The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Texans Dominate Steelers 30–6 to Advance... What Happened to C.J. Stroud?

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Texans Dominate Steelers 30–6 to Advance... What Happened to C.J. Stroud?

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Welcome to a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is Sports Talk 790. All right. I think we're going to have to go back and go find somebody that did Baltimore

Sports Radio in 2000. Because... Oh, you're invoking that holy name. I don't know how close it is, but as far as a Houston sports talk show host and an observer of Houston, Texas Texas football? Tell me

where the organization has been as close as what we saw from the 2000 Baltimore Reims, one of the three or four best defenses in the history of the national football league. This is definitely the best defense in Texans history. It is, I mean, I think the Pantheon is who you just mentioned in probably the 85 Bears. Yep. But then we can get into more recent vintage. The 2015 Denver Broncos, I think,

come to mind. You've had some of the 2002 Buccaneers, of course, come to mind. Seattle Seahawks defenses, I want to say. The Legion of Boom, Seahawks defenses, they're climbing those ranks. And what all those teams did is they won a Super Bowl, and the Texans have a lot of work to do in order to do that, including going on the road, probably without Nico Collins. against a good Patriots team. Right. But this is the best Texans defense in history. It's not even close.

And this is a team deserving and worthy if they can continue to win to be up there with those all-time great defenses. Yeah. And we will focus on New England starting tomorrow. Today we will reflect. And we have a lot of reflection to get to. That's Ross. I'm Matt. Who put the Steelers on fraud alert?

Let's go. Get them out of here. And this may be hindsight on this? Probably is. The Ravens would have given the Texans a better game. They just wouldn't. Of course. I mean, we all knew that. Pittsburgh, again, if not for the, is it loop or dupe or what's the guy's name? A Tyler

Loop? Tyler Loop. All praise be to Tyler Loop. According to Mike Tyroko, lots of praise. Everybody's sending them 10% of their playoff shares. Yeah, for sure. Because for getting to the divisional round. Aaron Rogers had some receivers dropped the ball. Yes.

But Aaron Rogers, but every quarterback has that. Every quarterback's going to face pressure. Aaron Rogers isn't the reason why the Pittsburgh Steelers lost the game. It was everybody. They couldn't run the ball after the first quarter. They were constantly facing pressure. They couldn't take advantage of the numerous Texans gaps in the game offensively. CJ Strzsche, we've got to talk about you at some point.

Oh, don't worry. Yeah, we're going to get to you, CJ. But the thing I come across, And I think about this day, and I will think about this year, no matter how things end, is that if there was a Lombardi trophy for a Texans defense, the Houston Texans, by far. Look, I understand Denver's defense is good. I certainly understand that the Patriots defense is good. They held L.A. to three points.

Seattle has an accent. There's lots of good, you have to have a good defense to make the playoffs. Even Buffalo played better defensively than I thought they were going to in their game against Jacksonville. but there's a difference in being a good defense of keeping your team close on it and a defense being so good that allows your completely inept not completely largely inept mostly inept offense you heard far off well the first half the first three quarters completely inept

and then they finally got it going a little bit I mean Christian Kirk had a breakout game for the Texans Woody marks because of the not a large number of carries and it was very very smart on Kaylee's part to just drive the ball down the field four and five yards at a time. Inside running, a lot of running behind Ed Ingram who's been their best offensive linemen all season long.

But he still had 19 carries for 112. That's six a carry. That's very good. Let me tell you, you get that. You're keeping that's exactly what you want from a running back. It's not pretty, but it was time consuming and it got you four and five yards. There were very few minus rushing plays.

Along a 20, so it's not like his yards per carry are carried by a 50 or 60 yard. It was a steady dose. It was a steady dose of good, positive runs with, as the analytics, football nerds will say, man, a high success rate. Yes. And the reason why that running game was used as much as it was, because C.J. Straud was ass.

I mean, what's our guy? And Cam Ward said, keep it a hunt. He's going to keep it a buck. You're going to keep it a buck. C.J. Stroud was ass. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't great. I mean, if you were to give a grade for C.J.

Probably a C-minus. He did find Kurt. Well, you said grade in the first letter that popped in my mind was D, but he ended up with 250 yards, one touchdown, one pick, but two bad. This is the problem. Some of Aaron Rogers' fumbles are like, hey, the pressure was there in half a second. CJ Stroud's fumbles and interception were not defensible. Nervous feet.

The interception was on third down in a goal to go or red zone situation. Throw the ball away. Get three points. That is unforgivable. And the fumbles were bad. bad too. And by the way, the center exchange all night long was a hot mess. I don't know what's going on. Let's, we'll push that down a little bit. Well, you know, it's early in the season, Matt.

They're just getting it figured out. No, no. Jake Andrews had married all year long. We need to get to the positive. The positive is that Sheldon Rankin's is a man child. Will Anderson, DeNeil Hunter's name was part of. I used to be low-key obsessed with

Jalen Petrie's helmet. Now I'm high-key obsessed. Okay. The Guardian helmet? I want to wear a guardian helmet the rest of the week. You should, actually. You had a lot of brain damage. Yeah, I might call the Rockets game today with a helmet on and have one of those things on top of it.

That would be awesome. Jalen Petrie is a lot of people tweeting this in the NFL people. He's single-handedly making the Guardian cap cool. Because everyone talks about how lame it is and how dumb people look with Romeo Dobbs. And you know what? He probably hates it too, but he also knows that if he wants to be in the football Phillies, he got to wear that thing.

Devon A-chan was wearing one, but he took it off. Jalen Petrie? I love it. I don't care about your stereotypes about what's manly and what's cool and what has swag. He said, I'm going to put this on and I'm going to crush you for four quarters, flying all over the field, sideline to sideline, blitzing, covering, picking up guys and tackling guys in space. He was doing it all last night. The Great Gazoo is a great Texan's third nickelback.

Not nickelback of the group. And he was a huge piece missing. Their defense was still great going into the playoffs last year without Jalen Petrie, but he was a huge piece missing. And he is here. and this defense is ferocious. It is unbelievable. That's not unbelievable.

It's truly believable. It's believable because we've been seeing it all season. I mean, look, you're knocking, you're going to give up points. You're going to give up past plays. You're going, it's going to happen. It just is. But by and large, when you make an average at best offense look porous, and that's exactly what it was.

Once the Kami Fairbury hit the field goal to make it, 10-6. That was it. It was over. You could tell, especially they got something going in the early drives, and that has happened in the Texans before. Generally, you give, look, Arthur Smith is a good play caller, and anybody who's going to be opposing offensive coordinator is going to be a good player caller in the playoffs. So they're going to script some good plays. They're going to find some good whatever

holes they can, but the Texans close those up quick. And once offensive coordinator is getting off script, that's generally when the noose Titans. they don't make a lot of mistakes. Are our receivers going to get some passes down the field? Yeah, because sometimes routes are just beautifully run. It's hard to be a cornerback in the NFL. It's hard to literally stop every pass that's wrong.

But there was no fear in my mind that the Texans defense was going to win the game. It was what gaffs are CJ Stride going to do to cost the team the victory. You can't play like that going further in the playoffs. They can't. Yeah, again, we will more. Yeah, yeah. Lots of cover. It's hard not to get ahead, but the reality is you're already thinking about ahead because you're in a short week now.

Right. So, all right. We want to hear from you. We do believe that calling is an important part of the radio show. Yes. A lot of Texans calls yesterday. Let's keep it going, man. Let's go right now.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-9. Your team is out of the divisional round of the playoffs. Highly, highly impressive effort from the defense. I give Nick Kelly after a very sketchy first quarter the responsibility of kind of maintaining a ball control drive. And it worked. And I think clearly we found out something about C.J. Stroud, not about his arm, but his legs. And the answer to that is, he ain't going to be using them.

They're dead? He's got the dead legs. I think he's been told, do not leave the pocket. Roll out a little bit if necessary, but trying to run. Man, watching Nico Collins hit his head on that grass. multiple times multiple times and every single time he is like where am i am i whatever he code am i in what is my name i mean what he marks slammed his head into the turf at one point didn't was it christian kirk i think went down for a little bit or somebody else i know nico went down twice that's

i'm stunned the second time he came back out there but uh all right so uh and oh by the way i think you you you probably sent erin rogers to retirement i mean i can't imagine the steelers front office going you know what let's run it back let's i think it was just an off game I'm Aaron look I'm I'm I'm an Aaron Rogers guy not like a fan but I'm like I can appreciate him he needs to retire he's an all time great all first ballot Hall of Famer yes for sure needs to retire in the and maybe maybe he comes back next year a la Philip Rivers because somebody's hurt yeah he wasn't that bad yeah he could do a Philip Rivers or Joe Flacco like he could be waiting he can wait for the right situation and somebody goes down and he can be in the playoffs actually that's now that you see you say that, that's a good idea, man. That's what he should do. Because I can tell you right now, the look of disdain after every receiver dropped a pass.

I mean, yeah, you don't want some guy coming in and yelling at everybody every time he missed it. He was missing some throws too, like way out of bounds and yelling at the receiver. Yeah, Aaron Day. He was yelling every single time. Unless you were targeting the guy in the second row, you need to be yelling at that guy because otherwise it doesn't matter

who you threw it to. All right, your squad is on the divisional round of the playoffs. They're going to be taking out on a New England team that Frankly, their offense was meh over the weekend, but their defense was amazing. And they beat up on an offensive line of the Chargers, which wasn't very good. Texan's offensive line, I don't even know how to grade it. Is Sunday at 2 the equivalent of Wild Card Saturday at 3.30? Or is it a better next?

Yeah, please. 1014, the Matt Thomas show with Ross. 713-212-5-7. And come on in. Let's talk about this, good, bad, and ugly. There's a little bit of all of that. from yesterday's win. 713-212-5-790. All right, it is 1021 on the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

If you'd like to join us, we're going to get the phone number out because we do like to hear from you. So we're going to continue to do that. And if you choose to call, we'd love to have your commentary. Good or bad on this. I mean, a lot of good, frankly. Your team's going the divisional round. I mean, nothing wrong with that. Well, isn't it the reaction to this game?

Now, it's a little bit more extreme because it's a play. and because of the way it played out, similar to the reaction to most of the win streak. Defense was great. Offense needs to be better. CJ Stroud needs to be better. You didn't feel great? Was it against, was it Las Vegas?

She didn't feel great about it? Las Vegas. I mean, a couple of the, even the Chargers game, you got up 14-0 and that game became a nail-biter. So a little bit more extreme in both ways. C.J. Stroud was, this probably his worst game of the, well, worst game of the season might be too much. but one of his worst games of the season

and then one of the best games of the season for the Texans defense. So extreme in both ways and you were still able to win easily and well not easily. I think it's over. You look at 30 to 6 if you just didn't watch the game.

You're like, wow, what a blow up. But 23 of those points came in the fourth. Like it was close. It was, I was worried that they were going to screw it up and blow the game. Until you realize the Pittsburgh offenses couldn't move. Yeah, that's, I think somewhere around the second.

in half, it's like they're not scoring. So you knew that Texas were going to play on Sunday because they played the Monday night game. By the way, I have a gut feeling on that coming up at 11.30 today. We get to revisit last week. I remember somebody, you had double digits too, right? I had at least seven. Yeah. I had double digits.

Good for you. Okay, so the choice, they waited to the very last second to announce the start. And the reason for this is very simple. If Pittsburgh going to won the game, they would have put Pittsburgh to England as the later of the two games. Pittsburgh is as a much bigger national following. They just do. And the networks are going to put

the best games, by and large, not always, but the best games in terms of national following as late as possible. So that's the reason why the Texans are playing the early game. At 2 o'clock.

If we would have known, yeah, there's just no other way in there. So is it the worst spot or is that? day at 3.30. No, no, no. You can't use that as an argument now. The only time you can talk about playoff times is the wildcar weekend. Okay.

There was no way the Texans were going to play on Saturday. If they would have. Yeah, it's true. They couldn't have. They couldn't have. So, yeah. They got the lesser the two spots, which helps out me because the Texans play at two. Is it two or two 30?

Is it two? Two. And the rockets are at six, so I'll be able to watch the entire game. Okay. And we can go right from Texans to Rockets. Yeah. You can talk to EMA ad doke about it in the pregame interview. I'm going to peel the curtain back a little bit

We've had the football games on many a time I hope you didn't have the Oregon game on Yeah, it was on his computer He wasn't pleased Yeah Is that why they're losing so Is that why they're on this losing streak? Been a bad weekend

We don't have to talk about Rockets today Backburner Yeah, we could skip them Three and a half hours of Rockets Bulls preview Tomorrow No, Rockets Bulls recap tomorrow Recap for three hours By the way, we're going to talk football

99% of the show today. There's 1% that I'm very excited about. Bill Raftery. One of the all-time great college basketball announcers was in town last week to call the game with Texas Tech was starting to be an excellent game. And I had tried

to get him on last Tuesday for the show and we did not connect properly. I got a text yesterday and said, hell, Bill Raftery would like to come on your show today, meaning today being Tuesday. So I said, well, should I text him at the time? He goes, no, just call him. So I called him

yesterday. I talked to him for like five minutes. That's great. I mean, one of the all, let me tell you something. Bill Raftery is what Dick Vitale wishes he was. Ooh. You know what I said? I didn't stutter. Oh. I mean, Dick Vital's an entertainer, but not an analyst.

Bill Raftery still goes to practices. Bill Raftery, I talked to him, I called him and he said he was at West Virginia's or Houston's practice yesterday. He's going to West Virginia shootaround today. And I said, can we do 1 o'clock? And he goes, yeah, I may be at West Virginia shoot around, but I'll step aside.

Is he getting some shots up? He's 82. I don't know if he's going to do that. Put him some baby hooks. But Bill Raptor is going to join us at 1 o'clock today. Awesome. Because he's in town for the West Virginia Houston game. Okay.

So we'll have 99% football in Bill Raptory at 1 o'clock. Wonderful. And believe it or not at 1.50. Maybe he caught the Texans game. Yeah, he's a pretty big sports fan. But yeah, I have tremendous respect for him. He knows the game. He's entertaining.

Kids love him. He's generational. They still scream onions at him all the time, which is, you know, awesome. And we'll talk to him at 1 o'clock. All right, but back to the Texans. Okay, so the number one argument probably being spun for people that were concerned about the offensive performance yesterday was, CJ's got to correct these mistakes. And it's got to be better.

So I feel like we've said that at least a half dozen times this year, minimum. Yes. And so the mistakes are still happening, but yet they're still winning. Yes. So can we maybe reformulate our conversation to say, just as long as CJ doesn't make catastrophic mistakes? Well, he did in that game and they won 30 to 6. I mean, you fumbled twice, you throw an interception, you lose two more, you had two more fumbles that you recovered, Now, granted, some of that could be between the offensive line and, you know, the center.

Yeah, but I mean, one, yeah, he, one hit him right in the chest. He wasn't ready for it. Now, we don't know, of course, between he and the center, as you said. Jake Andrews is probably going, uh, not my fault, bro. But one hit him right in the hands. He was ready for it. It hit him in the hands, and he dropped it. He almost dropped another one that near he had to kind of like re-fumble into his hands.

I've been a C.J. Stroud defender on this show for a long time, Matt. And here's your, and yesterday it was hard. Here's been your blanket statement. If you have a franchise quarterback or what you think is when you got to pay that guy. Yes. And I know you're right. Mm-hmm. But it's becoming more and more painful about the thought of paying that much money to a player who has not improved since his rookie year in the NFL.

Five fumbles and an interception last night. Thankfully, you only lost two of those fumbles. Right. But five fumbles multiple times completely. lacking in pocket awareness, running from pressure that's not there or running into pressure and just not having a feel, panicking far too many times. And that's something we have seen here and there. But it felt like last night was worse in all facets.

He should be getting better as the season gone along. Let me tell you. Look like he was getting worse. The moment was too big for him last night. Now he did connect with Christian Kirk on three long passes. Yes, yes. So that's the thing too. But that's CJ shroud too.

is we talking about all the bad things and then then he wows you and that's what pulls you back in you're like oh my god what a throw under duress and there was that long one that jalen no was it no who could have could have caught and he he threw it way up Titus howard was in his chest and he throws it you know 40 yards down the field and that should have been caught and it wasn't like there were plays that make you say wow and then there's those plays where you're like what is this guy doing he looks like he looks worse than it

Well, as a rookie, as we said before, last week, I said, if the Texans lose a game, this is nothing, you know, not breaking a new ground here. It'll be because the quarterback play was terrible. And the quarterback play, again, I'll give them a C minus. Yeah, it wasn't terrible. But it was far from even, it wasn't even average. It was bad. It was bad. It was bad.

It wasn't terrible. Like, Drake May was average against the L.A. Chargers. Yes. He also, like, I got news for y'all friends. not only does New England new to the playoff world and they've got to win so that's all this talk of it

couldn't be anybody during the... That's gone after one week. But Drake May can also fumble the ball away. He can also throw silly interceptions. That's why if you think that going to New England is going to be too much for the Texans overcome with that defense,

it's a coin flip game to my mind. This team will keep me out. It's two and a half as the line. This defense will keep them in a game against literally anybody, anybody. Especially quarterbacks who like to turn the ball over. And Drake May does do that. Ooh, it's up to three already.

You know what? I would feel better about Nico Collins. I would have to say Moneyline Texans, honestly, if Nico Collins was going to play, but we'll see. But if this is Christian Kirk's coming out party in December, I'm here for it. Yeah, with Kirk and Higgins and Schultz and a little bit of Knoll and the random Xavier Hutchinson,

and he just comes up with random 20, 25, 30-yard catches that are productive and helpful. Really, when Dalton Schultz wasn't a huge part of the offense yesterday. All right, 7-13-212-5-7-90. Your team that once started to 0-3 is on to the final four of the AFC. 7-1-2-7-90. Gut feelings at 1130. Bill Raftery and 1, believe it or not, news. We've got a lot to get to between now and 2 o'clock.

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Real takes, real reaction, real Houston. Sports Talk 790, guaranteed human. Joel Anderson, Togiai, Togiao, Al-Shire, Al-Shire, how you want to pronounce it. Sheldon Arrankans. Jalen Petrie, Kaelin Bullock, I mean, Dist Stingley. Kamari Lasser's a dog.

I've been missing a lot of time. I don't even mean Georgia bulldog. He's a dog. It's fun to watch. I brought this up 30 minutes ago. I should go find Baltimore radio host and find out how you talk about a team that Trent Dilfer was your quarterback and you won a Super Bowl with him. And look, C.J. Shroud is, I would think, should be better than Trent Dilfer?

Yes. They didn't play like it yesterday. He was Trent Dofer-esque yesterday. The assignment is don't cost them the game. He dropped. But you can't Ross, going way ahead of the curve here. I know. You can't pay somebody $60 million a year to say don't cost us the game.

I understand. And also, I mean, look, you know, we were talking about this middle of the season. If he's going to turn the ball, if he's going to play like that every game, of course you can't pay him. Obviously, I'm not saying, hey, this guy's turning the ball over three times, having horrible fumbles and throwing ineptly bad interceptions, pay the guy. Yeah. Last night was if you had to drop me out of a or woke me up out of a coma and I only saw that game of C.J. Stroud, I would have said you're never paying that guy. So if he is going to play like that, obviously, don't pay him and don't get anywhere close to even offering him any kind of big money. He's got to be better.

You got, I mean, you have a legitimate, and this will be, this obviously is for stuff we'll talk about when the season is done, whenever that may be. But you've got a potential conundrum because here's the thing, Ross. You don't have to extend him after this year, although I think, and Rappaport alluded to the fact that they're going to start talking about it. Yeah. It's better to get it done now than wait a year from now. But how do you go to your fan base and say, we're about to put this amount of money into the piggy bank of C.J. Stroud when

fellow first round Pickwell Anderson wants to be the paid the highest. You're going to. And in theory, you're going to be losing players because of it. Yes. And every team goes through that. Daniel Hunter, bye. We were talking about this yesterday. With this hard salary cap, you have to seize the.

the moments of when everything is. Camarie Lasseter on a rookie deal. Daniel Hunter on his deal right now, Will Anderson on a rookie deal, C.J. Stroud on a rookie deal. You have to seize these moments. It's like college where you have to have guys graduating and everything working out at the same time where the freshmen and the juniors and the sophomores and you have this great team. You have to seize those moments. The windows can close so quickly. The window closed. How's the window looking for the Baltimore Ravens? How's the window looking for the Kansas City Chiefs right now? You have to sees these moments and right now this is a moment for the Houston Texans.

Because if you don't, guess what you're going to be? Dak Prescott, the Dallas Cowboys. Paying crazy amounts of money but letting Micah Parsons go. Crazy amounts of money but not being able to have secondary people that you trust. I mean, this is, it's the hardest.

I think being a general manager of an NFL team is the hardest of them all. I really do. Because you are having, because even, look, Baseball general managers have to worry about position players and a pitching staff. I get that. But you are worrying about now not only the 22 guys that are on the field playing, but you're worried about saving money for future drafts, saving money for free agency. And knowing, now you do have a caveat you can also release players.

A lot of language with, I mean, hard, well, with the hard cap, but talking about, yeah, roster bonuses and signing bonuses. Yeah, it's very convoluted. restructuring of contracts. It's every, yeah, every general manager job is tough. I mean, the CBA for the NBA is probably the biggest. Yeah. With the aprons and all that stuff.

Yeah. But I mean, in terms of just construction of roster, it's like, you know you're going to pay Kevin Durant. You're going to pay Alpe and all those guys. I mean, you've got your five, six core guys you're paying. You got your, you got bird rights in your back pocket. Right. And which means you can pay your own guys for those you don't know. So you need to pay your number.

You're going to make sure you got a good running back who's going to want to be heavily compensated. You get into your quarterback who needs to be happy. You need your left tackle to be heavily compensated. You need your number one cornerback to be hot. And then you got an edge rusher who, by the way, is playing unbelievable. And you get two to three golden tickets every year in the draft, and you don't want to squander those golden tickets. The Texas defense will be raising a Lombardi trophy.

Now, whether they're doing at their own end of season party for their manufactured Lombardi trophy or the real one remains a B.C. A lot of football left, but they can beat anybody with this. defense. And that's the crazy part, is it I think generally speaking, and again, I'm only speaking, I'm only listening to the show before us, but it feels like most people are very happy that

things are going as well as they are, but they're also of concern. And the fact is, New England is going to be a significant step up in competition. Drake May is significantly better than Aaron Rogers. Their running back situation with Stevenson is significantly better. They've got better skill position. I mean, D.K. Metcalfe was

good in the first quarter, but you couldn't hear from him after that. They didn't even go to the tight end. Was it Meuth or Frankanmouth or whatever. To like the early fourth quarter. And I think the good news is though, too, is that no matter what city we're in, Matt, and we're talking playoff football, nobody's completely happy with their team.

Drake, I guarantee you, Boston Sports Radio is nervous as hell about Drake May. Buffalo Radio's nervous about the run defense, interior run defense, which a Texans thrived in. Denver Radio. Are we sure Bow Nix is the quarterback? Right.

Are we sure? Yeah. And Cortland Sutton's are WR1. He's good, but he ain't a WR1. Exactly. All right, let's go to the phone. Talk to some people. We'll start with Vince in Midtown

on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Vince, good morning to you. Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the call. Sure. Hey, if you guys remember, maybe about three or four weeks ago, I called and was talking about how CJ

played scared. And if I was like a lawyer and I was in court of law, I could just show that last interstate. reception he'd throw through and I think I would win the case. I mean, he had no business trying to make that throw. His feet were all over the place. He looked like he didn't know what he was doing.

I mean, it was just crazy. And, you know, in light of what you guys have been talking about, whether we pay him or not, I just don't think so. I mean, we lost in spite of him. I mean, three turnovers. And thank God for the defense. That's all I got to say about that. Yeah, thank you, Vince. I remember your call, and I remember I argued with you, Vince.

I was like, no, he doesn't play scared. And on that particular play and a couple of other plays last night, he did look scared. But he didn't look scared when he had Titus Howard in his grill and he was throwing the ball 40 yards downfield. He didn't look scared when he was loft in the ball to Christian Kirk over the right side for huge gains as well. And that unfortunately has been too much the C.J. Stroud experience. Those plays where he looks completely lost and those where he looks very comfortable and like he knows what he's doing. And last night was even more extreme for everybody, it felt like.

Yeah. And the fact is either he's not doing it because he doesn't want to or he's been told. He's not running. And he's also not very, he's just not fast. I mean, I don't want to say this, but it's the truth. Just because he's a black quarterback does not make him a running quarterback. I'm sorry, it just doesn't.

No, you can say that because I think people do have that misconception. Absolutely. Let me tell you, Josh Allen, is a significantly better runner than C.J. Stroud is. There would be announced. And Josh Allen's Lily White. Arch Manning will be better as a running quarterback in the NFL than C.J. Stratt will be. Yeah.

Doesn't mean he can't. I do like the little rolls out, the control rollouts I did like yesterday. Yeah. Those are good. He lumbers. And he even talked about it this season, how he just doesn't move like he used to. Even from his rookie year. I think a lot of it is not because he doesn't want to do it.

I think he'd like to do it. I think he's afraid of getting hit. I think he has had too many concussions in his young NFL career that he's like, I'm not taking my chances. Yeah. But here's the reality that is. You can actually, you can get concussed just as much in the pocket as you can. He's had multiple concussions.

They don't want him getting hurt again. There was multiple people, maybe even at least a dozen, saying Davis Mills needs to play in this game. That's ridiculous. The Texans are not doing that. You think you flew first class or coached to Pittsburgh yesterday? Davis Mills? Yeah. I'm sure first class.

So he was going to miss the game because he had a baby, right? No, no, no, no. He was not going to miss the game. They were going to, he was not, he missed the commercial, he missed the charter flight to Pittsburgh. Because of his baby. Yeah. Okay. Name Maximilian or something?

Maximus. Well, you know what? He does got dad strength. Now, that worked for Bregman a couple years ago. Yeah. Oh, he'd been ready, but to replace him, no. No, no, no. No, not even a conversation.

1044. It is a Matt Thomas show with Ross. Gut feelings at 1130. The news at noon. Bill Raftery from Fox and CBS. On the call tonight for Houston versus West Virginia, we'll talk to the basketball commentary legend in a couple of hours. This is Sports Talk 790.

This is Sarah Spain with the latest from IHeart. Sarah, nice to hear from you. It's been a couple of days of Gremlin's in the computers. How about our, we had a lot. It happened on Sunday, too, for the postgame show, by the way. Really? Yeah. How was the post game show on Sunday?

Oh, millions of calls. I don't believe that to be accurate at all. 6.2 million calls. I set the over under 0.5. What do you think? Under. Is it a Sunday night? Under. Under.

Under is correct. 8 p.m. start Sunday local time. Let me correct. Let me get some information out real quick. And I heard you bring this up ever so slightly. We did say stay in San Francisco. Okay. Before the Sacramento game.

Okay. Here is the reality of it. I'm just trying to give you the facts. First of all, if the rockets would have won, no one would have cared. Of course not. So it's because the rocket's lost that it was like, okay. Number one, the MBA has certain requirements in terms of number of rooms, facilities for, you know, banquet rooms, meeting rooms, for athletic training, for massage therapy, for food.

I mean, do you have, we take over a hotel, not only just the number of rooms, but the number of meeting rooms. There were two other NBA teams. at the main hotel we stay at and there was a convention at the other hotel that we have stayed at in the past. So it was either go out to the suburbs and not have all the things, the bells and whistles that you need to be an NBA team

or stay in San Francisco and make the drive. It was 80 minutes. It wasn't a three-hour drive. It wasn't going to San Antonio back. I have been in L.A. in a bus for an hour going from Beverly Hills to downtown Los Angeles. So this was 20 more minutes on an interstate. Okay.

So there should have been nothing should have been brought up about it. We stay in, as you like to tell me Rossi, five diamond hotels. Yes. Guess how we traveled? Five diamond style. Yes. We weren't in a Honda Civic. You know what I mean?

That doesn't anything wrong with Honda. You know what I mean? Yeah, they weren't in the back of a 67 Chevy. No. I believe Bob Seeger was when the night moved. Oh, okay. I have a stupid question. What if like there is a nice hotel you could.

stay in, but it doesn't meet the CBA requirements. Shouldn't the team be able to vote like, hey, we can, we can stay here. It's not necessarily CBA. It's more, it's, well, first of all, it is in the CBA. It is in the CBA, but it's a pretty easy thing to, you have to have eight rooms. You have to have like at least 60 rooms available. Okay.

They do let require longer beds, which most hotels do not have. Okay. Overhead showers. I mean, we're, you don't want Jabari Smith Jr. in a double. The reality is this. There's 611, 6. six, nine, six, ten, seven feet guys. Yeah.

Sh showers. And they have at least three women with them in the room. We could all dream. You have to have multiple meals provided. I mean, you know, the average, on a game day, a player can eat as much as six times a day. That's how much they eat. Do they eat all six times?

No. But I just, I thought it was kind of silly. Because again, the Rockets go to Sacramento and do what they were supposed to do and beat them kegs. Then it would be a moot conversation. But they didn't beat the Kings. They didn't even score 100 points. Something called Dylan Cardwell had occur high in points and rebounds.

And five games, they've been under 30% from three? In five games? Would you like to know? Would you always know the numbers? Last five games. I did the math on this last time. I was watching the game. I don't want to hear this, actually.

Okay, I won't say it. Go ahead. Real quick. They are 44 for their 191 from 3. That's 23% in their last five games. That's spectacular. Thank God for the game winner against the Sons or they'd be on a five game

losing streak, probably. I mean that game would have went to overtime, but it would have been four. They beat up on Indiana before that, so. We're on a three game or now. Yeah, but four of the five. Four of the last five, right? They lost.

I don't even know. Yeah, because of the Dallas game. Oh, that's right. I forgot Dallas. That was, the Dallas was the first of the five of the shooting willfully from three. All right, moving on. Let's go somewhere else.

Let's go to Jim on the High East. at 1055 on the Matt Thomas show. Jim with Ross. Jim, good morning to you. Hey, guys. Thanks. Great show as usual. I'm here a bunch of cry babies this morning. You know, not looking at the positives. What a great running game we had, you know, so that pretty much ate the clock up. They scored enough on offense to win. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I got a question for you guys. Mm-hmm. The business model seems to have changed in the NFL from an era gone by where you had a quarterback in waiting,

a la Steve Young behind Montana, Rogers behind Farr. Why don't we see that model more so that when we're in a situation like we're in now, we've got that bride in waiting that's just sitting behind a quarterback for three years, that's going to be the error apparent. Where did that model go? Because it doesn't seem to exist anymore in the NFL. And that was just my comment. I'm going to hang up and listen.

I'm driving. Yeah, thank you, Jim. The model can still exist. It's just very rare. And I'll give you an example. Let's say that you have Jacoby Preset with the Arizona Cardinals running your team. And they get rid of Kyla Murray. And you draft a quarterback.

And that guy's not ready to go. You can put an established quarterback, and quarterbacking quarterbacking, Jacobi Prissette, start him for a while until he was ready. That's the only way you can keep two quarterbacks, one who you think is going to be a future leader, and one who's been there and done that before, maybe not greatly, but he's at least done it and before.

Short of that, you can't do it. Frankly, the Texans pay Davis Mills a lot of money to be a backup. I mean, he's one of the higher paid backups in the NFL. Yeah, and those two examples are extreme rarities in NFL history, where you're handing off from one Hall of Famer to the next. that just doesn't normally work. And Steve Young, well, I mean, wasn't he banging the drum?

Like, he wanted to get out of San Francisco. So that's why they retired Joe Montana. Same thing. Brett Farve was kind of not forced out, but he wanted to stay in Green Bay. But they said, hey, we got Aaron Rogers. Those are rare cases. And we're also seeing, to your caller there, we're also saying salaries to quarterbacks going up higher in the inflation rate

than any other position in sports. Yeah, you're not normally going to pay to guys. you're not normally going to have a quarterback and waiting situation. I mean, it comes to mind Michael Pennix and Kirk Cousins, but I mean, none of those guys, Hall of Famers. Michael Pinnock's was drafted while Kirk Cousins was just signed

to a big deal, but it's rare. It's not like, calling it a model, as in that's what every team was doing for years in the NFL. I just, I don't think that that rings true to me. 100% accurate. It was a rarity. The closest thing would be Pennix to Cousins.

But most teams don't do it that way. And the Falcons were roundly booed for doing it. And I'm like, what are you doing? They were crushed and they tried to have a, somebody's going to work out and neither of them worked out. Yeah. So far. An elite defense is in Houston, Texas. One that will win a Super Bowl, Rossi.

I didn't understand stutter. It can win you the Super Bowl. Yes. I've been saying this for weeks. Can one side will you all the way when the offensive woes just aren't getting any better. Now, CJ made some throws, but the mistakes, way, way bigger deal

than the accomplishment. And it was against a very good defense, but that's the playoffs. You're not going to be facing the, well, I was going to say Raiders defense, but bad example, that was a bad analogy in your part. The Raiders defense is bad. I mean, that's a fact. I mean, they also

struggled against them. Okay, I'll give you this to go to the break. I want everyone to think in their mind, give me the stat for CJ against the Patriots. Do it right now. Call in. Don't cry as you call me with his numbers. Like, wipe away the tears. Be sobbing. Okay.

This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. Sports Talk 790. Good morning to you. 11.04 is our time. Got feelings in a half an hour. You know what? I think I threw a question at you. What was your gut feeling about C.J. Strout? Let's hold that to the bottom of the hour. Because what I did ask before the top was predict what his line's going to be.

Now, obviously, nobody would get it on the nose, but give a guesstimation. We'll do that in 25 minutes from now. But it is funny. Now, remember, for as much as we believe that Twitter is a cesspool, and largely it is. It is. It does give you some context.

It does bring out some conversation. I will say yesterday, as I was looking, and I didn't want to tweet a lot during the game, because look, you guys are watching the game. You don't need me analyzing things. Oh, that play was for nine yards. No, duh. We're watching the game.

But as I was looking through Twitter during the game last night and working on my Rockets Bull stuff, it was apparent that people do understand what's going on. You have this Hall of Fame-S-type defense and this mid-at-best offense. Woody Mark's A-grade gets an A-grade for me. Nick Chupon doesn't need to carry the ball ever. again. He had some

decent runs. He was running hard. Yeah, but he's running in motion. He's like in Fred Flintstone when he's running trying to get the car started. You know that there was a treadmill on the turf? Yeah. That's not good. Nico Collins being out. I know he was not targeted a whole lot yesterday. Part of that was because he missed much of the second half.

I'll save if I forgot feelings at 1130. That's going to be a bad one too. It's easy to say that way. Can you clench your teeth? You understand? He's not going to fly. It's a short leak. I got news for it. If they win this week,

play for the temperature being fine. Probably not, but we at least would have a shot. True. But man, he looked like he was, he didn't know what Eric Cody was in for two different times.

He slammed his head in the turf big twice. And I mean, it's like freezing temperatures out there. I'm sure that turf feels like concrete. Yeah. And by the way, I told you we were going to have one and a half missed field goals.

We wound up having one missed extra point. Did Kimey Fairbairn just take a lob wedge or something when he tried to kick that extra point? It didn't make any difference, but that thing didn't even reach the goal post. The last one? I didn't know what happened there. Yeah. Because, yeah, I was at a, actually, I was at Big City Wings.

I can say it. Sponsor the show. Yeah. My son was at Big City Wings yesterday. I was at Big City Wings, and I think I didn't see. I thought it got blocked or something. I didn't see the replay. It didn't look blocked to me.

Okay. Now, granted, I was in the shower watching the last minute of games. The game was a blowout. You were watching the game. in the shower? Yeah. We have a TV in our bathroom. Oh my God. You know my God. You should have a five diamond mat. It seems like a waste.

How much time are you spending in there that you need a television? I love taking long showers. Love it. When I'm on the road. Don't you get all pruny? That was pretty when I got in there. Raisin Thomas? What are you doing in there? Oh, a variety

of things. I don't want to know. No, actually don't answer that question. No, I'm going to give that. I'm good. No. I know what you're doing cleaning myself. Yeah. Is that what you, is that your euphemism? Number two, I'm singing. Yeah, your mom used to catch you cleaning yourself in your room when you were a teenager.

I'm singing in the shower. Oh, oh. I'm hosting a game show in the shower. Oh, my God. Get out of there. Get in the real world. I'm rehearsing my calls. I was like, should I say something really corny for when Durant gets the seventh on the all-time list?

And I didn't. He did a great call. Yeah, I just didn't. He's number seven for number six. You had to know it was going to be everywhere. Yeah. So I decided to go. anti-coram ball. When he passes Michael Jeffrey

Jordan, you make sure you know, yeah, don't stumble on that one, Maddie. We get Dirk first. Yeah. He may get this by the end of the homestand the way he's playing. Yeah. All right. Gut feelings about him there. But no, if I'm in a visiting hotel on a road, I'll take 25-minute showers.

Put music on, watch TV in some of the rooms that we have that have the TV that's actually in the into the glass window. It's really cool. You know what? whatever floats your boat, Matt. Thank you. Find your lost remote.

All right. That's an outcastle. Yeah, I was going to say. I have no idea what. I was after 1976. That's my bad. You know what? That was rude.

I'm coming to give you hug. I'm sorry. Jonathan, can you stop this hug thing? Here we go. I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. That was good. It's good to have you here.

I'm glad to be home. Yeah. You know, I love the road. But we're sick of on the road. glad to have me too God, we need to win this. They're getting their ass kiss by just second-rate team.

I mean, Portland's okay. Sacramento sucks. Yeah. We helped them in there. By the way, they beat the Lakers last night, so they've got a two-game wood exchange. Okay, so you feel a little bit? It's a little bit.

I mean, yeah, they're terrible, but then, you know, Demard de Rosen is good. Zach Levine is good. Maximo Reynolds. Renaud. Drew Eubanks, not good. Trying to be cream out there with those sky hooks. But no, the problems with the Rockets, again, in that game was their own shooting.

And that's what the, in this losing streak, it has been the Rockets problem, not the other teams being great. No, they're just not, again, 23% from three in the last five games. On the phones, we're going to New Zealand. Our buddy, L.J, L.J., where have you been? You haven't called us in a long, long time. I'm glad you actually remember Matt, because I remember calling him for the Super Bowl one time. And the band stopped us in the middle of the conversation. Are you still in New Zealand, by the way?

No, I'm actually visiting my mom. I'm in Houston and sugar alone at the moment. All right. Normally I call. I listen every morning on I heart radio. I listen to the night, unfortunately, for the Fox radio. But Chris Gordon should be able to see that. Y'all get run on I. Heart Radio in New Zealand when I'm there every day.

Awesome. Thank you. You got it. Hey, the reason I called in just, you know, it was awesome watching that game last night. But, yes, CJ was looking scared. But he was throwing some good BBs in there as well. He had some really, really good throws that were exceptional, to where I feel like if the O line can continue improving

and over the off season, yeah, that's where a lot of the tension need to be to where improving that O line once he had that confidence. I think, you know, his level of play will go up, his confidence will go up. And then lastly, you know, just Woody Marks. Woody Marks, man, he showed out last night and he helped us because without a running game, I don't think even the offense would run that well. So, hey, guys, I appreciate it.

I'll be listening in. and thank you guys for making me feel at home every morning just by being able to listen on the road. LJ, don't, yeah, I want to hear from, thank you very much. LJ, I want to hear from you once every three or four weeks, my man. Thanks for the phone call. I appreciate it. LJ's good caller and we live the international game. Yes.

I've never been to New Zealand, but I hear it's amazing. That's bucket list, but it's just too far. I got to get my funds up for that one. I think coach is $2,500. That's what I'm saying. How's a banko de M.T. How's that looking? You know what we should do?

We should bank old to Stephen Adams. He could probably pay for us. That's true. A little FC too. Do you name drop them or something? No, I think I would go straight to him and say, hey, I want to do. Oh, okay. Yeah, we could, like a sponsor.

We're looking for sponsors for my trip to the museum. Yeah, I got you. Steven Adams, my NIL. I like that. I'll post about it on IG, Stephen. Yeah. Yeah, he speaks of a great spot. Oh, my God, that jail and Petrie.

They're highlighting his guardian cap on. Good morning football. Why am I so addicted to it? I don't know why. It's all over the NFL. Not all over, but a lot of players use it. It's the great kazoo who kicks ass on the football field. He is the hardest hitter wearing a guardian cap.

Normally it's offensive guys. The first time I remember watching a guy have a super enormous helmet with Steve Young. Oh, I thought you were going to say Rick Moranis in Spaceballs. No, never saw the movie. What? I know. I'm not a Rick Moranis guy. I don't think he's funny.

Oh, by the way. We have a great fantasy five coming up this week. Spaceballs is a... But that's also... Well, I mean, you've seen Star Wars. Yes. Love that. Spaceballs is like the airplane...

Now, the reason I scream as loud as I do because your favorite movie of all time is airplane. It is. Which is a parody of disaster movies and a joke a second. Spaceballs is a parody of space movies and a joke a second. Okay, well, I will watch it because I'm not going to be biased towards it. If you're telling me it's good, I just don't a Rick Moran's guy. Honey, I shrunk the kids.

He's not in the whole movie. Okay, thank God. But it's very... Isn't John Candy in Spaceball? Yes. I love John Candy. It's in the same vein in either Bill Paxson or Bill Pullman. I always get them mixed up.

One's dead? Are they both dead? Or no, is it neither of them? Who are those Spaceballs? She are going to make me look this up. Yeah. Bill Pullman. Okay.

I really thought it was Paxon. Dang. Bill Pullman. And it's a very same, similar vein of the Naked Gun movies. space balls, Walk Hard, which I've been trying to get you

to watch for years. It's that type of joke a second parody movie. Okay, I'll do it then. You don't have to do it. No, well, I'm home for a while, so I want to. Because it feels like the more I tell you to watch a movie,

the less you want to. So I'm not going to tell you to watch it. No, you gave me Godfather one and two, and I did it. I loved it. Okay. It took a two-deck. It took a global pandemic.

It took a shutdown of the entire planet. That you finally got there. Yes. I'm not going to watch a good fellow, so it feels like it's just too violent for me. It's so good. Okay, back In the first scene, they're knifing a guy to death in a trunk

Yeah, that feels about violent for you Yeah So back to jail and Petrie Yes! He makes them look cool to wear He makes it look tough as the kids say TUFF, right Jonathan? That's what the kids are saying?

It's tough. Yeah, yeah, you said it right, it's tough. How old are you, Jonathan, again? I'm 23. Okay, how long can we use you as our kid? Forever! No, none until I, yeah, at my funeral. I think once you're speaking Jonathan

Saying good things please Once you hit 25 I think you're no longer are a kid No Now would you be here or not as a different issue No no no no I told my nephew he's six now And I call him baby boy He said I'm not a baby boy I said you're a baby boy until I pass

You're the baby boy that's it Oh Carl is my baby and she's 18 exactly That's never going to change That's what I'm saying She'd be 42 and I'm in a home You're my baby. I say how you do a baby boy I think baby Billy

Like Uncle Baby Billy Billy his name Coggin, what is this? Oh, Kenny Loggins, is that his name? No. You messed it up and I know it. I know it. Keegan Collins? No, I know what it is. And you messed it up and you squeezed it out of my brain. I know, I'm sorry. Now, Walton Gagons. Because you said it wrong. Walton Gagons. Didn't look it up. Just a funny human being. He's hilarious. Just everything he's done has

cracked me up. I'm not a big fan of the righteous gemstones because it gets really bizarre, but I love baby Billy. I loved him in Vice Principles. Was he an eastbound and down to it? I think he was, right? No, I don't think so. But he's now doing RawRourke commercials, what you used to do, and now he's taking...

RawRourt? Are you okay? RawRite. We don't... You know what it is. Oh, yeah. They didn't re-up. Yeah, so we'll go back to Rawride.

Gut feelings in 15 minutes. We're going to gut feeling C.J's numbers. We were supposed to gut feeling something else. Oh, I know it's going to gut feeling about something about the NFL TV stuff as well. Got feelings in 15 minutes here on 790. 1121, Matt and Ross, Sports Talk, 790. Your team won. Let's go.

We've had some people in. I am two wins away from being Battle Red Matt. Ooh, no, Liberty White Matt. Liberty White Matt. That's actually fits. That's fine. Good to be deep steel, Matthew. Do they have to win the Super Bowl for me to be this or once they get there?

He declared you'd get there, which you also declared they never would. Right. Let's see, maybe. Come on, maybe. I just want them to get there. All right. I'm not going to hold you to this. This is not even a guffin.

This is just your raw emotions right now. Okay. How are you feeling right now? About Sunday. Nico Collins is in the back of my mind. Other than that, I would be calling for Texans. Texans on a money line if Nico Collins were going to play without it. It feels definitely coin flip.

and Dave won 10 in a row. I'm not going to doubt them again. I'm pretty sure in gut feelings in 10 minutes, I'm going to pick the Texans to win. I'm so staying away from this. Oh, come on now. You're not going to be able to do this to me.

You can do it on Tuesday. You can stay away on Tuesday. I'm not letting you stay away on Friday. That's fine. Okay? Give me until Friday. Yeah. Get a feel for it because Tuesday gut feelings can change by Friday.

Can I speak to why I'm the way I am right now? Wishy-washy? Oh, yeah. Call me out on that. Why is that? It's okay. Because... No, it's okay to not know.

Because that defense destroyed a soul. Multiple souls, actually. And here's the thing. It's not like Pittsburgh had a prolific offense. We got to slow down the... We just stopped the run-and-shoot offense. That was a below-average offense being with... They didn't, but they never average offensive line.

But they never got off the ground, except for that maybe that first series where they should have, you know, done more than what they did. Yeah. Okay. And they've done this for basically three months, give or take. Yes. I mean, when's the last time the Texans had a... Craig always teased me about using a word wretched. When's lost time the Texans had a wretched defensive performance?

Maybe... Was it L.A.? Jacksonville? Jacksonville? Opening week against the Rams? They gave up 30 points to Jacksonville. That was... I mean, the Colts game doesn't count.

They gave up 30 in that game, but I mean, it was the last game of the season. Okay. So if you are in doubt that the Texans can't do this again defensively, you're just wrong because all they do is do it again week after week after week. CJ's not getting any better. And I'm sorry, I know we're talking about down the road and spending money. If you've got elite quarterback, you've got to keep them and all this kind of thing. The offensive line has gotten better, not elite, but better.

By the way, Blake Fisher's not good. I don't care what the PFF grades. He was terrible. He was terrible yesterday. His crates aren't good. He's Blake Fisher. Yeah. The receivers, you're finding different heroes now.

Yes. Jordan Higgins has come along. Yeah, Noel's been, you know, had his moments. Yeah. But they're not getting any better. And I'm telling you, that scares me. Especially because New England is a significant upgrade in talent. And they did be the Chargers.

Now, again, it's the L.A. Chargers. They're not, they weren't chopped liver. If people were looking for the NFL, for the Patriots to find that quality win because they thought their schedule was, you know, pancakey soft, then they got it. You held Justin Herbert to three points. Yes. They also, they also, they, yeah, the worst offensive lines, one of the worst offensive lines in football.

Yeah. It's going to be, well, a little bit better this week. So, I'm going to. I have to stay away until Friday. I don't have a feel. But if I was, if you said gunned ahead, 51-49, I would lean Texans to win because I'm seeing it. I'm seeing them go on the road winning these games,

despite the fact their offense is so below, mid as though term the term kids use, it's below mid. The defense is special. It, it's just, it just is. And we've been saying this for weeks. This is a touch, a Super Bowl, I should say, winning defense. It's that caliber.

Oh, man. There's always the yeah-butt in the back of your mind, though. Yeah, but C.J. Stroud. And yeah, but now... But you know what? I got news for you. When you were playing Kansas City and you were playing Baltimore, you didn't think of yet-butts. You can yeah-butt's.

You can't yet-butt's the best team. Let's just tell you, who's the best team left in the AFC? Buffalo? who you've beat at home, and if you play them, it's going to be at home? Yeah. Not saying it's easy to beat Josh Allen again. Let me tell you. I was impressed New England.

I'm sorry. I know it's an easy low-hanging for it to say they didn't be anybody. Okay. That was a good win. You're going on the road with Nico Collins down your two and a half point dog. So it's winnable. It's winnable. Yeah.

All right. Let's go to our buddy Wes and Humble here on the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Wes. Good morning to you. Good morning, gentlemen. Hey, you know, I watched that game. And look, I'm not ashamed to say, after three, basically middle school-like

turnovers by C.J. Straub, I was going, okay, who else can throw the ball? Because, look, you're going to win because of the defense, or you're going to lose because of C.J. Stroud. And that scares me because of how many times your quarterback touches the ball. And you have an offensive coordinator

whose goal is to score as close to 20 points as possible, and if you don't go over 20, he's okay with that, provided you win. So look, New England, I think, is the best team left in the AFC right now, low-hanging fruit. Yeah, they played the Jets twice and the dolphins twice.

That's four automatic wins, right? And you can say the same about the Texans or the Titans and the Colts or whatever. But the weather scares me the further we get into this. Because if you can go to New England and it's not six inches of snow, they can beat New England. Drake May hasn't faced a defense like this in his life. But then if you have to go to Denver near the end of January, that I don't know about that, Matt. That they can get by New England and face Buffalo.

I think it's the easiest path to the Super Bowl for them. But, you know, remember when we destroyed, we destroyed Buffalo in Houston, first two plays, CJ has got two long touchdowns. Where's that play calling now? I don't know why that's not the norm now that you're in the playoffs. I mean, they had some long passes in the game last night. By the way, the high on Sunday in Foxborough will be 34 degrees. That's fine.

It's manageable. As of now, as we'll get closer. Yeah, I mean, let me tell you something, Wes, and thank you for the phone call. Good to hear from you. We can't worry about the weather. I ain't scared. All those Steelers fans in my mentions

when I said they're going to win the AFC championship game and you're bookmarking my tweet, it's going to be cold. Oh, they're going to be freezing. Huh, funny how, you know what? There should be a rule on Twitter. If you bookmarked my tweet to come back and crush me if I'm wrong, you got to say, you know what?

You were right. Can you go talk to them today? I don't know who's, no. I'll go to Steelers name. Steelers Nation. Yeah, there's got to be Twitter. I muted half of them. Well, that's not any fun.

You should reply scoreboard, bitch. You know what? I need to write this down. Shut your bum ass up, Steelers fans. Where are you at? Funny, how you got out of my mentions last night? How many bookmarks did you lose off of this, by the way? It was at 54 or something like that, or 57?

I don't know. I don't have to go look. All right, now it's time for gut feelings. Listen to me very carefully. If you do not want to make a prediction about the game, I'm not going to make you do it because I'm not doing it. But I'm going to ask you how C.J. Shrodd's going to do. I got a prediction for you.

And I have a gut feeling about television for the future on the NFL. It has to do with what happened just last night. 1128, Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas Show with Ross. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. We take this program today until 2 p.m. Listen up, girls and boys that's been so.

This Russ and Matt Thomas. Yo, they got a gut feeling. This is their gut feeling on the Matt Thomas show. 713-212-5-7-90. Time for you to make some predictions about CJ. Now, if you want to make one about the game, that's good.

I'll let you do it. I'm holding off till Friday, and I don't think I can even hold off that. I may not have to do it on Friday. I'm such a wuss. Gut feelings can change by the end of the week. That they can. We don't put them in stone. What's a name on it? That's correct. So we're going to get practice reports.

Maybe Nico Collins miraculously comes back. Clears his head. Dr. Nick, the neurologist. But as you say that, how big of a difference is that? Is that a huge difference? But I mean, it's WR1. He's your best threat. He wasn't even like he was a big part of the offense yesterday.

Yeah, but the other team has to be, just because he's not getting 10 targets doesn't mean he's not getting, as they call gravity, Matt. Just having Steph Curry on the floor alters the opposing defense. You're saying that Jalen Noel is not going to carry the same sort of a threat that... He's more of a Harrison Barnes. Such a good pull from an NBA guy. Nobody in the audience understands that, but I appreciate it. I think somebody did. One, Spurr fan probably did.

All right, you need to brag because apparently you hit a bunch of... Oh, my God, Fulence. Well, let's get to you first, Matt. 7-13-212-5-7-0. I did not alter this document, even if you were going to accuse me of doing so, Matt. Okay, you had the Rams covering. which they did not. You had the Packers

over the Bears. That is an L. He had the Bills winning in Jacksonville, though. That's a win. Niners against the Eagles, win. Patriots roll the Chargers, you said. That's a roll. 13 points is a roll. In the NFL world, it's a roll. What was the final score? 16 to 3? 16 to

I don't know if it's a rule. It's a cover. You can't roll somebody and only score 16. Can you? If you watch that game, they rolled. L.A. could do nothing. That's a... Jonathan? Bad boy, keep on rolling Can you roll?

Strawberry, keep on rolling Can you roll a team? Patriots rolling. Now in 1988 I mean, sorry, 1908 when it was like Yale versus Cornell 16 to 3 is a roll.

I say roll with it, baby. I say Steve when would it. Anybody got that? John's not listening or answering, so I don't know. He's not. He's very busy. Is my camera frozen?

Is he back there? I'm back here. Oh, it's frozen. Yeah, I'm about, I was making a blogger. Oh, it's okay. You know what? That's fine.

multitasking. Is 16 to 3 a roll? Did the team get rolled? Can you roll a team if you didn't score 20? It's two touchdowns. 3824 is a roll. Sorry. 16 and 3, 13 points. Roll. Roll with it, baby. I mean, if you say

scored didn't change last night from 7 to 6, you would say the defense rolled the Steelers. Oh, good point. The defense did, but not the offense. Good point. Point for me. Sure, you know, we'll give you a win. I'm very rarely getting a good feeling wins. Are you Give him today, please.

You know what, you need a win. Thank you very much. All right. You said, Texans give the three. They win by a touchdown. Yep. They win by more than that. You said, Aaron Rodgers, this is a good one.

You said Aaron Rogers does not play every snap. Now, you were trying to say he was going to get hurt. It's still a win. It's still a win. It's still a win. It's still a win. This is where we went to the sports book. What do they call?

They judge it or grade it. They got this. The sports book has graded this a win. Yep. It's a win. And then you said the Texans will go into New England and lose. I probably said that.

No, I said in the document. No, no. And then you said the Texas would win 21 to 10. That's an 11 point. I mean, that's good. Yeah. So we'll give you a win on that. Those are guts.

Remember, guts can be changed. Your feelings. Rearranging guts. Well, trying. All right. Go ahead. Now, here comes boasting sports RV. I said, I'm not boasting.

Hey, it ain't bragging if it's true, baby. All right, let's go. Rams beat the bills in the Super Bowl. TBD. Texans beat the Steelers blowout exclamation point. Win. Then beat the Patriots to make the AFC championship game, TBD.

I said Rams win, but don't cover. That's a win. I said, bears on the money line lock at a week. That's a win. I said, what are y'all planning over there? I said, bills win and cover. That's a win. Niners over Eagles, that's a win.

Patriots beat Chargers and Cover. That's a win. Wow. All Sports RV does on a recorded line is win. Okay. All right. We've got computer freezing issues, so we can take the call on line one. Yeah, I see.

It's great. This has been all week. Texans, and I said Texans beat the Steelers by double digits. Good. And my final score prediction was 24 to 13. Ended up 30 to 6. All right. John, then let us know when you can give your gut feeling.

I don't know if you can't see you. We don't know what's going. I can tell you right now, I think after this, he's going to get his film going on, and I think he's going to rush for 40 yards. CJ Stroud? C.J. Stroud? 40 yards?

I like that. I don't think it's going to happen at all. I will take the under on that. By the way, Jonathan last week, he's Mr. Upset. Remember, he had the Panthers beating the Rams close. How'd your Chargers do, by the way, this weekend? He picked the Patriots, though. Jonathan, can we please have a conversation?

you're picking of teams because you love them you're like 0 for 2 SFA 0-1-1 Chargers 0-1 2 No no he picks the Patriots I haven't written down He picked the Patriots He picked the Bears win

Jaguars loss Eagles loss Texans win So there you go But he's got C.J. Stroud rushing for 40 yards this week That's his gut feeling coming up By the way I found a piece of audio

I don't if you guys put it yesterday I sent it to Jonathan yesterday You hear about the kid from Philadelphia that was doing the man on the street interview No what happened He's a future WIP 94 Sports Radio Philadelphia. He said he wanted the OC flipping burgers. Yeah, we got that.

Don't give it away. You just gave it away. I'm sorry. Don't give it away, give it away, give it away now. It wasn't on my rundown. Yeah, that's true. We'll play it later. Okay.

All right, gut feeling, number one. By the way, so is line one on there or is he not there? It's Jeff's, we don't even know what the hell's going on. I couldn't tell you right now. Our computers are all crashing, just like when they crashed with Kevin Harlan last week. Thank God. The clocks or the clocks are

freezing. Jonathan's frozen. This is fantastic. Yeah, I'm still got 1130 right now. It's 1140. 713-212-5-790. If you call in, maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't.

Who knows? Weird. What time do you have? I have 1140. That's right. We're right. No, but it's pausing on this clock. Oh, okay.

Acting weird. Okay. I'm going to restart my game, I guess. We are done with Monday night playoff games. I think the NFL competition committee is going to say that is giving unfair

not unfair arrest time. It's automatically putting the Monday night team behind the eight ball for one less day. They're going to play on Sunday but still one less day,

especially the road team. Like the Texans flew home, got here in the middle of the night. They're going to get back on a plane early Saturday to fly four hours back up to they'll fly to Providence.

What are you in Wigan about? I'm wiggin. Yeah, I think we're done with Mondea. night games. I think even though television rules the world, I think that the NFL will convince ESPN to

give them a prime either Saturday or Sunday spot. I think we're done with Monday night games on playoffs. Just a gut feeling. ESPN wants that. They ask for because they're cutting big checks. I think it's going to stay just because of money. Okay. So that'll be my gut feeling. All right. Monday night football playoff

games will continue. But don't you think it's kind of ridiculous? It is ridiculous. It's a day short. They don't care. This is not their... Turn it down. Our computers are freezing! I'm trying to start choosing number 17 of the Matt Thomas Show rolls

and our computers don't work. And poor Jonathan back there. I haven't seen him in hours because there's one still photo of him. Well, we got our crack IT team on it, I'm sure. I think maybe I can try to punch these guys up.

All right, they're coming in now. Well, I got to do my gut feelings. We can take a break. I got one more. Yeah. I got one more for you. You said you're not going to predict the game. Not going to any other game you want to predict. No, I want to predict C.J. Stroud's numbers. Okay. Okay. Here we go.

CJ will throw two touchdowns, two picks. Wow. Rushes for under 40 yards and throws for over 225. Hold on, hold on. CJ. Two touchdowns. Two picks. 225 through the air or more.

under 40 rushing. Okay. You want to match that? I'm going with one touchdown, one pick, under two and a half turnovers on the game. Okay. Is that too? That's fine.

That's okay. I'll accept that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 243 yards. Say it. Speaking of existence. Are going to the AFC championship game. It's going to be slobber knocker,

knock down, drag out. It's not going to be pretty. What the first three quarters of that last game, it's going to be like that into the fourth. Houston Texans win 19 to 17. All right, I got one for you. This is kind of a weird gut feeling on this one. Just a

gut feeling. Go ahead. If the Texans win and go to the AFC championship, Ross. If, if the game is being played in Houston. Ooh, okay. So you're you want to write down Buffalo wins?

Yes. Okay, Buffalo wins. if okay because I sell Buffalo as my AFC team remember yeah I had filled off you I literally said that last week but we'll see you uh TBD all right looks like the phones are back in order we'll go to the phones next 1144 gut feelings continue sports talk 790 1149 sports talk 790 Jonathan any more of gut feelings from you before I go to the phones no I want to cash in on that I think that's I'm gonna say all right talk to jeff online too see if he's got any gut if not we'll hold him to the top of the hour because I want to give him some

Nah, he's a Bears fan. Okay. Hey, Jeff, the Bears fan, hang tight. We're going to let you have a lot of room. But this is the thing we call gut feelings. So those of you know, every Monday, every Tuesday at 11, better we do this. So let's get some gut feelings in, and then we'll talk to Jeff after that. We'll start with Dan.

Dan, what's in your gut at 11? Dan? Hello, Dan. Dan left us. Let's go to Geo. Geo, what's in your gut at 1150? Hey, guys. Great show as usual.

Thank you. So my gut feeling is, man, after seeing Nico Becery, bang his head up on that turf, not once but twice. Sorry to say, man, my girlfriend is he'll be out the next two games. But it won't matter, man, because this generational talent of a defense that we have is going to take us to the Super Bowl, baby, and Nico will be good enough in time to play for the Super Bowl. And another one, I took the Texans at plus 1,300 when they were only three, dropped

a hundred on that bad boy for them with a Super Bowl. So hopefully that thing plays out right for me, man. You guys have a good one. Gio, I really, first of all, I really hope you hit on that. That will, so that's plus 100. They were 0 and 3. He's going to win $13,000. How much did you say?

Plus 1,300? Yeah. They were 0 and 3 and he got the money. He got them to the Super Bowl, I guess. What he said. Oh, Gio, I have to come back and correct that. I'm going to bank. I'm going to, wait, wait, plus $1,300.

$1,300. It should be $1,300 if you bet $100, right? No, it's got to be more. Do you say $13,000? No, $1,300. So it's $1,300. No, $13, plus $1,300. So you do what?

He bet $100 on, for the Texans to win the Super Bowl. To win the Super Bowl, it had to be more than $13. Maybe, maybe just to go, just to go, maybe. To go to the Super Bowl makes more sense. So what is that? You bet $100,000, were you in what? $1,300. Oh, okay.

I gave you $12,000 too much. Sorry. By the way, I'm going. It could have been 130 to 1 at that point. I'm going to bet I'm going to go with G on this. We're not seeing Nico. the Super Bowl. He's out in the next two weeks. You're not seeing him till the Super Bowl?

Correct. If the Texan's That's four weeks away. Okay. Dude, you saw him. He looked like hell. He looked like he needed a hug and he put a towel over his head. He didn't want to playoff anything. Concussions don't know what season it is. I know. They don't know. Oh, no, don't you dare say that.

Oh, they don't rush guys back from injuries? Don't you say that. Oh, come on now. The Houston Texans would never do something. like that put a player out there too early okay forever and ever I'm in oh my gosh what's wrong with us a lot

Koso what's in your gut Koso besides cheese boys gentlemen yes first of all you know I work in IT do you guys need some help over there yes we can't afford you we will not pay you

the thing is I'll I'll work for rocket's tickets, Matt. How about that? We can't afford that either. Okay. Is there anything else we can do that not get you to do anything for us? We used to have two IT guys. We don't want to say what happened.

Okay. That's perfectly fine. I'm fine over here. Anyways, to get my gut feeling, I'm just going to be a realist. It's going to be Patriots 1310. I hope that's wrong. Concussions, man, they suck.

It's one of the scariest things that can happen to someone. I hate losing, you know, when you pass out or anything like that, it's one of the worst feelings. So unfortunately, I think it's Patriots. And if you guys ever change your mind, you can hit my line. Thanks, guys. Thank you very much. We're not going to change you because we can't bring you in, you're an employee.

Thank you, though. We love you, though. We really appreciate the fact that people in the world of IT want to help us out. Our IT is a disaster. And we love our company, but it's a disaster. It's not their fault. Whose fault is it then? Let's move on.

That's what I thought. I mean, Simon's got to take the responsibility. Not us. We don't do IT. The show's bad, the content's bad, it's our fault. We used to have two guys who did a great job. They did. One was a little strange, but they were to do both decent people.

It was a little strange and others. But he's fine. All right. IT guy's strange. Stop me if you heard that before. I know, I know. Oh, this is, uh, IT guys, A social. This is weird.

This IT guy pounds gin and tonics constantly. No, never said by anyone. He's always watching anime on his phone. All right, anyway, let's move on. No stereotyping on the mad time. show at all. We don't do that at all. 7.13. 2.1.2.5.7. Oh, did you want to make a prediction about CJ's?

Oh, you already did. Okay. Bills win. Seahawks win. Yes. Rams win. Rams win the NFC. Because I had Philo'O'O'O'HRigually. Whoops. But I had a bad vibe about the... I told you the Niners were going to beat the Ingles. Remember, this is the great part about sports radio. We can change our minds daily.

Yeah. Nobody holds us to it. Everybody changes their mind all the time. That's why. I got no... When you do pick segments, no one cares. No, I got your locks in a week, Maddie. You were on a recorded line, though.

Hey, I've been five in all week one against the spread. No, no, no. I did. You were not on a recorded line, though. Now, don't look at my record before that. All right. Yeah. Let's go to Tom in downtown.

Tom, what's in your gut? Good afternoon, gentlemen. Hi. I call tonight to the nightcap, but I'm sticking with it. I've got feeling C.J. Stroud is about to embark on a flacco style run to the Super Bowl. Wow.

He will get a big contract in the off season and then he'll be average to below average of the rest of his career. But he will win the Super Bowl. They will win the Super Bowl. The Texans will win the Super Bowl? That's my gut feeling. Wow. With a Flacco-esque run from C.J. Stroud.

Yeah, starting in New England. Okay. I'm with it. Tom is down. By the way, I love Mark Berman. Okay? I've respected him for many, many years. He goofed yesterday.

Aaron Rogers was talking about how there were a few Texans fans in a stands last night at the game. He wasn't doing that to take a slam at the Texans fans. He was doing it to say that Pittsburgh fans don't sell their tickets. And he took it as, well, they were part of a Texans fan. Look, we don't have to be 20. 24-7 for every local sports team. Each town till I drown, baby. Yeah.

Trust me, I had my ages up last night. No, you did not. You know I did. There's no chance. Mr. Thomas saw those ages up about 1230. 713-212-5-7-90. Let's go to Scott on 7-90. Hello, Scott.

Matt Ross, what's going on, guys? Hi. I'm going to, I've sort of cashed in on this. I got feeling that I gave over the summer before, but I think it's time that I, 100x on my money here. So any praise that you can give would be self-gratifying for myself. I called in over the summer and said this would, this defense would be the best unit in the history of the franchise. And I think second place is about 10 to 15 miles behind it at this point. So I was right on the money with that.

But man, to talk about the game for a brief second if I can, I called in yesterday as well. And I said the one thing, we would be more than capable of winning this game yesterday if our offense didn't at least play average football. But the most important thing to the game for me going forward was how they're going to play, if they needed to play better than that, if they wanted to continue to win moving forward. And I found myself, I was just furious at CJ during the first half, and really the entire game. I mean, he did everything in his power almost to give them the game.

Yeah, I know there were some good throws. in there, but you can't tell me it's a coincidence that all of those turnovers started happening in a big moment like that. I mean, it felt like he pissed all over his leg. And I, you know, gosh, he took my joy away, guys, during the game. I was so mad at his performance. It almost made it unenjoyable, how dominant we were, especially with those touchdowns in the second half. And then after the game, I saw a brief part of his press conference, and he's talking about, we've got to pick each other up and, you know, these are mistakes that I can clean up. And I really didn't play that bad other than those mistakes.

He said that. He said, other than those mistakes, I really didn't play that bad. Do you think that's what Tom Brady would have said after the game or Kobe Bryant or anyone like that? Like, be like that wasn't anywhere near good enough or defense to save my butt. I need to be better and I will be better going forward. And I'm gladly won the game. No thanks to my ass. And I'm going to be better being forward.

show some passion and some freaking anger because that was pathetic. Absolutely pathetic. But yeah, any praise you can give on my prediction from preseason. You get the praise. You absolutely get the praise. Thank you very much for the phone call. We'll hear from C.J. Straud at the top of the hour. Oh, really?

We're going to hear from him twice. Okay. What do you think? Sounds great. During the news at noon? Yeah. Well, we'll see. No, you got to pay him.

No, we'll see. Oh, yeah, that's your segment. I'm restarting here. You could be doing it. Oh, I know why you said we'll see. The audio's down. Bill Raftery's in one hour. That's great.

Clock went out. Clock's out. I think we're having Wi-Fi issues or something. Imagine that. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. The news at noon is up next. Those of you on hold will get to your phone calls too.

That means Jeff and James and Brian. Hang tight. We'll get to all of you. 7-1-3-21-5-70. And if our audio allows it, you're going to hear from C.J. Strais, part of the news of noon. Plus, we're going to hear from ACDC with some Texans highlights. Open up the third hour of the Matt Thomas show with Ross. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

I've said this before. Not that I go to strip clubs. But pound for pound, this ACDC can give you great strip club music and can get you fired up for your local football team, right? It's not a soothing voice. Now, I haven't been to a strip club in many moons. Yeah, and I'm assuming that ACDC's not played at many schools. It is and that's fine.

But when I used to go way back in the day... I'd rock me all night long. When you used to go? Yeah. I would hear at ACDC and I'd say find the longest cut possible. They shorten the songs. All right. At least back in my day. They know it's four minutes and that's what you're getting. Yeah.

All right. So ACDC helping us out there. It is a Matt Thomas show with Ross. Our time is... Oh, 12.8. Let's get to the news at 1208. Yes, Matthew. The Houston Texans' The Pittsburgh Steelers, 30 to 6, the final score. But it was 7 to 6 going into the fourth quarter. It was close, but then they got a couple of defensive touchdowns.

And even a missed extra point from Kami Fairbund. But at the end of the day, Texans win easily. 21 first downs to 13, 408 yards to 175. They lost the turnover battle, but still won easily. C.J. Stroud, what the heck was going? on with those snap issues? You know, we got some problems with the snaps, me catching them, you know,

got to find a way just to catch them and then take care of the ball. You know, we knew on tape that they did a good job of, you know, punching at the ball or trying to, you know, while you're throwing, get your throwing arm. So, you know, I try to work on that throughout the week, but they make plays

and these games and playoffs games from my experience, they're going to make plays, we're going to make plays. It's all about, you know, moving forward and, you know, trying your best to, you know, flush it and keep going on. So every time we had to bounce back,

you know, we made more plays. So, I mean, I'm proud of our guys are having a little bit of resilience in those moments and, you know, to finish the game like that was really good. Wow. Proud of our guys. Showing resilience, Matt. I guess what was it, caller Scott? He wants a pounding

of the podium and we're going to get this right. Mamba mentality. Love it. See, Jay Stroud's not really like that. I mean, that's just how he is. Yeah. But he's not wearing other teams gear, so that's nice. Yeah, he wore a Houston Astros hat. Yeah.

Correct? He needs to wear our Rockets had help us get this three-game losing streak. I don't know. He cursed the Mariners. Kind of. You know, I forget what I said. Rockins are cursing themselves anyways. Stop.

I'm just saying. C.J. Stroud. How's the trust with the offensive line? Yeah, I think it's dope. You know, excuse me, dope. I think it's amazing for those guys to keep faith and trust in me. And I faith and trusting myself, you know, learn from my mistakes and try to, you know, move on, you know.

I know, I know, things I need to get. fixed, but, you know, I think, you know, I had a good game, but, you know, just got to clean those things up. But for those guys, you always, you know, keep me uplifted is really helpful. Yeah, I mean, at one point, it just looked like he was completely lost out there, giving the ball up and not looking good. He did stabilize somewhat, made a couple of big throws. Demico Ryan's also talked about C.J. Stroud bouncing back from those tough times. We'll look at the film and see what happened there about that. I thought CJ stepped up, made some big plays. He found Christian Kirk a couple times for some explosive plays for us.

for Christian to have the game that he had, and over eight catches for over 140 yards. That's great protection. That's the quarterback stepping up, making great throws. And those guys operated well, made the plays we needed to make. It was dope. It was dope. You didn't think so?

You didn't think it was dope, Maddie? I love it. I love it. I think I'm going to use the term dope more often than the show. You think so? Yeah. Okay. Sure, why not?

All right, what else is going on in sports? The Panthers have picked up the fifth-year option on Bryce Young. That's not too much of a surprise. Rogers backs Mike Tomlin after the game. Aaron Rogers, that is, said it's an absolute joke if Mike Tomlin is on the hot seat. When you don't get it done, words are cheap. Mike Tomlin said after the game, it's about what you do or you don't. And so I appreciate the question.

He was asked about a message to the fans, but he said you either do it or you don't. So Tomlin not upset, not happy after the game. and Aaron Rogers backing Mike Tomlin, who probably will be back? Tomlin back if he wants it. I think Aaron Rogers calls it a career. And then with the caveat of if somebody needs him in week 11,

he might want to go some play there. All right, a couple quick baseball notes. Nolan Aronado is now an Arizona diamond back after a big trade with the St. Louis Cardinals. And the Royals are going to move in their fences at Kaufman Stadium. 10 feet.

significant. Bobby Rich Jr. Approves. Yes. The Fountains approve. It looks like a nice stadium. I've never been there. I've been on the outside of it.

I think it is nice, but don't they want money, right? They want to update it, I believe. Oh, they're going downtown. Oh, they're moving. Yes. Completely. They want to go downtown.

Okay. The Royals want to go downtown. The chiefs want to go to Kansas. And one quick college football note, Colorado Star Offensive Tackle, Jordan Seton is entering the transfer portal? Let the games begin. Cole Thompson, SEC

insider of the station, along with Chris Gordy, of course. Who's a better insider? They don't have to be better, Matt. It's not a competition. Oh, no, I asked a question. It needs to be answered. If I had one insider spot off in my boat.

What if I told you I don't listen to either of their podcast, so I don't know. Go ahead. Could be the long horns of the inside track, as we know they are spending big in the portal going all in for Arch Manning's final season. There you go.

And that was the news at noon. Oh, actually one quick note. John Harbaugh apparently weighing all his options, vetting teams. He is interviewed with the Giants. Supposed to be the favorite there. He's also interviewed with the Atlanta Falcons. So it'll be interesting to see where John Harbaugh ends up.

A leverage move, you think, going with the Falcons interview? Or do you think he's really trying to make sure he turns over all the stones possible. We didn't gut feeling this. New York Giants. New York Giants, New York Giants.

And that was the news at noon. There you go. All right. I keep looking at the time. The timer's off. I know. I clock's 12.14. It's fine.

We're going to, we're, the radio station's on the air. That's all we can ask. As far as we know. Yes. Yeah. All right. 713-212-5-7.

I mean, Jeff, the Bears fan. Yes. When you can doubt, you can go to a Bears fan. By the way, that game over the weekend was nuts. 21 to 3 came back and won. A friend of mine who was in the media business, I won't tell you his name, Rantz Rurline, said that he thought it was very oiler-esque.

Ooh, the choke? Yeah. Oilers would choke all the time. Yeah. Denver, Buffalo, Kansas City. I've been through a plenty of them. Ugh. I don't want to bring that up.

So it's a New Day. Texans marching towards the Super Bowl. Hopefully. Isn't there a song called New Day? It's a new dawn. It's a new life for me and I'm feeling good. We're going to play that on Friday. Got to play that on Friday. Sure, why not?

You're with the Bubla version. The Nina Simone is the OG. Whatever you want to do. Okay. 713-212-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross with a word for uptown appliance repair. I love uptown appliance repair because it's easy to speak for them.

There are some advertisements that you will hear that you can hear the person's voice. I'm just reading this commercial copy. please go see Acme Miller, Acme Construction. No, no, no, no, no. Uptown is who I trust. Uptown is what I believe in when it comes to getting your appliances fixed. I don't mean to brag. So please, I apologize in advance. 1221 p.m. here on Sports Talk 790 into hour number three of four of the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

Ross for real, Matt Thomas with you, Jonathan Allen, as well. Just got the news at noon, of course, talking a lot about the Houston Texans. And their 30 to 6 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers last night on Monday night football, short week headed up to New England. Shipping up to Boston for the weekend are the Houston. Or Providence. They actually fly to Providence, usually. The song is called Shipping Up to Boston.

I know. If you guys go to the- It's not a shipping up to Providence song. If you're going to the game, Providence is your play. Okay. Now, the only negative is you can't. know this from personal experience. You cannot go nonstop from Providence. But if Boston airfares are really expensive and you are going to the game, Providence is a good alternative. The hotels are

cheaper than they are in Boston. It's just as easy to get from Providence to Foxborough for the game as it would be to go to Boston. And a lot less congested. And frankly, Providence is just a wonderful place. I love it. Okay. So that's my little advice. Thank you. When I was there, I covered the Texans Patriots last playoff game in New England. state in Providence. Thank you for the pro tip. You're welcome. I'm here for. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. No, thank you. It's all good.

All right. In the hood. Province on hoodie. I mean, there's probably some bad parts. Is there? All right, let's go to the phones. Jeff on 790 Jet, thanks for waiting a good afternoon to you. Hey, guys. Thank you. Bears fan, but I want to tell you, the Texans defense is real. And any Texans fans calling in worried about facing New England, I don't think you got a problem. Drake May is not going to be ready for what's coming after them.

And the only thing the Texans don't have is a song because that was taken in 85 already. If the Bears should make it to the Super Bowl, the Texans are the only team that I really do not want to face. I'll take my chances with the Buffalo, Denver, New England, but fearful of the Texans defense. There it is. Chicago, Houston Super Bowl. Oh, come on, it can happen. Oh, Jeff, you should have seen his nose quiver.

Oh, that was terrible. I just don't think they're better than the Rams to see how it. Terrible. It could happen. One thing I am proud of is that there were very few Packer fans in the stadium. them Saturday. That's good. Yeah.

How do you feel about the Gary Bears? The Gary Indiana Bears, by the way. That'll be a different phone call. That's right. Thanks, Jeff. Yeah, apparently Roger Good Goodell was looking at sights in Northwest Indiana. Oh, really? Yes.

Good for him. By the way, guess what I got sent from Grayson, one of our listeners? What? There's a Bob Barker AIA with him and Aaron Rogers. Oh, geez. Yeah, don't click on it, Matt. I'll do it during the break. You're going to watch it.

Oh, I'm definitely watching it. And if it's good, I'll send it to you. No, I'm good. I don't want your Bob Barker AI content. I don't. All right. Before we go back on the phones, you think it's tough being a Texans fan. I do.

We have a kid who is trying to take our job, a WIP 94 sports radio. What does Philadelphia accent? I don't know. It's more boorish, right? I have no clue. Here is Philly Sports Kid on the breakdown of his team and what he wants to see for changes. Yes, this was a huge letdown. This was my Christmas present, and I got a loss.

I don't hear it. No, you probably would rather have had coal, huh? Yeah, probably. I'm feeling two of two things. A, I want A.J. Brown packing his bags, and I want him somewhere else that is not here. I love you, AJ, but, like, you can't make those drops in that game. And I also want Kevin Petulowlo flipping burgers at, like, the local McDonald's or something. I don't care.

Why do you say that? Whenever he's an offensive coordinator, it's like he's flipping burgers. One side, he's cooking. One half is cooking, and the other half is completely raw. Yes. Seriously. My headphones are working now. I don't want that kid on our airwaves anywhere.

He does not let him go work for a TV radio station up there. There's child labor loss, but that was a great line. Remember that kid that called us a couple of times and called you one day when I was off? Yes. Or is that kid? I don't remember what his name was, but then we got a ton of likes when we posted on Instagram, which was good for our social medias. Yeah, we like that. You can follow me at SportsRV on Instagram.

If you'd like to follow me, like many have, at SportsMT, I am giving you good blessings for a Texans. I'm like the, I'm like the Reverend at the Pittsburgh Games on ICANN this past week. It's false promises. Do they put the holy water on the field yesterday? I didn't hear anything about that. I didn't hear any, no. You would think you would.

Yeah, the priest would put the holy water on their two games in a row. What do you not? I guess. Well, they would never lose. Or no team would ever lose. You just all have priests blessing the fields. Doesn't work like that. only Jesus is picking aside personally

I don't need Jaycee to be worrying about who's winning this game I don't think he yeah he might be watching on the couch JC yeah big couch in the sky eating fruit and cheese okay

having his toenails manicured I don't know what the standard diet was in Nazareth back in the day does JC have one of those free Have like a good local sandwich shop Does he have like direct TV with unlimited channels?

Let's move on. All right, we're moving on. 713, 212-570. You're struck by lightning over here. Wouldn't be the first time. We survived it. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-570.

In one half hour, Bill Raftery is going to join this radio show. Only talking Texas basketball. By the way, big one over Alabama over the weekend. What are you complaining about? You were so nervous about the longhorns. 13 and a half, spread! Vegas has known everything. It got hot from three.

It was fun. All right. Back on the phones next. 713212-5-790 with a proud moment here to tell you about the folks at Serta Pro Painters. Serta, C-E-R-T-A-P-R-O, CERDA-PRO. CERDA Pro. com. Serta Pro Painters have said, Matt, please tell your audience that they shouldn't be painting.

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Welcome back to the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Phone lines open at 713, 212, 579, 713, 212, 529. 713, 2125. 790. of course we've been focusing a lot on the Houston Texans and what they've got going on with the big win over the Pittsburgh Steelers where basically, I mean, it just didn't feel like they were a field goal miss away from being out of the playoffs.

It didn't feel like they were a playoff quality team. Of course it gave you a doubt because Aaron Rogers, could he dig deep? You're on the road going up against a very good Steelers defense. Texans have had issues with pre-snap penalties and they did have the, what, do you want a legal shift? I don't know if there's a false start. earlier in the game from Trent Brown. But for the most part, the road crowd did not affect them.

It was just in the middle of the plays where C.J. Stroud was having his issues. And then the defense, of course, as we know. I mean, what more needs to be said? Like, there was somebody getting mad at me for not praising the Texan's defense on Twitter last night. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to say this. Somebody got mad at you on Twitter. Oh, yeah, I know you're shocked. The sun is bright and water is wet, and the Texans defense is super old caliber.

It just is what it is. Yeah, I will say this. I mean, Pittsburgh was terrible. If you inserted a team, it's like a, it was an ugly girl at a pretty girl dance, right? Say again? It was an ugly girl at a pretty girl dance. The Steelers? Yeah.

Hmm. Hmm. Okay, sure why not? I mean, they were the best of the worst. Do they have a pretty girl dance? Yeah, they don't call it that, but what do they call it? America pageants, Magic City. When are we going to, you know what I'm going to do?

I'm going to call this out right now and we'll see if we can anybody to bite on this. Okay. Is there anybody? Now, our friend Joan has been a big CJ Stroud Truther. I understand why there could be that. There are moments that he, I mean, the three long past plays at Christian Kirk were, that was art form. That was beautiful. It was fun to watch.

Especially because, as you said, before Nico Collins was in the threat on the field. But the reality is he's not played well since his first year. He was okay in his second year, okay last year, maybe even got a wee bit too much criticism. Because I think the natural progression was, man, he was so awesome as a rookie. Imagine what he's going to do when he's got a few more games under his belt. And he's had those games under his belt now, and it's not gotten any better. So maybe there's too much criticism to him. Yesterday, everything about the criticism is fair.

The fumbles, the terrible interception, the end of his inability, but just the complete lack of thinking about trying to run the football. And I think as much as you want to be a pocket quarterback, if you take that out of a quarterback's arsenal, like do not run or I'm not going to run, that's going to change up your defensive schemes a little bit, right? It limits. It's going to limit you offensively to not have that as a weapon.

And I remember that there was a couple big plays that he made in that Chargers games last year in the wild card round where he was using his legs. And he talked about wanting to do that. more. And then of course, he gets a concussion while on the run. He misses three games, so it's about risk versus reward. But at some point, sometimes you want to, like for example, they'll put players on minute restrictions, the NBA and the regular season. It's the playoffs. So you just got to let it hang loose and whatever will be will be. You've got to take off the minute

minutes restrictions. You got to take off the restricter played or the governor, whatever you want to call it. Use all the tools at your possible disposal because you have to win. You these games. If the Texans defense was mid yesterday, play like a normal NFL defense, Texans lose that game. It took an exceptional. And guess what, Ross, you can still

do it again this week. You can be exceptional and beat the Patriots in New England. You can. But you can't turn the ball over like they did. I don't think. All right, so my point is this. Can somebody call this show? And if you can't, you can't. 713-21-2-5-7-98. and sell me and to a lesser extent sports RV

CJ is going to have a great game he's going to learn from his mistakes and bounce back because look if there's anybody that should look in themselves in the mirror after that game it's him Woody Marks isn't doing that now what's Jake Andrews at the center maybe he is he's looking himself in the mirror

Kymi Fairbrand of that horrific missed extra point probably looking himself in the mirror but he's like man I've said this team's baking so much that kept me some slagy There's nobody, Daniel Hunter doesn't have to. Well, Anderson doesn't have to. Jalen Petra doesn't have to. Derek Stingland doesn't have to. Tommy Togeyai doesn't have to.

None of these guys do. They're like, man, we're growing ass men. We went on the football field and we terrorized a future Hall of Fame quarterback. CJ's got a look at the mirror. Yeah, I'm even trying to look through his game logs. Like, what were the bright spots this year? Baltimore on the road, again, when they had like 10 people heard or whatever it was. Yes.

Arizona had a big game, right? home for San Francisco was good. Arizona was good. 260 and three touchdowns and 40 to 20 victory. Ugh. It's not great. I mean, we're talking about, well, he missed three games. So now we're at 15 games this year.

He's played like three good ones? Three well above average ones. That's not getting it done. And this last one, it was... But yet they are in the final four of the AFC. Yes. That's what I'm saying. elite eight of the NFL.

So maybe we should stop bold moaning CJ's performance. I guess we can talk about that. You don't want to continue. What was the old Jeff Van Gundy quote? You don't want to ignore in victory which you wouldn't failure or something like that.

I like that. So it can both be true. C.J. Stroud needs to be played better and the defense was amazing and the game. But if you want to keep further advancing in the playoffs, you can't shoot yourselves in the foot like they did. You can't bank on the touch. on the defense getting two touchdowns.

I mean, the odds of that are not astronomical, but very, very, very low. Except the Texan's defense is actually making it routine. They did it against the Buffalo, I mean, the Cleveland Browns a couple years ago. Yeah. But it's rare. It's rare. They're not scoring two touchdowns on Sunday.

So is there any CJers out there? And look, I think we all in theory are rooting for him. I'm rooting for him. I've been defending the guy. Yeah. People coming after me. But we really don't know. Can the snaps be improved?

Yeah. But if he's giving up the run and is skittish in the pocket still, after all these weeks... Yeah, I know. I know. It's frustrating. I get it.

1239 on the Matt Thomas show. 7 with Raw. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. We've been spending a lot of time talking about the Texas, and we'll continue to do so. We've got Bill Raptory coming up at about 20 minutes looking forward to visiting with him.

Cougars are going to be in town the night, I'd have taken on West Virginia. I wish the Cougars and the Rockets wouldn't play in the same night, because I've not gone on to a Cougar game yet. I've either been traveling or the Rockets have played the exact same night. They keep winning, but they keep not moving up in the polls, right? Everybody else is winning? Yeah.

They bitch, Slab Baylor, excuse my French. Hey, hey. They beat them to a pole. That's better. That's good. Yeah, number seven, there's a lot of good teams. just feels like there could be 10 teams that could win the national championship in college basketball. Let's check the, you want to check the old Kenpom?

If they bitch-slap Baylor, that should be good for the old Kim-Pom. Can you get this quickly? Does Kim-Bom already come out? Number 10. We're still 10 in the Kempom? Yeah, net rating. You know we're still considered in Bracketology a three-seed. Three-seats can win at all?

That they can. If you want to be a one, it's not usually in automatic. In fact, more ones don't go than go, right? Don't, don't they? true? Maybe. Sounds good. Say it with confidence. Hey, hey gang, I don't want to be a one seat. I don't one seat's due.

They lose. Yeah. Okay. Ahead of Florida. They're 12. All right, so we'll talk to Bill Rafter coming up in a few minutes. Anything else? Any coaching blunders from D'emico that we

highlight? I felt like the end of the first half was a little mishandled. They could have taken timeouts when the Steelers had the ball and then I think a little too quick on the draw with the timeouts themselves, but it didn't matter. Yeah, I was going to say,

they scored six points. They gave up six points, man. Crazy. And how about Aaron Rogers getting sacked by his own player because the push from Hunter and Anderson was so great that at Houston, Texan, didn't even have to touch him

in order to say. They're insane. It's so fun to watch. And that's why Ross, I can't believe I'm saying this. They kind of have to win this thing. Is it a must-win Super Bowl?

Because this defense, what was the 2001 Ravens defense compared to 2000? I mean, they had free agency. The 86 Bears defense was insane as well, one of the best all time. But this is also, we're talking about now, the salary cap era,

free agency era, and 17-game season era where everyone, remember last year you didn't have Petrie. I mean, it's... You've had Lasseter in and out of the injury part? Right. All your top guys are healthy. Yeah. So to say they need to seize this moment,

and this could... You could very well get to this point next year, and, you know, De Nile Hunter turns an ankle, or Camarie Lasseter has a shoulder issue like he's had, or Jalen Pitcher, or whoever. Right. You've got all your top dogs on this defense, healthy, ready to go.

In playing, yeah. Even Lasseter, who's like, I can't move during the week. I'm ready for Sunday. Yeah. He's playing like a heap. He was crushing everyone last night. Jalen Petrie is wearing a foam head.

I mean, and he's still competing. Hey, he's doing everything. He can't. He's flying all over the field, man. He's so fun to watch. He gets a little too aggressive bites on play action sometimes, but he's just, he flies all over the field. So, first of all, every playoff game is a must win.

That goes without saying. It's a must win game this weekend, yes. But it also feels like, though, you don't want this to, this unprecedented time in Houston, Texans' history. Yes. with one side of the ball to go unrewarded. You want them to seize this moment, for sure. 713-212-579 if you want to chime in.

7-1-2-1-2-5-7-90. Bill Raftery in 20 minutes. You may join us right now. What is today's edition, and believe it or not? What? Yep, that's coming up in one hour and Bill Raftery. Oh, I love that. I'll give you one.

We can ask him for a trivia question. Where was his last coaching stop in the NB, in the N, in college basketball. I was at Merrimack. Are you sure? That would be a knot. Dang it. Bill Raftery, believe it or not, coming up in an hour, you may join us right now. 713-212-5-790. Timothy Davis on Twitter says Matt, CJ was 10 of 16 on third down. Every quarterback left in the playoffs has had a three- or four interception game. Listen, Texans fans, your defense kicks ass.

No one, it is indisputable. how excellent the Texan defense is. The offense is not. CJ was not good yesterday. There are simply not going to be enough stats for me to tell you and for you to change my mind. And we all watched the game yesterday. CJ got a C-minus in my book on my grade card. Not that you care.

But I'm just telling you, I'm allowed to give opinions and pay to give opinions. There it is. You fumble the ball twice, lost it. Fumble the ball more than that, but lost it twice. Third interception. Looks skittish. I don't care about his third down. He did make three great throws to Christian Kirk.

That was a huge part of it. But defending C.J. Stroud yesterday is indefensible. You cannot do it. I'd like to say if he plays like that again next week, you have no chance to win, but that's not true because the defense is so phenomenal. I guess what I can't say is, C.J., you can't play worse. Because then you are putting your team in, Carol. And we did got a funny

tweet. CJ actually single-handedly won the game. They scored seven, he scored seven points with his touchdown. That was all they needed. It's true. It's a good point. Hunter Brown stands says thousand percent. I'm in faith in CJ. Just needs to get laid. What?

That's what he said. Is he abstinent? Well, I told you how that's how JJ Watt did it. That's not true. You don't know that. He was probably, he was probably, probably what? There was a phrase, multiple phrases that popped in my head and I didn't use any of them. Oh, by the way, a fate Jennifer Rinas following me on Twitter.

He's doing a fair amount of fornicating, I'm sure. CJ or TJ? Probably know. Or JJ. I'm about TJ. What about JJ? No, see, TJ can't. He's got his lungs hurt.

He can't have, you can't have relations with your lung. Yeah, but if you can burn your energy, you might as well, he can do it after me. He can do it all he wants now. go to Cancun and do it Well, it didn't have to do it in Cancun Everybody does, one, two, three, Cancancourt Cancun's nice I never been. What?

Mm-hmm I've only been to Mexico one time Mexico City and I hated it God did I hate it, got sick too. Dr. drank a lot though. Oh my God. You got the Montezuma's revenge, huh? Flaming Dr. Peppers. Interesting.

Okay. Not good. You all right? I need some water. I'm a little worried about you. I had some wings. I claim our throat of the wings. Let's go to Rick in Spring Branch at 1250 on 790.

Rick, good afternoon. Thank you for holding. Yeah, good afternoon, guys. I'll actually be with you. You know, CJ, we're lucky we won the game, and defense definitely helped us, and we had a great running game yesterday. But when you have three turnovers, you don't win those games. We've had a good defense in a running game.

So, CJ's lucky to have a victory for sure, and we can't afford to have another CJ performance next week against New England, because it won't fly. It definitely won't fly. In my opinion, though, we just need to be a star. You just got to be like Flacco with the Ravens back when they won. We got the defense. Flacko was just

hand out of the ball and threw when they needed to. Smart shots down the middle. Nothing too crazy. That's what we need from CJ. Be like Flacco and we're winning the whole thing. Yeah, I mean, they were, they didn't know about the playbook except for that goofy flea flicker. A flea flicker was not great.

I get why they did it. It was cool because we say we want creativity and entertainment. When it doesn't work, then we crush it so you can't have it both ways. But even, as you have pointed out previously, Matt, like Flacco was actually not just, you know, along for the ride in that playoff run. He was great. What, 13 touchdowns and no interceptions? Something like that.

2 over 13 or whatever it was. So you don't even necessarily need that. We're asking for like 250 and one touchdown and no interceptions. turnovers. I got news for you. This is a terrible term on it. I hate. If he's a game manager,

the Texans win the Super Bowl. Yes. Don't fumble the game away. Literally. Five fumbles. You cannot do that. And Blake Fisher needs to guard somebody once in a while. It's fine.

He's like your jumbo package tackle. But even then they were still getting bull rush on him. All right. Well, he's not that good. It's a Nick Casario-Miss on the offensive line. Stop me if you've heard. that before. I want you to write this down, everybody. Tell your friends.

Okay. If C.J. Stride is a game manager, the Texans will win the next three games. All three of them. Absolutely. Okay. Put it this way. New England's offense... Championship. Super Bowl? Yeah. New England's offense

has been very good this year. It scored 16 points last week. So, I mean, they can have off days. Are they going to score 35 this week? I would doubt that against a better defense in the Cargers. 40 and a half is the total. Then you play the AFC championship game, whether it's Buffalo or Denver.

Denver, you play to an 1815 regular season game, and Denver's offense is really good at home, which could hurt. You know what? I actually want to research this. How many of the Texans spreads have been 40 and a half or under with the line at three or under? It feels like. What is the line right now? Three and 40 and a half. New England minus three.

It opened at two and a half. Okay. So if they think it's three and a half, they would say it would be three. they would say 40 what are they saying 2017 basically 218 18

21 and a half to 19 basically or 21.25 to 19.25 or 18.8.75? If you hit the crossbar you get 0.25. Sure, why not? All right. Let's go to Jacob on the North

sign of town at 1254. Jacob, good afternoon. Hey, guys, what's going on? Hi. You guys have been touching on it. Your last caller just touched on it too. CJ looked like he was just trying to do too much last night. In baseball, we always would use the term pressing, right? If you're not hitting and then you start swinging at everything, you're popping stuff up, you're ground and now, you're not playing within yourself, you're pressing. And he just looked like he was pressing last night. You said it exactly what I was going to say a second ago. He's just

got to manage the game. You know, hit the read. If you got to check down, check down. If the running game's working like it was last night, pounded. And that's what Demico wants to do anyway. He wants to run the ball. But he's got to manage the game. He's got to stay within himself. He can't be Superman. The one time I thought he was actually going to use his legs. He had Nico Collins wide open, and then he did that weird little jump throw and overthrew him. And, I mean, that was, I'm not saying he would have scored a touchdown, but we probably would have got in the red zone on that player there. And the first half looks a little different. A lot of my comments are based on the first half because it was so ugly.

That's where all the turnovers were. And, you know, in the playoffs, you have three turnovers in the first half. You're typically going to go in down three scores. We got really fortunate last night that the Steelers offense is awful. And our defense is really good. So the score was very lopsided, but that was all almost garbage time stuff. The defense just feasted at the end. I think we could do it.

But, again, CJ's got a man's game. and Petrie with his with his marshmallow helmet. I love it, dude. I think it's great. He flies around, he plays hard, and then he sits there and he taunts to everybody, and I look at him.

I don't know if you've ever seen a peewee football player and their little bitty bodies and their big old helmets. He just looks like a little kid out there having a blast. I don't know. I think it's hilarious. Anyways, y'all have a great afternoon. We'll talk to you later. Thank you, Jacob, for the phone call.

Yeah, don't let the helmet fool you. Jail and Petrie can hurt you. Nobody's fooled by the helmet. everybody knows Jaylon Petrie's good you want to hug him then he wants to hit you in that helmet and you knock back 10 feet he's not crushed you yeah

he's great it's a huge let me tell you something there's a lot of things about the Texans organization I don't have man love for I have man love for the Texans defense you should they just

they take souls from people and that's why we want CJ to be average yeah long term you want them to be better than what you're saying, a game manager, but to win the Super Bowl with this defense, that's all you need. That's all you're asking for. And if you can't get that in this playoff run, that is a huge red flag. That is a huge red flag in a problem long term.

Why is he uncomfortable? Why is he lacking confidence? It's going to bounce back. It's going to be better this weekend. If he plays average, you win. Because New England's better. So you need him to step up. a little bit. Texas defense is not

going to be anything different. Before we get to Bill Rafter, let's talk to Brandon on 7.90. Hi, Brandon. Hey, how's going, guys? Appreciate the call. You got it. Hey, I think the answer to CJ's problem is kind of surprising one is actually going to be Nick Cayley because, I mean, that was

a decent scheme. They put up 400 yards of offense. They were driving long drives. And, you know, another, the flea flicker was a little bit goofy, but another half second he had, Tiggins, he's wide open right before the half hits Nico Collins he's open wide open so I mean if they put together a good scheme I think they have a chance and obviously the fumbles were terrible the interception was terrible

but I mean that's possible you know three scores on the board and I mean I was a Nick Cayley hater especially after the Seahawks game I called in couldn't believe it but you know he might have got his his feet wet and I think my gut feeling was he could have been saving his best stuff for the playoffs and he figured it out so i mean i think that might be the answer you know he's just got to make those throws and it's completely different offensive game yeah

I hear something in the back grows that's your phone oh my phone my back sorry you're looking at me too I would look at you the worst um make the throws it wasn't even necessarily the throws it was about the hesitancy it was a hesitancy and look

it's it's not if I say say out loud, if you get rid of those turnovers, he had a pretty good game. Yes, but that's a huge thing to get rid of it to eliminate. To get Christian Kirk, who has been largely MIA this year, over 100

yards of receiving, that means there's a connection that was built there. I mean, Donald Schultz has been a huge part of his team's offense all throughout the year. It wasn't necessarily much yesterday, but Noel has been getting better. Higgins is now part of it. And yeah, Nico not being there, and I would

be highly suspect if he's going to be. He's not. That's going to hurt. So those other guys have stepped up and even Traitman said in the broadcaster. He says, I like this wide receiving group. The group collectively has gotten better than when it first started the season. Maturity in games played is going to be a big part of that.

Let's talk to Bill Raftery next after Ross tells you about synergenic. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. It is a 103 on Sports Talk 790. It is our big time pleasure to be joined by one of the great college voices of our generation, former Seton Hall, former Nets analyst on Sports Channel. That's when I used to go to the satellite in the middle of the night and try to find strange channels. And there was Bill Raftery calling games on the Nets on Sports Channel.

Now he's on CBS and working tonight's game on Fox Sports One as the Cougars take on West Virginia. Mr. Raptory, it's Matt and Ross. It's a pleasure. Have you on the show. Welcome back to Houston. Thank you very much. I used to come here and watch those rockets play and beat the heck out of the net. So it's nice to be back on the other side here.

Hey, I'll tell you this. It was just nice having you call a Houston victory because the time before that, you didn't. So take us to that game. I know. I know. Jeez. Crazy, right? I mean, the way the thing turned out, two opposite nights, when you think of it, how they won and lost is the twist of fate.

But, you know, you just keep knocking on the door, obviously. good things are going to happen. I mean, they're always going to be in the hunt. They're no longer an afterthought. So, you know, that wouldn't have been a shock if they wanted. It was a tough way to lose it, obviously. Bill, let me ask you this. I think obviously Kelvin is old school when it comes to everything.

And look, NIL has been a huge part of this and transfer portal, but he's still fundamentals about defense, aggressiveness, culture building. How many are there left? I know that you've got Izzo doing this thing. you've got Bill Self and whatnot. But tell me about when you run around the country, what the new school coaches are doing as compared to some of these guys have been around 20, 30 years.

You know, I don't think they're individually doing anything other than their personality. But I think the younger guys are, I think they're not almost say committed, but they know the rules. And instead of complaining about them, they're just trying to go ahead and live with them. It might be on the outside viewed as cold, but in fact, it is cold. You know, with kids leaving programs and, you know, coaches happy to get rid of some. It's just, it's become a, you know, it's always was big business, college athletics and basketball at particular. But now, now it's just gotten to a level where, you know, the old timers find it distasteful.

And the newcomers that are coaching and are saying, you know what, are the rules we got to play with them. And, you know, all the things we were raised with as coaches or players where, you know, you've got to make sure you get through school, you know, the rules now are for 1% of the players, basically. You know, a lot of the kids, as good as they will be here tonight, they will not be NBA players. I mean, the reality is such, you know, at best maybe international or G-League would hope. But that's what everybody is, a dreamer.

you know, we all were, we all had expectations, we had to be something special or be able to play the game you love for a long time. So I think the guys understand the rules and, you know, they may complain about them to talk about them, but they know how to live by them. My last big picture question, do you've seen kids go directly from high school to the NBA, you've seen the one and done, now you're in the midst of calling games where transfer portal in NIL moves shifting around. It feels like to me, Bill and watching you for all these years that when you put the headset

on, we can all still do this as fans. We forget about that kind of stuff. We just focus about the game itself and I feel like you're still doing that. Is it becoming more difficult to do with the however as I say that? No, not at all. And that's nice of you to say, I think you and all of us

that do games that once the people at home really don't care about the mishaps or you know, maybe the lacking of foundation that exists in the game, they just tune in to watch the game, and I think

we are in our own way, privileged to just do the game. Maybe an anecdote or a quick comment if it fits, but other than that, I know myself when I watch anything at home or occasionally in a pub, you know,

you just want to watch and enjoy the game. You're not interested in the frailties or shortcomings of the system itself. And what has it been like for you, Bill, just personally as the game has changed, as far as your passion for the game, do you ever find yourself longing for the good old days in some way or just embracing this new way or a little bit of both? No, you know what, though?

When you go to these practices and games, you realize that all of these kids put all of that aside. Now I'm sure as the year progresses and the programs aren't doing well, you might have some negativity creep in. But it is amazing how they've adjusted to the rules. You know, that's done with, whether it's negotiation or fact in terms of a contract. They're just here to play, and there's still young people enjoying the game they love. So I think that people are getting what they want watching games. I think all the commentaries basically for those things that they can't control.

me how. Bill Raftery with us here on Sports Talk 790. What about the X's and O's and the tactics? We talk about how the personnel is changed and how there's the portal and all that type of stuff. What about on the floor, the basketball itself? How have you seen that evolve? Well, you know, judging by Houston, for example, I think the ability to guard has become of the essence when you go around the, as good as team's score, the coaches probably work, more on the defensive schemes against the opponent. You know, the level of play, you've got to be prepared every game, and the coaches do attack it, and the players, too, in terms of prep and going over a scouting report.

But, you know, the game itself, the ability, the pros particularly, which you're more accustomed to, the centers have to be able to handle ball screens. They've got to be able to pick and pop. we're still in college you still have some a lot of the centers are roll guys ball screen roll guys now there are some

who can make threes but I think the biggest thing is the preparation on the defensive end to take away the strengths of the opponent and I know that was always a labor of love for coaches but to me it's more

with all the film and the adaption to what you see just has created some great defensive teams and a lot of them score after defense. A few more minutes here with Bill Raftery from Fox Sports 1 and

CBS joining us Matt and Ross here on Sports Talk 790. When I was growing up, I would watch you on the Big East game of the week. You now move all around the country. You're here for the second and straight week. You do some big 10 games. You're doing the national tournament, obviously. Is there a style? Is there a part of the country

that is more ready for the likes of a March Madness run? I mean, I think the Big 12, frankly, since even with all you in Texas leaving, is just a mega dominant conference and I think there's three or four teams in this league itself could be there on Final Four weekend. No, I think you're right.

I think the competition of this particular league and the SEC you can throw in there as well. The ACC's having a better year. Big East is not as strong this year. I think things are cyclical. I think they come and go. Everybody who is knocking or negating the ACC last year and all of a sudden they've got some really quality wins

It's all predicated on November and December. But, you know, the game's in a good place. You know, it's the off-the-court stuff that may not be in a good place and will not be resolved quickly, or at least to my knowledge, it won't be resolved quickly. But I think the game in terms of interest and love, it still captures all areas of the country. And, you know, everybody's, it's up for grabs once you get into tournament,

as you well know. So the geographics doesn't really have much, you know, to do with the decisions who you've beaten and where you're seated. And that's why guys just like strive. Every game is so important in terms of quality wins. And this is one for either team tonight. Last question. I thought or two about this game.

The Cougars have one loss on the year. West Virginia beat Kansas over the weekend. You were just finishing looking at shoot-around. How do you see this match up tonight? I think it's going to be a fist fight. you know, I think this West Virginia team can match, and I'm not saying, surpass the defensive prowess of Houston. So I think it's very hard to get easy baskets,

but I think that's going to be the key. You know, second and third opportunities, I think, would swing to Houston side because they're so good at chasing misses and getting more opportunities. So I think turnover, long rebounds, all of those things are going to decide the outcome. I think the philosophy of both programs is very similar. All right. Last question, very silly one.

Onions is your catchphrase. We love it and always want to hear it. Why did you choose onions over, say, like peppers or something else like that? What made you go with that vegetable? There's nothing in that head of mine. I always say, I didn't go to Harvard and it shows, but we were doing an iron eagle, who you know, the bird, claims it was Orlando. And Kevin Edwards, the Nets were in one of those, one of those dreadful years,

you know, 15, 18, win years. And Kevin Edwards makes a corner three. And I had never said the word before publicly or on the air. And I was just, it just jumped in like, this kid makes this three, you know, where there were entire straits. And it just sort of fit. The interpretations up to the listener. But I think you know what I mean.

I do. I just want to see if there was a different interpretation, but I think we figured it out here. Sir, you are a legend. I am honored to have you on our show today. Please continue to do your great work on FS1 on CBS, and hopefully I can buy you a cold beverage in Indianapolis because I've already made my reservation there for the Cougars to go back and finally win a championship. That's a deal, and you've got a good chance of being there, I assure you. Thank you very much. All right. Take care of yourself. Have a great day. You too. Bill Raftery. I mean, what a legend.

Mm-hmm. Onions. We know what he's talking about. We do. Big ones. I mean, Will Barrow, onions, you can go along the mixer anywhere you wanted to. It's a classic. Yeah.

Could say number one college basketball broadcasting catchphrase? Yeah, because Senator and Jerome was a one-off. That was when Pittsburgh's... Onions, number one? Oh, yeah. I'm sticking with it. Yeah. Number one NBA.

catchphrase, nothing but nylon. Mm-hmm. Sets fires. Sets fires hits. Bang? Oh, it's bang. A spectacular move. No, no, no.

That was Marv. I know. What did everyone else did Marv say, though? Besides that. Yes. Yes. Yes. From downtown.

Everybody used NBA jam. I don't even use downtown. Now, some guys are you used, now, do you use, I know you do the, like, the suburbs. That one was from Fulcher. Very rarely. The Chicago... Okay, good. Chicago announced a little low-hanging.

Chicago announcer who's in town uses suburbs all the time. When he was doing the Toronto Raptors games, he would mention like different boroughs of Toronto. And I was like, from Sasukwax. I'm like, what the hell is that? Okay. Because when you could say suburbs of Houston,

say that was from Kingwood. Mm-hmm. But he was like bringing up other problems. Kingwood, long way away. Oof, not telling me something I don't know. Thank you again to Bill Raftery, the legend, here on the show. The one and only.

The one and only. All right, back on the Texans. We have Breaking News. Who did he say made that shot for the onions call? And that's a, believe it or not. Look it up on his Wikipedia. All right, I'll see what I can do. Breaking News, NFL. Next,

116. Well, it appears that Aaron Rogers, we don't know this for a fact, might have thrown his last pass in the NFL to a member the Houston, Texas for a pick six. That's a possibility.

We do have breaking news here on the Matt Thomas Show at 124. I say another one, don't you? Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm going to go one more. Go ahead. Remember five's the max. Sure. Hit it. You're going to go four? That's good. Mike Tomlin, stepping down after 19 seasons in Pittsburgh.

Wow. Not fired. Resigning. Now, grin, that could be a backroom conversation. Resina, we're going to fire you. Right. But I don't know as far as buy out money or anything like that. I don't even know what was left on his deal, honestly. But yeah, in all-time, I'll say, yeah, all-time great coach. Absolutely.

All-famer, Pittsburgh fan probably is like. Ding-dog the Witch is dead. Yeah. See you later, alligator. Yeah. After a wall crocodile. But I can put, you can put my name on this one. He's not done coaching. I don't think so.

I think he's going to take some time away. I think he's going to go to television, see how that is. But I think he is not done as an NFL head coach. He's only 53. Oh, yeah. This is the perfect scenario. You leave the Pittsburgh Steelers. Aaron, you've got no quarterback.

Cam Hayward's old. I mean, T.J. Watt is good, but some of the pieces, Jalen Ramsey's older, et cetera. You got D. K. Metcalfe, and that's about it offensively. You can take a year or two off and be the hottest name when you want to come back. You know who believes in this strategy? Sean Payton. Sean Payton, absolutely.

That's the Formula Yeah, the formula. Yeah, the pathway. Yeah. And apparently prototypical. Yeah.

Every TV network's going to want him and they should because he's excellent. Good speaker. He'll be fine. Now, it's funny, the NFL today does have an opening spot because Matt Ryan is leaving to go to be the president of football operations

for the Atlanta Falcons. But you know all four the network's going to want to go after him. Went to us, won the Super Bowl, his second year. went to the Super Bowl, his fourth year, and then never went back. Lost a wild card.

10 and 7 with a wild card loss in three straight seasons. The only thing I could say about him negatively is that he's never been known for having a prolific offense. Those Rathusberger ones were maybe pretty good. They were good. Yeah, I'd have to go look it up, you know. But he's a defensive guy. I mean, Rathlisberger was more than manageable.

I mean, he was elite for a while. Yes. Defense, but it was always a lot. about Trow Palomalu and that group that was always a defensive coach. Yeah. And that is it going to be, not in his particular case. But it feels

like that more offensive-minded coaches are getting head coaching jobs in the NFL than defense. Yes, I would think so. But he's one of those kind of leader of men coaches. We were talking about this yesterday. There's a certain something you can't put your finger on. Mike Vrable isn't some kind

of footballing genius in play call, innovative play caller. He's just a good leader of men. He goes somewhere and they win. And what you do? I think Mike Tomlin's like that. And what you do is when you go take the job that you want, which will always be available to you in years gone in the future,

that you get to say, I need a great offensive play caller. Yeah. But Mike McDaniel on a Mike Tomlin staff? He would find the right situation, get the right offensive coordinator. I would say John Harbaugh, same thing. John Harbaugh was a special teams coach. He's not calling plays on either side of the ball. The attention to the detail, running practices,

covering all your bases. That's what Aaron Rogers, the quotes from him this past week, where night and day with the jets, just because he didn't have to worry, he was talking about the leaky boat and he didn't have to worry about all that. And like they, he just allows his players to just play football because the attention to detail everywhere else is good.

Yeah, uh, telling to me one or two years. Because look, every year in the NFL, there's six or seven jobs open. Yeah, so he'll have his pick of the litter. I got news for you. Probably. He's going to have the Jets.

job open to him because Aaron Glenn's going to get fired in New York. Not this year, next year, probably. They better get some better players. Well, that's what he's waiting for. I'm trying to find their best offensive rank under... Yeah, look, they had some top five offenses under Tomlin. 2018 to 2014-ish. Like, who's going to be open next year?

Jets will be open, you would think. Ah, yeah. Rathlisberger, Levion, Bell, Antonio Brown offenses in the 2014-18-ish. Okay. Those were great offenses. Great offenses. But by and large, he's done it with not a whole bunch of Hall of Fame quarterbacks. Lately, yeah.

Rogers. Since Rutherzberger retired, leading passers, Kenny Pickett, Kenny Pickett, Russell Wilson, Aaron Rogers. Oh, Lord. I'd retire too. All right, so let's do this real quick. Who's going to be open? I could see, okay. Nobody in the West.

Because Arizona is going to get a new coach. Todd Bowles could be... In Tampa. At some point, yeah. Who's New Orleans coach? Could Sean McDermott be on the hot seat with the bills at some point? Yeah. If they don't get it done this year and next,

could Sean McDermott be done? And then Mike Tomlin can step in with Josh Allen and then try to build up the defense. Or Kellan Moore, New Orleans? Yeah. Provided they get the court. What about Las Vegas needs a coach? They're going to fire.

Now. Oh, every year it'll be four or five. Brian Schoenheimer and Cowboys, he can be on the, you're always on the hot seat in Dallas. Because you could have, you could have Jerry Jones resign at some point, and then the new guy comes as I need my guy. I got a funny one for you. How funny? What about Detroit? No playoffs this year for Dan Campbell.

What if it's another year of that? Can I give you a spicier one? Ooh, okay. Sean McVeigh. He would have to be leaving on his own. That's what I'm saying. Okay. Yeah.

He would walk off under the sunset. Because remember there was some talk two years ago about him trying to quit. They could win the Super Bowl this year and he could walk off on the sunset. Yeah. All right. He just doesn't seem like he wants to stay in the game forever. Yeah. Garon Glenn's not a battle?

Did you say Sean McDermott? You did, right? I did. Nick Sariani, Philly? Yep. Two years after a Super Bowl gets fired, that'd be crazy. Oh, oh, we forgot the lowest of lowest hanging fruit. Hmm.

Indianapolis? Uh, yeah. Shane Stuyken Shane Stuyke? Yeah. Let me tell you. How desirable is that desirable is that job

going to be though? But if you're a defensive mind and coach, you can say, I'll take anybody because it's give me a great defense. But I think he would want to land in a great situation.

I don't. He'll get to pick and choose. Just like frankly, John Harbaugh is doing it right now in Baltimore. And of course, you may not want to pick and choose, but you're going to go

for the biggest check. I think Zach Taylor Bingles could end up. Oh, that's a great call. Oh, yeah. Everybody's on the hot TV. Everybody. Yeah, you got about two-year window.

D'Amico goes 6 and 11 in the next two years. Hannah, like, I need a stadium build. I can't be doing this on 6 and 11. All right, let's get a calling. We come back. Sam and Richmond, we'll start with you if you want to follow up. 7-1-3-21-2-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

Mike Tomlin down as Steelers head coach. Look what the Texan defense did. They sent a guy to retirement. Aaron Rogers? Well, for one year. It is 11, make it 131. on Sports Talk 790. By the way, our friend Taylor had the Texans on the money line yesterday.

She's pimping. Are you talking about her again? You got off that train when she... Yeah, when she birthed a child. She moved to Iowa or somewhere. She's not Arizona anymore, sadly. Oh, man. So funny.

She loves betting that money line stuff. Does she? Yeah. She's usually a money line in the favorite. And that's what I'm saying. She calls herself a genius when she hits. Let her ever shine. This girl decides to make some money.

Good for her. On the whiteboard. Getting in crypto scans? I like teacher. Scams, I should say. Personal favorite of mine. Let's go to the phones. Talk to people.

713-212-5-790. Sam is with us. Sam, thank you for waiting and good afternoon. Good afternoon, guys. How are you. Good. What's going on? Hey, we're off back, Mike Tomlin.

One of the best to ever do it. You know, no shame in how he's going out. He's had an illustrious career. One of the best to ever do it. Pretty sure if he ever does want to come back, people will let people go to bring him in. So realistically, not feeling any pity on my, you know, from my end. I do want to go ahead and talk about the game, though.

Yeah. I will give Mike Tolman one. He had two phenomenal quarterbacks out there on the field. He had Aaron Rogers who had an illustrious career. For some reason, And CJ Trout thought that he should play for the Pittsburgh Steelers trying to give that game up every chance he possibly could. But I love the swarm mentality of that defense. They said, CJ, go ahead and have a seat.

We'll score the touchdowns for you, buddy. We got you on this one. We're going to take the Texans where we need them to go. So I was really excited watching that game last time. But going back to Mike Tomlin, he goes to TV. He goes back to another place. People will take them back in open hands. Absolutely.

Thank you, Sam, for the phone call. Two things I thought about as Sam was talking. have we taken Jonathan Chappelle on this? Have we taken more anti-C.J. Straud calls than we have pro-Texins defense calls? You guys are the main voices for CJ Stroud. Let's say that. You know what it is? It's not a byproduct of us trying to accentuate the negative because we've spent a lot of time.

I know for a fact, how much we're bragging about it. The defense is insane. But it's easier to discuss what went wrong in something than it is to praise something that is great. Well, also, just in life, yes. If things are going right with something, then that's fine. We don't need to talk about the Texans defense. They're doing their job. When we would have the Astros lineups in like 2019 and 20 and everybody's doing great,

so everybody's fixating on Martin Maldonado. Maldonado's got to go. What about the one through seven and eight who are crushing? Or like if you had the five-man rotation like you had and the middle reliever and the six-hitting sucks. Yes. It's always something because things are never going to be perfect. Ever. So it is a case study of when in doubt,

push the negative, not not push it, but it's easier to talk about the negative than it is to love on the positive. And the reality is, everybody that's called the show to has said how much the defense is great. But it also, again, you cannot be, you can't

have such terrible Texans blinders on, not to realize how below average, not, well, yeah, he was poor. He was poored and rounded into like below average. Yeah, yeah. He was like, he's like he was when I was my last year in college.

Okay, you got a 67. You're going to graduate. Congrats. You get to move on. Mm-hmm. That's what he was. He was a guy that was barely holding on. But then the second thing I was thinking about when Sam was calling, you know,

it would be just the absolutely middle finger to the Baltimore Ravens is if John Harbaugh went to Pittsburgh. That'd be pretty funny. It's a great organization. Well, well, first of all, it's a great organization. because they have coach stability. You don't hear of coaches leaving after two years. In my life, I'm 53. Chuck Knoll, Bill Cower, Mike Tomlin.

That's it. In the last three years, five years of my life, David Cully, Lovie Smith, Dimeco Ryan. Bill O'Brien, somewhere in there in the last six years. You know what I'm saying? There's something to be said for that. I always feel like there's an old Rooney running things too. You know, it's like they were looking at the booth last night.

I was like, they got some Rooney's around. How many Roonies they have? Yeah, a lot of Rooney's running around. It's like there's like one Colonel Sanders that always is showing up. And now there's, now there's always an old Rooney there. The Mars are still running the Giants and they were running the Giants like in the 1930s. Yeah. And I think Hunt is still running the Chiefs.

And his daughter is next the year. Don't make that face, Matt. Oh, no. She doesn't run. thing. She just goes on Instagram. The Hercays have been running the Colts forever. Yeah. Daughters now. McNears are going to be running the Texans for the foreseeable future. Not foreseeable. It'll be forever. Cal's very fertile. He's got like six, seven kids, didn't he? The only reason why Cal's

cow's kids wouldn't run it is because they're going to get into trouble because six or seven of them are own the team. So how do you split that up? Plus, you know, Hannah probably wants, she probably has her favorite. She's probably going to choose her kids. You probably got a couple Fredos in there that you don't want running the, see. I can make Godfather references now. You find the Michael Corleone and you tell Frato to take a backseat. Would Hannah choose her kids over her stepkids? What do you think? You got the sunny Corleone going off to Halfcocked.

Then you got the calm, cool, collected, cold Michael Corleone, and then Frato just doesn't. Do you know how important this game is for Hannah? If they win this game and have a play in an AMC championship game for the first time, then she can roll out that we need your help financially first. Improvement Stadium. If you lose this game, it's same-song different verse. You can still go for it, but you, I mean, you increase your chances. But the Chiefs were winning and winning and winning, and they didn't guarantee anything.

Chicago Bears. I don't want to pay for anything. Chicago Bears football. I mean, you're talking about generational franchise. Have you driven down Westheimer in Richmond? There's potholes everywhere. I want those fixed. I don't need a new palatial stadium so you guys can get CFP games.

That doesn't do anything for me. Yeah, the chiefs have been in that arrowhead since the early 70s, and they're maybe going to Kansas. The Chicago Bears, Soldier Field, those, what do you call those stadium out, the old Chicago Bears, pillars. Pillars of, I mean, one of the most recognizable sports facilities around. And they're thinking like going to Gary freaking Indiana. Times of changing.

Money. And you know what, ownership? This is for everybody. This is not just for the McNair's. Just go to your kitty that's got all that money in it and pay for yourself and you're probably going to really, you'll still make a lot of money. It's not 1993 anymore.

We're just publicly funded stadiums are becoming harder to go in the inner city. Now, Kansas City, Kansas did sell its sole to Kansas City Chiefs. Yes, they put up billions in there. They're like, you can have it all. We just want it. That's the thing too. I mean, if you want to say, okay, don't, don't pass the resolution. They can find somebody who will.

A suburb. Right. Yeah. All right. Believe it or not, it's up next. It is all things about Bill Raftery. Our guess we had a little bit ago. 713212-5-790.

Believe it or not, next, 144 on Sports Talk 790. All right, 149 on Sports Talk 790. We'll go to Pittsburgh, hopefully, the next couple times, at least twice before now on Sunday. I'm Pittsburgh. New England. We already went to Pittsburgh. What are you doing over there? You're all right?

Rockets and Bulls tonight. You ready for that? Who's doing the launch? What do you think? I told you. In the month of January, just about assume it's me. Oh, poor kid. It's Sunday, doing today. I'm not doing Thursday. I'm doing Friday. Okay. Thursday's in the Adams slot. Yeah. We got the Bulls tonight, Oklahoma City Thursday, Minnesota Friday, New Orleans Sunday, and then Tuesday, San Antonio. I feel better about these home games coming up if they'd get two days off somewhere. But they're just going to be playing back to back, not back to back, you know what I'm saying, though.

No, one day off max in between some of these and some tough matchups. That's why I got to carry this show. I'm, oh, only for the last 16 years, baby. I'm ready. Put the team on my back, no. That's why my spine is making a J. Feels fair. Thank you, Ross.

You're welcome. I need you to carry this show till it leaves the end of the rocket season, and then I'll pick it up after that. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do? We should. play America's fastest growing sports radio game show. We simply call it B. Believe it or not, and here's how it works.

You call 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Today's edition, believe or not, all things about our great guest earlier today, Bill Raftery. I'll read you a statement about Bill. Saman's completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. Saman's erroneous photo-buncan made up.

You'll say this. Ross, you ready for this? No. You either get a 790 T-shirt. shirt if you get two in a row. Oh, thank God. Or a pair of tickets to see Motley crew on their return of the Carvinole of Sings tour.

The crew's going to be there? Tesla's going to be there? Extreme's going to be there? September the 11th of the Woodlands Pavilion, tickets are on sale. Is every member of the band going to be there? I don't know. Tommy Lee? I would assume so, right? He's got the hat, right? What? Didn't he have

the hat back in the day? Didn't he and Pamela Anderson got a lawsuit over that? that maybe or was that kid rock? Ticketmaster.com. I don't know we went to Hep, but it's sorry. You Matt did it. Motley crew.

Don't say we. Tesla and Extreme September 11th. Yes. But you got to play, believe it or not, first. 713212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Let's start with Ken on 790. Ken, you're ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. Bill Raftery is first-generation Irish, as both of his parents were immigrants. Believe it. or not? Believe it? There you go. Believe it.

Statement number two for the win with 2,193 points. Bill Raftery graduated in high school as New Jersey's all-time leading score. Believe it or not? I'm not believe that too. You should. Congratulations. Baller. He held the record for nine years.

And then George Miken filled it up right after that. Hey, come on. It's actually Moses. Josh on 790. You ready to play Believe it or not? Believe it. Bill Raftery played his college basketball at LaSalle, where he graduated with a history degree. Believe it or not?

Not. That's a believe it. Duh. LaSalle, probably the least famous of the Philadelphia schools. He's also got an honorary doctorate from there. That's a great kid. Let's go to Ruben on 790. Rubin, what was your favorite part of today's 10-2 radio show?

11 all the Houston playoff talks. Thank you. Bill Raftery's first. basketball coaching job was at Fairley Dickinson where he was also coaching the golf team. Believe it or not. Believe it. You should. Believe it. Stay by number two for the win. Bill Raftery has been nominated for the Outstanding Sports Analyst Emmy four different times. He's never won. He lost to John Menn for three of them. Believe it or not. I'm going to have to go with Believe it. No, Ross made that up. He's a four-time winner of the Emmy Award winner. That's how good he is. All right. Lindsay. on 790. Lindsay, what was your favorite part of today? You send the two radio show?

You know, I have to say, I do appreciate Lanzas was complaining about those potholes on West Timers. That was the best part of the show, huh? Okay. That's fair. Well, I wasn't the best part, but it popped out. All right. I can relate, yep. Okay, Bill Raftery has several trademark

catchphrases. Lessor known ones include Get Those Puppies organized and a little lingerie on the deck. Believe it or not? Believe it. Yes. statement number two for the win. Bill Raftery has appeared as himself in several movies and TV shows, including he got game and semi-pro.

Believe it or not? Not. That is correct. Lindsay, you're a winner. How about that? Lindsay, you're going to see crew, baby. Let's go. Dave on 790.

Ready to play, believe it or not? Bill Raftery's iconic onions call. It was envisioned during a New Jersey Nets game in 1995, alongside Iron Eagle. Rafter he called Kevin Edwards 3, Onions! Believe it or not? I would go with not. Yeah, he just mentioned it about an hour ago. Thank you for playing, though.

Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening. I want you to listen to me very carefully when I tell you about Big City wings. What do we have for lunch today, sports, Harvey? We had some wings. I had the, what I had the honey, not honey mustard wings. What I have? Honey citrus.

Honey citrus. Delicious. Barbecue and my favorite hot lemon pepper. They were all there today. They brought us onion rings. They brought us fries. They brought us amazing ranch dressing. They brought us amazing blue cheese. And tonight, it's wings, of course, but it's buy one, get one free. You buy 10, you get 10 free.

Bone and or boneless, they're going to take care of you at Big City Wings. Big on wings, big on sports, big on specials, and big on buy one, get one free. Get there tonight. You don't want to cook. It's Tuesday. You're miserable. You want to enjoy buy one, get one free wings. And you'll do that today at any of the 14 Big City Wing locations.

To find the location near you, you simply go to bigcitywings.com. That's big citywings.com. Thanks to Bill Rafter for joining us. Thanks for all of you for calling you. We had a nice interaction today with our listeners. Please follow me on Instagram at SportsMT. If you want the Texans to beat the Patriots, all you have to do is go to Instagram and follow me there at Sports m t up next two guys you should not follow on instagram it's a large waste of time it's

adam clinton it's adam wexler it's the team and they're up until six i'll talk to you for rockets and bowls at seven here on seven night here here's