The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Rockets Implode Against Nets AGAIN, Astros Doubtful On Bregman Return, LIVE From Super Bowl Radio Row

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Ross Villarreal of "The Matt Thomas Show with Ross" and Chris Gordy, broadcasting live from Super Bowl Radio Row in New Orleans, recap the Rockets dropping another game to the Brooklyn Nets in Tuesday's 99-97 loss. The Nets made two 3-pointers in the final 10 seconds to hand the Rockets their fourth straight loss. Ross and Chris also:preview Super Bowl LIX with FOX Sports' Jay Glazer, KPRC's Ari Alexander, Heisman Trophy winner Danny Wuerffel and Saints linebacker Jaylan Fordreact to the Rockets completing a trade with the Boston Celticsreview the latest comments from Astros general manager Dana Brown and manager Joe Espada about free agent Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve playing left fieldtell people to "Shut Yo Bum Ass Up, Ain't Nobody Got Time" and more.

Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 10.03 in H-Town. What's happening, lunch timers? Hello and welcome in to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross, without Matt Thomas, with Chris Gordy, here on Sports Talk, 790. You know the shock lock here. Thompson, bounce past to Adams, jump, hook 10 feet, got it.

Fluid motion that time on the baseline hook shot for Stephen Adams, and the Rockets are up 21 to 20. Adams between the circles. Out to his left and behind him for Jalen Green. Gets an Adams screen. Jalen, for the baseline right. It contest a tough two ball on the way and good. That snaps that long double-digit street for the Nets.

Jalen's first basket of the third. Baseline left. Shangoon's going to split left, turn right, go to the front zone or miss the left, gets his own rebound and then dumps it down with the right hand. There you go. And just like that, it's a two-point game again. It's 77-75.

Close on a wolf was going to. to inbound the ball with nine and a half to go. Owoba, cross court, Keon Johnson, left side three, yes. 97-96. Thompson lost a basketball.

Straightaway three. Russell, yes! Oh my goodness, no! With 3.4 seconds remaining! 3.4 seconds. 99-97 Brooklyn. Thompson looks to green at mid-corpsons. Top of the arc for the win.

Three-pointer. Side rim left and it's no good. And the Nets come up with six points on back-to-back threes in the final seconds of the contest. And it beat the Rockets for the second time in four days. What was that last night from your Houston Rockets in Broadway? Brooklyn, down four with nine and a half seconds to go. Two threes given up with an amen. Thompson turnover, sandwich in between. And they lost to the Nets 99 to 97 to lose their fourth straight.

Hello and welcome into a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas, he is out traveling. That little bit of background knows you here. That is our good friend Chris Gordy, who is joining us from New Orleans. He's going to join us throughout the duration. He's going to bring us some great guests. he's going to set the scene for us down there in Nola. Gordy, how are things?

And did you do karaoke last night? No, no. This is a business trip, Ross. There's no playtime here. It's all serious. No, it's crazy. I mean, this thing, we've been to radio row so many times. It's gotten too big.

I'm almost glad we didn't bring the whole station. Oh, yeah. The guy that's there says he's glad that nobody else is there. I can hear you. The problem is they're now calling it, media row. It's every podcast. Oh, no. One of the NFL PR guys, he's like, it's ridiculous.

He goes, we got these, you know, podcasters who have like 10 views. You know, they have a channel, and it's like, you know, it's getting a little bit over the top now. All right. Well, you were just setting up a joke that Matt Thomas would make on a tee, but I'm not going to do that, Corden. So, yeah, so like you said, you've been there for years and years and years.

Is it still in a big sprawling ballroom? What is it? It's the convention center in New Orleans. It's one of the big halls. But, I mean, we're actually table six inside of Radio Row, so we're like right near the front. We're in a really good spot. But there's 300 tables. So it's, I mean, it's just insane.

But it's cool sitting around here. Like Jalen Milro just walked by the Alabama quarterback, Harry Douglas from ESPN, like Thomas Morsted sitting to the right of me. I mean, it's cool to just look around and see it's a lot of big name guests and all this. but what we tried to do here, Ross, was only bring you the most relevant, good guess. So Jay Glazer's actually going to join us next segment, so that would be fine. The Jay Glazer?

Yes. Okay, the Jay Glazer joining us. What else we got later on? Chrisa Thompson is slated to stop by. I booked this one just because of you. He is current Saints linebacker Jalen Ford, but known better as great Longhorn linebacker Jalen Ford. So we'll talk some Longhorn stuff with him.

And then whoever else, I mean, we're kind of, after Jay Glazer, we're kind of open for two hours. So my goal is it just kind of grab somebody and throw them on with us. Okay. That sounds great. So Chris Gordy's going to be here down in New Orleans for the Super Bowl Radio Row. And then we're going to be with you folks. You want to get in. You can 713, 2125-790.

7-1-3-212-5-790. So we're going to be mixing in a lot of football stuff and some basketball, baseball, whatever, Gordy. Would you be able to catch much of the wrong? Rockets game last night. At the very least, I imagine you saw that disaster class of closing a game in Brooklyn last night. Yeah, it's not good, man. I mean, look, if that happens a few weeks ago on a one-off, it is what it is. But it's compounded that you're now on a four-game losing streak. You're now third in the West. You've been holding at that number two spot for almost all season. You've got the Memphis Grizzlies have now jumped you, and the Denver Nuggets are knocking on the door. They're one game back to you. And the Luca Lake.

are now just two games back. I mean, this thing's getting a little bit too close. We've been loving this run. The Rockets have been on. And man, number two C in the West, awesome. Now this slide, and it's a slide because you've made stupid mistakes. Like, it's, you know, you had a chance to win that Knicks game. You had a chance to win this game last night. And the Grizzlies game, too, before that. And the Grizzlies game. I mean, these are games that might come back to haunt you. Yeah, that's what I'm worried about, too, is that, As you mentioned, it's super tightly compact in the Western Conference. And unfortunately, we can complain about it and be like, oh, man, why is the West so tough?

It's like this every year. Well, it is what it is. That's what it is every year. And we are already above our expectation level with the Rockets. So I'm not ready to call this season a failure or anything like this if they don't finish in the top four. But to the level of which they are capable, they are not living up to that right now. And last night, to me, there was no excuse. I can kind of excuse the Knicks game, the Grizzlies games too.

It's like, all right, those are one of 82. But last night against a terrible Brooklyn team that is trying to lose, that is tanking, that is holding their guys out. And yes, you were down Fred Van Vleet and still down Jabari Smith Jr. But the Rockets, as Ema Adoka said in the post game, they only played half a quarter of the whole game. The rest of the game, they were just kind of going through the motions. The energy wasn't there.

They didn't look like they wanted to win. To me, it was almost like the basketball gods saw the Rockets, saw the Rockets try to steal that game. Alper and Shingoon scores 15 points in the fourth, and they're like, oh, you want to steal this game? You want to not put in your full effort? No, we're going to yank it away from you because you didn't deserve the win.

Rockets didn't deserve to win last night. It was a freak crazy thing. I mean, I don't know what the percentages are of a three getting knocked down by Keon Johnson, a turnover from Amin Thompson, by the way. And then another three from DeAngelo Russell. All of those things stacking up, the probability is very low,

you still didn't deserve to win that game. Well, you had a lead, so, I mean, that's silly. He had a late lead, so you got to find a way. Literally, and Men Thompson had a five-second violation the other game. What was it against the Knicks or whoever? And then he does this. I mean, there was like three seconds. They could have called a time out and got reset,

and he just throws the ball in Dylan Brooks' general direction and throws it away. But is this maybe who they really are? I mean, maybe they were overachieving for some. much the first part of the season and now that we're starting to see that the youth is still you know they're still flawed we will answer that question as we go along here on sports talk 790 in the matt thomas show with ross chris gordy is out at media media row as they're calling it now at the super bowl my name is ross virell in studio here in houston j glazer nfl insider coming up next here on the matt thomas show with ross this is the matt thomas show with ross on sports talk

Welcome back to a Wednesday of a Super Bowl week edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas, he is out traveling with the rockets. They lost last night to the Brooklyn Nets. They will be taking on the Minnesota Timberwolves tomorrow as this hellish stretch in January and February continues eight games out of nine on the road, just one at home against Brooklyn that they lost. It's been difficult for them, but Chris Gordy is out in New Orleans, and we can go into football mode, and we will. Shortly, I believe, Jay Glazer should be coming by in a little bit, correct, Mr. Gordy? Yes, he is wrapping up another interview will be coming over in just a second, and it is funny. You talk about all the different faces and big media personalities and all this.

Jay is probably one of the most recognizable faces, right? Like there's no deny. Like there's some players you'll see you go, is that, I don't know, is that this guy, there's no denying. When you see Jay Glazer, you know, you know that too. Yeah, I think for sure. And the thing, too, is like the NFL, and we watch them every Sunday, they're all wearing helmets. So it's like we, it's not like, it's not like Major League Baseball where they're,

they're wearing helmets with face masks, and there's 53 on the team. So usually, you know, unless you're the superstar and probably the quarterback's most recognizable, it's a little bit, can be a little bit difficult to spot people at Radio Row. Yeah. Yeah, Jay's walking over. he should be here just a second. Yeah, man, there's a lot of NFL questions. I definitely want to get his thoughts on the Texas new OC

and a bunch of other stuff. So he's put on the headset right now. He is, man, he's got an entourage with him. Jay Glazer joins us. They're called babysitters, not entourage. I was just saying, Jay. I'm famous enough to have an entourage, but I need a lot of babysitters. I was just saying there's a lot of people here on Radio Row,

and we'd be coming for so many years, that you go, is that so-and-so? I don't know if that's so-and-so. You're one of the most, like, unmistakable. that's jake glazer when you see him you know that's jakelake hurricane glaze coming through man yeah appreciate it first and foremost they're saying i'm the best looking guy here i think that's what i'm here yeah well absolutely sometimes people go is that brad pitt i get that a lot first and foremost i know you're from l.a and you know i'm not no no i live in l a you live in l a lot and you have businesses in l.a and all that is everything good with with you

fires and all that um we my wife who's right over here rosy we uh we evacuated three times in about five weeks. We had three different fires. The last one, obviously, scared the crap out of us. Our old house burnt to the ground. We got out of it. We have a new house, which is fantastic. But we were, yeah, we were evacuated for quite a while.

And then when we got back, we kept turn our power off. But I got a lot of friends who've lost literally everything. And, like, everything. And actually, my wife did a beautiful thing. My wife, Rosie over here, owns clothing stores called Varga. And at Fox, we had, I think, eight women who lost everything. When I say you lost everything, like the clothes you have on your back is, oh, you have. Yeah.

And she actually outfitted everyone at Fox who did lose everything. Wow. Full wardrobes again. I don't know if you saw, but a couple weeks ago, you know, we have across the street from our house, 100 yards. it looks like a military base. It goes on for a mile and a half, 5,400 firefighters were staged. And I started going down, bringing down, I'm part of this company called Jimmy Barr's Protein Bar,

so I started bringing that down. I started trying to give mental health talks to them just to lift them up, anything, and then finally one day, they're like, hey, you know what we really need besides energy drinks and powery, this and I said, we just want to watch football. Yeah. And I said, I know somebody who can make that happen.

And I called the CEO of Fox, Eric Shags, Fox Sports, and I was like, dude, these guys just want, like, this escape when they're on break. And by the way, their shifts were going. At first, they're 48-hour shifts. And I think about this, too, the bravery of these people, like, they left their homes. And we saw people, firefighters in that area from Israel who flew in, from British Columbia, from my wife's from his tiny town in Idaho called Melbourne. We saw firemen from there, from Wyoming, Colorado, you name it. The worst of times brings together the best of people.

But actually, in a day, Fox got 10 TVs put up there for them to watch all the playoff guys, not just Foxes. And I ended up doing my hit from down there. And I had Dan Campbell and Dan Quinn FaceTime the firefighters before their game. That's cool. That's pretty cool, yeah. I appreciate you asking. Yeah, yeah. I just, I knew everything I hear about, you know, L.A.

It's crazy. Let's talk a little football. We're on in Houston. Texans have a new O.C. Tell me what you know about Nick Cayley. What are they getting in the Cayley? I like Nick Kelly, man. Obviously, you know, he's with Sean McVeve for a little bit and the Patriots.

But love his, look, the culture that Sean, you know, teaches guys is fantastic. And, you know, there's a difference in a guy who just comes in and calls plays and somebody who's going to help develop. And he's going to help develop that offensive line, tight ends. the quarterback too quarterback's great but you always need development as a quarterback so I do I think he'll do a great job

Ross you want to jump in here yeah I got you Ross back in Houston with you Jay thank you for coming on with us and yeah just on that in the O.C. search just if you have any insight as far as you know Nick Casario as the general manager here in Houston the relationship with Domingo Ryan's not necessarily whose call was it.

Temeco is a stud! Yeah that dude is a stud! That dude is a stud. Yes, I knew him as a player and again, culture is everything. And I think a guy like that, too, I think they'll always kind of be in that, because of him, like a Sean McVay, you'll always, or Kyle Shannon,

they'll always be in the conversation for, as a contender. It's interesting, the offensive line. I mean, it was a problem. I don't know how you fix it. I mean, Laramie Tunzel's not getting any younger, Shaq Mason and all that, but when you saw the Texans this year, Was that the glaring weakness and protecting Stroud and giving him time?

I thought a lot of it. I was kind of looking at it. I was kind of confused. I'm like, man, why is this? Why are they struggling so much there? Because I thought Sloak was good also. It's interesting also how this league works. Because Sloak probably could have gotten a head coaching job last year if you wanted to.

And so now I need to learn a little bit more, which I really liked about it. And then it just goes to show you how fast things can change. Yeah, that's what I always say. Like when you're the hot thing, go jump. Go jump. Yeah, but at the same time, if you don't think. think you're ready. Yeah.

It's like, it's a slippery slip. I'm not ready. I'm going to crap out here in four years and never going to get another shot. I think most guys have confidence like, hey, I'm not ready, but I'm going to be here for another couple years where I can learn, nothing you're going to get fired the next year. Yeah. But that's the NFL, man. You know, it's the only, and I think that's why people of us have so much, so many

close relationships in the NFL, because there's no other job. Like, if some accountant screws up your taxes, the whole world's not talking about on radio the next day or on Fox that weekend. And, you know, they're not telling your kids, hey, man, your dad screwed up these taxes. Like, you know, if you're screwed something up at a restaurant, it's not out there constantly. So I think it makes people to leave a lot closer.

Where would you rank Stroud in terms of quarterbacks? I mean, he was top of the world last year. And this year, I don't want to say he regressed because it was still a really good year. But, like, where would you put him if you're ranking quarterback? Still top fans? Yeah, put him with somebody at start a franchise around. Absolutely. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah, it's just, it's, it's tough to be super critical of them and say sophomore slump, because his numbers were still very good, but they had all those issues. When you look around the AFC South, where, I mean, do you still think it's Texans moving for? I mean, Jaguars, we're going to see what they're going to do. Titans, I mean, maybe a quarterback real bad. We'll see what they do with the top pick, but what do you make of the AFC South? Right.

You've got to knock them off, right? But, you know, there's going to be, you know, changes. I can't say anything because I don't know who the Titans quarterback's going to be. Yeah. Right. I think Liam Cohen will do a great job. I got to know Liam really well because he lived with McVeigh. Yeah. So, Sean and I spent a lot of time together. Sean was really one of the first guys in the league I helped with mental health when I really started opening up about stuff.

And then he needed it and didn't realize he needed it. Because Sean, like the worst thing that ever happened in Sean's life is that he didn't win the Super Bowl in his second year ever as the youngest head coach in the history of the NFL. and his parents look like the freaking people you see in pictures and Target in the picture frames. Like, he don't get trauma. So we had to work through a lot. And it's made him a much, much better coach. So, like, Leon lived with him. I got to me, like, really know him.

I think Liam's going to, I think Liam will do a really good job. You mentioned mental health. That's one of the big things that you've been focused on. And part of the reasons why you're here, let us know. Because it's funny, when we were kids growing up, like, you would joke, oh, he's got ADHD. He can't sit still. He can't pay attention and all this. Now we're way more sensitive to it.

Talk a little bit about that. How old are you? I'm 40s. Okay. So I'm 55. I got diagnosed in 1989. So there was no, oh, this guy has ADHD. Like, no one understood.

I got taking a Princeton University to get tested. And I used to have to go tell my teachers, hey, I got to step out and take a pill. Or hey, I need to. So I go and talk to teams now a lot about this. what depression feels like, what anxiety feels like, what ADHD feels like, and ADHD, I tell these guys, it's like you feel like you're drowning. And the only way for me to get a breath of fresh air is disrupt the class or to speak out or to not pay attention to, like, draw a game on my pad

or just walk out the class. And like, do you think I want to get trouble every week in my life? Hell no. But I didn't have the capability not to it. I tell these coaches now, I said these players, like they told me out of learning disability, growing up. I didn't have a learning disability. I just didn't learn the way you guys taught. Right. And me, I've coached tons of guys in mixed martial arts. I got to teach differently. I got to coach differently. You have a general consensus, but I've got to make sure that, you know,

I connect with everybody there and growing up that wasn't the thing. So with all my mental health struggles, I've tried a million pharmaceuticals. At least for the depression and anxiety, none of them works. So I've had to find other skills. But for the ADHD, you know, I could put in stimulants early. and when you have depression, no stimulants, it does not work well with you. And a guy like me, too, it brought out a lot of bad stuff. And because I'm able to talk about it now, though, I have more options than I ever would have had. So Kelbury got brought to me, and they're like, it's non-stimulant. Non-stimilent.

Like, you could take it a night. I'm like, I could take it at night. And it does. And I call it the Kelbury Com. It calms you down at night. It gets the roommates in my head to stop, a million of them to stop talking. and all that stuff and um i'm able to focus and look look on fox i don't use teleprompter so when you got ADHD and you know before i had kelbri poof there's a lot of things your your brain works too

fast and you're just like moving now i am able to focus so much better but also like i love talking about it's like yeah i'm able to be of service and and give it words to people so we don't feel screwed up and you know i've tried to figure out too where my ADHD and my depression anxiety became my superpower and where I could weaponize them. So if I weaponize them, they're my advantage. I'm not ashamed anymore. And that's why I'm really trying to get people to understand to him. Well, it's very cool.

He is Jay Glazer. One more for you real quick. Just give me a quick thought, Super Bowl. I mean, two best teams. I mean, couldn't ask for anything better. Man, I know Patrick Mahal is dumb, but I don't know what he can't do. So until he starts me otherwise, man. I can't go against them.

Jay, thanks so much for the time. I really appreciate it. All right. Good stuff there with Jay Glazer out at Radio Row. Chris Gordy out there. And Ross v. Real back here in Houston. We're going to take a quick break here. Be back with him.

We got Chrisa Thompson coming up later. We got some other good interviews. So it's a split-site Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas. He is out. And you have Chris Gordy in New Orleans. Before we take that break, though, I do want to talk to you folks about your health and well-being, your day-to-day life. We are now into February. Did you make some New Year's resolutions?

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All right, continuing along. Here on a half radio row, half home studio in Houston, well, not home studio, in studio in Houston. Edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Matt Thomas is out. Chris Gordy in New Orleans.

Now Matt was insistent that you speak in your New Orleans vernacular an accent the entire time you were on today Gordy. Yeah, I don't really have an accent, so I don't know what, I mean, I can make one up. I can exaggerate it. I don't know. He always talks about it. He talks like legendarily.

When was this Super Bowl there last time when you guys were there? It was a decade ago. Ooh, yeah, it was a decade ago at that time. Do you not have any idea if a big time, if a band is coming, is a brass band coming through the convention center again? I don't think so. But if there is, we will absolutely. take a break and just air that

on that show in honor of that. Here's, uh, Connor's trying to help you along. Yeah. Well, there were some guys last night. They, they had like the media party, the welcome party. And, you know, the word baby is throwing around a lot. Yeah, baby. So it's like, hey, baby, how y'all doing?

I know. I love New Orleans. My God. The New Orleans accent is amazing. Like, even when I'm losing my acid blackjack at Caesars in New Orleans, as long as the dealer has a New Orleans accent, I'm having a good time. I don't know what it is about it.

By the way, they're pretty big names here. We just had, so Jalen Miller walked by, who's, you know, Alabama quarterback, expected to be probably a first-round pick in this year's drive. Jaden Daniels, right behind us as well. The Jaden Daniels. Yeah, former LSU Heisman Trophy winner and led the Washington commanders to, what was it, the NFC championship game? Yeah, that's correct. So he is here, Malik Neighbors, another legendary LSU wide receivers here. All the Louisiana boys are here.

Yeah, I think that's the key. You're in New Orleans, so it's a lot of... Is Matt Mock there? I've not seen him yet. Have you seen Jarmus Russell? Jarmussell's Ruskel available. I did see Vitz Wilfork was here earlier. Oh, really?

He looked unhappy. He looked like he did not want to be here. So I did not... I was going to go try to grab him, but I'm like, he looks angry. Let me guess. He's pimping barbecue rubs. I'm sure. If I had to bet some kind of barbubes,

Q or something. Okay. So I kind of missed it. Was Jay Glazer was there to talk about just mental health in general, or was there a certain website or a product he was talking about? Yeah, he talked about the, the, Quelbury, I think is. K-E-Q-U-Q-E-L-B-R-R-E. I know, it's kind of interesting, though, because we all kind of had, like, a friend growing up. He's got ADHD, he can't sit still.

And now we're a little bit more sensitive to us. So it's cool to hear Jay talk about that. Yeah, and the mental health stuff in general. But, okay, so the biggest name you've seen so far is who? I mean, Jane Daniels is pretty big right now. I would say the names that you listed, it's got to be him. Yeah, I mean, the problem is Ross. I'm right in front of the Mike Golick set.

Oh, okay. Gojo and Golick, and then right next to him is Yahoo. And Yahoo has had multiple guys come through. But, you know, it's like when you, players, you don't recognize them by face, you know, because they're wearing helmets. So you're like, I don't know who that is. I know that's an NFL player. I don't know who that is. Yeah, maybe you should ask the guys to all wear jerseys.

Or just a, you know, just a bigger tag. Like a name tag, something. Yeah, that'd be good. You're navigating the waters out there. Everybody has a credential, but the name is printed so tiny. It's like, okay, let's just put the last name huge so you can tell who it is. Yeah, you don't want to get binoculars out or anything. thing, that might be kind of rude.

That might look a little weird. We are kind of open the next couple hours. Is there anything you want, Ross? Is there anything I can bring to you? Oh, as far as a guest? Yeah, Kate Upton. Is she available? I don't know if she's here.

Okay. Let's see. Dan Marino? I've heard he's going to be here. I have not seen him. Is J.J. Watt there? Is there anybody with a Houston tie down there? Well, Vince Wilford.

Oh, yeah, Vince Willford. He looked angry. You said he looked angry. You didn't want to approach him. What do you think he was upset? You think maybe he hadn't eaten yet? If it was a kicker, if it was a kicker, I would have made me. We don't need kickers.

Although I think Matt was requesting Morton Anderson to recreate the Morton Anderson-Bobby-A-bear magic that they had 10 years ago on Radio Row. We should have dug that up and played that as a tribute. That still is one of the greatest moments in Radio Row history on 790. I don't even remember that. I think I was off that day or something like. Yeah, we had, it was Bobby Aber was scheduled, and I think Morton Anderson was supposed to be after him, but he got there early. Yeah. So they just put him on with him, and then they just told old stories of Bobby doing interviews sitting butt naked on the, on a metal bench in the locker room, letting his junk hang out.

And then he started making fun of Matt Sox. And then it was just a ripping on Matt Thomas for 10 minutes. Yeah, that sounds great, actually. That does sound spectacular. Maybe we try to dig that up and find it from the archives and replay that one. Because that sounds like a lot of fun. You know, because Matt always tries to make fun of these radio row interviews, but I like having them. I thought Jake Glazer was great.

Yeah. Well, that's the thing of us, of me being here and you being there, is we could be more selective. Like, sometimes you have to be, dude, some of the crap we've gotten offered. Matt read some of it the other day. Hey, those guys are people, too. And I'm slowly getting into the area where I'm not going to be nice about it anymore. I'm just going to go, no, thank you. Yeah.

Like, you try to be nice to go, oh, we'll see what we can do. You're a hardened Radio Row vet now at this point. I have another question. We used to always see the same like five PR guys down there every year. Is it still the same PR people? You recognize a lot of them from years past? Exactly. Yep.

Oh, that's good. You can build a relationship with him. Is there that squirly guy with the floppy hair? Is he there still too? I think so, yeah. Oh, wow. Good for him. I guess I'm glad they're staying employed down there in New Orleans

at Radio Row, getting their free trip to the Super Bowl every single year. It's crazy. I mean, you've got like the sets with the big setups. I'm looking at, so we have, IHeart has a huge setup with Fox Sports Radio, but when I went over there, they acted like they didn't know me. But they've got a huge setup pro football talk with Florio, Fanduel has a massive setup, Sirius XM, Yahoo. I mean, it's all around the room here.

Are you getting hooked up with Greg Tooie is the producer for the Colin Cowherd show, if folks don't know. a good friend of the show. You should wing some guests off of him. I don't know if they're here. Oh, really? Howard was, he was in studio on Monday. Remember when he got sick?

Not really. Oh, he threw up or something. I heard he threw up. He left the show, the middle of the show. He left. Wow. He was hung over or what? Probably.

But they're not here. They were in L.A. So, I don't know. Very strange. That is very strange. Okay. Well, we're going to take another break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross without Matt Thomas.

with Chris Gordy. We don't have a guess for a little bit, correct? Yeah, we can get into it. We can get into some nitty-gritty Astros conversation. Some reaction to Dana Brown yesterday. Bragman Update. We can do those. We got the Rockets losing last night.

We have Nick Cayley as the OC of your Houston Texans. And also, Gordy, I want to like a special Super Bowl radio row themed. Ain't nobody got time for that slash shut your bum ass up coming up at 1130. Okay, I like it. Yeah, come up with something and all of you can join in on that at 1130. You can get in now, too, if you want to talk to sports. 713-212579. The phone number, 713-212-5-790.

Matt and Ross return. Return on Sports Talk 790. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross, here we out with you here. Gordy in New Orleans, baby, with Meteoroe. So we have Jay Glazer saying he's not going to pick against Patma Holmes. Are you know just chatting around with folks about the game much Gordy? And then do you have an opinion as well?

Okay, it sounds like Chris Gordy is meeting with somebody. Okay, who is you trying to talk to? Sorry, I was meeting Stugats is here. Hey, Stugats. With his legendary agent is sharing a table with us. and I'm just telling him what a great guy is. Oh, okay. Stu, come Chip-Boh, five minutes.

Five minutes. Okay. Okay, he's got an 11 o'clock. So we'll get Stu Gautz on with this. Oh, you could have got five minutes. They brushed you off. Houston, yeah. Folks, you're listening live to a brush off.

Yeah, the funny thing I want to tell him about, remember for years, Ross, we used to get tweets at 790 on Twitter, and they'd be like, tell Stugats to shut up and all this. It was the Miami station. Yes. So, like, it was just funny. People would always confuse us.

They'd be like, the dolphins need to sign this guy and all that. And I was like, who, what, why is Matt talking about the dolphins? And then you realize, oh, they're tweeting at the Miami station. So. Oh, I'm sorry. I was just reading. We have a, well, okay, it's a very minor rockets trade has been made according to Sham Sharanian. Who we got?

The Boston Celtics are trading Jaden Springer and their 20-30 second round pick to the Houston Rockets. Both teams are also exchanging heavily protected second-rounders. I'm going to be honest. I got to look up Chaden Springer stats. I don't think he's been playing much for the Boston Celtics. And no, he is not. He's averaging 1.7 points per game in 26 games.

No starts. So what's the motivation behind this book? Is that some sort of accumulation of picks or some kind of, I don't know if it's like getting a, I don't know if it's salary cap implications or something like that. I'm going to guess it's something that related. Unless Jaden Springer has been lying in wait to dominate for the Houston Rockets. Well, I can tell you this as a college player. He was very good.

Played a Tennessee, SEC guy. First round pick in 2021, 28th overall. He's played 93. games in four years in the NBA. He's started four games in four years in the NBA averaging 2.7 points. Three point percentage of 250. Yeah, I just

I remember him in college. He was a good score. I mean, he had a ton of 20 point games. But yeah, hasn't really translated much to the NBA. Like you said, three, spent three years of Philly, two years in Boston. But Celtics trading James Springer

and a 2030 second round pick to the Rockets. What do you think the rockets are giving up? Probably second round picks. This says both teams are exchanging heavily protected second rounders. So yeah, this has got to be some kind of workaround for the CBA or the luxury tax or something. Yeah. I don't think there's much else going on in this.

And they, I mean, like, they're going to, you stash him in Rio Grande, right? You're not going to put him. It depends on what kind of contract he's on. If you can even send him down there, I don't know. that's interesting and he was he's only spent the last two years in boston so it's not like he was there with e-may yeah that's right he was uh right he was a sorry drafted by philadelphia and then with boston the last couple of years hasn't really provided much of anything okay i think we can close the book on that what were you talking about before gordon stu gotts 0 790 yeah when's the trade deadline uh february 6 tomorrow i don't know the exact time

it's like afternoon yeah tomorrow afternoon so Well, he closed that to you. Do the Rockets need to make a big move? I would say big move, no. I'm still not panicked. There was somebody asking me if this is like the Rockets regressing to the mean. I don't think so. First of all, they've been competitive in these games.

Should have beat the Brooklyn Nets. Very well could have beat the Knicks on the road without, I mean, depends on if you want to call Jabari Smith Jr. A starter. At the very least, if not three starters, three rotational players. And missing Fred Van Vlid is huge. He gets them into offensive sets. He's a calming force.

in those clutch time situations. So not having him for a couple of games over this stretch, not having Shingoon for three games, and then it kind of took him a whole half to get warmed up. You're in the middle of a stretch of 14 games out of 18 on the road with not a lot of days off in between. I do expect the Rockets maybe to lose another one or two before they hit the All-Star break.

There's five games left because it's just been, you know, we talk about the dog days of summer. the NBA, I mean, in the Major League Baseball, it's like that in the NBA. It's the dog days of winter right before that All-Star break where they pack in as many games as they possibly can so they can get them that week plus off. I'm not super worried about the Rockets. I would say still don't rock the boat, stay the course, no big major moves necessary, although some people are backing off of that after the stretch of four straight losses.

Yeah. Well, it's, I don't know. These next two games, you've got to go to Minnesota, you've got to go to Dallas. I'll get to see Anthony Davis, by the way, as a new Dallas Maverick on Saturday. But it feels like... Is he going to be active? He's got the abdomen issue. I saw that. Isn't that funny?

He's heard. He's been plagiaries his whole career and gets in this massive trade, and then suddenly it's like, oh, he's hurt. Yeah, he's hurt. Well, I saw his look at Donchage, I guess. I wonder if the Mavericks, it's interesting in these types of situations. where you kind of need, if you get in a rut, and I'm not saying Luca Donchitz is, but it seems to me that the Mavs were very,

they hit their limit with Luca Donchitz. That's the only reason you trade a 25-year-old who's a dynamic score, one of the great playmakers in the league and in the history of the league. He's already seventh and triple doubles all time. All time. So for them to do that,

I wonder if that kind of is going to awaken in Luca Donchich what he needed. It's like sometimes to, grow up. You've got to have some adversity. You've got to have things not go your way and that wakes you up and it never made me what had happened with the Mavs and now he's just going to

unleash the beast with the Lakers for like the next 10 plus years. Yeah. I still, I can't get over that trade. That's absolutely atrocious. Yeah, not talking to any other organization is stupid. That's insane. Like anybody

knows, okay, you want to trade a generational talent, that's one thing. But open up the market. Start a bidding war. He's available. What you got? You don't just go, well, we came in agreement with the Lakers. And other execs coming out, we didn't know he was available.

We didn't give it up a King's ransom. Rudy Gobert got four first-round picks. Rudy Gober netted four first-round picks. Luca Donchitz gets you one and Anthony Davis. That's not so. Insane. Absolutely insane. that they've done that.

And then now there's been... I need the Rockets. By the way, they're in Minnesota Thursday. Minnesota does play back to back. They'll play the Bulls tonight, and then they'll play the Rockets tomorrow. That's good. Rockets got to find a way to win that one, man.

Yeah, I would hope so. Some people were calling it a must-win game last night against the Brooklyn Nets, and well, they didn't win. Season goes on for the Rockets, and they're still in the three-spot, but you've got the Denver Nuggets coming on strong. I just want top four, but really you'd like two or three.

So if you do win your first playoff series, you can avoid the Thunder at all costs. Well, they weren't such a good run, right? I mean, you were holding on that two spot. You're like, all right, this is, and you knew they weren't going to catch the Thunder, but you were like, all right, they're going to be in the two-seat. This is legit.

And then suddenly, you're starting to get their four straight losses, and now suddenly this thing is waning. Yeah, you've had a man with the, calf issue. You've had Fred Van Fleet with his issues. You've had, I think it was a calf for Alper and Shingoon as well. I think these guys are just getting tired and road weary. It's that time of year.

You're 50 games into the year now. So, I mean, it's a grueling stretch. Let's get to the All-Star break, baby. Let's try to win like three or four these last five games and get to the All-Star break. Yep. Yep. And Matt will be, what, they're traveling to Minnesota

today? Yes. He will be in Minnesota and he'll be back with us tomorrow here on a sports talk 790. All right. Hour number one is in the books. We've already had a great guest from Radio Row. We've got some more coming up. Coming up at 1130. We also will have ain't nobody got time for that slash shut choke bum ass up.

It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross with Chris Gordy from New Orleans. Ross of your re-out with you in Houston. Hour number two of the program starts next. Launch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. 11 o'clock straight up here on Sports Talk 790 hour number two of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Without Matt Thomas, who was on the Johnny Carson schedule, missing a lot of time for us with us lately. Chris Gordy is joining us from New Orleans.

I heard we're going to have another guest coming up here shortly, correct? I don't think this segment, probably next segment. I think Stugats is going to jump on with us. He was going to, but he has to jump on another interview. All right, so you're going to get Stugats on. I don't even know his real name. I'm looking it up right now. It's Jonathan Brian Weiner or Weiner.

I've never, never, no idea. What is, it's like McLevin. Like, no idea what his real name is. Yeah, what does Stugats even mean? It was something from the day of Levitard show back of the day. I don't know. Okay, so we're all the big stars here on the show. We'll get Stugats coming up here in a minute.

I mean, who's bigger than him? I mean, nobody. Nobody. Get the president on himself. It's not going to be as big as Stugats. up later here from Radio I just saw I walked by if you want me to grab him the beer man

former Saints return man Michael Lewis who you remember Michael Lewis the return man for the Saints isn't that the guy that wrote money ball different Michael Lewis okay this guy was he was a beer delivery man and

like walked on with the Saints it became there like I think he made the Pro Bowl or something one year He's like the Vince Popoli of the Saints? He basically is. And he's worked in her front office, I think, for years now as like, you know, community relations type guy. But anyway, he just walked by. Okay, all right.

All the stars are out in New Orleans right now with Chris Gordy. That's great. All right, Gordy, well, you mentioned Dana Brown speaking, so we were going to get to some of that. There are a lot of interesting things. Now, this was at, were you at this media availability, eating all the food, No, well, I would have been, but I was driving to New Orleans. But yeah, Dan was there, Adam Wexler, Adam Klanin. I think we were well represented.

By the way, did you make it in a tight five hours? How was it the traffic on I-10? I did not to New Orleans. You did? It wasn't bad. Oh, wow. Usually there's like seven wrecks on the way in or the way back. Well, there was one in Baytown trying to get out of town.

Oh, of course. It's either Baytown or Beaumont or somewhere like Viter, Sofer. there's always going to be a wreck somewhere on the way out to New Orleans, it feels like. But anyways. But no, it's always a fun event because it marks kind of like the unofficial start of the season for the Astros. When they have their big luncheon to announce, here's our marketing campaign, here's all our promotional giveaways we're going to have for the year. And then, you know, GM and manager speak, you know, all right, we are underway.

Yeah, a couple interesting things from Dana Brown. Let's go ahead and start with him. Now, he starts off talking about how the door isn't closed with Alex. Bregman. But then he continues to say, Gordy, and he said this over and over, so I think we all need to move on with our lives. No new dialogue between Boris

and Brown. No, I have not talked to Boris recently. But we are still having conversations internally, and then I'll leave it at that. So basically, he's just like, look, internally means he's talking

to Jim Crane. Jim Crane, do you want to get the offer? No. Okay. Well, we're not going to up the offer, and they're not going to accept that offer, so let's move on with our lives. Yeah, I just, I don't know, man. I thought the writing was on the wall when they traded Kyle Tucker and they got back, Esock Parades, who we know was an infielder, and then they signed Christian Walker as an everyday first basement. I was like, that's it. Like, this whole thing of Altuvee movement to the outfit, they'll play him someone out in left field,

but I think he's still going to primarily beat the second basement. So this whole thing of, oh, the door's still open. The door's only open because he hasn't signed anywhere yet. But from all the comments Dana Brown has made have not felt like they have any interest. I think the only way the Astros would say we have interest is if they called and said, hey, Alex didn't have any takers, so he'll just, he'll resign for one year. Like I think that's a situation where they go, yeah, sure. But barring Jim Crane waking up one day and going, hell yeah, let's go get Bregman, whatever it takes.

they're not interested. Listen to Dana's quotes. They're not interested. It doesn't seem like they are or it seems like maybe it's Dana Brown that is not interested. And when he says internal conversations, maybe that he is trying to signal to us without saying it that Jim Crane's kind of interested, but it's also going to take a lot of money so the interest

level is low. I think that's him just saying that though. Because notice what he's saying, he's not saying that they have interest elsewhere. In other words, he's not saying that they've talked to the agent or talked about. Bregman, he keeps saying we're having internal

conversations. All that means is they're sitting around the office going, hey, do you see Bregman's still out there? Yeah, I saw that. That's probably the extent of the internal conversations. Yeah, it just doesn't seem like there's much traction there. There have been a lot of people talking about the Cubs.

Now, see, I'm trying to find it. This is a problem in the state of today's Twitter. I saw it somewhere and I'm trying to verify that the Cubs might be interested in doing it's like a short-year deal with a short-term deal with opt-outs for Alex Bregman, which I don't think he wants. Yeah, it was nobody reputable yesterday,

at least what I could see. It was like, you know, a couple of bloggers, you know, people with like 10,000 followers are like, all right, maybe there's something there. But, yeah, that's, it was put out there that the Cubs are at least exploring the idea of, hey, Bregman, how about a multi-year deal, but with opt-outs where you can get it. Like, here's $100 million, but you could opt out after a year or two or whatever. Yeah, just ridiculous with this.

We're trying to find reliable information on Twitter. Don't even get me started. But anyways, Dana Brown also went on to say that we had heard that they were in on Jorge Polanco, and they were maybe going to turn attention to Bregman and or others now. But Dana Brown not ruling out another move being made for the Houston Astros. We're trying to get a left-hand bat for the outfield, you know. Most of the options are slim to none, but we're still working through it and grinding to get some left-handed at bats in our outfit. How does Jason Hayward feel saying here the options are slim to none?

He's available. He's left-handed. He was here last year. I don't get why that hasn't been done already. What does it hurt? Because I know they like Taylor Tremel and they're going to give him a chance. But to me, you've got $5 million left under the cap. or, you know, the lodger attacks.

Like, why not just, why don't just call Hayward and say, let's get this done? Yeah, maybe he wants a little bit more than that, but I don't know if he's going to get it this late in the game. Alex Verdugo, another left-handed outfielder that a name has kind of been thrown out there, so I don't know. Well, real quick, Ross, let's get somebody who would know all about the Alex Breggman stuff.

Let's get an Alex Breggman update from our buddy, Ari Alexander, KPRC Channel 2. He joins us now. Ari, what's up? Hey, what's going on? Chris, yeah, there hasn't been much of updates within the past few days. It feels like he's sort of in the bunker trying to decide between what he has. But right now, the way that I'm thinking about it, and just from the people that I've talked to over the past couple of weeks,

is there are three sections of teams for Alex Bregman, of the five total teams that are in on Alex Bregman. The first section are the teams that are going to be giving them long-term offers that I think you're going to have to do a little extra to get him. That's Toronto, that's Detroit. The second section has just one team in it. That's the Astros, and whatever it is that's going to happen with them, the 6156 offer that I just do not believe that he's going to take.

If the Astros, and it's sounding more and more unlikely, are going to get Alex Bregman, they're going to have to up their offer, doesn't feel like they want to, and doesn't feel like Alex wants to take the 6156. The third section of teams is the Cubs and the Red Sox, two teams that it feels like they're going for a shorter-term opt-outs type of offers to Alex Bregman, a little higher A-AV, and those are teams that I don't think would have to do the extra the way the Blue Jays and the way the Tigers might have to do to get him. Those are teams that I believe he would like to play for if the money is right,

if the situation is right. However, the Red Sox create a problem because he's going to have to play second base, at least initially. Raphael Devers, from what I've been told all off season, is not moving off third base. So those are your three parts of where Alex Bregman could go, but as of right now, there is no decision made. He has five potential places he could still go,

and I know everyone's up. said how long this has been dragging on, and I'm sure that he's not loving how long he doesn't have a specific plan of what he needs to do in spring training, but that's where we're at right now. How about that, Ross, and impromptu Ari Alexander drop in. In the middle of us talking about Alex Breggman, how serendipitous? He was just walking by. You know who would know it's the latest on this? Is there any product you want to pimp now, Ari? Any sort of, like barbecue rubs or yeah, any kind of, I don't know, a new kind of sun.

screen or some kind of website we'll never use 1,800 flowers or something? I don't know, but if anyone wants to send me like high chews to my house, you're welcome to. I love high chews. What is that? It's a candy. Oh, hi-chews are delicious. Japanese candy. Underrated

high chews, I feel. Extremely underrated. I'd rather like Bigley chew or something. Bigley chew. What are you six? That's a totally different class of candy. I'm completely different. You're looking for something sweet. I love that. I love R.A. just dropping in, giving us that.

All right, Ari. One more question, then. We were also talking about other moves. It feels like the Astros are out on Bregman, just from what we can tell. Do you think they'll be making a move as far as an outfielder is what they've been also been talking about? I think they have to. The problem is that just there isn't much on the market, and I've been sort of saying this for weeks, and then Dana Brown kind of said the same thing that I've been saying for a while, which is like, yeah, we'd love to get a left-handed outfielder, but who are you going to get? Alex Verdugo and David Peralta are the two names that I can come up with that are left on the market. How excited are you about Alex Verdugo or David Peralta?

Realistically, you know what I mean? Verdugo is coming off a down year in a stadium that he should be able to hit bombs at. Peralta is aging. It was a solid player for a long, long time. And I just don't think that's a guy that moves the meter. The other one that has made sense to me all offseason, and I've been told there is just no connection there, at least at the moment. Maybe they circle back eventually is Jason Hayward. him in last year. Great clubhouse guy. Veteran, left-handed bat, can play adequate right-field

and left field, which is what you need. And there just hasn't been any conversation there. And one big right-handed bat who made plenty of sense for the Astros is off the board now. Randall Gritchick-Lamar consolidated high school, a guy who was once drafted above Mike Trout, one-year, $5 million deal with the Diamondbacks that happened yesterday. He's a guy that I thought fit, but I believe that Dana Brown is heavily looking for a left-handed bat. And they're just, isn't anything out there. Yeah, that's, it's fascinating. I almost wonder if it's down to like, you know,

they're trying to get Hayward back, but they're like, we'll give them two mil, and they're like, we want four mil, and they're just waiting it out. Like, you know, like, there's just been no conversation with Hayward specifically from what I'm told. I've checked on, like, once a week, I'm like, hey, Jason Hayward, are they bringing him back? And nope, nothing.

So he's a guy that, again, it makes sense, and what you're postulating makes sense, and it just isn't happening. And the only two guys I can think of that makes sense right now are Verdugo and Peralta, no is excited about them. They were in on jerks and pro-far from what I'm told, but the Braves, three-year, $42 million deal got him. They would have had to go above the tax for him,

even after clearing out whatever they cleared out of Ryan Presley's salary, the $8.5 million that they saved on Ryan Presley. I don't believe that Jim Crane is going to go into the tax for a jerks and pro far. He will for an Alex Breggman, but Jerks and Profar, I don't think, moves the meter to make this team better enough for Jim Crane to say, you know what, I'm going to pay the 30% repeater tax instead of the 20% tax like they paid last year for jerks and pro far. And the Braves are the ones that have him anyway now.

Well, Ross, get ready for plenty of Jake Myers fan club. Let's go, baby. He'll play like every game. Well, he did last year, and that wasn't great by the end of it. He didn't play every game last year. All right, Ari, thanks for the time. We're going to let you lose. We've got to get to a break here.

Appreciate you. Thank you. There you go. Ari Alexander, KPRC, Local 2, here on Sports Talk 790, with Chris Gordy out there. You never know what you're going to get out on Radio Row. We got a baseball guest as Ari was out there. So we also are supposed to have Stugats coming up in a few minutes. Carissa Thompson, Jalen Ford as well.

Gordy's out at Radio Row, Ross here in Houston, and you are listening to The Matt Thomas Show with Ross. The Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Continues on Sports Talk 790. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. I believe we have Chris Gordy. Are you there, Gordy? Yeah, what's going on? Okay, just making sure you're good over there.

I know you're schmoozing out there. Who was that spot? We just ran that I heard spot. Was that Greg Rosenthal? Who was like, I'm going to be at Radio Row all week. No, Greg Rosenthal. We've got you covered right here on the Matt Thomas show. Yeah, yeah, all week here at the Matt Thomas show

and all of our stations. Who did you guys? I heard Bernie Cozor on the way in. What else you guys got going on on the Sean Selsbury's show? Well, we had Clay Matthews yesterday. with Sean. The third. And then Bernie Cozart today. So I think, I think tomorrow we've got, Sean's got Emmett Smith and former Cowboys great Daryl Johnston. Wow. Moose and Emmett, I think, are back to back, right? Yeah. Shouldn't it be the other

way around? Shouldn't Moose Johnson be leading the way for Emmett? It's true. I didn't think of that. We should have just done them together. Yeah, that's true. You probably could have got some good stories. All right, so that's coming up. And then later on today, we have Chris Thompson and Jalen Ford. And have we spotted Stugats? Not yet. We're hunting him down. I mean, he's so busy. I mean, he's so busy. It's fine. I mean, he just probably flew in from the Grammys, and then he's, you know, goodness knows what else he's been up to

lately now in Radio Row in New Orleans, where Chris Cordy is. Oh, let's see. Behind us right now, we've got Malcolm Jenkins just walked by, Philly and Saints Great, and now Patrick Peterson. another LSU legend. My God. It's LSU legend day. Yeah, I guess in New Orleans probably a lot of them live in the area.

Although, Patrick Peterson's not playing anymore, right? I think he's retired, right? I think so, too. I'm going to say yes without even really knowing for sure. I'm looking it up. Steelers in 23, and that was it. Yeah, so he hadn't played in a couple.

Eight-time Pro Bowl or Patrick Peterson. Stud. Absolute. Absolute stud. and I believe a Thorpe Award winner, correct? I'm looking it up. Yes, yes, you're correct. And now Derek Stingley following in his footsteps

with a chance to, you know, perhaps repeat that. No. Stingley didn't win a Thorpe Ward. Thorpe Ward is for the, is for college. No, I was, I met, I met, you said eight-time pro bowler. Oh, eight-time pro bowl, I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about Thorpew. Yeah, yes, Derek Sidney, first team all pro. that's a good start.

You know, we were talking with Ari in the last segment about the outfield stuff. That's kind of what I want to talk about. I mean, are they going to do something? Or are they just going to say, you know what, we're going to hang tight. Maybe Jacob Melton's going to be ready. Maybe a little bit of Zach DeZenzo in left field as well,

and just go with the guys and roll with the guys that they have and stay under the tax. I don't know, man. This feels like if you were going to bring in a Hayward or somebody like that, I mean, what is it? next Thursday, pitchers and catchers report? Yeah, I think, this is my guess.

They're guessing that either A, bounce back year from Chas McCormick, B, Jacob Melton is ready within a month or two of the season and can perhaps produce, or C, Zach DeZenzo can get you something. They're hoping one of those three workout, if not multiple. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think they should. the problem is again like if you if you haven't brought

somebody in yet then I don't I just to me man it's they must really be high on Taylor Tramel and something is there I just what happens if Myers or McCormick gets hurt for any stretch of time

I mean then you're really leaning on the you're leaning on the young guys like Jacob Melton has to come up and play like it's they put themselves in a bind here like the fact they traded to Tucker and didn't have an obvious like pivot? I don't know, man.

Yeah, it'll be interesting. Taylor Tremel is 27 now. He's played 126 career games. He's got a negative war. Maybe they feel like there's some lightning in that bottle. I don't know.

But that is interesting. And then another option at left field could be, Gordy. Our friend, Jose Altovae. I don't think it's that much of an extra wear other than it's a longer run from the dugout. But, I mean, I play it outfield. It gets boring out there after. You don't do much. I mean, you may not get a fly ball for a long time.

So I don't see if it was, maybe if it was center, there's a little bit more wear for center field because you have to run to both sides, both gaps or short style. So there you go. He says not a bunch of extra wear and tear for Altova if he's going to left field. I just, dude, come on. It's going to happen. Would Altuve set the record for the smallest player to ever play outfield? I don't think so.

Probably not. What's the shortest outfield or ever? I don't know. What position did Hack Wilson play back in the day? I don't know. Okay, in the modern era, who's the shortest? Oh, here we go, pulling it up. Hack Wilson, played the outfield, baby.

Five foot six. I know who he is. You know, you've heard the name. How about Jorge Barrosa of the Diamondbacks, 5 foot 5. Oh, okay. You're pulling up Googles? I'm just trying to see him.

I'm like, who's been the shortest? I'm trying to see where, uh, yeah, look, Hack Wilson used to play center field and right and left back in the day. In what year? 1927. Yeah, come on. Ah, look at the diminutive of Hack Wilson out there in left field for the Chicago Cubs. He's going on a hall of football.

Coming up on the 100-year anniversary of Hauquels in play. Jorge Barroso is a Venezuelan outfielder for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and he's listed as 5'9. So he's probably more 5 foot 8. But that's like, isn't your stereotypical outfielder? Like, oh, he's 6-1, 6-3, 5-tool player. Well, Jose's not going to have all the tools. We don't know about his throwing arm.

either. Well, you just use the I mean, the wall helps, right? I mean, it's all about playing the playing the ball. Yeah, you're right. He should push off the wall when he throws. That should give him a little bit of extra umph. But at least doing that, he just says to get

the ball back in range. At second basement, how many errors did he have last year? He actually had a really high fielding percentage, but you're going to have a high percentage when you're not tracking down a whole bunch of balls because you just don't have the range you used to. Yeah. Here's what here's actually we do have Dana Brown he's not worried about Jose Altuve's throwing arm

It's easier to throw from the outfield because you get the crow hop in the momentum where a lot of times on the infield It's like you throw flat foot it and so I think his arm will play a little bit better in the outfield Because when you when you get your crow hop and you get your weight behind you the ball usually comes out a lot better And so I don't think he'd have problems throwing this is happening This is so happening Dana Brown is talking about crow hopping and into arms and he's jogging out to left and he's going to be boring though he's going to be bored out there that a lot of halto-e in left field is absolutely happening this year god it just that seems so ridiculous i mean i guess if if but like okay what's the backup plan or like if he's doing

that who's second who's at second dubon come on somebody that they signed maybe brice matthews eventually i don't know I'd rather put Yordon in left, then. I'm with you. Put Dubon in second. I mean, can Yordon play second? I'm just kidding, by the way. Did you hear that call earlier?

The guy who asked Sean and the Lima about, you know, why can't Yordon play first? It's a very simple answer here. He doesn't want to. Very clearly, it hasn't happened over the years. And they talked about working him out there for years and years. and years. It just never happens. It's just always funny when fans are like,

why don't put this guy at first? Because he doesn't want to. Players get a say in where they play. This isn't high school where you go, you know, Villarreal, get it first. I said so. Like, they have a say in what position they play. Yeah. It's

just, hmm. It's interesting. It'll be very, very interesting to see how this plays out. I wonder how many games Altuvae is actually going to be out there and left. hope not many. I'm thinking like 40-50 is just off the top of my head.

Not having, you know, any idea. And like you said, we always kind of construct our roster and our mind and the way things are going to play out with 100% health. And it's not going to be that way. How many balls sit on a rope do you think he's going to run down? He's going to work on it. He's going to be fine. I don't think he's going to make any.

He's going to run down some. He's not going to miss. He's not going to be like a lot. Little leaker out there. That's what I'm envisioning. Oh my God. That's, you're, you're nuts. It's not going to be that bad.

He's a Hall of Fame second base. Dude, he's a Hall of Fame second base. Dude, he's a Hall of Fame. He won a, if you can win a gold glove anywhere, you can be in a left fielder. I'm not putting him in the outfield. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break here on that note,

Chris Gordy. So Chris Cordy says, Altube and left field, ain't nobody got time for that. What do you say? Ain't nobody got time for, We also want to tell people to shut their bum ass up. Something you want to get off your chest, something you can't believe. 713-212-5-790, the phone number, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

Favorite segment of the week coming up next here on Sports Talk 790. Ain't nobody getting time? Ain't nobody getting time for it. Hey, nobody getting time for that. Gordy, you start. Okay, I'm fine. I'm back. Dude, anybody got time for this cough I've been having for like two weeks.

I don't know what is going on. will not go away. Sorry, I just got into a little bit of a coughing fit right as we were getting back here on Sports Talk 790. Sounds like, is Gordy here? Okay, sounds like, yeah, maybe cut him off. This is just a delight. All right, welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We are improvising.

Gordy is out in New Orleans at Media Row, as they're calling it, rather than Radio Row for Sports Stock 790, tracking down some good guests. Unfortunately, though, we just. just did get the news that Carissa Thompson is not feeling well and not going to be able to join us here on Radio Row. Gordy, what's the latest on Carissa Thompson? Is she okay? Yeah, I think so.

But yeah, we just got the word. She is canceling all her interviews. She is under the weather. So no Carissa Thompson today. That's disappointing. That's unfortunate. All right. Well, that was the time of the week where if you got something that is bothering you,

you want to say, ain't nobody got time for that or shut your bum ass up. You call the phone lines at 713, 212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Gordy, I'm going to go ahead and let you start. Well, the thing I don't have time for, Ross, is we have, there's this guy,

and I'll be sensitive here, there's a guy in a wheelchair, I think he's a vet, but he's becoming the radio row for well over a decade. I've seen him here forever. He comes up to when you're in the middle of interviews and rolls up and like tries to, he did this morning with Bernie Kosar with us. And I had multiple people tell me, this guy does this all the time.

He hawks guests and like interrupts other people's guests on Radio Row to try to get guests for his show. And it's like, dude, wait till they're finished and leaving the booth that they're at to try to get your, but like he just wants to step on everybody's toes. And ain't nobody got time for that. Ain't nobody got time for that. Wow. That was always fun seeing really pushy people. I'm not really a pushy person by nature.

And I don't think you either are, Gordy. But it's like, unfortunately, you got to get a little bit pushy if you want all the right guests at Radio Row, which is just... Oh, yeah, no, I get being pushy, but like, I mean, can you imagine? Like, is there any where else you would do that? Just like in the middle of it. Hey, hey, what am I getting you on?

Like, dude, I'm literally in the middle of doing, you know, like, so, anyway. 713-212-5-790 if you would like to get in 7-13-212-5-7-90 anybody got time for this rocket's loss last night to the Brooklyn Nets you are up four points with nine and a half seconds to go you didn't even really deserve to win the game anyways but to completely choke that way to where you give up the three to Keon Johnson I was going to say Coleman to Keon Johnson

and then Amin Thompson. We love you, Amin Thompson. You're so great. You're so smart. You're so athletic. High basketball IQ. All the accolades that you've been given, you deserve.

But you can't throw that ball away with three seconds on a five second count. At the very least, don't panic in that moment and call a timeout. Just call the time out. Move on. Get to the other side of the floor. And you're going to be fine.

And you're not going to be able to give. away the ball under your own basket with limited time left. It pokes out and it's a bad pass. DeAngelo Russell makes that three. The Rockets lost. They choked last night in Brooklyn. Ain't nobody got time for that.

All right. I hope so. 713. 2.12.5.790. If you got something you want to get off your chest, 713-212-5-790. Connor McGovern. Go ahead. The floor is yours. I mean, every week we can say, ain't nobody got time for Houston traffic.

But this weekend, I feel like it deserves a special shout-out. So, as a lot of us already know, a portion of I-10 near the Heights has closed down two of its lanes, and they're doing construction over there. 45 south towards Galveston has construction scheduled for the weekend. And now the Texas Department of Transportation has just announced a full closure of Interstate 69, Highway 59, northbound main lanes at Kelly Street for two consecutive weekends. And that's just really going to screw up my travel plans as I reside in Umbl. So ain't nobody got time for all the Houston highway construction going on this early spring or late winter.

I don't know. But it's just really inconvenient. Ain't nobody got time for it. We need three major highways going through stuff right now. I don't know what's going on. It seems like it's getting progressively worse and worse. You know, like sometimes you're like, you know, it's the weekend. There's not going to be any traffic.

It's almost like that's when the most traffic is. Yeah. It's impossible to get anywhere at any point in this town. Weekdays, weekends, it doesn't seem to matter. There's always something under construction. I'm with you, Connor McGovern. It's quite ridiculous. Ain't nobody got time for?

Ain't nobody got time for any of that. I've had a coughing fit basically this entire segment. This is ridiculous. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what kind of whooping cough I caught or whatever, but this is the worst cough I've ever had in my. life. I'm so upset and tired and sick and tired

and sick and tired of this. I want this cough to shut its bum ass up, too. Shut your bum ass up, man. All right. Cord, you got anything else? Yeah, I don't know. Did you see the Stephen A. Smith report that's out there? Uh-oh.

No, he's reporting something? Well, no. It's a report about. Oh, okay. What's going on now? Is he running for president? Well, front office sports put out there, Stephen A. Smith is emerging as a potential Democratic candidate for 2020 in presidential election. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I would say, ain't nobody got time for that, but maybe we do have some time for that. I don't want to get too political, but Democrats.

Come on. What you're doing? What are you doing, Democrats? Let's get Chris Maddo Grosso on the other side. This border situation is out of control. You've got these illegal immigrants coming over here. It's preposterous. If Stephen A. runs as the Democratic presidential candidate,

we need Chris Maddoog Rousseau as the Republican and just let them debate. I will tune in for that. These terrorists are out of control. You got to stop with the terrorists. Justin Trudeau is a scrub. Come on. That's gold. Oh, my God. Probably bad for the country.

I mean, look, he's built for this. He's going to win whatever presidential debate he's on, I guess. He's already got a strong suit game. I mean, for that to come out of your mouth. Who would be even running? Who would be the Republican guy? DeSantis in 2028 or whoever? Probably one.

Who's the VP, Vance? Oh, yeah, J.D. Vance? What J.D. Vance just said. It's unconscionable. I can't believe that would even come out of your mouth. Actually, wait a minute. You know what? It's already a dog and pony show for entertainment.

This country is bought and sold a long, long time ago. You know what? You know what, screw it. Let's do it. Stephen A. Smith, Democratic candidate, Skip Bayless Republican pick candidate. Let's do it. I'm all for it.

I do have time for that. All right, let's get in a couple of people who've gotten in on the phone lines. I do appreciate you. Felipe, what's up? I agree with that Stephen A and Skip Belis. That would be some great, great TV comedy. They would just do a debate every week. It would be great.

Just coming up with words, they don't really understand. They're just saying anything they can. Word vomit at this point. It was said earlier today, and it was promised us by Matt Thomas, and the people need it, the people deserve it, the people want it. Ain't nobody got time for Chris Gordy not to get. give us a fake New Orleans accent. We need it.

There we go. Ain't nobody got time for that? Hmm. The people are demanding. You go full New Orleans style on us, Gordy. Yeah, I think maybe I need to run into like Bobby A Bear or something. Yeah. Get you in the mode.

Get you in the mood. You got to go talk to some native New Oralinians. You just got to slow your words a little bit. Slow your words a little bit. Yeah. And you just got a couple drinks. And throw baby. Yeah, actually, you got a couple of hurricanes.

You'd be doing all right. And you never ask how's your family? You go, how's your mom and them? Oh, okay. See, we're getting the inside dirt here. You can do this. You could pull this off, Gordy. Come on, man.

Some words, sink becomes zinc. For some reason, I don't know why. Soda become Sour. Yeah. There's no feeder road. It's, what do they call it? Service road. I was somewhere in this woman spilled,

this New Orleans woman spilled soda, and she was like, I need a paper towel. There's be a soda on the table. I'll say, excuse me? What'd you say? Oh, you get really sword on the table, man. You get really thick New Orleans accent.

Children becomes churn. Oh, yeah. That's a churn. I just love the New Orleans accent. It just warms my heart. Javier, what do you got? Yo, I got to talk about our boy, Larry, and Stafford, with this crappy political post every day.

Bro, I ain't nobody got time with that. Shut your bum ass up. And also asking for a new football, same for the Texas after they, swap with only one one in the playoffs. Come on, bro. Shut your bum ass at Larry. Later, who? Wow.

Shut your bum ass up, man. I got a very easy solution, Javier. The mute button is your friend. All right, we got a couple more of y'all want to get in. We'll go ahead and get y'all, but we do have to get to a quick break. You want to get in something you ain't got time for, or somebody you want to tell to shut their bum ass up. You can do so here.

It is Super Bowl week. Gordy is out in New Orleans. My name is Ross. We are here in Houston. And you can get in at 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. More Matt Thomas show with Ross. Now on Sports Talk 790.

Here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross, with Chris Gordy. Without Matt Thomas, he is traveling with the Houston Rockets. And we're still doing. Ain't nobody got time for that slash shut your bum ass up. You can get in if you'd like at 7-13-212. 5 is 790. 7132125 at 790. Jimmy and Tom Ball, the floor is yours. All right. When Matt Thomas is out of town, ain't nobody got time to listen to you have to say the Matt Thomas show with sports RV without Matt Thomas. Dude, it's the freaking sports RV show today. And if Matt don't like it, he can shut his bum ass up.

Oh, ain't nobody got time for that. I agree. Just your bum ass up, man. Okay, it's the sports RV show You agree? I should not say it We should, yeah, we should just have, We should have imaging saved for you That just says the sports RV show

Guys, you know how fragile Matt's ego is If I just started calling it to Sports RV show Every time he came out And then people call in and say, Oh man, I love the sports RV show, wink, wink And then he'd get all upset, be a whole ordeal Ain't nobody got time for dealing with that Ain't nobody got time for that

That's all I'm saying It's funny, Ross. Do you know who the hottest guest is right now walking around a radio room? Stu Gats. The shirtless guy from the Old Spice commercials. Which one? The guy who was like... Terry Cruz?

No. Isaiah Mustafa is his name. Okay. And what is he... You know that guy when you see him. Okay. I'm looking him up. Isaiah Mustafa.

Oh, yeah, I think he looks familiar from the Old Spice commercial. I'm on a horse. Okay. Is he pimping his wares? Is he like selling old spice stuff? Well, he is shirtless walking around. Are you serious? Yeah, it's causing quite a stir.

Oh, God. Well, I guess they just got a free plug on this show, so it's working. You know what? Ain't nobody got time for shirtless guys on Media Row. If he's got a mob around him, like what other commercial celebrities could we have out here? The flow from Progressive? Can we get her? Yeah.

They've had them. Well, they used to have that Miller High Life guy out there, but then he died. Oh, yeah. That was unfortunate. It was an actual. Look at your man. Now back to me. Now back at your man.

Now back to me. Yeah, there you go. That's the guy. There's a recording. Was that from the 1970s? I got a huge hiss on it. It's because the shower's going on the background. Oh, that makes a lot more sense.

That was from a commercial break during the bob. Hope Show back in the day. Okay, wonderful. I think it was the Colgate hour. Okay. So I'm glad that guy's out there. You know what? One of the beautiful perks of being out there on Radio Row is getting a bunch of free stuff.

Have you been able to get some free candy bars or toothpaste or old spice or anything? No, they haven't really. The only thing that they're giving out is bounty has a setup and they're giving out wings. So as you know, there's no food. Yeah, there's never food. food on Radio Row. Bounty is giving out packets of five wings.

The dryer sheet, people? Yes, and they're giving you paper towels to go with it. Oh, is it like a joke? Like, how I get this on your clothes and then wash them with bounty? Oh, no, bouncy, though, paper towels. Okay. I'm thinking of bounce. I'm sorry, I'm thinking of bounce. I don't know why I was thinking of the dryer sheets. Not bounty, the paper rolls.

The quicker picker upper, if you will. Okay. The thicker picker up. Okay. Well, hmm, interesting. Okay. But yeah, they're the most popular item. There's nothing else really being given away, which is a missed opportunity.

Probably could have brought some, I don't know, some Matt Thomas bobbleheads or something, giving them out? Any other fun spectacles going on out there? That's it right now. It's kind of dying down right now. Dying down? It's not even noon. Well, not dying down, but it was all a buzz earlier, you know?

Because of the shirtless old spice guy. there's a there's some eagles fan with face paint on walking around oh yeah it's open to the public because they eventually they started opening these things up to the public and charging people no but apparently it's really easy to get a day pass so they're just oh okay people in so there's guys with some fake eagle i'm on the fly eagles fly podcast we've got six views on youtube i need a day pass well here's and here's the world of the sports media world we live in now everybody's just looking for something to go viral so you're People are just looking, they're legit people looking for interviews, and then there's people looking for content. And that's what that, that's what, that media night the other night, that's what that whole thing is devolved into. It's just, it's a, it's a, who can get something to go viral. There's always, also usually some lovely ladies from like the Spanish TV stations. Have you seen any of those? I haven't seen that.

I did see the highlight of the media night, that was James Winston interviewing players. That was really funny. Oh, yeah. I did see that. Good for James. He's the next. As soon as his as his playing career is over,

he's got a immediate career. Yeah, and then 10 years from then, he'll be running for president. Debating Stephen A. Smith. Debating Stephen A. Smith. That'd be great. Can't wait. All right, Gordy.

Thank you for that. We'll go ahead and close off this segment to appreciate you. He is out in New Orleans. It is the sports RV show. Is that what we're calling it? No, it's the Matt Thomas show. But Matt Thomas is a night.

It's here. It's fine. He'll be gone. While the cat is away, the mice will play. Is that what they say? So we're having a good time here. Chris Gordy is out at Radio Row. Unfortunately, we did have some guests cancel on us, but we got some good ones coming up later on. We can also have you. We've been talking about Dana Brown, Astros. What's going to happen with the Elfield?

We've been talking about the Houston Rockets and their choke. Nick Cayley is the offensive coordinator of the Texans. Anything you want to get to you can at 713-2125.790. We also got the news at noon coming up in just a minute. Here on Sports Talk 790. Launch timers, this is the Matt Thomas show. Hour number three of what the big voice man calls, the Matt Thomas show with Ross,

because that is what it is. Even though Matt is out, he continues to miss time. Ross Vierreau with you, Chris Gordy is in New Orleans at Radio Row. You know what, I'm going to continue to call it Radio Row. Media Row, whatever, who cares? Cona McGovern is here as well, and he is here to bring us all the top sports news items of the day in a segment we call the news at noon. Hey, Connor.

How are you? Hey, Ross. I'm doing all right. You having fun with the Split Sitesite show as a producer? Yeah, I'm having fun. It's a big deal. You're used to it with Matt. I was going to say Matt does it every day.

Yeah, I know. But I haven't seen Matt in like a month. I think I've seen him like two days in the entire year of 2025 at this point. It's ridiculous. But anyways, he's just. be back tomorrow. What is the top sports news items or what are the top sports news items of the day? Well, speaking of Matt Thomas, he was on the road with the rockets. And the rockets lost again to the Brooklyn Nets last night, this time on the road in a 99 to 97 final. Brooklyn was trailing 97 to 93 when Keon Johnson made a three from the wing with 8.1 seconds left.

And then Thompson then threw an inbound pass that skipped past Dylan Brooks and ended up in the hands of DeAngelo Russell, who buried a three to put the nets ahead with 3.4. seconds remaining. Tils on Owova is going to inbound the ball with nine and a half to go. Owova, Ross Court, Keon Johnson, left side three.

Yes. 9796. Thompson lost a basketball. Straight away three. Russell, yes. Oh my goodness. No! 3.4 seconds remaining.

The Nets made two three-pointers in the final 10 seconds. Russell hits the ice in his vein, Selly and the Rockets have now lost, have now lost for sure. They just got swept by the Brooklyn Nets, Gordy. This does not feel good. That was such a choke last night. I mean, it just is what it is.

It happens. You don't want it to happen, but the team, Emilio Doka said it himself. They only played three and a half quarters, and then they tried to steal one at the end with Shingoon dominating, and then that happened. Just disheartening for a team that's looking to stay atop the Western Conference. Yeah, one of their best players

didn't even play. Cam Thomas from LSU. Oh, God. Are we really going on this? Come on, man. Tari Easton didn't play from LSU either. Why all these LSU guys hurt? I know.

They could use them. Yeah, they could use them, but they didn't have them last night. And people are asking, like, is this the real rockets? Is water finding its level? No, I understand they did beat the Cavaliers and the Celtics. All three of those games were really close, and coin flippers, if you will.

And there were some coin flippers recently. The loss against the Grizzlies, Knicks, last night against the Nets. That was less than a coin flipper. That was bad beat last night. That both of those threes went in, and you turn the ball over. But they're still a really good team.

They need to get Fred Van Vleet back. As long as they're staying fully healthy, I still fully believe they're one of the top four teams in the West, and hopefully one of the top two or three because we know the Thunder are going to run away with it in the West. Winnable games. coming up too. Yeah, that's going to help. And this is just a horrible

stretch that they're on. 14 games out of 18 on the road, including 9 of the last date. Taking on the Timberwolves, hopefully, well, Timberwolves are not really going to be easy. But then Dallas, we'll see what they got. Toronto. Phoenix is not great.

Some more winnable games. Utah in the mix. San Antonio, actually, might be really good. But I just want them to get to the All-Star break, be healthy as possible down the stretch, and they're still going to be in my opinion a top four Western Conference team. All right, what else is going on in the news at noon? Kana McGovern.

In other Rockets news, the Boston Celtics are trading Jaden Springer in their 20-20-30 second-round pick to the Rockets. Both teams are exchanging heavily protected at second-rounders, according to Shams. Yeah, I saw a breakdown from Bobby Marks. He does the ESPN. He's like the NBA capologist for them, Gordy. He says that the. Celtics get a huge

reduction in their tax penalty. It goes from $65 million to $50 million. The Rockets get Jayden Springer. They also get a second round pick out of the deal. And maybe you're thinking first round talent, maybe we can turn him into something especially on the defensive side. Yeah, I don't, I mean, we'll see.

I saw somebody say, you're just taking a flyer on a guy that was a former first round pick. So see if there's something there. Yeah. And then at the end of the end of the same, of the day, we know what the Celtics did it. It's one of these very, very, very small type of deals. So not an earth shaker from the Rockets, but do you think, okay, if I had to say a huge impact deal, there are some Rockets fans pushing for them to make a push for Kevin Durant,

who is pretty squarely in the market, it seems like. A mid-level deal or just a deal like this or no deal at all in the coming days. Trade deadline tomorrow, 2 p.m. is the deadline. And we'll have the coverage for you here, of course, on Sports Talk 790. I'm going to say no deal. No deal at all. Like, this is it. I could see that. I could see that definitely being the case for the Houston Rockets. I just certainly don't think it's going to be good. They're not big game hunting. I don't think. I think they're going to stay the course. They like their guys.

They're going to continue to let them develop and then go from there because they're already exceeding expectations. Even if they finish, I mean, anywhere in the top playoff, top six of the playoffs, certainly the top four, they're ahead of expectations. ahead of schedule in this phase two run that they are on. What else you got? Connor McGovern? I mean, speaking of the NBA trade deadline, that is tomorrow afternoon. We saw some more moves this morning as the Milwaukee Bucks are trading Chris Middleton, AJ Johnson, and a pick swap to the Washington Wizards for Kyle Kuzma, Patrick Paulwin, Jr.,

and a second round draft compensation. Dallas is sending Quentin Grimes in Philadelphia's 2025, a second round pick back to the 76ers for Kayla Martin as well. So two bigger trades. going on this morning. So Kyle, it's going to be Kyle Kuzma as part of a big three with Dame Lillard and Yonisantacupo. Are they going to try to move somebody else?

I think they might be set with that big three moving on from Chris Middleton. Ugh. I mean, is Chris Middleton that washed? He'd been a big part of what they've been trying to do the last couple of years. He'd been very good defensively. I guess he is 33 years old at this point.

But as far as like a 3-and-D wing, it's kind of surprising to me that they would move on from him and go to Kyle Kuzma. I don't know. Any thoughts on that, Gordy? You're going to break down the trade? I mean, is your gut that we're going to get a big trade?

I mean, the Durant stuff, I don't know. They're floating that out there. I know the Rockets have always had their eyes on Durant, but I don't know, man. I don't want to blow up what you're building here, but you're a longhorn homer. You'd love to see Durant Rockets Scholars. I don't know that I would be over the moon about it just because of his age.

because what kind of pieces are you going to have to give up as far as the core of this team to acquire a 36-year-old? The rockets aren't in win now at all cost mode. Other teams may be, but not the rockets. So I actually wouldn't be in a big way in a favor of that move. I would not want them to disrupt this young core and what they're doing unless they think,

all right, we've got to push all over chips now and try to win a championship. and then that's that. That would be kind of going, staying off course, it would be making a huge leap into where they are in their development. It'd be like skipping a couple of grades in school or something. Like they're just not, it doesn't make logical sense with the path that they've been on lately.

Yeah, I'm just, again, I've said this before, and I'll say it again, you sucked for, you sucked so bad for several years, and you were rewarded with high draft picks, and you put a lot of work into the scouting, and everything to acquire those players, hang on to them. Continue the development.

I mean, they're still young. They're still developing. They're growing together, chemistry, all that. I just don't want to give that up for a chance at, oh, well, let's go get this big name person. Yeah, certainly not somebody that's 36 years old. I actually would have been more okay with like a Deerrin Fox type of move just because he's so much younger,

but clearly it seemed like he was on a path to going to the Spursy entire time. so it is what it is on that front. But yeah, a 36-year-old, even though he's an all-time great, towards the end of his career, I'm good, I think, on Kevin Dren. Now, if it happened, it'd be exciting for it this year, obviously, and the interest and intrigue would go up. But if it were me and I was GM of the Houston Rockets, which I'm not, I'd be staying the course.

What else you got? Kana McGovern on the news at News. Yesterday the Astros hosted their annual media luncheon and general manager Dana Brown got up on the podium and referred to Alex Bregman in the past tense saying, quote, we're missing out on Bregman. When asked to clarify his statements, Dana Brown said this. Well, ultimately, we're still having conversations about Bregman internally. And I'm probably leaving it down. Okay. What's the frustration level on that progress or last?

which preference on break the breakfast situation decision from their side and i guess from all side as well yeah i mean bregman's a free agent you know they can decide to do what they want to do and so and as long as he's a free agent we'll just continue to have our internal conversations about him still being developed brown later said the door isn't closed and like he said continuing to have internal conversations but there has been no new dialogue with bregman's agent scott borris Yeah, that door's just got to be closed. Or at least in Dana Brown's mind, it is. My favorite part of that clip Ross is where he goes, what progress?

What are you talking about? Yeah, he's like playing. He's like, who are you talking about frustration with who? Alex, what? Never heard of the guy. It's almost like, let's just move on. He didn't expect to be taking Alex Bregman questions on February 4th. He just didn't.

Where are you on progress? What progress? Oh, yeah, we're... Yeah, we're still talking about it. Yeah. Yeah, we're working it out. Yeah, we're working it out. I mean, like, again, if they really had something to tell you, they would tell you.

It was like a shooter McGavern and happy Gilmore. Well, happy? Oh, yeah. Where's he finished? Dead last? Yeah, yeah, I heard he had a good round. Yeah, he had a good round, though. Hey, did you see Ross?

The D is down, officially. Oh, on MinutMade. Yeah, Minutemade Park. is being, it's Diken Park, correct? Not Dakin Park? All right. I don't know if you had that in your news at noon, Connor,

but Minutamed is coming down. RIP. They're going to auction off, Jim Crane's going to auction off pieces of the sign, correct? Oh, I would. I'd put it a bid. You would? Minutemate Park sign in your man cave.

How much are you going to pay? A hundred. I think it's going to go a little more than that, Gordy. Really? Yeah. Come on, man. Those are big letters, though. I don't know if I'd, maybe you'd have to go in the backyard.

Yeah, get the whole sign of the backyard signing and hanging up on your house. I don't know if my HOA would go for that. Probably not. You'd be getting a letter within milliseconds the way the HOA people are. Okay, that's the news at noon with Connor McGovern. Connor, thanks for bringing us all the top sports news items of the day. We appreciate you. Of course.

All right. Chris Gordy is out in New Orleans. getting us all the top name guests to, well, he was rebuffed by Stugats and then I think he was left at the altar by Stugats. We're still holding on hope. Yeah, we're holding out hope. Can we get Stugat?

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centergenics health dot com back to matt thomas and ross via real on sports talk 790 welcome back sports talk 790 ros via ral chris gordy with you conna mcgoverin is here It is the Matt Thomas show with Matt Thomas out traveling as he seems to do every single week lately, and that's okay. We will be up in spring training in a couple of weeks. That should be fun. As you mentioned, Gordy, the kind of the media, the unveiling of the hashtag, which, by the way, how do you feel about the built for this hashtag for the use of Astros? I like it. They are built for this.

Built for what? for overcoming losing players but still staying world series contender okay yeah i guess we'll see and we've been talking a lot about the go ahead it's like something the kids say right like i'm built for this built for this yeah it's something yeah it feels a little pass-a though but whatever what do i know i'm not in the marketing department making all that money i thought you know what at first when i heard relentless i didn't like it but as the season went on i kind of liked Relentless. So maybe I'll warm up to it as it goes along.

Yeah, it turned out. Turned out the postseason. They weren't very relentless. It also got fun when they were losing games. It was like relentless one-run game losses. Relentless Ryan Presley base runners. But then they relentlessly won the AOS. Well, they went 88 games last year. And is that person talking to you, Gordy? Oh, sounds like, this is, okay, just listen to this. Gordy's getting offered guests. Crawfish. Yeah. It's funny, man.

People see you on a headset. Yeah. And they still come talk to you. It happens to us. We're on remote. I love all you people who come out and see us on remote. You're amazing and we appreciate every single one of you that listen to us. But when we're talking on headsets, we're on air.

It's just, we can't really talk to you. No, that was great. She just offered you crawfish? I think so. I mean, that's a good, it's a nice comp, you know, but like I don't know I guess maybe next year you know what I'm going to bring speaker because when a speaker is pumping out audio you know that person's on the air

it still doesn't stop people for whatever reason and when you know it Ross the handful people have come and approach me while we're on air um no real appealing guess yeah I was actually going to say that while you were talking to her I was going to be I was I was kind of doing like a uh like as a nature show and you're out in nature gordon like all right folks over here Chris gawty's being approached by a PR person.

When you're approached by PR, you do not want to get. Anytime you get approached by a guest, it is not a good guest. Good guest, you have to hunt and find. What you don't get is the PR girl coming over going, hey, I have Ray Lewis next hour. Well, you might want to be watching out on that one. Well, but you know what I mean?

Like, it's not, hey, I just wanted to come by and tell you guys have Hugo Collins from the Texans. I saw y'all were Houston. Yeah, we've got Eli Manning for you, if you'd like. No, it's usually some guy you've never. it's unfortunate because look they're just trying to do their job you understand and it's their job to go pimp out some guests that nobody wants it's like hey we've got the the king of barbecue ribs he wants to come on for a couple of some of i actually would take that that would be really funny i would try i would no we did that one year we're like no we're good he's like yeah we got the king of uh he's got the he's the best rib cooker in america it's like no we don't want to give out people rib tips on the on the show i saw they you The comedian guy was here the other day. Craig Gass.

Oh, my God. He's there every year. Hey, guys. You want to have me on? Let me know. Craig Gass. He's a nice guy. They love to sell him as, you know, he's been on Family Guy.

Yeah, like nine years ago, he did a voice over on Family Guy. Hey, he's been on American Dad. That's one of those things. Like, if you can get on one show once, like, I did an episode of Simpsons, and then I can go, he's been featured on The Simpsons. Yeah. Or like some random adult swim cartoon network show that nobody's ever heard of. Yeah, this is from adult swim.

Like that's how they introduce you on the open mic night or something. Or like at the comedy showcase. You might have heard them on Adult Swim. No, I haven't heard him on Adult Swim. Yeah, the guy who like 15 years ago did one appearance on Jimmy Fallon, they go, oh, as seen on. Yes. Late night with Jimmy Fallon. Absolutely.

You've seen him on, what is it, America's Top Comic. comic. He was eliminated in the first round. They showed him for six seconds and he did not even make it through. Folks, come and check him out. A lot of New Orleans people. DeMario Davis from the Saints is making the rounds. I mean, it's a lot of...

Yeah, they're just at home, right? You didn't feel like it happened in Houston. It was like a bunch of people from around Houston area. We're walking around Radio Row. Well, if you remember, that was 17. A.J. Hinch made the rounds on Radio Row. Yeah, we're like, what the heck is A.J. Hinch doing up here? We had them because we had the Astros, and it was awesome.

But it was like, as people talk at Super Bowl, like, let's switch gears and talk some baseball. Hey, AJ Hinch, do you think Matt Ryan and the Falcons can get this thing done? Little did they know he would go on to be the World Series champion that year. Yes. Yes, he did. And then years later, he would be fired. I still wonder the what if. I was talking to somebody about that yesterday.

the what if, if they had gone the route of it was the Red Sox guy that they, that just got the one year suspension had the Astros just suspended Hinch and Luna for one year, what would have Oh, Alex Cora? Yeah. How nobody talks about the Boston Red Sox

being dinged for cheating twice, and they hired the manager that got fired as one of the orchestrators of the Houston Astro scandal and the Astero still get all the heat for cheating? Mm-hmm. It doesn't make any sense. Okay. I was somewhere recently with a bunch of people

and it was people from all over the country and they were like, oh yeah, Chris does some pretty post game shows for the Astros and one guy was like, oh, I'm not even going to say anything. I was like, no, please say something. I would love to debate this with you. No, I don't like getting into it. What is the old saying?

Like, do not get caught up arguing with a fool because people from a distance won't know the difference or something like that? Basically that. Don't even waste your time. You were starting to run through. I was trying to remember the past hashtags from years past. Root, root, root.

Well, that was the bad years. Yeah, take it back. Remember that one? Hashtag take it back, yeah. They tried. They didn't take it back at that point. They did in 2022. Well, there was some, remember the stupid, fan interference with Buckey Betts and the Red Sox.

and all that stuff. Yeah. It was Altovae. It was a home run, but they overturned it. Anyway. For the H was in 2021. For the H. I like that one. That one's good.

I don't know. Tweet us at Sports RV at Chris Gordy. What was last year? Last year was relentless. Relentless. Oh, 18 was never settle. Never settle. I just want Google Astros hashtags

And I'm getting some of them They've all been good What was the Texans this year? H-town made Yes, H-Town made Like C.J. Strauss not from H-Town What do we talk about? None of these guys are from H-Town

Oh, 2020 was level up Yeah I forgot about that That was okay It's fine Rockets have lift-off this year Yeah, I like lift-off What's next year? Boom? Hashtag boom?

No, hashtag landing? What do you do after your lift off? I don't know. I'm confused. It's the 2025 Houston Rocket season. Hashtag separating boosters. Oh, yeah. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think the analogy works. It doesn't carry that far, Gordy.

All right. On that note, we're going to take a break here. On the Mad Thomas show with Ross, Chris Gordy is at. at New Orleans Super Bowl. So we got anything booked? Where's Stugats? We're still in a holding pattern. We're still in a holding pattern with Stugats, folks. So you've got to stay tuned here on Sports Talk 790.

Carissa Thompson has canceled on us. They're like, oh, look at that guy in Houston. Yeah, we're not going over there. Let's tell them we're sick. So thanks for that, Gordy. We appreciate it. We'll have some other guests coming along. Gordy is out at Radio Row in New Orleans.

I am here in Houston. And you can get in. talking Astros, talking about how do you feel about El Tuvae in left field? If you had to guess how many games is El Tuveh going to play in left? What's going to happen with the rest of the offseason? Rockets with the heartbreaking, no, I will say it, choking loss last night to the Brooklyn Nets. Anything else you want to get into? 713-2-790.

7-1-2-790. Welcome back here on Sports Talk 790. Ross v. Real with you. Chris Gordy as well. it is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Matt Thomas is traveling with the Houston Rockets. They are on to Minneapolis. They continue this grueling stretch.

And I understand there's maybe some of you're like, no excuses, blah, blah, blah. The team needs to win them. And I'm with you, especially on that Brooklyn Nets game last night. They need to win that game. They have to win that game. It's just, I mean, the way that the Western Conference is tightly compacted to where,

you're still kind of nipping on the heels of the Memphis Grizzlies, but now full two games back of them. So you need to catch them. With the tiebreaker that you have, you just need to be even and level with the Memphis Grizzlies. Nuggets are only one game back. They've won three in a row. Lakers just got a guy named Luca Donchich

and have won three games in a row as it is. I've officially taken them off a fraud alert, of course. And Rob Polinka agreeing with me that they weren't championship contenders the way that they were comprised. But now they have Luca Donchich, and who knows if they're going to make another piece, a move for another piece here in the next day or so. So the Western Conference is tough, losing to the lowly Brooklyn Nets who are not even really trying to win. And only playing three, not playing for three and a half quarters in that game certainly hurts.

You can get in at 713, 212, 570, 713, 212, 5790, the phone number as well. Gordy is joining us from New Orleans. down at Radio Row. Any more interesting sights and sounds out there in New Orleans, Gordy? And did you pick up some crawfish? I've not seen at crawfish, no, but there was a guy to my immediate left

wearing a, it is a custom made, Taylor and Travis' gold jacket he has made. Oh my God. In honor of, it says Travis and Taylor, it has a picture of them kissing. What? It's a like, it's a jacket?

Yeah, it's like a sports code, but it's gold sequenced. Gold sequin. Gold sequin jacket with Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift. And at the bottom it says Swifty-9. All right, keep an eye on this guy.

He's a psychopath. This guy's crazy. Everyone is taking pictures of it. That's the funny thing about this. You want to get any attention, bring anything that's slightly a spectacle. And you'll get a million people taking pictures of you. Yeah, we saw that with the Asweiler can here in Houston, correct?

Yeah, well, yes, that was certainly one. There was also one he dressed up like Mike Ditka. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. I thought that was funny. Yeah, a lot of people from Chicago really loved all that, all that good stuff. Are we going to get you dressed up as anything while you're out there, Gordy? I don't know. I should have, like, here's what we should have done in hindsight.

We should have found, like, bounty as a sponsor could have, like, paid for me to come dressed up as something. Hmm. How's your side? It was a giant paper towel roll. Or how about the bounty man there? Bounty Man? You know, like a moustachioed lumberjack or whatever? Well, what about like Boudreau's butt paste sponsors me and I'm like, I dress up like Coach. I dress up like Coach O and I do interviews as Coach O. Yeah, let's have, you know what, let's do an audition for that. Coach O, how are things out there at Radio Row?

Oh, really good. Thanks, Roles. You know, maybe you do have a future in this. Gordon. Maybe we can get that going. By the way, I was getting to thinking Nick Cayley is now the offensive coordinator of the Houston Texans, and you're down there in the Super Bowl for Radio Row. If you had to guess, are we going to

be at Radio Row covering the Texans anytime, and I'll say in the next three years? In the Super Bowl? Yes. What are the future Super Bowl sites? I think, what? It's like Vegas. Again?

I think so. Well, that's true. They just went to Vegas. about thinking the national championship. Let's see. Levi's Stadium is next year. Oh, God. That I heard was the most expense. People went there for Super Bowl years ago and National Championship was like,

yeah, my hotel was 900 a night and every meal I had was $150. Like, Santa Clara is not a cheap place to stay. It looks like the usual suspects coming up. So you're in New Orleans, which is hosted, what, like six, seven Super Bowls at this point? Well, yeah, they have the old ones at like Tulane Stadium back in the day.

Yeah, go down to Tulane Stadium, catch a Super Bowl, baby. You would a man with the half a foot kick the game with a field goal. That's true. Yeah, Levi's Stadium next year, Santa Clara. After that, it'll be SoFi Stadium. Of course, L.A. And then Mercedes Ben Stadium. Yeah, Atlanta.

So there's a next three. We may go to that one. 2028. Mark your calendar. Yeah, mark your calendar. that'll be CJ Stroud will be fully established as a star

quarterback and yeah and so we'll look forward to that one I'm going to be honest I'm not super optimistic right now I asked a few people about Nick Cayley and they were like yeah I think he's good

like nobody's like nobody's really stumping for him nobody's like yes this is what the Texans were missing nobody is saying that the John Carroll graduate it that Nick Casario, they went to the same school as Nick Casario and they worked together

in the New England? Great. Oh, James Harrison just walking by. Oh, really? Why don't you challenge him to an arm wrestling match? Why don't you get some real content for Sports Talk 790, Gordy? He's another one that looks angry. If you thought Vince Wilford looked angry,

James Harrison looked really angry. Yeah, you should talk to him, though. Say, hey, I bet you I can arm wrestle you and beat you. I bet you a six pack of bounty wings. We also have Greg Olson standing. Oh, is he still pissed off? Is he wearing a shirt of like Tom Brady at the combine, looking all squirrelly and raggedy?

Like a big X through him? Yeah. Man, he came out publicly talking about how he's mad that he got off of those games. He's not working in the Super Bowl this year. Poor guy. He should. It's to be replaced by a guy who's not good at his job. Who's not as good as you.

Oh, I just saw this picture you put up with the Travis Kelsey Swiftie. Yeah. Oh, my God. This is ridiculous. Oh, the other part says Super Bowl Swifty 9 is what it says. That's terrible. So I'm glad Greg Olson

at least gathered himself enough to get out there and stump for Fox Sports. We should try to get him on. I'd like to hear him all pissed off. Tom Brady taking his job. He went from $10 million a year to $3 million. Well, he's doing draft games. Here's the thing, Ross.

The big-name people, they do all the big hitters. they do very little on the local radio front. Use code 987. Draft Kings pick six here on Sports Talk 790. I got no problems with draft Kings, bro. No, what I'm saying is like they're like a national whatever. Yeah, they're on with Dan Patrick and whatever, whoever national. Jim Rome, but I mean, we probably have as many listeners that Jim Rome does nationally at this point.

Anybody ever listen to that show? Where does it even come on? No, I saw he didn't even come this year. like they don't even have it in the budget to send Jim Rome anywhere. Ouch. You're paying that giant contract he probably signed. It's not getting any return on that. Yeah, so we'll try to flag some people.

I just saw a couple buddies I'm on. I know that are here not really doing anything. My buddy Carter's here. I'm going to say, Carter, I'll pay you $10 if you can go get us a guest. Just go get us anybody. Yeah, you should. By the way, Sam is tweeting in. He's wondering if you're able to get Taylor Mathis on as a guest for Radio Row.

I've not seen her, but. That would be a great hit because Matt would die. Exactly. That would be perfect. You know what? We're putting you on Taylor Mathis watch. Get her for some other show, not on the Matt Thomas show. That would be hilarious.

No, just the fact she's on the Matt Thomas show the day he's off. Yeah. That would be perfect. That was a great call by Sam there on Twitter. All right, anyways, I was saying I was worried about the Texans making the Super Bowl because let me just go through this list for you. Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen,

Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, and then C.J. Stroud. And I don't know what's going to happen. Maybe Drake May is going to be up and coming. AFC is stacked, man. You got like six of the top ten quarterbacks over here,

and I guess, okay, that makes sense by conference mathematically. It's pretty close. But it's too much, man. I'm worried about the Texans, and just because how good the AFC is. The good news is

none of those guys are in the AFC South, so you should be able to win the division and get in the playoffs and roll the dice and something good can happen. Yeah, it's just like, it reminds me of, we didn't waste them, but like the hardened in Houston years overlapped with the Golden State.

Yeah, you were held back by a dynasty. It sucks, and so it may be one of those things we look back down the road and go, man, C.J. Stroud was one of the best what ifs, but he just played in the Pat Mahomes error. Oh, dude. It could happen.

I mean, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley, Carl Malone, John Stockton. They all have rings if it's not for Michael Jordan. Yep. Oh, all right. Now I've upset myself. We're going to take another break here on Sports Talk 790. We are in deep into hour number three, hour number four coming up. Gordy is joining us from New Orleans out at Radio Row.

We got some guests coming up in the fourth hour. You want to get in. You can at 713-21-5-7-90. 713-212-5-790. Good news. It's the Matt Thomas Show for lunch. Let that boring brown bag lunch rot in the employee refrigerator. Oh, what's that smell?

The Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross, with Chris Gordy. Chris Gordy with us out in New Orleans in Radio Row or Media Row or whatever you want to call it. Ross with you here in studio. Now we already have people tweeting at. Taylor trying to get her on the show now, Courtney. I see that. Let's make it happen. She's not even there, is she?

I don't know. Don't know unless you ask, right? I guess you don't. All right, 713, 2125-790 is the phone number. 7-1-3-21-2-5-7-90. So if I have this correct, Carissa Thompson has canceled on us, but we will get Longhorn Legend

Jalen Ford on the show as we go along. That's the hope, yeah. Former Longhorn. I thought somebody was talking to you. Who's this person? Who's near you right now? Well, it's just people in the background. Oh, it sounded like, never mind.

Okay. It's getting very busy. You said it was dying? Well, he was picking up again. Okay. All right, cool. Greg Olson has developed quite a following of people. People, is everybody offering him condolences?

Does he have like a tip jar out to recruit the $7 million he lost because of Tom Brady? Brady's bad, man. I don't know how they're going to fix that. He's going to get better, I guess. Hall of Dudd broadcaster. All right. That's a little rude. By the way, I saw something that made me laugh a couple of minutes ago.

Did you see Tim McMahon who's been covering the Mavericks? He was a Mavericks guy only. And then, of course, ESPN had massive layoffs. He's been covering the entire NBA, but based out of Dallas. He just tweeted out a link to his book about the Dallas Mavericks and rebuilding with Luca Donchich. Oh, that's bad timing. I know.

He probably spent all these years. Here's Tim McMahon's tweet. My book, The Wonder Boy, chronicling all the drama and dysfunction as the Mav scrambled to build a contender around Luca Danchich is available for pre-order. For pre-order, it's not even out now. I know. He spent all this time writing this book. And what sucks is it probably already went to print. Like he's, it's already out there.

Oh my God, you're right. It will be, so apparently he's writing a new, he's like scrambling to write a new chapter, is what he's saying. Oh, he said that? Yeah, he's writing a new chapter. And if you pre-order the book, you're going to have to basically get it online, I guess. Wow. Oh, yeah, he said last week's little plot twist. I'm writing a final, final chapter.

Yeah, well, that's good, though, because then he can get Lake, fans to buy it. Nobody's going to buy this book. I feel bad. Tim McMahon's a nice guy, at least in my interactions with him. He does a great job breaking news and has been covering the NBA beats for years. This is bad luck.

That's brutal. Oh my God. That's really brutal. Oh my gosh. We should get him on to try to talk about the book. He would always come on. We'd get him back to the day when he was ESPN Dallas. That would be like, he is the

Unluckiest man in America. That would be like in 2018, you and I get together and writing a book about James Hardin, the Rocket Savior. Yeah. How he's face of this franchise really taking things off and now, and then they trade him. I mean, you get blindsided by this trade. What do you think was going through Tim McMahon's mind when he saw Shams post this? Oh my God, please, this can't be true. This can't be true.

That's hilarious. Oh, man. That is just, that is all... You talk about all-time bad beats. I'm clicking on. Hatchet Book Group? These poor people at Hatchet Book Groups are going to have book...

Like, these things, they're just kind of the ship these, the third world countries like they do with teams that lose the championship. Like, he has to have... He saw that, like, he gets that notification that that trade is happening, and, like, all the blood just rushes to his face. And he's like, no.

No, this can't be happening. Oh, okay. Actually, he put out a link from pre-orders in November. So this has been in the works. Oh, yeah. No, if he, if you're saying a pre-orders in November, and it's February, and it's released in March, those books are all printed. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to have to do an online final chapter added.

Oh, man. This is bad. Whoof. I don't even know what to say. well, Luca Dachis is the Laker and Tim McMahon is going to have a lot of extra He's going to be handing them out like He might come to Radio Rowan next year

And hand you out a bunch of free books He's going to have to do something And it's him It's called the Wonder Boy And it's him in a Dallas jersey On the cover like No, did you see the under The what do they call it the second title

The secondary title or whatever The Wonder Boy Luca Donchitin's in the curse of greatness Oh Well It's a curse of greatness It's a curse all right. They need to give 50% off on these pre-orders or something.

My God. That's wrong. I'm trying to think of like, oh, I know. What if we had written a book about the next great Texans wide receiver, D'Andre Hopkins is already cementing his legacy in Houston. Yeah. That's pretty good. And then he just gets completely traded away and he's gone.

For a bag of potato chips. Man. Oh, could he pivot? Could he put Anthony Davis on the cover? Oh, no. And make it the Wonder Boy? I don't think so. The Wonder Boy, the Mavericks.

Anthony Davis. That's a shame. Poor Tim McMahon. Nice guy. I was working on that Kyle Tucker book, too. Yeah, you were. About that. See, but that was smart.

Look, at least you would know if you're writing a Kyle Tucker book. You know he's probably not staying here long term. This is a complete blindside job. This is completely out of nowhere. you figure Luke is about to sign the Supermax. He's 25 years old and you're keeping him forever. Did you see there was a lot of damage control coming out to Dallas doing like, oh, no, I heard he's an alcoholic.

I heard he's overweight. I heard his work ethic's terrible. He's fat. He's 300 pounds. He's got an alcohol problem. He won't take, we got him on Ozimic and he's got zero work ethic. They're doing, yeah, they're doing everything they can. I mean, I'm like, nobody out there.

would listen to that and still be like, oh, you know, or it would be like, I don't want him. Like, everyone would still take him. Yeah, at the end of the day, you still could have gotten like 10 first round picks for him. It makes no sense. That's the dumbest thing. I mean, like, that's collusion, man. That's, that was, that reeks of we wanted massive superstar in L.A.

Lakers. I can't believe this has got approved by anybody. I mean, Adam Silver's not going to, if this trade was so like the Utah Jazz, Adam Silver might go ahead and, like, veto the, trade, but it ain't happening if it's going to the Los Angeles Lakers for Luca Donchitz in the next 10 years. Insane.

All right. Poor Tim McMahon. So one more time for Tim McMahon, the book plug. It is called the Wonder Boy with Luca Donchich on the cover. In a Mavericks uniform. All about how he's changing the tide of the Dallas Mavericks. Hmm.

And if you order the book, apparently you're going to get access to the final chapter. All right. That's That's some horrible luck. I feel bad for Tim. All right, time for a quick break here. You're a Mavericks fan. You don't want to buy that?

No. I don't want to read about him leaving. That was what you're going to do. You're going to be able to sell a thousand of these or two thousand of these, however many books of these in Dallas. And now they're not going to buy this crap. They're probably not going to buy it. It's all about the Mavericks, so they're not going to buy it in L.A.

Hmm. Tough scenes for a good friend Tim McMahon. All right, time for a break here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Chris Cordy is out in New Orleans. I'm here in Houston. You want to get in. And 713-212-5-7-90 is the phone number. 7-13-21-2-5-7-90.

We've got some guests coming up in the next hour with Gordy out at Radio Row in New Orleans. Don't go anywhere. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas show. Hour number four of the Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. Chris Gordy joining us from New Orleans. phone lines open at 713, 212-1-2-5-790, 7-13-212-5-7-90.

Gordy is all being out at Radio Row. Is it getting you in the mood for the Super Bowl coming up with the Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Philadelphia Eagles? Yeah, man, I was going to say, I'm so excited for the game, and then I was going to ask, who's playing again? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm in one cup feeling the over exposure, if you will, of the Kansas City Chiefs. I think a lot of people are wanting to go, like a lot of people are wanting to root Eagles

because they're like, I'm done with the Chiefs. But then part of me kind of wants the history of Mahomes to get. What would be his fourth ring? It would be his fourth ring, dude, in seven years as a starter. The chasing Brady and all that, I just think it's hilarious because I was at that Texas Bowl. whatever year that was, 14 in Houston, watching this dinky Texas Tech quarterback, LSU just get after it.

Leonard Fournett was the headliner that day. He rushed for like 200 yards or something. And then at LSU had built this monster lead. Then they started giving a big chuck place through the air because they're like, well, this game's in hand. And then like Mahomes finished with like 400 yards or something, but it was like it was the most underwhelming 400 yards. I just remember my thought after that game going,

Yeah, that's cute. I mean, we'll see if that guy gets on a practice squad or something. And then on Radio Row that year, we had Lee Steinberg, and we were scheduled with Lee, and we had a couple of his clients. And last minute they reach out, they go, hey, would you be okay, Lee's going to come on with his client, Texas Tech quarterback Patrick Mahomes. We just figured because it's Houston, it's a Texas market, we'll put him on. And I was like, yeah, I guess. You know, we were hoping to talk with Lee, but we'll put, we'll put this Patrick Mojones.

Holmes get on too sure and so we had them all with Greg and ND that ain't ground like that's all yeah and he was just and it was just funny because I have the pictures Ross there's nobody behind us like there was no mob there was no attention at all yeah and and fast forward whatever it's been eight years 10 years and now this guy's literally like a net we never thought there would be anybody in our lifetime give a run for their money at Tom Brady for the greatest ever play and I mean, if Mahomes wins it on Sunday, he will absolutely be in the driver's seat, barring catastrophic career-ending injury to do that. Yeah, it's crazy how he's pacing.

It'll be interesting to see. Andy Reid did say he's coming back next year, but how much longer can Andy Reid coach? He's 67 years old. He's the second oldest coach in football. He was the oldest until the Raiders went out and hired Pete Carroll, who's 73. So I wonder how much this train can keep going And what the situation will be when they try to find a new coach

Generally in the NFL when you're looking for a new head coach It's because somebody's gotten fired And you're looking for like the next up and coming guy You're picking up scraps or whatever like We got to find somebody Whenever Andy Reid decides to retire and hang them up It will be after one of the greatest head coaching careers in NFL history And they'll be picking up the pieces

And with Pat Mahalms I imagine still in position to be a contend And isn't it wild how the How the narrative changed How it went from He like Andy Reid and Philly was like the guy who just couldn't get over the hump Yeah He had all those NFC championship game appearances with Eagles But they'd always lose

And always come up short But now he's in Kansas City and he can't lose Like it's like they just keep getting the Super Bowl every year We spent all this time talking about Andy reading Like clock management issues and he can't do this and that and he snake bit and then all of a sudden it all matters it's like for the people to say oh is it tom brady's a belichick or it's all tom brady or it's all you know nobody ever says it's all belichick anymore because tom brady won one with the tamp bay buccaneers but that was a debate at one point in time

because remember belichick had the points in his favor because with tom brady out they went like eleven and five with matt castle as the quarterback so it takes a lot it takes a lot of luck you got to win the games you got to have a great defense which the kansas city chiefs have had the last couple of years as well. Because it hasn't been, you know, Pat Mahomes getting all the headlines. He had a mediocre season. And they went 15 and 1 in games they actually tried to win. A lot of it has to be the backs of the defense.

And I think that is kind of one of the underrated storylines, at least from the general public. People who know and watch football know that this chief defense is legit and for real. And we know that here in Houston. But if Pat Mahomes, Travis Kelsey getting all the headlines, this chief defense the last couple of years has really been how they've been winning. Yeah, I mean, we saw that firsthand just a couple weeks ago with Texans in Kansas City. And it just, it sucks so bad, Ross, because that drive out of the halftime, right? They come out, Texans go right down the field, Joe Mixing touchdown, they missed the PAT.

Yeah. But you're right back in that game. And the Chief's defense just, they couldn't move the ball. And then Straug just starts getting sacked, sacked, sacked, it's miserable. Yeah. So Super Bowl fever, maybe not taking over for a lot of people. But we're getting closer and closer. And I'm with you. I think to me, the way I get most interested in this is the history angle. Can Kansas City Chiefs win three straight? I know there is a lot of chief fatigue. There is a lot of people who think that the NFL is rigging the games, which, by the way, if you think they're rigging it for Kansas City, Missouri, you're an idiot. And if you think Jerry Jones and, you Cal McNair and the rest of the league is agreeing to allow this league to be rigged so that Kansas City can get all the Super Bowls. You're an idiot.

Exactly. I'm going to put it after. I talked to somebody about that yesterday. They were asking me about, they think the NFL's rigged and all. I'm like, look, it's rigged from a standpoint of stars get calls, but that's in every sport. For years, Tom Brady was always well protected.

That if you even sniffed on him, there was coming a personal foul. So, yeah, when he takes off and running and two, Texans defenders collide on top of him, a personal foul. That's not cheating. That's just, it's just how it is. LeBron gets calls in the NBA. It's just, that's how it goes.

Yeah, I mean, pitchers, great, pitchers get greater, better strike zones. Yep. More disciplined hit him. Justin Verlander? How many Verlander borderline strikes does he walk off the mound? And the umpire goes, strike. Absolutely.

Greg Maddox back of the day. Greg Maddox is like the sign of a size of a barn door. His strike zone. It's just the way that it is. It's the way of the world. The Chiefs, you want to get superstar calls? You got to have some superstars. It happened.

We complained here in Houston about all the calls that everybody else got. And then when James Hardin was here, that dude was getting 10 calls a night. Well, I'd love it if Superstar left tackled Laramie Tunso could get some calls. That'd be great. Well, actually, he does get away with some of the fall starts, quite frankly. He does. He should have had more than he had. He likes to, for what, I mean, he likes to live on the Razor's edge.

as far as timing the snap count and making sure he's off there right at the snap count to help him out with the heap his sack and pressure rate down, which I'm sure he's acutely aware of. And sometimes he jumps off sides. And I think I have seen several times this year where he gets a little bit borderline and doesn't get called. Yeah. Well, let's see. Let's see if Stroud starts getting some superstar calls and see if, let's see if some of our rockets can get some superstar calls. I want to see that. Yeah, that'd be nice.

Oh, we have a trade. A rocket, an NBA trade? Yes. Is it a breaking news sound or worthy? No, not at all. Oh, come on, man. It is a former rocket being traded. Kenyon Martin Jr.

I'm just guessing. I'm close. Go ahead. Oh, you know who just walked by me? Who was the Italian agent guy? Oh, Tommy DeVito's agent? Yes. What's he doing?

He got fired, didn't he get fired by Tommy DeVito? I think so. He's making the rounds. No, the... Sean Stilado. That's it. That's him. Is he wearing a signature hat?

He is. Oh, he would be. I'll send you a picture. The Pelicans, Norm's Pelicans, are trading center Daniel Tice. to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Rockets legend. So the thunder get even deeper. That's interesting.

Is Isaiah Hardinstein? No, he's been hurt. They think he's going to be out for a while or something? Well, he's their starter, but isn't Jalen Williams? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if they've had some injury issues or what. I'm not keeping track of the thunder as much as maybe I should. Yeah.

Well, they just got deeper, so good luck to them. Yeah, Daniel's Heist's not that great. That's fine. Rockets legend. No, but he's like a decent guy off the bench. He's a decent depth center. That's fine. Okay.

So the Thunder are winning the West, if you ask me. I just don't see another team. Maybe the Nuggets. Man, that's as bold of a prediction as your guy yesterday that Alex Bregman would sign with a team. Hey, come on. Mine's a little bit more bold. Nuggets could be plucky. I just don't think the Rockets are there yet.

Grizzlies me? We'll see. Look at Donchards Lakers. I'll be curious to see what they do in the next couple of days. Because they need front court players. Who's... And there's the whole talk of what they trade for... Kevin Durant?

Well, no. The Warriors are going to trade... Yeah, add Durant or some superstar. Yeah, I guess we'll see. Trade deadline tomorrow 2 p.m. here on Sports Talk 7.90. All right. is out at New Orleans at Radio Row.

We got a couple of guests coming up this hour. My name is Ross Villariel. You don't want to miss those. I believe it's Danny Worfell we'll have on here. And Longhorn Legend coming up, Jalen Ford, also currently in the NFL. I forget why off the top of my head who Jalen Ford plays for. It is the New Orleans Saints. That's right.

Yeah, so he's in New Orleans hanging out. We'll get Jailen Ford coming up here as well. Out at Radio Row, Sports Talk 7.98 is the Matt Thomas Show. with Ross. Matt Thomas, Ross via real. It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790.

Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross v. Real with you. Matt Thomas is out. He is traveling with the Houston Rockets. He'll be back tomorrow. They are heading to Minnesota. After last night's embarrassing loss, it was a choke, quite frankly,

to the Brooklyn Nets, 97 to 99. We are joined by Chris Gordy, who is out at Radio Row. In New Orleans, we got a couple of guests coming up, Gordy. Is that correct? Heisman Trophy winner, Danny Werfel? Yeah, I always like talking ball with Dol Wharf. He's actually, he was in Houston a few weeks ago in a pickleball tournament. Oh, is he a big pickleball guy?

Apparently, we'll find out. Pickle ball's catching on, like wildfire. You play much pickleball, Gordy? I have not But I remember y'all used to have a caller down at what Galveston Pickle Ball P I believe would call in Yeah Pickleball is like it's enjoying a renaissance Foxenball with Worfell

And then also still slayed to have Jalen Ford Former Longhorn Well I didn't realize you're else I looked back that playoff lost to Washington A year ago He had 10 tackles in that game He laid it all out there

Quinn Ewers didn't get it done Wait who had 10 tackles in that game Jalen Ford? Okay. Yeah, good for him. Jalen Ford was good. How has he been doing for your New Orleans Saints? He was okay.

He was a rookie. Okay. Learning the ropes. We'll have to find out if you and he had all the same mutual drinking spots in Austin. Oh, I'm going to guess not. I say because I was there 20 years ago and most of them are gone. How does that make you feel old saying you're in college 20 years ago? Yes, it does make me.

feel old and I was in college 20 years ago and I am old. When I saw Vince Young last week and his beard was fully gray. Yeah, my beard's fully gray. I'm old, dude. Getting, getting long in the tooth, as they say. But VY was an all-star athlete, I mean. That's true, and I wasn't. I had a class with V-O-I back in the day.

Oh, yeah? Did he go every day? What do you think? I will tell you, I had, it was one of those, like, 55-minute Monday, Wednesday, Friday classes. It was introduction to advertising. He would show up about 30, 35 minutes in. I had the same similar experience with a lot of my guys at LSU. They would, there were coaches who would come around and check through the window for attendance.

And early Doucette, former first-round pick, second-round pick, wide receiver. He was not in class a lot. Hmm. And he was even on test. And then one time, it was when they were, it was OU week. And they were going to play OU. And the professor was like, I want to wish a good luck to the quarterback this weekend in Dallas. I'm like, dude, he ain't here.

He wasn't in there. That was pretty funny. When he won the championship, though, he gets a pass, right? Absolutely. Just give him straight aes. He can do whatever he wants. Look, look, am I going to delude myself to thinking that big time players at Texas football are taking all their classes and tests? Of course not.

It's happening everywhere. It's happening at LSU. U of H got dinged for it, didn't they? Didn't they get some kind of NCAA violation for players taking their tests or something like that? U of H did? Yes. I didn't hear that. I remember North Carolina had that.

Yeah. Here we go. 2020. Infractions report. One year of probation, $5,000 fine. It was, yeah, that was in 2020 back in the day. everybody gets a pass for 2020 academic misconduct

that's what it was called who will have a bigger year this year Ross archmanning at Texas or Connor Wegman at U of H I'm going to say Archmanning because he's the higher pedigree prospect but also can I tell you I'm a little bit worried

like if Archmanning was this all that no doubt about it can't be a stopped quarterback wouldn't Steve Sarkeesian have put him in at some point? Well, Quinn Ewers was supposed to be pretty damn good. He was supposed to be, but he was good, not great. That's how described Quinn Ewers. Like, maybe really good. He was good enough if everybody around him was good enough

to win a national championship. But you weren't going to necessarily win because of Quinn Ewers. Now, they won the Arizona State game because of him, but those moments felt a little bit too far and few between. Well, well, that's Jalen Ford What he thinks of Quinn yours pro prospects. Oh, okay. Would you draft him?

Oh, well, he's going to have to say something nice. He's not going to be, he's not going to come on here and be like, no, he sucks. I wouldn't take it. No, maybe we got Spencer Radler. Yeah. They do have Spencer Rattler. He's not from New Orleans.

He's going to be placed for the Saints. It's from Frisco, Texas, Jalen Ford. Yeah, Texas through and through. Lone Star High School, right? Two-time all first Big 12. All team first big 12 You know who would have been able to tell you that right off the back Craig Way? Oh yeah, of course.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. They reached the semifinals in 2019. They actually won it all into the, yeah, he would know everything. He knows the mascot. He knows it all. It's really impressive to see him do that in person. Yeah, didn't you, weren't you trying to,

didn't you put him like a pop quiz hot shot? And you were asking him a bunch of mascots from random high schools? Yeah, and he knew them all. Yeah. he is an encyclopedia of Texas high school sports he's like looking down at Laporte like he knows everything it's crazy oh he knows them all it's insane he still calls he still calls high school game

doesn't he yep and women's basketball games Ben's basketball games he's dedicated to the game Craig Way legendary and then the iconic championship call all the hopes all the dreams of the national championship come down to this play yeah I know that call because

Texas has not had a great moment in football since then. What are you talking about? Sugar Bowl, 2016-ish or whatever that was? Sam Ellinger, we'll be back. Oh, God, yeah. The great Tom Herman, we're back. Yeah, and then they weren't back. We can ask Jalen Ford about that.

He was there under Tom Herman, wouldn't he? Or was his first year, a Sark's first year? Yeah, Sark started there in 21. Yeah, he did get, he got one year under Tom Herman. There it go. That'd be a question we can ask. If he urinated yellow. If he was keeping proper hydration levels.

What you're saying, yeah, okay. Yeah, we'll get those questions and more in with Jalen Ford as we go along here on Sports Talk 790. We do have Danny Wharfel coming up. He is a Heisman trophy winner. That'll be a good guest. Chris Cordy is out with us at New Orleans, at the Radio Row. and then Jalen Ford coming up later on as well. So do not go anywhere.

We're going to take a little bit of an early break to make sure we get Danny Wharfell on time here. On Sports Talk 790, it is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We'll be back with Danny Worfell from Radio Row. Lunch timers. It's the Matt Thomas show with Ross on Sports Talk 790. Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. Rosby, Real, with you.

Chris Gordy. Going to be joined by a couple of guests here. He is down at Radio Row in New Orleans. You staying with family? What are you doing out there, Gordy? I know the hotel room's got to be expensive. Friends. Oh.

No, that's nice. I'm proud of you. Yeah, go look up on the price of a New Orleans hotel tonight. Let me know what you find. Actually, I'm going to go do that right now. I'm just curious. It's, I think you get one for $7,800 tonight. It's not awful, but the next few nights,

like, go look for Friday night. Yeah, you're looking about $1,400 a night. Dollars? Oh, yeah. Oh, and then Sunday night. You want a hotel room Sunday night in New Orleans, the night of the Super Bowl? Yeah, three to four grand for the Hilton. Oh, my God.

And that's the three-star Hilton. That's not even the nice one. Yeah. All right, I'm looking right now on Mice Mine. Let's see. Oh, wait a time. I can get the Trident Inn for $40,400. Yeah. If you're into bed bugs and stuff like that.

Oh, India House hostels on here. I've actually stayed there before for the Jazz Fest. It's not that bad. The hostels. I would never. Oh, my God. Bourbon Orleans Hotel is 2,500. Motel 6 is 500. No, thank you. Look up like the Royal Sinestan. What's that running? Best Western is 3,500. Wow.

The Holiday Express is 3,500. Phil Cinesas is 4,000. Wow. Wow. Wow. That sounds, that's insane. Have you been making, have you had a chance to kind of just knock around about town? Are you going to do that tonight? Or you're going to be with Adam and Adam until 6?

Are you bringing them any guests? Well, that's what I'm going to hang out and work on trying to get them. So I know they've got a couple guests from the athletics scheduled to come on to talk, to talk Rams and stuff. So, yeah. And I think we're actually going to get our buddy Danny Wharfels going to join us. Okay, great. Danny Werfel here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross with Chris Gordy down in New Orleans. And always fun to talk with this guy because when we had him on at SEC Media Days.

We see him all the time. And he does such great work. And it's cool that he gets to do it right here in New Orleans. And he joins us right now. He is the one and only Danny Werfel. Welcome in, man. How are you? Thanks. Thanks for having me.

It's great to see you because I know you, man, this is the city you got drafted in. You played for the Saints. You started all the great work with Desire Street here. And kind of cool to have the Super Bowl right here in New Orleans. Yeah, this city has a lot of memories for me. It's a great city to host a party because, I mean, they'll host a party to matter what's going on. So if you actually have something like a Super Bowl, it's quite a party. Yeah.

It's fun to have you on. We're running through all your accolades. I mean, obviously, national champion, Heisman trophy winner and all this. But the thing, when I saw you were in Houston a few weeks ago, playing pickleball, how good are you at pickleball? Well, pickleball is kind of on the professional side is a little bit like golf. We've got professional pickleball players, which are like the best in the world. And then there's a senior pro league when you hit 50. So still pretty good, but not that good.

So I just turned 50, and I played a year on the senior pro level, had a really good season, and just really, really love it. It's a fantastic sport. Anyone can play it. And it's just, it's been a great blessing for my life. You say you just turned 50. Not to say you're old, but when you say that it makes us all feel old, because we remember watching you play, and now we all feel old when we hear that.

So it's always funny to hear that kind of stuff. Talk a little bit about this week and just everything going on right now. I mean, it was obviously a big football game with having the Super Bowl, but you as a former quarterback, you see a guy like Patrick Mahomes. I mean, literally a chance to. cement even more legacy if he wins a fourth Super Bowl, right? Yeah, this is pretty unheard of, you know, and if you just back up one step too, seven AFC championships games in a row is like unbelievable.

And then a chance to three Pete, what he's done at such a young time of his career, you know, I mean, certainly no one other than Tom Brady's in that same category of what they've done. You know, I think it's going to be a fantastic game. The Eagles are an outstanding football. team and really hard to beat. But golly, man, and those key moments at the end of the game, Patrick Mahomes seems to always be able to make some kind of

magic happen. Yeah. It's amazing, too, and it gets to the point where people are asking, oh, is the league cheating for them? Are the refs cheating? And it's like, no man, sometimes you're just that good, right? Yeah, yeah, no kidding. It's funny. I think

everybody loves the underdog until they become the champion, and then it's kind of like kind of, kind of, on the people that keep winning. Right. So, you know, there's been a few calls that go weird ways, but that happens all the time. You just pay more attention to them usually in these situations. It's funny, and you had a little bit of that, too, at Florida.

When you get good, people like, oh, what a great story. And then you start winning too much, and then you become the villain all of a sudden. People are like, oh, they win too much. Yeah, that can happen. Is that kind of what happened? Take me back to your Florida days. Was there a little bit of flavor of that? Because Sparrier always, he would say stuff.

He knew he would say stuff to rile people up. He didn't even have to be winning yet to be able to say the things that got people. In fact, this was crazy for me. So, you know, I've known him since 1992. And years ago, I was at someone old Gator fans' house who had a book of quotes from Spurrier from before that up until like 1991. So this is like before I'd even knew him. And the amount of stuff that he had said prior to that is crazy. He knew how to knife folks pretty good.

That's that's yeah I mean he was always one of those great what was the you can't have citrus without UT That was always that was always the good one yeah yeah Yeah, yeah He always has some good ones Oh it's interesting too when it comes to the Florida Gators we have a local kid from the Houston area Willis D.J. Lagway Who went to Florida last year played a little bit as a true freshman in the back end and Suddenly Florida starts to go on this win streak. What did you see out of that kid and what's the future look like with him at the home? Yeah, you said Willis right? Yeah, yeah We're big Willis fans now all of a sudden

I tell you what, he is a very amazing young man, an incredible player. What he has meant this year. I mean, he didn't even play that much and has created, like, hope that's drawn recruits from all over the country. We went from, like, the 50th, probably a rated recruiting class. I think now we're like 6 or 7th, in large part to the success at the end of the year, and a large part due to DJ Lagway. I had breakfast with him a couple weeks ago. Humble Kid.

does a lot for charities just wants to be a good leader, wants to be the best that he can be great family, really have a lot of respect for his folks and just I'm just really grateful he's at the University of Florida and it's tough to this day and age because there's kids, look, NIL is a thing

and there's some kids they let it get to their head and yes, go get your money and do all that but you also still have to kind of be that humble leader too and it's got to be a fine balance and it seems like DJ look he's getting taken care of on the NIL front but also on the other side he seems to be that humble leader that does all the things that leaders need to do.

I mean, I think he's a very unusual to have all it together and to have it at such a young age. I mean, he's got an old soul in him and just a really unique and amazing young man. We're talking with Danny Werfel. I'm curious your thoughts. Texas, in the SEC now is weird enough. But when Arch Manning is getting ready to take over the home at Texas, did you ever think you would see a Manning again in the SEC, but not at Texas or Ole Miss, but or not at Ole Miss or Tennessee, but at Texas. I saw a picture online the other day of, I think,

son throwing the ball. I don't know how old he is, but I'm like, you know, we may not ever see the end of the mannings. That line goes on forever. I remember the Saturday Night Lives Kit where they said the only disappointment was his mom didn't play very long in Canada, but everybody else was stars. Yeah, that's too funny.

Yeah, it's crazy. And look, what do you make of it, though? Like a kid with all that hype and everything, like does he live up to the hype? There's a lot of pressure on these kids that try to live up to that. Yeah, I would say so. I'd say wisdom.

I think a lot of this came from the family, though, is you look that he has been there for a couple of years to learn and grow and develop. And as a quarterback, that's so key. It's so hard, so hard to go in as a freshman or as a rookie and have success. There's so many more stories of guys that struggle those early years,

and then you start questioning yourself and your confidence and people get down on you. So I think he's in the absolute perfect scenario for him. Yes, the expectations are high, but they've got a great team, great coach, great system, and he's ready. Yeah, it seems like Steve Sarkozy and doing something right there now.

Two deep playoff runs, two years in a row. We'll see what they do this year. Talking with Danny Warfell, talk a little bit about what you're here for this week. Huddl for Health. I know great place to be pushing this week while you're in New Orleans. Yeah, so my foundation, the Worffel Foundation, we exist to inspire service, unity, and health in the world. And so we're trying to leverage football, big moments to try to drive things

towards making positive change. And so one of the new partners that I've been working with is called IS Nation. IS Nation is an app. It's a platform. You can actually download it right off the iOS store. It's just a, it's an app. But think of it like, not like an Instagram or a TikTok or something. This is like the app where you want your kids to go because it's about sports.

It's about relationship. It's about positivity. You can get coaching. You can get all sorts of great stuff. And the huddle for health is a program kind of coming out of the NFL alumni health where they're trying to create more education and services around health in the world. So they're going to be putting a lot of their content on the IS Nation app, which will really kind of deliver that to a broader audience.

So this is some pretty cool stuff. I think it's being creative around technology, using sports, using relationships to make a difference. So yeah, if you have kids or even, If you don't, check out IS Nation. You can download it. And then you can look for the Huddle for Health support in there. But there's lots of other great stuff too.

Yeah. And you're still, I assume you still got everything going with Desire Street and all the local stuff you do here? Yep. Desire Street actually now is working in neighborhoods all over the country. And, yeah, the original stuff here in the Ninth Ward was rebuilt. There's a community center, early childhood center, a medical clinic that we rebuilt. And it's now all being run by local folks here. that are part of the community.

So that kind of frees us to help grow things like that around the country. Very cool. And then you've got what the Wharfill Award you're giving out every year now too. It's becoming, it's getting steep. Every year it gets bigger and bigger. We just gave the Wharfel Trophy College Football Award for community service. Nick Dawkins, the Center for Penn State won this year. We had our 20th anniversary and just amazing to honor athletes, not for tackles or touchdowns or yards,

but for helping other people. And I'm really proud of that award, the Whipple Trophy. I can't think of two guys who represent, like two former Florida gators that do more to help the world. You and Tim Tebow together, like, you're blessed if one school has one guy like you, but they have two. It's incredible. Tim's always, I mean, that guy's like out there doing everything constantly. He's saving the world right now, man. He's everywhere.

It's amazing. He's done great stuff. Before we let you run, Danny Worfell, give me a quick thought. You've lived here. What's the best restaurant in New Orleans? Give me the go-to. Oh, I'll see. I mean, some of the upper more scales, commander's palest.

you know, Brennan, like, there's some of those higher names that are fantastic. But, I mean, like, I like Dini's. And so is what was my – Jocamo's was one that was – I think it got impacted by the storm, so I'm not sure where they are right now. But, yeah, those would be feel that come to mind. There you go. That is the recommendations there from Danny. Danny, always good to talk with you, man.

Thanks so much. And continued success on all the great work. Thanks for your help. Take care. All right. We'll be right after this here on Sports Talks of the night. Matt Thomas, we'd like to thank his parents for only giving him two first names. Because who would listen to Billy Ray Thomas talk about Houston Sports?

The Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. Turn along here from Radio Row in New Orleans, and it's always fun to catch up with current players. This is a guy who's currently with the New Orleans Saints. He has a big boot on his leg, so he's coming back from injury, but a guy that is from right down the road over in Texas. from Border Race Frisco, Texas, played for the Texas Longhorns.

He is linebacker Jalen Ford sitting down with. Jayal, welcome in, man. Appreciate you having me. I see you have the boot and you're on a scooter. How far along are we in the rehab cycle? Yeah, we're about, I got surgery like at the beginning of January, so about a month over. And, you know, just every day making my way to rehab,

just trying to get better. I think the Saints have done a good job of helping me be confident and, you know, understanding the process and, you know, the steps we're going to take, you know, to get to be fully recovered. So I have a lot of confidence and, you know, 100% certainty that, you know, I'll be back right in time for the season. What was the rookie season like? Was your head spinning first year in the NFL? A little bit at the beginning, I will say. I think it was just, it was really just, you know, trying to find a way to. learned that playbook. That was probably the hardest thing for me.

Just trying to pick up the playbook. Because I wanted to be, I wanted to feel like how I felt, you know, as comfortable I was at Texas. And obviously that takes time. And I just, you know, tend to just be hard on myself sometimes. But I think all in all, I did a good job of developing and, you know, taking coaching. And over time, you know, I ended up, you know, finding a comfortability with the playbook and stuff like that.

So it's pretty good rookie year kind of to understand from my vets. learn from them. Just, you know, take in all the experience. So take me back to your Longhorn days. I believe you were recruited by Tom Herman, right? Yeah, Tom Herman. You commit to Tom Herman. You play for him for a year.

Yeah. And then here comes Sark. What was that all like playing for Tom Herman and then transitioning? So I got, it was a crazy, my first year was crazy because of COVID. And so, you know, like, you got to put an asterisk over that because it just the whole COVID thing kind of, it made things. like I didn't really know how to you know take in everything because the things I was experiencing

was the I was experiencing for the first time along with guys that had been there three, four years so it was a little different and I didn't really, there weren't really guys there to kind of tell you what to expect or what to, you know, because it was like this is all new to everybody, you know, we were out there practicing with masks on and it was a whole crazy ordeal

but we still were out there playing games obviously. By the way, how was your hydration level for Tom Herman? Were you okay? Oh, yeah, I was good. No yellow urine? Yeah, I didn't really have to worry about that. But I think, yeah, like, and that was my first time being opened up to, like, hydration

tests and all those things. But I think I did pretty good transitioning from high school to college. You know, I had made a good name for myself being a freshman. I got on special teams. And, you know, I had an opportunity to get on the field a couple of times. So my freshman year was good. And then, you know, I was good. You know, I wake up one morning and I look at ESPN and this Tom Herman has been fires.

Yeah. You know, and then Sark comes in and I had no idea about Sark. I didn't know where he was from. You know, obviously he had a great coaching resume, but I just didn't know it myself. But, you know, fast forward now. Like, you know, Sark has helped me and helped a lot of guys make a lot of money and has helped him develop. and obviously we've helped him. He came in and told us what he wanted to set for a standard,

and we helped him do it. And you look at him now and it's like, you know, back-to-back CFP appearances. So, you know, I think he's been doing a great job. And it's crazy. You guys, I think it was five and seven, what, in year one? Year one. But you were laying in the foundation. Stark was okay.

That was, you know, I will say the best thing that ever happened was going five and seven because the motivation that we had, it lit a fire under it so big that, you know, I think everything that's happening now, it all started back then when we had that year just because of, you know, everything we experienced that year, it takes a lot to overcome some adversity like that. And, you know, like I was saying, new faces. He brought in new people, you know, he had to, you know, get rid of some bad apples. And he brought in guys that he thought would help buy in and, you know, the guys that were already there.

He was like, he came to us like, I need your buy in, you know, helped set this new standard. We listened, and everything else was, you know, history. Talking with former Longhorn linebacker, now current St. linebacker Jalen Ford. I was looking back through your games. I forgot you had 10 tackles in that playoff game against Washington. I mean, talk about leaving it all out of the field.

You left it all out of the field. I tried, yeah. They came so close. Quinn in the offense, they got the ball. They're marching down. I'm like, oh, they're going to do this. Yeah. It just wasn't in the cards.

Yeah, it was tough. you know, being that close, doing something that Texas hadn't done in a long time. But just that whole journey, the whole process, not only for me, but I know for a lot of guys that were there with me, some of them got drafted with me last year. So Oversham in your class? No, Overson was a year before.

Yeah, year before. But, you know, even them, Roshan, B, John, you know, Overson, you know, all them guys. But it's just been so many guys that I've seen, you know, finally make it to the NFL. And we were all part of that group. Like, man, we're going to do. change this, we're going to do it. And I think

we can say that we help, you know, get the ball rolling on what Sark has finally start to build at Texas. Okay, give me a scouting report on Quinn yours. How do you, he's officially in the draft now. Yeah. What's he bringing to the league? You know, I like

Quinn. Quinn has a bit of swagger and confidence that you know, at the quarterback position, you're going to get a lot of scrutiny. People don't have things to say about you all the time, regardless of how you do. And I think he does a good job of not letting it get to him and just going to go out there and play his game. He's young and he's got a lot of, you know, he's got a lot of promise.

So I think for him, he's got to, he's got to learn, you know, learn from the guys that are in his room that have, you know, been in the league and then just continue to grow. And I think he's going to be a great quarterback. I was just looking at all the guys. I mean, there was so many Longhorns draft eligible leaving. I mean, like going pro, it's the list is, I mean, you guys like Matthew Golden, who just came in for a year and all that, but like Jake Major, I mean, dudes who have been around a while, it's a lot of longhorns going in this draft.

And that's what I'm saying. It's like, you know, we went from, I think that year we went five and seven. I don't think we had one guy drafted. And then you fast forward to this year, and we might, you know, we could possibly set a record or, you know, set a record for Texas for sure. And so I think just seeing like all that is, that just shows kind of like the work that everybody's been putting in since Stark got there really. And now it's starting to pay off and you're starting to see the guys that, that started with them, you know, starting to reap, you know, the rewards of the benefits of, you know, their hard work.

Are you all aboard the SEC hype trade? I know you played in the last big 12 game. Yeah, I remember people asking me, like, how do you think Texas is going to do in the SEC? And they surpassed my expectations this year. So, I mean, you know, they were a game short of winning the SEC championship their first year. But nonetheless, you know, they went out there and they definitely made a name for themselves. And, you know, the biggest thing that when I was at Texas was, you know, respect. A lot of teams didn't really respect this because of, you know, the past, and I think,

you know, these past couple years, I think Texas has done more than enough to, you know, show that they're a team that should be respected when they get there out there on the field. At least you guys still get to play those wretched Sooners up the road. Hey, it can't take that Red River game away because, man, that game is special. You know, being part of it, you know how special it is. And I'm just glad I get to see new guys, you know, make a name for themselves in that game. Yeah. Talk with Texas Longhorn, former Texas Longhorn linebacker Jalen Ford, now with the New Orleans Saints.

Here in New Orleans is kind of cool. You didn't have to go far, right? Yeah. It's been a cool experience to kind of, you know, be here and be a New Orleans Saint and have, you know, a surplus amount of opportunities to, you know, be involved with the Super Bowl or, you know, do media or kind of, you know, host things or, you know, do community service, all those types of things. The Super Bowl kind of just magnified it, and this has been pretty cool, pretty cool experience and opportunity. Are we expecting, are you guys going to get a head coach this week? Is that the hope? That's the hope, right?

I mean, the game is Sunday. The game is Sunday, hopefully, you know, by the end of next week, at least. Yeah, might be a guy coaching in that game. We'll see. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see what happens. But that's certainly going to be fun to see. And, man, what a crazy year, too, for you guys.

I mean, that 2-0 start, you'll beat, well, what? Was it the Panthers? We beat the Cowboys. And then you beat the Stott of the Cowboys and everybody's like this, T, T, it's Super Bowl. It's in New Orleans this year. And then everything just started to unwind. I guess, I think, injuries were a big part.

Yeah, injuries were a major part. But, you know, in the NFL, you know, they always say any given Sunday. So I think it's just a lesson learned. Like, you know, if you're going to start all strong, you got to finish strong, you know. It's a lot of games to be played in the NFL. A lot of things can happen. And so I think for us, just got to learn from it and move on. Is it tough staying away from all the dangerous food here, staying in shape?

You know, luckily I work out a lot. I haven't been able to work out with this boot, so I have had to watch myself. But luckily I've never been a guy that, you know, food doesn't stick on to me. So, you know, I had the luxury of being able to eat pretty much a lot of things in New Orleans. The food is amazing out here. So what they do say about the food is true And it's been great to kind of go around and find new spots And try new things

What food do you miss most living in Texas? Food I miss most living in Texas I probably say the barbecue Okay Barbecue isn't bad here But you know Texas is just a little different out there But I mean Being out here for about a year now

I think I'm just switching over to seafood, you know, enjoying the seafood and a pasta and everything else they got to offer out here. All right. Lastly, for you, we'll talk with Jalen Ford. Are you all aboard the Arch Manning hype train? Absolutely. Arch is, what you've seen Arch do in those games that he played, he was doing that at practice his freshman year. So, you know, I'm always been like, man, he's going to be special.

Obviously, he's going to have some growing pains. You know, he hasn't started. It hasn't played and started a whole season in a couple years. So, you know, there will be some growing pains. Being a quarterback at Texas is going to be some adversity. But I think he has a great foundation around him, you know, with his family, with his dad. And then he has a great foundation at the school to where, you know, I think he's going to have guys that will make plays and help him out.

And, you know, when that adversity does it, I think he'll do a great job of overcoming it. So I'm excited to see what he'll do. There you have it. He is Jalen Ford, Saints linebacker, former Texas Longhorn. Give me a hook him on the way out. Hook him, maybe. There we go. We've got to hook him.

All right. Thross, we'll throw it back to you in our Houston studios. All right, thank you. Good stuff there with Jalen Ford. Chris Gordy out at Radio Row. My name is Ross Vier. I'm saying thanks to all of you for listening to the show. Thanks for all our great guests.

Thanks to Chris Gordy. Thanks to Connemogh. Now it is time for not only one Adam. It is two Adams. They call themselves the 18. and they're coming up two-ish to six here on Sports Talk 790.