The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show 1-2-20

Episode Date: January 2, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 1/2/20Matt catches Ross up on what he missed (0:00)What is Going on in Dallas? (34:50)Whatchu Talkin' Bout Bill and JJ (43:44)Bold NBA 2020 Decade Predictions (55:35)Sal Capaccio Shares His Insight Covering The Buffalo Bills (1:06:29)Non Florida Stories (1:57:08)

Much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers. This is the Matt Thomas Show. 12-01 in H-town. What's happening in luncht timers? Good afternoon to you. Happy New Year and welcome to a Thursday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports

Talk 790 as we are ready to get into 2020. We have the whole gang back here, pro-Niclo producing, sports rb back fresh from his trip out to West Texas in the woods or the valleys or wherever the hell you were. It's more of the desert in the mountains. Very good. I will say this, and we've got a lot to get to on the show today. Oh, so much. I basically took the last half hour of my life and just recapped what Ross missed while we were gone. Yes.

And I'm still confused. There's not a lot of cell service out there, so I mean, I missed. Two Rockets games. I missed the Texans weekend. I missed Black Monday. Which really wasn't much of a Black Monday. Really? Yeah.

Because Doug Marone is still the coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Why? How? Are you serious? And Jason Garrett hasn't not been fired yet, although WFAA TV says everyone's been fired. You know, I always told the audience a couple days ago, you cannot trust TV reporters. They just don't get it right very often. Yeah, that's true. You can't even trust.

I mean, you can trust anybody on TV. No, a Berman you can trust. Berman's pretty connected. But, yeah, we gave you the play. playoff matchups. We told you that Texas didn't win the Animal Bowl. Who's the one seat in the... So, Texas won the Alamo Bowl. That's great. Was it close? Not really. It was 38 to 10.

Okay, that's good. Yep. The Texans are in the playoffs. That's building Longhorns enough momentum to be ranked in the AP poll for no good reason next year. So looking forward to that annual tradition. Well, of course, that means Texas is back. Of course. Yeah, I'm sure you made that joke. Numerous times. And then we've got the Houston

Texans. We're a couple of days away. They're playing the Buffalo Bills at 330. like we all predicted. Texan's invitational, as I said, death taxes and the early wild card slot on Saturday. So, yeah, we've got you caught up. So I don't think there's anything

that you have missed out on. I'm kind of confused how the Saints are 13 and 3 and 1 and a 3 seed. And then you also have the Patriots 12 and 4 is a 3 seed. Man, that's tough. Yeah. Sunday was fun.

I mean, I don't know. I don't think I would have done what you would have done, like going away and hidden because there was so much stuff going on. But the best is yet to come. How do you celebrate New Year's out the middle of nowhere

at 1159. Yeah, we just stayed up, had a little champagne, at a campfire, hanging out. Told old war stories? No, just listen to music, chill out, you got a little speaker. Hang out, get drunk and under the beautiful... Actually, so the night skies and Big Bend are wonderful,

some of the best in the country. Last night, it was, or was it last night, or two nights ago, whenever it was? Two nights ago, it was cloudy, so we didn't, for New Year's, we didn't really have the many stories. You took no pictures? I got a lot of pictures. We put them on the... put them on your Twitter account. No, I don't, I'm not that kind of guy. I don't know. Michael

Connor is reporting from Paris and London every other second. That's what Michael Conner wants to do that. I'm not a guy that just puts my entire life on my social media. That's just not what I do. Well, I think you should. All right, let's get to the most important things. Man, a lot of stuff going on. J.J. Watt practiced yesterday. That's a huge deal. In full? In full? He's going to play. We don't know how much. I think, I think Bill O'Brien wants to give out the notion that he's going to play a lot. I think realistically, when you are two and a half months removed

from a peck injury, you're not going to play a whole lot. So let that be a little mystery. Will Fuller here. I feel like I could just put this, matter of fact, let me record this in three, two, one. Will Fuller is a game time decision

with an injured groin. Three, two, one. Will Fuller is a game time decision with a sore hamströmstron. ring. Three, two, one. Will Fuller expected to play. Three, two, one.

Will Fuller, unavailable for today's game. I think I've basically knocked out every possible Will Fuller's scenario. And it's frankly sad because the Texans are two different teams when he is out there and when he's not out there. Kenny Stills has been an absolutely fantastic addition to this football team. But Kenny Stills doesn't put the fear of teams like Will Fuller does. Yeah, he's been good. He hasn't mean, I mean, Kenny Stills is not a game change. Kenny Stills is a solid two or three receiver.

Kenny Stills basically catches what's thrown to him. It's just not going to be a whole lot of those situations where Wolf Fuller, at least, under the football vernacular, is going to stretch the field. So that's one of the things going on. I have been... I said at first blush, and Nick, you were here with me on Monday, and this, at first blush, I had the Texans win in this game.

I am back and forth on it like I thought I was going to, and I am as of, and we are basically 52 hours away from the kickoff, I'm still very unsure who's going to win this football game. I think the talent-wise, I really still do believe at the end of the day, that offense is going to be the difference in this game, that Deshaun Watson is going to be able to throw down the field and get his open targets and move the field and build to have some semblance of a running game

that is good as Buffalo's defense is, somebody has to score touchdowns to win it, and I would give the Texans a better chance of doing that than, say, Buffalo. Again, we'll find more about that a little bit later on in the show. But I vision is 2117. And then the next hour, guys, I'm in the other situation where the Texans have terrible problems protecting Deshaun Watson and that Jonathan Joseph gets exposed by John Brown and that Frank Gore gets a big run, two or three big runs. And I envision the Texans losing this one 20 to 10.

I am all over the place on this. I will tell you, I, after the Denver Broncos game, I said I will not going to believe in this team at any point that they can win a big game. I don't want to be one of those fans or people or pundits or whoever who says, I need to see it before I believe it. You have to win the Super Bowl to prove me wrong. No, that's not necessarily where I am. I need them to see them win these big games in the playoffs. and as of right now, I'm picking the Buffalo Bills to win this game. I just haven't seen enough consistency out of Deshaun Watson.

He didn't play in the last game, and then the three games before that, he was very inconsistent. You have problems on the offensive line. The defense is getting J.J. Watt back, which is to me is a huge wild card. If he can be effective, then you obviously get a huge boost. But I don't think there's particularly a ton of talent, defensive side, all three levels. So I just, I have to go with the Buffalo Bills right now. in a close one, though. I think it's a closely evenly match game,

as does Vegas, as they have the Texans winning by three. Yeah, and again, if this game was in Buffalo, I think the bills would be a favorite by three points. I think these are as evenly a match teams in positives in both directions, in different directions,

but, man, I cannot, here's what I can't get out of my mind. The Kansas City game of yesterday year, the Indianapolis game from yesterday year, from last year, it's just hard for me to shake those

complete and utter beatdowns by good football teams. And that's the thing, though, Matt. You don't even have to go to years past. You don't have to go to last year a couple of years ago or Brian Hoyer era. You can go to the Denver Bronco game. You can go to the Ravens game. But I'm going to forget about those because those are regular season

contests. I think at some point you have to step up your game. I'm not going to let a Carolina and Denver loss in a regular season make me think they can't beat Buffalo on a Saturday afternoon in the wall. card. I'm going to make me, it's going to shake my confidence. It's going to make me not feel great about them. By the way, I got a poll question up, and you know I love the poll questions.

We know you love polls, Matt. Your current Texans playoff temperature, chills, 98.6 beat Buffalo first. I got the Fiva. And we got a data. That's what I thought. Chills as in this is not going to go well. Yeah, see, that's confusing. Chills would mean like I'm excited to me.

Well, I think if you look at the other three, the other two options, it makes sense. And people have figured it out. This could have been better. Man, you're always criticizing me. I'm back in the seat. I'm ready. Seriously.

It took you eight minutes to criticize a poll question. Well, no, it's fine. You can do it. No, it's great. You know what? Great poll. No, it's not.

It's a new year. It's a new year. It's a new me. That's a fantastic poll with great options, man. D of the year. That way, we had a D of the year on Tuesday. Would you like to take a guess? Um,

I'll give you three or four guesses. Yeah, give me some multiple choice. No, it's too obvious to give multiple choice. Really? D of the year. Think about what has gone on. Oh, you guys went with probably Mike Fires. I didn't go with them. The audience did.

I went with officiating. A bunch of winers. Officiatings? That's good. In general. I think we have spent more time this year complaining about officiating in sports than we ever have before. It's getting worse. I went with the NCAA.

That's good. Yeah. The two finalists were Mike Fires Antonio Brown? I think Antonio Brown's a really strong candidate. Strong. Yeah. All right.

So currently on the poll question, your current Texans playoff temperature, the leader in the club asked it 55% is 98.6 beat Buffalo first. 31.9% have chills, meaning, you know, when you have chills, you don't feel good. If you're talking about temperature. Okay. And I got the Fiva 12.9%. Okay. We've got a day left to vote on it if you'd like to vote at SportsMT on Twitter.

So we got that going. We will go to Buffalo coming up at 1.30 this afternoon. Wonderful. Sal Capaccio. Sal Capaccio. I mean, if there is on a more upstate New York name than Sal Capaccio, I would like to know what it is. Is there an R in his name? Is it Carpaccio?

It's a C-A-C-L-A-O. Okay. So not the appetizer. What is the appetizer? Casacho? No, Carpaccio. Oh. It's thinly, very thinly sliced and hammered beef. It's basically salami, right?

Sort of. It's raw. Okay. So Sal Capaccio. It's hammered and wrong. WGR Radio in Buffalo will join us at 1.30 to 7. Wonderful. We got non-Florida stories coming up today. Mine is a little bit of a freak one.

We might as well open up 20-20. It's a freak one? A freaky non-Florida story. Like straight freaks? Or like freaky? Straight freaks. Okay. So we got that going on today.

We've got a lot of other things to get to, including we mentioned JJ Wat back at practice. the Dallas Cowboys have yet to fire Jason Garrett. And they had 85,000 people at a hockey game yesterday. I'm not a hockey enthusiast, but let me tell you something, Dallas. You all did it right. They played that outdoor game at the Cotton Bowl yesterday. Like 52 degrees. 85,000 people there.

They had 20,000 Nashville fans at the game. It got my juices flowing for L. And I know nothing about hockey. It was fun for that. We have some crazy NBA predictions from somebody at Sports Illustrated and NFL and a lot of the things going on today. So if you'd like to join us, 713-212-5-790, I still think a lot of you are off until probably Monday,

so if you are not able to normally get in on the show, you are more than welcome to do so. 7-13-212-5-790. 7-1-3-2-790 at SportsMT at SportsRV at ProNiclo. It is the Matt Thomas show. Thank you for listening to Sports Talk 790. This is defense-tackle, DJ Reader. The Matt Thomas show continues on Sports Talk 790. Real Texans talk here.

Happy New Year once again, everybody, 1217 on the Matt Thomas show for this Thursday. It was kind of weird having a Wednesday off. You know, I'm all for a four-day work week. I just don't know if I wanted to be a Wednesday. It was odd, but we still have two more days to go. We got two more days to get into the Texans. And again, if you'd like to vote on any of the poll questions, we got up on the Twitter account at SportsMT, you can do so today. Just kind of just get in the sense of what you all are thinking about. Because again, for me, I'm, like last night, I couldn't go to sleep for like 90 minutes. And I thought about a variety of things.

And I thought, well, I'll spend 10 minutes of my non-sleeping time thinking about the Texans game. Okay. And how I envision this. You section out your, well, there's the making out with a pretty girl. Okay. You know, back in the day. All right. There's the winning the lottery.

There's the going to Vegas and throwing the dice. And then there's the 10 minutes of horror that, you know, I have terrible accident in your car. I'm saying I do compartmentalize my non-sleeping time. Okay. So I gave the Texans 10 minutes this morning. Okay, good. Between like 342 and 352. I don't know how this is going to go.

Because the Texans have been very flat the last month. One games, but yet flat. Buffalo had a chance to put the big boy pants on, so to speak, and could not beat the Patriots at New England. They lost their last game of the Jets, but they didn't care about that game, so I don't even count that one, nor do I count the Texans lost to Tennessee.

I do remember how well Buffalo played on Thanksgiving against Dallas, but Ross Dallas isn't not very good. The Texans are better than Dallas Cowboys. They played the Ravens close. The loss to the Patriots was close as well. They don't have a ton of great wins. They don't have a ton of great wins. They went to Philadelphia and lost there.

They beat the Broncos. I think Philadelphia beat him in Buffalo. Philadelphia is their worst loss because they lost by almost 20. Other than that, every other loss is by one score. Josh Allen is a guy that doesn't necessarily throw you with his arm, but as we'll talk about later on today with Sal Capaccio from WGR, he's going to tell you that Josh Allen is a very accomplished runner as a quarterback. Not a scramble.

I mean, obviously he scrambles to get out of pressure, but they will design some plays, I believe, for Josh to run the football. Bootlegs, third and shorts. They will use him to do that. And while we certainly believe Deshaun is an accomplished runner, most of the time Deshaun is running for his life to avoid sacks and keeping plays alive as compared to, hey, let's put Deshaun out in the open field because I don't think any of us want that.

Yeah, they're going to run the ball. They're going to try to, I mean, that's somewhat of the, at least if you go to the Ravens game, the blueprint against the Texans is to run the ball against them and run it down their throat. That's what the bills are going to try to do. It's kind of an old school formula of we've got a really good defense. We're going to try to win on that

and have the offense not mess it up. And that's why they play a lot of close games. Like I just said, I mean, a lot of their losses are almost all their losses are by one score. A lot of their wins are by one score. They just play a lot of tight games. And that's, I think, one of the reasons, not just you, but everybody's

having kind of a tough time figuring and trying to handle on this because this is going to be one of those close games where any one play can swing it the other way. Because the Buffalo defense has been very good and consistent all season long. They go to put up good pass rush. Their secondary is very good. My man, Ed Oliver, my U of H. Hero, is having a really good rookie campaign. He's been okay. He's been okay. They've got really good cornerbacks. They're running back. The safety is good. Tradavius. White's been the guy who's been talked a lot. I still, I mentioned this a couple days ago. Will Kevin Johnson have one one of those Kareem Jackson moments coming back to Houston, Texas and wanting to own up and say,

revenge game. Yeah. I mean, those things happen. It's true. You know, I mean, I don't know Kevin Johnson is very well at all, if any. But my guess is when he found out he was, they were going to open to the playoffs of all places they wanted to do it. He's not necessarily going, oh, my God, I'm going back to Houston. I don't know if I can handle the pressure of this.

I bet he has that thing circled on his calendar, just like I think Kareem Jackson did with Denver. Yeah, I, you know, I'm very curious about J.J. Watt. Nobody knows the answer to this. Not even Bill O'Brien, for that matter, not even what, I don't even think J.J. Wat knows. How many plays, how good he's going to feel. Remember, Ross, there's one thing about putting the pads on in practice and getting hit a little bit than doing it against an offensive line that wants to push you around and double team you and all that kind of thing. So Romeo Cornell is going to probably have to have the coaching game of his life or recent life. In order to properly put him in the right situations, and then how much, if we're presuming that JJ Watt becomes a only a pass-only rusher on long passing plays or any passing plays, how often will Buffalo flip that, check down to it, and use their running game and try to push JJ to the side?

Yeah, that's definitely something to consider, and that's been one of the ways to mitigate, especially when Jdeby and Clownie was here, was to run at him. And same thing with JJ Watt because he'll like to get upfield and get after the quarterback. That'll just be something to keep an eye. We'll see how effective he can be. And I'm really interested to see how much he's going to play. How effective is J.J. Watt? Is he going to be able to have an impact on the game is the bottom line? Is he going to be above a replacement player?

As I said the other day, I have three thoughts in my mind. One, he is this big superhero that comes back, puts a pass rush on the 10th, Texans defense that we have not seen probably even when he was playing. I mean, it hasn't been a ferocious pass rush this entire season, but he adds a layer that hasn't been there. And you go, okay, wow, he's back. This team

can really start, can be carried based on what he does. Option number two is he hurts himself early in the contest. He has his helmet in his hand. He walks back to the bench, walks to the locker room, and it's like the best days of J.J. Watt are

now gone and behind us. and then there's three. There's the, he's just a guy. I think it's going to be three. I think we may hear his name called, and this is, look,

we're all speculating, right? And we're not doctors. I don't know how strong he's going to be. I just know this is an injury that normally knocks people out for an entire year. And unless... Well, at minimum four or five months. Right.

He's coming back in two and a half. So I just, I know he's a superhuman and all that type of stuff, but everybody has their limits. So I think it will be, we'll see him a good amount of snaps. You might hear his name called once or twice, but for the most part,

we're not going to notice he's there. So here's the first third down the Buffalo has. Yes. J.J. runs on the field. What's that crowd going to do? They're going to lose their mind. I would hope so. He's going to get a pick six.

Don't you envision this exactly going as planned? I mean, I don't think JJ's out on first and ten. Maybe not. I don't know. I don't know. Do we have any intel or information on that? See, I've been in the woods. I know.

The woods is he's ready to go. They're not going to necessarily discuss how many plays. And divulge ready to know. And I wouldn't. No, should that? Yeah. Keep it to yourself. Right.

The thing of it is, though, is that is he doing this because he wants to be a superhero? Or is he doing this because he really has recovered a lot faster than anybody else has? I'm just saying if the Texans from a defensive stance, point win this football game. If we come back on Monday at 12 noon, how much is it is because of what JJ did? Or is it how much of the fact that the Texans' offense was able to put up a lot more points? I'm just leery that Buffalo wants to get in any sort of 27, 26 kind of football game.

I just, I don't think that that's going to happen. I really don't. It would surprise me. I'll put it that way. And I also do think we do have a history of J.J. Watt coming back from injury, maybe not earlier than he should, but just kind of rushing it. With his back injury, he had seemed like he was, they were trying to tell him to take it easy, and he wouldn't take it easy, and then he re-injured his back, and then he had to have multiple surgeries.

So is this the same kind of deal? Is JJ Watt, you know, the thing you love about him is he wants to compete and wants to be out there, but that also can hurt him if he's going to be out there and hurt himself some more? Well, the one thing I will say this go-around is I do not believe the Houston, Texas as an organization, would put J.J. there any sooner than absolutely he's 100% cleared because it is abnormal for a guy for anybody to go through a peck injury and miss this short a period of time the texans let's be honest ross have won a lot of games without j j wad on the football field they really have are they better with a full 100% j j wad of course they are because he's going to command double teams that most

other people in his position do not do. But the Texans, look, haven't had a pass rush all season long, realistically. They've still won 10 football games. They've gotten the quarterback enough to cause some problems. The one thing they haven't done this year that I feel like they've done in other years that really made a difference with it, really with the exception of the Tampa Bay game, is this is a team that has thrived on winning the turnover battle. And I feel like in the last, this entire season, that there have been games where the team

has picked off some passes, but the team. there hasn't been any sack strip fumbles. There haven't been any fumble returns for touchdowns. The Tampa Bay game obviously is different because James Winston just like to throw to other people, not naming his own teammates. But that's how I think the Texans win a game like this. Because remember, this is Josh Allen's first playoff game. This is a Buffalo Bills team that is littered with players that don't have a tremendous amount of playoff experience, you would think. And the Texans do. And I would certainly hope the Texans would be thinking every single minute of the day until the game on 3.30 on Saturday about how embarrassing their performance was against

Indianapolis. That was atrocious. That normally gets coaches fired, even coaches that make the playoffs. Not here, obviously. Because Bill's got the guaranteed contract. His general manager is not going to fire him. But that usually gets people let go. If they lose 27 to 6 this week, it's back to the drawing board. There will be no coaching. changes. Cal will let the general manager, which is Bill. Now, they'll go up to Casario, but apparently Nick Casario is going to be wanted by a lot of different folks. It's how bad do they want him and how much they want to pay. I don't believe it to be the case. I think Jack Easterby is going to be, is going to gain even more steam running this front office than even

has this past year. I think they like the structure where there is. There's no person they have to directly go to accept a cow. And Cal's going to just sign off on anything you want. So, I wouldn't, I I wouldn't ruin the infrastructure. If they lose this game, even if they get embarrassed this game, there's nothing going to happen with Bill O'Brien. I mean, he's Teflon right now. Well, here's what's going to happen. He got an extension after a four and 12 seasons.

Monday and Tuesdays is going to be a lot of huff and puff. Yes. And then it will be, let's start talking about the draft. And on to your earlier point about J.J. Watt, he doesn't mean he can just be just a guy. The Texans quarterback hurry percentage is 7%. That's second to last only to the Dolphins. they're only hurrying the quarterback on 7% of dropbacks. Yeah.

It's not good. But they've still won. Yeah. So it couldn't be any worse. How about that? Yeah. I mean, again, it's only going to get better. You just don't hope that there's not that holding helmet and hand moment in time where you went,

oh, my God, please don't tell me he got re-injured himself. Please don't tell me he rushed back out there. Now, if they win the game, it would be a different story. 1229. And this is the Matt Thomas show 713-212-5-790. 713212-1-2-5-790. If you'd like to reach out via Twitter, you can do that as well. At SportsMT.

Will Fuller remains game-time decision. Jerry Jones, apparently game-time decision on the future, Jason Garrett. Next on 790. This is Carlos Corrella. Sports Talk, 790. Back to back jack for the assholes. It's your home. Fasters baseball.

53. Good afternoon. It is a happy new year. You notice your bosses are always in a good mood today? I think it's steadily crank years of your moving along. You know, you don't have to do quarterly budgets on the first. Yeah. You attack me early on my poll questions here. You're right in September mode.

I didn't attack you. I just questioned the wording. I knew you were going to say that. I knew you were going to. Okay. Well, if I'm just being honest, when I first read it, I was a little confused, but I figured it out. Good. I'm glad.

I'm sure most people figured it out. They did. 713-212-5-7-90. If you'd like to join our show today, 7-1-3-2-1-7-90. Bills on the Matt Thomas show. Hello, Bill. Yes. Hello? Yeah, we're right here, Ben.

Yeah. I was just curious how all the different conferences in college football did during the bowls. Like what conference did the best? Well, I can tell you that SEC was the best conference in terms of record, wins and losses. What was, like they put what, 18s in? Yeah, I think they went 6 and 2. Wow. Okay. And, you know, what's Buffalo?

How's Buffalo going to defend, like, Hopkins and stuff, you know, and Fuller, it's Fuller plays. Yeah, I mean, what, just rush three and have eight guys defend them the three receivers? Well, it depends on which receivers. Thank you for that lightning phone call. Have a happy new year. How do they defend them? I think they're going to put a bigger pass rush on. on

Deshawn that he has seen in quite some time. They have Hughes, who's their other edge guy? He's decent, I can't remember. Trent Murphy you're talking about? Yes. Hughes and Murphy.

And Ed Oliver will play a little bit, move around. Ed Oliver's good. Jerry Hughes is the guy that's the most recognizable name in that group. Yeah, I would say so. Yeah, I think it's definitely going to post some problems for the offensive line for the Texans, and that's definitely going to be something to watch. And I don't necessarily know exactly how the run defense is for the bills,

but we know that no matter what, if it's great or if it's horrible, Bill O'Brien is going to run a lot because that's what he did. He ran into the teeth of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense. He's going to run into the teeth of any defense because he likes to run to set up the pass, and that's what we know is going to happen on Saturday. Do you think he does that too much? I mean, if we really took a look at teams that had decent running games, and the Texans running game would be declared decent, right?

I mean, Carlos Hatt, a thousand yard rushing year. Duke Johnson, good receiver of the backfield, gets a few carries here and there. It's a good decent. I mean, I don't think it's a wee bit over critical to say, okay, it's first and ten. Bill's going to run, setting up a second down. I mean, I think more teams than not do that. No, he's got at least last check, this was like maybe four or five weeks ago. He was like 28th in the entire NFL's run on first down percentage.

So relative to other teams, it's even more than normal. But I will say this. One part of the, or a big part of a head coach's job in the NFL is to recognize your team's strengths and weaknesses and go to that. So if your team can't pass block, why are you going to pass block on every single first down? That doesn't make sense. Because you're, you would just be doing it just a sake to do it. So Bill O'Brien, I will say to his credit, if the team, if he doesn't think the team's going to pass block well and you don't want to, you'd rather a second and eight than a second and 17 because of a sack, then. He's going to run the ball.

He's going to try to stay a little bit on schedule. So I understand why he does what he does. What I think people get cranky about is first and 10 gain of two, second down gain of three, and you're facing a lot of third and fives, which makes the middle of the field, the sweet spot, you don't get to do a lot of deep throws down the field. You don't get to really test defenses because you're trying to maintain

and keep a drive alive. Well, I mean, when you have a weaker offensive line, that's kind of what he has to do. He's trying to stay on schedule. He's not trying to have. you know, a chunk play offense. He's trying to move the chains. And that's effective.

I mean, it can work. So it is what it is. It would be obviously more awesome to watch, I don't know, Lamar Jackson type. Well, they run actually, I think, more than anybody on first down the Ravens. But, you know, taking shots down the field, run, razzle dazzle, all this crazy stuff. Let's drop back 60 times, et cetera, et cetera.

Texans aren't built for that. And especially not without Will Fuller. Let's just do this. Let's separate what they do really, really well. They're a very good third down completion team. team. A lot of that is because Deshawn makes plays, keeps drives alive. The RPO has been very, very good for them this year. They've used Duke Johnson exactly how they were supposed to use him,

if not even, maybe not even as much as they should have. The tight ends are a part of the game. Every time DeAndre Hopkins, the ball is within three yards, he's going to grab the football because, again, he's got great hands and wins the 50-50 ball. He's been able to use Kenny Stills when necessary. The two guys that I think people thought of in training, camp that we're supposed to be the super solid two and three wide receivers, either have been in

the doghouse or been injured. We're talking about Will Fuller and Kiki Kootie. So how you're trying to win a football game using a guy that wasn't on your football team a week before the start of the season in Kenny Stills, some tight ends who have been a nice part of the team. And ultimately, Ross, you're trying to keep, you want your quarterback upright as much as possible because if he can avoid the pass rush and can hesitate, he's an escapeability like. like he always has, he always figures out a way to throw the football for a first down.

What gets him in trouble is when that pass rush is too intense, he tries to make throws he shouldn't be making because of that pressure being too much. And then he throws the ball right to the line of scrimmage where it's intercepted by a defensive lineman, or he throws a ball in the double coverage and it's interception. I think the two things for me, there's really three things. one, the silly Deshawn Watson interception has to be avoided. Then you can say that about every week. But I'm talking, you know, there's difference between the ball off the hands and the why in the hell did you throw that?

That's got to be one thing. We've had more of those, I feel like, this year than any other year. Probably so. Number two, I think the Texans defense has to force a turnover or two. How good did it feel beating Tampa Bay to win that AFC South when 45 seconds into the contest you were up seven to nothing? And then number three is, you know, don't allow Josh Allen to become a running star. Because again, we'll visit more about this when we go to Nashville to Nashville, to Buffalo,

is that they like to use him. He's actually pound for pound a better running quarterback than Deshaun Watson is. Again, different scenarios. But Josh Allen, you know, if he gets pocket protection and he gets comfortable and he knows where he is on the football field, he's going to beat you with your arm to a certain extent, but it's going to beat you with your legs too. Yep. And they just have to stay on schedule on offense,

and they'll be fine. Because if you get off schedule, if you get down 21 to nothing somehow in this game, that's when things start a spiral out of control. And oh, by the way, no more pre-snat penalties. That'd be nice. Laramie Tunsell, I swear, if you've jumped this week,

we're not going to do the obligatory Laramie Tunsel. We're just going to flat out say, what are you doing? The holds, that's going to happen with every offensive line. and that's just part of the NFL. The amount of pre-snap penalties, the number of times the Texans find themselves in a second and 12

or a first and 15, you can't do that come playoff time. Because here's the big issue, Ross. This isn't about, this post is about beating Buffalo this week. It's about getting to the AFC championship game for the first time and forever. You have a Patriots team who looks as vulnerable as possible. And we haven't said that about a Patriots team

in what, 20 years? Baltimore has got Lamar Jackson going to play in his very first playoff game. He has been absolutely amazing. He's going to win the MVP. But a playoff game is going to have different level of intensity. Kansas City, I'm not completely sure

Pat Mahomes is still not 100% from going through his ailments. Now, I do believe Baltimore and Kansas City are way above the Texans when it comes to if you were to cede them and obviously they are by the rankings. But this year is as close to you got a puncher's chance

as compared to the years where Indianapolis had Manning, you had Brady in his prime, you know, Manning doing his thing in Denver. I'm not saying this is a great chance, but it feels better this year than it says three or four years ago.

I feel like it was kind of wide open last year because, I mean, we've been talking about the Patriots being vulnerable on it, I feel like, for the last couple of years. There was, I mean, but this year feels even different. Of course. It's more dramatic, I feel like.

But yeah, we're always been going with this as Brady done. It seems like it's been happening, or Max Kellerman's been calling Brady Dunn for like five years. So, but from what's going to happen this weekend and the best case scenarios and all that type of stuff, yes, you have to win this game. Then I guess you hope against all hope that the Titans can pull it out because then it would recede and you would go to Arrowhead instead of up to Baltimore, right? That's right. And you've won an Arrowhead this year. Yeah, seven, but I don't even use that at all.

Do you think a mid-October win? No, it doesn't mean a lot, but I mean it's, it's, it's. Oh, it's a better thing. Would you rather go to Baltimore where you got your ass kicked 41 to 7 or you want to go to Arrowhead where you've won before? I don't think either one of them. Okay, me either, but. Be truth be honestly told. I get that too. All right.

What is going on in Dallas? We have to discuss that next. 1243, the Matt Thomas show, 713, 212-790 if you want to chime in. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Hey, it's Jeff Blum. Blum fact number 14. I was on the White Sox in 2005. Yeah, sorry about that sweep, H-Town.

But we're all good right now, right? World Series champion! Back to your lunchtime champion, Matt Thomas. Why do we have no news out of Dallas? Not that we particularly care, but we kind of care. It's one of the most interesting angles in sports. We'll discuss that in a minute here on 790. Let's go to Ronnie and Forrest Lake of the Matt Thomas show.

Ronnie, happy New Year. What's going on? I normally call you a lot during baseball season, but I've got to talk about the old Texans a little bit. Okay. With regard to JJ, I can't believe that they would put him out there if they thought he couldn't do something. That's right. Now, where I wish they would do, and I don't think they've ever considered it, his first couple of years, he was a beast on special teams. I don't know how many punts and field goals he blocked. But if you want to put him in a situation where they might not be.

be prepared to handle him. If Buffalo's got a punt, say, from deep in their own end of the field, I would think that the possibility could exist that he might be able to block a punt. And I know they've already blocked a couple of puns this year. So, you know, I don't know if that would ever be a consideration. The comment I have about the offensive side of the ball, I hope Will Fuller is able to play. But if he's not, and even if he is, I hope they activate.

all three of their tight ends. And I don't know if any of them is capable of being Gronkowski, but they've all shown the ability to catch the ball, particularly in the red zone, in tight situations. Thomas did last year. Aiken has and Felsus have really had a good year. And if they want to take Hopkins away, I think if they do that,

one of those three guys, if they all play at the same time with Duke, I think we could have some success in the passing game. Yeah, good points, Ronnie. Thank you for the phone call. The tight end's been good. I'm not going to complain about the tight end production at all. It's frankly rather predictable what the Texans have done with their tight ends, yet they still find a way to catch the ball three or four times a game.

They still find the end zone. It feels like once a week. They were doing the tight-in in motion, a little handoff, and then the tight-in would go to the flat, and that was working a lot earlier. Five-yard gains, yeah. It hasn't been working as much, I don't feel like. But, I mean, other than that, they're trying to get them involved.

So, I mean, this is more than we've seen in years past. So I don't have any problems with the tight ends and the Texans and the use of Bill O'Brien. I think that, I mean, here's the thing. We criticize Bill for a lot of things. And we'll always criticize him until this team gets to where they need to be. And that's the Super Bowl. It comes with the territory being head coach. I think when he has been at his best, there has been imagination.

There has been some diversity. but I don't know if I've seen it in the last month and I don't even count the Tennessee game. Of course, yeah, you wouldn't. Not to count that one. I would say we see flashes. And this is what comes with the territory of what I completely believe

is that Bill O'Brien is an average NFL head coach. He is capable of doing creative things. He is capable of doing smart things. He's also capable of screwing everything up and making bad play calls. So he's just one of the things in any walk of life that separates average to above average to good to great is consistency. And it's just not that consistent.

Like is there a team in the NFL that when we watch on a Sunday that we can't wait to see what new wrinkles they put in? I will give you probably two teams and it's easy to do this because they have got great quarterbacks. I always find what Kansas City does to be very, very interesting. First one I thought of. I think Seattle's a team that does some, some of the certain. Same type of things as well. I think the only time we ever see the Texans, and I'm not talking about trick plays.

I think Kyle Shanahan and the Niners, I think they do a lot of good stuff. Yeah, especially with the run game. Especially this year. But this isn't of which team has the biggest trick plays. It's which shows the most diversity. Which team keeps you guessing? And for as good of a quarterback as Pat Mahomes is,

you're always looking for their next bag of tricks. What they're going to do? I'll go with the, how about Sean Payton and the Saints, and the way they use Taysam Hill. Absolutely. That keeps defenses off... For sure.

Off balance. Yeah, they don't run Wildcat much anymore in the NFL like they used to, but the Texans don't even have somebody that would do that per se, unless you wanted to have Duke Johnson take some snaps. What's Braxton Miller up to? Here's the thing. You don't want to all of a sudden reinvent the will-come playoff time. Of course not.

What happens is you put JJ Watt in a Watt cat and it becomes a complete embarrassment. While he has a sports hernia injury. Yeah. All right, more on the Texans coming up. the top of the arts. We've got to play some sound bites a little bit from JJ Romeo and we'll get some Bill O'Brien as well. So why do the Cowboys, why have they made a decision yet? Why? Because his contract is over with. He is in theory, not a Dallas Cowboys coach right now, unless they're in the room carving on a new contract for him. There's no way.

So why is he still, why has it not been, uh, I mean, are they asking his advice of who should replace him? Yeah, maybe. No, I, I, I don't know. I don't know what's taking so long. It's Jerry Jones. That's what's taking so long. It is. It is so. Jerry doesn't want him fired, and he's probably fighting with, what's the son, Stephen? Stephen. He's fighting with Stephen Jones right now probably. The last time those two guys fought, Stephen won.

He ripped Johnny Mansell's name out of his hand. But this is three days. I wish he wouldn't have, though. Because if let's, if anybody, look, we've all had to fire people at some point in our life. I don't like to say all, but a lot of us have. I'm there fired anybody. Well, I fired some people. It's not fun.

But it takes a while to get that person fired. I don't believe Jerry Jones had this open mind up until the final Sunday of the season. He had to have known what his grandiose plans were going to be, depending on how they were going to finish, if they were going to the playoffs, if they're going to make a deep run, or in this particular case, not make the playoffs. If you're meeting with them for the third day, there's no severance. there's no, got to figure out what's the two years left in the contract. There's, like, he doesn't live in a corporate-owned apartment. You know what I'm saying?

He, you know, it would take him an hour to clean his stuff out of his office. He must be coming back. No way. There's no way. Isn't it funny? He went eight and eight. Didn't he go eight and eight like his first three or four seasons there? He reeks of eight and eight.

You know how nine and seven is not the bar here in Houston? Well, eight and eight and it is not the bar in Dallas, but yet they hit it every year. and the fact is there's going to be some egg on people's face WFAA TV out there like a mud a couple days ago everybody in the staff has been fired

now if they if it's true then they get scoreboard yeah if they don't they better erase their tweet as soon as as humanly possible or freezing cold takes or old takes expose we'll get them in a millisecond but then we'll all move on

we'll forget about it people get stuff wrong all the time in 2019 there's no credibility that's the best part about being a in sports media in 2019 where you couldn't say that when I got in the business in 1991. If you want to put out put something out there and it was wrong, you got embarrassed. I mean, look at Chris Broussard. We still crack on him for that 50-50 by Dwight Howard coming to Houston. Remember there

was a thing about he was saying Mark Cuban was frantically trying to text DeAndre Jordan. Correct. And he was like running the Houston streets frantically trying to text DeAndre and Mark Cuban said, I will pay like $300,000 or whatever it was to your favorite charity, if you can prove this. Yeah. Now in 2019, you could put anything out there you want. And if you're wrong, you go delete it before a freezing takes gets a hold of it. And then if freezing takes or old takes exposed puts you up there, you go, ha ha, you guys got me.

Yeah. And then you still get the clout from being wrong. And that's right. All right. Let's hear from Romeo Cornell. We will hear from J.J. We will hear from Bill O'Brien all in the next half hour. We go to Buffalo at 130 to get their perspective.

Plus on the show today, some crazy predictions from Sports Illustrated's basketball writers about what could happen this decade in the NBA, and one of them involves one of your favorite rockets. This is the Matt Thomas Show. 101. It is the Matt Thomas show. Nick Ross. Kind of a yucky day outside. See, we had these new, what do you call these things? These little shields, sun shields, I guess.

Yeah, it's like a sunscreen kind of. So we really can't tell what the weather's like. It's very confusing but I think it's because it's very dreary. Like if it was sunny

could we tell it was sunny? Yes, I think so. We'll take you a little video tour during a post-show show. Yeah, nobody cares. But okay. And look at it. How did this wall already get ruined?

It's been like that. No, I got painted here, right? Well, somebody, probably big serge. All right, 713, 212, 5. 713, 212,000. 5.790. We've got an update from Buffalo coming up at the bottom of the hour. And we also will have a non-flora stories coming up. Mine today comes from the state of Oklahoma. So be ready for that. Mine's from Cornwall, England.

Why do you always go international on your non-in Florida stories? You sure? You'll love this one, Matt. Okay. And Ross, you're still working on your non-florida story, correct? Oh, very vigorously, yes. All right. So that is always a fun part of our week as we get to run through a story that involves something Not related to something crazy happening in the state of Florida. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-5-7-90.

Romeo Cornell asked about it. There will be a snap count for JJ on Saturday. Well, I think that we'll have to kind of measure to see where he is and how he's doing, you know, because he hasn't played in eight games. Even though he's been working with the strength and conditioning people, you know, the football condition when you're playing in a big game, your adrenaline gets picked up and you get winded a little bit faster. You know, so we'll have to measure that to see how that goes.

And then I think that will impact how much he plays. But the thing, I don't think that we want to expose him too much, you know, if he's not able to go at a good level. You can read as much into that as you want, and I will do that. It's going to be very little. Hmm. Yeah. I think you could get that from there. I think it's JJ, we commend you, my friend, for being able to be physically able to, you know, recover quickly from this peck injury. But there is a world of difference between being in regular good shape and in being in football game day.

You're going to get your brains beat out shape. And no human being, even JJ Watt, can't be that person on Saturday, especially in a game as important as this one. If he would have had a week, like if you could have come back and play a little bit in the Tennessee game, that might have Ross done wonders for him. But he couldn't because he had to miss that eighth game. Yeah. I mean, how many practice reps is going to be? How many, what kind of kid gloves are they going to have? What are they going to want to see out of him?

If he is getting fatigued, can you even get him off the field? Or is he going to say, no, like, wave them off? And how much say does he have personally and individually over the coaching staff? There's a lot of factors into seeing how affects. if JJ Watt is going to be. All right, so let's answer the last part of that question. How much power do you think he has? I think he holds a tremendous amount of power.

I think he owns more than, say, you know, Jacob Martin or Barquevius Mingo or something, for sure. Can, but... He owns as much, even with him being injured. He owns as much as Deshawn and DeAndre have. I think... I agree with that. For instance, James Hardin has as much ownership

gets to do with whatever he wants for the Rockets. You know, the only way Jose Al-Tu is... ever takes a day off is because he's mandated to be taking a day off because the organization tells them to. I think that's part of the reason that Hinch schedules them so they just know. So it like tempers the, what are you doing? I want to play. Right.

I bet Bregman's in that same category. Those guys, they're just a handful of guys. JJ watch that kind of breed. JJ does not want to sit. JJ did not go through the two and a half months of recuperation for this in order to be on the sidelines to play 15 plays. But realistically, there's going to have to be a fine line between, What JJ wants and what the game tape, the live action says.

If he's out there being a disruptor, maybe forcing a double team, getting a couple TFLs, maybe trying to hit the quarterback, then he gets to have free reign. But if not, Romeo or somebody else in defense can have to have stones until JJ, hey, you're only good for us for a certain number of plays. That's why I'm thinking, is there going to be at least a loose snap count? kind of to what I said about the scheduling the day off so that JJ knows hey and they can discuss it beforehand JJ you know we're only going to pay play you 15 20 30 whatever it's going to be snaps today yeah I think here's what happens Sunday 10 o'clock Romeo says JJ I know you're getting dressed here

real quick I got asked question it takes him we're going to play you 15 snaps yeah and then JJ's going to say that sounds good and then JJ gets his first sack if he does one or first TFL and he's and he's like, you can call off all you want. I'm staying out here. Right. Hmm. That'd be interesting. This is a really nice little wrinkle to this game.

Yeah. This is, this is, um... It's a storyline. It's a storyline. This is, this is... The whole game, the whole game is a storyline. The whole season can be summed up in a storyline if they lose this game. Yeah, I mean, well, yeah, we can be honest.

It's not the most intriguing matchup of the weekend. That's why it's on... That's why it's on Saturday at 3.30. So this is a nice little wrinkle to it. Do you think people in, like, Sacramento, California are waking up going, hey, everybody, the Bill's Texans games on. Honey, games on. Hey, the church has asked us to clean the pews.

Nope, sorry, Bill's Texans are on. Those Texans on. Got to go. See you later. You weren't here earlier this week. There were questions asked about how much Bill O'Brien knew about the Oilers Bill's game from 20. There was? What did he say?

Like, I don't know what he's... Matter of fact, I'll let you even hear what he said. Yeah, I would love to hear. Hold on. Can I, what you're talking about, Bill, this? Well, let's get a ruling on this, Nick. Can't you do that after something we've already done? I haven't heard it. Coach O'Brien. I was in the desert mountains. All right, I got to find it first here.

What day was 30th, right? And where is Bill O'Brien on this? Oh, here we go. Okay, you ready? Sure. That's a slug. The slug is 19.8 seconds. Okay. Asked about orders versus bills.

Yeah, look, I mean, I respect the Houston Oilers and what they did in this town and the franchise, but I'm not really thinking a whole lot about that. I'm focused on the Texans, the Houston Texans, and the bills and the game we got coming up Saturday. Yeah, look, I think, again, 26 years ago, I mean, this is 2000, the game will be played in 2020. So we got a lot of work to do. We got a very tough opponent coming in here. That's played very well. Very well coach. Got a lot of respect for Sean and his staff and how they do things.

So we got a big week here. Yeah, he's going to pivot to the game this Saturday. That's exactly what I said. Asked what he remembers about the orders losing to the bills. He's got multiple questions about that? Do you? Are you kidding me? That's what I was saying.

Are you kidding me? Oh, my God. Okay, say that again. asked about what he remembers about the owners losing to the bills. Look, I just remember it was obviously a tough playoff game, historic playoff game, but I'm not focused on that. I'm focused on the bills this week, the Houston Texans this year going up against the bills on Saturday. Oh, man, that was 30 years ago, almost 36 years ago.

Holy smokes. I mean, no, I mean, you know, look, I think this is about this week and, you know, this is about the Houston Texans versus a very, very good Buffalo Bills team. so I'm not going down that road. Which, who is the reporter? You get one guess. Do I? Yes.

John McLean. Yes. John had to know he wasn't going to answer that. That's right. But John, but just in case he said something. He was trying to write something for The Chronicle. Yeah. All right.

So here's Jay, ooh. Do we have which to talk about JJ? We don't have that, do we? No, we know, we did. I think we do. You'd have to find it, Nick. Back in the day. It's 57.7 seconds.

57.7. This is his heart, it seems pouring his heart out to the city of Houston. What you do a little? What you draw about? J.J. JJ. Nice. Let's just do it.

Why not? 57.7 seconds. J.J. Watt, importance of playoff opportunities. Well, I mean, obviously every game is big in the league, but when you come to playoff time, when it comes to that ultimate goal of getting to the Super Bowl, it just matters that much more. And, you know, I've been in some playoff games in my career, haven't been to a Super Bowl, and I understand the importance. It's a winner-go-home situation. And so we have to come with that extra level of intensity, and we have to be prepared to win on Saturday. They're huge.

I mean, they're massive opportunities. And, you know, I've been around, obviously, this league for nine years. And so I know I've been through the 2 and 14 where, you know, you're going through some tough times. And I've been through winning division, going to the playoffs, going to the second round a couple times. So you can't ever take it for granted. And you have to. That's the message trying to get across to the young guys. It's like, you know, some of these guys are their first year in the NFL.

And so you win the division, you go to the playoffs. And you kind of like, okay, this is just what you do. Well, no. You have to take advantage of every opportunity you have. And with the talent that we have in that locker room and the guys that we have, you have to take advantage of your opportunities. And I think that throughout practice, throughout this week, and then taking it over to game day on Saturday,

that's our mentality and that's our goal is to take every single day, every meeting, every practice, every rep is serious as focused as you can because it's that important. It's the playoffs. You're doing way too well on this. I haven't lost my touch. 7-13. Yeah, you went to West Texas.

still I don't have it. 713. 212.790 if you'd like to join our conversation today. 713 212579. If you'd like to reach out via Twitter you can at SportsMT, at SportsRV and at Pro Nick Lowe. We go to 1.30 this afternoon

and then we head up to Buffalo to visit with Sal Capaccio, WGR Radio. You can call him a Paizan, right? Isn't a nice term? I think you have to B1 to call someone. Yeah. So I'm not a Paizon?

I think that's uncouth for you to call someone a Piszon. Okay. It's calling pal, buddy. Yeah. I think so. Okay, we'll see if I can say, I'll try to sneak in a Paiso. What? You don't ever call anybody else's Pizon, so why are you going to call him?

Well, Casar Capacios, Italian Deli, and a restaurante in Buffalo, New York. 113. 790. 713-212-5-790. To join us, 7-1-3-2-1-2-790. Good morning, strippers. Shower with the Matt Thomas show. Wash off the glitter and daddy issues.

Time is 116. It is the Matt Thomas show. We are on Sports Talk 790. Hope you guys are in a good mood today. Most people back at work by now? Our offices remain skeleton. Yeah, I'm going to say probably Monday is when most people are going to come back. Okay. I got you. We're out here grinding, Matt.

We are out here grinding. So come on and be a part of the show at 713. 212-5-790. I use the phrase crystal ball quite a bit on the show. I would say so. I don't think I use it over a lot, but I just like to use it.

You are or you used to be, Noster Thomas, until you were exposed to the fraud after many bad predictions. Well, my predictions have gotten, I'm still batting, I got a 563 clip. I will say you kick my ass

on beat the schmows this season. You did. It was not pretty. All right. And we're going to get to back on the Bills, Texans, in a second. But I thought it was interesting.

SI, which I didn't even realize even prints anymore. But this is Internet. They do? I think it's Internet. Yeah, I think they do print. Has some bold predictions for this decade in the NBA. Hmm.

And I want to run through a few of them. And I normally wouldn't spend a whole lot of time on this, but what I did intrigue me a lot. And it doesn't matter who these people are, because I don't even know. I don't think we've ever had any of them on the show. Michael Shapiro, or Shapiro, depending on how you pronounce it, believes that Luca Donchich of the Dallas Mavericks will win multiple MVPs and multiple championships in Dallas. Multiple. Okay.

That's bold. Is it, how bold is it? Is it like, do you have a bold scale one to five? Bold scale, I'll put it at a multiple, both championships and MVPs? Yeah, it says Luca Donchich will win multiple MVP. So on the bold scale, that's pretty damn bold, it's four. I would say, I would say he's going to, for sure. I would say saying he's going to win at least one MVP is on the bold scale is like a one.

The guy, the man's a star and he's only 20. Right. He's really good. It must be destroyed. Right. He must be destroyed. It must be removed from that roster. Oh, we're destroyed.

All right, Ben Pickman. That's a guy. If I'm a handicapper, that's the name of my show. Call me and get your picks from Ben Pickman. Ben says the NBA will play a regular season game outdoors sometime this decade. I put that at A1. I absolutely believe that will happen. It's going to be in a warm weather city.

Has there anybody any of any talk of that? I think that would love that. Hold on. Can they have chain nets? What they've done is they've actually be really good. They do it with like chain nets. double rims and one of them's like half crooked. They have played a preseason game in Palm Springs at a tennis court that had a

pavilion. Yeah. You could turn a tennis court into a basketball goal area real simple. They should do the full pickup ball experience. You got the chain nets. You got the busted up rims. You got some random like Mexican dude in jeans. You got to pick him up.

Like some team has to draft him. And somebody's bringing a boom box of him for some reason. Somebody's got a boom box, right? There's got to be at least one fist, Nothing happens. Fist fights. You just bust it up and you just keep going. Because that's what happens on the B ball court. No, what you're describing is what's going to happen in June and July. I said a regular season game. That means 94 foot courts. No. 10 foot free, 15 foot lanes. Like a 70 foot court. It's a too thin. One of the sides has like an edge that you can just fall off. It's dangerous.

One court has a bunch of broken glass where somebody smashed the beer bottles. Yes. Yes. And you all take timeouts to drink beer. And it's make it take it. Half court. Make it. Take it. You two don't get to vote. I'm saying they're going to play an outdoor game. My guess it will be in a warm weather city, probably like a Phoenix in early November, like in October. Before the, you don't want a game at 51 degrees at tip time. Okay.

And then, hold on. I'm still going on this pickup thing. James Hardin gets to call his own. And just like in real life, when there's a dispute, you shoot for it. Or you know what you also do. You also shoot to who's on whose team. Right. There's 10 guys.

Who's playing with who? Well, first five. And then you have to have an argument about who's going to take their shirt off because you don't want to see belly fat. They're going to do shirts and skins? Yeah. Okay. For sure.

You remind me of me in 1990. Stop doing that. All right. Other things. The NBA will expand by adding franchises in Seattle and Louisville. Louisville. Louisville. I don't see Louisville.

Seattle's going to happen. Seattle's going to happen. And I think the battle for the next city would be either long. Vegas or Kansas City. I don't know if Louisville would be in the mix. Louisville to me reminds me as Charlotte. Huge college area, not the greatest pro-town. Although the KFC Yump Center where the Louisville Cardinals play is one of the best

reasons I've ever been to in my life. I mean, they are ready to host an NBA team, as is Kansas City. And for that matter, Los Vegas. Kansas City had the Kings back in the day, right? Yeah, but that was also in the 70s. No, I'm just trying to think they've had a team. Seattle's, of course, had a team. Okay.

I'm with that. I will say that's a... Seattle's a five. No, Seattle's a one. Louisville's like a six. Louisville's way up there. I'd put Kansas City in Las Vegas and before they would put those in. That's bold.

This one I don't know about it. You'll have to help me out with this one, Ross. LeBron James will receive the first auto-laced signature sneaker. Does that do anything for you? Auto-like it laces itself? Apparently. Nike wouldn't invest billions of dollars in a building dedicated James without giving him first dibs on every innovation breakthrough.

Auto lace sneakers this decade. That's not only about the NBA, but... I'll put that at a three, I guess. Okay. Next. That was Jarrell Harris. This next guy is Jeremy Wu. He says,

Tim Duncan succeeds Greg Popovich and coaches the Spurs to a championship. I will break this in half. Okay. Tim Duncan coaching the Spurs when Pop retires. I will put that at a two. Winning a championship, a five. Yeah.

I'm going to put... I'm going to go first. four and five. It doesn't seem, does Tim Duncan want the rigors of a head, head coaching job for 82 games? I mean, I understand he's assistant and all that type of stuff. Is he traveling with the team? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If you're, if you're on the road that quick after retirement, you've got the NBA juices in you. That's true. I wouldn't have pegged him for that. No, what I? Most superstars you don't peg for that. Right. And he's just so unassuming and kind of laid back. It doesn't seem like head coaching is his thing. I'm going to go.

I'm going four. Okay. Next. Mark Bechtel. Becky Hammond will be named Coach of the year for her work with the Seattle NBA franchise.

Split that in half. We've already been the Seattle part. That's a one for me. They're going to get basketball back there. I've said this before, and I will be, it's something that I'm sexes. I'm just telling you,

I do not believe there will ever be an NBA female head basketball coach. Oh yeah, there will be. If I'd be her. Well, I mean, but here's the reason why. So, and again, it's just one game.

But Pop gets thrown out of a game, and he gets thrown out of a game occasionally. Becky Hammond rose up and said, I got, and they said, no, Tim, you're doing this. Tim became the coach. Becky Hammond, there'll be more female assistants, and there's no argument. I just don't know, because as I have seen now being inside the NBA walls, you have to be just as much of psychologist and therapist as drawn up X's and NOS. I don't see a female ever becoming an NBA head coach. I think it will happen. I think it's going to happen.

I think somebody's going to get that chance. And will it work? I'm skeptical on that. But I mean... Okay, put the number on it then. Did she win coach of the year? I'll put that at a five. Okay, but just be a coach.

Be a coach. I'll go two. I'm going five and five on both of those. Okay. And last one here, Chris Manix. Do we respect him? I like Chris Manick. Some of his boxing stuff.

He's okay. Okay. The Super Team Era will begin again, meaning multiple players on one championship team. He pegs it to be the Golden State Warriors. Again? He does. Well, I'm glad you asked with James Harden. I'll read it.

We all know the Warriors are a team to watch next summer with a likely top five pick and a 23-year-old point guard and DeAngelo Russell to dangle in a trade. Houston is mired in the middle of the pack in the Western Conference, which isn't really true. and if the Rockets fizzle out early in the playoffs, Houston could look to reboot. Dealing hard into a rival may be painful, but a Russell pick package may be the rocket's best chance to rebuild. For Golden State, plugging Hardin alongside Stephen Curry and Clay Thompson would give the Warriors the most dynamic offensive lineup since Kevin Durant paired with Currying Thompson. A championship window would be reopened and the league would be playing catch-up with the Warriors again.

I will put that at a 7. I'll put that at 9,000. Stephen Curry is going to be making over $40 million a year. Clay is going to be making around $40 million a year. That's already 80. I guess they'd be dealing DeAngelo Russell on that deal? Yes. So he would come off the books.

But then Draymond's going to be making $20. You're getting rid of him? That's already $100 million on the books without James Hardin popping in for $40. That's why it's a sexy headline, but it's just a... On a 105, it's a $1,000. Tom of Downtown says, research the problems with the NBA All-Star Game in Vegas. zero percent chance the NBA goes back there with a team full-time. What happened?

Too many strippers? They partied and stripped, yeah. It's fine. I got news for you, Tom. They can party in L.A. and Miami just fine. They're partying every night anyways. I got news for you. They're partying in Milwaukee.

Yes. When you have hundreds of millions of dollars, you create the party. And then not Darwin, 604 says no love for Vancouver getting a team back this decade. That's right, not Darwin. You're not getting a team ever again. Vancouver's a beautiful city. but I just can't envision it. You know, it would be way down the pecking order.

My pecking order would be Seattle 1, Vegas 2, Kansas City 3. Louisville? Vancouver. Not being. I would put Louisville in front of Vancouver. Another Houston team? No. We got plenty.

I don't know. Is there any other city that needs an NBA franchise that's been thinking of? I can't really think of one, really. No, those are the ones. Unless like a Memphis or something moves down the road. You never know. All right, let's go to, is Buffalo on the mix?

I don't think Buffalo would support long-term NBA basketball, but they do support hockey. I want to go to Buffalo games in December. Yeah, the hockey plays, I guess. The hockey, they do quite well up there. Let's get to the Bills beat next 127. It is the Matt Thomas show, and this is Sports Talk 790.

You're Astros. Your Astros? Your rockets? Shoots for three. Your boys. This talk, man, look. On Sports Talk 790. Only champions play here.

131, Matt Thomas Show, Sports Talk 790. Hey, it's great. Our local TV affiliate just sent on a tweet, Ross, it said on January 3rd, 1993, the Buffalo Bills, the feet of the Houston owners, 41-38, and overtime in an AFC wallet card game. I have no recollection. Nor do I.

I don't remember anything about that whatsoever. I wonder if Sal Capaccio does from WGR Radio. Sal, is that game ring a bell to you? Yeah, it's actually a great story, guys. I grew up. I had season tickets to bills when I was younger. that game was in my college years. I was in college for three of the four Super Bowls.

And back then, believe it or not, that was the third year. The Bills went to the Super Bowl. So that game was not sold out in time to lift the blackout here locally at Beck and the old rules with the TV. So my buddies and I went to a local sports bar and watched the game. The sports bar actually happened to be owned partially by O.J. Simpson. So that's where I watched that game. And we did stay until the end, which was pretty incredible.

It is the only game, believe or not, I'm embarrassed. I'm going to admit this. The only playoff game through the entire Super Bowl run I did not actually attend in person. I was a young sportscaster and as a producer, in matter of fact, back in the day. And I think we talked about that game for, I don't know, 25, 30 years. I mean, it's been that long, but it feels that way. We took maybe nonstop calls about that game for six months. You obviously had a chance to go on and see the team go to the Super Bowl, but that one lives in infamy. And it was funny because it was brought up earlier this week at the press conference.

And I don't know about how it's felt up in your place. we do not put any correlation between what is about to happen Saturday than one that happened in January, 1993. Is that ain't brought up at all with you folks up there? You know, some people have. I have not. I think it's weird because it's even a different organization. I mean, I know it's a safe city, but, you know, I kind of correlate even more. The Music City miracle happened against the old organization you guys had, obviously, which is now the Titans.

And that happened, you know, the last time the bills were the playoffs, you know, before the 2017 season, which happened to coincide then with the long drought we had. And I think about that one a little more, but of course it doesn't mean anything. That was a long time ago. You know, the bills, though, they do have the third longest playoff win drought in the entire NFL. It's been 24 seasons since we had a playoff win. 1995. That's a long time.

Bengals and the Lions are the only two teams that have had a win, a win drought in the playoffs longer than the bills. So we're still searching for that here in Buffalo. Sal Capacho, WGR Radio, covers the Bills and is on the sidelines. And I'm assuming you come back to Houston for the game, correct? Oh, yeah. I fly on the charter with the team, so we'll be headed out tomorrow, and I'm on the sidelines for all the games. This is my sixth season as the radio sideline guy.

And, you know, I'm really looking forward to it. It should be fun. I remember I've been there twice now. The first was the JJ Watt pick six game against E.J. Manuel. And then last year, of course, which was the Nathan Peterman pick six game. Yeah, can you make Nathan Pater being available? Because I think the Texans have a much better chance of beating the bills if he's quarterback against compared to Josh.

Give me the best and the worst of Josh Allen this year. Oh, best and worst. I would say the worst was really early on against the New England Patriots. Josh Allen in that game, the bills were 3-0, the Patriots were 3-0, and Josh just was throwing balls up. Hapazardry, he was trying to do too much. They were really confusing them, Bill Belichick, some of the pressure schemes they were bringing, and things like that.

You wanted to put three interceptions that day. Hill's only one of scoring a total of six points. They lost 13 to 6. And then the best of Josh Allen was probably Thanksgiving in front of a national television audience in Dallas. And he was great that day. He was 80% or close to that, I think completion percentage-wise, just ran the offense super efficiently. Ran like we've seen him run. So, you know, we've seen the best and the worst throughout the year.

But I will say this, since that New England game, guys, though, he's really taken a lot of steps. and he was a turnover machine the first four weeks of the year. I think he had, I think it was like seven or five, five or six interceptions in those first four weeks. He's only thrown three interceptions since week four. He's really taking care of the ball very well. And why is that, do you believe? You know, he had to do some introspection. He talked about that.

He said that game was really important for him to understand what he can and can't do. I think the coaching staff really said, okay, Josh, you're in your second year now. Like, we need to stop this. This is not, you can't play hero ball. You can't just try to do everything yourself. You know, I understand Josh Allen came from Wyoming, and we all know that he's not the most high-accurate guy in the world. We all knew that coming out.

But at Wyoming, he was the best player on the field for his team all the time. He had to do everything for his team. And no matter what the situation was, he was always trying to make a play happen. And I think that's what he had to overcome in the NFL. No matter what the situation was, he was always trying to make a play happen. And he had to learn, you don't have to do that here. You have a very good defense. You have a good running game.

You have to take what the defense gives you, and I think that's really the biggest strides that he's made. Let me ask you, Sal, about Josh the runner, because the numbers are very impressive. If you were to grade him 1 to 10 about when to take off and run, when the plays are called for him to actually go get a couple yards on his own, it feels like to me he'd get a very high grade on that. Is that accurate?

Oh, 100%. Yeah. And, you know, last year, the bill's offense was Josh Allen throwing deep in Josh Allen running. I mean, that's really what it was. It's not this year. The bill's did a great job of surrounding him some weapons like John Brown and Cole Beasley, Dawson Knox has come on. So, you know, he can throw the ball while Devin Singletary's ever a really nice year running the ball. But they still run the ball with Josh. You just haven't run as frequently.

And they've really picked their spots very well. Brian Daubles come up with design runs, especially in the red zone. He's very good running. And Josh Allen has eight rushing touchdowns this year. I believe it's something similar to the stat of him and Cam Newton are the only two quarterbacks in NFL history, I believe, that have had back-to-back. rushing touchdown seasons, which is pretty remarkable, and he's only in his second year. So he's been very good at running the ball, knowing when he can and can't run with the football. And, you know, the bills have used him in that regard, but not as much as they did last year. A couple of questions on the defensive side for a local angle, if you don't mind, Sal. Ed Oliver, I went to University of Houston and watched him own college football for a couple of seasons.

How would you describe his rookie season? You know, he started really slow, but now he's coming on. And I think Ed, much like what I just said about Josh, you know, and Ed was at Houston, as you know, he dominated. And he was a guy that, you know, every single day, he was pretty much every game. He was pretty much the best player on the field that an offense had to concentrate on. And I think he came into the NFL not understanding that that's really not the case here. And the guys he's going to go against the NFL compared to college are going to be a lot bigger, stronger, and faster. And, you know, Ed, at his size, he can't just dominate like that.

So I think he had to really understand the nuances of playing the game and playing the position. and he's done that. On top of that, the bills run, you know, in offense, a defense, I should say, that's really more about the collective sum that it is the parts, and he had to fit into his 11th, and he had to do his job. And he had to learn gap control and gap integrity. It took him a while, but he's really come out, especially since that Thanksgiving Day game. He had two sacks in that game. He is the first Bill's rookie since Darrell Talley to have sacks in three straight games, and now he's starting to play really good football. Second guy on the defense, I want to ask about, we had Cream Jackson playing for the Broncos,

and he came to Houston and had an interception, had almost at a couple of touchdowns, and was really feeling like going against his old team and little nana-na-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-na-na. Would Kevin Johnson be in that category? How much is he playing? How much has he helped out the bill's defense this year? So you guys might see Kevin Johnson a lot

because he has not started this year, but Levi Wallace has, and Levi Wallace has banged up. You heard his ankle last week. Kevin Johnson, about halfway through the year, started rotating snaps with Levi-Walls. They played about 50-50. They would rotate every two series. And there's part of a reason because Levi-Rae

was having some struggles, and that's really helped him along to not put everything on his plate, but also because Kevin Johnson and his durability issues, as you know, and I don't think they wanted to expose him to 100% of the snaps. But since he's been in there, he's played really well. He fits very well into this system. And, you know, the bills have an outstanding elite cornerback and Tradavius White on one side, and he usually shadows the other team's top receiver. He'll be on D'Andre Hopkins, I'm sure. And that's allowed guys like Wallace and Kevin Johnson to focus more on the other receiver on the field, which, you know, helps them a lot ways. I've talked to Kevin this week.

It's a story here, and I asked him specifically about the emotions and going back to Hughes to the place where it ended like he didn't want to. And he's handled it right. He's been a professional about it and said, you know, it's, of course, going to be on his mind, but he just has to do his job all week and, you know, treat it like any other game and keep those emotions in check.

A couple more minutes here with Sal Capaccio, WGR Radio, Buffalo Bill's silent reporter with us here on the Matt Thomas show. Obviously, a lot of the conversation in the last 24 hours here in town has been about J.J. Watt have you seen enough of the bills on the offensive side and for Josh to audibilize out of that and maybe say all right if you think we're going to

pass because J.J. Watts on the field we're going to try to expose him double team him and open up our running game a little bit and check plays in the line of scrimmage. Yeah, two things with that. Number one, I think people don't realize how much Josh Allen really does as far as that stuff with the offense. Brian Davel has given him pretty much autonomy of the offense. Every offensive lineman has said all year that Josh pretty much runs the offense. He runs the show. He's allowed to get in and out of any play he can.

Dable has said that, and Josh has done a really good job of that, going even back to OTAs and mini camp where they put that on his plate. So he's been great at that. He's smart. He can identify and he can get him in and out of plays. But I'll say this too. You know, the bills have faced some really good pass rushers this year. And Von Miller and Marcus Lawrence, Miles Garrett.

You know, they've gone against a lot of these guys. And Cody Ford, this is the one that's going to maybe be a really interesting match because Cody Ford is a rookie who is now playing a lot because Ty and Secu's been banged up, and he would be bashed up against JJ Watt a lot. So we'll see. I think, you know, there's a lot of question. Here in Buffalo, we're questioning in the media, how much, how effective will JJ be, how his conditioning, things like that, you know, coming back from that peck, that's going to be a tough challenge.

So, you know, do the bills have to devote more resources to block him or just say, you know what? Let's see what he can do before we have to make adjustments. I think we're saying the same thing down here, honestly, Sal. For I let you run. We obviously know you have a vested interest and would like the bill. to win. So give me the scenario in your mind as you lay in bed at night dreaming of a bill's victory, how is it

going to happen? And as you are in that same bedroom of yours sleeping and trying to dream, how do you envision the bills, you know, not coming down here and winning this football game? Give me the pluses and minuses of what's going to happen Saturday for your squad. Well, you know, I think that for the bills to get out of there

and not allow the Texans to come out with a victory, they have to, you know, contain Deshawn and the big play. Obviously, Deshawn Watson can change any game with one or two plays. And we saw it last year. He threw that ball up in the air into the end zone Philip games had the pass interference of two minutes

left, but that's what he does. He gives this guy a chance. And he had a great pass to DeAndre Hopkins and Trey White had great coverage on it. And that was a big play for them. And I think that's one thing. But I think the way the bills can win this game is running the football. And as you guys know, I just did the numbers and I tweeted it out earlier. Last seven weeks,

the Texans are giving up 168 yards a game on the ground and 5.6 yards of carry. That is a monster. number. You know, the bills have Devin Singletary and Frank Gore, and I think that the bills are going to really try to establish that running game, and they're a good running football team. And I think if Devin Singletary and Frank Gore

can really start to get the game going on the ground, that will really allow Josh Allen to do some things through the air. So you think it's all about the ground game, ultimately that will get the victory for Buffalo? I do think so. I think that's where it starts. You know, obviously they'll give Josh's opportunities, but I just think looking at the numbers and, you know, what's going on

in the last half of the year for the Texans, it's more about the ground game for the bills and getting Devin Singletary. And I tell you this, you know, Frank Gore has not touched the ball a lot here in the second half. He's kind of slowed down. He's shown his age a little bit. I think Frank Gore could be part of the game plan here, too.

I wouldn't be surprised to keep those guys fresh in to try and really go out to Texans, run defense and to, you know, kind of keep fresh legs going, so to speak, to try and get them to stop it. Sal, thank you very much for the time. Safe travels to Houston. We appreciate it. And if you want to find out what Sal has gotten on his mind during the game or before, he's on Twitter at Sal Sports.

Sal, thank you very much for the time again. Okay, guys, looking forward to it and happy New Year. Same to you, my friend. Thank you. Sound Capaccio, WGR Radio in Buffalo on the sidelines for the Bills and the Texans. We appreciate him spending some time with us here on the radio show today. No fear. No worries.

And no hair. It's the Matt Thomas Way. Houston Sports Talk continues with the Matt Thomas Show. Matt Thomas Show continuing. Here on Sports Talk 790 without Matt Thomas Show. I'm just kidding. He's down the hall. He'll be fine.

He'll be here in just a second. Talking a lot in the first couple hours of the show about the Texans versus Bill's playoff matchup. If you want to get some of your thoughts in, 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-90. So, Matt, with the guest there. And the last time, it's Sal Carpaccio, talking a little bit about the defensive line for the Buffalo Bills, which I think is going to be the most. interesting part of this matchup, right? Because we were talking about earlier on the show, Bill O'Brien is going to run the ball on first down. Like, that's what he's going to do. We know it.

The other team knows it. Everybody knows it. The guy throwing peanuts into the stands knows it. It's a matter of how effective is it going to be. Is it going to be able to keep the Texans on schedule when it comes to their offensive line going up against the likes of Jerry Hughes? and like Sal just said there, Matt, Ed Oliver's been playing better as well. So I find myself the more I think about it, a little bit scared about this defensive line of the bills going up against the Texans O line.

Well, how about the one thing I asked to Sal about and Sal watches every one of the Bill's games? Frank Gore and company could be a, I mean, Devin Singletary, pretty nice little one-two punch there. God, Frank, has Frank Gord caused the Texans a lot of heartache over the years? I don't think so. I think he's generally hurt everybody he's played again.

That's true. I don't remember thinking of some crazy Frank Gore game where I'm shaking my fists in the clouds or anything like that. You think he's a first ballot Hall of Famer, by the way? He's like Vince Carter for me. Will he or should he? I will say, will he know. Is he the Vince Carter of the NFL?

Guy had a five or six year run where he was one of the tops in his game. Yeah. And then he's just been hanging on ever since. I don't know, man. I mean, the durability. He played a ton of games. He is one of the guys. Doesn't he have like more 1,000 yards?

As many as a thousand yards season is just about anybody in history? Like his best days to me were as a Niner and as a cult. Yeah, I mean, he wasn't even that great as a cold. But yeah, when he was at his best, young in his career as a San Francisco 49er, there was a time where he were like, whoa, Frank Gore, you got to watch out. This guy is a really great running back. And my guess is that Vince is Carter's greater years were greater than Frank Gore's years. I think that's a pretty good analogy.

but I think he's going to, isn't he top five all time in rushing now? He's third. God, that's crazy. If you were to, if I was to go to a sports bar and say, give me the top five running backs in terms of yards in the history of the NFL, how long would it take until I find somebody that would say Frank Gore's name? Yeah, Emmett Smith, Walter Payton. Frank Gore. Who's four and five?

Barry Sanders. Okay. Adrian Peterson. and then this is the guy I compare Frank Gore to, Curtis Martin. Curtis Martin is sixth all time? Yes. I mean, not, I mean, I'm sure he's a great person. Sure, he's a fine guy, but.

Curtis Martin is sixth? Yes. Adrian Peterson is fifth? I remember, it shows you how old I am. I remember Adrian Peterson's first game. I remember hating him as an O.U. sooner, although I kind of secretly loved him because he was just so great. He was just such an eye-popping athlete with his freshman year when he ran

all over Texas. I worked in a Palestinian, Texas. I worked in Minneapolis, St. Paul, when he was obviously drafted. And I wasn't working for the Vikings flagship stations. There was no chance know how I was going to be able to get him to come

on the show. But he was the guy. He was the hero. And his either somebody with his foundation or somebody called and said, hey, he's going to be at a Dick's sporting goods opening. Why don't you all do the show from Dix? And maybe there's a few minutes left from the show. You'll come on your show. And he did. And it was worth it.

But I told you this before. When I'm on my deathbed. And they say, greatest love of your life. Of course, I'll see Kim. Oh, I thought you're going to say craps. Greatest game ever played when I hit six straight numbers in Tunica, Mississippi. Firmus handshake, bone crushing, literally bone crushing. Yes.

Adrian Peterson. Did it to me twice. Once in New Orleans at Harris. And once, you weren't you, you, weren't you, with me, weren't we eating in breakfast when he came over there? At Harris? At Harris? No, I don't think so.

Was this recently? Within the last five years? No, I don't think so. It may have been during the Super Bowl. Maybe it was Gordy was with me or something. I was off that trip. Oh, sorry. I mean to bring that up.

Yeah. Just hurt you. Doesn't mean to hurt you, but he hurts you. He knows what he's doing, though. He knows his reputation. He means to do it. Oh, it works well. You go Google Adrian Peterson handshake and everyone's like,

my hand throb for weeks. five. He's in the top five. Frank Gore. Frank Gore 3. And Singletary is a nice running. Let me ask you this. When does Adrian Peterson, if you're at the bar, talking about the greatest all-time running backs? When does Adrian Peterson come in? I think he's on my list for top ten running backs of all-time. He's one of the... Because here's... Let me do this. Let me close my eyes because we're not driving. If I'm creating a football team, how many times many running backs teams typically carry four? Two to three. Yeah, three. Okay.

Give me four. For making an all pro, you're probably putting... too. But if you're doing, okay, you're making a team go four. Sure. A Mount Rushmore, if you will. God, I hate Mount Rushmore. But this is, it doesn't matter on stats. It doesn't matter on, here's who I want. I want Earl Campbell, because that's my oiler. Yes. Barry Sanders. Yes. Eric Dickerson. Yes. And probably Walter Payton. See, I think I'm going to go mostly with guys that I, saw. If I'm going with only guys I saw, I probably go

Barry Sanders 1. Then Ladenian Tomlinson, Adrian Peterson Marshall Falk? Over Eric Dickerson? I never saw. Oh, okay, you're talking about guys you saw. Yeah, I didn't really see Eric Dickerson. He stopped in 93. I was 9.

God, when I was in my early teens, Eric Dickerson, those awesome ram uniforms. I do remember there. I do remember Barry Sanders, vividly. Barry Sanders was the goat because he- He's my favorite of all time. He never had an offensive line ever to speak of. Now, granted, most people think that Jim Brown is the greatest running back of all time,

but I can't even, I've only seen highlights. I've never seen him even in a watch a game, so I can't speak to that. But among people that I've ever seen a game, those are my guys. But my guess is if you really took, if you got a film clips of the best ever, Jim Brown's probably the best. Yeah, if I'm going best ever, then we're talking Earl Campbell, Jim Brown, but I didn't really, you know, I can't really judge those guys as much. All right, Bill O'Brien, updates us on what he expects from JJ Watt

and what he expects from Josh Allen and the rest of the bills. That's coming up to start the final hour of the show. Also coming up, we have our non-Florida stories. I'm going again with Oklahoma. I'm actually going Oklahoma and Missouri. It's a combo mix. Heartland of America, if you will. Across state lines, federal crimes.

How did you know? Have you seen this story? No, I'm just guessing. You're very accurate. Nick went to England and you are going. I might be in New York. We'll see if I go with this one. And believe it or not today, we honor the passing of David Stern, who passed away yesterday after a brief illness and we'll discuss some of his legacy, too, in the final hour, the Matt Thomas show.

713-212-5-790. Is the Matt Thomas show. Coming up on 2 o'clock on Sports Talk 790. I like these shorter breaks here. We get a chance to visit with you guys more. More Matt, and less of you is a good thing. No, it's the other way around. Oh, sorry.

More of our audience and less of music. Okay. Have you heard my takes? Yeah, I have. They're not the greatest in the world. 713-212-5-790 if you'd like to join us here on the show today. 7-13-212-5-790 coming up, and we mentioned, non-flora stories at 2.30, and believe it or not today,

all things about David Stern. David's turn passing away yesterday. Today, Sam Weish, the longtime Bengals coach passing away today at the age of 75. I don't know how many of you have vivid memories of Bingles Oilers back of the day, but Sam Weish and Jerry Glanville did not get along. In fact, Sam Weish made it a point to run up the score against the orders whenever he could because Jerry Glanville was an A-hole. Well, Sam Weish wasn't the only person that thought that. You know, it's funny.

I want to get to the Bill O'Brien cuts in a second. But I want to say this. When I was growing up, I used to listen to a 950, which we own, KPRC, used to have a show called Martini and Edmonds. It was an end of Maltini and Mike Edmonds that a show together. And that was young, varying, probably 13 or 14 years old Max. And I'm listening to this sports show. And they used to have Jerry Landville on every week as a guest. and the KPRC didn't carry the older games back then.

It was a different station. And I didn't realize the reasons for such. But Jerry would go on with Anita, and Anita loved Jerry, and Jerry loved Anita. And so when I would watch the order games on Sunday, and I would see that Chuck Noel, the coach of the Steelers, hated Jerry. I saw that Sam Weish hated Jerry. Basically, everybody in the NFL. The players hated Jerry. the media hated Jerry except for Anita Martini.

And I couldn't figure out why that is until I would watch the games on Sunday. I'm like, why is Anita and Jerry get along so well and everybody else despises him? And then I've heard all the stories, which proved to me that Jerry had his favorites. And when you were a Jerry favorite, he was treated you well. If you were not one of his favorites, he treated you like dirt. Oh, I thought you were getting to something. There's not. That's it. But it was strange for me to see, to, I listened to show religiously to hear Jerry and

and Anita speak, and then to come to find out what it putts, Jerry Glenville was. And Sam Weish despised Jerry Glenville. As did a lot of people. As did a lot of people. That's when the people would run up the score. And then when Jerry went to Atlanta, he created a blank storm and would run up against teams. Against the olderers, too, a matter of fact. But, yeah, Sam Weish passes away today, I believe, at the age of 75, David Stern was 77.

David Stern, Ross. and I know that Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson helped. No question about that. But David Stern was the fourth most important person to keep the NBA alive in the early 1980s. The league was in trouble in the late 70s. Big trouble. You had contract, not contraction, you had teams moving left and right. You didn't have a good television deal.

Take delay games and all that. Take delay of games on CBS. You had no international presence whatsoever. You had greater marketing. You had Turner's new. contract with them. CBS. You had NBC. They went globally. They played games outside the United States. David Stern, and he became quite a curmudgeon towards the end. There's no question about that.

But for his heyday, I'd put him as a second greatest commissioner in sports history behind Pete Roselle. I think I can do that. Wow. Okay. Because Pete Roselle helped the NFL become with the Super Bowl. the merger, the 30-year run that he had. He made it the number one sport in the world in the country today. David Stern saved a league that went from tape-delayed television to 8,000-seat arenas to multi-million dollar arenas, superstars, massive marketing. I love this game, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I mean, how much was that Larry Bird and Matt Johnson? How much was that him? I mean, I mean, it was on his watch, though, so I mean, he gets some of the credit. So, I mean, I can't. There was, but here's a thing. I don't know how to evaluate. In the early 70s, there was Creamadul-Jabar and Oscar Robertson. There was Elgin Baylor.

There was Wilts Chamberl and the league didn't market itself that way then. Yeah, but then you had Rick Berry winning championship with a toupee. It was a weird time. I guess, yeah, I never thought about the toupee era. 713-212-5-7-9 if you want to get in. 7-1-3-2-1-2-5-7-7-7. So all things about David Stern coming up today at 252 with Believe it or not. Here's Bill O'Brien talking about the quarterbacks that will be on the field this Saturday for the 335 afternoon tilt wildcard Saturday.

At the end of the day, it's a quarterback-driven league, right? I mean, if you have a really good quarterback that understands, you know, the team and doing what's best for the team and is a great teammate, a hard worker, a guy that plays well when the lights come on. good decision maker, playmaker, you know, tough, just tough, smart, and dependable guy at the quarterback position, you've got a chance. I think that's for any team that has that type of guy. And I think Buffalo's got that type of guy. So I think that, you know, when you look at Josh Allen and Buffalo, I mean, they've got a guy there too that's done a great job this year.

So that's why you make it to the playoffs. You've got players like that. And, you know, there's 12 teams left and, you know, the best teams are left. Yeah, and didn't offer a whole lot there. I guess he's speaking in generic. Let me taste it. Bill, he's in rare playoff form. He does not want to be up on the podium.

It's like, you've already got me two days this week. What else could you possibly want me to answer? Tough, smart. Listen, this. Ross, we watch it. We can memorize this. Good team. Hardworking.

At the end of the day, it's a quarterback-driven league, right? Tough, smart. A really good quarterback that understands the game of the team and doing what's best for the team. It's a great teammate, a hard worker, a guy that plays well when our lights come on. hard. Good decision maker. Yeah, see, that's what we have to play. What you're talking about, Bill, during the week,

because we just can't take these Mamby, Pampy Soundbites and make its good segment out of it. Let's see here. How did the team deal with the ups and downs of the season? I wonder how this went. You know, we've had our share of ups and downs. I think that we have a mentally tough team. I think we have a team that definitely plays the next play

or plays the next quarter or plays the next game. I mean, I think we definitely have that type of team. And, you know, I think that's a credit to the guys in that locker room, the players in that locker room. I think that's how we've been able to navigate whatever, whether it's an injury or, you know, whatever it might be a loss to be able to come back from a loss and win the next week or, you know, something like that. So I think that, you know, all the credit goes to the players on that. You know what we're going to do, Ross? We're not going to play anymore because Bill doesn't want to give an answer to anything. And I don't blame him.

Yeah. No, it is what it is. it's Bill O'Brien and him conducting himself the way he does and not wanting to answer questions. Question. Not want to be up there. Not want to give anything away. Not want to give any material or anything like that. It's just that's how he rolls.

Here's what would be really cool. One day he goes up and says, hey, everybody, we're going to change things up a little bit here. Yeah. I want you to ask me, you know, what do they call it, Reddit, ask me anything? AMA, yes. And he'd have to adhere to it. Good truth syrup. Like, let's do this.

Without, I'll ask the questions and you tell me what, how. Bill O'Brien would have to have to. How he wants to say it? No, how he would really have to. Remember it's an asking anything. Right. So we did that, I think me and Michael did that one time. We did, we played what Bill says and then what Bill wanted to say, like the Bill O'Brien translator. Okay. Well, I'm just going to give you some questions. I'm typing up right now. We'll give you a little sound effects here. Okay. Thank you.

B-O-B. Reddit AMA. What's it like not having a general manager in Houston, Texas this year? Answer. I think it's awesome. I get to make all the power. You know, it's like Bill Barses, sales said back in the day. If you're going to have to make the meal, you want to buy some of the groceries. Now I'm buying the groceries, and you know what?

It's a lot of pressure on me. It's a lot of hard work. But I'm happy to be the guy at the head of the table and making my own moves. Are you sure there's something else you want to say? Rick Smith didn't know what the hell he was doing. I'm just glad he's out of here. I'm glad that we can get me now. You know, I got a good team with me and Jack Easterbee and everybody else.

and I think we got a good structure now. I'm running things obviously, and I'm in power, and I'm pretty happy about that. That was good. That worked out good. So you don't miss Brian Gain? Nah, Brian Gain turned out to be a putts. I mean, he was a nice guy, and we really liked him for the Patriots, and I knew him well, had dinner with him a couple of times, and that's really all the qualifications you need to be involved in this organization,

is have something to do with the Patriots at some point. Honestly, he was like our third or fourth guy. I did him a solid, try to get him in here, see if he could figure it out. He just, you know, he was lost behind the wheel, and now I'm glad I'm back behind and into controls with the keys to the car. Holy smokes. Thanks, coach. Next question.

Are you tired of giving us weekly updates on the injury status of Will Fuller? Look, I'm pretty sick of that guy, honestly. Look, we drafted him, talented guy, but he's too fragile. He's too frail. He's falling apart. Every time we put him out there, it's another muscle's breaking. He's Mr. Glass from Unbreakable. out of control. I mean, we need this guy out there. He's fast. He's just, he's just too frail. He's

too weak. I'm kind of done with him. We might pick up his fifth year option, or did we pick up his fifth year option? Probably, I don't even know. You did. Okay, we did. Okay, we did. So, he'll probably be back here next year, but after that, I wouldn't expect much. What's the secret sauce? Yeah, we added that one from this week. I told him I didn't want him to, but he did it anyway. I mean, no. Thanks, coach. Let's see. What else I want to ask, Coach? Coach, I'm filling space here because I don't want to lose your attention. I'll get some coffee.

Dear coach. Oh, what is your relationship like with Cal M-L-L-C-C-C-N-A-I-R McNair? Funny thing about Cal is he's a great guy, man. He's fun. We go drinking, we go hit the golf course, we go hang out. Not the greatest business acumen, but you know what? I mean, he's a guy I can get over on. Obviously, you know, I tell him, look, let me hand him.

the business side of this. One of the things I love about cows, he listens to me. I tell him, let me handle everything. He could stay in the shadows, make a pile of money, I'll take care of all the football stuff, and then he doesn't have to worry his pretty little head about anything. Just what I thought you were going to say B-O-B. Guys kind of a goober.

Doesn't matter. Last question. What do you think of the midday show, 12 to 3 on Sports Talk 7. Never listened. I'm an 80s on 8 guy.

If I'm driving in the car, I've got a big serious X-M. I also like to listen to underground rap mixtapes, and so I don't really catch the Matt Thomas show, unfortunately. But you knew his name. I mean, I've heard of the guy.

He's a Houston legend. Is he the OG? No, he's not the OG. I think that guy's on another station, but you know what? I appreciate them. I appreciate all the media. Actually, they can just, I really don't care what they say. This is asking me anything. I'm being honest. Don't give a crap of what they say. Sorry. What do you really feel about the media, especially Brian T. Space Smith.

Look, all of them, I'll just put the whole lot of them, a bunch of idiots. Don't matter, Brian. I need to watch the tape. Can't tell me how to break down coverages. Can't tell me about my play calls and what Deshawn Watson is seeing. We're in the meeting rooms. We know what we're doing. You stick to talking about it. I'll stick to doing it and running the ship. Playoffs, four out of five years, AFC South Champions. Doesn't matter, Brian.

It's brutal, Brian. Didn't you forget to say, suck it at the end of your last statement? I thought it was implied. We just did an AMA with Coach O'Brien. Yes, we did. Rightfully so. Are you going to play these sound bites in March? I hope so.

Of course. Why would I not? You know, we get Mike Dan Tony starting next week. It's going to be hard to clip Mike Dan Tony clips. Yes. My pregame shows are just getting a lot easier now. All I know, if you ever listen to Mike Dan Tony with us here, he takes numerous shots at me. Direct.

Wonderful. And AJ Hinge isn't bad about giving me shots either. He said he wanted the Matt Thomas Bobblehead. Then he did. We appreciate him for that. Maybe that should be in the 2020 promotional calendar, hopefully. How do we not already have? do we talk to about that? Bantone Tony cuts.

Well, here's a problem. We do a segment called AskMDA. Yes. And it never works out well. We've got to bring AskMDA back. But I'm never going to ask him a question on the AskMDA questions. Okay. We'll do is we'll do the Ask MDA questions after the MDA segment.

I need to ask you a bunch of Rockets questions because there's two games I missed. I know they won on New Year's. They win the one before that? Yeah. They destroyed Denver on New Year's. Yeah. And then we lost in San Antonio. Was Denver doing the doubling track?

mapping defense? Nope. See, I recorded it, but it recorded the NBA TV, which was blacked out. My thanks, Comcast.

The two biggest ovations in the entire night were, one, the rocket's hitting a bunch of threes in Denver calling timeouts. Two win. Mason Plumley, I think it's Mason.

I always forget what Plumley is. Whatever it is. Marjorie. Some Plumley missed two free throws in the whole reading of free chicken. Yeah, that's wonderful. All right. 213 is the time.

713, 212, 5, 790. You know what we could do, Ross? And I don't know if it was. How's there, Gordon been? Really good. Really, really good. Okay, great.

Do you want to do an ask a MA segment here on this show? I'm going to ask. I need to ask you anything about what's happened in sports the last four days. All right, so we'll flip it here. Ross will ask me questions over the last week of sports because he's been out in West Texas. If you got any questions for ask, it's really in time, GoogleMT. It's an AMA for me, right? Okay.

713-212-5-79. 713, 212, 5, 790, and also at bottom of the hour at non-flora stories. It's a Matt Thomas show. It's 2.13, and this is Sports Talk 790. Stop that wave. Busting the waves since the stroves were in the dome. Who are you going to call? Wave Busters. Houston Sports Talk continues with the Matt Thomas show.

217 of the Matt Thomas show. We got non-Floristores, non-Florida stories coming up at the bottom of the hour. believe it or not today, but all things about David Stern as he passed yesterday. You know, there's a, well, I don't know if I should give this out. Maybe I should. The listener retention. There is a street in Sacramento named David Stern Way, right, adjacent to the arena where the Kings play. I just gave you a question.

I'm typing it right now. Remember, it's Sacramento where the arena is in the city where they have David Sternway. What we're going to do? You want to ask me some questions about what's your? reason? What's their golden one now? Golden one, it's a credit union in Sacramento. Beautiful arena. Really nice. Yeah. Yeah, I just had some questions

about what's been going on the last few days in sports. Okay. Okay. Can I lie to him on some of this? No, I won't need, you can't do that. I won't know. How many times have you lied today? Once. Did you get your fill in the end? I averaged three, so I'm really allowed two here in the next 10 hours.

All right. What happened in the Manchester City Everton game? They were tied zero That's not true. Okay, so the Rockets played on Saturday night. Who'd they play again? Nets? Beat the Nets on Saturday. That was a close one, though, right?

Or they pulled it out late? Yeah, I think so. They were down a little bit. They all mixed together. Okay, and then on the back-to-back, that was on the road of the Pelicans. No Clinkapela. No, Clinkapel. No, Russell Westbrook.

Is he back yet? He's back. He played on New Year's Eve. No James Harden, who obviously came back and played. He had a little bit of a toe spring. Wait, James Hardin didn't play on Sunday? No. Is he okay?

He's fine. Okay, he had a toe sprain? Yes. When did this happen? In Saturday's game. Oh, it happened during Saturday's game. Yeah. And then you don't want to mess with a toe injury.

No, you don't. But this is kind of a lighter schedule, not in terms of opponents, but just games. Oh, so they lost to the Pelicans? Yes. E. E. Tuan Moore went nuts. Etoine Moore? And Lanzo Ball went crazy, too.

Lanzo Ball. In career high, six three-pointers. Oh, man. All right. What about Brandon Ingram? What do he do? He's fine. Okay.

Well, who did play well for the Rockets when everybody was out? Isaiah Hartnstein did okay. Did he? Awesome Rivers held his own. Okay. Who got up the majority of the shots on Sunday? I think it was equally distributed. No Russ either because he rested in that one.

Okay. Then on the 31st was the Alamo Bowl. Yes, nobody watched. The crowd was like 4,000 tops. That's not true. Now you're lying to me. Utah was dominant for about a minimum. and a half.

For a minute and a half. How did Sam Ellinger look? He was fine. I listened on the radio. You listen on the radio? How was Craig Ways' call? Authoritative. That's good.

Full of high school references. Oh my gosh. He is an encyclopedia of everything high school. Well, he can also write it down too. When I do a spotter board for doing football games, I don't have enough room to put where they went to high school. I just don't. He either writes very small or he has a little code language at a

uses, but he'll always tell you what high school the person. He might do that as well, but he's also, and literally, he used to do a show. When I was working in the- I think he still does, does he? Does he? Some kind of highlight show? He would do a show and he would know about like the Texas State 5A volleyball championship team. He lives and breathes that stuff. So that's what he does.

It's like his passion. He has a fetish for high school athletics, athletics. Yes, Texas high school athletics all across the board. My fetish is game shows in the last 40 decades. Yes. 40 years. And soap operas. Yeah, that's true.

Wow, 38 to 10. Yeah. That's good. That's impressive. Okay. That's good. So I do know that LSU destroyed Oklahoma. They were really good.

They're not going to lose. If you think LSU fan is boasting about how good things were against Oklahoma, and look, Clemson's very good, but they're going to defeat Clemson by about 10 points. I thought the spread opened up is three. Has it been bad up yet? Don't know. Doesn't matter. Whatever the number is, LSU's winning by.

Wow. It's up to five and a half. half. That's the thing, is that, because let's be honest, Ross, LSU fan boasting a lot about their pro players that weren't that greatest college players, right? Yeah. Odell Beckham, right?

Who other great LSU college player? Sterling Shepardt and the Tyron Matthews and the, I don't know, Kevin Fogg. They got a bunch of them. Yeah, and those guys that. Kevin Falk was a minute ago. Yeah, but that's because he did against the Cougars. Point being is this, they always brag about how good they were as NFL

players and they were never very good as college players or it was vice versa. Well, it depends. But yeah. This group is deep. Joe Burrow is awesome. Joe Burrow is going to be. Think about this for Joe Burrow for a second. You are the lead.

I mean, you're the big man on campus literally. You're getting stadiums named after you. You transferred from a school that already had a bunch of great players to another great school and you made them better and you didn't lose and you saw and you made this coach come across is the number one free agent coach of three years ago, and it really was Tom Herman, but now it's coach O. They're going to win the national championship, okay? And then he's going to go to the Cincinnati Bengals, Ross, where he's going to get his brains

beat out. Well, AJ Green's a free agent. Tyler Boyd's a nice target. Stop. Tyler Eifert might be healthy? Might. He's never consistently healthy. Boy being, he's going to get his brains beat.

doubt. Is that fair for Joe Burrell? Shouldn't you if you're so good at college? Like, for instance, when you graduate from college with a 4.0 GPA, and you're on the honor roll, and you are summa cum laude or whatever they say that thing is, that usually means you get a great job, right? Like a Fortune 500 company is coming after you. In the NFL, it's just different. You are excellent at what you do.

You are the best college quarterback in America, hands down. You're the best college football player. You know what you get for a reward? You get to go to the crappiest team and become a miserable NFL failure. Them's the breaks. It's been happening for 50 years. Is it fair, though?

No, the draft is actually, I don't like the draft in any sport. It doesn't make any sense. Well, how would you change it then? Player goes to the highest bidder. You mean like have like a pool of money? Hard cap. You got a hard cap.

Players go to the highest bidder. Give every team $20 million. Or whatever, yeah. It's like an auction. You have to budget. Smart teams. I think they should do that in the NBA as well. This seems to be ill-advised.

Why? I don't know what I'm saying. I don't have the answer to why it's ill-advised. But I'm live on the radio at 224, and I'm thinking to myself, does Ross have something here on this? Because you're not giving any team more money than the other base on their record, correct? Right. everybody gets a hard number and you throw a player out and you start auctioning off

and Chris Berman's the auctioneer sure why not okay tell me why this is flawed somebody Nick Nick you're always negative Nancy why is this flawed because it'll take forever sounds like a great idea thank you Matt I mean Nick wouldn't it take forever well I mean no I don't think so I mean I guess

if we're talking about the pool of players or whatever yeah because there's seven rounds you could do five If it's five minutes to make a pick, you do five minutes for an auction over a player. But most teams don't take the full of five. Well, I mean, the bidding would close. No, you don't want to close a bidding off at five. You're going to do a five minute auction?

Yeah. That seems like a pretty risky situation. When we're doing fantasy drafts, you got like a 60 seconds to auction. You get a butt, boom. Jerry Jones, Jerry Jones betting up Johnny Manz out. And then it becomes gamesmanship. Then you can bid somebody all the way up and then toss them. Okay, somebody please.

If you think somebody's going to be a bust, Like, if you think Daniel, like, if you know that the Giants love Daniel Jones. Right. And so you start bidding him up and you act like you're going to bid up Daniel Jones and he's the next greatest thing. And then you make the Giants spend a ton of money. Like if you're the Eagles or the Cowboys or something. Or you might get stuck with him. Okay.

This is, this is making some sense. But I'm not smart enough to give you the definitive reason why it shouldn't work this way. Okay. You have to, you just keep bidding, bidding, bidding, bidding, bidding, bidding, bidding. So there's no upper limit on what the bid can be? Yeah, I mean, if you get 20, I mean, yeah, because you're going to be capped out. Well, I mean, you can spend, you know, 99% of your cap on one player, though, right? Yeah, then how are you going to field a bunch of me?

I'm not going to play for 10 bucks. Those are problems to deal with later. Then their dollar minimums. Okay, well, then you screw yourself, yeah. All right, I'm going to ask Shane this for a quick. Shane, you hear Ross's idea. Are you buying this at all or not? Tell me.

It sounds all right. I just, what if two teams max bid or multiple teams max bid on a player? Then how do you... Then the player would decide, I guess. There's a big chink in that. And the player decides? Yeah.

Okay. I don't know. There wouldn't be a max bid, though, because like we just said, the salary cap would be the limit and teams aren't going to, you know, invest. Yeah, the salary cap is the limit. That's a percentage of their cap number.

So you get every team 20 million to spend and somebody in their like... No, no, no. I'm on one what Nick's saying. There's no cap on what you can spend on the rookies. Yeah, the complete salary cap. The salary cap is the cap. Oh, no, no, that's crazy.

Yeah. Let's give them $20 million each and play with some money that way. Oh, yeah, you can do it that way, too, but you could, Matt and be, but both two teams aren't going to bid $20 million on the play. So here's the crystal ball moment of the day. We've already had one. We're going to have a second one. Okay.

Is Joe Burrow going to be a good NFL quarter, I don't know. Because he is surrounded by all pros on the, or not all Americans on the offensive line. He's got great receivers, good running backs. He's fleet of foot. He's got a big strong arm. But you've got a big, a strong arm all you want to. If you can't have point more than point six to throw the football, you're going to die.

I will say yes because of the leap that he, I mean, people that we talk about, like, for example, NFL.com's Lance Zerline is to also talked about this, about the leap that he is made from just processing information and learning football. It seems like there's something innate about that. There's something that you have to have that quality of picking things up and making those types of mental leaps. So maybe he can make that mental leap to the NFL level. Because yes, he does have good situations around him, but there's been a lot of, I mean, Deshaun Watson had a ton of talent around him with receivers and running backs and all that type of stuff as well. So I think if I had to guess right now, I would say Joe Burrow will make the transition to the NFL. All right. Really, really, really fast.

Jamarcus Russell, no. We're talking about quarterbacks. Okay, this is super fast. Okay. Jamarcus Russell, miserable failure. These are overall number one picks. Okay. Tim Couch, nope. Heesh. And he wasn't in a great situation, though. Where do he play? Tim Couch went to Cleveland. So that's a similar situation. I mean, where do you play is college boy? Kentucky. Yeah. Baker Mayfield.

TBD. He was, I mean, he had a lot of talent in Oklahoma. Leaning towards sucking, though. Kyler Murray had a nice season. The team sucked, but if you look at his overall numbers, they're pretty solid. David Carr, no. Sam Bradford. Fresno State.

Yeah, Sam Bradford, Oklahoma, no. James Winston. To be determined? He did have a ton of town. Not TBD. He's just average. James Winston is an average NFL quarterback. Jeff George, average.

Okay. Jared Golf, turn on to be an average. Yeah. He had one really good season since then he's been me. Michael Vic, above average. I would say slightly above, slightly above average. Vinnie Testa Bertie, slightly above average. Vinny Testiderrety is like one of the all-time leading passers in the NFL.

Still crazy. Yeah, I know. Alex Smith, slightly above average. Yeah. Carson Palmer goes to Cincinnati after a great career at USC. I would say good careers. For Carson Palmer. Yeah.

I'll give a good career. Not great. Alex Smith had one amazing year at Utah. So it wasn't like he was at a factory at Utah. Jim Plunkett from where did he go to college? Stanford. Stanford. I don't know what Stanford football was like back then.

Me either. Steve Barkowski. Don't know what college. Drew Bledsoe. Washington State. When he coming from a factory, he made them better. Andrew Luck? Yeah.

Very good quarterback. Injuries derailed him. Cam Newton. goes to Super Bowl. Yeah. But it's only not great. He won it.

I mean, he's an MVP winner. Matthew Stafford? Was he was he amazing at Georgia? I don't remember him being amazing. I think he was good. Eli Manning?

Yeah. Let's see a few more here. I'm talking about quarterbacks only. Troy Aikman. Three Super Bowls. Was it? UCLA and OU?

Yeah. When did he finish it? He started finished at UCLA. Terry Bradshaw, Louisiana. Tech John Elway at Stanford and Peyton Manning at Tennessee, who never won the big game. But he actually won more big games in Indianapolis. They won the national championship the year after he left, right? Correct.

With T. Martin is a quarterback. T. Martin. Man, why don't I know so much about Tennessee football? Your wife? Probably, probably. 231 non-Florida story time. It's next. It's the Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790.

Matt has eye trouble. He's having trouble. seeing Dallas win anything anytime soon. Sorry about that, friends to the North. Back to the Matt Thomas Show. All right, time now for our weekly feature. We've tried to do them on Wednesdays, but sometimes we've had off days, holidays,

so it's not Wednesday at Thursday, but it's becoming now a semi-sapel of the radio program. It's time for this week's edition of Non-Florida Storiesmer. We try to find the most obscure, bizarre, usually crime-related story involving something happening outside the state of Florida because everybody does Florida stories. And then Nick usually involves death, decapitation, or what was the other one?

Desecration. Defication? Defication. Defication. Desmemberment or death? I love my story this week. May I just go first? I don't win these anymore, but I just, usually my stories are really average compared to y'alls, but I like mine. An Oklahoma man on methamphetamine went on an exceptional trip on Wednesday morning. This is last week. Cops say 40-year-old Brandon Kirby stole a pickup truck that was parked at an adult video store in Carthage, Missouri.

The car had two passengers, one man asleep in the passenger seat, and that man's pet goat, chilling in the bed of the truck. But Kirby was undetermined. Undeterred, I should say. The abducted man and his pet goat had been waiting in the truck while the driver went shopping inside the store. When the man woke up, Kirby held him at gunpoint and pistol whipped him. Kirby proceeded to ingest methamphetamine and drive the car from Carthage, about 150 miles south of Kansas, and in Oklahoma. In rural Creek County, Oklahoma, Kirby decided having company was

overrated and dropped the man and the goat on the side of the road. This proved to be a mistake as he called 911. Oklahoma Police then contacted OnStar. which remotely slowed the stolen truck so it was only traveling about 15 miles an hour. Do you know that OnStar could do that? I did not. I didn't. But Kirby refused to give up even after driving over a strip spike. Spike strip that flattened the vehicle's tires.

Eventually, police ended the low-speed pursuit by forcing Kirby off the road and into a ditch in Sand Springs, Oklahoma, just west of Tulsa. So my story today is about a 40-year-old meth addict. who steals cars and trucks at an adult video store and the car and truck he stole this week happen to have a goat in it. And that's my non-Floristura folks are kind of crazy. Missouri, not Missouri and Missouri folks. I got to make sure that OnStar is removed from my vehicle.

Yeah. Turn that off. Make sure you also don't bring a goat with you when you go on drives. I try to think of all these things that have Big Brother not watching me, but it's like it's useless. Correct. What you got? You want me to go?

Sure. Let me tell you about a man. man who represents the Republican Party in the New York State Assembly, a man named Brian M. Cobb. He is the assembly minority leader, and he is from Canadiagua and represents a district just outside of Rochester. Last week, he wrote a newspaper column in his local paper, warning citizens against the dangers of getting behind the wheel while drinking. and telling you not to drink and drive. He's being a responsible politician. Let's be safe out on the road.

Well, there's one problem. New Year's Eve he was charged with driving while intoxicated. Not only that he was in his state-issued vehicle. So he was driving the company car drunk on New Year's Eve one week after telling people not to drive drunk on New Year's Eve. And what was he arrested for and what has he been charged with? Just driving while intoxicated. And I think it's a special, it's even a more severe penalty because it's a state-issue vehicle.

So state senator? Is that what he was? Yes, basically. State Senator gets DUI one week. Yes. After filming non-drinking video. No, no, no, it was a column. He had a newspaper column.

Oh, no column. Okay. Yeah, he crashed his car, by the way, as well. I feel like that's been happened once or twice before. He said he is, quote, profoundly sorry after a terrible lapse in judgment. One I have urged others not to make, and I take full responsibility for it.

No, it's justification for what occurred. I made the wrong decision. All right, so the two selections you have so far, meth addict steals truck with a go-in-us, or state senator gets a DUI after writing a column about not drinking and driving. Crashing his state-issued vehicle. Nick, good luck. I think I got you both, need.

I bet you do. You guys are assuming are familiar with the show Antiques Road Show? Yes. Well, back in 2016, a gentleman by the name of John went on Antiques Roadshow and brought a mysterious bottle of liquid. He had found the bottle buried in the threshold of his home. They just so happened to have a specialized glass dealer, Andy McConnell, there as an expert. And he took a look at this mysterious bottle. It's liquid that it contained, and he decided it might be a good idea to go ahead and give that liquid a taste to try and figure out what it is.

No, no, no. Oh, just wait. So they got a syringe. They inserted the syringe through the cork in the bottle and withdrew about an ounce of this liquid. Here's what that sounded like. How brilliant. It's very brown. I think it's port.

It's port or red wine. It's one of the other. All right. So this is back in 2016. He guessed that it was probably a port or a wed wine, a very old vintage. So fast forward to today. Preve earlier this month, Antiques Road Show had another episode and they brought back John and the same expert because they took the mysterious liquid to have it analyzed.

Now let's hear what happened with that. So after that recording, Loughbury University decided to have a look at this. Alan Massey had a look at the contents. x-rayed them, poured them out. Now you thought it might be port or wine. That would have been nice. In actual fact, well, inside were these brass pins,

all of these, dating from the late 1840s, and in the liquid, urine, yummy. A tiny bit, a tiny bit of alcohol and one human hair. That's right. He drank a hundred and a hundred 50 year old bottle of urine.

And that's by non-Florida story. Thanks, gross. Yeah, thank you. Nobody should vote for you on that. Appreciate it. Nobody wants to think about anybody drinking urine, first and foremost. Second urine that's 150 years old. Now, nobody wants to eat their dinner now.

Thanks. It's not dinner time yet. It's still a little soon going to be, especially for like 4 o'clock people. All right. If you would like to vote on which the stories you liked best the nominees are meth addict steals truck with a goat in it a state senator writes a column about non-drinking and driving and then gets a DUI or a bunch of weirdos in Europe drink 150 year old urine time for your votes I don't these are all gross

First of all, why are people pulling off at adult video stories right now in 2019? Everything is on the internet. Well, you know, if you live in the middle of nowhere, maybe you don't get great internet. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Which of those stories is your favorite

non-Florida story? Line one, what's your favorite non-Florida story? It's got to be the guy that, talk about not drinking and driving and then got his ass busted for drinking and driving. You got busted. That's exactly right. Thank you very much. Line two, what's your favorite non-Florida story? I have to give it to Matt B. Bangin. Matt? What? I don't know. It's Matt. I'll give it whatever it is.

I don't think I've ever been called Matt B banging before, but that's fine. Line three is gone. Let's go to line four, line four, your favorite non-florida story. Go with the tea drinker. It's all tied up. Thanks. Let's just get the definitive vote. Let's let this person be the last one. Line one, what's your name, favorite non-Florida story?

I'm going to have to set off 2020 right and go with Peach Basket Thomas. There you go, Matt, you win. Line one, favorite non-Florida story. Line one. Hello, line, favorite non-flora story. Go. That's not what I called, man. Oh, okay.

We'll play. I'm basically going to play, believe it or not. All right, I win. Yeah, let's just declare you the winner. All right. I'm still better. I was still afraid yours are going to win because drinking urine is just gross,

especially aged urine. Astros, buddy. You of H grad. Tex-Mex connoisseur. Well, is there anybody more Houston than Matt Thomas? No way. Back to the Matt Thomas show. Tomorrow's show should be a lot of fun.

We are going to visit with one of my favorite rockets of all time. Amigo, Carl Herrera, is going to be doing the first shot of the end tomorrow night. Rockets in Philadelphia in tomorrow night. Can I say future NBA finals preview? Potential? Possible. Possible? Probable?

Maybe. Slight chance. We'll get with Brian T. Smith. We'll get you some handicapping help on the wild card games. And Chris Gordy's horrible football. Really? Playoff parity. Hmm.

Let's try to predict. What is he going to do with bills? Something money related? Destiny's Child, can you beat the bills? We've got to beat the bills. You wouldn't know. That's can you pay my bills. It's called bills, bills, bills.

There's songs. There's songs the word bills in it. Let's see, what else? I don't know. My music library is way smaller than yours. That's true. You're a 70s on 7 guy. That's about it.

Top of the bill? Dollar bill? But see, he doesn't necessarily do that. He doesn't go with songs that match a particular team. That's true. He might, though. Like what he do, like this group, BTS that was on New Year's Rock and Eve. What is that?

It's just the K-pop group, right? Yes. Is there any songs that we would recognize from that? No. Who hosts New Year's Rock and Eve now? Ryan Seacrest or something? Has for a long time. Okay.

Good for him. Eye-hard employee. Oh. Doing very well. Shout to him. Dick Clark. Passed away. That's a shame.

Many years ago. How many years? Probably even close to 10? I think we did a... Yeah, 2012. We definitely did a believe it or not when he died. You used to make fun of him because they put him up on the stay in the studio. It just wasn't good.

Well? Well, he stroked out. It just wasn't a smart idea. Wasn't a good idea. We had some people called a show on Wednesday that had been in the crowd at Times Square before. They say, never do it. Yeah, it's too. It's like it would be like going to Mardi Gras on New Orleans.

Just don't do it. You can't even go to the bathroom. You can't go to the bathroom. You have to go in plastic cups or you just hold it. What are you talking about? People in New Orleans go to the bathroom everywhere. That's true. They do vomit and piss everywhere.

They go on the street like everyone else. Take a whiz anywhere. So we got Gordy Parody, Brian T. We have Amigo joining us. We got money to make. What else? We've got to make our predictions of the game too. Of course.

We'll do that at 1230 tomorrow. All three of us. Bills by 40. Series picks. Okay. serious speaks. Five minutes left to go on the show. What should we do?

We should play America's fastest growing sports game show. We simply call it Believe it or not, and here's how it works. You'll call 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. Today's edition of Believe It or Not is brought to you by our friends at Houston Woodhouse Day Spouse. Brunch gift card for the gift of relaxation at Houston Woodhouse Spas.com. The category today is on the late commissioner who passed away yesterday, David Stern. I'll read your statement about David.

Commissioner Stern's completely utterly accurate. You'll say this. Believe it. It's erroneous full of bunk and made up. You will say this. Two, believe it or not, in a row on David Stern to win your prize. Ross, what's the prize? Matt, I got a four pack of tickets and pre-event pit party passes to the first monster jam of 2020, January 25th at NRG Stadium.

All right. Let's play. Believe it or not, 713-212. 5.7.9. If you want to play for these pit passes to go to the Monster Jam. Here we go. Renee on 790. Renee, you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it.

David Stern was born in Manhattan and grew up a New York Knicks fan. Believe it. Or not? Believe it. Oh, sorry. You're not supposed to be a fan of any team, right? But he was an NBA fan, so I can't. He can't help himself. You can't help himself. Matt on 790. Matt, you're ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. David St. St. John's and is J.D. from Harvard University. Believe it or not? Believe it. No, Columbia. That's very minutia.

And we went to Columbia and Rutgers for his undergrad. Okay. I think you're being hard on the audience. It was a false statement. Let's move. Josh on 790. Josh, your favorite part of the radio show today. I would have to say the O'Brien speak and the O'Brien talk when y'all did the ask him anything.

It was just pretty hilarious. Thank you, Josh. We appreciate you listening, my friend. That's a Ross Villarreal production right there. We're going to do it again. Yeah, we're doing it again. David Stern first became involved in the NBA when he represented the NBA in the landmark court case, Oscar Robertson versus the NBA.

Believe it or not? Believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win. a street in Sacramento known as David Stern Way. It leads to the Golden 1 Arena. Believe it or not? Not.

Oh, we just talked about it. Damn, he was listening. Come on. He must have missed that. He must have stepped out of the car. He must have stepped out of the car. That's what I like to hear, the stepped out of the car moment. Oh, we just talked about it. Mike on 790. Ready to play, believe it or not?

Believe it. In 1985, David Stern became the first ever sports commissioner to implement a salary Recap, believe it or not. Believe it. Believe it. Statement number two for the win. David Stern was also the first ever commissioner of a major sport to implement a drug testing system.

Believe it or not? Not. Believe it. That is true. I've said it once that a thousand times. Who doesn't believe in drugs and who likes them? Line number five. Howard on 790.

Howard, you're ready to play, believe it or not? Yeah. David Stern briefly considered retiring in 2011. after the blowback from vetoing the Chris Paul Lakers trade. He stayed on for another 11 months before calling it quits. Believe it or not. Believe it. No, we made that one.

I'm sorry. Line number two, Mark on 790. Mark, you ready to play, believe it or not? Believe it. David Stern enjoyed playing basketball in New York Lawyers League but had to retire after a major knee injury. Believe it or not? Believe it.

Believe it. Statement number two for... Nope. We got one more. Statement number two for the win. There is a street in Sacramento known as David Sternway. It leads to the Golden One Arena. Believe it or not.

Not. Believe it. You've got two people. That is unprecedented in the history of believing or not. And we just referenced it 30 seconds ago. Wex, what is on the big show today? Excuse me. What is on the A team today?

I used to do the big show. I love that, man. First show, the new year, and we're already called it the big show. Well, I used to call it a rather large program. Remember that back in the day? We also used to call it proper, and what else? It's been everything around here. Obviously, a lot of the same stuff you were in on what the Texans had to say about who's in and who's out, and the obvious about J.J. Watt, and that he's not only going to play, he's going to play a lot.

That's why he's back. Are you sure he's going to play a lot? Yes. Over under on snaps. I'll put it at 25. Fifty. 35. You're putting him over 25 stamps.

Correct. Over 50? Does Wax had into information? Was he on extra points today? Well, just keep in mind, if you go with 50, what if Bill tries to run the clock out with his, you know, they take the lead 3-0 on their opening drive? And then he just runs at the rest of the game because he likes close games. You know, Bill. That's going to limit their snapout.

Let's do percentage. 75%. See, Ross is getting smart now. I might take the under on that. A team is next. Talk to you all tomorrow at noon for an anything goes Friday. and we'll have to wake the strippers up too. Bye.