The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Rockets vs Wizards Tonight! Texans Start Prepping for Titans, Joe Espada Speaks on Astroline

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

Rockets vs Wizards Tonight! Texans Start Prepping for Titans, Joe Espada Speaks on Astroline

10-0-2 in H-Town. Good morning. And welcome to a Wednesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Ross is out in California this week. Jonathan, I assume you're in the producer's room. The screen that has a picture of you is not there. I'm here. All right, good to hear your voice.

Hell, if I didn't know, if I didn't know, I could have worked from the Kingwood Studios today. But, you know, I want to spend quality time with you, Jonathan. In the spray, trying to refresh that computer. Maybe it'll work. I don't know him now to do that. So, that's coming there. We're coming there and in the break. That's good.

Hey, I hope you guys are in a good mood and ladies as well. It's just me and you today. And we've got a couple of things going on during the course of the show. We got to shut your bum ass up at 1130. That's my, I've been trying to figure out if I like that more over I'm sorry's more. I think this is my favorite 30 minutes of the week is because you just get to just tell people how you feel for 30 minutes. and we are in a cautious world of the in which we live in. We're going to be somewhat politically correct.

We have to make sure we don't offend people. We get to as reasonably as we can offend people and tell people to shut their bumasses up. And 1130 to 12 o'clock today will be your golden opportunity to do so. I look forward to that. Also on the radio program today, we're going to visit with Chris Myers of Fox Sports. Chris has been with that network forever. It was the ESPN a long time ago. And the reason we're having Chris on the show is he's going to call.

the Texans and the Titans game Sunday on Fox and he will join us from Los Angeles where he lives coming up at about 1 o'clock today. So we got that going on. We got believe it or not at 150. And we got a lot of you and a lot of me. And we invite you to join this radio program about an evening. Again, nothing Houston related last night for sports. We got some Cougar basketball tonight against Oakland. And it's what it is. You get the Rockets taking on the worst team in the NBA tonight in the Washington Wizards, the worst. The worst. defense in the NBA. They have one victory to their credit, and they've got some guys that will score, but they don't defend. And if you're going to the Rockets game tonight, and you want to

see a literal track meet of two teams that probably will score 145 points, one may score 125. That's going to be the Rockets tonight, hopefully, against the Washington Wizard. So we'll have it for you here to this evening. I'll have the call, and we'll have our game broadcast begin with the Rockets launch pad at 6 o'clock. Tip time will be at 7 o'clock inside TOTUS. So, Rockets were in the H-Town blue uniform or the white uniforms with H-Town across the front in cursive. What do they call them, the city editions or whatever they are? I'm wearing the gear today. I'm very excited about it.

It looks good. I'm not a huge fan of artificially putting a color into a uniform, but this blue does hit well. It looks crispy. I'm not alive. You see me right now? Yeah, yeah. How good do I look right now? It looks nice.

Man, that's what I'm saying. I got it. You could put me on the runway. You probably could if you wanted to. I don't know if you did that. You know, okay. All right, so we got to talk about one of our co-workers here. Uh-oh.

We love Chris Gordy, right? Of course. I mean, he is the literal heart and soul of Sports Talk 790. He does rockets peri and post occasionally. He does some Astros pre-imposts. He does a lot of our social stuff. He's working with Dan for a few more days. And all he does is just live and breathe this radio station.

And if we didn't have him, we would really come to a colossal stop. but he's also actively involved in his locked on SEC podcast and he does interviews and does his little show and and you know that's SEC fan generally speaking is just I mean they're warped because they know they're good they know that they're going to play for national championships and football but their perception on things is just whack sometimes so yesterday and we just finished arguing about this for the show even got on, so I know he's, I hope he's listening. He's a more than welcome to come in and fight with me if he wants to. So yesterday, I don't know if you saw this, Jonathan, he put out a tweet. Is it the one way he's talking about the arbitration? Yes. Oh, yeah, I've seen it. Okay. So he randomly put a tweet out yesterday at 12 noon. While the show was going on, I didn't even realize it. And it says the following. All fired college coaches should have to go to an independent

an arbitrator to argue why they deserve their full payout. Like an MLB, you present your case for why you deserve it, and the arbitrator decides that what percentage you get. And then we televised it live on ESPNU. Okay. The last line was obviously a joke. Right. But the rest of it sounded pretty authentic to me.

And joining us in studio right now is locked on Gordy. The whole thing's a joke. Okay. Then present it as such. You honestly think I think a coach should have to go in front of an arbiter and argue for their money? It's a joke. You know what? When someone puts jokes, they put quotes all over this.

They put winking eye emojis. They put ha, ha, ha, emojis. Wow. They do all that. If you were looking for comedy, A, you didn't get it. And B, if you were trying to get it, you certainly didn't display. I'm sorry, the U of H degree you got wasn't smart enough to teach sarcasm on social. No, no, no, no, no, no.

I know it's not an art. It's a lost art form sarcasm. So, you never would have put this out, first of all, when Jimbo got his firing at Texas A&M. Oh, yeah. I thought it was insane. This is a direct... I'm never been, pay the man everything he's owed. Like, I don't know where we all came to that in a country where they're starving people

on every street corner where we've got to be like, you better pay that coach who failed in his job every penny he's owed. I don't know why we all do that. that? I think it's stupid. I hope every coach doesn't get anything their own. May I read the comments? Is it okay if I read these comments? Okay, let's go to them. Now, there's a mixed bag on this. First of all, you come back 15 minutes later, or 15 minutes ago. For all the comments on this, it was a joke having some fun, take a brief, deep breath, relax, thanks management. Okay. So I'm getting people who don't even follow me going, you don't know how contracts work. I'm like, oh my God. Didn't know contract guy was out in

full force today. James Curtin of Third says these are polar opposites, nothing even alike. Arbitration is working on a new deal for next year. Okay, dumbass. College football is it actively signed contract? All right. Thanks for the education, James. Something called The Bulldog Report thinks this isn't a terrible idea.

Then coaches could fail up. So you now have a fan of a Georgia Bulldog fan who's on your side. Now, he's got 64 followers. He might have the biggest following of anybody who commented. Well, I commented. Oh, well, but you don't count. And I did quite well. And I did quite well, actually.

Gilly's lover chimes in, or maybe, or I'm just spitballing here. Colleges don't make outrageous contract offers. I like you, but days. Yeah, he's making my point. Houston Hawkeyes, it's not everything's a negotiation. Contracts today being a major starting point for this. It's the only con, the coaches contracts are the only contracts in this country that, like, everyone goes to bat for and go, like, it's the only position where you get a contract fulfilled for doing a crappy job.

Any other deal in this country where you sign a contract and you do a crappy job, it's either negated, it's, you know, it's walked down, it's wiped away, all that stuff. But that's the industry in which they live in. But why do we accept this one is the one that's allowed? Because it's just like stadium deals in sports. Why does San Antonio get all this public money? Because if San Antonio doesn't do it, another city is going to do it. There are certain things in life that, to your definition, are not fair. and one of them is college coaches get guaranteed contracts because if you're a college

and you, if you have a guy that you want to come coach your team like obviously LSU wanted Brian Kelly, they have to guarantee a contract. If you don't guarantee a contract, you don't get Brian Kelly. But that's where I fall on the, anytime we end an argument with, well, that's just how it's always been done, I think it's stupid. I think times change. We evolve as a society, things change, times change. But it won't be in that.

I think this needs to change. Okay. So let's continue on the replies. at a very reputable Twitter account, DV2CFB, just says Jesus. Sunset Hoops says this shows a pretty egregious lack of knowledge or what a contract is. Right, I need to take more contract classes, I guess. At fellow human, fascinating how you know full well how stupid this is, but you still posted it. Or maybe hear me out.

This could be a joke. Who knows? At So Fast 15 says the F, do you care if someone gets paid or not? Oh, no, he's angry. So I reposted your tweet with a comment of my own. You offer me a contract. I signed it. Case closed in five seconds.

That's how it works even at LSU. I got 86,000 views. Thank you very much, Gordy. I got seven comments, 23 retweets, and 700 and 79 likes. You guys don't-700 likes. 779. So you can suck it, Gordy. Your tape, horrific, awful, and in your intent to humor, remember, only law professionals like myself to be humorous on Twitter. I should have jumped on that the day Tom Herman left for Texas.

I should have been like, U of H, you owe him every penny out the door. You better make sure you wrote every check and signed it that he's owed every dime on the way out the door. You of H, you better pay every penny for that man. No, they bought out, Texas bought out the contract. I'm just saying, like, I just think it's so ridiculous that we're. all account time for these dumbass bad coaches to get every penny owed because they failed at their job. You failed. You sucked so bad. Somebody came to you and said, we're willing to pay you to go away because you suck. So you as a college football commissioner, because there is one now, will now say the contracts are no longer to be guaranteed.

And won't you get that passed? I don't get that done. I don't think fully guaranteed, but I do think we need to get to a world where they're more incentive-laden, where you're rewarded for success, where you get an extra $2 million if you reach the conference championship game. Why not? I think that's way more reward success. How much does, I have to look at his contract, but how much does Willie Furtz get if he gets to the Big 12th Championship? I don't know, but he's getting a $100,000 bonus, I think, for two different things so far. I would escalate that to the nth degree. I would say he gets $5 million if he gets to the Big 12th Championship.

How much would that motivate him to go, oh, my God, I get $5 million if I get to the Big 12 championship? You are moving on to a different topic. The topic is in today's college football world, And it's been that way, honestly, Gordy, for since the beginning of contracts. And that's where I say, we need to stop going to, well, it's always been this way. Things change, times changed. We need to put a full stop and go, let's rethink how we do this. Okay, well, then who wants to be the first school to do this?

Well, that's the tough part. So let me know. Let me know, let me know what school that is. And I will be happy to say, bravo to you Penn State for not offering XYZ coach a guaranteed deal. But you can only is three years of his five years guaranteed. It's not just fully guaranteed. it's that we like the minute a coach okay you sign a coach to a six year deal for x amount a million and he has a great year what's the first thing the agent does oh well my guy deserves a raise well no no no you're literally earning your deal we paid you this money with the thought that

you would be a good coach yeah but the minute you have success it's immediately he needs a raise well why do you get a raise you did what you were supposed to do that's correct so that's you're giving raises because you're going to make sure that no one goes and get you because you can get out of your contract that's the that's the problem is this whole thing Elko's not getting a raise at A&M this year? Oh, yeah, you will. But I think that's where this whole thing is built out of fear. The ADs are scared out of their wits.

Oh, my God, I can't lose this guy. I mean, for the longest, they used to tell him, you know, you have three years left on your deal. Well, my guy can't recruit, recruit. He can't go sit in the recruits liver room and go, I want to bring you in for the next four years. Because I might not even be here four years. I only have three years left on my deal. So he needs another year in his contract. This is the passion of glory we're looking for.

It's a never-ending cycle of defending LSU. Moron athletic director. It's nothing to do with LSU. Oh, okay. This is idiot athletic directors, cowtelling to the, I don't know, hell,

where you're called agents who are money hungry. There's a group of 125 of them that run Division I football schools that are all offering the guaranteed deals. They just are. Gordy, I need you, you go back to your life. I just want to thank you for allowing me

to get the number of views and likes. And unable to read sarcasm, yeah? No, no, no. There was no sarcasm. much. No, because... You really think I think they should go to an arbor to argue how much money they should be owed? Again, you, I saw no asterisk. I saw no capital letter followed by lowercase letter. I saw no ha-haz. I saw no emojis. I saw pure fire LSU. I love my school. I don't care with

their paper. It's not my money. Do you know what you should have read it done for that man? Don't put the tweet out there then. It's not about him. It wasn't funny. It's about all coaches. I'm going to start calling a new segment called Does Gordy take an L? This week, you take an L. Other weeks you don't take an L. We're going to start doing this for Sports Talk Radio. I'm on for it. We're going to do live on the air.

Matt negotiates his next deal. How much should Matt make? Yes. And my next deal should be guaranteed for sure. All right, that's what we love you. We're going to buy you out. Locked on ICCC. What are you going to lock on SEC?

We can go look at you. We had a great conversation with David Nuno yesterday for TechSags? David Nuno. That's a big game. Long time. TG guy. Get a Billy Luchian.

Ah, Looch is too big now. Why don't you get a, what's the guy's name, Chip Davis, Chip Brown? Chip Brown at Texas. Why don't you get a Jeff Ketchum, if you will? Tomorrow I think we got Mike Griffith from Dog Nation. Ooh, that's a good one. Big one. Mike Griffin, Dog Nation came out.

He's a real journalist. He's a flybomb every week. Excuse me, I'm Mike Griffin. Mike, you sound like you're a big journalist. What do you work for? I work for Dog Nation. Hell's that. Y'all are a bunch of bros.

What y'all are? All the Texas was I work for hookumhorn. Yeah, that's y'all are all frauds. gigamags.com. Yes, I'm a serious journalist for coogsruel.com. Dog. Let me tell you some. When I was a kid, I wasn't thinking to myself, man, if I could really do a radio show online for dognation.com, that'll be my career pedickel. Matt Thomas from Auburn. The voice of the Houston Rockets are doing a radio show on Saturday. I want to work for dognation.com. Matt Thomas from Auburn Tiger Rips Your Heart Out.com.

We're going to beat Auburn this weekend in college basketball. Thank you. You very welcome. 1016, it is a Matt Thomas show at Ross. Shut your bum ass up at 1130. Chris Myers, Fox Sports at 1 o'clock here on 790. It is a Matt Thomas show at Ross. Ross is in Cali this week. So it's just me. He's in Gordy. We love him. Hey, speaking in college football. So, and I've told you,

And again, the audience is always changing. Just to let you know, I've got a house full of mixed college football fans. I'm a University Houston fan. My wife loves about five different teams, so it doesn't even count. She loves U of H. She loves Texas Tech. She loves Notre Dame. I mean, it's a hot mess in the Thomas Hut when it comes to her.

My three kids, my daughter, could give two craps about college football. My oldest went to Texas Tech, and he is beyond excited about his Red Raiders. And my middle son, Peyton, who's a recent graduate of Texas A&NN, Now that you all know that, so last night before we went to dinner, we wanted to watch the college football rankings. And there wasn't any change in the top four, meaning that A&M,

even though they did beat Missouri in Columbia, and played, frankly, a lot better than when Indiana did to beat Penn State on that last second play in that touchdown that Gus Johnson lost his ability to speak for a while, that A&M did not jump over Indiana and that Indiana is number three, Ohio state's number one,

A&M is three and Alabama is four. So, and I was telling us to my middle son, I said, look, these things are going to be fluid, they're going to change, somebody could lose, there could be some shuffling, whatever the case may be, if A&M finishes the table and wins the SEC championship, or at least goes and beats Texas, and they've got South Carolina this week.

That's going to be no big deal to them. But point being is that they've got a really good shot of maybe getting in that top spot. But unless they just have a seismic fall in the next couple weeks, they're going to be probably a top four, which means they're going to have a first round buying. And I thought to myself, grandiose big picture on this. You know, we're always trying to add things to sports.

Whether we're trying to add more games in the NFL, whether we're looking to diversify the schedules in baseball and basketball, in season tournaments, playoffs. There's talk of maybe the NCAA tournament, adding another 16-team bracket to all this. There's a variety of little things that always get brought up that you go, hey, I wish things were just the way they used to be. I got to tell you something, gang. I liked the four-team college football tournament because it really, really made you lose your mind if your team was on the outside looking in. And there were no guaranteed spots.

You didn't have to win a conference or you weren't guaranteed a spot because you won a conference. You know, that was four teams and that was really good because we didn't, we got a real better look at a tournament. You know, a pair of national semifinals and won championship game. I like this 12-team college football tournament. I don't think I would like it if it got to 16. Why not? because sometimes if you see if you get too much of something you wind up not enjoying it as much like for instance and I hate to go food on you here but America sandwich is the McRib of course

right the McRib comes out like twice a year and I love it if the McRib was available to me seven days a week what I have nearly the passion for it probably not Okay. If you, you know, if you get to eat your favorite, if you get to eat fajitas every single day, and that third or fourth day, you're kind of like, eh, fajita's no big deal. I love this 12-team tournament

because it gives me an opportunity to see a good combination of at-large teams, a group of six qualifier, and conference champions. And they fixed it up this year that you are not guaranteed a top-four spot. You are just, you are guaranteed a spot in the tournament, but you are not guaranteed one, two, three,

four. Looking at the bracket last night on ESPN as I was watching this, I love that there are games on home sites the first week. Now, they go once they get to the quarterfinals, they do them in bowl locations. Which makes me kind of sad for those people that are the, you know, the top four seeds that don't have to play the first week. They don't get rewarded by playing a home game.

I know they'll never change this, but I would love to see them go to the home sites for the quarter-final round. So if A&M finishes in the top four that you as Aggie fans get to go see your Aggies play in a national quarter-final game at Kyle Field. You kicked your... Not only do you get the reward of being one of the top teams in the country

and getting a first round by, but you get to actually put some people in your own seats and have a sizable home field advantage. Now, I know this was never going to. going to happen. In fact, I think probably the opposite is going to happen. I think the opposite is going to happen. That's where we're going to eventually see the home fields in the first round, the first round, go away because somebody's going to write a check to these TV networks into this college football playoff. That's going to be more than anybody could have ever dreamed.

But to be on a home site the first weekend, imagine how cool it would be if it was the second weekend, where you could have a home game at Indiana. You could have a home game at Kyle Field. You could have a game at Ohio State. Now, that may even give them an even more sizable advantage of even more so than they're how good as they are, but college football has pageantry that

frankly no other sport has when it comes to the game day experience. I don't know if you guys do this or not a ladies do this either. But like on a rando Saturday, if my cougars aren't playing or they play at night, I turn on the ESPN, you know, I watch a little bit of the picks contest. I like the

Pat McAfee kicking thing. That's kind of cool. But you put a game on at 11 o'clock and you go on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, FS1, Fox, ABC, NBC. You can watch seven or eight games. And in most times, not all of them, most of the time, you've got 85,000 people in every one of these stadiums. You have basically at 11 o'clock on a rando day on a Saturday. And not the most, most populous cities in America. You know, like if in the NFL, at noon, all the seams are full, but those are like big cities. That's Cleveland and New York, and that's Detroit, and that's Tampa, and it's Orlando, not Orlando, but it's Atlanta. You put on 11 o'clock game, and you have stadiums in Columbia, South Carolina, Starkville, Mississippi,

Waco, Texas, Norman, Oklahoma, and Madison, Wisconsin, and they're all jam-packed. Now, are all those teams excellent? No. Are all those teams fighting for a national championship? No. But damn, the pageantry of college football is spectacular. And then you put the games on in 230. They're really, really good games, and you multiply that times two or three.

You got 30 stadiums with 50 to 70 to 100,000. people. I mean, Tennessee has been good, but not great the last, you know, how many years. They're, you know, they got 106,000 people in Knoxville, Tennessee. You watch a game in Oxford with Ole Miss. I got 80,000 people, whatever that CDM. I mean, this is, it's, it, it's magical to me. And there's very few things left in my life in sports that are magical because it's easier to be a sports fan that's cynical. We're just talking like high preying contracts of guys. But I would love for college football to give the home field to the teams that get the buys.

And then off weeks, they're definitely buys. But I think we're never going to get that happen. And I'm going to tell you this, and to wrap up this brief conversation about it, please tournament, please NCAA, please college football playoff, please conference commissioners, keep it at 12. 16 just doesn't make it sound nearly as sexy It's more of an invitational than it is a man, you earned it 16 teams

I can buy into four weeks of great college football Do I want to buy in another full week of it? Do I want double buys? Do I want, I mean, no thanks. Keep it at 12, the bracket looks great. Let those folks have first round games in our home field. I'd love to give the second team, those other four teams in a buy home field, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

And I'm definitely afraid we're going to lose some of the charm if the NCAA college football playoff goes to 16 teams. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. Do you find the pageantry of the college football playoff as intriguing as I do? I kind of do because I've got members of my family that are sitting in front of the television on a Tuesday night at 6 o'clock at ESPN that can't wait to find out where their team is bracketed.

Now, maybe if your team is not in those brackets, you don't particularly care. If you're a no-s-you-fan, you're like, man, I don't care. If you're a fan of, I don't know, Marshall, you don't care. Hell, if you're a fan of Baylor, you don't care. But, man, if you're Texas Tech Guide this week, you're A&M. And by the way, Texas is now in at number 10

that had the last at-large spot, this is good stuff. And for all the negativity of the college football, has given us with portals and NIL and paying of salaries the bracket was in front of me last night and I liked it. That's why I'm going to watch Saturday. It's why I'm going to watch every single Saturday because I didn't worry about NAL. I worried about the bracket. The bracket showed them that I've got some teams that my family cares about that are thinking about playing for a national championship. 1031, the Matt Thomas showed raw. 713212-5-790. Joe Espada

it was a guest on Astroline last night. What did he have to say? We're on through a few of those clips next here on 790. All right, we have Astroline. It's the Astro's off-season radio show. We do it once a week here on 790. The various broadcasters for the Astros host that. And it's usually on nights where the rockets aren't playing.

So last night it was their night to do it. We have the rockets against the Washington Wizards this evening. We'll have the coverage freebie at 6 o'clock here on 790. and I'll have the call at 7. All right, so Joe Espada was the guest, and I believe Todd Callis was the host, at least for this segment. And it was a wide-ranging interview, and I don't think we're going to get any breaking news out of this,

but sometimes you just want to give out what the person has to say as compared to us paraphrasing. So I'm going to play some sound bites for you of Joe Espada, and you can kind of comment if you still choose, because I know we've got a large astro fan base that listens to this radio show. So to join us on anything, whether it's college football, the Rockets tonight. Texans and Titans getting ready to get after it on Sunday,

or these comments from Joe Espada, 713-212-5-7-90. Here is Joe, first of all, on planning with coaches and players for 2026. How can we make sure that we could be healthier? How can we keep guys on the field? How can we put a roster together where we have all the pieces needed for 162 so we learn a lot we have some really good conversation and and looking forward for the future i think that sitting at home watching some of these postseason games you know it makes you appreciate um how good we have been as an organization and and it creates uh creates this fire

this the ship on your shoulder um for us going into spring training and want us to get back to the post season our players i'll tell you this our my conversation with the players we did not like the fact that we're sitting at home watching this from our couches. It's a very sour taste and it's one that we're going to use to motivate ourselves to go to spring training ready to go. All right. Sounds good to me. I'm all for that. I think you'd be as well. One of the things that was talked about, obviously, one of the initial changes was firing of the lead trainer and some changes in his coaching staff. And here's Joe on those changes. I have some really difficult conversation with some great coaches. They're really good people, guys who helped us bring championships to our organization.

But for us to keep this going, we thought that change needs to be made. And we did. And our roster is changing. We have to make sure that we bring that a dynamic offense, our identity back to who we were. And so we were moving forward, bringing some guys in that I know can bring our offense back. we could have some change our message and how we address some of the offensive issues that we had so I'm very excited we've having some conversation with some coaches so right now I think we are putting ourselves in a position where we can get our offense going and bring our

identity back which I think is very important all right so it sounds like to me and I'm not going to try to reinvent what he said but maybe the hitting coaches a different set of eyes will help some guys that were slumping at times last year. Yeah, I don't have a problem with that. Again, Ross and I have been pretty consistent about this. The reason why the Asteros did not make the playoffs last year was because the hitting coaches were inept. In fact, I think the guys that got let go have all gotten jobs.

So obviously their reputations are pretty good. But if you just wanted to say, and I think the Asteros did this, we need to change things up. we need to freshen things up i can live with that now the only negative is is that are they going to be able to ultimately get the type of staff they want from pitching coaches to bullpen people to outfield coaches to trainers to whatever they're going to do in terms of when the staff is finally put together can you get who you really want when your general manager

and your manager are on the lame duck final year of their contract It'd be hard for me. Now, they did go get the hitting coach away from the San Diego Padres, but he's not going to be the only guy by himself. There's going to be another hitting coach coming in, apparently. I'm telling you, if I'm a young, up-and-coming, or even a middle-aged hitting coach or pitching coach or whatever, and I am trying to, you know, take my abilities to next level

and build a foundation somewhere, I don't know if the first place I'm going is to a place where my manager may be gone at a year. Now, sometimes hitting coaches survive and position coaches survive, managerial changes, but more times than not, they don't. Because if you go to hire a new manager, what's the first thing I want to do? They want to bring their own coaches in. More on a spotter.

He was talking about some things that need to happen. Did we play number four already, Jonathan? We just did that already, correct? No, we have enough for you. Okay. Here is Joe on needing to get back to what they should be best at, and that's smacking the ball around. We are a good offense where we control the pace of the game.

What I mean with that is, you know, an offense that is long. It's nine-hole hitters working at the same pace with the same objective. We have to get on base more. We have to make our opponents work more. we got to know we've got to be very specific to our players their strength and weaknesses what we do best

how we can work together to make sure that when we struggle it's for a short term dynamic offense is one that beats you from many different ways not only we slug but we could on base we speed taking extra base

when we've had that offense that dynamic offense that everyone is working together is one very difficult to beat all right so now it's time to get offensive it's time to get

the bats going a few more things from Joe this is a spot on number eight for those of you playing at home i.e. Jonathan he wants to get some support from Hunter Brown meaning I would assume that he wants that back end of that bullpen to be as solid as ever

when we're talking about our adding to our depth is so we could protect him so he could be our ace for years to come. He has pitched in big gains for us the last couple of years, and we've got to make sure that we protect him and give him the pieces that he needs so we can continue to have him is on top of our rotation for years to come. And I think that's going to be very important for us when we look at our roster and we're trying to put this roster together, that we have enough arms in the back end, in the middle relief, back end of our bullpen, so we feel good about protecting.

Hunter Brown, protecting all our pitching, and we could hand the ball to, you know, any, any of our guys so we can close some games out. Well, if Josh Hayder's healthy, I don't think that's going to be an issue. I think, you know, Brian and Bray, you did an excellent job being the evening guy. I don't think he necessarily embraced the closer's role to probably what your expectations were for that matter of the organizations. but I'm not nearly as worried about 7-8-9 as perhaps Joe is. But you know what? What I think he's what he was intimating was that if Hunter Brown gives you six quality innings, he should leave the game, A, feeling good about himself, and B, he should win that

game. And it always worked that way, but yeah. To me, and I would think that 99.9% of you would agree with me on this, this is about how this team is going to get some starting pitching for the start of the 2026 season. And a fine line, the Astros have to walk when it comes to free agent pitching and trying to secure their own. We'll talk more about that coming back.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-79. We are waiting for the Texans to hit the practice field, by the way. And as soon as we do, we will find out whether or not C.J. Stroud is out there If he's not out there today, he doesn't need to be playing Sunday against Tennessee. He needs to get his mind and more importantly his body right for Buffalo a week from tomorrow. So that's really the only drama. As far as breaking down the Texans Titans, I'm not doing much of that.

The Titans suck. That's your breakdown for you. Other teams, other people are going to go on the all 22 tape? Yeah, screw that. Titans suck. Texans should win the football game. The issue is going to be, are you getting your line. back? Are you getting Jalen Petrie back? Are you getting C.J. Stroud on the football field?

That's the most important thing. All right. I'm about to tell our video department here to shut their bum ass up. I have been waiting to see you for 50 minutes. I don't even know what you look like today, Jonathan. What hell's going on around here? We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Very good. I'm doing the show from home tomorrow. I'm going to see you anyway. 1052 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross Ross is in California. in Long Beach hanging out with his buddies

and I look forward to getting him back next Monday. Coming up later today we got shut your ball mass up at 1130 and at 1 o'clock Chris Myers

from Fox Sportsby with us here on the radio program. All right. So, and I don't mean to get into a deep dive on baseball but frankly again, Rockets playing the Wizards

tonight, it's not going to move the needle. Texans playing the Titans doesn't move the needle except to figure out whether or not is C.J. Stroud's going to be out there

or J.L. Petrie or Titus Howard and those three guys aren't on the field. They should beat the Tennessee Titans. I mean, period of the story. This isn't even a... Could you imagine going into it, you know, in a cuss and discuss about the Texans' Titans' breakdown?

Who the... Why? No, you don't care. You want your guys to win. You don't care how they do it. You don't care. I mean, Nico Collins should get 125 yards in receiving. Money mills should throw for 265.

You know, Woody Mark should get to the end zone. I mean, in Will Anderson, all three sacks. there's your breakdown. Titans suck. The Titans lose this game. So the Titans beat the Texans this Sunday. We close up shop. And I said, now, what was your favorite Texans, almost a playoff team moment in 2025?

But I'm not going to worry about that. Texans are going to win by at least 10 points. I told you that yesterday. I ain't scared. Buffalo, different story. So there's your obligatory Texans preview. I've done it better than anybody else. Everybody else in town is going to steal my material.

I just told you. There's your breakdown. All right. So the more important thing, frankly, right now, is how is Dana Brown massaging things at the general manager's meetings in Las Vegas? Now, they're going to have the winter meetings coming up shortly after that. But a lot of these meetings are just an opportunity for everybody to get together and shake hands and drink beers and talk crap about each other. And then a lot of the heavy lifting, the conversation pieces about what you're doing with your team is done back and home.

Now, you may want to set up some face-to-face meetings with them agents. That could certainly happen. You could also do Zooms. You can also have phone calls and text. But you're kind of formulating your game playing. You're getting in front of a couple of general managers and saying, hey, does this work for you or does this work for you? To me, I'm not necessarily looking forward to seeing Dana Brown make a bunch of moves this offseason when it comes to trades. I do believe there is too much congestion in the infield.

I do believe you have one too many utility players. So those are two situations that could resolve itself with one trade. But for me, if you're going to go spend decent money on guys like Dylan Sees, Zach Gallen, Ranger Suarez, Michael King, Justin Verlander. Cease by far, I mean, Verlander is the most recognizable of the group, but I'm dropping Verlander way down to the first four guys I've mentioned. If you're going to spend decent money on the first two or three in that group, maybe even King, if it's in play,

you know who's going to watch how you spend your money on your pitching staff? It's going to be your ace. Because already, Fronbury is not going to return. so the decision was easily made there that they're not going to spend long-term money on that guy how is hunter going to enjoy this experience i think the if there was the most important thing might be to decongest the infield or it might be to go get at least two arms this off-season but how do you handle any sort of

sort of negotiations with Hunter Brown and or Jeremy Payne this off-season that you don't start thinking about whether or not these guys are going to be Astros beyond their initial contracts. I hope there is as much conversation

about trying to buy out arbitration years for both those guys as there is this conversation about how to fill out the starting rotation for 2006. Because if you sit here and you give Dylan C's this crazy money for five or six years or Zach Gown or Ranger Suarez or Michael King or even I don't even

count Justin Verlinter because if you're bringing back Justin Verlner you're bringing them back on a one year deal probably maybe one year with a team option or or mutual option I don't even care at this point but it's not going to break the bank if you do give heavy money in decent years then does that signal to Hunter Brown that maybe they don't want to get into a long-term conversation. They don't want to buy out arbitration years. Now, can you do both? Of course you can.

There's no one really... You have a luxury tax threshold your meeting, which is, you know, something Astros will be well aware of. But you also have to figure out at some point you're going to have to keep some of the homegrown talent because you haven't done it yet. Well, that's not true.

You kept Altuve, you've kept Yoran, you bought out arbitration years for who's the number two starter for the asteros? I'm drawing a blank here. Ross, I wish it was with me here. Okay, I'll think about who to say. I'm doing live radio here, so I'm having a brain cramp.

You've done that with a handful of players. You know, Yonanon, you took care of, obviously. But the reality is, if Hunter doesn't get some sort of sign that something might work, is he going to be thinking about where should I be playing down the road so I hope

it's a really, really good conversation piece that the Astros will seriously put something in front of Hunter Brown to say yes he is definitely Christian Javier is I'm thinking about I just saw the name Christian Javier. They bought an arbitration years for Christian Javier they've taken care of him

and I know Prince Eraggetty is still around I know that Jason Alexander who certainly did him well for himself last year Blue Ball is certainly thought of and you still have Lance McCullors for one more year and I'm not thinking about 2006. I'm thinking about do we have to start

every year thinking about where is Hunter Brown going to go? Where is Jimmy Pena going to go? I'd like it to be at one point where the Astros don't have to think about man, should we trade this guy like we traded Kyle Tucker? That's not a fun conversation to have.

10.59 on Sports Sports Talk 790. We get the second hour started at the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Coming up in a moment, 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-9-0. Shut your bum ass up at 1130 today. Chris Myers, Fox Sports at 1 o'clock. The news at noon, believe it or not, all coming up between now and then.

You want to chime in? How important do you is Hunter Brown getting something perhaps done way ahead of time? I would think the obvious answer would be, of course, man. it isn't important. He's a true ace. And sometimes you've got to pay the true aces. Problem is, he's got that damn Scott Boris as an agent. The Astros don't do particularly well with Scott Boris as an agent,

except for if it's Jose Altuvia. But, Jose, again, in my mind, in your mind, too, I'm sure. That was a special situation. 713-212-5-790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. It's 11.05 on Sports Talk, 790. Make sure it's working, Jonathan. Apparently it is.

I hope you guys are in a good mood. What a glorious week we've had weather-wise. Yeah, it's supposed to be nice outside. Man, makes you want to do the show outdoors. Go on a run. I'm not going crazy on that. All right. Hey, we got.

Rockets basketball tonight, Cougar basketball tonight. We have Wednesday night college football. I'm assuming, I'm going to assume there's a very mid-level game on tonight. Let's take a look here who the Wednesday night college football game is. Oh, there's nothing. Let me see here. FBS. It is Buffalo.

There's three games tonight in the Mac. Buffalo at Central Michigan, Northern Illinois, at UMass and Toledo at Miami of Ohio. Look, I know you, all of us can't go to our favorite power four schools. But damn, you're, look, there's a lot of you that grew up going to colleges and on Saturdays you were tailgating and you were, at the bars before the game you were bars after the game, you were tailgating at the stadium, you were there

at 11 o'clock for a 2.30 game or you were there at 11 o'clock for a 7 o'clock game, I don't even care. But that's the charm you got to enjoy the experience of college football. You were watching games. You had your direct TV set up or at least your satellite dish or whatever, your cable box.

These poor kids at Central Michigan, UMass and Miami of Ohio, can't pregame on a Wednesday. You got class to 4 o'clock. I mean, I guess you go right from class the stadium, but

I mean, I know it's a, it's a muddied television landscape. And if CBS Sports Network or ESPNU or ESPNOCHO says, yeah, Mac, we'll put your games on, but you're not going to be playing in a time that we, anybody's going to be watching. I mean, would you rather be on the internet

or would you rather have national coverage? Oh, we'll take national coverage. When are we're going to play? Like Saturday, 11 o'clock in the morning or maybe like Saturday night 9.30? No, no, no. You're playing at Wednesday at 6. Wednesday at 6 o'clock. Yish. So shout out to any of you that are Northern Illinois UMass fans. Your team is playing tonight. Good luck to you on that. All right, Texans back on the practice field. Today getting ready for the Tennessee Titans. They are still heavily favored in the game. It doesn't really matter who's quarterbacking. If you were the quarterback, the Texas would be at least a four-point favorite.

Right now, it stands at Houston minus six and a half. The total on it is 38.5. That's not great. Not great at all for a low-scoring affair. Now, the over-under last week was low, too, and the two teams smacked that around pretty quickly. Texans are at four and five. There is a thought.

We mentioned us on the show a little bit yesterday that if things work out perfectly, The Texans can snag the final playoff spot in the AFC was still a long way to go. Right now, the seven teams that are in would be the four division leaders, which would be Indianapolis, Denver, New England, and Pittsburgh. The three wild cards would be the Chargers, the Bills, and Jacksonville. The three teams that would be out that are regulars to the playoffs would be the Kansas City, Chiefs, the Houston Texans, and the Baltimore Ravens.

Now, the reality is the Baltimore Ravens, I think I mentioned us on, to tell the truth on Monday, they're going to jump the Pittsburgh Steelers. They only have, they're only down Baltimore as one game with the Steelers. And I think Baltimore is a better football team, obviously with Lamar Jackson out there. Number two, do you all really think the Kansas City's not going to make the playoffs? now they may not be 16 and 1 or 15 and 2 and they may have regressed a little bit in the last couple of years but they still have enough offensive firepower they should go to Denver and they should win that football game because the reality is this we saw Denver first hand a couple of weeks ago in person

and then if you watch any of that Thursday night game last week between Las Vegas and Denver That was a joke. But we've had some sucky national games lately. Have you all noticed that too? Now, granted, the Packers game with the Eagles was close, but it wasn't entertaining. And watching the Broncos barely beat the Las Vegas Raiders on a Thursday night, low-scoring game there too, that was tough.

Kansas City should go to Denver. Kansas City is a better football team in Denver. I don't care what the record state. Now, is Denver's lead so big in that AFC West, they probably are going to win the division anyway? That's a possibility of that, for sure. But there are a lot of full records out there. Do y'all really think that Denver is an 8-and-2 football team?

I don't. Are the charges really going to be 7 and 3? I guess is what your record is what it is is what it says it is so the question is can this Texas team take this lightning in a bottle moment i.e. winning the game against Jacksonville they had no business winning and can you do enough to take that and run the table or do some son of an incredible record like Wex has been saying this on his show the last couple days I think he's told it for me. Texans have to go seven and two in the final nine games of the season to make the playoffs. Well, they already took care of the first one knocking off Jacksonville on Sunday.

It's go six and two the rest of the way. They go six and two the rest of the way. That puts them at 10 and 7. I don't believe any 9 and 8 team is going to make the playoffs in the AFC this year. 10 and 7, I think gets it done. But if there's a logjam of 10 and 7 teams, you've got to figure out who you've beaten along the way. If the Texans get to 10 and 7, they will have beaten teams that are directly in front of them to make the playoffs. That means they would have beaten at least the Colts once.

They probably have beaten Kansas City in Kansas City. They would have beaten the Chargers in Los Angeles. And they would have at least at the very minimum split the series with the Indianapolis Colts. I don't think they've gotten in them to do that. but maybe this defense is so ridiculously good that it will be able to cover up which turn out to be a very disappointing offense you got to hope that's the case

and you also have to hope that some of these teams with these faux records come down to earth and you also have to hope and this is where I don't think you're going to win in this battle. The Kansas City stays where it is. I mean, can Jacksonville fall in the playoff race? Absolutely. They're 5 and 4, but they don't even act like a 5 and 14.

They've got some bad losses. The loss to them, to the loss they had to the Texans on Sunday, might ruin the rest of their season. You heard all the people in Jacksonville losing their damn minds, and they lost a lot of games. They're used to losing. But the way they did, after being up three scores in the fourth quarter, and Trevor Lawrence,

could be the nicest guy in the world, has a terrific mane on his head, but he sucks. He's a terrible, terrible quarterback. And when you're getting paid $50-something million here, whatever it is, you can be called terrible because you are in that mega contract and when you're making mega dollars, you have to be good. And the reality is this for the Texans. When they sign CJ Stroud of this mega deal, which they'll be doing eventually, because that's what quarterbacks get. He's got to be really good. because if C.J. Stroud or any other quarterback is average at best, you're screwed.

You can't, if you're going to put $40, $50, $60 million behind a quarterback, you can't be average. And Jacksonville's got an average at best quarterback, and that's why they're doomed. 1114 of the Matt Thomas Show at Ross, 713-212-5-790. 713-212-5-7-90 coming up at the bottom of the hour we got shut your bum ass up ain't nobody got time for that we have the news at noon chris meyers from fox sports going to join us at one o'clock and believe it or not what do you guys want to get into texans will cj be able to get on the practice field today we'll know in a matter of minutes also rockets big win against milwaukee i know big's relative term it was the ninth game of the season but you know know it is what it is. Chance for a nice sweet week with three winnable games. Tonight against Washington, Friday against Portland, Sunday against Orlando. By the way, tonight's game with the Rockets is over on our sister station, 740 KTR8.

So you want to check that out. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-79. Also are the general manager meetings and not the rumors, but just the conversation about the Astros going after a free agent pitcher. Is it intriguing you? Or are you more concerned about keeping guys that are in uniform happy and paid, i.e.

Jeremy Pena, and certainly Hunter Brown, the ace of your roster. 713-212-5-790. It's a Matt Thomas show, Ross, 1115, here on Sports Talk 790. All right. Get yourself ready to shut some people up. Thomas, shut their bum ass up in about 10 minutes.

here on 790. 713-212-5-7-90. The news at noon is coming up, plus Chris Myers at 1 o'clock. All right, so I was teasing Gordy before the show and then the first segment of the show about an hour ago. Thank you for listening. About his attempted humor saying that

if you get fired, you should have to go to it in front of an arbitrator to defend getting the contract. You had the money that is owed to you in a contract paid to you and he said it was a joke there was no laughing emojis and

I got I caught him I got I got him in a bad take world and I took advantage of it and so it was good nature to love Gordy like a brother but it was a bad take in his part and got exposed for it it's going to happen sometimes I mean I know Jonathan by the way I can see you it's nice to see you here Jonathan oh yeah I mean look at

look how comfortable I am right now I got my H-John blues on I got my slacks I'm to go. So if you have a bad take, I expose you for your bad take, just like you would expose you for my bad takes. How many likes do you have on that now? It's a lot. You're blown up. I know. Thank you very much, Cordy, for that. So his point was...

Yeah, 1.1K. You got a thousand likes on this. Is that really that many? Oh, my God. Are you serious? You got 1.1. Oh, my gosh. It was just that $7.90 an hour ago. That's crazy. Oh, my God.

114,000 views Gordy Does he know this? I hope he's listening because you just blew up like in the past hour for sure My tweet was

You offered me a contract I signed it Case closed at five seconds That's how it works even in LSU Thank you Gordy This is the anti-racial I've only had 12 comments And most of them are agreement with me

1,000-1 or likes 114,000 views. Damn, you know, I'm a college football analyst. You ratioed your own co-worker? I ratioed a coworker. I didn't mean to do that, Gordy, but damn, if it worked, you know, she fits. But to his central point, when he came in a few minutes ago, it's like, hey, why are we doing this? Why are we guaranteeing contracts?

And the standard answer is, well, it's because everybody guarantees contracts. Well, I want to see somebody do it. That ship has passed. no one that's worth anything in the college football world, or for that matter, in the coaching world. Forgetting about college football. This is college basketball. It's the NFL.

It's Major League Baseball. Now, you don't hear much about Major League Baseball manager contracts, but you certainly hear about NFL contracts. You hear about NBA contracts. This notion that when you fire a coach, who has a guaranteed contract for him not to expect every dollar that is in that guaranteed contract, for him to be a nice guy and be diplomatic about it and say, well, you know, you fire me with five years left and, you know, I'll take 60 cents on the dollar.

That's patently absurd. Well, Gordy's argument was, well, you came here to win games. You didn't win games, so you didn't fulfill your contract. There is not a single stipulation in the contract that says, Hi, you, Brian Kelly or James Franklin, you are the coach at Penn State. You are the coach at LSU. Your responsibilities are to win football games. Your responsibilities are to be the head coach.

Your responsibilities are to be the leader of young men. You are responsible for adhering to all the rules that are a part of NCAA football, which frankly isn't much anymore. but nobody has a contract that says we want you to come coach our team because we want you to win. That's just an assumed. Now, if you want to build a contract

that says if this particular coach does not win eight games by the second year or does not compete for a national championship by year number four, there are avoidable years in the contract, you could certainly do that, but guess who's going to sign that? Absolutely nobody.

there are some things in life when it comes to employment that will never change you will never see a change in how college coaches are compensated especially when you're a team or a school that wants to pay big money to grab somebody away from somebody else your contract has to be lengthier with more money and more guarantees and absolutely no thought avoidable years. In fact, these contracts are like are still going to give you outs. Let's say that, I mean, I can, I'm going to assume that Willie Fritz has outs at the University of Houston. I don't want him going anywhere. I want him to be here long term. I don't think Willie's looking to go anywhere because, I mean, well, look,

Willie has in his mid-60s. He's been moving around a lot in the last 15 years. I think he wants to settle in. He's being compensated very, very well. But even if Willie said, I want to go somewhere else. In his contract, there are breakable clauses to it. Now, you have to pay the university back, but guess who does that? More than likely, it's a school that's taking you on as your new coach. When Tom Herman left the University of Houston to go to the University of Texas,

and there were contracts paybacks to the University of Houston, It wasn't Tom Herman directly paying it. It was probably the University of Texas doing it or some friend of or some donor or some sponsor. Yeah, the contracts don't work fair. They are heavily in favor of the employee in this particular case coaches. But this notion that just because you didn't win and just because I fired you, doesn't mean you got to pay, that schools don't have to pay out what's available, what's left in the contract is absurd.

That's why, again, I'm no Brian Kelly fan. And unless Brian Kelly did something so dastardly that showed for cause, then he needs to be getting a one big fat check of $53 million from Louisiana State University and the Bank of Tigers and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Period. It's ridiculous. And how LSU is trying to get into a tussle with them over paying him portions of it. Now, you know, you could also tie him up in legalities for a while.

And maybe they, maybe they amp it up to $40 million, whatever. And that's up to Brian Kelly. But Brian Kelly thinks he owes, he's owed $53 million. And the contract states that as much, he's going to get his $53 million. But you said this last, like earlier last week or maybe, you know, earlier this week, you were saying how bad this looks on the job. Like, I don't think any of the coach would want. to come to LSU with all this political and like, you know,

well, the question is how good is the job? It's still an amazing job. Right. Because if you're firing Kelly knowing that you probably have to pay $53 million, that means you've got money somewhere. I don't know where it is, but you got it. And usually, again, Jonathan, you're talking about boosters that are paying a lot of this. Yeah.

But still, how many boosters does LSU have to go to to pay off a contract? And I don't know if that's a lump, some that Brian Kelly is owed or they've got a certain amount of time to do so. But you're getting rid of $53 million to have someone go away and then you're going to have to pay somebody a lot of money to come there. You're going to pay a lot of money for your staff to get there too. I mean, this could cost LSU well north of $150, $120 million to get this resolved. Because if you want anybody worth their salt to come to LSU, you're going to have to pay them.

Secondly, they're going to be like, man, why don't I want to go somewhere where all Brian Kelly did was win now he didn't win to the level that was supposed to be won at he didn't win a national championship but he went to eight nine games every year right

you're firing me with all that length on that contract that's a tough tough sell now some coach would be like it's LSU I can go I can go to LSU I can recruit Baton Rouge, New Orleans Lafayette

tip of dough and be done and win a national championship but I can do something that Brian Kelly didn't do as long as you pay me and as long as my contract's guaranteed The guaranteed contract for coaches is not going away. It's cool and funny interesting to think, and it might, but it's never going to.

All right. I've done enough talking here. I'm almost over this cold, about 90%. By the way, the saline stuff is working out very well. Thank you very much. It's good. And chicken noodle soup also helps, too. Listen to me.

You got to tell some people to shut their bum asses up. Jonathan, I'm starting with you. 713-212-5-790 Hey nobody getting time Hey nobody getting time 1135 I got things to say Let them out

I'm going This is it You know what if y'all want I want you involved in this Because this makes you feel better Makes me feel better Somebody piss you off at the office On the roads

At home At the restaurant with lousy service Oh, shut their bum asses up, mate Shut your bum ass up, man Anybody make you wait long lines Anybody make you Get delayed flights Cancel flights

Anybody got time for that Ain't nobody got time for that Our federal government shut down Ain't nobody got time for that People missing flights People having to read book Massive delays Don't come to the airport to four

hours after your flight was scheduled. Anybody got time for that? Ain't nobody got time for that? And another one, Jonathan. You hear me? I'm getting fired up. I'm gonna fire myself up. I gotta do it.

Okay. If you food shame me, shut your bum ass up, man. Shut your bum ass up, man. Food shamed you by the big rib now. Stop me. Stop food shaming me. I don't like what you like.

I don't shame you. I don't want, you go to a rarts rickin to get the lizards and gizzards, and I don't shame you for. that you eat caviar the gross ass stuff I don't make you I don't make I don't make fun of you I may talk behind your back want to do it to your face

shut your bum ass up shit your bum ass up man I like McRibbs I like egg salad I like mayonnaise I like ranch dressing I like it all Oh egg salad time oh you don't like egg salad What's the man with you? The smell alone I can do it Oh I'd like me some egg salad Let me give me an egg salad sandwich

And lunch in a minute, I think Stay away from me. What thing? I'm going to... That breath's going to be hot. It's going to be creamy and delicious. Man, not my breath, but you know, sandwich. What else I got going on?

I got a lot of things. Yeah, the airport stuff is pissing me off because all my friends are flights are being missed and delayed, and I feel terrible. I don't... Thankfully, I don't have to try... I'm not traveling commercially right now. But, I mean, if I was, I'd be really mad.

You know, we spend money to keep our flight... You know, I have friends that are flight... that are flight air traffic controllers. They haven't been paying a month. I'm sorry, but that's unfair. Anybody got time for this. Let's go.

Let's get everybody back working again. Hey, nobody got time for that. You think it's bad. Now, imagine what Thanksgiving week's going to be like and people are trying to travel for Thanksgiving. If I was traveling for Thanksgiving, I'd cancel my flights right now. I wouldn't even test.

I wouldn't even test it. Maybe a slimmer hope. You're not going to keep it. Nope, I wouldn't do it. Now, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going with a rocket. It's on a road trip, but we're not, it's on a commercial trip.

So, just saying. John, then what's the matter with you? I'm a small talker. I like to create a little small talk and move on a day. Okay. I'm a nice guy. I'm not going to tell you to her face, but if you give me a whole story

and you keep me trapped in a conversation, I'm going to start looking at you weird. Ain't everybody got time for the full story. I just want to say, how you're doing? How are you doing? Tell me how you're doing real quick and on my way, especially if I'm in the studio.

Everybody knows I'm a producer. I got three minutes max to walk around. Don't trap me in a conversation. Now I'm going to feel bad. Like, no, no one's got time for that, man. Like, just. Hey, nobody got time for that. So there's somebody here at the office that's trying to have a long conversation with you.

Almost a same. It's not the same person, but almost how you had it at one day and you were mad at Ross for leaving you dry. He did. That happened to me the other day. I'm like, I got two minutes to the heat of my food, man. Let me go. Like, you know, like, no one's got time for that. Microwaving food is about microwaving it, watching the timer go from two minutes of zero, stirring it up, bringing it back to where you're going to sit and eat it.

I just want that little two minute of piece. All right. I got my food. You know what I mean? Like, come, man. I'll get you. 713, 212-5-790. Angela on 7-90.

Angela, what's the matter with you? Wait, throw it back. Hold on. Am I doing it again? All right, trying it again. Angela, what's the matter with you? Hold on. I'll hear.

Put her on hold. I'm putting her on hold. I locked her in there. All right. I'm in a new broadcast spot here. Are we going to try this again? There we go. Hello?

Hi, Angela. What's the matter with you, Angela? Well, I'm calling because I'm tired of the Rockets not getting the respect or the shine nationally they should get. And it brings me to the game on Sunday. I'm sorry, on, what was it, Friday when they played the Spurs? They did? Okay. So the sideline reporter was talking about the Spurs fans.

I don't know what they're called. I think the Flakeys or something. I don't know. The Flake. They're called the Flakey's? I don't know what. I don't know. They were giving a name, but the thing is they were saying how Wembley, he was like,

oh, he's got this group of people, but they never made mention that the Rockets did it before them because Jeff Van Gundy started with the Red Rowdies. And he, so I just think Paramount sideline reporter, ain't nobody got time for that. Give credit where credit is due. Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, she's talking about that group of fans that sit in the upper level of the baseline on one on the side of the court. They do have a strange name.

The Flakies. I don't know if they're the Flakies. That would be so funny if they are, though. No, they're the Jackals. Jackals are the Jackals are the official Wemby Spurs supporters. So what they do is they sit like where the Roddy sit at the Toyota Center. And that same set, you know, bass line about 15, 20 rows up. Yeah, yeah.

And then at halftime, when I went to go to the bathroom because I'm on the concourse, they start, like, not a band procession, but like, they walk around and singing and chanting in the concourse at halftime. Okay. A cappella group, almost? No, they're just yelling. Oh. You know, spurs are the best.

Spurs are the best. Let's go spurs. let's go spur you know stuff like that you know what i got i'm going to tell you that right now jackals i need to go urinate i may want to go get a sandwich get out of my concourse anybody got time for you to be going let's go wimby you do that for two and a half hours you know i got another one actually tell me i just all over because after we lost to the spurs all over my for you tab on uh the twitter streets is the salty Jalen Green Rockets fan

saying that we should never have a trade for Katie he's a bum this this and this and this man it's the first what 10 11 games shut your bum ass up man and it'll be the same fans to be reping a Katie jersey at the Toyota Center when we're doing all right

doing this is this and this and ass I don't know what we're doing I don't know why we're bashing on Katie and you got Phoenix fans being like no refunds like come on dude like nobody By the way I think Jalen is going to be out 4 to six weeks with a bad hamstring.

And there it is. Well, I mean, I like Jalen, but, I mean, injuries happen. Let me tell you, yeah, Spurs Jackals have an Instagram account. They have 2,985 followers. Vic, and they're on their Instagram, it says, Victor Womenyama's initiative to create the largest home court advantage in the NBA for the Spurs.

I wonder if he pays for the tickets. Now, if he does that, that's cool, because Van Gundy did that for a while for the Rockets. That would be pretty cool. But these people, I mean, they probably date each other, have relations with each other. It kind of looks like traveling Texans fans, honestly. Spurs Jackals. That's got to be a Wemby reference of some sort.

But yeah, they're screaming, let's go Spurs. Way to go Spurs. Who loves the Spurs? We do. I mean, get out of my way. Let me go the bathroom. Everybody got time for you yelling spurs crap at halftime. You're up by one point.

Hey, nobody got time for that. And you won the game, and I'm good for you, but come on. And there's one dude that NBA on Prime took a picture of this dude. He didn't have a shirt on. He's got a big fat gut, hairy chest, which is gross. And it's wearing a terrible mustache and bad hair. Some ladies like the chest hair. I don't know.

I mean, I got chest hair. I'm on saying that, but. He's got man breast, too. I mean. Look, I used to have man breast myself, too. Look at, you're there, right here. I want to send you this. Look at this video.

I'm going to show you this on the screen. All right. Look at him dancing like this. Look at him dancing. They're kind of lame. Do Red Routy's dance? Y'all, hey, if y'all are red Routies, y'all dance or no?

But you know what? You're OGs. You're allowed to dance. And you know what? You're a rocket fans, too, so I ain't going to riff on you. Yeah, you can't, you're basically impersonating them. All right. Back on the phones next for more of, shut your bum ass. I tell you, did I tell you all this is the best week and radio, the half hour on the show and radio? You just makes you feel better. 713212-579. 1151 on Sports Talk 790.

today's edition of Believe it or not he's going to be alive or dead this week and Jonathan I'm going to add a little layer to it I'm going to take

some of my favorite television shows of all time all right so that's what three's company um ER

ER was okay it was okay okay you get my drift I know and I'm taking sections of their show and saying are any of these

members of these shows still alive okay so like duo trio quads of people on one question. So if you're a big fan

of 70s and 80s television, even 90s television, that's today's edition of believe it or not, is are these sections of these people on these shows still alive? I'll give you a case and point. We did this last time with the Brady Bunch. Yeah.

I said are all six members, all six kids of the Brady Bunch still alive? Oh, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So that's, that's, not one of them this week, but that's what I'm doing with. Three's company, we did before. Are all members of Three's company

still alive? The answer is, believe it. It's Janet. Jack is dead. Chrisie's dead. So there you go. We're doing quads and duos and trios of your favorite television stars. Unbelieve or not today. 713-212-5-790. Roger, what's the matter with you? Wait, throw them back. I don't know.

What are you doing back? there. I'll have to come back in a break. Put him to hold. Hold, okay. All right, there it is. Oh, hello, Roger. Hello, guys.

Yeah, I got something to pick you back on that Friday first. Yeah, my algorithm on social media, except on posting how Wendy cooks the rockets with his 22 points. I'm like, what on earth are they talking about? why is it all windy? It was some unknown guys named Castle, Champagne, and

the corpse of... Champany? A barn person. Yeah, him too. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, these guys, let's see how that pulls up throughout the year, and they come and talk. Until then, shut your bum ass up.

Shit your bum ass up, man. I know. These Spurs may not go away, though. That's my problem. I'm a little concerned about how good they're going to be this year. Don't tell Adam Clinton that either. Don't tell him that Wimby's good. You won't believe you.

Spurs, by the way, this year, are we going to get cocky Spur fanning and they've been quiet the last handful of years? They're at 8 and 2. By the way, Oklahoma City's 11 and 1. Anybody got time for the Thunder to be good again? Ain't nobody got time for that. You know what I'm doing right now?

I've got to shut my own bum ass up. I'm standing's watching. Set your bum ass up, man. The Rockets have played nine games. What is wrong with me? I mean, there's a lot of things, but... You wait until, like, February, before we look. No, I'm doing it every night.

It's not good for your health. You know the only... That's true. You know the only standings I don't look at are spring training stats. Numbers. Like, I couldn't tell you how the Astros did in the last five spring trainings.

But another rocket with a two seat last year. All right, are you putting line one up for me or am I doing? All right, let's go to Ryan on 7A. Ryan, what's the matter with you this week? man i had some of my neighbor friends and their kids come over we had a fire pit in my house and then so saturday i woke up i saw the fire pit out there or sunday i woke up so i hung a tv

and had some beers and watched the texans outside a good time all the neighbors came over and hung out sure yesterday i got an h-o-a letter they want to find me a hundred dollars shut your bum-ass up man i didn't shut your bum-ass up wait a minute for having the tv in the backyard my house but it's not even owned by the it's not even owned by our neighborhood it's owned by the county but they wrote me i got fined by our h-o-a and they don't even own that property can i just tell h-o-a's to shut their bum-ass up and period shut your bum-ass up man yes sir you know why because sometimes when my trash gets picked up i take it to the garage and don't put it inside the garage and they write me nasty letters but you can't have your cans visible shut your bum-ass up

shit your bum ass up man get rid of HOAs abolish them I am done with HOAs down with HOAs y'all y'all a bunch of 80 year old bitties got nothing else better to do than just irritate people in your neighborhood

so to the 80 year old bitties that are at my HOA in Kingwood shut your bum asses up shit your bum ass up man thank you Ryan appreciate it I didn't mean to I didn't mean the low key do that to them

but now I do put my cans in my garage 99 times out of 100 so this is like I guess early I just don't get it because I'm pretty young, but what's the point of them finding Ryan $100? Like, what's the... Because he probably was doing it on a plot of land or area that was not his.

So he's going to, they're going to find him $100 so they don't do it again. And that goes to the HOA? That goes to their pig roast at the end of the year. That's what I'm saying? Like, what's this? It goes to a February crawfish get together. Yeah, that's, that's... Look, if I, look, I know there are, there are reasons to have an HOA.

Because if you don't have an HOA, then people can do whatever they want with their house and that's not good either. Right for retail prices and stuff like that. Well, I'm just for general sanctity in your neighborhood. But, man, are the cans being at my garage really causing

y'all to lose the value of the prettiness of my neighborhood? There's some crappy-ass lawns out there, terrible-looking Christmas aren't decorations out there. That's way more damage to my neighborhood than having my cans at my garage. I don't put my

I don't put Look we have We have five people living in our house right now We each have cars They have five cars I don't put one of my cars in my front lawn I see that all the time Especially you Baytown

You all live for that kind of stuff And Nack did that too Yeah NAC does that all the time It ain't not going No land for that Yeah So come on If I don't

If I bring my cans to the garage At the door That's not terrible Let me have my time last call for shut your bum ass up come on you i know y'all got some h-o-a crap out there you want to just get off your chest poor ryan all i want to do is just watch the game outside beautiful day in the city of houston 713 212 5 790 713 212 5790 scott with us on line 2 all right i'm going to try this i'm going to try to put you up on the air myself you can

the best technology here in the company. I can't argue with that. Scott, what's the matter with you? I didn't worry for them on hold. Oh, Jesus. Hi, Scott. How you doing? How are you doing? I'm amazing. Thank you for asking. Good, good. Yeah, I'm just calling about neighbors that don't take their trash cans inside the garage. Oh, nobody got time for that. Put them in your garage. Hey, nobody got time for that. I don't do it on a regular basis. Scott, I just once in a while to forget. I'm not an all of a perfect life.

This wasn't directed at you, Matt. This is just in general. You know, it was directed at me. I can live with it. I can, I'm a big boy. I can handle the criticism. I can handle it. All right.

See, Scott. Anybody got time for that. Yeah, I know. But really? Have you ever driven by, when y'all drive through neighborhoods? Oh, do you see that house on Mulberry Lane? Oh, that guy's got his two cans out.

Ooh, that's terrible. I'm way more offended by your 1997 Nissan Maximum in your front yard than I am about your two cans. I'm way more offended by your, your 2006 boat that's got rust all over it in front of your house. I'm way more offended by that. I'm way more offended that you haven't trimmed your trees and that's why you got to call affordable trees. That's what offends me. The can's not being in the garage.

Yeah, you get a little bit of grace with me. God, I feel so much better now. Chris Myers is going to join us in one hour here on. sports talk 790 713212 5790 it's funny the little things in life i've told you all if y'all food shaming me shut your mom asses up i feel good about that you're shaming me about not having my my garage cans and my garbage cans in my house this is the matt thomas show with ross twelve o five at h town this is our number three of the matt thomas show with Ross. Ross is in Los Angeles doing Southern California things and I'm here in Houston

with you guys. Hope you guys are in a good mood, ladies as well. We look forward to having you a part of the show since it's me and Jonathan. More time for you to come in if you want to discuss all things about the local sports scene, which will include the Texans getting on the practice field for the first time getting ready for Sunday's game with the Tennessee Titans, the Rockets, all that today's news at noon. Congratulations, DeNeil Hunter, named the AFC defensive player of the week for his performance against the Jacksonville Jaguars, seven tackles, three and a half sacks, four tackles for loss, four quarterback hits, a forced fumble. As the Texans beat the Jaguars 36-29, it was his first defensive player the week award with the Texans. No word yet on who is on the practice field yet.

and that would include C.J. Stroud in concussion protocol. Jalen Petrie, Titus Howard. Those are the three main guys. The question is, if you're the Texans, do you hold those three guys out this week knowing it's horrific Tennessee and making sure they're completely ready for next Thursday.

One week from tomorrow, the Texans will be taking on the Buffalo Bills. What I think should be a... Yeah, no. Ross isn't here. It's a must-win game. frankly they got to go six and two the rest of the way so they got six must wins and two need to wins how about that six and two gets the texans in ten and seven i think it's going to be good enough for them to make the playoffs anything short of that they ain't going so in some respects and i'm talking myself into this sunday is a must win because you can't afford if you got a harder schedule coming up you can't afford to lose in tennessee someone's going to say it ross ain't here Texans game against the Titans?

It's a must win. It's a got to have one. And guess what? They're going to win. If the Texans lose the Titans on Sunday, let's close up shop, all you battle reds and you deep steel dudes and you Texans traveling Texans, weirdos,

go cancel all your trips, don't go anywhere else, be done with it. Your season's over. But it's not going to be an issue. They're winning in Tennessee. And as I said a couple days ago, they're winning by more than 10 points. Rockets are home tonight for the Washington Wizards.

Dunkst or not uniforms are in play. Those are always very cool. Rockets are going to take on the worst defense in the NBA. The worst. And they're also thinking, by the way, the worst team in the NBA, the Wizards who have one victory so far this year. And that'll be a 7 o'clock tip time over on our sister station,

News Radio 740, KTRH. we'll start everything off at 6.30 with the network pregame. What else? Anything else going on here? Let's see. Nope. Can't think anything else. Oh, Nico Harris is still fired.

By the way, you know, do you think Jonathan, they should go, the next time the Mavericks have a home game, they should change their chance to fired Nico? It's like a celebration chant Kind of like we did this We did this together Oh that would be kind of nice That might rally some some fan spirit

I'm gonna call my shot I'm gonna call my shot and say that next time The Mavericks have a home game They're gonna chant fired Nico Because if there's ever an example of Of the fan base doing it to a team It's definitely them Mavericks by the way

Are a very disappointing start of the season I hate it Not. Mavericks, by the way, are the second worst record in the Western Conference at 3 and 8. I don't, ugh. I go, yeah. That's crazy. The downfall. They're home for Phoenix tonight. By way, if you not heard, former Rocket, Jalen Green out several weeks with a bad hamstring.

Warriors are at the Spurs tonight, and I'm standing to watching, and it's the sickness I have and I need therapy, but I'll say, let's go Warriors. and it makes me sick to my stomach to say that. We want the Warriors to win and frankly let the Mavericks to win because we want the Rockets to keep that top four spot in the Western Conference. Rockets right now, again, only nine games in the season. You're like, Matt, get a life.

They're six and three. They'd be taking on the Lakers in the first round of the playoffs at the start of the day. But they don't start until like April. God, what's wrong with me? That's why I need you guys. That's what I do.

When I'm here by myself, Ross keeps me in check. Jonathan's busy trying to keep us on the air. I'm sitting here standing I got a problem I'm worried about the Rockets nine games into the season Not worried but looking

It's not worried Not a worry Just like You know I'm thinking about playoff seedings I need you I got issues Maybe I start smoking during the show

We can't bring that in the office I don't think Forget what I said That was a bad idea That's the news it knew I'm just excited by the Rockets I want to see where this thing goes I want to see where this thing goes

and if Reed Shepherd can play the majority of the season like he played the last three games of the Rockets on the most recent road trip Rockets are going to have their point guard situation not rectified but feeling a lot better than they did before the start of the season

you do miss Fred it's funny every one of the radio shows I've been on the last week or so talking about the Rockets are like me and yell miss Fred. I'm like, yeah, Fred is missed. He'll be missed all season long. And it's so funny because a lot of you were not the biggest Fred fans

during the course of the season last year. But you miss them now. And, yeah, I mean, he is stability. That's why, as I said before to other folks, the turnover count for the Rockets is going to be high this year. It's just going to be. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

Brent with this on 7-90. Hi, Brent. Of course, I'm trying to put this on. and that's not working. I can't hear anything. Hi, Brent. Oh, hey, man. Sorry about that.

I think he just stole a little bit of my thunder. I didn't catch the first part of the show, but the Rockets and Reed Shepherd. The ball movement wasn't that great, and I just would greet it with everybody. I know the team that I was jail. It seemed like they were doing a good job moving the ball around. Yeah.

I'm surprised to hear you saying that you were disappointed in something, and I didn't catch what it was. Turnovers. I know you just mentioned turnovers, yeah. And you just mentioned me. Shepard, and I thought he had been doing great, but are better, with the ball movement. I still don't

think the team is there, especially when they get tired moving around, but without the ball, there's obviously work to be done, you know, as the team goes on, and the team needs to gel. Right. Perhaps. Do you know what they're working on immediately to take this, or?

No, there's nothing, they're nothing working, anything immediate. They're they want to see how this team turns out probably till the trade deadline. but they would like for this team not to have any massive moves they don't have any wigger room to begin with and second of all they love their team as it is now you're just going to have you don't have a prototypical point guard that plays major minutes Fred van bleed as you know Brent played 35 minutes a night and he didn't turn the ball over and so you just had nobody that

could replace him uh you know Alpern does a pretty decent job of ball handling for a big man man Thompson does as well but those guys are taller guys that are not the true definition of point guards and thus you're going to run in some issues with some higher turnover counts. Yeah, also I feel like to hold in the ball for a long time and maybe that gives the other team time to swarm or figure out what they're doing. You know,

KD's playing a lot of minutes. It seems like when he gets tired, he slows down and just stops. And I don't know if help's not coming fast enough. Help is not coming fast. That's exactly what it is. Help is not coming fast enough. But when that double team comes, that's got to be on KD

to get rid of the ball as soon as it gets there. he sometimes tries a wiggle around it but other than that I mean if that's the biggest flaw in Katie's game right now is not getting on the double team fast enough I mean look what the numbers he's putting up so far this season with all the double teams he's attracted and begin with no I mean it seemed like early on in the season

and the games I couldn't watch a lot of times to listen to you thank you. I could watch it says Katie or that double team you know they fished the ball and they were diving for the rim so I don't know why that's not still the plan but my gosh if there's going to be two automatic double team

with players on the court. Why don't take advantage of that? I don't know. Of course, I don't know a lot of things. There's something else, but I think that's going to do. Great show, man. Thank you. I appreciate it. Oh, hey, tonight.

So if they've got a lousy team to play against, are they going to get any practice out of this, or is it just going to be a bunch of one-on-one and people telling or stunting? Washington doesn't play any defense. They are they're giving up, I mean, they're awful. I mean, first of all, they're a terrible team.

They've always been, but they're really bad defensively. They've given up, like, Cade Cunningham shot 45 times against them the other night in one game. 45. That's a lot. It's a lot. I mean, is this going to be meaningful practice, or is this going to be just almost trash time

for them working on their both of them? No. No, they will hopefully, they will hopefully have a big lead in the game and get some guys that don't normally get to play some minutes because, you know, the schedule is going to start to get more difficult here. We've had a lot of off days in between games and that eventually will come up and bite them

because there'll be some back-to-backs and three games and five days kind of stuff coming up soon enough. Right. A long season, man. Yeah, it is. Thank you, Brent. Appreciate it. I like that.

All right. And Gordy got our phone line system fixed. You tell Gordy, John, you tell Gordy how many likes I got on there and how many views I got on his post? Nobody cares. Yeah, everybody cares. Everybody's loving it. everybody's loving it

I have a hundred thousand 130,000 views both people of folks Cory here that 130,000 views on your joke I'm taking the credit for your joke allegedly 1215 on sports talk

790 he's hating this it was a joke folks relax what he says when you're supposed to put funny emojis out there you gotta apologize on Friday I'm not apologizing he needs to apologize

for his horrific take one guy got the joke he just tweeted at me It's a Judge Judy college football style. He gets it. It's a joke. Okay, one person of how many people are on Twitter? Like 40 million?

1216, the Matt Tauvishio at Raw. 713, 2125.7.9. So believe it or not today, again, is going to be famous television series groups. And you've got to decide whether they're alive or not. And you can't ask John because he doesn't know what any of these people are. Not one. I might know one person for this company, that's it. No.

No, no, you don't know. By the way, I tell you this all the time, Jonathan, and I got many illnesses in my life. I got a fix. Yeah. One of them is checking my 4U tab during the break. There are so many people that are filming videos with sports commentary or life commentary in their cars. Really? Why are we doing this?

I have not seen that That's crazy That's kind of That's what I talked to you about that I said I just don't get it With all this unprofessionalism All these Zoom calls on broadcast It's just I don't know

I feel like sports Journalism is just gone Well it's not journalism It's just commentary I mean I guess the issue is well Because here's I don't ever film anything in my house

Because I'm always afraid You guys are gonna make fun of my house Okay That makes sense I mean I get no I get to Like hey your windows need to be washed

Or hey what kind of goofy chair are you sitting in? Where if you do it in your car, it's just you sitting in either the passenger seat or in the driver's seat, you've got a wheel. You can't really, unless you're like hoarding stuff in the back of your car, you can't make fun of your type of vehicle

of what you're driving, right? Right. I've told you this before. I'm thinking about starting to do it daily, what's going on in my brain as I drive. But I don't want to do that because it would be full of swear words and profanities and ugliness. Well, then, but your audience will get to know the real Matt Thomas.

Oh, they know who. If you meet me all fair, you know who the real I am. Exactly. So they would, I think they would enjoy it. I don't know. I got to keep a certain public image up. I don't usually swear in public. I do, but I just don't do it near y'all.

I mean, anybody's shooting there. They're like sports commentary. Hey, I think this is what the Dodgers should do in for agency. Hey, I wouldn't be surprised if LSU goes out of the... You know what? Go into studio. Go knock a 60-second video out now. Why are you doing your car?

Unless you're humble bragging how great your car is. But my guess is if you are shooting video in your car, you're probably doing it as you're driving, which is not safe. They're trying to show up that nice G-wagon or that, you know. No, but I can't tell these people what kind of cars these people have. That's the thing is, if you're going to do it in your car, you might as well humble brag what you got, right? No, actually, yeah, show me the little sparkling lights on your ceiling.

I'm going to tell you all right now, If there is a automobile dealership out there that would like me to read their commercials and talk about how great their dealership is, I'll do videos in your car. I'm putting it out there right now. So if you're a sales manager of a dealership or you're an employee of a dealership, like, hey, I want the Matt Thomas show. I want, with Ross, I want Matt to be speaking about how great our dealership is. I'll go in the damn car and shoot a video that way.

I've never done it before. But I'll do it right now. Not like this exact moment, but I'll do it down the road. To any of you that work for a dealership, let's go. I'll break a trend to show you that I'm going to join the rest of the collaboration out there of creating all this online content in my phone, in the car. And I won't do all I'm driving. I'll do it safely.

That's the mark I make for y'all. 1225 on Sports Talk 790. 713-212-5-790. If you want to chime in, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. It was kind of nice having that call, Jonathan, come in, about the rocket-submit. to go. You know, there's so many people that still believe in the NBA season and start until December.

I thought that way. I don't, what kind of do to shake you of that? Is there anything I can do? Well, you know, honestly, the playing tournament kind of gets me a little more interested to see you, like, when does that? But that doesn't happen until what? Well, we've had one playing game so far. That was last Friday.

And that was the Spurs, right? So that kind of, I tuned in that because that kind of gives me like. You were trying to see how crazy the floor was looking, one, weren't you? One, yes, because I actually like the courts and the playoffs. Okay, I got you. tournament. But I, you know, I think the plan tournament is really a good indicator of what's going to happen in postseason.

These last couple years has been kind of Well, yeah, because Oklahoma City didn't win it, so Yeah, and Houston went far. Except for the one time Milwaukee went and, you know, Dame went crazy, but I mean, but I think it's really good telling you, like, what teams already polished early on season we got looking for and stuff like that. I would like it. Yeah,

the reality to me is I can probably try to fight this battle, but I'm going to lose every time. Because the reality, is we still got a lot of college football left. We don't have a lot of college. We got, like, four more weeks? Yeah.

Because the Cougars are out this week, and they've got TCU and Baylor, and then the weekend after that is the college football championship, you know, the conference championship weekend, and then you get the bowl season after that. NFL still got, what, about a 30% left for going the season there, 35, 40% something like that. Yeah, a month and a half. Yeah, that's good, and it's about solid.

And there's no more buy weeks. Well, there are a few teams that got by weeks, but not many. All those goofy international games are gone. You know who I feel bad for is college basketball. Yeah. I mean, there were like 15 college basketball games on last night. I was curious if anybody was watching in Houston was watching any of them. I wasn't turned on none of that.

I did have Texas Tech Illinois on for a little bit. Because the NBC NBA game last night was Boston, Philadelphia. It didn't do much for me. I love the Western Conference because I'm always thinking about where the rockets are going to have and who they could eventually play and end up in competing with. Boston Philadelphia doesn't do anything for me. I mean, if you're an NBA historian,

you love those old series matchups, but I don't know if Jalen Brown is going to move the needle for you, you know? Well, I think college, men's college basketball, like, this last couple years, women's college basketball because Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese happened. But I feel like men,

we haven't had that star, like, someone to tune into since, like, Che or Suggs with Gonzaga or, like, even. But those guys didn't even, I mean, think about the number one star in the NBA of the moment, the youth. Well, the thing about the youngest stars that are the most, the future of the NBA, didn't play a lick of college. Wembenyama didn't play a lick of college. Luca didn't play a lick of college. And the other guys that are like first, second, third, third picks overall.

I mean, you had the, I mean, a man, Thompson, Rocket Star, didn't play in college. Yeah, he didn't play, yeah. A lot of these guys are one year and done. So it's just, it's kind of hard to. invest in men's like we don't even when zion was there like it's you already knew it was just one year and he got cooper flag you knew he was going to be done after that one year like you know so i guess the only reason why you would invest is if you if you were able to associate those guys with those teams for a long period of time but even if you had players that stuck around for several years

unless you're a fan of that school i don't even know if if if if Texas tech had nine seniors on their team, all of a sudden America be like, man, that Texas Tech teams bring me pretty good. Yeah, because the only, I mean, and this is no bias. The only team that's like that right now is the Cougars. Like, that's the only. Yeah, but they're going to have two, probably two players leaving to go out to the first year in Houston. I mean, that's true. When you start grabbing these top five national recruiting list and people think that you're going to be in the number one recruiting class, you're recruiting for a year. Yeah, and I've met even smaller D1 basketball players they have that same mindset like if it's not a good season i'm transferring i'm out that's right

you know yeah yeah i so even though i bit you complain about the fact that i i wish we had more houstonians buying in on the rocket stuff because this can be a fun season i think i mean you got you got a rising stars but you got the mega you got a megastar in your wearing your gear bragging about his h town uniform tonight the dunks are on it on his thigh College basketball, y'all will take a real backseat. We'll come to you in March. Don't worry. 713-212-5-790.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Joe Espada was on Astroline last night. Some of the highlights of that is up next. 1230 here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. So those of you need to notice, that Astroline is the off-season show for the Astros, and they do it once a week between 6 o'clock and 7. And the days rotate because of the rocket schedule. So last night was their opportunity on the Astros Network,

and I believe that it was hosted by Todd Callas. Joe Espada was the guest last night. And there were some conversation pieces discussed about what's going to happen for 2020. Of course, we are your proud home of the Astros and cannot wait to get into a deep dive of what to do with the local nine. And I would have to say, and we'll go to a spot of six on this, that Joe Espada is ready to see this team work on Improids. proving the overall pitching staff.

We feel good about what we have, but for us to protect the pieces that we have in place, the Hunter Browns, the Christian Javier, the Spencer Arrogati, all those guys that are, we need more just to help them out throughout the season and being able to have a six-man rotation at some point, right, and have our young pitchers who are very close to joining our rotation just to make sure that we give them enough time for them to develop. up in the minor leagues and not rush them to the big leagues. There's a lot of things that we can control, obviously. But one thing that we learned this year was that

at some point someone from AA might need to come up here or maybe someone who we were not counting on until maybe July October might have to come in May. Hopefully that doesn't happen but we have to prepare ourselves to make sure that we have enough

that we could let our young kids just develop and be ready to come here and help us at the right time. So it sounds like to me he wants to spend some money on some veteran arms or at least acquire one through trade. Dylan C's, the name has been brought up quite a bit. And here's the... Look, he was a guy that was on the Astros radar at the trade deadline. I know that sometimes when a player gets an affinity

by a general manager or a manager or an owner that they don't give up on certain things. And maybe that's exactly what the Astros are doing is that Dillon C's could have been a guy that could have been an astro at the trade deadline. They decided to opt not to do so. but maybe it's out of the Astros hand

maybe it's out of the Astros hand maybe it's out of your hands to say hey don't spend that money Dylan Seas comes here all of a sudden you're thinking this is an unbelievable opportunity for the Astros to improve their starting rotation I think Justin Verlander

as a four or five fits I'm just really worried that you'd be overpaying for him And look, it's not my situation. It's not my move to tell how the asteros are how to spend their money. But your owner likes to make some splashy hires as long as they don't go outside of the range of, you know, the five or six years that, you know, some of these mega guys would want. I don't think Farmer Vald that's coming back. So that's money that's coming off the books.

I know that Dillon Cease has been brought up in as a conversation. Ranger Suarez, 12 and 8 last year with an ERA of 3.20 would be a guy that you could also think about as well. I'm just nervous that if you overspend, does that hamper your thoughts to taking care of Hunter Brown? And for me, Hunter Brown, in getting him locked in, maybe buying out some arbitration years, is as important. important to me as anything else the Astros could do this off-season. Agree or disagree. 713-212-5-7-90. Now, one guy they did sign in the off-season was Nate Pearson.

Here's Aspata talking about the acquisition of Nate Pearson. And first of all, for them, most of you, who the hell is Nate Pearson? Cut number seven, here is Espada on Nate Pearson. It's a big arm, and one thing that we've always done a really good job is seeing the value and the strength of pitchers throughout in all the organizations, right? And we see those strengths and we maximize their strength. We see things that we can fix. We can allow this pitcher to develop their strength in many different ways. And we do that better than any organization at the major league level.

Pierce is one of those guys where we really like the arm. We see him as a starter. And, you know, it's an arm that also has work out of relief. So we liked bringing him into camp. We're going to go down the path of being a starter. We've talked to him a few times. He's excited to joining the organization. So he's going to be in the mix.

And I'm really excited about him. And we got more ideas coming. So it's going to be a fun off season. All right. Is that lip service, or is he giving a precursor to what could be his term a fun off season? One thing also Joe brought up, which is interesting to me, is he wants to make sure he's got as many high-leverage guys as humanly possible. At some point in the season, there is need for that. But we found out guys like the Brian King that could be that guy in the seven that maybe I could bring in, give a bril a clean eighth,

and I could do the same thing in the eighth for Braos. I could give Hayter a clean ninth. Those are the guys. Those are the pieces that we are really focusing in right now. I think BlueBah was, you know, can be like Murray did it for us. These are arms that did it for us and we would like to continue to develop these guys. So I feel comfortable enough to give them, giving the ball in high-level situation that we don't have to be, I don't have to be asking.

Abraeo and Hayter for so many out early in the season. I wonder why he's saying that is because maybe he felt like the pressure was too much to Abraeu when Hater went down that he wasn't looking at the same pitcher that he would throw out in the

ninth inning that he was throwing out in the eighth inning earlier. I'm just talking off the top of my head here. I'm curious what was going through his mind is that if you can get a second leverage guy that could be that second eighth inning guy did not put as much pressure on a You because the fact of the matter is, if Josh Hater got hurt because he threw into a second inning on a couple occasions, there's definitely, I mean, you would love for continued health and be able to rely on Josh for six months.

But, you know, if he's got soreness and guys are going to need downtime. And look, Bray, he's been able to avoid the injury bug too. You kind of have to think about that in the back of your mind. One name that wasn't really brought up, and I didn't listen to the show last night, but what exactly is Landis? McCullough is going to do for 2026. The guy was a bullpen guy a little bit last year, but that was more just

because there was nobody left in the rotation to give him a spot. Or was it that his arm was not able to give you deep and give you length? And does an offseason all of a sudden change that? He's on the books for a lot of money next year. One more year of it.

You'd love to build a get something in return, wouldn't you? Now, if you're like me, you're not expecting anything it's it's oh I hate saying this it's almost like the gravy you'll eat the chicken fried steak without it but gravy's owner is good oh that's a you know what

you're not analogy mad but that was that was that and you like that one I've used that before I've used it before I wish it was new but it's not but you can live without Lance McCuller's helping you but it's it's one of those things and every owner has to have a bad contract

If you own a professional team, you have bad contracts. Unfortunately, in the last five years, the Astros have had three really bad contracts. The Jose Ibrahimon, the Rafeo Montero, and the Lance McCudder's deal. Others, other teams will have three bad contracts in a five-year stretch. The Astros won't be the only one. 1245 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

We spend some time with Chris Myers of Fox Sports in 15 minutes here on 790. thanks Craig very much for the sweet regards we actually do get along very well there's a lot of broadcasters in the NBA the TV and radio guys don't get along why is that wait I don't know I have not had a deep conversation with all 30 other 29 announcers in NBA but he and I get along great I mean usually it's because of jealousy and I know that Craig is jealous of me and that's fine um no we actually get along for I've known Craig for 25

years so it's it's been we've been working together for 10 years together on these broadcasts so yeah he's a good dude but yeah there are some there's a little bit of jealousy about oh I'm better or he gets more clamming look TV guys always getting more of the run than radio guys I get it but I'll get my shine eventually Jonathan

I'm waiting my turn yeah I don't want the TV job I'm just saying I my highlights will appear on Sports Center maybe I gotta maybe if the Rockets and I do something incredible I need to do like a Gus Johnson lose my mind moment your calls on the documentary too that just came out with James Hardin and Katie.

Did it really? I think Brad was telling us about it. Oh, that's right. Okay. Yeah, that's really good. So, we played the Gus Johnson before earlier this week. Remember, what is your take on it?

Did you, because there are people that are still talking about it saying that Gus, it was just a comedic bit that he wasn't being genuine about it. He saw an opportunity to lose his mind just to gain the intention and that it was not great professional. Well, my question would be to them is, like, you ask for authenticity, right? Like, you, you want... That's the question, that's the question, Jonathan, is where people are, people are questioning whether or not Gus Johnson was being authentic when he did that.

I think where I sit, though, is like, okay, even if it wasn't, I'd want that out of our broadcasters. I want you to make the game feel more than life. You know what I mean? I want to be in the atmosphere rather than it's just a monotone straight. And to your point, you have to be a little more professionalism to it. Like, you have to have a little, be more clean to it. and everything, but I think it was amazing.

Like, you got me high, like, oh, snap, when I looked on Instagram and saw the clip, and I heard him screaming through, you know, with a highlight, I was like, this is, this is dope. This is up. Like, that's how big that play was, right? Well, the reality is this. It's, um, it's an, everybody's got an opinion about it. You're not going to be able to make everybody happy with every call that you make. I mean, there have been people that have said that, uh, some announcers don't show enough emotion.

Some guys show too much. Well, I know the dude, I can't think of his name. The Charlotte Hornets. Oh, Eric Collins, yeah. I know a lot of people don't like him. I know it's like a very on the fence. Either you love him or you hate him type of thing. And I really love him.

I loved when he calls games. Yeah, I've actually got, I talked to him when he did a U of H game a couple weeks ago. And I talked to him a little bit. I didn't talk to him about that. But yeah, sometimes you make the most of your opportunity. I'll give you a little peel back of the curtain for me real quick before we get to Chris. If there's 15 seconds left to go. in an important game

I'm not going to necessarily turn my engine up because my engine I feel like is always going pretty high but I know that if something remarkable happens that it's going to be replayed over and over again so I want to make sure it's good I want to make sure it's hopefully memorable you know if Kevin Durant hits a game winner to beat the Warriors in a playoff series

I might lose my blank, you know what I mean? Yeah, see, but I feel like you should. But that would be authentic to me. That's not, hey, I've got to go into this. Like, today, if I lose my mind over a Washington game, it's just because I'm looking to get on the highlights. There should be nothing tonight unless the game turns out a way different way that I anticipate it to be,

that I should be going crazy over anything that happens in the Rockets game. Now, if there's an amazing dunk or something or a half-court shot, You know, Tara Easton's got two half-court shots to his credit already this year. Yeah. That stuff, you kind of go crazy. So you just have to kind of walk a fine line. So is it more like how he was saying at the end? Like, give him the hysman now?

Is that where? No, because you still have the call or do you have it so on your email or not? Actually, I don't know. I before a quick. So I think the biggest criticism was that he took his voice to a different octave and he lost all semblance of describing the play now. If he does that on radio, he probably gets way more criticism. But because he did it on television and you saw what exactly what happened,

you can then go, well, if that great catch is made, then the play-by-play reaction is going to be the following. Like if you are just, if you were blind, hopefully you're not. I mean, we have visually impaired listeners to the show. And I always value very much the visually impaired folks that reach out to me and say, hey, I listen to Rockets games and thank you very much. doing your job and it's my pleasure to do it but if gus is doing the radio call of that i don't think he's giving that same sort of attempt and sizz now he knows what he's doing

i don't know gus very well i've talked to him maybe two or three times in my entire life i don't think it's schick but i could be wrong but they're saying even if you're a gus john fan. Oh, I got it. This is, it just went way over the top. Here it is. It's out. That's so, wow. Oh, my

Cooper. Unbelievable. Was his eyes and drove it down? Was the left foot the first one to touch? Oh, my goodness. It's a touchdown. Oh, my gosh.

Even Joe Cloud, our buddy of the show, used to be on the show, lost it a little bit. See, so I'm saying, I just can't see how people find that and make it a negative thing. I just, I don't know, man. I guess I can see a little bit of their side. Because you're supposed to, as a national broadcaster, try to have some sort of moderation.

Big calls are certainly, and it was an incredible catch. but it also, it was a game against Penn State and 11 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon when you were supposed to be up by three touchdowns. And they're undefeated number two C. Yeah, so, yeah, I guess if it was for the championship or it was for a national title,

you kind of, again, it's in the eye of the beholder. I'm not going to crush him for it. He's also got to be 60 years old, so if you go to the high notes, I can tell you this is somebody that's older now. Jonathan, those high notes are a little harder. They come out a little earlier than you think they should be.

Just saying, throwing it out there. Like you 15 again or what? All right. Chris Myers, Fox Sports, joins us next 1257 on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 102 on Sports Talk 790. C.J. Stroud is not on the field as the Texans allow media access

for a few minutes. Thus, the thought he playing on Sunday is very much still up in the air. Look, with the Texans playing the bills a week from tomorrow, the best case in arrow is for him to take this week off, let Davis Mills do his thing as the Texans try to beat

the Tennessee Titans. The man that will call the game for Fox, one of the most recognizable television personalities we have seen in the history of sports television, and we'll be calling the Texans Titan game in Nashville. It's Chris Myers with us here on the Matt Thomas show at Ross. Chris, it's been a few years. Thank you for the time and good afternoon to you how are things uh i'm good bad thank you for that that kind

introduction yeah that's good to talk to you yeah i want to get to your book i want to get to how you and i had our first conversation many years ago but i want to get to first and foremost uh the NFL right now you uh well i'm sure i've watched the jacksonville houston game you called the game against the jaguars and in Vegas raiders the week before that uh Jacksonville's lost their mind you have to understand why i could mean that way that performance last week was quite amazing to a lot of folks. Yeah, there's still, I mean, watching the reaction of Liam Cohen. I mean, everything that

had to go wrong for them did. I know there were a couple of key penalties in there, but everything that had to go right, you know, for the Texas happened. And that's how it goes. I mean, it went in their favor different team, different circumstances the week before, obviously, against the Raiders.

But some crazy stuff happened late. You know, they had the record field goal. They were able to survive going for two when the Raiders could could have beat them. So that's how the games are playing. A lot of one-score games. I know Texan fans are familiar with that. And Jacksonville's a good team. They were, they're a little thin, you know, some of the things that have happened to their game plan with Travis Hunter and now out for the year. But the division's really about the Colts, I think, at this point,

and who could either slow them down or get in as a wild card between, if the Texans have still hopes there along with Jacksonville. The NFL television schedule, folks, for those I don't know. Primarily Fox had been an NFC teams, but you guys are doing more AFC games than ever before. And you saw New England a couple weeks ago. We don't talk much Patriot football here and won't do a whole lot. But the fact of the matter is that's one of the teams that could be in the Texans way. Are you surprised at some of these teams like Indianapolis and New England have just come on the scene like they have so far this season? You know, not really. I mean, if you have your quarterback and you develop them properly,

or at least he connects with the kind of offensive scheme that you have, then I think you're going to do well. And Mike Vrabel came in and you could see a difference the way that Drake May was being coached. Again, he was a rookie, and he didn't start right away, but later in his rookie year. And then this year, Josh McDaniels coming in, and his strength is as an offensive coordinator,

had a head coach, even with a limited receiving corps, what they've done with him and having called a couple of their games, very impressive. He's got all the physical skills, got the right kind of attitude. you're seeing him emerge. He's good. He's going to be even better. And he can take off and run if he needs to, but he's not going to live on that. The culture, a unique situation. They have a little bit of a, I'm not saying they're the Eagles, but the Saquan, Barclay, Jalen Hertz, combo, they have that potential with Daniel Jones

and what Jonathan Taylor has done, and their offensive line is solid. A key pickup with Lou Aniromo, the defensive coordinator who was kind of kicked out of Cincinnati, has kind of molded that defense, and they have some sort of. strong points there as well. So Daniel Jones, he's fallen back a little into the, you know, turnover prone Daniel Jones, we might remember. But he's learned a lot. And actually, he spoke when I talked to him. His stop in Minnesota was of great value when he was there with San Donald and learning from some of the things in their system that he thinks is made of a better quarterback. So I think those teams are for real. Are they good enough to beat, you know,

the Chiefs and Bills at their peak? But we've seen the Chiefs and Bills look very vulnerable So I think the AFC is really wide open, and you're ultimately what your record says it is, and that it'll matter if you get into the playoffs and how well you perform there. Chris Myers is with us from Fox Sports. We'll call the Texans and Titans game. And we've always had a chance.

When we talk to game broadcasters, you get a chance to visit with coaches and players on Fridays or Saturdays, depending on who's the home team. With social media, Chris, and the worrisome of intelligence getting out, had those conversations, are they still pretty off the record helping you guys out or do you find yourself with these coaches being a little more tight-lipped than maybe when you were calling games 10 years ago?

Yeah, no, I think you were always tight-lipped and I've got to say some of the coaches were very, I don't want to say, in-cooperative, some were more cooperative than others. That's probably the way to wear. They would give you more information if they were familiar that they could trust you and say, hey, if you see this scenario in this part of the game, we might fake it, so just so you're aware,

because our director sits in there with our producer and myself and the analyst and our reporter. So in other words, we're trying to serve the audience, and they trust it. I had a coach tell us, hey, if this guy comes in the game, this wide receiver, you know, he's not going to, we're not throwing at him because he's a coward, he's afraid to go over the middle, but just be aware that, you know, he's out there to block.

So, I mean, you have to respect, and you wouldn't leak some of that information, but you do use it in the broadcast. Well, what I have found is that a lot of information is out there before you even sit out to talk to these guys. I mean, you know, they'll tell you things, and I don't even know if they're aware how it leaked out through their staff or people covering the team and because of all of the, I guess, the sources surrounding a particular team, but I still find them valuable. I know some teams want to do zooms a little bit more to keep a distance to that era has happened. It keeps it easier on them.

But, for example, this weekend, we're setting up. We're going to obviously talk with D'Amico Ryans and who we want to, the few players who want to talk to. I think Cody Barton is on our list for Saturday when the Texans get into Nashville, but we don't know who the quarterback's going to be. And I heard what you said, we're kind of assuming that Stroud is they're going to wait. And the league has been tougher a little bit about concussion protocol where they kind of, you know, not allowing teams to push things along. So we're assuming it's going to be Davis Mills. So we're ready for either one. But they won't, you know, they won't tell us that until we actually sit out.

And sometimes coaches will say, hey, we'd rather, and just not be out until tomorrow morning or whatever. And so you have to, that trust has to be there. And I think over years, we've lived up to that. And most of the coaches know that. The conundrum that Texans fans here, Chris, have is this is a defense. And with Will Anderson, you've called games before with him. This is a squad that could be a legitimate AFC title contender.

The offense with the offensive line has been a work in progress. I'm not giving you information that you don't already know. But I'm curious, how often do you run in that around your weekly? league circles about, man, there is one side of the ball that's so prolifically good and the other side that still has so many question marks. Yeah, you do have teams. And oddly, look at Denver, you know, you got Sean Payton, this offensive-minded quarterback guru, whatever, and yet he's got, you know, an outstanding Bronco defense. And that offense, even though Bo Nex is developing, but it's not exactly, we saw in their most recent game, it's not exactly a high, a high-powered

offense. I mean, Brian Billock, who was this great offensive coordinator, head coach of the Ravens, Super Bowl because of the Ravens defense going back historically. So those things happen. What I love about, you know, like Tomeka Rod's, I had the pleasure call to, you know, when he first took over and C.J. Straub was drafted, so I've kind of seen and then there were some games in there. I didn't get to watch

the Texans a lot, but I think there's a good core there. And other than, look, they've tried drafting in the offensive line, so one area that Texans just can't seem to hit. Let's hope that the nursery's a guy that can develop. But I really do like what, healthy in this defense. We hope Petrie can

can play too in concussion protocol for this week. I mean, number one scoring in defense and number one in total defense. There was an interesting stat about that that never before the Super Bowl era has a team that has led the league in that, not been a playoff team. So if they continue that, that's an encouraging sign. And I still think you can win with defense. The Eagles are really doing more of that. You just need your offense to kind of do their part. And I, you know, I think the speed in the secondaries outstanding. I think that Daniel Hunter emerges Will Anders. I mean, you know, I think there's a lot to like about this

defense, and that's going to have to, all their losses have been one-score games. And if the offense had done a little bit more, you know, then maybe the record would be different. So I guess your question is, yeah, you can be a little lopsided, but the other side of the ball is going to have to do something where you're not going to go

very far if you do get in the playoffs. Chris Myers, Fox Sports with us, before he let him run. I want to talk about his book a little bit. It's called That deserves a wow, untold stories of legends and champions. You've got an audio CD. How long it takes you to do that, by the way? Was that a quick? Well, the audio port took a long time to go into a booth by yourself and kind of read what you wrote.

But, you know, you could add to it a little bit. Sometimes there were some moments after taking about a year to write at going back into the pandemic, putting together notes from ESPN, a decade to 20 plus years at Fox, and covering some Super Bowls and World Series and Interference. reviewing, you know, some interesting people through the years went up close. But it was a lot of fun to kind of look back on and really connect to where we are now. And people who've had the audiobook really, really appreciated that. But, yeah, it's about, you know, I mean, time goes so fast.

You're in there and you're working, and you know how it is. You're under the next assignment. And so when they approached me, they said, you had some unique things happen. And that, you know, the O.J. Simpson interview, the first ever live. You know, you were there at the earthquake world series. You were there when Dale Earnhardt died at Daytona. I mean, these are moments that, you know, when Brady came back and won that Super Bowl, the greatest comeback ever with the Falcon.

And you were in the middle of those for the network broadcasting or a network live on the air. And those moments, we want to make sure people know about what it's like behind that and what you were thinking at the moment. So I tried to do the best of that, relating it to how I was raised in my background in the business, to kind of bring the viewers, that's always what you've got to think of first, the listener, the viewer, what they want to know, what they can know, and what you can give them based on the great events that I've been able to be around. My last question, because I did interview you many, many years ago, and I was in 1998, you were to ESPN doing the up-close show, and I was 26. I was newly married and didn't have any kids.

So I could watch whatever I wanted to because that's what we did, and we didn't have kids. So I put up close on on a rando day, and there you are interviewing O.J. Simpson, and you came out all guns of blazing, and it's worthy for, of those of you that never saw it. I'm sure it's on YouTube. It won't take you hard to find it. It was one of the most amazing interviews of the now deceased O.J. Simpson, just for a one minute of background, if you don't mind. Tell me what it was like when you got in the studio with him. Did he know that you were going to be as forthcoming as you were? Set that up. And then what was it like when the conversation was done and the cameras were turned off? Yeah, and it was the first live interview that O.J. Simpson had done after both, you know, not only

the double murder trial, but the wrongful death, the lawsuit. And that one, obviously, he was found accountable. And he had wanted to come on the show, I think. And those were the two conditions. It had to be live, and I couldn't ask about his children. And I said, okay, that's fair, but I got to ask everything else. And obviously, he wasn't happy. He knew I was going to ask about what went on.

I'm not going to talk about his Heismatrophy or football days. And at the end of that interview, he was a little smug. He had great talking sports with you. That was his sarcastic shot. But beforehand, in the green room, he was chilling. I just, I didn't say much. Usually I'll go in and chat a little bit with people before we do the show. In this case, I just said, thank you for doing this.

I appreciate it. He brought a PR person, and, you know, we had some protesters. People thought I shouldn't do the interview that I was going to glorify a killer. But it was the chance to ask, and this is why I'm going to brought up. And in the book, some people in broadcasting have talked about it. It's a chance to ask the questions that people would have asked or an attorney would have asked, had he taken the stand, you know, in that double murder trial, which he was acquitted. And I had really great help in preparing,

talk to lawyers, detectives, you know, doctors. I saw evidence that even the jury didn't get to see. And there was no question that he was guilty. I wanted to be fair, but I had to ask those things. And there were a few times he tried to spin it. They told me, you know, I mentioned this in the book. One of the attorneys who defended him said off the record, you know, I wouldn't do this interview.

I said, why is it because he makes everybody attached to him, it's bad. It turns out bad for you. I'm like, well, you defended him. You know, it's like your issue. So, yeah, it was one of those things you just, and yeah, you can watch it on YouTube. People still at this day of the trial of the century for a great athlete to have gone through that. And not so great a person. I think you'll learn a lot about him by watching that and reflecting a lot of the information that has come out since.

The name of the book, that deserves a while, untold stories of legends and champions, their wins and heartbreaks written by Chris Myers, who will be on the call for Texans Titans this Sunday on Fox. Hope we get you a couple times next year. We want to do this again. Thank you for the visit, Mr. Myers. We really appreciate it. No. Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you. I'll come on with you any time. You take care and enjoy the game. Thank you very much. Chris Myers, Fox Sports with us here on the call. And again, I invite you.

Again, up close was a magazine formatted show. It was 30 minutes. It was interview. It was usually one interview. And Roy Firestone was the original host for those of you that are old ESP and OGs. Chris Myers did it for a while as well. And I remember laying, I may have been in my bed. And I want to make sure I get this right, John, because I don't want to screw. this up, and I should have actually asked Chris this. His phrasing of what he said was

unbelievable. It was let me see if I can find it here. Well, I'm young, dude, I didn't know any of this. This is like, I'm definitely going to be watching like looking at this up after the show. Yeah, I'm going to see. I think that, oh, God, I feel stupid. I didn't even ask the question. I think he's like, so do you think, oh,

I want to think of the question was like, do you think you're capable of being a murderer? It was something like, paraphrasing that. that yeah it was unbelievable i'll get the exact question when we come back but chris was awesome and we appreciate him coming on the show one 16 on the mat thomas show with ross we got believe it or not today coming up at 150 alive or dead famous television characters are they really still alive in real life 116 on 790

i went back john gonna see a little clip of that he's he asked oj in 1998 he says are you capable of murder i mean damn wait he went right for the juggler He went right for the old jugular. Yeah, and I wish I could have talked to Chris for hours because there's just so much, I mean, he's covered so much from NASCAR to interviewing Muhammad Ali as a teenager to doing all the Super Bowls and work, you know, and just, he's been in all the big sites plus hosting that interview show. I'm curious what he would have been. And again, I only had about, I needed to get out by 13 or 14 past the hour. There has been some criticism of a Fox broadcaster, broadcasters and Pat McAfee, because they interviewed, Pat McAfee interviewed Donald Trump yesterday during the Veterans Day show.

Oh, that's right. And so there's been some blowback on that because he, Pat has said that he doesn't do politics on his show. And as I've said this before, because, again, I want everybody, regardless of your political affiliation, to listen to my show. Yeah. I don't need 50% of the audience mad at me for any sort of political slant I have to it. I don't deal much into politics and we'll continue on to do so. But if the president is available to talk to me and he was on the Fox broadcast of the Detroit Washington football game because he went and saw the game of the commander's game and Kenny Albert and Jonathan Vilma were calling.

the game, they didn't talk anything about politics. They talked about Donald Trump playing football. They talked about Jonathan Vilma's career. I didn't see the whole thing, but I saw a pretty good clip of it. And there was nothing involving anything in terms of the economy or the federal government shutdown. Here's my take on it. And I would say this, and I've said this before, of a variety of things. If I got invited to the White House, if it was a Democrat or Republican, was in office, I would go in a heartbeat. It wouldn't matter if I voted for the person or I despise the person. I just, to go into the White House to be in front of the president, I mean, the leader of the

free world, I'd be honored by it and I would do it in a heartbeat. The same that I would do if the president wanted to come on this radio show. I don't know how to intelligently, and this is being just guileful, trying to honest with you, I don't know how to intelligently talk to a president, to anybody about politics. But if I get, if Barack Obama walked in here or Joe Biden walked in here today or Bill Clinton or George Bush or Donald Trump, I'd want to, I'd want to soften the interview up by just talking about sports because that's a mom of sports toast. Now, if I was doing political talk, that would be a different situation. So I don't, I'm not, look, I don't like McAfee per se. I think he's bombastic and crazy, but that's everybody's own individual style.

But if he gets an opportunity to get the president on, I don't crush him for that. I don't crush the Fox broadcasters who are trying to call a football game, trying to keep it as lighthearted as possible. That's just my take on things. Because the most important thing is I never want to let politics get in the way of this show, which is lighthearted sports conversation. Because we've got enough a heavy-hearted political talk out there for many other people

that other people can worry about, not me. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. I know that, again, that OJ thing, if I got an opportunity in 1998 to interview OJ Simpson and there were parameters that were set and he said, can't talk about the kids. What else did he say he couldn't talk about?

He couldn't talk about the kids and couldn't talk about something else. He couldn't talk about the kids and he couldn't talk about, I think it was just his kids. I think OJ said you can't talk about the kids. Which is fair. Yeah. Or family, maybe family in general. I don't know what it was, but it was a great interview.

And I remember at the time sitting up in my bed, or wherever I was on a couch going, oh my God, Chris Myers is going right at him because nobody wanted to do that because everybody was kind of fighting for that first exclusive interview and people were like, well, is OJ going to put parameters on these journalists? So you can't ask about this, can't say things about this. And Chris went in there and I think that OJ was hoping for one kind of interview and definitely got a different one and helped Chris cement his legacy. He's one of the great broadcasters of all time.

Let's go to Brian at 127 of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Brian, good morning. Good afternoon to you. Hey, afternoon, M.T. Yeah, real quick. I mean, that would be awesome. And I had a chance. I was very fortunate back in my old job when I was still working in sports. I had a chance to meet Bush 41. And absolutely, you know, he had already been long since out of the presidency. But, yeah, I agree with you. I don't care who you are. You have a chance to meet a former president of current pride. You're going to take that. And you should. There's still a way to do respectfully. And he was nice to take a picture. and send it back to me autographed and all that.

And it's still one of my, you know, treasured possessions that I have. It's all my office that I see every day. But it sounds really cool. I'm sure he can go on. You could have an entire hour segment with him. But real quick on the, I know you got the Astros. They're talking work stoppage coming up. Unfortunately, after this season, do we know fully what it's about?

Is it about the owners wanting a hard salary cap? or is it about and then do you think that affects the way these owners maybe spend this offseason knowing that is most likely coming where they're going to say hey i'm not going to give you a 10-year deal if we could possibly miss an entire year or does that would that transfer over to the next year of play so if they miss 26 for or 27 for whatever does it go 26 28 through whatever if they give somebody a 10-year deal or is that just a year of missed revenue is how The reality is this. What this strike is about?

Well, the CBA ends December of 26, okay? So. Okay, so it's more a CBA fight. It's more of a CBA fight. And the word is, and again, you can't speak for 30 mega billionaires, okay? So I can only speak to what I even publicly say. The reality is they want a Saturday cap. They, and the question is going to be the difference is, is that in the NFL, there is a lot of copacetic relationships, because they've only had it that way.

The NBA, they get along because it gives other teams just as much an opportunity that live in Sacramento to be a champion as it would be if they were in New York City or Los Angeles. Major League Baseball's never had that. There has always been the haves and the have-nots. The L.A.s, the New Yorks, the Chicago's have always outspent and out-generate revenue more than anybody

than the Kansas cities, the Clevelands, the Miami's, the smaller market, the Milwaukee's. So the first argument is going to be, Will these 30 and Major League Baseball owners get along with each other enough to go to the table collectively as one? Or are they going to have so many different agendas out there that it's going to create some disharmony amongst themselves before they even figure out how they're going to combat going against the Players Association? Yeah, no, I got you. And real quick, Matt, I know you've got to get a heartbreak coming.

But you were talking earlier on the show about the ridiculous buyouts. that. And I heard Mack Brown on a podcast. I saw a clip of it somewhere. I don't remember who it was. But he was talking about how he thinks in the next five years, you start seeing much higher AAB contracts for head coaches for his, you know, Steve Sarkeesian may make $18 million, but his buyout will be essentially nothing. That way it's like, okay, you're off the hook for one year, but I'm not going to pay you these ridiculous buyouts anymore. Yeah, I may be out $18, $19 million for one year as a coach. then I'm not on the hook for another 53 for five more years. So I thought that was kind of interesting. I was like, yeah, I can totally see that happening in the next couple of years of coaches getting larger contracts up front, but that way then the universities and the boosters can get off the hook a lot faster. So good show, Matt.

Thank you very much. Thanks, Brian. Yeah, I'm sure LSU would love that kind of future deal because they're right now on the hook for $53 million for Brian Kelly. 131 on the Matt Thomas show we've got believe it or not coming up in 20 minutes another segment for you and I to get into things 713-212-5-790 Rockets tonight against

the Wizards 7 o'clock on our sister station KTRH quick update on the Texans next plus your call 713 212 5790 Real quick for back on the phones This situation in Dallas You know they fired Nico O'Hare Harrison a couple days ago.

Apparently, according to the athletic, you ready for this? Nico Harrison reportedly urged Anthony Davis to return early from his calf injury, despite the Mavericks medical staff warning that there was a chance he could tear his Achilles if he came back too soon. Quote, Monday's loss of the bucks marked the six straight game Davis has missed with the left calf stream. Multiple league sources said Davis had tried to convince the Mavericks to. to let him return to the court.

Harrison urged him to return, but the team's medical staff forbade it, citing the potential for a torn Achilles of Davis returns too soon. I mean, was he not paying attention to the last playoffs with all the... Has he not paid attention to Anthony Davis in his life? I mean, seriously, what are you doing? God, how stupid is that?

Well, he's out of work. Imagine being so bad at your job, making one of the worst trades in NBA history, he'll never be in a front office of a team ever again. This is a feta complete. Now, Nico Harrison has a shoe background, I believe, with one of the shoe manufacturers. So he can go back into that.

Plus, he's probably making a lot of money because he got a contract that you had to pay out. I mean, you'd fired. When you sign a contract to be a GM, it's usually guaranteed, and you don't. You're supposed to do a good job as a general manager, if you don't, they can let you tell you to go away and pay you off. God, it's crazy.

Dave is with us at 138 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Dave, thank you for holding in. Good afternoon, Matt. Hey, I was just listening to you and your comments about Donald Trump appearing on Pat McAfee show. Yeah. You stay out of that for the most part. And, you know, I'm going to show my age here. I've been listening to Houston Sports Talk Radio for decades now. And I remember a young Matt Thomas on KSEV 700 with,

one Dan Patrick, you know, our lieutenant governor, maybe our future governor, who knows, a lot of people suggest that. He might be an interesting interview, and just for sports topics, you know, you could talk to him about his take on NIL and all what's going on there, maybe what he thinks about these state universities, being on the hook for $50 and $70 million with these coaches. Dan got started talking about, like, public financing of stadiums, if you recall, that's how we kind of crossed over that and property taxes. into the political arena.

But, you know, you go back with him. I bet, you know, on your old connections and friendship, you could probably get him to come on air, and it would be interesting radio. If you got 30 minutes of Dan and the right topics. Well, you know, it's funny. It is, and again, what the problem is when you're doing

an elected candidate, there are election rules that go with it. Now, if he wasn't up for election, I wouldn't have to give equal time. I've just, Dave, I've made the editorial decision not to do that in my life. Look, the president would be a special situation or former president, but short of that, I just don't have any interest in it because I, I'm a weaning when it comes to that. I want everybody humanly possible to listen. And I swear if I did the, if I brought Dan in studio or had him on the phone to talk about that, I'd get probably 15 questions about why did you not talk about redistricting or why did you not talk about gambling? It's unfortunately, Dave, and I'm just being pure and honest with you, it's a no-win situation. Because people, some people would say, that was a great interview. And, or you didn't do this because you're afraid to do this.

And so I just, I'm going to say it's never going to happen. It's just not. Okay. All right. Hey, listen, great interview with Chris Meyer. Oh, I loved him. He's good. Thank you very much for the phone call, David.

I appreciate the suggestion. Yeah. It's funny because Dan, for those of you that don't know, our good lieutenant governor, I worked for Dan for nine years when he was running a KSEB. He still owns it, but doesn't have an active participation in the company because he's busy, you know, being the second most. important influential politician in our state but i you know i i i give him a lot of my credit for getting into sports because uh he allowed me to work at the radio station i was his producer

and um let me talk on the air and let me have my own show and got me some play by play of high school and let me do some college stuff down the road but he got into politics so much that it was not the dan patrick sports show anymore it was the damn patrick politics show. And so he eventually said to me, he said, look, you're doing the Rockets PA now. You're in sports. You got a little bit of a reputation. You got a little bit of a following. And look, I was only 23, 24 years old at the time. And he's like, you know, here's your chance. And so my partner at the time was Darren Jones. And we did a show for a while. And I had Jim Coes and more some other people down the road before ultimately working with John O'Raleo on KPRC. But if it wasn't for him

getting into politics, I'm probably not working at that radio station doing sports. as quickly as I did. You know, most guys have to go out of market, have to go to a small city, you know, Lubbock or Oklahoma City or Tulsa and kind of, you know, get your wits about you when it comes to learning how to do sports talk. I was able to do it in Houston, Texas. I was very happy about that. So, yeah, so thanks to Dan's political aspirations, it pushed my sports aspirations,

and I've kind of stayed in my own lane on that. Do I have political beliefs? Of course I do. I mean, nobody can say they're 100% apolitical. But I will 100% continue to choose to use those privately. And because, you know, I like having everybody listen to show. And I try to have a little bit of a non-world of politics on at least one radio show. But like I said, if a president wants to come on the show and just talk about sports or life

and get away from his hassles of trying to run the free world, I'm okay with it. All right, let's put believe it or not. 142 is a time. It is as a OG edition of Alive or Dead. I'm going to give you famous television characters, groups of them, and you have to tell me if all of them are alive or all of them are dead. And we're playing for Jack Johnson tickets. We'll do that next. It's 142 if you want to play.

713-212-790. 7-13-212-5-790. 148 on Sports Talk 790. All right. So you listen to the – you talk to the people, Jonathan. Are these people going to know these television iconic? characters or are they going to are they just prize horrors?

Oh, I know one. I know. Okay, so they're going to know at least two for sure. Okay. A little nervous. I don't know what any of these are. Oh, I know, okay. I know three. All right. So I mean, the people that called in, I mean, are they like 23-year-olds or are they a little older? No, they're a little older. I think

Dylan's sound kind of young. We know Roger. Yeah, we know Roger. Jason's. Jason's time pretty young. Okay. So they're going to be just flat out guessing. That's a great thought about, believe or not. Even if you have no idea what the topic is, you get a 50-50 chance. Yeah, I mean, I could say, we can do a, is this a named asteroid or not? You know what I mean? We wouldn't know.

I just didn't realize there was such huge affinity for Jack Johnson tickets. Yeah, calls are full up. All right, tomorrow on the show, I just don't get it. Maybe that's something I just don't get it is people play the game just to, and they hang up when they're done. Now, we do have great families that, we have friends of ours I met in Vegas that live in the Beaumont area that listen to show,

and their kids play, believe it or not, every day. Really? They're grandkids, actually, not their kids. Their grandkids play. So, it's such a national phenomenon that, you know, even the youngsters are playing. Okay, what else we got going on tomorrow? We got that.

Oh, Emendoka's going to be on the show tomorrow at noon, looking forward to that. That'll be fun. because they're going to beat the Washington right? There's no way they're losing tonight to the worst team in the NBA, right? You know who I feel bad for? How do you feel? You don't feel bad for Cam Whitmore, do you? Don't say it.

Why do you feel bad for Cam Winmore? I just, I just, I feel like this is a learning moment because I've been that type of athlete where you were cocky once, you want this, this and that. Here's the problem. I like Cam as a player. He just never learned. You know, he lost being a lottery pick because he was just difficult to

work with, right? Yeah. He lost a chance to play rotation time for the Rockets because you ready for this? He's difficult to work with. This is not coachable. And sometimes you're just not coachable. And you would think if you had troubles

in Philadelphia at Villanova, you had troubles with Houston and it sounds like they're already certainly, and he's going to play tonight because it's the Wizards, me what else are going to do? You know what I'm saying? I mean, you would wouldn't the light bulb turn on? Because he physically can play the game of basketball.

Now, can he defend? I don't know, because I never saw much of it. But he can score. And even though this NBA, you think, everybody's scoring 140 points, it's still hard to score points in NBA. It's so hard to make jump shots. It's still hard to go to the lane and get attacked

and go to the rim and score. Nobody says it's easy. Just why there's only, you know, 450 people in the world that do it. I just know he's had some rough couple months, especially how they're doing it right now. you went from a team that win 52 and 30

to a team that might win 52 games in four years that's a hard might too that's a hard one too five minutes left to go on the show what should we do we should play

America's fastest growing sports radio game show we simply call it be leaving or not and here's how it works you call 713 212 570 719713 212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Believe it or Not is

famous duos, trios, groups. Are any of the members of these celebrity groups still alive? If they are, you'll say this. Believe it. If they're not, you'll say this. You get two in a row. You win a pair of tickets to see Jack Johnson live on the surf film music.

Surfo music? Yeah, surfo music. 2026 tour. August 28th at the Woodlands Pavilion. Tickets go on stale Friday at 10 o'clock at Ticketmaster.com. Let's play, believe it or not. Let's talk to Jason on 7.00. Jason, what's your favorite Jack Johnson song?

I've never even heard of them before, but I'll go to it. All right. Any of the main cruise ship crew on the love boat, are they all alive? Believe it or not? Are they all alive? All alive. All alive. All live.

not not that's right that's right I actually wrote that wrong he's correct Captain Stubing is dead Yes that's correct Statement number two Laverne and Shirley Are they both alive believe it or not When I'm just passed away

I'm gonna say I'm gonna say alive when I'm still alive They're both dead sorry See you're not going to see Jack Johnson I know I know I'm sorry One did recently Shirley died first. Laverne died about five or six years ago.

Let's go to Dylan on 790. Dylan, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Yeah, I'm ready to play. All of the kids on family ties are alive. Believe it or not? Believe it. That's correct. Believe it. Statement number two for the wind. All of the kids on growing pains are alive. Believe it or not.

I'm going to say not. They're all alive. I'm sorry. Thank you, though. I know. Y'all want to go to Jack Johnson so damn bad, too. Robert on 790, Robert, what was your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show? Believe it or not. All of the Cosby Kids on the Cosby Kids show are alive. Believe it or not.

Not. That's right. Malcolm and John Warner died this year, unfortunately. Statement number two for the win. The parents of the Cunningham Kids on Happy Days. the parents are they both alive believe it or not they're not they're both dead you say

yeah they're actually Marion Ross that's a believe it sorry believe it yeah Marion Ross is alive Mrs. Cunningham Mrs. C is alive let's go she's 97 years old Alex on 790 ready to play believe it or not

believe it both Sanford and son are alive. Believe it or not? Not. Yeah, Lamont is alive. Sorry. Oh, my God, you might bet 100. Terry on 790, Terry, you ready to play Believe it or not? Believe it.

Mr. Rourke and Tattoo from Fantasy Island are both alive. Believe it or not. Not. Yeah, they're both dead. Here we go. This is your last chance. all the girls on the main cast of the facts of life are alive. Believe it or not. Believe it. There you go. You're going to see Jack Johnson, baby.

I didn't throw some twist in there. That was fun. You know what? I have one more. Let me do one more here. I got one more here. Do you have a more? I do. I forgot number eight. Let's give away one more winner here. John on 790. Ready to play Believe it or not? believe it John all the Partridge family kids are alive believe it or not not

nope David Cassidy's dead you win congratulations another winner we're going to see Jack Johnson baby now if I knew any of his songs isn't even better

all right that's it for the radio show reminder if you want to listen to me for Rockets basketball I thank you very much for that the game is over on KTRH 740 tonight 630 will be the launch pad start time or the network pregame show

Adam Clinton and I will have it for you or is it wax? I don't know. No matter. Well, those two guys aren't coming and entertain the hell out of you for the next four hours. It's the A team. I'll talk to you at seven for Rockets and Wizards on 740.