The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Texans Fall in the Divisional Round: Tough C.J. Stroud Conversations & DeMeco Speaks

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Texans Fall in the Divisional Round: Tough C.J. Stroud Conversations & DeMeco Speaks

is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Tano. Good morning, or is it? It's a Matt Thomas show with Ross here on Sports Talk 790. And let me be perfectly clear, just so there's no reservation, no ambiguity. CJ Stroud sucked. I mean, sucked to epic levels yesterday. And we will not be discussing discussions of a extension.

Now, maybe David Mulligetta, his agent might, but I believe Nick Casero's already sent the text. Shut your bumma ass up. You had a chance to play Jared Stidham in the AMC championship game. And you sucked. Absolutely pathetic. You have traveling Texans braving the cold. Texans darling was up there I'm shivering

But go Texans I'm shivering Go Texans Can I get on Channel 13 Is off as I can't go Texans That's saying something Sports RV You got that guy

That knows the I'm the ultimate Oh yeah An energy stadium Out through the wave During the fourth quarter You got him mad What a CF

Seriously I can't say CF on the radio Chicken fried Chicken fried Cold beer on a Saturday night pair jeans and fit just right and no Texas playing on on seriously that's why I'm not a Texas fan I tried I know you almost got me you almost got me sports RV two games away from being Liberty white bat two games but guess what you could have me two games ago 10 years ago 15

years ago he he me he being Strout sucked awful great kid would love to meet him love to break bright with him he sucked yesterday Texans suck what he marks you sucked yesterday your offensive line didn't do you any favors

CJ Stroud in the playoffs two games completion percentage of 52 interception count 231 yards a game 5.8 yards of an attempt which is terrible

two touchdowns five picks six sacks and two games. Everybody hurts. I'm hurting. That's what I'm here for you today. Well, as you kind of laid out, the path to the Super Bowl is on a platter.

You have an all-time great defense, the greatest defense in the history of your franchise. And even close. Even when JJ Watth is the greatest defense of the all time. I thought it couldn't get any worse than the wild card weekend against the Steelers. And it did. Four interceptions.

One off the hands of Xavier Hutchinson. And C.J. Stroud was under some pressure. And the running game was non-existent. Woody marks with a whopping 17 yards on 14 carries. But C.J. Stroud wasn't good enough either. And he continues to regress from his rookie season. If we somehow struck the rookie season from the records, we would be talking about the Texans making a draft pick for a quarterback in this upcoming draft.

We would be talking about how many picks do they need to trade to get up into the top of this draft and figure out what's going on at quarterback outside of Fernando Mendoza. Trevor Lawrence better quarterback than C.J. Stroud. Yeah, I said it. Yes. He is right now. And but this is where we can- I hate Trevor Lawrence.

Okay, that seems weird. Not hate, but what did he ever do to you? Seriously, overrated. I mean, he's just got long hair and looks like a horse. What's the big problem? What did he ever do to you? You know what, gang? Go look at Jacksonville situation.

They're paying $50 million. Get ready for that. Well, maybe. We'll see. No, they already, no, he's already got paid. Now I'm talking about, with the scenarios with the exactly same here in Houston. He's got a better play caller and a better situation around.

And this is where you can kind of, as we were talking in the pre-show meeting, Matt, intense. you can tent the glass away from C.J. Stroud being it all being his fault or you can tilt it to where it's all his fault. Because the two things can be true. The offensive line was bad.

CJ Stroud was under pressure that entire game and it just wasn't a good performance and you had Trent Brown out of the game. Titus Howard got hurt and then wasn't playing well after that. Jake Andrews, I mean, God bless him. he keeps just getting pushed and bulldozed like he's a toddler out there and then there was just pressure from everywhere. The outside edges through the middle, everywhere throughout the entire game.

It was a woeful performance by the offensive line. And as I said, Woody Marks had a whopping 17 yards on 14 carries. You got no help from the run game. But in those moments where there's wide open throws to be made and where CJ Stroud has no pressure, he wasn't good. There were moments As a matter of fact I don't remember the exact moment

But I was interviewing E. May Adoka Pulling the curtain back a little bit We had the game on it in his office And we're interviewing him For the pregame Rockets game against the Bellicans last night And we stopped recording And he goes

Did you see C.J. Storrow right there? The guy was in the flat Who was on the left side of the field? When he threw the pick? No, it was a wide open pass Oh, that he missed and he hit him on the ground? No, it was over his head. Over his head?

See, I can't keep track of all the bad throws. I know, there's so many of them. But if you get an NBA head coach who's just a casual football fan watching that and go, what the hell's going on? He's missing wide open throws. And, I mean, I don't know how you do it. You know, look, let me tell you, let me peel the complete curtain back. Sports is full of despair. Yeah.

Okay. There's much more agony in sports than there is delight. I'm a University of Houston graduate. I know these things. I watched, I flew to San Antonio than. night of the championship to watch my team lose in the last 15 seconds. I as a 12-year-old watched Whittenberg in North Carolina State, Lorenzo Charles, okay? I've watched Final Fours, I've watched tournament appearances.

I've watched the Astros, except for the two-world series, of which one of unfortunately, has got an asterisk next to it, but I used to watch the Astros as a kid and as an adult and as a young broadcaster and as a regular broadcaster, lose the Atlanta Braves over and over and over again. They had the greatest team ever in 1998 and didn't win, beat the San Diego Padres. I've watched the orders. I was an orders fan. I went through Staggerly and Buffalo and Kansas City. And before that, a young Matt Thomas who was first learning to watch football,

watched the Mike Renfro catch-on-catch. I've been through it all. That's why when the Texans came around, I was like, I can't do it. I can't anymore despair because I've got enough to spare my life. So you're saying, well, Matt, you're separating yourself. No, I'm not. I just chose I couldn't do it. But this is just so bad because this is the second time

you felt like you finally found your guy. With Deshaun Watson in the great seasons he was having, you felt like you finally found your guy. And then he asked for a trade, and then he got slapped with like 30 lawsuits from masseuses and got traded away. But you still got great value. He's been a disaster in Cleveland.

Yes, you did. Yeah. But then you had CJ Stroud. What we weren't sure about. Should you have gotten Bryce Young? Should you have gotten C.J. Stroud? He wasn't very good at Ohio State, but look at the Georgia tape.

Maybe he'll be good. and then he was incredible. It was we found our guy. And then the rug gets pulled from under us again. And we had people calling the show, Rossie. Madden Ross, he's scared. He's undecisive. And we were like, no, we were like, no, he's fine.

He's not panicking. Don't do that. You're just watching it in front of your television. Well, guess what? We're all watching the same stuff now. He's gotten worse and worse. Middle of the season, we're arguing. You probably got to pay the guy.

Nobody's saying that now. Is there a single person on this planet saying you probably got to pay C.J. Stroud. There is. David Mullick got his agent. Okay. That's one guy. And people in the Stroud family. He's probably got even got a stray cousin who's like, I wouldn't pay him.

He just wouldn't say it out loud. Oh, let me say something. He's not going to say it at the family reunion. At the cookout, he's in the back. He's actually cooking the burgers and wants nowhere near any of the conversation. Yeah. It's how does it crumble this quickly? How does it crumble this quickly to where he's throwing almost 500 yards and five touchdowns against the Buccaneers,

leading miracle comebacks throwing touchdowns to Tank Dell to where we're sitting here right now, saying the guy is inept and can't make any sort of throw, and he's panicking in every flight or fight situation where you're going to be under duress and you have to make the correct decision, quick fire. That's what you have to do in the NFL. That's what you have to do in the playoffs. And this is to me is the biggest strike for him going forward where you have to make that instant decision where it has to be instinct

where that cannot be coached into you. You either have it or you don't. We have seen that he doesn't. And that's my biggest worry going forward with C.J. Stroud. And the reasons you just explain why he doesn't have it are going to be accented by a bunch of other things around him. Yeah, when everything's perfect, if you get him a great running game and a great offensive line,

I think you can be good. But how long in this league? Malik Willis would be good if he had all that. You're not going to have the number one running game and the number one offensive line. Nobody. In a hard-capped league with so much parity, this is not going to be perfect for you. It's just not. And you have to overcome that.

And I just don't know that C.J. Strau can do that. Let's get your thoughts. We're here delay until 2 o'clock. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-2-5-7-90. your quarterback of your team ain't got it. Now they're not, they just landed about four hours ago, maybe a little less than that. They had weather issues in Providence yesterday flying back.

So I don't know how much resting they're doing, how much talking they're doing in the building today. My guess would not be much. They're going to be, as they say, in the office place, some difficult conversations to be had. Your quarterback doesn't have it for a variety of reasons. discuss that next. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. All right, so Ross and I, if you didn't catch a show on Friday, which were mad at you

that you didn't. But if you did, you know that we pre-recorded a pair of things to cover on the show. One was in a win. Yes. And one was in a loss. Okay. So we have scrubbed the win. Okay, it's gone.

Do you want to play the win one? Yeah, we probably shouldn't. Okay, because I don't confuse people. I'm good. We can listen to it. You know what? Let's go. I'm ready.

Oh, you have the loss already? Okay. Did you delete it? No, no. I have to get it. Okay, we do it next segment. We'll do it next segment. Here is what we pre-recorded for the loss.

Okay. Friday. Here it is. Right now. That's not it. Oh. This is the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk. 790 where we are here to

take your calls at 713-212-5-79 unfortunately the Texans lost yesterday in New England to the Patriots final final score of two let's get to what were the reasons got CJ that terrible terrible picky through in the double coverage I know the pass rush was coming from the edges

Not in double coverage. But he just threw it into a crowded area with so many Patriots. You knew that when receiver bounce off his hands and landed into Hutch's hands, that was not a good sign for the rest of the day. Yeah, as you meant to know, he wasn't getting a whole lot of help. We've talked about this all season. We like Woody Marks. He had a good game in the wild card.

Oh, good one. The consistency's not there. The yards per carry aren't there. Good one. I know the game just happens, so we don't necessarily need to get into offseason draft mode right now, but running back has to be addressed. I like Woody.

Good third down, pass blocker, pass catcher, all that stuff, but he's not an RB1. He's just not. Yeah. Ross, I was highly concerned about D'emiko's play calling and use of the two-minute clock. After the warning in the first half, I thought the Texans had a chance to at least get three on that. last series.

Yeah, playing not to win on the road against the Steelers made sense because you're also going up against a conservative head coach. You can't do that on the road against Mike Vrable, who's willing to roll the dice and has a better offense than you. I thought that was frustrating as well, Matt. And those Drake May scrabbles key on, I mean, how many times could they not get off the field on third down? Right. And another thing that killed you, two more illegal formation penalties. Oh, yeah.

There's been a problem. There's only one season long. Yeah. You couple that with the one fall start by, and then that terrible holding call against, and it backed the Texans up. It wasn't the way you wanted it to go. And with Nico Collins out, I mean, Christian Gonzalez basically taking Jaden Higgins out of the game.

Yeah. And you're searching. And Dalton Schultz is nice, and he had a few catches and some good targets, but he's not a downfield threat. He was like a hurt. And how in the world could you ever anticipate Kymie Faber,

missing that yard field goal. Damn. He was so money all throughout the course of the year. I get that one. And Derek Stingley can't get ejected like that, punching Stefan Diggs in the face. You ruined it. That was such a tough call. I mean, right in the noggin.

That was so hard to watch. Yeah. You can't lose your cool in a professional proff game. Stefan Diggs is going to talk some trash. You've got to know that coming in. Yeah. The one thing that, got me was, why

are you trying a fake punt at your own 11-yard line? All right. Wait a minute. You got, you got Stingley being thrown out of the game with a punch. That's the least I can do to combat that. It was what we thought. I mean, it's what we talked about all. C.J. had to be better and everybody around him had to be better, and it was none of it.

Man, we batted about $750 on that. We did it really good, actually. I just clip that last sentence and we could just roll that on a loop for four hours. singly did get beat but that Kayshawn booty catch was sick I mean I don't know there's anything else he can do to cover him any time that was just perfect and an insane catch yeah I mean some things didn't go your way you well you mentioned illegal formation which happened but also an illegal shift

so I'm going to give you like oh that's right so that's kind of two that's two illegal shift legal formation false start interception you got the illegal shift it took four points off the board. That changes the complexion of the game. The Woody Marks Fumble was terrible as well.

Like it was, a lot of it was C.J. Straub. The headliner, Matt, like if we're doing, uh, you know, you look when the, then the Coachella lineup gets posted. The big headliner says C.J. Stroud. But all the people underneath, there was other stuff. There was the Woody Marks fumble.

There was the illegal shift. There was the bad drop to Hutchinson that went into the arms of the Patriots defense. There was the bad wide open Catesover drop as well. That's the one that was talking about, the Stoverthrow. Thank you for helping with that one. It was the overthrow to Stover. By the way, he caught, there was one where

Stover caught it. But maybe it was up too high. It was slightly overthrown, but he should have caught that. Yeah. By the way, Stover, quite a push-push, a quarterback, by the He's the goat. And see, Nick Cayley, like, there were some play. The play calls were decent. Yeah.

Okay, real quick. Elements to why this is not the regression you were talking about. Number one, the offensive line got better as he's moved along, but Ross, it was still at the end of the day, a bottom third offensive line. It was, and then you're missing. Trent Brown, well, Trent Brown allows Titus Howard. Titus Howard's better at guard, and he gets kicked into guard with Trent Brown being effective enough out there at right tackle. It changes the complexion of your offensive line when he's out. Number two, you had no assemblance of a running game this entire season. You had a little bit

again with Woody Marks. You had that Dewan Jordan one game, but that didn't really count. You didn't have anybody in the running back court. And just as you and I predicted, like, unfortunately the bootlickers did not. They thought, well, Nick Chubb will come in here. He'll pick up where he left off. He's healthy again. No, Nick Chubbs is a good guy, great teammate, all that. He's two yards to carry. Yeah, what was, uh, 500 yards on the season. And the reality is this number, and that's the last thing. And Dalton Schultz, look, the injury, and the calf injury, the except for was a huge.

Dalton Schultz can't be your second target. No. And Hutchinson was not a factor in the game. Higgins and Noel, I didn't even hear his name. Higgins obviously was involved. He did a lot of good, fair catching. Fair. You didn't, your skill positions were not strong. So you're taking a quarterback who needs confidence.

He can't hand the ball off and get five yards on first down. He can't take a seven-step drop without feeling intense pressure. He lost one of his receivers, his go-to guy in Dalton Shultz with the calf injury after that great grab he made early in the game. And he had the lieutenants in the receiving corps who were just young and baby and playing an ice. You know what I mean? Yeah. But with all that, you want big money. You want to be an elite quarterback.

You want to build off what you did after your rookie season. You've got to be better. And I'm telling you, y'all called the show for two weeks and said, I don't see it in his eyes. And it's so easy and so low-hanging fruit. But I looked at his eyes. And again, I'm not staring at him out. on end. I'm not staring at him in the prep room. I'm not with him in the locker

room. But I'm looking at his demeanor on the field, on the sideline. He's dejected. He's lost confidence. And you cannot be under any circumstance a franchise quarterback if I've just described you in the ways I just described. That's just the

reality of it all. You are not a franchise quarterback. We are not to say CJ Stratt is a franchise quarterback. He is a quarterback that leads your team on a rookie contract. with an elite defense that couldn't get to play Jared Sinam and the Broncos this week. You weren't even asking for elite.

You're asking for average. You're asking for a guy who's not soiling himself. He looked like he would rather have been anywhere else. That's the thing. Like, okay, as we're talking about, okay, no running game, offensive line not great, not a lot of pass catchers. Okay, don't cost them the game. Don't throw the ball away four times.

Okay, three times, one off the... But that Hutchinson throw was still high. So we can at least put that... That's not all on Hutchinson. Should he have caught it? Yes. Was the throw high? Yes.

So don't throw the ball to the other team. Take some sacks if you have to. Let the defense do their thing and get you a bunch of turnovers. And by the way, Drake May, who's a year younger than you, turned the ball over as we thought he would. Through interceptions. Fumbled the ball. But you know what?

He sacked up. He was in the same exact weather conditions. His offensive line has two rookies on the left side of it. It's by no means an elite offensive line. He faced pressure, and he faced a better defense than C.J. Stroud faced a better defense. He did, but he's also got a better running game and a better offensive line. But he was better. He's better. I mean, I'm not going to say. Drake May is better than Stroud right now. He is.

And Caleb Williams, after last night, way better than C.J. Stroud. That was a bad throw. That was a bad time. That over time throw was terrible. That's the Caleb Williams experience. He's going to do some crazy wow stuff. And then he's going to make bad picks. All right. All of you online, we're going to you next. We didn't get any crazy wow stuff. No, we got a bunch of, oh, not against. Well, we got crazy wild stuff.

It was from Kashan Bouté. The only thing unbelievable about that CJ Straub performance was how bad it was. I mean, everybody, we got people around the country saying, I can't believe what I'm watching. I'm going to ask you a question. Do not utter it. Okay. But I didn't, you and I'm not talked about it. Would you have done something at halftime? I'll discuss

that next. And we're going to the phones. K.J., Bob, Bob, Roger Manuel. We got one in the line open. You want to get in. We're taking your calls. We've got nothing else going on. We've got to tell the truth at 11 30. D'Amico's going to speak apparently at 130 today. We're not going to have, believe it or not. We're just going to let you all vent. I don't think that's smart on my part to get myself out of the game. I don't think my coach would ever do that either. He did, I would understand, but I think, you know, my whole team trust me. You know, they believe in me. Just like how quick and go bad, they know how clear I can get hot. So, you know, today it just wasn't my day.

You know, I appreciate it. You know, my teammates have my back once again. But yeah, that doesn't cross my mind. I believe in myself, regardless of what happens on the. field, I'm going to continue. All right, you and I not even discusses with each other. Would you have made the change? No. Me either. I just don't, I can't remember, and I'm sure it's

happened, but I can't remember ever in a game of that magnitude. Now, a quarterback as a backup can come in and get a quarter starting get hurt and help. I don't remember starting quarterback sucking and then the replacement coming in and saving the day, especially in the game as big as that.

And look, all, you know, nobody knows what a football game means in week six is compared to divisional, but you would think the pressure is up. I mean, for a guy that's only taking a handful of snaps this year, relatively, I mean, actually not a handful. He's taking to more than that. But, yeah, I'm just not a Davis Mills guy. I mean, he is a perfect backup, but he's only there for a reason in case of injury. If the Texas were going to make a comeback.

And think about this, what were they down? 11 at the half? 21 to 13. I mean, hey, I mean, for as bad as they've, were to be down only eight at the half in 11 in the fourth quarter, that's saying something. What did you think of them?

Speaking of coming back after the half? No, the, well, that punt was unexcusable, inexcusable. Oh my God. We can talk about that. Fourth and 18 at the end of the game, under five minutes to go, you only have one time out. You cannot give the ball away there. That must go for it. That was coaching malpractice, and that's something we can talk about

D'emico Ryan's as a head coach at some point, too, but we're also going to, we're going to know today we're going to be focusing on C.J. Stroud and the game. But what about the fourth and two from the at the seven yard line of New England, down 21 to 13? Tell me the play again. Fourth and two, they kick the field goal instead of going for it. You're at the New England seven. It's 21 to 13.

You have a fourth and two. How much time's left? This just started the third quarter. So it's like 11 minutes at the third. Can't kill it. I love my defense. I love the fact that Drake made can't hold the football. I'm not going to crush it, but I felt like they should have gone for it.

Why? To what aspect of the running game would you have appreciated? Who would you have handed the ball to? You can't get, I mean, because you got to have some kind of play that can get two yards. Hell, do Kate's over in the damn tush push was getting two yards to carry. That's true. No, I can't. No, I can't kill that one. I'm not killing them. I'm saying. I'm saying I would have liked to have seen them gone for it. Take the points. The punting late in the fourth quarter was. Yeah, you took the points and you never scored again. Terrible. All right. Let's go to the phones. Talk to the great people of Houston, Texas. 713, 2, 1, 2,000, 5, 790. KJ, your first up. Good morning.

What's up, fellas, as usual. A lot of show, man. Thank you. I'm going to bring it this time, man. There were four plays. I was of the camp for the most part of this season, who was still willing to give CJ the benefit of the doubt, even though I was critical of them at times this year and last year,

I still held on to what I saw as rookie season for optimistic reasons. Four plays that really kind of helped me really shift in my perspective with CJ. the second to the last game of the regular season. I forgot who we were playing. But we had a promising drive going. We were on like the 40-yard line. We were somewhat relatively in Kiami's field goal range. We were right at the border of it.

Worst case scenario, we don't make a play. We kick a long field goal, 54-55-year-field goal. CJ dropped back into the pocket and had plenty of time to either a run the ball, be slick somebody open, see somebody get open, or C's throw the ball away. CJ chose neither one of those options. He literally, nobody on him. The pocket was collapsing at the end,

but for the majority of the play, the pocket was clean. He just threw the ball at the offensive alignment's foot. They got a detention of the ground and play. We obviously lost it down and knocked us out of field goal range, so we had to plan it. And I'm like, dude, what are you doing? I mean, that was literally a brain fart.

That was the first time that I started to recognize whatever he has going on is between the ears. Second play against Pittsburgh. If you guys remember, Nico got the concussion last week, but Nico also got knocked out of the game earlier that game, but he came back. That was on a play where

CJ just panicked and got rid of the ball. I'm like, dude, why did you see, I mean, you're throwing scare. Second play when Nico got knocked, and this is the third play, Nico got knocked out of the game on a pass that shouldn't even have been prone. Nico was triple covered. He had

no way of catching that ball. CJ panicked through the ball just to get rid of it and got his man concussed and knocked out of the game. And fast, so now we're at a point where not only are you making boneheaded plays, but you're doing it to the detriment of teammates, which is exactly what also happened on the fourth play, which was yesterday with Cade Stover. You threw a bad pass.

Cade server, I mean, I'm assuming here, but based on how the injury looks, something tore. So he may be out. That could, to some degree, compromise his career. because he's a friend's tight-in anyway. So who's to say he's going to have some longevity left in the league? My point for saying a lot of this is being bad and being doing bad quarterback players once in.

When you're doing it to the point where now you're turning the ball over an accelerated rate and getting people injured, there is a serious issue with CJ. I'm not going to glaze into that, nor am I going to delve into it because I'm pretty sure you're going to hear that a lot. The thing that I blame in addition, the person rather than I blame in a. addition to CJ is D'Amico.

And what I mean by that is D'Amico has always been very critical of his defense since he got here. If we have a game and the defense didn't do enough, C.J. could go 5 and 50 with 20 yards, but it's the defense's fault. You've coddled C.J. since he's been here. You've baby C.J. You won't criticize him. And again, I'm not sitting there saying throw the guy on to the bus, but have the same virtual for C.J. that you've had for the defense since you've been here.

You've handled this kid with. gloves, which makes me think that they know that he's fragile. They know that his ego is tempered. So if you know this, the decision for me, if I'm in their front office, is easy. You can't baby this guy, handling him with kid gloves, treat him like a fibroar because he's so

soft. The dude is weakened and stale butter. And it was exposed, and I think D'Amico finally acknowledged that when he punted, that punt you guys was just talking about. C.J. issue is between the ears, and now it's becoming an organizational issue and from a fan it's become a fandom issue because

all optimism went out the window with this team moving forward is CJ is still our quarterback. Is that a realistic possibility? Yes. I understand they're probably going to bring it back. But my... Of course they're not getting rid of them. Not getting rid of them. All right. Thanks, Candier for the phone call. Yeah, that's not going to have enough.

Well, well, how about the... Domeko is supposed to speak at 1.30 today. Okay. And we hope we'll carry it. He's not going to crush his guy and the press conference. No, no, no, no, but I think what KJ is saying is that he speaks

in the macro view of our defense has to get better. I don't think any, have there, has there ever been a time where he says, I need my quarterback to be better? I don't know, probably. I don't think he's ever said CJ's done great and he's the best and he's never done anything wrong.

I see Kay J's point, though, and Matt's. I do believe that there is a little bit of kid gloves with CJ. But here's the thing to be fair on that, my guess is that 32 NFL coaches try to treat their quarterback with K gloves. I mean, is he going to play better if he gets crushed in a press conference? I think that's, no. I think it's asking, it's ask and react. I mean, is there, let me put it this way.

Let's go check the archives here. We got Bob, Bob, Roger, and Manuel. Is there any comments in there in our audio about CJ's performance from D'Amico? I will look. We will look and we will try to find it. He was great. It was, hey, Will Anderson said he's the best in the league. Well, Will Anderson's also probably sniffing glue this morning, too.

I mean, Will. Too many smelling salts? Too many smelling salts. Wilk shouldn't have said that either because now that goes to the, okay, come on, tell us the truth. You know what they're going to tell us the truth? When they'll retire. They're going to go do their Shannon Sharp podcast. Oh, man, he was trash.

Can't say while he's playing, though. And club Shay-Shay? I'm a club Shay-Shay. Club Will-Will. All right, so we will try to find some audio of D'Amico. I got a D'Amico. We had two comments on CJ. All right, let's hear it.

And let's not play him ahead of time. And let's see where the level of disdain was or critical analysis. Our HUD coach has on his quarterback, 1044 on SportsSoc 790. All right. On the phones in a minute, but let's tell you that in the first half, C.J. Strau was 10 of 26 for 124 yards, a touchdown in four interceptions. In the second half, he was 10 of 21. for 88 yards. No touchdowns, no picks.

Now, sounds about like a Davis-Mills line. I know. All right, so you have two comments. Let's play them and we will organically. Yes? Discuss them after they're playing. D'emico Ryan's. Well, your thoughts on C.J. Stroud. C.J. is our guy. I believe that he could come back out in the second half and flip it. I believe that he could play better. and he did that in the second half. He did play better.

We had some positive drives there in the second half because I believe that he would do that and he did that. And as I always tell our guys at halftime, it really, it doesn't matter what happened in the first half. You have to flush it, remove it, and you just have to go out and finish the right way. And I told you, we've been there before. We've been in situations much more dire than this

and we were able to bounce back. So, you know, in my mind, there's no doubt in my mind that we would be able to overcome that. Okay. Go ahead, Ron. You want to go Ross? What do you want me to say? I want you to say that...

I mean, I would have stuck with C.J. Stroud, too. I would have stuck with C.J. Stroud. You've seen Magic come out of his hand before. He's got a higher ceiling than Davis Mills. Everyone falls in love with the quarterback. I did a poll at halftime because I was just curious because everyone wants to be reactionary. Right.

80% of people said that they wanted to see Davis Mills. He was better in the second half? I'm sorry, 77%. But he wasn't great. He wasn't good. he wasn't good enough and you got you got into the red zone and the third

and I feel like they should have gone for that third or they should have gone for the fourth and two then you got into the red zone again and Woody Marks fumbles the ball away I mean if which again I'm going to say this I'm going to defend both sides on this 30 degrees

light snow constant precipitation balls wet you know what it's going to happen if you went into that game thinking that neither team was going to turn a ball over you've never been outside and cold weather before. You just haven't. That was going to be a factor in the game. It was not going to be who makes no mistakes.

It was going to be who makes the fewer mistakes. And the Texans were not even close than that mistakes. Texans made more mistakes. I mean, and the fumbles were four. The Drake May fumble, one was punched out by Al-Shayir and another was what, Will Anderson was getting the ball. Those were like regular football fumbles. Woody Marks can't fumble right there.

Unfortunately, I think somebody said he only had like one fumble, his whole college career and then he fumbles again and no fumbles in his NFL career he fumbles right there I mean how deflated there was 21 to 13 at that point you're in the red zone again as lousies

they were playing they were down at here what's the second well yeah Demico Ryan's a moron CJ's drop he came out the second half and we had a really nice drive there to begin the second half to go down and you know we should have

scored there but we ended up getting points And we got us in field goal range. We're able to get points. So, yeah, I felt that our entire sideline felt that he bounced back and gave us a really great positive drive to start to have. Okay. So if you heard those two comments and you're listening to our show on a radio or on the IHeard app or wherever you might be, you're thinking, okay, CJ has a big fan in his head coach. As is typically the case. And D'Amico's not going to come out and say, you know what, I messed up.

Davis Mills should have played. That was stupid on my part. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess the question is going to be. And if we play the press conference at 1 30 today, is how critical is he going to be of CJ's performance at the end of the day? That's what I'm looking forward to hearing. Okay.

And how does he do it without frankly breaking the spirit of CJ who's probably already got a crack to begin with? I mean, I don't know any other way to say it. He looked defeated in the first quarter. I mean, yeah, but coming out and saying something bad about him in a press conference isn't going to make him play better when he's under pressure. But there's a difference in saying, now I'm not talking about the game. I'm talking about the evaluation. What will say, well, the caller said that C.J, that, that D'Amico takes more shots collectively at his defense when they don't play better, and that C.J. gets not a lot of criticism.

And that's, and I'm not looking to crush it. Go on Twitter for five seconds if you want some Stroud criticism. But nobody cares about Joe Texan. They care about the head football coach. And is, he's seeing something. And again, just because he says a microphone, I'm defending this case a little bit on both sides. Just because he says it, he doesn't mean he's not. crushing him in the locker room. Yeah, I don't think he's going in the meeting rooms or whatever and be like, yeah, CJ, you did great, man, you're fantastic.

No, yeah, they're talking about how he has to play better. He knows. Anybody with eyes knows that C.J. Stroud sucked on Sunday. I hope you, I hope you're right. I hope you're right. And Will Anderson probably didn't go and tell him he's the greatest quarterback ever or whatever. Well, he certainly said it from a microphone. Let's go to, my God.

That was a little much. Hello, Bob. You're on 7-Hunty. Hi. Hi. Hey, a couple of things. I didn't appreciate Joe Buck Butcher in the names the way he did. And two, has anybody considered the fact that CJ had a few concussions? I don't know how many he's had since his first year.

But the long-term effects are slow processing, impulsivity, what do you say that, and trouble making focused decisions under pressure. And they call it a brain fog that's associated with long-term effects of concussion. He's got some fog. He's got a possibility. Well, I'll say this, and thank you, Bob, for the call. I'll say this. It's not about the fog.

It's about the apprehension. I don't think he wants to run. I think some of the tools in the bag are not being used anymore. I mean, it's human nature. You've been beat up a bunch in your young NFL career. You've been concussed on multiple occasions. To just go right back out there and pick up where he left off, that's not human. When you get under duress as a quarterback,

You have to think, should I try to make a play? Should I throw the ball away? Should I take this sack? Should I extend the play? You have a multitude of decisions that you have to make instantaneously. And it's not easy. I'm not saying I'm sitting here and saying I can do it. It's not easy, but if you want to be elite and you want to get paid $55, $60 million a year,

you have to be able to do it. And he chooses the wrong path far too often. Bob on 790. Bob, good morning. Good morning. Hey, I have a comment that I just want to throw. out there for people. One is in my experience of 74 years of studying quarterbacks.

One thing I've noted, one thing I've noted, if you want to find out what a quarterback's weakness is, no matter how great he is when he comes out and starts out, the thing is, 10 to 14 weeks of film and those great defensive coordinators in that league know every bit about your weakness. now one thing I would suggest and nobody will listen to I would go find the best defensive coordinator who's not working a guy who's a defensive genius that maybe he's retired bring him in and have him look at every single game that guy's played quarterback and you're going to find that there's a tendency somewhere in there that needs to be corrected and if he can correct it with a quarterback's coach I think the young man will be

fine, given the fact that he doesn't have a great line. I mean, look at the quarterback from Kansas City. Two years in a row, he's just been an average quarterback. You took all of his toys away. I'm just telling you, though, that somebody needs to look at those 14 games of film, plus sit down and figure out exactly what he needs to do next. And he may be salvageable. I don't think you should throw him in a can all at once. It just isn't right. Thank you, Bob. You're welcome. Appreciate it. Thank you.

I think Y.A. Tit is Y. Tittle available? Come look at some tape. What's Archie Manner? No, you want a defensive guy. What's, uh, Bill Parcell's doing right now? That's a good question. Um, they're going to have to sit down and, I mean, yeah, they're, this is a big off season for C.J.

Because he's, they're not getting rid of them. Maybe they could draft. They could. But, they could. But. if he ends a season this way a year from now, they're not picking up the fifth year on the option. Dare I say this out loud because I said it going in a divisional round?

He can't be worse. Right? I think, am I right guys? He can't be worse. Let me tell you. There's no way, right guys? Let me tell you. Hannah will be on the war pass.

Hannah needed that victory. Hannah needed that victory in. many ways. They would have crushed Stidham. They would have. This defense would have crushed. I don't know if this. I think the Patriots are only like four and a half point favorites or whatever.

You would have gone to Denver and feasted on a quarterback who hasn't taken a snap in a real game. I mean, like throwing a real pass in what, five years? This defense would have made Jared Stidham into the fetal position all game long. And Sam Ellinger would have gone in the den and done the exact same thing. He's the backup. The Texans blew it. No, Sam Ellinger would have made some plays. The Texans blew it.

that was their greatest clear path no Lamar, no Burrow, no Mojoms, no Josh. Josh, well, you're up, yeah. And Jared Sinan was in the way. Hmm. Are on the way. Well, that makes me feel a little bit better. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. Tweet came in 15 hours ago, Ross. Kudos to the Houston Texans on advancing to the second round of the playoffs. This team showed real determination, playing with hard and discipline despite major offensive injuries. That kind of resilience matters. Jack Easterby.

Nope. Michael, I mean, Magic Johnson. Out of sports. Out of sports? Mm-hmm. Dom DeLuiz. No, he's dead. Oh.

I don't know. Lina Hidalgo. Who? Lina Hidalgo. Lina Hidalgo. Lina Hidalgo. Shut your bum ass up. Nobody wants to see that.

How those corruption cases going? She's busy. Funnaling funds and whatnot? I don't know. I don't want to hear... She's Teflon. From politics, political people, or TV news anchors wearing gear. Your team gets your assing.

the last thing you want to hear about is how resilient the team was shut you bum ass up. Seriously. Hi. You're all right, man? Yes. Have a good weekend? I had a great weekend. Come on.

I'm 99% sure I have her muted. Well, I got it sent to me and I'm like, are you kidding me? I don't follow any bomb titions. There we go. Yeah, she's muted. Good for you. I'm going to hit the mute key too. I didn't see that. Seriously.

Just take care of our county. Be a judge, whatever judges do. I don't even know what judges do. I don't know. I'm not worried about it. Well, I just had to say, come on. And by the way, they did the wave at Energy Stadium yesterday. You should get your ass kicked by doing the wave.

They did? Yes. Oh, the watch party thing? Yes. They had enough people for a wave? Yes. How many people were there? I don't know, but they did the lower level doing the wave.

I think theirs are cashing in a little. Because they charge full prices, don't they? That was free to get in, but everything else was probably. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, I don't know what it was. I make enough all those $20 beers So I'm a flight aware geek What's flight aware of game?

That is a live website you can track planes There were three PJs Private Jets Leaving a suburban Boston airport Okay Heading to Houston Okay And then the big one that's the Texans plane

Did not leave until the middle of the night Like at 2 o'clock in a morning They had icing issues and other sort of delays Okay So I just was... So what are the three that left? I don't know who they're owned by. Aaron McNair.

One of them's got to be the McNair family, right? Okay. The other two I can't tell you, but I'm just... Budby? I think Budby was at the game? Yeah. Was he thrown up his H's? Probably.

We're going to take a little hiatus and throwing H's up. No, then we're not, Matt. Yes, we are. Literally no one but you is mad about that. You're the only person I've ever heard complain about H's. I'm not an H's fan. I know. Because you know what people throwing their Hs up?

Put them down. That's what your team did. That's still a age. Either way, you throw it. That's true. I'm going to throw you an H right now. Matt, your H doesn't use your middle finger, man. Oh, sorry about that, Rossi.

All right, we have to tell the truth at the bottom of the hour. Okay. I have... Ooh, this can get spicy. It's a spicy one. Okay. Three truths and one lie. Okay.

Three truths. Yes? One lie. Okay. How many lies, Jonathan? Seven. Three. No, one.

I just said three truths, one lie. Oh, I said three truths. Three truths. Three truths. I said, how many lies? Yeah. Yeah, one lie. No, you said, wait. How many truths?

I thought you asked, yeah, that's, Thrus. How many truths? Three. Okay. All right. Three truths, one line. Can't wait. All right, let's go to the phones. Manual, 1108 on the Matt Thomas show at Ross Manuel. Thank you for holding a good morning.

Hey, good morning, fellas. How are you? Good. Great. Good, good, good. You know, man, I've got a good night's rest as best as I could get right. You know, that loss was probably about as worst. The game seven, the Rockets face, 2018. That's about as hurt as I felt in a long time. But I just want to ask this.

One, what has CJ earned, right? We keep, feel like as a fan base, maybe we're 50-50 in this. What has he earned? He hasn't earned, in my opinion, he hasn't anything. He hasn't earned anything. He's not an all-pro. He's not a pro-boller. He's not an elite at any one thing.

maybe he had an elite elite moments his rookie year, but he's not elite. I don't even think he's good. He's teetering on average at best some days, but I just want to know what is he earned. And I really believe, and I don't think this is a debate, I really think we've got a Sam Darnel situation on our hands here.

I think he's lost, and I think he's gone. I think he's out there. It's obvious that he's seeing ghost. And I really don't believe that there is anyone on our staff. I don't think there's anyone that D'Amico will hire that can fix him. I do not think this is a D'Amico problem.

He was drafted second overall for Christ's sakes, you know? Like, at the end of the day, there has to be some accountability within themselves to get better and to be better. And I think D'Amico and Nick are perfectly safe. Hell, even Nick Chaley, I mean, I blasted him for four months. And for Christ's sakes, he got better. I'll be damned. He got better. But for some reason, C.J. has regressed, and I think that he's broken. I don't think he's fixable here. I just want to know what he's earned. And why do we need to give him another year?

You don't have a backup plan. No, no, no. Yeah, you're giving him. Thank you, Manuel, for the call. You are giving him another year. This, this, this, okay, there are two things we're not going to discuss. C.J. is the quarterback next year. And number two, Joe Burrow ain't it. Joe Burrow makes about $50 million. You got to send $50 million back. You don't have $50 million to send back. Let me make sure I'm very clear in this. Joe Burrow will not be a Houston Texan. Period. End of story. I'm putting my name on it.

Joe Burrow, not a Houston Texan. You're going to be right, but I'll still write it down just in case. You need to write it down because I was working with somebody. I don't want to bring out my name, Spanagan. Like, you could just trade 50 million back. What are you going to trade him back? No, no. You need to send a bunch of picks.

You got to send picks and money. No, no chance, no way, no house. Yeah, go ahead. But I'm just going to say, C.J. Stroud is your quarterback in 2026. After that, I cannot guarantee. Yeah, and you're saying what he's earned, I mean, what he's earned was his, I mean, his rookie year, he was insane. He was every bit of the franchise quarterback that you thought you were going to get. And these, it's tough to say out loud, but these last two games, they're not, they're atypical of C.J. Stroud performances.

but they're also under the bright lights in the playoffs. You know what? You pay franchise quarterbacks $55 million a year to beat playoff teams. You don't do it to beat Carolina. Yeah. That's just the truth. So you can find somebody to give you 19 touchdowns and eight interceptions. And that's what Jack Prescott has crushed, even though he's had a really good year.

That's a lot of money spent for a guy that, again, not through any, a lot of fault of his own, but his contract, his contract, his contract, hamstrings you. I'd rather have Jack Press. Scott than C.J. Stroud. That's not even close right now. Yeah. But what C.J. Stroud is, he's asking what he's done to earn it. He was a pro bowler, his rookie year. I don't know if he was named to it or an injury replacement or whatever.

Was he a Matt Schaubb pro bowler or a real bowler? Right. I don't know. I think it probably was the former. But he has been a pro bowler. He hasn't been all pro. He was the offensive rookie of the year. He's earned that. All right, I got one for you. Let's put into our comp.

She's 24 years old. Sam Darnel or C.J. Stroud. Right now? Right this second. Okay, but assuming Sam Donald who's not been healthy, is healthy. Sam Darnold? Sam Darnold. But he brought up that name, which is going to be a part of what we need to fold into the conversation. Because what Sam Darnal has around him is better than what C.J. Stroud has around him.

That's fair. Oh, C.J. has got a few things going against him for sure. Could C.J. Stroud? Could I, you envision a scenario where C.J. Stroud ends up with like the Pittsburgh Steelers or something. And he plays well and he's successful. Yes. But what's going to happen here is if you want to keep C.J. Stroud, you're going to have to pay him $50 to $60 million. If he goes somewhere else, he's probably making like $30. And you can build a better roster around him. That's the thing. You need a better offensive line. You need a legit RB1. You probably need a legit WR2. Although maybe the two young guys may be. coming into that. Maybe Higgins can be that. So you're going to have to pay all those things that we just said and you've got to pay him and you're going to try to retain your entire defense. That ain't happening. It's not happening. So I'm saying there is a cap for a reason. Yes.

And that's why I was saying this yesterday to, you know, family and people were talking about the game. You need a podcast on this? No, I didn't do a podcast. I should have. There's a world where we just witnessed the best Texans offense of all time also healthy into the playoffs Lassiter, Petrie, Anderson, Daniel Hunter, everybody's healthy. Everybody was

healthy in the playoffs, in the divisional round. Yep. If I say out loud, that was the best and healthy at the Texans a defense will ever be during this D'Amico Ryan's run. That's not crazy. Even with Lassiter in and out of practices for the last month, even with Petrie were in that

soft shell on his head. That's fine. He was out there playing flying around making plays. and you squandered it. The best defense in the history of this franchise, which goes now 24 years, still can't compete in a championship game. Let that soak in. I don't want to.

Too bad. I'm going to throw it out. We had this all off-season long. Do you understand this? All off-season long. 7-13-212-5-790. 713-212-5-790. Does Dimeco treat C.J. differently than his other players? The answer to that, no doubt in my mind, is yes, but in relation to the other quarterbacks. Does Sean McDermott crush Josh Allen? Probably not on Sunday. I'm thinking. Did Ben Johnson crush Caleb Williams with throwing interception late in the game yesterday? Probably not. So I know you're going to say, well, you know, D'Amico's got to be harder on him.

Of course. But knowing that the fraternity between a quarterback and this coach and the podium are two very similar things. 1115 on Sports Talk 790. We got to tell the truth coming up at the bottom of the hour. Let's see if Ross and Jonathan can figure out what I think about things. One false, three true. Get into the mind of a madman. It is, I mean, that's what you have to do.

Of course. It's not about being correct. It's about what I'm thinking. Exactly. That's what makes it so difficult. Yes. What the hell you're ever thinking? I know.

That's actually fair. All right. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-1-790. This is the Matt Thomas Show at Ross. We've got a lot of you that want to talk. The reality is, this is your day. And by way, happy MLK Day, for those of you that are celebrating and having a day off and have a chance

to reflect on one of the great all-time leaders of our society. And we're going to have 1.30 today. We hope to catch in the press conference with D'Amico. He's going to be tired and probably very cranky. They didn't get into, I think, 6 o'clock in morning give her a bit take because of the flight delays and whatnot and the de-icing and all that. The weather up there in England obviously was bad. The weather in Chicago was actually, frankly, worse. That was a pretty nice little coating of snow on the field at Soldier Field in Chicago.

Yes, it was. Love it. But this is what's going to happen this time of year, if you want to win. And the networks are going to put the night games on in the coldest situation. They love when weather becomes a factor in a game. Yeah, if somebody wants to make the excuse, well, you know, the ball was wet and C.J. Stroud, you know, it's cold and it's snowy. That's what you're going to have to do to win in the playoffs.

That's just how it is. Or maybe win 13 games in the regular season and don't leave the city. Get everything in the NRG. Might be dolphins probably aren't going to be there. Then come in an FC championship time. It'd be nice. That's Chicago catch in the fourth planet. What the commit catch.

That was all time. Did you see the Kevin Harlan call too? I literally heard it in the car. I was listening to Rockets game. I was listening to Rockets. I was doing the Rockets game and got in the car and listened. It took a spotter a second to get him to come at, but he noticed that too, yeah.

Well, here's the rule about spotters. They're supposed to really only do your defense. But you should, I always have, when I'm calling a football game, I have the offensive in my hand. So if I need to look down, I know exactly where I'm looking for. it. But yeah, it took...

Also was a corner of the end zone, so maybe a little tough to see or something. A little tough, and again, I'm my assuming national radio spot from the few of the field where they were, it could be in the back corner for all you know. I mean, the NFL has done a really good job, really all the sports have, of taking game broadcast booth and putting him in the worst possible spots. Like, if you ever watch, sometimes Mark Vanderbair on his Twitter or whatever, Facebook will put where they're broadcasting from, it's like at the six-yard line. That's no good.

Now, Grant, if you're high up, you can get a, uh, a big bigger view, but if you're mid-level to six, you'd have to get them out. So, yeah, it took a little bit, but Kevin still gained the essence of the call, for sure. How many pair of binoculars do you own? One. Okay, because I was going to say, do you need different

ones for football or basketball? I have owned, I never used it for basketball ever. I probably should in Los Angeles and New York, but that's a different issue for a different time. I've used many different pairs of binoculars for football games over the years. And I always thought about buying the most expensive ones because they would give me the, I have a pair

that cost me $50 that can give me about a 40-yard view. And they're absolutely amazing. And if they were a sponsor, I'd be happy to tell them if they weren't, I would tell you. But I just don't know what they're calling. But sometimes the best ones are the ones you would think aren't the most expensive ones. Okay. Well, I need that because I use cheap ones to go camping, like when I go hiking, when I go hiking. I mean seriously, I'll bring them to you because I don't know what they are, but they are like, my wife's bought this for me.

I'm like, how much is $50? I'm like, are you kidding? they were because I want to see as much of the, when I'm calling a game, I want to see as much of the field as possible. So if there's a long bomb, I can get down there and see where it is relatively quickly. So yeah, let's go to the phones and say hi to Roland on 790, 1124. Roland, thank you for waiting and good morning. Hi, good morning, guys. I don't even know where to start. Houston Sports has just been really, really heartbreaking throughout the years. I mean, Where can I start? 32 point Lee against Buffalo.

Oh, for 27 in the playoffs against Golden State. You just hit a couple of those shots and it changes the whole completion of the game. I mean, my goodness, the Astros losing four games at home in the World Series and then losing four games at home in the ALCS against the Rangers. When, had they beat the Rangers, they would have beaten that. Arizona. They would have won back-to-back championships, and they would have been the first team since the Yankees to win back-to-back World Series. But, of course, that goes to the Dodgers. I just don't really know to start. I mean, you look at yesterday's game, and even though Stroud had one of the worst halves in playoff history, if they don't continue their ineptitude of scoring in the red zone, they could have had a touch, they could have had 14 points to start the second half. They had to sell for the field goal to make it 21 or 13, and then they get the ball back.

And if our running back doesn't fumble the ball, they could have no seven points there. Well, I mean, what you basically did is what it could have should. And I understand that, Roland, thank you for the phone call. I mean, that's what turnovers are. What it could have should have. Don't turn the ball over. Complete the pass. I mean, there was things happened for a reason.

Those are elements. And by the way, we are, and I've said this over and over again. And Roland, I understand. I think you know I'm going with this. Every city has sucky sports history. Look at poor Buffalo. Four Super Bowl losses in a row. Oh, my God.

Then futility. Then nine years of playoffs, or give or take with Sean McDermott, and this generational quarterback. They can't win. That's why... Minnesota. Four Super Bowl losses in the 70s, giving up huge leads in NFC championship games.

You know, they did have two World Series, but that was 30-something years ago. I mean, every major North American city has futility. We are not exclusive to it. Everybody's got it. Yeah, but we've still had a lot. Thank God for the Astros. Look, we have two World Series in the last 10 years.

Grana Wadams got the asterix and that's fine. It's tainted. Tainted, whatever. It's been a while for the rockets. My cougars still have not come through yet. Yet. I like that, Matt. yet. It's coming. They're coming.

And what else? What hell's coming with them? And the Dynamo Bush League organization. Hey, they won in 06 and 07 or whatever. I didn't stutter. Houston, by the way, Cougars up to number five in the Ken Palm ratings. Good.

It's good. We destroyed Arizona State last night. That's what gets you up in the Kinpom. And the Rockets won last night. And Kevin Durant's now six all-time-leaning score, passing Dirk Nevsky at the free throw line. And he's going to pass Michael Jordan coming up about 30 games. Yeah, it won't be this year for Kobe, but he's got a shot at Kobe next year.

So crazy. What is it like for you? It's ridiculous. It's flat out ridiculous. Because you know those calls are going to get used every time you pass to somebody. So what I've done is I've gone to the kiss method. Keep it simple, stupid. I don't mean to get, there's another one, another notch in the belt.

No, no, just call it. Start speaking in German. Yeah. Start rhyming. It can be nine Berliner. Kevin Durant. Yeah. It's another honor.

For his honor. You know, I mean stupid crap like that. The Sim Slim Reaper cuts down another. Play it. You want to play it? No. All right,

you don't have to play. That's fine. You know what? That was rude. I'm just kidding. Matt, I'll find it. Which,

where is this? This is late fourth quarter at the free throw line. Passes dirt. What about the tie? Ties jerk? Was that better? Sure. I should play both of them.

Look at you. Why not? You're such a whore. Durant, top of the key, against Pete. B. Back to the basket. Fadeaway, 15-footer.

Got it. Now he needs one. 116-102. Yeah, nothing. Yeah. But it was kind of like a Dirk step to tie Dirk. Yeah. That's nice. Okay. And Dirk made a lot of free throws. Durant's got it at mid-court, double team, and now they're fouling him to shoot free throws.

Well, that's one way to do it. So Kevin Durant will have an opportunity to go to the line for a chance. to move up the all-time scoring list. Bends the knees. Free throw. Got it. And he's now sixth all-time NBA history. Surpassing the great Dirknavitzky.

Keep it simple, stupid. Not the way he wanted to do it in terms of drama, but it still counts. Up next, Michael Jeffrey Jordan. I knew you were going to say Jeffrey. You always said it. Because you always say it. I always do.

Guilty is charged. That's great. All right. And that's your play of the game, brought to you by whoever. Let's play to tell the truth next. You ready? I'm ready. Okay.

713, 212.1. 579. Roger and Scott, hang tight will get to you. I promise after we play to tell the truth. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Do you know it's national? How about this for a page 6?

The National Championship Game takes place tonight Between Miami and Indiana, I know. What a complete afterthought for America, frankly. There was some line movement, by the way. Why, I wonder. Miami getting some love. Now, I will lie to you. Constantly.

Yeah, but I'm a constant liar. But at least I admit it. But once a week, I have to tell you the truth about something. At least one thing. Jeez. Now, this week it's three things. Okay. All right, Jonathan, I have four takes.

I believe three of them. How many lies am I going to tell you? Oh, no. Thank you very much. We figure that out. Let me write this down. All right. Three truths, one lie.

Jonathan, you have done it a couple times so far. You have one win to your belt, correct? I got one this year. We're new. And Jonathan, and Ross has one. So right now it's a one-one-time between you two Gibranies. Here we go. Number one.

Despite the loss yesterday, this is a little bit of a business one here. we're still going to hear about a massive campaign in the year 2006 about how Hannah wants a refurbished energy stadium during this year. We will hear the public cry for it from the Texans organization. Okay. Okay. Number two. C.J. Stratt, we've already talked about, is the quarterback for 2026. This year's quarterbacks are not great.

with that being said, it's time to start gaining and putting some insurance and just in case things do fall apart. I would seriously draft a quarterback in either the third or the fourth round of this year's NFL draft. Because there are a lot of quarterbacks guys, as you know, in the NFL that are third and fourth round picks

that are in the National Football League. Even the good ones. Mr. Relevant. Well, I mean, Mr. Relevant. Brock Purdy. Yeah, that's one. Okay. but I will go with the Texans should draft a quarterback

because I'm not a C you know I'm not a Davis Mills guy so we're going to I know what I'm going to get with him maybe put a little heat on the third and fourth round number three even though they'll have to obviously discuss CJ's future contract there's one extension that needs to be done this offseason you got to show Will Anderson the love

you need to lock him up and get some good mojo back for the city because the city is down and out. And I think having Will Anderson long term under contract is just the boost the Texans need because A, he deserves it. And B, you're looking at about six months of negative mojo. Positive mojo? Will Anderson signs a contract. That's number three. And number four, if the Texans do not make the AFC championship game, listen to be very carefully.

If they do not make the AFC championship game next season, Hannah will be looking for a new general manager. Those are four takes, not fact or fix. You're just strictly my opinions. Which one of those four opinions do I not believe? Which three am I telling you the truth?

All right, let's talk this out. All right. I think definitely, because you don't want to keep paying Davis Mills. You can look for a quarterback, even though it's not stocked in the third or fourth round. That seems reasonable. Yeah, try good lucky, yeah. Will Anderson does need to be locked up, and I think he will be.

Even if they do, maybe if they do a big signing bonus up front or if they move some of the money around, they'll figure out a way. Yeah, because I need to keep the fans here. They can't. Yeah, I mean, I don't think the fans are watching on Will Anderson watch. I don't think so. I don't think the average fan is on Will Anderson watch. The informed fan, yes, but you've got to think about the average fan. You guys didn't sign Will Anderson.

I'm canceling my season tickets. I don't know if you're getting a whole lot of that. I don't think, I mean, Nick Casario is actually, well, see, this is the thing, though. You have to get in the mind of Matt, who is a Nick Casario hater. Nick Casario's done it actually a pretty good job building up this defense. Jalen Petrie's been a hit. Amari Lasser's been a hit.

Daniel Heowner was a great signing. Aziz al-Shayr off the scrap heap has been great the defensive tackles have been amazing we don't have to talk about the offense To tell the truth We don't know how to tells the truth He does His opinions are so bad

It's hard to tell what's true Yeah We're looking for the live I think they'll still As is They gotta get things speeded up So I still think they want a stadium I'm gonna go with four

I'm not trying to coffee you, man. That's what you were thinking too? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unless it's a easy one, though. I know. Unless this is an easy one. Matt, just, you know, I'm going to go for it, because I feel like that's his lie. I think he believes everything else. All right. They absolutely must get Will Anderson extended in this off season. I think, and they're not watching, but you need positive mojo and the city loses its mind, good and bad in other cities when contracts are signed. Will Anderson, long-term Houston, Texas, put on your social media. People love that stuff. So Will Anderson has to be, he'd be, he'd be

worth the money, right? Yes. If he's worth it, you might as get it knocked out. Pay him what he's worth because if he plays one more year, like it's going to cost you more next year. Calf space isn't great. Just saying. Number two, you have to start the stadium conversation. They're not going to take a divisional playoff loss and go, oh, golly, G, shucks, we should scrap our plans for refurbish energy or new stadium ultimately. So, yeah, they're going to have

to start the conversations. Two and four are difficult. I think, as long as Davis Mills is here, you don't go for a quarterback in 26, that you may do it in 27. So I would not go for a third or fourth round pick. That was my lie. I do believe with the way the NFL is moving with general managers and coaches being gone, Shaw McDermott, yet again, another coach losing after going to the playoffs, wrong.

That Nick Casario will be in big, big trouble if his team does not make the NFL the championship weekend. And I believe that Hannah McNair will make the move to move out Casario if they don't make the championship game. That's my... I think you switched up late? So you think to wait? You're such a liar. To draft someone that could be under the program? The quarterback class of 27 apparently is much better than 26.

26 is it going to be a woefully bad year? I'm not picking just a quarterback because I've got Davis Mills here on your contract. I'm already paying them a good amount of money. Why would I want to go to another quarterback? I got two. That's a good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You would let Davis Mills go because he's just the guy.

And you tried to develop somebody. You could have a C.J. Stroud backup plan. What you're saying is in 27. Not 26. No, C.J. Stroud, you need the C.J. Stroud backup plan right now would be Davis Mills. And then follow that up with you go trade for one. Because if it's next year, it's the plan. And the reality is this.

You're going to hear more calls. You're going to hear more people by asking about where Mac Jones is going to play. That's going to be the issue in 27, if it turns out that way. Because, again, CJ Stroud can bounce back and can. There's no reason why he can. He's not physically unable to come back and do that. There's some reasons he can. Can't if he's just not good enough.

That's true. Yeah. I think Casarra would be. If they win like 12 games in the round in the divisional round, they're not going to get move on from Nick Casario, I don't think. This franchise is stuck in neutral. You didn't address Joe Mixing. Unless the Texans were told not.

to address Joe Mixon. Did Demico Ryan's be out? No. But Nick Casario would be? Yes. Rostor Construction. Offensive line would be woeful again. It can be bad bad if you're making the divisional round. It's not great. They made the division round this year weren't great. I'm saying if you want to repeat this exact same scenario year from now, there will be people

that will be screaming from the tops of their houses for changes. And you're not getting rid of D'Amico. D'emico is safer to me. My point is D'emico is safer to me. than Nick is. Those are my takes. You don't disagree. I get it. Dang, I should have stuck with my guns.

Wait. It's my takes. You may hate them. You also hated my take about Kyle Tucker and I'm hobatching it. That's true. I didn't hate your take. I never hated your take. You hate my take.

I think you just liked Davis Mills more than I thought you did. I'm out of love with him, but my security blanket's already there for next year. I should have stuck with a Casario hater. Not because Sarah Hater. I'm just saying, Hannah ain't going through this again. I would be shocked. Okay, let's make a bet.

Cal was, all Cal wanted to do was sleep on the plane. I mean, contingent on a number of different things, of course. You know what, time out. You know, we love bets. Okay, it's champion. You're saying it's AFC championship or bus for Nick Casario. Yes.

That's what you're saying. I'm saying that. That's ridiculous. That's fine. Okay. Let's make a bet. Okay, what's the bet? That's going to be small because it's a crazy ass.

bet. Why is it crazy? Why is it? Yeah. Why's crazy now? Because it's, this is the segment's about crazy stuff. No, no, no, no, no. You can't say it's crazy and start to make it a small bet when you're saying this is what you believe. Put your name on it. Here we go. Stand up on yourself.

Large pizza, any topics, any number of toppings. From where? Anywhere you want. From a chain or anywhere? Anywhere. That can rack up. High end. $40. I'll give you $40. $40. $40.00 gift card towards a pizza.

$40 gift. $40 worth of $0. Hey, that's eight pizzas at a middle mezers. You can spend how you want. I don't care how you do. You get a $40. I need for a week. I didn't eat crazy bread.

If this is they make the division around. Am I saying if they're out in the wild card? So they have to do the exact same thing. This is bet that's not going to come to fruition. But they might, our bet will be. Let me write this down. Hold on.

Championship weekend or Casario's out. Hold on. I have a pending bets thing. Let's see. I don't know why you're doing this. You keep losing to me all the time here. That's not, I won the bet before this one. But you lost the Habachi.

Yeah, I did. You want a small battle, but I won the war. I did because I forgot about the CBA. Good job. Good job, Ross. Whatever. Let's look at these bets we have. We have a Framber gentleman's bet.

Yep. Yorda and Alvarez will never again play more than 130 games. I love that. You won the Kyle Tucker bet. Joe Mix, you said, this is the worst bet we've ever made. Joe Mixon shot himself in the foot. I have the field. We bet coffee at a pastry.

It's darned by rugs. This is so bad. Okay. Nick Casario is out. Championship, unless he reaches a championship game. No, but you said division, your opinion was division around. So if they're on the wild card, they don't make the playoffs. I'm not betting that he's not going to get fired.

You said if they make the divisional round and not the agency championship game. Let's make sure very cleanest. Yes. This team has to reach championship weekend. Okay. Anything short of championship weekend and Casario's out. But I don't want to bet that he's not going to be out if they don't make the playoffs.

Because he could be out. Let's not make a bet then. So I'm making the bet if they make the divisional round, he's still there. This bet is only applicable if they make the playoffs. If they make the divisional round, he's still there. If they don't, he could be out. All right, that's fine. Because, yeah, if they go six,

because they're not making the NFC championship game if they go 6 and 11. And he could be out. So I don't want to bet that. Okay. That's fine. Whatever. We're talking about pizza here. I don't care.

All right. All right. Back on the phones next. You ever notice if you just want to eat on our show, just make bets with us. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. I need to do a special birthday shout-out to one of our daily listeners of the show

Jonathan Goodwin Jonathan celebrating a birthday today his lovely wife Anne said hey tell Jonathan we send him the very best Anne is going to cook you her famous meatloaf mashed potatoes

green beans garlic bread and there'll be some carrot cake for dessert tonight Oh well let me know when to be over You weren't invited That sounds spectacular The Goodwin family wants you nowhere near their house. Oh, that's rude. So shout out to Jonathan and his lovely wife, Ann, happy birthday, Jonathan from all of us here at Sports Talk 790. And Meatloaf, enjoy it. Do you like it with the ketchup crust around the meatloaf? Yeah, go with the ketchup sauce. Or you can call it crust.

Source? Yeah, sauce. What are you from Worcester? You're not? By the way, there's a story today on the Today Show this morning about how people in Boston are losing their accents. Why? God made me sad. No, that's fine. It's a terrible accent. It is. It is. obnoxious, but it's very recognizable. Yeah, but it's terrible. It's got to be the worst. It's like the least sexy accent too. Like, I think... Come on, pack the car, man.

I like... Oh, yeah, that's hot. I like the Georgia peach accent. Oh, you like the Georgia peach? Mm-hmm. I like an Australian. Oh, Australian's good, too. A little Nicole Kidman action?

Oh, yeah, it's good. Speaking of a New Zealander, that's one country over, Stephen Adams' bummed ankle. Yes. It's good because it looked like he snapped something when he went out, so I'm glad it's just a sprained ankle. Apparently got very puffy. Swollen.

Swollen. That happens. All right. Got the puffy ankle. We need health. What do you mean? I want to help me. I want to get moving up.

We got the spurs coming tomorrow night. How are we feeling? Two-game win streak. Yes. Something. Is Wemby still out? What's with his bone bruise situation? No, he only scored 38 points in her night.

He did? Yes. I thought he bumped knees and his season was or whatever. Anthony Edwards scored 55 for Minnesota and they still lost the game. Adam Clinton told me he was fragile. He's going to be out forever. By the way, he's not working the game tomorrow with me tomorrow night, ironically enough.

Give it to Wex. I don't think that Clanton is setting those schedules. Oh, you're saying that Wex is choosing better games? I did not say that. Wow. I did not say that. Whoa. Wex works with me, Minnesota.

Gives Clanton New Orleans last night. I did not say that. My name is Paul. It's between y'all. I got nothing to say. I didn't even know. Yeah, put that in a big-o card. I didn't even know who was on what games.

Because I normally am not paying attention, and I just say, coming up next, Rockets Radio Network. Real quick, let's check it before we go back. I'm not. Stop. Let's see how the rest of the schedule looks for the month and see whose games got whom here. I'm not even going to. Rockets Radio.

This is the worst. Hi, my name is Ross. I'm not involved in this. I did not. No, I didn't. All right. Actually, Wexler has the next three games. Okay. No, no. San Antonio at Atlanta, home for Dallas,

and Clinton doesn't have anything. Oh, he's got Philadelphia and Detroit on the road this week. Okay. So, Westler... Detroit's a big game. Detroit's a real big game. Back to back by, it's going to be 15 degrees. I will be complaining about the weather endlessly from Detroit for four hours on Friday. It's not like you're going on hikes. You're just walking from the bus to the hotel. You're fine.

But look at this. to take care of the sculpted body. The sculpted body. Scopeded to what? James and Alvin on the Matt Thomas show with Ross James. Good morning. Thank you for holding and what's on your mind today. Oh, thank you gentlemen for accepting my call.

Sure. And you guys have awesome show. Happy belated holidays to you guys. I haven't been able to get in and call in. You guys actually stirred up a conversation that I thought I could chime in on. if we can remember, first of all, to all the people that called me my so-called sous sales about the Texans, and I would say this here to the Steelers, Cowboys, and all the 49th fans, everybody happening me over the loss of yesterday.

Let me say this here, to all of those. You're jealous because there will be a first time that we will win the Super Bowl. And with that being said, I'm going to go into what I called about. You remember when Kubiak protected Matt Shaw consistently through the season when Matt Shaw was throwing pick sixes? And the Texans had, they had an awesome football team. they had one of the premier running backs, wide receivers, and Andre Johnson, Aaron Foster, hey, one of the probably can go down arguably as one of the greatest defensive players

that ever played the game in JJ White. I mean, as as the Texans, but Kubiak, he protected Max Shaw. It cost him his job. It cost him his job. Now, you know, quickly, we've got to get to the top of the hour. Go ahead. You're talking about Nick Casario.

Let me say this here. The decision, the head coach is one that's going to be the scapegoat, whether this ain't work or not. So it ain't going to be Nick Casario and the first lady of the football organization team.

It's not going to be her. It will be D'Amico Ryan, it'd be up to him whether the Texans succeed or not with the decision of the quarterback. Thank you, James, for the phone call. Not that, frankly, if you're a Texas fan, you want neither one of your coaches or general manager's gone. Teams that constantly change coaches, GMs, that's unsettling.

That's not a mark of success. But I'm saying, and you and I need to redo our bet here because I'm not saying, if they don't make the play, of Casario's out. I agree with that. So I'm only saying it's not championship game or bus. We're taking the bet off the board. What?

Because we're getting into semantics here. My semantics. Reaching the AFC championship game is a minimum for Nick Casero to keep his job next year. Or Hannah's making changes. Hannah needs a new stadium. Hannah needs to figure out the quarter, what he's going to do with the quarterback situation. And you need a different set of eyes if Strauss having the same problems as he's had this year next year.

bet is off the board no it's on I'm calling you out on you know a little bit older crazy bread how about that it's like six bucks with sauce it's fine is the Matt Thomas show

with Ross Patriots are on it he lost a shoe and then the football ruling on the build is a fumble we're covering by New England for a first time

turnover interceptions fumbles, formations, two men in motion, and a quarterback who cratered under pressure. Any other part of the theme of the game from yesterday? I forgot. You're going to have to. We got hour 53 to get to. No, I'm good.

You can handle it. You don't want me to do it by myself? You're just going to sit here? See you later. You mean if you need to leave, it's fine. Let me tell you some. Did you mention the drops? If Battle Red is in motion to stress, you need to.

You need some time off to reflect. I can get that. CJ Stroud was my guy. He's the whole reason I became Battle Red Ross. And that's why I'm... He threw 400 yards in that loss. And I was like, this guy's got it. I'm not Liberty White Matt for a reason.

I am not emotionally attached to this game. I'm sad for those of you that listen to the show that love the Texans. Except those dorks that were at the stadium doing the wave yesterday. And Texans Darlene trying to get on every TV station possible. Warner Bling. Yeah, good for her. Not good for her. Stop taking L.

Stop going to the road and taking L's. Go away. Stay away from your team. She wants to watch her team? She wants her team loose. Let her live her life. She's not spending your money. She better not be.

I want to get on Channel 11. I can't name but three players, but I'm going to get on there anyway. Because I'm the biggest fan ever. Maybe she knows the whole 53, man. There's zero chance. She knows 5.3 man. Talk about her boyfriend?

I don't know if she's dating anybody or not. Rossi, we go to the phones. 713-21-2-5-790 will do that at 713-212-5-7-98 traveling Texans spent all the money to go up there too cold weather snow rooting them on being on ESPN and yet losing again well it's not only that they lost four interceptions first half or four interceptions four interceptions four interception the first half do you ever feel like you've lit more money on fire if you've done that and then and you see four interceptions Good God. You know what?

The entire station except Gordy predicted the Texans to beat the Patriots too. And all the ESPN panel. Did you see that? Yeah, I put a tweet out. Dan Arlowski,

Mark Spears and all, whoever else. We're going to be hearing from some ESPN, ABC people in the next segment of the show. We are? Yes. They're not coming on,

we have some sound bites. But first, we present to you at 713-212-2-5-790, the news at noon. We get some-a-branky news happening from the national football balling today. Yes, Matt, we will get to that momentarily, but a quick recap

of divisional round weekend. You had the Seahawks just absolutely thrashing the 49ers, 41-6. You had the Texans, of course, losing 2816. Then you had the Rams in an overtime

thriller beating the Chicago Bears 20 to 17 in their matchup. And a masterful Kevin Harlan call. We'll have you grade the call. The play-by-play man will do it. Here's Kevin Harlan calling that crazy fourth down,

Caleb Williams' touchdown with under a minute to go. It's fourth and four at the Ram 14. And in the gun is the quarterback, Caleb Williams, looks into the nickel, arms outstretched, fourth down in four, 14 of the Rams, shotgun snap, goes back four, four-man rush. He's chased, he's flushed, he's all the way back to the 40. He's backpedaling and throws a pass. And the answer.

Cots! Touchdown! Touchdown! Chicago has got a touch open in the corner! That's my God. Can't say anything. I thought it was great. Yep. It took him a second to get to Cold Command, but it wasn't that long.

No, not nearly as long as maybe someone portrayed as me. No. Kevin Harlan is a gem. I love him. I love Ian Eagle. I love all the national people. Well, I don't love all the national. He's right.

If you did not see it, you would not believe it. That was insane. What a play for Caleb Williams. Then he had a bad interception in overtime. Rams are. advancing as they win 20 to 17 conference championship next weekend. 2 o'clock on Sunday Patriots Broncos. It'll be Rams Seahawks at 530 on Fox.

And yes, the Broncos lose in overtime 33 to 30. And the Buffalo Bills have fired Sean McDermott as head coach. Matt Thomas deserved firing. Yes or no. I'll be brutally honest with you. I don't know the scene at all in Buffalo, but when I saw... From your outsider's perspective.

The complete outsider perspective was when I saw that McDermott got fired, that is the trend of why I thought about the Casario situation. Because just getting to the playoffs ain't even close to what it used to be. It's just not. And so if you can fire Shaw McDermott after all the years of success in getting close but no cigar,

imagine what... the Texans might do a year from now if they reach the same level or not as good of a level as they reach this year. Used to, if you made the playoffs on regular basis, you were fine like the Mike Tomlin's the world, not anymore. So, yeah, I'm surprised. But I just think we have quick triggers going on right now in the NFL coaching circles. And on top of that, are you ready for a super sneaky situation that I think the chance of this happening are less than one? percent, but I'm just going to throw it out there. Not even a gut feeling because it's just, it's so rando.

If you're Mike Tomlin, why don't you go take the Buffalo job? Don't you, and to that point, are John Harbaugh and Kevin Stefansky kicking themselves? Yeah, Savansky, by the way, got hired by the Falcons on Sunday. Would you rather be the Falcons head coach or the Bill's head coach? Roster to roster. Now, there's pressure on the Buffalo side for sure, way more. But that's what you live for. He's a great coach, I think.

I think he shouldn't have been fired in Cleveland. He's literally two-time AP head coach of the year. In the last five, six years? Yep. That Colcomat touchdown was awesome. By the way, another thing. Did you see the release? By the Buffalo Bills.

Apparently there's something wrong with it, Ross. Tell them what it is. I try to pull it. My link is not working. I'm trying to pull it back up. Here we go. The Buffalo Bills official team release, folks. Sean has done an admirable.

job. Oh, admiral. Admiral. Like Chester W. Nimitz. Navy Admiral job. No, no, no. Literally, how does this get sent out? Ow!

Did the PR department not read it once? Shut. It's five words in. Sean has done an admiral job leading our football team over the past nine seasons. Says owner Terry Pegula.

Pegula, whatever. But I feel we're in need of a new structure within our leadership to give this organization the best opportunity to take our team to the next level. We owe that to our players and to Bill's Mafia. And thank you for the new stadium, by the way. GM Brandon Bean. Still there. Yeah. We'll oversee all facets of the football operations, including the oversight of our coaching staff.

One thing we need to discuss, I'm going to do it real quick here. What do you think about the Brandon Cook's catch slash interception? Everybody has an opinion on it. I say throw out the rulebook, it was a pick. Throw out the rulebook, watch, because everybody's trying to break it down with screenshots and slow time. Watch football. Watch football with your eyes and say,

was that a pick or a catch? It was a pick. To me, running it regular speed multiple times. Yes. It's an interception. Yeah, if you go frame by frame by frame. Because they're always talking about completing the catch. Exactly. He didn't complete the catch. He grabbed it. He landed, but he didn't complete it.

He didn't complete the catch. The ball didn't hit the floor. Running in real time. If you're out, you know, you're watching the kids play, you say, hey, was that a pick? It's a pick. It's a pick. And Sharma Dermann's like, I'm fine for Buffalo. Well, Buffalo didn't fight for you. Well, they did not because you're a year out. All right. Paul Vance Corey, hang tight. We'll get to you. Corey says, coddling CJ, stop babying him. Oh, yeah. Ooh, we're going to go to Corey first. That's a good line. Yeah, berate him. Scream at him.

I don't make him play better. He's not talking about us, does he? I don't think so. We didn't. We said he needs to be gone. Okay. Not gone, but we said he needs to be. He's probably talking about his head coach.

But again, I think head coaches have to treat quarterbacks of kid gloves. You don't want to hear that, but I think that's what we're going to be talking. We'll talk about it. 1216 on the Matt Thomas Show at Raw, 713. All right, let's go to the phones. We're going to hear from Dan Rolovsky, who might have been one of the biggest Texans truthers. Would you say? Would that be fair to say?

He was on with the morning. wake-up call last week and was speaking very highly about the Texans. In fact, I think we've played a cut with Dan Arloffsky talking about how the offensive lines gone and then Kaylee is called a better game, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So we'll have that coming up for you in just a couple of seconds. Right now let's go to the phones as promised. And somebody believes that CJ has been babyed. Let's find out from Corey on 790.

Corey, good afternoon to you. Good afternoon, dude. First of all, I think for having it on. But I'm saying we did not need a treat to do with baby gloves, man. I heard you say the head coach got to, no, you don't. When we seen yesterday watching on TV when he looked like a deer in the headlight, Domingo's post-collar, Tom out and asked the dude, do you have it? Instead of doing that, he's going to continue to play him.

Even after halftime, at halftime, you should take his ass into a room and ask him stuck, bro. Do you feel good or do we need to warm up day? Of course, he's not going to say that we need a Walmart Davis, but as a competitor and as a coach, and you know that many people don't get the shot with Mahons out, Lamar out, and then we have a clear gate to the Super Bowl because we have a backup quarterback in Denver. You need to make the best decision for a team.

And then Gerard Johnson, all of them, they baby just do too much, man, as long as you do that, he's not going to reach his full potential. We need the coach that's not his friend, but he's here to coach who's going to hold him accountable. We're going to look at him when you make some mistake to let him know, dude. you keep messing up, bro. I'm going to put your back up in and we're going to go another route. But until we do that, if we keep bailing, we're never going to get to where we need to be.

And yes, I do think that maybe we need a culture change. We need somebody who's not familiar with who really wants to win, who's not his friend, bro. We need somebody who's light a fire under that. Otherwise, we're talking about the same thing next year. Thank you. Thank you, Corey. I think you get. Corey got in about four minutes of conversation, about 45 seconds.

Is Nick Cayley just C.J. Strouds, friend? I don't know. How do we, where have we gathered this information? Bobby Sloick was just CJ Stroud's friend and didn't criticize or? No, they're apparently not friends because I'm, I'm very much convinced that CJ got Sloak fired. As in CJ Straub pushed for his fire. And no question in my mind. Right. I don't know that. I can't speak to that. I don't, I'm just saying like D'Amico Ryan comes out and he defends his guy in the press conferences and, for whatever reason there is just a certain sector of the fan base. They want their pound of flesh.

They want them to go out there because they feel bad. They want to yell at C.J. Stroud and call him the worst. They want somebody else to do it. They're looking for that validation. That's what I just feel like. I don't care that he's not going to crush C.J. Stroud. I don't think he should have put in Davis Mills. C.J. Stroud still gives you your best chance to win in the second half.

If he comes out and screams and yells and is like shaking C.J. Stroud's face mask, we all think that that's going to somehow have changed the outcome. I don't think so. I'm just telling you for as long as we've been doing this my entire career, it's very, very difficult. Almost impossible to find a coach on a regular that crushes his quarterback. I think quarterbacks are coddled from a financial standpoint from a let's build upon him and build him up and try to give as much encouragement.

It's just, unfortunately, whether you like. it or not, it comes to the territory. Now, when a team's quarterback is awesome, you love on him and you think he's a franchise. When he plays like dog crap like he played yesterday, you want him out of there the next day. Did Sean McDermott come out and say Josh Allen turning the ball over four times? You lost by three. He turned the ball over four times. Josh Allen can't do that. He's the worst. He's not the worst, of course. He's been an MVP. See, J. Trout has not been an MVP, but yeah. What you want is you want to Miko to say the exact same thing that you're saying today. And it just doesn't work that way.

And I guess it coddling? Sure, it could be. But tell me, again, what I want to know is going back to the Davis Mills situation, because I'm not a Davis Mills guy. Davis Mills, to me. He's not good. He's not good. He filled in when he needed to. But beating up on middle of the pack AFC teams is not the same.

And again, they beat Buffalo. It wasn't, uh, yeah. So that was a win. the defense had Josh Allen have this worst game ever. Do we not remember he was terrible against the Titans? You couldn't get rid of him fast enough when he was starting quarterback. And he was terrible against Titans. He was horrible against the Titans.

He was pretty good in that Jacksonville game that they won where they came back. He had a couple of good drives in that game. Davis Mills is not a starting quarterback in the NFL. Davis Mills is not going to go into a game during the playoffs in 30-degree weather and all of a sudden spark your offense. For that matter, again, I would ask some of you that have to, time on your hands. It is a holiday. Hope you're relaxing. Give me a name of a quarterback who replaced

a starter in a playoff game and changed the outcome. I'm sure it's happened once or twice. Due to injury. Correct. When has a quarterback been benched in the middle of the playoff game? It just doesn't happen. I mean, I think didn't Nick Saban do it with like Hertz and Tua or something like that? Yeah, but that's college. Yeah. I'm trying to think of anything in the NFL. I can't. I don't know.

Look, CJ sucked yesterday. And any talk of contract extension would be stupid, except David Mulligetta. He's like, ah, man, we get past that. Nobody's banging the drum for CJ Strouda to be here long term right now. No. Nor should they be. They should be banging the drum for CJ for Will Anderson getting paid. Because you're going to pay both those guys at the same time.

He's not going anywhere. I hope you're right. There's no chance. All right, so Dan Orlovsky, let's play this real quick before we get to our next time out. Dan Orlovsky, I mean, made sweet love to the Texans during. didn't make sense. Oh, he did. They were on a 10-game win streak. He talked about how good they were. Nick Kelly is still a game. Beb, baby, be, baby, baby, and I like Dan O'Lovsky actually. I think he's really, really good. Nick Cayley got better. The offense was better. And then, well, C.J. Straub bleaked the bed two games in a row.

Two games in a row. Well, Dan Arlowski didn't mince words on the old ESPN airwaves today. And you win that game with 31 other quarterbacks. That's, and it's unfortunate. With Jared Stittem? And any other quarterback. I mean, it's unfortunate that we don't. get this defense, not only the AFC title game, but then more than likely in the Super Bowl if they win that game yesterday. Bad quarterback play wins that game. Bad quarterback play. The

pick six and the fumble, that's 10 points right there. Now, credit New England. New England made some crucial plays and crucial moments. Drake Mays touchdown to the fourth down to Douglas, the touchdown to Steph with the ball placement, the booty play, no question. But if you're Houston, I think Houston and Buffalo

walk away from this weekend, sick to their stomach, because they look at all the self-inflicted wounds. And Houston is just going to sit there and go, if 10 turnovers by CJ are five picks, five fumbles and two games in the playoffs. And I think now if you're Houston, you're going to sit there and go,

what do we do at the quarterback position in the future? 2026, it's CJ. After that, all bets are off. Okay, just unofficial gut feeling, though. 2027, CJ or the field? Oh, I love to you put me on the spot. Just because I don't want to answer the question. Well, you know what?

You know what? I get paid a large amount of money. When do we come back? All right, we come back and we'll take some more phone calls. Vince John Lamont, we'll get to all of you. 1229 on Sports Talk 790. Okay, here's a thing. Y'all pay us to be Mamby, Pamby.

The results are as this. And if I'm wrong, you need to blast me a year from now. The Texans starting quarterback. in 2027. If given the choice between Stroud and the field, I'm taking the field. Yeah, this is off, off the record gut feeling, Matt. Very off the record.

Don't, hey, man, listen to you, you're going to. Shut up. That's where I'm, and of course, our friend, recency bias, is not helping us right now. Oh, it's terrible. He's coming off two of his worst games all season. But I'll say this. Here's what they would do.

they would go get a quarterback as compared to trying to draft. You need an experienced quarterback to go along with this defense. You cannot let whatever's left of this defense two years from now be eroded because you're waiting for a rookie quarterback to grow up a little bit. Get hair in his chest. Field or Strout, say something, Ross. 2027. Field.

I think you're right. Vince in Midtown at 1235. If we're wrong, we're wrong. But at least we gave you an opinion. Hello, Vince. Hey guys, how are y'all doing? Good. Hey, thanks for taking my call.

If you guys remember about three weeks ago, three, four weeks ago, I called and said that CJ played scared. We don't remember any part of that phone call, Vince. We have no idea what's talking about. And so I will always say that I understand. I 100% understand all quarter. I think most quarterbacks have that fear in them. Some handle it one way.

handle it, you know, another way. There's some guys just throw caution to the wind. There's some guys that just like Brady, I guarantee he was scared. But he had a system where he got rid of the ball fast. He knew exactly when they stole the ball away. So it's just different ways guys handle it. But DJ is just scared. And I look at his second concussion.

I think I mentioned that back then, his second concussion and seeing his best friend, Tank Dale leg gets just annihilated. and I think mentally he's done. He is done. And so not only just the turnovers, here the last three, four weeks, all his passes, most of his passes have been way off target. I mean, he'll hit on some,

but a lot of misses, he's putting his receivers in danger. I mean, he probably cost over his career, possibly, yesterday. And so I just, he played scared, and I don't know how you can get over that, how you can

accept mentally and for him to get back to where he was playing his first year where he was through caution to the wind, he was just winging it and, wow, this is fun. And then all of a sudden he gets a concussion the next year and then another one this year. And it's just, yeah, so. But, but yeah, it's a tough situation.

I, I, I, my son and I were watching the game before the game, I said, CJ will throw at least three interceptions a day, and I didn't know it was going to be, I didn't say the first half, though. Yeah, thanks for the phone call. I appreciate it, Vince. Is he, is CJ afraid of the moment?

Or is he afraid of what could happen if he runs and puts himself in harm's way? Has the concussions cracked his tenacity for the sports? He ran for like one first down, right? I think. Yes. I'm telling you, and again, I've never played a snap in my life of football.

So trust me when I tell you, I have no experience in this. But if I've had as many concussions as he has, there's hesitation in his pores. There just is. How can they're not being? It's panic. He seems like it just seems under duress. Every quarterback is under duress and they can seem much more calm.

I'm going to throw this ball away. I'm going to just go down and take a sack. I'm going to move left. It's like every decision he makes seems to be wrong. I'm going to avoid the pressure to the right. And that's the wrong. Should have gone left. I'm going to throw the ball away.

Should have tried to make a play. I'm going to try to make a play. Should have thrown the ball away or taking a sack. Every single time he is picking the wrong, not every single time, that's not fair. But far too often he's picking the wrong option. It's frustrating to watch. Yes, he's under a lot of duress. Yes, it's a lot of pressure.

But sometimes you've got to shine through that. And especially in the playoffs, it's not going to be a bunch of slapies on the other end. And you want to be a franchise quarterback. He's never said it, but that's what he wants. When you're the number three pick of the draft, or when was he, two or three, right? Number two. You're built to be a generational franchise quarterback. I saw nothing franchise.

He was. He was. He hasn't seen it in two years. We haven't seen it in two years. We just haven't. Where did it go? I mean, is Joe mixing in the running game that much? I mean, you had that last year. That damn shotgun in his foot.

Was a shotgun? I don't know. I don't know. By way, is anybody? anybody going to ask the press covers today about where Joe Gimaxson is all year? I hope so. Let me tell you, Wex, if you're listening and you're going to the stadium right now, he can't because he's got to be here for the show.

Any member of the media, not in the boot looking media, just a regular media. The ones that actually should be credentialed. I'll buy y'all, you know what, I'll get you some wings at Big City wings. If you ask where Joe Mixon is. So whoever member, whatever member of the media asks where Joe Mixon is, I'm buying wings. Can't we ask Joe? he's the one on Twitter talking about you don't know my body, Ian Rappaport

whatever happened to that whatever happened to pushing back on Ian Rappaport and saying I'm going to be back I think he wasn't I think Ian Rappaport says scoreboard Batch Hmm He wouldn't say it to his face News Joe will hit him

Yeah, I'm gonna get orbital fractures Lamont on 790 Lamont good afternoon Hey man long time no speak man I mean you guys been together for a while almost like 15 20 years Are you kidding me Lamont We've been here since 2010 17 years, baby. Let's go.

17 years. Say, man, I got a couple of points. Miko does not treat the offense like you treat the defense. If a defensive player would have had the game that Shroud had yesterday, he would have been a lot more animated than he was yesterday with all of this. You know, I love him and blah, blah, blah. Yesterday was proof point of something that Jeff Van Gundy gave us almost like 20 years, 25 years ago. Don't ignore

in victory, what you wouldn't in defeat. We've seen this last week, fellas. We seen his last week, man. He played like trash last week. And that's what Jeff Ben Gundy's a whole what was about right there. A couple of things I have,

man. You know, what people are trying to give CJ and out about he didn't have his weapons. Go look at the Sanfran game. The Sanfran game, he did not have a couple of weapons in that game either. Notable. notably Nico Collins.

Nico Collins. Nico Collins went in that game. And so that's what my mindset was going. I thought he was going to spread the ball around. And lastly, I'm not going to say C.J. Stroud is bad, even though I want his ass up out of here. He's not persistent. You don't know what you're going to get from week to week. You can't depend on that.

He's James Harden. And that's all I have. Thanks you for the phone call, Lamont. Is he in James Hardin? You know what? the cop is. The cop is not him. Don't say it because I was thinking it too, too, I think. I think we're on the same page.

You want to say, we'll say first time and second and last name of the same time. Are we on the same page? Are we on the same page? You go first. No, no, no. We'll do it together. One, two, three. And as soon as we say through, say the name, ready. One, two, three. Jailing Green. Oh, no. Dang. We were all on the same page. Oh, no.

I was thinking that. I was thinking that yesterday during the game. I am so sad to say. The cop is Jailing Green. He can drop 40 on the Wizards. He did or he's going to? He could. He could drop 40 on the Wizards. No, no, I like Jailen Greed.

But it's when Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green. And see you later. It was game two. Pack up your bags to Phoenix. Damn, we just comped him to Jalen Green. It's not what I wanted to say out loud. I didn't want to say it either because I like Jailen. I thought it last week, too, against the Steelers.

I thought the exact same thing. I'm going to be completely fair. Here we go. The fairness is when the season starts in 2026, we or you as Texans fans have to collectively root for C.J. Straita be successful. If he falls apart like he did this season next year, your organization is going to take a detour in the wrong direction. And it's going to cost you years.

one because you've got to redevelop a new quarterback. Two, you're probably going to lose a front office person and maybe even a coach down the road. Not saying the Miko's in trouble. But my point is there's going to be some shifting going on. And number three, this amazing defense, this best defense the NFL has seen in a long time. This defense is the best that has ever been in franchise history. We'll be broken apart into pieces. Ross, I'm telling Houston, Texas, you're pissed off at CJ today.

I get it. you want your team to get to the to the pinnacle, you've got to root for CJ to have the most incredible offseason of his life. There's no way around it. Either that or you are going to be five, you're going to take five years backwards. You needed it here. You needed it here.

Jared Stiddam is waiting for you. Jared Stidham is waiting. You needed it yesterday. No, Lamar Jackson, no Patma Holmes. None of that. You have none of that. And as we were talking about, like with Will Anderson needing to get paid,

How long is DeNeal Hunter going to be here? And, I mean, Camarie Lassar on a rookie, like, and everybody's healthy. That's the big thing, too. You get to week 20 and all the key pieces in the NFL of your, in this crazy NFL are healthy on your team. You can't expect that to happen every year. You've got to root for CJ next season. No other way to say it. 1244, the Matt Thomas Show with Ross continues.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7. All right, Domingo is scheduled to speak at 1.30, and we will try to carry that if we can. If we can't, we'll just paraphrase. Yeah, our guys try it hard. Looking forward to getting in the work room. Got to go to the draft, get some improvements. We'll be back and better than ever.

You wouldn't say that way. Back to work. I don't think you'd say that. Look, guys, winning is hard. that's what Bill O'Brien would say. By the way, I just did an interesting, a quick study. I just tweeted it out at SportsRV.

Is it worthy of a follow? You should follow me at SportsRV. Most importantly, follow me on Instagram. Okay. I've already know how I'm going to intro my video that I'm going to make after the show. It's going to start with the Texans have a C.J. Stroud problem. Well, there's a way to grab people.

All right. season offensive line rankings. Now, these are the teams that participated in the divisional round. That's eight of them. Broncos, first. Yep. Bears, third. Rams, fourth, Niners, fifth, Buffalo, six. That means of the top six offensive rankings, five of them made the divisional round. New England, 11th, Seattle 15th, Houston, 27. They're the only one out of the top 15, and they're 27th. Who, realistically, offensive line, running back. Are you sold in the two receivers you chose in the draft last year? Like Higgins, Noel's a good in the return game, and they use him on end-to-round stuff.

Maybe he can develop and get better in year two. You're not expecting instant impact from second-third-round receivers. Linebacker maybe, for debt purposes? Yeah. You can always use DBs. You can always use linebackers, defensive linemen. But yeah, as we're talking about like top three rounds, that's what you're really hoping for impact players.

I would like to see offensive line running back or something like that. It's like when you're in fantasy draft, O line running back, O line running back, O line running back. And they got a hit on something. I got one more for you. If Mike McDaniel does not get a head coaching job

during this carousel, he's getting some. Do you write a blank check to him? I would. Because there could be a philosophy out there that says we've got to do, we've got a quarterback, love, but he's broken right now. And how do you break him? You get an established play caller with history of offensive coordinating experience and play

calling, putting a young guy who's never done it before on his own in the situation to fix a brokenhearted and broken-souled C.J. Stroud. Nick Cayley, you can't do it. Nothing against you. Like, for instance, this is a terrible example because I just can't think of anything. The Golden State Warriors years ago had Mark Jackson as a coach. They went 50 games. They fired him and replaced him with Steve Kerr.

Owner of the Warriors said, why did you fire Mark Jackson? Because Steve Kerr was available. We thought he was better. Can you fire somebody just to say, I got somebody better I want to put in there? The answer is yes, you can. I think so. I think Mike McDaniel, for his warts as a coach and quirky Capri Pantswearer, is a hell of an offensive mind.

and if Domeico could give the ball, could give the headset and say, your offense, I'll leave you alone. We got to go fix our quarterback. Because as I said in the last segment, it is ridiculously important for the Texans in their history and their future, Ross, on history,

their future to fix CJ Stroud. If CJ's not fixed, this organization goes the other direction and you can watch Jacksonville and Tennessee and Indianapolis jump them in the AMC South. Yeah, and if you brought in Mike McDaniel, it wouldn't be like he's starting from scratch, It would be probably very similar to Bobby Sloke, who came off the same tree in San Francisco, the Shanahan tree.

So some counter arguments to that would be that you're starting from scratch, but you're not. And also a counter argument would be that people are making like, hey, you have to build your offensive line. You know, you need, if you're going to go to an outside zone scheme for offensive line, and you need guys who aren't necessarily going to be big like Trent Brown, and you need some guys who are going to be quicker and can get to the outside. But it's like, okay, you need to overhaul the offensive line anyways. So that to me also isn't a good counter argument to hiring Mike McDaniel. If you think Michael McDaniel is the guy, then you go for him, even if you think Nick Cayley's pretty good. And to the Texans defense, they have not minced words when it comes to hiring coaches.

There is an example, and this example is in the AFC championship game. Gerard Mayo got one year, and we were like, man, only one year they went four and three, 13. Gerard Mayo, this great defensive play caller, like great linebacker. I thought I myself was like, wow, they got. got rid of him pretty quick. They bring in Mike Vrable who's been a better option. So that's not to say

Gerard Mayo is a bad coach and couldn't have figured it out. There was somebody better out there. Somebody was better out there. Exactly. That's not to say Nick Cayley can't figure it out. That's not to say Nick Cayley might not be good in two or three years,

but if you can find the guy right now, you do it. Q on 7 out of 1255. Hi, Q. You son of new on the day. Good, sir. Thank you for calling what's on your mind. I'm calling to talk about. I choke jaw up strong, I mean, or CJ Strauss.

But anyway, baby in is not the answer. See, as many times, you know, I've looked in the eyes of players, quarterback's running backs, and if you look in their eyes, you can see when they go, just like if a boxer takes a real good network. and you look in his eyes and you see a little gleam, you know it ain't going to be long. So I could see it the whole game.

I don't know. He had one job and one job only. Do not lose the game. And that's what he did. He went out and lost the game. Okay, sure. He didn't have the running game he had. You cannot have the running game.

So he and I talked about let the defense do his job. But it's just choking, giving away. We'll never have a detail like this because of the free agency. The things are now in this. We can't guarantee that we're going to be this healthy next year. And on the backup thing, I got a couple examples, some Hall of Famers that got taken out of the game. And they survived and went on and had a Hall of Fame careers.

I know we don't forget Frank Wright taking over for Jim. Yeah, but Jim Kelly did not start that game. We got to go back to that Buffalo game. He was hurt, right? He was hurt, yeah. Jim Kelly did not start the game, and he was not benched. Jim Kelly was hurt. Frank Wright started that game against the orders.

So we were looking for someone that was benched in the middle of the game for ineffectiveness. I mean, the example you brought up, two attack of Aloha started. Jalen Hertz came in, finished the game. But that was Alabama. We're talking on the professional side. Has a backup quarterback ever come into a game and rescued its team? Did Doug Flutty ever do it for the Patriots?

I'm trying to think, man, I'm going back. Even this is pre-Drew Bloodsoe. Yeah. It was the other way, by the way. I think Hertz was benched for Tua. Okay. But either way, yeah. It wasn't the answer.

Davis Mills wasn't the answer. Davis Mills wasn't the answer. The answer is C.J. Stroud. Benching C.J. Shrown sounds cool, but not for Davis Mills. Yeah. Sorry, Davis and the Mills family. No, I'm sure you're lovely people. This is the Matt Thomas show with Ross.

103 Sports Talk 790. We have had great phone conversations today. We want those to continue, so please, if you're driving around, happy Martin Luther King Day. For those that are having the day off, 713-212-5-790, 7-13-212-5-790. It is the Matt Thomas show with Ross. We have not played much of CJ today because I think probably a lot of you've heard but I want to go into voice recognition, Rossi. Let's hear the heart and despair of him.

And then we're going to hear from a national pundit on what he is seeing from CJ. But first, let's hear from CJ. All right. Overall thoughts on your performance, C.J. Stroud. I'm a pretty self-confident person. I think, you know, when they started to pile up, I try my best to stay, you know, locked in in the spirit. And, you know, realizing I, you know, I just got to be there for my teammates. They encouraged me a lot through it.

So I'm really appreciative of this team and, you know, them doing that because they didn't have to. But, yeah, it was, you know, not easy. It's something that I'm learned from. And, you know, just grateful my teammates are picking me up. I can't comment on that. I mean, would they weren't going to dog cuss them? 1974, they would have, but not in 2026. Everybody's a little more sensey.

Take a drag of your sig and crush them in the post-game mark. Right. Okay, what had, let all those turnovers, CJ? I mean, I think just trying to make plays, you know, trying to, you know, push the ball down the field and, you know, put our team in position to score. So my tenet is never to get to do that, you know, and sometimes it just doesn't go your way. And, you know, that happened today. And I'll take full responsibility.

You know, something I'm going to learn from is just, you know, ball security is everything, especially, you know, the way our defense has played all year. and it's something that I've done a pretty good job of, you know, to this point. So I'm going to continue to, you know, get better in that area. And, you know, I'm not happy with myself when it comes to that because, I mean, I'm giving, you know, points and opportunities away from our team. And there's so many great players on our team, great, you know, offense, defense, special teams. And the way our defense played all year, just, I'm just very, you know, I'm not happy with, you know.

So you're telling me that he didn't learn from giving the ball up against Pittsburgh. He's going to learn from this one? Yeah, you're going to learn for this one. Wait a minute. He's finally going to learn. It's all good. Well, he knows turnovers are bad. That's a good start.

All right. Anything else? Yeah, oh, because remember they kind of zoomed in on his hand was hurting and stuff like that? Right. And I was like, okay, I'll buy that. He's throwing like his hand is hurt. Here's what he had to say about a possible finger or hand injury. Yeah, I got hit, but I mean, that happens every game.

So, I mean, it didn't really affect it. I just, you know, probably just try to shake it, get some blood. flowback in it, but they really affected him anyways. There you go. All right. So, the game was called yesterday on ABC by Joe Buck and Troy Eickman.

Troy, I think as he's progressed as an analyst and he's been doing it for a long time, has been more forthcoming and not necessarily player protective. I think Tom Brady's doing a lot more of that now. You know, loosening up a little bit and being able to say, hey, what I see is what I see and I can't sugarcoat.

this would not be a sugar code here from Troy Aitman during the game yesterday. I will say this, Joe. D'Amico Ryan's and Nick Casario, they've got some tough decisions they've got to make about this team on the offensive side of the ball. You know, they replaced Bobby Sloick last year after his two years as the offensive coordinator. C.J. Stroud has been chasing his rookie success for the last two years. He's not been the same player. We've not seen the development from him. There's a reason for that.

It has to be addressed. Here's Bryant. Passes too high. All right. That again is from Troy. So let's, let's you and I address it here real quick before we go back on the phones. If you were to take the pie and slice it up,

how much of it is, there's tape on CJ now. We can figure out what it is. We figured out what it is. I think a lot of it, I don't think it's that much of it. Because he's missing wide open throat. He's throwing it at people's feet and over their heads and throwing hospital balls and getting Nico Collins concussed.

All right. Next part of that pie. How much of it is the average at very best offensive line? And no running game. We'll combine those two together. How much of that do you think it plays into it? I think a lot, a big part of it is the offensive line. And lastly?

It has been progressively worse. Yeah. It's never been to the level that you went, man, I'm confident the six, because it's not five guys anymore. It's six that are always guarding, trying to protect it. Now, Laramie Tunsell was at home watching the game. Do you think he's chuckling to himself?

He's like, I'll give you a false start right here. And also I'm not going to allow pressure. Yeah. And then lastly, and again, no will ever have the evidence for that except the inner workings of CJ's mind and body. I think he's worried about concussions. I think he's playing scared.

And I don't know how you shake that unless you, frankly, go a season without getting one. He certainly looks frown. I'm puzzled under pressure. Can I make a point right here? Yes. To you as a point with the mental, like concussions, he'd probably scared, all that stuff. Isn't that more of a reason why Mills should have been out there?

If we know mentally he's not there, mental and physical, we all know sports is 85% mental here, right? If we can see, and DeMico can see, like Lamont said earlier, that he wasn't there up and mentally, why even put the team in their energy and on somebody that's not there himself? I'm not saying that he's not there and he can never do it. Because here's the thing, John, my thought is you can't judge that. Where if you have an ankle sprain, you know exactly without a doubt that is an ankle sprain. Or you know that that is a shoulder separation. You can't judge whether or not you look in somebody's eyes and go, well, are you there or you're not there?

And is 80% of CJ Stroud good enough as compared to 100%. I mean, I see where you're going on that. And that's certainly a conversation that probably coach and a player has to have. but man I don't want to look in my eyes of a quarterback at halftime after being as bad as he was and saying it's just not my day that would have destroyed this franchise

I don't think it was to the point where he's like he's done and it's like irreparable damage and this is who C.J. Stroud is and every time he goes out there he's going to turn the ball over four times. He had never fumbled five times in a game ever. How many times does he ever throw him four interceptions in a single game? He didn't do

He didn't throw more than two in a single game all year. I think... Why are we here? I don't want to be here right now. Guys, this sucks. He's cracking under pressure. This is terrible. I don't want to be doing this show today talking about C.J.

Stroud and how awful he was. With this defense as great as it was, and you're set up to go to the Super Bowl, and then he bleeps the bed like that. God. Took you long enough. It sucks. Come on, battering it out. That sucks, man.

Let's talk to Leo on 7-90. Hello, Leo. Hey, Matt, how you doing, buddy? Good friend. Hey, I equate this. You'll hear me out here. I equate to, like, to baseball, right? I mean, if a pitcher's having a bad game,

and he has full home runs knocked on the first inning, and he's just not hitting the strike zone, you're going to pull him out. In football, I equate CJ's performance in the first inning. first half for an interception is like a person he pitching and not letting four homeowners get knocked out of the part you got to pull them and I'm not saying that mills was the answer moving forward but all you needed was a game oh hold on secondly I'm sorry I didn't mean to budge you there go ahead Leo go ahead finish up yeah all you need it was a game

manager make sure no any mistakes are done and you know it's not like mills is some guy who's never played he was a starter for a couple years and I said if I said it be correct that I'm right right and that's that the case right so he's been there he's he has experience and you could tell that CJ's even going back to the Pittsburgh game that you know he just his head wasn't straight I mean the

interception he threw in the end zone it's just a decision making he should he should process that and not thrown that ball and then it moved forward to yesterday's game all the decisions were awful even the passes that were caught the players were having to reach out and make

exceptional grabs to what he called to catch the ball. They weren't even close, a lot of them. So I just think that he just didn't have it at some point. Like I said, of a baseball pitching bad. You just pull it, man. You got to go with what you got. This is the playoffs, man. You have one chance.

This is a perfect opportunity, you know, moving forward to make it to the Super Bowl. I think that you just can't be loyal in this case. This case, it's a decision for the franchise, and that's why I look at it. You know, you need to try. He couldn't have done any worse, I don't think. Well, I guess maybe the very last thing you said has a little loaded. I guess he couldn't do any worse. I mean, you really can't do any worse.

It would be difficult for him to do worse. But the baseball analogy doesn't work for me because the game was still close and it's not like you had Josh Hader or Brian Abray you. Davis Mills is more of a Caleb. Caleb Orch. Sean Dubin. You got Sean Dubin in the bully, okay? And the game was still close.

So, yeah, pitchers do go out there and give up four home runs in the first three innings and stabilized. That's what they were hoping for. Justin Verlner's made a living off of that the last five years. So they were hoping that he would kind of settle in. It didn't happen. He wasn't terrible. Would you read 10 of 21 for 88 yards or whatever it was in the second? Yeah, that's not good.

It's not good. That first drive, he completed three straight passes. They marched down. They get the fourth and two. I mean, you really could have seized the moment. Go for that and get a touchdown. Tie the game up with a two-point conversion. Or just go for one and stay behind by one, whatever you want to do.

and they kicked the field goal and that's when I was like But you know what for me Get me some points Give me something Make me feel better I understand that like I said I don't think that's a

We talked about this I think hour one That wasn't an egregious error And Damico Rines is never going to be aggressive But that was the definite weight White flag was that fourth and 18 At the end of the game By the way on the punt Late in the fourth quarter

I have this saved on an email here Stay with me Of course, it's not reading it properly. Oh, I love one might. Look at this. I can't read it. Okay. DJ BN and me had a tweet about what happened.

You all read it when we come back because this is all that stuff right there. Look at that. Are you okay? Are you getting hacked again? No, I'm not getting hacked. You know what? I need to follow. I still haven't set up your Google authenticator.

You need to. All right. Miles, Leo, and Arthur get to you before we get to Dimeco at the bottom of the hour here on 790. 120 on Sports Talk 790. got some folks I want to talk. We're going to go to you, and then we're going to go to the Domeko Brian's media availability here after that. Let's go to Arthur on 790. Arthur, I know. I'm working with my Western. I'm pulling the, uh, Arthur, pulling the, um, hey, how you doing? Good. Hey, I just wanted, uh, I just wanted to say, man, I think I probably started way before the quarterback play, even though, you know, the quarterback play is a major thing, man, but we've got some fundamental issues that's not going to get us in the Super Bowl. that's not going to win a Super Bowl game. All those pre-snap penalties,

the formations, and the two players moving at the same time, that's fundamental stuff, man. I don't know who's responsible of holding people accountable for that. But whoever it is needs to hold some people accountable because even if we had average quarterback play, you know what I'm saying? When we get into it, those penalties come at the worst time in the game. When we're set up to put seven on the board or three on the board,

then we start backing up. Then there's another thing with decision making. I'm going to be really quick about this. Take, for instance, the pitch for a game. We ran the ball, ran the ball, random ball, random ball, ran the ball, ran the ball, ran the ball, got in the red zone. Then we went into the shotgun and started getting two players moving at the same time. Players are not on the line of scrimmage. Things are that.

Those are the things that piss me off. You know what I'm saying? And I'll shut up and listen. All right. Yeah, pre-samps only been a problem for 20 weeks. 20 weeks, Ross. illegal shift while

Remarks is running in a touchdown Yeah, that's right And then you have to kick a field goal You lit four points on fire At the beginning of the game Completely changes the complexion of the game Yeah, the procedural plays I mean we put that on Nick Cayley or whoever

I don't know But the procedural penalties With illegal shifts and illegal formations are unacceptable And just continue to happen Over and over and over again And they're going to go look at the tape They're going to review it I don't want to hear more, but look at the tape anymore.

Remember, C.J. Straud said last week he wanted to get better, and correct his mistakes. He made more of them. Well, he wants to get better. Can he get better? Yeah. Let's go to, is that Nabil? Is that right on line, too? Yeah.

Hi, Nebele. What's up, guys? Hi. Look, so we have a generational defense right now. And if I'm Nick Casario, I am doing one thing and one thing only during this off season. I'm calling the Cincinnati Bengals and asking what I can do. to get Joe Burrow to the Houston Texans. Now, before you guys say anything,

we're not going to hang up on you like they would in Cincinnati. Go ahead. Thank you. CJ Stroud is going to ask for over $50 million a year. He's going to ask for a Trevor Lawrence type of deal. Joe Burrow is already under contract for his $55 million deal for the next few years. You can do whatever you can to not give up this generational defense and get a quarterback that is a needle mover that will automatically be the best quarterback in the AFC South.

and probably a top three quarterback in the AFC for the next five years. What can you do to get Joe Burrow to the Houston, Texas? We have a marginally better offensive line, and we still have weapons. There's nothing to do. It's 0% chance. 0.000000% chance. He's making $50 million a year for the next handful of years. You have to give back $50 million thereabouts, so that's not going to happen. And you're going to have to then give them CJ Stratton.

and why would the Bengals want C.J. Stroud. Forgetting about everything else, why would the Bengals want C.J. Stroud. For the four first-round picks, the same reason why you were able to get rid of Deshawn Watson, because you had so many first-round picks coming in. So if you at least give them that, you have something. The only other option you have is trying to get Kyle Murray. I'd rather have Joe Burrow than Tyler Murray. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah, Nebiel. Joe Burrow, give me whatever. You sound like an awesome dude who would like to hang out with you, but there's zero percent chance that Joe Burroughs coming to Houston. Zero. Just put it down. Oh, my God. I'm sorry, sir.

Thank you very much. I don't mean to ruin his day, but. Yeah, it's not happening. It would be nice. Be cool. I mean, quarterback's just mid-levels get moved. Remember the Jared golf deal? That involved Matthew Stafford.

There was big money on both sides of that. You have to send back big money when you give big money out. Or you're just going to cut a bunch of players. Yeah, if you're not, you don't have to match like the NBA, but you're going to have to. figure out a way you don't have uh let me go back and look at texans cap space is like under 20 million coming up for this next year i think they're gonna have to get some hits in the draft because you're not going to make free agency splashes joe burrell on the books for two thousand 26 is owed

on the cap is 47 that's 48 million dollars in two thousand twenty seven it's 52 million dollars you're not ready for that you got to take here cj or you got to take care of excuse me of will and figure out which guy I mean you got to ultimately is Daniel Hunter going to stick around PFF has the Texans over the cap right now

for next year D. D. Crittle at 26 quickly before we get to the press conference. Hi D. Crittle. All right. I'll try to be quick. So I'm going to be a little bit more practical with my thought and take. I feel like C.J. needs to just grow up

like football-wise. We already know that we've seen them make plays and we've seen them do the improbable on certain games. But we need somebody that's going to be in his corner, like when Peyton had, I think it's not his coach Moore or something like that. Tom Moore, yeah. Yeah, that just pretty much simplified the game for him. And pretty much just made Peyton grow up.

And CJ just needs to just grow up because the other game, well, last yesterday, when he should have dirted the ball, that's a football awareness, just knowing that you have a top five defense and you can just play a field battle all the whole game. And so that's all my take is. Just CJ just needs to grow up and I don't know about paying them going forward. So, but we got to see. I'll tell you what. It's going to be very curious.

Thank you, D. Cruddle. By law, he can have a bounce back season. By law, he can have a wonderful campaign. I'm not buying it at this point because remember the question was asked. Field or CJ in 2027. not six, 27. You and I both took the field. And maybe that's because we're talking about

what happened the last two weeks, but it's like, I don't want to get into fifth year options. I want to get into franchise tagging for a guy who just can't help us out in January. Press conference next, 127 on Sports Talk 790. All right, 131. We are awaiting the press conference

with the head football coach. Got some real geniuses in the YouTube chat. Please explain. Can you read some of it? Let's see. Fire Domeka. and trade for Lamar Trade for Lamar Jackson or

Joe Burrow Got to bring in McDaniels for OC That's actually not crazy We want Cam Newton Oof, YouTube chat Not a lot of road scholars in the YouTube chat Well they were probably down the lower level Doing the wave during the game

In the fourth quarter yesterday CJ needs to be back up Get rid of Gerard Johnson Real fans aren't hating That's ridiculous Real fans or real fans. Be realistic. You can be a diehard fan of the Texans or for that matter any team in our town and be real about what you saw. And what you saw was a hot garbage performance by your quarterback.

Not the ending we wanted, but still a good season. Would Lisa Hidalgo put that in there? I think she did. Eish. It says, Lena for Life, Cash Money. That's the name. Is that? I need a vacation.

It says kickback Hidalgo. Is that her? That's very well it could be. Okay, we need Davis Mills as a starter. Oh, no, it's CJ Stroud as CTE. Oh, stop it. This is rude. Stop it.

I always stop reading this YouTube chat. King Domingo, Ryan's, please come out. It's either going to be reading that or we're going to hear from him. This is correct. Wasted a Super Bowl caliber defense. Joe Burrow will take us to a Super Bowl. All right. We really have to stop the, and I'm afraid the show after us is just going to bring up Joe Burrow. We can't.

Can we tell Adam not to bring it up? Yeah, he can't. It's just not. Wex or Clinton? No, Clinton. And look, I love Joe. The reason why he's saying that is because Joe Burroughs miserable in Cincinnati. But when you are, look, if you are the beneficiary of the $50 million dollar year contract, it's not going to be easy for you to be traded.

So if you're going to sign this long-term commitment, Rossi, you've got to commit to that franchise for however long it's going to be. It's not happening. They did have, Texans did have a better offensive line according to the final season rankings. 27th Texans, 28th, Bingles. Suck it, Bingles. So next year, Zach Taylor can be looking for work probably? Maybe. We were saying maybe Sean McDermott in the bills for next year.

I know. They got rid of them this year. That's crazy. And I really thought Andy Reid might be retiring. I think there's a really good chance next year he retires. He could. You have to have another bad, if they get another mid-season from Pat Mahomes. All right.

We're doing comps here. We did this earlier today. We said Sam Darnold or C.J. Strideon, you said, go ahead and say it out loud so people can hear you. Enunciate? Sam Darnold, I guess. I got one for you. Okay.

Bryce Young or C.J. Stroud. C.J. Stroud right now. Are you absolutely sure? Yes. Okay. This is what's going to happen. The Texans get rid of C.J. Stroud. He's going to go on a cheap deal to a team that can afford him with good pieces around him, and he's going to thrive. That really do feel like that could happen.

A la Baker Mayfield or Sam Darnold or, well, Seahawks, Gino Smith, not Raiders, Gino Smith. So if things do fall apart, and we've talked about this being a possibility, I don't think the quarterback, you're talking about the field of 2027, I think the field quarterback, whomever that may be, is a current NFL quarterback. Don't you think what I just brought up, though, is a perfect example of how much it matters what's around you? From one year to the next, Gino Smith went from 10 and 7 as a starter to 2 and 13. Yeah. Okay, so let's put it this way. we're going to give CJ a first round pick on the offensive line

and we're going to give him Is it going to hit though? Kenyon Green was a first round pick That's true I don't know what Joe Mixon's future is frankly But my guess is because But well What's about on that one

If we got on that one? I got the field It's coffee plus Pastry Don't forget the pastry card I think I'm going almond croissant Well either way I'm going chocolate croissant

Oh chocolate? Yeah with a venty coffee. I like the almond with the powdered sugar. Now the problem is you get the powdered sugar and almond dust all over yourself. But it's still good. You get a bib.

You can walk around with a bib. So all he has to do is get shot in the foot. Or had to have been shot on the foot. Please, there's no freaking way. Seriously. He plaquesico burst himself. I just don't want to believe. If you lose that one,

then you might be right. No. You might as well stop betting me. No, I don't care about losing that one. That one's funny. If I lose it, that bet was worth it. That's why it's a coffee bet And I think we're just going to have to make

Like the daily wager We'll be the name of our show from now We're making stupid ass bets about strange things Oh my God Like we have one bet going on right now We cannot discuss on the air You moved your head but I don't know That right there

Oh I got you That's fine We just can't I know Well I'm getting my ass won Jonathan I'll tell you all fair Yeah I'll know as I'm winning again

Where is to me, go? Is he not talking or what we got going on? I don't see him at all. He's supposed to be having a long. Did he just get fired? Stop. Well, he's brought in to bringing a top caliber offense and be a leader of men, and he's done all that.

I wonder if there's any media even there, because if they were, the legit media would have been in Foxborough. Wex isn't there. Yeah, where's Wex? Where's Wexer update from his? I don't know. He would be tweeting things. that there was something about it. Should have been out there.

Yeah, we should have sent him. Let's see what the Wex thing. He just texted the PWFA All-NFL and AFC teams announced. Okay, thanks, Wex. Appreciate that. Pro Football Writers Association. Great group of people. I believe Chris Gordy is a PFWA member. They pay for that or what?

Yeah, you just sent them 50 bucks. All right, let's see this. Let's get a timeout in here. Oh, okay. Don't you think? Yeah, might as well. The things we were able to accomplish from a really rough start. to a season and to battle back and to finish the season strong, make the playoffs, right? It didn't end the way we wanted to end.

So just got to keep plugging away, finding a way to, you know, figure out a way to not win that division around. You know, that's one of the goals that we have to get to the ultimate goal. You got to win there. And so we got to find a way to get it done. How encouraged are you by what your defense was able to do this season and knowing that you have all these young guys that you should have for years to come? The defense did an outstanding job all year.

It's very encouraging, I think, to everyone, when you watch the way those guys play style, their play style, the demeanor, it's just, it's impressive to see. It's inspirational to see how they play. You know, you're always in it with those guys. They always give you a chance because there's a special group, and they find a way to make plays, find a way to get out to the football.

So it's a special group, special group to coach, really probably for a special group. group and I love and enjoy working with them. CJ is obviously taking the brunt of criticism over the past few hours, but, you know, given how he played earlier in the season and then the playoff run, like the so teller you of it, how do you assess how he did? Yeah, look, the quarterback position is going to get, you know, the most eyes, most attention. We understand that.

And in this league, that's what it is. And CJ understands that as well. Like, I thought just throughout the season, I thought he did a really nice job of coming in, learning new offense, new scheme. I thought he picked it up. Well, we got better as the season went along. And, you know, he made some plays to allow us to win a lot of football games as well. So I'm not going to let, you know, the bad plays there in that game. You know, really, for me, dictate to me who CJ is.

I know who CJ is. I know what he's capable of doing. And so we just keep looking to get better. No one feels worse about the situation than CJ, right? He feels bad, you know, for the team. I feel like he let the team down. And, you know, it just told me you keep your head up and you keep moving forward. Look, we all want it better.

We can't go back in that game right now and running back and play it again. Like, we just learn from it. Like, what do you learn from it? That's my main message to him is what do you learn from that? And how do you make that a priority? and getting it fixed and improving and getting better. What message do you will or will you all if you met with him? What will you give CJ on areas that you as the head coach want to see improvement in his position?

Yeah, I just, I talk with CJ today. And my message is the same. Right now is just about him just flushing this one. It's going to be a lot of negative talk, a lot of, a lot of attention on him. I just say you got to can't listen to it all. He just got to get back to work in the offseason of going back to the basics, the fundamentals of playing the quarterback position,

playing it really well, understanding how. Texas is feeling unlucky. He understands that already. How would you assess offensively just the production on the outside of the ball all year? Do you think they reached the potential if they wanted to? I think our offense grew.

It didn't start how we wanted it to start. So I think the guys got better as the season went along. You know, do you often talk about how difficult it is to win in this league and every year is it's a new year. What do you say to the guys who, you know, were so close, especially the young ones, they put so much into it, you know, and you're like, you kind of start over next year. What do you say to them that's encouraging? Yeah, for the young guys, especially our rookies, I thought all of our rookies contributed a lot to our season. He stepped in, stepped up and did some really nice things for us. I tell those guys to, hey, you don't have long to rest.

Like you have to get back to, you know, really training your bodies throughout the offseason. That's where I've always seen the growth from year one to year two of guys that attack the offseason in the right way, especially the winter. Offseason program, guys that attack that the right way, they really set themselves up to have a really great second year. So I'm just encouraging our guys to do that, be all in. on getting that personal training, very position-specific training that they need to improve their game. What do you tell the defense?

What I tell the defense? I mean, at the end of the day, I thought the defense did a, they did a great job throughout the year. But also, as we look at that game, there are some plays that the defense, like we shouldn't give up in that game. So I think, you know, from, you're going to go back and watch the game.

I know they feel this too. There's some plays in that game that we should have made. Their guys made the plays, and we didn't make the plays. So that's what the game ultimately came down too, right? Their best players stepped up in that moment. They made plays. So I'll tell our guy, like, you talk about being the best, the best doesn't win you anything talking about it. You got to show up and you got to do it.

You got to make the plays in the moment. That's what being the best. looks like, and we didn't make those plays we needed to make in the moment. Amico, I know it's still very soon after the game. And your estimation is there a common thread for CJ's turnovers, both in this game and from Pittsburgh as well? I think each one was a little different. Sometimes you just got to learn if the play is not there, right?

And CJ knows that he's trying to make a play. Play is not there. Sometimes you just got to dirt it. Sometimes you got to take a sack, even though you don't want to do that as a quarter. It's just where the growth level comes. To make a big picture with CJ. You guys have him under the rookie deal. You can do the fifth year extension.

What you guys want to make him your long-term quarterback? And does that need to happen this off-season? Or could you wait? Yeah, we're not getting into that right now. I told you a third year in the road that you all went into this division of game with not being healthy. And the world of pressure catches up to you all. I know that you all speak about this next man mentality. What is the difficulty in finding somebody to be able to come in and replace a Nico Collins or replace Adalton Shultz?

How do you evaluate and keep that same talent level to the position where it's supposed to be? Yeah, you don't. You don't replace Aniko Collins. You don't replace Adalton Shultz. When you lose your top guys, there's any team in his league, you lose your top guys is going to be difficult. I think you got to see the Niners kind of went through something similar to. It catches up with you, right? And the best teams are going to advance,

and the best teams are going to win the Super Bowl, right? And that's got to, you need your top guys out there. You need your top playmakers out there. And we definitely miss Nico, not being out there, Dalton, he made the huge explosive. And Cs-J was able to scramble on a third down and find Dalton on their sideline, made a huge play for us, caught another one there,

almost got in the end zone. Yeah, we definitely miss Dalton and we miss Nico. They've been two of our most productive players all year. So in that moment, you look for other guys to step up and make plays for sure. But we miss those guys. You made a tough decision to move on from Bobby and make Nick OC. Are you confident in Nick getting better and will he have that opportunity? Yeah, with the coaching staff, with our players, you guys asking about contracts, coaches,

player like I'm evaluating everything as we go throughout the week. You all kind of unexpectedly in the spring didn't have Joe Mixing. How much did kind of not having him maybe kind of hurt the offense, particularly at the beginning? Look, when you guys, when you have your best players, you're going to be a better team. Like Joe was a really, he's a really great running back for us and not having him. Yes, of course it. affected our running game.

Joe was one of the top running backs in this league, so, you know, that affected us. Gary, you can't have to be able to evaluate this season? You kind of take a stock of what's happened that they start to make decisions about what needs to happen to keep moving forward. Yeah, well, I'll take the week to reevaluate everything. Go ahead.

Just on that, do you expect a future with Joe here? As right now, I don't know that answer right now. take a few more. The offensive line, that's something that's your job worked on in the off season, kind of remained in a lot of ways. How would you assist the office line overall from Toronto? I thought our guys, I thought the office line did a really nice job, and they, you know, I didn't think they get enough credit for the job that they did.

Like for the offensive line, we're able to put together. Everybody, a lot of people probably gave us slack for the moves that we made with our office align, and they played much better this year than we were. we did last year. They got better. Coach Cole did a really nice job with the offensive line. The technique was better. They improved a ton and they should get a lot of credit for that. On that Joe Mixon topic, do you have any clarity on what is wrong with him and what it would take this off? No clarity. As you put a period behind this season, now intuitively, what if you want to introspective to go

back and look at it. For myself, I just go back and for myself, I'm just looking at making sure, you know, I'm in a great position, great headspace to continue to lead this team in the right way, the messaging, everything, to make sure I'm effective with what I'm doing, right? We're reaching the guys. That's the main thing for myself. And I think any leader, you want to make sure you're leading in the right way.

And that's how are people responding? Are you getting a message across? is it showing up and are you getting it done? As you evaluate the team and you go through it, you assess all the different elements that you want to assess, how much does what change could look like for any given position or role versus what it would look like versus a guy improving?

How much do you weigh into that as you kind of assess the future of various parts of the organization? Tough question right, dear. I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of. lot of different things. Like when you're looking at different, the people that you work with and how can they improve, you just go off the track record to see has there been growth throughout the past.

And you see if you want to continue down that track or not, sometimes, you know, unfortunately in this league, change happens, especially at this point of the year. We see it all around. Change happens. And everybody knows that every time I sit up here, I always say it's a year-to-year league for me. It's not just because we've done it one way this past year. that everybody's going to be the same next year going into it. That's never the league, and I never stand here and act like that is the league.

We're always looking to improve. We're always looking to grow and get better, whether that's, you know, with our personnel, with our coaching, with everything involved, our process and what we're doing. That's how we take time to evaluate that to see how can we take a next step forward. You have an update on how Tank delves processes going with his recovery and how we can factor into this procedure for next year? Yeah, Tank has done a really good job with his recovery throughout the entire all-seat. You know, it's very tough when Tank has such a significant injury, right? And he was battling, trying to get back.

He was working really hard to try to get back, you know, at the end of this past season. It just didn't work out that way. But he's showed up here. As CJ gets ready to go into this off season, and it's his third season here, he's still a fairly young quarterback, but, you know, living in a social media era, and there's a lot of times he's going to hear different types of stuff. What is the message that you will have for him throughout the off season, you know, and they're still going to be putting a lot of blame on him to this last game? I just told him, don't listen to anything. go put your phone away. Don't listen to anything.

It's going to be a lot of negative talk out there for you. So specifically, I just told him just, he's a get away, clear his mind. Because right now at this moment, I know it's going to be a lot of attention on him, a lot of negative media and today, a lot of questions about him. That's what it is. And he understands that, understand the position that he is in, you know, as a quarterback leading a team, you know, a lot is expected of you, a lot of eyes are on you. So when it doesn't go right, it's going to be a lot of negative talk about you.

So he understands that, and he just can't allow the opinions of others to weigh who he really is inside. You guys did, it did feel like it was an improved season, even though it ended at the same spot. What do you hope that this team can learn from how this season went? The thing I hope our guys learn is that whenever you're playing the game, it goes down to executing football. We can make all these stories about this and that and this person, that person. To me, I hope everybody understands that the reason why you lose the game is if you don't execute in a moment. Like, if you don't do your job, if you're not where you're supposed to be,

if you don't make great decisions, if you don't protect the football, that's not going to win you football games. And we can make it a biggest story about any given person, but you got to do the things necessary to win games. And that's what I hope our guys

truly have learned throughout this, no matter who you're playing, when you're playing, where you're playing, what the conditions are. Like, you got to play winning football. That's execution. That's being on the details

and that's finishing the game the right way. that's truly all that matters. If we do those things the right way, and look, we still had an opportunity there to get back in the game and win the game. It wasn't so far in reach. We just, you know, we just didn't do all the things we needed to do

collectively from everybody to win the game. All right. All right, that's going to do it for us. Up next for four hours, oh, maybe three hours and 57 minutes. Joe Burrow to the Texans with the team next, I don't know.