The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Rockets Escape With Win Over Cavs, Bregman To Tigers Talk Gone Cold, Cowboys Closing In On New Coach

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal of "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross" recap the Houston Rockets narrowly earning a victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers with Wednesday's 109-108 victory. Tari Eason committed a flagrant foul on Darius Garland's 3-point attempt to send Garland to the foul line with 2.1 seconds, but Garland missed two of his three free throws. Donovan Mitchell's buzzer-beater attempt was no good, and the Rockets rallied to defeat a team with the NBA's best record so far this season. Matt and Ross also:react to the NFL fining Texans RB Joe Mixondiscuss reports that Alex Bregman's free agent talks with the Detroit Tigers have gone coldreview the Cowboys closing in on a deal to make offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer their new coach coachsay "I Just Don't Get It" and more.

Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 10-02 in H-town. Good morning. And welcome to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. Now, Marius Garland. Was that a natural shooting motion?

A 90% free-throw shooter. Jerome, hands on a carl. A three-pointer for the win. He has fouled. It hits the front rim. The clock shows 2.8 seconds left. There you go. There's your miss.

First is the miss. And he missed two earlier, so it's... This is not in the bad. I'm reading the right numbers here. He's a 90% free-fisher. He was fifth best in the association coming in. Here's the second free throw. That's also no-goes!

Are you kidding? What a... I have his worst free-throw shooting ever as an NBA player. You've been given a ninth-fly back. out of plant. 109, 108. Cavaliers have it. They have no time out.

Here we go. Tide Jerome on the sideline. J. Sean, Tatele, Garland, and bounce. Bounce pass, left side, Mitchell, side pocket. It was strange magic. On Darius Garland. The Rocket's MVP. Last night was Darius Garland.

A top 10 free throw shooter. missing a plethora of free throws, including two of the three that would have given the lead to the Cavaliers. Three of eight from the free throw line. Everyone else was 10 of 11 on the Cavs. A 90% free throw shooter misses, you said five free throws? Those are Dwight Howard numbers. Three of eight.

It was strange, Rossi. Rockets got away with one. And how? Good morning. It is the bad topic show with 1005. And yeah, I did go Bobby Brady on the very end of that, but that's just four hours of radio in a two and a half hour, highly dramatic basketball game. What Bobby Brady, I didn't mean. That's what, you know, Bobby Brady, his voice would, would, when his...

Peter Brady? Not Bobby Brady. I don't know. Peter Brady. Yeah. That was, my testicles have dropped. Clearly, his did not back in the day, but... Okay. That's seven hours of being on the radio.

You hear it, Mal? You hear how soul-try sound right now? You sound great, Matt. Thank you very much. The quiet store. Yeah, just talk like that the whole show. I mean, I guess I could. Don't...

No, no. Okay. Say words, not sounds. Okay, so now no sound effects is what you're saying. Okay. All right, that's good. Hey, it is a Thursday edition of the Matt Tomicel Ross. We really appreciate y'all spending some time with us today.

We're going to be here to 2 o'clock. So spend four hours with us. I will. You can conduct business at your office or at your home. You can call your friends. You can Facebook. You can go on Instagram and get back on your TikToks. FaceTime.

FaceTime. But you've got to listen to us. And interact with the show at 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90. As the Rockets beat the best. best team record-wise in the association. Yes. And a game where they frankly, I mean, I'm not going to mince words here, they should have lost

the game. Absolutely. When you give up a night, is that a 19-0-0 run last night? Yeah, I think it was 19-0-0 at one point. When you give up 19 consecutive points in the fourth quarter, you're supposed to lose that game. When you foul a three-point shooter and then you don't give them a spot to land, you're supposed to lose the game.

and that was by the textbook an absolute flagrant foul penalty one. It was the correct call for sure on Tar Easton. And on top of that, Rossi, the Rockets, Schengoon got away with one. When he pushed aside who, uh... Oh, yeah. Jared Allen? Jared Allen. Jared Allen fouled him on the way up on a jump hook.

They didn't call that. Yeah. But as the ball was going through, Albury Shingoon was not overly pleased with the fact that Jared Allen found him and no whistle came. So he pushed him to the side, fell down. Yes. It wasn't a flop. Now, not the Jared Allen is...

It was a bit of a flop. He's not built of bricks. He did flop a little bit. But he sold it. Let's put it that way. As I would have looked at it, that looked like to me a push and it would have been a worst and easy case of a technical foul. Yeah.

My guess would have been a technical foul, which would have been one free throw. They got away with that one. All right. It was a 50-50 one to me because there was a little bit of a Jared Allen cell job. Yeah, and maybe the officials saw that. But the Tari Easton foul, and God bless Tarii said, as soon as the game was over, he's like, I'm going to the locker room as fast as possible. I'm going to run and hide from all of you because I committed a, first of all, fouling a jump shooter that far out with that little time left. And then not giving him a landing space was, that could have been potentially a five-point play and they got one single point out of it.

Yes. And the Rockets won. Oh, my gosh. That was fun, though. although it did drag the last two minutes with all the reviews. Yeah, it did, but you know what? They were three for three in the reviews. The review system absolutely worked.

And the Rockets still holding on the second place. Boy, it is going to take everything and then some for the Rockets to hold on the two spot. Memphis is not going away at the three, although you've got three wins against them. Denver is playing excellent basketball. They're the four spot, and they have been playing good. And the only time you beat them lately, well, you had one chance so far, and it was with no Niccolo Yolich on the floor. so you took care of that business.

So that's a win against them. You're going to have three teams that legitimately think they're going to be the second best team of the Western Conference. Yeah, it's going to be tough. You want to swim with the big boys? This is what's going to be like. And it's the greatest part of it all is that we're talking about the rockets in this conversation with the likes of the Memphis Grizzlies and the Denver Nuggets. Where last year we were like, man, we can get a road win.

Be nice. Getting that 10th spot. I had the Golden State Warriors would be cool. Man, we've got to go 9 and 3 to get to that 10th spot. You go 10 and 1 to get to that 8 spot. No, I mean, this is it. They're going to the playoffs this year. Yeah, they're going to the playoffs.

Certainly top six. I want top four, though. I do too. Top four and I'll be happy. I like to be home because we're not going to be home much the next two weeks. I feel like I said that two weeks ago. Eight out of nine games on the road. And we just finished a stretch of like seven of nine.

I don't know how, well, we better have a boatload of games than March that are like we don't leave the state. Because, man, I feel like I've done nothing but travel the last few weeks. I can't believe what I'm saying this. but I've actually missed you. No, I don't believe you. That's true. I would never say that to you. Both stretches are four games and six nights,

so it'll be interesting. Against some very tough competition. Yeah, the next road trip is all playoff teams. Well, Atlanta's not considered a serious threat, but they're still a playoff team. Yeah, and it's on the road. Yeah. Back to back after playing the Boston,

Southics the night before. Another T&T game? It's nice. That's a late start, too. That means 830 more close to 9 o'clock. You and Craig Ackerman hanging out on there. No, Craig's coming home. Oh, wow.

That's rude. I know. He stayed around for me in Sacramento. He's like, because we're going to Portland. That's the last game of the road trip, so they're going home early. Because they're TV divas.

I see that. They're like the A team of television. Yeah. They're our radio divas. That's exactly right. Coming up at 2 o'clock. Yeah, we love them. It was a good show yesterday.

Did you listen to all those different coaches? No. They were at the Bear Brian Awards yesterday. I'm sure it was great. And it was really interesting. I was good to get a perspective. I mean, look, we're not in the hotbed of sports topics around these parts. So to get all these really good coaches,

SMU coach was on, Army coach was on, Boise State. The only A-Hole was Indiana coach. Well, he was rude? He was just off-putting. What's his name? Kirk Cignetti or something like that? Kirk Cignetti. Yeah, Kirk Cineady. You were lucky to be in the playoffs. You got your ass kick about a Notre Dame.

You had one chance to prove to America you guys could beat somebody, and he was Ohio State, and you got your ass kicked there too. And of course, Clinton went to the, you know, Indiana known for basketball school. That's what you get him mad That's what probably got him over the top Was going to the old basketball school card

There's nothing worse Well, Clanton's not wrong He's not wrong, are you kidding me? When is Indiana football meant anything Except Lee Corso and Kirkusiginad Lee Corse in the 70s And he wasn't even that good of a coach No

I mean, can you name a great Indiana football player I'm sure there's been a few Yeah, it's not coming to me There's that one guy who played football Okay, that was not a great example that was called filler right there. But point being is it is a basketball school and it's always going to be a basketball school.

And Juan Randallel. That's who I was really trying to think of. So Kirkson, you shut your bum ass up. I forgot him. Trent Green? Really? Trent Green went to Indiana? Tracy Porter? It's not a good quarterback.

You know what? AC was right. It's not a football school. We've always been a football school. No, you haven't. You've been the Big Ten fought. You're like the Vanderbilt of the Big Ten for the Big Ten for this year. Who?

Jim Snydeck. Now we're done. You can't pronounce it right. All right. Did you watch the Rockets game? Did you listen to the game? Did you enjoy the basketball game? Speaking of basketball, my cougars gave up 36 points in 40 minutes. They're looking good. That is, that's, that's Franklin cruel punishment for a basketball team to fly from Salt Lake City to here and put up 36 points. Stifling Final Four ready defense headed your way to,

San Antonio. That's right. Houston Cougars. Put my name on it. Put my name on it. Final Four. Guaranteed? Just put my name on it. Yeah. Wow. Let's go. Well, you do that every year. I'm not going to write that down. You really probably shouldn't. Oh, Connor McGarman is back. That's good. Two road games coming up against ranked competition. Who are they? Couges. Kansas and West Virginia. Oh, that's tough, roadie there.

I've never been to West Virginia. I have no idea what it's about. Most people haven't. About coal miners and cigarette smoke, right? Yeah. Yeah. Bring your musket and your coonskin. Cap. Yeah, and they sing Take Me Home Country Roots. That's a good bit. That's a jam. Oh, are you kidding me?

That's a 2 a.m. jam right there. I'm pro John Denver. Yeah. I don't think we drafted that on 2 a.m. jams when we did Fantasy 5, but that should be up there. Oh, for sure. That's a karaoke a list or two. Yeah. There's a lot of overlap between 2 a.m. jams and karaoke. Oh, yeah. As a matter of fact, I've got to put that down my list. My new songs are going to be Take Me Home Country Roads, and I'm going to go with a little fast car as well for a look at a car car. Yeah. Okay. You go, you hang out with me with karaoke.

People love it. Exactly. That's why I don't want to hang out with you. That's not nice. 1014. Let's go hear some bad singers. Let's go. I'm not a bad singer. Hey, you know what sounds great? Horrible singing all night in your ear. Let's go out. I'm a former Allstate choir singer back in the day. Thank you very much. I'm not calling you a bad singer, man. I'm saying the others are a bad singer. Like Craig Ackerman. And myself included. Oh, you are you, yeah, you don't, see, I take it somewhat seriously until the booze starts to kick in. And then I don't take it very seriously. Booze? Yeah.

Oh, that's not booze. B-O-O-O-Z-E. Oh. All right. Rockets, would you like to, I would like to have a deep dive conversation. Maybe not a deep-dive, but how about just to say, hey, man, that was a fun game to listen to or end or watch. 7-1-3-2-790. 7-1-3-2-1-2-7-19.

7-19. It is the Matt Thomas Show, Ross. And this is Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. We have the second best record. in the entire Western conference in the city of Houston, the third best record in the NBA in Houston, Texas. Are you energized?

Are you feeling excited? Or are we still very much Houston-like in a wait-and-see mode? That's what I'm asking you today, the great citizens of Houston, the great sports fans of the city that we call Sports Talk 790. Matt and Ross with you at 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-5-7-90. If nobody calls in, that means we've just not got anybody.

Let's care about the Rockets. So I listened to Sean Salisbury today, weekday morning six. And the guy John that calls in, he calls us occasionally too. Okay. He's an elder statesman. Probably, I mean, he's got to be at least 65. Okay. And he started his call.

He said, I called you all yesterday and said, I'm not going to watch the NBA anymore because this, this, this is. So I was watching the Rockets game last time. I was like, in no time flat did he tell you that he doesn't do something and then immediately he does that? we do that a lot in sports you know that and i'm guilty of it in my own regard i always tell you i don't want to watch those tv shows in the espion of the hot tape machines but guess what i'm doing you watch them every day at nine o'clock in the morning when i'm in a hotel on the road to get ready for your show i don't want to guess i turn well besides doing that i um i turned on to see what's going on i'm that's we're all guilty of things in sports that we say we're not going to do but yet we do so i've admitted

mine? Oh, here we go. John, you admit yours. What is something you tell us that you don't do, but you wind up doing after all? I said I wasn't going to watch a college football playoff, but it was on, but we were all just kind of watching it snowed in. Yeah. So you're saying if you were not snowed in it was a normal 60 degree day in January that you would have had it in the background. I think we're the king of we're not going to watch something. Like for instance, the one thing that I'm very proud of as a radio host is I've told you just saying no to the Pro Bowl. Whatever it's been, flag football, whether it's been...

I'll watch the Pro Bowl. I'm not doing that, and I haven't done it. I'm very happy that I've been able to be... Background viewing. I'm not going to get all invested. Like, oh, my God, this is the greatest dodgeball game I've ever seen between NFL athletes. It's fine. Something to flip on. I got news. I'm going to go to Comedy Central. Find something else to watch. Okay, you want to watch 700 reruns of the office or 700 reruns of South Park.

That's all that's on that's your channel anymore. I can put Bravo on and see the real housewives of said city. They have no original programming. Except for I think Daily Show and maybe that's it. Yeah. They used to run old SNLs. They still do that? I don't think so.

And what does it happen? They used to have their own shows. Chappelle Show and, I don't know, Key and Peel. You know what it is? They just don't want to spend the money on those productions. Yeah, they don't want to spend the money. They get enough ratings off of old office reruns and that's fine. So basically anything fresh and interesting goes on the peacock.

It goes on the Paramount Plus and it goes on Netflix. Who are all losing on Amazon Prime. How about Netflix going with making the announcement, press release. We have the highest amount of subscribers ever. Look at all this money we're making. And then two days later, by the way, we're jacking up our price. I didn't see that part.

They're going up the bottom of the barrel. The one with ads is going up a dollar and then the premium package is going up $2. Which one do you subscribe to? I have the premium because I like the 4K content. Okay. I don't know what we do. I mean, my kids use all the Netflix channels. I just have to cancel it.

You're not going to do that. Why not? There's too much good stuff on there. There's not that much good stuff. football? Yeah, exactly. No, I'm good. There's two football games a year. There's a new season of you coming out soon. The last one, thankfully.

I already have finished up on peeky blinders. I got Max. I just accidentally, not accidentally. I signed up for Paramount Plus yesterday. You're going to get rid of that in 30 days, right? I cancel it. Oh, okay. I literally signed it up for it and canceled it.

Okay. All right. So, back to the Rockets. Are we, are we a little excited? Are we like, Matt, I don't know an NBA guy? I mean, I'm not going to force it on your throat. I'm just telling you that, it felt like 16,000 people were excited about the game last night.

They were in the building. How was the crowd? Because on TV, it didn't look like it was a great crowd. No, it was because of the snow day. Yeah, people were still a little leery about me driving. I mean, driving in. I mean, I think the general sense I got from people yesterday was, we'll get back in the cars. We're kind of kind of stay in our neighborhood. And if you live downtown or close to downtown, you made the trip.

But I would be, it'd be safe to say that most people that live Woodlands, Cyprus, Katie, League City wasn't making the drive into downtown. Well, Gordy said everybody from Pearland was making the drive. and getting in wrecks. Yeah. We don't need no parallelers at the Toyota Center getting in. It did take a long time to get out of the arena last night. And I think it was because people were just a little apprehensive about...

There was still some ice on the roads and shadowy areas. Yeah. It went on the way in for me today. All right. So, I'm going to ask one more time, and then we're going to move on. Because the phone lines are not full. They're empty. There's not a single person.

I'm sorry, Matt. We haven't caught Rockets fever yet. Maybe everybody's got the week off. No, everybody's back at work today. The kids are back at school. They are? Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's great.

Nobody's out. I'm here. I know. You and I worked the whole time. I know. Sean and Brian worked, although they were home the last couple days. And then, you know, Adam and then put some time in. They did what they could.

Yeah. They wanted to do it. No, no. Monday was not their fault. No. It was others, but not their fault. All right. 713-212-5-7.

Now, Connor, you were off the last couple days. Although you were podcasting like a fool, putting an update on the website. He's like, I'm getting my hours. Yeah, he's like, I'm going to still, I'm still clicking to check. They're not working palatial humble. He's not in his head.

What else? Hmm. Oh, Joe, we'll get to Joe Mixing here a little bit. Did you hear what's going on with Joe Mixing? The fine. Yeah. So it gets fined. Then the end, and I guess the NFL,

when he came back and said, well, we didn't mean you found you said, but we did hear you say something. So we're still going to ding you. They're still going to find out? Yeah. PA's got to get involved. See how this goes.

Oh, yeah. Do you want to send a GoFummy account this out about Joe? No. He's 25 G's. No, he's fine. He can afford it. What's he making here? What's his salary for your?

It was like 12, 12, 13 or something like that? So 13 main dollars for a guy making $25,000 fine. What is that on the comparison list of you and I? It's lower, but you have to remember he's not making that for the rest of his life. So it's different. Yeah. This is his biggest shot at a big contract. But no one's shedding a tearball.

Three year $27 million deal. Okay. So it was an only nine. I mean, that's, you know what, that's good value. That's probably the best thing that Nick Casario's done. Yeah. I mean, the, the, uh, Stefan Diggsville was questionable to begin with. Well, it was questionable.

Many Torres A.C. All that's bad luck. Yeah. But it wouldn't have been nearly as questionable for me is if they would have not, if they would have kept the original contract as played. Instead of like, yeah, we know your, we know your history of being a malcontent after a while. We're going to knock it down to one year and see how much you'll love it. They did.

And he was great for a while. He was good on the field and everyone loved him in the locker room. And then we lost a second round pick over it. Well, it was an extra second round pick. But second round picks are treated as gold. We love second round. Nick Casario did not treat it as gold. He treated it as like a crypto.

He treated it as, Crypto's been going up, man. You're always trying to say you were right on crypto. It's going up and up and up. You know what? I go to the grocery, I can't pay in crypto. Yeah, you could. I've never seen anybody do it.

You got to find the Bitcoin ATM. it's a lot of work. Okay. It's giving a good old fashion. It's over 105 G's now. Well, you can quit your job then. You got, ooh, you got enough crypto going to quit?

No. Working on it. All right. Everybody buy crypto. Do I look independently wealthy to you? I mean, you look spry. Look happy. A smile on your face.

Yeah, I'm happy. I'm content. I'm loving a good life. I guess you drop a few pounds? I mean, excuse me? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe you're maintaining. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Would you like to gain a couple of pounds, though a good way? How about enjoying a great meal from Big City Wings? 13 Houston locations. Now, today is a day where you have cabin fever and you want to get out of your house. Go take your clients to lunch or maybe your family out to dinner tonight.

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Go take advantage of it right now in any of the 13 Big City Wing locations. To find the one near you, join it to enjoy the buy one, get one free bonus, or the $9.99 lunch special. It's big citywings.com. Matt Thomas, Ross Villarreal. It's the Matt Thomas Show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. 1033 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Good morning, Houston, Texas. We are here, by the way, and we have run into this a lot.

Do me one small, favorite Houston. If you like the show, and we feel like we got a few people to do, tell us, tell them we're on at 10 o'clock. People still can't figure out we're on 10 o'clock in the morning. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. We love to two. We loved a noon to three. That was our sweet spot for years. The company said we need you to do something different. Yes. We pivot because we can adapt and change. So when at the company says, please do something, we do it. So we are. 10 to 2. By the way, I hate you traffic. Sorry, Matt.

Seriously, can you get... I'm thinking about spending like three nights a week with you guys. Who's you got? Me? Yeah, in your apartment. Okay. That's fine. Three nights a week?

$100 a night. Wait a minute. Okay, so what do I get for the hundred bucks a night? Room. And warmth. Home-cooked meal? Yeah, if you want meals. Meals are going to be a $20 a night extra package.

I can go to the... Well, we just wore the last few days and get a better value than that. That's true. tax. That's true. Do you have a frequent member St. Absolutely.

10th night's free. We got a stamp card. Okay. I like it. It's actually not a bad idea after all. So I'll be staying with Ross three nights a week.

Starting very, very soon. Yeah, I got here in 13 minutes. Got a couple lights. Okay, I drove 59. Kingwood Drive to 59. It made me get off a cavalcade. Cavalcade? Cabalcade.

You all right? Did you make it? It made me turn left at navigation. Oh my God. You have a bulletproof car? I went navigation to 45. Yes. 45 to 10, 10 to 610.

Connor, you got my drift on this, right? The Waze app and the Apple Maps will put you in all sorts of strange-ass directions. To save you 45 seconds. Yeah. It's terrible. Yeah, I was like, do I really need to get off a Capulcade? Wasn't that? Lori copy not available for me?

Was Jensen Drive not a better alternative? we have some people that want to talk some Houston Rockets basketball. And we do that no better than the place that the Rockets used to call home. San Diego, California. Johnny on 790. Johnny, literally good morning to you. Hey, good morning. No, I just, I can't stand listening to a grown man bag.

So I figured I'd appease you by calling in with a Rockets call. But then you started, you know, going to commercial and whatnot. But I'm sitting here. I waited for you. Johnny, first of all, I did beg because I love this basketball team, and I think they deserve some attention. So if it's a beg, I begged you, and you came through and delivered. For that, we thank you.

Yeah, no worries. I would have watched the game last night, but, you know, I guess NBA doesn't like flexing a top three matchup into a national coverage. What was the ESPN game last night? Oh, I don't know what it was. It was Minnesota versus... It was Minnesota Dallas, which Dallas has no players left, so that was a great idea. Well, I have a, well, I'm not going to give them money.

I have one of the satellite streaming apps. So I just did a search for their name and it asked for money. So I'd close the app. Yeah, that seems fair. No, there's the more than casual basketball fan. You know, I obviously don't work in Houston, but a lot of different people from a lot of different areas, fans of different teams. And they're starting to get some national respect for the Rockets,

seeing where they're at where they've been maintaining as far as their position and the rankings and the young talent. So they are starting to get some respect nationally. Well, that's good because it's so funny. Every time you turn it on, you know, the Major League Baseball, Johnny, has a problem throwing the Yankees and Red Sox

down our throats every other day. I feel like we get nothing but Golden State, the Lakers, and the Celtics on my national TV games. Precisely. Yeah. Well, good chat with you guys. I'll let you go, but a great show. Thanks for entertaining me all my driving.

Thank you, Johnny, very much. Appreciate it. Love San Diego. I mean, I literally love San Diego. Put me to Cornell Islands, take me there and never let me come back. I'm okay. That sounds like the fancy Matt lifestyle. Well, I mean, what would you want me to stay?

Although the real fancy Matt lifestyle is just glomming off of other people's luxury like the Rockets. Yes. Oh, by the way, tonight's TNT double-hatter heat bucks. Okay. Eh. And Celtic Lakers. Of course. I mean, they couldn't have.

The problem is you can't flex out of central time zone games unless you move the time. You could have moved, you could have said goodbye to Minnesota, Dallas, and put Houston, Cleveland on it. We had to play the game at 630 last night. We could have done that. Okay. Yeah. Maybe. That's fine.

I do believe with the way the rockets are playing, there are going to be some more national TV games coming out. There is. There already are. This wasn't always going to be. The next week's game wasn't supposed to be in the TNT. Yeah, Houston Memphis was always. They just moved it back. They moved it back.

Yeah. Okay, they moved it back. It was supposed to be at 6.30 now it's going to 8.30 since the late game. What about the one that was last week? Sacramento was always on the schedule. We've always had two. Oh, shut up. That's fine.

I mean, sometimes we spit facts we don't know are accurate. I do that for a living. What about the, yeah, it wasn't it? They picked up some game, didn't it? Was it an ESPN game? I can't remember. No? I don't think so.

I'm just making this up. That's fine. I'm fake news. You are fake news. That's fine. By the way, speaking of fake news. There's no problem with fake news. I want to get some fake news after we get this phone call.

Okay. Because I don't know how I'm supposed to believe this or not. Juan and Katie on 790 at 1039. Juan, good morning to you. Good morning, guys. Good morning, guys. I'm a long time listener, first time call. Nice to hear from you, Juan.

Thank you very much. We much appreciate it. Yeah, for sure, guys. So, man, look, I'm a big, raucous fan. I've always been a raucous fan. I'm diehard, I guess he could say. But, man, it's been tough. It's been tough past two, three years where I

Couldn't even watch the games, though, to be honest with you. And this year, man, they picked it up. They, they look really good. Defense and solid. Offense is getting there, but it's not all the way there.

And honestly, man, I think a lot of it comes down to is that the NBA sometimes it's really hard to watch, to be honest. But, but, yeah, look, I'm a big Rockets fan,

and I hope they, you know, keep making this push. And, you know, where they're sitting at right now, they can make you know it in the playoffs. I hope you're right. Let me ask real quick before I let you go on. What you say is hard to watch.

Give me, and you don't have to give it great detail because, I mean, everybody has their own opinion and you can't change people's opinions, largely. Give me the one or two things in your mind that makes the NBA hard to watch.

I think it's all the fouls. All the foul. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm from the old school, so, like, you know, I'm like watching, you know, the fiscal, I guess, side of it,

whenever, you know, you can go in the pain and, you know, crashing the pain and things like that nature. But now, now it just seems like any kind of touch, it's foul. And that, for me, that was kind of a draw. Like, I watch Rockets, but, like, if it's any other team, it's hard for me to sit down and watch it. I get it. It makes sense.

Juan, thanks again for the phone call. Nice to hear from me. Don't be a stranger to the show. Yes, sir, thank you. This year, there are 18.9 personal fouls per game. In 1996, it was 23. I mean, 1995, 23.

The NBA game... 2005, 22. It's about what you think the perception is. The NBA game is wrong. Your perception is wrong. It's much more fluid today than it was 20 years ago. When you had NBA games in 1996, you had 97, 92 games where they were fouls and free...

I mean, you know what's hard to watch? And I hate to say this because I do love my Houston Cougars. But watching just a good old-fashioned average college basketball game is painful. We were talking, and Connor, sorry about this. Your beloved Missouri Tigers lost the Texas Longhorns a couple nights back. Neither team shot 37% from the floor. They were both sub-37%. I think it was 31% for Missouri and like 35% for Texas. That is impossible to watch. At least there are shots being made. I thought last night, Mitchell took over at times for the cabs. Darius Garland did.

And then Fred Van Vleet, who, look, by his own admission and by all of ours, it said, to subpar season shooting wise. It's a couple of huge jumpers. Last year was the fewest personal fouls per game in NBA history. This year is the second fewest. Yeah, that's just perception that's just not there. That's a fact. That sounds like Samsung that's one who doesn't,

who checked out on the NBA because he thinks he sees something and it really is not there. But that happens in a lot of things in life. And we always think things were better than they were. Absolutely. Like, if you went to a... bad restaurant. I had a bad experience there. I'll never go back. Why is it? Because the service is bad. Well, if you've gone

nine hundred times, the service is great, you wouldn't know about it because you haven't seen it. Our kids' snacks were better. Our kids' TV shows were better. Movies were better. Everything was better than it once was. Yeah. It's natural. It's natural. But I would encourage Juan to, you know, look, I don't really care if you watch any

other NBA game. Frankly, it doesn't, you know, impact me. You'd do what you want to do television-wise, but I'd give the Rockets a look. Now, there are nights where they don't chew very well, but the Last week or show, so they have been shooting very, very well. They've been fun action-packed games. They're playing against good competition.

They're beating up who they should be beating up, and they're playing competitive against playoff teams. They beat the number one team yesterday who was 30 games above 500 entering the game. And they play tough, physical, old school basketball, very good defense. I, yeah, look, I understand people have checked out, and they're going to stay checked out, and they're going to have their misconceptions or preconceptions or whatever. But you know what that is?

If that is the case, Ross, if that is indeed the case, case, then the NBA's got to do whatever they can to try to change that scenario out there. It's not my responsibility. It's not your responsibility. That's something that Adam Silver does have to figure out because the ratings are down. And I think the product is really good. I think there are marketable stars that they need to be marketing better. But if you are a generic NBA fan and you're going to put a game on tonight, guess what you're going to watch at 9 o'clock? Not what you're going to watch. You're going to flip around and you're going to find LeBron on. And if you don't like LeBron's style, you're going to tune out.

You don't want to watch a 40-year-old who complains about every call and flops and falls down and gets hurt. I mean, yeah, I mean, I see it. He's not that bad of a flopper. I'm just saying those that don't like LeBron, those are the characteristics of him. 1044 on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach our show today. I just don't get it, Ross.

This is 1130 today? I simply ask you, what don't you get? A lot of things. News at noon. Believe it or not today at 150. Category? To be determined. We're going to talk about Joe Mixon's fine when we return. Fowls per game. I'll name a year and I'll give you the fouls per game in NBA history.

Just the worst. 1045 on 790. Matt and Ross returned. Return on Sports Talk 790. 1050 on the Matt Thomas. I mentioned this rumor. And I don't get into celebrity gossip ever, but it's just flooded my,

and again, my guilt for you tab for some reason. You've seen this rumors about President Obama and Michelle and Jennifer Aniston? No, I had not seen those rumors until you brought it up at dinner. Looking Connor's shaking his head. You've seen him too. He's disappointed in you. Had you seen that, Connor? Had you heard that anywhere?

I haven't even heard it, but that sounds ridiculous. Now, Michelle Obama. Okay, I put Jennifer Annison, Barack Obama into Google. Yeah. These are the top hits. The Hindustan Times. The Times of India.

Coming Soon.net. And the Economic Times. I've never heard of any of these. All right. I'm going to Google. Oh, here. Here's a Yahoo one from two days ago. All right.

Let's just put a Barack Obama in by himself. Oh, my God. Obama. And, It shows a picture of him and is in the, let's see, that, uh, yeah, our room. Oh, yeah, Hindustin Times are rumors of an affair with Jennifer Anson effecting the Obamas.

Oh, apparently on Jimmy Kimmel Live, she said, I met him once. I know Michelle more than him. Oh, okay. So this is just a rumor then. What? I don't, I'm just, I, I folded it out as a pure rumor. I didn't treat it as fact. I just said, it just, it just inundated my timeline of, because, you know,

Michelle did not show up at the inauguration. Yeah, but you're spreading. rumors, Matt. Now somebody's going to, now somebody just heard that. They're going to be like, hey, did you hear the rumor? Did you hear about this? Now you're letting it catch like wildfire, man. No, I'm not. And it's totally baseless and untrue. I think. Wait a minute, you just soft-selled it. I don't know for

100% fact. I don't either. That's why I brought up as a rumor. Okay. You know what? I also heard a rumor. I heard a rumor. Name the song or singer. I don't know who it is. Say you got a broken heart. All right. What's going on? I heard George W. Bush was with Tori Spelling. Really? Well, that wouldn't surprise me.

Tori needs got a lot of kids. Oh, I also heard another rumor. What now? I heard it. It was Bill Clinton and AI Siri. I heard there together as well, yeah. Okay. It was Bill Clinton and Flo from Progressive.

Literally somebody took two names out of a hat. Barack Obama and Jennifer Anniston. It's gaining steam. All right. No, yeah, it's gaining steam because you were talking about it. But I'm a little AM radio host. You and the Hindu stand times are on the same page. Go to Twitter to see what's going on there.

It's out there. Okay, I'm moving on. This must be on your 4 U tab. All right, that's true. All right. So the NFL yesterday, Ross, this happened during our show, I believe. Find Joe Mixen $25,000 for some comments about the officiating that he did not make that a former teammate of his, actually not a teammate, but a former since any bingo. They may have been team as.

I don't think so. T.J. Housmanjada. T.J. Housmanzade. Ms. Mzada. It was referenced mostly during your fans football as T.J. Who's your daddy? Yes. He's the one that said.

Yes. So apparently the NFL is like, oh, man, we were so sorry. We goofed. Well, they're still going to find him $25,000. But they're going to take his original comments that he did say and say, that's what we're finding him for. So we're still going to ding him Even though we miss dinged him And we're trying to find the comments right now

We're going to try to play him for here just a little bit Oh, you have actually Here's what Joe Mixon Really said after the Chiefs game On Saturday And this is what they really meant to find In the 25 Gs Everybody know how it is playing up here

You can never leave You can never leave it into the ref's hands But I mean the whole world's see man What it is bro but it is what it is. You know, like I said, when it come down so you can't never leave it into the ref's hands. I mean, was that all that bad?

You can never put the game in the rough's hands. That means we got to make more plays. That's what Joe Mixing is saying. Literally he's saying that, but you can clearly read between the lines that is like we're going to have to go against them too. But here's the problem. If you...

Emaudoka said the rest need to put their glasses on. He got to find... He got fined $50,000 for them. My point is that if the NFL goofed and said, we thought you said this, then it should be under the my bad category. You shouldn't be fining him after that. But they still are. You didn't say A, but we found some stuff that we thought was not very nice either,

so we're still going to find you the $25,000. Now, I'm going to have to drop in the bucket to him. But still, you goofed, you misquoted somebody saying that. And if I was a player association, if I was Joe Mixing's agent, I'm like, the hell you're getting my money. You placed me at the scene of the crime in which I was not there. I made a comment on the crime,

but I didn't commit the crime. And thus still gets the $25,000 fine. It's just a little hunky from the NFL. It's ridiculous. Now, EMA, I tell them to get some glasses. That's 50 G's well spent. That was pretty funny.

Like, if I was going to get a fine about anything, Ross, I would make sure you knew ahead of time. Ross, I'm going to say something right now that's going to get me fined. Stay out of the way. Ian Rockets coach, E. Medoca, told John Goebel referee to, quote, get some effing glasses. That was the classic of all time. No need to misunderstand that. There's no need to interpret it.

No gray area. Oh, man. I think it's awesome. I think it's awesome. All right. That was the first hour already done, Ross. Wow. We moved quickly today.

Let's go. Let's get some more people involved in Houston, Texas. Okay, what do we have coming up, Matthew? We have Texans O-line conversation, endless. That'll be a stopgap for that. Nobody wants to listen to that. We have the Rockets winning last night. We have NFL playoffs on Sunday. Are these?

Now, the NFC, to me, doesn't have the sizzle. Man, the AFC championship game. NFC doesn't have sizzle? Washington, Philadelphia. A rookie Jaden Daniels? Trying to march to the Super Bowl against Jalen Hertz and the Eagles who've been there, done that? I'm intrigued.

I'm not saying it's intrigued, but... It's the opener. It's the opening act. The headliner is, and the NFL got it right. They knew what they were doing. They knew what they were doing. They put Chief Bill's the headliner. That's a pretty good opening act, Matt. It's not bad.

Yeah. It's like having Stevie Nix before Billy Joel. I get it. in her prime. Oh yeah. Not now. Oh, Saturday Night Live did not do her any favors. Yikes.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I just don't get it coming up in one half hour. The news at noon, believe it or not. And your participation, we really want to hear from you folks. We do like you being involved in the radio show. 7-13-212-5-7-90. 7-13-212-5-7-90.

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That's we help Texas.com or 713-888-9,000 for Scott Callan and Associates, principal office, Katie, Texas. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 1102 on Sports Talk 7-90. You know Aaron Glenn got hired as the Jets coach yesterday? You know we forgot to mention that Rex Ryan thought he had the job. Remember that?

He was basically guaranteed he's going to get it. Couldn't it happen to a nicer guy. Rex had a tough off season. First of all, he called the Texans game against the Chargers or Buy. For the Chargers. For the Chargers. And then he's like, I'm going to get the Jets job. Hmm.

That's a shame. He really put his foot in his mouth. Or he put other people's feet in his mouth. That's what the fetish is, right? Yes. I've heard of some fetishes, but that's weird. You don't have to kink. shame people.

Oh, really? So it's just perfectly normal for a guy to have a foot fetish. I don't know. I guess it depends on what you do. Dare I Google? I'm on my work laptop. What percentage of people? If you have a foot fetish, let us know.

No, please do not. No, no. Okay. Oh, God. Oh, God. Please don't get me flagged by HR. What? Something has startled you. What is it?

Feats and tote. Oh, 40. 37% of people who said they had fetishes. So this is 47% of 33%. So that's one third of people have some sort of budget. And half of those. So that's what? 16%.

16, 17%, Matt. All right. Wait a minute. I'm done. Yeah, you just confuse the audience. So I think you just did. So, okay, let me get this. You tell me one third of America has a fetish of some sort.

That's what this says. That's what Wikipedia says. And then of that one third. This is from the University of Bologna. Oh, is that they also reporting about Barack Obama and Jennifer Anderson? Common fetishes for body parts or objects associated with body parts, 33 to 33%. 30%. Feet and toes are preferred at the greatest number, 47% of those sampled preferring those.

So 47 of 33%. So it's a fair number of the minority that have fetishes of some sort. Yeah, let's move on. You did this. You're right, I did. I'm going to try to exit as fast as humanly possible. So that would be... Wait, hold on.

Oh, now you're trying to add it all up. Yeah, yeah. 15.5%. 15% people have a fetish, foot fetish. That's disgusting. Wait a minute. 15 of every 100 people we find in America has a foot fetish? That's pretty crazy.

I don't buy that for a second. That's what the University of Bullitt. Maybe the Italians like Feetmore. Okay, we have 15 people that work at 790. Stop. Which of the 15 of us have a foot fetish? I'm looking, here's looking at you, Jack. Not me.

I think feet are disgusting, generally speaking. Connor, which one of the 790 air staff or production team has a foot fetish? If it's one on a 15. Maybe Wexler? See, this is how rumors get started. This is mad. This is starting for Matt Tom. this last segment are Jennifer

Adams tweeted Barack Obama together and the son now somebody listening to the shows and said hey I heard Adam Xer has a foot fetish nobody called today and ask Adam he's got a foot fetish. I call today no do not do it in the 2 o'clock hour call the A team and ask Adam Wexler if he has a foot finish 713

but I'm using your stats one of every 16 people you're saying My stats are from Wikipedia this is an estimate from the University of Bologna a study in 2006 Yeah, I don't, I choose on to believe. Bologna.

That is, that survey is baloney. All right, let's get to it. Let's get back on the page. You know what, I'm not, I'm not going to get out the beaten path anymore. This is it. I'm done. Sports, sports, and more sports. So, Connor, anytime I want to go away from sports, I want you hit the buzzer and zap me back in.

Because every time I do this, I get criticized from people like yourself. Me? Yeah. What did I do? You're mad about me reading a. about a rumor about Jennifer Anderson and Brock about you. I'm just disappointed. Oh, please.

You read stuff all the time and you don't believe. It happens all the time to people. People talk about rumors all the time. I don't read all the fake news like you do. Yeah, that's true. So your whole for you tab is fake news and jumbling jumblies. What exactly are jumble and jumblies? You know what they are.

I may know what they are, but explain to the audience what they are. And it's all for you, Matt. Or whatever. If I follow them, it would be for me. I don't follow them. They know what you like. They don't know anything. It got you in the crossairs path.

The algorithm is wrong. Yeah, back to sports. There we go. Texans' offensive line. It took one minute. Let's get back to the Texans' online talk. Okay, Matt, your thoughts. Laramie Tunsell long-term viability.

He's getting a little bit up in age. Has two years left on his contract. Is Drew Scruggs the future center of his team long term? No. Can Derek Fisher be anything more than a swing tackle? Hopefully? This is boring to me. I'm not doing this. Let's get to what happened last night.

With Jennifer Anison? No, the Rockets. Go ahead. By the way, got an interesting email. Two dud games for Jalen Green. Nine great ones in a row. Yeah, it wasn't good last night. Really struggled.

Who is the real Jalen Green? We're back on this again. I didn't want to be here, but we were. Nine straight games of 20 plus points. Now in the last two games, four of 16 for 10 points before that, 8 of 21 for 19 points. And yet, they went one and one. And could have, I mean, look, they could have beat Detroit if they put together any sort of offense in the fourth quarter, which again, Jalen was on the floor.

Yeah. Yeah. I just, maybe that's what Jalen's going to be is going to be Ebs and Flows guy for the rest of his career. When he's awesome like he's been for most of January, he's scoring 30 points a game. When he duds it out, he's about 12 points a game on 4 of 19 shooting. Still shooting 36% from 3, which is good. But if he can stay there all season, the rockets are going to be good. Because he's had a month where he's basically taking seven games to get to that number.

Yeah. All right. Our email, our Wayne lives in humble, says, Matt, as far as the markability of stars. And we were talking about how the NBA should probably try to get away from putting the Lakers and the Warriors and the Celtics on 15 times a year. They squeezed about every ounce of juice out of those lemons. Yes. He says, Wemby has no personality. That's fair.

I don't think that's true. He played chess in Central Park one time. Yeah, he seems like a funny guy. I've never heard him to speak more than a handful of words. I don't see him in any commercials, not the commercials make markability. He is encouraged commercials, didn't he? Show Hill, Tani is the biggest star in baseball. He doesn't speak a word of English.

But sometimes the... It's about the Major League Baseball markets him. But sometimes it's about the play is so dominating that you, by just by being his awesome as he is, it doesn't worry about putting him in a commercial on TV show. Plus... But that's to my point. Wimby has more personality. than somebody that literally does not speak the language, correct?

Well, yeah, by default. Right. By default. I'm saying that the NBA can do a pretty good job of marketing, I would think, or a better job. I think he does have some personality. I know we hate him, Aaron Houston. He's the worst. We don't hate, no, that's ridiculous.

Nobody hates him. Nobody? Well, somebody, yeah, maybe it's got a foot fetish hates him. No, that's the other man. It's the other Adam. I don't think we go with the rumors. Anthony Edwards, he says, isn't a guy that you want to market your kids? Well, I'll say this.

Why not? Because he swears a lot on camera. I think Anthony Edwards is hilarious. Well, but 12-year-olds are not hilarious. Well, maybe it's 12-year-olds, but the parents don't think it's very funny. Neither is John Moran or Zion Williamson. Fair. John Morant needs to put the guns down.

Kids love John Moran, by the way. I've seen it. I've seen it at Taylor's Center. Yeah, I would say kids do like John Moran. There have been dozens of. of kids hanging out at the end of games trying to get them to sign their jersey. Yeah, that's fair. I was shocked. I was shocked.

I didn't know. But it was such a big star when you kids. But it also has to come down to what mom and dad want you to look at too. He also says... Oh, please. You didn't look at stuff your mom didn't want you to back in the day? And now the kids have phones? Yannis is great, but isn't in a market that anyone cares about.

Milwaukee's tough. I would say Janus is a pretty marketed star. Joker doesn't care about fame. That's accurate. That's for sure. Stefan LeBroner passed their prime and most people want the latter retiring goal way. Silver has a very big problem in his hands, and I don't think there's a quick fix to solve it. I will agree with that.

And here's the worst part, and I do respect the NBA. Like, I call the games and I love it, and I think it's a great sport. But I do believe Adam Silver's interpretation of what he thinks is popular and what really is are two different things. I think he thinks the problem is minimal, or I think those on the outside are saying, you know what, you do have an issue. But the problem is Adam Silver just signed a ridiculously big television contract. Yes, he did. If he didn't get the money that he got from Amazon and from NBC to broadcast these games,

then he would say maybe I do have a problem. But he just got fat contracts for decades for each one of those two networks. But he's seen the ratings recently and I think they need to do something. And I think they have been short-sighted and just using surface-level thinking. LeBron gets us ratings. Let's put on LeBron. It's like, no, you have to market and you plant the seeds of these other stars who are coming up too. You've got to do what you put, yeah, you put a lot of LeBron and Steph on,

but you got to go with these other guys too you got to put them on commercial campaigns you got to have i don't know interviews and all this other stuff you know what it is it's it's frankly it's more about to put the games on ross it's about putting the guys on camel and the tonight show and entertainment tonight and having you know him do a nickel you know if nicolone did a basketball game where the middle of the game you know one of those players put a headset on it did a quarter something like that oh okay i mean this guy let's just little thing let's get you in the marketing team i mean i'd be available i mean i'm not busy enough as it is yeah tell them to cut the check many.

Yeah. They probably make me start up working 8.30 in the morning, though. I wouldn't want that. 10 o'clock 7. Yeah, you're going to just want in zoomed in shots of everyone's feet. No. You're going to put it on the feetcast

on ESPN3. No, no, everybody's watching a feedcast. You know what? Putting alternate broadcasts, I wouldn't... Hey, wait a minute. 15% of people apparently would be interested in feetcast. In footcast? Yeah. Yeah, thank you.

No, this is NBA. No, no, no, he's right. He's... No. I'm talking NBA. No, Conner's right. We're trying to fix the NBA with feedcast. Not when food finishes you're not.

Because you get the fetishist and you get the sneaker heads. That's double whammy. I'm a genius. Nobody's buying your argument at all. I'm walking off on that. You should walk off. You should be embarrassed for your productivity or like there out of this show. 713-212-5-790.

7-1-3-2-1-7-90. I just don't get it. Bottom of the hour here on Sports Talk 790. The Matt Thomas Show with Ross. continues on sports talk 790 1117 on sports talk 790 This the Matt Thomas show with Ross Time now for an Alex

Breggman update On Matt and Ross's show The bits never going away Much to the chagrin of some This is according to the, I believe the Detroit Free Press, one of the two newspapers in the Detroit area. Is it the guy that has

beef with Justin Verlander? Evan Petzel. Does that name ring a bell to you? No. I'll find out. Why would anyone have beef with Justin Verlander? The guy wouldn't answer his questions. Hmm. Probably said, what's your circulation of your paper? You're not big enough, I won't talk

to you. But my gravy dream brother, well. See, That's not correct. I'm trying to find it. The Detroit Tigers remain interested, but negotiations are at a standstill with less than one month until the first full squad workout in spring training.

This is according to a source with knowledge of the situation. Detroit needs a right-handed hitting third basement and has a payroll flexibility to lock up a franchise altering free agent. But... What's his name? Evan Petzold. Oh, no, it's... Somebody different.

Finish, yeah. Apparently the two sides are not moving towards an agreement at the present time. Red Sox stalled. Tigers stalled. Blue Jays may be out. Blue Jays maybe. Yeah. Man, I love our guy.

What's going down? Scott Boris. Let's ask him. Oh, he's like, we're patiently waiting. He's a guy can play four different positions for any major league team. Yeah. Guess they're hoping for some. And we've got a number that weren't.

Problem is if you go ask for a number and you've not budgeted for that number, is he praying for a catastrophic injury to somebody? Because we remember we talked about the hater deal being late in the game, which was at the 19th, 20th, we already passed that day. That was also after Graveman got hurt for the year. And my guess is if you are, think about this, today is what, the 23rd of January, you've already kind of assembled your spring training roster. not that you couldn't make a subtle change

without any problems if you bring me in a third base spot. And the Tigers are certainly in need of one. But ownership, Rossi, has a budget. And that general manager has been given that budget. I don't think there's a gaping hole in the Detroit Tigers budget that says, insert this late January signee for X amount of dollars. Now, every budget especially at the ownership level, can be changed because you don't adhere to anything except maybe a luxury tax situation.

I don't think that the tigers are in that spot, never have been. But if you're the tigers, and again, I don't know their inner workings of their payroll department or their budgeting, but they kind of know who they've got going in. Now, Bramont all of a sudden says, I'll take a deal for less money in less years because I want to get back on the field and I don't want to be sitting here before the start of spring training without a baseball team, then you will certainly make accommodations and you'll alter your budget. but if you're the Astros is $26 million sitting right now in a to-be-determined spot on the roster? No.

And the Astros have moved on, have they not? It seems like it. It seems like they're trying to shed Presley and they're trying to shed payroll. Yeah. So they can think about spending money perhaps on somebody else for a level left-fielder. Oh, yeah. I was listening again to Sean this morning. They were talking about the outfield.

it kind of sounds depressing McCormick's OPS is the highest of the three guys not name Yorna Alvarez but Jake Myers subpar average hitter Chas McCormick hurt and had a down year power wise and Marisa Dubon is your utility singles hitter. Yeah

and I do believe that the more that Yordon plays in professional baseball with the Astros the less amount of time he's going to play in the left field's He will be, I don't want to say fully DH because I don't think that's in his DNA. But I think it'll be, do we ever sell like an overrunner a number of times he'll play in left field? I would say about 40 times maybe. Somewhere like a fourth season, somewhere in that range.

I mean, I have no idea. Nobody does. But I mean, I think that's what they're thinking. To keep him upright and swinging the bat and doing things that he's supposed to do, the less time he spends out in the left field, the better. Yeah, and have him do it mostly at home. Yeah. where he knows the Dijkin Park Outfield Wall.

He knows the Crawford boxes. 53 games in left last year, 40 the year before. I will take under 53 this year and feel very comfortable about that. You should. So you do need to still upgrade the outfield spot. But again, if you've got a blank space in the Astros roster and payroll, You're not leaving it for Alex Breggman. I wonder, and again, we don't even know the situation because we're not, we're not in the workings of this.

But do you think if Alex Breggman called Dana Brown today and called Jim Critton and said, you know what, let's bygones be bygones? That's 6-156 sounds pretty good. Do you think that deals on the table? I say, no, it's not. I would lean to agree with you. Unless you move Paredes out to the outfield. I mean, he's never played an inning of outfield as a major leaguer. You could also convert him.

He's a younger guy. You can convert them. You can. It happens. You can learn left field. I mean, I wouldn't feel overly confident with that. You would have a defensive issue out there, whether it was him or Alvarez, for that matter. But at least Alboros is playing out there. By the way, Pete Alonzo is still waiting and waiting and waiting.

Do you know who he's represented by? Don't say it. The Boris Corporation. Has Scott Boris gone Lee Steinberg on us here? What does that mean? Because Lee... He's lying about his stuff, his story and his book? For about 20...

Ooh, that felt personal. Lee for about 25 or 30 years, got everybody, got big money. And then he had a long, long dry spell until he took this quarterback out of Texas Tech as his client. And Pat Mahomes done quite well for himself. Yeah. He was also selling us on Paxton Lynch. Remember that?

Ooh, man. Thank God Thomas Sports Enterprise wasn't around then. Because I think Lee Steinberg would have convinced TSE to get that happen. He was convincing. I was like, man, Paxton Lynch, going to be a baller. Leen Steinberg's all over this. Do they want to retire his number for whatever team he plays for, regardless

of what team he's drafted by? Yeah. But, I mean, has got, do you think there is some resistance from the owners about how far Boris has pushed and pushed and pushed the envelope for so many years? This would be a second straight year where he's gotten too far. Slapped a little around a little bit except for the Juan Soto situation.

He represents Blake Snell too, right? Blake's got a big deal. Yeah, Blake did okay for himself after not getting the kind of money he wanted last year. But he eventually got it after all. All right, 1125 on Sports Talk 790. 713212-5-790 if you want to join us today. 7-13-212-5-7-9.

Zero if you want to follow us on Twitter. It's at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Conardee McGuver. If you were Alex Breggman's best friend, what would you recommend at this point? Wait for an injury? I'd have to know what the offers are. I think waiting for an injury is a bad plan. Waiting for somebody to get hurt is a bad plan. Yeah.

Because just because somebody doesn't get hurt, that means they're going to sign you to a seven-year deal? Yeah. Again, my thought is you don't have seven years, $185 million saying, hey, this contract is on the table. Come in this room and sign it right now. That might have been the case Ross 30 or 60 days ago, but it's not the situation now. Is he going to wind up getting a three-year deal with some opt-outs, much like the Freedian class of last year got? Maybe. But he's too old for that. Coray did that. He was like 27 or 28.

Maybe it takes a one-year deal somewhere and says, let's try this again another year. But if you're Scott Boris, you can't brag about that. And the market can't be soft because the market said we're going to pay for players. The market said we're going to spend some money. The Dodgers spent money. The Mets spent money. The Cubs have spent money. They were out there. There were teams looking to spend money. The Blue Jays ran in a bunch of different folks. The market was not like, there was no.

no collusion among the owners. There were people wanting to spend some money. Now, for that matter, the Astros new first baseman, I mean, Christian Walker is getting good money. I mean, nobody's, nobody's coming to these new teams at 50 cents on the dollar. They're all making good deals. Maybe we are starting to see the trend in sports, and maybe Alex is one of those folks that say, you know what, you are 30, the mega deals are done, the overcompensation, and that if you're 30 years old with the wear and tear that your body is going, through the experience you have, you're going to have to sign a short-term deal, make a difference, have an opt-out, and then go collect your bigger money.

Kind of like what Matt Chapman did a little bit. I mean, if you think about it that way. And like Blake Snell did. Blake Snell eventually got his deal, but he had to win an extra season for it. All right, it's time for you to think to yourself about something in your life that's confusing you that you just don't get. Well, Ross, Connor, myself are here to help you out. If you don't get something, let us know at 713-212-5-790.

713-212-5-790. I just don't get it. What don't you get? We're here to help you next here on Sports Talk 790. Do you have something in your life that you just don't get? No need to worry. No need to fret. We will discuss the topics to see if we comprehend.

The things that may confuse our friends, it's time to say, I just don't get it. All right, it's that time of the week. There's something that is puzzling you, something that is popular and you just don't understand, you just don't get it, you can call us at 713-212-5-790, 7-13-212-2-2-790,

for I just don't get it. What don't you get, Ross? Oh, I thought you were going to go first. I mean, I can. Can I be completely honest with you? I had something going in a break and I can't remember it. Give me five seconds or try to remember it. All right.

Give me one minute to try remember it. 1001. I mean, our life is pretty good. I'm very happy the Rockets won. Very happy that nobody did it. We were not major car accidents on freeways. We did a pretty good job as a community. I don't get why Connor wasn't here the last couple days.

I'm just kidding, Connor. I just tease because I care. I was going to say you know why. I know why. Because you wouldn't offer them up your bed. Yeah, Ross offered, but you didn't. I didn't know you needed a bed. I'd have given you a bed.

That's weird. That feels like a clip. No, it doesn't. By the way, thankfully, you were gone. There were nothing that worth clipping on the radio show. I was listening every day. Okay, I got one for you. What the hell is Jimmy Butler doing?

I just don't get it. He missed a flight with the heat, and now he's getting suspended. He gets suspended without pay, correct? Mm-hmm. So he's costing himself hundreds of thousands of dollars with all these suspensions that he's incurring? How about this? I don't get why any NBA team would work. want him. Yeah, I don't get what exactly. This is not helping his trade value. I don't get it.

You're right. I don't get it either. Connor, your life's busy the last handful days. What don't you get? So whether it's the studio or the gym or anything like that, I just don't get why people don't feel the need to to wipe down shared equipment. I don't know if COVID just made me like an extra germaphobe. But the microphones in here, the buttons, you know, like a bench in the gym. I just multiple folks use it over the course of the day. And I just want to get why people don't wipe things down. They live through life. They don't care.

I'm going to go with you too because I'm going to go take a nap in our room. What do we call that? A prep room, I guess. The green room. There was somebody taking a nap there in that room yesterday. I don't think he probably wiped himself down after his nap. You don't wipe down anything? Sure, I do.

All the time. No, you did. Absolutely, I do. You have never once in your life wipe down that couch. Zero point zero percent chance. But I'm not down there for four to five hours. I'm in like for 45 minutes.

It doesn't matter. You guys wipe down your microphones in there? I do. If I have a bit of a cough or I feel like I was going to do it today because I've been coughing today, I do wipe it down if I feel a little tinge of sickness coming on. Okay, so you wouldn't do it if you're perfectly healthy. Right.

You know, I'm going to do something, Connor, because I think I need to lead by example. I will wipe down this microphone after the show today. Mm-hmm. because I don't need that I'm planting sick because then he'd take more time off. Oh, man, we don't need that. He's already breaking our back with all this time he takes off.

I'm kidding. 713-212-570. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I ask my friend Tony and Nucanee who joins us here on the show. Tony, what don't you get? Two things. One, and maybe it's been taught,

but I don't get why the Astros have never tried to convert Yordon to the first baseman. Is he that fragile that he couldn't play that position? I will give you the answer. I actually get it. Two things. He's never done it before. And when a grown man is 22, 23, 24 years old,

there's probably a little hesitancy in doing it. Secondly, and this may not be a very popular stance on this, because look, I feel present its own challenges. I think the nuances of first base are much more difficult than people think it would be. And the Astros have had a history of having really good. and for the most part defensive first baseman. And I don't know if he would be hesitant to go over there to look bad, where at least he looks like he's a competent left fielder.

Not a great one, not a goal glover, but I think he'd be afraid that if he went over there and didn't do well, that it would stain a little bit of his resume as terms of being a complete baseball player. That's just my only gut feeling on that one. I get that, but my point is these guys have been told. playing that they're disqualified that can make $50 million a year. They've been doing this since they came out of the womb.

They ought to be able to be willing at least to do anything for that kind of money. I understand. I don't get it. Yep. I'm right there with you. Sure. The other thing I don't get on Bregman and all of these guys that want all this money, maybe they need to, what I don't get, maybe they need to spend some time walking down downtown

under the freeways in the Fifth Ward and see what $55 million. can do but these people have to go through. Yeah, but you know, Tony, that's an argument that I've heard from a lot of fans over the years. Honestly, I mean, if somebody said you'll get paid

$300,000 to play third base, you would do it, right? I mean, there's no amount of, you just have to keep asking until it becomes too much. You just, I mean, no matter what job you're in, you know there's a certain financial stance

comes with it. I mean, I wouldn't do this job for $25,000, put it that way. Oh, we know. You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying it words. That every job feels like it's overinflated. Professional sports is overinflated. But it's a multi-billion dollar industry no matter what sport it is.

And if there's money to be made, the players say we deserve it. If the owners are getting it, that we deserve a certain piece of the pie. So it's just basically. Owners are all doing all right. And frankly, baseball and unions get, like, for instance, if IHeart makes X amount of money, they don't have to spend certain amount of money on salaries. No, they don't. They usually cut it.

So, and remember this, Tony, too, they're one of the, see, each team has 26 players times 30. They're one of the 800 best players in the world of what they do. Yes. So you take the top 800 of anything in life, and they get overcompensated. They just do. They probably do pretty well. If you were the 114th best oil and gas man, you'd be being paid like it. You're actually probably pretty good.

If you were the hundred and 14th best chef, you'd be working at a five-diamond restaurant, a Michelin, if you will. What if you're the 114th best sports radio host? You'd be working with another guy who's not in that category, 10 to 2 weekdays on sports talk. No, we're top six market. We've got to be in the top 100, Matt. I don't know. We'll go ahead and check the list. That has been a sports radio programmer.

It says we're not. That's because we don't subscribe. We don't subscribe to him. We don't cuss and discuss with him. We don't spend money to get him to give bad advice to take underperforming radio stations and make him worse. You know what? That was my fault. I led you to that water and you drank it up.

Buzz him. Buzz him, Connor. What did I do? I didn't say any of that. You brought up something that's, yeah. But I knew. sports, sports and more sports. I made a spark that I knew you'd turn it into a flame.

So you know what? Yeah, it is my fault. I'm sorry. All right. I apologize. That's on me. Tom and downtown. Tom, one simple question for you, my friend. What don't you get?

Well, what I don't get is for the past week since the Texans lost, all over social media, I've heard everyone complaining about how bad the officiating was, and it was bad. But I haven't seen anyone point out the poor clock management. where they snapped the ball and got sacked twice when they could have called timeout. On the fourth and ten, you're talking about? Yeah, fourth and ten and right before the two-minute warning. Yeah. I don't think, and Tom, I don't get it either.

I would say this, in terms of timeouts and not necessarily clock management, but I would say D'Amico's probably a little bit below average when it comes to that. I was going to say average, but if you say slightly below, he's just okay. Yeah. Most coaches are. Yeah, I would say he's not in the upper echelon, put it that way. He's not an elite game manager.

But when Troy Higman is screaming on his headset, Domingo, you didn't take a time out, your guys look disoriented. If the broadcaster can see it from midfield in a press box, it probably means that he's got a pretty good sense of what he's seeing on the field, which looks like it's just unorganized and rush. And that's exactly what it was. Yeah, there are some moments that I wish D'Amico had a little bit more of a overall game management. How about that?

Is that a better way to say as compared to being a butcher at the two-minute clock? I don't think he does that. There are way worse coaches in the NFL to do that. On Twitter, Felipe says, it's been said once before, and it will be said a thousand times more. People driving slow with their hazards on. If you are scared to drive, stay home or take an Uber. Shout out to Sean and Brian for speaking on this today. So you're talking about people driving in ice with their hazards on?

I just think people driving on their hazards in general. Hmm. The only time I ever drive in hazards, and I very, very rarely do it, is when there is a torrential down for. Like a major snow, major rainstorm. Or snowstorm. Well, we don't have that here. No, I know.

But my point is that I think it's the right thing to do when, because it's hazard. I mean, the definition of hazard is hazardous conditions. A torrential deluge of precipitation. on a freeway is hazardous. Yeah, I haven't encountered. I mean, yeah, sometimes there's people in a slow lane on the freeway with their hazards on. Or if they're hauling, like if they're moving couches or whatever. I don't know.

This doesn't seem like a major problem to me. Yeah, I've never run into that much. But I'm, again, I'm a very seldom used hazard user. As a matter of fact, I don't even know where my hazards are on my new car. But I'll put them out. It's a bad weather. Oh, okay. And that, we've got more coming up.

Brandon and Tascasito has something that just don't get it. What do you have? Anybody else have something on their mind that you just don't get? I'm going to focus on trying to remember what I was going to say before. You got to start typing that stuff down.

I know. Your memory's as bad as mine. Oh, it's horrible. It really is. Well, mine's better than yours, but... Not really. What did we talk about in the last segment? No idea.

What was the very first time we talked about the 11 o'clock? I don't know. Joe Mixing. 713. I just don't get you saying things about bad about me. Okay. I just don't get why you wouldn't call and get with the folks at Game Day men's health

if your testosterone levels are low. I don't get that at all. Gameday men's health.com slash Houston. If you want to improve your sleep quality, if you want to improve the ability to work out or at least keep yourself physically fit and not feel so tiresome, if you want to improve your libido in the bedroom,

if you have erectile dysfunction issues, if you have weight gain issues, if you just want to get better overall men's health, you go to gameday men's health.com slash Houston. Gameday men'shealth.com slash Houston and you get a free testosterone level check if you go to any one of their locations. I believe they're now eight open

in the area with many more to come here in the 2025 calendar year. It's game day men'shealth.com slash Houston. Get a free tea level check. If your levels are normal, they'll wish you a very nice day and you move along. If your levels are low, get the TRT going and you can start feeling better about yourself plus you get a free

vitamin boost along the way as well. Game Day, men's health.com wants to build a relationship with you. They're not just a drive-by clinic. Stop in, meet with the staff, meet with a license provider, and get yourself feeling better about yourself. It's very simple. Game Day, men'shealth.com slash Houston.

That's game day, men'shealth.com slash Houston. More Matt Thomas show with Ross. Now on Sports Talk 790. All right, Ross, remember what is I just don't get was. What don't you get Rossie? Dry it down? The one guy that did not, I don't get you, number one. Number two, the one guy that didn't vote for Ichero Suzuki.

What are you doing? We went through the resume. Ten time gold Glover. Two-time batting champion. MVP, rookie of the year. Yeah. And oh, by the way, all the things that he did in Japan, but still got 3,000 hits in America, didn't start his career here until he was 27.

And by way, did you notice now that the baseball writer association and the Hall of Fame Committee are arguing about it when whose idea it was to not display the votes of the people. Nobody's each other side are blaming each other. Really? Yeah. I'm okay with it still being secret vote because it's not anybody's business necessarily. But you don't, because you don't want people to give in to public pressures. You want them to put their true vote.

But I did hear that the reason why that members of BBWAA, that's a baseball writer association of America, wanted to come out is because they ask their athletes to quote and talk and say things and be forthcoming. Why are they being secretive when the baseball writers complain that the athletes are being secretive about things? They believe if there's transparency in the clubhouse, there should also be transparency in the voting ballot. That's true. But also you get situations where fans will, you know, let's say this guy's vote was public. And he was the one that didn't, you know, there's people were sending guys. God knows what, death threats or attacking him or pulling him online.

Oh, like Mark Andrews got death threats? Did Mark Andrews? Did somebody really say they were going to kill Mark Andrews? No, but there's like, there were some, I don't know if it was death threats, but he was getting a lot of derogatory things on Twitter. Not as bad as. Most people were sympathetic. Not, but not everybody. Because most, because there's a cruel world out there.

Yeah. Like people that would spread erroneous rumors about former presidents. Cruel world. Terrible. Going on major market radio. I hope it's not true. They seem like a loving couple. Not

Aniston and Barack. Barack and Mrs. of Brock. You're one of a kind, Matt. 713, 212, 5. I just don't get it. You shouldn't get this show.

The show's been since 2010. I just don't get it. Branded on 7.Odi. Brandon, thanks for holding. What don't you get, my friend? Well, Matt, Ross, Connor, for the life of me, I just do not get why the Utah youths decided to show up for that game.

Amen. A freaking man. It seems like a lot of travel and dangerous conditions just to... Yes, yes. It just doesn't seem more. Absolutely right. Couldn't have said it better myself. If you didn't catch it last night, our Cougar Update is presented to you by the Joint Chiropractor,

the official chiropractor of University of Houston Athletics. The Houston Cougars gave up 36 points. I mean, how embarrassing is that? I used to be the voice of the Utah Utes many moments ago. Interesting. It was 41.17 at the half. Is that bad? Not good.

Houston outscoring Utah, 29 to 19 in the second half. Utah Uts for the game made 13 of 43 shots. They were shot 30% from the floor. Wow. They were 5 of 17. from three. Great free throw defense too. And the

Uts made 5 or 12 from the line. Seriously, if you're the Utes do you just call ahead and say, Calvin, we're not coming? The forfeit the game is yours. Weather issues? You spent, because think about it, you spent probably $25,000 in airfare.

Another 10 or 15 in Hote. You spent $45,000 to come to Houston get your ass kicked. Goodness gracious. Cougars are looking strong. That's embarrassing. Absolutely embarrassing. I hate to hear it.

Houston now on the year, 15 and 3, they've won 11 straight games, 11 and 12. You lose track when you win and start winning double digits of games. By the way, Joe Lennardi still has them as a four seed in the bracketatology. I just don't get it. No, that's not true. There's no way.

I don't disagree. He's got them as a 4 seed. You're lying. I just don't get it. Ken Palm has him as the number three overall team in the, country. Is Ken a good dude behind Duke and Auburn? I don't know if Ken's a good dude, but I like his ranking.

Okay. His college basketball ratings. All right. Joe in the gallery of Joe, what don't you get, my man? I just don't get it. Why the baseball doesn't have a baseball, a cap? Have you seen what the Dodgers have been doing lately? They've been getting, gobbling all these superstars.

And for the next four or five years, they'll for sure win the World Series every year. Yeah, thank you, Joe. You know, if the Dodgers win it, what will be the national storyline, Ross? That's the bus team money can buy. Absolutely. It's like people have been saying since Ohio State won the national championship,

well, of course you won the national championship. You spend $2 million on NIL money. 20 million. Is it $20 million? Yeah. $20 million in NIL money. Of course that should buy you. national championship. I think it was

yeah, I think the Longhorns are around 20 million, too. You were you guys in the semifinals. You were the bridesmaid again. You know, you can keep one of the same dress. It was a close game until the end. Take it off when you're having a couple of libations. What are you talking about?

Well, Texas is a little loose. Why is a, why are you talking about a football team taking off their dress? Because they want to, they want to finally hook up. They want to find that special person ultimately. They're tired of being the bridesmaid. Good God. They want to be the bride. The third time since we've been doing this, I just don't get you.

Okay. Last one belongs to Yankees Keith at 1156. Yankees Keith, what don't you get? Well, during the wintertime or during the basketball season, I'm actually rocket to keep. Oh, okay. So here's what I don't. I like it. I like you.

And Texas, Keith. So here's what I don't get. You know, last night was a fantastic victory. I could imagine how we won that game with the two seconds. left and they're the file and all of that. And this dude missing two out of three three throws. But that's not what I call about.

I'll call about our number three draft fit. Reed Shepard. I don't get why we drafted him. If he can't play. If he can't, he can't, is he a backup for a fan fleet or is he a backup for

for a man? Or why is he? Why does he look scared every time he get out on the court and he's the number three draft pick. Well, the reality is right now Rock is Keith, he's not getting on the court period so there's a lot of DMPCDs. He's not ready right now.

And the NBA roster, rotation is about 10 players deep and if you don't make the top 10, you don't play very much. This was discussed as a weak draft. So try not to think of Reed Shepard as the third overall pick. Yeah, I mean... Even though the Rockets were over

the moon, they got them. And I'm not ready to give up on them. I don't think if you do that's stupid. No. He's just not having a good rookie season. There are probably five or six rookies that are having better seasons than he is. And they're playing. How is the rookie class doing these days? I have to go look that up.

France. How's Zachary O'Shoushesey? I will find out next week when we go to Atlanta. How is Alexander Sa? He's okay. Montes-Buselis has been bad, right? Zach Eady is a foul machine in Memphis. Yeah.

He's just a guy. Now, the kid in San Antonio that was picked right after him is good. I'm drawing a blank. on his name. Played at Yukon. Whatever. He's having a good season. But the expectations

are different there. He had a chance to insert himself in the lineup right away. Reed Shepherd was not trying to fill a hole. Reed Shepherd was trying to supplement. Right now he's on supplementing. It's not very supple. All right.

What? Yeah. The team is winning and doing great without him. Yeah. Relax. Relax. He'd be fine. All right.

713. 212. 5790. 713. 212. 5. 790. I just don't get it.

It's over. Thank you very much. It was a good interaction today. Wonderful. We'll get the news at noon coming up now. You ready for that? Absolutely. Let's talk about the Shell Federal Credit Union first.

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Low rates, low interest rates for 36 months, 3.99%, plus skip a pace, plus deferred payments, plus $250 and cashback. All the reasons why, if you're financing a new vehicle in 2025, you need to go with the Shell Federal Credit Union. Online at shellfcU.org, that's shellfc u.org for the Shell Federal Credit Union. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. Jerome, hands of to car on the three-pointer for the win. He is fouled. It hits the front rim. The clock shows 2.8 seconds left. There's your miss.

First is the miss. And he missed two earlier, so it's... This is not in the bad. I'm reading the right numbers here. He's a 90% free-fisher. He was fifth best in the association coming in. Here's the second free throw. That's also no good!

Oh, my goodness! Are you kidding me! What a night for Darius Garland to have his worst free throw. throw shooting ever as an NBA player. You've been given a ninth live out of playing. 109-108. Cavaliers have it. They have no timeouts. Here we go. Tide Jerome on the sideline. Jay Sean Tatele Garlandian bounce pass left side Mitchell's side. Pocket three is short. The putback no good is well-regard. It's 1206. What's happening, lunchtomers? This is actually a song of this person I like.

What? Yeah. You always call him overrated. He is overrated. I like the song. He is overrated. I'm with you. Yeah.

I like the song. All right. Some guys have all the luck. Tar Easton has all the luck, Rossi. That should have been sending Darius Garland to the free throw line, a 90% free throw shooter. Should have made all three free throws because that's what 90% free throw shooters do. They had a ball. And then it would have been a devastating loss, especially because the Cavaliers at one point in the fourth quarter.

holder scored 19 consecutive points. It would have been a quite a tough collapse to stomach. But instead, we celebrate as part of the news at noon. Oh, the music is back. Absolutely, Matt. We are going to lead off the news at noon with that Rockets game that you mentioned that you were on the call for Rockets Escape. Yes, I will say it, escape with a 109 to 108 win over the Cleveland.

Cleveland Cavaliers. 50-50 call on the Alperin Shingoon foul. Definitely was a flagrant foul on Katari Easton at the end of the game. Concern level for Jalen Green, last two games under 20 points after being over for nine straight. Eight of 21 against the Detroit Pistons for 19 points. Four of 16 against the Cleveland Cavaliers for just 10 points. That is his lowest point total since December 23rd Against the Charlotte Hornets

He didn't play the fourth quarter in that game Because it was a blowout win for the Rockets Huge high relief Perit into story And you beat the best team in the NBA record-wise Yes And they beat the best team in the NBA's Thunder

Yeah, thunder But is there an NBA team And I don't know the answer to this That has beaten both the Thunder and the Cavaliers In the same season? I don't think so They only have seven losses apiece It's not bad.

Just saying. Just saying. Let's get your playoff tickets ready. Let's have a watch party. Let's go. People, we have a watch party. We all go see Ross. If we have one.

Never mind. All right. Continue on then. Sorry. You know, sometimes you infect my brain. I'm going to stop myself. Let's move on, Matt. Not me out of said.

Let's move on on the news at noon. As we talked about yesterday, three people. inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. C.C. Zabathia, Billy Wagner, and Ichiro Suzuki. Also talked about it on I Just Don't Get It. Only one voter did not vote for each hero. Now, here's what he had to say.

This is through an interpreter. By the way, the interpreter has laryngitis. So just you can hear the message. This is going to sound awful. Let's hear how it goes. I was able to receive many votes from the writers and grateful for them.

but there's one writer that I wasn't able to get a vote from. I would like to invite him over to my house and we'll have a drink together and we'll have a good chat. Very grateful to be here and thank you. Ichero wants to have dinner and a drink with the guy who didn't vote for him so they can talk it over. Or how about getting some throat loaches for the interpreter? You have just gone to the Hall of Fame. You need an interpreter. There's going to be some other.

He's Japanese, correct? Yes. You can probably find a Japanese interpret. It would take a little while, but you could probably find one that is full-throated. Excuse me? Yeah. He's hoarse.

That didn't sound good. Hmm. Maybe he was celebrating with Ichero last night, with the night before. Yeah. Okay. Ichero on my short list. If I need a lead-off guy?

He's my guy. Now, granted, he's going to slap single me to death, but he's going to give the hits for me. He's going to be halfway down first base by when he's midway through his swing. That's how he was so effective. He's so good. He throws his bat up in the air and the ball hits it. I mean, amazing value in the field as well. Yeah, for sure. Great arm as well from Itcher of Suzuki now in the Hall of Fame. Matt, of course, as you know, moving along on the news at noon, it's offbeat, but it is sports,

which is my favorite way to end this segment. The Bills taking on the Kansas City Chiefs this weekend in the 8th, a FC championship game. Bills tackle Spencer Brown asked what would he do? How hard would it be on him if the bills lost to the Chiefs on Sunday? His answer?

A 24 pack by myself. Which begs a question? A 24 pack of what? Yes. Now you're not doing 24 IPAs. You're going to throw up. Oh God, it's very, very dark. It's too heavy. Yeah, way heavy. It's not that dark.

It's heavy though. Oh, yeah, you're not doing doplebox, Matt. You're not doing porters. Well, you're not doing, you're not doing shine or 24 shiders. You're not doing that. A bill or a bill or bite. Perhaps a mud light. Or a or a beast on. Or a beast on?

Or a beast on? Bud light. Yeah. Oh, actually, an ice cold, refreshing Crawford Buck. They don't pay you right now. Listen to the Crawford Boxcast. They're not paying you. This is a freebie for that. For free on the IHeart Radio app. No, we're doing Crawford Boxcasts. You get money from? Yeah. I didn't know that. Congratulations.

There's a beer sponsor. Why are you always pocket watch and other people? Not pocket watch. I just think you were just giving free little shoutouts. They sponsor the Crawford Boxcast on this station. You better check. Chris Gordy, yes. All right.

I just don't get you. That was the last segment. You can't use that. I'm sorry. You can't move segments. We keep a stringent segment clock. We're very regimented, the Mad Thomas show. Can I selfish you say, I want the bills to win?

I want some fresh blood. And I'm kind of pissed off the way my home's kind of active this weekend too. Not about the personal foul code, but he can't control that, but the fake dive out of bounds getting like that, that was douchey. Is it wrong of me? You know who's the girl that was always taking the football

away from Charlie Brown? Lucy's always taking the ball. Now you want Charlie Brown to kick the ball, but isn't it kind of funny that it keeps happening? No, you want. That's how I feel with the bills. Here's what you want. You want Charlie to forget the football and kick Lucy's ass. Kick her the teeth? Yeah. This is going to get assault charges, Matt. Say, listen, bitch. Stop pulling that

football and I wouldn't hit you in the head. Geez, the deep-seated issues that lay within this man. What, tell me, anybody that watched that was sick and tired of Lucy pulling the football, she needs to get hit. I'm just saying, if the ball gets pulled away from the bills again, I might be a tinge funny to me.

And you, you know what you did? You also found the bills getting their ass kick four times in the Super Bowl quite charming, didn't you? Yeah, you know what? You know what? That's who you are. You like for people to suffer. I'm optimistic. I'm optimistic. I want the bills to win the AFC, and I want Lucy to get her head kicked in.

Part of me says it'll be funny, but I'm rooting for the bills. Because why? Because of the evil black magic that is the Kansas City Chiefs. There you go. There's a way to salvage yourself there. Nicely done. Is that the news at noon? And that's the news at noon. That's what I like to hear. All right, 713, 212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. You don't bring it up the damn peanuts thing doesn't irritate me. That and peppermint Patty always calling Charlie Brown Chuck.

Nobody else called Charlie Brown Chuck except pepperm and Patty. All right. Let's see here. Did we ever figure out what the 24 pack was? He never announced what it was? He didn't say it with the 24 pack, which is, I'm assuming beer. What kind? Yeah.

Okay. I don't know. Maybe it's moolies. That's certainly possible. I was rhyming a, oh, God. What were you doing again? That's a rhyme for truly's. There you go.

Much better. All right. 713, 212-570. 7-1-3-2-5-79. If you want to join our conversation, 7-1-3-2-5-7-9, you don't have to rhyme. If you want to just tell the truth, you want to get sponsored plugs, we'll let that happen. Hey, I want to tell you about love volleyball. It just opened up this past January, and if you love professional volleyball, you can watch the match recap on their website at L-O-V-B.

dot com. When the L-O-VB Houston took on L-O-V-B Salt Lake, L-O-VB is League One Volleyball. And it's a brand new professional league and tickets are on sale now for upcoming matches that will be over at the Fort Bend epicenter. These are the best international players. These are the best collegiate players. These are the best U.S. team players that have said, you know what? We're going to play in a brand new league. And it's called Love Volleyball. League one volleyball, L-O-V-B.com is the website. And if you want to check out the new Houston team, they've got upcoming matches in the next few weeks. Do me a favor. Go to that website, LOVB.com, and check out how you and your daughter or your son who loves volleyball can go watch some of the best volleyball being played in this country at a professional level. It's League One Volleyb.com. Back to Matt Thomas and Ross Villarreal on Sports Talk 790.

You know ESPN is bored when they're in. having to come up with a headline of how important is Sunday's game for Pat Mahom's legacy? I can answer that in about two seconds. His legacy's already been determined. It's one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play. If he retired right now, Ross, he's one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play.

I almost feel bad for these guys. They do have 24 hours to fill. That's when we had Dan Orlowski on this show and you weren't here. I listened to it, that was good. He said at the end, or I guess we were talking to him, It's like the best thing about ESPN is that it's on 24 hours.

The worst thing is it's on 24 hours. You get 24 hours to fill. You would think they would repeat some things, but they really don't. What they do is they take the same five people and put them on every show. So you're basically getting the same thing over and over again. How important. I mean, you've got to roll your eyes when you hear this, right? Like you're doing a show rundown.

All right, guys, we're going to do this. We're going to do this. And then we're going to go to how important is Sunday's game for Patrick Mahomes's legacy? That's about answered in 12 seconds. Let's move on the next time. You're like, excuse me, Patrick Mahomes, the guy who's not even 30 and has three Super Bowl wins under his belt. Two-time NFL MVP, two-time All-Pro.

Yeah, if there's anybody who's not worried about his legacy, it's Pat Mahomes. Barring him throwing like eight interceptions, I think he's going to be okay. Even if he threw eight interceptions, it wouldn't matter. That's true. I mean, there are comparisons to him already being Tom Brady. Now, he's got some work left to do to make that happen in my mind. but come on ESPN. I would say do better, but that's what they do.

How many MVPs that Brady win? Two or three? In the Super Bowl or in... No, no. Oh, I don't know how many in all together. Overall. I know the most was won by Peyton. He's got like six, I think, or something?

Oh, that's a good off-season topic. Mount Rushmore of quarterbacks. Three-time NFL MVP, Tom Brady. And most rings. And best all-time roast maybe ever. Well, longest for sure. Yeah, what's the longest? I'll give you that. And they ripped the crap out of Kevin Hart.

Aaron Rogers, four MVP's, Peyton Manning 5. If any NFL quarterback's legacy is in question, it might be Aaron Rogers. Two years with the Jets. All-time great. One plays, he plays a handful, literally plays like five plays one year, and then suck this past year. Yeah. And got super weird, too. I mean, he was always regular weird, but he got super weird this year.

Super Bowl wins or team accomplishments, though, and he won four MVPs. He's still one of the all-time grades. Oh, he is one of the all-time grades. Yeah, he wasn't great when he was 40 with the Jets. And he is still a decent season. I wonder what Aaron Glenn thinks of him. I think Aaron Glenn's probably thinking he's gone. Oh, did you hear, by the way, as it relates to the Texans?

Yeah, go ahead. Possibly an OC candidate for Aaron Glenn would be Gerard Johnson. Gerard Johnson. I was going to say Josh Johnson, but that was wrong. If I literally brought that out to the audience to say, hey, what are your thoughts about it? There would be not a single person who had a thought on it. We don't know the inner workings.

We don't know. Let me tell you, here's the God's honest truth. The only people that know if Gerard Johnson could do it is probably Bobby Slovak and Domingo Ryan. People have taught us. And obviously Nick Casario. People have spoken well of Gerard Johnson's football mind. So. But that was even determined before he left before he became a quarter. quarterback's coach for this team.

I mean, could you and I make C.J. Stroud a decent quarterback? Here's what I don't know. And I'm not willing to say yes or no on this. No. Do I know that Gerard Johnson went in there and taught C.J. Strouds some things that made him even take it to the next level? I mean, they're very little going to be yes, but he's also still, he's also a very good athlete who is highly regarded, played at the highest level of college football, worked. his ass off, got a private quarterback coach, got to be the number three pick of the draft, and hasn't been largely a huge success with this organization.

Well, if Gerard Johnson is being considered for an OC, that means he's probably a pretty good coach. But it's also guilt by association, too, people around. What do you mean? Well, let's say, you know, you don't have, you don't have, the best quarterback coach in the NFL could be the Jacksonville, Jaguars quarterback coach. He just haven't have a sucky quarterback. Or maybe he's not doing a good enough job with him. Oh, maybe he, I mean, do you think that a quarterback coach would teach Trevor Lawrence to overthrow his receivers?

No. Well, he needs to do a better job and not doing that. Maybe he needs to work on his footwork. To me, you have to take the next steps up. So, Gerard Johnson is going to be an offensive

coordinator somewhere. I think when you're, again, guilt by association, you're one of the very good offense, very good quarterback. Not every quarterback coach becomes an OC. No, but a lot of them do.

A lot of them start as positional coaches and become coordinators. Yes. So it doesn't really matter if it's a running backs coach, wide receivers coach. You move. up the pie chart, the food change.

It feels like running back's coach doesn't normally do that. Eric Benamy's been was a running backs coach and became an offensive corner. And D line coaches don't do that. Yeah. Running backs coaches do. Quarterbacks coaches for sure do. Why receivers coaches can. The line coaches is always just some guy with like a mouthful of chew and a screw loose.

And just constantly swears. Yes. The owners had a coach named Bob Young, I want to say his name was. Big old coot. 65, 7 years old. All he did was swear. Yeah. And by the way, when you have a 30, when you are 5-7 and 249

and you're swearing at these offensive linemen who can crush you a little grape, you better check yourself. But he was such an old coot that they didn't care. Let's have an answer. I don't care. I think his name was Bob Young. I'm not for 100% sure. That's going way back.

I'll take your word for it. You should. I'll Google Oilers history. Don't do it. No, no. I don't want you doing it right now. I don't want to. We're not getting into positional conversation.

Okay. Unless Bobby Slovak gets gone Which I don't believe is I think if he leaves And I'll say this again If Bobby Slovak leaves I think it's on his own volition Okay

But we Bobby yesterday The Houston Oler's offensive line From 1990 to 1995 I knew the name I didn't think I was making it up He died of a heart attack in 1995 Did he really?

Yes How old was he? 52 Oh I'm 52 That's all he was is 52 Yeah, he had diabetes and a smoking habit. It's a one, two, three punch right there. This Wikipedia death paragraph is not very glowing.

No matter how I die, Ross, I want you to tell everybody that you know that I've died of natural causes. I will edit your wiki page for you, Matt. Young was married three times. After his career ended, he maintained a smoking habit and was considered obese to go along with having diabetes. On June 17, 1995, Young died of a heart attack at age 52. and just swore He was swearing to those final days Played at

Oh Howard Payne He also coached at U of H As all great coaches do Coach with the gamblers Oh really, man he really was all of Houston What great coach coached at U of H football Bill Yomen Jack Pardee, hello

Wade Phillips, hello Okay, Wade Phillips, did Wade Phillips coach say He was like an assistant Yeah, okay Wade Phillips all accept. You won't accept Jack Pardee? What did they do? Jack, well, they, it's one person.

What did he do besides get multiple NCAA infractions? Not him. Oh, was that Yomian? Get your infraction straight. Jack was a saint. Okay. Jack went on to coach a gamblers, a tremendous amount of success. He went on to yell over your calls, right?

Or was that Yoman? That was Yoman. You get everybody mixed up. I'm sorry I can't get these mediocre coaches that accomplished nothing at U of H mixed up. Oh, my God. Gosh. I hope you of it. I hope the Cougars Dennis is storing you like they always do.

I'm just messing with Matt. What Jack Party? College Football Hall of Fame. Yeah, it was part of the Junction Boys. Oh, he was? Yes. Poor guy? He does what I'm saying.

He's going out there getting physically and emotionally abused by Bear Bryant. He was part of the Junction Boys, and he wanted it being a sweet man. You know, a lot of times people who are abused young are very sweet and older age. Yeah, I don't disagree. Jack was one of my favorite people. I'm still very close friends with all of his family. As a matter of fact, he's got two of his two grandsons,

two of his grandsons are coaching right now. So the coaching tree is vibrant. Bill Yeoman was only there for three years? No. At U of H? No. Oh, I must have a lot of stuff vacated. Oh, wait, I'm on Jack Pardy.

Jack Pardee was only coach for three years? Yeah, and then he got the gambler's job and they went to U of H. Yeah, I'm not seeing. Former Jack Party, former coach of the Washington Redskins. You told me he was. great at U of H, he didn't even win a bowl game. They lost an Aloha Bowl. Bad officiating.

Huh. I'm not seeing greatness. He was an 89 coach. That team had NCAA infractions. They weren't on live television. Andre Weir won the Heisman trophy that year, and we're not on live television. And then he coached the bills collapse and the chief's loss. And then went one and nine.

That was. And got replaced by Jeff Fisher? Jim Eddy's fault. Yeah, Jeff Fisher. You get the older's history down. Good for you. I have the Wikipedia page Oh, I'm going to say, okay, I got you.

1230 on Sports Talk. Jack Party Talk continues. No, we'll move on to other things. Let's go back to the Rockets you want to. Was that fun talking on Rockets? Yeah, I like it, man. I just... You don't think our audience does.

I don't know who else does. Give it the numbers. Give an impassion plea for Rockets call right now. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Your Houston Rockets are number two in the West. They just beat the Cleveland Cavaliers who had only lost six games all year. They now have seven losses. only seven losses for the thunder.

They've beaten both of those teams. They're half game up on the Memphis Grizzlies for the number two spot in the West. We're over the halfway point of the season, and they're still playing great. Let's talk some Rockets Ball. 713, 2-1-2-1-2-790. 12-31. Sports Talk 7-0. Matt Thomas and Ross Beaureal. Two guys extremely passionate about Houston sports.

You can tell them to go get a room. We've shared a hotel room. But they already have. And share to bed. Truth be told. That's true. Thanks for the visual. Pillow in between. There's no pillow between you and more lunchtime Houston Sports Talk on Sports Talk 790.

That makes way too many people in this town chuckle. I don't like it. It's so good. Pillow in between, Maddie. It's fine. Real quick, another thing I just don't get. I saw it just on ESPN minute ago. Why?

Mike Greenberg's existence? Would have to be probably on the, top five most overrated sports personalities ever to appear. I guess he was good on radio. I didn't really listen. No. Just comes across. I'm forgetting you. Sorry.

That's my bad. Go ahead. Football broadcasters, mainly analyst, wearing suits and tennis shoes. I just don't get it. That's the rage these days, Matt. What rage is there?

Go down any street in downtown Houston. You calling out Dan Orlovsky? Yeah. There's Broskys going and working in finance who are wearing suits and wearing coats and tennis shoes. Absolutely. All right.

I'm going to... I usually drive from here to the Toyota Center, taking Memorial all the way in. Well, I mean, it's called it once around for a reason. I don't see anybody in tennis shoes in a suit walking around. Now, you might because you're walking from a significant distance, but my mom

worked at a very high-end law firm in this town for 30 years. Okay. When did she stop working there? It's been a while. So maybe this is a poor example. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's it's what the finance bro. The broskeys are doing. Okay, so let's do. Let's open this up then. Okay. If you work at a office, in an office

that the gentleman wear sports coats in shirt and ties, not full suits, but maybe at least a sport coat in a time. Sport coat and jeans? People wear that. People are sport code jeans and sneaks? Sneaks is okay. I'm talking about... That's what Dan O'Loski's doing.

Suit. Okay. Do people within your office that wear a suit wear tennis shoes with their suit? Suit pants. Like, for instance, I'm going to a rocket event tonight, a dinner this evening. I brought dress shoes with my suit. Got a brand new suit, by the way. GQ Magazine, 2022.

Can you wear a suit with sneakers? You bet. Here's how plus 12 different pairs to rock with your best tailoring right now. now. Okay. GQ said it's okay, Matt. Well, they do call me Mr. GQ, so. I don't know.

You used to see my new suit. I'm going on. Let me call you Mr. T.J. Max. They do not. I went to Rosa Vray Ranks. No discount either. Oh, maybe that's me. That's Mr. Rehrie Rex.

Oh, well, I got a new suit on debut on tonight. You do? Does it fit? Oh, it's tailored. Good. Because the rest of a lot of weight. And the rest of the suit you wear, you look like you're putting on your dad's suit. Yeah, I've gotten rid of all that.

That's great. I have two new suits. I'm so happy for you. Yeah. I'm going to wear it tonight. I'm going to take some pictures and you can judge my suit. Now, where are you wearing this?

At a rocket event. It's a corporate event. You're making a big donation or something? No, it's for the sponsors of the team. Did they ask you to emce it? No, they always ask Craig. They don't ask me.

Oh. Sorry. I'm still available to do those things. I didn't mean to ask Craig. I didn't mean to step into that one. Sorry. That's fine. I mean, I'm just used to it.

I used to be mad about it, but I don't get mad. Love Craig. It's extra work, yeah. Like Craig do it. Yeah, look Craig do it. I mean, Craig hardly works. Yeah. You're busy, Matt.

You're a man about town. All right. Let's go to Broderick and A-Leaf at 1238 on 7-90. Broderick, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Matt and Ross. I heard y'all plea for a rocket car. It was a plea. It was a bag.

It was a come on in. Open arms. Broderick, we are opening up our arms to you, Broderick. Bless you, Broderick. All right, so look, I'm Bonafi fan. I love them just like y'all do. And I'm very happy with where we are. I'm not going to be one of those.

Yeah, we need to go out and make a trade. I honestly don't feel like we need to make a trade. In my opinion, I think a good season win between 40, about 48 games, and win around in the playoffs. And that's the progress we need for where we're trying to go. You got a lot of, we got a lot of good pieces, and I don't really necessarily see getting rid of the cornwallis. I kind of look at us like the 15 warriors.

You know, they was coming. They were all homegrown. They just brought in like an iguadal. So that's a Fred R. Dillon, and you just let them cultivate and keep growing. And that's the best thing and the best route. I think we should take. I know that's what Raphael said he wants to do. I think that's a good way to go about the situation.

and really, I really think a lot of our fans, we just kind of don't believe it still. I'm bona fide and I'm always scared. Even when we play the good team, it's like you're kind of used to what we were for the last five or six years, but I mean, every game, they kind of like prove us wrong in a sense.

So over halfway through the season, the record we got, I mean, you can consider them a legit, good team. Not great, but a good. good team. And you know what? The thing it is, Broderick, I want to see how great they can become. And thank you for the phone call. Don't be a stranger to the show. That's why I really

think at the end of the day, Rossi, they're going to probably stand pat at the deadline. If they do something, it'll be something to add depth maybe. But it's not going to be one of those, wow, oh my gosh, kind of moves involved with the megastars. I don't think they really think they want to see what this team is. And then I have a better guesstimation of what the missing piece would be to get to the next level if they don't

get to the ultimate level, which would be playing for championship. Yeah, I don't expect a major, and especially with the winning ways the last couple of weeks. I think a lot of the chatter from fans and from pundits has gone away about them possibly making a big move. With the Jimmy Butler stuff, which could have been dismissed from the get-go there, but as far as any other big moves and Deerrin Fox being floated and whoever, up Bradley Beal, whatever, no, they're not going to go for any of that stuff. They like who they are.

They can continue to grow. they're in year two of phase two. Emo Doka saying himself that it's been good, but we want more, but that's just his DNA. That's what coaches are always going to say, yeah. So I don't expect anything big to be happening. And let me ask you this. Like when Donald Mitchell was being bantied about whether he was going to sign a long-term deal in staying Cleveland, no one questioned Donovan Mitchell's work ethic, desire,

locker room lawyer type thing. There's been hints, certainly with Jimmy Butler, because he's been happy in three other cities. And now he's gotten completely sideways with Pat Riley in Miami. Deerrin Fox, the rumor is there. And again, we don't believe in rumors here on the show.

We've already talked about that before today. Yes. The rumors that DeAaron Fox was the one that helped push Mike Brown out the door in Sacramento. Mm-hmm. if you're really going to go get somebody, don't you want somebody that, and again, maybe you can't have it this way

where nobody says anything bad about anybody, but Don'tvin Mitchell was generally beloved, and the only issue is going to be whether or not Mitchell was going to sign long-term in Cleveland, don't you want to go, if you're going to go get that missing piece to add to what is already a really good chemistry team to begin with, don't you want to make sure it's a good fit character-wise? I'm not saying that De Aaron Fox is a bad character.

I'm just saying that there has just been, the night before Mike Brown gets fired, Deeran Fox didn't play defense on a final play that ultimately cost the Kings a game that ultimately Mike Brown got fired the next day and Mike Brown called him out on it without saying his name directly and Darren Fox's like I'm not letting that happen

I'm the star of this team you want me to sign a long term you're going to figure out to get another coach in here to make me happy. That's crazy. Coach of the year. What was it last year or the year before? Look, I don't want Deeran Fox to be labeled

as a coach killer but he didn't necessarily come out and say, oh, this is the greatest travest in the world. I can't believe this happened. You know what I mean? I just think you got to be, if you're going to really make a trade, you really got to be careful.

Like, for instance, is Kevin Durant a coach killer? I don't think he is. No. I just think he gets bored. I think he was right to run away from Scott Brooks. Yeah.

In that situation in Oklahoma City. The Brooklyn situation was almost toxic from the jump. He went and got his championships in Gold State. Yes. He was finals MVP for both of those rings, by the way, for those who tried to discount his part in that. Yeah.

There's just a little bit of me that says if the rockets are really going to shake things up, I want it to be a guy that absolutely fits what is right now in Houston. And right now it's a cohesive group that's, we'll throw hands that they have to, but they fight hard and work hard and they play hard. And I kind of like that. I don't want to have a, well, I'm worried about whether this guy wants to show up on one particular ride or needs a night off because of this and that. Jimmy Butler just gets grumpy anywhere he goes.

There's just no chance. There's just too much. No chance. There's just no chance on that. The other guys, I mean, look, if Devin Booker says I'm on a Phoenix and things are imploding and the sun's want to rebuild, if the rocket, if he wants to call the rockets, if I'm the rockets, I'd listen. I think Devin Booker largely has been nothing but just an absolute amazing score. That's just a question of where you'd fit. And how much you'd have to give up? That's the question mark.

All right. 1245 on Sports Talk, 790. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Believe it or not today, what is it at 150 this afternoon? Oh, all right. 713-212-5-790. With a word right now for Berkeley Eye Center.

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526 EYES. You can also check out BECLASIC.com for all the details. That's 713 526 EYES or BECLASIC.com. Flex spending, no finance options until 2027, are there for you at Berkeley Eye Center. Coach Sark here. Touchdown, Texas. You've got Sports Talk 790, Houston's home of Longhorn Football. The Matt Thomas show continues now. Clarence Hill covers the Dallas Cowboys, I believe, for the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

Let me make sure I'm right about that. Well, it doesn't necessarily have a, you know, he probably got rid of, he probably quit or got fired from there. Oh, well, he still covers the Cowboys for some website that no one's ever heard of. He says, look for the Cowboys to cross the finish line and hiring Brian Schottnheimer no later than Friday, possibly today. Wow. That was Clarence Hill Jr., you said? Yeah. We've had him on before back in that.

He's a Fort War Star Telegram or what used to be, yeah. Yeah, they probably had massive layoffs. Yeah. By the way, note to y'all kids out there, you think the radio business is tough? Print journalism? Even tougher. Ooh. Unless you're savvy like McTaggart, I'll roam.

I'll tell you who's doing a nice job, and he comes on our station occasionally, is John Alexander. He does some really good investigative work. He's legit. There's so few people that cover the Texans that are legit, and I want to give him a shout-out. So John Alexander, shout-out to you for being legit member of the media covering that team. Mm-hmm. Friend of the station. Yeah, I think it comes on every once in a while, yeah.

Okay, so back to my point. Brian Schottnheimer, just the kind of non-sexy hire that I think Dahl Dallas Cowboy fans didn't want. I mean, Brian Scott. Mike McCarthy, Super Bowl winning coach. Mike McCarthy, Super Bowl winning coach. They won seven games with Dak Hurt. Two successful NFL runs for a guy that's never been a head coach before.

I mean, man, oh man. This is how long Brian Schottenheimer's been in the game. His first job as a coach was an assistant with the St. Louis Rams. Did he ever coach with his dad? I'm assuming he did at some point, right? Marty was a coach for Kansas City in Cleveland for most of his career. He was an assistant for the Chiefs in 98. Marty might have been there then?

I don't know. Could have been. I think Marty was coaching the Chiefs when Montana and Marcus Allen came here to beat the Oilers. Oh, oof. Yeah, he was Chiefs coach until 98, then one year with the redskins, and then a few years with the charges. Didn't they go 14 and 2 his last year?

So he's been an assistant coach for 27 years, six years, give or take? Brian Schott, Hunter, Mears. And he's never been a head coach? After 26 years an assistant? He's been an OC for the Jets, St. Louis Rams, Georgia. You work with a Colts, O.C. at the Seahawks, passing game coordinator with a Jags for a year,

and then has been with the Cowboys as an analyst, and then the O.C. the last two years. Okay. So let's once... This is not to the label of David Cully, but it's close. David Cully's name popped in my mind as well, but also, yeah, he was only a positional coach for 20-plus years. But it's, yeah. You know what, Matt?

Maybe he's been bubbling over the, under the surface, and he's ready to take the Cowboys to their new era of greatness. How old is he, by the way? 51. Okay, so he obviously got started at a young age because dad got. I mean, the nepotism worked. Yeah, it worked very well. It's going to happen. Nepotism is everywhere.

Yeah, for sure. So he's got plenty of time to get going here to have a successful NFL career. But isn't one of the first questions that you would ask at a press coverage of indeed, Brian Schontenheimer gets a job is that you've been an assistant coach for all these years were you finally ready or did somebody finally say I'll give you a shot? I mean

if I'm a cowboy fan and not that you should, for instance, when the Texans hired Dermico Ryans, there was a general level of excitement in this town. Yes. Bringing back one of our own. He had been a defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers. He had much success. He was highly sought after

by multiple teams, Denver included. Yes, totally thanks or no thanks. that would be the opposite of what Dallas fans or Dallas media for that matter would say when if this indeed does come to pass where you had this big press conference where Jerry goes you know we got rid of a coach who won a Super Bowl and won playoff games for us and went to the playoffs for two different teams. We brought in a guy who's been a good soldier. He's 51 years old. So there's a lot of left in the tank and he's been an assistant coach for 25 years in the NFL.

That's a hard selling point. He's well-seasoned. This has been marinating. This to me says that no one wanted the job. But the Dion Sanders stuff was just a bunch of fluff. Because Dion Sanders, whatever next job he gets, whether it's at a more high profile college job or an NFL job, is going to want the detaintership.

He's not going to acquiesce to some old, has-been past tense NFL evaluator like Jerry Jones is. Jerry's an excellent business person, the greatest business person, maybe in professional sports history. But as a general manager, he's about 15 years past his prime. And you know what? Coaches Ross in the NFL who get to pan pick where they want to go. What was the new coach in the Chicago Bears? Ben Johnson, right? Is that his name?

Yes. Ben had to pick of the litter on where he wanted to go. Yeah, that's what I was trying to think of. I was trying to think of the last Cowboys coach that was that kind of Wonderkin up-and-com. next greatest thing. Because Jason Garrett was a good guy in the Cowboys organization, was a backup, kind of a coach on the field,

coach on the sideline, I kind of get that. But in terms of young, bright, hip, ready to be the number one guy? Not really. They tried to get Lightning and a bottle with Parcells. They tried to go old school with Barry Switzer after his college run. Four years of Phillips before that.

Dave Campo was a positional coach. They swung for the fences with Bill Parcells, but he was past his prime. He had Dave Campo, then it was Chan Galey. Who was a successful college head coach and a coordinator, but never showed any success at the head coaching level. And then before that, it was Barry Switzer, Jimmy Johnson, Tom Landry. Yeah.

That to me was, this is an undesirable job. Just like what Jacksonville did yesterday, Trent Balkie, their longtime general manager. Out. Ross, nobody wanted to go there. Nobody wants a general manager. or they don't trust unless you're Brian Schottonheimer who's been given, it will be given, it sounds like to me, if it's indeed going to be done,

the first opportunity to be a head coach in the NFL. That's pretty crazy. They fired Balki you that late in the game, or Shot Khan the owner did. I guess they realized nobody wants to come here. Because no one was talking about it. Yeah. You had the offensive coordinator of the Buccaneers saying, I'm good

here. I'm not going there. I'm not going to become a head coach the first time because I don't want to go there, go four and 13, two straight leagues seasons and ruin any possibility being a long-term head coach in the NFL. Because you go to Jacksonville, although Jacksonville, everybody loses when they go there. So it wouldn't necessarily be a huge stain on your resume. Because nobody goes to Jacksonville wins.

Gus Bradley didn't win there. Urban Meyer didn't win there. Doug Peterson didn't win there. Are they, or have they interviewed Bobby Sloick, the Jaguars? They're going to. They've been mentioned, yeah, for sure. Interesting. And think about this.

The two coordinators of the Lions are now gone. who's the hot candidate left? Those are the two guys that we're talking about more than anybody else. I don't know. Not our problem. We got our guy. D'emico Ryans. Who may be losing his quarterback coach.

You never know. It might be losing his offensive coordinator. Would Bobby Sloan take it? Might be. I say, you know what? I saw you on Jacksonville. If they offered it to him. Why wouldn't he take it?

At this point, he would take it. He may not want to take it a year ago, but he may want to take it now. All right, final hour of the Matt Thomas show. with Ross. 713212-5-790, if you want to join us today. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Rockets with a very nice win last night against the Cleveland Cavaliers. And one of the most dramatic games in recent years,

is that too much to put on that game? We'll get to that. We will get to more on the NFL. Alex Breggman's, the desire for the Tigers to bring him in is, frankly, lukewarm at this point. We'll get to that. And believe it or not, 7-13-212-5-790, 12-58,

Sports Talk 790. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 103 on Sports Talk 790. You never know who's listening to the Matt Thomas show at Ross. We were talking about the big dinner we have tonight with some corporate folks of the rockets. I'll be debuting my new suit with dress shoes. Not sneaks?

No. I mean, I could go. I brought sneakers. I'm wearing sneakers right now. GQ says you're in the clear. You know what I'll do? I will do this. I bought the next time I wear a suit, not tonight.

Okay. The next time I wear a suit, like if I'm doing a U of H game or something, when I'm wearing a suit. That's the way we got to wear. Hmm? No, you got to wear cool sneakers. No, I've got cool sneakers to the house. Oh, you do? Yeah, Kim bought me some for Christmas.

Oh, oh. What do you mean? Uh-oh, you're going to get on her bad side. She'll hit you. I've been on her bad side for a decade plus. I know. I know. So I will go with the suit and the new sneaks and then we'll give it a score.

With the dress shoes without. Just wear dress shoes Why? Wait, you just told me that G-Koo's in the clear. I don't want you to get ridiculed. Yeah. I think you like me getting ridiculed. No, I don't. I'm trying. I'm saving you daily. All right, thank you. So Craig Ackerman, Voice of the Rockets on television, was listening to us talking about the fact that he hardly works.

Thank you. And he responds. So he's not working, correct? We are. He says, I work a lot, Matt. Okay, maybe I don't. And you can have those MC duties. No, those are yours, Craig. those are all yours. He says he's running and earns and listening to the show.

Thank you, Craig. That's what we love. The television voice of the Rockets is listening. To the radio voice. To the radio voice of the Rockets. You have to always appreciate that. Yes. Also, by the way, great job is always on the calls, Craig.

Yeah. He gets on SportsCenter TV all the time. I make SportsCenter radio quite a bit. That's great. But he gets on television. And, of course, the Rocket Social Department always puts his stuff on social. It puts my calls in there, which is fine. Yeah, because they're going to have to, it's easier.

for them to just record the video. Otherwise, they're going to have to find the radio, overlay on the video. It's a whole ordeal. It doesn't feel like a whole lot of work. They've got to pump out that content. Okay. But to Craig's credit, one of the most interesting stats, and we can, you know, every night, anybody can get them, is how you do against the league, how you shoot well three-pointers, how you shoot free throws, how well you shoot field goals, how many points you score, how many give up.

Yes. Well, they do, they rank one to 30 on a bunch of different categories. Like the Rockets are number one in the NBA in rebounding. They're like 28th and three-point shooting. So you get the flip side of that. You get the defensive side of things. Rockets give up, you know, maybe the six fewest points. Maybe they are the third best field goal defense team in the NBA.

They have been something not only this year, but in previous years, but this year, it feels like it's been a lot more than it has been in years past. They're the best defense free-throw shooting team in the association. And if anybody knows anything about free throw defense, there's no such thing as free throw defense. It's pure luck. It is pure luck. But among the 30 NBA teams, the Rockets, when their opponents, have the lowest free throw percentage success more than any of the other 29 teams. So the Rockets have had the number one free throw defense in the league. And Craig apparently, and I don't see this as I'm calling the game myself, but he brings it up a lot on television.

So when you bring it up and you put Darius Garland at the free throw line a 90% free throw shooter and he goes three for eight yesterday, that obviously was because the Rockets have amazing free throw defense. They were second last year. I'm just pulling up past years, checking it out. And there's absolutely no rhyme or reason for it. Ooh, the year before they were 24th. Oh, so they vastly improved their free throw defense. Yes, great. Since Imi Adoka's been here, they've been second and first.

So we're tougher and more physical? Maybe he's been staring at him. Calling him soft A-Bs. The only way I could possibly think you could improve your free-throw defense is by S-talking him. Nice. I saw Fred a couple of times. Or building the wall, like at the Intuit dome. Mm-hmm.

But the rockets actually shot better into the wall than they did out of the wall. We were there earlier this year. Yes. So I wonder if there's a good amount of S-talking, like if Fred Van Vlitt I saw a couple different occasions would walk over to Darius Garland. Maybe that gets in a guy's a young man's head. Like your wife smells like

Honeynut Cheerios. I don't think Fred said that. Kevin Garnett said that. I know, but I'm saying Carmelo back in the day, right? Or fruit loops or something? When you used to play on the main streets of Aldi, and I mean Main Streets, like you had to carry guns and stuff. Okay.

Were you an S-talker at somebody? Did you ever shoot free throws? You didn't shoot free throws in the good streets. No, you don't normally. You could shoot three if you got a disagreement on the court, you got to shoot for the ball. Would you s-talk them at the free throw? No, I wasn't really that. If somebody did it to me, I would give it back. Because my thinking is, having known Tari and Dylan and Fred, they're probably fantastic S-talkers when it comes to talking to the guys before they get to the free throw line.

And maybe that's the part of the reason why the Rockets are the best free-throw defense in the association. I don't start the trash talk, Matt. I let my play do the talking. But one of the things that is most interesting, and look, I'm calling every one of the Rockets games, so I don't spend a lot of time looking at other teams' benches. But it feels like every time the Rockets play somebody and somebody's hot, they're smack talking them the entire way back on the other end of the floor. Absolutely. And if it's because every team does it that way or the Rockets just incite more stuff than others.

I think it's an interesting, funny, additional part of an NBA game, as long as it has involved, you know, peer six brawls. Why not? Because you get guys ejected. Yeah, I don't know. She put them in the penalty box like hockey. They don't have penalty boxes in the NBA. They should. You don't want to see four on three basketball.

That'd be fun. That'd be comical. That'd be hilarious. It'd be funny, but it wouldn't be great. Did it almost happen to the Rockets before? They were like down to their last player a few years ago? Well, there was a game. Several years ago?

During the COVID, the Rockets barely had enough to put a roster together. So there was a little bit of a concern, yes. It was like a five-man rotation. Christian Woods playing for 43 minutes on his fifth foul. So Craig has gotten the free throw phenomenon going with his defense's analysis and apparently Well, he's taking all the credit. Yeah, I noticed that. You need nothing to do with it.

Yeah, I've been hanging out with you too long. You think I take credit for things I've got nothing to do with? No, Matt. You never do that. That feels rude. I know, I'm sorry. It's Craig Ackerman that's doing it. He's taking all the credit.

He's calling himself the best there ever was. Look at his tweet. I'm the best there ever was. How many likes it to get? 2000. What? Yeah. He just called himself the best that ever was and he got 2,000 likes?

Yes, 2,000 likes, 278 retweets. Hmm. Why don't you tweet something that gets 2,000 likes, Matt? Come on. I can't. I can do a couple of eye emojis. What do you got, Matt? What's the news?

It's going to get 2,000 hate messages. How about this? I could put the Rockets logo out on one tweet with the side eye emojis and Astros with the two. And then I can put a picture of Bregman with eyes. And people are like, what do you know? What do you know? Yeah, you should.

But I don't want people talking about my heritage and how ugly I am and that kind of thing. I don't need that. That's rude. Yeah, people can be very rude. Just mute them, Matt. Just rack up the mutes. The mute button is your friend. Yeah, I've just been blocking a lot of the porn bots and the crypto bots.

Yeah, after you got scammed that one time? No, I didn't get scammed. I just, I like my Twitter account to be authentic, unlike others, who brag about their Twitter account. It's full of bots. I know who you are out there. So are the sellers. They're buying it. No, I don't think they're, no.

They're not parsing out followers for bots. They don't care. That's ridiculous. We won't get those numbers up. Matt, stop blocking everyone. No, I want an authentic count. I want to be able. No, because then you block people who have real accounts,

and then I have to talk to them. Well, open lines of communication or everything. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-9. So the Rockets get a win last night because of the free throw defense. And then the second best record in the West, third best record overall in the NBA. Craig Ackerman texted us again. He says free throw defense, it's real and it's spectacular.

And how come you were 24 two years ago, Craig? So was Craig giving himself a talk, a buck guy on his helmet for two years ago in the Rockets are 24th? I don't think he was. Typical TV announcer. Come in there, get his shine, brag about something, anything to do it. He was on the call four years ago. They were 22nd. Mm.

Defend that. 713212.5.790. 713-212-5-790. If you want to join us here on the radio program, if you want to visit with us through Twitter, you may do that as well. It's at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Connor D. McGovern.

So it sounds like, again, the Cowboys are close to a coach, and it sounds like one major league baseball team is cooled off of our favorite third basement. We'll tell you more about that in a moment. at 113 on Sports Talk 7-Henning with a word once again for Big City Wings. Tonight is a night where you can watch and be a basketball, NHL hockey, a full slate of college basketball, on the wall of all big screen televisions that you'll find at all 13 Big City Wing locations.

Now, you can also get buy one, get one free boneless wings, aka executive chicken nuggets. Delicious sauce and tossed a way that you want to in a variety of flavors. The blue cheese and the ranch dressings are amazing. Get yourself a big old basket of waffle fries or perhaps potato wedges or onion rings with a special Big City Wing onion ring sauce and you are going to be set for a night of cheap eats, delicious food, outstanding customer service, and, as I mentioned before, wall-to-wall TV is at any of the 13 Big City Wing locations. By the one near you, you go to Big Citywings.com. That's Big Citywings.com. Matt Thomas, Ross Villarreal. It's the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. on Sports Talk 790. According to Detroit free press,

Rossi, Alex Bramman's conversations with the Tigers have cooled off, meaning he keeps calling him, or at least Scott Boris does, and says, hey, we want $200 million and we want seven years. And Detroit Tigers are like, no, thus the cooling off continues. Interesting.

Where's he going to go? I never... Just come on. A million years would have thought it would have gone this late. And we're still got a month until pitchers, well, we got a month until full score workouts. When you bet the under, you thought that there could be a boris situation here? That's the whole reason you did, right?

No, I just think they, I think the marketplace was saying we're done giving out the super big deals except for rare cases. And I don't think Juan Soto's a rare case. I don't even think Kyle Tucker's going to get a super mega deal. I just don't. I think Kyle Tucker is going to get a better deal than Bregman will because of youth. We've got the line on that. Especially if he's got a good season coming up with the Chicago Cubs.

Seven and a half. By the way, early predictions on Kyle Tucker? Ellie Dodgers. Oh, stop. Stop. No way. Isn't their payroll like half a billion dollars this year already? But most of it's deferred until the grandkids graduated from their college.

Oh, my God. It's just absurd. I asked you a question a couple of things. of hours ago, it's worth repeating again. Is there a six-year-156 deal sitting in the Astros offices waiting for Alex Brighman to come home and sign it? Nope. It was burned up

when they signed Christian Walker. If you ask me, I would, look, it's not my money. They want to go ahead and pay him, I'm down. Let's do this. To figure it out. Does Christian Walker come here if Bregman resigns at 6156? Probably not.

So you'd have Bregman, singleton slash Diaz slash Paratus can play first Paratus or you could have

Baratis primarily playing third and Christian Walker at first base If you're saying this is the team's better I'm not saying that I'm saying what do you think it is I mean I would say getting rid of a

gold glove third baseman who still has an OPS of 750 is hard to give up but you're getting Walker on a three-year deal at lower dollar value than you would be paying Bregman on a six-year deal. The big unknown is how is Isak Paredes is going to be at third base, defensively and offensively.

If the drop-off is significant, then we're going to be wishing for Bregman wearing the Astros gear. So largely, in my opinion, the answer is we don't have an answer. But I don't think it's, and I'm a huge Breggman fan. This is hard to say. I can't wait for Christian Walker to hit 40 home runs next year. Yeah.

Signing a... A gold glove first baseman. Who's in his mid-30s. It never doesn't work out. Oh, God, that hit. I know what you said there. We'll see. I'm excited for the Christian Walker signing.

So I'll put it this way. I went from how are the Astros going to move on if Bregman doesn't get, doesn't take the 6-156 from the Astros to the Astros moved on and I'm okay. Frankly, to me, when you and I go to Florida in a few weeks, I'm really more concerned about what the starting five rotations are going to be and how the hell you can get any pop and consistent batting average out of two-thirds out of your outfield. Because Jake Myers is a 230 hitter, maybe.

And Chas McCormick was hurt a lot last year, and his numbers were dramatically off from the pre-3rd. previous years. And I don't even know if Chas McCormick, you'd want to, a healthy Chas McCormick playing full slate last year would have been a guy that you would have penciled in to be a starting outfetter in 2025. That's why I still have a feeling that the Astros might want to pull the trigger on one more outfield signing before they get to camp. Because the Astros last year made a late move to go get Josh Hader away. And so they're not adverse to making a late to January, early February potential acquisition.

Plus, if you do move Ryan Presley, you may get an outfit or back in return that can compete. I don't know what you'd get back because, again, you're probably taking on a lot of the salary of Presley. It'd probably be just a guy at that point. Yeah. Do you want the Christian Walker projected stats? Who's projecting them? Baseball reference. Do we trust their references?

I mean, it's just a guess. An educated guess. This is done by a computer or done by human beings? I'm sure by a human being who put it into a computer. Okay, go ahead. 25 home runs, 246 batting average, 784 OPS. And a go-glove first base. Calibur.

That'd be significantly better than what you got last year. Well, not even close. A bray who didn't hit. Singleton was a scattering of hits. Held his own at first base, but by no means is ever going to compete for a goal glove ever. Huh. By the way, John Singleton's still on the roster. Yes, he is.

He'll be a part of first. fan fest. Saturday. We've got some good guests coming up, projected. I don't think, things could shuffle around, so I don't think we're supposed to say names. Let me ask, Astros, PR, if you're listening, give Ross the B and C-level guests. Let's kind of test his acumen, see how things are going with that. That's been every year. The little hanging fruit, the easy stuff, give it to like Sean and Brian. Sean and Brian, uh, Lilima will be on two to four. It will be 11 to two. It'll be myself, Adam Wexler, and Dan Matthew. You need three of you to host that show? It's a lot of voices. With a headset for people? Oh, that's going to sense. I'm going to sound.

We got three people to... I mean, we've got hours to kill. Maybe you guys are road to it. Maybe each give you, like, a smoke break. We'll do some talking stroes. We'll talk some stroes. All right. Okay.

Yeah. What is... I mean, Singleton is your 26th guy, right? You only play his first base. You can D.H if you need a left-handed bat. But he wasn't a great... How did Singleton do as a DH last year? I don't know.

The D-H spot largely was just a big black hole for the... He's been mostly replacement level. It was nothing... It was nothing scraed out of that group. Fanggrass projection. have Walker 32 home runs. I like that number. I believe team, I'm team fan graphs.

Down with baseball America. What do you think of WRC Plus of 124, Matt? What do you think? You're testing yourself there. Give me the OPS plus. 790. OPEA, they didn't have OPS plus projected, but. Well, then it's not really a legit website then.

Let's go to Phillip in Pearland at 126 on 790. Philip, thanks for holding. Good afternoon. What's going on your mind? Matt, I watched the Rockets game last night. They're such a fun team to watch. Actually, I'm going to go in a couple of weeks. But at the end, you know, the east and foul and all those foul shots for this 90-plus percent, Darius, I think his name was from Cleveland.

Matt, he missed, what, two of three or three of four, something. Two of three. Two or three, two would have tied the game. One wins it. Three wins it. He made one and they got the ball back after the penalty one and they missed the three pointer in the baseline. And the follow-up. And Garland missed the follow-up to which would I wouldn't look back at it. I think it would have been counted. It would have counted as a game winner. So they missed two shots in the final four seconds. Maybe that's what he was. Do you know why he was laughing Darius after the game? Like after, And it seemed like it had happened quickly, but I should have went over and looked at it more closely. But he started, he was laughing after he missed all those foul shots. I couldn't believe that.

Somebody must, did somebody say something funny to him or something? He laughed quite a bit after, you know, he missed those foul shots. And even, I think, after they lost, he kept laughing. I was really surprised to see that and I wonder what triggered it. Um,

my thought is, and Philip, thank you for the phone call, is that sometimes in defeat and disappointment, you laugh at yourself. It's better to laugh than cry sometimes, Matt. And that's what Darius Garland felt. He's probably thinking himself, Philip,

I'm a 90% free throw shooter, and I miss five free throws. Two of them in the final five seconds. He's probably just thinking, like, this is crazy, this is unbelievable, and he's just laughing. By the way, a conspiracy theory has come into play about why the Rockets

had the best free throw defensive percentage in the NBA. Conspiracy theory? Yeah. Go on. From somebody on Twitter. So you know, you can only take up the green

assault. Oh, boy. Is that the rockets are so physical that guys can get tired at the free throw line. I'm going to go with they play so much better defense that they're not fouling the other team's best player as much, which generally is a good free throw shooter. But Garland went to the free throw line eight times yesterday. Yes, he did. I'm saying generally, and I'm not saying every single game, nobody's getting more than three free throw attempts, Matt. That's not what he said. You said generally.

In general. Okay. trying to think Or it's just statistical randomness And we try to make sense of it What are you say we do? A score what? Statistical randomness, please

Oh, I thought you made up a word I didn't hear what you said. You were just talking fast. I didn't understand what you're saying? I thought you just score randomness. I'm like, what is this score randomness? Statistical randomness. That's good.

I can buy that. Oh, thank goodness. Yeah. No. I hope they have the number one free throw defense in the associate. What would you get? Like if you're the best free throw shooter in the league,

you would get a Calvin Murphy Award, right? Perhaps. Who's greatest all the time? Is that Mark Price? Got to be in that. Or Steph? Steph's up there. Mark Price is good.

Calvin Murphy is good. But Calvin Murphy's the local flavor to it. If you're the worst free throw percentage shooter in the NBA, you'd receive an award as well. Oh, Mark Price is third now. Steph Curry won, Steve Nash, to Mark Price 3. You know what Stephen Adams free throw percentage is?

This year it was 37% and then he missed. It's like 35. Now it's down to 35. Yeah. Before the game it was 37%. Dane Lillard fourth all time, by the way. And Dame gets in a free throw, a line like 15 times a game.

Then Pages Storyi Yonzee Billups, Ray Allen, Rick Berry. And Jalen Green's had a good month of free throws at the line. I think he's missed like one or two this entire month. He's got to keep that up. You know what? I have mad, respect for guys that can shoot free throws.

And I look like Alpy, Airbold won again last night. He did? I don't remember that. You had a barely grazed remote. No, no, I'm not saying you're wrong. I must have missed that part or maybe I went to the bathroom. Yeah. But he hit two in the end that gave the rockets a lead. Yes, he did. I was worried. They were clutch. I was very worried. I was like,

please just make one. Clanton turned around and so I'm going to look. Oh, really? Yeah, I was like, I'll show you. Yeah. It was nerve wracking. I said a small prayer. I said the name of Gloria Paulus. Yeah. Jesus guided the free throw in. Well, yeah. If you were Cleveland Jesus, you didn't get that.

Clearly, Darius Carlin has been sinning this last week. Cavalier Jesus didn't give him any favors yesterday. 713212-5-790. What is believe it on today coming up in just about 20 minutes from now? We've got to come up something quick. Something really, really fast. 7-1-3. Oh, we did the Hall of Fame guys yesterday.

How about Garlands? Judy. Food fair? I went through. That was a grocery of my choice back in the day. I'll help you. I'll help you. Famous Garlands.

Believe it or not, 20 minutes from now, here on Sports Talk 790, our time is 131. Lunchtimeers. It's the Matt Thomas Show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. Thank you very much for listening to the Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. 713, 212, 5, 790. If you want to chime in on the conversation, 713, 212. 5790. If you want to follow us on Twitter, you may do that as well. At SportsMT. At Sports RV and at Connor D. McGovern.

I am just looking at the ESPN website. A lot of NFL preview, Washington versus Philadelphia. It could be a good matchup. Yes. Buffalo, Kansas City. You know, we get these rando emails from these betting services. This part of America thinks they want the Buffalo bills to win. This part of America wants the chiefs. win. Apparently, according to some website,

which they will not get recognition for on our show, because they don't spend money with us. Even though you're using their content, they provided you. Yeah. That's there. I didn't ask for it. They gave it to me, so I'm taking it. Okay. 33 states are rooting for the Buffalo Bills to win the Super Bowl. That's it? The AMC. It should be 49. Or 48.

Kansas and Missouri. That's it. I'm guessing I was a huge chief state, too. You think so? Maybe. Yeah. I would imagine America's rooting against the chiefs. Because of their tire. They don't want to see fresh blood. Is there Taylor Swift fatigue? There are people who don't like Taylor Swift.

Is there Patrick Mahomes fatigue? Certain people with certain leanings. She was getting booed at the sports bar I was watching this past weekend. Really? Yeah. I mean, does anybody realize when you go to a sports bar and boo at someone they don't hear it?

I don't think so, but they don't hear it when you cheer. You can cheer, high five, have a good time. It's fine. Yeah, I do believe the Bill's Mafia wants some more air time. The Bill's Mafia seems like a really crazy group of people that have been thirsting for an opportunity to be back to Super Sunday, which they've not done since the 90s when they lost four consecutive.

You know, you and I didn't do sports radio together at the time. And I want to say I was very young into my career, if not even on the air full time. That was in elementary school. Could you imagine doing Buffalo Sports Radio and going to, hey, we won the AFC. Again. Again. Again. This is our time.

We're going to get past this. Yeah. The last one when they get their ass kicked by the cowboys, that was expected, though. Right. After a while, you're kind of like, oh, we're going to go back and we'll just give a little college try. You try to be really loose about it. It's like if you're like an election, if you're an electoral candidate and you've

lost Senate races. Like, what's the guy's name? Beto. Yeah, Beto lost everything. Every time Beto ran for something in Texas, he lost. He kept trying for different things. He's like, oh, let's go there and see what happens. You know deep down, he's like, God, I want to win so bad, please.

And he lost again. Four Super Bowls in a row. That's why there was a huge part of me that wanted the Detroit Lions win because those Detroit fans were excited. They had this high-profile offense. They had this really interesting coach. They had this great project where they took a bunch of guys. You know, the Jared Golf was left for dead in Los Angeles, goes to Detroit and changes

things around. That meant to me like this is going to be a fun, we could get a 45-41 game, whether it was Detroit versus either Kansas City or Detroit versus Baltimore, for that matter, or Detroit versus Buffalo. We were in a no-lose situation.

But Detroit ran out of defensive players and they just couldn't go point for point. Now to me, I'm rooting for Buffalo. I think I'm rooting for Buffalo. I think the networks are rooting for the Chiefs. Because, again, the Taylor factor plays huge.

Because here's the bit. What wasn't the craziest thing about last year's Super Bowl was she was playing overseas? Could she get to Las Vegas in time? It was a, because think about it, when you have two weeks in between games. How much jet fuel could she burn in a week's time? How much we're going to cost her?

Where was she going to stay? Could she get there if the clock, you know, are they a day behind? Are they a day ahead? Yeah, we had to check time zones. Yeah. We don't have that bit if she's on it. I mean, who's the most famous Buffalo Bills fan?

I don't. Jim Kelly? He's probably the most famous player behind Thurmond Thomas. But there isn't a, there isn't a celebrity bill. Like, who is the celebrity, is Paul Wall our celebrity Texans fan? Bunby. Bunby. Beyonce, I guess.

Yeah, she's a fan. Yeah, she got paid. She did the game. She was there. Call and Hannah were there, too. Yeah, they graver chained off her. That was fine. But the bills, it feels like they need one just for mental health sake.

I mean, they live in upstate New York with torrential, lake effect snow, bitter, cold. Yes. I don't know. They have been long suffering. Yeah. Like to me, Detroit would have been cool. Minnesota would have been. I'm all for long suffering.

Why? Because I've suffered enough as a sports fan in this community. We got our taste. We got the Astros helped us out. Yes, they did. drought. I mean, I'm a walk-suffering rocket fan. Forget about my broadcasting responsible. They're doing all that. Yeah, but I want a championship. The Open Cup. Championships are hard, man. We're having a party next week for the 30-year anniversary

of those people that worked on the 94th. 30-freaking years, dude. That's a long damn time. You know how I'm changing 30 years? And they always trot out every time they go to the throwback nights and they trot out. No, this isn't at the arena. This is like a... I'm just saying they always do it in the arena. Yeah. It's like, it's a legend. from 30 years ago. It's like honestly, Calvin Samson was sick and tired to talk about Fy Sama Jama.

He's done with that. If he never heard the term Fy Sama Jama ever again, he'd be okay. So we here on the Matt Thomas show are rooting for teams that have been long suffering. Look, we have a football team.

We have a football team in our town that has never even tasted an AMC championship game. They've been around since 2002. They're getting closer. 23 years of football and not even a championship game. They only lost by nine this last week.

Is that way how you're going with it now? You're getting closer? Is that how you feel? Absolutely. So you left that game at the end of the contest going, we got within nine, we're feeling better. If you got the nine and a half, you did. Rossi, you're batter red.

It took you 20 years to get to battle red. I haven't been a fan for 20 years. I've only been a fan for two years, so I'm good. So you're not feeling the stress of rooting for this team year in and year out. I mean, I felt the stress of being an oilist fan, yeah. Yeah, it's been a lot of futility in losing here. If you've been a football fan in this community yet for any point, you've tasted nothing but despair. Like I put the NFL network on the other day.

They were showing highlights of Mike Renfro's non-catch in the back corner of the end zone. They were? Yes. Because they wanted to pours talking about it. Just great tragedies in sports. That's all they have, yeah. It was a great tragedy. But that would have just tied the game, right?

It wasn't a guaranteed go ahead. No, it was just a missed call. Right. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want miss calls ever, but you certainly don't want them in AMC championship games. turn away touchdowns. Yeah. And Bum was wearing this

big cowboy with leather and suede and he's yelling and got his cowboy hat on and he's losing his mind over everything. It was, it just pissed me off then. They were going to go kick the door down against Steelers and we didn't kick it.

They didn't kick it, no. They smashed it over our head. Well, they get held back by a dynasty, the Steelers. Then we get the Buffalo playoff game. Rockets got held by a dynasty. in the Warriors. Yeah, no more help back. We want to help those get

over the hump. We're team Buffalo this weekend. Okay. I guess. I can't be team Philadelphia because that means more crime in the Philadelphia area. No, I'm going to go for commanders. How about it Jaden Daniels and the rookie getting it done? Washington v. Buffalo. We can do it. That's the least sexy of the two.

That's the least sexy of the networks. Fox is rooting for Chiefs Eagles. They are absolutely rooting for it. Recognizable players. Yes. Big media markets. Rematch. And Tate. And Tatee.

Not Tata, Taita. Taita. Taita Washington? Still in the league? I want to say G-League. I don't know. Is this player G-League or not? I remember Rockets fans were upset when he got traded away.

How could you give up on Taiti Washington? Tai-Tai, but we had some characters back in the day. Tai, Washington. Now it's all about winning. Now it's about Cam Whitmore. in that halacious slammy had last night. Taita Washington playing for the Phoenix and Valley Sons this year.

Okay. Who's got a chance? On a two-way. Mm. All right, let's play, believe it or not. It's up next year on Sports Talk 790. The category is, is it Famous Garlands? It's got to be a lot of Judy in there.

I'll tell you know, by the end of the... I'm leaving you on lurking. All right, let's say about Uptown appliance repair. If you want to play, believe it or not, by the way, it's up next year on the program. At 713-212-2-5-790. That's the way. you call to play, believe or not. We're playing for more

auto-bow-bohama-rama tickets? No, we got tickets to Monster Jam, and we've got tickets to Bunby's birthday extravagance at Rodeo Houston. Yeah, and Bunby will give you a backstage pass. He doesn't know this shit, but now we can't guarantee that, can we? Probably not. Let me tell you about Uptown Appliance Replyance Repair. I can guarantee the great customer service is going to come to you when you call 281-758-99-78, 281-28-58-9-9-78,

and visit with the premier appliance professionals in Houston. And that, my friends, is Uptown Appliance Repair. Whether you are worried about your refrigerator, your microwave, your stove, your ice maker, your sub-zero refrigerator, your wine cellar, laundry equipment, gas grills. If something in your house from appliance standpoint is not working to its best, don't give up on it. Get Uptown appliance repair to come to look at your house and see if they can fix it for you before you buy it. a new piece of equipment.

281-758-9-9-78. They're BBB-A-plus rated. That's Uptown Appliance Repair. The number again is 281-758-9978. Write it down because at some point you're going to need them. 281-758-9978 online Uptown AppliancesPair.com. Matt and Ross are your monsters of the midday. I really enjoy your show.

Your dominant defense against boredom. Having the most fun in Houston sports. Matt Thomas show with Ross continues on Sports Talk 790. Again, a huge shout out to my beloved Houston Cougars. They destroyed the Utah Uts 70 to

36. 11 straight Cougar victories. They're now 15 and 3 out of this season. Joanne Roberts. It's just rude. Why don't you take it easy on the Uts? Haven't they suffered enough? You're coming to Big 12. You get your ass kick. Get out. Get out. Get out.

That's rude. Get your ass back to the Mountain West. Oh, look at this guy. He's got a coordinator or what's the deal? Yeah. Is he wearing sneaks with his suit? It's in my car. I'm not wearing my suit at 10 o'clock in the morning. Sorry.

Are you napping today? Yes, I am. How long are you taking a nap for? Is this on? Yeah. Is this thing on? Here's what I do. I put you guys on my iHeart radio app and I go in the room and I fall asleep.

Do people know that you have a pillow in the building that stays on that couch and we have to move out? That's not my pillow. But you use it. Yeah. So it's not yours and you use it. That's weird. We put a plastic bag on it or something? No, I just...

People's head grease on there. Yeah. Yeah, like the guy from yesterday, I couldn't have taken out. No, I was zero head grease. Yeah, I've got zero. It's a sheen. That's what I'm saying. Ross, if you ever use my pillow, I have tea tree on here, so...

Okay. There's no way he uses tea tree. By the way, James Click will be co-hosting today with the 18 with Adam Wexler. I'm bringing Bregman back. With the suit, you do look clickish. You think? Yes. You look cliquish if you were wearing a T-shirt.

shirt and shorts. You are, the doppelganger is unreal. It's un-lady. It's lazy and low-hanging fruit. Not that we ever shot a video together. Fine. Let's put our heads up behind the ear and stare at in the sky. 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 believe it or not and here's how it works. You call 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-212-2-5-7-9. 790. The category in today's edition of Believe Not is famous Garland. I'll read your statement. The statement is completely not really accurate.

You'll say this. Belief it. The statement is full of bunkum in a minute if you'll say this. Two believer in a row win your prize. Connor, what are we playing for? A four pack of tickets with pit passes to Monster Jam on Sunday, February 2nd at NRG Stadium. A pair of tickets to Bunby's birthday extravaganza on March 7th at Rodea Houston presented by

Kroger or S790 T-shirt. Brian on 790, ready to play, believe it or not. Yes, sir. Darius Garland played his college basketball at Vanderbilt and was a five-star recruit coming out of high school. Believe it or not. Believe it. That's right. Statement number two for the win, Darius Garland's father, Winston played in the NBA for seven years. Believe it or not? Not. He did. He was primarily a Golden State warrior. Thanks for playing.

John on 790. John, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it! Darius Garland wears number 12 in honor of his father who wore the same number in the NBA. Believe it or not. Believe it? No, he wears number 10. Did you not watch the game? Duh. Tony on 790.

Tony, what was your favorite part of today's radio show? Everything. Despite the patent first being filed by Samuel Morse, Augustus Garland is widely considered the inventor of the telegraph machine. Believe it or not? Not. That is correct. Statement number two for the win.

In 2011, all remaining Gurland's food fare, how did Gerland's get in here? were purchased by the HB grocery company. Believe it or not. That is also correct. Nicely done. All right. Let's go to Joe on 790.

Joe, you're ready to play? Believe it or not. Believe it, Matt. As in 2024, the population of Garland, Texas, about 75,000. Believe it or not? Believe it? No, 242,000. Duh.

Mike on 790. Mike, what was your favorite part of today's radio show? I listen all day, man. I like when you and Ross go back and forward by a bunch of crap. We do go a back and forth by a bunch of crap. Judy Garland died of a barbiturate overdose in 1969. Believe it or not. Believe it. There you go. Statement number two for the win. Judy Garland strongly discouraged her daughter, Liza Minnelli from entering the show business, but Manelli did it anyways. Believe it or not. Believe it. There you go. Favorite Liza. All of them.

She played Arthur's love interest in the movie, Arthur, starring Dalymore. I like her in Arrested Development. He does a lie. All right. We've got to kill 45 seconds. I mean, forward promotes. I'm packed up. Clearly.

I don't know what he yelled at by Wexler. These guys looking good tonight. We've got a big party to go to. I'll get dressed. I'm going to take a nap first. Then I'll take my suit on. And wear your sneaks. No, I'm going dress shoes.

Wexler and Clinton are not wearing sneaks. Are you wearing sneak? Let me see you. Yeah. He is. Oh, we got to. Oh, he is. He is wearing sneaks.

It's Clinton. It's Wexler. It's the team. Talk to y'all tomorrow at 10 o'clock here on Sports Talk, Sevenotti.