Does CJ STROUD have the chance to shut up his doubters in the first four games?

Summary

Payne & Pendergast Podcast Summary

Episode: Does CJ STROUD have the chance to shut up his doubters in the first four games?
Date: July 20, 2026
Hosts: Seth Payne, Sean Pendergast
Guest Contributor: Cole Thompson

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Overview

In this episode, Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast, joined by Cole Thompson, dig deep into the outlook for Houston Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud entering the critical first four games of the upcoming NFL season. They explore whether Stroud can silence his doubters—including skeptical fans—by performing well against a daunting early schedule. The hosts also discuss offseason changes to opponents' defenses, fan psychology, the weight of playoff reputations, and the larger context of how quarterbacks are judged in the modern NFL. Later in the episode, the crew shifts to lighter topics—World Cup highlights, summer league standouts, MLB labor drama, and a review of Netflix’s “Quarterback” series.

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C.J. Stroud: Can He Silence Doubters?

[01:35–18:07]

Key Discussion Points

• Schedule as a Proving Ground ([02:29])

  • Texans’ first four opponents: Bills (home), Bengals (home), Colts (away), Cowboys (home).

  • Three of four games at home, all against high-profile teams or divisional rivals.

    “CJ Stroud really has the opportunity to shut EVERYONE… up in the first four weeks of the season.” —Sean Pendergast quoting a fan tweet, [02:29]

• Opponent Defense Improvements ([03:29–04:27])

  • Bengals and Cowboys overhauled poor defenses, making the early games true tests for Stroud and the Texans’ offense.

    “Cincinnati and Dallas had awful, awful, awful defenses... They spent heavily in the off-season to try to fix them.” —Seth Payne, [03:29]

• Which Defense Got Better? ([04:01])

  • Consensus that Bengals’ improvements on the defensive line (adding Dexter Lawrence, Boye Mafe, Jonathan Allen) will pose the toughest challenge.

• Fan Conviction Threshold ([05:01])

  • Sean asks what percentage of the fanbase will be convinced by four good games.

    “If they show up and in a couple of those games have some really impressive offensive performances… I think people will be back on board.” —Seth Payne, [05:01–05:38]

• Skepticism & Recency Bias ([05:48–06:29])

  • Many fans remain in “wait until January” mode, still processing Stroud’s playoff letdown and last year’s “comatose” offense.

  • Strong performances could quickly alter sentiment.

    “If they actually show up and look like an impressive offense, then I think a lot of people flip pretty quickly.” —Seth Payne, [06:29]

• Which Loss Would Fans Tolerate? ([06:57–11:15])

  • Hosts debate which game out of the first four would be the least painful for fans to lose if Texans go 3-1: consensus is, never lose to Cowboys (rivalry, workplace bragging rights) or Colts (division implications). Most would “tolerate” a loss to Cincinnati.

    “The poll is going to be: You’ve got to pick those teams to lose… I think it’ll be Cincinnati. Because you don’t want to lose a division game.” —Sean Pendergast, [09:49–09:58]

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Doubters and Playoff Weight

[11:47–18:07]

• Legacy of Playoff Struggles ([11:47])

  • Warren Moon (via interview) sympathizes, saying postseason failures tend to linger in the narrative but expects Stroud to be motivated.

  • Seth and Sean draw parallels to Peyton Manning’s early career criticisms.

    “People remember very well the last thing he did. And the last thing he did was just an absolutely horrendous performance.” —Seth Payne, [13:03]

• Too Much Criticism?

  • Most agree (including national media) that while some push the “bust” narrative too far, Stroud’s been treated relatively fairly and is in a “wait and see” zone, especially given his rookie success but lack of a total offensive turnaround.

    “By and large, CJ has been treated pretty delicately.” —Seth Payne, [13:38]

  • Texans’ cautious financial approach with Stroud is praised; nobody wants the team to “coddle” him with a premature extension.

    “I don’t need a quarterback to be coddled with hundreds of millions of dollars. No, coddle me with that money!” —Seth Payne, [16:01]

• Rookie vs. Veteran Expectations ([16:36–18:07])

  • Stroud’s rookie numbers were solid (notably low interception percentage), but expectations for years 3–4 have climbed. Defenses now have more film and will challenge his growth more directly.

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"Acknowledge Me": Around the Sports World

[18:07–38:01]

Notable Highlights

• World Cup & Soccer Announcer Rants ([18:07–27:19])

  • Spain’s dominant defense, memorable play-by-plays (especially Spanish-language calls), and a passionate rant from English host Jamie O’Hara about England’s World Cup strategy.
  • Banter on whether foreign announcer flair makes moments more enjoyable or overwrought.

• Fan Experience & Banter ([27:22–28:15])

  • Lighthearted discussion over whether U.S. football fans should “swap” with British fans for games to enhance post-game rants.
  • Cajun comparisons for local flavor.

• Summer League Standouts ([28:23–31:39])

  • Hometown excitement about Bruce Thornton’s summer league performance; tempered expectations given history (e.g., Reed Sheppard last year).

    “He’s an intriguing [prospect]... The encouraging part is, okay, this is found money in a second round pick.” —Seth Payne, [31:16]

• MLB’s Salary Cap Advocacy ([31:54–37:59])

  • MLB running political-style ads for a salary cap; skepticism on how fans are used in these campaigns.

  • Joking as if Rob Manfred is running for office on a competitive-balance platform.

    “It’s wild... It’d be like if they, if they interview some person on the street and... you show up in an ad for like gun control.” —Seth Payne, [32:44]

Astros, Pitcher of the Month Curses ([36:18–37:55])

• Shout-out to Peter Lambert’s breakout July and the “curse” of MLB accolades leading to player slumps.
• Cautious optimism about unlikely contributors but skepticism about management’s ability to repeat the find.

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Review: Netflix’s "Quarterback" Series

[38:10–47:46]

Stock Up/Stock Down: QB Personalities ([39:00–47:46])

• Baker Mayfield

  • Big “stock up” from all hosts; seen as more mature, likable after setbacks and humble moments.

    “I really like Baker Mayfield a lot. I’ve not liked him before.” —Sean Pendergast, [40:53]

• Jaden Daniels

  • “Stock steady.” Not especially charismatic; “boring” in presentation, indoor sunglasses get roasted.

    “I don’t want my quarterbacks to be a wear-shades-indoors guy like Jaden Daniels was at the draft.” —Sean Pendergast, [43:17]

• Cam Ward

  • Coaches’ dream: first in, last out, ultra-serious, “appropriate grumpiness.” Noted for his competitiveness even in casual settings.

    “He feels like he’s got the appropriate amount of grumpiness... I like Cam Ward a lot.” —Seth Payne, [45:00, 45:22]

• Joe Flacco

  • Love for “blue-collar” post-prime Flacco, quirks like never driving his Super Bowl MVP Corvette, giving Shador Sanders visor advice.

    “I already liked Flacco to begin with. This—I like Flacco so much more in this second phase of his career.” —Sean Pendergast, [46:50]

• General Take

  • Positive view of “Quarterback” as a humanizing window into NFL lives—except Mahomes (“came off egotistical”) and Marcus Mariota (“quit on his team”).

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Memorable Quotes

• On Stroud’s Opportunity:
  “CJ Stroud really has the opportunity to shut EVERYONE… up in the first four weeks of the season.” —Sean Pendergast, [02:29]

• On Fan Skepticism:
  “If they actually show up and look like an impressive offense, then I think a lot of people flip pretty quickly.” —Seth Payne, [06:29]

• On Quarterback Criticism:
  “By and large, CJ has been treated pretty delicately.” —Seth Payne, [13:38]

• On Not Prematurely Paying QBs:
  “I don’t need a quarterback to be coddled with hundreds of millions of dollars. No, coddle me with that money!” —Seth Payne, [16:01]

• On World Cup English Rant:
  “Same old England, same old crap.” —Jamie O’Hara (quoted), [26:50]

• On Baker Mayfield’s Growth:
  “He’s been served some humble pie... I really like Baker Mayfield a lot.” —Sean Pendergast, [41:13, 40:53]

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Timestamps: Key Segments

• Texans’ Schedule & Stroud’s Big Test: [01:35–06:57]
• Which Loss Is Tolerable for Fans: [06:57–11:15]
• Playoff Narrative & Stroud’s Treatment: [11:47–18:07]
• World Cup & Fan Rants: [18:07–28:15]
• NBA Summer League Standouts: [28:23–31:39]
• MLB Salary Cap Ad Discussion: [31:54–37:59]
• Astros & Pitcher of the Month Curse: [36:18–37:55]
• Netflix “Quarterback” Reviews: [38:10–47:46]

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Tone & Language

The episode is high-energy, casual, and features the signature blend of sports expertise with irreverent banter. The hosts needle each other frequently, riff on fan sentiment, and pepper the conversation with pop culture references and offbeat analogies—all in a style that’s both sharp and approachable for Houston sports fans.

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Takeaway

This episode provides a comprehensive fan’s-eye view of the pressure on C.J. Stroud heading into a season-defining stretch—with sincere hopes, pragmatic concerns, and plenty of Houston-style camaraderie. For listeners looking to understand both the stakes and the mindset of Houston’s sports community, it’s a pitch-perfect primer as football season looms.

Transcript

[Seth Payne]

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[Seth Payne]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Seth Payne]

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[Cole Thompson]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Seth Payne]

The Texans play here.

[Sean Pendergast]

Sports Radio 610 presents Pain and Pendergast. A lot of people weighing in on the Astros. We'll circle back to the Astros. Don't worry, they don't escape unscathed today. If you missed it, we talked about them in the first hour of the show. Sean Pendergast, Seth Payne with you. Cole Thompson in with us again today, hanging out. So I saw this tweet, actually saw this tweet because djbnime replied to it. DJ who covers the Texans for ESPN.com

[Seth Payne]

DJ mixes it up on social media.

[Sean Pendergast]

He does, he does. It's good. And, and he'll comment, tweet things from people who ask him questions. And sometimes people ask good questions. And I think this is an interesting one because it's a good gauge. You know, the conversation at least is a gauge for where people are at with CJ Stroud right now, who by the way has yet to show up in the NFL's top 100 player 60 gets revealed today. I'm starting to think that they're not going to get CJ or Kaylin Bullock or Kamari Lasseter or Jalen Petrie in this thing.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So anyways, so CJ Stroud, a person by the name of the Nashan J. On Twitter said this, posted a screen grab of the Texans first four games of the year. Bills here at Reliant Stadium, Bengals here at Reliant Stadium, travel to Indy to play the Colts, and then they face the Cowboys here at Reliant Stadium again. So three of the Texans first four games are at home. Those are all, I would say, between the fact that the Colts are in the division, the Cowboys are the Cowboys, and the other two teams have marquee quarterbacks. These are all big proving grounds, I think potentially for both the Texans as a team, but definitely CJ Stroud as a quarterback. This Nayshaan J on Twitter says CJ Stroud really has the opportunity to shut everyone, everyone, all caps, including some Texan fans in parentheses up. Shut them up in the first four weeks of the season.

[Seth Payne]

I think the really interesting thing about those teams too is that it was Cincinnati and Dallas especially, but also the Colts. But Cincinnati and Dallas had awful, awful, awful defenses. Just atrocious defenses.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

They spent heavily in the off season to try to fix them. And what exactly does C.J. in this offense? What are they able to do against those defenses or are whether they're good or bad. But there's a chance at least one of those defense is probably still not going to be all that high.

[Cole Thompson]

Let me ask you, which one do you think is going to be more improved, Cincinnati or Dallas?

[Seth Payne]

I think Cincinnati, I think because Cincinnati attacked like they attacked the both the front and the secondary, but they did it on the defensive line the way that I think is going to stick. They, the Bengals have questions about their linebackers and they're kind of just hoping that, okay, the linebackers are going to play better because they got a better defensive line in front of them.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, well, they, they definitely made the marquee pickup out of those two teams with Dexter Lawrence.

[Cole Thompson]

Sexy Dixie.

[Commercial Announcer]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

With Dexter Lawrence there.

[Seth Payne]

So I wonder the thing about the Bengals, honestly, like it's, it's Boy Mafe too, which the Texans didn't do a great job with like Seattle's defensive line last year and Jonathan Allen, like so like those, those big, strong, physical dudes that the offensive line struggled with last year, that's exactly what the Bengals went out and got.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do you agree with this that CJ has a chance to shut up his doubters.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, he will be playing a football game versus those teams. Like a chance. Like a chance to shut them up is like. Yeah, you could say that. Whether he's going to do it well or not. Like.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, let me, let me rephrase it then.

[Seth Payne]

Do I think he will do well?

[Sean Pendergast]

Not just do you think he will, but what percentage of the fan base would be convinced if he goes out and has four good games in the first four weeks that C.J. stroud is the guy?

[Seth Payne]

I think that that's the better place. Look, we're not a James Harden situation where with the Rockets for years it would be okay. Well, look, they're going to be great in the regular season and let's wait and see what happens in the playoffs. Like CJ's. CJ's playoff history and career has not been what he looked like this year. So I think that a lot of it is going to be like at no point last year in the first three games did they look like they had a good or powerful offense. If they show up and in a couple of those games have some really impressive offensive performances. Yeah, I think people will be back on board.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I just, I think there's a big part of the fanbase and they seem to all text in when we do segments like this.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

That are like, you know, wait with cj, like wake me up in January.

[Seth Payne]

I don't know though. That's because that's the last thing you saw. I think that you kind of forget some of the really impressive things that he did do in spells last year and that it is in him. That's what's so frustrating about him is that that's very much there. I just don't, I don't. I think that there's. If we could identify everybody who says wake me up in January. I think they're forgetting that the offense looked comatose in general all of last year. So other than, you know, the Ravens when they had their JV squad out there, the 49ers, when they had their JV squad out there, they had some impressive games, but by and large it wasn't an impressive offense. If they actually show up and look like an impressive offense, then I think a lot of people flip pretty quickly.

[Cole Thompson]

I just think you want hopefully that he has finally turned the corner he's built bought into Nick Caylee system and that everything is moving according to plan. Like if you go three and one in that stretch and let's just say it's Josh Allen and He balls on out, which he never does against Houston. So it's like maybe Dallas in that sense, but you still are 3 and 1 and you get a good 6 to 1 touchdown to interception ratio. He may only throw for like 220 yards per game, but still it's at least continuity and consistency.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Which of those games they go three and one in those first four games? Which of the games? If you could pick one of those games, you get handed a piece of paper. It says the Texans are going to go three and one in these first four games, but you get to pick which game they lose. Buffalo at home, Cincinnati at home, Colts on the road, Dallas at home. I would guess the Colts would be the least one I would want them to lose. A, because I think the Colts are the worst of those four teams, so that would make me feel bad. And two, it's a division game, so it means more. So the other three means you're losing one of those games, a home game. It's going to. All three of those other games are at home.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, they're at home. Okay. So emotionally, yes, I don't.

[Sean Pendergast]

I can't lose the opener.

[Seth Payne]

Emotionally. I can't lose the opener.

[Sean Pendergast]

I can't lose the opener.

[Seth Payne]

Just in terms of what it means about the football team in general, I think the Bengals are the. Is the game that I wouldn't want to lose because. All right, you've got. All the things that you built on the offense this off season were to address the types of situ. The types of issues that the Bengals defense might present given that they're revamped and they were awful last year, but they got. They brought in three new stud defensive linemen, including a mammoth nose tackle. That is hell for interior offensive linemen. Like, if the. If they can't do anything against that defense, I'm going to be really, really concerned if they do something versus that defense and they look like the more physical. If the offensive line looks as physical or more physical in the defensive line, I'll be excited about that. And then likewise, if the defense has a letdown against Joe Burrow at home, I'm going to be. I'll be upset about that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so that means they're losing to the Cowboys.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, that's all right. They can have nice things every now and then.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm okay losing to Cincinnati and I think maybe it's only because of. I am a lot higher on Cincinnati than most. I liked a lot of the moves they made in the offseason, and I think if you Get a healthy Joe Burrow. You are talking about a guy that goes for 4,500 passing yards, two elite wide receivers, a solid run game. I think it's a better offensive line. I can't lose to Dallas. I still don't buy into Dallas's defense. And I think if you're talking about wide receiver play, there's not a drop off between Jamar Chase and T. Higgins to George Pickens and CD Lamb. So it's like, I'm okay with losing to Cincinnati and having a faulty game if I get to go on out and shut up. Dak Prescott Co.

[Sean Pendergast]

The question is, do I pender poll this one? This is made for a Twitter poll, right? We got four choices.

[Cole Thompson]

Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm going to pender poll this.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who do you think wins?

[Seth Payne]

I think Dallas.

[Sean Pendergast]

Dallas. I think people. You think people would be.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, because, you know, we always have to remember that we have people who listen, who have to work with Dallas fans. And that's where you and I sometimes are detached from. We don't realize the struggle sometimes of what it's like to have to. To work with usually some kind of illiterate dude who's not.

[Sean Pendergast]

The poll is going to be. You got to pick. The poll is going to be. You got to pick those teams to lose.

[Seth Payne]

To lose. All right, so it won't be Dallas.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah. I think it'll be Cincinnati.

[Seth Payne]

Cincinnati.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think it'll be Cincinnati. Because you don't want to lose a

[Seth Payne]

division because then you're one and one also, so it's okay. That means that you would have beat Buffalo.

[Sean Pendergast]

And if you lose, if you lose to Cincinnati, the interesting thing would be you lose to Cincinnati. What will the narratives be if you lose to Cincinnati? You know, like 35 to 31 or something like that. We've not seen this. This defense get, you know, get it put on him by anybody.

[Cole Thompson]

But does it also slip on over to the offense being so high functioning that maybe you're okay with having a bad defensive performance?

[Sean Pendergast]

Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. And obviously there's a lot of nuance that comes with any of this. Like, why did it happen that way? You know, just a few big plays.

[Seth Payne]

When I was going through the exercise in my mind, I was. That I was thinking I'd be okay with losing to Indianapolis, but did I eliminate that? No, you said that you kind of forced Dallas. No, no, no.

[Sean Pendergast]

I was actually gonna say. Yeah, I kind of phrased it in a way where I was. I thought you might say, like, actually I'd be Indianapolis I' probably should have said very clearly. I'm the one saying I don't want to lose a division game. Yeah, yeah, you would be okay.

[Seth Payne]

I'd be okay with losing it, any of that, because I always throw in there when I'm doing my preseason. I always figure, okay, no matter how good you are, you're going to. You're going to. You split with one of your divisional opponents and that just. It works out.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's fun being three and, oh, at home, too.

[Cole Thompson]

Textile seems pretty split right now. Emotionally. Losing to the Cowboys is not a good option, but the big picture and NFC game is the easy choice. Losing over Buffalo or Cincinnati. Two other people are saying I'd be okay going 3 and 1 and losing to Cincinnati. Can't lose the Cowboys.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, that's. There's two things that work. There's the pragmatic, just standings. Hey, this game makes the most sense to lose. And then there's the part that Seth talked about where you've got to go into work and face off of the idiot Cowboy fans that you work with. Yeah. Warren Moon was on Yesterday Afternoon with Zach Gelb and Brandon Scott. If you haven't been listening on the weekends, we got weekend radio, local radio going on here on the weekends. On Sports Radio 6 10, they had Warren Moon on yesterday. And speaking of C.J. stroud, he thinks the criticism of C.J. stroud has gone a little too far.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I think. I think it has gone a little bit too far. I think whenever a quarterback doesn't play well in the playoffs, that's the last thing you see. So that's going to stay on your mind, you know, a little bit longer, and it's just going to fester like that. But I'm sure C.J. more than anybody else wants to get this season going again because he knows he didn't play his great best football in the playoffs last year, and his numbers have probably been down the last couple of years since when he first came in the league. So he's anxious to redeem himself and get back out there on the field and show the type of quarterback that he really is.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, well, I mean, Warren's been in those shoes before. You know, Warren. That was the criticism of Warren Moon is he never got the Oilers deep into the postseason ever, you know.

[Seth Payne]

No, I think the. Has it gone too far? I think it's. I don't think it's unfair when you play as badly as he did in the playoffs. But I think it's also important to remember that there were quarterbacks who had better regular seasons than CJ Straight Stroud early in their careers who faced the same scrutiny like Peyton Manning. It was a. Young people would be shocked to know that the, the narrative on Peyton Manning was that he's just awful in the playoffs and he was never going to. He was never going to win the big one because he's just not that guy, you know? And then over time, he figured it out and it's. But he was, he. He did have much better regular seasons and more impressive regular seasons than C.J. stroud's had the last couple years. Yeah, it's. People remember very well the last thing he did. And the last thing he did was just an absolutely horrendous performance.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. I. Has a criticism gone too far for C.J. stroud. I like, I don't know. To me, the criticism that goes too far. The people who are like, he's, he's a, he's a bum. He's a bust. He sucks. They need to move on now from C.J. stroud. Like, that's, that's, that's, that's one where you gotta, you gotta look at how the other half lives.

[Cole Thompson]

Let's talk Davis Mills 2.0 Resurgence. That's, that's where we are.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that's right.

[Seth Payne]

Well, that's where I guess when people ask, is the criticism gone too far? I just, I'm struggling to remember. I'm 51 years old. It's not like, it's not like when I was a kid, I used to sit around at the barbecue and my dad and his buddies were just saying, like, hey, you know what? We just need to give Joe Ferguson a few more years. You know what? I think he's going to turn. He's going to figure it out at some point. No, that's just life of the quarter now. The criticism hasn't gone too far. By and large, CJ has been treated pretty delicately. There's a few clips out there, like in. Yes. In the white hot heat afterwards, people were lambasting him in the national media. For me, it seems like in the national media, by and large, there's a whole lot of like, well, let's wait and see if the Texans have a good rushing attack, if they can fix the offensive line. This is the year we'll figure out what we have with CJ Stroud.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. The extreme degree to which they've tried to revamp that side of the ball.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Has I think, turned. I think that's become more the topic than not more the topic than CJ But I think it's kind of softened everybody. It's given everybody more of a wait and see with CJ Than they had at the end of that New England game where they're ready to flush him down the toilet, I would say.

[Seth Payne]

I think the inspiration level is very low, though, in terms of how many. How many people feel like they're ready to be inspired by CJ Stroud. People are in very much wait and

[Sean Pendergast]

see mode, including the Texans, it would appear.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

They didn't just throw a lot of cash at him. Right. Think. And it's. Which is the smart move now. There could still be. Who knows, if there's an announcement out of nowhere that they've come to an extent. I think. I think if there was news that. I think if there was news that they had extended C.J. stroud, if you took a poll, if you did a Pender poll immediately afterwards, before anybody had any details, I think people would be down on that.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think. So.

[Seth Payne]

The majority would be down.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think it would be. I think I. If I did. Three choices for that. Are you. Do you approve, do you not approve? Or do you need to see the details of the contract? Because there will be people that'll approve or disapprove regardless of what the numbers are. Does just feel philosophically we need to lock in with him, or philosophically, just. I'm out on him, regardless of the dollar, even if it's a cheap deal. I'm out for some people, me included. I would. I would almost be. I. My stock on CJ Would go down almost if he signed a cheapo deal.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you the one thing. I have zero appetite for it. And this is. I was. I'm still shocked when I think about this, that Tom Coughlin did this when they traded for Nick Foles, remember, and they had no reason to give him a new contract. But Tom Coughlin was the team president at the time. They gave him a big contract. And the explanation was, you know, you need to be sure everybody in the locker room respects him. Like, all right, you know what? Like, it was weird, this notion that somehow, oh, he's this delicate artist and a quarterback has to have the support of the team and everything. No, you want guys who are bloodthirsty killers, and if you get a chip on your shoulder and you got to earn that contract and you go do it. I don't need. I don't need a quarterback to be coddled with hundreds of millions of dollars. No, coddle me with that money lessens

[Cole Thompson]

you, in my opinion, coddling you at this point, especially when you haven't proven to a certain degree of what's your ceiling. Because I think that we all are sitting here wanting to get back to 2023, CJ, but if also we got to remind ourselves 2023 CJ was a rookie. Are those numbers that you want to see in a fourth year veteran?

[Seth Payne]

Oh, right. Well, yeah, the sum total of how that season went, I think that's what people sometimes forget. It wasn't actually a good offense in 2023. No, it was an impressive, it was a really impressive rookie performance. But the offense was not a good offense.

[Cole Thompson]

No, it was mediocre.

[Seth Payne]

It got to, it got to be respectable.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, but you're just talking about CJ's numbers. Yeah, he did lead the league in passing yards per game and he had. I, you know what number I will take from his rookie year? His interception rate down to five. He led the league in interception percentage. So I think there's, there are some aspects of that rook season that if he, if he just replicated that forever,

[Cole Thompson]

totally cool with, but need more than 23 touchdowns.

[Seth Payne]

Well, the problem, the problem with the rookie year performance though too was, and this is what you see when guys burst down the scene was that when I bring up the offense, there are things that man, defense is going to let CJ there, there's like a lack of respect that as a defense, I think you go in and you almost look at this rookie and you think, well, he's not going to do that to us. And defensive coordinators don't, don't account for what a guy can do. And then you get an entire offseason to look at it and teams realize, okay, well, they've got a really impressive deep ball, but they can't run the ball. And they just, they just squelched everything. And that's when the real test for CJ came, is, all right, how do you operate when they're taking away what you do?

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, we'll see, man. It's training camp is nine days away. First practice is a week from Wednesday this week. All right, let's get to Acknowledge Me. Let's acknowledge some big performances from over the weekend, last couple of weeks. In case of the World Cup, I will say a name and Byron Matthews, who's our producer today, will hit Roman Reigns saying acknowledge Me. If you got some acknowledgments you want, you want to text in, you can do that. 713-57-24-610. I'm gonna acknowledge first, in general, the World Cup. It's now over. And let's acknowledge Spain for becoming the team to allow the least amount of goals in a run to a World cup championship. They allowed one goal in the entire World Cup. Spain. Did they beat Argentina 1 nothing yesterday. I'll get to some general thoughts on the World Cup. You know what I want to acknowledge also? Byron Seth Payne, winning the pool. The Sports Radio 610 World Cup.

[Seth Payne]

Not a lot's gone right for me in the past 20 or 30 years, but this feels like it might be the. It might be the. Winning a pool turnaround.

[Sean Pendergast]

No discernible prize.

[Seth Payne]

Cole, since you're our hockey expert here in the studio, what's a. Well, Sean, you might be too. Sorry, you're both smarter about hockey than I am.

[Sean Pendergast]

Not to Cole's.

[Seth Payne]

What's the. What's the difference between like a soccer goalie and an NHL goalie in terms of value to your team?

[Cole Thompson]

The size of the net, Number one, you got to be a lot more quicker and agile.

[Seth Payne]

No, I'm talking about like the actual effectiveness like an NHL goal. Like having an awesome goalie is just for small supplier. Yeah, like soccer is not that level, but still, like, way more important than

[Cole Thompson]

I would say so. I mean, you had Martinez yesterday for Argentina, set a world record in the cup of saves and yet still loses because of one bad play.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, he was amazing.

[Seth Payne]

Did you think I was asking what's the difference between a goal, like an actual soccer goal and an NHL goal?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, it's like.

[Seth Payne]

It's a much larger net size, dimensions.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's not that much of a hockey game, Seth.

[Seth Payne]

In hockey, they wear ice skates because they're on ice.

[Cole Thompson]

I don't know if you know this. There's five players on there, not 11.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, can I just.

[Seth Payne]

I know.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is. Acknowledge Me where we're highlighting the positive. Oftentimes in any sport, it's fun to play the non English speaking version of scoring. Play like, I love playing. Like, you know, here is the Bolivian call on the home run to win the World Series. That kind of thing. This was the. You would think this would be a pretty basic one. This is the Telemundo call of Ferran Torres game winning goal in extra time yesterday.

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Seth Payne]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Cole Thompson]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Cole Thompson]

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[Seth Payne]

the Powers that Be new episodes every weekday. Follow the Powers that Be wherever you get your podcasts.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so you said girl, he's doing it again. Okay so just for sake of time. Yeah, he went on to do that one more time after that. That clip is actually the one I gave Byron is 57 seconds long. Yeah and it's just him basically saying goal for as long as he can. Can I just say this and I again, I love non English speaking calls of sports highlights. I feel like foreign announcers have this especially Spanish speaking soccer announcers have an extra level of energy. I even tweeted during when I was on vacation watching the World Cup, I watched some of the games on Telemundo without knowing a single word of Spanish just because their energy level the whole game, every pass in the midfield is a big deal. The whole thing of just saying goal for as long as you can without taking a breath. A little overrated.

[Seth Payne]

I gotta. Well I'm gonna hop across the hall to Mega during the break and Ask them if there are some soccer fans who are like, yeah, can we count it? Can we. Can it. With the really, really extended long one.

[Sean Pendergast]

Really long one. I didn't even play the longest one.

[Seth Payne]

I don't know. The whole thing about soccer, though, is you got so much time. Like if a goal happens in the middle of a game or something, you're gonna have 15 minutes to talk about it before the next goal. So I think it's just the elation and the celebration in the moment. It's not like you gotta get. You gotta get immediately into the breakdown before the next goal is score, have

[Sean Pendergast]

some material ready to go. Because just going go for as long as you can. At least me, the gringo that I am, it's a little boring, I think.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, good.

[Cole Thompson]

No, so. So Andres Cantor was the guy who

[Seth Payne]

was on the call.

[Cole Thompson]

He's made that iconic throughout the year. So much so that he's even doing commercials now. There's one of him with a Coors Light where he is saying, cool.

[Sean Pendergast]

So that's his deal.

[Cole Thompson]

It's like a whole bit with him.

[Sean Pendergast]

So every. So every time I hear that, it's probably him.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm just Kantor.

[Seth Payne]

Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right. You know what? I'll get to biggest casual fan memories from the World cup later in the show. Needless to say, there are several. We'll get to that a little bit later. One more World Cup. Acknowledge me, Jamie. Ol. Let me say his name. Byron. Damn it. Jamie o'. Hara. He is the co host of a show called the Sports Bar on Talksport in England. He's a former professional soccer player. Had a phenomenal rant at the end of last week that came down after we had gone off the air or at least after I'd seen it. I think transcribed this rant would be like an 8 1/2 out of 10. Now, keep in mind, they cover the English soccer team, British soccer team, who lost to Messi and Argentina in the semifinals. And apparently the coach for England was getting skewered for some of his substituting decisions, including by Jamie O'. Hara. This is an 8 1/2 out of 10. If I were to just read it, this is like a 12 out of 10. When you apply a foreign accent to it, to me, you can almost accept it. I know you're playing against Argentina. You can't sit off for 25 minutes against Argentina. He absolutely bottled it. Thomas Tuchel's cost us the World Cup.

[Seth Payne]

He cost us the World Cup.

[Sean Pendergast]

We're one nil up. Played well. First off, all right, KG affair. We go one nil up. Be brave. Be brave, Thomas. This is what we brought you in for. We brought you in for this moment. We got rid of Southgate because he bottled it because he weren't brave. We brought you in for now to make that decision. We're one nil up in a World cup semi final. Bring on Rashford. Bring on Saka. And if they score, they score. But at least we're gonna go down fighting. At least we're gonna go down with some pride. We fell out of the World cup in disgrace because of him. Because of him. And we brought him in for this job. This is what we brought him in for, to get us over this line. And it's the same old England, same old crap. Okay, so we're good.

[Seth Payne]

Same old shop, same old crap, Worthless blokes.

[Sean Pendergast]

Are you with me on this?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Well, that's a whole problem when I'm watching Netflix shows. I'm. Sometimes I'm like, these are. These English actors are either incredible actors or I'm just being fooled by their. By their accent. I never know. I'm like, I don't know if they're actually good or not. I feel like every single one of them is the best actor I've ever seen on some of these.

[Sean Pendergast]

Netflixing that rant like, it was revolutionary and it was really good.

[Seth Payne]

Is he saying bottled it up?

[Sean Pendergast]

Bottled up?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, it bottled it up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Balled it up.

[Seth Payne]

There's a KGFA fair you want to.

[Cole Thompson]

Who I think is gonna be the closest to this in the American style. Anytime Lane Kiffin loses a game out at lsu and you have the Cajun people. The Cajun people.

[Sean Pendergast]

Because that's a good call.

[Cole Thompson]

Because the thing is, is, like, they brought in Lane Kiffin to get them over the hump.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Just like they brought in this English manager to put them on top.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

So you're gonna be cursing him out like crazy, and you're gonna have the Cajun accent, which makes it ten times better.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I want to bring in English people to complain about.

[Sean Pendergast]

I was thinking the same thing. Let's do a little fan swap.

[Seth Payne]

Can we flip it, though?

[Cole Thompson]

The cages can play.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, no, it's fan swap. You know, we're gonna do it. It's like a show where they swap. They swap wives to see how the

[Seth Payne]

LSU lads do this weekend. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Should I be railing on the post game show for the Texans in a British accent this year? Because Boston, you bought it. Affair with the Colts.

[Seth Payne]

You should do it if it's. If Things really turn south. Yeah. Just start making something. Yeah, yeah. We're going to do English today. We'll do Scottish tomorrow.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right. Seth's not going to like this one, but I'm going to do it anyways because I'm jumping the gun big time. Bruce Thornton. Hell, yeah. I saw, Seth, that when I was out last week, a couple of days that you and Luke did your own version of the ESPY awards.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And I saw that a couple of them. I had no problem with this.

[Seth Payne]

Were.

[Sean Pendergast]

I got mentioned in a couple of them that were tangentially attached to Mike Burroughs for some reason.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. I think one of them was like the take your regret or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

It was good. So seeing that I want to. Mike Burroughs related Payne and Morrow ESPYs, I go into this with a little bit of trepidation, but I'm going to give the Mike Burroughs Award to Bruce Thornton for the athlete who's exciting me way too much for preseason or summer league performance.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know that's my thing.

[Seth Payne]

I know, I know. No, but you can't take it away from Bruce Thornton. Had a very encouraging summer league.

[Sean Pendergast]

19 points a game, four rebounds, four assists, just one point. Six turnovers, a couple of steals, shot 40% from three. Experienced guy coming out of Ohio State. Played more games for Ohio State than any player, any human in the history.

[Seth Payne]

No, no, no. I'm totally cool with being excited about him. He's also. I mean, you have to acknowledge that he's listed as six foot tall.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And he's a bear. Right, right. But like, well, what am I going to. You can't. You can't downgrade a guy because he played really, really well. So it's. He's an intriguing.

[Sean Pendergast]

But you're not going to do the same thing that you did with Bur. You said, hey, man, it's spring training. No, hey, man, it's the summer. Is what I was expecting you to say.

[Seth Payne]

Baked in. It's not like a prediction of greatness or anything because he had a really good summary.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm not predicting the same level of Bruce, you were like.

[Seth Payne]

When I questioned Araghetti not being in the six man rotation or in the five man rotation beginning of the year, you were like. You're like, what's that?

[Sean Pendergast]

I said, here it comes.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah. You're like, did you see my burrow spring training number?

[Sean Pendergast]

Exactly. Exactly how I sounded.

[Cole Thompson]

Two plays devil advocate. I was with shit shot on this one. I was all Mike Burroughs.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Everything.

[Cole Thompson]

Cy Young Award winner Now, let me

[Seth Payne]

put it this way, because it usually ends up being like 13 innings of work, like the equivalent of a good game.

[Sean Pendergast]

Very tantalizing.

[Cole Thompson]

We would learn here. But let me throw it this way. Remember how excited we were with Reed Shepard after summer ball?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I do.

[Seth Payne]

Except the Reed shepherd tailed off a little bit more. But yes, but, yes, yes.

[Cole Thompson]

Did we learn from that or are we still back on the wagon of Bruce Thornton? Can't wait to watch you win Rookie of the Year.

[Seth Payne]

I think that with. With Reed Shepherd, I think it was people still understood what his weaknesses were going to be, and I think they got excited about, you know, kind of being able to plug him in and use him to the best of his abilities. Where this year it became. Because everything was botched. I'm still like, I don't think Thornton

[Sean Pendergast]

gets on the floor very much to start seizure. He picked up. They picked up Marcus Smart.

[Seth Payne]

I think the biggest thing about Thornton is he's a second round pick.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that's a. That's.

[Seth Payne]

That's the encouraging part about it is, okay, this is found money in a second round pick. If he ends up providing value of any sort.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's exactly what I was going to say. Like, Bruce Thornton's not going to show up at the top of the odds board for Rookie of the year like Reed shepherd did after. After summer league last year, because Reed was a third overall pick in the draft.

[Cole Thompson]

Out of curiosity, was he drafted during a Taco Bell commercial? Because if so, then he's turning into the next Nikola Jokic.

[Sean Pendergast]

What are you talking about?

[Cole Thompson]

When Nikola Jokic got drafted, there was a Taco Bell commercial that flashed across the screen because it was a second round pick.

[Commercial Announcer]

Oh.

[Cole Thompson]

And so every time that I wait to see like a food commercial, I'm like, that's going to be the next Nicola Yoko.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, really?

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I never heard that story.

[Seth Payne]

Should we acknowledge the MLB salary cap ads?

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, you want to do that right here? Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. Yeah, go ahead.

[Seth Payne]

If anybody's noticed over the last week or so, dude, Major League Baseball is running ads for the salary school.

[Cole Thompson]

No, I have.

[Seth Payne]

It's so weird. They interview these players. They interview fans who are talking about how they think a salary cap would be a good thing. And it's a. It's Major League Baseball trying to win the war of public opinion on the upcoming labor brawl that they're gonna have with the players.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's wild.

[Seth Payne]

I don't know if I've ever seen anything like it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do you think they told it it's

[Seth Payne]

like a political action committee type thing.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's wild. Do you think they told those people that? What? Why they were being interviewed at the ballpark.

[Seth Payne]

Waiver of some sort. But I want to.

[Sean Pendergast]

You might wind up on what amounts to a baseball political ad. It is.

[Seth Payne]

It'd be like if they were. You know what it's like if they, if they interview some person on the street and ask a vague question about guns and then all of a sudden like, it's either you're like, you show up in an ad for like gun control, even though you might be a gun owner yourself or something. Wait a second, wait a second. They asked me seven questions about baseball. One of them was about the salary cap. And all of a sudden here I

[Sean Pendergast]

am, I'm just picturing these.

[Seth Payne]

I'm like.

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[Seth Payne]

The Second World War was the largest event in human history.

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[Sean Pendergast]

My boss asked for results. So I opened my dashboard for the only positive sounding metric I had. Impressions.

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[Sean Pendergast]

apply very heavily like towards like I'm Rob Manfred and I approve this message.

[Cole Thompson]

Right?

[Sean Pendergast]

And then, and then like this voice guy going, Andrew Friedman of the Dodgers thinks there should be no salary cap. He doesn't want competitive baseball. You know who wants competitive baseball? Rob Manfred wants competitive baseball. I'm Rob Manfred.

[Cole Thompson]

Prove this message.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, man. Jose Altuve refused is to stand up for the fans. Yeah, well, Rob Manfred isn't afraid, you know, to care about, you know who

[Sean Pendergast]

blew the lid off the competitive balance tax? Kyle Tucker. Oh my God.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm Rob Manfred.

[Sean Pendergast]

I thought the same thing yesterday. I'm like what am I watching? What am I watching right now? All right. Pain and pander gas. Cole Thompson in with us. All right, one more Cole. You had one.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Just give a shout out to and let's acknowledge Peter Lambert. Come on. This was a guy who was DFA'd, shown the door. Could have gone anywhere else and said I'll take the minor league assignment. Where would this team be right now without Peter Lambert?

[Sean Pendergast]

They might be out of the playoffs without Peter Lambert. Oh wait.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh wait, timeout. They might be now selling completely.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, no, they'd be. I get what you're saying.

[Seth Payne]

Might have ruined this franchise for upcoming couple.

[Sean Pendergast]

We might have 10 new prospects. Peter Lambert hasn't shown up but like

[Cole Thompson]

he's been so good in the month of July. He's got a 20 record. Should be 30 because Brian King crapped the Ben on in the eighth inning on Friday. This month alone he's got a 1.02 ERA in 17.2 innings pitch. Only giving up nine hits, 23 strikeouts. Yeah, five walks and a 0.79 WHIP.

[Sean Pendergast]

Seth knows I love those strikeouts, man. It's one thing to have the two point whatever.

[Seth Payne]

That's why you love Cam Smith so much.

[Sean Pendergast]

If he's doing the ex wobble. Not those strikeouts, the other strikeouts.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm begging for Major League baseball voters to not name him AL pitcher of the month. The last time we saw this it was Spencer Arrogant.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, the only two times the Astros this. I say only two. There's only been like six of these awards handed out, but Jordan went into an awful slump after he got player the month.

[Cole Thompson]

I say the second that you get accolades from the Major League Baseball, you immediately go into the crap.

[Sean Pendergast]

You're an astro. You do, at least.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Like Lambert. The only thing I worry about is that Dana goes into Jim Crane's office. Look, one out of seven guys that we signed this off season is. Is actually producing. So we just need to trade for seven more guys.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, my God.

[Cole Thompson]

Peter Joseph Lamberts, as OJ Would like to put it.

[Seth Payne]

Volume shooters.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

All right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Pain and Pendergast. Cole Thompson in with us. That was acknowledged me. We do it each and every Monday at 7:20. All right, coming up next.

[Cole Thompson]

All right.

[Sean Pendergast]

I watched the first three episodes of Quarterback from this weekend. I'm not going to do my breakdown of all my notes from it. I just, as I said last week, I tend to come away liking these guys more after watching this show. What is my stock price? And I'm curious. Obviously Seth and Cole as well. Cole, did you watch any of it this weekend?

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, yeah. I'm all caught up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, cool. See, I'm. I'm only three in, but I already feel the way it's going on. All four quarterbacks. One in particular I was having visions of as a Texan fan. We'll do that.

[Seth Payne]

Coming up, West Point Lincoln and West

[Sean Pendergast]

Point Lincoln of Sugarland Studios. Here's Pain and Pendergast. I don't listen around the dial enough to know how big a fan other shows are of the show. The Netflix quarterback documentary. You and I both like it.

[Seth Payne]

I like it. Yeah. It's. Well, it's perfect for this time of year.

[Sean Pendergast]

It is.

[Seth Payne]

You're waiting for training camp to begin. And you also get to know some of these quarterbacks, some of whom you used to despise. Some of them you. That you learned to despise. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And I. I like this. This show. The. It's seven episodes. I'm three episodes in, and all we're going to do here is just so we stock up or stock down on liking these guys. Yeah, we'll do that in a second. But I. I like that these are all stories of guys having to overcome something. The Mahomes season was annoying because all it was was just this is how awesome it is to be Patrick Mahomes.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who waltzes to a Super bowl championship at the end.

[Seth Payne]

We were. I was disgusted with him. He got. I thought he came off sounding Way more egotistical than I thought he would be. I think he was like, I'm here. That's what I do. And remember after that one game, he was talking to his friends, and he'd had a rough start to the game, and he was saying something along the lines of, like. I mean, I just. Like, it was weird. I don't make plays like that. That's not me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Seth Payne]

Just settle, Brad.

[Commercial Announcer]

Bro.

[Seth Payne]

Bro. People. People respect you.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, he annoyed me. Marcus Mariota. I'm just out on from the season he was on. Yeah. Because he quit on his team.

[Seth Payne]

Right, right, right. He was sad.

[Sean Pendergast]

He was sad.

[Seth Payne]

The quarterbacks getting sad annoy the hell out of me.

[Sean Pendergast]

The other ones I've all come away liking more than I did before I started watching the show. Joe Burrow. I like him more after quarterback Kirk Cousins, twice. Jared Goff. I came away. I was not a big Jared Goff fan. I like him. I like his wife, too. She's a lot of fun. As far as these, now, again, I'm only three episodes in. Cole, you started in on it this weekend. How far in did you get?

[Cole Thompson]

I am now on episode four.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

Same here.

[Sean Pendergast]

So I'm. I'm heading into four. I know you've watched a few of the episodes, at least. Seth. This is where I am. I'm curious if you guys are the same. Am I? Stock up. Stock down. Just in terms of liking guys. I am a strong trend up on Baker Mayfield after this.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I really like Baker Mayfield a lot.

[Seth Payne]

I wonder if Baker Mayfield.

[Sean Pendergast]

And I've not liked him before.

[Seth Payne]

The sense I get with Baker is that I think he's grown and matured, probably like anybody does. I could see where I might not like Baker when he was 21 years old.

[Sean Pendergast]

I can see.

[Seth Payne]

I feel like there's a guy that's got a little bit of natural jerk in him that has probably kind of learned when to turn it on and when to turn it off.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's been served some humble pie.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

In his career, no doubt.

[Cole Thompson]

See, I've always loved Baker. Yeah, I've loved him from his time in college, even when he went through the shenanigans of the arrest. You know, him on the sidelines of the Kansas game, playing the flag at a hospital.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do you love him even more now?

[Cole Thompson]

I love him even more.

[Seth Payne]

I've always respected that. He gave us an entertaining arrest video.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, it's.

[Seth Payne]

Dude. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

They replayed that again. I didn't realize he hit that wall so hard when they tacked that's why

[Seth Payne]

he screamed like a girl.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, here's the lesson by that.

[Seth Payne]

I'm not saying that is like a, you know, a slight towards women. I'm saying it was a very high pitched

[Sean Pendergast]

wheel.

[Cole Thompson]

It was pig sounding. Let's go with that. There.

[Sean Pendergast]

There's a. There's a lot about Baker that. That I would love to dig into. I won't hear because I want to get to the other quarterbacks. Let me just say one thing. He apparently, the woman he ended up marrying, his current wife, he had a friend that was trying to almost force feed her to him for years. For years. And then finally she's like, all right, Baker's friend said, just Google him, okay? He's a quarterback in Oklahoma. The lesson here is be careful when you tell somebody to google you or somebody else, because she's like. The first thing that comes up is him getting arrested in Arkansas and what a jerk he is on the field.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Like playing flags and whatnot. Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Making obscene gestures and things.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. But then that's good because it presents the bad boy image. So she's gonna be intrigued. But also, like, he's not in person. Oh, he's actually.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's interested in me.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, he's Danny Zuko. It's the Danny Zuko fantasy.

[Sean Pendergast]

Kids. Grease. Was this movie, Jaden Daniels trending about the same for me with Quarterback.

[Seth Payne]

I already like Jaden Daniels. Oh, you're saying trending the same higher or lower?

[Sean Pendergast]

I've never had strong feelings one way or the other on Jaden Daniels. I haven't hated him. I haven't liked him. There's not been anything in this, which, as you know, I'm easily sold to. Yeah, there's been nothing so far in this with Jaden Daniels in Quarterback. I. I'll give you my boomer take. I don't want my quarterbacks to be aware. Shades indoors guy like Jaden Daniels was at the draft.

[Cole Thompson]

Extremely boomer take.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, extremely. Yeah, Yeah. I don't like that.

[Cole Thompson]

So, like, have you guys ever heard of the thing aura farming before?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Okay, so like, the Odyssey's out right now and there's like this one scene with like Agamemnon the character. And like, the entire thing about him. He's only in it for like two minutes. Yeah, but he's aura farming just like his Persona.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I don't get that. With Jaden Dane.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah. He's kind of boring.

[Cole Thompson]

Very boring.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's kind of boring.

[Seth Payne]

So the Odyssey, the movie is out.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Commercial Announcer]

Oh.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah, It's.

[Cole Thompson]

I think I'm actually going.

[Sean Pendergast]

USC got clowned this weekend, Seth. Football program. Oh, it was great because USC put up a, you know, AI generated Odyssey movie poster.

[Commercial Announcer]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And Odyssey is about the Trojans getting destroyed. They put up an Odyssey movie poster, and USC says, Our odyssey begins on August 29th.

[Cole Thompson]

Do you want to.

[Seth Payne]

Agamemnon. Agamemnon. I'm looking at him. He's basically Batman. Huh? That's how they've got him. Kind of look like Batmans are like

[Cole Thompson]

him now in a Bruce Wayne outfit. Like the Batman character. What's so funny about that, though, is Troy, the University of Troy, who's also the Trojans, quote, tweet it and said, guys. Yeah. Why is this still up?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, they left it up. They left it up. Idiots. All right. Two last two quarterbacks. Cam Ward. Strong trend up on Cam Ward. I would really. If I were a Titans fan, I would be really in on Cam Ward. Yeah, I like Cam Ward's mom telling this story of him getting his first speeding ticket. I like that they kept the speeding tickets and put it in his scrapbook. I. I like that Cam Ward curses a lot. He's very serious. I like the. Cam Ward uses a notebook. He uses an old school notebook, Seth. Just like I do to write.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, those guys all do, though, don't they? That was the only one I've seen

[Sean Pendergast]

doing it is Cam.

[Seth Payne]

I already like Cam Ward because it just. Every story you hear about him in the draft process and then since he's been in the NFL is that classic. Everything you want to hear doesn't mean he's going to be awesome. But first guy in, last guy out, very conscientious. After they had a victory last year, he basically got up and acted like, no, we got to be better than this. Yeah, he feels like he's got the appropriate amount of grumpiness.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I like Cam Ward a lot. Yeah, I like him a lot.

[Cole Thompson]

No, speak speaks. Speaks from the truth. Does not hide any emotions in there. My favorite part of the entire series so far with Cam Ward is when he was at that Little League event where he's doing dodgeball, and he held the. He held the nerve back of going full Billy Madison on the kids.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, that's competitiveness.

[Sean Pendergast]

Even when they interviewed him afterwards, I really dusted with the kids.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Hyper. Like an irrational hyper competitiveness about it.

[Sean Pendergast]

I really like.

[Seth Payne]

I missed the part with the speeding ticket. What was that?

[Sean Pendergast]

So. So they, you know, they sat with his parents for a few vignettes, and they have a scrapbook.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Of all, like his articles from the big games he had and things like that. One of the things in his scrapbook was the first speeding ticket he ever bought.

[Seth Payne]

But what's the story behind it that they.

[Sean Pendergast]

He. He kept it under wraps for a while, and then eventually he had to go to court for it and they found out about it.

[Seth Payne]

His parents didn't know, but what was

[Cole Thompson]

so funny about that story is the next door neighbor was the judge clerk, and she could have easily gotten him out of it if he just would have knocked on the door.

[Commercial Announcer]

Oh.

[Seth Payne]

Or even just. Is he, like, not. Was he not answering it or, like, paying it or anything?

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no, he didn't tell his parents. And I just thought it was funny

[Seth Payne]

that his mom are gonna find out when their insurance rates.

[Sean Pendergast]

The only reason I have it in here. I thought it was hilarious. His mom kept it in a scrapbook. I thought that was really funny. Last one. Joe Flacco. Slight trend up. I already liked Flacco to begin with. This. I like Flacco so much more in this second phase of his career than I did when I thought he was just really overpaid in Baltimore for three weeks of good football in 2012.

[Seth Payne]

I liked it. Go ahead.

[Sean Pendergast]

I was just going to say him keeping the Corvette that he won for mvp, the super bowl in his garage, like it's some trophy or lamp that he's putting in a storage unit. It's just covered in dust right now.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, he compared it to a trophy.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. He never drives it. It's just. He's like, yeah, I won this for being. It's in his garage.

[Seth Payne]

Feel weird to get rid of it.

[Cole Thompson]

I drove it twice.

[Seth Payne]

Someday.

[Commercial Announcer]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like, this is all I got.

[Seth Payne]

I liked him. I'm guessing. Did you hear Cleveland radio talk about this at all? He's telling Shador Sanders that quarterbacks shouldn't wear a visor. Yeah, that. That.

[Sean Pendergast]

I totally agree with the visor.

[Seth Payne]

Right, Right. Like, it looks cool and everything, but, like, it screws up your vision and all that. And Shador wasn't having it. I'm guessing that that was like a full three hours of content on Cleveland sports radio last year.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Well, Cleveland actually showed up in court. Ken Carmen and Anthony Lyman. Good morning. Show popped up in quarterback. That's why we need CJ to be part of this next year. So you. You and I can pop up in this thing.

[Seth Payne]

I don't want CJ to be a part of this.

[Cole Thompson]

I want to say far away from Netflix right now.

[Sean Pendergast]

I like to differ. All right, coming up next, we'll circle back to the Astros. The lost weekend that was where are we at on management right now with the Astros? Seth has some affirmations.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, we need to get this team right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

We're gonna have some cheesy New Age affirmations for some of these assets.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, good.

[Seth Payne]

We're gonna get them, right? We're gonna get their confidence back.

[Sean Pendergast]

We're gonna do that. We'll do it. Coming up next.

[Seth Payne]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Seth Payne]

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[Seth Payne]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Sean Pendergast]

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[Commercial Announcer]

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[Seth Payne]

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