go ahead and marinate on that, folks. We're going to do that next segment, matter of fact. Okay, great. C.J. Stroud, 16 of 28, 244 yards, a couple of touchdowns, but a couple of really bad picks. Total QBR with 100 being perfect, 50 being average. He was 52.4, so just above average by that metric. Woody Marks, I'm sorry, Matt. I'm sticking with my gut feeling from last week.

He's not going to be R.B.1 next year. He's kind of just a guy. I know I'm not getting a whole lot of help from the offensive line. There should not be a single running back that thinks they should be buying a property in Houston, Texas. But I will also say this to the Texans fans who are angry about these wins. They've won eight in a row. Shut your bum ass up. Who's angry? Describe who angry fan is.

There's literally people who are tweeting me. I was like fighting with people on Twitter like, this offense is terrible. They should be embarrassed. We took a call. Ray in Miami, said Nick Casario, what did he say? Oh, no, and actually said Nick Chubb needs to give his page. paycheck back. Like, all right, relax. People are crushing Nick Casario. It's fine. It's not great. Could be better. But yeah, if they had a dominant offense, we'd be talking about an all-time great team. They're not an all-time great team. But you know what? Nobody's an all-time

great team right now this year in the NFL. Maybe over there on the NFC side, but you're only going to have to play one of them if you can make it out of the AFC. You've beaten the bills. You've beaten the Colts before Daniel Jones went down. Beaten the Chiefs before Pat Mahomes went down. You've beaten the Jaguars on this winning streak with Daniel Joan. I mean, with Davis Mills. So, I know I'm not going to be here tomorrow or the rest of the week. I just shut your bum ass up. All you angry, people are acting angry about the Texans winning.

But I digress. Rockets also got a victory over the, who did they play on Saturday? The Cleveland Cavaliers. Cavaliers are so mid right now. 100 to 17 to 100. Got a big game from Kevin Durant. Didn't even play in the fourth quarter. I think the only start is to play the first quarter.

I think the only start is to play. the fourth or maybe Atari and a men. A men played, yep. So you got, you took care of business against the Cleveland Cavaliers, no letdowns. I was a little worried because they were on the road for six, then came home, only had the one day off, and then you're at the Toyota Center again, even though you're at home, you're still pretty row-wear. I wasn't worried about you at all, and your private jet and your five-diamen accommodations.

They were also in those same situations. They're all, yeah, but they also work out and play 48 minutes. You don't do any of that. That's true. You just sit there for a 48-minute walk. I mean, you walk down and get halftime population. But, I mean, that's not tiring you out too much. By the way, Rockets and Pacers played tonight.

Rick Carlisle will try for his ninth straight game to win his 1,000th NBA game. He is 999 and 886 in 24 NBA seasons. Truly one of the grumpiest human beings alive. Was he named to one of the 15 best coaches of all time? He's probably close. You keep going on the news. No, I'll keep going on this. Marcus Freeman back with Notre Dame.

I'm going to imagine there will be an announcement with a fresh contract here, but the only news now, Marcus Freeman tweeting, I'm back, go Irish. So there had been a lot of talk about him possibly becoming the New York Giants head coach. He said, I'm good. Imagine he got a big

raise. Marcus Freeman staying with the Notre Dame firing Irish. I would say I'm a little bit surprised because we talked about how difficult that job is a long term. Also, I mean NFL jobs now. Sure, the pressure is probably higher, but I mean, is it that much higher than being at Notre Dame?

You don't have to deal with the portal. You don't have to deal with transfers. You don't have to deal with recruiting. You don't have to deal with boosters. You don't have to deal with any of that. But Marcus Freeman tweeting 2026, run it back, go Irish. All right. So he is not on that list.

Okay. I want to see, we got any more news before I do this? Yeah, one more. A couple more things, actually. Yeah, go ahead. Anthony Joshua, you know, he was in that big five. with Jake Paul last week, knocked him out. Sad news.

He was in Nigeria and he was in a car crash and his personal trainer and his workout coach died. Jake Pauls? Anthony Joshua. Oh, Andrew Joshua. Okay, yeah. Anthony Joshua, who won that fight was in Nigeria in a Lexus SUV and apparently there was a

blowout of a tire and the vehicle hit a non-moving work truck. Two people dead. Anthony Joshua injured but going to be okay. but yeah just unfortunate in accident in Nigeria so there you go

there's some sad news there unfortunately but it is the news at noon we bring you the news no matter what it is yep one more quick thing man before you get to your thing Kawhi Leonard dropping a career high 55

I thought he couldn't move are the clippers gonna be good now the clippers think they've won four in a row when Derek Jones comes back from injury they can make a playoff push they've won four in a row

Kawhi Leonard went off for 41 against the rockets and then now 55 against a good Pistons physical defensive team. Yep. Something to keep an eye on in the western conference. I hope not. I'm not going to keep an eye on them at all. As your rockets are in the five seed currently in the west. Go ahead, Matthew. All right.

So let's say how you do on your top 15 coaches of all time. You're a pretty good historian. You're going to name them all? Trying to see how many you can get. I'm not expecting you all 50. Let's start with Red Hourback and Phil Jackson. Check and check. Lenny Wilkins. Yes. Eric Spolstra's in there. Yes.

You got to have Pat Riley in there Greg Popovich Hold on, slow down Pat Riley is in there Greg Popovich is in there Okay There's one you're not going to get Under any circumstance

Maybe even Jack Ramsey Jack Ramsey is in there You got seven I'm proud of you Oh Jesus I don't know Let's throw a

Let's throw a Bill Fitch in there Bill Fitch not in there um i said him so rick carlyne carlyle is not in it oh donnie nelson don nelson is in there that's eight rick addleman

rick adleman not in there at strike two when we get strike three we'll end um i said did you did i say bill fitch yes you did okay he's in there he's always strike okay uh I said Phil Jackson.

Mm-hmm. I don't know. Just give me the ones. Okay, here's a little. You got 8 of the 15. That's not bad at all. You got Aubach. You got Jackson.

You got Nelson. You got Popovich. You got Ramsey. You got Riley. And you got Spolster and Wilkins. Here's the ones that you miss. You miss seven of them. Larry Brown.

Duh. Chuck Daly. Yeah, I guess I should have got that. Red Holesman. That's one you were not going to get. Don't know that, brother. The Chicago Bulls, I want to say. I'm wishing him the best.

Casey Jones? I wouldn't have got that one. Doc Rivers. You know what? I read that last week. I should have known that, even though I don't think he deserves it. And the last one, Jerry Sloan. Yeah, Jerry Sloan was a good one too.

So there you go. I mean, if I had time, I could have fleshed it out. Let me tell you. But it's live radio. Again, for doing a live radio, and I don't expect much of me, you gave me better than 50%. There you go. Thank you. All right, that is the news at noon.

Bottom of the hour, we make our grandiose announcements about who, the D of the year candidates are D of the year. I love it. I love it. It's probably play it like two times in December 30th and 31st and we don't work on January 1st. All right. Up next. Or second?

Or second. You and I are this our last show together of the year. Bye. I'm working tomorrow. You are not. I'll have Ryan Hollins with me for a couple of hours tomorrow. I'm excited about that. You guys going Habachi? Or are you waiting for me? Wait for me and my brother Kyle Tucker. Kyle can't afford to you. I don't have

McCondry. I'm not getting paid right now. Not being paid right now. The penetration number was pretty good. All right, up next, the question that Ross was posed on Twitter, we'll discuss it next. It involves Domingo Ryan's 1214 on Sports Talk 790. Matt and Ross with you, and we've got the D of the Year nominees coming up at the bottom of the hour. By the way, John, we need some, like, some Academy Award music.

If you want to go look on the YouTube and see what's going on, just five, six minutes of, award music we'll have the nominees and of course we'll not name the winner of the day of the year because you guys through the vote will make that up coming up at the bottom of the hour all right rossi so you got a question on twitter that is intriguing to me that i believe could give you multiple answers it'd be one of those good debate points and i always tell you as a minor in speech communication at the university of houston that a good debate means one you can take either side and win that is true uh yes i was asked after the texans won on saturday again against the Los Angeles Chargers and clinched a playoff spot is D'emico Ryan's the greatest head coach in Texans history. All right, so you have to decide between

postseason success which nobody's had any. Length of job. Which is Domingo is the shortest. Biggest accomplishment and biggest blemish. Meaning, if you were, like if you were Jack Pardy

and you were on the field coaching that game you lost Buffalo Bills, you can't, you'll never be named the greatest orders coach in all time because of that. So there hasn't been a blunder so bad in Domingo's career. The biggest thing that hurts Domingo is the lack of time on the field, three years, three championships. And at this point, no AFC championship game. Now, that could obviously change this year.

It's a battle between for me, Coupiac Because the end of the Bill O'Brien era included Well, also the end of frankly of Gary was the same way A lot of losses

A lot of questioning of who was running things Bill O'Brien was a certainly MFer and he still is a certainly MFER to this day He brought Jack Easterby into the fold Yeah I mean we were talking about on the field though Yeah we're not talking about the general manager skills Or the people around We're talking about just the game day.

I mean, because look, D'Amico has his flaws, too. I think he's terrible with his timeouts. He's not great in the two-minute drill. He's lousy on his challenges. But that's really the case of any coach has been with the Texans. All right. Let me, I guess you can lay out the resumes. Gary Kubiak, under 500, 61 and 64, two AFC South championships, two and two in the playoffs.

Now, he did also take over for Dom Capers. Dom Capers, who was building up an expansion. So would have DiMico had as good of a record or had a better record than Gary did in those early years. Don't know that. We'll never know. Continue. And then Bill O'Brien, four AFC South championships, but two and four in the playoffs, 52 and 48 in 100 games. so he's got the most win percentage.

He's got two AFC South championships and he's probably not getting a third but he is making the playoffs for a third season. So four playoff berths with four AFC South championships for Bill O'Brien. I guess he's the standard. I'm going to go off of, there's nobody in front of Domingo

that has a sizable lead off of anything in that the biggest blemish against Domeco is the fact he's not done it long enough I'll just say three years, three titles his win percentage

in terms of going to the playoffs is 100%. That's hard to beat. And again, it's not like Domeco and Bill O'Brien have this awesome resume that says,

wait a minute, hold on a second. I will say Domeco Ryan's is the greatest coach in Texas history. With that being said, if Domeico was all of a sudden

say, I'm quitting tomorrow in a year from now, a one-year coach, comes in and takes the Texans to an AFC championship, he would be supplanted as a coach. The first coach that takes the Texans, the AFC title game will be the best coach in Texans history.

I'd forgotten about the Romeo Cronnell era. Or, what's his name? David Cully. Then Lovie Smith. Yeah, who's the worst coach in Texans history? Oh, David Culley, by far. Even though he won four games, Lovie Smith, only won three. Doesn't

count. With a tie. Tie against the Colts, right? Holly was never supposed to be an NFL head coach. What has he been doing since? Collecting in Texans' paychecks. Hannah is not happy. He has not had a coaching job since being the head coach of the Texas. And never will.

He's done. He just went retired. Yeah. D'Amico Ryans is the greatest coach in Texas history. It's close. I agree. I agree. Best win percentage.

About to have three playoff bursts, only short of Bill O'Brien. Those are really bad divisions. He was winning at 9 and 7 and going 9 and 7 every single year. Oh, and by the way, the only slide about D'Amico is he's the king, and every coach does this, so he's not in the same category. But he's in a similar category. He talks about all the adversity they had.

You know, the university, you created that adversity. You went to in 3. That's adversity. Yeah, they had some adversity, though. They've not had Joe mixing all year long. Offensive line has been terrible. His fault, their fault. They've only had one, they've only had one.

They started off with one good past catcher being Nico Collins. Their fault. Dalton Schultz has been good. Jason Higgins and Jalen Noel have been developed. Yeah. It's not adversity. It's just some adversity. No, I disagree.

100% disagree. They've had a bunch of guys hurt along the offensive line. As has most teams in the NFL. Yeah, so they overcame some adversity, Matt. You start 0 and 3 and you go 11 and 5? Who created the O and 3? Did the NFL hand them three losses? They didn't.

Yes, they did. Yeah. They play the three games and they lost them. create your own adversity. I can become a recovering alcoholic. It's my fault. I'm an alcoholic, but that doesn't mean I didn't overcome adversity. I'm done with...

You know what? I hate adversity. Adversity is being dealt a bad hand. Nobody dealt them any hand. You can deal yourself a bad hand too and overcome. Absolutely. I think adversity is a way overused term. Everybody in their mother uses it.

So I'll say, he's not the only one. I know the term doesn't... You don't like it. It sticks in, you crawl. It does, and I could be wrong about it. They were three and five. I doubted they were making the playoffs. You declared they weren't making the playoffs.

Yeah. And they made it. You know what they did? I'll give you the fairer term. They created obstacles and they overcame them. They overcame some obstacles. Some self-created, some not. It's not their fault.

Joe Mixon did whatever the hell he did. But they didn't address it. That's their fault for that. With what? They could have. They drafted a running back and then they signed a veteran. I don't know. I mean, I guess they could have traded for...

They could have gotten what's his face out of the Jets. Breece Hall? Clearly, they wanted like a third round pick for a rental. Again, I'm not bringing, but I'm saying that they probably had a better feel for the mixing situation than they were willing to tell us. Most teams tend to hide injuries until they have to report them. Again, I'm not even saying Joe Mixon is the obstacle. O and three is you critical. and three. If you go

3-0, there wouldn't have been an obstacle. In fact, if you'd have gone 3-0, you'd have been never once seen the AFC. Now they're 11 and 5. All 5 of their losses are by one score. They created hurdles and they jumped over them. They were Edmund Moses. Good for him. Them. I mean, those losses were to the Ramp, Buccaneers are still alive in the

NFC South. Rams are one of the best teams in football. Yep. And what's the third one? The Jaguars, who have 12 wins. But suck. We don't believe in them. They don't suck. their average. Okay, you can, they have 12 wins. That's pretty

solid. That's pretty good. They were down two scores, the Colts too on Sunday. They won. And they destroyed the Broncos on the road. Maybe we're just not giving the Jacksonville Jaguars their flowers. Well, we'll see come playoff time. And that's the beauty of the NFL playoffs. If you want to hate, you can hate

on every single team and you're going to be right about every single team except one. That's right. All right, up next the grandiose announcement of the D of the year candidates. Okay. And we'll go to Scott, who wants to talk about the Texans in the playoffs. We'll get that to 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

The D-of-the-year candidates are up next. The D of the Year. That's right, right here on 790. Oh, what a glorious day it is in the city of Houston. Too cold for me, but that's a different issue for a different time. You're a whiner. I know. But I'm also the man that's here to present to you.

the class of 2025 D of the year candidate. D of the year. Voting will begin in a manner of moments. Rossi? Not making the list on D of the year, but was under careful consideration. Chonsie Billups. Did that make D of the year? Why not? Just there's only spots for four.

It seems like a good qualify, but. You know, there's always one left out that people get all upset about. Chauncey Billups did not make D of the year But was it close Damon Jones also did not make D of the year The four candidates for D of the Year Three of which are sports related One is not

In no particular order Rossi our first nominee for D of the year is The Athletic Director at Notre Dame Pete of Aqua bitching and moaning about not being the playoffs taking his team out of the bowls, then holding a... How long was it?

Is the press coverage still going on, Jonathan, right now? I think it's still going. I think I can still hear something a little bit. Man, you, my friend, are definitely a D of the Year candidate. D of the Year. Our second nominee of the day of the year, and by the way, you can only vote through my Twitter account, and that'll be up in just a matter of seconds,

at SportsMT on the Twitterverse. The former head coach of the... University of Michigan. Sharon Moore. Not only was he having a little extracurricular affair. He was DMing OnlyFans girls, wanted multiple three ways and four ways of women in for tickets. Hey, what's wrong with that?

And when he got fired, he goes to the woman's house and threatens to kill himself and her. Jeez, that's a little much. You, Sharon, are a D of the Year, candidate. D of the Year. candidate number three in our last sports one he will be coaching the Louisiana State University Tigers the way he left

as he has done with other cities and other colleges over the years and the way he has circumvented in the media put him in a 360 move moving around saying this saying that basically what was he lying Ross about there was no communication between him and LSU

just everything he didn't look at the contract didn't look at the contract didn't even say for the whole game for his lSU tigers everything about lane kevin just says d isn't it not i know somebody who's disagreeing i know gordon is a rule of all fell so what you say no let kevin go we'll take a dollar now you know jimmy or she up now man i don't i can lafayette lafayette's more than kiffin you don't say lane keffin you are d of the year at candidates. D of the year. And our non-D-of-the-year candidate is actually two people in one.

We salute. Non-sports. Non-sports. Any idea? I don't know. We talked about it for about a month on the show. Maybe give or take. The Cold Play Couple.

Oh, okay. Because one wanted me, They both got named D's. Yeah. One gave, one received. And one hugged it out until they got in the gymbo trine at Jolet Stadium. They are candidates

for the D of the year. D of the year. So once again, your four finalist. Pete Babacqua, Notre Dame Methodic Director, Sharon Moore at Michigan, Lane Kiff in the way he left, the Coldplay couple.

Which one of those four? will be D of the year. I think it's a pretty easy decision for me, Matthew. Yeah, you and John, I get the votes. Let's go. Let's get you guys in there. I mean, Pete Bavakwa is certainly up there. I mean, what a D. Taking your ball and going home. Look, Coldplay couple. We had a nickel for every CEO that was cheating on his wife.

We'd probably have a lot of nickels. But it's not a fashion they did, though. They definitely shouldn't have been together at the Coldplay concert, getting caught. Yeah, I understand why they're in there. Lane Kiffin, I mean, sure, he's a liar, and he's probably a bad person, but that comes with the territory. Makes him a D. It's got to be Sharon Moore, because not only were you cheating,

you're literally thirsting over dozens of girls on Instagram. They're all airing out your dirty laundry. You're offering tickets for foursums, and then you put a butter knife, then you put a butter knife to your throat talking about how you're going to kill them. yourself for this girl all she did was tell the truth Cheryl Moore you sir are D of the year D of the year

All right Jonathan the floor is yours what are you going with I don't know man I I gotta stay with it I think my gut is the Co-play couple man I'm not gonna lie as two families you broke up they were openly on a balcony and they didn't really care when I got caught they were just okay like no one can see

what's gonna happen really ran away a little bit Sean Moore I feel like you know the same way you said if we had a nickel for every CEO was cheating we had a nickel for every head coach that was somebody else That's true

You know what I'm saying Yeah but then putting a knife to his throat Butterknife was a real knife Well I heard it was butter knife It was a butter knife and then it was Kitchen scissors Jeez Yeah like he's making pork cutlets

Is he putting batter on? I forget it It's going on the wrong road all right hey no one every vote counts my friends every vote counts so far cold play couple is winning it's early all right i got my vote in you did let's take a look here at the old vote count all right so so far we have uh eight votes in chiron more 50 percent which means four i've figured that out you of h math the cold play couple is second and bavacua and kiffin are tied for third you have 25 hours to vote. Make your vote count. Retweet this. Let's get a nice survey going, a good sample size

of who, indeed, is the 2025 D of the year. D of the year. And I believe what D of the year last year was Jim Slausenegro. Correct? Yeah. It should have won. And the year before that, it was Amy Crunk-strunk. Oh, is that true? You know? I forget. We got to get these plaques up on the wall. we do I think this is a really tough class here I think it's easy one guy's out there threatening lives

it's a little much but a butter knife though yeah that's true and it probably makes it worse what are you doing Sharon come on now all right so again if you would like to vote

for the year let your voice be heard at SportsMT as my Twitter account and we have until about 1.30 tomorrow before we announce who the D of the Year is. Pete of Aqua,

Sharon Moore, Lane Kiffin, the Coldplay couple. Lane Kevin making a little bit of a charge here in the last few minutes. And that was the D of the Year's. D of the Year. I don't think I missed anybody.

Again, you could go Chauncey Billups, you can go Damon Jones. You can go anybody that's been cheating on sports and gambling. There's a lot of... You could have done, O'Brien. How he's up with the reporter.

Bill O'Brien. Yeah, but he's like a, he's like a Tuesday for him. Yeah, I was going to say, that's normal deactivate attitude there. Okay. The best of believe or not today is at 150, looking forward to that. 10 of our best questions, or Ross's best questions of the year, we'll be giving those away. We've got a quick time out. We'll talk to Roger and Scott.

We come back. Our time is 1242. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. 12-42. here on Sports Talk 790. Let's talk to the great people of Houston, Texas, 1246. It is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross.

Early Happy New Year. By the way, the ruling is usually you have any day from New Year's Day to three weeks after to wish Happy New Year. I have consistently gone into mid-February to late March, and I'm going to continue to do that, just to kind of buck the trend. Why? Because I just want to shake things up a little bit. Okay. Yeah. It's not often here May 9th. Happy New Year.

Still got plenty left in the year. Seven plus months. It's not a new year, though. Happy year? Happy time? Yes. Sure, why not? Season's greetings.

Scott and River Oaks on, the 790. Hello, Scott. Matt Ross, what's going on, guys? Happy holidays. Happy new year. Thank you. I enjoyed y'all's D of the year conversation. You don't have to ask me who my vote is for.

of course it's for for lane kiffin but you know uh he one day will probably should be up for a lifetime achievement award for the deed the year for all of his uh career career arcing moves but it's it's kind of you know when you look at the list you just put together in all seriousness it's actually kind of a sad state of affairs that three out of the four people on the list are multi are paid multi millions of dollars a years to be leaders for college to age student athletes at that level and that's the type of behavior that they that they find themselves in in that sport all the time which is really a sad thing altogether but uh i called to talk about the texans a little bit and wanted to just kind of share my thoughts looking forward to

the playoffs i know there's ross i'd saw i follow you on instagram ross and i saw you posted like a glass half full glass half empty thing where you talked about you know yeah we've won eight in a row one way to look at it and the other way to look at it is our offense is very good and it's it's kind of true i mean i think there is two ways to look at it going forward i think this team is very capable of making the super bowl with the way the landscape of the afc is set up right now however we i think it's important that we're clear on how it is we're going to get there this offense is not capable of fighting but if there's any slip-up of ball in the playoffs from our defense for example if we face josh allen again and

and he finds a way to put up four touchdowns on our defense. I don't think our offense is capable of responding. So the way I look at it, I mean, our defense has been so spectacular. It's almost like they're in the fifth inning, or they maybe just completed the fifth inning of a no-hitter right now. And it's a one-to-nothing game, and we have four innings to go to get the game to ultimately reach where we want to go. I don't think our offense is capable of getting there.

I think they've proven who they are to this point, And the last thing I'll say on it, too, long term, you know, I think that, look, we're having a great season. We're a great team. I don't want, this isn't the time to focus on this maybe. But, man, like, are we really going to have to pay Stroud a whole bunch of money? I mean, you know, I know he's a solid quarterback, but yesterday was the first time where I watched a game, even though he's been the worst quarterback on the field before where I was like, this guy's not on the same levels as Justin Herbert. I mean, there really wasn't a close comparison between the two players.

But like I said, to recap it, I mean, I think our defense is capable of carrying us to the Super Bowl. But that is the way we're going to have to win. Our defense doesn't have to carry us. Scott, great thoughts. Remember, don't forget to follow Instagram at SportsMT. Don't forget that one either. No, he said sports RV. He said he follows me.

Come on. Let's go, Scott. You can block some. Great call him, except for that one part. You didn't mention my account. But thank you. Oh, somebody who's already mad. You've got them blocked you. No, you don't have to.

You're fine. Thank you, Scott. I mean, Ross, you and I have kind of gone back and forth with it. I generally agree with what you've said about paying Stroud, but there's natural hesitation. I get it. I'm not saying he's some no doubt about it. I'm not saying that. And people are a little concerned because in the right world, which the Texan still living,

you can pay Will Anderson top value and C.J. Strat. But something would have to suffer. What would that be? we don't know we're not doing we're not constructing the roster we're not figuring out what the priorities are what can you live with on the offensive line what can you live with in the line backing core what can you live with paying a second and third receiver if you're going to pay two of the top three picks right what their fair market value is that's a lot for one team to have to go through to live with yeah i i think i mean we'll see they don't have to do everything

immediately. I don't think with either of them. Stroud has another year. No, but you would assume that both of them are going to need to be paid around the same time. You would want to. Yeah, you don't want a holdout situation. I understand that. And I mean, DeNeil Hunter's making big money. You pay Jalen Petrie. Nico Collins is on

a good deal, but it's a team-friendly deal for what his value is. Is he going to want more money? And that's just the way it goes. That's why the NFL is the window closes immediately. Ask the Kansas City Chiefs how that window is looking for them right now. I mean, It asks the Detroit Lions

how their window is looking right now So you have to strike while the iron is hot And unfortunately it's hard to get everything going at the same time That's why it's so hard And that's why there's so much parity in the NFL So yes The defense is great And you do have Hunter and Anderson right now

And Stingley playing well And Camarie Lasseter's on a rookie deal He's going to want some money eventually So you have to take advantage And this offense needs to be good enough But they've got no run game And the offensive line is in Chambles So, and I think all of that goes hand in hand.

Yes, C.J. Stroud's struggling. Would he be better with a perfect offensive line and a great running game? Absolutely. But he's got to overcome. Of those two interceptions he threw? One was a tip. Yes. One was just a portable.

He was completely lost in where the defense was, as far as the zone they were in. And I believe every interception he's thrown this year has been when the opposing defense has been in zone. So that's something that he's been struggling with all year long. And that's on tape. And that is something that every team is kind of taken advantage of. Good phone call there. Let's go. Remember, follow me on Instagram at SportsMT.

If you did not give your lady a special gift this year, tell her. It's a free gift. Follow me on Instagram at SportsMT. You're asking people for their woman to follow you on Instagram? Yes. Or for that matter, you make it a family affair. How the entire family does it's a family package. It's all free.

All of it. Follow sports. MT. Thank you. And make him happy. Roger, you're on 790 at 1253. Hello, Roger. Yeah, good evening. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Yeah, I got to comment off that take. Definitely the Michigan coach, for sure, that's my pick.

Also, yesterday's game, you know, I didn't, I forgot that shot even had that still in his bag with that long, the long passes. The last time we saw that was what the Cleveland game, the playoff game with Flacco, when he threw one of Nico Collins. I think of the last time I saw that. So, yeah, they start off fast, and then they just fizzled down the stretch. And then, you know, it's a good thing we brought to talk about D in the year, because Strong looks like he's got a little D inside him as well as far as the attitude. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, excuse me? Did you mean it that way?

No, you did not. Okay. The passive-aggressive comments on the interview, on the post-game interview, I'm not necessarily indirectly speaking to his office and coordinator. Oh, I know, you know what? Keep the gas on. Keep the gas on and blah, blah, blah. But, you know, if you're going to, we're going to paint with strokes, I think.

You need to pray it with a broad stroke of paintbrush and put yourself included and then own up to your own agatequism during that same interview. That way you're not, you know, leaving this, you know, this question of why is he, you know, talking to negatively about his OC when he pretty much had the other one fired as well. You know, you don't need that kind of negative going into a playoff run. When the team is pretty

good and you got a historical defense. You just kind of like need to not do that. And I'm hoping if DeNico can see that, you know, just kind of like, you know, knit that in the book. And then on the other end, about the O'SH, I'm like, hey, he's going to rip me like that?

Then I'm going to rip his ass on the film study and tell him what the hell was that going to ask? time with that crazy throw. So, yeah, it can be tip or tab, but really stuff that we don't need to be having during this time, this point of the season moving forward. And on the Rockets, yeah, they kind of talk right off the ledge over those two nice wins, man.

I just, you know, I was gripping on the watch. They've got to have my Rockets have a good. Thanks, Roger for the phone call. Thank you, buddy. Have it good. Happy New Year. Dan played this on, it's CJ1, boys, if you want to play this here. Dan thought there was a little bit of shade thrown.

I didn't see it that. hear it that way. I haven't heard this. Here is C.J. talking about keeping the foot on the gas pedal at all times. They're playing too high shale. They're trying to take away your best guy, so we kind of knew that. And, you know, came up

with some good plays and designed some good plays just to pick on that. And, you know, we've got to keep that going. You know, it can't just be in the first quarter. You know, it got to be throughout the whole game. So, you know, something we can learn from is, you know, is just keeping the the gas on and making sure, you know, we're still calling it. I'm taking care of the ball, and, you know, we're moving forward. Okay.

I was going to say no, but you change your mind. Then he said calling it, right? At the end there? Can we listen to this? At the end, at the end, he says he's going to keep calling it. Didn't he say that? They're playing too high shell. You know, they're trying to, you know, take away your best guy.

So we kind of knew that. And, you know, came up with some good plays and designed some good plays, just to pick on that. And, you know, we've got to keep that going. You know, it can just be in the first quarter. You know, I've got to be throughout the whole game. So then something we can learn from is, you know, it was just keeping the gas on and making sure, you know, we're still. calling it. I'm taking care of the ball.

And, you know, we're moving forward. Is that what he says? We're still calling it? Does he say that? Again, not that my interpretation is better or worse than yours. I don't take it as that. I'm telling you, it all sounds very good, QB speak. We've got to keep the foot on the gas until he does he say, I think he says, we got to keep on calling it.

When he says calling it, I think he's talking about as a team. Call on the play. He's going to keep calling them. aggressive plays hmm can't just be in the first quarter a beard scratcher by the way I got shaved the other day

so I'm not scratching as much I don't know maybe I'm being naive to me I thought when it's calling meaning coaching staff us getting out there and doing it I don't

take it as well I wish we just we put that back in our in our bag and we don't use that club again I don't know, but maybe I'm wrong. I mean, Dan clearly thought of it. If you and Dan think the same way, that's good for you. That's good for you. As again, I looked at every drive after the first two touchdowns.

The first drive was a four-yard pass. I know. Literally, every drive afterwards was a first down run. Run, run, run, run, run, run. Now is that Nick Cayley? Is that D'Amico Ryan's? I don't know. You can argue that?

That could be shade towards the head coach, not necessarily the offense. It could, yeah, absolutely. Because I do think, like, as I said, I was listening to the radio broadcast and they were interviewing Domeko, and he's like, we've got to run the ball, we got to run the ball, short passing game, run the ball, short passing game. That's what they did after the first few touchdowns. Okay. I think that's D'Amico's philosophy.

I don't think it's a direct arrow shot at the heart of Nick Kaley. I think it's more of a team philosophy of if it worked in the first, we got to keep things moving in the second half. Demico Rines literally went straight from the defensive head coach playbook. Defense, run the ball, short passing game, take care of the ball. All right. Final hour of the Matt Thomas Show, Ross, coming up. We'll talk to Keith.

We'll talk to the rest of you at 713-212-5-790. We'll also give you an update on what's going on on the year voting, which, by the way, Ross, you made an effective pitch because Sharon Moore is out to a healthy start here. He's got my vote. He does have your vote. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-2-7-19-1-7-19 here on sports talk 790 This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross Man and Ross with you for the final hour today This is your last hour of the calendar year, Ross

I'll be in tomorrow. Brian Holland's going to hang out with us between 10 and 12 tomorrow I don't know what else we're doing the rest of the time This is our last, believe it or not, of the year, too, because it is the best of. Yes, I am sifting through. We're into March, and we can keep on marching towards December. Okay. You got 45 minutes or so.

Yeah, I got about six questions. There's six candidate questions. And these are really juicy good questions. Yes. Okay, very good. If you've not heard a half an hour ago, we announced our candidates for D of the year. that's right why did we do Florida

why did we do Florida Gators basketball on April 8th Sports RV D of the year Can you refresh my memory Jonathan play Anytime he brings up Florida basketball

I'm just going through the list here I said I was in April Oh I just Does something happen Florida Gators basketball Hmm Okay

I'll shut up may your shaving cream be full of fire red ants I don't shave I mean I guess I clean up the edges but I go get a beard shave the straight razor is nice so I was going to get me a straight razor in LA you didn't know this you were gone

we worked didn't we it was $135 What do you think of reasonable price is for a beard trim straight razor and hot towel I don't get a straight razor in Kingwood but I get a super shaver you know, that's the, you know, fact, not the factory, but it's the industrial use.

Industrial? For what? You know, like shaving don'ties? Professional barbers. Okay. And they do it. And I pay $42. Okay.

It's really, really reasonable. Mine's 40 then. Yeah. And I tip on that. So that's good. Yeah. If I go to Ruper Ruts, it's about $50.

What? Yeah. And then, yeah, 50 or 55. What? At Ruper Ruts? At Ruper Ruts. Just to shave your head? head and beard?

Yeah. How much again? 55. And they, and they, so I said, American? I said, do you have the super shaver? He goes, yeah, that's an additional $3. And I was like, wait a minute, I was like, wait a minute, it's going to do a better job

for you faster and you're going to charge me extra for it. That's insane. So I don't go to Rubber Rutz anymore. I see you know my guy. He's over here. I got two barbers and Kingwood that I use. Oh, okay. Shout out to Kingwood Barbershop and Kingwood Barbershop number three, I believe what they're called.

Oh, wow. They come up with that one. Kelly, Candice. It's a family operation. Kelly, Candice, and we're going to go with Brent. Shout out to all three of those folks. That do it. But yeah, I wanted to get one done at the hotel.

It was $135, not including tip. If you give a 20-hour tip, that's another 27, so that's 150. No. I was like, so I went and got a razor at the grocery and just shared it myself. Wasn't great. All right, that's enough for that. Okay. Sorry, but I didn't mean to bring up beard habits.

But you did. I mean, I brought it up. Okay. Here we go. DeVier candidates, you have 24 hours left to go on this. Pete Bavakwa, Notre Dame athletic director, Sharon Moore, the former Michigan coach, Lane Kiffin, the way he left Ole Miss, and the Coal Play couple. In fourth place, Pete Bavakwa, the AD at LSU at Notre Dame, 13%. In second, in third place, the Coal Play couple at 15%.

Lane Kiffins in third place at 18% and Sharon Moore the Michigan former Michigan coach who DM'd OnlyFans girls DM'd Instagram girls Yes Had some good times with a Football Operations girl

And then when she threw him under the bus Or said hey here's what's going on He went to her house and tried to kill her That's coming in at 54 Allegedly 54% Allegedly That's an easy

That feels like to me That's going to be a nice runaway winner there. Sam says, can we do a D of the decade? Well, we've got about four more years of that before we go. Who is the D of the decade right now? D of the decade. That would have to go back and look at the other Ds of the year to figure that out. I don't know.

I can't think of anything more at the top. I'm sure we'd have plenty of candidates. Okay. But I can't think of one here. All right. 713-21-2-5-790, 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Keith is with us at 108 on 7-90. Keith, good afternoon to you.

Happy holidays. How are y'all? Great. Thank you for saying that. Back to you, my friend. So before the year start, I thought the Ravens had the best team in football. Now, I don't know they had a whole bunch of injuries back and forth. Yes.

They think Lamar is faking his injury this time. and they're thinking about actually getting rid of him. What if all this being said, if he comes back and is healthy, I can see the Ravens rule running at table. And I can also see one and done for the Texans if they have to play the Ravens. That's just my opinion.

Yeah, Lamar Jackson's tough, but he has been, I mean, he's had ankle, knee, back injuries, and more. Zay Flores getting more involved, I saw that, but also save Lars can drop a pass and can fumble with the best of him too. What had Derek Henry do Sunday? Four touchdowns? Something crazy like that?

Whatever. He was like he was 26 years old again. That's a league winning performance right there, fancy football. Yeah. Can I tell you that Derek Henry may be one of the greatest, he is one of the greatest running backs of all time? He is already, yeah, four touchdowns.

But I even think he's even a little undersold how great he is. Was this right? 216 yards and four touchdown? He was 26-year-old Derek Henry. Wow Anything else, Keith? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard you say about

Aaron Rogers yesterday. That dude don't have anybody to throw the ball to that. You know the dude that slapped some fan? He got kicked out of the game for the next two games. So I watched yesterday,

he don't have anybody to throw the ball to. So there's no way. they're going to beat the Ravens. That's what I said. I think the Ravens are good to Pittsburgh and win. I really do. The only way they do it

is if Lamar Jackson is hurt or gets into one of his ruts. Thanks, Keith of phone call where he throws multiple interceptions. Derek Henry, 10th on the all-time leading rushing list. Ahead of Dorset, Jim Brown, Marshall Falk,

Edron James, Marcus Allen. Emmett Smith, Derek Henry. Derek Henry. What's up? I'm not. Come on me, Cowboys fans.

Let me tell you, Cowboy, fan, I hate you. I mean, I do hate you, but I don't hate that selection. If I need four yards, I'm giving the ball to Derek Henry over Emmett Smith. Emmett Smith may be, now he's a Hall of Famer. He's the greatest of all time. You must give him his flowers for that. But of the all-time record holders, we're talking about points scored, touchdowns thrown, wins in baseball, batting average home run.

He's the least sexiest all-time. of the all time. Does that make sense to you? I would agree. Do you want to have a little fun? Go. Let's go after Emmett Smith. First of all, well, we'll go through the list. All right, Emmett Smith or? And while I'll just keep going, two, three, four. Walter Payton. Payton.

Frank Gore. Emmett Smith. I agree, I think. Barry Sanders. Barry Sanders. Adrian Peterson. Oh, it's no debate for me. I'm 80. Wow, Prime AD was so hard to bring down, but he was hurt a lot. He had 2,000, he had 15,000 yards.

He wasn't hurt that much. I'm going Peterson. That's not even close for me. Okay, I'll go 80 as well. Curtis Martin. 80s all day, by the way. Emmett Smith. I agree.

Lidini and Tomlinson. Oh, L.T. Yeah, LT. Yeah, LT is right. Jerome Bettis. Emmett Smith. I agree. You're not agreeing way too much.

Dickerson. Edmott Smith. And then Derek Henry is 10th. Yeah, I would take Derek Henry. Oh, really? Over Dickerson. I just didn't see Dickerson. First 2,000 rushes since O.J. Simpson.

Boy, Dickerson was, who made a good career, both two different places. I want to say Emmett Smith still had a thousand-yard season with the Cardinals. It wasn't as hard to get it. used to get 6,000 yards anymore. I would still take... Actually, he's 937 yards, 3.5 a carry. I would take Emmett Smith, 549 over Dickerson.

Emmett Smith only had one season over five yards of carry. What about, I don't know if you guys said, is Marshawn Lynch, was he that good? Was he that good? Or was he just... Not long enough. Okay. Not long enough. Hmm. Dickerson never had any season over

five yards of carry. Interesting. Okay. Just to do a three or four more and Oh, well, I got the, I went off the list. Oh, that's all right. Okay, we'll take a short time out. We'll think about these things. Dorset was next. Emmett Smith.

Really over Dorset? Yeah, okay. And Jim Brown? I mean, Jim Brown. Jim Brown retired so early. Marshall Falk, Edron, James, Marcus Allen. Emmett Smith, Emmett Smith, Emmett Smith. So he's not being some of them, he's not being the other.

Yeah, he's top ten-ish. But, I mean, I think it goes. in my argument of, of you're the number one of something, he's the least attractive number one of that number one group. I think the most anonymous guy in the top 20s got to be Stephen Jackson. Yes. Or Fred Taylor. Probably Stephen Jackson, though.

Stephen Jackson. All right, 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. The best of believe we're not, 35 minutes from now. Vince wants to talk about Stroud Combo. Is it give him his money? is it wait and see how the playoffs go because here's the reality

Ross and I'll say this real quick if the Texans lose a playoff game who's going to who will handle the most for the blame of that I don't think I'd be the defense I will the term

boy the defense on an off day will that ever really come into conversation because we keep waiting for them off day and they don't have any I guess against Jaguars they gave up 29 yeah and the Raiders they allowed Jenny to go off a little bit, but that was still still a really good. I mean, low score and games whatever they had. Yep.

114 on Sports Talk 790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. A lot of people have been asking about my fantasy championship. I'm going to fall and finish in second place tonight. Unless Bejohn Robinson gets hurt, Rossi. I wouldn't ask for an injury for any player, especially a fine University of Texas product, but... That seems

rude. He's a full go. So I am down 3.14, I have Mavis, the kicker, Harrison Mavis, for the Rams going. And he scores a bunch of points. I mean, the Rams score 35 points is going to get either. I got you pegged for about a 10% chance. The kicker could go off and be jean, a bejean, beijon. Both are correct now days, apparently. Yeah. So the ESPN forecaster says I'm going to finish.

I've only got a 7% chance of winning. So you're actually giving me a little more hope than the ESPN is... Sports RV casters got you at 10%. I'm always the bridesmaid, but never the bride. Aren't you glad you came back? Win some cash? Yeah, I'm got some money. You get a profit?

Yeah, it's okay, yeah. But I want the championship because I can finally end this drought. Wow. You were like the Buffalo Bills of the league. Except they made it to the Super Bowl more. You're more like the Chargers. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. By the way, how many Super Bowl wins are the charges that have, Jonathan?

Do you want to explain, you kicker, by the way? Chargers, Jonathan. Explain what? You're a kicker? Look, I don't know. He missed one kick and an extra point and one extra point. It's okay. It's okay.

They're still 11.5. Extra points, not a sure thing. Not at this distance anymore. In college, they are, but not in the pros. Certainly not in wet conditions in Buffalo. Mm-hmm. Momentum was on one. side, it would have carried over to the

overtime. How does the momentum carry to the overtime, but it doesn't carry over to a two-point aversion? Because momentum is more macro than micro. Okay. Macro than micro. I'm making whatever rules you're making up. Again, Michael Strahan, Howie Long, and Rob Grancowski want to be on my side. I'm all for that. You got Terry Britch on your

side. Rob Grunkowski. Don't you He's respected. He reads at a fourth grade level. Okay. Let's go and throw. I'm tossing that one Okay, Terry Bradshaw Uses a Blender to eat his food You want to go with that one? He's got to read the instructions on the blender, doesn't he?

You know, there's no chance he reads those. You should apologize for that. You're not going to be here. Oh, you got to say sorry's going to go through? Me? Yeah. From what? I don't know.

Do I have to get every segment in? A week from Friday. We can't do shut your bum ass up. No, those stay in the days they need to be said. So we got gut feelings. We'll do those tomorrow at 1230. Jonathan, by the way, or finally got feelings

because we've got Ryan Holland's going to join us from 10 the noon in. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. He's coming in. I'm sure it'll be great. Not coming in. Okay, okay.

He'll be on the Comericks. Oh. He doesn't like to drive, so. I mean, he can get a driver. Well, you can get Craig. Craig drives him half a time. What's his pension situation?

I think it's good. Yeah. It looks a nice house and I won't say where he lives, but it looks a nice house. I think the money from the Rockas is pretty good. Yes. But yeah, he doesn't,

he's not a big food budget, though. Oh, my God. so much food. We went to Habachi. We were in Denver last week. Extra shrimp. Fried rice, which I know you'll be buying.

Woo! Extra soup, extra salad, did not get dessert this time. How does he do it? Good for him. He probably was the average person of caloric intake a year in a day.

I think 2000 is recommended by the FDA. I would say Ryan's closer to five. Wow. But he works out all the time. If you ever see him on television, you know, he's looking good on them. Yeah. We're in nice zoot suits at games and stuff, top hat and cane.

He's not wearing top hats or canes, Matt. That's me. You see my New Year's Eve garb. Vince on 7.90 at 125. Hi, Vince. Hey, first of all, more is definitely the be of the year. So, hands down. I called about Stroud.

And I've been kind of thinking this all year. And I said, let me call him out, but I'm at the point now where after watching last night's game, yesterday's game, the contract between the first half and the second half. So the first couple of series, he had time to throw the ball. He looks like a superstar, most quarter, even average quarterback, if he can give him time to throw, they're going to make throws. The second half, he started getting pressured. He goes back to his skittish ways, happy feed, don't off the back to his back foot. his pocket presence is horrible and I've watched these other quarterbacks

on these other teams and they make plays you know and I think the bottom line with Strauss is he plays very scared and I don't blame him one bit he's had two concussions he's seen his best buddy get his leg mangled last year and he's just quite scared

and I don't think what makes you say he plays scared Here's what I think he's quite scared You can just see him in his human His body language He just looks scared out there No Yes

His body language shows that he's scared And it's just even the slightest amount of pressure He panicked He doesn't know what to do A lot of times he'll He sees the rush coming First of all his pop presses That second touchdown that he threw

There was a rusher in his face And then he threw a strike 50 yards down the field I understand what you're saying I know you're sticking up for him in a way No no no no it's not about sticking up I mean to counter my point if you dare No no no

That's that's an aberration there I don't think that he's He's dead all the time I just I just see you I mean there are Adverbs you can use I don't know if scared is the one I would use I don't think C.J. Straussman playing football

He can get happy feet at time Yeah. But that's every quarterback. There is, and I don't think it's been as bad or pronounced in the last several weeks. The offensive line is not great, Benzzi. I think all of us can agree on that.

But it's, it's getting, I don't say, it's getting better. It's not elite. It's probably average. And right now, there are a lot of average court.

There's a lot of average offensive line in the NFL. They just are. Bottom line, do you pay him? I mean, if he's, if he's playing this way, you know?

It's, first year he was just kind of like, the first year he was still on caution to the way. didn't really realize what's going on. Maybe another first concussion comes, and then the second concussion comes. Like I said, his best buddy got his leg mangled. And I played football in high school, and I was a good athlete. That was the one sport that I was scared.

And I played football, I was scared because I lived playing the other sports way better. I didn't want to get hurt. And so I can tell that he's scared. That's just my opinion. I may be wrong with it. Okay, thanks. Yeah, I don't think I would use the term scared. I think that's, that's, is it?

Is there trepidation? Is there uncertainty? Well, that's with every NFL quarterback. Every NFL quarterback can't sit in the pocket, put his heels down and go, I can look around for five or ten seconds to find my receivers. I mean, teams blitz, sometimes offensive linemen miss their assignments, and sometimes the quarterback does not read the ball properly. I mean, there's a combination of things. I think it's, and I think there are two sides to the story.

I mean, two things are true. He has no running game. I mean, Woody Marks is averaging like 3.5 yards of carry this season, something like that. And he's got a bad offensive line. Now, there are quarterbacks who can overcome one or both of those. He's just not that good. I mean, I think, of course, he's not in Pat Mahomes, doesn't have his resume or anything like that. Pat Mahomes is having a bad year.

They had no running game in the offensive line was a mess, and then he got hurt. And did he tear his ACL? I forget, whatever it was for Pat Mahomes. It's just You wish he was a top five elite guy Who could overcome those things Because we always point to like Joe Burrow and stuff like that What you're doing is

And I'm talking about just last call or Vince I'm talking about anybody What you're trying to do is you're trying to put him in the top 10 And he doesn't deserve to be in the top 10 I think he's fringe top 10 But would you say timid Maybe's a better word to you I don't think he's timid

I really don't Not the whole time Not what Vince Hammond No I think sometimes decision making Just isn't great Can we say that? that? Yeah, I think he's been struggling all season against zone defenses as well. Okay. You're going, if I say he's outside of the top 10, that's just me, that's like 11 or 12.

C.J. Stroud, because of who he plays for on a rookie contract, it's not going to be paid like a top 12. He's going to be paid like a top 3. And that's where the, that's where the apprehension is going to come into play. The day Ross, when he signs his mega extension, whenever that is, you're going to have people that are going to questioning the organization for it. But the organization, not because of the Texans trying to give out money left and right, it's because the NFL plays his position like that. You have a decent quarterback, you draft them, you have to pay them, as long as they're decent. Decent quarterbacks get paid well above market, not market value.

Well above their true value. And that's going to be very hard for us to swallow, but we're going to have to do it. because the alternative is you're not saying Davis-Mills is the answer and if you want to go take this team that has got a defense that's ready to win a championship and put in a rookie quarterback who you're uncertain about who's going to be in here

in three, let's say you go for a rookie quarterback in two years do you want to go through this process all over again? I don't think you do. That's the thing is you have to think about and that's one of the reasons these quarterbacks who aren't very good do get paid because you say, you know, if we build enough around him, you can have our guy. Otherwise, what is, what is the, the alternative right now?

The alternative is doing what the Seahawks did, trading for Sam Darnel. Yeah. The alternative is what the Rams did. Or Sam Darnel was a free agent, right? Or any, it doesn't matter. Okay, but acquiring, I should say, to trade. Yeah, it's like, quiring Sam Darnold, you take your chances. Okay, who's that guy?

Jones, maybe? Would you rather have Mac Jones or C.J. Stroud right now? I'd rather have C.J. Stroud. Okay, I'm trying to think of other like good backups or guys who need another chance. Now, there is a quarterback out there. Jake Browning, no.

Nope. Yeah, think about it. Name a quarterback who's ready to take over his team. Mac Jones would be the only one I could think of. Trey Lance has shown some flashes. I mean, are you a Malik Willis? I know you're not on Malik Willis. this guy, he just had a good game for the back.

That's what I'm saying. This is what you're going to have to do. Because if you're saying CJ Stroud's not the guy, you have to tell me who the guy is. So you're going to go draft and wait three years or two years? Where you're going to pick where? In the 20s, late 20s right now? You're not getting, I mean, in theory, you could get lucky, but right now you're going to have to trade way up. That's why the quarterback pay system is broken. It just is. Now, are they the most important player?

Yes. Should it be compensated most? By far. But it does crush your salary cap if you're trying to be. build a team. It just does, especially when he had Will Anderson who was picking the same draft who's going to want cop money for his position.

132 on Sports Talk 790. All right, so you want some backups, huh? You want non-CJ. Now remember, I am in that camp of scared the death about the big money. I am. I understand. But I'm saying, give me the alternative. Your next tier would be your Jacoby Brissette's. Your Kyler Murray's.

A person on Instagram sent me a message is Kyler Baker Mayfield when he's done in 2027 with the Bucks? It'll be a free agent. You're not going to franchise tag him. Okay? If they're letting him go, how good is he? The reality is this. He's backsliding this year.

The Dallas Cowboys have had terrible salary cap problems ever since Dax signed his deal. Yes. Will we be wiggling around like the Dallas Cowboys have wiggled around the last handful of years? I would imagine Parson's gone. They've also let some other people go over the last few years. They put a lot of money to CDLAMP's contract so that that's your second big payment. Nico Collins is not your second big payment.

Will Anderson will be your second big payment ultimately. That's something people are worried about is that, and again, you shouldn't worry about this. You should worry about the on results. But we're just talking about just big picture here. Big picture is if CJ takes up a lot of your money, like Dak Prescott takes up a lot of the money that Dallas Cowboys, something suppers. And if you've been a cowboy supporter or. fall over the last couple of years. It's been

their atrocious defense, which hasn't gotten any better. And they sent their best player to Green Bay. I'm just kind of looking at guys that are making big... Herbert's making big money for the Chargers. You have to make big money. Purdy's making big money. Yep. Jalen Hertz is making big money

for the reigning Super Bowl champion Eagles. Mahalmers is making big money, but you know, the Chiefs are not great this year. Relatively speaking, it's not as big as it used to be. Matt Stafford's making 40. It's not crazy. Right. Darnold's only making 33 and a half It's not crazy Hmm

A lot of the I mean Josh Allen's making big money 55 million for the bills They're contenders Jordan loves making big money For the Packers I would say they're contenders Trevor Lawrence is making big money

It can be done It can be done You just have to have a really good Savvy general manager Who understands a salary cap Who understands a depth chart Who by the way hits on draft picks.

For the most part, unless they're on the offensive line. Yeah. Kaelin Bullock hit. Camarri Lasseter hit. Guys all over the... What it's going to happen, and I guarantee you, when the day comes, whether it's this offseason or the following off season, we're going to have people wigging out, and we're going to see the number, whatever the number may be, and we're going to go, oh, my God,

he hasn't proven the dollar value to the contract. What is Jordan Love accomplished more than him? or Trevor Lawrence or to a tongue of a loan. But, I mean, we're also talking about the Jaguars are not the model for success. They've got 12 wins. They're doing pretty good. Yeah, but this has been a one-off. They're typically an underperforming football team.

And I don't think you could argue that. They got a good coach who's doing well. Yeah. But, I mean, paying huge money for mid-level quarterbacks. And I don't even think CJ's mid. He's not mid. He's upper third. I think he's good.

He's just not elite. Yeah. The reality is, though, elite quarterbacks can get paid if you're the 13th or 14th best quarterback in the league. And I'm saying, C.J. said, I mean, I haven't written down the latest list. We won't have time here because we're going to wrap up the show. But point being is that you are going to be overpaying, like Dak Prescott was overpaid. And that, by the way, played up to his contract. But it hurts out of the positions.

That's the question. It's not about paying the individual that. It's about how it affects your overall salary cap. I'm not saying that he's all-time elite and you can't let him get out of the building. I'm saying you can get close enough to win with him, so they are not going to let him get out of the building. I would be shocked if C.J. Stroud was not locked up long time. There's really no precedence for any team to let this happen. Unless you believe, I mean, Sam Donald won 13 games with the Vikings and they let him walk.

Yeah. And he's been good with the Seahawks He's got scoreboard on him It's not like he's you know He's lighten the world on fire Lately he started out the season very strong And since then he's been petered off He's also got Jackson Smith and Jigma

Who catches everything Yes 25 touchdowns 14 picks 8 and a half yards at a temp That's very strong But we saw Sam Darligan's a Texans He wasn't incredible His QBR is 58.4

They struggled against the Panthers yesterday. I don't know if Seattle to me is this year's in the West is, it's like Jacksonville in the West in the NFC. I don't know how much of a QBR guy you are or not. No, but go ahead. Strauss 10th. Fringe. Top 10. Basically.

Yeah. Again, seeing eye test, stats, mix it up, 10, 11, 12. Maybe 9 on a good day. But he's yours. he's 10th behind Mac Jones and Daniel Jones number one is Drake May in QBR in the NFL

God bless you Drake May you did everything you could have win me a champion Jordan loved Dak Prescott Matthew Stafford Mahomes Allen the Jones brothers Lamar Jackson CJ Stroud 10th Where's Burrow? Burrow is

Oh he must not be qualified or something He's not on the sense Not enough games All right We could we could pre-rework record this. We could pre-record a show. Head of Baker, Herbert, Sam Donald, Bonix, Jackson, Dart. That's your top 15.

Caleb Williams in that mix. Yeah, there's a lot of good quarterbacks. Maybe CJ is a top 10. So he's mid. No, I think that's not fair. But he's an elite. Not top five. He's probably high end nine, low end 14.

Yeah. Depending on your metric. I mean, honestly, you might be able to sell me on Mac Jones on a on a there's no way Mac Jones is staying in San Francisco they're gonna that that's that's a resource that some team is going to use to go get him in the offseason I wouldn't be happy about it but you're saying we're going to keep Will Anderson and Mac Jones as our guy no that sounds crazy doesn't it how bad is well Anderson going to want

the number one defensive end rush salary in the NFL you know he's going to deserve it you know he is I'm just trying that's the thing is if you're well Anderson you're like wait a minute you're going to pay C.J. Straud top three when I'm the top three? I don't know what your other options are. Gino Smith, Tua, maybe. No, no. Spencer Rattler? No. Michael Pinnock's. No, Chenex. Pinnock's looking at her all the time. I mean, Kirk Cousers probably retired by the time you need a quarterback. I imagine Baker's going to get locked up, even though he's regret. I mean, he's not going to throw 40 touchdowns every year.

That's right. All right. Let's get to believe it or not next. It is the best of believe or not for the year. The very best of 2025. It is the last 15, minutes of Ross's calendar year. See you later. Baster. 713-212-5-7-90. If you want to play, believe it or not, 7-13-21-2-5-7-90. Hi, Ross.

The final two minutes, forget to believe it or not, if you want to play 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. You're going to be not with us tomorrow. Both of us are gone on Wednesday. would you like to say goodbye to the audience as we finish up our 16th year together on this show 16 years season number 17 of the matt thomas show at ross starts monday uh yes i would like to thank all of you for listening calling participating uh we really appreciate you without no you there is no us so thank you so much for the loyal and or not so loyal listeners thanks to jonathan allen he's been a great addition to the team this year i hope he stays as long as he

can. We do really appreciate him when he actually shows up. It's my one for the year. That's okay. No, it's a holiday book. It doesn't matter. And thanks to you, Matt Thomas, for being a great driver of this show. And showing up most

days. Thank you. Not too cranky. By the way, I bought a better microphone for the road. If you listen to the difference, I'm going to buy another one. I know. It's going to be even more expensive than the one I've been using. Wow. Okay. Thank you, David Overford. Thanks to you. and thanks to me for being awesome and follow me on Instagram at SportsRV

I really would appreciate it next year hopefully can be the biggest and best year yet for the Matt Thomas show with Ross and with some little help you know what I'm saying influencer stuff follow at Sports RV on Instagram

I really would appreciate it yeah we're going to do a few more things on the social media we've got some ideas we're going to poke around but it's 2026 we should be we're five years late whatever we do we're going to make sure it's consistent yes so it's going to be something you'll enjoy but not a whole lot of work because you know we're all busy

yeah some people are busier than others but that's fine i'm not very busy okay uh so yeah uh so year 17 of the matt thomas show with ross will beginning we'll begin we got to get some kind of hall of fame now we're 17 years honestly it's like come on now i mean come on we should be in the texas radio hall of fame at bare minimum i mean i don't we don't pay for the requirements i I told you I was going to pay and get on the board and I'm going to at you. That'd be nice. January 5th is the next time you and I get to get back together. That's true?

Yeah. Anyways. Because tomorrow it's me and Ryan Hollins and then me by myself with Jonathan, provided he gets here before noon. Hi. And then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday we celebrate to the New Year's here on the station. Okay. Back in better than ever!

Monday, January the fifth. I'll be rested and refresh. I think I can come down a little cold, so it'd be good to get me out of it. Yeah, stay away far away from me. I'm going to New York, by the way. 30 degrees when we get there. New York. No chance I'm going on to see the big apple, the Apple drop.

Man, my girl's in New York right now. You can go ahead and say hi. And do what? Say hi. Just stop by. How long has she be there for? The whole, all New Year's. Hmm.

You know what? She followed me on Instagram. I didn't follow her back. That's rude. I don't see. Wait, well, wait. I think she followed Matt too out of them. Wait, what?

Oh, oh, look at Matt. Wait what? I know she follows Ross. I think she follows Matt. If not, I guess. Okay. At least he followed Matt the game. So you're saying that I can go with your girl and hang out with her New Year's Eve and in New York City.

I'll just be like, hey, Matt Thomas. You don't want Matt anywhere near your girl. He's not going to do nothing. No, he's not doing nothing. I mean nothing but a polite gentleman. Except creeper out. That's not nice. 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. Leave it or not. and here's how it works. You'll call 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of, and believe or not,

is the best of 2025. I'll read you a statement about something we talked about in 2025. David's completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. If his name is Hieronez full of bunk and made up, you'll say this.

All right, the first two winners today. Get a four pack of tickets with pit party passes, said three times fast. To the Monster Jam, February the 15th, at NRG Stadium. Tickets to see all three Monster Jam events of 2026, either the 7th, 14th, or the 15th are on sale at Ticketmaster.com, but you can win those tickets right now to the February 15th event by playing, believe it or not, 713, 212, 5790. Let's go to the phones and talk to the great people of Houston, Texas. My phone is frozen. My computer system. Here we go. We'll start with Matt on 790. Matt. You're ready to Believe it or not? Believe it. Matt, good luck to you.

Chuck Mangione had his own signature Flugelhorn in a partnership with Yamaha, which includes a laser engraving of his signature. Believe it or not? Not. That is correct. Statement number two for the win, Jamie Lee Curtis originally went by her mother's main name Morrison

to disassociate herself from her actor father, Tony Curtis. Believe it or not? Believe it? No, she's always been Jamie Lee Curtis. I'm sorry. Do you believe the rumor about her, by the way? What's the rumor, Matt? Don't have time to tell you about it just yet.

Jesse on 790, Jesse, what was your fair part of today's 10-2 radio show? Ross. Okay, you're going to lose then. Jane Goodall's love for animals and chimpanzee started at the age of one. She was given a stuffed toy chimp, which she kept until her death. Believe it or not?

Believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Hamsters are illegal in Hawaii because of their high reproductive rate. Believe it or not. Believe it. That is correct. That's a shout out to cheeks, by the way.

We have the cheeks that have a believe it or not. First dead animal in the history of the show. Still in the freezer. You don't know that. Please get it out. K-So on 790, ready to play, believe it or not? Jimmy Lee Curtis is stinky hot, man. I'll tell you what.

According to the book, All-American Murder, Mike Vrable, was the first patriot teammate to raise concerns about Aaron Hernandez to both Bill Belichick and Robert Kraft. Believe it or not? Believe it. No, he was totally unaware. Thank you, though, okay, so. Stephen on 7.90. Stephen, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. In 1979,

Bob Seger and Silver Bullet Band were kicked off tour as the opening act for the Eagles after a drug-fueled altercation with Don Henley. Believe it or not? Believe it. No, it's a knob. We've got a lot of not so far today. Kevin on 790, Kevin, your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show. SportsMT has a gift for follow. Never mind.

No, it's good. I'll take that. In 2011, Bob Euker voice acted as car race announcer Bob Cruiser for the Disney Pixar movie Cars 2, believe it or not. Not. That is correct. Statement number two for the way. And Bonnie Tyler is a karate enthusiast. and has practiced ever since her teenage years.

Believe it or not. Believe it. There you go. I knew what you meant earlier. We'd love you for that. Mike on 790, ready to play Believe it or not? Let's do it, baby. Mike, New York City was first called the Big Apple in 1886

by the New York Herald's William Cromwell as city borders at the time resembled an Apple share. Believe it or not. Believe it, baby. No, you shouldn't. It was made up. Thank you for playing. And Kenny on 790, ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. In 2018, a Bleacher Report article Gilbert Arena's detailed how he always blows red lights and gets away with it by using dealer plates. Believe it or not? Believe it. Yeah, of course he does. Who doesn't do that? A man who has had multiple traffic and altercations is Chandler Rome.

He's going to guest host with Adam Wexler, so it's the AC. team? It's called the team and it's up next. Talk to you tomorrow at 10. Ryan Holland's going to hang out with us a couple hours. Rockets basketball at 7 here on 790.

It is