The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - The Matt Thomas Show : Tunsil's Leverage, Playoff Expansion, Robert Ford

Episode Date: March 31, 2020

The Matt Thomas Show with @SportsMT, @SportsRV and @ProNickLow 3/31/20Laremy Tunsil Has Incredible Leverage (0:00)Aaron Wilson on Laremy Tunsil Contract : "He Has All The Leverage" (23:24)Matt Is Going After a Big Guest (36:27)It's Official, 14 Teams in Playoffs for 2020 NFL Season (46:35)NBA Playoff Scenarios (55:03)Nickelodeon, your home for Playoff Football (1:09:46)People We Miss Hearing From : Robert Ford (1:29:43)

So much larger than life. Yeah. Lunch timers. I'm on my way. Is the Matt Thomas show. 12-0-2 and H-Town. What's happening in lunch timers? Good afternoon to you and welcome to a Tuesday edition of the Matt Thomas show on Sports Talk 790.

Alongside Nick Lowe and Rossville, Real. I'm Matt Thomas. Great to have all of you with us here today as we take this program until a show. 3 o'clock this afternoon, where we will discuss, I'm sure, quite a bit of just how much leverage Laramie Tunsell has, after we found out about, what, 2.30 yesterday afternoon, that contract negotiations are fluid between the Texans and the often false starting left tangle. Tunsel representation? What would you call it? Because he doesn't have an agent. Well, my guess is he's got somebody working.

Tunsel? Yeah, Team Tunsel, which is probably, I don't know, askit lawyer.com. Yeah. Does he have a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend? Because from what I understand, you have to have somebody officially, you just can't call a lawyer up and say, hey, can you look at this case from me, go to the NFL. You have to be authorized. You have to go through certification to the NFL to sign a contract.

Yeah, I think the NFLPA has a couple of guys on their list that they can go and do this. He doesn't have to have an agent, but he has to have, if someone's going to represent him, In signing the deal, that person has to be a legitimate agent go through the process. So he just can't go get. Jim Adler. Right. He can't. Jim Adler's got to go through a process.

No, I can't even do the first. Hammer. I will hammer Bill O'Brien for every dollar. We want him to be the highest paid tackle in football. Come on, Bill O'Brien. It's already going to happen. Stop busting my balls on this one, Bill. That'd be actually funny.

I'm not the Arizona Cardinals. Should we get Jim on a mobile and talk about the negotiation? We already have. This is a great bit. We're burning at 12.03 in the afternoon. Dang. So we'll talk to Aaron Wilson at the bottom of the hour about this. At this point, and I was thinking about this a lot yesterday after the show and listened to a little bit of Wex and Clanton talking about it. Laramie's got incredible leverage here, right? What am I missing? Nothing. If a deal doesn't get done soon or even before the season, well, hopefully the season starts on time.

It's going to be Bill O'Brien with Egan. But I will say this. There is a reason, and we talked about this yesterday, there is a reason. Anytime something gets leaked to a reporter or anything comes out, Matt, especially in negotiations or especially in when there's trade talks and stuff like that, there's always a reason for the most part, right? If you tell a reporter, hey, you can run with this,

but don't tell them that it was me. Just say NFL sources. there's almost always a reason for them to put that out there. And I think this is just me putting the tea leaves together, reading the tea leaves. You're going to say what I'm thinking too, but it comes, what you're about to say, I think it's going to be really obvious. But go ahead. Yeah. If it comes out that Laramie Tunsell was going to be made the highest paid tackle in football and said, no, it behooves the Texans to put that out.

It behooves Bill O'Brien to put that out to say, hey, look, we offered them to be the highest paid tackle in the entire, league and he turned it down. So that's not on us. We're trying to have good faith for negotiations. We do want to make him the highest paid tackle and he's the one who's turned this down. I'm not a detective on this. You don't have to. You don't have to be you. But I don't have to be. You don't have to be Matlock to figure this one out. It's just and I'm not going to ask Aaron. Aaron, who told you. That's just a taboo thing you don't do. When you put people on, you have to presume that somebody from one side of the argument gave it to Aaron. You don't think, Laramie Tunsell wouldn't call up Aaron.

and just be like, hey, hey, Aaron, what's up, man? The Texans wanted to make me the highest paid tackle in football. I said no. So go ahead and run with that. No, that wouldn't happen. No, but I'm saying is it so obvious that Aaron and I think Josina Anderson reported this as well, it's so blatantly obvious that the Texans put this out here. Because they have been taking an absolute tongue lashing from not just Houston media,

but the entire country. National Clown Show. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, every turn, NFL live or pro football talk or basically any NFL outlet, ESPN on their on their articles. Remember we ran through the grade the trades because it was funny because he got three Fs and a D. He's been get this, these offseason deals have been getting panned everywhere.

Okay. So is it that obvious or does there even a scosh of a thought that maybe Laramie and has a friend, has a friend, as a friend that happened to tell a couple of people in the media. No. You don't think there's any chance that Laramie Tunsell put that out there. We'll go Occam's razor on this one, Matt. The simple and easiest solution is the right one. You're absolutely right.

I cannot fathom agentless Laramie Tunsell, even if he has friends who have friends that can connect them to media people. Why would Laramie Tunsell want to put that out there? Unless Laramie Tunsell is so offended by the offer. Now, if Laramie Tunsell got a deal that would have paid him $12 million a year, which would not have put him among the top left tackles in the sport, then it's very obvious where that dollar came out, came out. But when the Houston Texans, at this point,

if the starting point is accurate at $18.5 million a year to be the highest paid tackle, the highest paid left tackle in the NFL, then it feels like it's abundantly clear where it came from. Yes. But that's okay. Now we know that information and it's been leaked out. And I'm always happy to have any sort of information and fodder for us to talk about.

So that makes us even more interesting. And then now it's not necessarily about picking sides because Laramie Tunsell is under contract for next year. But it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. And here is the reality that, Ross, we have to let our audience know. I think our audience is driving around right now is probably, thinking the same thing. In this world in which we live in right now, you go get your money,

but I don't need it to be... I can't imagine phone lines, tweets, emails to this show getting into a deep conversation about whether or not Laramie Tensel's worth $20 million here. Yeah, I think I'm with you. Now, if stuff had leaked out about Deshawn Watson negotiations, I think then you have the attention to the fan base

Probably so. I mean, exponentially more. You're right. You're absolutely right. That there are going to be a certain number of players that are going to gain the attention, even though, again, any amount of money talked about right now is like, cry me a freaking river. There's going to be a segment of the population that's going to say, Laramie Tunsell wants $20 million a year. Well, you can want all you want.

I'd like to be able to keep electricity out of my home. I'm out of work. I have been furloughed. I have been laid off. I'm not going to go on Team Tunsel side on whether or not he's worth $18.5 million a year or $20 million a year. So as far as I'm concerned, let them negotiate it. As far as I'm concerned, go get what you can get. But it is not going to, there's not going to be, like remember when Andre Johnson Ross would held out a couple of times over his, Texas career?

Yes. There was a lot of people that would call our show and say, you know what? But, Andre, you should be paid among the elite receivers. Or Andre, you did get a raw deal. Or Andre, you signed the contract. Stop and bitch. I mean, there was definitely opinions. There was definite size of the table that people were on about whether or not a player should renegotiate a contract.

Say, well, you shouldn't have Uncle Andre to your first contract anyway, stuff like that. Yeah. And frankly, under normal circumstances, anytime a high profile player. gets into a bidding war, if you're being undercompensated, then fans tend to be on your side. But if the conversation, and I'm not saying that Laramie's a bad guy.

As a matter of fact, Laramie's doing some charitable things here via his Instagram account. He's paying people's bills now. I'm, and that's nothing against him. This is just about the business. You're going to submit him with some of your bills? No, I'm fine. I'm going to. If the start of the contract,

if the start of the contract talks, puts him at number one, you're not going to get that public support that I don't even know of Laramie Tunso wants, but he's certainly not going to get it. When the starting point of a negotiation puts him at the number one spot in terms of per year salary, it's very hard enough to anybody to feel bad for him. Now, just because you don't feel bad for him doesn't mean he still doesn't have the leverage. Laramie Tunsell, if he wants $20 million a year, which it sounds like he wants that. Now, he would be the first player ever to get that for a tackle position. He might get that, Ross, because if the Texans do not come up from their number,

there's going to be a lot of, there could be a potential holdout. There could be a potential franchise tag, which you know players hate. And oh, by the way, you've already sold off two first round picks and a second round pick to get this guy. And it's going to make you further look like a foolish franchise because you did not get a deal done when the trade with Miami was originally put into play. Yeah, that's the thing that puts the Texans kind of in an awkward position is that exact thing, that we traded two first round picks for you. When you trade two first round

picks for, well, anybody in the NFL, for example, DeAndor Hopkins got one second round pick. If you trade two first round picks for anybody, you're saying you're our guy. You're saying, we want you here for the rest of your career. That's what you're saying with that. And so Laramie Tunsell knows that. And the Texans know that. And Laramie Tunsell was a pro-bowl left tackle this year. So it all signs point towards, let's lock them up long term. But now, I mean,

this is, this is any contract in any high level negotiation. There's going to be back and forth. And you may tell you so. If the back and forth starts with you being the highest paid, Laramie Tunsell has won. He's going to be all right. He's going to be all right. But he shouldn't expect Americana or Houston Texan fan base to be rooting for him to get as much as money as possible. Because he already is going to be paid when the dust settles. If he does something, on a contract, the highest paid left tackle in the NFL. 713-212-5-790 is how you reach our show. 7-1-3-212-5-790.

If you want to reach out through Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Pro Nick Lowe. Bottom of the hour, Aaron Wilson, in our people we miss hearing from segment, Robert Ford, the voice of the Astros, joins us today at 2 o'clock. You guys are more than welcome to join us, and ladies, throughout the course of the show, at 7-1-3. 2-1-2-5-7-90. Stay calm.

Stay informed. We'll let you know when... First pitch is moments away. Your games will be back on. Yeah? And it looks like we'll be dusting off the Reggie Bush-Vince-Young debate in the meantime.

And what should they do with the dome, huh? And is Matt Schaub and elite QB? Just kidding. Just kidding. Just kidding. No, really. We're just kidding. The Houston Sports Talk continues.

On Sports Talk 790. 25 years ago today, huh? She's gone, but not forgotten. Brought us Novelty Cups, Jennifer Lopez's acting career. Is she a good actress? I mean, I don't really... Who, Jennifer Lopez? Yeah.

No. But she made... She's okay. She's okay. Is she a great singer? No. She's just really attractive. Yeah, she got a big butt.

Yeah. What's wrong with that? We've got an Alexer... Speaking of her, Alex Rodriguez gets annihilated by an ex-teaming. We'll tell you about that later on. By the way, you just heard the promo about the great debates. Guess what's happening on the Friday show?

This Friday show? Yeah, we're going to spin the wheel of all-time topics. Oh, I like that. So we'll do that every Friday for the foreseeable future, unless breaking news becomes a big issue. But we've done, had a whole lot of breaking news. lately. So every Friday, as part of our anything goes Friday, we're going to spin the wheel of topics. It'll be a topic that Ross and I have discussed at some point between the years of 2010

and 2000 here in 20. It could be is Matt Schaub and a league quarterback who, you know, did the Texas and did the right thing by taking Mario Williams? Are we going to set a day, are we going to say we are in this date or is it going to be from 2020 perspective? No, we'll look from 2020. I found it to be very hard to go back and be in that day. I've tried it before. It's, it, you, you, uh, we did the Texas USC pregame show on the nightcap on Friday. It was fine. It was good.

It was really fun. Let me guess. You predicted Texas to win on a late Vince Young touchdown. No, I had USC winning. Did you really? Yeah. But I did have Texas covering. Okay.

And that's the important part. That is a part. And, you know, because me and Joe were just joking around. We were like, you know, it seems Mac Brown and Pete Carroll set for life in these situations. There's nothing that could possibly get them out of these, out of these two of the greatest jobs in college football. football. There's no way either of them would ever leave these spots ever. Yes. I mean, Mac Brown is going to retire and never coach again. Pete Carroll's got the most amazing college job on the left coast. Vince Young and Matt Liner are going to go into the Hall of Fame together. Well, they're going to be

one, two in the NFL draft order. Right. And Reggie Bush is going to change the running back game. Reggie Bush might be the all-time. Who is the running back for the Roger Craig? You know how Roger Craig was a dual threat. He could be the best dual threat player in the NFL since Roger Craig. And the Heisman trophy, you could just never take that away from him. No. And Reggie's got this really attractive brunette who he's dating with these days. I don't know if he was with her in college, but she seems very talented.

Have you seen her video? Fresh out there? It was after. Okay. So Friday, we're going to play. We're going to do, do you remember the time? Did you see that Reggie Bush dated some of it? I don't know if he married her.

He dated someone years later that looked exactly like her. That doesn't come as a surprise at all. I bet you could find a handful of celebrities that have dated one person and then they dated somebody after that that looked very similar. That doesn't surprise me at all. Did you ever date another girl that looked similar to a previous girlfriend? My answer to that is no, but I think there are men out there that have done that. See, look here says if they got married in 2014.

She does look like him. Yeah. Her name is Lilit Avagnan. And here's the problem. That woman is going to be constantly confused for her. Oh, I see. I see what he likes. She's top heavy.

She's, yeah, she's heavy. Top heavy. Busty. Bucksum, as we would say. Buxem as the kids would say. No kids are saying that, Matt. I'll find a nine-year-old that will say bucks. And you're the only person in America that still says Bucksum.

Okay. But no, that's what makes it unique and good, man. Yeah, nobody else is, nobody, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm a trend setter. All right. So we've got Aaron Wilson at the bottom of the hour. Joel Corey has been on many of our 790 shows over the years. I don't think we ever had on with me. He's a former sports agent.

He's a salary cap expert. Amateur capologist. Yeah, at Corey Joel. He chimed in on the Laramie Tunsel situation. He said this, this morning. after giving up significant assets for Laramie Tunsell and neglecting to sign him to a new deal when the trade was made the Texans might as well give him a blank contract

and have him fill in how he likes it. That's exactly what we're all saying. So it always makes me feel good that the local interpretation of what a Texan's deal is is also being met with the same sort of of firmness that the national folks are saying. He can write, again, how many times in a life has an athlete,

regardless of sport, been able to try to negotiate a contract and the starting point is higher than anybody else gets paid. It doesn't happen that off. It's probably, yeah, every now and then when you've got one of these guys, I mean, one of these top level players,

which Laramie Tunsell is. Is he Tier 1? There's a question. Well, let's read. Real, okay, if he's Tier 2, whatever that is, as I sat on the show yesterday, It doesn't necessarily mean because you're the highest paid you're the best. It just happens being that it's your turn to get paid.

And if the Texans haven't, you know, look, the Texans have not hidden the fact that part of the DeAndre Hopkins trade to Arizona was because they knew they had to pay DeAndre and Deshaun and they had to pay Laramie. So if you are listening to all this and you are, have some football IQ and some semblance of what the, market is. Tell me what Laramie's doing wrong at this point. Nothing. Nothing at all. Nobody's doing anything wrong, and the Texans aren't doing anything wrong. They said, here's where we're going to start.

We're going to go from there. I'm sure they each have numbers in mind. And hopefully they come to something pretty soon, or sooner rather than later. Or if he really hates it, and they don't give him 20. He plays for what he's playing for this year. He'll get franchise tag next year. And then he'll get franchise tag. And so he's got three years of incredible wealth coming his way.

And then after that, how old will he be in three seasons? I think he's only 25. That's one of the reasons he wants to get paid now is so you can get a deal, like a four-year deal now, four or five-year deal now, and then get another big deal when you're 29-30. Yeah, he's thinking he's got two big deals left in front of him. Yes. But he's asking for more money than a franchise tag would be each season. So why would the Texans not just franchise tag him?

Because then you lock them up long term. Yeah. You know, you're right. He will not make $18.5 million next year into 2021, I should say, because the franchise tag is only the average of the top five at his position. And he already, at 18.5, if he was to sign a new deal, would be the number one. And you only get one franchise tag. So what if... I thought it was two.

Is it changed? I think it was two. No, you're probably right then. It's two franchise tags. Now, again, there's some different things. You can't franchise and transition somebody in the same year on the same team. I know that's changed the new collective bargaining agreement. By the way, Eric Reed, Justin's brother, who we had on the show that or day?

This says one franchise tag. No, but Kirk Cousins was franchise tag twice by the Washington Redskins. I'm sorry, you can only hand out one. We're talking about two different things. So you can only hand out one to one player on your roster. Correct. So if you want to, so if you say, hey, we're going to franchise him, what if there's something? What if Will Fuller goes for, I don't know, 13,

Only one player. That's, yeah, we're talking about two different things. Yeah. Yeah, you can only. So that's what I'm saying. Like, you don't want to say, you know, I'm going to franchise tag him. Because something, if Will Fuller goes, you know. Deshawn Watson.

Exactly. And Deshawn Watson. So, I mean, there are guys that could be taggable, we'll say, for the Texans next year. So that's why you want, you want to get it done. So Will Fuller is also taggable next year? Is that right? Because this is last year. Yeah.

So, if he's like, if he plays 15 games. and he goes for 1,200 yards and 11 touchdowns, and then it's hard to lock him up a long time. You franchise down. Thank God that we got a savvy general manager that's going to be able to handle all this. I mean, looking at their cap space and how low it's getting, and then the DeAndre Hopkins deal kind of makes more sense.

Jeremy Thompson wanting what he's wanting. Deshaun Watson probably waiting on to see what's going to happen with Dak Prescott. Whatever Dak Prescott gets, Watson's going to get a cherry on top of that. Oh, by the way, Deshawn probably isn't in no hurry because if Pat Mahomes sets the price, then he'll know where he's supposed to be. Pat Mahomes are probably waiting for Watson to set the price.

That's why we're not going to hear a word one about Deshaun or Pat Mahomes. Because if that gets 35, Watson's going to be getting what, 37, 38 somewhere, maybe even 40. And then Pat's going to be like, hey, hey there. I won a Super Bowl. Hi. And I break every record for offensive production. I've thrown for 50 touchdowns.

And my two years as a starter, we went to the AFC championship game and won a Super Bowl. Hi. How's it going? pay me. $40 million. Oh, yeah. Somebody's getting it. If Kirk Cousins is making 33 a year,

Pat Mahomes is certainly worth 40. And by the way, with those numbers there are driving up the value of a franchise tag of a quarterback. Think about how good that is. Think about purely mediocre players that can't get new deals with their respective teams. Those quarterbacks will like,

sure, franchise tag me. If you're telling me that in the next three to five years that Deshawn Watson and Kirk Cousins and Jack Prescott are all going to be north of $30 million. Oh, hell yes. I'm going to that franchise tag. So it'll be interesting. Not to be interesting. It'll be cash flush, which that means that's going to put pressure on teams to get quarterback signed because that franchise tag is really going to bite him in the ass, potentially. If these quarterbacks are speaking, I mean, purely average quarterbacks.

Ross purely like Annie Dalton. If he has a, like Ryan, the Ryan Tannahill contract's crazy, right? Yeah. What did you get 118? Something crazy. Yeah. The money that is being spent on quarterbacks, it's, first of all, driving the- $118 million, average annual value at 29 and a half.

Ryan Tannahill, the epitome of average. Ryan freaking Tannehill. Almost 30. Wife is above average. A million dollars a year. All right. On the Texans beat with Aaron Walsow next, he'll help clear up. not any confusion, but just where's the next step after the initial report of, yeah, $18.5 million

starting point for Laramie Tunsell. We'll discuss it next. 1229 on Sports Talk 790. With masks, a case of Lysol, and fruit-flavored hand sanitizer. Mmm, peach. Wait a minute. No watermelon. Ah, Granny Smith, Apple. Yep. The Houston Sports Talk continues on Sports Talk 790. Long time NFL writer, friend of the show, newly engaged, Aaron Wilson, Houston Chronicle on the Matt Thomas show at 1233. Aaron, thanks for the time. Question number one, how many times have you dealt with player negotiations where the starting point of that negotiation puts that player in the number one salary spot in his position in the NFL? Because that's clearly where Larry Mantonzel is right now.

pacing back a ways, you know, you start talking about negotiations like a Ray Lewis, guys like that, you know, big contracts, that type of contract. That's when you're talking about someone like that. And so it's an honor for a Laramie Council with one Pro Bowl selection to be at that point, to be at the $18.5 million initial offer. So, yeah, it's a big milestone for him, and it's more than Lane Johnson's $18 million per year, which is the current benchmark for tackles on their average per year. And that's what people care a lot about when they talk about measuring contracts, average per year and guaranteed money. So, and look, as I was asking you the question, I was thinking,

well, clearly quarterbacks fall in that category a lot. We just don't see that a whole lot with left tackles. How can he screw this up, Aaron? I mean, unless the asking. And I don't think he will. You know, he has, he's doing it untraditionally. He's not hiring an agent. His plan for now is to not hire one.

And he does have advice to a group of financial advisors and they're very experienced in the football world. So with the oversight you have from the union, every contract that's over $2 million has to be reviewed by the NFL Players Association. It's kind of a fail-safe where their research department, would look at it. They would help people. There's a significant amount of help on some of the bigger deals even where they're helping the agent. In this case, they're helping the player, but he has,

you know, people that are well-versed in financial matters. And, of course, he has a lot of people still trying to get his business. A lot of people in the industry, you know, trying to contact him and have met with him and that sort of thing. And at one point, I thought he was going to go with LeBron James' firm, but he met with them and decided not to be. too. He had a different decision. That's the agency that has Chase Young and Jeff Okuda, the two Ohio State guys. And us on Melvin Gordon. But yeah, he made his decision and, you know, fired a agency, CAA that's been a lot of business with the Texans.

But it doesn't matter. If they want the player, they don't care who they negotiate with. It could be you or I doing the negotiation. There's still going to be a ton of money, Matt. And Aaron, we've seen this before where it's just his time and the guy gets paid, the highest in the league. But we've also seen the Houston Texans and Bill O'Brien say, just because this is conventional wisdom and how teams operate, doesn't mean that's how we're going to operate. So, I mean, what do you think about the way Bill O'Brien is going to go about this? Because, I mean, Laramie Tunsell is not the best tackling in football.

That's just it is the way it is. But he's going to have to get paid that way, I guess. but do you see Barry I mean he has all the leverage because you're saying when you trade two first round picks you're saying publicly

and to him this is how we view you we view you as this and you have that leverage and a lot of people have criticized and said well why I wasn't a contract done immediately

and I don't think they're being realistic because they don't understand about that aspect of it is he hasn't even met these coaches so you know you're while the money might be great he has to have a comfort level that this is where he wants to live and work for three, four, five years. So it's a big decision.

And just to say, well, who cares? Money is the money. What if he doesn't like it? You know, I think, and this year he did like it, and he does feel comfortable. And I mean, the good thing is he wants to resign with the Texans. He wants to do a deal. It's just very expensive. And they budgeted for this.

And that's the thing with Watson, the quarterback. and with puns of the left tackle, they're trying to have these guys in place for many years to come, have them to be a big part of their foundation, but it's going to cost a total, I did the math. It was about 300 million, my projections,

for what it could wind up costing, total, not per year, but the length of the deals. So it's very expensive. And so I think Watson, you know, it's going to be the second highest-paid quarterback in the NFL. Yes, I think Mahalves will be the highest and he'll be the second highest. And I think clearly learning

council will be the highest paid. When that deal will happen, I don't know, they're in just the preliminary stage where they've exchanged initial contract proposals and then you know, he came in significantly higher and at some point they'll meet in the middle and found some common ground or they won't. I predict that it will happen. But yeah, for now, I don't think any deal is imminent and I'm expecting it to take some time. And if it takes too much time, who knows? I mean, Bill O'Brien, I can't predict how he'll react, but I don't think they'll just sit there forever with that as a standing offer. He's going to want to have an answer to some closer to it. So it's a lop-carb because you're negotiating, you're negotiating

with a, you know, traditional agency kind of thing. You're doing something different. But the numbers of the numbers. Yeah, visiting with Aaron Wilson from The Chronicle. So put it this way. You've got Zach. Cunningham is a guy that's on the verge of needing a new contract. Deshawn Watson's in that position. Laramie Tunsell is in that position. How many of the three of them will get their deals done in your opinion by the time that we ever get this season started will have deals?

Do you think that? Well, remember, they negotiate in the season now. So that's a departure from the strategy that Rick Smith, Brian Gain, and Chris Olson had. And now deals can be done any time of the year. It doesn't matter if they have a game that week or whatever. basically it's open season. And that's Bill O'Brien. That's a shift

with him as general manager. I think will they both happen this year? Yeah, my prediction they do. The concept of what happens first. The timing of Watson's deal is tied closer to Patrick Mahomes. And so there'll be a lot of

watching and people paying attention to Mahomes' deal. And then what I think will help Watson the most is to wait for Patrick to get down and then get as close to him as possible. And so if he's at 40, maybe the John's at 38. Wow, crazy, crazy money spent on just a handful of players. I'm just curious.

How often do you ask to speak to Bill O'Brien? Is that something that is a protocol, the member of the Pro Football Writers Association, where are you on? Why haven't we heard anything publicly from him yet? Oh, interesting. I haven't, you know, that's as involved as much, but I haven't really been in touch with them. I haven't spoken to him. Yeah.

Yeah, whenever there's a press conference or something like that, I'll be all ears and happy to talk to him. But yeah, it hasn't, you know, been a lot of communication or anything other than that one statement, just that they couldn't talk about deals of the team release. So, yeah, I think the requirement is that they do something before the draft. I would expect him to maybe do like one press availability before that. Always had as the Randall Cobb and I expect at some point

there would be like a David Johnson conference call but I don't think that bill would be on that call. Yeah, I mean it makes sense. I mean, the deal is being universally panned and he probably doesn't want to sit out and whether it be in front of a conference call or not take verbal beatings.

My understanding is that yeah, he's not blind to the, you know, the optics or, or anything like that. And yeah, he's aware of it, but I don't think that's his, you know, concern. He's trying to explain or anything like that. I think, you know, he's just more like,

let me just keep my head down and do my job. But yeah, he knows that he's getting, they're not, you know, they're head in the standing, they understand the perception, but they don't worry about that. They're just, you know, their thinking is different. It's more just like, yeah, do your job, do your work, and don't worry about what people are saying. All right, last question.

And I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just saying that's what it is. Yep, I understand that. Again, we'd like to hear from him, but it made me more for just talk show fodder than anything else. Last thing on Laramie, if they don't get something done before the start of the season, you've talked to him a handful of times. What do you think the impression will be in that locker room and with the way Laramie conducts his business if they can't get something done before the end of the start of the new season?

Interesting question. Yeah, it's hypothetical. I tend to think the locker room. They'll be fine. They're not going to be too worried about another guy's negotiation and where's your money, that kind of thing because it's not going to them. They're not giving anything out of it. For him, I think he's going to make $10 million either way.

So he's going to make the most money he's ever made. He's going to have some really big checks. But this is something that he's put his whole office he's into and is the biggest thing that's happening with him right now. So, yeah, I think he wouldn't like it. But if he felt like he was going in the right direction and it was still going to happen and he wasn't going to be like heading to a franchise tag situation next year, I think he'd be good with it. It just depends. You know, he's not an anxious type of guy.

I mean, he's a fairly laid back person. But, yeah, there's a lot of money. This is his life. I mean, there's things he wants to do. He wants to take care of his family. He wants to do a lot of things. So, yeah, I'm sure it would be stressful, but I think he can handle it. But ideally, you never get to that point.

And again, you're assuming that we're having football. And, you know, I'm not the CDC or the president or anything like that. Tell me a scenario, Matt, where we could have football. Would these guys have testing every week when there's not enough tests for the rest of the country? Would you – there's not going to be some vaccine. You know, they're saying that's 12, 18 months. So how would it be safe? Even if you had no fans there, let's see, you have no press there, you just have the games.

and maybe you have a camera, I just don't understand how it's supposed to work. Well, the one is goofy for me. You don't know who's a carrier who doesn't have symptoms. Let's say everybody's healthy. You have 53 guys. You don't have a training camp or, you know, what's the quality of play going to be like?

I just, I'm skeptical. I think the league is going to have to make some very tough choices. And if we don't get the numbers down, you know, not to get off on a tangent too much. That's okay. I wonder, are we going to have any. football. Yeah, because we were talking yesterday about the report that was out there about sending everybody to the Greenbrier and building a bunch of fields and all that. I mean,

you're then essentially asking for about 3,000 people to be in one community for a certain at the time, and that just doesn't make any sense either. Also think about the PR aspect of this. So they're saying that, you know, what if there's preferential treatment? I mean, there was already a lot of criticism when all those people from the jazz were treated, you know, were tested so quickly and there's a lot of citizens out there and their lives are just as important and just as valuable. You know, it's definitely a favorite to them at the very least. I think it's a very real thing for people and the NFL's got to, you know, keep this in mind that there are more important things than football. I know, it probably sounds like blasphemy, but in Texas, I'm being, you know, facetious, but the fact is,

There's a lot of health issues, and there's also a lot of, you know, how do things look? Yeah, let me tell you. If it's not safe, the number one thing is going to be safety, the number two things got to be, can you logistically do it? Yeah, we have a lot of questions about both. Yeah, all of us that are listening to this show right now, the people that are working on it, we love sports. It is our, it is our lifeblood, but in the big picture, it just doesn't matter. We've got to get our country and our world free of this before we start worrying about whether or not they can have training camps and whatnot. So point well understood.

Thank you for the time and information. Great reporting on the Laramie-Tensel stuff. We look forward to reading more your stuff on The Chronicle. And, of course, cron.com slash sports. Aaron, thank you for the time, as always, my friend. Thanks, buddy. Good enough. You got out.

Aaron Wilson from the Houston Chronicle. No sports? No problem. Said the A-holes are hoarding toilet paper. And now I have to use a cut-and-half roll of paper towels to do my business. Let me tell you, the quicker-picker-upor? Abraising. Go ahead, ladies, you try it.

Yeah, now, now say it with me. F*** you, A-Holes. The Houston Sports Talk continues on Sports Talk 790. All right. Some NBA news about scheduling and the rest of their season, if there is one, top of the hour here on 790. I've never chased after a celebrity for a guest. not like radio row because sometimes they offer them up

oh yeah you just send other people to chase and they never work out they're like they put their hands up in the air I'm like well wait a minute KTB and Tyler is getting him we can't get them but that's not here nor there so I have been everybody in my family among the adults Cameron Kim and me we're all Ozarkaholics we just love season three and by the way have you have finished correct you're done

I have finished it. And you're still, you're not even in season three yet. Season one, and it's on the back burner. I think I'm going to go Breaking Bad next. You cannot break, you cannot go to the burner on the hottest show out there. That would be right down your wheelhouse. Actually, it's the second highest rated show on Netflix. Behind Tiger King?

Yep. Okay. Boom. I say, I knocked that out. Yeah. So, I'm going to start trying to communicate to try to get Jason Bateman on the show. Oh, I thought you were going to say Joe Exotic. no he's in prison

that'd be a lot of free time I was gonna say no actually I think Jason Beaman has more free time my guess is that Tiger King is busy with the station is that accept the collect call charges from Tiger King that's fine we're doing okay I mean we're not in great financial shape but we can

we can accept a collect phone call for sure I'm on it but yeah I'm gonna try to get I got I got a PR publicity contact from Netflix that I've received today and I'm going to start the process. I'm fully expecting to get a hell no because he's a major movie star,

television star director. But I'm going to try some things on the show that we normally wouldn't do because of the fact that we've got no sports to get to. We are going to still bring all the headlines. We're going to have sports guests on. People you haven't heard from in a while. We just had Aaron Wilson on the Laramie Tensel stuff.

But knowing my audience and how much the interaction is, I just want to try for some different things. We're going to go with a, do you remember part of the show on Friday we will take an old sports topic and beat it to death because it's been a while. And we'll spin the wheel of topics on that. Lovely. We have people you miss hearing from, which you'll hear from Robert 4 to 2 o'clock today.

Wonderful. So we'll try some different things. And so we'll see what goes about. I'm going to try for Jason Bayman. It'll be my all-time biggest conquest because it'll be the most difficult one because these celebrities don't do little major market midday radio shows. What is your current all-time biggest conquest? in terms of ticket a guest

Bill Cosby No that was handed to me No we had to chase that Did we really? Oh I did see that's why you don't remember Mr. I'll give you credit that Handed to me Jesus

Wow that's a great question Now I've waited for people before And gotten a couple minutes of time Like I waited for Charles Barker The day he got traded to Houston And waited and waited and waited And I finally got like three minutes with him But I had to walk with him the whole time

Did you find that the waiting was the hardest part? No, but sorry sometimes is the hardest word to say. You apologize to him for what? No, I'm kidding. Just throw that out there. No, the hardest phone contact to get, that'd be more of a gorty question. Because he books a lot of our stuff and also does all the simple stuff. Well, mostly for his first, prioritizes his show.

Well, he just says he has a plethora of LSU guests that join him from 10 the noon. That's true. And now the former LSU long snapper, I don't know why Gordy talks like this. or gets text during the show. Whoops. No, that was my laptop. I got an email. Yeah, I don't remember anything being so, like, I can't believe this person's coming on because of just a bunch of emails.

But we're going to try it. Good for it. Good for you, Matt. It'll give me something to do. Hound them. I just want to make sure I don't come across this too much for a fanboy, but I am a fan boy. I'm a fan boy of the show. That's good, Matt.

So if you can't get Bateman, are you going to just go down the cast list and go for the more B-list Laura Lenny would be good again, too. Well, she's not exactly a B-lister. No. Maybe I'd get Ruth on the show, but I'd be afraid she'd swear every five seconds. Wow, Jason Bates. I'm sure she's not exactly like Ruth in real life. I bet you're right about that.

He's 51? Fifty-one years old. Wow. First show that I remember watching Jason Baitman on. I know. He was Silver Spoons. I knew that. Silver Spoons, right.

It's actually one 80s trivia thing I know. I remember watching him on Valerie's Family 2. I don't know what. What's Valerie's family? It was a show with Valerie Harper. Okay. It was called. Not Valerie Bertinelli? No, Valerie Harper. You know who Valerie Harper is?

I have no clue. She was rotting. Well, may she rest in peace. Yeah, that was her famous. She had a long, she had a show. I hardly knew her. And she got crossways with the producers of the show after the first season. Yeah. So they killed her.

And the show named after her? And it was just called the Harper's or it was called the Valerie's family after that. Yeah, I'm not kidding you. Wow. That's happened before James Evans got killed because he got sideways with the producers. Characters can get killed. And then it was the Hogan family. The Hogan family, yeah, yeah.

That's right. Huh. So he was on there and they're like, oh, he wants some negotiations. That's like if they killed off Seinfeld and just named it like Seinfeld's friends. Yeah, that's exactly what it would be. And then he was on Arrested Development, which I never watched a single episode. Oh my gosh. It's a great show.

It's really, you have to pay attention. You have to watch it. That's one that you have to lock in them. No phone or anything near you. Yeah. because every little thing, it's very subtle, and then something in episode one will be called back in like two seasons later.

And then he was in Horrible Bosses, which was hysterical. Horrible Bosses was good. I didn't watch Horrible Bosses too. I did not either. But Horrible Bosses one was phenomenal. Very, very funny. Yeah, it was a good one. And then somebody said, hey, no, our buddy.

You know the guy Charlie in Horrible Bosses. Well, Charlie Day is the name, I think. One of the, the younger guy with the spiky hair in that movie, with the one with Jennifer Anderson. Yeah, I don't remember his name. He's in, he's in, it's always Sunday in Philadelphia. Well, is it Will and Arnett? Is that who you're talking about? No, no, no, no, okay.

Will Arnett's in Arnett's in development. Yeah. Apparently him and Bateman are best friends. Oh, that's good. So yeah, that's my goal. I'm going to spend hours a day chasing down sports guest. Yes. And you said you're going to binge a comedy.

So I would say arrest. And I'm doing, I'm doing, it's always sunny in Philadelphia. Yes. We'll knock that out. Oh, this makes me so happy. You seriously, our relationship. I want to be there with you. Our relationship has developed.

You've, you've, you've, you've, you've, to me for years about not watching the Godfather. I'm not two of those out. Well, it took a global pandemic for you to get to watch, get you to watch it, but you did. It did. So if you get Bateman at the very end of it, you should be a total jerk and ask if he can get us Will Arnett. Well, here's the thing about Bateman. So Jason Bateman, two years ago. No, you should say, we're trying to get Will Arnette, but we'll settle for you. That'd be funny. That's not going to work. He'll take it. So two years ago, we were in Los Angeles for the Astros Dodgers series. And Jason Bateman was an MC for one of the Dodger.

It was maybe it was Andre Ethear's retirement. I think is. who it was. And he was the emcee for this. And he goes, hey everybody, welcome to Dodgers Stadium for Game A to the World Series. And everybody went, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Alvesa is a huge Dodger fan. So I'm going to try to go on a sports angle to say, hey, if you want to comment about the Astros Dodgers 2017 World Series, we'd be happy to do that as well.

You're going to get his thoughts on the cheating, his sign stealing scandal. He's probably not going to say a lot of things we're going to like here. But that doesn't matter. If I can get him on for 10 minutes, it'll be the it'll be the all-time coup. So work with me. I've tried to go to his Twitter account, but it looks like it's very inactive and it looks like some PR people are running it.

So I'm going to go right to the publicist. If PR people are running it, yeah, why don't you talk to the PR person? But if that's a PR person could be 19 years old, that's with the CAA. I'm going right to the publicist. They're in direct contact with Jason Bateman at some point. I would imagine right now with Ozark just coming out.

They're probably getting hundreds of these requests. Yeah, you're probably not going to be able to get them no matter what. That's right. There's no reason to not try it. Okay. You know what, at the end of the show today, I will direct tweet in him, which I don't like to do per se on Twitter. That's not going to work, but.

That's what I'm saying. So why don't I at least look official if I go right through the emails? Dang, his DMs are out first. His DMs are open. Try that first, but when we're throwing Hail Mary's. If it's somebody, if it's a publicist and they say, oh, this guy tweeted us too. Yeah, well, you know, he's trying. I'll do both tonight.

I'll knock both out. Jason Bateman would be an all-time get for the Matt Thomas show. What does it have to hurt? It's not going to hurt anything. We'll do both. I'll go after Janet McTeer Who? Exactly

She plays Helen How about this? Why don't we have a little contest? Let's get, let's each of you I'll let you guys aside by 130. Let's get a major gas on the show. And the first one

to get that person on Gets $1,000 from Matt's No, I'll kick in some money to a charity. Yeah, me. No, like people that need it. Like maybe the Houston Food Bank or something. No, the Ross Fund.

No, I've seen the money. Actually, we should go to the Nick fund. Yeah, I need it more than you, Ross. That's right. All right. I'll kick in some money to a charity. If you guys, you have a half hour to figure out who you're going to go to try to get that would be interesting that I would like because it is my show. And then would be people that would also like it as well.

Michael Jordan. I got it. That's not going to happen. You don't think so? No. I mean, I'm definitely not getting Bateman, but I want to, in that same vein of. I don't know. You might be able to get him to promote his documentary that's about to hit.

Yeah. go through ESPN and they don't like talking to us. Is the Matt Thomas show. All right, here we go. We have the NFL has officially announced that there will be 14 teams in the playoffs. 14 teams in the NFL playoffs starting this season. Only the number one seeds in both the NFC and the AFC get the buys. which is no surprise.

They had been much talk about this. It just officially was announced today. So you're saying to yourself, self, how would have last year's playoffs come into play? AFC last year would have had the Chiefs as the number, let me give me the number one seed, the Baltimore Ravens. The number two C,

we're going to turn his microphone on, please. There we go. The number two seed Kansas City Chiefs would have been home for the seven seed at Pittsburgh Steelers. Okay. Wait, wait, wait, what? Yeah, number seven Steelers at number two chiefs. Oh, that's right.

Number six Titans, six seed would have been the number three Patriots. So that matchup would have been a week beforehand than there wasn't a divisional round. Four, five, Bill's five at Texans four. Which then means if the Texans would have won, let's see, one would then play the lowest. So you play the lowest seat after that. So they reconfigure it after that. They go to lower seeds after that. So it would be...

They would have gone to Baltimore if all the seeds held. If all the seeds would have held, they would have gone to Baltimore. That's exactly right. NFC. They would have lost. They would have lost handily. Okay. You gave them no chance, just like you gave the Tennessee Titans no chance to win in Baltimore,

is what you're trying to tell me. That's true. And just like the Texans weren't going to... How did they do against the Chiefs? They would have lost. And how did they do against the Bulldogs? And how they do against the Baltimore Ravens in the regular season?

Loss, loss, loss. It's all they do is lose. They don't go and win big rounds. They win wild card games against rookie quarterbacks or sucky quarterbacks. Yeah. Biggest one in Texans.

Biggest playoff win? Playoff history. The first one? Against Andy Dalton and the Bengals. With JJ Y intercepting the ball. Yes. Okay. Yeah, that's it.

Yeah, I don't really remember the second half of that one. Everything. Yeah, well, of course. All right, NFC. I was there, though. NFC you would have had the number one C would have been the 49ers. You'd have had the Packers, the two-seat host, the seven-seeded Rams.

Okay. Six-seated Vikings at number three, New Orleans. By the way, the Vikings would have, they did play the Saints. And didn't the Vikings beat the Saints in the divisional playoff this year? They did. Five-seated Seahawks at number four Eagles. So some of these things changed. Some of it would have been, you know, it would have been the same.

Yeah. No problem with this at all. I think if you go to 16, it first of all cheapens up at half the teams in the playoffs make the playoffs. And the second thing would have cheapen is that it just makes the number one seed. There's nothing really to gain from being the number one seed. Yeah, it's pretty weak as is. I mean, 14 to 16, and it's no difference to me, I guess, or 12 to 14 is not that big of a deal either. It is what it is.

I do like teams, I do like two teams fighting for a buy, but I don't think it's really going to change that much. I guess they get more. I mean, how much more, is it one more playoff game aside, I guess? Yes, you have three games on Saturday and three on Sunday. And under the rules of this new playoff format, the Texans will be the earliest game on Saturday. Yeah, that's what I was wondering. Is it going to be at noon now? The Texans at noon?

Well, they're saying the last game would start at 7.15 local time. So it would be like 12, 3.30, and 7. Yeah. So 15. If you're a Texan fan and you still have season tickets, and the Texans win the AFC South this year. You still want to block off your Saturday afternoon. Saturday instead of blocking off 3.30 to 7, you'll be blocking off 12 to 3.30.

They can't, out of 14 games, they can't be the worst one now. Yes, I can. Okay, let's do this right now. Okay, I'm going to run. Let me run through these again. All right. Okay. Let me run through these again.

If the playoffs would have been the way they would have been. No, you know the answer to this question. I can't believe I'm going through this. Okay, here we go. Yeah, they're the worst one. Steelers Chiefs, sexy AF. Well, I mean, the Steelers don't even have a quarterback. But two really rich, long, historical, successful AFC franchises.

Whatever. Titans, Patriots, Tom Brady, duh. Dang it. Bill's Texans. Okay. So let's... It's Bill's Texans. So let's go to the NFC side.

Rams Packers. L.A., big market, Green Bay, huge fan base. Vikings at Saints. It's a bigger game. Bigger game. Seahawks, Eagles. That's a bigger game. Yeah.

Bill's Texans would have been Saturday 12. With the spectacular comeback from Deshawn Watson and the overtime win. Well, the thing about it. On the other side of it, you'd have been happier at 3.30 as compared to being happier at, say, 7 o'clock like you wore last year. So you're getting day drunk instead of afternoon drunk. Well, you're getting day drunk and you have the night to celebrate. Yeah, you have the night to pass out. If you're at 7 o'clock celebrating in Texas win after day drinking all day, you're asleep by

8.30. I don't make it past nine if I'm day drunk. Could you imagine anybody saying, you know, Coach, why are you guys always the 3.30 game on Saturday come playoff time? Well, I don't have anything to do with that. I don't schedule these things. Look, we're not in the NFL. We just tell them, they just tell us when to play, and we get ready and we get our guys prepared. And we go through our weeks just like any other week. And we're ready to play. Whenever they say suit up, we're going to suit up. That's exactly right. and coach why haven't you gone to the afc championship game at least once well i don't know if you know this matt and i appreciate the question but it the national football football league it's

hard to win in the national football league i mean you look at teams i mean for example people talk about the patriots uh one of the greatest dynasties of our time at from 2003 to 2012 they didn't win a super bowl so i mean you can you can go in long droughts and it's hard to win and the other guys are good too. So the NFL, there's a reason it's the highest level of football in the world. There's a reason it's the toughest league in the world. That's because it's hard to win. Yeah, I'll say this. So, Coach, will you give the guys Friday off now that you'll be playing every Saturday and early January 12 noon? Well, first things first, I mean, we have a set of goals that we set out and goal number one is winning the division. And we've accomplished that goal four out of the last

five years. So we've been successful with that part. And then we just listened to the NFL and we plan our weeks just like any other week if we have to play on a Saturday, so be it. But we'll just have to go look and we'll come to that bridge when we cross it. Perfectly to said.

We are doing what you're talking about Bill when Bill hasn't spoken since January. I'm enjoying it. We'll never get done with it. We'll never have, you will continue to get better and better at this. In fact, there'll be a point where Bill O'Brien will ask you to help him with the quotes because you've heard him speak for six plus years.

I've got him. I got them covered. 713212-5-790 if you want to get in. 7-13-212-5-7-90. If you want to reach out through Twitter, you can do that as well. At Sports RV, at Pro Nick Lowe. And mine is at SportsMT. 713-212-5-7-90. When we return, I know it was a segment delayed on this, but I wanted to get in the NFL

breaking news. The NBA is discussing playoff scenarios. Some of them make sense, Rossi. Some of them I don't like. Hmm, okay. We'll discuss that in a moment. 112 on Sports Talk 790. The pandemic continues. The no damn sports pandemic. I'm not leaving my house.

Luckily, the most infectious lineup in Houston sports continues now. Here's masked, rubber glove, but still Jesus sandaled. Matt Thomas. sanitize those toes, would you? You don't know where they've been. We've got a lot of people with a lot of extra time on their hands. All right.

The Matt Thomas show continues here on Sports Talk 7. You guys know how much I love the NBA. And Mark Stein and Mark Berman both doing, I think, similar stories of maybe that collaborative on the future of the NBA season. This is according, these two guys are with the New York Post. I think it's more Mark Berman, anything else. Not the Mark Berman that you guys see in a 26, but a different Mark Berman. NBA executives are thinking about a variety of options to finish out the season.

Let me run through them. And as everyone that I run through, Ross, you give me your first blush thought on this. Okay. Here we go. We need my – Ross is my mic on. There we go. There we go. All right.

One site, fan list. 16 team playoff and a 5 to 7 game regular season schedule to get ready for said playoffs. One site? One site.

Like one court? Or one site with multiple courts? That's probably the case. Like I was talking about Vegas. You play a Thomas A Mac and then next door you have the Cox. Well, one site sounds like one. I mean, you can go to a place

where it has multiple courts. Yeah, one site. That would be that. I would consider that. that Thomas and Mac Carrey one site. Don't get in the caught up in logistics. Okay. I'm telling you, one site meaning a city or a building with multiple courts, fanless,

16 team playoff and a five to seven game regular season prelude. You gotta get guys ready. That sounds good to me. I hate that. What's the problem? I just hate it. I mean, I don't have any justification for it. It would be as antiseptic.

Is that a word I want to use? I don't know. It would be as... Antiseptic is what you put in your throat. Oh, okay, that wouldn't be the word then. It would be as... Anticlimactic? Climactic, it would be as vanilla.

It would be as pickup gameish as you could possibly... I mean, the emotions, the home court, the music, the dance... I mean, it would just be putting on NBA TV and watching these games. And that's it. It would be. Sacrifice is going to have to be made. This is not, I mean, what we want is the games to start tomorrow, and then the playoffs is starting a month, and just as normal.

But what we want can't happen. Playoffs could be reduced to a slew of best of three series. Oh, geez. Across the board, apparently single elimination has been ruled out, a la March Madness. That's good. That would actually be interesting, though. single elimination

Rockets could get hot and win that you get hot from three a few games in a row Take you eight days of claim a champion But see I think at that point You really do put the asterisk out there then Oh it is there wouldn't be an asterisk But yeah Let me give you a few more things

The obvious destination for a one-side event Is the UNLV campus in Las Vegas I was talking about you have a Summer League facility Thomas and Mack The Cox Pavilion They've done this before where they take all 30 teams and put them in one area,

so the logistics they know what to do. Other cities that are being considered. Orlando, you could do that at Wild World of Sports easily. Multiple courts there. Atlantic City, you could do it. Atlantic City. That's what they're saying. That place is a dump, right?

Why would you want to put those people in one of the most heavy virus-infested states in the country? Hawaii. Why? Hawaii. That's probably what the players want. Louisville, Kentucky. Yeah. And the Bahamas.

Ooh, the Bahamas. I like that. This is just going to be weird, isn't it? No matter what happens. According to one source, according to this story in the New York Post, getting teams to a magical number of 70 had been a goal, meaning you got teams that have played anywhere between 64 and 69 games, but they're not ready to push that so much.

The best case scenario is, looking like a June, early July start up with the idea of the 20-21 season not starting until Christmas. They would also postpone the NBA draft until August and September. Wow.

And the NBA still considering a flat-out cancellation of the season. And that is still on the table as well. Now, again, from a television standpoint, we're dying for sports. We'd watch it. But it would, I mean, it's almost

It's like I'll tell you The one thing that I'm watching on television right now That has no fans in it that needs fans Is professional wrestling I know you joke about it But they're putting WWE is still going on They're having their WrestleMania

They're doing it in a performance center Their little training facility And they're having these WWE raw shows Which I watched last night Because I have nothing else to watch Because I've watched everything else How was the show? It's so bizarre

Because you have these guys on a microphone and ladies too. They have the big entrances. They come out to absolutely no one. And how can the crowd say what for Stone Cold Steve Austin? Yeah. What? Yeah, you can't have that.

What? It won't happen, Matt. What? Because I mean, these guys can do it. I mean, they've played most of their life in basketball without a fans around them. If you take every basket they've ever game, they've ever played them in their life, most of them have done it without 18

thousand fans. That's true. So it would not be out of the complete norm for them to do it. But having 30 teams in one, well, it wouldn't be 30, it'd be 16. Although you want to bring all 30 teams into finish a regular season.

I don't think you can, I don't think you can go tell the Atlanta Hawks, we don't need you anymore. You should. They should just contract them. You know what, guys, stay home. Stay in quarantine. Do you really, you know, do you really need Charlotte? Do you need Sacramento? Maybe you take the 16,000. teams that are in the playoffs. Well, I guess you

need people to move up the standings. They're still I mean, the Eastern playoffs at least the teams that are going to be in are pretty set. Western Even then, yeah, I mean, Grizzlies are three games, three and a half games ahead of the Blazers. Because if you played five regular season games, as a

tune out, you'd have to have the Memphis Grizzlies lose all five of theirs and somebody that's below them win all five. And the Blazers, basically. Well, Blazers, Pelicans, and Kings are all tied at three and a half games back. I don't know. I mean, I mean, again, if you're telling me this or no sports at all, I'm going to take this. Yeah.

I'll make sure I'm perfectly there on that. Three game series for every round, though, I don't like that. I think that's asterisk worthy as it is. But you know the reason why you can do that is because you don't have to worry about any travel. You play on Monday. You play game two of your series on Wednesday. And if you don't need to game three, you search your next series on Friday. But if you're getting started, you said June or July.

It says this would be. a late June early July startup and that they would play this out in for our long long they needed it to and then they would not start the next season until Christmas. Anything? If the NBA finals is three games I'm going to say you might as well not even have it almost.

If they go to best of three because they're trying to squeeze in everything in 30 days. Because here's the thing, Ross, if they're going to have all these teams here and all these officials, they want to get in and get out as fast as possible. If we're still if we are still in June and July, worried about meetings of more than 10 people, my guess is we don't have a season.

If they relax it a little bit, or you can't have 5,000 people on us, they want to get these players to play their games and get tested and make sure they're okay and sent back to their places where they live so we can focus on maybe December for the next season. But just think about that. NBA finals best of three. Aster. It's ridiculous. It's asterisk. Astrox.

The WNBA finals, is that best of three still? You're asking a wrong person. What are you talking about? You're the former voice of the comments. Yes, but that was former viewer of the WNBA, not current. Former voice of the four-time WNBA champion. I got rings from them, by the way. Oh, you do?

Yeah. Real diamonds? No. Oh, please. No. Even the WNBA finals is best of five this year. Okay. Or last year.

And by the way, the WNBA doesn't need to play it all this. this year. You're talking about just have a season off. They just cancel it. That's not very nice. No, it's not very nice, but the truth hurts sometimes. I'm sorry, WNBA. You're all wonderful people,

but you're not playing this year. Oh, the first WNBA Finals was one game. Yes. I didn't even know that. One by your Houston Comets. And they went to best of five. It looks like in 2005.

No, there's going to be a, that champion doesn't really count if they don't do anything less than a best of seven in both the conference finals and the NBA finals and they're doing them in their respective cities. But the NBA wants to claim a champion. They don't want the 60 games that have already been played to count for nothing. I almost want a one and done over a three game series. I think that's even more fun. That would mean your 7-8s feeling really good about the possibility of winning an NBA championship. Yeah, you got to just win one. It would be crazy.

What if you had NBA champion Memphis Grizzlies? Jean-Marie just got really hot and went crazy. Yeah. Or your NBA champion Detroit Pistons. That's not happening. They're way out of the playoffs. Who's like the seven scenes? New Jersey.

The Nets or the magic. What if Kevin Durant could play? Brooklyn Nets. Get your NBA championship shirts. Imagine what the shirts would look like. went to one and done and the Durant says I'm in. Brooklyn Nets, NBA champion, and there'd be asteris all around the entire logo

and around the ring and around the trophy. I mean, if you're going to make it a full cartoon clown show, make it a full cartoon clown show. That's what best of three is to me. But if you want to get those guys out of law, you want to crown a champion and yet get them out of Las Vegas in a respectable amount of time, how can you go with the Deep Long series?

I don't think you can. I mean, yeah, I'm not crunching the numbers and doing the logistics on here. saying it sucks. By the way, Jeff Van Gundy in his story says the, he told the New York Post last week, he believes the season ultimately will be scrapped. I could see that. How about that? That's two different people, two of the most well thought of people in our industry. Kirk Herb Street says he doesn't think college football plays this year, and he, by and large said football, NFL football too, and that also Van Gundy believes the season will be scrapped. Again, they're not doctors.

They don't play one on the radio. They're analyst. but they're trusted voices. Yeah. It's possible. I mean, at the minimum, what we're looking at right now, Major League's baseball is talking about what, June? Yeah, that's about... NBA's talking about end of June.

July, August, September, that's 90. We're on March 31st. Yeah. So we're going to go minimum two more months with no games. Yep, because if the president lifts this thing, say the end of next month, he feels better about that, that gives everybody a month to get back into their cities, correct? So these are all big Fs, yeah.

These sports leagues want games on as fast as possible. Yes, they do, because they want their TV deals and they want their money, which is fine, that's what they should want. Because here's the deal. What's going to happen now is that these regional networks, who are also in really, really tough economic times, Ross, are not going to want to write checks to NBA teams if you don't give them the games they were promised.

Yeah, I wonder what, there's got to be some kind of doomsday language in those contracts. I wonder how that's going to go. It says this, regional networks have contracts that call for a minimum of 70 games for its local teams, meaning they can only be blocked 12 times per year. You must televise at least 70. And so I wonder how much of a rebate, let's just say the Rockets would have to give AT&T Sportsnet because they have not televised 70 games this year. The Rockets would have to give them money?

or the or the or AT&T would not give the rockets their full share of their money. And then how is this impacting the salary cap? So I'm saying. These are, these are things above our pay grade. But point being is that there is a pressure to get to a certain level. So at least the AT&Ts, the Fox Sports Regionals, will be writing those checks of those particular teams. 130 of the Matt Thomas show.

I don't mean to be doom and gloom, but it's just something that just came into mind. 713, 21, 25, 790. 713-212-5-7-9. If you want to reach out through Twitter at SportsMT, at SportsRV, and at Pro Nick Lowe, I'm going to attempt to get Jason Bateman on the show. Nick and Ross are going to find amazing guests for this radio show. Hard to get.

Maybe impossible. But can they help the cause through this time of no games? 130 on Sports Talk 7-9. No sports? No problem. Said the A-holes or horde. toilet paper and now I have to use a cut in half roll of paper towels to do my business. Let me tell you, the quicker picker-upper, abrasive.

Go ahead, ladies, you try it. Yeah, now, now say it with me. F*** you, A-Holes. The Houston Sports Talk continues. On Sports Talk 790. All right, there is a really weird, weird part of the brand new television contract for these wild card games. If you just join us, first of where you've been,

B, we're damn glad to have you. 713, 212, 5, 790. So there's going to be extra playoff games in both the AFC and NFC. So you'll have three games on Saturday and three on Sunday. Texans at 12 o'clock. It's the Texans 12 o'clock, not Memorial, but it would be the invitational. Invitational, yeah. It's the NRG invitational.

Okay. This is really hard to believe, actually. Additionally, as part of CBS's coverage, they're going to get one additional wild card game on the 10th at approximately 440 Eastern Suns. They're going to go noon 340, 715. As part of CBS's coverage, a separately produced telecast of the game will be airing on Nickelodeon, tailored for a younger audience. Okay, so let me get this straight. you're going to take a postseason playoff game as serious as it gets and you're going to allow some broadcasters whomever to put it on a children's television network because you would like to get 11 year olds

or 12 year old girls well hell 12 year olds don't watch Nickelodeon 9 year old girls interested in the NFL. What's wrong with that? It's ridiculous. Who's going to be on the call for this? That's what I just put on on Twitter. So we will take your comments at SportsMT. Can we get some NFL music for this? Let's try this. Let's try this.

Who would be good NFL play-by-play announcer and color analyst? I mean, you'd have to get. I just like some I Carly girl is going to be on the color? Today from NRG Stadium, Nickelodeon Sports presents the AFC wildcard game, featuring your Houston Texans against the Cleveland Browns. To the broadcast booth for blank and blank. Hey, Matt, thanks. It's great to be here at NRG Stadium, where the Texans are facing off against the bill. You know what? I figured it out. Mark Summers.

You know, people have said that Bill O'Brien has been a real poopy pants, but at the end of the day, he just gets results, Matt. In all seriousness, they will go get an NFL player who's, like Rob Grancowski would be a kind of a person. Yeah, he's got the intellect of a nine-year-old. J.J. Watt doing color would work. Josh Allen has been playing like a plate of broccoli. Yuck. Like a bunch of kids. Say a bunch of kid stuff.

All right. my buddy from Dallas Chris says writer from Paul Patrol Color Squidward from SpongeBob Siline Uma from Bubba Gumpies I don't know what Bubba Gumpies

I don't need them retweet this since works I bet you they get some child actor stars to do it's an all children like Corey Feldman like some old ones No he's like 50 I don't know any current child stars to give an example sorry turn the music on for just a second

I'm really having a hard time comprehending this. I think it's fascinating. I understand doing a regular season game. I understand even doing a pre-season game and really making it basically not even what you would expect to be a normal broadcast. But you're going to take a postseason game and do this so you can attract a younger audience. Well, man, it's just going to be a simulcast. They're going to do the regular broadcast. Oh, is that right?

No, I want, there's no way they don't. We need Marks. No, no, no, no. Mark Summers on the play-by-play. It's a separate broadcast. Yeah, you'll have a legitimate broadcaster doing it, and then Nickelodeon is going to have their own broadcasters.

Yeah, I think Mark Summers is a great pick, though. Nickelodeon veteran. See if Mark Summers can get you in the broadcast, man, since you guys are tight. There you go. We are good friends. You can go do color. He can do play-by-play, right?

Or would it be the other way around? It doesn't matter. But, okay, how would you, how would you, young, how would you attract a younger audience? That's what I'm just, I'm curious about. What would you do to attract eight-year-olds to watch an NFL playoff game for three and a half hours? You get slimed?

Yeah, the broadcasters get slimed once a quarter. That's a good idea. Or Bill Belichick gets slimed if they win the game instead of a, instead of a gatorade bath, you get slimed. We got Barney on play by a play and Big Bird on Color. Those aren't Nickelodeon properties. Yeah, Big Bird works for HBO. You're not going to go get him.

Dora the Explorer. The Explorer on the sidelines. Duh. That'd be pretty good. Okay. I mean, we're going to goof with this for sure. But I want to know what was going through someone's mind and said, Nickelodeons are we going to put this.

I can understand putting it on MTV if you wanted to make it a little more of a, a more hipper, maybe music-infused broadcast. Well, MTV has nothing to do with music, so that wouldn't really matter. You know what I'm saying. Of all the channels, I mean, even if you wanted to put it on the food network and you could have like Gordon Ramsey breaking the games down. Oh, you know, and he would just be swearing up and down for three and a half hours about how bad a particular team is.

I want on Comedy Central and just have famous comedians that sit there. You know, pull the whole Dennis Miller thing again. Well, Dennis Miller could be on the broadcast. I love Dennis Miller, though. What's the last relevant thing he did? Dennis, the HBO show? Yeah, he does his stand-up. He's still on it.

Special stuff. Yeah, he's still on. Oh, good for him. I had no idea. I know he had a radio show for a while. He did. But, I mean, in all seriousness, is this the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard in your life?

What would possess Nickelodeon to want to get? Again, this is a wildcard playoff game. Are you just trying to? to cheapen this thing up? How embarrassing for the NFL? How embarrassing for CBS? What if, look, if our buddy, Kevin Harlan, who was just on the show today, Kevin, we need you do an Nickelodeon broadcast for the younger audience?

What is he supposed to say? No, I'm not going to do it. I like the idea of Rob Grunkowski on there. You would have to get a current player who is not a customer working a TV broadcast. With you the intellect of a 10-year-old. Rob Grunkowski. And you'd probably have to get a legit play-by-play guy. And then you'd probably have to have a third person in the booth that's kid-relatable.

Like... Door the Explorer. Well, no. I don't even know what shows like Zach and Cody, right? Those dudes, and then they have a show? I have no idea. I think they're older now. That's too old for my kids and way too young for me, so I have no idea.

Do your kids watch Nickelodeon? No. See, my youngest is 12, and she's not watch one. She watches a couple of things on Disney Channel, but that'd be about... it. There's no, there's no, there's no, there's no, in her, in her watch list. This is crazy. I think it's amazing. I think we've, I think the apocalypse is hitting. We have the coronavirus infiltrating our country. Correct. And we have Nickelodeon, your home of NFL postseason football. I'm going to watch it. Don't think I'm not. Because I want to see what a

Travis, what a complete Travis this turns out to be, provided we have football next year. Do you get that broadcast with your Sunday ticket, even if you don't have basic cable? It's a playoff game. All the games are available. So need not worry. We will make sure you can, if not, I will DBR, you can come to the house. You can come over the house and watch it, provided that kind of people over. Good point. It's a big if.

God, this is the craziest thing I've ever. Keenan and Kell, whoever that is? You don't know who Keenan and Kell are? No. That's a Good Burger, right? Yeah, the guys from, well, they're from Good Burger. They started on all that, and then they got split off of Keen & Cal. Sorry, nine-year-olds don't know who that is either.

Yeah, Keenan and Kell was probably more. I mean, it was. I was on Saturday Night Live now, right? Yeah, Kenan Thompson. Yeah, man, that's how he got his start. Oh, really? Okay. The man you called an A-list celebrity.

He was for that night. Oh, geez. 143 on the Matt Thomas show. 713-212-5-790. 7-13-212-5-70. Craig Havotti says a reanimated John Madden. That's neck, no. God, this is a joke.

Our sports are a joke right now. Nickelode in your home of the NFL Wildcard playoffs. Adam Wexler tweets in, okay kids, that was Will Fuller's fourth catch today and he gained 25 yards. He now has four catches for 72 yards. How many yards is he averaging per reception?

That'd be nice. You have a little math lesson in the middle of it? Or on the play by play announcer, back to pass, goes to Sean Watson, throws out left side of Will Fuller. He's got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve yards. The Houston Texans are down 16 points, kids.

How are they going to come back from this one with just two scores? Do the math. And the count comes in. Which one of these players doesn't look like the other? Nickelodeon, you're home for NFL playoff football. Here in H-town, we're social distancing experts. We've been socially distancing ourselves from Dallas since 1836. Which is one of the reasons why we've never had an STV.

The Houston Sports Talk continues on Sports Talk 790. Time is 150 on Sports Talk 790. It is the Matt Thomas show. 713-212-5-790 if you want to get in. I know I can say this with all honesty. It's probably a little easier today in previous days to get in on shows. I would die for a real phone call in terms of, hey, what are the XYZ team going to do with this pick?

Or how the Rock is going to do in this playoff game? But we need games first. Even if they're all in the Thomas and Mac Center in Las Vegas with 30 teams playing single elimination or best of three tournaments. This year is going to be nothing but an asterisk in all sports, it feels like. We're going to have a baseball team, probably winning a World Series after playing only 90 games. What if the Rockets are out in the first round in a three-game series?

Mike Dentone, he fired? I don't know. Contract will be up. You can't put him on a one-year deal, probably. I don't think he'd want a one-year deal. Exactly, that's what I'm saying. You know, it's hard. I don't know.

I don't know. All I know is that the longer the Rockets can go on a playoff, the better I feel about Mike being here long-term. What if they just win the whole damn thing? Then he will be, he'll be able to sign one more contract, and it'll be the final contract of Mike Dantonie's career. Or he could just ride off from the sunset.

Yeah. I mean, he's got more money than he ever needs. That's true. these coaches make good money by the he's doing okay for himself really really well for himself here's the thing and i i don't mean to be go overly personal but sometimes you have to i if there's anybody in the world i want to win a championship it's mike dantonie he's just a super person i'm gonna go bill o'brien i guess you could do that just a sweetheart yeah uh but mike d'antone i'm i'm really personally wishing for great success

He coaches the team that I love more than any other as far as professional sports. But, I mean, there's a lot of people. Like, if the Texans win the Super Bowl, that's when people will get off Bill O'Brien's case. Anything short of that, they're going to despise him. Now, look, there are Dan Tony distractors out there. I mean, they're very loud. And Darryor Morey detractors as well. Sure.

And Tom and Fratita for detractors as well. Absolutely. Ross, I got news for you. I have people that don't like me either. Texas USC Rose Bowl is going to be on ESPN again. games of the century. I'd rather watch that than watch North Carolina State, Houston. Thursday at 7 o'clock.

Might have to live tweet that. You know nothing else to do. That's a fact. So let's go back to the initial question. Does anybody lose their job this year? Maybe. I don't know. I would think if you're an NBA coach

and you have years left in your contract, you're okay. Everybody's get a free. It's a free pass for everybody, right? But the strange thing, is this is the year where Mike doesn't have a deal after this year. He will be technically a free agent coach. And then you're starting up a season maybe in December.

It could be maybe less than an 82 game. This is, again, the unknown. I was asked about this yesterday from a guy, David Baron from the Chronicle. He says, how do you compare this time as compared to the, you know, covering and discussing a hurricane? Well, in hurricanes, we know there's an ending to it. They're going to eventually go move up or dissipate or just. blow it, you know, be done with it. We don't know when this is going to be an ending.

Yeah. So we're dealing in tremendous unknowns. We are now, was it, March 11th was the last sporting event. So it's been 20 days. Yeah, the last Rockets game was the 10th. 117 to 111. Rockets defeat the Minnesota Timberwolves. We were bitching a moment about the fact that the players couldn't be near us and that the people in the arena were wearing gloves on their hands to score people around.

and social distancing really wasn't in play at that point. But, man, it went from kind of going, give me a break to Rudy Gober's got it, league shuts down. That's how fast it moved. That escalated quickly. Really, really quickly. And now everybody, I mean, I thankfully, knock on, I don't personally know anyone that has it. Me either. Which is good.

Nick, do you know anybody? Although, didn't you say there was somebody in our building that we know possible? Maybe. That was just third hand. I don't know if that is true or not. No, I don't know anyone has it. So the longer the three of us don't know anybody, the better off we're going to be here. Hopefully. Hopefully the three of us don't know anybody personally that is ever going. Especially since I'm seeing you people every day.

You know, there's the possibility that the three of us already all had it and it's gone. That's true. How do we know if we had it or not? You wouldn't. You could be asymptomatic and it could blow through you. Maybe. Hopefully that's the case. but yeah now the show I'm watching more TV political TV than I ever had before

Chris Cuomo the host on the Cuomo whatever they calls the show well I thought he was a wait who's the mayor of New York no he's the governor oh governor I mean that's what I meant

which is the governor and which is the host on CNN they're both uber liberals and that's why I balance I go between the different channels well the host the TV host has the coronavirus

Andrew Cuomo is the governor. Chris is the TV host. Yes, and Perry Cuomo is the singer. No. Very nice pull, but that's not accurate. That's very, very good. But yeah, Chris has the virus. He says he's got no symptoms,

and he's been working from home the last couple days anyway. Well, that's good. But now television stars are getting it. Andy from, what's the name of the... Watch What Happens Live? he's had it. Andy who? Andy Cohen.

Every woman knows who he is. Okay, I don't know who that is. Good. He's the one that... Was he like an attractive male? No, he hosts a show called What's What Happens Live? And he's also the executive producer of all the Real Housewives series. Oh, okay.

If you saw me, you'd recognize who he was. He's had it, but it's gone through him. I don't recognize him. Okay. Okay, so what we're going with this? I don't remember. We're talking about sports and how we want him back. You brought up Cuomo for some reason.

Yeah, you talk... Oh, about people that we know, you know, that we don't, thankful of the three of us don't know anybody that's directly hadn't. Yes. But a guy that I watched in television for a better part of two weeks has it now. Well, we wish him the best. And Doris Burke? I think she's doing much better. Sean Payton today was on ESPN's, uh, get going, get up?

Get up? Yeah. How's Hank's doing? H-A-N-X. I haven't heard it. Oh, Tom Hanks? He returned to the U.S. You said he's fine.

Did his wife come with him, too? Yeah. Yeah, they're both. back. They let them leave Australia because they were clear. Well, we're getting better then. And that's why we're on the topic. Is Joe Exotic, okay? He's still serving his 22 years. Oh, okay.

Is he trying to get out out of fears of coronavirus? You know what we have not done it? We didn't call the Hillsborough County's office today. Because Carol should be in prison. And Joe filed a $94 million lawsuit yesterday or the last couple days. Because of? False testimony or something? I held that just before the documentary hit Netflix. Oh, did he?

It's been out for a while. Somebody, I thought I saw in the news that he just fired. I got news for you. That documentary is not going to do many favors in the courtroom. It's not. Just going to be like, we've seen what this is. You're not getting a dime. You know what the funniest part of it was?

He actually thought he was going to win, he was going to be the president of the United States. Did you know, the governor of Oklahoma? Did he not get like 18% of the voting in Oklahoma? It was 18% of the libertarian vote. Oh, so he didn't even win the libertarian vote? No, I know he got a sliver of a sliver. That actually makes me feel good for Oklahoma. that he didn't hoodwink the majority of the population.

He's got my vote. I feel like he can get stuff done. He didn't even know what a libertarian was. How can you run a libertarian campaign and you don't even know who libertarian is? You just want to be a star, Matt. And now he's a star. He is a star.

713-212-5-790. 7-1-3-212-5-7-90. The final hour of the Matt Thomas show comes in with news of expanded playoffs and a new TV network for one of those playoff games. That more. Final hour, sports talks about it. Next. Is the Matt Thomas show.

One of the greatest songs associated with a sports team ever. I can listen to this backwards. I can listen to it in Spanish. And this is a great way to bring on our next guest. Our time is 203. Segment, we've done this three or four times already. It's people we miss hearing from. and we miss hearing from the voice of the Astros, Robert Ford on the Matt Thomas show.

Before we go any further, Robert, you ate something for the first time this weekend. Explain to the audience what it was and if you liked it. Yeah, I had my first crawfish boil. It wasn't quite what I expected my first crawfish boil to be because it was takeout at home by myself. but after watching some videos on YouTube on how to actually eat a crawfish, I felt like it was time to take the plunge and I really enjoyed it,

had enough spice to give it a little bit of a kick but not too much so that it was overwhelming. And yeah, I'll definitely have more crawfish boils in the future, hopefully with more than just me. Now you've lived here, what, six years? Seven years. It took you seven years to eat crawfish? You know, it was something that I wanted to do.

I just never really put the time, set aside the time for it, especially since, you know, the time to do it is the spring, right? And I'm usually busy this time of year. So it's not, you know, it's something I probably could have done if I've carved out time. I just never had. But I'm glad it worked out the way it did. Well, I got an unpopular opinion for you.

I think it's too much work. The end result is not worth all the work. Yeah, I could see that philosophy. I kind of look at it like, you know, I've had, I mean, it's been a long time, but like I've had, you know, lobster before. We've had to pick it apart with a mallet and stuff like that and crab. I have to be in the right mood for it. Like, I couldn't do that on a regular basis.

But if I'm in the right mood, right frame of mind, know what I'm getting myself into, then I can put in the work. But yeah, I totally hear what you're saying. Robert four, we missed your voice. We missed your voice. You would be currently in Oakland, California today, I think. Have you been looking at the schedule every day going, man, I wish I would have seen this matchup? Did you try to figure out where your calendar life would have been? Or because of the fact that you've been home for a couple weeks, you just haven't really worried about what day the week it is? Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I haven't really looked at the schedule at all. And I've had people text me, you know, hey, yeah, it's too bad. You would have been here this weekend. To me, it's pointless. I mean, we'll see what winds up happening. obviously and if and when play resumes. But yeah, at this point, I'm just trying to remember what day of the week it is. I think you're all in the same category.

I know you've been watching some old Astros games. YouTube is very good for that. I know MLB has put some things on. Give the audience, because obviously you grew up in New York area. We're a Mets fan, and you've been fully into the Astroscope of things the last seven years or so. What games have you been watching that are old-school Astros that you've come to appreciate now before you saw them?

Well, lately, since this pandemic, there's been just the one that I tweeted about an Astros Reds game from 1988. I have looked on YouTube. There is another one that I'm going to watch and live tweet it. I think the mistake that I made with the first one, so the Astros is the Astros Reds game. The mistake I made was, I was like, I'm not. I'm going to go into this, not knowing anything about this game, not knowing anything about the result. And the Astros lost 10 to 3, Jim the Shays got knocked out early.

I mean, it wasn't exactly the best game to tweet about from an Astros perspective. So I decided what I'm going to do the next time. And I've already, I already did this. I just haven't watched the game yet. But I'm like, all right, before I watch another Astros, old Astros game, I'm at least going to know what the final score is. so that way I know whether the Astros won or lost. So I went on YouTube, I found another game.

I'm not going to reveal what it is yet, but I did find another Astros game from the 80s or 90s that the Astros won. And that's all I know about this game. And at some point I'm going to watch it. I also know that Darrell Kyle started the game. That's all I know about this particular game. Okay.

And then again, because I like the idea of Like, I did watch some of MLB Networkers showing Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS. I did watch some of that, but I've seen that game before. And I remember when it happened. But I like the idea of watching a random game that, you know, doesn't, you know, isn't necessarily historic for any reason. Because, you know, I've had people ask me, hey, why don't you live tweet watching, you know, Game 5 of the 2017 World Series or something like that? And I may do something like that at some point, but I really like the idea of just some random game, especially since, like you mentioned, I didn't grow up an Astros fan.

You know, it was a game that I almost certainly did not watch back in the day. So I really, I really like that idea. I know you've got, is your father still in New York? Is that correct? Yes, he's still in New York. What's going on with him and his family and give us an update on what you know about your friends up there right now? Well, my dad, you know, my dad's had some health problems. He's in a nursing home.

And it's been a couple of weeks since my stepmom's been able to see them because, and I know it's starting to happen in Houston and elsewhere, too. They've banned all visitors, no visitors whatsoever. I was actually talking with my stepmom yesterday. They've been able to do a video chat and talk on the phone a little bit, but they haven't been able to see each other in a couple of weeks. You know, I actually spoke to my mom yesterday. She's doing great. She's in the Bronx, hold up in her apartment, only going out when necessary. You know, I've been texting and talking with some of my friends.

friends that are in the New York City area in particular. And, you know, to this point, everybody's doing okay and doing, you know, doing what they're supposed to be doing right now and social distancing and not going on unless absolutely necessary. So that's encouraging. But, I mean, I think we're, you know, we're all kind of in the same boat. Just kind of waiting to find out what's next and, you know, hoping that this is over sooner rather than later.

You know, we're visiting with Robert Ford, the voice of the asteris here on sports talks of as you well know and everybody does does any sort of traveling New York is such a magnificent metropolitan eclectic international city and you know first of all we got to get everybody healthy up there but until that happens

I just can't imagine think of all the venues just in New York City from Shea to City Field to Madison Square Garden to Arthur Ash Stadium for the U.S. Open to all the different great venues and bars and restaurants I mean

I don't know if it's a ghost town, but every time I look at a photo of even Times Square, it looks like just a couple of people random. So of any area in this world of ours that has been absolutely just squashed by this, it'd be safe to say that New York City is probably topping that list, at least in our country. Yeah, and I mean, you're right, it is eerie to see, you know, some of these pictures of, you know, Times Square and places like that that we're used to seeing just bustling with people and just absolutely empty. I was actually talking with a friend of mine who lives on the west side of Manhattan, who dabbles in some photography.

And she was saying to me, you know, this, you know, she can walk to, you know, a lot of different places, iconic places in Manhattan. And she was thinking about, you know, breaking out her camera and taking pictures of some of this, just because I think like a lot of us, you know, this may be the only time we get to document an empty Times Square or a relatively empty Central Park and things like that. But, yeah, it's really surreal. you know, to see some of those photos or empty subway cars. But, yeah, I mean, you know, if anything, I think what's certain in New York and Houston and elsewhere is that once we're finally able to go out again and be in bigger crowds, we're going to appreciate some of these iconic places and some of these large gatherings more than what we ever have.

I'm just dying to go to a real restaurant, Robert, I don't about you, but I just want to go out and have somebody have people serve and make money. off my tips. I'm going to tip better from here on now. I know that you're a great tipper. I want to be like a Robert Ford tipper eventually. I do try to tip well actually, and that actually goes, but my grandfather has been gone for several years now. He, in his younger days, worked at restaurants and worked as a waiter and worked as a busboy. And so he was always on everybody in my family about making sure you tip effectively. And his big thing was always a lot of the things that you think are the servers fault actually aren't their fault. So don't, penalize them for, you know, when you tip them. But yeah, I always try to tip well, but no,

you're right. And I, you know, I have tried. I mean, I've cooked a lot more at home than I usually do, especially this time of year. During baseball season, I barely cook at all. But I am trying to make sure, like, you know, you mentioned the crawfish. I got those from, you know, not a paid endorsement, but I got those from BBs where there's one not too far from me. You know, there are other local businesses that I, that are, especially restaurants in my neighborhood and Upper Kirby that I like to support and, you know, definitely trying to get takeout from them and things like that because, you know, those, and, you know, there's some bartenders I know who, you know, have been furloughed or laid off right now, you know, those are

the people I'm really thinking about. The people, you know, you and I, Matt, we'll be, we'll be okay. Obviously, it'll be tougher times for us, but, you know, we'll be okay. But it's really the, those people, you know, the small business owners and the restaurant owners and the bartenders and servers, those are the ones who are really hurting right now. Amen to that. And then we'll get them back on their feet, hopefully very, very soon. One baseball question before I let you go. Obviously, with this delay, we don't know about the number of games.

Obviously, Justin Verlander's going to have plenty of time to heal from his situation. Give me one player, if you can even remember, that you were blown away with in spring training. Obviously, it was about halfway done when you guys were pulled back, but was there one player like, man, man, it's going to be hard for Dusty to not put this guy in the 25-man opening roster, and maybe that'll be a guy we can look at once you guys get down to maybe going back to Florida and getting some sort of spring training in if we get a season in. No question. That guy for me was Brian Debray.

I mean, he looked outstanding, commanding three pitches, throwing strikes. His stuff looked great. And, you know, I think about guys like him who are trying to make a breakthrough this year, whether they start off at AAA or start in the big leagues. And now, you know, who knows if there's a big league. going to get that opportunity this year. And obviously they're not, you know, when you think about people who've been affected by this pandemic, they are not even close to the top of the list.

But, I mean, when, you know, I love baseball and I love the Astros and, you know, and to see some of these guys, you think about a guy like Kyle Tucker. This is going to be a big year for him to try and finally get a chance to play on a regular basis and get a chance to establish himself as a big leaguer. And now, you know, that opportunity is going to look a little different regardless of what winds up happening over the next few months and, you know, to have to go through spring training and then stop and then, you know, maybe go through spring training again. I mean, that's not the easiest thing in the world.

So, yeah, I was really looking forward to seeing Brian Abray. I still am. And you certainly have to hope that, you know, however long this layoff winds up being, that it doesn't affect him or some of these other guys too negatively. Robert, enjoy that crawfish. Thank you for spending some time with us. We miss hearing your voice on these radio airwaves. You would be in Oakland as we speak.

We have a chance to kind of summarize the first weekend of the season, but we'll eventually do that just don't know when. But thank you again for the opportunity to come on my show and take care of you and your family. We're thinking about you and all your friends up in New York. And next time you're back on 790, hopefully it's broadcasting an Astros baseball game. Yeah, I appreciate that, Matt. And hopefully I'll be able to hear you say a visitor's name when they score at a Rockets game

in a boring fashion once again. That's what I'm looking forward to. I've never so desperately wanted to say LeBron James, so bad in my entire life. Thank you, Fran. We'll talk to you soon. All right. All right. Robert Ford, voice of the aster is with us here.

Frequent hand washing, face mask and toilet paper shortages, and no fucking sports. We have to quarantine ourselves. Strange times, brother. Strange times. Call for strange sports conversations. Jump on in,

The freaky pool. Sports Talk 790. Significant news of the day. Any news in sports is significant. NFL playoffs this year go to 14 teams, 7-Each conference. Wonderful. Triple-headers on Saturday and on Sunday. The Texas will be in the invitational slot, the early game 12 noon on Saturday, regardless

of opponent. Short list of best sports weekends of the year are the first two weeks of the NFL playoffs. You know, I'm usually, we go to. Vegas and have fun with that. You go for three games on Saturday and three on Sunday? That's true. A little college basketball if you wanted to. Just saying.

In fact, hopefully. I'm telling you, the day Vegas opens, Ross. I thought the day Lake Charles opens. Them too. We're going to both. We're taking a tour. A three-hour tour? What do you think is going to be cheaper? By the time we fly

to Vegas or drive, well, Lake Charles would be cheaper. Yeah. I don't know. Well, yeah, it would be cheaper because you're not flying there. But, I mean, the hotels probably are going to be comparable. Comparable. All right.

You mentioned this 2K term. I'm going to look up airfares to Las Vegas. Yes. When do you want to go? Give me a weekend in Vegas. This is soon? Everything's closed. We'll say June 12th.

Okay, June 12th. There you go. The weekend of June 12th. The NBA is playing an NBA player. This is players only, Matt. Players only. Because I know you like play by players only. but this is players-only NBA 2K tournament featuring Kevin Durant and others.

And apparently it's going to air on ESPN to span over 10 days for a 16-player tournament. Kevin Durant's going to participate. Donovan Mitchell is going to participate. And it's going to be on prime time ESPN players playing NBA 2K. DeMarcus cousin's going to play. Andre Drummond going to play. so there you go while everybody's sheltering in place

until at least April 30th the NBA is going to do something about it and I think it's interesting that the ESPN is going to broadcast every one of these so how much you're going to watch Matt that's a great question I know that the gaming business apparently was going to take over the world which I told

everybody five years ago it wasn't and it hasn't people watching there is a niche for people to watch other people watch video games especially with a younger audience but it's by no means like the initial thought was this is going to be as big as the NHL and NASCAR. I'm like, slow your roll down.

I'm not going to watch a bunch of geeks play video games for hours and consider that to be as much as watching a Stanley Cup playoffs. Sorry. You're not, but there's a lot of young kids who do. But by no means, the thought of, you would think of anything that would be going gangbusters right now, it would be the gaming industry

in terms of people watching. They're going on business as usual. It's a very, it's an okay business, but it's not, it has taken over the world. Like everybody like everybody thought Pokemon, the Pokemon chasing after was going to be the next great hobby. These things are all fads. So with all that being said.

Okay. Those are two dead. That's apples and org's comparison. It is. It is. I'm just telling you that people continue to tell me how video gaming was going to take over this world of sports. And it has it. We'll never take a video gaming question.

We'll never have a segment on it. No. It's just, it's so niche. It has its audience, but it's niche. With that being said, I bet you there'll be a lot of people that would love to watch James. James Harden going against Zonovan Mitchell and game of NBA 2K Live. I'll check it out.

I wonder how interesting it'll be. I don't know. No, it's your opinion. You have to have an opinion. You can't say, I don't know. I'm going to check it out. How do I know it's going to be good or not? Is someone calling play-by-play or are we listening to them on their headsets,

talk trash to each other? Is there something like that? I'm sure it's going to be. Let's get mad on play-by-play. I would do it. I know you would, Matt. I need reps. I don't know.

Is Mike Braine? and Mark Jackson and I'm sure Jeff Van Gundy wouldn't want to be a part of it at all. I don't know how it's going to be broadcast. I said I'm going to check it out. I don't know if I'm going to like it. That's what I was saying. You check it out. I'm probably going to watch 0.0% of it.

Think about it what it's going to be. Watching two celebrities play a video game. I think you have a pretty good feel of how interesting it's going to be. There's going to be smack talk. I mean, we do little vignettes at Toyota Center with Eric Gordon playing James Harton in a game of bad you know in a video game I mean it's got a little niche to it too it'll be something different to watch the ashos clubhouse they play a lot of uh they play NHL hockey games together they play a FIFA and they were huge into fortnight a couple years ago

I'm just not I'm not a video gamer so I really can't give you a thoughtful comment on it because I don't I have no interest in it period you are a twitter yes I do and you have people come watch you and Ramon from the Michael Barry show play video games every night. It's a few. Not every night, maybe a couple times a week. It's a small but dedicated audience. Twitch.tv.tv.tvot TV slash There you go. I mean, I want you to get the plug in for sure. So what people do is they go to your Twitch. Yes. And they just watch y'all play a game. Yeah, we chat and talk and hang out. I mean, you went in there for a couple of minutes when it was me and Adam Clanton. Yeah. Adam Clinton's very busy these days, so he can't play. Yeah, raising the children. That's not, he's not, he can't hear her. So there's no chance.

No, it's fine. He knows. He knows that. He plays with Teresa, too. I was trying to get both of them to come on, but they're, you know. They're what? Hesitant. Okay. I have zero interest in it.

Will I turn it on for a minute just to see what it looks like and see how the production value? Sure. But I could never say, hey, everybody, let's forget about watching our favorite. I'm watching a movie on TV tonight because you've got, let's see, you've got Rajan Rondo going against Blake Griffin. in a video game. I don't know.

You know what it is? You know what it is? They're trying to invent things. And I'm zero problem with that. They're getting creative. Because you can't continue to put, like for instance, every day I turn on ESPN 2 in the morning. They have a women's basketball game on.

And I'm not trying to be sexist, but there's no one in America that's like, man, I cannot wait to see Yukon and Baylor play again. Man, I get some, if I get some action down on it, and I'll watch it. You don't want action on games that already have results. That's true. You should do it with a friend and you both

don't know the result. You have to have an honor system and then bet on the game. How would you find the line, though? No, no, no. You can't even find line as a women's college game for the real part. Unless it's like a big game like. Final four stuff. Yeah.

Right. I got you. All right. We have found out some audio of Alex Rodriguez. An ex-teammate of his, right? Were they ever teammates? I don't think so. Okay.

One member of the MLB fraternity crushing A-Rod. And I love it. You're going to need to hear this. And it's just good audio. And it's of no surprise. Did you ever watch that screwball documentary? I told you to watch it on Netflix. It's about the biogenesis thing.

It's good. It's interesting. And it also just paints Alex Rodriguez in a very bad light. Do you think before the documentary you thought Alex was a good guy? No, but even coming out of it, he was even worse. He is like one of the most vain and crazy, insane people I've ever seen. And audio him next. About him next to 229 on Sports Talk 790.

So when there's no sports, What do we talk about? Hmm. Maybe Netflix binge talk. No, no, no. Kids driving us crazy talk. Yeah, that works. Hand-wash talk.

There's a new favorite. What's new on Pornhub Talk? Have you seen the one with the nurse? And, oh, sorry. You should wash your hands. You're 30P. The Houston Sports Talk continues. On Sports Talk 790.

Hey, Matt. Ross and I are going to go to Vegas in June. Yes. Airfare's 167 round trip. Hmm. And so you could actually find it a little bit lower if you wanted to. If you could, if you had a little... Wednesday to Wednesday.

By the way, 2.7 million people watching Twitch right now. What are they watching primarily? I don't know, various games or people or individual streamers. All right. Former Major League of Ross is Paul Luduka. Paul LaDucah, four-time All-Star. Mostly, I would say to me, known as a... Dodger.

Yep. He was on W-F-A-N. It's called Maggie and the Monster or something like that, or what is it? That sounds good. Maggie and the something or other. Moose and Maggie. Very popular show. W-Fand.

One of your favorite stations, right, Matt? It's right on the top of my list? Well, apparently he went on there and he had some not too nice things to say about one Alex Rodriguez. Well, he's always, I've always been that way. He's sort of the kind of guy that looked at you, but he's not really, He's talking to you, but he's not really talking to you. Everybody knows those guys, and that people know.

I'm not a fan, and I'm sorry. Never will be a fan. I just think he's more of the biggest people out there. And I know I always get heat for that. And I'm like, oh, he's done this and he's done that. He's done this and that. But everybody just somehow forget, and so does ESPN, where he works for what they did for him. They had a guy follow him.

Pedro Gomez was Barry Bons's guy. He had a guy following him around for a complete wow for what he had done in baseball and the stuff that he had done. The way he gets put on a pedestal now is beyond me. I think I'm with that. I mean, Alex Rodriguez is a multiple-time cheater. And then he's just, I mean, I guess, I mean, does he deserve second chances and all that type of stuff? But he's denied and lied for years. And then finally he came out and said, okay, I did this with the whole biogenesis thing.

He's not genuine. No, he's fake. very, very fake. Very successful. Yes. Very much a cheater. Yes. Very much a Homer on a was supposed to be a neutral broadcast.

Oh God. Openly cheering for the Yankees. Yeah. Yeah. So if he walked in here right now, I don't want to interview him. I want to get his take on things. But there's a little bit of the, I don't want it. What if he said, hey, after this, let's go go to dinner and get some drinks?

I would absolutely go. I'm not that big of a hypocrite. Oh, I would say no, I think. You would say no to Alex Rodriguez. Yeah, I'm done it interested in me. I do not believe that. You don't believe me? Yes, I do not believe you.

I'd rather go home. We'll take a nap or something. That's not true. Got to prepare for the nightcap. Alex Rodriguez comes to 2000 West Loop South in a limousine. He comes in here and sits down as a half-hour interview. It says, guys, let's go get somebody to eat. You absolutely are going with us.

And I'm good. Nick, I'm calling BS on Ross. He's slimy. That means you can't go up dinner with him You would totally go No, I would not Yeah, you would I wouldn't

You would No, I wouldn't I know you, you would go You know that I wouldn't I know that you would Okay, well if he's picking up the bill Maybe See?

It took me five seconds To out you If he's gonna make me pay No Uh, no I would go with a lot of people I would go to With Bill O'Brien

Before I would go to Alex Rodriguez Uh, not me Really So if Bill O'Brien Hold on now you're lying First of all I'm not line You would go with that one too

I wouldn't I would go with Bill O'Brien if Bill O'Brien came in and said he hung up for a half hour and he said let's go get his cocktails and go to dinner If they're picking up the check I'm going with either of them. Okay, hold on. A-Rod or Bill O'Brien, who are you going to eat with? Nick, who you go with?

I have to choose between those two. Between the two of them. They both walk in. We're going, let's go eat. Is J-Lo there? No. Yeah, still A-Rod, probably. I'll probably go Bill O'Brien. I'm telling you. Watch that bio.

You will need a shower. after watching the way Alex... How long is it? How long is it? I think it's a few episodes. I can't remember. I'll look it up. Okay.

It's called Screwball on Netflix. It's really good. I don't even know if we have any listeners today. I think we do. Yeah, we do, Matt. We could do an Instapol on this, but I'm afraid Insta poll may not work on this. I mean, it's up to y'all.

We should go for it, yeah. You want to try it? Yes. Let's see what's out there. All right. You have a dinner invitation. I know what he's. Houston is going to say about this.

Now, you could actually go to dinner with Bill O'Brien tell him what a horrible coach he is and a bad person and a terrible gentlemanage. And by the way, I got news for you. Jack Easterby is not going to dinner with you guys either. So let's try this. What if you have to pay for yourself on both days? No, no. The guy, O'Brien's picking up the tab

and A-Rodd's picking up the tab. You have a chance to go to dinner with one of them. Oh, wait. I think Screwball's just a two-hour movie. Time for an Insta poll. You go to dinner with one person. A rod or Bill O'Brien? 713-212-5-7-90. 7-1-3-212-5-7-0.

Line one. Who you can go to dinner with? A-Rod or Bill O'Brien? A-Rod because O'Brien probably be really rude the whole time. See, I think O'Brien would be good to drink with it. He's from Dorchester. He likes to throw back the coolest lights. You're talking about Two-Face.

He would say, no, I can't tell you about this, but it's what's going to happen. I think Alex Rodriguez is just, I don't know, he's slimy. Line two, A. Rod, or Bill O'Brien? Dinner. Oh, easily. Arod. Who would want to eat dinner with butt chin? Dude, this is not going to go over well in Houston.

This is not going to go over well. Line three, dinner with A. Rod or Bill O'Brien. O'Brien, so I could poison him. Oh, that's a little strong. I knew that was coming. I knew that was... Yikes.

Line 4 is gone. All right, let's go. Line 1, Bill O'Brien or A-Rod, who you having dinner with? A-Ron. I want to ask you about that, J-Lo. Oh, see, J-Lo is not part of the package. He wouldn't ask her about him. Oh, ask him.

That's fine. A-Rod or... A-Rod or Bill O'Brien, line two, who you have dinner with? A-Rod, because Bill O'Brien ain't going to get me maximum value for my meal. You're going to have to negotiate with Bill O'Brien, the bill. He'd be like, he'd be like, yeah, uh, look, we had, we had those jalapeno poppers. You ate

four of the five jalapeno poppers. I'm not paying for that. Would he fight with a waitress over the menu items? Or the bill? Yeah. Maybe. All right, let's do one. Do you think he would send stuff back? Yeah. You'd be asked for a steak medium and it's perfectly

medium. He's like, oh, this is overdone. Sorry, this isn't work. No, he'd say Easterbait. Kim in over here. He's four tables back. Hey, I'm going to send Jack, Jack back there to cook it up for me. He knows just the way I like it. Jack, each week goes on the grill, making a steak. Jack's making a stake for him. Line three, A-Rod or Bill O'Brien? Who do you want to dinner with? I think he's going. All right. Line one, A-Rod or Bill O'Brien? Who do you want

at dinner with? Your mom, Matt. All right. That was good. That worked out good. Should I give out that guy's number on a five? Got it here? My mother was a nice person, by the way. Matt's mother. I've met her once. sweetheart. Great woman. And that is the instapole.

Yeah, we know why you're choosing A-Rod Tiffany, but I don't think, I don't know if he's... He's what? Nothing. She likes to kiss himself in front of mirrors, and then we'll just leave it at that. Yeah, he's an Adonis in his own mind. And he's got scoreboard.

He's got J-Log, one of the most beautiful women in America. Still, you know... I got a lot of questions about that relationship. A-Rot will be able to get into better places, too. Like, where were... Where would... Brian take it? Well, I don't know if restaurants will let Bill O'Brien in the door anymore. Bill O'Brien's like, we're going to the cafeteria. It's got vegetables. It's got the

proteins. What else you want? I'm with Paul Leducca. A-Rod is a disgusting snake. Here's one more Paul Liducca about A-Rod lying for years. Pretty well known that him and Derek really didn't get along. And he always thought that he should have been the shortstop and Derek shouldn't have maybe went to third base. And then A-Rod then did his fake thing. I'm saying, oh, I'll be okay at third base. And then he had his one postseason where he did do well, but his other postseason weren't that good.

And for him to come out and talk about scandals, I mean, that's two negatives making no positives. I mean, let's be honest about that. Sounds like he wasn't a big fan of Jeter either, right? No, he's saying A-Rod wasn't a fan of Jeter. Oh, okay. All right. I mean, A-Rod should have been the shortstop over Jeter.

That's a fact. A-Rod is a better shortstop than Jeter was. Man, you really think so? Yeah. Significantly better? Yes. So would Jeter have been a good third basement, or they did it because Jeter was the well-like-old? Jeter was Mr. Yankee, and they weren't going to move him.

Egos. That's why that happened. All right. You've spoken. I don't know the Yankees that want to tell you one way or the other. I just remember Derek Jeter making a couple of great plays in World Series competition. diving for balls, throwing people out. Flipping the ball to get Giambi out.

Yeah. Hey, it's Coach Dan Tony. Step back three and the quarter is good. Matt Thomas, my favorite voice in Houston. Now that's a little exaggerating. Back to the Matt Thomas Show on Sports Talk 790. My wife just sent me a text and said that Governor Abbott has closed all public schools until May 4th. And then she followed it up with a picture of a bottle of wine and a follow-up text.

So can you please go to the liquor store? Okay. I can do all that. When you get your microphone? Yeah, well, you know, we're working on it. Are we? I don't think so. I don't think we're working on it at all.

We've got a team of people on it. No, there's no one. There's no one watching it. May 4th. Oh, my kids. I mean, I love it. May 9th. Matt, it's okay.

I'm sure you have the same sentiment of a lot of parents. I know that my kids' teachers miss their children, their students, and I know that my kids miss their teachers. There's probably some of them the teachers don't miss. Probably not. Probably not. All right, so yeah, May 4th, that's the next deadline. Yeah, okay, that's Star Wars Day. Is it really?

I'm sure Nick will be really excited about that. Oh, the May the 4th, yeah, whatever. By the way, Nathan L-195 says Jeter is one of the worst defensive ranking shortstops of all time. Well, you see, why did you gloss over the first part of that? Sports Harvey is right. I said that. No, you didn't. Let's take a look at his defensive runs say.

Oh, we're going to metrics. Yeah. Okay. Indicates how many runs a player saved or hurt his team in the field compared to the average player at his position. It became a stat in 2003 until his retirement in 2014. Derek Jita post the worst rating among qualified quarantine, qualified shirt stops. Maybe he was quarantined. With staggering minus 152 DRS.

Damn. I didn't watch enough of him to tell you if he was good or not. I mean, I know the Yankees were on TV every day. Yeah. So you're telling me that it was exclusively done because of Jeter being the chosen one. Yes. Mr. Yankee at that point. Okay.

Thanks, Nathan, for that. Not that it matters. Yeah. When I think of Derek Jeter, I think of those great defensive plays in the World Series. And I think about the baseball diamond with all of his conquest. Yeah, I just think of gift baskets. And I think of he's seen Mink and Kelly naked. Yes, he has.

And he's also seen a lot of it. Can you pull up his, the, the, Hit list. The hit list, so to speak. And also, I always have to say when we come bring this up, do not Google Derek Jeter's Herpes Tree. That's just don't do that. Because it's not accurate, correct?

I don't know. I'm just saying, don't do it. But isn't there a diamond of all of his, where you put him in the bag of order? Jessica Alba. Did he have Jessica Beal 2? Yeah. Tyra Banks, Mariah Carey, Scarlett Johansson,

Adrian of Lima. Wait, why is Nicholas Shea on this? list. Maybe those are his conquest, too. What do they call when you share the same? And is throwing an exclach. So he caught it from Jeter through one of these other women? But if that's the greatest... Jessica Alba is one of my all-time.

But Jeter's list is one of the greatest of all times. Adrian Alameda is one of my all times, too. Like Hugh Heffner? I mean, is Hugh Heffner the goat of all it? Remember he was with Hannah Davis for a while? That's his wife. I mean, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. I couldn't remember if you married her or Mika Kelly.

Yeah, Hannah Davis, yes. Was he engaged with Mika Kelly? I don't know, but I just loved her. Still do. Mika Kelly walked in here right now. I go to dinner with her. Yeah, I'd go to dinner with Mika Kelly before I go with A-Rod. Is she still picking up the check?

I just think A-Rod is a bad human being. I just wouldn't want to be around them. I don't disagree with you on that. So I just wouldn't want to be around them. So real fast, we've got a minute left from the show. If Dusty Baker wants to take us to dinner, where we're going? going. We're going to

the Cracker Barrow, correct? You think he wants to use a cracker? I think he might be a Waffle House guy. No, I think more Cracker Barrow.

Okay. Because you get the good down-home service, plenty of sweet tea available to you. Last time we went to Cracker Barrel, the service was terrible.

And then you get to play the little game with the golf teas. I think Dusty Baker would love that. Which, by the way, I conquered in the first try and you did not.

Yes. I had one peg left you finished him off. No, no, if you have one peg left, you won. Oh, like three.

Okay. Well, I don't want to out you like that. So Dusty Baker, we're going to Waffle to Cracker Barrel. Mike Dantone, we're going to an Italian restaurant with lots of wine. Oh, that's a little cliche, Matt. No, it's the truth. I've been to dinner with Mike Dantone. That's all we do is go to Italian restaurants.

Maybe it's because he feels obligated because everybody's pressuring him. Why don't you let the man choose where he wants. No, he chose. He says, let's go eat. What did he wants for some nice French cuisine? Mike Dantone is not coming to me and say, Matt, let's go to Arby's. It's not happening. What if he wants to go to TGI Fridays and get some potato skins?

How about Waffle House with Mike Dan Tony? great. Nope. He's not a Waffle House guy. He's an Italian restaurant with lots of different wine options. And then Bill O'Brien, we're going to a cafeteria. Bill O'Brien? Yeah.

Where would you eat with Bill O'Brien? Like I said, I'm not sure Houston restaurants allow him in the building anymore. Some kind of roadhouse or something. You mean like a... Not like a Texas Roadhouse, right? Nah. Is he going... Ice house. That's what I meant, Ice House.

Oh, okay. So you're like... Like there's... bar food and he's going to get a bucket of Coors light. And they're ordering fried cheese and then they're cooking in the back. Okay. Taco truck and the NRG parking lot. Or maybe a lobster roll place.

He is from Dorchester Mass. I don't know. I'm thinking about this. But the easiest one is Dusty Baker to a Cracker Barrow. That seems like it's unautomatic. Or Lubies. Yeah, Lubies would be good too. It's a little Louan platter.

Yeah, he's thinking the senior citizen dessert's perfect. Just a right amount of sugar. I go over some key lime pie. I think we should go eat right now. I'm hungry. You know what I almost did today, guys? I almost went and got that quarter-pounder photo. Did you almost get like six quarter-pounders?

No, it only did four. It was three doubles, one single, 30 nuggets. 30 nuggets. Okay. There's about 15 times two. Two orders of fries. You want to split one of those? Not right now.

Tomorrow. I'll bring it in tomorrow. Are you just going to walk in and flash the picture and say, I want this? No, I'll go through drive-thru and order it. We've got to get out of here. What do you got in the big show today? Wexer. It's a regular-sized program.

Oh, excuse me. I used to be the big show. It's now just a regular program. It's the a team. You know, it's the A team with Wexler and Clinton. Should be entertaining? Should it be the J team since Joe's in there now, too? It's the A team, don't worry.

Joe's on the program, but it's the A team. It'll be the JAG team. The AJA. Or we can keep it like it is. No, we'll keep it 18. Now, Eric Winston's going to join us today, the former NFLPA president. In studio on the phone. We're not inviting guests up here in the studio.

Yeah, that's not saying. It would be impossible for. three people like there are right now to be six feet apart. We are not social distancing. On that note, we say goodbye. For Aaron Wilson, who joined us at 1230, for Robert Ford. Tomorrow, Joel Corey will be on the program. Just talk about how fat and happy Laramie Tunsell's going to get. A team is up next on 790. Talk to all tomorrow noon.