The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show 12-10-19

Episode Date: December 10, 2019

The Matt Thomas Show w/ @SportsMT, @SportsRV, and @ProNickLow 12/10/19The Rockets had a Bad Day (0:00)Gerrit Cole and The Mystery Team (29:21)All Quiet So Far for Astros at Winter Meetings (40:47)Aaron Reiss Breaks Down The Loss To Denver (1:19:31)

It's larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 1202 and H-Town. What's happening in lunchtimmers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show right here on Sports Talk 790. Comes in to Westbrook, comes into the front door, works on heel, drives the lane, gets to the rim, leading up and end. Russell Westbrook right to the cup.

Off the dribble. Holmes there as well. An excellent shot blocker. He beat him to the cup, dropped it in. Rockets lead by two, one second to go. Timeout Sacramento,

their last of the game. Ken Maurer hands it to Joseph, looking to get it in, looking to get it in. Comes to be elites in three, look at deep three for the win. And he hit it. From about...

Ross, answer me a question. Does today's weather? match the ending of last night's game between the Kings and the Rockets? It is very gloomy. It is rainy and misty and soupy, if you will. And I would say yes, because of the gloom of last night's game, the highest of the highs win. At least, you know, for a game in the middle of December in the regular season, with that game

that was just back and forth like a heavyweight slug fest and you thought the rockets were going to escape with that one. You even had Russell Westbrook after he made that shot saying game over and then Namina Bialica, a name that would live in infamy. By the way, that name got changed in the offseason. Oh, what did it used to be? Namanya Bialita. See, I always said pneumonia and then I saw, you know, as you do, Matt, you check the

pronunciation guide. And I did, I thought I was, I was just pronouncing it wrong the entire time because I would say pneumonia as well. Yeah, let me tell you what happened. I've told the story before. By the way, I'm over here at Hobby Airport where I'm going to have to drink heavily before my flight because this is not going to be fun to fly. I'll be brutally honest with you.

I'm not the best fly in the world. You're going to hit the Papa's Barbecue on the way out? I might have two refreshing cold beverages, if you know what I'm saying. Okay. Just to take the edge off before now and flight time. Okay, so there's a handful of names in the NBA that just give me trouble. And one of them was, at that point, B. Alitza with his first name. And I finally got it down.

And I introduced him yesterday. You know, he formerly was with the Minnesota Timberwolves. now he's with Sacramento. And I was like, man, this is rolling off the tongue beautifully. Namanya Bialitza. Nomanya Bialitza. The PR guy comes over from the Kings. Very nice guy.

He says, hey, I got to tell you that he changed the way he pronounced his name that started this season this season. I'm like, wait a minute. I've spent two years of my life trying to get this cat's name down right, and you did this to me right in the middle of the game, and it's Nemina Bialitsa. Nemina. Nemanah.

Okay. I mean, Craig called it accurately. I'm on the final call. If you hear Craig say it, it's exactly how he said it. But I just, you know what? I'm Matt Thomas all the way through, Rossi. I'm not Matthew Thomas. I'm not MT.

I'm not Mattie. I'm just good old-fashioned Matt Thomas, regular old Matt Thomas. And it ain't changing. You could change your last name. You could put a few extra R's and yours. You could spin it with an accent. What if he didn't change it, though, if he just corrected people who were getting it incorrect? Kind of like, remember Royalls?

He was known as Royals. Oswald for years. And he finally spoke and was like, hey, just to let you guys know it's Oswald. Well, I'll put it this way. I give him credit because, I mean, first of all, I don't think he speaks a lot of English. He did do an English interview yesterday, which by the way, I heard you play it on your post game show last night.

Yes. We have to play it. We do. Because it's just good. But yeah, he probably doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to it. But yeah, it's Nemina Bializa. And however you want to pronounce it, if you want to change it, I don't care. Just a gut.

Sucker punch, right? Would you call it? One second left. Russ makes the driving layup. I mean, by way, Russ is getting to where Russ needs to be. Now, shooting percentage-wise, it's never going to be great. But he's really picked up his, I thought his intensity towards the lane yesterday was a lot better. Still settled maybe for one or two, too many three-point shots, but it's not here nor there.

But, man, Russ, that zero to 60 and crunch time, it's pretty damn good. And he did that last night, and he thought you had a game winner. And then the Rockets. And I don't know if it was PJs in a wrong spot or who trailed who, but B. Elitza got a good, clean look. Granted, it was 30 feet away, which, what do you, you're the mathematician of the show. What's the average percentage for a guy shooting 30-foot shots to win the game of the buzzer?

Well, what's a success rate when nobody's within eight feet of them, though? That's another question. I'm just saying. That's not nice. I appreciate that, but you may be right, but it's just not nice. I think Mike Dantonie knows that too. Yeah. Mike was a little grumpy last night for the game.

And by the way, let's get to be a league set. We just left the hot wide open for no reason whatsoever. Ouch. How did that go again, Mike? We just left the hot wide open for no reason whatsoever. You know, they practice that all the time. Right. But it's one of those things, Ross, and maybe there's a few other things in sports

that you can practice until you are blue in the face. Like, friends, how about this? You know, they have that pitcher's bunting practice, or, you know, with a batter bunts the ball to the pitch. sure he's right left-handers got to turn and make the 180 throw to first base you probably practice that five million times in spring training you probably take a Saturday or a Monday during the season you practice it and man you can do it beautifully and then when someone lays a bun down you you throw that ball halfway down the right field line yeah but this i mean they were even

communicating i mean there was russell westbrook was talking to p jucker and everybody was and james hard and they were all talking communicating because they had the time from the time out and it looked like oh they're like i got this so you got that and everything you got that and everything's going to be cool and we know what we're covering. And then I don't know if James Hardin shouldn't have followed Harrison Barnes to the basket because PJ Tucker did as well or if James Hardin should have went out or a PJ. I don't know who should have to have be elites, but somebody should have. And it was no money.

If you chase down Harrison Barnes, no, excuse me, let me try this again. Would you rather leave Barnes open for a layup to tie the game to send the game to overtime where then the pundits would say, how do you leave Harrison Barnes so why? open or do you guard Barnes heavily to not allow the tie and say I will take my chances with Namanya Bialica shooting a 30-footer to win a baseball game? Well, the correct answer is you have somebody switch properly, so both are covered. But if you're going to take one, I would guess you're giving up, what's going to be Harrison Barnes percentage of the layup at the basket, like 95%?

Yes. And then you're at 50% from there. That's why I asked you about Bialitza's. what the average person's success rate is on an open 30-foot shot. Well, last night it was one for one. Right. Yeah. Bad loss.

Not incredibly like, oh, my God, the season's over with loss. Frankly, I don't think a lot of folks are going to, one way of the other, going to take a early December loss to Toronto or to Sacramento and make much out of it. But it was an odd basketball game. There were some weird challenges. There were a bunch of made shots. Frankly, the buddy healed falling away on the baseline three-point shot to get it to where it was. to tie the game was incredible.

Sacramento's not very good, but they played really well, and they went to Texas and beat both the Mavericks and the Rocket, so kudos of them. Sometimes if you catch teams off guard and you don't come with the same energy, no matter the opponent, you're going to get beat. That's what the Rockets did. So if you'd like to talk some Rockets basketball, we are here for you. We've got the Texans getting ready,

starting tomorrow for the game against the Tennessee Titans. We have a coach, Ross, in the NHL, who got fired today, and no one is explaining why he got fired except that he did something that basically had to have been so bad that they're calling it an act of something. Unprofessional conduct? A material act of unprofessionalism. That's pretty heavy, right? Yeah, you do those seven times a day.

Yeah, I mean, the Matt Thomas show is a constant active material, act of unprofessionalism. And I'm maintaining this job. So we'll have you I don't know what that is What exactly what that is Also there is a new way To figure out the spelling bee You know that's the one event in sports or whatever

Sports entertainment that I despise more than else Is that right? Is the spelling bee? That's because you're bitter from losing spelling bees At a young age, right? Well, that's true. But also again, I want today's youth Outside shooting baskets

And playing ball And hanging out of their buddies Not staring at a dictionary And not looking at Greek roots and Latin roots. Yeah. I mean, again, do me a favor. Let's go find the winner of the spelling bee in 1987. What's that cat doing right now?

He's probably making more money than you. Yeah, but if he touched a woman? He can afford one. Get your damn act together. I didn't realize Jerry Jones wanted all pine on this. No, did Jerry win the script spelling bee? I don't have the patience to jack with you today. I feel like Jerry Jones, for the rest of the history of this show,

is going to always give us an opinion on anything we're talking about, whether it's related to the Dallas Cowboys or not. And he's always going to want you to get your damn act together. I think I lost a good for a second. Hold on. I just lost my headset. There's a whole bunch of time when I have to go out of you. You there, Matt?

There we are. I'm back. Hi, Matt. It was such a good line that I tore my equipment down here at the airport. Wow. Get your damn act. It's like dropping the mic. You're not supposed to do that mid-segment, man.

Yeah, I dropped the mic accidentally. All right, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. I'm here at Alba Airport, leaving with the Rockets for Cleveland today. You know what I'm battling laryngeist occasionally because the rockets and the NBA don't figure out a way to effectively schedule things. Cleveland, then Orlando. Last week, it was San Antonio and Toronto. Holy culture change and climate change. 7-13-212-5-790.

7-1-3-212-2-5-7-90. Back to the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. For the corner, and let's go! Home of your Astros. Ross and Nick are back at the station. I'm here at Hobby, and this is the Matt Thomas show. Good afternoon to you. 713-212-5790 if you'd like to join us, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90.

Now, Ross, on the show yesterday, you basically said you're done, you're giving up hope the Texans are going to be any different than they were in years past. You've had a chance to sleep on this for another 24 hours. You've had a chance to reflect. You've had a chance to maybe have a glass of wine or maybe a cold beer to kind of just settle your nerves. Right. Have you changed your philosophy since the last time we spoke? And perhaps an ice cold refreshing dos eckis.

You know, that's funny you say that because I thought about that last night. I was like, am I really done with the Texans? Am I really not going to buy into them? And you know what? Yes. I'm done with buying them as any sort of level of contender, even if they went out. Okay. Which I don't expect to happen for the record.

I am the king of having this bombastic take-on life on a variety of things, whether it's raising my children, whether it's something my wife did, maybe something I've did, maybe something the station is done, where you come out with this fire and brimstone, right? And then 24 hours later, I don't know if I have a completely different viewpoint of things. or I just soften my blow in terms of being as mad as I want about something. And I was thinking about that with the Texans, just like you were yesterday. I'm going to still watch them because that's our job. I do like NFL football. It'd be kind of cool that the Texans could be spoken about in the same frame that Kansas City was spoken about last year. New England's been bet that way about 17 or 18 years, and now the way people are talking about Baltimore.

And I'm going to watch. I'm going to watch the playoffs. game we're going to talk to people about the game we're going to have people you know we'll do what our normal jam is but wouldn't it be nice if you really did have hope in january and that's a thing i can't shake i can't shake the fact that bill o'brien and you know i'm saying this before and i don't mean to to be a broken record on this but i don't i firmly in my heart of hearts truly believe that bill o'brien is incapable of leading a team to a deep playoff run and certainly a super bowl So for all the things I just said

and saying that I'm not nearly as I can't believe what I saw yesterday because it was a sucky loss on Sunday. I'm trying to give myself a little pump of let's see how things play out because Ross let me tell you this, if they go to Tennessee on Sunday and they play the Titans, one of the hottest teams in the,

I mean, if you were to think of the two hottest teams in the AFC, it's Baltimore and Tennessee. Am I missing somebody? I think that's fair. You beat a team that's won, what, four consecutive games, gone on the road and went cross-country to beat up on those Raiders. Granted, the Raiders are very average, but it's still a tough trip. And they win 35 to 17, which the Texans have won.

I mean, they've won plenty of times in Nashville. It's not like going to Indianapolis where the team almost never wins. Does that Tier 1 Texan fan who never thinks to do anything wrong, they're fully invested again. that tier two fan is like all right that was better you derailed the team that was one of the hottest teams in the afc and now you're going to win the division and then that tier three fan may be like you know what you know i don't and i think ross you're in that tier three group right now i don't care what they do they're going to screw the pooch in january there'll be nothing to be rewarding rewarded for us for following them all year long in january

because when it gets into the most important time of the year against the upper echelonical competition, they're going to show up the way that they did on Sunday. And that's why, again, Sunday's game to be against Denver was so reminiscent of a wildcar game because not that you were building up a lot of excitement for Denver, but you were building up the excitement for how do you follow

up an awesome New England win? You followed up with a dud loss. And it feels like every time the Texans, at least in the last five or six years, I've had one of those amazing, meaningful, wow moment wins, they just can't back it up the next following.

week. I've basically become everything I hate because I've preached again, like for years, preaching against Texans fan who is like football nihilist and it doesn't matter if they don't win the championship. Like who cares what they do? I'm not going to follow the team. Wake me up when they get to the Super Bowl. And now it's feel like I've come over to that dark side because every time, I mean, the last three times I've tried to get my hopes of about the Texans where the playoffs against Indy, they're horrible. Going up to Baltimore, terrible, 34 to zero. And then last week. I mean, I didn't even get my hopes up about last week. I just thought they were going to easily take care of business. So it's not even about having hopes up in the last week.

It was about how just, I was like, okay, they're going to get an easy win against a bad Broncos team because they're thinking themselves as the toast of the NFC. We were literally arguing one week ago on this show if the Texans were the second best team in the NFC. And now I don't know that they're the fifth. Yeah, you go from a debate of whether they're the second best team in the AFC to are they even going to make the playoffs? All right. People are trying to come in now. Let's talk about it.

713-212-5-7-90. If you're frustrated about the Rockets' performance last night, 7-13-212-5-7-90. Speaking of the Rockets, real quick, Ross, no surprise. The NBA denied the appeal of the Rockets getting those two points. Let me ask you this, because my answer, and people have asked me about this rocket situation real quick, I've said this. The biggest mistake of it all is the fact that no one between the problem. the time in which it happened and the end of the game brought in any common sense.

That was give them the two points with a minute 15 left to go. Someone in Sycoccas, New Jersey, or at the crew at the arena should have said, that basket went through. This is not debatable. This is not whether they're about a challenge. It is give them the two points. Because we in the NBA, we, because I'm working at a scorers table, Ross, we changed point totals all the time. Three goes to twos, two goes to threes.

It happens all the time. Yeah, and I would even argue it happens all the time, and it happens retroactively. Remember, didn't like Hakeem Elijah one have a quadruple double that got taken away? You have, I mean, assist that have gotten taken away or changed or rebounds. If you can go retroactively and change all that type of stuff, the most fundamental part of basketball is the ball going through the hoop. So, yeah, procedurally, the rockets were failed at the game and then it just created this whole mess. I just, I didn't like what Adam Silver said, basically said, you guys had a large-ass lead. That's, that's the thing, right? Because a protest is you file a protest if you're a team because of a misapplication of the rules.

That's the only time they grant one. And they even, basically in the, in the, in the press release from NBA, they said, yeah, we misapplied the rules. But tough, you know what? You had more time. And there is that argument. So it's, it's tough for me to say that it all needs to be. be replayed and all that stuff. But it's just kind of a tough pill to swallow for them to say, yes, we screwed up. Yes, we misapplied the rules, which is why you file a protest. All that is correct, but there's just nothing to be done about it. And oh, by the way, we're going to admonish the officials that worked the game because they screwed up their release. Whoops.

Oh, well. And that's what the Rockets were. I mean, I don't think the Rockets were not able to go to bed the night after or two nights ago thinking, man, I hope we get those points back. I think they knew what was going to happen on that. 3212-5-790. Hey, this is Whitney Mercilus. The Texan this year. Listen to real Texan talk on your smart speaker.

Just say, hey, Google. Play Sports Talk 790 on IHeart Radio. 1233 on the bad Thomas show. Ross and Nick are back in the studio. I'm here at Hobby Airport. We'll have Aaron Reese join us for some Texans' conversation around 2 o'clock this afternoon. You may join us right now if you so choose. You are welcome at 713-2-1-2-790.

13212-1-2-5-790. Ross, I'm about to enter a conversation that's sensitive because the Astros are currently facing some issues with illegal... Cheating. God, I don't want to use that word, so I'm not. Okay, I'll say cheating. Enhanced ways to gain in a competitive advantage over an opponent. It sounds a lot fancier, does it not? Via breaking the rules, i.e. cheating.

The views expressed by Ross. might be accurate, but I don't want to say them. Well, the Patriots are back at it again. I saw this. Today, Bill Belichick denied any involvement with a videographer who was caught taping the Bengals sideline during their game against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. Quote from Belichick,

we're competitive and we'll try to be competitive in every area, but we don't knowingly intentionally want to do anything that's across the line. But since that's happened, I'd say we've tried to keep a good distance behind the line and not maybe take it as far as we might have in the past. Well, there's basically admitting what he did. Right.

But it's never really fundamentally changed there. So apparently, an advanced scout was in the press box for the Bengals-Browns game. First of all, let me tell you, Ross, in your life, if you are a scout, and let's say everybody, says, hey, I want you to go watch the SEC championship game. Well, that'll be cool. Let's go.

I want to send you to the Big 12 championship game. Oh, that sounds great. Hell, go to the Pac-12. Oh, I heard San Francisco this time of year is great. If you're next on the scouting, we're on the travel list, and they're like, go to the bingles and browns. Why don't you just get repeatedly hit in the testicle area for about an hour? That'd be more exciting than going to that, correct?

Andy Dalton's back. The bingles are a little bit better. Okay. So here's what the Patriots are saying. They were filming something for a series on employees that is featured on the team's website. Yes. A Bengals team employee spotted the videographer filming Cincinnati's sideline reporter, sideline for the entire first quarter. I had a terrible boss, Ross, many, many years ago that when he would get mad at me for something, he'd say, walk me through this.

I want you to walk me through why somebody from the Patriots who's doing a series about employees that are non-football-related employees, why would they go to the Cincinnati Cleveland game to do so? Please walk me through this. Because they're just filming a documentary, Matt, according to Bill Belichick. He also spoke on W-E-E-I. I have a little bit of that audio of Bill Belichick addressing the allegations, if you'd like. Sure. Yeah, I heard about this. And, you know, evidently, this is our production people on the TV show that were there.

And we have absolutely nothing to do. We have absolutely nothing to do with anything that they produce, direct, or shoot, or anything. I've never even seen any of their tapes or anything else. So this is something that we 100% have zero involvement with. This is something that you'd have to talk to the production people about or what they were doing or whatever it was. So was this your advance? We've never seen anything that they've shot other than what's going to have been on TV.

All right. The question has to be asked. Believe it. Or not? As Nick just told me in my ear, this has been brought up. I saw Scott Van Pelt saying this last night as well. Why would you do it for the one and 12 bingles? Well, first of all, my answer to that would be they just put Andy Dalton back in the starting lineup.

And they've been better since then. and also if you are like this rampant cheating team that cheats every week, you're just doing it week to week on a week to week basis. If they've been doing this every week, there's no reason why they would stop just because the Bengals are up and say, you know what, we don't need a special advantage. Like for example, the Astros,

how good were the Chicago White Sox in 2017? Not good. Probably not that great. That was the team where they have it on video, right, with the trash can banging and all that type of stuff. Believe it. So, I, I, don't know how much the opponent matters materially to whether or not they cheat it.

Now, logically for us, we're like, why would you do this? The bingles suck. But if this is an advantage you've been gaining every week and you just lost last week and you're fighting for a number one seat and they've been struggling, maybe they would. Help me out with this. So they gave this guy that works for the Patriots video department a credential for this Cleveland Cincinnati, correct? Is that one of?

Yes. wouldn't somebody in the Browns, was a Bengals home game or a Browns home game? It was a Browns home game. They gave the permission for them to be in there. So do you think anybody in the Browns PR said, man, this is certainly is weird. Why is a New England videographer coming to our game?

And we're going to, now, scouts are one thing. But somebody from the video department of the Patriots wants a credential for our game? I mean, wouldn't that raise a suspicion flag of some sort? I don't know. I don't know. I have more questions than answers on this. Yeah, I want to know where the videographer crew

has been the rest of the season. I want their schedule. You know what that's? And Nick brings up a point. If the Patriots have been working on this, whatever this series is, why would you shoot the video of this team and then think of,

and not shoot videos of other games with other staffs for this alleged video? This sounds rotten. It sounds, you know how everybody in around baseball except Astro fans think the Astros thing sounds like. Patriot fan today is like, oh, that makes plenty of sense. I totally understand this. Rest of America is like, y'all are cheating again. According to Paul Dainer, Dinner, Jr., of he writes for the Athletic for the Bingles covering the Bengals,

he says, according to sources who have viewed the tape, it shows about eight straight minutes of footage focusing on recording the bingoes sideline. It's a direct view of the sideline as coaches make signals for plays. This is awful. Do you need eight straight minutes of B-roll of the Bengel's sideline for your stupid documentary on the Advanced Scout? Should we just quit sports talk? I mean, and I'm being like 1% series here. These are, the topics that have been discussed on this radio show, this decade, I never in a million years would have thought would have ever come into play.

Cheating. Kneeling. Horrific officiating. I mean, man, when are we going to just sink our teeth into a, I'm proud of the way the Patriots came back after dropping two consecutive games and how they're going to go to the playoffs again and be a chance. Man, they're never going to shake the football. thought they can't keep it honest.

They're, oh man, eight minutes of watching the Bengals. Why don't they watch the Browns for eight minutes, Ross? Hmm. I don't believe they're on the remaining schedule for. I believe New England plays at Cincinnati this week. Am I accurate on this? You are accurate.

You know what? Why don't we just cheat in everything? It's just a lot easier. Some people do, Matt. Some people do. Have no rules about anything. everything is fair game because it would make our lives

a sports host we don't have to think about who's saying what or who we should believe whether the excuse or we're being told or accurate or they're just an alibi yeah it's just it's just easier do whatever you can to win

ain't cheating you ain't trying maybe that should be the new logo around sports gosh almighty wow all right do any of you believe the Patriots when they say they have no idea what's going on. Rossi, why don't they pick the game between, say, Washington and Green Bay this week last week to do this?

Of all the weeks to tape a show, they did to tape a sideline, they chose Cincinnati and Cleveland. And who the hell is watching a documentary on the Advanced Scout? No one. Except Spelling Bee winners. Wow. Good going, Belichick. Way to sell it to us.

Hey, 713-212-5-790. Back to Matt Thomas. Drives this date to left-center field. This is Sports Talk 790. Home of Astros baseball. 1247, it is the Matt Thomas show. Here from Hobby Airport on a gloomy, rainy, cold day. The weather, Ross, is like the Texans and the Rockets the last 48 hours.

Fair to say? No, it's not that bad. It's manageable. It's not a total embarrassment to the city. Just a light sprinkle. Yeah. You realize how nervous I get one of turbulence in the air. We texting you all going, oh, my God, I'm never going to survive, take care of my kids, take care of my dogs, take care of my, transfer my Twitter account followers to Ross so you can have his 30,000 party.

You all got locked and loaded, ready to go? For your 30,000 Twitter follow party? Yeah. Yeah, I'm locked and loaded for 2021. I guess I'm giving away my Twitter followers to you as my gift if I don't make this I'm now okay I guess all right uh winter meetings are going on right now in San Diego you ever notice how they always pick really nice places for these winter meetings they never have winter meetings in like um I don't tarahote Indiana

why would they never they never take like Wheeling West Virginia as the home of the the winter meetings. They pick warm places, or at least they're supposed to be warm. Jeff Leno is going to speak tonight at 6.15. A.J. Hinch will be speaking at 7 o'clock. Ross? And they're not going to say much of anything. I believe they're going to say nothing.

May I make a prediction on which talking about A.J. Hinch and which talking about Jeff Ler. The quote's going to go something along the lines of. MLB is currently under investigation on this. We really can't speak to what they're discussing at this time, and we'll be able to give you a comment once their investigation has come to a conclusion. Yeah, pretty much. And here's the thing.

They're going to be peppered with the same question 25 times. Can you simply effectively go to that answer 25 times? Yeah, like I said, how many times are we going to hear like I said before? Like four times, at least. But this, can I get any baseball-related questions in? You think that's when you start getting agitated and combative with the people asking questions? Anybody getting any baseball questions? And throw your hands up?

And honestly, that's a PR person's nightmare, right? Because that person is going to come in and be a jerk. Because if you don't come in and stop all the questions, then Leno and Hintzger are going to be like, come on. You got to help me out in this situation. Yeah, I got a baseball question. Were y'all stealing signals during baseball games? God, you're the worst.

You're the worst. This is going to be between what we don't hear today and the constant Washington Nationals World Series hotline videos on FS1. I don't want to listen to the radio. I don't watch TV. I don't want to check on Twitter. Nothing. Nothing good coming out. It's crazy.

All right. 713212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. Do you think we're going to have Garrett Cole's new team by the end of the winter meetings? It feels like it's going to be the next 24-48 hours, does it not? I just saw a report, I think it's maybe from J.P. Morosi about how they expect something to happen at these winter meetings. Angels, Yankees, and Dodgers in the mix as of right now, from what I've read. And there's a mystery team.

Right. Isn't there always a mystery team? And it turns out it's not, they had nothing to be involved with. You know what that mystery team is? That agent saying, hey, I, you know, I've already talked to X and Y. and I might talk to Z and that reporter goes, what, you're going to talk to Z team? Apparently, according to

John Heyman, who used to write in all caps or was it all, he was all in underscore. Yeah, he used to be in all undercase, but now he's, somebody must have got to him because now he puts caps in there every now and then. Yeah, because it's a jerk move. Don't be that.

You always called it a jerk move. I don't say, why is it a jerk move? Why? Because it's time for you to grow up and be an adult on Twitter. How does it make you an adult just because you put caps? Because he did it because he's an intention-seeking, you know what? He intentionally didn't put caps on his writing because he wants attention.

Yes. Is what you're saying. Absolutely 100%. Okay. It's like people that always wear loud clothing. They don't do it because they've got horrible taste. They want people to notice the crazy stuff they wear. Right.

So you with your sandals. I'm not wearing sandals. It's wintertime. or almost wintertime. Back to what I was saying. So he believes the mystery team is the Philadelphia Phillies. Now, again, that could be lip service from the Phillies. It could be lip service from the agent.

I just want for once to want the mystery team to be from like the Dominican League. Or like Japan. That would be, that would be a mystery team. The Tokyo Lions. Right. Not Dominican. They can't offer it. But those Japanese and those Chinese teams can offer big money.

Can they not? Probably. Mystery team. So the Dodgers want Garrett Cole, the Yankees want Garrett Cole, the Angels want Gary Cole, and the Miami Marlins want Gary Cole? Yeah, that's a mystery team. That would be a mystery team. That's the mystery team.

They would floor us. Yeah, yeah. You know, and you could say, well, wouldn't it be nice if the mystery team was the Houston Astros? You know, to the Astros, to the Astros' credit, they do give us plenty of surprises. So I'm not going to indict the Astros for not being the mystery team this goal. round. You know why? Because they were the mystery team July 31st this year when they went and got Zach Granky away from the Arizona Diamondbacks. And the year before that, they were the mystery team that went and got to Justin Verland or August the 31st. You know what I'm saying?

I do know what you're saying, Matt. They've done their share of being the mystery team. Yeah, they've been involved in the mix in big names this whole time, yeah. So yesterday when we found out that Steven Strasberg signed his seven-year $245 million deal with the Washington Nationals. You and I spent some time talking about where the dollar amount is, and everybody keeps talking about Garrett Cole being the $300 million man. And my wife and I were talking about this yesterday before the Rockets game. You can't give an eight-year contract to a player, can you? A baseball pitcher? I mean, seven years to me, Ross, feels kind of dicey.

Because that's seven years, that's all guaranteed money. I don't care if you back pay him until he's 75 like Bobby Benilla has been with the New York Mets. You're still paying him money. Well, if you're asking for him to get, if Cole's asking for 300, that's not going to be over seven years, right? Well, I mean, if 40 million dollars a year. Think about this. He is two years younger than Stephen Strasbourg. So that would be the argument on the, on the Gary Cole, Scott Borriside.

Hey, this guy just got seven years. that's until he's 38. I'll be 38 in nine years. Nine years, $300 million. That's less than... Look, he's not going to take less than $35 million. So whatever you want to make the equation. Right.

What is it? Average annual value. It's probably not going to be less than what Strasbourg's getting. As the kids say, the A-A-V. I don't think the kids say that, but... What do the kids say? The darkest things?

Yeah, the darkest thing. It's very nice. Kevin and Pearline on 790. Hi, Kevin. Hi, Matt. Go Cougars. Hey, I wanted to ask you, hindsight's 20-20, but leaving the guy open

that's shooting about 45% from threes, Bellica, beat, I'm not sure how you say. Bealiza? But, yeah, you know, I would venture to say that he had the best three-point shooting percentage on that team, and, you know, it's just kind of, just, you know, hindsight, 2020.

That's the guy you don't want to leave open to shoot a three, right? Well, we argued about that a little bit. We debated a little bit, Kevin. It was either you allow Harrison Barnes a cut to the basket and take your chances on a layout to tie the game, or do you really guard him tightly, let Bialitza sneak out, and then have a take a 30-foot shot. Now, the best part would have been a 30-foot shot would have been contested. Unfortunately, it was not. Yeah, that's what I mean.

I just put a little bit of a face in him, but, hey, taking a 33-foot shot or whatever it was, that you had to like the Rockets chances. On another note, if you have y'all caught the interview that Andy and Melch had with Jacob Martin, did y'all listen to any of that? He said something that kind of, well, I wanted to ask you a question. I know this is not anything goes Friday, but I did want to ask you a question. I kind of cringed a little bit when he said that they, They'll go and pack up the house and do everything and pack up everything and then bring it back to a new place and then unpack it.

You know, the team support staff. I had a question for you. Now, I'd have a problem if, you know, me and my wife would have a problem to have someone coming to our house and pack up every single thing. You know, would you have a problem with that? Because everybody has that one little box or something that nobody else knows about. What do you think, Matt? What? you know what he's talking about

no what box that nobody knows about I'll should I tease ahead or should just tell the audience you tell me so I tell you in text or tell you on the air however you want Matt all right I think everybody knows

what the box he's talking about is so I will not give me I got a box with a bunch of like cable cords and HDMI cables and old remotes Nope. Batteries. Nope. There's a couple possibilities here.

Let's see. You're getting another box with like a hammer. Nope. Various wall hanging materials and tools. Uh-uh. Screwdrivers. Nope. Nope.

You got you're not even close. Nick, you want to try quickly? Are we talking sex toys or drugs? Because both of those came to mind. Hmm. Got to keep those separated. I was going to go with the sex toys. Oh, really?

Sex toys, your adult film collection. Yeah, I don't have a box of either of those. There's nothing wrong with you. That's why you got the internet in 2019. I was going to say, if you got DVDs now, I mean, come on now. And my Google Chrome cache, that's a different story. Yeah. Not that I would know anything about that.

Is The Matt Thomas Show. All right, here we go at 104 The Matt Thomas Show from Hobby Airport, where a lot of people are. Excuse me. Ross, people are driving around town going, should I ever have my house packed up by someone else, or I should do it myself? People are driving around right now really concerned about that thought.

Shouldn't be. Let somebody else do the packing, right, Ross? I would say hiring movers is probably a good move. Moving is just the absolute worst. And by the way, don't ask me to help you move because I'm not going to help you. I'm going to laugh at off as a, Yeah, I know.

Moving sucks, man. I really would like to do it, but, you know, I got to watch some old episodes of very busy. Very busy. I helped my sister move like two weekends ago. And was it awful? Yeah, it was. But it's family, Matt, and I'm helping other people.

The answer to this question is easy. All you got to do is pack up all your sensitive material first. Yeah. And then let somebody else move. Unless you have like five truckloads worth of boxes that you don't want the move is knowing about. You just put it in the passenger seat next to you when you move, right? Yeah, I don't, you know, my next door.

You're next door. Oh, what kind of weird stuff you're getting into over there in Kingwood, Matt? When I was a kid, my next door neighbor in Katie, we used to go to his dad's treasure trunk. What kind of treasure is in there, Matt? A lot of bad 80s porn. A lot of it. Was there good 80s plot? I don't want any.

I don't want any answer. questions. I want you to assume what you think 80's porn is. Okay. Are we talking like Pit House, hustler, or worse? Way worse. Like Ron Jeremy? No, they were videos. Oh, okay. Home movies? So what I was thinking about was if, when they moved, because obviously they moved, I wonder if he picked up the chest and said, I got this. Because I mean, it was a treasure trunk. I mean, it had to be like 50 pounds. 50 pounds? Yeah. Not 50 pounds of tape, but I'm I'm just talking about, well, I don't know how many pounds of VCR there was, but point being is that it wasn't a, it wasn't a, you didn't have clothes in it.

You know what I'm saying? So the dress itself was heavy, and then you had all these tapes on top of it. How do we get into this conversation? I don't know. It's a caller, Kevin. Kevin, your fault? That's what we're the most interactive show in Houston. Andy Kalu's show is second.

We should have asked Jacob Martin if they, if they, found anything that he didn't want him to find in there. Oh, yeah. How does, how would you, go ahead and try to try that one. Hey, Jacob Martin. Welcome to Houston. You've made a nice couple of weeks with a team with some sacks. And oh, by the way, did your movers find any toys in your special box? Yeah, why not? That'd throw him off guard and be a good interview. And we'd never get him again. Well, true.

You'll get a lot of Texans as it is. I mean, when's last time we had Deshawn Watson on the show? That would be never. J.J. Watt. A wants. DeAndre Hopkins I think maybe he's There was the

You were supposed to be Had the DeAndre Hopkins show Remember that? His rookie year, right? Yeah, Kubiak struck it down Because he was a rookie You had Jadaivian Clowny show up Like once or twice, right?

Oh my God, I've done I've done one and a half episodes of the Jadaean Clowny show You used to have DJ Swering D'Roll on all the time Love swag Whitney Merciless Was on earlier this year

Yeah We can't afford it anymore Yeah, he don't want it anymore But the Jadavion and Clani show was First episode he was really late Second episode he was so late And he got lost and he just called in for a segment Maybe that's why I got traded

Don't think so Yeah that's what it was Bill O'Brien's like you're going to honor your commitments To various radio stations here in the city And since you didn't we're sending you to Seattle No no I mean maybe it was late to you know Texans type stuff Oh probably probably All right, let's get back.

Let's get back to serious sports. What's the people need here on a Tuesday? 713-212-5-790. Aaron Reese from The Athletic to talk legitimate Texans conversation coming up at 2 o'clock today. Let's go to David and Katie at 108. Hi, David. Hello. I just want to talk about the Astros, I guess, scandal or whatever that they have going on over there.

My biggest question about this whole thing is A.J. Hinch and Dave Roberts, who's the manager with the Dodgers. 2017 are friends. I wonder if that ever came across AJ Hinch's mind, like if he was a part of it, that, hey, like, we're cheating against you guys, you know, if they were cheating. You know what I'm saying? That's the reason why I question the whole thing. Are you saying that you believe that Dave Roberts told on his buddy? Is that what you're saying? I don't get what you're asking. No, I'm saying that if it, like, I think that AJ Hinch wasn't a part of the scandal because they're friends. Like, How can he do that to his friend? You know what I'm saying?

I hope you're right. David, can I be really honest with you? And you and I are not best friends, but I'm going to tell you a little secret here. I really like AJ Hinch. I think he's a great, great manager. He's a good communicator. He's excellent on the radio with me. He adds to my show.

And I like him personally. I want him nowhere near this. I want this to be, and Ross believes I'm being as naive as naive as naive can get, and I can accept that. Dave, I don't want him. want him anywhere near this controversy. I'm afraid I'm not going to be wrong, but I'm just hoping and praying that this is a tremendous case of miscommunication or the fact that the manager of the team clearly

had nothing to do with this. I hope that's the case. And I agree, too, because I think that there's no way that he does that to his friend. There's just no way. Yeah, but these guys are all friends, but they're all friendly to each other. There's nobody. I don't think A.J. hates any other manager. He may not be best friends with them, but there's going to be a professionalism that goes to each guy because they know how hard it is to be a major league manager.

So whether they're best buddies, fishing buddies, or stepbrothers, they're going to want to win baseball games. A.J. Hinch managed in 2017 to win the World Series over the Los Angeles Dodgers, whether or not Dave Roberts was a buddy he has or not. All right. That's just my take on it. Okay. I got you. Hopefully they get cleared from all this, but that MLD investigation needs to wrap up soon because a lot of people are speculating. I think it's unfair.

What is unfair? It's unfair that a lot of people are drawing their own conclusions, calling people cheaters. We don't know what happened yet. We don't know. And I'm not trying to attack my fires. that in Houston he's not really like. No, no. But what I want to know is

in order for me to make any sense of it, what's going on, because you already have a player, J.D. Davis, saying that when he was there, he didn't see any of it. That's what he said. Yeah, but David, I mean, Mike fires amount of playing time as a major leaguer compared

to J.D. Davis isn't even close. Thank you for the phone call. The reason why, David, you're not hearing anything, is because Major League Baseball is not ready to tell you anything yet or me or Ross or Nick or anybody that's an astro fan they are conducting an investigation

they under no circumstance owe us an update they just don't I'd like him to tell me something I'd like somebody to whisper in my ear here Matt here's what I'm hearing but Ross have you seen Haman or Morosi

or Gammons or Rosenthal I mean this is pretty tight-lipped, correct? I haven't heard any updates. I don't think we're going to for a little bit. No. And frankly, I'd rather them say nothing and be ridiculously thorough about this

than say, well, we had somebody tell us this and somebody tell us that. We haven't figured it out if it's accurate or not. It's a terrible waiting game. But just remember this. As bad as it might end up, the Astros are still going to go to spring training. The Astros are still going to open up this season. and there's still going to be a legitimate World Series threat, regardless of what happens with the penalties that Major League Baseball may or may not hand out.

713-212-5-790 is how you reach our show today. 7-13-212-5-790. How many of you watched the Rockets game last night? Disappointment level on the setback to the Kings. Disappointment level on the NBA saying that, yeah, we screwed up. you had a big enough lead you should have held on to it and losing those two points in the hardened dunk is not going to make that big of a difference.

Kind of a blaze way to tell the rockets that take care of your own business first, which I don't think it's fair. You should have fixed the basket in the fourth quarter late whenever it happened shortly after because they fix it all the time.

But if you'd like to chime in on that, Texans conversation, certainly fair game as we get ready for yet another important three-week stretch. for the Texans to close out the season. The Matt Thomas show. Back to it. On Sports Talk 790.

Escalated. Home of the Stroes. We are your proud home of the Astros, and like I said, the show will go on. There will be spring training. There will be regular season games. There will be an American League. They're going to raise a pennant for an American League?

I would say yes, right, on the first night? Nothing to be ashamed about. Yeah, you got to put that up somewhere. I don't know if you, will you do it on the first night? I mean, you don't have to have, well, you wouldn't have it. unveiling, right? I don't know. Like, are they going to drop, they're not going to drop

a curtain on it like they did on the World Series one. You can't do that for a getting second place. It just should be up when the season starts or something, right? I don't know. I don't know. Point being is this, we are a really good baseball town, and we've had a lot of success. Over 300

wins in the last three seasons. I mean, lots and lots of good times. A little bit of despair. But, man, you know, there are so many people that are to the show right now that are bouncing around whether they're at their office

place or they're at a home and they're scared to death about this Astro thing and so I was the leader of the y'all better be ready for this and then I went to a little bit of the well okay whatever happens happens

to now I'm very anxious to what I mean Rob Manfred's going to speak at the winter meetings right it is the biggest off season meetings for the sport of baseball I mean he he's going to have to address it way more so than he has in the last, say, two months. That's fair to say, right? I mean, what's he going to come out and say? He's probably going to say... More of the same. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. More of the same. So, I mean, he has to address it, but I don't think

he's going to divulge much of anything, nor should he. I think people, I think people are, you know, like, okay, we know who you're talking to. We know that you're talking to Alex Cora. We know that you talk to Mike fires. We know that you're talking to AJ and into Jeff and to Goldstein and to Carlos Beltran Carlos Beltron Brandon Taubman I mean there's I think people are just kind of

in the is this going to be before Christmas is at the end of the year is it February 1st because you know pictures and catchers will report in middle of February so if you're going to do any sort of on-field suspension

does that mean spring training games does that mean instruction during spring training does it mean when the regular season starts and everybody's asking me and I don't have answers for you because I've never been a part of this. Ross, we didn't know how to answer when people were asking us about Sean Payton and Bountygate. How much you suspend somebody or you fire somebody or you find somebody.

These levels of cheating are new to everybody. Think about cheating in baseball. The last time we've had to legitimately worry about cheating in baseball, it was Pete Rose. And it was easy. It was cut and dry. He bet on baseball games. They tell you if you bet on baseball, you are forbidden to be in the sport. There isn't a handbook where you go to Chapter 9 and say,

illegal tactics to steal signs. This is the punishment if you get caught. So I think Rob Manfred, even if he figures out exactly what the asteros did or did not do, he's going to have to go to several layers of his legal staff to figure out what he can get away with. and what the Astros can use as a defense, and ultimately how the other 29 teams feel about the Astros and what they did and what Major League Baseball is able to find. So there is no easy answer.

I think the number one thing that Rob Manfred could probably help us with during this time of the winter meetings is, when do you think you'll have a decision made? The rest of it, I don't necessarily want to hear until I know for sure what he was absolutely able to find as evidence and not evidence. Yeah, we'll just have to see we can figure out from what he does say. Like, for example, the last time he said

he has a very broad amount of options in front of him that he can as far as sanctions and things that he can do. It's very broad. And we do have the precedent of the Apple Watch thing with the Red Sox where just they got fine, right? That's the only

thing that ever happened to them. So this will probably be more severe, especially if it was after 2017. But we don't know. And the one thing I guess we got answered since the first thing came out was they weren't just looking at 2017. They've been looking to see if the Astros were behaving themselves in 2018 and 2019. Scott and make that Matt and Tomball on the Matt Thomas show.

Matt, how are you, sir? I'm doing quite well, and I listen to you often when I'm driving around in Houston, and I enjoy your show. You know, I'm going to touch on a couple things. One is, I remember the Cardinal situation. I'm a Cardinal fan, but what they did a few years ago when they hit a low-level scout hack into the Astros system, Lutonaut's account, you know, and they got hit pretty hard, and it was pretty much of a smear and deservingly so. And concerning what the Astros are under scrutiny right now, I hope, if you remember at the very beginning of this, they talked about they're looking at other teams, too, and they've been very tight-lipped about the whole thing.

thing. And I agree with you, Matt. It's better off that they just don't leak out stuff. And I do hope they come out with a timeline. But look, I think it's naive to think that the Astros were the only ones cheating like this. And I think it's horrible. There's going to be a horrible, you know, consequence here. But I don't want the Astros just because they become really successful the last handful of years. And then people target them, you know, or become, you know, I don't know if Jalph is the right word. But they better do it thorough, basically, baseball, they better do a thorough investigation and make sure that other teams, you know, weren't cheating with technology because it's a very good chance, a very good chance

that a couple of teams were. The New York Mets were talked about at the very beginning of this thing, and that was shut down. But, you know, the consequences are significant. And I also think that the commissioner of baseball, he doesn't have to worry that much about the, you know, dangling legal ramifications. he's the czar. Baseball commissioner can make a rule, and that's it. Are you to make a judgment, and that's it?

And that's the power that's been entrusted to him by the ownership group. They expect him to do that. So I hope there's a whole lot of other teams involved in this, and, you know, it could be significantly better if there are other teams. And if Astros are dangling out there alone, that would be a bigger problem. And, again, here's the problem. And thank you for the phone call. Ross, remember what Commissioner Manfred said?

He said, the only team we're investigating right now are the Astros. Yep. That hurts. I don't expect anything coming out about, well, at least, I mean, that we've heard. We would hurt if they're investigating somebody else. I would imagine we would have heard by now. And who would, and who would do that? I mean, do I think this is the only time we're ever going to hear about a team that's allegedly getting caught with cheating?

No. And it's almost like it's, right, and maybe I'm going to give you a bad example. But it's almost like if everybody's doing it, which we keep hearing in college athletics all the time, it just takes, you know, who's going to get caught next? Who's going to be the one that's going to have the audit? Or who's going to gain the attention of the NCAA? So if you want to think of it that way, if everybody gets cheating is cheating, then the, and the asterisk is just being picked upon, I guess you could do that. But this time around it feels like it's unprecedented in terms of what Major League. baseball is trying to accomplish here.

Because if there are levels of cheating in all of baseball, we can accept that. But I feel like what the Astros are being accused of is above and beyond the normal will everybody else does this kind of thing. And I think the sentiment of everybody else is doing it wouldn't make the Major League Baseball more lenient. I think it would make them punish them harder as a deterrent to other people say, hey, look, stop messing around, stop doing this. Look what we did the Astros.

If we catch you, it's going to be like this. then some. That's absolutely correct. 128. Matt Thomas Show continues on Sports Talk 790. Ross Van Moore calls today on the Astros cheating than on the Texans performance against Tennessee Titans or against the Denver Broncos. I'm okay with that, actually. You know what it is? It's actually it's, it's, it's, there is intrigue on the Astros. There just isn't enough on the Texans.

But doesn't mean we're not going to talk about them. Doesn't mean we're not going to discuss them in good times and in bad. In fact, we will get an update on what's happening with the Texans coming up in a half an hour from now. 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. We will check in at the winter meetings tomorrow with Brian McTagger of MLB.com. We'll see what he has to say about what Jeff Loneau and AJ Hinch. Not only say about this whole cheating allegations, but just what the Astros should be doing. Who's a starting catcher for the Astros in 2020? Any ideas yet? No.

Wilson Contreras. How about their starting rotation? Let's see. Verlander, Grinky, McCullors, Whitley. Is it time for four? or is willing to be the first round pick that I would like it to happen yes he I mean he was he struggled last year and then he got hurt and all that type of stuff so it was kind of a weird year for him but he's got to grow up at some point he's been untouchable for all these years and so it would

like it would be nice to see him perform a little bit yeah for sure garrick cole um yesterday we found out stephen strasberg stays with the nationals and um he got seven years in 245 million dollars which is 35 a year my guess he's 40 million a year right so how about about this. Garrett Cole, seven years, $280 million. To which team, Sports Harvey, name it. Call your show. Well, I think I'm going to go Yankees. But I think I saw somebody say the over-under was something like $324 million for him. I'm trying to, you know, all these baseball rumors are flying, so it's kind of hard to go back and forth and figure out.

Who said what? Who's Joel Sherman? New York Post writer, I want to say? Okay, he says the over-under is nine years, 324. Over-under, as in it could go over. Oh, Rusty. Which that would be $36 million a year, and that would make sense because, you know, you know how they always play these games.

I've got to make more than this guy, so that would be one more million dollars a year than Stephen Strasbourg in two more years. So $36 million a year for nine years. To throw a baseball, he'd be doing it. pretty well for himself you know what's funny is that we all as baseball fans knew that when albert pullhole signed his deal with angels that was a bad deal right there was no way in the world he was ever going to live to the dollar amount that he was going to get signed and while st louis fan was upset they were like you know what you're going to crush the angels have the

angels ever been a world series contender with albert pool holes as their first baseman slash d h No. I think they made the playoffs, I mean, at least once, maybe twice. My point is this. Whomever signs him is the, and I don't care if it's cash rich, New York, cash rich, Los Angeles, San Diego, the mystery team. If you and I are doing a sports radio show together in the next six years, which you'll be vastly disappointed if we're still together. I like you, but I know you'll be disappointed. It's okay. My show in Topeka is coming. Okay.

If in the year 2026, we're sitting here talking about, man, X, Y, Z team really screwed themselves by signing Garrett Cole to nine years and $300-something million. So Albert Pools has been with the Angel since 2012. They went to the playoffs once. They got swept in the LDS in 2014. That's it. I think if you were to look at that. the deal for Albert Pooleholes, the St. Louis Cardinals are breathing a huge sigh of relief.

And Mike Trout's been their best player every year. Yeah. And they've actually, relatively speaking, are paying him fair market value, not overpaying him, maybe even a tinge of underpayment to that guy for as good as he has been. Yeah, he's making $35 million a year for the next like nine, 10 years, whatever it is. And he shows no signs except for the injury he had in September of Slopening. pulling down. Great glove, amazing bat, reigning MVP, three-time MVP at the age of 27.

Money, money, money, money's well spent, right? Yes. Pull holes, I feel like, has been an albatross around the Angels neck. He's either hitting home runs or he's striking out. There is no slugging anymore, at least in the last three or four years, and you can't put him at first base much anymore because he can't move. One of the all-time greats, first bowed Hall of Famer, but the day that Albert Poole hold signed that big halacious contract,

you know that was bad money spent. I get a feeling, Ross, and please record this whenever he does sign, that whoever signs him is going to be bad money spent. Because Garrett's really, really good. And I would absolutely die to have, not die literally, but figuratively, die to have Albert, to have Garrett Cole back on this team. But paying a pitcher that length of time and that amount of, of money is just crazy.

Right. I know he was filthy in the playoffs. I know he was. That's not the Astros philosophy. I'll go back to what Darrell Morey kind of said. It's the same similar idea when Chandler Parsons went away for a max contract to Dallas. So we find the Chandler Parsons. We don't pay the Chandler Parsons.

And I think that's what the Astros are looking to do. They're looking to trade for guys and get the guys that are under control and whip them into shape with Brentstrom or whoever and get them. him to an elite level, and then when it's time to pay him $35 million a year, for the most part, you let somebody else do that. You know, we need some right now on a day we've spent a lot of time talking about the Astros scandal and money being spent in baseball. A man who knows how to spend a good dime when it comes to picking up players. Howard on 7-90.

Hello, Howard. You know, from what I've heard of Mr. Crane, I would think he would hire the best private detective group that knows big league sports and the dirt on all the other owners. And I would go to the commissioner and say, if you come down on us, this is what we're going to leak to the press. And I have a feeling that there's a lot of stuff going on with the other owners that they don't want out in the public venue. And that it would be very interesting to see how they're going on.

ameliorates itself. What did you say? What was you saying? What was the word you just said? It means to help. Ameliorate itself? Ameliorate, okay. In other words, what they say in Wall Street is I didn't do it,

but I promise not to do it again. And they slap you on the wrist. And basically, I think that's what's going to happen. Maybe I'm wrong. but we know that signs are being stolen for the last 200 years. They've just gotten a little better at it maybe because the technology has gotten better. Well, the problem is you can't use the technology. Thank you, Howard, for the phone call.

I appreciate you listening. Howard did have one good idea. The sports detective agency would make a great TV show. You mean like investigating, like, Belichick? Sports scandals. Huh. Who would you put on that? show. I don't know.

Ex-athletes? Anybody. The Rock? Michael Strayhan, because he's on every show. Sure. Ross, who would be a great group of sports investigators? Actors or people?

Real-life people. I don't know. Nobody's coming to mind immediately. Bill Belichick once he retires. Yeah, well, no. He's good at spying on people. He knows how it's done, so he can probably uncover it. He's from the inside? Like a Frank Abagnale situation?

Exactly. Okay. Like, I think Joel Klatte thinks that there's some big time conspiracy going on in college football. You can get to the bottom of it? I'd put Joe Klaught on the college football investigative team. I guess it had to be media people, wouldn't it not? Because you're not going to take current coach. Like, Sean Payton's not going to run the NFL side of things.

No. You're not going to take previous people that have been guilty. Although that is interesting that. Sometimes former criminals can help you, you know, they come to your side of the fence, so to speak. The sports investigators. Sports investigators weekly. Or you know what you do is, you remember that show cheaters where they would show the videos of people, those guys cheating on their women and stuff? Yeah.

And then I think they, do we look into this? They stopped that show because somebody got stabbed or something like that? Yeah. When there's death on the show, it probably needs to end. Here's what you do. you call the sports investigators line Hey, I just want to let you know that there is a And there's a college

No, apparently that show's still going Cheaters is still on? Yeah, I thought they stopped it when somebody got stabbed How about this, Ross? You do this, you Yeah, you should go to Old Miss Because there's some money changing hands And then you come in

We're the sports investigators And then you have a coach, an assistant coach with a $100-hour bill in his hand trying to hand it to a player. Oh, no, it's not me. I was just showing him how much money I had. That'd be pretty cool, actually. The sports investigators. When the leagues can't figure out the crap that's going on, they call us.

Hmm. We got to come out with a better title, though. Whatever. That's fine. We got tomorrow to worry about this. We actually have the next handful of months if the Texans don't want to play deep in the postseason. How about sports dicks? How about sports cheaters?

How about sports cheaters? You mean just a sports version of cheaters? It's called it cheater sports. Sports cheaters. All right. I'm going to let you all percolate on that. Yeah, we'll hash this out for you, Matt. Thank you very much.

The Matt Thomas show continues on Sports Talk 790, where Rockets and Astros play. And real Texans talk. Oh, the weather. outside is frightful but the fire is so delightful. Michael Boobley.

Let it snow. Hey, Reds Sports Talk 790. See, Matt Thomas goes away and we have to go straight into Christmas music. At least like dabbling in Christmas music, Nick. So, rest of the show, Mega Christmas? No, I don't think so.

Good. But I just want you to, I've been asking you to drop it on Matt while he's here because Matt absolutely hates Christmas music. He subscribes to the theory that you should only listen to it on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and that's it. I think it does come out a little bit early. Well, the reason for that is, a little inside radio, so you can get a full book of it, a full ratings book.

But anyways, yeah, Sunday goes through it. They went to it, they've been playing into the hallways up here at Sports Talk 7. 9. November 7th. Yeah, I think it was, yeah, early November. They went into full Christmas mode. Anyways, it is the Matt Thomas show. Welcome back here on Sports Talk 790. Matt Thomas is off.

traveling with the Houston Rockets to Cleveland. So not necessarily a big game coming up for the Rockets there, but they lost last night, 119 to 118 to the Sacramento Kings. Oh, by the way, phone number if you want to get in, 713, 2, 1, 2, 5, 790. 7, 1, 3, 1, 2, 5, 790. Tweets to at Sports RV and at Pro Nick Lowe,

just to set up the rest of the show for you a little bit. We've got one hour to go after this segment. It'll be Aaron Reese of the athletic. Let it covering the Texans. I'm definitely interested in talking to him. My first question to Aaron, just a little spoiler alert, is going to be, Aaron, what the hell happened on Sunday? So we can try to get to the bottom of that.

Because we're now two days removed, and I still can't believe my eyes that the Houston Texans got down 38 to 3 to the Denver Broncos. 38 to 3. I'm still getting over that. So we'll talk to Aaron. a little bit. And of course, we'll talk some rockets. And the Garrett Cole thing we were talking about in the last segment.

Are you guys invested in that? Like how far are you getting into worrying about where Garrett Cole is going? Because I remember close to the end of the season, we're all just like, hey, Garrett Cole, is it going to happen? There was still like 10% of you who were like, hey, maybe Garrett Cole's going to come.

He'll take a hometown discount. Jim Crane's going to put up the money and all that type of stuff. I think that's all slipping away, right? Yeah, I've already checked out on Gary Cole. Like reality is setting. in. Isn't the first stage of grief is denial, right? Yeah, I guess you have a point. Is that what are those stages of grief called?

I'm going to have to look these up now. I think it ends with what acceptance or something? The Kubler-Ross model, I wasn't involved in this. Yeah, it does end with acceptance. There's anger in there. Okay, let's get it. So first of all, there's denial. And I think that's where a lot of you people were, right? We're in denial that

Garrett Cole is not going to be a Houston Astro. Anger? I don't think there was anybody. right about Garrett Cole for leaving? No, I think everyone understood that he's going to take the big paycheck, which the Astros just couldn't give him. I mean, I think I wish him well.

Like when Garrett Cole, like, for example. Well, there was anger when the Scott Boris hat thing happened, I guess. Yeah, you know what? That's good, actually. So I think that does go into one of the stages of grief. But we're not going to boo Garrett Cole when he comes back

in a uniform in Anahem Angels uniform or New York Yankees uniform, are we? No, I'm not. I wouldn't. Well, I wouldn't, but I also, I didn't boot Carlos Beltrane for like 15 years, like many of you people did, when he went over to, what was that deal that he went to the Mets for? It was like seven years, 115 million or 114 million somewhere in that neighborhood. That deal is nothing compared to what the guys are getting in free agency now. But, I mean, I feel like we can just rationalize, right?

And say, you know what? Garrett Cole, thank you for what you brought. We appreciate your service here as a Houston Astro and go get paid. but we didn't say that when Carlos Beltran went away and I guess there was a little what was it the people were upset he said like at a parade not at a parade

or there's like a public event where he said he was coming back and then he went back on his word or something like that yes I don't remember I don't remember that but I mean I don't feel like there's animosity that there's going to be against Garrett Cole I mean the guy was great here he finished second in the Cy Young Award he's got beautiful flowing long curly locks

and I will always remember remember Garrett Cole era here in a Houston Astros uniform, I will always remember it well, even though he was unable to win a World Series championship here. Right, yeah, he wasn't on the 17th. Bargaining is the third stage of grief. There's been a little bit of bargaining, right? Yeah, people saying that, hey, maybe Jim Crane will, you know, just pony up the dollars and pay him whatever he wants.

Yeah, maybe he can take the discount and he'll be here and he'll be fine and everything will be okay. and then the fourth stage depression that's when acceptance starts to hit depression and finally acceptance I think I'm at the acceptance stage of grief with Garer Cole you've moved past you're already looking forward to like Forrest Whitley

No I'm not sure I look forward to Forrest Whitley Why not? He's still a big question mark in my opinion I'm not sure if he's no obviously Yeah he's definitely a huge question mark The weed thing and then No, I thought it was, no, I thought it was a Adderall. No, was it? Whatever he popped for.

Yeah, like every 21-year-old is on Adderall these days, right? I assume, I don't know. I'm not 21 years old, having been for many moons. Well, speed, a performance-enhancing drug? Yeah, I would think so. For a pitcher? Yeah, I guess. It enhances his focus? Maybe.

I don't know. I wouldn't know that. But the Forrest Whitley thing, that's definitely a huge question, Mark. Lance McCuller's coming off of Tommy John surgery. I think that would be more of a concern in years past. Now that you have guys that coming off Tommy John surgery, and a lot of them have the best years of their career. So, I mean, Stephen Strasberg is a guy who's had Tommy John surgery. He just got seven years, $245 million.

And he has pitched well. And, you know, you saw him during the World Series. We know that Stephen Strasberg still has a little bit of something in the tank. I guess I do have the question marks about, I mean, Zach Grinky, as your number two. from Garrett Cole to Zach Grinke as your number two. I mean, there's no way around it. That's a huge downgrade. I mean, this is a guy who in the playoffs, in the World Series,

if the guy gave you, he was getting pulled in games in the World Series during the playoffs. Pitching like three and a half, four and a half innings. And that's one of the reasons. Remember people are obviously arguing about Zach Grinke in Game 7 and getting pulled early and all that type of stuff. One of the reasons he got pulled early is because how well he pitched,

it was basically money in the bank. And if you're paying that guy $35 million and you're saying if he gives up six strong, that's great. You're not really getting your money's worth. So with the downgrade in the rotation, over under wins on the next season. Oh, man, I'm not ready to say to wins. 90? I think I can go over that, right? You want $100 for three straight.

I believe no team's ever done $100 for four straight. That would be unprecedented in Major League Baseball history. I'm not necessarily going to put them there, but things still have to shake out. I'm still in Luno we trust mode, unless he's completely suspended from the team. That remains to be seen. But I'm still trusting Luno to put something together. Matthew Boyd, the left-handed pitcher from Detroit, is a guy whose name was mentioned during the trade deadline. That's come up again.

Maybe the Astros will be in on that. I mean, of course, Wade Miley wasn't on anybody's radar in last year, and he was signed for one year $4.5 million deal, and he was effective for five of the six months of the season. Yeah, the thing I'm most excited about with the Astros is seeing Yordon Alvarez have a full year. Yeah, Yordon Alvarez for a full year after he struggled so much in the playoffs, I definitely want to see what he can do. I mean, he hit what, 27 home runs or whatever it was in the limited amount of games that he played. So another full year of Yordan Alvarez, the offense should be pretty good. So at the very least, obviously, from top to bottom,

the Astros still a very talented team. All right. We've got to take a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show. 713-1-2-125-7-90 is your phone number to get in. 7-1-3-2-1-25-7-90. What the hell happened to the Texans? I will ask Aaron, Reese, of the Athletic next. Is the Matt Thomas show? Two o'clock straight up here on a sports talk.

7-19. It is the Matt Thomas show without Matt Thomas. Matt Thomas off doing his fancy Matt thing as he is flying out to Cleveland with the Houston Rockets. He'll be on that call tomorrow here on a Sports Talk 790. And right now, I'm pleased to be joined by Aaron Reese of the athletic. We're joining us every week to talk a little bit of Texans football. And Aaron, I guess I just, just go ahead and start it off and get it off the way out of the way. What happened? What the hell happened Sunday?

Man, you know, I think there are some doubt like the past seven teams to beat the Patriots for one and six and the next game. Obviously, that's one in seven now or whatever. the rest of the presence of them were lost. So maybe, you know, it seems like a little bit of a hangover off of one game. And, you know, they maybe won't say they overlooked the Broncos. But, you know, they kind of got their buckles. And, you know, I also think that the defensive performance that we saw against the Patriots, as evidenced by kind of the Patriots continued problems against the Chiefs

was very more a sign of New England's own issues than really signed the taxes have turned a corner. If you look at all the kind of, you know, the efficiency metrics and everything, all the numbers that indicate that they've, you know, they're just a pretty bad defense. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I mean, how much of this is maybe the Patriots aren't as good as we thought, and then the Broncos with Drew Locke are a little bit better than we thought, and therefore eight record shows, because I would, I like to think, and I was arguing this all last week, because we had Brian Smith of The Chronicle on here, and he was like, oh, this could be a trap game for the, for the Texans. And, you know, I kind of tried to say that that was impossible because I was like,

Bill O'Brien's been a head coach for six years. Bill O'Brien knows that this is a week-to-week league. And the players, he would communicate that to the players. So, I mean, there has to be more to this story, because I just still can't understand how you would get down 38 to 3 to the Denver Broncos. And we can say that they overlooked them. But, I mean, did that mean there were lacking in preparation, or was it the coaching, or was it the players?

I mean, how could they have overlooked? a professional NFL team when you're vying for a two seed and vying for the AFC South Championship. Yeah, you know, I think that's probably the thing about O'Brien's team is that can make madden fans a lot, right? They're so, they've been

kind of inconsistent and they win big games and they lose the games you'd expect them to win. In terms of just kind of what happened in that game specifically, I think, you know, Loss might be, he might be good. It's only been two starts. I think that it was the second was made a very easy for, I mean, some of the rest you was making.

He made some really good throws, but it wasn't like you'd thrown a bunch in the tight windows. And the receivers for Denver were just getting chunks of yardage after the catch. I mean, I keep coming back and thinking about that one catch that Noah Phamp made, where he kind of pretends to block for half a second, and then he just drops over the middle and lock throws at two yards, and then he has like 30 yards in front of him just wide open. You know, the secondaries just did not make it hard on him. And I think, you know, this can be a problem for the Texans just moving forward,

if they don't really have a pass rush, they don't really have the corners I can survive without getting. some pressure. I don't know if you do. You blitz more. You put more pressure on those bVs, but you know, at least kind of giving your defense a chance to produce a negative plays and maybe cause a turnover here or there because what they're doing now isn't working. Yeah, that's the thing. That's what you said, they made it look so easy, and that's what's a really sticking point with me. It was just, it seemed like sometimes you lose to a worst team, right, in the NFL happens. You have a block punt for a touchdown,

or they did have the Kikikikikootie fumble for a touchdown and stuff can spiral out of control. and then you lose a close one. But the way that they, like, if I took somebody who knew nothing about football and I sat them in front of the TV on Sunday, they would say the Denver Broncos are one of the best teams in the NFL and the Texans are horrible. Like, I don't understand how that happens. Yeah, you know, I mean, it really is pretty remarkable. And I, you know, I think the thing that I took away most is just like, there's no reason to

think that it will get better for the defense. You know, like the kind of, like the kind of, they kind of, they kind of, they kind of, Competition is only going to become more difficult from here on now because of defending the past. Like, Tannenhill obviously is red, red, red hot. And then James, you know, he throws picks on every game and stuff. But he also throws for 30 yards and three touchdowns. So, I mean, I wouldn't think they lose out. But, like, after that game, you can't roll out.

I don't think. Well, okay, let me just ask you a question quickly. I had other stuff to get to. But if they lose out, does Bill O'Brien still the Texans head coach come next year? man you know I was like I was talking about that with someone in the media room

while I'm ready for the locker room to open I mean so that's so far I had it now and I don't think that they won't lose out but I imagine you probably still would be right I mean they just they just committed to this guy

I don't think you can commit to this plan and then even if things you know that totally arrive you then pull the plot of a plan and after he's mortgaged to all these things

all these picks and you know tied to the cat's situation the puzzle will probably have to cap the potential I think, you know, the Texans are in on this plan on a little while. All right, talking with Aaron Reese of the athletic covering the Houston Texans.

You can find them on Twitter at Aaron J. Rees, R-E-I-S-S. And Aaron, just just look ahead to the Titans matchup, like you said. Ryan Tanna Hill's been red hot. We know that the Titans have been playing well. I mean, how much, just on the Titans specifically, not necessarily yet to match up with the Texans. I mean, is this, we've seen sometimes these late season renaissance when there's a change of quarterback with Ryan Tannahill. I mean, how much of this is, I mean, circumstance

and not having a lot on tape with Ryan Tannahill, or is Marcus Marriot that bad, or is this Ryan Tanna Hill, Ryan and Tannahill with the Tennessee Titans actually found gold? Well, I guess my question is, how much of this Titans Renaissance is the real deal? Is it legit? Yeah, you know, I would just

read something this morning about from Stephen Ruiz, the U.S.A. today, that, you know, kind of why it's not necessarily sustainable. And that's, and that's, and, There's a bunch of info in his story, but one of the things that I thought was really remarkable, he's getting all these chunk of yard to jump-lay action. And if you look at kind of the percentages throw that are on target downfield and the percentage that is the receiver is actually catching, of all those starting quarterbacks

or all of many quarterbacks include this chart, which is a lot of them, you know, he had the lowest percentage of on-target throws downfield, but his Tennessee receivers had caught all of them. So basically, like, you know, he's throwing something like plus 20% of his throw. of the tight windows, and again, he's not completing, like, over 10% more of his passes than all the tracking data would suggest. All these things basically indicate that it probably is not sustainable over the course of, you know, forever.

I think it's the Tennessee resigns them, which there's some of the news out there. Well, I probably aren't getting this quarterback again next season, or at least not for a whole season. That being said, could he continue for a couple more games? I mean, maybe. I certainly don't think that the Texans of all the defenses of the defense that's going to necessarily flown down for all the reasons we just talked about the past rush and the problems in the secondary.

Yeah, so, I mean, what do you expect? Because obviously, Derek Henry is the guy that makes that offense go, already over 1,200 yards a season with 13 touchdown. So, I mean, if you're looking at the matchup on Sunday, you would still expect them to run behind Henry, even though the Texans do have the issues in the secondary. Yeah, I mean, I think, obviously, he's going to get a touch with him. And I think that he will cause plenty of problems for them, too,

because, you know, this run defense was kind of the one thing you could say, you know, those are the days about this defense. Even after they lost watch for a little while, you know, they're holding up on the other ground, and, you know, they're going to have left on the ground, and all those things. But in recent weeks, it doesn't indicate. My fans have problems in other games.

And so I think that the hangar they can definitely run at the Texans. And, you know, if he's running well, we can't make play action more successful. But I think just in general, they're going to have a lot of problems with Tennessee. Yeah. And the Tennessee Titans defense not necessarily thought of one of the best in the league. Can you just tell me, I mean, first of all, obviously, the turnovers were a huge issue

for the Texans' offense on Sunday. I mean, was that it? Or are you seeing something systematic? Or, I mean, what is going on with what was supposed to be the best individual unit as far as offense defense special teams of the Texans? It's supposed to be the offense. Although, if you listen to Bill O'Brien in the post game, the offense was pretty good, right? But first of all, yeah, what do you think about Bill O'Brien going on and say, I don't know

if you guys watch tape? I don't know if you put on the tape, but we ran for over 100 yards and all. Like, how can he come out there and say that with a straight face after you got down 38 to 3 and you scored 14 points in the fourth quarter when the game was over? Yeah, I mean, I will say I do think that the loss was more about the defense than the offense. Like in terms of this shot yard, it's like the fact that got frustrated by a rookie quarterback, all those things. But yeah, obviously, I thought it would have been kind of hard and on point to be making. even as the box, I will say that,

the office was moving across midfield with some success in the first half. The problem is that when they got across the field and they ruined it, you know, they punt on, QT fumble sticks on another, and then I forget there's another one I'm forgetting, but they got just a field a lot. That was like in the first three positions,

possessions across midfield. So yeah, I mean, I guess the opposite was moving the ball. Yeah, there's guys, but they weren't really doing much with it, which normally has not been a problem in the person. I mean, they've been better by kind of finishing things, although the first quarter was just been brutal, and that happened again in this game. Yeah, and then how about

speaking of things in post-game comments that I couldn't believe, have you ever heard of a left tackle or an offensive lineman ever having a target on their back for false start penalties? Yeah, yeah, I thought it was kind of weird. I think I took away from where everyone else was saying

that was just like it was the one new thing he was kind of been always false for it. You know, it typically just like, I got to fix it. I got to get better. It's just, you know, just my mistake and forever. And this time is kind of like now stricken to blame to someone else. And it's not like I got to fix it. But, you know, I've got to fix what's not a very problem with my own creation.

And, you know, it's frustrated after a game, I guess you can't three of them. But it was clear that he was getting a little more frustrated by this thing. I've been recent weeks. Right. All right. Aaron, Reese of the athletic here on Sports Talk 790. Aaron, before I get you out of here, I'll put you on the spot. What's going to happen this Sunday with the Texans visiting the Titans?

Oh, man. You know, actually, it sounds crazy. I am going to pick the Texans to win. That's a close game, let's have a three points. I just think that, you know, whether you're on a lot of basketball, when they're on these dark spots and when they're kind of back into a corner. And I do think that's a lot of fairly sustainable. I don't think that you've got a terrible game.

The best ones are going to dominate them on defense or something like that. I think maybe he's not quite operating at the peak efficiency we've been seeing in recent weeks. And, you know, the spots of the Texans are in the need to win. It'll add up to Houston to even matchful of a victory. And then it creates a very interesting close in season. All right. Well, that's Aaron Reese of the Athletic Houston. Going with the Texans to win.

That's a bold pick. But you know what? It wouldn't surprise me at all because of the way the Texans have been up and down this season. Right. That's kind of a big of all. I mean, when you don't expect it happens, when you do it. They was 38, you know, whatever. Right. 24. Yeah.

All right, Aaron. Aaron Rees of the Athletic. Find him on Twitter at Aaron J. Rees, R-E-I-S-S. Thanks for the time, as always. We'll talk to you next week. Yeah, thanks. All right. Appreciate it. Aaron Reese of the Athletic. Matt Thomas returns on Sports Talk 790. Baseball, football, basketball in Houston. Home for your home teams. Listen, looking to get it in, looking to get it in. Come to be a least.

It's a clean look at deep three for the wind from about that. You see your entire bench. Oh, whoops. Hey, welcome back to Matt Thomas Show. We just left the hat wide open for no reason whatsoever. What happened there, coach? We just left the hat wide open for no reason whatsoever. Rockets lose on a heartbreaking buzzer-beater.

As much as a game in the middle of December can be a heartbreaker in the NBA. Welcome back Matt Thomas Show here on a sports talk. A 790, Ross Vier. out with you at 713-21-2-5-790. 7-1-3-2-5-7-90. So just a weird game last night by the Houston Rockets against the Sacramento Kings. I tweeted this out at Sports RV. Even before the game was over, I tweeted out that you could write a book about this game.

And then you had Russell Westbrook score to go up two with like, what was it, 1.0 seconds to go. And then after that, a game winner was hit. You can also add into the fact that there was, a James Harden three-pointer and was it a three-point or was it going to be a four-point play as well? I think they called a foul on him or they called an offensive foul because his hand went down on I think maybe it was Corey Joseph's head.

I can't remember whose head it was. And they called an offensive foul there where James was just following through and somebody happened to get in his way. That got waved off. And then you had, it was Trevor Arisa who fouled James Hardin on a three. They tried to say that was before the gather, which he did foul him before the gather. He also filed him on the gather. So I guess the before the gather takes

precedence there. So on back-to-back possessions, you had challenges where three-pointers came off the board for James Hardin. And then you had such a back-and-forth game. Buddy healed knocked down a huge clutch three to tie the game at 116 at the end of it. And then the back-and-forth.

And then the Rockets and Nomania Bielitsa made the three-pointer at the end. And here's what he had to say after that. Like that. See your entire bench.

Run at you. Can you describe that feeling? I mean, the same shot, body hits like last year in Detroit. So I kind of know like what kind of feel is this. But you know, this is NBA.

We have one more game and. It. We deserve this win, man. I mean, it's hard to be, it's hard to be mad at the Kings and be elites after that. If he's saying bleep it, we deserve it, right?

Yeah, I mean, I believe. Yeah. They earned it. They did earn it. And that's the thing. I mean, the Rockets, the Rockets could have played better defense. The Rockets could not have, should have not allowed Buddy Healed and Company to have wide open threes for basically four quarters of that game. They shot 44% from three, which is obviously above their head.

But one of the reasons you allow that to happen is because you're playing bad defense. And that's what I'm mostly worried about the Rockets going forward. Now, it will get better when you get certain guys back like Austin Rivers missed last night with an illness. Tyson Chandler missed his second game with an illness. By the way, I have a serious question, Nick. Do NBA players get flu shots? I don't know. Shouldn't the team do something and step in?

Or maybe flu shots, I know that Sean Salisbury. I always want to argue this in the morning. Maybe flu shots don't work. I seriously need to answer the question because everybody is going down with the flu. You had last week, what was it? Like all the Seattle Seahawks had the flu. You had basically the entire New England Patriots team, half of them on a second plane because they had the flu.

I'm probably in agreement with Sean that flu shots are a scam, but I have no idea if NBA teams give them to their players or not. You would think they might just to do whatever they can to avoid any mistime. That's what I'm saying. I feel like there should be some kind of decree. Kevin, who's the Rockets trainer is Keith Jones, not Kevin Jones. He's been there for basically ever. Well, wait a minute.

We get Keith Jones down there with a bunch of surroundings. ranges and just and inoculate everybody? Most NBA teams do some international travel, at least in the preseason, right? That's true, right? You get inoculated if you leave the country. Yeah, they went to Japan and China and all that, right? Yes, they probably got a flu shot then. Do you get flu shots with that?

I know you get certain, like... Blue shots usually part of it. Yeah, because you don't want to eat some kind of weird, raw fish type of situation that your body's not used to in Japan or spread disease or anything like that, I guess? Well, yeah, that doesn't really have anything to do with the flu. but I know they give you just a barrage of inoculations when you leave the country. And I believe flu shot is typically one of them. Wow. So is, is this case A, that the flu shot doesn't work because the entire rocket squad is coming down with the flu?

Yep. Dang. It's a scam. Well, they're giving you an old strain. So why would it work? Well, I thought it was a weakened strain of that. I thought, okay, this is my, this is my understanding of the way the flu shot works. I thought they gave you, like, a number of strains.

of the ones that they predict are going to be the most viral during flu season, and then that's what they give you. Well, the flu mutates like every year. Right. So they're never going to have a vaccine for it. This is very confusing. So flu shots are totally uses. I need a doctor to weigh in on this.

713, 2, 1, 2, 5, 790. 7.1, 3, 1, 2, 5, 790. But anyways, what was I talking about? I never get flu shots, and you know what? I don't ever get the flu. I never get flu shots, but I've gotten the flu shots, but I've gotten the flu. flu twice in like four years. That's not bad.

That's not bad. It's not good. The flu sucks. I never get the flu. Well, I get the, you know why? It's because your immune system is all hardened because you work in the service industry. You've been exposed to every germ for like the last, however many years you've been working there.

I also have a two-year-old and a three-year-old. Oh, yeah. You're, you are locked tight. You have the iron curtain of immune systems. You're fine. That's why you're not getting sick. But clearly there's an issue with. the Houston Rockets and basically every

every professional sports team. And wasn't it like last year or the year before people were getting foot and mouth disease? Was it Brad Peacock that got that? That was very disturbing as well. We need to get these athletes fixed. We need to get them their flu shots. We need to

get them around more babies. Can we just have like they can all travel with their babies and that'll toughen up their immune systems? Something has to happen because Austin Rivers missed that game last night and the Rockets defense was terrible. As did And that's my big concern for the Rockets. And another concern for me is the amount of minutes that players continue to play.

Guys like PJ Tucker, Russell Westbrook, James Harden played 40 minutes last night, scored 27 points. I need them playing fewer minutes. I need the rotations lengthened. And I need flu shots. So you're for load management and flu shots. Load management and inoculation management for the Houston Rockets. That's what I need. Or I just need them to play better defense.

And I need them to not lose games to the Sacramento Kings in the middle of December. I mean, if you're trying to move up the NBA standings as the Rockets are, you can't be losing these games to the Sacramento Kings. You can't be losing these games to the San Antonio Spurs. Right now, the Rockets are fifth in the Western Conference. They're a game back at the Denver Nuggets. They are one back in the lost column of even being the two-seated, the L.A. clippers. So, I mean, if you're talking about them not losing those couple of games,

this is going to be the difference. And this is what's going to come down to, and I understand this is annoying because this happens in the Western Conference every single year. But I'm going to keep banging this drum. You have to bring it night in and night out in the Western Conference. And the Rocket's defense wasn't there last night. And this certainly wasn't there on that last possession. Right, Mike Dantonie?

We just left the hat wide open for no reason whatsoever. Yeah, I mean, you got to have your head on a swivel. You got to have your head in the game. You got to be focused. Even if it's the middle of the week or the beginning of the week against the Sacramento Kings, or the middle of the week going to visit the Cleveland Cavaliers, like the Rockets are going to. This stretch of games that they're on against a bunch of teams that aren't very good,

this is where you need to make your strides in the standings. This is where you need to start racking up wins because every win is going to matter when it comes towards the end of the season and the standings in the Western Conference playoffs. Rockets would be, I need them to be a two-seat, or at least at three. at the very, very least, minimum of four. If you're a five and then you win and you're going on, you have to go on the road every subsequent round for the most part

unless there are upsets and then go to L.A. and play the Lakers in the second round or the clippers if they eclipse them, you want to avoid those teams for as long as possible. Of course, you can't avoid them both for that long. But whoever is the one seed, you'd like the Rockets to not have to go against them in the second round of the playoffs.

And that's what I'm concerned about. so you continue to drop these games that they're dropping, and you're going to have issues. Nice win last week against Toronto. Solid enough win against Phoenix. That was a weird game too, where Phoenix got into that game late, and Russell Westbrook saved you.

But now you've got games coming up against the likes of Cleveland, Orlando, Detroit, San Antonio. You've got to win these games. If you want to be successful, and if you want to be a top or near the Western Conference standings come playoff time. 713, 2,125, 7. 90 is your phone number 71321257.

And coming up, we're going to talk about the latest Patriots cheating scandal. Have you heard about that? We've got some audio from Bill Belichick. We've also had Ian Rapaport recently weigh in on what he thinks is happening with this. So we'll talk about the latest cheating scandal from the Patriots next here on the Matt Thomas show. Don't go anywhere. No fear. No worries.

And no hair. It's the Matt Thomas Way. Houston Sports Talk continues. with the Matt Thomas Show. The actual name of this song is, Nick. Suicide is painless? I knew you would know that. I figured you would know that.

Yes, and I think the writer of that song was like a teenager. It's a fun, dude. Yeah, right? Welcome back. Matt Thomas Show here at Sports Talk 7. I mean, this is the MASH theme. Because the Rockets are a MASH unit right now. Waiting for Eric Gordon to get back.

Austin Rivers Missing Time with an illness I believe he is going to miss Tomorrow's game He's already been ruled out Against the Cleveland Cavaliers With quote flu-like symptoms Same thing for Tyson Chandler

So I was asking the question Why can't we just get them the flu shot? What's going on? And you know what? I did some reading. Bring that, yeah, bring that music back And so I did some reading during the break They tried to educate myself, Nick.

This is from WebMD who we know is the trusted authority in all things health. According to the CDC, the flu vaccine reduces the odds of getting the flu by about 60%. But that number varies from year to year and among different groups of people. May I wonder why that's such a wide range, and it's wider than it seems. It only applies to healthy adults. So it only reduces your chances by about 60%.

And only in some cases. And only if you're a healthy adult. 60% of the time, it works every time. I like that. That's pretty effective. So maybe all the Rockets players did take the flu vaccine. But there's still that 40% chance that they're going to get it. And apparently it has been happening.

So the rockets have been destroyed by the flu. 713-1-21-2-125-7-90. Your phone number 7-1-3-1-2-5-790. So have you heard about the latest cheating scandal for the New England Patriots? So according to, well, first of all, the first time this came up was where it came to the Bengals' attention. hold on. First of all, yes, the Bengals in the last week's game against the Cleveland Browns noticed that somebody was filming their sidelines. So they raised an eyebrow and they tried to figure out what the heck was going on. It turns out, according to the Patriots, they have Patriots

TV and they have a video production team and they are doing a documentary-like segment on an advanced scout for the Patriots. And he just happened to be at the Bengals game, of course, because he is an advanced scout looking at the Bengals and the way that they operate and scouting them so that the Patriots could be ready and available to be prepared for them this next week. But apparently, this film crew was caught filming the sideline

of the Bengals for about a quarter. And this is what Bill Belichick has to say about that. Yeah, I heard about this, and, you know, evidently, this is our production people on the TV show that were there. And we have absolutely nothing to do. We have absolutely nothing to do with anything that they produce, direct, or shoot or anything. I've never even seen any of their tapes or anything else. So this is something that we 100% have zero involvement with. This is something that you'd have to talk to the production people about or what they're.

were doing or whatever it was. So was this your advance? We've never seen anything that they've shot other than what's going to been on TV. We 100% have zero percent involvement. Someone hired them. Yeah. Well, I mean, they're doing it.

They're saying the TV production is that he's not on the football operation side. I guess that means somebody on the media relations side, assign them up or whatever and had them do this Patriots TV. And who is really watching a documentary segment on the on the advanced scout of the New England Patriots? This all just seems like an excuse to me for them to get a hold of of some of the Bengal signals. But there's more to this story. Here's some from Ian Rappport on the NFL. Of course, we know that he's a little bit tuned in to what's going on.

And he thinks that the NFL is going to side with the Patriots on this. From a logistics standpoint, there really are not many teams actually giving signals. anymore either. Maybe substitution patterns you could get the body language of a head coach, but this is not like years ago where you're signaling things in. Calls come in through the headset now, but I do get the same sense that the league is inclined to believe the Patriots explanation. But obviously, Tom, that doesn't necessarily mean the Patriots are off the hook. They did admit that they did not alert the Bengals. They didn't alert the NFL. Clearly there was at the least a miscommunication here, which would lead me to believe

based on the people I've spoken with that if they got penalized, it would be something along the lines of a fine. So that'll be interesting to see. So apparently the NFL, I'm sorry, Paul Dainer of the Athletic is saying that he has seen the tape, or a source has seen the tape, and the Patriots film crew filmed the Bengals sideline for eight straight minutes. Here's my question about what Ian Rappaport had to say. He says no one uses signals anymore.

more because they have the headsets. These headsets cut out, what, is it 15 seconds before the play? Uh, yes. So are they not using signals to continue communicating for that 15 seconds? I mean, there's still team signal. He's saying they don't use signals as much, but they still use it a little bit. So, I mean, if they're using signals at all, they're still using signals, right?

They're still an advantage to be gained. I think we've got to turn this to the people, Nick. I think it's time for an instant poll here. on the Matt Thomas show. That's right. Are the Patriots cheating? Or was this a coincidence, as they say, they're just filming a documentary. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790.

Yes or no? Are the Patriots cheating again? They claim that the film crew wasn't aware of league rules and unintentionally violated the NFL policy. by filming the Bingle's sideline, or were they sent by Bill Pellichick and the Patriots? 713, 2,1, 2, 5, 790. First of all, Nick, what do you think?

I think there's, it smells a little fishy to me. Smells a little fishy. I think they're cheating. 713, 2, 1, 2, 5, 790. You're on the Insipoll. Were the Patriots cheating? Yes, or no? Yes, cheating.

And can we get an insipole on whether or not you want someone going through your stuff when you move, when they get moved? I think the answer is no. there for everybody, right? 713, 212, 5, 790. That's one yes for cheating. Did the Patriots cheat? Yes or no? Yes, sir. They were cheating.

Oh, wow. All right, that's two. Thank you. 713-212-5-790. Did the Patriots cheat? Did the Patriots cheat? Did the Patriots cheat? Yes or no? Hello? All right, that guy hung up. Thank you. Did the Patriots cheat? Yes or no? cheating.

Three to nothing there so far. Unanimous. Let's go. The Patriots cheat, yes or no? 100% yes. 100% yes. That's 4-0. That's a sweet.

You can go and close that bad boy down. Wow. I want to be with Scott Van Pelt last night on the Sports Center, tried to make the argument that there's no reason that the Cincinnati Bengals would be a target of Patriots cheating. But if you're so ingrained in that world, and if they've been pulling this off in different ways, every single week. You probably don't even notice that it's the Bengals. You just do this every week because it's your procedure. And you've

also lost back-to-back games, and the Bengals have been, they've got a win and they were a little bit competitive against the Browns last week because Andy Dalton's back at their quarterback position. That's why I want to see this film crew schedule for the rear. I don't know where they were each week. Why do you need eight straight minutes? Yeah, I want to see

where they've been every week, and why do you need eight straight minutes of Bengal's sideline view? There's no reason to need that. If you're getting a little bit of B-roll to look at the sideline or whatever, you need, I mean, people who've worked in audio-visual stuff, you probably need a few seconds max. You maybe take a minute and you're going to chop down maybe like three seconds of that. There's no reason you need a sustained more than three seconds of the Bingle sideline, even if you're making B-roll and showing, you know, cutting all that, splicing that all together with your package. Here's a possible out. Where was the scout that they were doing this supposed show on sitting?

Yeah. Normally the scout would be up in the booth, right? I think so. Up at the high of this in the... You wouldn't think they would allow them to sit right behind the sideline, right? Yeah, why would this advanced scout be anywhere near the sideline, number one, anywhere near the Bingle sideline, number two, and for eight straight minutes during the game? A lot of fishy stuff happening here with the New England Patriots are. We're going to take a quick break here on the Matt Thomas show without Matt Thomas.

Final segment here if you want to get in 713, 2, 1,2, 5, 790. is your phone number 713-1-2-125-7-90. Short break here, don't go anywhere. Matt Thomas continues on Sports Talk 7-9. Your rockets, your Astros, your voice. Matt Thomas Show rolling along. Final segment here. Without Matt Thomas.

Matt Thomas off doing fancy Matt things, traveling to Cleveland on a private jet with the Houston Rockets, where they'll take on the Cleveland Cavaliers tomorrow. Matt Thomas on the call there. Ross, V.R. Real, with, you and talking a little bit in the last segment. So the Instapol has spoken at this point, Nick, right? I mean, the latest Patriot scandal, if you have not heard, apparently they say they were filming a documentary and it had nothing to do with stealing signals.

But there is eight minutes of footage of the Bengals sideline while they're making signals. Well, the Instapol never lies, so they're guilty. Although the Instapol has been wrong a couple of times. One time they picked Texas Tech to cover against Texas and they didn't do that. and I can't remember the other one. But if... Well, I don't think it can predict the... Predictive instapoles are shaky at best. But when we're getting the pulse of the people

and we're getting people's opinions, especially when it's a 4-0 sweep, I have to think something's up with the Patriots. And ATX Hobo Girl points out, this is another point that I was going to bring up earlier this season. Do you remember the bills filming controversy as well? That was like literally earlier this season with the Patriots.

Yep. The Patriots got in trouble. It was Sean McDermott was like getting their Patriot staffers off the field because he thought they were watching them go through their walkthrough. So this just feels like, and there's the comments from Bill Belichick earlier, like, yeah, we need to get to the bottom of this. You have that Law & Order sting that I love so much? We've got to get that too.

We need to get to the bottom of what the hell's going on with the New England Patriots because I feel like they are guilty as sin. I think Steve Belichick is involved in this I think the Patriots organization involved in this I think Bill Belichick has continuing to cheat and I think the Patriots are guilty like first of all I think it was Steve Belichick who was involved in the Buffalo Bills thing right

don't you feel like I feel like look now this is just me speculating of course on the radio I know nothing of this I feel like Bill Belichick has been sending Steve Belichick to do like crazy spot type stuff since he was like six. I feel like he's small enough to fit into, hey, well, you're small enough to fit in this air conditioning vent.

We need you to crawl in there and get some files from the New York Jets. Like little Steve Belichick had to go run around and get in air vents and repel down on ropes. Like he's been trained. I feel like he's been like ninja trained since the age of two. And I think Steve Belichick has been involved in this. And we had the audio earlier this week. This audio, have you heard Steve Belichael? And the way that he's, first of all, he sounds exactly like Bill.

This is great. And listen to how much he sounds like he's been having his dad make him do stuff since he was a kid. He gets asked about, like, fun memories with his dad. And he's like, I don't want to talk about it. Like, whoever says that. Those were his fun memories stealing information from other teams. Well, one time my dad made me go through a Marine boot camp training course when I was like six. Like, I feel like, listen to Steve Belichick and how, like, he sounds like a shell of a human.

I don't know. I haven't really thought about how it correlates. It's just trying to do my thing. And I think that that's what's best. So that's what we're trying to do. Steve Phil asked you about the chores. Do you have memory of your first football chore or one of your first football chores that you asked you to do? Yeah, I got a couple memories of us. And you want to share it.

Yeah, those are between me and him. See, hold on. Let's stop right there. Okay, do you want to talk about any of the first football chores that your dad had you do? and he's like, yeah, I don't want to talk about that. Like, whoever says that. Yeah, he had me steal some. He was like, yeah, how about some fun experiences you have with your dad?

Oh, yeah, we went to the carnival. Like, we went to Astro World. My dad used to go to the movies and watch James Bond movies together. And he's getting asked about fun football chores that he had to do. And he's like, yeah, I don't want to talk about that. He's like, what's his statute of limitations on cheating? First of all, he sounds exactly like Bill. And then second of all, it's clear that his dad's been having him do dastardly stuff since he was like five.

Let me continue with Steve. A couple memories of us. And you want to share it? Yeah, those are between me and him. What? What's the best way to do you laugh about him now? What did you first? We laugh about him now.

See, that's the thing that really scares me. It was really funny when I stole those playbooks from Pittsburgh and then gave him to my dad. Yeah, I went and stole some, I stole some equipment from, well, let's see, he was probably, when he was a young and his dad was probably with the brown. So yeah, they probably were going up against the Steelers like every single year. Yeah, I got a lot of soot in my lungs and I was in the hospital for two weeks because I was in the AC event of Heinzfield. Like, what is this? What is going on with Steve Belichick? I feel like Bill is deeply involved in this.

High school. I've been watching it for a while. Like I said, football is my thing. I remember watching primetime with Chris Berman back when I lived in Cleveland. Cleveland and just watching highlights, learning, going into my dad's office in Cleveland, spending time there trying to watch film. Like I said, I don't think I knew what I was doing, but I was trying. So other kids are watching cartoons?

You were watching film? I mean, yeah, I just wanted to spend time around football, spend time around my dad. I can feel him crying on the inside. I want to give Bill Belichick a hug. Like, first of all, why is his dad making him traips around with this mullet thing that he? got going on. Second of all, the guy probably hasn't received a hug from his father, like ever. You think even like when he, like he failed a grade or like he didn't make the high school, I don't know, a football team or anything is, he like, he ran to his father. And he's like,

dad, I got an F on this paper and I've been trying so hard. I'm like, I asked this girl out and she said no. And she just walked away. Yeah, stop being a loser, son. Winters don't cry. Why don't you toughen up. Why don't you give me 600 push-ups? Like, I feel like the most uncaring and, like, hard on you, father has got to be Bill Belichick. Thank you, Steve. I figure I'll ask.

Any shot you can tell us who's going to play on the defense. I got it wrong. Awkward media laughing there just for Matt Thomas at the end. I am, I, for one, am wholly concerned about Steve Belichick's well-being, and if I ever run to him in the street, I'm just going to give him a hug. I just hope everything's going to be okay, Steve.

Even though you're cheating. It's not your fault. I'm going to give them a full goodwill hunting. Just careful. He may have been trained to pick your pocket. That's true. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.

You know, when that hugs you, take whatever they got on. It's not your fault, Steve. All right, that's going to do it for the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 790. Ross Villarreal, with you. Appreciate every single one of you listening to the show. Matt Thomas will be back tomorrow as he's traveling to Cleveland. I'll be with you guys again at 6 o'clock. the nightcap here on Sports Talk 790.

And I'll also talk to you guys tomorrow at 12 as part of the Matt Thomas show. Coming up next, you've got the A team. It's Adam Wexler. It's Adam Clanton right here on Sports Talk 790. Your home for Houston Sports.