The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show 12-27-19

Episode Date: December 27, 2019

Life at you, sir. Lunch timers is the Matt Thomas show. 12 o'clock at H-town. The only people working in Houston, Texas today. And that's okay, because I did take some time out before the holidays, and you can't take four, you can't take four weeks in the last four weeks. You got a spread out over the 52. Welcome to a Friday edition of the Matt Thomas show.

Unless you're like Michael Barry or something. Yeah, Michael's got his own different rules. And Sean Salsbury does too. That's true. But we like Sean. All right. Nice to have all of you with us. Ross is here.

I'm here. Joe George, this is why I believe your second time working on the show. Yes, it is. And my first time hearing your Friday intro, and it's even better in person. Well, you know what?

Welcome, Joseph. The check is in the mail. You're initiated. Have you played, believe it or not yet? One time. It was a train wreck? No, it was okay. Come on, Ross.

It wasn't that bad. Yeah, it was okay. I think that's a fair assessment. Well, today is a special day on hellier or not. It's the best of because Ross is off Monday and Tuesday. Bye. And you're going to be out in West Texas, right? Okay, yeah, near the Big Bend of the Rio Grande in Big Bend National Park, yes. Do you know?

And George, George, I don't know, George. I can call you, can I call you George? Can I call you George? I feel like you're just Chicago Hawk. Mr. Joel. Your Twitter account is littered with Chicago crap. He sounds like an assassin in a in a in a in a bond movie. Mr. George.

I would mute or unfollow you, but I like you too much. There's enough Houston stuff on there. I'll get more. I'll start doing more. No, it's okay. Bears verified. That's all we need to worry about. That's white socks break down.

Good God. No, that's Sager. That's Sager. That's not me. Between this station, I get more White Sox takes than anybody else in America. All right. So today is hell yeah or not and it's the best of. Ross is out Monday and Tuesday camping.

So today, the final, the entire last segment is going to be 15 questions. And the best part is Ross doesn't have to go create anything. It's just old. Hell years or not from earlier this year. I don't have got any prizes. I would hope we would. The vault was pretty low yesterday. Oh, that's not good.

Is Bres even working? Our promotions person. There isn't a soul working in this building. Oh, I mean, it was the easiest parking job I'd ever had to do in the parking garage. You can have entire road to yourself. So this is you and I, our last show of the year. I know. Should we have, are we going to hug? I feel like I want to hug you because I haven't seen you in like six weeks, it feels like.

The Rockets have, this will be, we go to New Orleans after the game tomorrow. This will be on Sunday, the ninth road game of the month. Wow. And I love to travel. You know that. You're a Mr. Travel whore. And the six-star hotels we stay in are fantastic. Yeah, the five diamonds are doing okay for you.

And the foods are, but I do, I would like to be home for a few days. The truffle mac and cheese on the six day just doesn't have the same. punch, does it? Well, I was, Kim's like, is it ever going to slow down? I said, and frankly, it's going to in April because I think the Rockets play 10 games in April and two of them a road, which is one is Dallas and one of San Antonio. So we're going to suck it right up until April and then we'll be home. Right. So she misses you in December, she'll be sick of you in April. Oh, she will, like July, she's like, is there a summer league game you can go to? I'm like, well, you know, Vegas is there. All right. For those of you new to the show, which I would hope that

you wouldn't be. We've been here a long time. By the way, when we all reconvene on January the 2nd. Yes. That will be two days shy of 10 years of the Matt Thomas show. Woo! Of which you've been with me, what, 95% of the time? I've been here every time. No, you weren't there for the first day. I think so. No. Okay. Some of the guy. And then you weren't with me for a while with Lance when we were in the mornings. Yeah, I didn't do the morning. So that didn't count. That wasn't the Matt Thomas show. Yeah, that was the proper gentleman of sports.

Yeah. So now it's 10 years with 790. And we'll kind of have a mini celebration a week from Monday. Just kind of thank you, everybody. Okay. I was here for, I'm pretty sure I was here for the first day, but then a couple days after that I wasn't. I was so terrible my first.

Not that I'm great now, but I was so incredibly nervous. I remember thinking that. I was like, this guy sucks. Oh, I don't doubt that. I'm just kidding. You know what I was nervous about? I was nervous about whether or not, because I had only really at that point, I was working with Charlie and a little bit with the monsters of the midday.

Right. I was wondering if you were going to let me talk on air at all. Oh, I frankly let you talk too much on air. Absolutely. Crush me. You rip my takes. For that, I'm thankful. You make fun of me.

And by the way, so you can make fun of me for something new today. Oh, what do you got? You're going camping. I have never been camping in my life. Ever? Ever? Yeah, that seems about right. Joe, you a camper?

Only a small handful of times. Okay. It's like two or three. Two things I've never done, one of which I'm somewhat interesting. in doing in one, I'm not. I'm not interested in camping at all. I know that. And I have never been on a cruise before. It's, it's okay. And I'm somewhat interested in that. Cruise's to me are a little bit overrated. It's kind of like, it's like they get a hold of you. They get, they sink their teeth into you because you have to pay for all their alcohol. Like the food's free, but it just

feels like you're under their control. And you're there to, for them to make money off of you. Let me give you a few things why I think I would enjoy it. And then you can just crush me or say, hey, that makes sense. First of all, you can eat it any time of the day, any hour of the day. The variety of food is limitless, basically. That is clutch. You can buy an alcohol package where you can just order up all you want and call it a day. Yeah, you can go to the duty-free shop and buy some liquor and bring it home.

You are going to beautiful places, in theory, for a little short visits. It's apparently being pot committed to somewhere. If you're not sure if you want to go to Cozumel for three or four days, you can go for a day excursion. There is gambling on the boat, which is always a bonus. The odds aren't good, and the slot machines don't pay well either. I'm not a slot player, so that's not an issue. And then just, I mean, a support staff that's there to really try to take care of everyone of your needs. The people that work on a boat, in theory, are the nicest people because it's a full-time 24-hour-7 service.

We've got to take care of the customers kind of thing. if you want something that's like basically set it and forget it almost like an all-inclusive resort and you can dabble in a couple of different places it's good but I don't like being I'm like a go with a flow traveler I like to just go somewhere you know what let's do this on a whim or let's do that and you can't do that on a cruise you have an itinerary so let me give you the negative is what I get boxed in there's no spontaneity right everything is organized secondly you may be eating meals with people you just don't want to be eating meals with? Yeah.

You do get assigned seating for the nice dinners. Okay. And you have to sit across somebody. Then I'm a little bit afraid of getting seasick. I've never been seasick before, but I'm afraid that it can happen. You don't even really notice. Unless you're porting, you don't really even notice you're on a boat. And then last, and this is even before my rocket days, I like big rooms and I've heard

horror stories about how tiny these rooms are. Yeah, you can pay extra for the, you've got to pay up for the room for them. But I mean, even extra is like going for. from like 225 feet to 400 feet. Right. I've been in mid-tier rooms and they were, I mean, small, very small. So there's today's travel edition of the show. And by way, if you're new to the show, this is anything goes Friday.

And we allow anything. And Nick, Nick, why do I call you Nick? I'm going to call you Nick and George already today. Nick and Papa Georgio. Joe, we allow any topic on anything goes Friday. That's true. I don't know anybody's listening because, again, the freeways were, I mean, really, really quiet today. But if you are out and about, you want to talk about Cruises,

you want to talk about the Texans game against the Titans. Camping. Camping. I'm not surprised that you don't want to go camping at all ever. Yeah, it doesn't. Now, here's what I do want to do. I would like to rent a Winnebago. You want to be in a...

Okay. And take the kids and the wife on a little bit. That's something that doesn't treat me a little bit. Yeah. But you're not like tent camping, getting one with nature, going on hikes. I have no interest in sleeping on an air mattress every end of my life. It's going to be fun. I can't wait.

So you're going to go. out there. Yes. You and whoever you're going with. Yes. You're going to, you're going to hike.

Yes. You are going to, are you going to bring any sort of electronic like cell phones or stuff like that? Yeah, I mean, we'll have our cell phones, but they won't work out there,

I don't think. So you're just really just bonding and being in peace. Yeah. And you're going to drink quite a bit. Yeah, there's going to be heavy drinking. And there is,

so the Big Bend National Park of the contiguous 48 states, Matt, it has the least light pollution of any national park. So the night sky is supposed to be second to none, and it's going to be a new moon, so not a lot of moonlight. So the starry night is supposed to be as good as it gets.

Will you as your for some sing songs around a campfire, if you will? No, no. We'll have music, though. I mean, we'll have a little speaker. But you're not going to be like, hey, let's play drinking games, hang out, go hike during the day, eat food, grill stuff. Are you going to bathe? Yeah, they have showers.

Okay. Four days. I'll probably shower once, maybe twice. No, I mean, I'm not judging you on that. Yeah. Hell, like, I live in a house and I won't pay every other day during downtime. Should be fun. All right, Joe, what are you going to do? This weekend I'm going to work and do more wedding planning because we're almost there.

Are you doing what? How heavily involved are you in the wedding planning? A lot more than I thought it was going to be. January 18th, so we got like less than 20 some days. And were you getting married? We're getting married out at Hempstead. How many times have you tried? On next to Lawrence, Marshall, Hempstead.

Yeah. It's how little. Is Ray Childress going to do your wedding? Is he presenting over the wedding? Nope, he's not. Okay. Where's your honeymoon? Cancun.

We're going in February, so we've gone for a whole week. And you're getting paid time off from us? No, I'm just going to not get paid for a week. Damn, that sucks. Yeah. Yeah, my wedding present to you, I'll give you some cash. Yeah, if you invite me to your wedding, well, it's kind of too late to be rude at this point. That's not sure.

I have open table, so. Oh, well, where's my invite? I don't know, Ross. We neither, you nor I got anybody who's wet. Well, no cash, forget it. I've only been here for like six months. Oh. Oh, okay.

I just met you guys. I thought we were bros. Well, Ross, your fantasy league doesn't pay out to third place, so. Yeah, out of 10 people, why would we pay 3? Oh, first of all, you shouldn't be playing in a 10-person league. Why not? Let me join your league next year. I'll be your 11th.

Okay. I'm anti-usually. I asked you when we formed the league three years ago if you wanted to be in, you said no. Yeah, but he would, Joe wouldn't hear three years ago. That's true. All right. Because you're a hater. We do need some weak players, so yeah, we'll see if we can get you in.

That's fine. Just kidding. Dr. Roto's got you coached up pretty well. Yeah, but again, I just had terrible quarterback problems. All right, on the show today, let's get you an update on the Texans when we come back. We've got one player on the injury report and another one that didn't practice today, which further should explain why there should be no starters playing in Sunday's finale against the Titans. Unless the Chargers beat the Chiefs.

Which could happen. We had the Saints having a bunch of wide receivers into practice today to maybe for a workout, for potential signing. One of them is fairly famous. We have a Houston rocket getting back in action on Sunday as they take on the pelicans in New Orleans. We have the college football playoffs this weekend. We have the monstrous matchup between Texas A&M and Oklahoma State tonight over at

that bowl down the street. Huge. Huge is a relative term. We have the best to believe it or not today later. We got Brian T. Smith. We got our handicappers. Paul Nolan's going to join us. Help us to make some money.

I would think that. Going to Vegas to bet on sports this weekend, if that's something you choose to do, would be awful. Because, and let me briefly explain why. First of all, you don't, why would, it's hard to, I think hard to bet money on a game when you have two teams that are awful playing each other. Like, who's a terrible matchup? There's a bunch of them this weekend. Oh, Indianapolis at Jacksonville. Neither team can make the playoffs.

Who has the motivation to play better? even if the teams are relatively equal or maybe they're both not. Maybe it's 7 to 9 versus 3 and 3 and 12. What other case would be? I think it's hard to bet those games. Doug Marone trying to save his ass. You think I went over and then Apples are going to do that?

Probably not, but it wouldn't hurt. But I'm just saying. Then the next layer problem you have is let's say that you are ready to put some money down on the Tennessee Houston game. Which Houston team is going to play in that game? You see what I'm saying? You'd almost have to wait to like 324 to place your bet for a 325 game.

You just play the percentages. Go with the Titans. Because if the Chiefs win, then the Titans odds are going to go up, so you got a cheap price. Oh, see, that's why you have you and Paul Nolan on at the same time. Yeah. For that kind of analytics.

But then, of course, if the Chief lose, then you're getting a bad price, but then the Titans could still win. Now you've ruined your own bet. Now, that's why we're confused about betting on. That's why Week 17 would be a tough week. Unless you want to get out there to bet on a bunch of bowl games, like the Military Bowl,

which I'm sure tens of people across this country are interested in. Right now, North Carolina, with a 10-6 lead over Temple, Temple from the Power Sixth School, the American Athletic Conference. 1213, Matt Thomas Show, if you'd like to join us, Ross, does anything go Friday, right? Yes. I mean, today may be the most anything friendly of anything goes Fridays. Did you hear the first segment?

We talked about camping and cruises for the first whole time. And Joe's wedding, we're not invited to. Yeah, that's fine. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-21-2-5-790. It's a Matt Thomas show, Joe and Ross, and I'm Matt. We appreciate you listen to Sports Talk 790. Rip it H-Town, like five, slamma-jammer.

Yo, what's up, this you boy, bumbeat, the Trill-O-G with the whitest man in America. Matt Thomas. You are now tuned in to Sports Talk 790, man. Oh, your March, sit, ready, go. It is, and anything goes Friday. Ross, explain the essence of anything goes Friday here on the Matt Thomas show. Well, Matthew, Monday through Thursday on the phone lines here on the Matt Thomas show, it's 7132125. 790. You have what we call the longest leash in the biz,

and the leash gets longer even on a Friday. If you want to talk about, I don't know, if you're at the mall and you're having issues with people as you're trying to return some gifts, you can give us a call at 713212-2-790. If you want to talk about the Texans matchup against the Titans, will they play their starters or won't they? We can. can also talk about that. You've got the Rockets ruining Christmas effectively as they lost to the Golden State Warriors. Okay, good. You're over that.

Well, good. They got another game. They got a back-to-back coming up. How do you get two days off and then a back-to-back? Like, come on. Yeah, Danny needs some rest. Yeah, Matt needs some rest. So does James Hardin for that matter.

Yes. James Hardin would like some rest as well. And, I mean, the Nets don't even play it on Friday. So why can't the Rockets and Nets play on Friday? I don't know. What's going on at the Toyota Center tonight? Oh, I don't know. Not that that would make that big of a difference

because you have to clear a bunch of dates anyway. That's weird. Anyways, we can talk about that. I'd rather play tonight and have to roll. If you want to give Matt Cruise Ship tips, you can talk about that. And also, if you just want to hear Matt's soothing voice, you can give us a call.

Yeah, apparently 1-7-19. Somebody on Twitter likes to want to get a pre-New Year's Eve jab into me. They did. And I thought he was very complimentary. He was not. That's what they call a troll in the business. Okay. Thankfully, Ross, you don't have any.

I've got a few. That's not true. People troll me. Who's the last person that trolled you? I don't know. Some random Twitter's accounts. I just mute them. And by the way, if you need any Chicago Bears' advice,

Joe George is here for us today. You don't want to talk about them. They suck. Who do they play this week? The Vikings? Big game. Big game. Huge.

I think no one's playing. The NFL 17 is born. They're locked in. Because Minnesota's locked into five, right? Yeah, they can't move. Are they locked into six? Yeah, they are. Well, that's right, because the only spot that's open is the NFC East.

Everything else is done, right? No, the whole, like, everyone can still end up being the one seat. The Packers can be the one seat, the Seahawks, the Niners, the Saints. But whoever's left out is going to be the five. Yeah. The teams are locked in except for the East, but there's some movement that can happen except for the Vikings. So Minnesota is locked at number six. Yes.

And Kirk Cousins is what, Owen Nine now on Monday Night Football? Very bad. He's due. Somebody thought up a funny point. How did Kirk Cousins make nine Monday Night Football appearances? If there's a reason why Monday Night Football has struggled the last decade, it's because Kirk Cousins does make nine appearances. It's been the Kirk Cousins show.

I mean, if you said, hey, name the great quarterbacks of the last 10 years on Monday football. Aaron Rogers. Oh, that makes plenty of sense. Drew Brees. Oh, sure. Plenty of sense. Tom Brady, absolutely.

Kirk Cousins? Nine times? He is one of the, is he still the highest paid quarterback? He's up there. Is it $28 million a year, I want to say, give or take? Guaranteed. He's doing okay. Do you all ever think about that for a minute?

No. Because here's the thing, and I don't peel the curtain too back much on my rocket's life, but I get on the plane and I turn around, there are some rich people on this plane. Yeah. Really rich. And they work their ass off. James Harden works very hard to make the money that he makes. I mean, you said the thing about actors.

You know, if you are Matthew McConaughey, you make multi-million dollar pictures because people like you and you do it very, very good job at it. There's only a handful of people in this world. What is it? There's 30 teams times 15 players, 450 players, of which those 450, probably 250 of them make sick crazy money. I mean, they all make sick crazy money, but super sick money. Right. But I think, man, Kirk Cousins, $28 million a year to be very, very average. There are a lot of NBA players that way, too. I bet you get, if you ran through a list of just the most pedestrian, like I wonder how much money, and I'll give you a recent example,

Willie Collie Stein, I mean, a well below average NBA player, former first round pick out of Kentucky, what kind of money is he made in his life? I mean, just, just grow your children become professional athletes. Do whatever it takes. Forget education. Education's overrated. Let them become professional athletes.

Collie Stein's made $15 million in his NBA career. How long has he played for? Four years. But he's going to get a big contract. I would hope not. He's not worth it. Yeah, he only got a small deal from a two-year, $4.46 million deal from the Warriors.

And by the way, I got some small breaking rockets news. Go ahead. They are signing forward William Howard of the G-Leaks Salt Lake City team to a two-way deal. stealing players from the jazz. Matt, your thoughts? You're scattering a port on William Howard, Matt. I'll let you know more about it on next Wednesday show. I started to put William Howard into Google,

and they put William Howard Taft. I don't need to know anything about the teapot dome scandal. I'd like to know about the basketball player. All right. As far as the Texans are concerned, did you see who showed up on the injury report yesterday? Deshawn Watson. That's right.

With a back issue. Oh. Now, does that mean that it's just sore because it got hit in the knees? by somebody? Is it spasms? Is it aches and pains of a grueling NFL season? What is it? Now, they don't have to get into a great breakdown of exactly what those injuries are, but it backs the back,

right? Back's not good. So thoughts and prayers to Deshawn Watson's back. Today, DeAndre Hopkins did not practice because he has fallen ill. have we seen in sports more fallen ills this year than in previous years? Can we talk about how everybody is out with an illness throughout the entire NFL and NBA? It's running rampant the NBA. Now is that one of two things? Guys not getting their flu shots.

Yeah, possibly. Or two, they just want to relax and instead of saying rest or what do they call it? What's the NBA term? Load management. They're just saying illness. I think there's a patient zero out there somewhere, man.

I think it's one stripper in Atlanta who got the flu and then it got from every got to every NBA team and every NFL team from her. And if you notice, I've told you this before

I don't go to strip clubs. Right. Well, actually, I did miss a day of work a few weeks ago. See? You've been down with an illness too.

Hmm. I think Jonathan Fagan was tweeting about how he caught whatever illness that's been knocking everybody out. Yeah, what's up with that? You tell me that one stripper in Atlanta is causing massive NBA illness? And how does the NFL explain it? Well, she's patient zero, Matt. She got the other strippers, and then they got the NBA team, and then they got another

NBA team. Don't you think it's awful that you use Atlanta as the resource? It could have been Milwaukee. I mean, they're famous for strippers. I guess Houston, too. Okay, fine. A famous H-town stripper. Top five stripper NBA cities. L.A., Miami, Atlanta, Houston. Chicago. Hmm. I thought you were going to say Sacramento. No.

I'm just kidding. No. Wait, what's the last one? You said Chicago? Yep. Really? Oh, yeah. They're like, uh, okay.

What do you think? But see, see, maybe not, though, because James Hardin would have gotten down and gone down with it. You can't assume that James likes strip clubs like that. You drop your phone. Matt. What? Come on. He like strip clubs?

James, he's literally had his number retired at strip clubs. He's healthy. He hadn't missed a game. That's what I'm saying. So maybe it wasn't a trickle. Everybody's doing good. And then maybe it was like a trainer or a masseuse. Well, then that would involve Carlos Correan getting the flu. Just thinking out loud.

Couldn't be the masseuse that sued Kevin Spacey because he mysteriously died. And then Kevin Spacey put out a creepy video on Christmas Eve. With a kind of a house of cards thing? I have not seen it. Is it worth watching? You know, I'm such a die-hard. It's like one minute long. It's really weird.

It's like, in the new year, kill them with kindness. Oh, he's in Frank Underwood Voice? Yeah. This is like two months after he was getting sued for making a masseuse touch him inappropriately, and the guy mysteriously died. I'm going to believe that he got away with this. Kevin Spacey got away with murder? No, got away with whatever they was supposedly accused of.

I think, I think, this is not liable. It's right. If I say it's my opinion, I think he killed him. Ooh, I'm not going to say that. Okay. Please don't sue me, Kevin Spacey. Oh. Let me ask you this.

If I give you a chance for Kevin Spacey to get back on the House of Cards and redo the last two seasons, would you do it? I never watched it. The answer is yes. Joe, seasons one, two, three, and maybe part of four? Okay. The most phenomenal television show out there. It was an incredible television show. The back half of four and whatever this crap was this year was an embarrassment to the program.

It was. I just wish they would have just canceled it. They should have ended it when Frank went away. Yeah, they should have just, when they were done filming it, they should have just said, you know what, guys, we can't release this. By the way, new Netflix series is back out. Season two of you is out, apparently. I saw season one, and I'm not a binge watcher, generally speaking, but you is amazing. And I heard even you, season two is even better. so there's a little Matt's TV preview for you.

Pass. I canceled that, folks. That's your loss. 1229. We go to the phones next. It's an anything goes Friday. Everybody hang tight on the lines. We get to you in the next segment. It's Sports Talk 790. It's 713-212-5-790.

Alexa, play Sports Talk 790 on I-Hart radio. Sure. Mr. Bunby. Would you like it regular? Or chopped and screwed. Ha-ha-ha-ha. Keep it trill. Time is 1235. and anything goes Friday on the Matt Thomas show. Brian T's going to stop by at 2 o'clock for his weekly Friday visit.

We'll get you some handicapping help as well. We had the best of believe it or not today, which is an entire segment of all the best questions of the year. And Joe George is our producer. And he does a great job, but he's going to completely screw up, believe it or not today. Because that's whatever all the young rookies do. 100%. No confidence. Oh, I have zero confidence.

You'll get it right. Same. Okay. But at least you know going in that we're not going to judge you. Well, maybe we'll judge you just a little bit. 713, 2.1, 2, 5, 790. Derek's and Katie. Derek, happy holidays, my friend.

Hey, happy, how days. You, you too. Mr. Donald and you, too, Ross. I called you for your birthday, but you didn't want to pick up the fall. What all was going to do is say, let's go get drinks, get your bottle of patrol, and it's enjoying your way.

But, you know, you'd be as our social. Hold on, hold on, hold on. When did I not pick up your phone? Call. I called you, I called you on your birthday to tell you, Happy birthday. I guess the segments ran over. You ran out of time.

You didn't pick it up. No. It was your birthday. Everybody was calling you, bro. I'm telling you I did. I don't believe you. Just to say, huh? Okay.

Let's move on. Okay. Let's move on. Yeah, please. Okay, check this out. I want to clarify the whole strip club thing with you guys just real fast. If this anything goes Friday. Okay.

Now, it's not necessarily that there's a stripper or B stripper. stripper that has got these guys sick. No, no, no. But you guys are so close, you wouldn't believe it. When they go inside the strip club, a lot of them are not ventilated. So there's no air coming out. So you've got 100 people in the air. You got 20 of them got sniffles, whatever the case may be.

Now, let me tell you what happens. The heat is on. So when they come outside the club, that's where that sweat on your body, you're hot, and it mixes in with the cold air. and that's how these athletes start to get sick. That's where it comes from. Not necessarily A stripper, B, stripper, C stripper, and we all know athletes go to strip clubs.

This is no secrets, and I don't want to put them on blast. But I think that's what happens, and that's why a lot of these in November, December, it's colder outside, and that's why a lot of these athletes are, quote, quote, feeling ill symptoms. Yeah, you was in that 100-degree club, and you came outside in the 50-degree weather, and your body just automatically too. Like when you sweat, that's what happens.

And that is so close to true, it's almost ridiculous. I felt like they had a heating ventilation stripper update from you, my friend. I didn't realize you had that kind of expertise. What do you think I work? At a strip club? Yeah. I work at the number one strip club and it's in Houston. What do you mean?

Hmm. Did I know this? Yes. Did I? Yes. Which one? The H&D? I see athletes all the time.

I see my way every other weekend. Wait, are you at the HK? What do you do there? Hello? Well, what did you just say? Are you at the HK? What do you do at the strip club? Tell the audience, Derek.

And does Mrs. Derek know about this? Of course. Yes. What do you do there? I work. At doing what? Hey, let this man live his life, Matt. No, I mean, 20 questions.

If you come in saying you work at the strip club, I mean, bartender? Bartender, parking lot, inside, outside. He does it all. He does it all. Do you bring, do you ever bring destiny to the stage? Do you ever bring destiny to the stage? You know, introduce her?

No, no, I don't do that. That's not my. Is that a good money job? Could I get that as an other side job if I wanted to? Yeah, can you hire Matt as the DJ? Sure. If I could have Matt Thomas inside my club on the ones and twos with Rossville to be out, man, y'all would love.

So, Ross, you handle the ones and twos. Yeah. I get on the mic. Okay. Let's just think about this for a second. Okay. I'm killing time here, Joe. You're going to ask him to play like some ACDC or something, aren't you?

I don't know. I'm not playing ACDC. What are the kids playing today at the strip clubs? I don't know. Give us a song. What do you think? Give us a good song, Derek. Is this good?

The baby. It's called BOP. Okay, thank you. All right, Ross, you're on the one. This works. Okay. Thank you all. Let me see how to this.

How do I do it? All right. We got two for one tequila shots for the next hour. Here we go. And to the stage, I present. Yeah, this works. Crank this up, Joe. Two for one shots.

There's a full buffet in the back. Grab your plate. Use two, one plate for the salad bar and one for the main entree. And speaking of entree, here's Delilah. Yeah, I like this. Like, what are the best stripper names, Delilah? Delilah, this is not Sunny 99.1 at night. No, like, Destiny.

Diamond. Sunshine, diamond. Erica, with two K's, Erica. Destiny is good. Joe, have you had your bachelor party yet? I have. Did you go to a strip club? I did not.

How about a... Never been. Never been to one strip club in your life. You're such a liar. No, I swear. Not my thing. Let me tell you're missing nothing. Yeah, that's why I know I'm missing nothing.

Because what you do is you go in there. Spend money I don't have. And the girls go in the back when they're dressed and they laugh their ass off. I feel like it's a right of passage. You should have a strip club phase when you're about 23 and then you get over it. And then you just plow on through. You go straight. And that's it.

So George, you're going to live your life without going to George. Joe, you're going to go one time. Mr. George. Mr. George. I'm sure at some point one of my buddies will get married and I'll end up there. Yeah. If Ross ever gets married, I'm sure we'll go.

Ross, if Ross gets married. I almost cursed on here. He's, I know what you're going to say, blank now. I know exactly what you're going to say. All right. Steve and Lake Houston on 790. Steve, happy holidays. What's going on?

Hey, happy holidays. I know now. I know now why I like listening to you on the radio and the Rockets are playing and why I like listening to Matt, Craig, and Billy and Clyde, because that was a joke of a broadcast by ABC. They were, they actually, Yuby Brown, I know he's far removed from coaching and traveling with a professional basketball game,

but let's be honest. The Rockets are on the road for a whole week. Golden State was home for a whole week. I mean, the Rockets were tired, and it showed up in the second half. But for the media, the national media, even some of the stuff I read in the Chronicle, you know, here we go again. The Rockets are fake. They're a pretender.

Give me a break. If they played Golden State tonight in the Toyota Center, they'd beat them by 40 points. I mean, it just really gets me how ABC, either they're hurting for ratings. But the way they made it out in Philadelphia is a far better team than Milwaukee. And God, what's wrong with the Lakers? It made me throw up, really. Well, it made me realize and appreciate you guys locally doing the games. Well, thank you very much.

And have a great holiday. We appreciate listening. Look, NBA ratings are down, Ross. They are. I don't know if it's because of Hubey Brown. I don't know if it's because of the LeBron factor. He is in his mid-80s. He is.

Hubey misses 1985 NBA basketball desperately misses it. He has no, my guess is, and I've only watched a few Hubey games over the years, he thinks this whole 3&D is just the most ridiculous thing ever. He wants... elbow jumpers and top of the key jays and he wants every center to have his ass of the basketball. I don't feel like he's super critical of today's basketball. I think he can make some good observations, but I mean, he's just, I don't know,

he's just like in his mid-80s. Can we get the man retired? Same thing for, this is Marv Albert's last, his swan song, right? Is he done after this year? It was supposed to be last year, apparently. He has no signs of slowing down. He's like 77. Yeah.

And he was calling Miles Turner, Elston Turner, who hadn't played since like the 80s. And Elson Turner is on the rocket staff, ironically enough. Okay. Well, I mean, whatever it is, Elston Turner hadn't played an NBA game in some time. Yeah. Marv. Yeah. Will you please, if I start to lose my fastball, would you please tell me way in advance? Matt, we got to talk during this break. Wait a minute. I just started doing the games. 1243. It is the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. It's nice to have all of you with us on this Friday. We are live. We are local. 713. That's compared to we are live in National. Could you imagine how boring national? Like today, National would be Antonio Brown's. At St.

Workhouse today, maybe trying to sign a deal. It was? You never paid off on the T, so I didn't know who it was. National guys do that. Local guys fail miserably. 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. 1244.

It is the Matt Thomas show. Now, getting a lot of response on Twitter about this whole ventilation at the strip clubs. Is that the problem, Ross? Heating and air-conditioning needs? Maybe you're getting into a drafty vehicle, whatever the case would be. Time to get in a new.

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for just 17902 or how about $14,000 off an MSRP on the 2019 Sierra and the 2019 Yukon. MSRP savings galore at Beck and Maston Buick GMC when we are professional grade. Right. Half the workday is done. Celebrate with Matt. Hey, Matt. Love your show.

What was he talking about? By the sound of it, some of you started the party at breakfast. Matt Thomas on Sports Talk 790. 1250 on the Matt Thomas show. Deshawn Watson's back. Not like back. Back. He's back. He's not feeling great. DeAndre Hopkins is not feeling well, which got us thinking about how there's a lot of NBA players and aren't feeling well.

Every year in sports, there's this new thing. Like last year, two years, it was load management. Now it's illness. Illness is everywhere now. But it's even, I mean, it's an NFL. It's in, it's everywhere. But when I was a kid. Remember that the Patriots are talking about how they took a different plane to Hughes. They had an illness plane and a regular plane. I can get with that.

What's it like being the flight attendant on the illness plane? You have to wear one of those masks over your face. Respirator, okay. And your serving soup as compared to like roast beef. Right, okay. Regular plane has carved prime rib. It's got scala potatoes. It's got a nice green salad.

You're making me hungry. Strawberry shortcake for dessert. The Patriot Sick plane has soup, jello, apple sauce, and milbutton. toast. Melba toast? Yeah, you ever had Melba toast? No, what is Melba toast?

It's a crunchy kind of bread. It's not the most flavorful toast out there. Joe, you're a Melba Toast consoor? No idea. Oh, stop. Neither one of you've had Melba toast before. No, what is that? It's a crackery type non-flavorful bread.

Yeah, that's it. Okay. But it gives you a little substance when you're knocking back your soup. Oh, okay. I go with the saltines personally. The saltine's a great call. Salteens in your chicken noodle soup? Oh, that's a jam.

Yeah, that's what I'm all about. Well, grilled cheese sandwich is probably isn't the best idea, but I'll still make that. If you're going to eat something a little more heavy. Yeah, a little lactose. By the way, I was like, you want some grilled cheese and it's a tomato soup. Tomato soup sounds gross. Tomato soup is good. I, you know, Kim got some.

Have you never had it? I've had it. I hate it. Really? Yeah. I think tomato soup is delicious. From La Madeline? Kim got a big container of it yesterday. A big tub of it?

Yeah, tubs are a strong term. 713-212-5-790 7-1-3-21-2-5-790 it is literally and anything goes Friday literally and I kind of like it that way it's a little loose goose I mean there's crappy bowl games on what else are going to do people are driving around town a little bit kind of bored I mean this is the time that you're getting tired of your family correct I would think so right you get a restless you got to get out of the house go to something 25th your pot committed to the family yeah right 26 you're like I really can't leave this early to go some do something 27th you like I gotta get out of house

Like Cameron's playing poker with his buddies right now Oh really? Yeah I mean he's been home like a week Are you taking their money or what? How's his poker game? No but he's becoming a terrible poker player What do you mean? He's not good? Every time he comes home I said we say how are you doing as they took me again I'm like this is not right

You gotta learn that young man I mean I'm not the best poker player but I can hold my own I've been telling you for years let me take this young man under my wing I want you nowhere near him I have so much Except you're ever I did tell him yesterday that you're going with us to Vegas when he turns Oh yeah So much to teach the young man

I don't want you clubbing with him, though. Why not? Because you're going to get him in trouble. Let's go. Let's go to, in terms of wait, is this Regan or Reagan? Hello? Reagan. Hi, Reagan.

Can you hear me? Sure. How are you guys doing today? We're amazing. There you go. Fellas, y'all aren't thinking this through. I like the strip club theory. I do believe it's very valid.

Hold on. For those that are just joining us. I don't think. We, that there is a caller, Derek, called earlier and said that one strip club has gotten the NBA completely sick over the last two months. I fully believe it. I don't think that he would be telling us stories. But in regards to D. Hop and Deshaun, they're not sick and they don't have a bad back. This is already the smoke show coming out saying they're not going to play very much on Sunday.

And you know what? Hey. And let me tell you, Ray. and I completely, I'm okay with it, especially when the Chiefs beat the Chargers. I don't want either one of those guys anywhere near the field. This talk of you've got to build momentum. Build momentum is bup. They should have built momentum by beating the hell out of Tampa Bay.

That's how you build momentum. Week 17 in a game that means nothing means you keep them off the field so nobody gets hurt. That's how you build momentum is by having those guys able to play next Saturday in the early 330 slot. Exactly. I just don't see it. I don't see the point in playing Deshaun. Of course, if there's a loss beforehand, great, but now Bill can say,

oh, he had spasms, knowing nobody came near him in practice. Spasms, eh, I don't buy it at that young of age. And there's nothing wrong with hop. There's no flu going around the Texans. If he has it, everybody's got it. Conspiracy theory guy. You know, I can respect that.

Hey, thank you, Reagan. I like that theory. I like it. You're setting up for them to be out on Sunday. Because remember, you can lie. Right. You can just, I mean, do you need a reason? You can make people healthy scratches, though, healthy and active. I guess they would be active, though. So you don't need to. But it's easier when they're sick. But Sean Watson's probably going to be active. Is he? Yeah. I mean, he's not going to play. They need a backup, though. They got nobody else. Who's the backup to A.J. McCarrie? Nobody. I believe there's only two quarterbacks on the roster. That's what I'm saying. So I guess then he's going to have to at least be in uniform. Yeah. God, if AJ gets hurt,

Sunday against the Tennessee Titans and then Deshawn's in there and mop-up, scrap-up time and he gets hurt? Yeah. Oh, hell no. They worked out Nick Fitzgerald the other day. Who? Nick Fitzgerald?

Who? And they do have, they have somebody in the practice squad as well. Isn't James Casey available somewhere? Well, just the A-Team conspiracies they should just put in T.J. I like that. I've been saying that before the 18th. Let me tell you, you get Shane Leckler as what you need to get. I like that one.

This is actually a very good question. Who should the Texans make their backup quarterback this Sunday? Because I don't want Deshaun Watson even taking, putting the uniform on. And who is their emergency quarterback? Hmm. Hopefully not DeAndre Hopkins for that pass he threw earlier this year. Who would it be? Because in the past it's been Casey.

In the past. It was Owen Daniels back in the day. Way back in the day. It was Casey. And then Shane Leckler was the emergency guy. I wonder who the emergency quarterback is. Let's think about it. Let's, and we'll think about it over the brain.

Remember one time Gary was getting mad? Gary Kubiak was getting mad with the media, and he was like, I don't know, man, maybe I'll go out there. Let me tell you, Gary Kubiak could throw a few passes back in the day. Lamont on 790. How Lamont? Hey, man, how's it going? Good.

I was just listening to my... I was just listening to a day and I was just listening to Derry. And I was like, man, this is pretty interesting. And then I just realized that it was very. This can be interesting. This can be valid. What that dude pretty much described is, what you do probably about two or three times a week, Matt,

in flying in a tube inside of a climate control plane going to different environments. It would make way more sense for his theory to make sense with airplanes. When you're in there with about two or three hundred people in a climate control, germs flying around, going to different areas and stuff, to say that that's a nightclub, that's just way out there, man. And even if that theory, even if it's out there and holds some kind of water, it would make more sense with an airplane. And that's all I have. All right. See you later.

Happy holidays. Because if the airplane bit is right, then I'm going to get sick again very quickly. Yeah. But this happens every year. Every year, athletes are flying around on planes. But every year, we haven't seen the illnesses spread widespread as we've seen this year. And you know this if you listen to the show for you length of time. The main reason when I get sick is because I go.

from one climate to the next. I mean, we had in back-to-back weeks, San Antonio, like 65 degrees, Toronto 25. Then I came back, we had a trip to Cleveland, 30 degrees, Orlando 72. So you're having issues with climate change? I have forever. Okay. Not like climate change like into global warming. I'm talking about just with my congestion.

Oh, I was going to call you fake news. Sorry. That's the one thing that Joe you've not learned is that when you are on this show, you're supposed to play 10 to 12 Trump sound bites per show. There we go. Thank you. Right on cue. All right.

So who should be the third quarterback for the Texans? Let's go over some potential candidates. What does our lads depth charts say? I don't know. We'll look in a minute. Second hour of the Matt Thomas show next on Sports Talk 790. Yes is the Matt Thomas show. Here we go.

103 on the Matt Thomas show this day after day after Christmas. Believe it or not, the best of coming up at 250 today. Working furiously on that. We've got Joe George filling in for Nick. I'm Matt. Ross is here. You or you. We that.

We thank you. 713. 212. 5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-790. It is an anything goes Friday here on the show. All right. So I have the depth chart in front of me here.

And I don't have the Texans official depth chart. But the R-Lads folks usually basically steal the depth chart from their website. So there is no third backup. There's no third quarterback. Yeah, they don't have anybody on the roster. This is a question we need to ask Bill O'Brien. Why hasn't this been asked? I don't know.

I mean, I'll accept responsibility for that. Why don't you go up to the next press conference and ask them? They're done with press conferences. I'll go up to the playoff preview? Sure. Because here's the problem. As I've said, I would rather not have. have the Sean even suit up, but you can't suit up on

quarterback. Yeah, that would be irresponsible. So who is the next one on the list? Hmm. Let me give you some candidates. You don't have Braxton Miller anymore. Could Duke Johnson take snaps?

As a wildcat? We just had a caller suggest that. He said he couldn't hang on. I think his name was Ethan. He said just run the wildcat. But you want to Laramie Tunsel to run the wildcat. Ethan. Larmie Tunsel to run the wildcat. Ethan, you're a genius. Thank you. Laramie Tunsell and Duke Johnson

and the cat. You're not going to have Laramie Tonsel in the cat. Why not? That's ridiculous. Because Laramie Tonsel can't stay in his three-point stands for more about a second half. He's going to go. Put him in motion. He'll be okay.

Yeah, he likes to be in motion before the snap. That's true. Okay, so I have Duke Johnson as my lead dog. Justin Reed. If you couldn't put a defensive player into taking, I mean, why not? Well, here's the thing. Whoever's been practicing, right? I got one for you, Cullen Galaspia.

That would look awful. Why? He does everything else. He's going to do everything 12th man. That would be like watching a 2A high school quarterback. Well, that's what you're going to have to get if you're going an emergency quarterback situation. So basically, we've decided because we're smart analytical people here on the show, that even if AJ McCarran starts on Sunday because the Texans are playing for nothing,

Deshawn's going to have to go in there if AJ gets hurt. And that's why if you're AJ McCarrie, you better keep it nice and simple, take your three-step drop, get rid of the football, hand the ball all. don't improvise, don't run around, don't run wildcat. I mean, don't run, run pass option. Don't try to grab that extra yard. Maybe John Weeks can do it. No, he's fine.

He's got a strong arm. He's a long snapper. But he's been able to, you know how John Weeks has been able to celebrate such a long, successful NFL career? How is that? Because he knows his role. That's true. He listens to our station a lot.

So maybe he's listening right now. John, give us a call. John Weeks, if you're listening right now, 71321, 225790. The reason why John is not going to do anything else is because look at how long he's been able to carve out an NFL career by doing just one thing right. For instance, if Ross, if we're, you and I are working in a restaurant and we can toss a beautiful salad.

The lettuce flies everywhere, dressing is. Yeah, I'm not doing that. We're in charge of salads. We're going to keep our career at that restaurant. We start trying to cook the baked fish and we screw that up. We're out of work. He's calling the Laspean nose. his role. So does John

Weeks. So does Kami Fairbairn. Somebody's got to step outside of their role, though, if they're the emergency quarterback. I'm looking at practice squad. Alex McGuff? I think it's Magoo. Magoo? No. It's not Magoo. Shut up. Why not? Because you're trying to

Yeah, that's hilarious. He got you. It's O-U-G-H. That's Magoo. No, it's not. Alex McGuff. Let's find out more about Alex. You want to? Alex played at Florida International. He has been signed and waived by Seattle, Jacksonville, Houston twice. I don't think he's ever taken a snap in the NFL.

This is Alex Who again? McGuff, not McGoo. I like McGoo. Alex McGuff, a four-year starter, was the first quarterback Seattle selected since Russell Wilson in 2012. He has exceeded early expectations, and the team ended up giving him the majority. at snaps under centered towards the end of minicamp. He will compete for the backup roll. This was in 2012.

There's been nothing else written about him since 2012. Which I'm sure the McGuff family's like, man, this is disappointing. Guys have been in the NFL all these years and he gets that's the last right about him. They're proud of their young man, I'm sure. Do you think the McGuff family loves the fact that Alex has never taken a snap in the NFL, yet he's been in three different training cases? I think they love that he's trying his hardest.

I have some breaking news. What? Uh-oh. I'm right. What the Jaguar strategy is. Of course, you know how it goes with the roster cuts. Here's the handoff at the first down herb. Oh, McGu's got it himself.

He's going for a second rushing touchdown of the night. That's the wrong person. That's not him. He's not getting rushing touchdowns? It's a preseason game against the Falcons. Do yourself ever go to YouTube and find out, you know how they play her profiles? Hi, I'm Alex McGuff. I'm Alex Magoo.

I always do that. I want to hear him say his name. I want to hear Alex. Now, maybe Alex listens to show. Yeah, because we do that for like, you know, for these Rockets, pre-games or a... I do it for the P. Yeah, I always look on YouTube for pronunciation.

There's a handful of names that are very difficult around the NBA, and I always go to YouTube to hear what the announcers call them, so I call them. Like Nemania, Bialitza? It was Nemania for a while. And then it flipped to Nemeania. Yeah, it's very confusing. But it's always been Bialitza.

Always been Bialitza. And he's always going to have made that game winner against the Rockets. Like I-A-N. Mahimi is not Ian Maheimmy. It's Ian. It's Yon. I mean,

I mean, no, no, I'm thinking of Ion Eagle. It's not Yon Eagle. You should call him that. I probably won't. You should get him on. Hey, Yon, how are you? All right.

John, Yon. Today would be an amazing Alex McGuff slash Magoo, believe it or not, because this is the best of a kid. Yeah, I don't think we know anything about him anyways. He's not that interesting. Other people on the practice squad.

Chad Hanson, Johnlin Owens, who? Karen Hedman. Hegden? There's no Karen. K-A-R-A-N. There's a Texans Karen.

They're literally as a Texans Karen. Or Quran. My guess is it's Quran. Like Karan Butler? Kyle Murphy, Nate Hall, Anthony Chelsny, Shalom Luani, Rick Leonard.

Shalom. And Elijah Nikasan. Hmm. I feel like the only person knows of these people is Pat Starr. Yeah, probably.

Pat Star if you're listening. Should we text him? Who's the emergency quarterback for the Texans? He probably knows, right? Text Pat and say, we're talking about Alex McGuff, don't call me Magoo. Did you find, by the way,

do you find a player profile on Alex McGuff? It's Magoo. Whatever. Alex Magoo. Oh! Oh! That's his name. It's him.

It's Alex Magoo. I cannot believe his name is actually Magoo. See if Pat knows anything about Alex Magoo. If he does, he can call the show. Because we need him to be in uniform this Sunday. Let's go to Jimmy and Tom Ball. Happy holidays, Jimmy. Happy holidays, you all, too.

Well, real quick, Ross, tomato soup is disgusting. Thank you. What? What? Thank you. Tomato soup is great. Tomato to soup is gross. Whatever cracker thing, Matt, was talking about, sounded bad, too.

Melba toast? That's just, I've never heard of that. I'm assuming it's one of those gluten-free, weird people things. But anyway, what about the Bengal killer, T.J.A., bringing him back. He's there. Unfortunately, we won't be playing the Bengals, but I think he's two and two as a Texan playoff quarterback or something like that. Just the thought.

Well, I mean, he'd have to outbattle Alex Magoo. Yeah, he might have to beat him out. And also, real quick, y'all were saying John Bonds and all these people that know their role, one of y'all throughout kind of fairbairn, it's definitely questionable whether or not he knows his role. Oh, no, wait. Now, wait a minute. In fairness, he's had a much better second half of the year than he's had the first.

I mean, if not for Jaime Fairbairn, the Texans don't beat the Buccaneers last Saturday, right? He made a bunch of field goals. Yeah, I mean, but he's also missed a bunch of field goals. You're expected to make field goals. Yeah, I mean, the trust factor, Jimmy, thank you for the phone call, is not supreme. But, no, in all honesty, he's actually, when a lot of people were thinking that he should be cut, Ross, he's come through. He's had a really good second half of the season. Yeah, he's been better.

Kickers are so up and down. I mean, you have guys like Dan Bailey was the best kicker and one of the better kickers in the NFL for so long and then he just came unglued. And I mean, Adam Venetary's had a horrible season and he was put on IR. This is terrible for me to say because this is going to just be bragging material for sports army. There's only one kicker in the NFL you should trust anymore. Justin Tucker? That's it.

Why is it bragging material? Because he's at the University of Texas. He's a kicker. He's one of the few Texas Longhorns that have made something of himself in the NFL. That's how sad the state of Longhorn Football has been. The best dang player in the league is a kicker. Joe, who is the second most reliable kicker in the NFL

not named Justin Tucker? Robbie Gold. Matt Prater? Oh, yeah. Stephen Goscowski when he was healthy. Doesn't count. Not there. Can't use him.

You should be able to say Vinatieri. That's long gone. That's long gone. I would say, Robbie Gold's got to be up there this year for the Niners. He's been really solid. That's it? Yeah.

That's a dramatic drop-off. Yeah. And at one point, Justin Tucker will become unreliable. But he'll still have his operatic singing skills. And does great commercials in the Baltimore metropolitan area. 113. 2.12. 790.

Our time is 113. And this is Sports Talk 790. Rockets basketball. Rockets, PA announcer and sports talk show host. One might get the impression Matt Thomas loves to hear Matt Thomas's voice. Go ahead, Matt, talk for us. Yeah, the new Matt Thomas show in 2020 is going to have less liners that are mean about me. Like, I never hear these liners on the A team in that show.

Jeez, you could have material for days, right, Joe? I agree. Especially about cranky Wexler and something about Clinton. What is up with Clinton than Eddie Johnson? I don't know, but he really does not like... They don't like each other. Mr. Eddie. They go back and forth a lot.

You know, Eddie Johnson and I did a radio show when he was still playing in the NBA, way back in the day. And he came in once week. He was hardly playing. But he just had the... He was great quote, and we had a really, really good time. And now every time he sees me, he looks at me and he's like, I don't even know who you are.

Well, maybe that's why Klan doesn't like him. because he disrespects you. So you're telling me Clinton's got my back. I like you. That's what I'm feeling here. That's what I'm feeling. And I see Eddie three or four times a year

because every time the Rockets and Suns play, they're not on national television. Why would you put the Suns on National Television? So they're always local broadcast. Well, maybe he just doesn't remember you, Matt. That's clearly what it is. Yeah, so what's wrong with? I didn't forgotten him.

Did you have hair back then? I don't know. Yeah, see you had hair and you were like 60 pounds heavier. So yeah, you probably just go reintroduce it and reintroduce you. yourself. Are you sure? Yeah. Should I say, hey, I'm Matt. I work with Adam on 790. I think he calls, does he call him a stooge every time or is that what he called? I think it is, yeah. Stoo, yeah. Well, I think he misspells him a stoop or something. He calls him stoop, like it's stupid. Okay. By the way, we're getting a lot of Twitter interaction

on tomato soup. And you've got a poll question. Yeah, I'm actually shocked. There's a poll question at Sports RV. Well, it was, I was shocked when it was two to one. It was like 66.7% no. I just put tomato soup thumbs up or thumbs down. Nice and simple. 56% thumbs down. Hmm.

I thought it would be like 60% in my favor, but this is a little surprising. Joe, where did you come down on tomato soup? I'm going to be a thumbs down. Wow. Because I need like grilled cheese to make it a thumbs up. No, okay.

Well, then technically makes you a thumb up. Because I won't eat it if I have a grilled cheese next to me. I'm just never going to have tomato soup ever again. Hmm. I think I'm still thumbs down though because nine out of ten times I won't eat it. Go to La Maddenle and get the tomato and basil soup. But is that really a soup or is it more like a cream base with tomato flavoring? I don't know what I think of you open the Campbell's can.

You drop it in there, put some water and heat it up and call it a day. Yeah, I'll put that in. I'll eat that too. What? Absolutely. With some grilled cheese? I'm going to eat that. You know what?

I'm going to go home after this show and I'm going to eat exactly that. Guess what? You'll be by yourself. Yeah. That's how I like it. Not getting the attention of others. Yeah, I'm okay with that. All right. Do you like Bloody Mary's?

No. Time out. How can you like the soup, but not the juice? I don't like that flavor with my alcohol. I mean, I'll drink a Bloody Mary. Don't get me wrong now, Maddie. Are you on Bloody Mary guy? I love Bloody Mary's. Wait a minute. See, now that's backwards to me.

I don't know. I think they're better. I like it cold. Do you know who apparently makes one of some of the best Bloody Mary's in Houston? is the United Club at the intercontinental airport. Okay. I've never had one because I don't like, I don't drink it. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't fly first class like you, Matt.

No, you can fly first class all you want to. You got to buy a membership to the United Club. Yeah, I'm not buying that. Yeah, you don't travel enough to do that. But people that travel are. Yeah. But I've see, I mean, not only, first of all, the reason why the Bloody Mary is a sucky drink is because it's more about what you jam inside of it.

Olives, bacon, bacon, celery. That's pepper. Where's you sure? Yeah, I mean, are you trying to drink your lunch or are you trying to have a drink drink? Yeah. I mean, I'll drink a Bloody Mary. It's just not my go-to. Same thing with like a Michelada with Clamato.

Like, the other thing I don't think is interesting to me, mixing out a margarita and beer together. A beer? Jamming a corona in the middle of your margarita. Beerita. It's okay. I had those once at a local restaurant. How'd that go, Ross? Did you pass out?

I got really drunk. So, go ahead. It's a Friday. Nobody's listening, right? First of all, is anybody listening? Line three, are you listening? All right, Mom, sorry. Line four, are you listening?

This was a friend of mine. Hang on, Louis. We went to a local strip club, and we brought a couple of strippers with us to a local Mexican restaurant and had some beeritas. What's wrong with that? And because we were with these girls,

somebody else bought us all drinks. again, where's the problem in this? There's no problem. It's just, I don't know if I wanted to tell that story. You just didn't want to say that you brought strippers with you out. And there's more story. I'll just leave it there. Is there any more of the story you can tell?

No. The audience would rather hear that. It's not that interesting, actually. Nothing really happened. Number of times in my life I have had a meal with a stripper. I like you both to guess. Zero. Joe, what are you going with?

Two. The answer is zero. Okay. Ross, the number of meals you've had with a stripper. I'll go first. Five, Joe? Under, I think. I'd have to think.

He's counting, folks, so it's got to be at least three. I think just two. Okay. Fair enough. I think there's that one and one more. Lewis on the southwest side on 7.90. Hi, Lewis. Boy, there's a tough act to follow here, meals with a stripper.

It's the ending goes for it. Anyway, happy New Year, guys. Same to you. Best show. Matt, I got a couple of quick questions. I think it's funny. You know, we're talking about the announcers for Thursday. I get it.

It was a bad loss to a really bad team, but it was the end of a three-and-one road trip. But I think it's interesting how the announcers in the media made that game in December seemed like, oh, my God, the Warriors just won the championship again, you know. It's a little frustrating, but like I said, if you would have told me a three-and-one road trip, if I would have been happy with it all day long, you know? Question.

What do you think about Jeff Green as a backup for PJ Tucker? What do you think about that? 6-10 guy who can shoot? I mean, we're running PJ into the ground, and Cephalotia is like useful, so maybe we could switch him out. He's not 6-10. They've had to be honest in the NBA now. They can't lie about their heights.

He's now 6-8, so what that's worth. I don't. know. I mean, it'd be no more than about 15 minutes a night. You know, you could play him. He is really an older PJ Tucker, frankly, is what he is. He's too far-basses prime. I just, I don't know. You know what I need, Lewis and all honesty, I really need a legit backup five, not the undersized. And I wouldn't mind getting a shooter that's got a little bit more accuracy. I just, to me, and maybe that's all the Rockets will do. It will be in the veteran buyout group. But Jeff Green would not be at the top of my list.

Now, if Jeff Green all of a sudden sign here today, it wouldn't be at a massive loss because there are guys right now on the Rockets roster that just aren't getting very many minutes. I'm just not going to come to you and be elated about, oh, the Rockets got everything in their power to go grab him. Well, I'm not related to the strong word, but I was just thinking maybe, you know, we could have that flash in the pan like we did when, you know,

when we brought Josh Smith on, you know. I'll say this. In your defense, Lewis, the Rockets have taken players, for the most part, that were scrap heap guys in the middle of the season and have made them pretty decent basketball players. So if there's any NBA roster they can do it, it's certainly the Rockets.

I just right now, I just can't come at you and be like, wow, that could be a missing piece. I think here's the thing, Lewis, in all honesty. The Eric Gordon, that was the sixth man of the year a couple of years ago, needs to come back. This Eric or... He'll be here Sunday. Yeah, he'll be Sunday against New Orleans.

You add him to the punch, and then you make another move. You know, I'm still telling you, I would take Andre Agadalla in a heartbeat if they can figure out a way to get him away from Memphis. He has not played a minute for them yet this year for a defensive presence, an occasional shooter, and a good multiplayer defender. You give me that? Give me something that's going to give me back. Serious backup minutes on the nights at Tyson Channel can't give you backup. minutes behind Clint because I don't know if I want Clint playing 40 minutes a game. I think it's going to wear him down.

In fact, he is listed as doubtful for tomorrow night with a bad heel. And that's where I think the Rockets could do its most improvement. And maybe Jeff Green is as a part of that mix because he can play the five if necessary. But I just, I love PJ's heart and desire and will. I just don't know if I want him playing a whole lot of backup five. And that's what he frankly does on nights that Tyson Chandler can't play. All right, man. Happy New Year to you guys and keep it up.

All right. Thank you, friend. Appreciate you listening. Yeah, Jeff Green's just okay, right? But I might have said the same thing about Josh Smith or any other players that have come by. Yeah, I mean, who's the other, Joe Johnson? I mean, these guys just kind of say. Joe did not work out well at all. You just sign these guys and hope for the best. I mean, I think he would be that level of signing, honestly.

He's 33 years old, past his prime, never was a great three-point shooter. And throughout his career. And that's what you would really want. So Jeff Green doesn't do move the need of. much for me. Can I just get a great three-point shooter as compared to trying to taking a decent one, giving him more shot? Like, for instance, Trevor Reza has never been, I don't think, ever been a great three-point shooter, but he would make some in his day because of the sheer number of volume shots. Right. PJ is actually having a better season from three. He's been coming

down a little bit. But coming back down to earth, but PJ would never be considered a, an amazing three-point shooter. He makes some big ones when you need them. But I'm talking like a AJ Reddick, catch and shoot, launch, give me 40%. Ryan Anderson. Excuse me, who? Ryan Anderson. Well, six years ago. Yeah.

That's what I want. Problem is you have to give up a lot to get those guys, and they're not just sitting around, and largely you have to go get those guys in free. Guys who shoot 40% from three don't just go row on trees and aren't going to be available. You'd have to, it would be the best to come up with those guys through the draft. I think Daniel House is around 40% so far this season, but he's, started off hot and he's cooled off since as well. Yeah, I think he went, and I was five for 15 against Golden State. I'm assuming most of those were three-point shots. He's at 39.7 percent,

so that's solid. He's been falling, though. We'll see what, it'll be interesting to see where he goes, I mean, what kind of numbers he ends up at. If he's going to shoot a 40 percent clip the entire season, it's going to be excellent, especially when you got somebody like Russell Westbrook, I'm not sure. I'm not sure he can shoot 40 percent of risk. If he does, the rockets are in great Absolutely. That's why I think the Rockets and an insurance policy on. Yeah. 1.30.

It is a Matt Thomas show with Joe George, our producer, Ross Villarreal. I'm Matt Thomas. Happy Friday to you all. In a half an hour, BTS is going to stop by from The Chronicle, and we'll make some money for you coming up at 2.35 as well. The best of, believe it or not, we call it Hell yeah, are now on Friday, and it's all coming up between now and three right here on Sports Talk 790. Alex Bregman here.

Get 790. And Bregman drives it pretty deep to left field. Get your stroes on the radio. the wall looking up and that ball is gone. We thank you for listening on this 27th December. 135 is a time with Nick. He's not here. What is Nick doing today?

We even know? No, it was just, I actually wanted it off. This is my fault. This is Joe's doing. So I wanted a couple days off with my family in town. What? Instead, the flip ended up being Nick works one of my shifts in his hold and then I

work the other one. Okay. So we just made a trip. Y'all should do that like a couple times a week. You should do like just all you for three days, three or two or three days a week and all him for two or three days a week. And then you can have a couple days off. That's not a bad idea. We should do that with this show too.

Yeah. Just get you off the show. Was that what you want? So Ross is dreaming of it. I would still call it the Matt Thomas show. That would be the funny part. Yeah, I love it when I'm off. You call it the Matt Thomas show without Matt Thomas.

I think it's funny. 135 on Sports Talk 790. Rossi, how do you feel about rumors? I'm tired of these rumors Getting started every day You know what? Let's put that behind this segment Stop spreading the lies

That's a What year would you say that song? Gosh, that's got to be like 88 or something They played it in the clubs back in the day, right? Probably. We used to play that song all the time Um Let's play a little bit of this

Timex Social Club That's the name of the band or the name of the song? In 1986 Damn, I was It's got the heavy synthesizer. Yeah, that's okay, right? Yeah. Yes!

Okay, I got to be honest. This was kind of a jam. I appreciate it because you were how old in 86? Zero. Well, I was born in 80, the end of 80, December of 84, so. Yes. It's called production value for the show. Matt, do you know how old I was in 86?

Negative 4? Shut up. I don't care. Negative 6. In 86? Yeah. You were born in 92? You were born in 92?

Yeah, I turned 20. like next week. Happy birthday. Thanks. Happy birthday, Ross. I never told you that, by the way. Mine's in June. Didn't hear nothing from either one of you.

Happy birthday, Matt. Didn't work here yet. Doesn't count. Okay. All right. Something called Ryan Rosillo. I believe... He's on ESPN.

Was. Oh. And then he got drunk and wandered into a cabin with his pants down or something. Correct. Fact. Hashtag credibility. That's fine.

Hey, look. I got to be honest. Whenever these guys start doing this crazy stuff, and I hear something like that, I'm like, you know what? That could happen to anybody. That's the way I see it. So I don't want to judge Ryan Rucillo.

I could end up blackout drunk somewhere with my pants down. It could happen to anybody, all right? I'm not here to Judge Ryan. He's on something called the Ringer, a podcast. Okay. That used to be Grant Land and then ESPN got rid of it, then Bill Simmons's baby. It's like Bill Simmons's baby.

I like The Ringer. They got a lot of good content up there. Okay. So then we'll decide if this is good content or not. Okay. Ryan Ricillo on his podcast said the following. I think Westbrook is, is available. We can talk about semantics, of course. Daryl Morey would trade anyone if he thought

his, yeah, it made his team better. Of course, he would trade Westbrook if he can get off of that long-term money if he bought the assets, if he thought the assets. The sum of the parts was better than having somebody that's considered a top 10 player. Is Daryl Morey actively calling people saying, hey, I've got to dump Westbrook? Well, of course, he wouldn't do that that way. But there are people who believe Westbrook is available and that Darrell knows I've got to figure something out here. I'm sure people will deny this after they hear on the podcast. I don't care. So, thank God you are listening to this show right now. Because here's the reality of it. Oh, but don't turn that out. It's good. This is a jam. This frankly is better than what we're about

to discuss. Look at this white dance move here. Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I got white guy dance moves too, so I can't even be mad. You do like the robot thing. Depending on how drunk I am. By the way, tomato soup thumbs up is up. It's ahead now. We're doing an instant poll in a second on that. Screw that.

Not right now, but we're going to have the next segment. At Sports RV. You can vote. You can vote the right decision. I've been losing followers, so. Yikes. Who hasn't? That's sports RV.

Let's be putting down some bad content. Well, I'm a ride or die guy, as you know. Thank you, Matt. And if people aren't riding with me, I lose, I drop them on Twitter. I mean, I've had you. muted for ages. I'm sure you have. Just kidding. So here's the real truth. Does Darrell Morey get a trade phone call every day?

Yes, he does. Of course. And they involve James Hardin. They involve Russell Westbrook. Okay. PJ Tucker. They involve Tavaloce. I mean, this is what... Einstein? Maybe not. Austin Rivers.

All these things, okay? Do I believe in my heart that he is actively trying to move Russ, I think the answer to that is no. Uh-huh. But the problem is when you say something like that in a podcast, and there are 9 million websites are going to pick up on that, and they're going to make that a new story.

So instead of being responsible and going, you know what, general managers take phone calls every day about players, it becomes, I'm going to go on my podcast, I'm going to tell you what I think it's going to happen, and then someone's going to transcribe my podcast, and then one of 50,000 websites are going to pick up on it and it's going to gather steam to something about when he gets there. It'll be irresponsible for me to say

that there's no way to know how that Russell Westbrook could ever get traded because we were saying the same thing about Chris Paul two or three years ago. Everybody Ross is tradable, including megastars. I don't buy it this early with Russell Westbrook at all. I don't either. I mean, he's been playing well as late. I think we can see, you know, how you call it, like the lens focusing.

Like, we're starting to see a clear picture. Why are we that traumatist? I don't know. This is the way it works in my, this is the way I wanted to make it out, plan it out my mind. Okay, sorry. We're starting to see Daryl Morey's vision come into focus. The way that Russell Westbrook has been playing,

and of course, last game it wasn't so great. He was OV8 from 3 and all that type of stuff. But before that, we had about a week straight of efficient play from Russell Westbrook. getting after the basket, playmaking, not turning the ball over as much. I can see the vision of where this is a championship team and where they can come together, especially when fully healthy. So I really don't put too much into this. I mean, Ryan Rosillo, he basically says it in the own quote,

in the quote you read. Darryl Morey's always going to take phone calls. So there's really, he even says you're not really supposed to put a lot of stock into this. So why does pro basketball talk run with this then? Because you got to have, you got 24 hours of content to fill. another serious question. Why are there 9 billion NBA fan sites that create this

crap as compared to baseball and football that have way less? Why do, why are there so many hoops, hype, roundball, you know, aggregate website? Why are there way more about the NBA than there are other two sports combined? Why is that? I think there's a

lot for both, but you're probably right. I think there is more than for NBA for whatever reason. So all this is going to do is taking one Joproni's podcast. Yeah. And making it a storm because I guarantee you if I go to Google and hit Russell Westberg trade rumors, there's going to be 7,500 websites reporting the same regular old Joe Schmoe podcast. I mean, we'll do it here too at SportsCoc 790. Westbrood trade rumors?

Yeah, we've done that for like Astro stuff. Well, that's terrible. Yeah. There are, frankly. It's what gets us hits on the what's on Matt's Mine show page. Oh, at Sports 790.com. In all honesty, there are two people in the NBA that I completely, Trust. Shams and Woj.

Mark Stein's pretty solid. Sam Amic, pretty solid. But Shams and Woj, the gospel. Complete gospel. Right. Those two guys put it out there. Yeah. There's legs to it. I agree. Now, they're both can be bought and persuaded on. They are bought. You know what I'm saying? They're in the agent's pockets. Correct. In some teams, too. I mean, there are no doubt about that.

But I'm not. Mark Steins and Mark Cuban's pocket. I'm not going to take roundball hype. 2020.com and consider whatever they have as any sort of serious gospel. So I just thought it was, there's a little bit of hysteria with Russell Westbrook fans about whether or not this is legit. Again, not that I'm going to call Daryl and say, hey, what do you think about this? I just, Ross, my answer to this quickly is you can't win a championship this year if James and Russell aren't on the same bet team.

There's no trade involving Russell Westbrook that puts the rockets any closer to a title. Unless say Anthony Davis is coming. LeBron James. Like, somebody that's not getting traded. Kauai Leonard. Paul George. Yeah.

Like a top 10 caliber player, which is probably not going. Nobody. Sorry, Russ. He's at the bottom end of the spectrum of top ten caliber. I don't want us shooting three-point shots anymore. I like Russ. I've really grown to like him.

He's getting better. But this three-point, me, he was, ooh, the gold state game. Oh. He just goes crazy Russ every now.

144. It's the Matt Thomas show. Sports Talk 790. Our punter buddy, D. Roy, Dane Roy. from the University of Houston says Australian tomato soup smiles

Australian tomato soup upside down smile emoji Wait, you said Australian both times You mean American upside down emoji No Australian it's got a It's like the drooling face emoji Is that what that is? That's gross.

He's drooling. Who drools or a food? Well, that's what? When's not saying you drool over a piece of food? Your mouth water is constantly. It's called biology. Wait a minute, your mouth waters when you say, oh, there's a piece of garlic bread?

Yeah. I don't believe that for a second. It's biological fact. The Pavlovian response, Matthew. All right, fair enough. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-790. 145 on Sports Talk 790.

The morning sports show for those who partied in Midtown way too hard last night. The Matt Thomas show on Sports. Sports Talk 790. Brian C. Smith, and The Chronicle's going to join us in about 10 minutes from now. Would you like to join us right now? You may. 713, 212-5-790.

7-1-3-212-5-7-90. If you want to reach out via Twitter you can, at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at... Are you Joe George Radio? Is that what you are? Okay. Joe George Radio is going to give you a lot of insight on the Chicago Bears. I mean, a lot. It's not bad.

much. It's just a lot of links to the podcast. I'm just trying to promote. Yeah. Here, I'm going to retweet Bears Verified right now. Thanks, Ross. Is that a separate Twitter account?

No, no, no. Wait a minute. I thought you were Joe George Radio. I am. All right. You don't follow him? No, I do. Okay.

So here we go. Let's go the last 10 tweets of your life. Bears verified retweet. Yeah. This day in Chicago sports. Oh. An Earl Bennett tweet. A general manager.

Yep. That's AM. It's ESPN 1,000. It's a Chicago station. That's the Bears GM. Another Earl Bennett, Bears verified. Another Bears verified. Another bear is verified.

Michael Jordan in a video. God, have you no shame? Seriously. Bears. Bulls. Week 17. somebody fantasy championship Zach Brown Band

You only took you You only had to scroll through like 15 To get something not Chicago sports related There's an impeach Bill O'Ryan retweet in here from Ross Oh thank you You got 134 likes off that You know what I'm gonna like that too Thank you Matt

Would you like that? Sure This was when he was making bad decision Bad clock managing decisions at the end of that This game is drunk That's about the Texans This guy sucks About the Texans

See how do we know probably talking about the Bears. No, I was watching. It's on a Saturday. It was right after your show, wrong. You're probably watching a replay of the Bears. A Charlie Weiss tweet.

Let's see what else here. At Joe George Radio. You understand that we bust each other's balls on the show. I'm just saying, but there's more Texans than you think. Okay. Not a lot of Rockets, though. 1% instead of 0%.

That's why Joe, this is a good show, because we don't, we don't push a team down your three. road endlessly. It's fair. We mix it up. We mix in, I mean, look, we want the rockets and Astros to be insanely successful. I'm waiting for the Texans to be insanely successful.

We'll see. It's going to be a minute. Can we do this? Because you and I, we won't have much for this on. Let's put a bet on. What are the odds that the game is not 3.30 on Saturday? Or whatever that, the earliest wild card game. Not anything, like the field?

So the favorite. If I gave you the two choices. Yeah. First wild card game on Saturday. the field, meaning any of the other three, what would the big board have on that? Minus 700. Yeah, there's no way to take the other side. Yeah.

There's, I'm trying to think about this. There's really no way it's not because. Okay, well, let's go to the other one. The other one would be Kansas City has a home game. Yeah. Either against Pittsburgh or Tennessee. It'd be Kansas. I mean, maybe, uh, no, Kansas City versus Pittsburgh or Tennessee would probably not be.

But is that worse in Texans? Bill's? If Miami beats New England and Buffalo wins, Buffalo goes to the AFC as the number one seed, right? No. No. Baltimore's down. Okay. Buffalo gets the number two seed.

Number two is still up for grabs, right? Buffalo's out of the two seed. They can, no, yeah, they're done. They're 10 and 5. New England's 12 and 3. Oh, okay. So one and two are locked. One and two are locked.

So Kansas City, Houston can flip-flop. No, no, two's not locked. Kansas City can get two. If they win and the Patriots lose, the Kansas City can go to three. Kansas City, Buffalo can't. Okay. Yeah, there's no chance that they're not the early a game. There's no chance.

Kansas City could host a game or New England would host a game. So again, you're not putting them at 3.30 on the Saturday. I even saw somebody was talking about it on Twitter. I can't remember who it. It was like the Texans annual Saturday 330. Dallas or Philadelphia wins the East. They host a game. You're not putting them in the early spot.

The national brand. And then what's the other? We'll play the Seahawks in that one. The other one would be Saints Vikings, potentially. Or, I mean, I guess it could be any Vikings at something. Yeah, Packers, Niners. Yeah. It's going to be the Texans. 100%.

Not 100%. Like if there was such thing as a million percent. Yeah. There's not. So if you're going to the Texans playoff game, clear your Saturday out. So the bets off the board. Yeah, the numbers are so skewed, there's no chance. Let's go to Brian and downtown.

Brian, happy holiday. Hey, happy holidays you, man. I hope you had a great one, man. Hey, you know, first of all, man, let me tell you this.

Look, Bill O'Brien, hey, hey, the man, I mean, he does not have enough time to worry about clock management and not enough

quarterbacks on the roster. That's not his job. He's a general manager and the head coach. So just remember that and quit giving him a hard time, all right? Anyway,

hey, the question about the assholes. Who started this absurd thing that, like Jeff Luno and Astros more or less gave up a chance to get Garrett Cole because that Granky? I mean, I thought...

That was a report on a guy by the name of Jack Curry from the Yes Network. That was stupid. That was blatant homerism by an employee of the Yankees and the Sports Network. Because I'm thinking to myself, hey, to me, they got Granky because pretty much knowing that they weren't going to be able to keep Garrett Cole, that would be my thought. I don't know, maybe I'm way off on there. because I'm thinking that, you know,

they kind of maintain one of the best starting rotations in baseball. So that's why they went and got Granky because I'm thinking maybe it's because they figured they weren't going to be able to keep coal. And so they wanted to just keep up the best rotation they could. And that's what I got to say about that. Thanks, Matt. Thank you. Thank you.

Happy holiday. Same to you. Guys, the reason why the Astros went and got Zank Granky was to, A, get them a chance to win a World Series and have an amazing one, two, three punch. But secondly, the insurance policy. I'll see you's there. That Zach Granky was under contract for the next couple of years. The presumption is that Granky is going to be at or near what he was in the last handful of years.

And that Garry Cole was going to get some obnoxious deal the Astros couldn't pay for. Yeah, Jeff Luno is Matt? Is Jeff Luno smart? Last time I checked. I think he's pretty smart. He knew that they weren't going to be able to retain Gary Cole's services for a long-term deal. Jeff Luno doesn't like signing those long-term deals. Big money.

I mean, you have Verlander and Granky are making big money, but for two years. years. He's not going to do a nine-year, absurd, behemoth type of deal because the Astros don't have those types of resources. No, no, that's not true. That's not true. They have the resources. They're not going to put a deal out there that long. It's twofold. No, if they could afford, if money were no object, they would probably have Garrett Cole, but money is an object. Money is an object really for anybody. Even the Yankees have been much more fiscally responsible in spending the last 10 years and they have been the previous 10. They just loaded up to get, they knew Garrett Cole would be available to them.

I mean, that was the worst kept secret in sports. When Gary Cole did not sign his contract with the Astros prior to spring training of 2019, that meant I'm going out in free agency and I'm going to go find the biggest, fattest deal in the Yankees made sure financially they could afford to spend that kind of money on it. But they don't have the same resources of the Yankees. That's true. Their television network is bigger, but the Astros should never be considered a poor baseball team. I didn't say they're a poor baseball team. They don't have the resources of the Yankees.

or let's say the Dodgers. But short of that, they have everybody of the resources of Chicago teams. They have every of the resources to the Boston's of the world. L.A. and New York are going to be two different animals, clearly. Okay. So that's what I'm saying. They don't have the same resources

as some of those other teams. And they know that those types of deals, like I've said before, you're never going to win on the Garrett-Cole deal. You can break even on it. You're never going to have a steal of a deal. Garrett-Cole's making $36 million. Let's go to say hi to our friend Brian T. Smith next.

158, the Matt Thomas Show, final hour here on Sports Talk 790. This is the Matt Thomas Show. 202 on the Matt Thomas show for a Friday. We have the best to believe it or not, which Ross is going to work on, and we'll have it for you coming up in about 50 minutes from now. Right now it's our weekly Friday visit with our good friend Brian T. Smith from the Houston Chronicle. All right, BTS.S.

So the Texans are in the locker room, and they've got the big screen television. on and they just watched the Kansas City Chiefs secure the number three spot with a 27 to 10 win over the L.A. charges. Who's not playing and who is playing at 325 on Sunday afternoon? I don't know why in the world Deshawn Watson would take a snap for you if they're locked into the four-scene mat. Sounds like DeAndre Hopkins is sick. If he's not 100%, why have him play? And you can just go down the list from there. I do believe him. momentum, I believe in rhythm. We have the evidence, which is damning last year, that the Texans did not have any rhythm going into the playoffs, and they were down 210 to Indianapolis, and they

were boot off the field. But the Texans also had rhythm not that long ago after beating the Patriots on Sunday night football, and what happened? Denver happened, and they've been inconsistent all year. So one game isn't going to change anything. Tennessee definitely has something to play for on Sunday. If the Chiefs win, I would not allow Deshawn Watson to touch the field because far too much is it fake and the downside, the potential downside far outweighs a little upside. And, you know, and I will give Bill O'Brien credit on this. You know, he wants to win the game.

I don't think there's any doubt they would like to win it. But he has been asked a variety of different ways about who's playing and who's not playing, and I think he's in a very effective job of not putting his foot in his mouth, not lying, but also not giving away many details. There is such a difference on whether or not what you play for and who plays based on what happens in the previous game. I think it's a no-brainer. And I think Bill O'Brien understands that, Brian, that there's no way in the world that the meaningful starters who have been nicked up under any circumstance get valuable playing time this Sunday. No, and Bill set it up perfectly, and he obviously been reading the Chronicle, because I wrote about this earlier in the week before Bill started saying that.

initially he said, we want to win this game. If they need to win the game, they should play to win the game. If they do not need to win the game, you protect Deshawn Watson. If they're playing Buffalo, you need a healthy emphasis on healthy DeShon Watson against Ed Oliver and Company Energy Stadium. They win that game. That would be a tough one, but I would pick them if Deshawn Watson is healthy. everybody's healthy.

They win that game. And then, you know, you have Deshawn Watson and DeAndre Hopkins and potentially maybe the return of Will Fuller. You have Carlos Hyde, Duke Johnson, a steadily improved up the line, a good defense with potentially JJ Watt. That's an interesting team. I mean, it doesn't guarantee anything, Matt, and they were pretty good last year and just flat-faced against the Colta Energy.

But you would think at some point they will break through in the playoffs. and I mean really break through with Watson and Hopkins, whether it's Bill O'Brien's a coach or somebody else. Maybe this is the year. Deshawn has to be healthy, obviously, for that to happen. I'm going to give you the question, and the answer is C. So I'm giving you it ahead of time. J.J. Watts return in the first playoff game.

Either A is going to be something that's going to lift the franchise to extraordinary levels, and everybody's going to be super motivated, and he's going to be the J.J. Watt that intercepts the pass against Andy Dalton in the playoff game almost a decade ago, and becomes a megastar. Option B is he re-injures himself. He walks to the sideline, helmet in hand, head down, clinical depression kicks in. Or C, he's out there.

We get fired up. But at the end of the day, he is still recovering from a peck injury. So tell me what you expect a week from Saturday when they play that early game against the Buffalo Bills. Yeah, that's a hard one to read because it was supposed to be season. and JJ's dealt with multiple season-ending injuries, major injuries, and three of the last four years. And he was good this year.

He wasn't the JJ Watt from whatever, 2000. It's hard to remember anymore. 2013, 2014, you know, the one-man wrecking crew, the next Lawrence Taylor. He was good this year. He wasn't that guy. Somebody had Matt Satt will tell you he was fantastic, but he wasn't single-handedly destroying offenses like he did before. That's a hard read.

I think if anything, if you're JJ Watt and the Texans, anything is a plus, right? If he's playing and he's healthy and he plays all four quarters and he disrupts some plays and he gets the crowd into it at home and the Texans win that game, he'll have played a significant part of that. And if he can play in the divisional round and he's healthy and he can get to Tom Brady, Lamar Jackson, or whatever it's going to be, you will take that if you're the Texans. So it's a two-part solution to this. He has to remain healthy when he's playing for the rest of the time.

of the season. It doesn't backfire, and he actually does something for the Texans. But I think if JJ Watts on the field and the medical staff and Bill O'Brien give him the thumbs up, JJ Watts doing something significant on the field. Brian T. Smith with us from the Houston Chronicle here on Sports Talk 790. What else has piqued your interest this week? Are you finding that the one-person podcast about Russell Westbrook being traded now that every NBA blog in America is grabbing some of this and saying, oh, the Rockets are we trying to move him? Yeah, the Rockets to me all season have just been inconsistent. I mean, I think that's the one thing.

The one thing I will never do in the NBA unless it's a playoff game, but in the 1 through 82, in the regular season, I've learned for years to not overreact to one game. I mean, they can lose that Warriors game that was a horrendous, embarrassing, nationally televised loss, but it's one of 82, and they had actually been putting it together Westbrook and Hardin before that. It's going to be the long play. I think the thing that gets really interesting about all of it is, you know, is Tillman Fertita and how does he view this? Darry on and on and on. Those are the things that really matter.

They're not going to overreact to one game. And I don't see them in any way deciding to trade Russell Westbrook just because, you know, a one loss on television. Yeah, I just, I think it's just so easy. It's like, you know, somebody called it today, got to fire this, got to fire that. Well, you weren't, nobody was calling that after they beat the Clippers. on the LA home floor. That's how NBA fans are. It's so much of, well, you don't ever give them credit for beating somebody really, really

good yet you want to fire them when things are bad. And I think, frankly, Bill O'Brien has gone through a lot of that this year. Yeah, I mean, the thing with the NFL's week to week, and so the media and the fans and the players and the coaches themselves, they go more on a week-to-week, you know, type of roller coaster type, you know, bouncing around, pinballing around. If you're Darrylman Fortita, if you're Tomin-Fortita, if you're a had Brown. If you're the Rockets, you've been through all this. You know it's at stake. You know it's pretty much championship robust. And Matt, it was before the season started. So, you know,

Westbrook has been good. He hasn't been great. Has he been better than Chris Paul was? Yes, in some ways, no and others. This team can play better. But they were playing better before the Warriors game. If they don't blow that Warriors game, everyone's like, hey, great road trip. They're starting to find it. You know, the NBA season has now really started. Again, I'm not going to overreact to one game. And, you know,

it's the NBA and the Twitterverse. It's all you need to do is say, hey, someone might get traded, and 50 blogs, you know, turn up and we're talking about on talk radio. So until there's some real smoke with that, I don't believe it at all. All right. You know, one thing that Ross

and I have not neglected today, and it's really our fault, we have not talked about the national semifinals of the college football playoff. this weekend. Big games, Matt. There really are good games. I think Oklahoma probably is, you know, if there was one fish out of water, that would be them.

But Jalen Hertz knows what it's like to play in the most important games of the life. So to think that they can't at least be competitive for a while might be foolish on people's parts. But LSU, I mean, this, and again, we have so many LSU fans that listen to show, this might be the greatest LSU team in the history of LSU football, which is saying, something for a very proud program. right now it is they need to win two more games they went two more games Joe Burrow will have a statue outside of Tiger Stadium by February

and he will he will become the governor of Louisiana it's not that hard to be the governor of Louisiana but he will be the governor of Louisiana he'll be the president of Louisiana I mean Joe Burrow he a Ux is on the verge of doing just the absolutely unthinkable I've covered a couple LSU games this year I was at Tiger Stadium when they destroyed emphasis on destroyed A&M. Joe Burrow can do no wrong, but look, you're going to have a layoff. They're starting running back and dealing with an injury issue.

And they need to find a way to win in Oklahoma. And then there's going to be another layoff. The college football playoff is weird. I mean, just look at Alabama and Clemson last year. Look at somehow some of these situations have gone. So LSU needs to win. I think LSU wins. The one that's really hard for me to pick Matt is Clemson in Ohio State.

I mean, Clemson is just sitting there and there, and they're either going to be for real and very dangerous or they're going to get bowled over by Ohio State. Ohio State has injury issues. So I'm really looking forward to Saturday sitting down watching a couple, hopefully, good college playoff games. But I will be surprised if LSU is not playing for the National Championship in New Orleans on January 13th. And it's so funny because Davos Sweeney has gone with his whole storyline of all year. I've known to respect it us. No one's done this.

No one's done that. You know, I don't know if it's self-motivation for his own. own squad, but Clemson is certainly always in the short list of national college football conversation. And they've got a quarterback who will be not this year, but next year, the number one overall pick in the NFL draft. So plenty of respect. Trevor Lawrence did it last year. I mean, Joe Burrow has been incredible, but he's still got to prove it the next two games with, you know, basically a month layoff, a month plus. Trevor Lawrence has done it before at the highest level. So I think there's still a lot to be written and said the next two games.

But, you know, 15 and O, Joe Burrow, LSU. He will soon be, if that happened, he'll be the governor of Louisiana. We'll leave it that. BTS, we'll talk again next Friday. Looking forward to the early first wildcard game, Buffalo versus Houston. Agreed? That's probably going to have. I'll be, I will be shocked if Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reed in Kansas City lose to the

chargers at home. I mean, that's got a 1% shot of happening with everything that's on the line. So, yeah, Texans builds and, you know, the return of Ed Oliver to Energy Stadium. That's going to be a lot of fun. He's had some of his best games, frankly, in that building over the years. Yeah. All right. Thanks, BTS.

We'll talk to you next week. All right, take care, Matt. That's Brian T. Smith of the Houston Chronicle. You can check him out on Twitter at Cron Brian Smith. 214 is the time. Some handicapping help coming up in the bottom of the hour. We've got our best of believe it or not, which Ross has worked on. He's taken the best questions of the year and made him into one segment.

It's going to be amazing. He's still kind of worrying about his poll question today, which is yes or no on tomato soup. We'll give you an update on that. Plus, we'll give you an update on the Texans that we've got a couple of players that are very, very important to the team. Not so much working out in the whole lot in the next last couple of days. They get ready for the Tennessee finale. 713-212-5-790. Good news.

It's the Matt Thomas show for lunch. Let that boring brown bag lunch rot in the employee refrigerator. Oh, what's that smell? The Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. Texans injury report is out and for the game. Oh, no. What's happening? It's nothing surprising.

Okay. Unfortunately. Will Fuller will not play Sunday against Tennessee, regardless of there's something to play for or not. Will Fuller is going to probably be a game-time decision for the playoff game. Jalela Dyeye is questionable. DeAndre Hopkins questionable. Jacob Martin questionable.

Bradley Robey questionable. Kenny Stills questionable. Laramie Tunsell questionable. Matt Thomas, questionable. I'm always questionable. As a fact. Question is going to be, how much am I going to watch the game or am I going to race to Harris as soon as we landed in in New Orleans on Sunday?

Actually, you know what? we fly after the game. I'll be able to watch all the Texans game. I'm going to miss that game. I'm going to miss the, no, I'll watch the Rockets Saturday. I'll miss the Rockets Sunday and the Rockets New Year. I'm going to missing two Rockets games and a Texans game.

It makes me anxious. Well, I don't ever... Can you DVR? Yeah, I'm going to record all that. Yeah, that's a good idea. But is that weird that I'm so plugged into sports a lot larger because of just how I live my life and this job, that it makes me anxious that I'm going to miss two Rockets games and one Texas game.

I will say, no, it doesn't because even with me doing a daily radio show and me having the internet and television. When you're out with the Rockets, you're in, excuse me, you're in that world for a while. And you, when you're not in Houston, you don't feel the pulse of everything going on. Does that make sense to you? I guess. Yeah. Like, I don't think I could do a Houston radio show not living in Houston.

Does that make sense? You could, in theory. I think you get a good feel of it for, I think Twitter helps a lot. Twitter helps. 10 years ago, it would be more difficult without Twitter. But going to the games mean a lot to me. That's true. Having the local game on.

I'm feeling anxiety. I'm feeling literally anxious in my chest right now thinking about missing two Rockets games and a Texans game. You'll be fine. Okay. Because I'm going to tell you the Tennessee game is going to be nothing. Okay. Rockets, by the way, will play the Nets tomorrow night.

No Kyrie Irving in the game. Okay. That's good. And my guess is Sunday. The Rockets will play in New Orleans. Eric Gordon will be back, but there will be no Russell. Russell Rusbrook. And Eric Gordon will be getting booed.

That's a guarantee as well. Dang, I wish I could have gone on that trip. We'd laugh our ass off on that. I said, man, you have been gone there for so long, and they still boo your ass. Okay, we were booing Carlos Beltran for literally a decade. Oh, it happens to the places. But when you think of New Orleans, you think of a rabid, rabid saints fan base. You do not think of a long-memoried, not going to forget moment Pelican fan.

I think of Saints fans, Creole food, and Vomondon in the Street. When I think of New Orleans. I love every minute of it. Saints fans. Yes. Creeole. Yes. Vomiting.

Yes. Gambling. Lots of panhandlers. Gambling. And gambling. God. What a great city. And high limits, by the way.

I love that city. God. Stop with these $20. That's me committing $60 every time I throw the dice. It's a little too much for me. Actually $70. Dial it back, Matt. I can't.

Or just win. $20 hours in a night. a pass line. They're trying to help you win more. 25 or 30 in the back and then I put some money in the number too. You're going to put a hard eight. Take your hard eights off the table, Matt. Wait, what? No. Six. By way, what did you do for your bachelor party?

We forgot to ask you. We went to Austin. So we did because I had all my guys from Chicago come down. Of course you did. He asked me for a restaurant and bar recommendation. I was like, dude, I haven't lived there in 10 years. I was like, I haven't lived there in 10 years. Every restaurant I probably liked when I was there is probably closed. So we did Austin two nights, Friday and Saturday.

Good time. Did you behave yourselves? Friday night was pretty calm because not everyone was there. Saturday. Got a little rough night. Got a little while. Were you guys, did you guys get on a boat or something?

No, we just went bar hopping. Petal party? We placed to place. Oh, you didn't go to Lake Travis and get on a boat? No. Didn't feel it.

It's not close to Austin. I thought it was closer. No, it's not. Yeah. So it was you in 10 of your Chicago buddies. Like four or five of us, yeah. Okay.

Why don't you go up to Chicago? Make it simpler for them. Austin's cool. Oh, they're all there. They already know. Chicago. Yeah. Chicago's a great town.

I live there my whole life. I don't need to go back. It's that toddling town, yeah. They were willing to come down, so we did that. By the way, you've now been gloss Shytown Joe here on the Matt time of the show. It's okay. Chicago Joe. We're going to go get some Italian beef.

Chicago. I would live in Chicago. I wouldn't mind the hustle and bustle. Literally the only problem with Chicago is the weather. It is. It's rough. What's that famous Italian beef place called? I went there and it's, it sucked.

No, Portillos was all right. There was another one. I can't remember what it was called. So I go, we say to a hotel that's right across the road from a Giordano's. By the way, in Texas. Is that, is that too trendy for Chicago people? No, I like Lomaunati's better. Lou Maldanis was my favorite.

Yep. Gino's was good too. I was disappointed. Genos didn't last year in Houston. Yeah. There's one still on 45. Is there not? No, it's gone.

It's gone. The sign's still there, though. It sucked. It was not good. It's the water. Yeah. I'm telling you. Is it?

The water's not dirty enough. And by the way, in Texas, we call it portios. two else me equals a y in texas fair they should open up portillo's here in houston it would crush oh man i would go wait a minute you're telling that great pitcher for the nationals rick portillo yeah porcelo no wait okay so you babe did you guys get strippers owls ATX hobble girls yeah al's italian beef was terrible i thought oh owls is overrated oh it's horrible yeah portillo's is the best place i saw it on man versus food i'm like oh all right i'm going to go here it's going to be great it's not good. I feel like a lot of the stuff on man versus food, though, is overrated.

This every man's versus food episode, he goes, this is the greatest thing I've ever eaten. It's not. It is not. Same thing with the places that Guy Fierry goes. Guy Fierry goes to every fast food restaurant. He goes on the grill and they chop up some meat and they put some mozzarella on it and a couple of sauces. Oh, this hot beef is the best I've ever had in my life. You shut your trap. Yeah, he just says everything's great. I've never seen him do a negative one on that show. There's no way. Did you imagine, hey, we're here in Memphis at this great famous barbecue place. We're going to go and try some of the best ribs in America.

Let me get a plate of your beef ribs. All this is crap. There's places he went in Houston for the Super Bowl when he did like four or five restaurants that I've gone to and I'm like, they're not good. Hey, I'm here at this Applebee's. They serve a hell deliciously awesome burger. Let's go check it out. I feel like we make fun of Applebee's way too much.

Yeah, Matt. What's on Applebee? We've had a lot of great times at Club Applebee. Matt. We should have taken you to Club Apple for the sports talk 790 bachelor party. We got time. I tell that Club Apple story all the time. It is a classic. Yes, it is. Was my family even here in town? Yeah. Your family was in town, but you had had a late night with the Rockets and you got in a hotel room right by the station. So you're going to, because you were doing, no, it was a late night with the Astros. That's what you're doing a lot more Astros. Okay. Okay. And you're like, Ross, this is when I was living up way north. You're like, hey, I'm getting a

hotel room, why don't you just hang out here? And then so after the game, we decided to go get a beer. Nothing was open by the hotel room except for Applebee's. When we walk into Applebee's, all the lights are dimmed. Half the restaurant. You're right, you're right. Half the lights are dimmed. And it's had like a whiteboard and it said Club Apple. And so we're like, well, I guess we're going to go to Club Apple and have a beer. So Matt was the only white person in the whole place. That's not true. The DJ, who was about 300 pounds and had a bandana on. His name was DJ cholesterol. It was a woman. She was playing, well, she, I don't think she, I don't think she was interested in men, men. Um, and she was playing screw music, like DJ screw music, very loudly. And we had a waitress. Do you remember

the, the story with the waitress? She was pregnant? She had, she was like, uh, how old do I look? And we were like, I don't know, 25. And she was like, I'm 28 and I have a 14 year old or something like that. Yeah, she was proud of the youthful parents of her, but yet the old 14 year old. She was 28 with a 14 year old and her name was Lucretia, so shout out to Lucretia.

How do you remember that? That stuff I can't remember. Yeah, I remember it was L-A-C-R-E-T-I-A. Do we eat fried cheese there? Do we eat anything? We didn't, we had one picture. We were like, okay, we can't just walk out of here because we were afraid of our lives. Yeah. So, we had one pitcher of beer, split it, and then left.

And then we went to the Spring Hill Suites or whatever it was. and slept like babies. Yes. Now I'm growing with three children, one's at Texas Tech. So that's Club Apple. Club Apple. Great times. All right.

229 here on Sports Talk 790. We've had a few good times. We'll run through some of them on the 10-year anniversary show, which will be in the week or so. 10 years, Ross. That makes my stomach hurt. Look what we've come from those 10 years. Yeah, we're pretty much doing the same show, which I think is a good thing. That's fine.

It means we've been able to survive. I mean, I got added in a co-host role this year. That's right. That's off to me. And you got a bet out of the deal. That's true. 229 on Sports Talk 790. Let's make you some money next.

It's the Matt Thomas show here on Sports Talk 790. Hey, yo, Adrian. Um, Rocky, my name is Alexa. Oh, I like to hear sports. Then say, Alexa plays Sports Talk 790 on IHeart Radio. Whoa. How many shots to the head did you take? Hey, uh,

The fact of the matter is, we want you, if you so choose, through any ways you want you do it, to make money on these football games. If you like to do that sort of thing. Ross and I do in Vegas. Some people do it online. Some do both.

Freewinters.net, must listen radio, Saturdays, and Sundays at 10 o'clock right here on Sports Talks, and to give us a little preview of that show is one of the host, Paul Nolan. Paul, happy holidays, how are things? Holidays are good, things are good, I'm just getting fatter by the minute. That's great. Yeah, cholesterol levels be damned between now and same January the 5th. All right, this is an interesting week for me, and I texted you ahead of time,

because I really am curious about a variety of things about week 17s. But let's get to first. I asked you to give me a sexy noon game, and you've come up with Miami and New England. Why do you like that game so much? Well, you know, I mean, just look at the numbers. You start out by, you know, Patriots have been, you know, especially Brady's struggled when he's faced pressure. This is not a team that will be able to get any kind of real pressure on Brady.

And as Miami's, you know, comes in really 30th or 30 seconds, depending on how you break down the pass rush when you remove junk time. So this is like right off the bat. It's just a match-up problem. And, you know, Brady, when he's under pressure, last in completion percentage, he's 34th in, you know, an overall quarterback rating. You know, it's just terrible. I was first in balls thrown away. Obviously, he doesn't have the greatest weapon, so he's obvious, didn't have a lot of confidence.

You know, just tossing balls up, 50-50 chances. Really outside of Edelman didn't have anybody, and he's small, as we know. Since they lost Devlin, it really kind of changed the way this offense had done things. and teams are just really able to amp up pressure on them. And the old line early in the year, there was a lot of turnover. Dante Scornick, he had a lot of flipping and flopped with guys, and he finally gets guys to settle in. And he finally gets guys to settle in.

And was Isaiah Winn came back. The team started to get a little better, but really what we noticed going back on the film. In week eight, Landon Roberts, he's a lineback. He started to get some reps at fullback, taking the place of Devlin and trying to give this team that look that it had. and two weeks nine and 14. He only had 16 snaps back there, but you know, that's the Brady way, that's the Belichick way, that's the Patriot way, really let a guy learn and kind of unveil kind of a new look as the playoffs get here.

So the last two weeks had over 30 snaps. He had 21 last week alone, and since he's been taking more snaps in the backfield, they've averaged 5.5 yards per rushing attempt, which is up a, you know, point, you know, 1.4 yards per rush. from where it was, which is also, you know, negated a lot of the pass rush. And Brady, in his age, just be honest, I mean, nobody wants to get hit me as a quarterback in the NFL, let alone 42-year-old guys who look like the team accountant, you know, with their shirt off as opposed to, you know, the linebackers that have blasted him. So since he's had less pressure, and he's only faced 16 pressures in the last two games

and 65 dropbacks, everything has looked a little more in sync offensively. So I think this is one of those spots where I think that the Patriots, when they play bottom half defenses, teams are in the bottom half ranking. They've averaged 30 plus points a game as opposed to when they've played teams in the top half defensively. They've only averaged 20 points a game. It's a huge, huge difference. And I think this is going to be one of those situations. Well, we'll see the Patriots.

And they've said it all week. If they practice like this is a playoff game, they're practicing like this is the most important game of the year, and they plan on bringing it full tilt. So I expect to see maximum effort from New England here. It's a big number, but I'm willing to lay it, especially because I feel like this is going to be a team that's going to capitalize on the turnovers. I just cannot picture Flores going back to his hometown and having the code to break Belichick. So I will lay the number here.

I also feel like this is a great team, a great spot for a teaser bet. If people wanted to factor this in as a teaser, lay in 15-5 or 16 under 10 down to 9, 9.5. if people wanted to incorporate it there, great value there. All right. The only thing that scares me is that Patriots get up 24-0, they will solidify the number two spot in the EFC, and then Bill Belichick pulled starters, and then this would be one of those games

where the score would not be indicative of how maybe not close the matchup was. I am so glad you brought that up, and that's why this is actually a better value. First-half bet. I didn't know if that was too sophisticated. No, it's better than teasers. I'll tell you that. But first half numbers I love.

Yeah, well, that's a great point you make then. Yeah, so you will be able to see them more like, you know, an eight and a half or nine first half bet. I like it. That's a really, I love first half betting. When I go to Vegas, I almost, you know why? Because it keeps me vested in the game a lot quicker. I can make some adjustments at halftime if I need to. So with that being said, there are a bunch of matchups that have absolutely no implication on the playoffs,

meaning you've got like an Atlanta versus what a Tampa Bay. you've got Cleveland versus Cincinnati. Are there anything sneaky in those, or do you best stay away from them? You know, to me, it's the same as every other situation. You know, you've got to go with numbers and values. You have to look at all the expected yards per rush, expected yards per play. You have to look at all the averages. You have to look at all the data.

Then you've got to look at the on-field matchups. You need to look at the information in terms of what teams are motivated, who are practicing well. And then you have to get more into the situational analysis where, you know, teams that have covered four straight weeks tend to, you know, only cover, you know, 18% of the games if they've covered in one four straight. There's so many of those situations where Vegas over and flail line

and teams tend to think, oh, we can just lace them up and win. It's just like it's more of a human nature trend. And lastly, narratives, you know, things that matter. You look at like teams like New Orleans back at the control. Katrina, they were just a team that had that, like, there was just that, like, collective focus that you knew all 53 guys were going to come out ready to play. And that reminds you of the Atlanta game, you know, Atlanta after the break, we had used Atlanta over New Orleans after that byweek.

And Dan Quinn had had a really good meeting with the guys, and the guys bought in. The guys love him there. And they're playing hard for him in the second half. And if he ends up winning this game, he saves his job, especially because there's such cap trouble over there in Atlanta. So teams are still playing for something. the guys are still playing for their careers. And then the big rich, the guys, future rich guys, you know,

are they going to make businesses decisions where they're, you know, not going to lay out over the middle for a ball? Are they going to protect their bodies going into free agency? There's so many things to factor in here, but you still have to go through all your protocols if you're going to handicap these games. And there are really awesome great values of Week 17 when these, you know, divisional teams face each other, especially for the second time. And, you know, you see a lot of values on the unders in these last week 17 in the NFL since they went to this.

scheduled with, you know, these conference opponents, these divisional opponents play each other. And that's why I can listen to the show, especially on Sunday for the NFL perspective on things again. Freewinters.net Sports Investors Weekly 10 o'clock on the weekends here on 7.90. Final question for it before we get you out of here. So the Texans either will have something to play for or nothing to play for, depending on what happens in that Chargers-Cand-City game, which is at noon with the Texans game at 325. Do you stay away from that? or if you are really savvy, do you wait till 319, 320 to make that wager? Yeah, even earlier than that, if you get the opportunity and you see the way a game is going,

if you could see the Kansas City's fire on all cylinders, and that defense continues to really get in sync with the Spagnolo defense, and they continue to do what they're doing, and you see, and this is, oh, my God, the chiefs are getting a run game, too. This is a spot where you know they're not losing this game. There's absolutely no doubt. There's no way you cannot take Tennessee, in that situation, considering the fact that they'll be desperate.

And, you know, and Houston is obviously going to want to protect its assets. I will leave it at that. Saturdays and Sundays, freewinners.net. It is a must listen to a radio show, especially if people are returning their gifts from Christmas. Get in the car, go to the mall and listen to Paul and the gang. Paul have a happy, happy rest of this year. We'll talk again next Friday with the Wild Card weekend, my friend. Happy New Year, brother. Have a good one. Talk to you soon.

Paul Nolan, freewinters. 10 o'clock Saturdays and Sundays. If I am a gambler, I stay away from the game completely. I get it. Yeah. You probably don't want to fire on it. But you could find value. If you feel like it's like if the chiefs get up, then you start firing on the Titans, right? But even then, there's no guarantee that A.J. McCarran couldn't

win a game against the Titans. That's true. I would also probably wait for the second half number, honestly. Ooh, okay. Just thinking about that. But if Tennessee's got a puncher's chance. depending on how things work out. You know what I'm saying? All right. The best of believe it or not is next.

So if you'd like to play 713-213-2-5-790, 7-1-3-212-5-7-90, the very best questions of the 2019 calendar year are next 243 on Sports Talk 790. Hey, guys, it's Ross. If you're a real, and I want to talk to you about something very important, and that's how you sleep. If you're like me, a lot of times, especially early in life, the mattress was kind of an afterthought, right? You slept on whatever mattress your parents bought for you. Then you went off to college, whether you're in a dorm or you're in a college apartment or whatever,

and you just use whatever mattress that they provide. And then it's time to be an adult, and you say, I don't really know a whole lot about mattresses. And that's where Texas mattress makers comes in because the chances are you've been sleeping on mattresses that are not fitted for you. They aren't fitted to your height, to your body type. to the way you sleep, to any sort of lingering pain you have. I had lingering shoulder pain when I got fitted for a mattress, and you know what?

I've been sleeping on my mattress for a little bit over a week, and it's gone, and I've been sleeping better than ever because I was fitted for a mattress at Texas Mattress Maker. So you're going to get the best sleep, and you're going to get the best price because they are the manufacturer. They do not make the mattress until you order it. It is tailored to you. They make it themselves, so there's no markups ever.

They just open up a store in the woodlands that I have. 45 north across the freeway from the Woodlands Mall just in front of the I Fly Indoor Skydiving Center. Also have a location in Katie and, of course, the original in the East End Lockwood and Navigation. So you can go get fitted for a mattress or you can go online, Texas Mattressmakers.com. It's going to get you the best sleep at the best price at Texas mattressmakers.com. Matt Thomas, we'd like to thank his parents for only giving him two first names.

Because who would listen to Billy Ray Thomas talk about using? in sports. The Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790. Eight minutes left to go in the show. What should we do? We should play America's fastest growing sports game show Monday through Thursday. We called it B leaving it up. But on Fridays we call it.

Hell yeah or not. And here's how it works. You'll call 713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. Today's edition of Hell-Year-Nought is brought to you by our friends at Woodhouse Day, Spas, production of a gift card for the gift of relaxation at Houston Woodhouse Spas.com.

The category today is the best of a hell yeah or not. I will read you a statement. The statement's complete and utterly accurate. You'll say this. You'll say this. Hell yeah. We're off to a riproying start. This is a train wreck.

Statements erroneous full of bucket made up. You'll say this. Not. Two, hell, yeah or not. Is it two? We'll go with two, right? Stay with two. Well, there's 15.

We can't have that many winner. Okay. Two. Two and a row. Win your prize. Ross, what's the prize? Matt, I got a four pack of tickets and pre-event pit party passes to the first monster jam of 2020, January 25th at NRG Stadium. Sounds like a nice prize, but you first must play.

Hell yeah, or not. 713, 212-7-90. Do you have any listeners? 7-13-212. We got a few. 7-13-212-5-7-9-0. Jimmy on 790, ready to play hell yeah or not. Hell yeah.

Tony Parker's rap single, balance, T-O-I. Tu-I? Tu-a. Toe? Hit number one on the French music charts and featured vocals from his then-wife, Eva Longoria. Be hell yeah or not? Not. Hell yeah!

Sorry. The final hell yeah and out of the year. Andrew on 790, Andrew, you ready to play Hell yeah? Yeah or not? Hell yeah. While once on a cross-country trip, James Earl Jones used a CB radio and Darth Vader as his handle. He was scaring truck drivers so much that eventually had to stop. Hell yeah or not.

Hell yeah. Statement number two for the win. Columbus Day was first enacted back in 1892 to appease Italian-American immigrants after 11 Italians were lynched in New Orleans. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah. There you go. Congratulations. Joe, you're doing a great job.

All right, let's continue. Darren on 790, ready to play hell yeah or not. Hell yeah. Pascal Seacum comes from a strict Catholic family and was raised to be a priest as he grew up. He decided he did not want to pursue the clergy. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah. Hell yeah.

Statement number two for the win. Josh McCown is an investor in the company that manufactures the Ball Cannon Football Launcher, and he's appeared in TV commercials for the product. Hell yeah or not. Hell not. That is correct. The nod is right. Another winner.

Joe, you've not screwed it up so far. I'm proud of you. Because you don't make any mistakes, every time you go a segment here with a question, another Chicago Bears sports take on the next show. Line 5. Rick on 790. Rick, you ready to play, hell yeah or not? Hell yeah.

While Imagine Dragons were shopping their demo, a talent scout from Atlantic Records stated that the band should break up and had no chance of success. Hell yeah or not? Not. That is correct. Statement number two for the win. Aaron Judge is extremely superstitious before every game. He tosses 40 sunflower seeds behind home plate while saying a prayer. Hell yeah or not?

Hell yeah. That is correct. Another winner. Three winners. Is this Leno? Leno. Leno, your favorite part of the radio show today? Hell yeah.

Dana Hogerson briefly lived out of a four 1992 Taurus when he was an assistant at Mississippi College and considered quitting coaching. Hell yeah, or not? Hell yeah. Sorry. As far as they say in Canada, sorry. Line number four is the mystery caller.

Hello, what is your name? Jay. Jay, Albert Pujols grew up poor in the Dominican Republic, and as a youth, he used a milk carton for a glove and limes for a baseball. Hell yeah, or not? Not. Yes, he did. That's a quick, that's a Wikipedia right there.

713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-7-90. Line two, what is your name, please? Hello, line two. You're speechless. You're intimidating, Matt. I must be, or the questions must be. John on 790.

John, you're ready to play, Hell, yeah or not? It'll either be a yes or no. Yes, sorry. All right, that's okay. Mike Dan Tony met his wife, Laurel, in Italy. They were out with a group of friends who were trying to set Laurel up with someone else. Hell yeah or not. Hell yeah.

Statement number two for the win. In 1994, Jack Nicholson was involved in a road rage incident. A man cut him off and Jack got out of the car and smashed the man's windows with a golf club. Hell yeah, or not? Not. Yeah, he's done something like that. All right, let's get one more in before Waxer gives me one more stank out of his chair. Is the other clan working today?

Both y'all are here today? There's only one clan. Yeah, you're not playing a bowl game or a best of? All right, he's trying to scream the call. Oh, we're done. Forget it. Joe, you didn't screw it up. Lots of Bears talk between 3 and 3.30 today.

Get the audience fired up for it, okay? Your name is Ross. For Joe George, Shy Town Joe. This is my last show of the year. Have a happy New Year. Aw, the kindness you just gave our audience. I'm here Monday. We're going to break down the Buffalo Houston 330 Saturday start time game like a mother.

Wexler, Clanton, Shytown Joe next. They call themselves the A-Team here on Sports Talk, 790.