The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - NFL Playoffs, Astros Fan Fest Recap, Rockets/Grizzles Tonight!

Episode Date: January 26, 2026

NFL Playoffs, Astros Fan Fest Recap, Rockets/Grizzles Tonight! 

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 10.1 in H-town. Good morning. And welcome to a Monday edition on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. There's a deep throw and it is

picked off, intercepted. Waiting for it was Gonzales. Female voice ever. Her or Rita Franklin? That's one in A, whatever way you want to put them. All right. Whichever one I'm listening to at the time gets the nod.

And I'll listen to Detroit on Friday. Okay. There's definitely Aretha. But this thought, I mean, God, Bobby Brown, you suck. The clarity of tone and power versus the soul and power of Aretha. Can we a week from Friday, we don't play the national anthem on this show. We should probably to honor the Super Bowl, play her version of it from the Star-Spangled Banner from the Super Bowl. We've done it before.

We had, but I just felt like, that needs to be like a right of passage for this show. Whenever you start arguing about, oh, Canada. Oh, we have to beat that. We have to, great song. We have to pull out our Trump card and get Whitney Houston. Actually, Trump wants Canada, too,

but that's a different issue for a different time. Yeah, we're going to do it next Friday, because it's just, first of all, her voice is so powerful and just the life that she, unfortunately, the last 10 years were just awful. Well, stop me if you've heard about a troubled artist before. I know. I know.

Good morning, everybody. I will tell you this. Our office is empty. Well, it's usually empty because the sales folks are out there hustling on those streets all the time. And if you'd like to spend your hard economic dollars towards this station to help you grow your business, of course, you can reach out to one of our great salespeople. How about we go with today, salesperson today? We'll go with Robert Reese. Okay.

Robert Reese at iHeartMedia.com. Okay, sure. But the option was given for me to work out of the Kingwood Studio. You had, well, you're only like, you said eight minutes away. Is it really eight? No, it's like four. Oh, well, it's like six minutes to get here and it's like four to get home. Do you count the time when you're in the garage or do you use that or not?

Door to door, you want door to door to door? Door to door is literally like eight minutes, nine minutes. Oh, God, I'm so jealous. But today, the weather, the roads were clear, temperatures, again, we're below freezing, but people do drive and below freezing weather. I used to do it for three years in Minneapolis, St. Paul. Well, not in Texas. New. It took me 38 minutes to get to work today, which is Sundays are 40 to 41.

This is even lighter than a Sunday. Wow. Because, you know, set weekend travelers are coming in and out of town. There is construction. No one on the roads at all. I'm not saying go out and speed. I'm not saying go out there and go for a Sunday joy ride. That seems like it.

No, I'm saying that today, again, if you were heading southbound, as I was, because, of course, I live in South Nakedocis, coming in from a Kingwood. Yeah, you guys didn't get a hard freeze up there all the way. up there. You're all good? So I was like, I got to come in. I got to come in today. Pets are good. Pets are good. Pets are good. Sadie and Coral are doing just fine. Okay, good. We got to, we turn the fireplace on yesterday. Oh, we did all sorts of stuff. Yeah. Oh, right. I'm telling you, from the time I got home from Astro Fan Fest, I didn't done, I've not done one productive thing except get ready for the Rockets game tonight, which, by the way, they're going to

play. Memphis is just leaving. The Grizzas are just leaving Houston right now, or Memphis right now. But they are on their way here. You're saying take the rockets and the points. I'm not saying that under any circumstance. I mean, I want you to take them because you love them, but don't take it because I'm just telling you about the travel situation. Travel snafus. Which were happening all across America. Memphis got crushed.

This did much of the country. Nine and a half, that's meaty. That's meaty for the Rockets. No Zach Edy, no John Morant. Who else is not playing? There's a bunch of folks. Stephen Adams. Stephen Adams?

Sad. Friday night was fun. Did you do the post game on Friday? No, I did Thursday. Oh, okay. Friday I believe was Man Dathouse. Oh, man Dathus, yeah. And then Saturday you and I got together for the Astro Fan Fest.

We had a really good time. We did. I'll say that for crappy weather, almost 11,000 people showed up. That's pretty incredible. Yeah? I think that's obviously a down number for a low number. Yeah, but under all things it didn't make the playoffs, weather was bad. It's probably more weather than that.

But I mean, you get to see players. They were signing autographs. Logan Van Wye. There was a huge. I'm surprised he didn't make it on our show, but that's fine. We did get a meeting one with... We got Carlos Correa snipe from us. But that problem is...

He showed up early. He was a little early. That's fine. I can live with that. I wasn't showing up any of the room and I had to. I was tired. That's good. 3.30, the old car hit the Kingwood residence.

I was like, oh, God, I got to be up in like seven hours. It was fine. We did a good show. It was fun. Yes. And we really know the pitching staff well, even those that aren't going to be pitching. It was interesting to talk to. Tony Peres Chica about the infield.

I'm going to use it as an alias in my next row. Petis Chica. So if you guys are trying to find me anywhere in Atlanta on Thursday, then you can look up the name Tony Parrishicken, the high-end hotels. I'm good. Not looking for you. Okay. That'd be weird.

All right. On the show today, look, we honestly understand that most of you are off, and if you are listening to us, you 10 o'clockers, first of all, you love you, 10 o'clockers. Second, we really love you that you're off today or working for home and listening tests. That means a lot to us. I don't we have We don't have any prizes

We can say how much we like you How much we can feed your ego if we need to We could certainly do that 11 o'clock Ross and I had a chance to visit For quite an extended period of time with Joe Espada So if you did not catch it on Saturday Which presuming most of you did not We will play that for you at 11 o'clock today

We have to tell the truth The News at noon and believe it or not Believe it's got to be about this dude And I don't even know his name But I got to think there's got to be at least eight questions for you You see this guy to climb to building In New York City or something Oh, Ryan Biltmore or whatever

Or Ryan Evermore or whatever You have to be clinically ill Taipei 101 Don't you have to be clinically I mean Alex I was way off Alex Honnold

Yeah Apparently it's a very easy climb for him That's what people were saying Because he did a He did it on Netflix right He reached the top of Taipei 101 Without ropes

When it was built in 2003 Taipei 101 was the tallest building in America I mean I'm sorry the world in America, Jesus. 1,677 feet. I went to the top of that when I went to Taiwan. And it was cool.

Did you feel like when you got to the building, it was like, you know, I can climb this thing? No. So correct my error here, if I have one. If he stumbles, he dies, correct? Yes. There's really no backup plan. Mm-hmm.

Correct. You know, I don't want that life. There's also a giant, this is the thing, too. Now, it was very unlikely that while he's, going up there. There's going to be an earthquake. But Taipei 101 has this giant steel ball in the middle of it that, because the building

will wobble in an earthquake. Like Kyle Field. It's stable. It stabilizes the building because there's so many earthquakes there all the time. So yeah, it was dangerous. And it was good. I guess people were watching it on Netflix. I didn't catch it. Yes, it was available for you to watch. If you want to watch live

death, I guess you could do that. So he just went up there and climbed the whole thing with no reinforcements whatsoever. Right. No, thank you. I mean, he's a daredevil. He's got to get his adrenaline junkie.

So I'm assuming at that point, he gets some compensation from Netflix for carrying this thing. Yeah, I'm sure. Alex Honold. Can you get an insurance policy? Like, when you have life interest, say, what are you for a living? Well, I'm going to count. Premium's a little high. A little bit.

The actuaries have to say about this one. But he had no issues whatsoever. I mean, obviously, he's still around to tell us about it. He's 40 years old. Occupation Rock Clamer I went to Cal Berkeley He would Oh, of course

Cal Berkeley That's a no brand of that bad boy He didn't do a barefoot did he He probably didn't do it with Smoking Wheat in the way up We probably might have I mean we're not talking about stereotypes You're very much in the show

But we just did In Taiwan I don't think they mess around With that stuff Yeah he's probably got Two of his legs got off All right So I would assume you could find Some questions about him

And just an idea For believe or not today Yeah I think it's not bad Okay Are you ready for, I believe, to be an unpipater take, I think? Okay. And there's really no answer to it. This is just a declarative statement.

I don't like when weather plays such a role in any sort of game. It was painful to watch the second half of the Patriots and Broncos yesterday. I disagree. That's fine. We will discuss. Because honestly, the NFL loves it. That's why you have as many cold weather games.

Like, you know, when they roll out the NFL schedule and they put, you know, Monday night games, don't be surprised there's no dome Monday night games very much late in the year. They like the guys that play in the elements. Yes, they do. So if you watch the game yesterday, first quarter was fine, second quarter was fine, halftime there was a little bit of dusting. And then it was full blizzard by the, I mean, I have never seen a field get that snowy and unrecognizable in such a short period of time. That's why Denver's weather, and I've said this before multiple times,

Denver has the most bat-blank crazy weather you'll ever find in America. It could be 81 degrees on a Monday and snowing in 14 the next. It went full blizzard really fast. It's beautiful out there. It is beautiful, but you couldn't get anything done. Now, granted, I think we were anticipating a low-scoring game to begin with. Granted, we had a backup quarterback out there and Jared Stinnom. Yes.

Who was, would it be safe to say, doing the best he can? Is that how he wanted to describe it? He was great to start the game. Long bomb worked. But there was one catastrophically bad decision made by Sean Payton yesterday. Uh-oh. And we'll talk about it next. Okay.

All right. Now, you 10 o'clockers, you're more than welcome to join the show. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. Again, we know that most of you are probably at home, maybe hopefully listening on the I-heart radio app. If you're out and about, I can tell you the streets and freeways are good shape, but again, there's a reason for that.

You're not congesting them. So if there's no reason for you to get out today, don't get out. But if you're out and about, want to call and say hello, you may do so. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. It is a Monday edition of the Matt Thomas Show at Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. We all remember that one teacher who made a difference who believed in us and challenged us or just made learning fun.

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1020, sports talk 790. Matt and Ross with you here. Again, if you're out there, we on? Yeah, we're on. Hi, let's go. You know, if you're home, hanging out. Yeah, hang out. You don't normally have time to call in?

We'll give you a leash. A longer than normal leash? Yeah, like a firing on who you are. Yeah, it depends. All right. You and I have had spirited conversations about this, and I think we, it's not like we argue about this, but this one we talked about it before.

We are running into a trend of people going strictly on metrics and percentages, and sometimes logical thinking is being put in the rearview mirror. Hmm. Seven nothing. Analytics and metrics are logic. I know, but sometimes it's illogical. 7-0-0 Broncos. Chance to make it 10-0.

Fourth and one. Jared Sinam, backup quarterback. And you know that Sean Payton knew the weather was going to get bad. No, apparently they didn't. I don't believe that. I'm sorry, we're in 2026. How they don't, snow just came out of nowhere? I don't believe that.

It was worse than anticipated, is what I saw. But you still have to anticipate. If you met a coach. They anticipate everything. Okay, go ahead. I'm just saying, you kick the damn field goal. I'm sorry, stop doing this. Shaw McVeigh, same thing.

You kicked the field goal to get within four instead of going for it because you know you got maybe one more chance to go down there and win the game. We are watching coaches, sports RV, going for it down too much. I like going for it. Yes. But sometimes you just got to, you got to go with the, let's get those points because you have two accurate field goal kickers. I guarantee you that. somebody in the sports performance office or analytics or knew there was weather coming,

whether whatever it was was coming, you know as me a low scoring game. Even if it was like 23 the rest of the day, a low scoring game was anticipated. You give your backup quarterback, go ahead and thrown a pass in three years, a 10-0 lead. I'm not saying it would change the game, but let's help the game a little bit. You're going to get mad at me because I'm going to give you the Vegas total, which was 43.5. So they didn't know it was going to be that low scoring. Look, if you want him to kick there, I get that. But didn't they kick later and they missed a field goal?

Yes, one of them was deflected. Yes. Yeah. So this is the thing. To me, a lot of times with this fourth down thing and they're like, take the points, take the points, take the points. We forget. It's like bunting to me. Lay the butt down.

Move the guy over. Bunt for a single. It's assuming that bunting works every single time when it doesn't. And the assumption is that the field goal gets made every time, which it doesn't. So that's the big issue, one of my big issues with people, going against that. But also, it was early in the game. It was one yard, especially when it's fourth and one,

your odds of getting a yard are very, very high, and then you keep the drive away to give you a more chance to get seven points. That's all, that's not disputable. And apparently the weather the weather got worse than people were even anticipating,

from what I read. Yeah. Which drive was this? I was watching the game. It was after the 7-0 touchdown they got. They cut the, then. So it was in the first quarter? First or early second, yeah. It was when the weather was good.

Yeah, it was the start of the second quarter. Driving into the first, end of the first jet. Yeah, I, again, I'm not trying to second gas or play 2020 on this. I just remember that exact moment going, giving a, and I'm trying to call it working. A fourth and one of the 14 to try to get a touch, try and get closer to a touchdown. I mean, I got no problem with that personally. I think giving a quarterback who's inexperienced as hell

a 10-0 lead would have been a huge confident boost for him. Again, I don't know what would have happened down the road. You can't anticipate that you're never going to score again. Let's get those points, especially when the weather was good, and you have a good kicker.

I mean, the chances of guys missing what would be 32-yard field goals probably at less than 10%. And also one of the reasons when you're close, you go for it is because it's unlikely the other team. If you have a good defense, which the Denver Broncos do, you figure you can stop them and it's not really going to cost you.

Right, which it didn't. So New England punted the next time. So, I mean, that didn't cost them the game. It wasn't anywhere close. They touched the ball, what, 10 times after that and didn't score. Yeah. I'm just in the mind of an analyst going, all right, give my guy a 10-0 lead.

I just think from a confidence standpoint would have been, Wow, I just led my team. I've had three drives as a Denver Bronco quarterback, and we've scored on twice of them. Yeah, I mean, the Sean McVevalon was fourth and four. And look, I don't have these guys models and these numbers, but I'm going to say something crazy, and I'm going to say they know more than, they have more information than I do. They have more of a feeling where their offenses are. And analytics are almost, not almost always, when it's close.

Because you have guys like Mike Florio stick in the mud, like the analytics model never says to kick. Well, yeah, because normally when it says the kick, it's like fourth and nine and you're on your own 20. That's when the analytics do say to kick, we just don't always look at that. We look at when it's close, and we have this old archaic way of thinking. And when it's close, we just say, take the points. Take the points, take the points, take the points, take the points. And sometimes the points aren't there. Sometimes you take the points and the field goal gets missed.

And it's, I mean, you've got 20-mile-an-hour gusts going and stuff like that. So I'm not adverse to going to fourth down. I'm just, Rossi, I'm seeing a trend. and who's the coach in Dallas and Dallas, Detroit does it every single time? Dan Campbell. He is Mr. Never kicked the ball. I mean, he,

Dan Campbell was like that. Fourth and nine, he'll go for it. He don't care. I mean, it's a league-wide trend. It's happening everywhere. Because it's right. It's not a league-wide trend. Because it's not right. You can't continue to league-wide trend

when the two most important games of the season, there were huge parts of those games missed off of that. I mean, you can train it all you want, but they were two huge parts. of the game. They just worked. How many fourth downs did everybody go for? Let's see. Rams were one for two.

Seahawks didn't go for a fourth down. I guess I can go back and pull up this. Oh, I'll give you major kudos for finding stuff a lot of fashion than I can. Patriots were one for one. When did the Patriots go for it on fourth down? I may have been a thing. See, we don't even remember. You know why? That's another thing.

It's when they go for it and they get it, nobody says a word. Not a peep out of anybody. I listened for Tony Romo and Jim Nance, and everybody's like, I don't know, Jim. I don't know if he should go for this fourth down. Maybe he should kick. And then when they get it and they get a touchdown, nobody says a word. But if it's fourth and one, it's a 41, whether it's out or going for the first down or party. I mean, I can try to find the exact fourth down.

But nobody says the peep. No, peep out of nobody. When they get the fourth down, they get a touchdown. Now, the only reason why I would probably give McVeigh a little bit more breathing room is because that game last night was touchdown for touchdown for touchdown that maybe you knew it then the three wouldn't be enough and i can get that one a little bit more their defense wasn't stopping the seahawks at all no as i'm saying that's why you probably that's a little bit of an easier justification i thought and i again i i'm not what i want to do what i should do is i should send you a voicemail message should go for the

points you get to take the points because i want to be inconsistent i want you to write it down yeah i will take notes and write it down every single time voice text all right and i may use a voice changeer. I'll have it doing a James Roll Jones voice. I'll do Westwood one. No, don't do that. Should you go kick for the points? No, we've got to keep your voice fresh for the week. That's true. That's true. I just, to me, that was, the, the, not kicking the points was really hurtful. And again, it's easy to do when you're in a 10-7 game, but they knew the weather conditions, whether it was Snowmageddon or just windier and snow florees,

we're going to get worse. And they did. And they just got, and you said they got even worse than they were supposed to. But that one, I thought, that was really. hurtful. Again, I need to build my confidence in my young quarterback who is blanking himself on the field with every throw he makes or every snappy hands off. Giving him a two-possession league, what I think would have been a lot for building his boost. And maybe

would have changed the everflow of the game. Who knows? I think you play to win the game. You trust your defense. And it was one yard. If you can't get one yard, I mean, you don't deserve to win the game anyways. But if you trust your defense, then tend to be like, oh, that's insurmountable. They can't do that now. And I will say, again, we assume that the kick is going to go in and bad con con con and bad and i'm going to assume and it probably was from there it was like the 14 and that's another thing if you get it you're on the 13 yard line you're basically

almost to to the goal you're so close i know i mean i i get reasons for it okay i just think if it's i'll put it this way i'll even i'll even give you a caveat if it's bonex maybe i go for it i think if it's that matter if it's not bonnics if it's if it's if it's bonyx i would probably definitely go for it i just need jarrott sent him to feel good about himself and he was getting hit a lot he obviously the pressure got to him because again most backup quarterbacks haven't thrown a ball in three years that would be the scenario i think even demico ryan's goes for that one oh hell no i think he does fourth and one have you met demico rinds even domico goes for that one and by the way let's get this now the rams one the rams one he's kicking oh yes for sure demico goes for even that one one yard by the way the new round of cj straw memes are out we don't need those we don't have to talk about that see what hater nation put out no i'm

What is Hayter Nation, Matt? I don't know. Is that your favorite account? No, but it's on the 4U tab and I should show up. Hater Nation underscore. You know what? Hater Nation would show up in your 4U tab. Because you're a Texans hater, Matt. I am Texans realist Matt, and guess what? It sucked to be a Texans fan yesterday.

And thank God I'm not one because you watch New England. Oh, they don't play anybody. Oh, Drake Me sucks. Oh, they got Mike Vrable left over from the Titans. Mike Frable's in the Super Bowl again and you're not. Texans realists. That's the realism. Okay. Well, I'm a Texans fan, and I wasn't thinking about the Texans yesterday. So, but I'm maybe I'm the minority.

I don't know. You made me the minority. I don't know. I can only speak for myself. I don't think Larry Stafford feels about that. I don't know. Larry Starrant. I don't. I don't care how he feels. No. Nobody hollering these days. Deshawn Watson defender Larry and Stafford? No, we don't need to hear from him. We're good.

Nobody else can get you fiery about the AFC championship like we can. Not a single soul. I guess. and by the way I have to call you a hypocrite on something when we come back yes now I cannot wait you've not done what this is but I'm ready

713 212 570 719 713 212 570 we have Joe Espada coming up in a half an hour here on sports talk 790 All right so I'm a hypocrite about something now could I be a hypocrite about a lot of things absolutely

Will I be shocked by this? You can be call me a week say I'm wrong Maybe I'm wrong Every time I bring something to you You always say I'm wrong That's not true Every time you're wrong On to know the truth

It's all that's ridiculous That's not true When's the last time you said I was right about something Sometimes you can say something reasonable Okay Here we go What was the last one

I don't even know I don't even know So I'm saying I'm waiting to hear this It was probably something mildly reasonable John then would you start chronicling When Ross says Oh you're right about something I always say that's a good point Matt or something

See again this is like This is like when you get a fourth down You just it just sheds off of you When I give you a compliment or I say you're doing a great job. Or you're so right. It just shakes off you. Okay, here we go.

Like a leaf off a tree. Time now for a ruling. Let's go. Let's do it. All right. In the first segment, you were talking about the AFC championship game, and you said it was boring and not fun to watch, right? I didn't say boring.

I said, I hate the weather elements. Okay. We can check the tape. Okay. If I'm boring out, let me read. Well, didn't you like last year or a year before, you were mad that Buffalo wasn't going to play in a blizzard? and you're like, that's what everyone loves.

We want all this snow and everyone loves to watch it. So I want Buffalo. Literally people couldn't get into the stadium and they shut down the city in Buffalo and you wanted them play? Hypocrite. Okay. Yeah.

But actually, I'm a little bit on your side. I actually thought the second half was pretty entertaining. You had Drake, Ramon J. Stevens and slipped and fell. Drake May fell on the same play. And then Drake May fell on the same play. And then Drake May fell on the scene. Same play. The guys were slipside and everywhere.

The punter, you could, I have never heard such a thud when the punters were punting and it was going, boom. And it was going like 30 yards and everyone was proud of them. So here's what I'm going to draw this up. I'm going to now declare this a philosophical change. Okay, good. And I don't think I'm going to change because there were two excellent football teams playing on Sunday. Okay. Yes.

That's not debatable. they deserve to be where they were. The elements had such a factor in play, slippage, and again, I'm not even counting the fact that Jared Sinam's out there as a young guy. I'm just not. The Seattle Rams game, which very easily could have had the same weather issues too.

I mean, Seattle's open air too. It just was a crisper game. You think they got shorts changed? Or the Broncos did it? Look, I can see that argument. There's no favoritism either way. I wasn't rooting for you, Tim. I'm saying both teams didn't maybe get a fair shot.

Yeah, I would have liked to have seen the really, if there would have been a storyline of can Jared Sinem with a week of practice, get out there and be the hero? Can Sean Payton be this offensive, amazing mastermind that takes a backup quarterback? But the elements played such a huge role that was all at the window. You could have had Joe Montana out there and it would have made a big difference. I will say two things. One, I did find it entertaining. That's also because I didn't have a skin in the game. maybe if the Texans or if I had a rooting interest,

you definitely, we don't know after that game who the best team was, who got the best shot or anything. We know who played better in the wet stuff and the snow. Cudos. Barely, but nobody did anything in that second half. It was just punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, punt. And you got, yeah, you got one field goal from the Patriots. All I'll say is this, if the weather was 45 degrees and there was no snow.

Yeah. There's no way that game ends 10-7. Zero chance. Not that I'm saying it would have been a 34-31 shootout, but we got to the final playoff weekend with the final four teams, and it's supposed to be drama and going, you're sitting here playing for a chance to play for a Lombardi trophy, and you are thinking about San Francisco,

and you're thinking about, man, I'm this close to a ring, and I'm going to let six inches of snow or whatever it was that dropped in that very short period of time. I don't know what the number was. But you're going to let that play such a game. on it. The weather was the factor in the game more than anything that New England dialed up

no matter what inexperience was. So yeah, call me a hypocrite. I found myself going not boring and I'll and I'll rephrase. Disappointed that two excellent football teams couldn't play

a real football game. I did have some feeling of that. Now I was entertained like I said because I didn't care who won. I had no skin in the game. I hadn't didn't have a side on the spread. But you a field goal in the first drive of the third quarter. You had a field goal. After that, punt, punt, miss field goal, punt, punt, punt, punt, miss field goal, punt, punt interception, end of game. I mean, that's not how it was supposed to. It was a war of attrition with neither side. I wanted Denver to get a field goal and I feel like we could have gotten like double overtime.

If Denver could have found a way to get a field goal, that bad boy could have gone like double triple overtime because nobody could do anything. So I was entertained from the spectacle of it. But as far as was it good football, no, it was not anywhere close to good football. And not that the sports are similar because they're not. But baseball wouldn't have played the game. They would have had to delay and postponed it. Football

doesn't do it that way. And because you can't, and the only way that football ever gets postponed or delayed is because of lightning. Other than that, monsoon they play. Snow, 12 degrees below zero, they play the football game. It was crazy. So that's what I'm saying is that, again, I

could not care less. That's why for me, I might be as casual of a viewer of the Super Bowl that I've ever had before. I have no affinity one way or the other for Seattle. I would lean towards not liking the Patriots more, but for Mike Rable to tell Amy Crunkstruck to stick it up her ass makes me kind of a little happy a little bit on that. Did he say something?

No, I'm just saying that he's got to be thinking that. You let me go. Oh, Amy Adams Strunk is the biggest Seahawks fan on the planet right now. Oh, she's like, I will, she's running to Vegas. Just like with Mattress Mac, bringing wheelbarrows of money in. Please, please, please. And I think Seattle's going to win this football game. I think it's going to be close.

I agree with you, which scares me. I agree with you, Matt. That's a good point. Write that down, John. Yeah, can we write this down? No, actually, I'm going to start writing this down. Right it down. Because you tried, I say, I want to tell you a little story.

When I was at Carbock brewing, I ran into a listener, and he's like, I know I'm not in broadcasting, when I'm going to give you a note. And I was like, okay, what's that? He said, you say to Matt too much, I would agree with that. He said, that's like a crutch of yours. See, so I say it all the time, Matt, and it just rolls right off of you. So that guy said, you agree with me? He's, okay, he's like, I would agree with that.

You know what we need to do, Jonathan? We need to get somebody to sing, Ross agrees with Matt. So every time I say, I would agree with that, somebody gets sting me. Somebody can sing, somebody sing us on a voice memo. Ross agrees with Matt. Bada, we don't need to do all that. Let's talk to our friend Stephen in Los Angeles. There's a lot warmer than we are.

Stephen, good morning to you. Hey guys, good to talk to you today. How are you guys doing? Good, good. I just wanted to kind of like weigh in on the Broncos Patriots game. I agree with you, Matt, 100%. I thought the decision to go for it on fourth and one was a boneheaded decision considering that you are starting a backup quarterback that it probably made about four throws up until that point in the

game. And, you know, you're on the, what, 16, 20 yard line. You, um, weather conditions aren't really a factor at this point. I mean, no, it's not a guarantee that he's going to make it, but to put the ball in the hands of your backup quarterback and to actually, like, the play calling is what kind of like made me scratch my head even more was to like, you're throwing it on fourth and one instead of trying to run it, which obviously the Patriots sniffed it out because it wasn't even close. So, I mean, I think, I agree. I think, you know, these coaches kind of just make these boneheaded decisions in playoffs. That was the prime situation in the game where I just think you stack points.

When you've got, you're already under, you know, man, you know, with playing your backup quarterback. You got to stack points there and you build yourself a lead no matter how you do it. I mean, if it was Bo Nix, you go for it. No question about it. But I think with a backup quarterback to go forward on fourth and one was just a really poor decision given where they were at the game. And whether he knew the weather conditions were going to be worse or not, they weren't playing a factor at that point of the game. You kick the field goal. Yeah, again, we're all going to agree to disagree or agree, hopefully with me.

But either way, I don't know what the win probability difference was. we can ask what the Broncos model is, but it's probably your splitting hairs. I'm not calling this like the greatest, most go, but it just felt like a go at the time because it's just one yard. If it was like even fourth and two, even fourth and two, I would say,

I would be way more likely to kick. But one yard, I would do that. And that was me, Stephen. I said even D'Amico probably kicks there. I mean, it goes for it there. Yeah, again, I made my point on it. No chance in help. I just, I need my, I need my young quarterback to feel good about himself.

Two scoring drives out of three. I am fist pumping. I'm feeling good. Not that I'm in a difference. Why are you sending me, I muted this account apparently. I'm just sending it to you because I wanted you to see it. Stop sending me tweets. I hate a report underscore.

Yes, C.J. Stroud is the national punchline. Thank you, Stephen, for the phone call. Stay warm out there in L.A., my friend. Thank you. What is going on with America? Why is C.J. having to wear this every week? He was terrible.

On the national stage, two straight weeks. They got him in a Bronco uniform. My God. Poor guy. They had him in a Carson Beck uniform. They had him in a weather front. He is the face of epic collapse right now in sports. And there's only one person that can turn that around.

Hannah? C.J. Stroud. Now, you're going to try to get somebody out later this week that you've respected a lot. I've heard him a few times before. We've had him. We've had him. Did I like him? Yes.

Okay. Did you read his report? I did. Well, Joel Corey, who's a, he's not with a team. He's like a capologist kind of amateur capologist for CBS. He does a nice job. Former agent, I believe. Yeah, he cares about stuff that, frankly, we don't.

So if he's got enough good information, I want you to tell me what you gained out of his little article about the future of CJ's contract. Plus, we'll talk to Jake on the mobile about, says this says baseball. What if he wants to talk about the Reds rotation? The rules? Or could be ABS. Okay. It could be about a lot of things, which we talked about with our friend.

Joe Espada, which will be coming up in 15 minutes here on Sports Talk, 790. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-790. Matt and Ross with you on 790 at 10-53. Good morning and 10 o'clockers. Good morning to all of you that spent a part of your day with us. We thank you very much. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

7-1-3-2-5-790. If you want to come in and say hello, we've got the Joe Espata conversation that Ross and I had from Astro Fan Fest coming up at the top of the hour. Jake is with us to talk about baseball. Hi, Jake. Hey, good morning. How are y'all? Good. Thank you for calling.

A couple questions, a non-Astro question, that's why I was more vague. Do you guys think Jake Myers is the opening day center fielder for the Astros? I would say yes as of right now. Okay. I knew they were pushing Zach Cole, and I knew he had some trade talks a couple months ago. I just wasn't sure if that front has changed. Just think about this. Jacob Melton got traded.

He was the one that he was the outfit that got moved more than Jake Myers. I can't imagine him being anything but center field. Yeah, either that or not on the team. That's what I agree. I wasn't too sure. And then Jose Altuve, him going back to second base, is that just in comparison to last year? Did the left field, I know he's not the best defensive minute either position,

but is that just the left field experiment maybe didn't work like they thought or just the roster is different in comparison to last year? My opinion? I think he hated it. Yes, sir. I think he hated it. They are going to play him and left some, Joe said. You'll hear from Joe in a few minutes.

Jake, I think Jose hated it. Yeah. And if you're the greatest pastor of all time and you are, honestly, because here's the thing, if he enjoyed it, there is no congestion in the infield. There's a reason for the congestion. And it's because Jose Altova didn't want to play left field. He was a good teammate, he was a good guy.

If Corridis stays, if Corridis stays on the team, I mean, do you, I just, I don't see him playing second base. There's no way. Well, they're going to give it a go in spring training, which giving it a go and doing it are two different things. Right, understood. And then last, last thing, I don't know if y'all saw this over the weekend, but you Darvish, I guess Bob Nightingale, which I know, he's hit or missed. Oh, yeah. He came out and said U. Darvish was retiring only for you Darvish to come back and say, that's false. Is that Bob Nightingale just being himself or is that him looking at $40 million and saying,

you know, maybe I will pitch another couple years? Or is that the MOBPA saying something? Or who knows? Typically, and thank you, Jake, for the phone call. That is getting a source to give you wrong information. I don't think, I can put this at 1,000 percent. I don't believe that Bob Nightingale called you Darvish or his interpreter and said, I hear you're retiring.

that is you that is bob nightingale getting that from a quote unquote source that could be a scout that could be a general manager that could be somebody within the framework of an organization that says yeah you's not coming back so the gone of the days that player relations with reporters is good there's some that have good relationship with players but generally by and large your passins your rosenthal's your buster only's what kind of folks they're doing this at the pay grade of scout assistant gie's and higher. They're not going to the player anymore. Yeah. Agent. Of course, agents. I was going to say. Mostly agents and then some club executives. Now, see, Kevin ASE, who writes to the San Diego Union Tribune is

the Padre's Beat Writer. He said, his line, his story says, and this, let me see what was time stamped here. January 25th, which was yesterday, U. Darvers is not playing a pitch again in the major league. 39-year-old has been one of the best starting pitchers of his era. And so the Padres, he intends, he intends, he intends to walk away from three years and $43 million remaining on his contract.

Here's my thought. Is that Kevin A.C. getting that from the Padre side? I mean, it would make sense to me. That would be the case. So is U. Darvish now refuting that? I guess they're saying he hasn't made a decision. Because Nightingale followed that up and said, now his agent says he hasn't.

It's a complicated situation or something like that. Oh, yeah, here it is a story. U. Darvish acknowledged that he is leaning towards voting his contract. but he made it clear that he is not retiring from baseball at this moment. That sounds like to me he wants to go pitch overseas. Maybe? I don't know. I mean, it sounds a little semantics here. Yeah.

Because remember, just because the athlete comes out and says something doesn't necessarily mean it's the truth either. Meanwhile, Ian Rapport's like, yeah, how are you feeling there, Joe Mixing? Joe said he was trying to get back. It's a complicated situation, Matt. How complicated is it? I don't know. We got Tatsuya Yemi. We're good. We have two weeks before I pay off.

off on the coffee and hot Danish. You can go cold Danish. We can't wait. No, we can't wait for it. I don't go cream cheese Danish. It's up to you. You're going to win this. Okay.

Well, we'll see. You know what we need. I need TMZ to get after it here in the next two weeks. They would have already been on this, though. That's why I think you're going to win. Because somebody would have shown an x-ray of a bullet wound in the foot. It's a truth. I'm still a little scared.

I'm not taking a victory lap. But you're taking victory Danish. I'll take a, well, yeah, I'll go cream cheese. I mean, look, the bet's going to cost me $8. I'm fine with that. I go blueberry? Actually, I'm going to probably use my stars. Maybe cherry.

I got a lot of stars at Del Rorawrux. No, no, we're not used, I told you. I didn't want that. Oh, you have to go somewhere else? Yeah, make you. Dang it. I don't have stars at Run Brothers. Mom and Mond.

Okay. We'd go after the show. It's nice. It's close. Have you been there before? What is it called? Mom and Mondand? I have not, I don't even know what that is.

You have time of all fair because I don't even know what that means. All right. Joe, a spot of conversation in a moment here on 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. In the AM here on Sports Talk 790. Ross via Rio out with you here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. As we were bringing you a conversation from this weekend. Astros fan fest was a great time.

It was a little chilly, but thanks to all of you came out, came by, said hello. as you know, our booth is a great place to get a glimpse of the players. And Dana Brown came by, Joe Espada came by, Carlos Cray, Hunter Brown, a bunch of others. We had some great interviews. You can catch most of them, sports talk 790.com, if you would like. But right now we are going to bring you our conversation, myself and Matt Thomas, with Joe Espada, covering a number of different things going off to saw season. I mean, a lot of moving parts for the Astros, figuring things out with the rotation,

with how the lineups are going to be set and all that good stuff. So here is our conversation with Joe Espada, starting off talking about reflecting upon last season. All right. A lot of stuff, a lot of moving parts. We feel like we can ask you 100 questions. We're trying to figure out. Let's keep it down with 50. We've got, you know, we've got screen training coming up.

I know. We'll see you down there. We'll ask the other 50. It's like we can keep you for an hour. There's 100 different directions to go. Let's just talk about you personally, as you said, good off season. Not the way you wanted to go last year. a lot of injuries as well, as you kind of had some time to pause and reflect.

Just your thoughts on the 20-25 season. You know, I just put it behind us. Not talking about it, you know, too much. Even though we, you know, we have time to talk about it, you know, and I could ask about it all the time. But putting it behind us, not letting 25 define who we are, because that was just one of the seasons that you want to, you know, put in the backseat and move forward.

and, you know, our guys are excited about 26. I'm excited about our players. I'm excited about our future. And, you know, the last couple of weeks, seeing the players come in here and getting ready for 26 and start talking about, you know, what that season, what the season is going to look like. My sprint trend is going to look like that excites me.

Excites the player, and I'm excited to get going. Look, injuries are fluke as we talked about that ad nauseum. But with that, even that being said, any slight adjustments to how you will prepare the guys to the day-to-day activities now. Again, you can't watch them this time of year, but they're under your spell when you get down to West Bombie. Yes, and then we are going to do some things different.

We're going to bring guys at different times. Obviously, we've got some younger players, some veteran players. We're going to train and do things differently for some of our guys. We're not going to spend a ton of time on our feet. We're going to try to be efficient. So it's going to look different than years past. I'm going to get the younger players playing really early. in camp. I want to build our veteran players a little bit different so they're not going to be

on the field playing games right off the bat, only some of the guys that are planning to start at WBC. But besides that, yeah, it's going to look a little bit different than years, than previous seasons. The Astro Homer and me was concerned about your pitching staff, largely because of injuries, not about performance, but all of the changes. I mean, I love the fact that you're going to get down to Palm Beach and you're going to have to legitimately have some good conversations, some tough ones about some guys that are fighting for not only spots in the rotation, but spots on your entire roster. And it feels like that was the situation that you were really grasping at straws in September of last year.

And you know what? They're going to answer those questions for us. We're going to have a ton of innings for them. And we're going to put it in the position where they're going to compete for jobs. Our rotation, and you mentioned our bullpen, nothing is setting stones, only a few spots, but it's going to start from the very beginning, and not only on the pitching side, but also on the position player side. Our bench is going to, there's some spots open.

We're going to move some young players around. We're going to have some guys who are playing the infield. They're going to play some off-field. So we want to really explore our, you know, create some depth, because we've got to keep our guys on the field. Speaking of that depth, you did add a lot of arms. we had Ryan Weiss on earlier. We know Mike Burroughs.

We know some other guys. What is the process when those guys are acquired? Do you reach out to them immediately? Are you waiting? Like, that's a quick conversation here. You'll talk to them more in West Palm in terms of roles or expectations and stuff like that.

No, once we sign them, his conversations right off the bat. I think it's important for them to know what my thoughts are. And, you know, the position that I'm going to be going to spring training. So if you wait to West Palm, it's too late. Those guys, they got to build up in the offseason.

And once we hit the ground running in West Palm, they got to know we're going to build them as a starter or they're going to go in the bullpen. So we're going to build all those guys that you mentioned as starters, and then we'll see where we go when we get to mid-March. How's your Japanese? He is doing very well. We actually just are. My job is. I'm working on it. But our pitcher, he's doing well.

We actually met with him on Wednesday. We had a Zoom call with him. and we give him like our schedule, our vision, and he's all in. You guys are going to be excited. This guy has a personality. This guy has got an edge to him. That's something that I'm really excited, you know, to have him on the field and competing. Our fans are going to love this guy.

We look at the schedule and you see off days and you see non-off days. And we've asked you this a lot during our weekly visits. Give me a percent chance that this team could see themselves playing in a six-man rotation more than not over the course of. 2026. Yes, I think so. I think so. I can, you know, that that strategy is going to be deployed early. We have to keep our guys healthy and and we actually added all this pitching just to do exactly that. We have a ton of games in April 26 and 28 days. We go, you know, we've got to some really cold temperatures. So we're going to make sure that we we take care of our guys. But yeah, six-man rotation is something that will, you guys will see quite often during the season.

Cam crushed it in March down in Palm Beach. Up and down season, as would it be for any rookies. What's the message today to him that you, I would assume, would be different than it was a year ago? You know what? I don't want him to look 25 as a disappointment. I think 25 was a really good year for him. There's a lot of rookies that would love to have the season that he had. He learned a ton.

He was a finalist for Go-Gloft in right field. He just learned that in a few weeks in spring training. Adjustment that he's going to make. He's got a great attitude. He competed in a penitence race. That means something, and I think 26 is going to be a much better season for him. What is it like for you as also trying to sort out this infield? Right.

No, you're right. Hey, give us credit. It took us four minutes to get to the infield. I thought you were going to go there right off the bat. But you know what? You know, and I mentioned earlier, obviously, Al-Tube is going to get most of his reps at second base. He, you know, going to have to, you know, want to give us some repetition. in left just to keep left field, keep Jordan on the H spot.

So you will still see some Altuvain left, not as much as we did last year. And in Paredes, also we're going to give him a look at second base in spring training. He's done it in the past. We'll see how that looks. So in first base, some DH. And hopefully we could create a rotation, a playing rotation, where these guys can go in there. I could give him some off days. And we'll see where he goes.

But right now, that's the plan moving forward. If those guys all healthy, it's going to be, you know, I'm going to have a really nice little problem in my hands, which is a good one. And I'm looking forward to having all those guys healthy and ready to go. Well, now as more of a veteran manager, well, I mean, of course, been around baseball your whole life. But what is that like for you trying to manage? This guy has the hot hand. This guy's swinging a good bat. This guy matches up well with this pitcher and trying to figure all those, how all those puzzles does this fit?

Yeah, no. and it's going to be, you know, I've been around these players and they know my style. And from the very beginning, once we, we, last year when we acquired Carlos, and I knew that moving into the offseason, this was going to be a situation that I needed to handle from the get-go. And I started talking to Paredes from the very beginning. Once you come back from any injury, this is what it's going to look like. I need you to start working so much second base. Carlos is going to need some days off.

So he knows very well going into the season that he's going to, need some time off. Same thing with Christian Walker. Last year we I play these guys a lot and as a veteran manager going forward, you know, I got to be smart enough and which which wins to pursue when to give guys some off days and make sure that these guys, you know, take some time and get him off their feet. And I think that's very important moving forward for this season. Yeah. I was just going to say about the infield stuff and we'll move on after this, fans are going to call us. You're going to be peppered with it with me.

Sure. Chalmers are right. So let me ask you this. To try to read your mind, are we supposed to come to you and go, all right, well, you gave Paredes an off day or you gave Christian, I mean, how do you envision this?

I know it's going to be player performance. Off days and playing the play. But this is going to be a story line for about 90% of the season. And so I'm curious how the psychological aspect of all this is going to be with guys being not showing up in the name on the lineup card you haven't to decide looking at the metrics of it looking at time off it's a good problem to have but nevertheless it's going to be a

conversation and he's going to be you know obviously the conversation i you know the conversation with the media is different the conversation with the players correct no way yeah and it's as long as as the players on the stand and we could plan ahead i could create lineups three or four days ahead of time and I could communicate and the players all buy in. I'm fine with that. If Chandlerone wants to argue with me about it, I don't mind.

But as long as the players understand... You have on line one actually. As long as the players understand that, you know, we're trying to do this for the well-being of our team and for their health, we are going to be just fine. But I can deal with Chandler

some different ways. It's fun. He's really a good guy. He's got... Because here's the reality. We do shows and we have people call. And so I don't want to put words in your mouth. That's what we have with you on weekly. But it's going to be a, what was Joe thinking today? Sure.

I get it. There's more managerial second guessing in baseball than any other sports. Any other sports. And I find, you know, and I welcome those because that's what he's all about. And he's fine. You know, the only, you know, the only thing I want to control is the what goes on in the clubhouse. And outside of the clubhouse, I put my, headset on and let's talk about it and that's completely fine.

Yeah, it's one thing, of course, obviously you're going to be prepared, you're going to have a plan, but unfortunately things don't always go according to plan. Right. It's like, we've used Josh Hayter three out of four nights. We don't want to use them tonight. Then you're in another high leverage spot again. It seemed to happen a lot. We're never asking about medicals anymore.

That was too much. You know, and going into the spring training, you know, we added some enough pitching with some of these guys. The guys are not starters. They could go in and be mid-leverage, right? And I've said this publicly, I continue to say that the four out saves April and May, let's try to get rid of those, right? And so I'm going to give the ball, give opportunities to some of our guys to get us out of those leverage spots in the 7 and the 8th. And I'm not saying that it's not going to happen, but let's just have those in August and September instead of April and May.

Go ahead. Balancing that as a manager. Like, you want to win every game. Yes, yes. But I think it's also, I think we added enough depth where our guys, Brian King's, DeSuzas, the O-Card, those guys got so many innings once our guys, some of those high-liberged guys got hurt, that they were exposed to that, and I think they are in a better position in 26 to handle some of those big outs.

Last question. Have you determined, and maybe it's on an individual bat basis with the pitcher and the athlete and the catcher and the batter, ABS. who's going to have control? Yeah, we, so, you know, we are going to have that conversation in spring training. We're going to highly encourage our pitchers not to challenge any, any call. We want our catcher when we own defense and obviously when we're hitting, just so the hitters and the catchers to do it, we're going to highly recommend, you know,

and try to get our pitchers not to challenge because they're further away from the play. So we want the catcher to handle that. We're also going to practice doing spring training where we're going to have a monitor next to the right down on deck circle. So when we're doing a live BPs, we can look over and whatever it looks like is striking. You're not sure. Just look over. We're going to have the Hawkeye giving the information so we can all get ready for the season. That again was Joe Espata from Astro Fan Fest.

A few more observations about what we heard and saw from Fan Fest when Ross. And I come back to tell the truth at the bottom of the hour here on Sports Talk 790. If you were something you want to comment on and something Joe had to say, 713, 212, 5, 790. Rockets play the Grizzlies tonight. The Grizzas are going to be here. They did not leave to get to Houston until this morning because they were snowed and iced in in Memphis, the weather, they're very, very bad, as you would expect. How about our rockets now?

Two and a half out of the three and two seed, because San Antonio and Denver are both at 30. 1 in 15, the Rockets with a half game lead over the Lakers for the five seed, but they would actually have a game in a half lead because they have the season series over them. It's only 1-0, but it is what it is. Rossi, give me LeBron, give me Luca and the 5-seat Lakers if that's what we're going to have to do. First of all, a trip to L.A., good for that. Number two. Oh, geez.

I mean, beats like cold weather. Okay. Have you been in Minneapolis in the Philadelphia? It's good. It'd be fine. Maybe not in Minneapolis. Real quick, before we get back to the baseball chatter. ain't scared of Minnesota,

ain't scared of Golden State, ain't scared of Phoenix. I'm scared about the above three teams. So the second round may be a little more of a dice situation. Yes. I would say, of course, Thunder first. If you had a choice of Spurs Nuggets, nuggets.

No, you beat them both. I would say probably Spurs, but it's not like it's going to be easy. Spurs be tough. Spurs are just deep as hell. I didn't realize how deep we were until I called them last week. By the way, they're going to be here on Wednesday for an 830 tilt. And then we got a back-to-back in Atlanta the next night.

It's not going to be all right. It's a long season. When did they get two days off? Oh, they just had two days off. Okay, that's good. I think this is their first time getting two days off and, like, forever. But I looked at the schedule, so I'm like, it's literally, after today, it's literally every other day with some back-to-backs in a mix. To the All-Star break.

Just get to the All-Star break. All right. So, Ross and I were at fan fest, had a good time. It meant a lot of nice people out there in the frigid conditions. People are saying, what's your scarf? We hit the over on autographs. The scarf bit is taking a life of its own. I didn't even wear mine.

It was just, it wasn't. Because you said you had a neck, you had a sweaty neck. And we can't have a sweaty neck. Yeah, exactly. It's too functional. It's too good. Sweaty what? Yeah.

He's anti-sorty neck. Do you like having a sweaty neck? Depends of what you're doing for it. Hmm. So, yeah, I had to take my scarf off. I wanted to wear it. I was prepared to wear it, but it was just too good, too functional. And I brought you one, but there was no need for it.

Yeah, I feel like. It was nice out there. It was fine. I'm going to go, because here's the thing, my mother, she's finding cancer right now. And I love her for that, for millions of reasons. But even her cancer treatment, she's like, Matt, did you bring gloves and a hat? She's got to keep an eye on you, Maddie. I was, I was in the terminal in Detroit.

I had to walk to the plane, which was about. I don't know, 75 steps, and yes, it was minus three, but I made it. Mm-hmm. I don't know if the scarf neck would have done much for me. Just keep an eye on you, Matt. I'm just not outside very much. For a reason. It's cold as hell.

Like today, you'll see you walking from the garage to the Tota Center and the Tota Center back to the garage. That's it. You'll make it. You and I're not going for a brisk walk after the show today. I'm not worried about you. Yeah, you'll be fine. But you know what? If you get me a good scarf, like a rocket scarf or Cougar scarf, or Cougar scarf,

Cougars scarf? Then I would probably change. Okay. Maybe I'll need one in Indianapolis when we play for the national championship. By the way, you've not brought up the Cougars losing in Texas Tech this past week. They did? Yes. Oh, Joe was speaking of Joe Spada, he was Joe Spott a true blue Houston fan. He loves him some Cougars. Matt had it on his phone,

and Joe hung out just to watch the end of the game where unfortunately the Cougars lost. Kingston Fleming's. Forty two points. Kingston Fleming's. Now let me taste something. Kings and Fleming sounds like a ridiculously rich guy, which he will be eventually. He sounds like the bassist with Bob Marley and the Whalers.

Hmm. I'm trying to. Like in a bar? Bob Marley and the Whalers? I mean, you've seen them in a band. You're not going to seem at a bar. Bob Marley's bigger than a bar, Maddie. You won't seem in a Key West bar working on some new material?

Ooh, I was just pulling up to a Houston King, Ken Palm. I bought the ticket already. That's fine. They're seventh. You know, Ken Palm can suck it. Oh, no, no, no. Because when Houston's number one on Kin Palm, Kim Palm's the greatest. Ken Palm's a genius.

I'm team Ken Palm Roy for life. And then when they're seven, though, Kin Palm sucks. Have we ever met him? I don't think so. Can you get him on the show? If you want, I could probably reach out to him. Why don't you, that'd be like a little gift for me. Texas, by the way.

Climing the ranks. Big 20-point win over the Georgia Bulldogs. I got news for you're building up Q1. You know this, right? They beat Bama on the road. Yes. Vandy at home and Georgia at home. I mean, come on.

That screams at large. Yeah, we don't have to talk about the losses. Who's bad losses? I don't think they have many bad losses. Probably Mississippi State's the worst one. I'd have to pull up the whole... First of all, how do the Cougars give up 90 points? I can't remember them giving up 90 points ever, like in it was since Kelvin's last five years.

Well, naturally, Matt. Bad officiating, I'm sure. I'm sure it was a lot of free throws. You did. Thank you. The Texas Tech, Texas Tech 18th, Ken Palm, just saying. JT. Topping, 31 points for that. For those who don't know, it's kind of a net rating that Kim Palmer-Rode does. It adjusts for opponent strength, so I like to check it out.

Does the tournament committee like Ken Palm, or are they indifferent to it? I think they don't use it, but generally teams who are top of Ken Palm end up as one seat. So it's correlated, but I don't think it's because the committee's looking at it. And by the way, I said Kingston Fleming is going to be rich. He's already rich. I mean, there's no way we didn't pay him significant cash to come to University of Houston. Yeah, probably. It's not shocking.

Kingston Fleming's. Oh, no, no. You know what? Kingston Fleming's was a character name in Trading Places. Okay. One of the two old dudes, Kingston Fleming's. Sure, why not? That's a great movie that I really want all of you to watch.

Trading Places? Yeah, it's fairly early Eddie Murphy movie career. Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie Lee Curtis was a Fox. Oh my God. Back when Dan Eric Ray was funny. Such a great movie. Yeah, it's an all-time great comedy.

All-time. Christmas movie? No. No. Okay. Winter movie? No, I doesn't care. You can watch it in the summertime and laugh just as hard.

Okay. All right. The Tell the Truth is up next. Jonathan, are we keeping track of how we're doing on Tell the Truth so far this year? I think, well, me and Ross. We got it wrong last week. And I didn't say anything you said was crazy or off base. I don't think.

I think we're one in one. Oh, it's going to be more wasting. I'd have to go pull up the opinions. I got one. You got to keep track. We shouldn't count the losses. You should count the victories. Okay, yeah, we're two and one then.

All right. Tell the truth is up next 1128 here on Sports Talk 790. With the great part about me, Ross, and Jonathan is I do know how to tell the truth. I'm a truth teller. Do you? Yeah, I do. A wacky truth teller. All right.

You know what, do you speak your truth? Just because your truth might not be everyone else's mad, as long as you as you speak yours. Now, those of you new to this segment, this is not about declarative statements. This is a truly opinion segment. Yes. I have four takes in my left hand over here. Okay. Three of them, boys, I believe. Jonathan, I don't believe one of them. Thus, how many lines are there? Oh, no. Ross, how many truths are there? What? Three. Three. Sorry, zone down. Which one am I not telling the truth and telling a lie? One lie. One lie. One lie, three truths. Let me write this down.

Number one, here we go. I'm tired of going to four you. That's a lie. No, that's not true. I love it for you. And seeing that Tony Romo is getting annihilated every single week, CBS loves him. He makes a lot of money.

He's very recognizable. He may not be a cup of tea for everybody, but you've got to stay off of the Tony Romo hate. He's not as bad as you think. he is. I just think he's a number one guy that is seen by more eyes, thus more criticism. Tony Romo does just fine. He's in my favorite? No. Do I think

he's terrible? No. Leave him alone. Who's the most widely... I'm sorry to get off track. Who's the most widely respected color guy? Everyone's like... Right now? Yeah. Greg Olson. Greg Olson. Okay. Yeah. But Tom Brady's moving up there. I think Tom's had a... Tom did a good job. Really, really, really good job. But y'all back off on Tony Romo.

That's number one. Number two. Just a feeling that I got from being a Ron Astro fan fest. This Astro's congestion infield will not be a thing all season long. We will not be discussing a congested infield, Rossi,

post-trade deadline. Until deadline. I would say post-deadline, I really in my mind believe that there will not be a congested infield. Okay. Number three. The CFP couldn't get its figure situation organized between the Big Ten, the Big 12, the A,

CC, the group of five. We're going to see a 16 team tournament eventually. I don't like it goes without saying. In my gut, because of scheduling, because of competing against the NFL, because of class time and whatnot.

Once it gets a 16, guys, I don't think it's ever going above that. I don't think we're ever going to see a 2014 field. I think 16 is as far as it goes, and I'm okay with that. Number four, New England and Seattle. Ain't the sexiest Super Bowl matchup, honestly.

I mean, none of the end of the four were really awesome, but New England carries Boston, but how many people in, say, Dayton, Ohio knew who Drake May is? Very few. Not a recognizable. And Seattle is probably the most, in terms of anonymous teams among, I mean, Jackson Smith and Jigma was out of his mind.

Sam Donald's got a little bit of a following, but generally speaking, not a really well-known team. Guys, when the dust settles, between watching it and streaming it, this will not be a top five Super Bowl. Of all time? Of all time. When you take all the Super Bowls, this will not make a top of five. And those are my four statements, three of which I believe, one I believe to be a line. Which one of my?

I already have an immediate answer, but for the bit, you know, we have to play this out, Jonathan. I don't know how you feel. I forgot the first one. That's why I'm the other. I'm tired of seeing Tony Romo get in a... I'm tired of Tony Romo. I think Matt has defended Tony Romo before. And yet he's not terrible.

Yeah, he's not horrible at all. He's not as good as he once was when he first started. I think once they paid him like 18 million a year, he's like, eh, you know what? I'm going to hit the golf course, and I'm going to hit the film room. But he's still solid enough. And I think Matt has defended him as well. It seems very rational to believe that the infield will not be the way that it is

all season long. I mean, you're also, you meaning A, trades or B injuries as well? I would say trades. I think the Astros do not want to have to have to discuss this all year long. Remember we talking about with that with Joe about this is going to be a daily occurrence. Okay. And

as far as number four, I mean, with the streaming numbers, I think it could be a top five. I mean, Texas and Patriots were the most ever on ESP. They were the most watched ever, and it was a disaster of a game. So with the streaming numbers, it probably will be round top five, but I don't know.

And then number three, Matt can believe that it's not going to get past 16, but he would be wrong in that. So I kind of, I think I'm going to go with number three, Jonathan. You think it's going to be above 16 teams? Or you think that's his lie? He said never, you're saying it'll never go more than 16. I think it's never going to go beyond 16.

That's my belief. Whether it's, whatever happens, I could be wrong. My take is, I don't think it's, I'm going with that one. because of one reason money money money money so i think it's three or four but i'm gonna go three yeah i was i'm i'm on the four side i'm not gonna lie i don't i don't know man the streaming numbers i've gotten so much better if i take the loss in this i'm to the loss i'm gonna just go four okay you guys ready wait a second i have this backwards in my head three truths one lie it's what which one's my lie yeah i'm gonna go three okay uh yeah i think the

Tony Romo Hayde is being overdone. Okay. Leave him alone. I believe that. Number two, I believe the Astros congested infield will not be a thing post all start break. I think it's going to be trade. Now, injury means, I'm not counting for injury. I'm saying provided everybody's healthy that this is not going to work. Christian Walker's well over 30. Joseo Tuvee well over 30. Carlos Correa, they're going to have to rest. He's over 30.

I know. Injuries could happen. Injuries could happen. But I think Joe is bottom. He'll never publicly say this, but I think privately he's like, get me out of this. And by the way, Dana Braun keeps out of one of the left hand of bat. Go give me a left hand of bat for one of these guys.

I think this congested infield will be just a thing. Rossi, I thought you were going to go down the right avenue on this. Oh, God, yes. Jonathan, you win this week. Okay. The reason why I didn't say New England and Seattle would not be, that's a lie, is because the streaming numbers. Yeah, streaming numbers.

Yeah. It's so good that. you could put on two anybody's and it would matter. The numbers are just, we're watching more football than ever. Two year even your point. Texans and Patriots just sucked as a game. It was the highest rated game ever on ABC.

Look at that. I caught that clue. Good job. You did, but they're never going past 16? I really believe that. You're wrong. That's way wrong. When we're in our 60s doing this show together.

Okay. Yeah, I'll get up. Yeah. It's two, baby. Oh, it's going. Okay, yeah. But that's a bad opinion. That's fine.

But it's a funny. You know, Geros, he disagrees with me, so thus it's a wrong one. I knew it. Never. For you to say they're never going past 16, that's absurd. It took them three years to go from four to 12, and then two years into 12 they want 16. 24, it's way too much. Way too many.

In two more years, they're going to go to 20. They're going to fight for NFL. You're going to be fighting for calendar time. No chance. Chiching. 16. Chiching is everything. Okay, if that was the case, why are we stuck on six?

68 teams of tournament. We should be at 84 and have they've already been talking about going to that. Because they used to be at, they used to be at 32. Then they went to 64 and then they went to 65 and then they went to 68. And now they want more. In 2036 when they're still at 16. I want my props. You're going to be wrong.

Then you give me the hammer. Wrong. Wrong. They're going to, I would say at least 20 maybe will hit the max. I would curious, are our SEC Broski is where they are on that. They're taking the day off. They're quote-unquote working from home, whatever that means. I think they are going to go to 16, and then to say they're never going to go to 20 ever is incorrect.

I think 16 works well. You can double buy if you need to. You can form it. I think when you get to 24, you're looking at massive amounts of time off you're looking for. And not necessarily the time off Rossi, I think you're arguing about calendar time. You're going to go against that. The SCS is at 20, isn't it? I don't know.

What's the FCC place? I don't even pay attention to FCS. I can't even tell you. But FCS, I'm worried about television. FCS is happy to be on ESPN6. Jonathan, congratulations, friend. I appreciate that.

You know, that felt good by myself. So you're telling me they'll go to 20 with FCS, but they will not do it with major Division I college football with more eyeballs, more money, more sponsorships, and more games. Yes. Wrong. Okay.

Yep. Yep, yep. That's what I'm going with. And if I'm wrong, please call me out on it. That's all I'm saying. I mean, it's going to take a few years. We're going to be together. You and I are joined to the hip for the rest of your life.

I'm going to throw up. Don't say that. I'm out of here. Sick. All right. That was to tell the truth. All right. We've got the Matt Thomas show with Ross continuing.

Hello, everybody. Hope you guys are in a good mood. Hope you're safe and warm. We have the fireplace going on the house, nice and toasty. Okay. That's good. You've got the gas. You've got the.

the logs on fire. I guess. Gas is fine. I'll just make sure you don't breathe in the fumes or nothing. No, no, no. And I don't even light it. I mean, I'm afraid of fire, generally speaking. Really?

Yeah. Don't like it. What happened, Matt? Nothing, actually. It's okay. You're safe here. Oh. I slept while the last couple days,

the first night I get back from the only 3.30 morning I was working with you on Saturday. I had terrible nightmares. I don't want to get into it. Yeah, don't. Maybe I should just alter my medication or something. I don't know. I'm trying to take my medication during different. times of the day to maybe that's affecting it at all and I don't know it's weird we get you on

the antipsychotics I don't think I need that probably wouldn't hurt it's taking pills just for the sake of taking him okay because you're psychotic if you think the playoffs are not going to 16 I'm joking more than 60s at 24 now I didn't know that they're not messing around how does that even go but they don't make money the first eight teams they lose money then why do they have so many teams if they're not making any money. Because anybody competing at that level is not making worry about money. When you play, when you're playing FCS football, you're doing that

because you're going to get a West 1-1-1 check or something. They've got to be doing some kind of revenue, right? Are they losing money, but they have 24 teams? I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just talking out loud. Okay, let's put this in the logistics. And you're just talking of our ass on this. Let's say

that who's the FCS team around here? Oh, McNeese State. McNeese. plays North Dakota in a playoff game. That's going to cost them on short notice, plane flight, equipment, hotels, food for just one old regular season game. It's going to cost them $250,000.

Do you want to hear what AI says? Sure. Most FCF playoff teams lose money or barely break even. Yeah. Then why do they do it? I don't know. But I mean, that's the key. Why does anybody play volleyball?

or cross-country or tennis. Yeah. Football's even more. Yeah. Yeah, there's an AP article talking about even playoff teams losing money. Because let's say that you're Northern Iowa, okay? And you're going to have a home playoff game. You can't jump the rates of a home playoff game at Northern Iowa like you do an NFL or a Division I game.

Yeah, but it's an extra game. All the games are at home? Except the championship. I want to say it was in Plano this year or has been in the past. Plano? Yeah. What are they doing in Plano? Friscoe.

Oh, in the little Jerry Dome thing? Well, there's been Jerry Dome. They've also taken the ballpark and turned it into a football facility. I don't know. Oh, really? I don't know what I'm talking about it. But I mean, I know that Friscoe has held a championship before. But that dome feels about right.

See, it's about $14,000. Yeah. But the problem is, if you're Montana State and you've got four days to get to or whatever long it is, I mean, are you going to spend that kind of money to go all the way down there to watch that? Probably got it. You get a little TV money, right? I mean, it's on TV. Most of the games are on ESPN.

I mean, I don't think... They're on the deuce. My guess is it's a bigger package that ESPN is... Because they're not doing it for their health. They're doing it. It's part of NCAA probably. It's a tackle. Like when we used to carry on the Westwood won tournament games,

we would have to carry the FCS championship. Stuff like that. Yeah. So it all works itself out. But no, I don't think anybody is... They could go to 64 teams in FCS. It would make... They're nobody's making money on these things.

Now, to your point, that may be correct. is that there's an extra layer to make money. I just think you're fighting TV networks. And you're going to fight calendar dates and you're going to be fighting, not that it should make any difference, but you're going to be fighting length of season teams playing that may have kids that want to get out

because they're going to worry about their draft status. You're going to be fighting the portal. You already had that. 16 feels just about it. Oregon was losing starters in the portal. Yeah. They have to change that calendar. They're going to change that calendar.

They're going to make it like February or something. All right. Any other takeaways from Astro Fan Fest that you noticed? The Paredes' second base talk was interesting to me. I think that's, I don't want to, it's not lip service, but I would say that's, hey, we need to come up with a good answer. So people ask about where E-Sai Predates could be playing. Well, we had infield coach Tony Parrish-Chika on, and he talked about second base. He said the, he said not that it's easy, but it's the easiest.

Yes, if you've played anything before, your transition to second should be easier. Yes. But also, he said he has not been approached about working with Paredes at second yet, which I thought was interesting. And he wouldn't lie to us. I don't think so. Maybe. He seemed quite nice.

My point is, I don't think you can get to West Palm Beach Ross on February the 15th until Eastlake, go to second base. They did some with him last year, though. He did say that. Yeah. So it wouldn't be his first road. I think I have to pull it up I think he has played like a stray couple of games at second in his career

I'm sure it's not completely foreign to him but there's a difference in a stray game here and there than doing it 40 or 50 times an emergency situation or something the only here's the you're ready for this and you're gonna you're gonna crush me but

okay the only way that I think Paredes plays any sort of consistency at second base is if Yordon gets hurt and I'll two v a D. H. Yordon could get hurt Ia did not say he's never ever going to get hurt ever again and he's an iron man. I said to declare for a man under 30 to never ever again play under 130 over 130 games is an absurd statement. But as he gets year older, it becomes less absurd.

I need him to do it this year for my mental health sick. Seriously, if he never does it. Ever? We have a bet actually. And Zion Williams never play 70 games. Which he did already. Playing game does not count. Sorry.

We have a bet. I can't remember. Our bet ends in 2036. That feels like it needs to be a good-sized bet. I can't remember what we bet. I can go look it up. This is ridiculous. Too many bets.

And again, this is actually a bet I'm rooting for that I lose because if he's playing 130 games, that means he has been relatively healthy. Parade has started 11 games at second in 2020. Okay, so it's not completely falling in. 33 games in 2022. How old is he now? 27. Okay, so that's like, it's not like he's losing the ability to cover the position.

Well, he'll be 27 on February 18th. Happy early birthday to Isok Paredes. So he has some precedent there. Oh, by the way. How effective is he out there? Go ahead. No, finish your point. And another important question.

Could he be worse than Jose Al-Tube? Probably not. At second base. Especially with Tony Parish Chica sold it as, hey, if you can play third, to play short, why can't you play something? You don't want his stick out of the lineup as opposed to, say, a Christian Walker. Prolong slump for Christian Walker will not be treated as, hey, he's going to fight out of it. It's going to be ESAC here at first base for a while.

That's, I mean, because baseball is the long game. If there's any sport that is play the long game, don't pay attention to short sample sizes, it's baseball. That's going to be tough for Joe to figure out. We've got a little bit of breaking news. When we come back for the news at noon or right now? You know what? Let's make it the news at noon. Okay. The lead in it.

Don't look at Twitter. I won't. It's something too bad. It's something bad. Somebody got hurt or something. By the way, the FCS championship game this year was played in Nashville. Okay. A friend of the show, Dan Matthews, one-half of the first team, was able to give us that update.

Because Cole went. Because he's a football dork. He's a football dork. If you said, Matt, let's go to Nashville to watch the first. the FCCS championship. I'd say, I'd go to Nashville with you, but I probably wouldn't go to the game. Only thing Nashville needs is gambling. You can go run into some bachelor parties down in Nashville.

It's funny because one of Carly's teachers are getting married and she's like, I need ideas for my bachelor party. And she's knocking Nashville off the list. Too cliche? Yes. Well, Vegas became too cliche. So then people were going to Nashville. Now that's too cliche. Where are they going to go?

Wine country. I'm going to give you the next city. Charleston, South Carolina will be the next. It's a big hit. I thought you were going to say Baytown. Well, I sent her a message. I said, maybe we should talk Kansas, and she's like,

New phone who is. Charlson is a good one. I like that. I never been. I kind of want to go. Okay. Not with you. No, I don't.

Two bros don't go to Charleston together. What about, Phoenix is kind of a sneaky pick? Phoenix is an excellent pick. For you and me, especially because the three to two black check. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Yeah.

Remember when we have. The deep throw and it is picked off. Intercepted. Waiting for it was Gonzales. Christian Gonzalez sends the pets to Super Bowl 60. He was just in Cust a couple weeks ago. Didn't we almost have it all? Texans fans? You almost had it all.

Of course, C.J. Stride. Kind of not really? In snow. They weren't close to good enough. And I was also, as you just mentioned, I was watching that game saying to myself, I don't think the Texans win this game. They had to run the whole time the second half.

What do the Texans have, a horrible run game? Well, you're saying, well, would the weather have been in Denver would have been changed dramatically? No, because it was pleasant in the first half. Texans are first half team? No. Snow would have helped? No.

Yeah. So what, is it harder? Is it like, you know, I say, is it too, is it harder to lose a love than never have a love? well before. No. Well, I'll say this.

If you lose the NFC championship game to well, you'd have been to Denver. Ooh, that would have been to it hurt.

It would hurt more to lose in Denver. It's Stidham. And number three, or number two, whatever we are. Two or three. They're not beating the Seahawks. Can I?

Oh, we'll save it for gut feelings tomorrow. Okay. I leaned to it earlier and you agreed. I think we're, I think we're going to be, doing more evaluating of commercials than we have in the past.

That's my gut feeling as well right now. I mean, Drake May can go make some plays. Their offense hasn't been good all playoffs. Now, of course, yesterday is a different story than the rest. I just think the Seahawks are a complete team. And as Softie told us, playoff Sam Darnold is a myth. Speaking of Softie, as we talk, we get the news and we come up in a second here.

Apparently, some of you don't realize that's the same softy that blank talks Mariners to us. But people love Seahawks Softie. That was as amped up as we've ever had him. So he was bouncing off the walls. So he and his station are going to be down at Radio Row.

Here's the exact, and I'm not going to, I'm not to think I'm telling you he would not want to say publicly. Okay. He's like, I'm on my way for the, I have a way to get in the game for the credential. He does. he has to pay for his own hotel if he wants to stay. Because Radio Row is usually you get there on a Sunday and you live on Friday.

We've done that many, many times. I don't think I've ever stayed for one. Do you ever go to a Super Bowl that you've been? No, I didn't. Okay. The one I was going to stay for was Minneapolis, but then we got kicked out. That's fine. His wife wants to go.

So he's looking to buy a pair of tickets. Really? Would you like to play the prices right? Can we get some prices and write music in your joining real quick? Oh, I'm going to go out. over maybe. Okay. Okay. Hold on, hold on. This is the resale market, not retail. After fees. And I don't know where these tickets are, but I'm going to presume that Softy doesn't want to be in the upper deck. They're going to go down. They are going to go down. So when you ever find the price of the right music, just fire that bad boy up.

Now, he's giving me one total, which I can't be would be the end all for every seat in the stadium. I should have asked him where the seats were going to be, but let's presume they're going to be 20-yard line. second deck. All right, Jonathan and Ross. And my wife wants to go, so I need to buy a pair. Audit principle, I'm not paying blank for tickets. What do you think the blank

number was for a pair of tickets for the Super Bowl? We'll assume 20-yard line second deck. Mr. Thomas, I'm going to go with pair of pair. This is for a pair. 15,000. What do you say, sports Ardney? I'd like to bid $1. What a sly move that was

on your part, and you win. Yes. $14,000, he says, for a pair of tickets. My real guess was going to be 10-5. Okay. I would have been short. So I don't know. So he's asking me if I know people, and I know a couple people, so we're working on it for him.

So 10-5, he was going to be closer. Yeah. You got closest to the pin, Jonathan. Yeah. So he's going to join us next week from the game is in Santa Clara, but all the media stuff's happening in San Francisco. So I'll join us next week. All right. So Jonathan, you got screwed by a $1 boy over here.

That's ridiculous. No, I told him he won the reel. Closest to the pin is the real. We're not on the Price is Right. You're not Drew Carey. You know, that's funny. That's exactly how my mom lost, too. Oh, when she was on Price is Right?

I forgot about this. Yeah, she was over by $100. Good for her. I mean, not good for her. I just don't want stuff. All right. Let's go to the News at Noon, please. Yeah, you're bringing us the News at Noon.

I will bring you the News at noon. Let's go with some breaking news on this. I'm going to stay with one. Jose Altube. has decided to not partake in the WBC at the request of the Astros. This is going to Brian McTagher. People are coming to my side.

Just say no to the WBC. Love that. Very, very, very... Is there any astro playing? Not that I can think of. I'm sure there's going to be some international players. Carlos Correo probably wants to play. He wants to. He wants to. He's got to get some clearances from... Isak Paredes wants to play.

Yeah. With Mexico. Okay. The Astros hesitancy is according to Brian McTaggart for L2 to play in the WCBC stems from the injury he suffered while playing in 2020 when he had a fractured right thumb after being hit by a pitch. Now, when you and I argued about this, this could have just as easily happened in a spring training game. Yes, it could have. But the amplification of everything WBC is 25-fold. no 25 fold, 250 fold over spring training game.

And as even Joe Espott had told us on the show on Saturday, and you'll hear this coming up if you didn't miss the interview earlier, he's going to make sure his veterans don't play a whole lot during the spring. He wants to get these guys rested, and they don't need to be playing a bunch of mundane, doesn't count the standing spring training games. Where the BBC are just the opposite of that. So I applaud you Astros for telling Jose,

we love you. You're the greatest of it's all time, but we don't want you playing. That's big because, I mean, Jose Altova, I'm sure wants to represent present Venezuela. He does. And I would say, I'm surprised. Omar Rout, he agrees with that. Bench coach, who's going to be the manager for the

Venezuelan team, said he was going to bat him third if he had played for Venezuela. So not only would he have played, he'd have been in a prime RBI spot opportunity. Crisis averted. Now, I know some WBC truthers out there going, well, he could just hurt just as much into spring training.

That's accurate. But, and I know why this is, and I told you this three or four years ago when this happened, if it's on my watch, I can live with it. more than I can if he's away from his team. I understand. Okay.

And yeah, my only counter argument was it's up to the players, if the players want to do it. So we'll see if, and could this get other Astros to follow suit? I hope so. Jose Altovae is the leader of the asteros. I hope so. What else you got in the news at noon? Elsewhere on the news at noon. Well, Matt, you just heard the highlights there.

You had the AFC and NFC championship games. The playoffs are set. Patriots. get the 10 to 7 victory over the Broncos. Only three points scored in the second half of that game. The snow really started to come down. The winds were gusting. Apparently even surprising meteorologists

with how much snow came down in the second half of that game. As it was low scoring, some might call it boring or just not super entertaining in the second half. It was a low scoring game. Went well under the total of 43. And the Broncos did cover the three and a half. and then you had a barn burner until the fourth quarter

where no points were scored on either side. It was 31 to 27 heading into the fourth quarter. You figured there would be at least a couple of more touchdown scored, but that was how it ended with the Los Angeles Rams falling to the Seattle Seahawks. They played three games, all of them won score games. I would say two best teams in the NFC,

arguably even the two best teams in football, playing yesterday in Seattle at Lumen Field as the Seahawks are now going back to the Super Bowl. We would dream of having a Super Bowl as good as the NFC championship game was. I don't think we're getting it. 374 yards and three touchdowns for Matt Stafford in a loss, 346 yards and three touchdowns for Sam Darnold in his win. And he becomes the first quarterback in his draft class,

which includes Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson and Josh Rosen. and I think another starting NFL quarterback. He's the first one from that draft class to make the Super Bowl. Baker Mayfield, I believe. So Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen and... You know what Josh Rosen in that mix? Yeah. Well, I mean, he's a quarterback from that draft class.

I loved him too. First one, yeah, I know, you're... Thomas Sports Enterprise. Bullish on him. So the first making a Super Bowl before Alan, Jackson, and Mayfield. Sam Darnold. And Softie was so mad when I've... brought up the playoff thing. He's like, he's going to

prove you wrong. And he did. He said, shit your bum ass up. He was great. All right, elsewhere in the NFL, man. By the way, Denver should have gone for the field goal to make it 10-0. I don't put that in there. In the second quarter. That's why they lost the game. No, I'm saying they just should have done it. Giving Jared Sinema, Tenet, Lee would have been a huge. I'll give you this. There is a

Seth Walder, who is ESPN analytics, had it as a go for fourth down. There's another guy I follow. His name is Ben Baldwin. He had it as kick. So it's subjective, obviously. Yes. Okay. And only Sean Peyton knows. But because it's one yard and you're in the red zone,

I was in favor of the go, but they didn't. And they weren't able to score ever again. Which would have been cool because it would have been like triple overtime because nobody could score at the end of that game. Okay, well, quick couple of notes. Philip Rivers withdrawing from the Bill's head

coach search, Matt Philip Rivers has pulled out. Said for the first time ever by anybody. I gave you the low-hanging fruit. and you took a bite. Have you met me? And yes, Sean Payton is getting slammed by some for his arrogance.

Can I speak? I will not, I will protect the person's name. Okay. This person travels with the team. He's a complete a-hole. I've heard that before for multiple people. Well, he thought they could get one yard. He was wrong.

And now they lose. Matter of fact, I'm going to try to pull a quote up. he was getting cantankerous with a reporter at the press conference. I'll try to find that for you. Anything else? That's what we're. I mean, we got to take a break.

We got rockets grisly. We got a rocket's gris. Rockets grills is a night. Big game. Big, big, big, big game. All right. 713. Do we get more injury news?

It's up to 10 and a half for the rockets from 9.5. Well, Finney Smith's playing. Easton's playing. And a big one coming up Wednesday on ESPN. And 790. 830. start. You know that bad boy's getting slid. Oh, God.

Don't even. I'll be on the Rockets Wrap post game show late into the evening. And I'll be on the plane. I'll be listening to you. You will? Yeah. Okay, great. I'm at least driving to the airport. I don't think how much I'll listen to once. Oh, and then you're off on Thursday. Yeah. All day. Yes, because the schedule is just we won't begin to Atlanta. It'll probably four o'clock in the morning. Because it's a late late start here, plus flight, plus travel. No. I was barely. You see my eyes how heavy they were a Saturday at the... Oh, you were fine. You were looking.

for sympathy. Did I get it? No. I got one from some other people. That's good. I just ain't from some people. I'll never get it from you. We're super late. That's fine. 713 212-790. Ross and I are with the clubs on Saturday night late and dance at this song.

This is my jam. I believe I was seven vodka cranberries in when I was singing to this. I think this is what plays when John Wick is like shooting his way through a club. You don't watch a John Wick movies, too much violence. I'm figuring out the context. Literally the movie starts and he shoots people for two hours and then the movie ends.

Sounds like an Academy Award winner. Not really, but I mean, it's fun. If you just want some mindless fun, John Wick movies, two thumbs up. By way, you know, the Academy Award nominations were out this past weekend. I think it was Friday maybe and I went and looked and there wasn't a single movie. I haven't seen an Academy Award winning movie nominated in probably 15 years. It shows you what I'm not going to see. That's what we call you Mr. In Touch. I call you. So you haven't seen sinners? You haven't seen Marty Supreme.

Nope. You haven't seen. What would it? I need to see. Is Marty Supreme still in theaters? I actually want to go tomorrow. It's actually a really good movie. I want to go tomorrow.

I'll only go on Tuesdays when it's half price. Do you know the movie that is getting got good run? I don't if I got nominated at was the movie about Neil Diamond's tribute band, which I don't think it got nominated. No, I know there's. For real? Yeah. I want to say that Kate Hudson was nominated for Outstanding Actress.

Oh, okay. I thought you were saying it. A song sung blue? Yeah. Sure, why not? Which I will go see a biopic of Neil Diamond. That's for sure. I was like, why would I want to go see a picture about a tribute band?

Apparently it's quite good. Senters was really good. It was even great. I saw it in the 70 millimeter IMAX in Dallas. And the same thing for one battle after another, which was great. And I got to knock some other ones off the list. Marty Supreme, if it's still playing tomorrow, I'll go see it tomorrow, literally. Today isn't like a good day for movies, too.

Well, they got rockets tonight, so you can't see the rocket. Tomorrow's a good night for that. Well, I've been wanting to see Frankenstein. The Giermo del Toro version. How many versions are there? Frankenstein? How many Frankenstein movies have they been? Probably 10?

I've only seen one. Bride of Frankenstein? Young. Young Frankenstein. I haven't seen that one. It's on my list. Cult classic. It's on my list.

Okay. So, in our attempt to try to send anything nationally sports-wise into the Houston landscape, I got something I want you to think about for a second. Okay. Okay. If things go exactly like they did this year, with C.J. Stroud being a good quarterback, but not elite, could you see the Texans doing something that the Seattle Seahawks did? Try to get a quarterback that they think is good and maybe not been in a particular good situation, i.e. New York Jets, i.e. Minnesota Vikings are a lesser extent. and say, you know what, let's bring him here and let's give him a new place, new surroundings,

and we can have the success. Think about that for a minute. Don't answer it just yet. Now, the question, there's a huge component of it, who's the quarterback you're thinking of? Because we've already discussed that Mac Jones is what, already going to be afraid of this year, right? I think.

I think he is. Mac Jones, to me, feels like somebody who fits the bill. But if there's a very high pick, washed out somewhere, showed a little something with the Niners. And there could be something like that a year from now. So we're just, I don't have an answer. But my thought is, did some of that cross your mind? Because think about what the Seahawks did.

They had Gino Smith. They got to a certain level. They said, you know what? You're not bad, but we need better. And they went and was able to maneuver a trade with a Minnesota Vikings team, who obviously was not happy with the way things ended in Minnesota because Sam Donald did not perform well towards the end. They said, I can bring him here.

We can coach him up. And we can do this. So the question I'll have, and your answer will be when come back, could you envision a scenario where C.J. Stroud puts up similar results? I'm not going to say not turn the ball over four times in his last game. Okay? I'm not putting that into play. It couldn't get any worse than that, man. It couldn't get any worse, bootlickers over there. But it did. Could you see the text and saying, I just can't put big money behind him, thus let's go find somebody else and let somebody else dig in on that maybe potential huge.

contract. We'll discuss that coming back in a minute. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. If you missed our visit with manager, AJ, I was going to AJ, if you missed our visit with Joe Espada, we're going to replay it at 130 today. It was some of our best conversation we had with

him at Astro Fan Fest. So again, could the Texans do what the Seahawks did? Or is their situation so special? They weren't having to worry about paying Gino's super big money that the team you would try to trade CJH2 would be like, I don't think

I want Cedirstraud. I'm going to be on the hook for paying him $50 million in a couple of years. Things to think about next year on 790. All right, a couple of things to clarify keep up on. We have one year left of Mac Jones contract. Yes. Does that make him

Uber right for being traded? Because that's a lot of money to pay for a quarterback who's not going to take the field when you spend all this money on Brock Purdy. That could be a salary cap, a sister. It was only $4 million. It was a two-year $8 million contract. And apparently, Tom Palliserro was on KFAN 100.3.

100.3. 100.3. That's what it says on my article. That's weird. To address rumors about whether or not the Vikings would be interested in trading, because you know they need a quarterback if it's not J.J. McCarthy. Tom Palliserra. said it wouldn't be anything less than a second rounder to trade for Mac Jones.

Who will be a free agent next year? Are we lusting out? No, we can't be lusting after Mac Jones. Are we really here right now? This is terrible. But let me walk through this. This is highly not going to happen, but walk me through this, okay? You're ready?

Go ahead. You don't give CJ the fifth year guarantee. Okay. Okay. You go spend $35 million dollars on. Mac Jones. It was a three-year $100 million contract for Sam Darnold, so you'd be around there.

Three years, 110. Yeah. I mean, you're overspending for quarterback no matter who it is. The good news is we're going to get more. If you're, like you said, if it's like 20 touchdowns, 10 picks, and a lot of them are bad, and the offense isn't very good,

you're going to have issues. But if Mack Jones gets here and there's no run game and no offensive line, he's not going to be good either. They have a great run game. in San Francisco. They have good pass catchers and a great offensive mind. And so will that ever even be

a possibility in Houston, Texas, with a defensive mind and coach like Domeko Ryan's? C.J. Stroud in the right situation with a great offensive line run game and weapons, you can thrive.

If he was going to L.A. right now where the Chargers have hired Mike Daniel be the offensive quarter. Uh-huh. Does C.J. Stroud catch lightning in a bottle and is his dynamic 5,300-yard passer for the last Southern Jones' charges? And Roshan Slater and Joe Alter

healthy? Yeah. And Amari and Hamptin's doing well? Yeah. You got Ladd-McConkey and who have great time. Yeah. Yeah. All the moving parts. He would be good. He would be a good quarterback. We'd be talking about him in the top. Maybe not 10, but 12. Okay, you have a wide receiver one here. You have a tied-in one here. Yeah, you do. Oh, please. Shultz is fine. No, Schultz is good. Is he a top 10 tied-in in football? On the cusp? He's a cusper. He's a better than top 15. he's around there. I guess we can't give you.

I know. I can't give you the list. No, I don't want to do the list. Best tight ends in football. Oh, are you Google Aang in this, by the way? No, I'm just looking at the list of the best tight ends in football right now. Not better in Hunter Henry. Not better in George Kittle.

You're quivering your nose there. What is it? It's an ugly list. He was third in receptions. Yeah. Dalton Schultz. No, I'm born than satisfied with Dalton Schultz being my title. Jake Ferguson?

going back, let's go back to the central point. You need a wide receiver two and you've invested a, what, a second and a third round pick and making that happen. They can grow and get better. I think writing them off is a mistake. I'm not saying you are. Higgins could be the guy.

No, maybe. And you need an RB1. Now, that's the hardest thing to overcome. You need an RT1, you need an LT1, you need a RG1 and a C1. And you need a C1, LG1 and you need to get the bullet out of Joe Mixon's foot.

Hey! I'm going to fall on that sort for that one. Okay. Okay, so you're telling me. Let's go back to the initial point. You don't, there's no possibility the Texans

say, CJ, we're going to hold off on that fifth year option. I'm not saying there's no possibility. If you're in limbo like you are this year, I think are we going to see more, if we see more regression, or if we see another leap, a bounce back. Because he did, it was a slight bounce back this year

before the complete disaster that was the playoffs. What is slight in your mind? It's like you watch a movie and you're like, you know what, it's not that bad. And then the ending was horrible. I'll give you slight, but I'm also going to tell you that he's got an IH with concussions. The interception, yeah, the interception rate rebounded,

the TD rate rebounded, the QBR rebounded, quarterback rating rebounded. The playoffs did not rebound. The playoffs was, and then the playoffs were a splash. The playoffs, I've made him a national meme for people that don't even cover the Houston Texas. It's not great. Sam Darnel was a national meme. He was.

A picture of him with the jets, like pointing at the camera. That became a meme. City was a meme for a quarter until the weather got bad. Oh, Jared Stead him. Okay. What I just threw to you to you as a scenario is not going to happen. my guess is at bare minimum he gets a fifth year option picked up

inexperienced play caller bad offensive line, bad running a... By the way, inexperienced play caller is the Texans' fault. That's true. Texans fall on that one. They could have gotten somebody better. I wish they would have got Mike McDaniel. Frankly, Bobby Sloick has got picked up work again.

Yeah, he's an OC now. Yeah. Bobby Sloick, let me tell you something about... Bobby Sloick and I, if we were having a glass of wine together, he'd be cheering me. He was saying cheers to us. fall guy. He was a fall guy.

And Nicky C could have gotten somebody better. Instead, he went to his buddy chart. His Brosky from John Carroll or what it was called? He went to his group chat. He got him from the group chat? John Carroll and group chat. By the way, what happened to group chat Monday? We bring that back.

We need to. Here's what I thought we would do. We need to, on next Monday. We won't do it today. It's too late. Next Monday. You need to tell us the names of your group chat. Oh, no.

The ones you are willing to say. going to say because i'm going to tell you the i'll i'll i'll leave by example here i'm not we don't want i'm not going to say i have nine group chats on the top of my board on the top of my board you're sick one of them is logistical actually not there's not all group chats there is rockets team media for injury notes and that kind of thing i am in a i have one called a favorite child group that's my daughter created that one because she thinks she's the favorite daughter the kid of the three i have a thomas family one and then i have a seven 90 account which we will not name.

Okay. I have a Rockets Broadcast as we will not name. Okay. So in reality, I can't name any. I'm in another group chat that. You know, that's a terrible idea. I can't name any of my group chats.

Oh, you know what? I'm in a group chat with you, Ross, and Jonathan, called show group. Yeah, that's fine. It's not really a group chat, though. Nobody chats in there. Well, we chat information to each other. Yeah, but nobody's like, hey, did you see that?

we did that when you of h beat sFA we did that when too soon we did that when the chargers lost the playoffs I don't think we did we should have maybe we should have you know what chargers you got Mike McDaniel you got to be feeling good yeah that's what I'm saying I don't know Homeboy can wear his capri pants in California

would be just great yeah maybe that's why he chose there yeah it's very fashionable he's like I can't go to Buffalo and Capri pants and by the way you did call me out for being a hypocrite That's completely fair. I'm okay with that you did that.

Good. Because it's right. Why all of a sudden did I love cold weather games and getting people out of the, in the snow? And then I watched the second half game going, this is not a real football game. It was a survival of the fittest, literally. It was like, who's going to slip more? The thud from the punts, like 33-yard punts going out of bounds. How about the field goals going from northeast to southwesternly directional flow?

A little tipped. The one was a little tip. That's right. All right. Last thing in this segment, what have I told you for years that I say just say no to the Pro Bowl, right? Yes.

I don't care if they play it in Hawaii. I don't give you if they do it in Vegas. They do in Los Angeles. Now it's a flag football. I think it's in San Francisco. Okay. Did you just see, and hopefully you haven't seen this. Did you see who just got named

to the AFC Pro Bowl roster for this flag football big challenge? Anne Rogers. Worse. Worse. Worse? I'm going to see if you can figure this out in the next minute and a half. This would be good. Okay, you want to do this right now? I'm going to give you

10 guesses and it's, you know, not 10. What's the position? I will tell you that. I'm going to give you four guesses. Okay. Quarterback. Four guesses. AFC roster. Gardner Minchu. That's down to three. You said it was going to be something absurd.

Joe Flacco. Two. Two tongue of a law. One final guess. Oh, man. Brady Cook. Shadur Sanders Oh wow

You're giving me 100 more guesses No I probably would have got there eventually You were getting close to Joe Flacco And Garner mentioned Well you were at your voice that it was so completely absurd So that's why I went with absurd answers I'm going to go completely absurd Shadur Sanders making a Pro Bowl

He's made five NFL starts Wow Ladies and gentlemen Next weekend in San Francisco slash Santa Clara I ask you to do one thing and one thing only Just say no to the Pro Bowl I forgot to watch.

I didn't intentionally not watch last year, but I forgot. So if it's on, I'll flip it on. Why don't you ask Siri to DVR for you? Remind Siri to DVR the Pro Bowl because you'd be the only one doing it. I won't be the only one. It sucks. Sanders family will.

That's true. By the Cleveland Brown's still looking for a coach. Really? Do you want any of that smoke? Shador, Dion, Deshawn, you're a hamstrung, but they still have... Watson on, it's Cleveland,

under contract, right? Cleveland, Ohio. I'm good. Yeah. They're a cursed franchise. I'll take a special teams

coaching like Tampa or something like that. Well, you and Craig Ackerman. Yes. Mr. or Ms. Craig Ackerman, he's got a new job

leaving the Rockets and go be a coach with Atlanta Falcons. Is Atlanta, right? Yes. Special teams coordinator. All right. 1244, sports talk,

790. 713, 212-1-790. 7-1-2-5-7-90. Did Sean Paytonin-in-in-old admit that he goof in the fourth down call. We'll discuss it next here on 790.

So Rossi, I think there has been a philosophy, and the metrics obviously play a huge role in this, but I think we're getting too cute with the amount of going forward on fourth down. I know seven is greater than three, or six is greater than three. I get it. And even threes are not guaranteed, but we're catching a lot more aggressiveness and a lot more second-guessing,

and sometimes in regret about coaches always wanting to go forward on fourth down. And remember, fourth and one at the 37 is a little different than fourth and one at the 14 because you're like, man, you're so close to the end zone. You just get that one more yard. It gives you four more shots at the end zone. You feel like you really get it. Fourth and one, do you want to put it away? Do you go for a long field goal?

Do you go for it? I mean, there's all sorts of different scenarios. But it feels like a trend for me that we're just seeing. More teams and more coaches having to be second-guessed and ultimately regretting not going for it, getting the points as compared to going for it on fourth down. Maybe just because there's more chances for it than there have been. There's more people to speculate to it. There's been more. Nobody would, we're talking about it more because it's changing more.

Yes. But is it always for the better? Do I love aggressiveness? Sure. But I also love points. And points can matter in a game that ultimately came down to a field goal. ultimately the weather was going to dictate things later in the game. Now, the Shaw McVeigh not going forward on fourth down with his team down seven or down, what was, oh God, four.

Four. Would have made it one. They would have had a better chance of going for a field goal late in the game as compared to that pass on hook and Akua that he rolled, tried to roll out of bounds and couldn't get there and the game was over. So, again, storylines here obviously dictated when the game is all said and done. But it just feels like to me, not like it's overt, not like it's overt, not like a. it's criminal. But it just feels like to me we're finding ourselves with a lot of coaches giving up the three when they should take those points when they can.

That's all I'm saying. Yeah. And that becomes the narrative. And when a coach gets the fourth down and they win and go and score a touchdown, we just never hear about it. So it does work. It doesn't have a zero percent hit right. Correct.

But it feels like in the last one calendar year, we've had more, why aren't you going go get the points? Yes. I mean, I can remember. Monday night games. I can remember Daryl Johnson talking about this with the Texans. I remember this, I mean, I remember it about Monday night game. Something like I feel like I hear it. So here was

Sean Payton after the game yesterday being asked about up 7-0, why his team went forward on 4th down and 1 and if there were any regrets that he didn't go get those three points. Do you have regrets for not taking the field goal and going up to 10-0? There's always regrets.

You know, yeah, I mean, look, I felt like, you know, here we are, fourth and one. We felt close enough that, and it's also a call you make based on the team you're playing and watching on the other side of the ball. So, yeah, there'll always be second thoughts. Knowing what I know about him being just a cantankerous a-hole, I think he was saying that just to fill the soundbite,

I have a feeling that shot in Peyton would have gone first. again, it's a situation presented itself. Yeah, like I said, there's a couple of, I follow some analytics people. That's going to shock you, Matt. One guy says, one guy, models are different, and every team's model is different, and everything's situation dependent, and then you factor in the weather and all this stuff.

So there's normally factors, a bunch of different factors in play. So, yeah, one guy, I follow his name is Ben Bald when he had his model says to kick the field goal. It went from 66% to 64% win probability of the game to not go for it. And then Seth Walder, VSP, and his, model says to go for the fourth down. So it depends on who you talk to. It depends on what kind of process they use. I don't know. How much does Sean Payton override that?

Generally, we're talking about like one percentage point or whatever that these are differences. And you can't measure momentum. No. But I felt momentum shifting in that game on that missed opportunity. Well, the Patriots punted there next time they got the ball. So where

did it shift? Because that's three less points have to go chase. Okay. Well, they had the momentum. They would have went and scored. No, not the case, but there is a momentum shift and only being down seven-nothing, and I have being so pristine, then having to worry about being chased down two scores. Again, some semantics here on this, but I'll just, we're not ever talking about this again today until the next time this happens. I want my inexperienced quarterback to have as much of a lead as possible, and if I can go get points inside the 20-yard line, I'm going to go get him. That's one point.

I think at that point they had confidence in him. I mean, he had just let a touchdown drive. Yep. But there was also time that there was also some, the running game was not to speak of. And it was in the second quarter. Yeah. Which I think it would have been a momentum shift out. Would the game have ultimately turned Denver's way?

I don't know. New England played really well. And remember, it became a who can win this game. Actually, who could survive the game as compared to who to win the game when the weather got surly. All right. Now, speaking of surly, so Sean Payton was at the podium doing his thing, talking about the law. and Drake Greenlaw is one of his better linebackers, right? Fair to say? Yes.

Well, he was asked about his ability to tack downhill in the running game. You don't want to get into a football jargon with a head football coach, because especially as cranky as Sean Peyton is, because he's going to shove it right back in your face. There it is. Sean, having Greenlawback for this game his ability to attack downhill and the run game. How big is that in the timing of it? Do you want them to attack downhill?

Is that your, like, what do you know about attacking downhill in the run game? You don't know. All right, that's right. have him attacking downhill. It's good to have a healthy Drake Greenlaw back in the game. Yikes. He is getting rude.

Yeah. He's the smartest guy in the room, and he's going to let you know that. But I'll tell you this. Champagne's a hell of a football coach. The hell of a... You know, Ross, you and I've done this a long time. I've said, a whole

unfriendly, not nice about a lot of different coaches. How many did? A lot of very successful coaches. And they're usually pretty damn successful. They really are. When I was young, it was Bill Parcells. When I was an adult, Greg Popovich.

Who's the nicest super successful coach? Like multiple championships. Multiple championships. Like Tony Dungey got once. I don't think I don't think, I don't think, Misha Shoevsky was a particularly sweet fellow at Duke. Oh, hell no. Yeah.

Remember him going. after student reporters all the time and stuff. Uber successful, multiple championships, like thought of as maybe Phil Jackson? Zen Master? No, no, no, no. Is he a bad guy? Not a bad guy, but a peculiar person. What he's Zen Master? Thymaster or Zen Master?

Zen Master. Oh. Approachable? Was Red Hourback a douche? Oh, I think he was an A-hole. I don't know. What about Newt Rockney? Swellafella. Who would be somebody that would be a multiple time nub net Tony Dungle Dundee doesn't count

because he didn't want a multiple one I mean to have dead air but I'm just kind of thinking here softly quietly Okay AJ Hinch is a pretty good dude He's on 1-1 though Steve Kirk can be A little salty

Little salty Yeah Popovich super salty Very Extremely Um Eric Spolster comes across But he's not one multiple has it

He's come after, but he can get, he can mix it up too. Pat Riley? No, Pat Riley will, no, he'll put you in your place. So that's your older. One more. I don't think about it. Dave Roberts, multiple World Series champion with the Dodgers. Can't get, well.

I think you could manage him to a World Series. I was going to say, I'm like a robot. Maybe, you know, it's funny, Google AI just won the World Series. It's ironic. All right, 1258 on the Matt Thomas Show, with Raw 713212-5-790. By the way, when you all tweet, what I put on the tweet,

all Astros to join this cause, and guiding him Danny Andrews 51 and Twitter and just response, dumb. Maybe he likes to WBC, Matt. But you could say, I could disagree. I wish you would play. No, it's the social media. Just mute them.

Meet him immediately. Seriously, saying just dumb, that's dumb. Just mute him, Matt. All right, I'll do it. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-21-5-7-90 12-59 final hour and we're going to hear from Joe Spott in one-half hour here on 790 This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross You know what live radio does make you forget things and we forgot about a couple of people on our good guys finish first list one of the nicest coaches in the history of the world.

Rudy Tom Johnovich won two championships and was a super guy before the championships, during the championships, and after the championship. That's true. Van Chancellor, four-time WMBA champion before, during, and after. Okay. And Andy Reid.

I think Andy Reid won 100% would be a decent dude. He is a decent dude. Okay. And that covers it. Sure. that's the list most people miserable like gino ariama horrible human being Bill Parcells cranky S-O-B Greg Popovich cranky S-O-B Steve Kerr cranky S-O-B yeah whiny

Speaking of whiny he was trying to fight the officials the other day Speaking of whiny so who's whining now uh J.B. Bickerstaff my God Was he crying about everything He cries when calls go his way. And I know J.B. is well regarded around the NBA circles. He's got the piss and set the best record in the Eastern Conference. Rockets win and beat that ass. That was good.

That was beautiful. Yeah, we haven't mentioned that. Beautiful win. But damn, he's complaining about everything. Remember how much you complained during the playoffs last year? He's a serial complainer. Oh, coach complaining all the time. He's like our Adam Clinton.

Oh. Coming up at 2 o'clock here on Sports Talk 790. Scott Foster being at the game Friday didn't help the cause either. Oh. Well, they won. They did. What was a complaint? No, J.B.

didn't win. That game was physical, as we all predicted. Duh. I love that. A lot of physicality. A lot of, there was a straight, right in front of the Trite bench, flagrant reviews.

You don't want to fight Ryan Holland. Barysman Jr. likes to mix it up. You wouldn't back off of that bench, that Pistons bench. We got some all-hands team. Don't mean, throwing them. Well, you remember when the Pistons came here, he and Osser got into it. And Jalen During got tossed out of the first game. I don't know. I remember that I forgot the situation.

And then Jabari and Osir got into it. And then asked after the game, a man was like, yeah, you've got to let him fight it out. Your twin brother and your teammate? Let him let him fight. Oh, my God, yes. A man's like, go. We'll sort it out after you. It's like when you get together your cousins.

You know, let him fight. We'll sort it out after one's winning. I got new for you. Asara is good. A man is way better. And I mean way better So we got the right Thompson I agree

Write it down You don't know we're not writing that down Why he's supposed to be the better one You said I never agree with you Oh oh we're gonna have a jingle Ross agrees I'm mad It's me more than you think On Sports Talk 790

No you know what I don't want It does not do that You get a jingle? We love jingles on the show We were sick of catering to your ego in the show You've been saying that for like 16 years and you're still doing it, which I appreciate. Hey, we have to give up the phone numbers.

I don't know. Is anybody out doing anything like me? We're here. People, if you're out and about, the sun's out, right? Sunshining? Hey, why don't you call the show and say, hey, I'm whatever. I hope you're having a great day, Matt, Ross, and talk to y'all later. Oh, what part of town are you from? And what's the weather report?

No, I'm not in storm team coverage. Hopefully not. I didn't have done any of that. It's like 35 and sunny. we should be, everything should be melted down. I think the high is supposed to be 38 today. Okay. Hashtag balmy.

But most importantly, sunny. So melting all the ice. Yeah. I had no ice today. If those of don't know, I drove in today. I was given the option to work on the Kingwood Studios, which I'd be doing on Friday. But today is the day I want to come and hang out with you.

Okay. What was I going with this? Oh, I went 59 from North Park Drive, got it to 610. Time I left my house took me 38 minutes, which is not a record. because I've gotten here faster because of maybe being late for work or something. Okay.

But in terms of normal, it was less traffic today than it would be on a Sunday morning. So I was very, very happy. It was easy like Sunday morning. So just be careful if you're driving today, but the roads have been dry. So that's really a good spot. I know there's ice north, like a Grand Parkway area. Some north and some west. Yeah.

And northwest, of course. Yeah. But so far in the city itself and on my drive in from northeast, it was good. I was checking the, like, the ice reports. I can't remember what's the website called where you check those? It was basically a line right around like Cyprus. So my wife and my daughter were in Rion Rock this weekend. And we lost in the second day of the tournament.

So she calls me and says, I'm leaving. This is like a 9 o'clock at night. Saturday? Saturday night. Oh, you're fine. You've raced this, beat the storm home. So I don't know if you've ever been through this in your life before, but if you have somebody that's got a lot of will in your relationship,

and as long as you don't have a like a overly strong opinion about anything, like I could have demanded her to stay. Yeah. But short of that, she's coming. But short of a demand of you better not come home, she's coming home. Yeah. So her and another caravan from Ron Rock to Houston, normally it's about three and a half tops.

It was about four and a half, four, 45 for them. Okay, they made it. They did admit. They made two stops at Ruckies, both Ruckies. both Ruckies locations. Okay. One Ruckies, which is the smaller Ruckies, had nobody in it. In Giddings?

Yes. Okay. And the one in Waller had eight people in it. Mm. So, they'll say they had no problem going to get their treats. That's good. Now, nobody was cutting a barbecue. You were in a long line getting your jerky on.

I've not waited a long time to wait for jerky before. You don't get the Bohemian garlic jerky? How long do you wait in line for jerkeys? it's usually pretty quick that depends on where you go yeah point being she drove very slowly

yes i wouldn't recommend it but she was thinking if i get out while it starts if i wake up the next morning being sunday and it's 15 degrees in ron rock under the sheet ice it's going to take me just as long if not then some to come back to houston so while again i was not thrilled about what she did

and i was waiting for her until two-thirty in the morning i understood it. I'm glad everybody's safe. And she's a good driver. Unlike me. The rolls are reversed, she'd be like, Matt's Day. You don't need to go.

You're spinning out on $2.90. Correct. All right. And there's our weather talk for the day. Rockets and Grizzlies, by the way. Grizzles have made it here to town, so there will be a game tonight, for those of you that we're thinking about, but there would be a game. I will not be there, but I'm wishing you the best.

What are you going to be doing? I'll be home watching the game. Are you? Yeah. I'm going to get my fuzzy slippers out. Are you? Yeah. Blanky.

Are you? Yeah. Heat it up? Yeah. With a hot mug of hot chocolate? I guess I got hot cocoa in the pantry somewhere. Do I like hot chocolate yes or no? I'll say yes.

No. Why not? I don't like it. It's what? Mm-mm. Okay. Do you not like chocolate at all? Hot chocolate?

I'm not a big fan of chocolate in general. Okay. Like, for instance, I'll have a piece of chocolate cake. I like chocolate chip cookies. But I do not like, I don't like chocolate in my donuts. Or I'm my donuts. What about Snickers? Like Snickers.

But you don't like hot chocolate. Correct. What's not to like? It's hot and it's chocolate. Either you enjoy it or you don't. It's milky, creamy, delicious. You like coffee. I do like coffee.

I love coffee. It's not like a big difference. No, no, no, stop. Don't even try to wrap your head around this. Let's just move on because it's going to make me angry. Wait, man. I'd get you mad for not liking hot chocolate. Not angry, I should say.

Frustrated. trying to figure this out. There is no way you can't. No, I can't. I thought about doing a, we should do another, believe it or not, whether I could actually. We've done that.

We should do about once every two months or so. Oh, David, by the way, says John Woodnet, UCLA. I can't tell you. I can't. Now, granted, in 1999, when he was like 90, he was from, I'm sure it's a great person. The Indiana rubber man? But could have been an A-Hole in 1970?

Of course he could have been. Bobby Knight. A-hole. Bill Walton speaks fairly highly of them. Yeah. or did before he passed. But don't you always speak of old people highly? Not always.

Name a 94-year-old person that's spoken of in bad manner. You can't. You can't, but you don't want to say. Nothing. Oh, I get, we'll go out of breath. All right. We're going to find out what 94-year-old Ross hates, because this would be very curious.

113 on the Matt Thomas show. I think people hated Jimmy Carter. No, he didn't. They liked him. You know, no. He was considered maybe the greatest president out of office than he ever was when he was in. office.

No, Jonathan, do you know somebody over the age of 90 you hate? Over 90? Yes. It's impossible to hate somebody 90 or older. Yeah, no. I think the rule is if you survived in 90, you're supposed to be at least acknowledged and respected. Why don't you get past 90? Before 90, you can hate somebody before that.

Yeah, I'm going to tell you right now. Go to Twitter. Give me somebody over the age of 90 you hate. I mean, someone's going to say Bill Cosby, but that's it. Bill Cosman not 90 yet He's on the C. He's not, I'm saying? He's got to be close. You can't find nobody's 99. He's 88. So once he gets a

So when he gets a nighting around, I'm supposed to hate him? Oh, that feels weird. Yeah, you can hit him. Okay. Find somebody over the age of 90 that you hate. Is he out of the joint? Yeah, yeah. Okay. He's free and clear.

Alex. He's not clear. He's free. Has a community check-in next. Oh, great. We love community check-ins. We're going to hear from a Joe. a spot at the bottom of the hour here on 790 as well come on back 713212 5790 it's a new year it's a new

me it's a new year it's new oh you had you changed you've been saying that i can go back and look at the tapes from 17 18 19 20 20 21 20 26 we're making leaps we're being we're moving forward positivity only let's go not possible at all Alex and conrol at 119 hi Alex Matt we're uh we're out here working I can't tell you where I work I don't want to get docked wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute why Why can't you tell us where you work? I don't know. I just tend to have incendiary opinions.

Yeah, what do you need to know, Matt? And I say things that maybe get people riled up. What kind of industry? Can you tell me what industry you're in at least? I'm a welder. Okay. So you work for Atby Walder. Tell me what you said hello?

I work for a very large company. You would probably never guess. But the point is, dear and COVID, I was an essential worker. I was working out in Katie. And it was peak. So if COVID was a one, today was like a three. It was fantastic. I made it from my house to work in like, um, I think it was 14 minutes. And that usually takes me about 27. On a regular day, Monday through Friday, 27 minutes. I made it in like 14 minutes today. It's fantastic. Yep. Obviously, everybody that's in the office and all the corporate people, they're cold because

they wear like, you know, leather slipper-style shoes and stuff like that and, you know, delicate clothing. So they don't want to be out here in the cold. So they're all staying inside. And it sucks out. It's cold out here, but it's great because nobody's bothering me. So honestly, everything's pretty good there. Enjoying it.

It's 33. Hopefully we're going to get through the day. But, yeah, just wanted to check in. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Alex. Appreciate it in your friend, Mike. Thanks, Alex. Appreciate it.

welder that's a tough job I hear the money is great but it's a tough job okay if I gave you a chance to earn four times what you're making oof 20 40 60

but you were eight times more miserable no I already I already work a job that I love that I don't make money in I like doing it yeah I have I have a I've had real jobs. Real jobs suck.

Real jobs suck. This is not a real job. I recognize that. Like if somebody said, Matt, I'll give you $400,000 a welder. Go ahead. I'd say keep your $400,000. Yeah. Now, two things, though.

It's not a real job, but not everyone can do it. No. No, you can't. We have a lot of fakeies out there that think they're doing it. They go to YouTube fake. They can do it, but they can't. They can't. But it's also not a real job.

No. And we're blessed. Very lucky. We hold this with a high responsibility. Yes. going out there, especially times like when we go out and fan fest and meet all you folks who come out and say hi and say, listen, I love you guys. You guys are awesome. Yeah, yeah.

You guys are the best. You know what it does? It erases the memories of people that attack you on social media. Yes. Signing autographs. I signed two? I signed 17. Good for you. I'm just kidding.

I know the brain is going. We put the word Ann Ross on there with Ross. And change your world. At Sports RV on Instagram. You can follow me. I posted some pictures from Astros fan. Almost every comment was about scarves. What's your Instagram account now?

We're at 1350. That's not terrible. We're getting the number. We're trying to get up. I was at 200 last year. I'm at 3124. Why don't we do this? No, geez.

Let's get to 313 before the end of the show. I'm all asking for six people. What do you got on there? I got nothing except photos of me calling games, cities I've traveled to. That's great. My reels are getting much better. I've been adding more reels. Oh, you're okay.

That's good. What's if it's between a reel, by the way, and a post and a story? Real posts are pictures, reels or videos. And what's story? Story is just a 24-hour thing. It's a 24-hour post. It's not real. It's not going to be permanent.

So, reels are permanent. Yes. Well, you can make stories permanent if you make a highlight on your profile. So if you want to do, like, oh, locations I've been in and you post on your story everywhere you go. Like, I have decided, and I'm getting grief from the Rockets Traveling Party. i.e. Vanessa Richardson, that when I land, I put a song that is attached to the city

in which I'm coming to. Okay. Like, for instance, when we landed in Philadelphia, I put on Philadelphia Freedom behind the song. Okay. When I landed in Detroit, I put Bob Seeger night moves because we got to Detroit like at 1 o'clock in the morning. Okay. And she's criticizing you? Well, she's like, these things are not lasting very long.

You should go longer. So I haven't heard, I've never heard that before. Excuse me, what? Exactly. What are you all talking about on these road trips? But she's like, I think I'm doing it wrong because it's only showing her for like 20 seconds at a time. I don't know about that. I think she wants me to start doing like a minute? Yeah.

Oh, okay. I said, I can go a minute. No, you can't. Not much longer, but I can go about a minute. All right. What else we got? I don't know. Stop scrolling right now.

Is he saying he scrolling right now? He's stopped mid-sentence. We're here on the Mad Tommy show. No, I'm looking over show prep. I'm going to get a little bin. You've got to put your phone in the bin during segments. Speaking of Kangaroo, I was funny. Do you think it was funny when, you know, I don't want to, we'll talk about when we get back.

There's a part of the interview that we have with Joe that talks about the ABS. Yes. And by the way, the player reaction, we didn't ask everybody, but it wasn't like this is the greatest thing that's ever going to happen. A lot of it is because I think the pictures are not going to have control of the ABS. And we asked two different pitchers. We got two different answers. I know we had Arrogatti last spring training. He hates it.

Breggman hated it before that. Bregman hated it. So it depends. Everybody's not going to have the same opinion. Isn't it crazy, though, that it's not uniform, that you would say, we, I think we all uniformly hate umpires. So if you got a chance to fix the things we uniformly hate, you would think everybody would be uniformly in love with it. But it's just not the case. I'm actually surprised how mixed and varied the opinions are.

on ABS. It's a step in the right direction. I thought just before on gut feelings, and I believe I'm to tell the truth. This is the last step we're getting it. You put your name on that, I believe. I don't think we're getting any.

You might be right. I don't think we're any further. It took them. They're 25 years behind tennis. We've been using Hawkeye since like 2001 or something. Cricket's been using it for like 20 years. And it really hasn't delayed the game at all.

No. And that's what do we ask? Who did we ask? Brandon Walter. he said it's pretty instantaneous. And when they go full ABS. I wonder if it's because they're worried about length of time, if they're worried about the relationship between themselves and debate and the umpire's union.

It's the union. I think a part of it is union and part of his resistance from the players. Yeah. There are some older school players. I think as you get more guys, because think about this, when we were talking about like, Breggman never had to deal with that in the minors. No. So he likes it the old way.

And it's in people. We all get stuck in our ways in some. way about whatever. Like, I can't believe these kids are doing this this way. Right, right. So now that we have more people who have experienced who are coming up and have experienced it as far as the full ABS, I think more and more players are going to be like, yeah, you know what? This is pretty painless. I'm looking forward to it. This is where I wanted to go,

and I think it's going to stay right where it is. You get an extra layer to every single Astros' 10th inning show. Should we have challenge there? Why do they burn all their challenges in the first fournings of the game? All right, Joe Espott has spoke with us next. You'll hear that highlights about EBS, among a variety of things, here on the Matt Thomas Show, Ross, 126 on 790. Matt and Ross with you at 130.

Looking forward to listening to some of the best of the conversation that Ross and I had with Astros manager Joe Espotting. We all do bring up the ABS and be very curious to see what he says about how he's going to implement it and who's going to be allowed to use it. We have, believe it or not, today coming up in 20 minutes. Ross, what is today's topic? Alex Honnold, the man who climbed the end. Empire State Building. Taipei 101, same difference. Right now, here's Joe with Ross and myself

from Astros Fan Fest about how he looks rear-re-re-re-mir at the 2025 season. Well, you know, I just put it behind us. Not talking about it, you know, too much. Even, you know, even though we, you know, we have time to talk about it, you know, and I could ask about it all the time, but put it behind us, not letting 25 define who we are, because that was just one of the seasons that you want to, you know, put. in the backseat and move forward. And, you know, our guys are excited about 26. I'm excited about our players.

I'm excited about our future. And, you know, the last couple of weeks, seeing the players come in here and getting ready for 26 and start talking about, you know, what that season, what the season is going to look like. What speed train is going to look like that excites me. Excites the player and I'm excited to get going. Look, injuries are flukechish.

We've talked about that ad nauseum. Any slight adjustments to how you will prepare the guys to the day-to-day activities now. Again, you can't watch them this time of year, but they're under your spell when you get down to West Palm Beach. Yes, and then we are going to do some things different. We're going to bring guys at different times. Obviously, we've got some younger players, some veteran players.

So we're going to train and do things differently for some of our guys. We're not going to spend a ton of time on our feet. We're going to try to be efficient. So it's going to look different than years past. I'm going to get the younger players playing really early in camp. I want to build our veteran players a little bit different, so they're not going to be on the field playing games right off the bat. Only some of the guys that are planning to start at WBC. But besides that, yeah, it's going to look a little bit different than years, than previous seasons.

The Astro Homer and me was concerned about your pitching staff, largely because of injuries, not about performance. But all of the changes, I mean, I love the fact that you're going to get down to Palm Beach, and you're going to have to legitimately have some good conversations, some tough ones about some, guys that are fighting for not only spots in the rotation but spots on your entire roster. And it feels like that was the situation that you were really grasping at straws in September of last year. And you know what? They're going to answer those questions for us. We're going to have a ton of innings for them.

And we're going to put it in their position where they're going to compete for jobs. Our rotation, you mentioned our bullpen, nothing is setting stones, only a few spots. But it's going to start from the very beginning and not only on the pitching side, but also on the position player side. Our bench is going to, there's some spots open. We're going to move some young players around. We're going to have some guys that are playing the infield. They're going to play some off-field. So we want to really explore our, you know, create some depth, because we've got to keep our guys on the field.

Speaking of that depth, you did add a lot of arms. What is the process when those guys are acquired? Do you reach out to them immediately? Are you waiting like a quick conversation here? You'll talk to him more in West Palm In terms of roles or expectations and stuff like that No, once we sign them is conversations right off the bat I think it's important for them to know what my thoughts are And you know the position that I go being going to spring training So if you wait to West Palm is too late

Those guys they got to build up in the off-season and once we hit the ground running in in West Palm They got to know we're gonna build them you know as a start or they're going to go in the bullpen? So we're going to build all those guys that you mentioned as starters and then we'll see where we go when we get to mid-March. How's your Japanese? He is doing very well. We actually just are my job here. I'm working on it, but our pitcher, he's real well. We actually met with him on Wednesday.

We had a Zoom call with him and we gave him like our schedule, our vision, and he's all in. You guys are going to be excited. This guy has a personality. This guy is a, it's got an end. It's got an edge to him. That's something that I'm really excited, you know, to have him on the field and competing. Our fans are going to love this guy. Give me a percent chance that this team could see themselves playing in a six-man rotation more than not over the course of 2026. Yes, I think so. I think so.

I can, you know, that strategy is going to be deployed early. We have to keep our guys healthy. And we actually added all this pitching just to do exactly that. We have a ton of games in April, 26 in 20. 28 days, we go, you know, we go to some really cold temperatures. So we're going to make sure that we take care of our guys. But yeah, six-man rotation is something that will, you guys will see quite often during the season. Cam crushed it in March down in Palm Beach. Up and down season, as would it be for any rookies. What's the message today to him that you, I would assume,

would be different than it was a year ago? You know what? I don't want him to look 25 as a disappointment. I think 25 was a really good year for him. There's a lot of rookies that would love to have the season that he had. He learned a ton. He was a finalist for Go Glove in right field. He just learned that in a few weeks in spring training. Adjustment that he's going to make. He's got a great attitude. He competed in a pennant race. That means something. And I think 26 is going to be a much better season for him. What is it like for you as also trying to sort out this infield? Because, no, you're right? flick the million dollars. Hey, give us credit. It took us four minutes to get the

field. I thought you were going to go there right off the bat. But you know what? You know, and I mentioned earlier, obviously Altube is going to get most of his reps at second base. He, you know, going to have to, you know, want to give us some repetitions in the left just to keep left field, keep Jordan on the H spot. So you will still see some Altuvain left, not as much as we did last year. And in Paredes, also we're going to give him a look at second base in spring training. He's done it in the past. We'll see how that looks.

So I'm first based, some DH. And hopefully we could create a rotation, a playing rotation where these guys can go in there. I could give him some off days. And we'll see where he goes. But right now, that's the plan moving forward. If those guys are healthy, it's going to be, you know, I'm going to have a really nice little problem in my hands, which is a good one. And I'm looking forward to having all those guys healthy and ready to go.

Well, what is that? like for you trying to manage, this guy has the hot hand, this guy's swing on a good bat, this guy matches up well with this pitcher and trying to figure all those, how all those puzzles does this fit? Yeah, no, and it's going to be, you know, I've been around these players and they know my style. And from the very beginning, once we, we, last year when we acquired Carlos, and I knew that moving into the offseason, this was going to be a situation that I needed to handle from the get-go. And I started talking to Paredes from the very beginning. very beginning. Once you come by from an injury, this is what it's going to look like.

I need you to start working so at second base. Carlos is going to need some days off so he knows very well going into the season that he's going to need some time off. Same thing with Christian Walker. Last year, I played these guys a lot. And as a veteran manager going forward, you know, I got to be smart enough when which wins to pursue, when to give guys some off days and make sure that these guys, you know, take some time. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, get him off their feet and I think that's very important moving forward for this season. Fingers are going to call us, you're going to be peppered with it with me. Sure.

And the champions are right. So let me ask you this. To try to read your mind, are we supposed to come to you and go, all right, well, you gave Paredes an off day or you gave Christian, I mean, how do you envision this? I know it's going to be player performance. Off days will play in the play. But this is going to be a story line for about 90% of the season. And so I'm curious how the psychological aspect of all this is going to be with guys being not showing up in the name of the lineup card

You haven't decided looking at the metrics of it looking at time off Yeah, it's a good problem to have but nevertheless No one to be a conversation all year long and and he's going to be you know obviously the conversation I don't you know the conversation with the media is different the conversation with the players Correct? No way. Yeah as long as they as long as the players on the stand and we could plan ahead I I could create lineups three or four days ahead of time, and I could communicate in the players all buy-in.

I'm fine with that. If Chandlerone wants to argue with me about it, I don't mind. But as long as the players understand one, actually, as long as the players understand that, you know, we're trying to do this for the well-being of our team and for their health, we are going to be just fine. But we do shows, and we have people call. And so I don't want to put words in your mind.

mouth. That's what we have with you on weekly, but it's going to be a, what was Joe thinking today? Sure. I get it. There's more managerial second guessing in baseball than any other sports. Any other sports. And I find, you know, and I welcome those because that's what he's all about. And he's fine. You know, the only, you know, the only thing I want to control is the, what goes on in the clubhouse. And outside of the clubhouse, I, hey, I put my headset on and let's talk about it. And that's completely fine. We've used Josh Hader three out of four nights. want to use them tonight. Then you're in another high leverage spot again. It seemed to happen a lot. We're never asking

about medicals anymore. That was too much. You know, and going into the spring training, you know, we added some enough pitching with some of these guys who even the guys are not starters. They could go in and meet leverage, right? And my, you know, and I've said this publicly, I continue to say that the four out saves April and May, let's try to get rid of those, right? And so I'm going to give the ball, give opportunities to some of our guys.

to get us out of those leverage spots in the 7 and the 8th and I'm not saying that he's not going to happen but let's just have those in August since September instead of April and May balancing that as a manager like you want to win every game yes yes you know but I think it's also I think we added enough depth where our guys the Brian King's the suit says the O-Card those guys got so many innings once our guys one of those high-leverage guys got hurt that they are they were exposed to that and I I think they are in a better position in 26 to handle some of those big outs. Have you determined, and maybe it's on an individual basis with a pitcher and the athlete and the catcher and the batter?

ABS. Who's going to have control? Yeah, we are going to have that conversation in spring training. We're going to highly encourage our pitchers not to challenge any call. We want our catcher when we're on defense and obviously when we're hitting, just so the hitters and the catcher and the catchers to do it, we're going to highly recommend, you know, and try to get our pitchers not to challenge, because they're further away from the play. So we want the catcher to handle that.

We're also going to practice doing spring training, where we're going to have a monitor next to the, right there on deck circle. So when we're doing our live BP's, we can look over and whatever looks like is striking, you're not sure, just look over, and we're going to have the Hawkeye given the information so we can, so we could all get ready for the season.

So there could be some guys on the you don't ask list? There are the percentage. I got an NBA player named Alperin Schengun, he's wonderful, but he wants to challenge everything. And he's like, now and on it every time. You know, the players can police himself, and then I'm sure those players, you're not allowed to do it. You take percentages, right? You have to take... You know what?

We actually going to keep track of it, and we're going to play a little game of it, and we're going to... A little kangaroo court when we do our... You're done. You're batting 150 in ABS out. I like that. He's one of those that he's not going to miss many. But we've got quite a few other guys that, you know, obviously, there's going to be an emotional aspect of things with nobody on base

and you want to challenge. We're going to try not to do it then. So we'll see how that goes. All right, I have the pitcher, no doubt in my mind that will ask for ABS more than any other astro pitcher. Can you guess? You get one guess and one guess only. who it would be. Well, Frumber's not signed.

Correct. That would be my first guess. Okay. Then it would be Verlander. He's not an astro. Neither one of those. Hmm. No doubt in your mind.

I'll let you mull it over. Let's see if the answer we'll come back. On the roster. 144. We're going to play, believe it or not next. That's who you may. No. I'm going to give you one more chance to guess.

I want a legitimate guess. A hundred Brown. Why not? No. You want the answer? Yes. Lance McCuller's Jr. No doubt in my mind.

Oh, you think so? Oh, absolutely. I don't know. Brah, bra, I needed that one. Bruh. Really? I needed that one. He's not the first pitcher to come to mind for me.

If you had, if you looked at a roster, name the one pitcher who will ask for more ABS strikes. Like I said, it would have been Frumber. Oh, for sure. And maybe, well, I don't know. Frumber's still not signed, is he? JV's not signed. I don't think the Astros need him at this point. Life has moved on.

Let's play, believe or not, all things about. about Alex, how do you pronounce the name, Honnold? You told me you should know. I don't know. All right. Final moments of the Matt Thomas show for this, Ross. So, we'll remind you that tomorrow, we've got gut feelings on the show tomorrow.

We're going to make our predictions on the Super Bowl or is that we don't know. I don't know. I feel like it's not going to change. We can gut feeling it. Hmm. My gut feeling is, uh, see how much. talks by 9 to 10.

You know, it's funny. Two score games. We in the prediction business never like to make predictions of great, great scores. Okay. Put it this way, they were both one score games.

Chip. Chip games. 31's a little high. Because I also think it's going to go under. 2718. 2718. Are we going to do squares this year for charitable purposes?

We do it all the time. But I get the work. numbers. That's not true. I've never won. Never once? Not since I heart. Not at all.

Really? Never won't. I won one time. And then like the guys, I won't mention names, Michael Garfield, who never should win, always win. See, this is how you get me blocked by him on Twitter. I got blocked to him and on Facebook too. It's so funny because he blocked me and then he saw me at the Barry Manilin concert when we were we were best friends.

Hmm. Interesting. That's fine. I mean, I know them against him. I mean, I like him. I like me. My fellow Longhorn brethren. Look him horns.

Did he graduate too or no? I don't know. Did you graduate? I don't know. No, I didn't. Sorry. I left. You got the good part of the education.

Sure, why not? You need to write the papers late. I mean, I went there for a couple years and then I moved on to other things. And look where you are now. Oh, God. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should play.

America's fastest growing sports radio game show we simply call it B. Believe it or not, and here's how it works. You'll call 713213-212-5-790. Today's edition of Believe it or Not is about all things. Oh, you know what? I forgot the look. Damn it. How do we pronounce this dude's name? Just go with Honnold. Well, I don't want to do it. I'm just going to say his first name. Is that okay?

Sure, why not? The audience really matters who this guy. Alex Honnold. That's what it sounds like. Alex Honnold. He's the guy that went up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Yeah. It's German.

His dad was German. His mom's Polish. Alex Honnold. Honnold. I'll read your statement, but it's statement's completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Belie of it.

The statement's here, Ronius, full of bunk. I may have you'll say this. Two believe it were not sent a row in a year prize. Today we are playing for a 7-0-0-0-0-te-shirt, a pair of tickets to see Monster Energy. AMA Supercross. That's January the 31st or a pair of tickets to see

Riley Green March 2nd opening day at Rodeo Houston. Tickets for that are at Rodeo Houston.com. Tickets for the Monster Energy AMA Supercross. That's a pair of tickets. We'll go to you at Ticketmaster.com if you don't win with us today. I'm Alex Honnold. Today I will be answering your

questions. Alex Honnold. Thank you very much. All you do is support this show. I swear. 713-212-5-790. Bill What is the tallest building you've ever climbed in your life? My wife. 713-212-5-790. Here we go. Alex Honnold has a condition called Joint Hypermobility,

which helps him get a firm grip on rocks and vertical edges. Believe it or not. Man, believe that. No, we bring that up. Bye. Let me hear you. No, he didn't talk anymore. I like that one.

On 790, Juan, you ready to play Believe it or not? Believe it. In 2015, Alex Honnold published his memoir titled Alone on the Wall. Believe it or not? Not me. That's a believe it. How did you not read that? It's a good one.

I read that in two days. He's only 40. That was published 11 years ago. Victor on 790, Victor, you ready to play Believe it or not? Believe it. Due to low cost and convenience, Alex Honnold spent much of his career living out of a Ford Ecoline van. Believe it or not? Believe it? That's right.

Believe it. Statement number two for the win. Alex proposed to his wife, Sannie, at the summit of Mount Hayden in Grand Canyon National Park. Believe it or not? Believe it. No, did none of the such. I believe he was at a Las Vegas wedding chapel. Let's go to John

on 790. John, what was your favorite part? Today's 10 to 2 radio show. Alex Honnold has appeared in advertisements for several outdoors and extreme sports companies including Patagonia, R-E-I, and Red Bull. Believe it or not? Not. That's correct. Statement number two for the wing, Alex Honnold's 2017 documentary film Free Solo won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Believe it or not.

Believe it. There you go. Thank you. Blake on 790. Ready to play Believe it or not? Blake? Blake, here we go. inspired by her son Alex Honnold's mom became rock climbing at the age of 60 and became the oldest woman to climb El Capitan at Yosemite National Park. Believe it or not.

To a detail, not. That's a believe it. By the way, you should be very happy that I said El Capiton. Last one, Mack in Pearland on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. Alex Honnold is a big advocate for the preservation of the earth and donates a third of his income to solar energy causes. Believe it or not.

Believe it. Believe it. Believe it is right. Congratulations. All right. Up next, a man who is starting a national campaign to eliminate any more C.J. Stroud memes on social media streets. His name is Adam Clanton.

He, along with Wexler, are the A team. And they're entertaining a hell out of you between now and six here on 790. It is.