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- [00:00]
Advertisement Voice
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- [01:02]
Luke Morrow
Pacifico, the crisp Mexican lager that wasn't brewed to blend in. We were made for the moments when you live like you mean it. When you don't just hear the music, you feel it. When you let the bonfire burn into the night and find places you'd never spot on a map. So when the moment calls, choose to reach for the bright yellow can. Choose yellow. Choose Pacifico 21. Discover responsibly. Pacifico Clara beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, Illinois.
- [01:31]
Advertisement Voice
The recap show is an inside look for fans into the world of global soccer, women's sports and all things gal culture from the inside perspective of two World cup champions and Olympians.
- [01:42]
Seth Payne
Follow and listen to the recap show
- [01:44]
Advertisement Voice
wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:47]
Luke Morrow
Sports Radio 610 presents Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast.
- [01:51]
Seth Payne
We coming to eighth time. Let's get to work in man. Let go.
- [01:55]
Ben (Producer)
Great day.
- [01:55]
Seth Payne
Great day. Oh, give me some juice, baby. Oh yeah, let's do it.
- [02:04]
Luke Morrow
That's right. Happy Friday. Let's start the weekend. Appreciate you joining us. Beginning the day with us here, Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. Seth, good morning. How are you?
- [02:17]
Seth Payne
Good morning. I just. You know what I had to remind myself when the trade deadline was in baseball and because I'm reading so Many articles about how the, you know, the trade deadline is looming and everything. I'm like, wait a minute. Isn't it, like, August this year?
- [02:32]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [02:32]
Seth Payne
What's. It's July 10th. Are we tired of World cup talk so quickly? Are we just. Are we so unsatisfied, dissatisfied with a almost.500 baseball team? People don't seem to realize almost 500 means that you're almost winning more than you're losing. But you're. But you're not. But, like, why get all agitated about something that's not going to happen? The trade deadline stuff. What is the official date this year?
- [03:05]
Luke Morrow
August 3rd, I believe.
- [03:06]
Seth Payne
August 3rd. Okay. The trade deadline stuff is always. Yeah, it's August 3rd. Is. Is. It's very intriguing, especially when the Astros are in the situation they're in. And yet the real. The real stuff usually doesn't happen until you start to get right down to the wire in those last few days, and teams start to realize where the market. Like, where the market is. What. Especially nowadays, because so many teams are. They're still in it. Every damn team in the AL is in it.
- [03:33]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [03:34]
Seth Payne
And, you know, might as well be that a lot of this stuff that we're talking about for the next three or four weeks isn't going to materialize until that last 48 hours. It's frustrating.
- [03:45]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it is. We got, what, 24 days to wait on and see what happens. But, like, you know, to your point, it probably won't happen until we actually get to August. And as you also alluded to, I think there's only nine teams that are currently more than five games out of a playoff spot. So. And a couple of those seems like five and a half games. So there's really only, like, seven teams that are six games or more out of a playoff spot, and we still have, you know, two and a half months to go. So, yeah, I don't know how many sellers they'll really be. Unless you have some teams that might be a little more realistic and think, like, yeah, we're only four games out of a playoff spot, but we're also like, five games under.500.
- [04:25]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [04:26]
Luke Morrow
In a terrible Al. So we might as well try to kind of. The point I was making yesterday of we can't take this season too seriously. We're actually not that competitive. It's just a bad al. Let's try to improve for the future. But in general, I don't know how many sellers there's going to be because everyone feels like they have a shot.
- [04:43]
Seth Payne
They have a Shot in your. Yeah, even six games back when you're in a mediocre league the way it is this year, there's plenty of those teams that are six games are more bad, you know, could the Tigers all of a sudden make a push? Certainly. And are they even? Are they even six games below.500 right now? Tigers are. They're only four and a half games back in the AL Central with a record of 43 and 50. So like they could easily be winning the AL Central by the time the trade deadline comes around.
- [05:10]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, look, the Red Sox are another team. I remember saying on the air a couple of weeks ago they were tied with the Angels for the worst record in the American League. They've gone something like 14, 5, I think recently. And now they're only, let me check here, two and a half games out of a playoff spot. So it just takes like two to three hot weeks in the AL and you're back in this thing. So I could see a lot of GMs convincing themselves of like, oh, we're right there. We, you know, let's go make some moves and improve this team. We can actually make something happen.
- [05:39]
Seth Payne
I think my one disappointing thing looking at the Yankees is that for the longest time when you look at the standings and you see what the record is over the last 10, it felt like they were on 2 and 8 for the longest time. They just managed to hover around and I know every time I checked it they happened to be on 2 and 8. So I'm a little depressed this morning when I see that they're three and seven in their last 10. So needed, need a loss tonight and I'll check the standings again tomorrow.
- [06:04]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, they finally exploded for some offense yesterday against the Rays. Scored last I saw, I think they had 12 runs in that game.
- [06:12]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [06:13]
Luke Morrow
So yeah, they got a rare win but they're still like 6 and 15 in the last three weeks.
- [06:17]
Seth Payne
But it's funny because, you know, you linked a couple articles on MLB trade rumors and these are, you know, Jeff Pass and everybody else is writing these comprehensive all 30 team who are some options for him. And just in the last 72 hours there's been a big shift from, well, you know, Dana Brown keeps saying they need a left handed outfielder. So it's probably going to be a left handed outfielder to now almost every article in the last 48 hours is, man, they need a pitcher.
- [06:45]
Advertisement Voice
Wow.
- [06:47]
Seth Payne
Yeah. Yeah, we can't. You know what, I would criticize you for not paying enough attention. Not You, Luke. But people outside. But I've. I've succumbed to this myself. Every. Every time they get three good pitching appearances in a row, I. I delude myself into thinking, oh, of course.
- [07:02]
Luke Morrow
Okay.
- [07:02]
Seth Payne
Araghetti's back on track. Imai. It's just a matter of time until he's basically performing at a Cy Young level. And, hey, you got all the guys coming back from the ill. And then I get. And then I get chopped off at the knees and plummet back down to earth.
- [07:17]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [07:17]
Seth Payne
And so tonight, long shins. It's a hard fall.
- [07:21]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Taller they are. You know, at least tonight you get Hunter Brown going. So the one thing you feel good about, you get tonight. And we'll see how well he does pitch against the Rangers. Cause even Hunter Brown's been a little shaky since coming back from the il, so we would love to see a good start. You know, this is almost like going into the bi week. And obviously, Seth, you can speak more to this, having actually gone through it, but when you have this All Star break, I imagine for an NFL team like, you would love to head into the bi week on a positive, if you lose that game, you have an extra week to kind of sit on it.
- [07:52]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [07:53]
Luke Morrow
And it might be. I'm sure it's the same idea here at baseball, where they don't play again after this weekend till Friday. Maybe this is more for the fans and the actual team, but say Hunter Brown doesn't pitch well tonight. Say they do struggle against the Rangers. And then as an Astros fan, you have to sit on that all the way till Friday. Like, man, even Hunter Brown struggling. This whole pitching staff stinks. We don't get to see them again for a week. To try to feel better. You better hope that Brown pitches well and this team has a good weekend, because otherwise it could be a long week next week.
- [08:20]
Seth Payne
It's a good. You know, I always struggle with it when I try to draw the comparison between the NFL and baseball, because baseball puts such a premium on being even keeled emotionally. Right. They're like, the perfect baseball player is the guy that would also be the perfect stepfather. You know, he just come in and just be kind of like, hey, not get too worked up over everything. We'll work through this bust, buddy. You know, all this stuff. Whereas, like, football players were notoriously bipolar. You run very hot and cold and you try to. You got a coach that tries to tell you to act the same after losses as you do after win wins. The problem is most of those guys are super bipolar, too. And Tom Coffin was the worst at this point. He would tell you, like, after. After Monday, you wipe the slate clean and you're. You just. You're back to doing. You operate the same way every Wednesday. And you would try to abide by that, but then all of a sudden, at 8am on a Saturday morning, the week after a loss, you know, the day before a new game, he starts tearing into you about how crappy you were the week before. Like, hey, whoa, bro. What's all this clean slate stuff? You know, short memory and everything. I feel like d' Amico's more. D' Ameco's got more of a baseball mentality when it comes to just keeping the same attitude all the time. So with the players themselves. Yeah. I wonder psychologically how much it really does help from a team perspective. Individually, obviously, it's good for those guys to get a break, and physically it's good for them to get a break. I think that for the Astros right now, it's more about the fans and how we feel about. All right, what is the actual ceiling or what's the potential for this team? It would be awesome to have a really good series versus a team, one of the many, many teams. There's currently eight teams in contention for the AL west title. That if you. If you could pull off a good one versus the Rangers, that. That would feel a lot better, obviously.
- [10:11]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. First place on the line this weekend, by the way, when football coaches, when they would say, let's wipe the slate clean, or like, you know, let's. Let's forget about this. We'll move past it. Can they. Doesn't that, like, can they then bring up criticism later in the season when you have that message as a coach, don't you always have to be looking forward? You can't criticize a guy and be like, hey, you haven't been blocking well the last three weeks. And you're like, well, you told me wipe the slate clean. Like, we're just looking ahead. We can't talk about the past anymore. Don't criticize what I did the first six weeks of the season.
- [10:40]
Seth Payne
It's like you're like a bad girlfriend or something. Every time something happens, you're bringing up old stuff. Let's move on. That was three affairs ago, honey. Yeah. Why you got it? Why you got to keep bring. With every new affair, it's like you want to bring up all the old ones. My God. By the way, did I say AL Central instead of AL West?
- [10:59]
Luke Morrow
No, I think you said Al.
- [11:00]
Seth Payne
Okay. I Think once I expanded the number of teams I, like, I got out. Yeah.
- [11:06]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. It's like back in the day when they only had two divisions in each league. And so you really did have, you know, eight teams in the division.
- [11:12]
Seth Payne
No, there's a. I get a weird dyslexia, as, you know, sometimes between different athletes in sports and everything. And I just. The old AFC Central somehow creeped into my brain. And because it was at our. At our peak, we had six teams in the AFC Central. Right. Yeah. When the Browns, it was a. It was a bunch of expansion teams and translocated teams and the Browns for a couple of glorious years there back in the early 2000s.
- [11:41]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. The Central. Yeah. I always, I always like that where it was just like, obviously the central portion of the country, I guess, but it was like the north and the South. Right. You had at one point, like the Houston Oilers and the Cleveland Browns, like in the nfc, you had the Tampa Bay Bucks in Florida and then the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay packers, like, up north. It was just, it was just obviously, I get it, the central part of the country, but you have these teams that are also a cross country in the same division, are playing each other.
- [12:07]
Seth Payne
2001 NFL Division standings. The last glorious year of the old AFC Central. It was the Steelers, the Ravens, the Browns, the Titans, the Jaguars, and then the Bengals. That was the final standings for those of you who wanted to go relive
- [12:23]
Luke Morrow
that glorious flashback Friday. Yeah. Think back 25 years to 2001. Yeah. It was looking, in hindsight, like, it feels strange. I like how the NFL and Major League Baseball are currently set up now. Even like when the Astros were in the NL, that took some adjusting to. To move to the AL, but I do kind of like uneven. 15 teams in the AL, 15 teams in the N. It's.
- [12:45]
Seth Payne
No, I love it. I would just. I would prefer that the Astros not have all these ridiculous west coast games that feel like I'm watching Pac12. The old Pac12. Now, let's go down memory lane on college football conferences.
- [13:01]
Luke Morrow
Well, the Astros didn't play last night. This is what we got to do. But they do play tonight. They get underway with the. The Rangers. And the Rangers have suddenly taken over first place, even though they're only one game over.500. So the Astros are two games behind the Rangers with three games to play this weekend. Here's the chance you sweep this weekend. The Astros head into the All Star break. Not only over.500, or actually, no, that would make them exactly 500. So they'd head into the all star break at 549 and 49 and also I guess would be in first place over the Rangers.
- [13:36]
Seth Payne
Yeah. And you know, Hunter Brown, it's strange. Is it like if obviously if Imai came out and pitched four innings and allowed six earned runs, it just, it puts you right back down into that funk and depression. I don't worry as much about Hunter Brown's last performance where he pitched four innings and allowed six earned runs as he's still obviously working his way back through some things because he's had some good performances before that.
- [14:04]
Ben (Producer)
I.
- [14:05]
Seth Payne
But it would be like an emphatic, an emphatically stud performance tonight would make me feel a lot better about a lot of the things. A lot of things.
- [14:14]
Luke Morrow
And then we have to figure out who's pitching Sunday as well. And that's a big question mark for the Asros. Will it be Javier? Will it be Blanco? Will it be somebody else?
- [14:22]
Seth Payne
If it's, if it's Javier. If it's Javier. Any deals, like, how much, how much do you allow yourself to believe in that? Given that Javier hasn't really looked like the 2022 version of Javier since 2022? I actually, he's in this weird boat for me where I'm actually more optimistic about the fact that he only has to pitch half a season because that's what the recipe, the recipe in 2022 was that they slowly worked him into being a starter and it wasn't a super heavy workload. It was the transition into being a full time starter right from the get go that seem to have, you know, brought out a lesser version of Javier. So these, the, the, the half season dynamic of it actually makes me feel optimistic about Javier.
- [15:11]
Luke Morrow
That's fair. And yeah, you know, it's just, it's, it's, you just need the burst from him here down the stretch to try to fill in these last two and a half months. We talked about it right off the top though. Pitching still is, seems to be the top need at the deadline. And so to your point, I hope these national people are just lagging behind and I hope it's not a case of like stubbornness from Dana Brown because CBS Sports had the story just yesterday of what they're hearing about the trade deadline and for the Astros they said, you know, they're seeking a left handed hitting outfielder. And then secondly they said a right handed reliever and made no mention of the starting rotation. I'm afraid with how often we've heard about the left handed hitter that that has just become like the, the white whale at this point for Dana Brown or the, you know, we've been talking about that for like at least two years now that I feel like he's. Maybe this is just me projecting. Dana Brown is so set on finally finding a left hitting outfielder that that's still like a top priority over any starting pitching.
- [16:12]
Seth Payne
That's.
- [16:13]
Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
- [16:13]
Seth Payne
That almost. He becomes fixated on his inability to even he tried to trade away parades. It didn't work out and thankfully it didn't. Yeah, because they just seem. It felt like the Rocket. Remember the Rockets were trying to trade for Ryan Anderson forever and they couldn't pull it off. And then the one year when the cap expanded, when the luxury tax expanded so aggressively, they went ahead and plunked down a bunch of. They got Ryan Anderson and gave him a huge contract. And like, man, I feel like Daryl Morey was just. That was his white whale. Yeah, you just, you had your opportunity and you spent all your resources or a bunch of your resources on this thing that it really, it had passed the prime window. I don't think, I don't think you have to worry about that with Dana Brown because if there's anything that he's shown that he's incapable of actually making a good move in the outfield, so whether it's his white whale or not, he's going to be forced to accept a trade for, for an awesome pitcher
- [17:09]
Luke Morrow
or something, it will continue to be that white whale. I saw this. Chandler Rome had the story on, on Jordan yesterday. And I guess in there Jordan said that when there was, as we, as we talk about the trade deadline, when there were trade rumors swirling earlier this year about Jordan, and it really, I think it was just kind of media members, I know it was a conversation on these airwaves of like, should the Astros just, should they just trade Jordan at this point, get a king's ransom? But he went to the Astros to see what the deal was. And as Jordan said, they told him they were not going to trade him no matter what. They were never going to trade him. And Jordan wanted to stay here with Houston. He didn't want to be traded. So it was kind of going to that con or going to the front office figuring out what's going on because, you know, I don't want to be moved. But I do like that idea of Jordan going to the front office, hearing those rumors and sort of, I guess kind of putting the foot down. But also the Astros acknowledging, and as I said at the time, I think it would be ridiculous to ever trade you. I don't care how bad you are. I'll have you be Steve Carlton on that Phillies team in the 70s where they like lost 100 games, but he won 25 games on the mound. Like, I'll have you be the prize possession of even the worst team in the league. You don't move on from a guy like Jordan.
- [18:20]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [18:21]
Luke Morrow
So I like that little tidbit from Chandler Rome.
- [18:24]
Seth Payne
Yeah, you know what, it's, it's interesting too because like how, how exactly does it get to the point where he feels like, oh crap, like this is something that I have to worry about. Whether it's just personal relations telling him that we're hearing all this stuff or if he's just happening to see it or he's being asked questions about it. That everybody, no matter how good you are, can get a little bit insecure about this stuff. I like that also that he just given his personality where he seems to be one of the most even keeled people on earth, and that profile that Chandler Rome wrote about him in the Athletic, he just does also seem to be very simple in a good way. He just doesn't seem to really have a desire for extreme fame or anything like that. That it's. He will be a stable presence here for a while and that when it comes to, you know, he's got a little bit of a precedent in Altuve, who took below market contracts and renegotiations a couple times while he was here, or he's obviously still here, but he is since he's been here, that they might be able to come to some kind of reasonable situation with him where with every other guy it feels like, okay, well, Kyle Tucker's going to be gone, George Springer is going to be gone, Carlos Cray is going to be gone, then he'll come back, but then he'll get injured again. That maybe there is a long term relationship with Jordan Alvarez above and beyond the current contract.
- [19:53]
Luke Morrow
Last thing, the Athletic also had this and it's pretty remarkable they had Jordan stats compared to the rest of the Astros. Jordan's OPS is 1.030. The rest of the Astros team is 688, which is pretty well below league average. So when you take away your don like this is a bad lineup and yet the Astros are still, I think it's 13th and run scored, third in homers. He is a one man team. It's pretty remarkable when you get the context of truly what he's doing this year. And he's actually on pace to put together a season that when it comes to left handed hitters, only Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Barry Bonds and Shohei Ohtani have ever reached certain markers that he's on pace for. It's remarkable what he's been able to do as like a one man show here this year offensively if you think
- [20:41]
Seth Payne
about just yeah, where they are, where they are in terms of OPS. His OPS is so high and yet they are 15th in the league right now in OPS or 13th or 14th in the league in OPS. And so much of that is just lifted up by him.
- [20:59]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it's wild. So he's on his way to an MVP season this year. So we head into the final series of the first half, first place essentially on the line. We'll see what the Mariners also do this weekend. But Astros Rangers, they get underway tonight 7:15, I think in Arlington with Hunter Brown this evening. Hey, Baseball Talk on Sports Radio 610 is presented by Xfinity. Score the most reliable Wi Fi 1 price 5 years guaranteed Xfinity. Imagine that. Coming up, a former Rocket said that they were the worst organization he has ever played for. We got to talk about that next pain of Pendergast, a former Rocket player, said that the Rockets were the worst organization he's ever played for. Plus, is it really at this point more about next year for the Rockets than this year? Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. Appreciate you starting your Friday with us. You can always join the conversation 713-572-4610 on the text line or in the YouTube and Twitch chats as well. Seth, I've been thinking about this as this offseason has unfolded for the Rockets or seemingly not a whole lot's going on for our Houston Rockets. As you see all these other teams make the moves and we've been down this road before. But at this point should we be looking more towards just the 2027 draft and next year where the Rockets are holding on to those picks from a couple of bad teams with the Nets and the Suns, as opposed to this upcoming season where the Rockets are trying to just kind of run things back and hope that some healthier players will make the difference?
- [22:40]
Seth Payne
I think you know what, that it's a good question and I think that's where the kind of the divide between talking about it, analyzing it, thinking about realistically what will happen falls away from. All right, let's not forget that pretty much this same assortment of players last year in the preseason was forecast and predicted to be a lot better than what they ended up being. So that the notion of running it back doesn't seem as extreme. If you remember that, okay, with a healthy Fred Van Vliet and a healthy Stephen Adams, that this was expected to be a much different basketball team than it ended up being. And I think that if they had been able to run all those guys out and have a full season with them and they got the results that they did, then, yeah, you should be really depressed about all of this and not have very high hopes again. Maybe I'm naive and maybe I'm just too. Just searching or yearning for something. I don't. I would like them to be more aggressive. At the same time, I think it's very possible that they end up surpassing expectations. Right now they're. Right now they're the, they've got the. Well, I'd written it down. Is the short 15th shortest odds to win the championship. So they're, they're considered just a middle of the road. Like, all right, not really thinking. Nobody's really thinking about them as a contender at this point. Given the current state of affairs. If Fred Van Vliet is healthy and who knows what the situation is with that, I'm still inclined to be like, no, I'm not looking towards the draft yet. I'm thinking it's awesome that you got some picks that aren't yours, so you can be as good as you want to be and it's not going to affect anything that happens in the draft and that there's a real good chance. There's. I shouldn't say there's a real good chance. There's a very reasonable chance that they exceed expectations, which right now are not all that high, either locally or nationally.
- [24:41]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, because you said, what, 15th best odds this year to win the championship. So speaking of odds, props to a shoddy ad on Reddit who actually put this together. But looking at that 2027 draft and the potential for the Rockets because of those other picks they hold. And so they have the potential with this new lottery system. And I know that that was why some Rockets fans were excited about the lottery changes. But the Rockets could have six lottery balls in the lottery next year, and that would give them a 16% chance of winning the lottery, a 35% chance of a top two pick, 49% chance of a top three pick, 62% chance, top four, 73% chance that it is a top four pick. And what is what. I mean, it's still way too early, but it could be a pretty decent draft next year. So if you're a Rockets fan, it's like, well, not much is happening this offseason. Maybe the excitement comes from trying to get, you know, a couple first round picks next year and, and sort of reap, not rebuild. I won't say that. Reinforce the roster that way since they can't do seemingly they can't do a whole lot in free agency this season.
- [25:46]
Seth Payne
Yeah. And I mean, this is from a team. It's not like the Rockets have had horrible luck in the lottery or anything with this. It's just they haven't accepted their. Except that they're even their good luck just isn't quite good enough at times to get like an antenna Kumpo, for instance. That's the. It's not horrible luck, but it's almost worse that it's not horrible luck if they've had pretty damn good luck. It's just. Just not quite good enough in the key and specific moments you need it to be.
- [26:13]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. It's like being the runner up a bunch for like competitive players positions. And it's like, well, I'm very close, they think highly of me, but it's still not quite good enough to actually get the position each time. You're the bridesmaid, never the bride, so to speak.
- [26:26]
Seth Payne
Hey, the Rockets were basically the second best team in basketball for a long time when it just happened to be that the warriors were the best team.
- [26:33]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that too.
- [26:34]
Seth Payne
Where's our banner for that?
- [26:36]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [26:36]
Seth Payne
You know, or do it. When do we. When do we get our replica rings for that?
- [26:40]
Luke Morrow
I like the top comment on this Reddit thread is saying, knowing the Rockets, Lux, knowing the Rockets luck will be nets in the Suns in the NBA final. And so then those picks will, you know.
- [26:50]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [26:51]
Luke Morrow
Then you won't get the lottery picks after all, because those two teams will surprisingly, knowing the Rockets luck, surprisingly be really good. And you can't count on those picks.
- [26:59]
Seth Payne
Yeah. So I don't. It's.
- [27:00]
Ben (Producer)
It's.
- [27:01]
Seth Payne
It's kind of cool because I don't. You can have your cake and eat it too. And that. All right. I, I think running it back, as depressing as it might feel at any given time, when you say that they're not actually running it back, you know, like that's a, that's a one little objection I have to people just so casually saying, well, the Rockets are running it back. If Fred Van Vliet is actually healthy, then they're not running it Back. You know, they're, they're running back their plan from before the season last year, but it's not like you should just expect that that's going to be the exact same team with the guys awkwardly trying to fit into roles they're not suited for, as long as you actually have a viable point guard on the team. So that part of it is I'm, I'm still. I feel like I'm a little bit more optimistic than the average Rockets fan on that side of things. But. But at the same time, I don't also have to. I don't have to worry about it. I don't have to worry about, like, oh, well, if they have a, you know, if they end up 500 again, then they screwed their chance to, to get a reset in the lottery. They have that because they already have a chance of having a good pick simply because they've. They've got so many other teams picks.
- [28:08]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that's fair on the whole running it back thing. I mean, they are running it back in the sense or why they were quote, unquote, running it back is because they expect it to be different and better this year with guys actually healthy and available throughout the season like Stephen Adams and Fred Van Vliet.
- [28:21]
Seth Payne
They're running it back to what, August of 2025, whenever it was that Fred Van Bleet got injured.
- [28:26]
Luke Morrow
True. Do you think Kevin Durant is. I think I heard Ron ask about this like a week ago. Do you think Kevin Durant is happy right now in Houston with, you know, we get these rumors he wants to go play with Kate Cunningham. Who knows? They're just rumors. But do you think he's happy right now here in Houston with the way things are going?
- [28:43]
Seth Payne
I know that's a. It's a really good question. Whenever he has a question about happiness, you know, obviously happiness is very subjective and can mean different things to different people. I would say a. I don't know if Kevin Durant has ever actually been happy. You know, he, like, I don't think he's unhappy, but just in any given circumstance that he's in, it's never seemed like he's all that tied to a specific place. I would have. If you had asked me whether he was happy in San Antonio, really seemed like he was up until the end. So going all the way back, I don't. Or, excuse me, Oklahoma City. God, not San Antonio. Oklahoma City. I think that. I don't think he. I would guess he's not overly disgruntled. Is that Happiness? Is that his version of happiness? It could be. I don't. I don't think he's actively angling to try to get out of Houston, but I think he also might. If a situation arose that seemed more appetizing, then I don't think he would. It's not like loyalty would tie him to Houston.
- [29:44]
Luke Morrow
Right. Right. Yeah, I think it's fair. I don't know if he's, like, ecstatic or over the moon with the way things have gone or are going. But, yeah, like, to your point, I also don't think he's so unhappy that he would be trying to force his way out. It's not like it's some terrible scenario here.
- [30:00]
Seth Payne
I would say, financially, I'm guessing he's happy.
- [30:03]
Luke Morrow
Yep.
- [30:04]
Seth Payne
In terms of, like, okay, running it back. If we're doing hashtag, run it back to August 2025. I felt like he was happy in that scenario and that he. He felt like they were probably going to have a good season this past year, and then everything just went awry. So I would say as long as he's cool with Fred Van Vliet, and Fred Van Vliet actually is healthier than however he described it the last time. I guess the other part, though, would be, let's say, with various disparaging things that he may have said on his Burner account about teammates and their intelligence level. Is he. Is he happy with just his supporting cast right now? Right. Like, do you think he's happy with Shangun, with Amin Thompson, with. With all of those guys? With Tari Eason?
- [30:55]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that's my concern. That's where. That's where I come in on wonder. I'm pondering the happiness. But with that said, like, this is the same team that. That he signed up for, so to speak. Maybe he wouldn't be as happy now after actually playing a full season and realizing, like, oh, this isn't as good of a group as I thought it was going to be. But this is kind of what you signed on to when you wanted to come to Houston, is you knew who was here, these are the players. Nothing's really changed there. And you obviously must have thought it was good enough to actually be able to compete. Otherwise, I don't think Durant would have wasted his time coming here. So, you know, I don't know how. How different it should be a year later when this is sort of the team you signed up with.
- [31:31]
Seth Payne
Do you think. Do you think he still has Burner accounts that he's active on, or do you think I want cold turkey on that? You think so?
- [31:38]
Luke Morrow
I think so. He hasn't posted on his main Twitter account, I think since April, which is so odd. It's been almost three months, I think, since his last tweet. But I do think part of that is because he's probably living in all these burner accounts and that's how he's getting his fix of like responding on Twitter to everybody.
- [31:52]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I haven't seen anything and I haven't like been on Reddit or anything to find out what the scuttlebutt is, but is I. I would assume people are actively out there trying to identify his burner accounts and I haven't. But I haven't seen anything reported about sketchy activity on his. For whatever it's worth, maybe he's doing a much better job and he's being more careful about it. Right.
- [32:12]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Real quick, I do want to pay off this tease. I said there was a former Rocket who said it's the worst organization he's ever played for. This is Dennis Schroeder, who played for I think 11 teams in the NBA, spent half a season with the Rockets. Here's what he had to say. What team did you have the worst experience with?
- [32:27]
Advertisement Voice
Houston.
- [32:29]
Seth Payne
I was with Houston for two months. So that's why you don't like us?
- [32:33]
Luke Morrow
No, I. I don't have.
- [32:35]
Seth Payne
No. No bad blood.
- [32:37]
Guest or Contributor
But it was really.
- [32:38]
Seth Payne
It was really tough.
- [32:39]
Advertisement Voice
What was.
- [32:39]
Seth Payne
What was the problem there? They had no structure. No real GM who, you know, like, emphasizes what is like professionals. No, but they good now. Yeah, he threw that in there. They're good now. So that was the 21, 22 season, right?
- [32:58]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. When they won 20 games.
- [33:00]
Seth Payne
Yeah. I have a hard time getting offended by that just because. Other than just the no GM part, because there was one. Who was it? Red. Let's see. Red 94. Red. Red 94. Had posted this old. This old quote from Sham Sharanya where he said, quote. The looming presence of general manager Rafael Stone was also one the head coach had to manage. Talking about Silas, Stone interrupted a Silas led session to give his input on and show defensive position. Silas eventually had to inform Stone that he could no longer halt the coaches practice sessions. So it's. I don't know whether like when Schroeder's situation was with however Raphael Stone was operating at the time or not. I think it was just. Yeah, there were a lot of things that were a mismatch and just needed to rectified and it just wasn't going to work out with Silas at that point. But Schroeder was also like he was. How many teams did he play for that year? Played for three teams that, that season. Oh, no, just two teams that season with Boston and Houston.
- [34:05]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. I think that's the thing. Like, like I, that might have been true at the time, which was also what, four years ago. But I think part of that has to do with the fact that Silas was the head. They were a 20 win team. They were tanking and going through this rebuild. It is different now with, with Udoka and having success in different players on the roster. A lot of people used it online as an indictment on stone, but I think it's just, it's with a different head coach, different players. I do think it's, it is a different organization.
- [34:30]
Seth Payne
Yeah. And I would say two things. Like, is with the source, like at the end there he says, hey, they're good now. They figured it out. They've got it together. Yeah.
- [34:37]
Advertisement Voice
Cool.
- [34:37]
Seth Payne
It was, it wasn't good back then. It really, really wasn't. And it was also as Schroeder was at the beginning of a stretch where he would play for nine different teams from 2021 until now. So like it wasn't like Schroeder was the most highly desired and you know, guy to, you just got to have him. You got to keep him in your room for the culture. He needs to be here for the culture. Right?
- [35:03]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. And he also went from the Celtics who were, you know, one of the top teams in the league, to the 20 win Rockets. So I get just naturally that might be a disappointment for him. Coming up. We got to get you the headlines for this Friday, including, I continue to think that Major league baseball does a poor job marketing its sport. And there's another example this weekend. We'll get to that next, Payne and Pendergast.
- [35:26]
Seth Payne
Pain and Pendergast. With today's headlines powered by Men's Tea Clinic.
- [35:34]
Luke Morrow
Let's get you the biggest headlines in the sports world here on a Friday morning. Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth. Payne and Seth, we've been talking about these top 10 lists that ESPN has been doing. They've been ranking the top 10 players at each position, one position a day. And they do it by polling executives, coaches and scouts in the NFL. Well after the high praise for the Texans with cornerbacks and defensive ends, they put out their defensive tackle list which did not include any Texans. And number one on the list was Leonard Williams.
- [36:07]
Seth Payne
Ah, yeah, the. I think Tommy Togiai as I thought he might get a vote and show up in the honorable mention on this. I think Tommy togiai was a bit of a surprise for a lot of people last year. He'd never played more than a couple hundred snaps in a season and then he ends up being a really important part of the rotation. Last year and then if you, I mean, if you look at the PFF grades, he was a top 10 defensive tackle. I think he's a really good blend of both run stuffing and pass rushing ability. And I think the thing that's always going to work against him on this team is that they are, they're going to rotate defensive tackles in and you know, Caden McDonald and Logan hall and Sheldon Rankins and Tommy Togi probably all get about equal number of snaps this year. So it's harder to get individual notoriety if you're platooning like that. And yet in the hearts and minds of people who really care about him, I'll make a very biased list at the end of the year. If he plays as well as he did this year, but plays a full season, gets more snaps, you know, that's another thing that holds him back, is his total snaps on the season weren't as high as most of the other guys on this list, then I will create an incredibly biased list of the top defensive tackles in the league and be sure that he's on it.
- [37:24]
Luke Morrow
Uh, by the way, number two on the list was Jeffrey Simmons of the Titans, who obviously we'll see a couple times this year. So he finished number two. 19 players in total received votes, but nobody for the Texans on this list
- [37:36]
Seth Payne
at least was Puna Ford on that list.
- [37:39]
Luke Morrow
Uh, let me scroll here.
- [37:42]
Seth Payne
Puna Ford's another disregarded, more lightly regarded than he should be guy.
- [37:48]
Luke Morrow
Not on the list.
- [37:48]
Seth Payne
Not on the list. Okay. You know what also works against guys like Tommy Togi? You get extra points for being a big fatty on this. If you're a 330 pound beast, there's a certain allure to that. And the people, people love the idea of like, oh, he's just a mountain of a man, he must be immovable. And then you sometimes see some of these guys who are mountains of men. They get rode up out of there on double teams sometimes, but they just, they get the benefit of the doubt. They're like, they're like a good looking woman. They just, sometimes things are, things are given to them just because they're, they're good looking.
- [38:20]
Luke Morrow
Next on the list is tight Ends today. Do we think Dalton Schultz cracks top 10 or maybe even receiving votes?
- [38:27]
Seth Payne
I think just by sheer production. I can't remember if he was on this list last year or not, but he was. He was. He was in the top five of receiving yards for tight ends, but he didn't produce as many touchdowns as his guys. Like, I think Dalton Schultz has always been viewed, when you read polls like these and everything, as a guy that's more of a. He's a safety blanket for a quarterback or he's just always where he should be. So quarterbacks like him, and I'm always left wondering what's the negative in that? Like, it's. You don't have to necessarily be the driving force behind it, but if you're an integral part of an offense and, yeah, the quarterback feels really comfortable with him, then, then by all means, then you're a productive football player.
- [39:11]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, for sure. I think that's also specifically for tight ends. That's always what's so important for them. And I didn't mean to gloss over your point, by the way. I always do tell beautiful women you're just like a big fat guy. Okay.
- [39:21]
Seth Payne
Yeah. That's why they love hearing that.
- [39:22]
Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
- [39:22]
Seth Payne
You know, you're like a fat nose tackle. You know, that's how pretty you are.
- [39:28]
Luke Morrow
Exactly. It's worked well for me so far. Major League Baseball's holding their draft this weekend. This is my problem. I always complain about this, but this is my problem. Major League Baseball, we talked about this earlier this week with something else they had done. I forget. Oh, they announced the All Star starting lineups or All Star teams on at 7:30 on July 4th last weekend is what Major League Baseball did. Now they're holding their draft this weekend. And I know the draft is never that big of a deal in Major League Baseball, but maybe partially because they're having it Saturday while every team in the league is playing and you already have games to tune in, as opposed to try it during next week where there's no baseball games from Monday to Thursday. That seems like the perfect time to hold your draft and try to make it its own event.
- [40:14]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I don't. You know what? There's a part of me that always. I kind of grudgingly want to give MLB credit for being so weird about the way they manage dates and everything, because they're not. It doesn't feel. It doesn't feel like they're trying to make it more of an event than it is that they just. They're not going to try to play this game of the NFL. That. Because the NFL very successfully turns a bunch of previous non events into mega events. And the combine and the draft are those. I think the draft for baseball, the biggest obstacle it's always going to have is that just, it's. There's. There's so few guys that you're going to see anytime soon, you know that it just feels like you're. It feels like somebody told you they just bought you a savings bond, right? Like here, you know you're going to get a savings bond when you're a kid and you're like, this is like, I'm a child. What the hell am I going to do with this? I don't. I have no concept of time or anything. I don't. Thanks, grandma.
- [41:15]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly.
- [41:16]
Seth Payne
Yeah. I'm going to lose it. You know I'm going to lose it. I used to have so many savings bonds and I don't know where any of them ever went.
- [41:23]
Luke Morrow
I don't think I ever had. Ever actually had any. But yeah, Major League Baseball, it's like the guy that's set in their ways and he's just not changing. It's just like, hey, this is who I am. And you either like it or you don't. Major League Baseball is like, hey, our draft's gonna be this weekend. You either tune in or you don't. Whatever. We're gonna announce the All Stars during the fireworks on July 4th. You ever. You either watch it or you don't like, that's fine. But this is us and this is what we're gonna be doing. So the draft is this weekend, in case you're interested in that. Moving along on headlines, Christian Pulisic, it was announced, suffered a micro fracture, suffered a bone bruise and micro fracture in his leg during that Monday's loss to Belgium. Sources told and said that it's gonna sideline him for several weeks. He would not have been able to play if the Americans had advanced any further in the World Cup. Does this make us feel any different about Pulisic?
- [42:18]
Seth Payne
Sure, I guess. I don't know. The thing about Pulisic that I'm getting and that I would have thought even if you had told me a week ago that, yeah, oh, well, it turns out he actually had a bone bruise. It feels like this is just all still an offshoot of how people feel about him in the way he operates, that there are a lot of other star players that would have gotten as much scrutiny as he did for either pulling himself or reportedly pulling himself from that game that it doesn't. I guess it doesn't move the meter when I've got so many former US Soccer players talking about what. Just what kind of a ridiculously pompous jerk they. They think he is. You know, like, there's certain players that. When. There's certain players in any sport that when they get taken out, you never question whether or not it was a matter of toughness. The very fact that they would openly question his commitment or his toughness or selflessness. Selflessness kind of, I feel, tells the story.
- [43:15]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I think, well, look, for one, part of the story is that he's been injured. I think it's five, the last nine World cup games. So this is still part of the story that I guess he's just injury prone. But the second part is I always dislike when the news comes out after like some criticism or after the fact. And LeBron was always the king of this, where he would play a game, get eliminated from the playoffs, and then afterwards they'd be like, oh, well, you know, my knee was hurting me. I'm gonna have, you know, I was playing with an injured knee. It's like, well, he should have known that before the fact. You can't throw that out afterwards. And I know for Pulisic, like, this just happened in the latest game, but it comes now, like four days later, after he's been getting ripped all week, as opposed to right after the game they announced like, ah, he suffered an injury. He's going to be out for a while.
- [43:56]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I don't know. Show me, show me, show me an mri. Exactly. Yeah. You know, that's where I respect about Stefan Diggs, who himself is in another headline legal situation right now. Step on Diggs, in his last couple of situations has had some people that have, you know, felt like they were deserved compensation. And he does. What we always want people to do is like, he's like, oh, let's take it to court. You know, like, if you're gonna, like, if you're gonna say it's you're innocent, go ahead and sue the people. And that's what like, so Stefan Diggs is currently suing somebody who said was spreading misinformation. And now this, this, this guy is. This person countersued Stefon Diggs. And there's all kinds of accusations floating around. I respect it when somebody at least says, no, you are impugning my honor, you're lying, and I'm going to take you to court over it. I'm certainly not going to settle out of court with you.
- [44:49]
Luke Morrow
That's right. Yeah. Let's get some proof here. By the way, Rocket Summer League begins tonight if you're interested. I think it's 5:30 on ESPN2 against the Nuggets coming up. Will CJ Stroud actually make it through the season? One person's concerned about that. We'll talk about it next. Payne and Pendergast the days are longer,
- [45:05]
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- [47:17]
Luke Morrow
Will CJ Stroud actually make it through the full season? Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow. In for Seth. Or I should say in for Sean. Sorry. Alongside Seth Payne.
- [47:26]
Seth Payne
I'll take the rest of the day off. You can do both of it.
- [47:29]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, that's me and Ben. Me and Ben. Got you the rest of the way, Ben.
- [47:35]
Seth Payne
Finally. Ben. That's what Ben's been angling for all these years. Don't give him the satisfaction. What'd you say?
- [47:43]
Luke Morrow
More talk time. Time for hot takes.
- [47:45]
Seth Payne
Yeah. Hey, hey, hey. Yeah. I don't like the way you said hot takes there. That's a. That's Ben throwing shade at Sean and I. That's no more talking for you, Ben.
- [47:55]
Luke Morrow
He's been in my ear all week. Like, hey, when are you gonna let me open up the mic?
- [47:59]
Seth Payne
For those of you know, every now and then, we get people who complain that we don't have Ben on the show. More like weigh in. I. I cannot tell you enough how little that. How little Ben wants that Ben. Ben does not like it when we ask him to talk, so. And I always. I'm always grateful when he will say a few words.
- [48:15]
Luke Morrow
And he's. By the way. And it's not brown nosing, but Ben is. It's fine if he doesn't turn the microphone on. He's really good at what he does. And I. He makes it a lot easier for me whenever I'm filling in, especially in a week like this. We're lucky here. I've worked at a lot of radio stations. Some producers just don't care or whatever. We have really good producers at this station, and Ben's fantastic. So it's always great to be in with you guys.
- [48:36]
Seth Payne
Because we give them the best drugs.
- [48:38]
Luke Morrow
That's right.
- [48:38]
Seth Payne
So most producers, it's a matter of, like, all right, how do we keep them happy? And. And we know how to keep Ben happy.
- [48:45]
Luke Morrow
I don't even know where I am now, man.
- [48:49]
Seth Payne
He's in another dimension. He's operating completely unconsciously.
- [48:56]
Luke Morrow
713-572-4-610. On the text line or YouTube and Twitch chats as well. Will CJ Stroud actually make it through the year? Not from, like, a health perspective. I mean, that. That could be a conversation or a concern. Some Texans might have that with this offensive line, and, you know, it's like a Joe Burrow scenario. Can he actually get through the whole season healthy, but more so based off of performance because our dear friend Mike Florio on his Pro Football Talk Live show, he was pondering this yesterday of is CJ Stroud actually going to be capable of holding on to this job throughout the season? Here was Florio, I think the key,
- [49:34]
Guest or Contributor
the willingness or lack thereof of the coaching staff to do something about the obvious. When the obvious happens, if CJ Stroud continues to struggle, you can't just continue to blindly let him Play. Davis Mills was 30 as a starter last year when C.J. stroud was out with a concussion. And I remember we were at Soldier Field for the Rams Bears game watching Texans Patriots that afternoon and we just all assumed after halftime it was going to be Davis Mills. And they still didn't move to Davis Mills. There's a chance they still could have won that game. As Sim said all last year, the Texans defense is good enough to win a championship all by itself when the offense is actively working against it. Not that they're doing it on purpose, but the offense was pulling down the team and the defense was still good enough to get as far as they did. So hey, clean slate for C.J.
- [50:28]
Advertisement Voice
stroud.
- [50:29]
Guest or Contributor
He's still their guy. He hasn't gotten his long term contract yet, but for now he's their guy. The flaw would be to blindly cling to CJ Stroud if what we saw in the postseason, both against the Steelers and against the patriots continues into 2026.
- [50:46]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I mean there's a, there's a few ifs there and obviously the big one was yeah, if CJ Stroud were to play that bad on through the regular season, you call it Davis Mills, Graham, what's his Graham Mertz, Anybody else? Like, yeah, there's going to be, there's going to be some kind of a change. I think that's a, that's a pretty big if. I think no matter how down anybody is on CJ Stroud, I would imagine it's hard to imagine that all of a sudden like something just dramatically changed in him between the regular season and the playoffs to where this is who he is from now and forever. I'm not saying it's impossible. I would just be really, really surprised. The other part of it though too is the I, I'll go back to my old David Cully rule on this. All right, if you're saying C.J. stroud at some point needs to be replaced by Davis Mills and that's what you're saying right now, then why are you not also clamoring for some other team to trade for Davis Mills that somebody's looking for a starting quarterback. And it's because my old thing with David Culley was alright, Stephen A. Smith and all these other guys are all like, they can't believe that the Texans are firing David Cully, but meanwhile they're not recommending David Cully to get any other head. Not a single one of them. For all the people that were incredulous that the Texans would move on from David Cully, I searched. Not a single one of them also said, you know who the Raiders should hire? David Cully. Like they didn't do it. It's non existent. And likewise, there's nobody out there clamoring for Davis Mills. There are a lot of other teams that if they had a chance to get CJ Stroud at some kind of a discount or whatever, they would do it in a second. And that doesn't mean that, that doesn't mean that he's going to be an all pro quarterback or anything. It's a, yeah, Davis Mills was three and oh, I thought Nick Haley did an awesome job of serving up a game plan that works really well for those three games. But like, let's not pretend that Davis Mills looked like he was the reinvented Sam Darnold or something when he was out there. He had some really good fourth quarters in the Titans game and in the Jacksonville game and did some really good things. But it was the, he got rid of the ball fast. The fastest, he had the fastest time to throw of anybody in the league last year. Which is what happens when a good backup quarterback is coming in and executing a game plan that's going to work for a little while, especially when you've got a really good defense. But it wasn't anything that all of a sudden put him in that conversation of, oh wow, maybe he should actually be the starting quarterback for 17 games. So I think I agree with Florio in that if, yes, CJ Continued to play exactly the same way he did against the Steelers and the Patriots, you would have to move on from him. That would be an abject disaster. I just, I have a hard time thinking that that's going to be the reality now. If he's, if he's struggling, et cetera, et cetera, then that's a whole nother conversation.
- [53:38]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that. So that that audio bite was 78 seconds. So a minute 18. And as I'm listening to him like, okay, and then yeah, then he kind of buries the lead where that was the last Thing he said, like, if he plays like he did in the playoffs. So it's like, yeah, of course, no kidding. If any quarterback plays like that, that's uns. You can't have that guy out there. I thought he was making the case of just like regular season Shroud, if he plays like he did last year or the year before, like at a certain point you're going to have to bench him. But of course if he's, if he is playing historically bad, no one played as poorly historically as Stroud did in those two playoff games. So if he's playing like the worst quarterback ever, then yeah, of course you're going to have to pull him.
- [54:16]
Seth Payne
And I'll say, look, yeah, Davis Mills went three and oh, C.J. stroud went seven and oh stretch during the season. I don't, I don't for the. This, this thing. It bothers me when people who cover the NFL full time choose to forget everything they've ever learned about backup quarterbacks coming in for a brief period of time. And that yeah, you can do some really good things with a quarterback for a brief period of time, but that's not the same thing as getting game planned for all season long and having to go out and you know, having all that film on you that you don't get to just ambush the opposition with a tailor made game plan for your backup quarterback. So yeah, I'm not like, there's zero part of me right now that wants Davis Mills over C.J. stroud. The question, I think, and I think this is what Ross Tucker brought up when he was on Garrett Williams podcast on his YouTube channel, which I really, I really liked because I think he just said something that I've, that I've been thinking, but he said it more eloquently than I would. Is that just flat out before The Texans pay C.J. stroud, they got to be sure that that was just a blip on the radar in the playoffs. My concern is that the decision making in the two playoff games this year was just so poor that it can't help but make you give you some pause and some hesitation in terms of a monster contract. Do I still think they'll give it to him?
- [55:50]
Guest or Contributor
At some point?
- [55:51]
Advertisement Voice
Yes.
- [55:52]
Seth Payne
But if I'm the Texans and I have them for two more years, I think I need to make sure that what we saw in those last two postseason games was not the start of more to come or was not something that's going to continue. Yeah, that I have a feeling that if you listen to that, it Might sound like it's alarmist or something, but I think in the very real world, if you put yourself in this situation of the Texans, that, All right, we're pretty sure we feel like CJ's, you know, headed in the right direction. And we like a lot about the way he's operating and everything. But then all of a sudden, in the last couple of opportunities before you might end up giving him an extension, you see just an almost incalculably bad performance and something that's completely out of the blue. It's like if you see something, you find your dream house and you put in a contract. And on the final express, in the final inspection, you're walking around and you find a dead body in the pantry or something like, oh, wait a. Wait a second. We gotta hit the brakes on this a little bit. And you find out there was a neighbor who put the dead body there. Like, yeah, all right, I gotta rethink this a little bit. And it's like, I gotta be sure all the T's are crossed and the eyes are dotted before I. Before I give out a generally generationally large contract.
- [57:24]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, certainly. And I. I look so like Sam Darnold. It's not exactly apples to apples, I guess, but Sam Darnold had that lousy. When he was in Minnesota, had a terrible. The final game of the season was essentially a playoff game. He was horrendous. Then they went to the playoffs, he was horrendous. And the Vikings felt like, yeah, you know what? We can't commit to this guy. He just played terrible in the two biggest games. And then he obviously came back this year in Seattle and was like, hey, I'll show you. And played excellent throughout the playoffs. In fact, even better in the playoffs than he did in the regular season. He elevated his play, limited his turnovers, took care of the football better, and obviously they won the Super Bowl. So that's kind of the. I know a lot of people draw that comparison, too, of Stroud to Darnold. Of, obviously, Stroud had that meltdown last year in two games. Kind of like Darnold. In fact, even worse than Darnold. And now the hope is seeing if he can bounce back. So it's nice to have the luxury. And to Ross's point of, like, him still being under contract, where the Vikings had to make a decision right there and then. And they were like, yeah, Darnold's not a big game quarterback. If the Texans had to make a decision today, if his contract was up, maybe they would feel the same way of we can't pay him based off of what we just saw in the playoffs. But like Ross laid out, the good thing is you still have time to try to figure out if that was the outlier or if that becomes the norm or he, he almost is, is, is shook in those scenarios and can't shake that.
- [58:43]
Seth Payne
Yeah. And I think that's where when it comes to, I, I guess it's, it's mostly driven by the media and shows like ours. I suppose that this feeling that, oh boy, you got teams just, boy, if you don't make that decision after the third year, it makes it really tough to operate. Which, I mean there's just, there's not any truth to that. Like the, the Ravens and the Cowboys kicked the can way on down the road and I'm not saying that they handled it the right way. And yet the, that waiting to pay Lamar Jackson and waiting to pay Dak Prescott didn't mean financial devastation for those teams. Didn't mean that those quarterbacks just held a grudge against the organization and they're never going to want to play there again or anything like that. I mean they, they obviously haven't won a Super bowl or done what they want to do, but it's, it's not the end of the world to make a quarterback wait a year or two. It's not like the biggest slap in the face that when you're not one of the best players at your position in the league that you don't get a contract. It's just, it should be on the surface of it all. It feels, it's always felt to me like it should be a non factor and a non issue except because it's the quarterback position and people attach so much importance to it. Rightfully so that it, that somehow it's like the biggest slap in the face to not pay a guy after his third year. No, he just simply hasn't earned it yet. And you can make excuses or explanations for it and I do myself, I make explanations for some of the reasons that CJ hasn't fulfilled his potential. But it's, but it doesn't mean that because he's got some excuses that you just go ahead and give him a record setting contract.
- [60:25]
Luke Morrow
To Ross's point or question though, do you think like say he played the same way he played in the regular season, say you get those performances in the playoffs for Stroud, do you think the Texans would have made that decision? Like how much of a factor do you think that is? Or do you think this is simply the Texans saying, like, hey, we don't need to rush. Let's continue to take our time and gather more information regardless of what happened in the playoffs?
- [60:46]
Seth Payne
That's the really good question. And I lean more on the side of. I don't. I think there still wouldn't be a contract right now, but there might have been some negotiations and that. C.J. you know, theoretically, that the Texans wanted to get him at some kind of a, you know, whatever the current rate is, where it's been stuck at 55 million a year, give or take, for quarterbacks for the last few years, that they might have been open to something like that, knowing that next year, when you've got potentially six or more quarterbacks who are going to get new contracts next year, that it's going to get blown out of the water? I think they might have been comfortable with something like that. And then it's just, I don't know if. I don't know if C.J. and David Mulligetta would have been cool with. With that dollar amount. And I think that ultimately they might have just. They would have kicked the can down the road again, but there would have been more discussion about it. But I don't think. I don't. I think there's a chance the Texans right now just flat out don't feel comfortable with that 55 million a year until they see that he's gotten over whatever issues he was having in the playoff.
- [61:49]
Advertisement Voice
Right.
- [61:49]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [61:49]
Luke Morrow
I think that's a big question that needs to be answered first at this point. Getting back to the Florio take and on the text and someone said, oh, good. Another national media person who only watched the playoffs and not the regular season, but getting back to what Florio said, how thin or thick do you think the ice is now? Obviously his. He set the bar at that playoff performance if he continues to play like he did in the playoffs. But do you. Could you see any scenario or how, like, what are the chances, I guess is the question I'm asking, that Stroud would actually get yanked out during the season, that he would get benched at some. How bad would he have to be to actually get benched this year?
- [62:27]
Seth Payne
It would have to be especially in the regular season.
- [62:31]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yep. You know, like, okay, Davis Mills is going to start this Sunday for us instead.
- [62:37]
Seth Payne
I think, I think if he, if he went out and had a first half like he did versus the Patriots, he's not getting benched in the regular season. If he came out in the second half of that game and was making the same bad decisions and hadn't because he did. I mean he reeled it in and controlled the situation better in the second half of that game. But especially if there was no weather to blame. Like I wonder, do you ever wonder this? What if CJ had gone out that bad and the weather was pristine and he was making those same decisions? Is it easier in that moment at halftime? Do you think, do you think that d' Amico doesn't have the weather or anything else to just kind of cushion the. Cushion the severity of it that, that he makes the decision to pull him then like, like Fox, the Patriots game, if you have that exact same performance but they're, but the weather, the, the elements aren't a factor. Does he get pulled at halftime?
- [63:37]
Luke Morrow
I'm of the school of thought of like in a vacuum I would pull Stroud in that scenario. And even watching that game I was thinking like they probably would at this point, they probably would be better with Davis Mills. But I'm of the school of thought that if you were to make that move, I feel like, and you've been in locker room so you know better than me, but I feel like it's, it's hard to go back to Stroud if you pull him, especially if it's just for the second half. Cause like, hey, you're playing really bad. We're going to put Davis in for the rest of the game and then should try to go back to him to be your starter. I just feel like mentally or confidence wise, I feel like that's too hard to go back to when you're talking about a guy who's supposed to be your franchise quarterback.
- [64:13]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I know it's a, it's a much bigger deal. And especially with, I mean with CJ I don't know if I think there's a. I don't know if I would put him in that top tier of mental toughness of like some of the all time stud quarterbacks who might get like just with quarterback in general, it's just there's such a different dynamic about the way the team looks at him, the way the quarterback has to operate as a leader and everything that if you bench them, that's pretty much it. And sometimes that comes down to okay, how do you feel about the guy behind him? So benching CJ Where I'm not, look, I'm not, I'm not like Florio. I don't think that Davis Mills is going to be the next Sam Darnold. Maybe he does end up being. But I'm not going to forecast it. Not that that's what Florio said. I'm joking. But that it's a lot easier to say bench Elvis Gerbach when you got a Rich Gannon waiting in the wings. And I don't think that anybody's looking at Davis Mills like he's. Like he's Rich Gannon.
- [65:12]
Ben (Producer)
No.
- [65:13]
Luke Morrow
Right. But here is my concern. And people always misconstrued this and they're going to start going right now. The text and the message, the comments in YouTube. I'm not saying that Davis Mills gives you a better option than CJ Stroud. I'm not telling you that the Texans think Davis Mills is a better option than CJ Stroud. But could some people in that organization believe that you don't need a high level of quarterback play in order to win because of how good that defense is and therefore can convince themselves that they are just fine with a Davis Mills? Like, let's just say in the short term, I'm not saying you're going to move on from CJ Stroud and make Mills your starter, but this idea of like, hey, our defense is so good, we don't need a top five or top 10 quarterback at the quarterback position. We can get by with an average quarterback who just will make sure he takes care of the football.
- [65:59]
Seth Payne
Yeah. I think that's the tough thing is, and that's where the whole people have a hard time detaching new Sam Darnold from old Sam Darnold. I think that it wasn't like Sam Darnold was only running the offense and doing nothing else. He's always had an incredible. He's always had the ability to make some incredible throws. You know, like, he's like the things that made him the draft pick that he was. Those traits have always been there. And with the combination of his experience and being with the right coaches in the right scheme and everything, you got that kind of a performance out of Sam Darnold. But he wasn't like, he wasn't an average quarterback last year. You know, that wasn't. It does I keep seeing all these people say, yeah, things have just changed and you can win with a Sam Darnold. All right. Can we consider see that they, they were still a top five passing offense. Like, they weren't or whatever. They ended up top five offensively. I can't remember where their passing offense was, but that it was more than just, hey, they're getting by with some mediocre quarterback play. No he was playing like an MVP candidate for a large chunk of the season that it was. It wasn't just. It wasn't the Texans offense last year for the Seahawks.
- [67:12]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. And he played even better in the playoffs. It's kind of like if you look at the quote unquote, like average quarterbacks recently that have won Super Bowls, the ones that come to mind, Eli Manning, Joe Flacco, who weren't necessarily MVP quarterbacks, but once you got to the playoffs, they played like MVP quarterbacks, which is why they were able to win Super Bowls. So even when you point to some of these, even like Nick Foles, people say Nick Foles won a Super Bowl. He was. He out dueled Tom Brady in the Super Bowl. So it's more about, like the actual performance. You're getting such a MVP performance from these quarterbacks, even if historically they haven't been on that level. But yeah, Sam Darnold played really well last year, obviously, and that's why they were able to get it done. It wasn't like he was throwing for 150 yards each game.
- [67:54]
Seth Payne
He played a good job. Looking for some quarterbacks who had been pulled in the middle of a game while they. When they were already established. And the most. The cleanest example, I think, is Match Dob is one of them that kind of worked out. Remember Shaub came back as Bearded Shaub in the Jacksonville game and looked like the best version of himself. In 2013, Donovan McNabb had already reached five Pro Bowls. And then in 2008 against Baltimore, Andy Reid benched him at halftime after he went 8 of 18 for 59 yards and two interceptions. And then was restored. The next week, Philadelphia won four of its final five regular season games and reached the NFC Championship Game. That was a. That was like the. That was the cleanest example I could find of a bona fide starting quarterback getting the. Getting benched in the middle of a football game and then, you know, coming back that season and making the. The NFC Championship Game.
- [69:00]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I think it's something that you should be able to do. I just worry about how well everyone would handle that. Obviously, I guess McNabb handled it well enough that. That the team sort of took off afterwards. Maybe that was the kick in the pants he needed, but that might not always be the case. Here is Texans.
- [69:16]
Seth Payne
You know what? There's also. Back then, though, there was always a good chance that a guy had a concussion that nobody realized.
- [69:21]
Luke Morrow
That's also true.
- [69:21]
Seth Payne
I'd have to go back. I might go back and watch that Entire game and see if there was. Oh, yeah, dude. Yeah, he was totally at a concussion, but there were no independent medical advisors or anybody to spot it and tell Andy Reid.
- [69:33]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [69:34]
Seth Payne
And also in the or, the team didn't disclose that it was a concussion because they wanted to get him back out there next week asap. Yeah, it's true.
- [69:40]
Luke Morrow
They were. He was throwing up in the trash can like in the. In the Super Bowl. By the way, the Seahawks last year were eighth in passing yards. To circle back to what you said.
- [69:48]
Seth Payne
Right? Yeah. So it wasn't like it was a. I think there's a. Because people love, you know, falling in love with narratives this time of year. They. They act like that the Texans and the Seahawks are the same team and they're not. No. Seahawks had a much better offense than the Texans did. They certainly in the play, especially in the playoffs, they had the ability to run the ball too. You know, like all of these things that they were definitively better than the Texans offensively in a lot of ways last year.
- [70:17]
Luke Morrow
And what's amazing about Darnold, I'm looking at the numbers now. They were 29th in past attempts, so that's bottom four, yet eighth. And passing passing yards. Talk about efficiency, where they didn't. They weren't throwing it a whole lot, but they were top 10 in the league in passing Y yards. Nonetheless.
- [70:33]
Seth Payne
It was. It was like Clint Kubiak, new Gary Kubiak or something. And it learned from him because it was. It was the quintessential Kubiak Shanahan offense of just. And they're a really good example too, of using the run to set up the pass, but not being an awesome rushing attack because you don't have to. You just have to. In that offense, you have to make everything look the same. And that even if you're not an awesome rushing offense, that the defenders are trying to make their reads in the run looks exactly like the pass. So you don't have to have an awesome rushing attack. You just have to be able to run the ball effectively and not be getting stuffed on first down, you know, and like, that's what they did. Like Clint Kubiak ran his father's offense, you know, tweaked to the modern era to a T. And so much of that is just on simple eclipse execution. That that's like, that's where the Texans and other teams are lacking. They just. Whatever scheme you're running, you're just not running it to a T the way that Clint Kubiak got. That got that offense running last year
- [71:37]
Luke Morrow
and we'll see how he does with the Raiders. Now on the text line, somebody asked what does CJ have to do this year to get that contract? Obviously, if he wins a Super bowl, you know, that will get it done. But Seth, for you, is it, I imagine it's more about his performance than the team performance or is there a certain like, level? Like, hey, if you get to an AFC title game, then of course, you know, we're giving you the like, is it more about what the team achieves or something in particular you have to see from C.J.
- [72:01]
Seth Payne
yeah, that's all right. Because there's a question of what does he need to do versus what would I like him to see him do? I think that, I think that they were, I think they were genuinely encouraged by his growth in terms of understanding the job of a quarterback within a game. And I don't, I hesitate to call it game management, but just understanding situational football and game flow and all those kinds of things. I mean, you go back to two years ago and in that Green Bay game, at the very end of the game when all the, when the Texans, they had a. Or in the last few minutes when the Texans had a lead and they really just needed to eat clock as much as possible on third down, CJ Threw an incompletion that stopped the clock that wouldn't have even yielded a first down. Tankdale would have gone out of bounds anyway. Like there was no reason for him to throw that. And when they asked him about it afterwards, like he hadn't had like at the two minute break, they hadn't discussed it or anything. I felt that was on the coaches and CJ being a young quarterback and it was a game management flub on multiple levels. I think those are the type of things that both Demico Ryans and CJ Stroud got better at this year. And it just kind of all went out the window like. So I think if you were to have the same performance next year but with like 10% extra, you know, just the, the, they don't have to be a top scoring offense, but he needs to take care of the football. He needs to have some great moments in the fourth quarter. And if it was, if it was not a dramatic improvement over last year, but he was still operating and handling all of these situations the same way, I'd be cool with paying him then as long as the team was still good. Because you got to like, kind of like with Kyle Shanahan, I think, like, I don't Know, I don't think Kyle Shanahan is necessarily in love with Brock Purdy, but he also just knows that they've got. They've got a good thing going, and it's a lot. He's been through it before. He's seen that it's not as simple as going out and like, oh, we can go out and trade for a Garoppolo, or, oh, no, we can go. If we can go, we can trade up in the. The draft and get a Trey Lance that. It's just. It's never as simple as just going out and finding another quarterback. I think that's what it ends up being with C.J. stroud. If he's. If he has a better year, but not a dramatically better year, that. All right, we've got a winning formula here. Let's not overthink this. Let's. Let's pay. Pay the quarterback, whatever the going rate is.
- [74:28]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it's sort of like, that was really good. It's a tough question to. To, like, directly try to answer. Try to put a. Put a thing on it, which I think he gave a great answer because it's almost. Part of it, too, is kind of like the definition of pornography of. You just know it when you see it and see that.
- [74:44]
Seth Payne
That.
- [74:44]
Luke Morrow
That improvement from him.
- [74:46]
Seth Payne
But then I think part of the. It feels like one of the potential explanations for why CJ Fell apart in the playoffs was that, you know, what I said afterwards was, no kid. No kid goes to bed at night dreaming of being Trent Dilfer. You know, like, oh, I can be the guy that was just kind of along for the ride on a Super bowl. That. And I've got a Super bowl ring. But it's because the defense was so awesome. And that just psychologically, unconsciously, maybe there's a tendency to push and that you want to be above and beyond that. And I think that, like, whatever. Whatever, you know, however much that's true or not, who knows? But there was definitely something psychological going on terms of pressing or trying to make things happen, including that pick six, you know, I mean, they've got a lead, you're in your own territory. All those things that I thought C.J. made a lot of improvement on and understanding the situation and the game flow, it kind of just flew out the window with that pick six against the Patriots, because that's. That's exactly the kind of situation where, no, you don't put the ball in harm's way in that situation.
- [75:57]
Luke Morrow
Here is Foster Moreau, tight end of new tight end of The Texans. He was on NFL radio on Sirius XM and he was talking about his new quarterback, C.J. stroud. Here's what Foster had to say.
- [76:09]
Guest or Contributor
Very early on I wanted to go hang out with, with CJ just, you know, get a vibe, just see how he's feeling, catch a few balls and I mean his arm talent is exceptional. Some of the best I, I've been able to play with. He missed three games last year. I mean his, his statistical numbers for, you know, where he wants to be in terms of as, as a successful quarterback. He's, he's always chasing greatness, always chasing excellence. He's an underrated. He's underrated with his legs. I mean that cat can move, right? You know, I'm excited, I'm excited especially for what I've seen throughout OTAs, throughout the phase one, phase two. He's got the guys, he's getting, he's getting everyone together out in, out in sunny California for a nice throwing session, as most quarterbacks, as most quarterbacks do nowadays. Yeah, and I thought he was a quiet leader for us when I first showed up. And then we got into the workouts and we got into the actual, the bulk majority of what we actually do as a football team. And he's vocal, he's loud. Like he, he has an expectation and he has a vision for what he wants our offense to be, what he wants our team to be. And he doesn't have a choice. He's a leader for us regardless of circumstance.
- [77:27]
Seth Payne
He's the most impressive 47 year old tight end I've ever heard. He just sounds like a broadcast professional, like a much more professional broadcast professional than myself. The, like everything he said there, I have a hard time listening to what he's saying because I'm picturing him wearing like a suit in a GM at a GM press conference. That, and that's where like when you hear these quotes from David Montgomery or Foster Moreau and all of these other guys that I think are the things you'd expect to hear from somebody that's new to the team and that I guess it's most notable that I don't want to say they sound surprised that CJ is like confident and in command and everything, but the fact that they're even weighing in on that, you know, I wish it was more of a given that yeah, of course, like it's a, it's quarterback in the off season. What it's no big deal. Like 28 of the starting quarterbacks in the league are probably having the Same thing said about them when people talk about them. But I think it's just that we, as a fan base, are so attuned to just like, yeah, what. What's going on with him in his headspace and that. Ben, can you play the first 10 seconds?
- [78:39]
Guest or Contributor
Very early on, I wanted to go hang out with. With CJ Just, you know, get a vibe, just see how he's feeling, catch a few balls and.
- [78:47]
Seth Payne
Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah, see how he's feeling. I don't know if people say that about other court, like, yeah, true. Yeah. You know, early. I want to go on and see if I see Tom Brady, how he's feeling. And so many of these guys are being asked questions about, like, so how's. How is CJ Doing? I think that one of the things. This is one of my encouraging things that happen throughout OTAs. I did feel like we moved from hearing a bunch of interviews of guys where the first question was, so, like, how's C.J. doing? You know? And you're almost waiting to hear somebody say, like, how he had a. To take his shoelaces away from him, and he was. He's been under constant supervision the whole time. The questions have transitioned more away from that, more into the nuts and bolts of the defense. But I, like. Foster Moreau just brings up, yeah, how's he feeling? That's what. That's what I wanted to see is how's he feeling? It was a pretty damn big deal when you become that much of a meme in this day and age. I just. It's. It's a big deal. People were aware of it.
- [79:49]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. I think it was. Even the USA lost to Belgium the other night. And again, people brought shroud into it with the memes of, like, usa, you know, they turned into CJ Stroud in
- [79:58]
Seth Payne
a USA Jersey and all that.
- [79:59]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah. Which is.
- [80:01]
Seth Payne
You know, I thought we were going to get a break from it because Drake May was very, very much memed in the week after the Super Bowl. But people. I think people. They sat down and they did the hardcore analysis, and they're like, nope, nope, CJ was much worse.
- [80:13]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, it's true. That's the worst. Like, when you were growing up, especially if you grew up in a small town and if you, like, had a breakup or you lost a job or something, and wherever you'd go through town, you'd run into somebody, like a friend of the family or your mom's friend, and whenever they check on you, like, oh, how are you doing? I heard, you know, I heard things are tough, or I heard you're going through a break. Like, that's the most embarrassing thing whenever people have to come check on you
- [80:36]
Seth Payne
after a breakup, too.
- [80:38]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [80:38]
Seth Payne
Then they probably heard that you're doing badly.
- [80:41]
Luke Morrow
Right, exactly. That's what I mean. You know, your mom's gossiping to them of like, oh, he's having a hard time.
- [80:46]
Seth Payne
Yeah. I just want to hear. I don't want to hear patronizing quotes about CJ Stroud. I don't want to hear people be like, yeah, you know what I mean? He. You know, he threw an interception last week, and it was cool. It was all right. He worked through it, and. And now he's. He's on the right track. Like, no, no, no. I just want to just assume that everything is just fine until I hear that it isn't.
- [81:05]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly. And by the way, we got opposite ends of the spectrum. On the text line, somebody says, Foster reminds me of Greg Olson. That's good. Somebody else said, he sounds like Andrew Tate. Not so good.
- [81:15]
Seth Payne
So I thought there's almost a little bit of a Sean McVeigh in there. A little bit.
- [81:21]
Advertisement Voice
Okay.
- [81:21]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I could get that a little bit. I like Foster Moreau a lot, and I hope he's a good addition for the team this year.
- [81:26]
Seth Payne
I like him because he's.
- [81:28]
Ben (Producer)
He.
- [81:28]
Seth Payne
I guess he's kind of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. You see him in interviews, and he sounds like a general manager, but then you see him out on the football field, and he's talking all kinds of smack. The potty mouth to boot.
- [81:39]
Luke Morrow
That's a.
- [81:39]
Seth Payne
That's the kind of duality we need in our young football players.
- [81:42]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, those are my kind of guys. I like that. I appreciate that. Coming up, we got to get to this story. I've been tracking it all week, but now it actually cost him a job. The spurs broadcaster got fired, and it's. It's juicy. And we'll talk about it next here on Pain and Pendergast.
- [81:58]
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Luke Morrow
Rally the crew.
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it is not hard to destroy a college. Last season, the podcast Campus Files brought you stories of fraternity drug rings, stolen body parts, campus cults, and more.
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Luke Morrow
And now Campus Files is back for another season. There's a guy screaming into his phone. He's like, I just saw Charlie Kirk get assassinated right in front of me. Every week is a new episode and a new story.
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Seth Payne
It was so chaotic.
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Luke Morrow
It's almost like a university under siege.
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- [83:59]
Seth Payne
How We Made youe Mother is the
- [84:01]
Luke Morrow
How I Met yout Mother Rewatch podcast with me, Josh Radner and series co creator Craig Thomas. Follow How We Made youe Mother wherever you get your podcasts. Well, the spurs lost somebody from their team. Just happened to be the broadcaster. It's quite the story. To Payne and Pendergast, I'm Luke Morrow, in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. It's juicy. I don't like drama in my life, but I do love to rubberneck drama, I have to be honest with you.
- [84:25]
Seth Payne
And we that's the best way to participate without any of the personal risk.
- [84:29]
Luke Morrow
Exactly. That's why I've really gotten into it started because of, you know, my significant other. But I gotta admit, I love it myself. Now all these, like reality dating TV shows, that's.
- [84:41]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [84:42]
Luke Morrow
Oh, it's the best.
- [84:43]
Seth Payne
And so I can't do it because I know, I get sucked into.
- [84:45]
Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
- [84:46]
Seth Payne
I like to act like I'm above all that. It's trash.
- [84:49]
Luke Morrow
Right?
- [84:50]
Seth Payne
I know. I'm a. I'm an addict just like everybody else.
- [84:52]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. That's how I felt like, ah, those shows are stupid. I'd never watch them. And then once I got pulled in, I was like, actually, these shows are great. Let's watch more.
- [85:00]
Seth Payne
I love it. Well, real quick. I think that's what. On Hannah McNair's podcast, D' Amico's wife disclosed that Miko is into. Is it Love Island?
- [85:10]
Luke Morrow
Love is Blind.
- [85:11]
Seth Payne
I thought Love is Blind. Okay.
- [85:12]
Luke Morrow
I think maybe it was Love Island.
- [85:13]
Seth Payne
No, I think it was Love is Blind.
- [85:15]
Luke Morrow
Okay.
- [85:15]
Seth Payne
Love island is trash here, isn't it?
- [85:17]
Guest or Contributor
Yeah.
- [85:18]
Seth Payne
Yeah. So I'm guessing. Yeah. Like, yeah. I don't think Diemiko's wife would have said it if he was into Love Island, I think. Yeah. So Love is Blind makes more sense.
- [85:26]
Luke Morrow
B. Scott's into Love Island. We. I. I've never watched it. That one's too much for me. That's where I draw the line. But B. Scott, I know likes it. We've talked about it a few times off air.
- [85:35]
Seth Payne
Is Love island the one where. Peter, people are, like, being tempted away from their current boyfriends and girlfriends?
- [85:41]
Luke Morrow
Or I think they might be singles. There's Temptation island, and that's the one where they are being tempted from their current partners.
- [85:48]
Seth Payne
Okay.
- [85:49]
Luke Morrow
All right. And we.
- [85:49]
Seth Payne
Do you watch that one? Yeah.
- [85:50]
Luke Morrow
Can we watch that one?
- [85:53]
Seth Payne
That sounds like the trashiest one.
- [85:54]
Luke Morrow
It's pretty trashy.
- [85:56]
Seth Payne
Well, it's got to be. Okay.
- [85:57]
Luke Morrow
It's very trashy, actually. Yeah.
- [85:59]
Seth Payne
Eighth tangent. Let me. So for Temptation island, like, none of those people are actually in good relationships to begin with, right? Yeah. Like, you're going on to a reality show to see if we can tempt our.
- [86:11]
Luke Morrow
Okay. Yeah.
- [86:11]
Seth Payne
So that. That. That kind of loses its luster for me. I want to see somehow, like, they didn't know this is what they signed up for, and they're. They're being tempted without knowing that. That's the deal. Yeah.
- [86:22]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [86:22]
Seth Payne
That's when you find out really, who's got the strong relationship.
- [86:26]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. That's why the newest season was kind of a bore. It just came out a few months ago because they were all. It's only four. They use four couples, and all four couples were such a mess that, like, you. You couldn't get into, like, these people. They're already. They shouldn't be together.
- [86:39]
Seth Payne
There was no hope for salvation. Care. Yeah.
- [86:43]
Luke Morrow
You know like he liked the drama, but it wasn't like he had a rooting interest or anything. Or you felt bad when they were, you know, messing around because it's like, yeah, you know, this relationship, they already should be broken up. What are they even doing here? So that's the problem with that one. Love is Blind was the one that first brought me in. And love I do enjoy. Love is Blind. They did a season in Houston. People can check that out, see all the local sites.
- [87:04]
Seth Payne
Is it so is it isn't. It's pretty much just like a normal, like blind date type show or whatever. Like is.
- [87:10]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [87:10]
Seth Payne
So you're different from the old traditional ones.
- [87:12]
Luke Morrow
You're in the pods. It's like for two weeks and you date through a wall without seeing somebody. So you get really close to them because you're having converse all day conversations, but you don't get to see them. And so these people fall in love and you propose without ever seeing them. You get engaged and then at the end of like the two weeks, they reveal one another. You know, they reveal the two to each other and then they move in. Well, first they go on a honeymoon and then they move in together and they have to live together for, well, I guess, like, well, the wedding day. I think it's like two months that they live together up until the wedding day. And then on the wedding day at the altar is when they make the decision of if they're. If they're actually gonna say yes to the marriage or not. And they can't talk about it beforehand.
- [87:51]
Seth Payne
Oh, okay. But they see each other while they're living with each other.
- [87:54]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [87:55]
Seth Payne
Oh, okay.
- [87:55]
Luke Morrow
They see each other at that point. And so often you see some people
- [87:58]
Seth Payne
bail as soon as they see the person.
- [88:00]
Luke Morrow
That hasn't happened. But you've had some bad reactions. There's a classic one where this woman is a. Who's a flight attendant. If people see the season, they already know what I'm talking about. She told them that she looked like Megan Fox. And so she really set the bar high. And when they saw each other, you could see the guy's name was Jimmy. You could see the look in his face. And then when they did the interview right after of just him, he was like, she told me she looked like Megan Fox.
- [88:28]
Seth Payne
That's such a dumb move by.
- [88:30]
Luke Morrow
Right?
- [88:30]
Seth Payne
What the hell? Well, did she look anything like Megan Fox?
- [88:34]
Luke Morrow
I don't think so.
- [88:35]
Seth Payne
Like, like dark hair or something. Or like.
- [88:38]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, she had dark hair, dude. I couldn't see the connection.
- [88:42]
Seth Payne
I Got. I would tell a woman I look like a, like a handsome version of Steve Buscemi that way. Like there's no way she's gonna be like, her expectations are gonna be so low. I would, yeah, I wouldn't even say handsome. I'd be like, I'm like a little less broke down Steve Buscemi.
- [88:56]
Ben (Producer)
Yeah.
- [88:57]
Luke Morrow
But I got a great personality. As you'll find out through this wall for the next two weeks.
- [89:01]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [89:02]
Luke Morrow
So. Yeah. Anyways, love those shows. But it's come to real life where I was tracking this story. So it was actually when we were on the air earlier this week and some spurs fan account was tweeting about it because based off of Instagram post, his name is Jacob Toby. He's the, he was the TV broadcaster for the Spurs. I think he's pretty new on the job.
- [89:22]
Seth Payne
He's just a couple years.
- [89:24]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, because I remember when that job opened up, man. Maybe two years ago. He's a young guy.
- [89:28]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I believe it was 20, 24 was his first year.
- [89:31]
Luke Morrow
Okay. So I saw this during a commercial break earlier this week where they posted his post from Instagram and there was two images, two stories added to his Instagram overnight. And one was him with a photo of, I believe his girlfriend. And it said like, here's my girlfriend of six years who. Something along the lines of who I've been cheating on. Keep following me if you think I'm a good guy. And then the next post was like a photo of the girl he was, you know, the mistress.
- [90:05]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [90:06]
Luke Morrow
And like providing the proof of that. And it was a snarky. They were snarky posts on his Instagram exposing him. That obviously came from the girlfriend.
- [90:15]
Seth Payne
He'd been hacked by his ex girlfriend. Yeah, like by his girlfriend that he'd been cheating on while he was sleeping.
- [90:21]
Luke Morrow
She got into the phone, she obviously this was her plan. Cuz he couldn't, he was sleeping, he couldn't delete it. So it was out there and he didn't realize till he logged onto Instagram some point the next day that these posts are up there and they were already making the rounds on social media. The other part of this that's sort of Machiavellian, although it's kind of, kind of awkward. They were on a two week vacation to his family and this was only day three. So they were staying. The girlfriend at the time and Jacob were staying with his parents. And his parents I guess told him to like take the stuff down and delete everything from his Instagram of like any Sort of reference or anything.
- [90:58]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [90:59]
Luke Morrow
While, I guess while she's still like in the house. I can only imagine how awkward that is where the parents seem to be pretty ticked off. Not that he did this to his girlfriend, but that she aired the dirty laundry.
- [91:09]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [91:10]
Luke Morrow
Social media.
- [91:10]
Seth Payne
Yeah. So then, and then the other big, the other big detail is exactly who the woman was that he was cheating with.
- [91:19]
Advertisement Voice
Mm.
- [91:19]
Luke Morrow
So at first she just put out like the, I think a photo of the woman and like the name. And then the Internet sleuths were looking into it and trying to figure out, of course, as one does, like, oh, who is this woman? And as it turns out, it's the sister of one of the players on the Spurs. So he, Jacob Toby, the broadcaster, was in a six year relationship before he even got the job with the spurs and then had been stepping out on the relationship with another woman who happens to be a sister of one of the spurs players, the team that he covers.
- [91:54]
Seth Payne
Yeah. And do we know who the, do we know who the player was?
- [91:57]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I got to find it. It's not, it's not, it's not like it's Wemby. It's not a big time player.
- [92:01]
Seth Payne
Wasn't like a Tony Parker type. No apps.
- [92:04]
Luke Morrow
I should know off the top of my head, but it's the names escaping me for, for the moment.
- [92:08]
Seth Payne
Well, that's so the, so immediately it's funny because I feel like that's a relevant detail, but a lot of people are kind of only presenting half the story and they're saying, wait a second, the spurs are firing this guy because he cheated on his girlfriend? What the hell is that all about? And I'm inclined to think, okay, there's way more to the story, obviously, like you at least have to mention that he was with the sister of one of the players. But even that, though, I do feel like that I, I, I have to wonder there whether there's even more to the story than that, because it's not like that's unheard of that somebody has a relationship with a player's family member or something like that in and of itself wouldn't be a fireable offense, should it be? I think there's, I think there is more sloppiness to come and that will come out of this, probably.
- [92:59]
Luke Morrow
And the players, Lindy Waters. I was, I was torn on this because I think in most places people aren't losing their jobs for what they're doing in their relationships.
- [93:09]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [93:10]
Luke Morrow
And if it's the cousin of a coworker, I Should say, I guess just the sister sibling of a co worker. I don't know if that's enough to lose.
- [93:16]
Seth Payne
It's not the same as dating a co worker and not disclosing it. Is that in an employee handbook anywhere that you've got to disclose it? I guess it would be a potentially conflict of interest relationship.
- [93:28]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. So that's where I come in on I'm on the fence because in general I feel like I don't know if that's enough. And by the way, the spurs made the decision right away as this went viral and publications started writing about it, like actual publications, front office sports, maybe like the New York Times, whoever. The spurs has made the decision right away. They didn't do any sort of investigation. Apparently they just fired him. Um, that's where I come in on the other side of the conversation of it does feel different when, if you're a broadcaster of the team or if you work with the team that feels like almost too close to home, where obviously it's not like it's actually somebody in the organization or on the team, but it seems too close where if you had an affair with your girlfriend, but it's some random person. I don't think the spurs care. But the fact that it's tied to the organization, it seems like for a broadcaster that's unprofessional, makes the organization look bad. And so I do kind of get it.
- [94:19]
Seth Payne
And that is, I mean, ultimately you, when you're in the public eye and you're bringing extra scrutiny to the organization, whatever you can get, like you can get fired for being sloppy. I don't know if that's legal or not, but I would totally fire somebody just for being sloppy. That.
- [94:35]
Luke Morrow
All right.
- [94:35]
Seth Payne
I don't know. You're in a front facing job, a public facing job, and you're bringing extra scrutiny to the organization and you should have handled yourself better. I do the same thing with athletes with like say Stefan Diggs and his. Mostly his most recent issue, or at least the second most recent issue where this woman is suing him and, or, and or charging him with felony strangulation. All of that, it goes to court and man, does it look like he was innocent. At least based on all the stuff I saw and everything. It looks like he got hosed in that stuff situation. But Stefon Diggs is guilty of man conducting his affairs in a really sloppy manner. And that's, that's just as much for me an issue. It's not as much of an issue as if he had actually assaulted somebody, obviously. But like, that's a big issue when somebody routinely just is sloppy as hell. Deshaun Watson, regardless of how you feel about whether he did or did not or whether he was falsely accused or anything, at the very least you have to concede if you're being honest, that, my God, desean, you are guilty of sloppiness to an extreme degree in the way you're conducting your personal affairs. So, like, likewise. Yeah. A broadcaster for the team. You're getting all sloppy. Yeah, yeah. You're letting. This stuff's becoming public and everything, and it's with a sister of one of the players and we don't know what maybe else was disclosed about his relationship with that. That woman or anything that. Yeah, I'm cool with it. I'm not gonna be. I'm not gonna be like one of the Colin cowards of the world that's saying that he should sue the Spurs.
- [96:13]
Luke Morrow
So, yeah, it's sort of like the NFL's conduct detrimental policy where, you know, if, like if you make the organization look bad or you make the NFL look bad, you can be punished even if you didn't do anything illegal. They have that right. And I guess the spurs too, of like, hey, you made us look bad. This is not very professional. You're gone. So that's the case there.
- [96:30]
Seth Payne
I wish I had grown up with the pressure of being exposed on social media. I would have been such a better kid. You know, I just. I feel like I would have made some better decisions early in life.
- [96:40]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, it's true.
- [96:41]
Seth Payne
And treated my high school girlfriend a lot better, I'll tell you that much. If I knew that she could. If she could expose all embarrassing things
- [96:48]
Luke Morrow
about me and it's gonna. And then it carries, you know, then it stays with you. Like, I wonder what this means for this guy's career moving forward. He really screwed up. He was the TV broadcaster for the spurs with Wemby and with their future, he had it set and blue.
- [97:02]
Seth Payne
It's. It's going to be him and Rossini co hosting a podcast on Barstool, I think is the next logical move. That's right. What are the odds on favorite for Rossini right now? Barstool. Yeah, it's got to be Barstool.
- [97:15]
Luke Morrow
I think that's the only option. Or maybe Stu Gotts keeps tarry Levitard.
- [97:19]
Advertisement Voice
Whatever.
- [97:19]
Luke Morrow
One of those keeps talking about it because they're friends with friends with her on the text line. Someone said spurs fan here who watched many local broadcasts. He Annoys me to the point I want to mute the game. So this is a good move for spurs fans who watch regularly.
- [97:30]
Seth Payne
Yeah, that's the other part too, is I have zero clue. I've not. I've not watched their local broadcast or anything. Is also like, man, sometimes you're in a position where the organization is like, well, all right, we already didn't like you. And then this just. It's. It's as simple as that.
- [97:44]
Luke Morrow
That's true. Yeah, so he's gone. Coming up, have the Texans truly set up stroud for success in 2026. We'll talk about it next. Pain and pender Gas Summer routines live
- [97:56]
Guest or Contributor
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- [99:19]
Seth Payne
the under $3 menu at McDonald's, a McChicken is $2, because when you're craving a McChicken, you deserve a McChicken. And now that McChicken is just $2, limited time only, prices and participation may vary.
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Luke Morrow
Prices may be higher for delivery.
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- [100:05]
Luke Morrow
A morning walk, some bird watching. It's another easy Sunday. UnitedHealth Group makes these ordinary days possible. With partners like the University of Tennessee Health Sciences helping communities manage their health closer to home. 54% of participants have lowered their blood pressure, meaning fewer heart attacks and more Sundays at the park. This might feel like an ordinary day to UnitedHealth Group. It's the healthcare system working better for everyone. Learn more@unitedhealthgroup.com commitment have the Texans truly done enough to set up CJ Stroud for success in 2026? It's Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. 713-572-4610. To get in on the text line. Also can reach on the YouTube and Twitch chats. And for all those hating on the reality shows. Ah, just wait. You think you're better? You think you're stronger?
- [101:01]
Seth Payne
Yeah. You getting a lot of that? You get a lot of pushback on the text line?
- [101:04]
Luke Morrow
There's a handful of text.
- [101:07]
Seth Payne
It is. We're all, we're all susceptible to trash. That's why we call it trash. Shame ourselves out of watching it.
- [101:14]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [101:14]
Seth Payne
I don't know. Yeah, I haven't been into anything trash in a while. I would. Good. But I know it's not because I'm better than it or anything. I just, I know to stay away from it. I do. You get this dynamic whenever you do. Do you think way too much and have too many objections to starting a new series on Netflix when you're like, I'll debate it with myself for like two months. Like, ah, I just don't know. I don't, I don't want to. I don't know if I want to have the energy to get into this. I act like it's like a paper that I'm putting off writing or something when it's supposed to be an enjoyable experience. Yeah. There's just so many choices and I have a hard time choosing.
- [101:47]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it's a big commitment too. Like I've been putting off starting Breaking bad for about 12 years now. So.
- [101:53]
Seth Payne
Wow.
- [101:54]
Luke Morrow
I haven't Watched that show and it's
- [101:55]
Seth Payne
so stupid that you're waiting because everybody is telling you that you're going to love it. It's awesome. What is it? It's the fear of commitment.
- [102:02]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Because they're like an hour episodes. Right. And there's like, you know, I'm already behind. Obviously the show's over. There's like five seasons or whatever. That's a big commitment to sit down and watch like 600 hours of this show.
- [102:14]
Seth Payne
You're agreeing ahead of time because you also know, wow, if I were to spend 600 hours doing something productive with my time, just imagine where I might be. Yeah, I will not do that.
- [102:24]
Luke Morrow
I could watch eight different reality shows instead. Something like that. So, yeah, it's tough. The one text I did appreciate, then we'll get back to the Texans. Somebody on the text line said, bro can pull names out of thin air when talking about old episodes of Love is Blind, but can't remember a Spurs player name on the story. He brought up completely fair criticism. It's true. Priorities.
- [102:46]
Seth Payne
That's the other thing too is that people are bringing up the spurs and the alleged affair affairs that have happened in the spurs organization. Two things to remember. Those happened under. Those happened under the watch of Mark Cuban. So it's a different organization. And two, there's always the whole. There is like the whole. There's different rules for where you stand in the totem pole.
- [103:08]
Luke Morrow
Sure.
- [103:08]
Seth Payne
And that if you're like the new young play by play guy that. Yeah. You know, you're not going to get as many benefits of the doubt.
- [103:16]
Luke Morrow
Exactly. Right. That was the whole Jimmy Johnson thing. Right. Where they asked him like, what would you do if was Emmett Smith was sleeping in a meeting or something like that? He said he'd wake him up or let him sleep.
- [103:25]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [103:26]
Luke Morrow
But if it was somebody else in the back of the roster, like, they're cut, you're falling.
- [103:29]
Seth Payne
Yeah. We're making a point with this. We're going to cut you.
- [103:33]
Luke Morrow
Oh, yeah.
- [103:33]
Seth Payne
That happens all the time. Especially like a running back fumbles and then he's cut the next day. I can't remember. Oh, I had a coach do that once. I want to say it was Kubiak. Somebody can go back to the game logs. And some running back fumbled and the kid got cut and. And Gary got up and said, hey, look, these are the consequences and everything. I'm not calling Gary out for this. It was a good move by him. But it was also like, you know, you're like, yeah, but if you Know, if, if, if one of the studs on the team does this, you're not going to cut them because of that one fumble. I think it was more of a message to Kubiak, from Kubiak to some of the younger jackasses on the team, they're like, look, this is, this is where this is. Like this, this is what happens. Like, we need you guys to be better than this.
- [104:12]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah. It's a different rules for different people. No doubt. Speaking of the Texans though, have they done enough to set up Shroud for success? I hope this plays well on the radio because I do find this really interesting. You can find the full thing on on CBSSports.com the breakdown where they use a weighted grading system and they looked at certain areas to determine if the infrastructure is good enough for an offense in 2026, if teams actually have set up their quarterback for success. And so they graded and ranked every teams and the areas that they looked at for these offenses were play caller, offensive line, pass catchers and running backs. And then they also wanted to acknowledge that these aren't necessarily rankings of where the offenses are going to perform this year, but more so how positioned, how well positioned they are to have success offensively. Yeah, so that's the setup and they put them, they ranked them 32 through 1, but they also put them in different tiers as well. They group them together.
- [105:14]
Seth Payne
Tears on this one.
- [105:15]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah.
- [105:18]
Seth Payne
Which is like. So at first, when you find out the Texans aren't in the bottom couple tiers, you might think, oh, okay, they must have. The Texans is around middle of the pack. No, no, it's just the Tier 6 and Tier 7 are really, really low. And the Texans are in tier 5, which is the rankings 24 through 28. So they're still way down.
- [105:38]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, not great. So tier seven is the Dolphins all by themselves as we look at the only teams that they believe are, are worse than, than the Texans infrastructure. Offensively, the Dolphins are by themselves. Tier 6 is help needed. And that's the Tennessee Titans, the Cleveland Browns, the Washington Commanders. They also assign a grade to all these teams as well. But let's not get bogged down with all the different numbers. And then you get to tier 5, which is help wanted. So not needed, but help wanted. And you get to the Carolina Panthers or 28th, New York Giants 27th, New York Jets 26. This is a tough team to be next to. Cause then, then you get the Texans at 25 who get a 3.3 rating on a scale of 1 to 5. I believe it is. Yeah, 1 to 5.
- [106:28]
Seth Payne
No, but you're right. I think especially if you look at the immediate neighborhood for the Texans where, okay, the jets are just behind him and the Cardinals are just ahead of them. One of these is not like the others, that the Texans are just by virtue of having such a good defense and an offense that an offense that was steady. It was a steadily unimpressive but not horrendous offense during the regular season. I think the, the write up they did for the Texans was interesting because they kind of conceded that there are a lot of unknowns about the Texans right now, including the fact that you didn't see a bunch out of Higgins and Jalen Noel last year, but they might indeed be way better than people are looking at them right now. So they concede that. They also concede that if Tank, if we knew that Tank Dell was going to be back fully healthy from his devastating injury, that would change things. The thing that I thought was interesting was they just threw it in as a standalone sentence or just part of a sentence. Nick Haley is an above average play caller, but the offensive line will likely be lucky to achieve average status. And the David Montgomery Woody Marks duo in the backfield is solid but uninspiring. I think just, it was, I think that might be the first time I've seen somebody just throw out. Almost as a matter of fact, that, well, Nick Cayley's an above average play caller. I don't, I don't feel confident saying that. I feel, and I'm, I think I'm more on the positive side of the spectrum when it comes to Nick Haley. I'm incorrect. Encouraged by some of the things that he figured out on the fly last year, but he needs to improve in his second year. But I also wouldn't just sit down and say he's an above average play caller.
- [108:09]
Luke Morrow
Right. I was surprised by that. Yeah, I don't, I don't think we've even seen enough to be able to say that. So they give praise to the offensive coordinator. I actually, I think, funny enough, Texans fans probably feel the opposite of this, but according to this article and that write up, they, I guess they had Nick Kaley, like ranked the best. That was the only thing they gave praise on. Then they said receivers, we wish we saw more from the rookie receivers last year. And then they said about the running back, well, I mean, it'll be improved this year, but you know, Woody Marks wasn't good enough. Offensive line still needs to improve, but they have an above average play caller. So it almost seems like Nick Kaley's highest in their rankings. When you talk about the different parts of the offense, which I think if you polled most Texans fans, it would be the opposite, where they feel better about the receivers and David Montgomery and whatnot than the actual play caller.
- [108:57]
Seth Payne
I'm going to have to look up and see if this, this writer went to John Carroll University because that seems to be. That's a, It's a pretty impressive syndicate they've got going there. Yeah, I think, like, it's funny because with Nick Caylee, I kind of. I put Nick Kaley and C.J. stroud in the same boat in some regards when it comes to me trying to either make excuses or explanations. And it's that, for one, just as it is with quarterback, it's really tough as an offensive coordinator to even show what you are as a play caller if you've got issues running the football and on the offensive line now, just as it is with quarterback. All right. The offensive coordinator's job is to make those things better and more so with the offensive coordinator and the rushing attack in the offensive line. That's on the, that's on the. That's as much on the offensive coordinator and the GM as it is on the quarterback, obviously, or it's more so on those guys than on the quarterback. But with the actual. I, you know. And again, are they saying play caller in terms of him as an offensive coordinator in general or in the specific play calling, the actual specific play calling. It's just really, really hard to do when you've got one hand tied behind your back because the defense doesn't respect your run game. And especially when they're, when the offensive line is struggling to pass protect. At times, you're limited in what you can do and what you can set up and you know, how you're using some plays to set up other plays. But I didn't, I didn't see anything from him in his first year where I felt like it was going to be an abject disaster or that he doesn't know what he's doing. I think there's still, there's still a lot of potential for growth with Nick Kaler.
- [110:36]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Good. So that's certainly promising and hopefully.
- [110:38]
Seth Payne
Yeah, but I. Yeah, but I also wouldn't sit down and type. He's an above average. I don't know where that comes from. Like, I was. I read that sentence, that first part of that sentence, and I'm like, all right, well, clearly they're Going to have more of an explanation here because I haven't seen anybody write that sentence yet. I've seen people optimistic about Nick Kaley or whatever, but I just don't think, I think even if you're Nick Cayley's biggest fan in the world, you can't sit and look at that offensive performance and use that as the basis for you being an above average play caller last year.
- [111:06]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, and then they blame, they seem to blame the offensive line instead. But they gave Nick Caylee praise. Said the offensive line will be lucky to achieve average. Said the running back room is solid but uninspiring. Said the wide receivers he didn't see enough from them last year outside of Nico Collins. So a lot of criticism other than Nick Caylee. If we zoom out, they have the Texans as 8th worst in terms of offensive infrastructure. You know what they've done to try to set up their quarterback for Success heading into 20, 26. 8th worst as mentioned right next to the jets, who, I mean that's one of the worst offenses or at least last year is one of the worst offenses in the league. Does that feel right? If you were to think about like how have the Texans done compiling this offense? Does it feel like an eighth worst infrastructure?
- [111:52]
Seth Payne
No, I think partly just because for one, Nico Collins is kind of one of those force multipliers that swings things. Kind of like how the Astros can be average in so many hitting stats as a team, but only because Jordan is so good that I think just having one or two impact guys like that just changes what your infrastructure is like. Like Dalton Schultz is plenty capable as a tight end, as a receiving threat, that, you know, he's not the best in the league or anything or one of the top guys in the league, that Nico Collins is a force multiplier. And as they said in the David Montgomery and Woody Marcus as a running back duo is what they say, solid but uninspiring.
- [112:34]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly.
- [112:35]
Seth Payne
I think that in terms of just the skill position guys that would, that would bump them up to at least average. The part that gets tricky is the improvements on the offensive line and whether you know you're going to be relying on a first round pick rookie to help boost that up and that's dicey. That that's a 50, 50 proposition. The health of Braden Smith and Wyatt Teller and where Wyatt Teller in is his career is that I could see people saying like, all right, it's not a slam dunk that this is going to be a better offensive line next year. But I do think it should be more somewhere around middle of the road, more so than down this low, like amongst the likes of the. Of the. The Cardinals. And who is the other team right next to him?
- [113:20]
Luke Morrow
Jets.
- [113:21]
Seth Payne
The Jets. Yeah.
- [113:22]
Luke Morrow
Yep. Yeah, I'm with you on that. On the text line, someone says, the Nick Caylee. The Nick Caylee compliment discredits the entire ranking. Somebody else says it sounds like Kaylee is benefiting from having worked under Sean McVeigh and that's why they're assuming he's a good offensive coordinator, because he was with the Rams offense.
- [113:43]
Seth Payne
I guess it was just a weird thing to put in. I give these guys a break when they're writing about all 32 teams.
- [113:47]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [113:48]
Seth Payne
And yeah, you are writing it. You're not just speaking off the top of your dome. I don't know where that comes from. I was just. I would love to know. I would love to know the explanation for why he just wrote, Nick Cayley is an above average play caller.
- [114:00]
Ben (Producer)
Yeah.
- [114:00]
Luke Morrow
Give us a little more.
- [114:01]
Seth Payne
I'm not saying he can't be or he might not be. It's just. There's not. I don't think Nick Haley. I think Nick Haley. If you were sitting there and was given that, you'd be like, I haven't proven anything yet. What are you guys talking about? No.
- [114:12]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. By the way, on this list, only two of the bottom 12 teams, including the Texans, made the playoffs last year. Seven of the top 10 in offensive infrastructure made the playoffs a year ago.
- [114:24]
Seth Payne
Who is the other team for?
- [114:25]
Luke Morrow
The Panthers.
- [114:26]
Seth Payne
Oh, the Panthers.
- [114:27]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. The Panthers are ranked on this list, 28th. Even worse than the Texans. So if that means anything, that's a little data to it. And I like what you called it, the Stroud Offensive support System. Sos.
- [114:40]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I guess. And then I guess the question would be just where are the weak links in all of this? If they had ranked it higher, I think I would. If they had ranked the Texans support system as way too high, I probably would have brought up a lot of the same issues that they bring up here. I just don't think they're as drastically bad as some of those other teams that they're next to.
- [115:04]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I agree. I think this might be too low. But I've also, as I've been saying all offseason, I think there's a lot of questions for this offense. The young receivers, the offensive line makeover, even David Montgomery added to the running back room.
- [115:15]
Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
- [115:15]
Seth Payne
And if you look at the Panthers, they're two spots away from the Panthers. The Texans are on this list three spots away from with the Panthers three spots lower. I think that, you know, they've got like Ted McMillan, you know, he's their version of Aniko Collins. That kinds of lifts everybody else. But I think that when it comes to tight end and running back, the Texans still are on paper Right now. They're they're outpacing the they're outpacing the Panthers by a comfortable margin. Panthers have a better offensive line, though. They've done a good job of trying to build that for Bryce Young.
- [115:49]
Luke Morrow
You could go find the full list and break down on CBSSports.com but they have the Texans offensive infrastructure as the 8th worst in the league, which therefore means, you know, they're not doing a good enough job to set up Stroud for success. Take that for what you will. Coming up, have we figured out how to improve soccer in this country and would you be willing to invest in a young athlete? We'll talk about it next.
- [116:14]
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What's the vibe? The short answer? American Eagle shorts.
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It's Sid for short.
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Luke Morrow
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Luke Morrow
would you be willing to invest in a young athlete? And could this fix our soccer problem here in this country? Pain and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow, in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. 713-572-4610 on the text line or in the YouTube and Twitch chats. Appreciate you hanging with us here on this Friday. So, Seth, you found this. But this stuff is always, it's always weird to me, this idea to like invest in these guys.
- [119:06]
Seth Payne
It's been floating around because remember there was, there was one seven or eight years ago where what you can do is you can buy shares in a young athlete, you can purchase shares or a percentage of his future earnings, and then you're invested with that guy. And it, I just, I've never had this fantasy of being like one of these shady people that, you know, like Yordan Alvarez had one of these investors early on that was supposed to, you know, helped him out, but he was supposed to get a percentage of his future earnings. And Jordan just won some court case against that guy because he said he was due like $40 million or something. I don't, I don't. I did not click on the link because it is an advertisement. But this is for it's St. Louis Cardinals prospect Yairo Padilla is letting fans invest in his career through Finley help fund his journey in the minors. And if he earns MLB money, you could share in a percentage of his future earnings. Review the offering today. I don't to speak nothing of this Kid, God, he looks like he's 14 years old, right? I know he's older than that, but it's. You go to his page and it's the industry insights, what you want to know. He's got a.396 on base percentage, 24 stolen bases and 120 at bats. Elite athleticism and speed. Cardinals number eight prospect quote. If it goes good, this is like Fernando Tatis Jr. If this goes good, this is Ellie De La Cruz. And let's see, you can invest a dollar and 8 cents per share. Minimum investment of $200. And it looks like they've already raised 13,000 or they've already sold $13,486 in shares for Yairo Padilla. I. It feels filthy. It feels, it feels dirty. I don't like it yet. And yet it feels like it's. I find nothing. I find nothing mathematically wrong with it.
- [121:08]
Luke Morrow
I'm a gambling man, so I am intrigued by this idea of like taking a gamble and if it pans out, maybe you can make some money. You know, it could be a good investment. But it does feel weird. It does. I don't think it'd be something I would ever do. And it feels odd, this idea of investing into these young athletes with hopes that they pan out.
- [121:25]
Seth Payne
You know what it turns into? It turns into like one of those old time Motown record producers where you sign a kid to a 1010 record contract and they don't have an agent or anything and you just, you're giving them a little wad of cash up front and then you've got them locked down for life. So that's the part where I just don't. I feel like some of these, you get a 19 or a 20 year old and you're saying, yeah, they're investing shares in you. They don't necessarily fully understand exactly the math of how bad, like how much money they would end up having to pay for a short infusion of cash up front. And there's nothing illegal about it or anything. They filed their. They're all registered with the SEC and whatnot, but it just doesn't, it doesn't feel right because it feels opportunistic at the expense of a young person. Now, some of these guys will make out though some of them will never make the majority and they'll, they'll have gotten a good cash bump up front. Yeah, like a John Singleton, right?
- [122:23]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, exactly. By the way, the numbers that they posted, his impressive stats, it's a six game sample size. He's Only played six games so far this year for some reason, so.
- [122:34]
Seth Payne
So they're looking for suckers. All right, now I'm in. Now I'm in.
- [122:39]
Luke Morrow
And they listed him as the top Cardinals prospect.
- [122:43]
Seth Payne
Number eight prospect.
- [122:44]
Luke Morrow
Oh, okay. The graphic, I think says top. I guess they're just saying, like, a top Cardinals prospect. All right, so number eight prospect. That's the other thing. As someone who worked in baseball, I also don't get, like, I don't get why these athletes need the money or what exactly it goes to. Because the organizations usually take care of everything. Like, you're training and they have the coaches and nutrition and they take care of your food and all that sort of stuff. Even in the off season, you have the ability to have certain resources. And if he is the number eight prospect, he was signed internationally. I don't know what his contract is. From what I see here. I don't know how reliable this is, but it's 760,000 for the year.
- [123:21]
Seth Payne
Okay. Yeah. So if he's on the. Yeah. If that's accurate, then. Yeah, then I would really wonder why he's doing it.
- [123:27]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [123:28]
Seth Payne
Some of the guys. I understand the guys that get, like, a $7,000 signing bonus and they're on in their. In their family is living in poverty back in Venezuela or something. And that's where I feel like I can understand why they need the money. But also, that's where it feels especially just predatory. But you're right. Yeah. $760,000 signing bonus you received. And so I don't know. I don't know. Maybe the rates are better. Arian Foster was doing something like this at the end of his career, and I never. I remember thinking, well, it's probably a bad investment because he has a running back. And I can't remember the time, whether it was after his Achilles tendon tear. So, like, for Arian, Arian's a smart guy. And I'm guessing Arian did the math and figured, like, yeah, I don't know how many years I have left. I'll go ahead and sell shares of my future earnings. This is. I'm totally cool with this. I'm a bad investment at this point in my career.
- [124:21]
Luke Morrow
Right. Right.
- [124:22]
Seth Payne
Somebody wants to throw good money into a bad investment, and I'm the beneficiary. Yeah, I'll do it.
- [124:26]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yes, please. When you were in college, would you have ever. Would you have been interested in. From an athlete perspective?
- [124:33]
Seth Payne
I would have done it. I spent that cash advance money on my credit card. I was an Idiot. Of course I would have. No, when you're. That's a problem. When you're young and dumb and like the future is never going to get here. Oh. Oh, no. Yeah. Well, you're going to give me $100,000 now and all I have to pay you is whatever percentage my future earnings. Yeah. That's forever from now. Yeah. I would totally do that.
- [124:54]
Luke Morrow
I know.
- [124:55]
Seth Payne
And then buy all my friends around at the bar. Yeah. Yeah.
- [124:59]
Luke Morrow
I don't know how good of investments these would be for people when you try to find these young athletes that are going to pan out. But then on the flip side, to your point. Yeah. I don't know if it's a good investment or a good idea for these athletes who get this money up front will probably spend it and then when they start making the big money, it's like, oh, I got to pay my agent this and I got to pay taxes this and I got to pay my investors this much. And I don't know if that's what I'm saying. From the athlete perspective. If he's the number eight prospect and he has a signing bonus of almost a million dollars. I don't know if he needs this to just turn around a few years from now. If he does make it.
- [125:32]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [125:33]
Luke Morrow
And hand over portions of his paycheck because they paid him while he was in the minors.
- [125:37]
Advertisement Voice
Well.
- [125:37]
Seth Payne
And that's where. Yeah. Like I don't. Depending on what the math would be and everything. Maybe it makes sense if it's like somewhat. I just, I have a, I have an inkling that probably it's, it's, it's not all that responsible. Yeah. Just that the perpetuity part of it would be my biggest factor. I do think that if I were in college I'd be smart enough to say like, alright, well how about my future earnings through my fourth year in the NFL or something like that. You know, like at the very least there's a cap on that. And it's not like it feels like people have got a piece of you for the rest of your life. That, that, that makes a little bit more sense.
- [126:13]
Luke Morrow
Right, right. That I could get on the text sign. Somebody said, how many stupid, lonely women are going to do this
- [126:21]
Seth Payne
thinking that they might get of a shot because of the. I guess it's like a version of a good prenup or something. No matter what he says to me, I'm gonna. And then somebody, you know, back in the day, the old, the bad before nil. I mean, so I say back in the day, you know, three years ago. The big thing that players didn't understand sometimes is that their agent would be giving, loaning them money. Like and some guys, just because they either weren't listening or maybe they had a shady agent or whatever is there when they were a draft prospect. They've got like, they've got a car, they've got this, they've got that, they've got clothes. And it's because their agent would loan them money and then there would always be the guy that like didn't understand the concept of a loan and would get pissed off when he got the bill from his agent after he got his signing bonus. They're like, hey, wait, hey wait, how come, how come you're taking $300,000 above the 3% here? And it's like, remember we, it's a loan. This is what happens. I explained this to you. And. But that's how short sighted some young guys are. They're not, they're not thinking three months into the future.
- [127:24]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [127:24]
Seth Payne
This is a car right now. Yeah, yeah.
- [127:26]
Luke Morrow
Honestly, I think most of us are short sighted. You know, like you smoke and think like, I won't have to worry about that till down the road or whatever you have, you have ice cream late night or you pig out and like, ah, don't have to worry about any of this until I'm older, the calories or my heart health or any of that. And then, you know, eventually, eventually catch up to you at some point.
- [127:45]
Seth Payne
Yeah. This Yairo Padilla is only, he's 18 or 19 years old right now. I can't, that's too young. I can't, I can't sign that kid to a contract right now. I feel like a Prince's record producer back in the day that signed him to that ridiculous contract.
- [128:00]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I would have to at least give me double a. He's played six games in single A so far. He's 19 years old. It's still a little too soon for me to invest. Could this be a way though, to improve? You know, with the World cup and everyone's trying to figure out ways for the US to try to get on the same playing field as other countries. Did we just figure out a way to try to improve soccer here in the States?
- [128:21]
Seth Payne
Well, I mean, that is partly why the argument, right, for why soccer academies worked better in other countries is because they're financially incentivized for that kid to be an actual, a good pro as opposed to just accepting a bunch of money up front from people who can Afford it to develop kids. They're actually like their, Their. Their financial motivation is we need to spit out good pros because then we get paid. That's. That's how we get paid. That's how you get people to it. It annoys me, honestly, that the Europeans are doing the capitalism side of this so much better than we are when it comes to, like, actually, like, using it as a. Like, finding the right profit motive to motivate people to do what you want and everything. Like, they're doing it. The ones in the US Are doing a great job of racking in cash in the short term, but it's not really doing as much for. For U.S. soccer as. As the system and the setup they have in other countries.
- [129:14]
Luke Morrow
Somebody said on the text line, every court case against the investors has won, so even if the prospect is a success, they don't have to pay back the investors.
- [129:22]
Seth Payne
Is that. Is that every court case? I feel like there's a. Yeah, I don't. I've seen. I've seen the ones that have one, but I have zero clue about, like, I. But I do have that. I do wonder about that, just by virtue of the fact that it seems kind of seedy. I don't know if you can throw that out on the grounds of seediness. Like, your Honor, I'd like to. I know I signed this contract, but can't we agree that it's kind of seedy, that is this really enforceable when it's just so damn seedy? Yeah, I cite seediness.
- [129:52]
Luke Morrow
Right. It's true. It's usually a good argument.
- [129:55]
Seth Payne
No, but that. No, the text brings up a good point. Like, is. I've just. I've seen a few, including Yordon cases where it just doesn't. It's. It's not enforceable. But I don't know, like, then it goes down to, like, okay, the rules on where it was signed, how enforceable is a country, you know, contract from another country, etc.
- [130:11]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. And then lastly on the text line, somebody said, we already have death threats over gambling and fantasy sports. Imagine how bad it'll get with a quote, unquote, bad investment. That's true. That's true. There's a lot of. There could be a lot of money on the line.
- [130:23]
Seth Payne
It's. I mean, it already. The, the one that the texter is talking about, though, too, is the, the court cases that I'm thinking of. At least there's. When it's one benefactor who has an arrangement like this, where early in a player's career. And then that guy is expecting some. And there was, oh, one of the players did have some kind of an, like a threat. Threats of violence from whoever had helped him. From. I want to say it was a Cuban player. Whoever had helped him get to America originally thought he was owed more money than. Than the athlete did. And I believe there may have been threats of violence. So you're, I mean, you're, you're kind of on pace with that.
- [131:03]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, somebody did say Fernando Tatis lost his case, so I guess it's Fernando
- [131:07]
Seth Payne
Tatis lost his case. Okay. Yeah.
- [131:09]
Luke Morrow
So who knows? We'll have to do more research on that.
- [131:11]
Seth Payne
But anyways, before I cash in my 401k.
- [131:14]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, find yourself.
- [131:15]
Seth Payne
I'm going to call up Trajan wealth this afternoon. Be like, hey, hey, I've got a power ranking of minor leaguers. I want to invest.
- [131:22]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, start hanging out at local peewee soccer games to find your next investment. They're like, who's. Who? Does he have a kid on the team? What's this guy doing here with his binoculars?
- [131:31]
Seth Payne
Hey, listen, I know I've told you guys about I only want a small percentage of my portfolio to be in high risk investment, but what would you say if I've got some really good Reddit posts about some Astros minor leaguers? Can we skew up future earnings of MLB players to 50% of my portfolio?
- [131:53]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, find yourself a young athlete you can now invest in financially. It actually sounds very similar to an episode of Nathan for you. So I guess he was ahead of his time on that show. Coming up, grab your tinfoil. We got a conspiracy in the NFL. We got to get to it. Next. Pain and Pendergast got ourselves a new conspiracy theory in the NFL. Let's talk it out here on Pain and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. 713-572-4610 on the text line. YouTube and Twitch chats as well. There you go. That's right.
- [132:24]
Seth Payne
We've got two conspiracy theories.
- [132:26]
Luke Morrow
Two conspiracy theories.
- [132:27]
Seth Payne
Another one after this first one.
- [132:28]
Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
- [132:29]
Luke Morrow
Oh, my goodness.
- [132:31]
Seth Payne
Involving me looking like Trent Dilfer.
- [132:34]
Advertisement Voice
You.
- [132:34]
Luke Morrow
Okay? Well, then let's get. Let's get through this first one first so we could get to the Trent Dilfer stuff. I think this was. I think we brought this up earlier this week or something, but this idea of. What was the one with. What were we talking about earlier with Tom Brady? Oh, he didn't want to. He. When it came to the super bowl,
- [132:53]
Seth Payne
that's what it Was he said he didn't have a dog in the fight. And when the Patriots were playing in the super bowl and people from New England were not happy about that, I felt like he's trying a little too hard to distance himself from the Patriots.
- [133:07]
Luke Morrow
Right. Yeah. Which seems odd. So here was.
- [133:11]
Seth Payne
This is Mike McDonald. And he was on. I think he's on with Dan Patrick. And Dan Patrick had asked him, did you get. Did you get. You know, who'd you call? Did you get any help from anybody in the NFL and talking about beating the Patriots, who did you seek advice from going into the super bowl that might surprise me? Well, I wouldn't surprise. I called John Harbaugh and I talked.
- [133:37]
Luke Morrow
He was great. Probably can't mention one guy that really. That really helped us out that had some conflict of interest.
- [133:47]
Seth Payne
Can we guess?
- [133:49]
Guest or Contributor
Sure.
- [133:49]
Seth Payne
I don't know if I'm going to tell you, but go ahead. Bill Belichick.
- [133:52]
Luke Morrow
I'm not that cool.
- [133:53]
Seth Payne
Oh, yeah, no, he wouldn't. You wouldn't have a phone. I've had a beer with Coach Belichick.
- [133:59]
Advertisement Voice
And that was.
- [133:59]
That was a pretty cool.
- [134:00]
Luke Morrow
That was a pretty cool day.
- [134:01]
Seth Payne
Who else would we guess?
- [134:03]
Luke Morrow
Kyle Shanahan.
- [134:04]
Advertisement Voice
No. No.
- [134:08]
Seth Payne
So this. This first came to my notice because a Patriots fan account, Pat's pro quote, tweeted it and said it was Brady. And it's bleeping disgusting how obvious it is. I cannot believe how far Tom has fallen. I heard a rumor a while back he refused to talk to drake about the McDaniels offense in the off season of 25. This is just a rumor and I have no credible source for it, but enough is enough. Tom is now the villain. Yeah. I don't know. I feel like if at least one kind of notable Pat's account and a couple other tweets, I saw the replies from Patriots fans to this. To this post were a few people kind of supporting him. I feel like that's enough of a potential conspiracy theory that this is. This is going to really catch flames and become a thing in New England this year. The Tom Brady just actively hates the Patriots.
- [135:04]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. I love how these fans just get all worked up though this. Like, there's no actual proof that it's Brady. And also there's no proof that he refused to talk to Drake. May he acknowledges in that post it's just a rumor. I have no credible source. And then finishes with Tom is now the villain. Despite these two rumors or beliefs I have. With no proof yet that still makes Tom Brady the villain after Everything he did for us, I think that it
- [135:28]
Seth Payne
is, it is, it's a little. That whole, you know, Tom Brady saying he didn't have a dog in the fight. There's. I, it's strange. And I think part of it is, I think that he is probably, you know, he knows he's an NFL commentator now and he's, he also, like, he's a part owner of the Raiders.
- [135:46]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [135:47]
Seth Payne
So he wants to, you know, maintain some kind of semblance of impartiality as a commentator, even though he also owns a part of the Raiders and even though he also won a Super bowl, multiple Super Bowls with the Patriots. It just, it ranges. It didn't, it didn't quite. It seemed odd that in a simple situation of like, okay, it's, it's the Seahawks, a team he has zero ties to, versus the Patriots, it's the Super Bowl. The, you're not going to be broadcasting the game the following week or anything here. Like, you can just go ahead and say, yeah, I hope the Patriots win. I played with Mike Vrabel. I like Mike Vrabel. I like Bob Kraft, something like that. It was odd. It feels conspicuous to me.
- [136:32]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [136:33]
Seth Payne
Which I agree with this guy. I haven't even seen the rumors and yet I believe these rumors about Brady not, not helping Drake may out with the Josh McDaniel system.
- [136:42]
Luke Morrow
I do, too, now. Yeah. Now I believe any of these rumors I'm going to buy into. Of any of these Tom Brady now anti Patriot rumors.
- [136:48]
Seth Payne
Any at all.
- [136:49]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, absolutely.
- [136:50]
Seth Payne
Mike McDonald, rookie mistake there by him was Dan Patrick, as if he could play a game where he guessed who it was going to be and McDonald went along with it for, for at least one, you know, one go at it. You can't ever enter into that game, man. We've all got too many tells. Unless you're a world class poker player, they're going to be able to figure it out when you, when they say the right name.
- [137:10]
Luke Morrow
Well, the real problem is that he ruled out Belichick. Right. So you got to leave the door open so that people don't know if it's Brady or Belichick. But once you rule out Belichick, I think then everybody immediately jumps to, oh, then it's got to be Tom Brady. And that's where you might sort of unintentionally, you know, tip your hand on the source.
- [137:28]
Seth Payne
You know, at first, my counter evidence to Tom Brady, you know, trying to actively sabotage the Patriots, my counter evidence was going to be, well, he's spoken very Highly lately and said some really nice things about Bill Belichick. So it seems like those two are cool. And then I remembered, oh, yeah, Belichick is petty as hell right now about the Patriots. Claimed that the Patriots won't allow him in their building. Wouldn't let Patriots. Then wouldn't let Patriots scout. Oh, that was how it started. Wouldn't allow Patriot scouts to watch UNC practices when meanwhile, he's like, trying to sell himself as a conduit to the NFL. And then explained it by saying that I wasn't. That he's not welcome up there, where meanwhile, he had just been at Vrabel's hall of Fame induction, a Ring of Honor induction up there. So, like Belichick, super petty about the. The Patriots right now. Tom Brady's cool with Belichick. Yep. Further evidence for me to agree. Every single. I agree with and believe every single rumor I'm going to hear about this from this point forward.
- [138:27]
Luke Morrow
When he says conflict of interest, does he simply mean because they are a Patriot or because, like, they're a broadcaster that's not supposed to pick a side or something? Because I was also thinking of, like, could it be Gronk or could it be, like, Julian Edelman, who's kind of in the broadcast, works for Fox Sports? Like, I know that could be.
- [138:45]
Seth Payne
I know that's where it gets him. Just saying it could be a conflict of interest, for one. I feel like Florio is going to be all over this because he loves a conflict of interest story. But, I mean, that's just kind of how things are in the NFL that you have all these guys that, you know, it's. It's two degrees of separation with just about anybody that's been in the NFL for any amount of time that you've got so many people that, like, that, you know, that have played the Patriots a bunch. And I get the sense that the conflict of interest side would be, maybe this is somebody that helped me out, but his team might not be all that or fans of his team might not be that excited to find out that I was helping out, you know, against like, maybe it's a current Bills coach or a current jets coach or something like that.
- [139:27]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [139:28]
Seth Payne
Like, don't want you to help or. Excuse me not to say it would
- [139:31]
Luke Morrow
be like his own division then, right?
- [139:33]
Seth Payne
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [139:34]
Luke Morrow
So, yeah, that's why they. He did ask about Shanahan. So that was the thought of Dan Patrick. So it could be like, yeah, so I don't know.
- [139:41]
Seth Payne
Yeah, it'd be somebody in his own division. You're right. Yeah.
- [139:43]
Luke Morrow
But, hey, I'm all.
- [139:43]
Seth Payne
See, I don't even understand conflict of interest.
- [139:45]
Luke Morrow
Apparently, I'm on board, though.
- [139:48]
Seth Payne
This whole Brady stock is plummeting for the people that want to invest in my future.
- [139:51]
Luke Morrow
That's right.
- [139:52]
Seth Payne
Oh, the other one. Okay, so the other conspiracy theory. I think this is the Mandela effect, which I'm still not 100% sure I know what the Mandela people think.
- [140:02]
Luke Morrow
You were the quarterback when the Ravens were. Won the Super Bowl.
- [140:04]
Seth Payne
This was. Remember Biggie said he Googled me? And this is what pops up. A rundown of, like, my age, my spouse, and overview. But the picture is. Is Trent Dilfer. Okay. It's just. It's Trent Dilfer sitting there right above all my information that this is. Yeah. Thanks, Brandy. I don't know. I'm a little bit offended. I don't. And I'm also. And I don't know if Trent Dilfer would be offended or not, but that's definitely not me, and that's never been me. Nobody has a memory of me as looking like Trent Dilfer. And this is. No, no. How do I complain about this?
- [140:43]
Luke Morrow
Where is this?
- [140:44]
Seth Payne
If you just Google yourself, just on Google. I haven't tried it yet. I'm gonna Google myself. If Trent Dilford pops up, I swear to God, Al Corporation, I am gonna kick your butt.
- [140:54]
Luke Morrow
Maybe it might come from, like, where you guys are both mentioned in an article or something, and they pull. Google pull is pulling, like, the wrong image or.
- [141:01]
Seth Payne
Yeah, they're pulling up an article. So there'. It's. Okay, so it's a. It's a Houston Chronicle article. It says, ex Texan Seth Payne grows into media career with a picture of Trent Dilfer above it. And I click on the article, and it's a picture of definitely me. Much younger, but, Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how this works, by the way.
- [141:24]
Luke Morrow
I think that's insulting in itself. If they were trying to compare you to. Trent Dilfer is like, a former NFL player who made it into the media. Because I never thought Trent Dilfer was all that great. There's the famous clip of him saying, like, in order to win the game, you got to score more points. Something like that. That always makes the rounds on Twitter, I think. And I'm not just saying this because we're working together, but I do think you have done a much better job than what Trent Dilfer was doing on espn.
- [141:47]
Seth Payne
Oh, thank you.
- [141:48]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. So that's not a good.
- [141:49]
Guest or Contributor
That's.
- [141:49]
Luke Morrow
If I don't know if that's where the connection comes from with that article and everything.
- [141:53]
Seth Payne
The, the only, the biggest thing with Trent Dilford, the biggest mistake he made in media was when. Oh, I can't remember who is about, but basically it was one of the ESPN personalities who. Oh, it was Kirk Herbstreet because he had a private jet to get flown to games because he does two. Because he's. Because he's doing game day and then a primetime game that they sent him in a private jet that reportedly Trent Dilfer demanded a private jet himself in his next round of negotiations. And they're like, you're Trent Dilfer. No, you don't get a private jet. But why the guy who's like the face of college football for the. But why not me? Am I not the face of something?
- [142:34]
Luke Morrow
I know. When would he ever need it? I guess I think he was doing countdown for a little bit Monday Night Football and maybe they were on location from time or most.
- [142:41]
Seth Payne
We'll give you a single engine Cessna and coupons to a flight school. All right, Trent, you can fly your own.
- [142:48]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that's right. And he was one of those guys he loves throwing out that he's a Super bowl winner. Even though we know that was all, you know, it was mostly the defense.
- [142:55]
Seth Payne
Big deal. I've got an ALCS commemorative.
- [142:58]
Luke Morrow
That's right.
- [142:58]
Seth Payne
Championship ring myself.
- [143:00]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, take that Trent over. Put that photo up on. On Google.
- [143:04]
Seth Payne
It only fits my pinky, which makes me look like a badasso baseball player, I think. Yeah, yeah.
- [143:12]
Luke Morrow
I would invest in that baseball player. Coming up, it's time for Take a Mania as done every week here on Friday, we'll see if we crown a new champion. Coming up next, Payne and Pendergast.
- [143:23]
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Seth Payne
What's the vibe?
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Seth Payne
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- [144:46]
Luke Morrow
Everyone's talking about protein lately, but how
- [144:48]
Seth Payne
do you actually get enough of it?
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- [144:52]
Seth Payne
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- [145:00]
Seth Payne
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Luke Morrow
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- [145:10]
Seth Payne
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- [145:17]
Luke Morrow
I want to tell you about a new podcast from Odyssey called Family Lore where people tell interesting stories about their family history and then we investigate the truth behind them. Family Lore is available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows. Time for Take a Mania here on Pain and Pender Gas. As always on these Fridays at 9am I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth 713-572-4610 to text the show. Also YouTube and Twitch chats. You can chime in on these pieces of audio we'll get to in just a moment. As an old school 90s wrestling fan, I do always appreciate the wrestling references like this music that Sean works into the show.
- [145:59]
Seth Payne
So that's good. I'm glad somebody does. I don't have a clue what any of it is. And we've been doing Take a Mania for like two years now. So yeah, it's like every time Casario comes on and those two start talking about wrestling. Yeah, I go and make some tea.
- [146:15]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I get that.
- [146:17]
Seth Payne
So these are the the winner is the worst take of the week or the champion if he if he doesn't lose his belt. And right now the current and standing champion for at Least the last couple weeks is Adam Schefter explaining how somehow the NFL doesn't want Brendan Swords because the NFL apparently doesn't want anything to do with gambling.
- [146:43]
Luke Morrow
NFL essentially sent him a letter and the NFL is declining to hold a supplemental draft. And honestly, something was amiss with this all along because every time you spoke to people around the league about when the supplemental draft would be and whether or not there would be a supplementary, I always got pauses and there were
- [147:00]
Seth Payne
never clear cut answers.
- [147:01]
Luke Morrow
And like, the commissioner's got to decide to have it. I'm like, what is the issue? Well, the issue is that the league, despite any gambling partnerships, the league really
- [147:11]
Guest or Contributor
does not want any part of gambling,
- [147:13]
Luke Morrow
no matter how serious it is.
- [147:14]
Seth Payne
Or isn't that so? For me, that was the. I, it's not even that good. It's not even a take necessarily. But it's just Schefter being such a shill for whatever the hell people tell him to say and that he's allowed to say and not say. It just still disgusts me that the league, despite any gambling partnerships, wants nothing to do with gambling. Which is great. That's a great. Try that with your girlfriend next time she catches you cheating, you know.
- [147:41]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [147:42]
Seth Payne
Despite any affairs I've had, I actually want nothing to do with any other women. So that's the current champ. He's ripe to be taken down. I don't know if this is the week that it's going to happen.
- [147:53]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I. Schefter, I've always been on the train of like, he was great early on and now in recent years, he's done so many things or said so many things that have really just knocked him down that you see, like, he's just a puppet and kind of a walking contradiction. And just like, I think he's lost a lot of his credibility and I don't really respect a lot of the opinions anyways. He's just shilling. And also, by the way, I don't
- [148:15]
Seth Payne
care if, like, if he would just get out of the opinion business, I'd be cool. Because you flat out, you can't. Whenever they ask him to deliver an opinion, you can't trust him because he's so often just parroting whatever an agent told him to say. So he gets, he gets stuck now that they want him on and giving opinions and stuff. He gets stuck in some really bad spots where you can see the gears in his head grinding trying to figure out, like, wait, I've got multiple allegiances to different people.
- [148:38]
Luke Morrow
That's Fair. He's also, by the way, part of a gambling company, so.
- [148:43]
Seth Payne
But he wants nothing to do with it. Yeah, if that's what you're implying.
- [148:46]
Luke Morrow
No, it's a conflict of interest and it's some hypocrisy. So anyways, that's the current champ. We have to see if anyone could take down Adam Schefter here today in Take a Mania. And we begin with. We talked about this earlier. The spurs broadcaster, the play by play voice, got fired yesterday for not only cheating on his girlfriend, but doing so with the sister of one of these spurs players. And so here was Colin Cowherd on the Herd Yesterday with his 2 cents on this firing. Something new today that you can get fired in America for cheating on your girlfriend.
- [149:24]
Seth Payne
I had no idea that was legal.
- [149:27]
Luke Morrow
That literally happened. It's a big story. You can get fired in America for cheating on your.
- [149:33]
Seth Payne
Not your wife, a girlfriend.
- [149:38]
Guest or Contributor
Feels like you should hire an attorney.
- [149:39]
Advertisement Voice
I don't.
- [149:40]
Guest or Contributor
That is a crazy story.
- [149:42]
Advertisement Voice
It's okay.
- [149:43]
Seth Payne
Okay.
- [149:43]
Advertisement Voice
It's a.
- [149:44]
Seth Payne
It's a really big story.
- [149:45]
Advertisement Voice
Whatever.
- [149:46]
Seth Payne
Oh, he's still going. Sorry. Whatever. Yeah, no, I'm glad you kept. We had that part there in though too because I kept waiting for him to explain at least a little bit more of this really big story, that it was also not just that he was cheating, but part of the story. The really big story is that he was cheating with a Spurs player's sister, which again, I don't know if that's fireable or not. I don't know if that's what you should have. But. But let's not pretend that we have all the details and exactly how this guy's been conducting his life and what there is, you know, you get two little shreds of information, Coward decides to only divulge one of those two little shreds of information. And then is. Is. Is suggesting getting all litigious on. On somebody just because. Because he's got one of the two tiny bits of information they have in all of this.
- [150:33]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [150:34]
Seth Payne
This is disingenuous. This is misleading, this is lazy by Colin Coward. But is it take a mania worthy. Not quite. Not quite, chef. That was more about. I brought that one to the table mostly just because Colin Coward annoys me more so than anything else.
- [150:50]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I've gotten that sense over time and working with you.
- [150:55]
Seth Payne
Is he one of your heroes? I apologize if he is.
- [150:57]
Luke Morrow
No, I wouldn't say a hero. But I do think I do like him more than most people and I think he's one of the. The better folks at the whole sports talk radio stuff. But. But no, I don't. I don't mind the criticism or anything. He's not a hero.
- [151:10]
Seth Payne
Hey, Ben, cut that for next week's Take a Mania.
- [151:14]
Luke Morrow
Somebody. Somebody did suggest. I saw yesterday. I think it was one of Reggie's takes. Somebody said that should be in Take a Mania tomorrow. I forget what it was even about, like the Olympics or something. And I was like, oh, I don't know if you guys do that. But I was going to text Ben and tell him, like, hey, go grab this audio.
- [151:30]
Seth Payne
All right, this next one. This next one's an interesting one. And you might be here for making history here, because we're about to present a take, and that's not even a take, but it's an exchange between Bret Yormak, the Big 12 commissioner, and Sean Dillon, who's a Texas Tech Lubbock area radio host or what, I don't know his official title is. But Sean Dillon is asking a question of Brett Yormack, and Yormack asks Dylan to repeat himself and Dylan to stand up and repeat yourself. This is at Big 12 media days, right? And this is. This is how the exchange went. Ask that question again, and I'm going
- [152:13]
Luke Morrow
to give you the answer I want to give you.
- [152:15]
Guest or Contributor
So go ahead.
- [152:16]
Luke Morrow
Texas Tech got fined for tortillas, and tortillas were banned outright. OSG has had paddles that were given
- [152:26]
Seth Payne
a noisemaker exemption back in 2012.
- [152:30]
Luke Morrow
Source Beam Never played a snap for the red radiators.
- [152:33]
Seth Payne
And yet there is a lawsuit. Cincinnati has yet to be touched. You're selling greater than 12.
- [152:43]
Luke Morrow
Why should Texas Tech fans believe them?
- [152:46]
Seth Payne
No, I didn't say greater than 12. You misquoted me. I said we're going to.
- [152:50]
Luke Morrow
Forward is 16 strong.
- [152:51]
Guest or Contributor
And that's my answer to your question. But thank you for that question. Appreciate it.
- [152:56]
Luke Morrow
Gentleman in the black.
- [152:57]
Seth Payne
All right, so this is. I want to hear the gentleman in the black. Yeah, Luke, this is why this might be. This might be groundbreaking if this ends up being the champion. I've listened to this several times. I've got a pretty good idea of what the hell's going on here. And yet I also feel like I don't know what the hell's going on here. So tell me if I'm right or if I'm wrong here. Sean Dillon, was he basically saying that? Look, he feels like Texas Tech has gotten more severe punishment than others for things like the tortillas on the field and what have you, and that Perhaps the Sourcebee thing is similar. And then what's the part about the greater than 12? That's a criticism or a question or a gotcha moment?
- [153:44]
Luke Morrow
Honestly, I don't know. I guess greater than 12 must have been something the commissioner was saying about, like, the, you know, the whole conference, the expansion.
- [153:51]
Seth Payne
Yeah. But then I. So what happened? But then when your Mac says, ah, I didn't say greater than 12. I said. What did he say? The.
- [154:02]
Guest or Contributor
Whatever.
- [154:02]
Seth Payne
The 16. I don't. I don't understand what's going on here. And I wanted. I want to. I need a Texas Tech person to weigh in or explain to me exactly what the hell's going on here.
- [154:11]
Luke Morrow
I do, too, because I honestly don't even know what the first half has to do with the second half of his question.
- [154:16]
Seth Payne
Right.
- [154:17]
Luke Morrow
And I get. I guess what all I took away is I think he's trying to say that, like, Texas Tech was being punished, but not Cincinnati for Soresby, I don't know if that's the point he was trying to make. Like, why is Texas Tech getting this treatment when he hasn't actually played for Texas Tech, but he did play for Cincinnati. Nothing's happening to Cincinnati. That was the only thing I took away. I don't know what the whole first half was. And I don't know why you can't pronounce tortillas.
- [154:38]
Seth Payne
Yeah, yeah. Ben, can we play the first part?
- [154:40]
Ben (Producer)
Just stop.
- [154:40]
Seth Payne
After it gets to Tortoya, ask that question again, and I'm going to give you the answer I want to give you.
- [154:45]
Guest or Contributor
So go ahead.
- [154:46]
Seth Payne
Texas Tech got fined for tortillas,
- [154:51]
Advertisement Voice
but
- [154:51]
Luke Morrow
then he pronounces it right the next sentence. And he did that both times he asked the question. I don't understand.
- [154:57]
Seth Payne
The first time that we didn't play, he said tortillas. How the hell. How the hell are you covering Texas Tech and you can't say tortilla?
- [155:09]
Luke Morrow
Well, he said it wrong. He said it wrong, then said it right, then said it wrong again, and then said it right.
- [155:18]
Seth Payne
It was so weird even mispronounce it the way he said. What is it? Tortillo. All right, though I can't until I get more clarity on what I'm even listening to here. I did. I kind of wanted to give it to your mind based on the fact that I felt like. I feel like both these guys thought they had a mic drop moment.
- [155:36]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [155:36]
Seth Payne
You know those people who think they're just so proud of themselves for a comeback or something that they think they can just say mic Drop. And you're like, oh, no, you said mic drop. I guess. I guess I've lost. No, neither of those were mic drops. Those are horrible. Oh, I, I caught you on your phrasing there. I never said greater than 12. I said something similar.
- [155:59]
Luke Morrow
All right.
- [155:59]
Seth Payne
No, they don't win. Yeah, you set up this one. I haven't heard this one yet. Oh, I did hear it, but I forget.
- [156:06]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. So Schefter, still the reigning champ for his take on Sorsby, but the next challenger, David Dennis. This is from first take on ESPN yesterday, talking about the whole Caitlin Clark thing, which we spoke about yesterday. It's a long clip. We're only going to play a portion of it. But here is David Dennis just giving a pushback on the whole idea of we shouldn't. People shouldn't be upset about finishing 11th and voting. She's not a top guard. There's no sort of jealousy. Here is Dennis, David Dennis with his take on Caitlin Clark. They voted for the top four guards in the league.
- [156:38]
Guest or Contributor
That was what the All Star ballot was.
- [156:40]
Luke Morrow
So people were voting for top four. I don't think that you can make a compelling argument that Caitlin Clark is
- [156:45]
Guest or Contributor
a top four guard in the wnba,
- [156:46]
Luke Morrow
like, nobody can at this point. That is why she was 11. She got the 11th most most votes for being in the top four. So there's really no controversy about that. Because especially when you add in the fact that she is one of the most popular players in the wnba. She's going to make the All Star team. That is not the argument here.
- [157:05]
Guest or Contributor
I think what bothers me is when this is framed as some sort of,
- [157:09]
Luke Morrow
like, petty jealousy or insecurity by these women, the wnba, because that's not what I'm seeing was happening with Kaitlyn Clark.
- [157:19]
Seth Payne
All right, this is the one. I'm going to need your help on this, Luke. Yeah, so what he's saying there, I understand, and I think it's. I think that's a fair. Regardless of how you feel about Caitlin Clark, whether you think she's the best or the worst or whatever. Like, that is a fair thing. When, when there's only four names on the ballot or when there's only four spots and people are voting for the top four, sometimes the rankings that come afterwards are a little bit misleading. Like, it's not. If, if, if, if you're saying, okay, she's not a top four guard, so she's not going to get that many votes for the top four, then. Yeah, then it's kind of random chance because there's only a smattering of votes of people that maybe a lot of people think she's the sixth best guard or whatever, but I need your help on this, because I'm not. I don't claim to know a damn thing about the wnba. Is she arguably a top four guard in the wnba or is she not?
- [158:08]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I would think so. This gets misconstrued, and it was kind of part of the conversation yesterday where people were pushing back on, like, Asia Wilson. She doesn't even have to be number one for the purpose of this conversation, but top four. I would say so, because currently she's fifth in the entire league in scoring and second in the entire league in assists. I think that qualifies to be a top four guard.
- [158:27]
Seth Payne
That. That's the part where I feel like he. I. I think he was saying a little too emphatically, like, how did he say it? You can't make it.
- [158:36]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [158:36]
Seth Payne
Yeah. Which I like. All right. That's pretty extreme. If you wanted to. If you're. If you're part of. If you're splitting hairs and everything and talking about one versus two or whatever. Two versus three. But to say that you can't make a compelling case for. I feel like I've seen enough people make those compelling cases. And yet. And this is one thing that makes me less qualified than Colin Coward. Honestly, I have a hard time weighing in on wnba. There's so many people that are just, like, they're. They're gonna. They're gonna dive in and give a hot take here there when it involves Caitlin Clark. And I just. I can't do that in good faith. So I have no idea whether this is a horrible take or not. Except that from you. I trust you. It sounds like a pretty bad take. But ultimately, like, I. Look, I'm the judge here. I can't just always be leaning on my paralegals all the time. Sometimes I got to dive into the musty old law books myself.
- [159:23]
Luke Morrow
True. The other thing I will throw in, though, by the way, is the combination of points and assists per game would be. If the season ended today, she would set the record for MO for highest average of points and assists in a game for WNBA history.
- [159:37]
Seth Payne
Yeah. It irks me that he said you can't make a compelling case that she's in the top four. I feel like this is a guy that hasn't heard a lot of really like, like, compelling and yet wrong takes in his life. Is he new to. Is he new to espn?
- [159:54]
Luke Morrow
I've been there for a While. Yeah, he's never been like a big time player though, I don't think over there.
- [159:59]
Seth Payne
No. So yeah, no, no, Schefter remains the champion. Damn it. So, so that was. Frankly, I'm a little bit disappointed in sports media at large that there haven't been more bad takes than this and we've had some heavy hitters up in here, but nobody can, nobody can take over. Schefter just contradicting himself in the same phrase, like in the same sentence. He contradicted himself.
- [160:24]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it's been, it's been a bit of a quiet week this week. Just in general in sports. You're coming off July 4th.
- [160:31]
Seth Payne
4th.
- [160:31]
Luke Morrow
July is always a slower time. Next week's even worse without baseball with the All Star break. Really no live sports going on. So yeah, it's, it's. I was expecting a little more heat this week of the challengers on.
- [160:43]
Seth Payne
It'll get better everybody.
- [160:44]
Luke Morrow
Oh absolutely. Wait till football starts. You guys will be rocking and rolling again with the take a Manias takes. Schefter remains the champ at least for another week. Coming up, the Athletic ranked the Texans as one of five offenses that's positioned to break out this year. We'll talk about it next. Payne and Pendergast. Is the Texans offense poised to break out in 2026? It's Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean Alongside Seth Payne. 713-572-4610. To text the show, you can weigh in on that idea. Also get to us in the YouTube and Twitch chats as well. But we've been talking a lot about the Texans offense today, the quarterback and whatnot. And there was at least one positive piece put out with the Athletics doing where they looked at five offenses that they believe are positioned to break out this year and the Texans were one of those five. Now the Jaguars are also on the list, but the Texans are on the list, which might make Texans fans feel hopeful and happy.
- [161:43]
Seth Payne
Yeah, and this is actually I like this because it comes from Ted Winn, who is one of the, one of the writers that watches a lot of film, you know, and has a pretty good understanding of the nuts and bolts and the X's and O's of football. So when he gives he's not typically just throwing out a bunch of hot takes or whatever. Remember we read that article earlier that just out of nowhere said that Nick Haley is an above average play caller and left it at that. They were like, you know, and you're left to Wonder what what exactly you talk like where do you get that from? I'm not even saying he's bad or anything. I just thought you can't just leave that there. So Ted Win isn't he's gonna be a little bit more detailed than that. And I thought the, the thing that I felt most intrigued by in this I think was basically it sounded like he was pretty confident that the changes on the offensive line are going to work. He said it's hard to overcome. Well, he actually talks about Nick Haley. He says as a play caller it's hard to overcome one of the worst offensive lines in the league that struggled to run block and pass protect. The Texans ranked 30th in ESPN's pass block win rate and 30 seconds in the run block win rate. But Sario overhauled the offensive line this offseason adding three new potential starters, etc. Etc. But he ends up he said how much he how much area anti ursary improves will be a key for this offense. But I think sometimes it's easy to just think oh, because you got new starters and it's going to be better. I think by and large most of the people that talk about the Texans offensive line and the additions, they they're confident that it's going to be improved offensive line without saying it's going to be a good offensive line. It's going to be at least improved from one of the worst in the league. And I think part of it is that for me, the fact that they followed a very specific theme and what kinds of players they wanted to add to the offense that in and of itself made me feel like they have more of a plan on how to fix the offense this year. And they've identified exactly what they just just absolutely have to get better at run blocking and they have to be better at running back to give CJ some help and then everything else can fall into place. And they're not saying you don't have to improve anywhere else. But that's by far the biggest factor, the biggest chunk improvement that you could make that should make it easier for CJ Stroud is simply figuring out a way to run the ball competently. And I think that's every single guy they signed on in the offensive has that profile that Even if only 50% of them work out, I think you're going to have that you're going to have that many more guys that are actually adequate or plus run blockers than you had last year.
- [164:22]
Luke Morrow
And he also put in the article that he does like the addition of David Montgomery and thinks that, you know, that will help. I do like that.
- [164:29]
Seth Payne
It's a massive upgrade for the Texans running back room.
- [164:31]
Luke Morrow
Right. So that's big. I like how he starts the blurb on the Texans though, by saying, I get it. It's hard to believe the Texans have much hope on offense. So. But, but if you were to pick five teams that could break out offensively this year, I do think the Texans seem like a pretty obvious choice in the sense of like, their potential because obviously what we saw from Shroud that rookie year, if they could just find a way to, to, to recapture that, then obviously this offense can certainly break out and be much improved. And sort of to your point with the offensive line, I mean, the bar is, is low enough that it won't take too much for it to be an improved offense or really could climb up the ranks, so to speak. So I think certainly, yeah, they are one of those offenses that could have a breakout.
- [165:12]
Seth Payne
Well, the whole thing is that it's, I think when he says it's a, you know, it's a big, it's. It's hard to imagine them being a good offense or taking a big leap or whatever that even, even as I present Ted Win, as a guy that watches a lot of film and everything, I think that those, those playoff performances have so, so weighted people's opinion on what the Texans offense is or was last year that they kind of forget that now. They were a mediocre offense. Like, they weren't, they weren't, they weren't the Raiders, they weren't the Browns, they weren't the jets, you know, they weren't the Panthers for most of the season. But, but that's how they feel to a lot of people. And the fact of the matter is they were, they were a mediocre to below average, above average, wherever you want to say they were right in that middle, you know, 30 percentile. And it's not that big of a leap. If you just do one thing, like one thing alone, improving your red zone offense and all of a sudden they're a markedly different offense. Problem is that one thing requires like, oh, okay, well, if they're a better rushing football team, then that's the one thing that makes them a better red zone offense. Okay, but that means they also have to have a better offensive line and the tight ends have to block better and they've got to have better targets in the red zone and all that. Like, so there's, there's a lot that goes into it. But if you can figure out the run game alone, that should make you a better red zone offense. That should make you a better short yardage offense. The addition of David Montgomery, David Montgomery running behind last year's offensive line would have been a better red zone offense and it would have been a better short yardage offense. So it's on paper right now. I'm confident they're going to be a better offense. I don't know. I just don't. I'm also, I'm not confident that they're going to be a genuinely good offense.
- [167:00]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, as we've been talking throughout this off season, they don't need to be like a top 10 offense. I mean, they weren't last year and still should have been in the Super Bowl. So it's not like they have to jump all the way to that top tier of being with the Rams or Seahawks, of being one of the best offenses in the league. But any improvement, obviously is going to help them be a better team, and Montgomery should help them in the red zone because that's, that's what he does.
- [167:25]
Seth Payne
Well, the whole thing, the whole thing about the Seahawks comparison, you know where I said earlier in the show, like, I feel like, like people are glossing over the fact that the Seahawks were the number three scoring offense in the league last year. It's, it's strange because that they say, hey, look, that's a defense. That's a team that had a really good defense and an okay quarterback. All right, look, you can say whatever you want about Sam Darnold. He wasn't, he didn't perform just like an okay quarterback last year. So it's. It. I think you got to be, you can be just. You don't have to be an awesome offense, but you can be an above average offense. Think about that counterpart to the, like the, the Patriots. And that just because Drake May was awful in the playoffs doesn't take away the fact that the offense was like the second scoring offense in the league last year. And their defense, the Patriots defense, they were a lot better. I see a lot of people talking about the Patriots defense like it wasn't that good of a defense last year. I, there was a. They definitely got better as the year went along and some of their guys got healthier. So there. But I would say it's fair to say that both teams were very balanced teams. That you don't necessarily say that, like, okay, that they had to have this on the offensive side of the ball or they had to have this on the defensive side of the ball for it to work.
- [168:39]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, like you said, sort of like Stroud, where you forget anything else he did because of the playoffs for Drake May. I mean, like he was the number one deep ball thrower in the league last year as a young quarterback. Wasn't as successful in the postseason, but yeah, that offense was a lot better than what we saw in the playoffs. Also on this list, the Saints. In terms of this is from the athletic five offenses poised to break out this year. The Saints as their quarterback goes from year one to year two. And they added a bunch of pieces on the offensive line, the Chargers, who obviously brought in Mike McDaniel and a lot of people like that higher as their new offensive coordinator. You have the Denver Broncos. Take that, Sean Payton. This offense, it's always been about the defense there in Denver. Even though Sean Payton's an offensive, the offense has never been all that spectacular. And then the other teams, Jacksonville Jaguars, which is obviously in the division. And as Ted points out, the Jaguars were number two in scoring after the bye week as they started to figure out this new offense for Liam Cohen. After some early struggles with penalties and dropped balls, they really hit their stride second half of the season.
- [169:42]
Seth Payne
Yeah, like, I hate to be sticking up for the Jaguars in this one, but there's a part of it where. All right, you're saying that this is a. This is one of the offenses that could break out. I mean, they were so good in the second half of the season that they ended up being the sixth best scoring offense in the league. So I don't, I feel like. I feel like they shouldn't be in the category of potential breakout because they. Unless what you think is, all right, we've only seen a half season of it for the Jaguars and for you to really believe in it, it's got to be that. Man, we've seen this out of Trevor Lawrence before, back with a Doug Peters, Peterson days where he had one half the second half of a season where it looked incredible. And of course this is, this is going to be the guy that everybody thought we had. And then all of a sudden, you know, defense is caught up to exactly how they were trying to do it and didn't work out so hot.
- [170:28]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. So, yeah, we'll see if that's the case. I've said this before, I've said it numerous times, but I always do have that concern of a coach that does well in year one. Now teams have a full off season to prepare. Let's see if Liam Cohen can stay ahead of the curve here in game and in year two with that offense.
- [170:42]
Seth Payne
Yeah, like, well, you know Liam Cohen there. Liam Cohen and Shane Steichen are both guys that they've done some really impressive things in their career, but just for a year or two with certain quarterbacks. So like Gardner Minshew and boy. Gardner Minshew had the best year of his career under Liam Cohen and some really good receivers. But still it was one year. And then Shane Steichen it was. Was Jalen Hurt. He was the OC when Jalen Hurts had his best season.
- [171:08]
Luke Morrow
Cool.
- [171:09]
Seth Payne
But then you don't get to see how it plays out over multiple years, right?
- [171:13]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly. So we'll see. That's why I still have my questions about the Jags. I expect some natural regression, but we'll see. Ted thinks that that that could be a breakout offense. You could go find the list on the Athletic of the five offenses that are positioned to break out, which does include the Texans. And boy, wouldn't that be music to our ears. So to make this Cameron Wolf of NFL Network, I was talking, I made, I pleaded my case earlier this week. I think it was on Monday, of how I think the Texans are being overlooked and should be one of the favorites in the afc. And since then we've gotten some national media members really giving high praise to the Texans, including Cameron Wolf on NFL Network, who's pretty high on these Texans.
- [171:48]
Seth Payne
Can the offense be consistent enough and maybe physical enough for them to be contenders this year?
- [171:53]
Ben (Producer)
Absolutely.
- [171:54]
Guest or Contributor
Patrick. Don't be surprised that the Houston Texans are in the super bowl next year. That's really the buzz that I've been hearing around the league. They've already got a defense that is elite. Top three, maybe best in football last year. Why were they not like Seattle? Why were they not like New England? The offense wasn't physical enough. The quarterback didn't play well enough in the playoffs. And so this is a prove it year for CJ Stroud, who is awaiting a new contract. This is a prove it year for that offense. Can they get better in year two under Nick Haley, the offensive coordinator? They made a lot of moves this offseason to get physical like their defense is. And the two that I'm eyeing is an offensive line improvement. Two or three new pieces, including their first round pick, Keelan Rutledge and David Montgomery. I haven't heard anything but good praise about David Montgomery, who should set up as their feature back. They believe that getting him going and getting that run game going will make Things a lot easier for CJ Stroud. Talking to a defensive coordinator, he said that it looked like CJ Stroud had too much on his plate last year, from protections to trying to throw everything in difficult routes. Easier plays happen when your run game has good success and your offensive line has good protection. They should be much better in both areas. And hopefully that allows CJ Stroud to be a lot more effective over the middle of the field with intermediate routes, something that he was really good at in his rookie year. And if he is, then maybe he can be back at the table next offseason for a contract conversation and say yesterday's price is not today's price and rack up.
- [173:20]
Seth Payne
You know, that's one of the things that he, he mentioned in there about just CJ Having a lot on his plate in terms of operating that offense and all the different things you have to do. I think that's where Josh McDaniels did a great job with Drake May this year where I don't think like Josh McDaniels, he's worked with Mac Jones, he's worked with other young quarterbacks aside from Tom Brady, where he's got a lot of experience figuring out how much to put on the quarterback's plate early on. And the, you know, one of the things they're going to be watching in New England is okay, does Drake May start to do more of the classic Josh McDaniels Patriots system type stuff? This was Nick Cayley's first crack at it and as he's learned how to be an offensive coordinator, he's also learned working with a young quarterback who's trying to learn a brand new system. And that's, that's an explanation. It's not a guarantee that all of a sudden it's going to be better this year. But that is generally the way it goes. Is that that part of it, the mental side of it and just under understanding on a complex scheme exactly how to operate as a quarterback. Some of it's just a matter of getting the reps doing it. And would would Josh McDaniels have done a better job installing the Josh McDaniels offense with a young quarterback than Nick Haley? Probably. I mean I'm going to go out on a flyer and say yeah, the same way Josh McDaniel, if you take Josh Mcdaniels back in time right now to work with a young Tom Brady, it would probably be even better than what it already was in those first couple years. So yeah, that part of it I think him saying that a lot of people around the league are saying that. I think it's I think there's a lot of people around the league that are still intrigued and high on CJ Stroud and that would love to have CJ Stroud in their building, because every coach in the league thinks he's the guy that's going to figure out how to unlock a young quarterback. But it. I think that tracks with everything else we've been hearing coming up.
- [175:09]
Luke Morrow
Wrap things up on this Friday, Catch up with the fellows of in the Loop. We got a big Astro series this weekend, but also, what is the most embarrassingly dumb thing you've ever done or said in a conversation with a person you were trying to impress? We'll talk about that next Payne and
- [175:24]
Guest or Contributor
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- [176:56]
Seth Payne
The Second World War is the largest event in human history.
- [177:01]
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- [177:04]
Luke Morrow
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Seth Payne
II, every single person had a story. These are the stories that make us who we are.
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Guest or Contributor
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Luke Morrow
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- [177:57]
Luke Morrow
Yes, sir. Wrapping up a Friday morning here on Pain and Pendergast. Appreciate you hanging with us, starting the weekend with us as we'll hand things off in a few moments to the fellas of in the Loop. We'll find out their question of the day, but we got a question as well. What's the most embarrassingly dumb thing you've done in conversation with a person who you were hoping to WordPress? Let us know. 713-572-4610. Also on the YouTube and Twitch chats, by the way, Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth. But yeah, this comes from. This clip has been making the rounds. I don't know if folks out there have seen it.
- [178:30]
Seth Payne
Yeah, this is Travis Kelsey at some kind of event with his brother for their pod. I think they recorded a podcast live somewhere. And Travis is telling a story about a time he was some finance bros that he knew took him to a music festival and he got all excited because he got a chance to meet Warren Buffett. Meet Buffett. I'm shaking his hand and man, we
- [178:55]
Luke Morrow
have the best conversation I've ever had in my life.
- [178:58]
Seth Payne
The man is literally smiling from ear to ear. I'm thinking, I'm going to be rich here soon. He's going to invite me in on all of his investments. And he starts telling the story in high school when he, he picked up
- [179:10]
Luke Morrow
the guitar for the first time and
- [179:13]
Seth Payne
I was like, right to his face.
- [179:16]
Guest or Contributor
No way.
- [179:17]
Seth Payne
Warren Buffett played the guitar. And his face went from smiling ear
- [179:25]
Ben (Producer)
to ear
- [179:28]
Seth Payne
to not smiling at all
- [179:30]
Guest or Contributor
and then got tapped on the shoulder
- [179:32]
Seth Payne
because he had to go sing Margaritaville. So he's Jimmy. He talked to war. He talked to Jimmy Buffett for a good amount of time, thinking that it was Warren Buffett the entire time, which seems almost impossible. I don't care how junk you are he pointed out that he was really pretty junk at this point. He'd been drinking a lot of tequila. But I feel like if you, if you even know who Warren Buffett is by name, that you got some vague awareness that he's. He looks like Warren Buffett and I guess Jimmy Buffett. You know what? Jimmy Buffett's an older guy.
- [180:00]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [180:01]
Seth Payne
Now that I'm putting myself and trying to, like, if I were to put my drunk goggle my beer goggles on, I might, I might, I might, I might actually make that same mistake. Yeah. I don't know if I can even criticize him for that.
- [180:10]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. But there's context clues. Like, you are at a music festival.
- [180:15]
Seth Payne
Yeah. Warren Buffett not known as a big music festival guy.
- [180:19]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [180:19]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [180:19]
Luke Morrow
And I and Jimmy then went on the stage to perform. If it meant that might have been just been a joke to tag the story. But if that was reality, like, you're there to see Jimmy Buffett. You don't hear anyone mention Jimmy Buffett or see his name anywhere. Put two and two together. You're at a music festival and when they introduce you to a Buffet, you think, oh, of course, it's got to be Warren Buffett as opposed to the guy you're seeing on stage. In a moment.
- [180:42]
Seth Payne
What do you think about the fact that Jimmy Buffett. The smile evaporated from his face? Do you think he was more confused or do you think he was genuinely offended that this guy thought he was Warren Buffett?
- [180:50]
Luke Morrow
Honestly, I'm a little surprised by that. Cause I'm sure it's not the first time or that even, like, I know people who, who always thought they were cousins, so I'm sure he's gotten questions about Warren Buffett and whatnot.
- [181:00]
Seth Payne
I think, like most celebrities, like most celebrities are like, even, even if they have their hang ups and their weird ego things and everything. The ones that I've met have always been, like, kind of like surprisingly down to earth in a lot of ways to where, like, I don't. I think sometimes celebrities appreciate talking to somebody who doesn't actually know who they are because they feel like they're getting to know you. But this is. I. I think the smile might have drained from his face more out of confusion and pity more than anything else, because it's still like, this is a guy that's talking to you at a music festival where you're performing and he thinks you're Warren Buffett. Yeah. Like, that's, that's a, that's different than just meeting somebody. At a cocktail party.
- [181:39]
Luke Morrow
True, right.
- [181:40]
Seth Payne
I told. I've told Sean this story I don't think you've heard it is my. My friend Jeff Farrigar was. They were out at this barbecue or at like a cookout picnic type thing, and his dad, Jeff's dad, Tony, was visiting him in Seattle. And he ended up sitting down next to a guy for a long time, real nice guy. Talked to him for like a half hour and, you know, told. Told my. Told Mr. Faragar that he was a musician and it was time for this guy to get up and leave. And he was like, well, say, nice meeting you, Mr. Faragar. And Mr. Farragut was like, yeah, okay. Good luck. I know it's a tough business, man, but good luck. And that man was Dave Matthews that Mr. Faragar gave him. And Dave Matthews, like, probably thought it was the coolest thing in the world that this nice old guy was just taking an interest in his budding music career. And it was. It was nice.
- [182:31]
Luke Morrow
I'm so jealous. I love Dave, and he seems like a really cool, down to earth guy, so I'm sure he appreciated it.
- [182:38]
Seth Payne
Okay. So did I never told you my. My Dave Matthews story.
- [182:40]
Luke Morrow
I've heard it, like, secondhand. I've heard you tell the story where you were at, like, a party with him.
- [182:45]
Seth Payne
I was at Farrigur's birthday party in Seattle, and I was talking to this married couple for a couple of minutes, and all of a sudden it just dawned on me because I knew Jeff was friends with Dave Matthews, but I didn't know he's going to be at this party. I'd been talking to them for a couple minutes, and then all of a sudden it hit me like, oh, crap, this is Dave Matthews.
- [183:02]
Luke Morrow
Oh.
- [183:03]
Seth Payne
And it was just exactly like that. I never would. I never would have guessed that he was any kind of a celebrity because he was so down to earth.
- [183:09]
Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
- [183:10]
Seth Payne
But the cool thing about that was that I got to tell him about how one of his songs is a song that I used to listen to pregame. And it's not like a classic, like the type of stuff I listened to in college and high school, like Metallica and stuff like that. And. And he was really interested in just part. I kind of told him how I came to realize that I needed that song to listen to in the locker room pregame. And I linked it to this physicist, Richard Feynman. And he. He was, like, blown away because he's read all these articles and watched these speeches by Richard Feynman, the Physicist.
- [183:47]
Luke Morrow
Oh, wow.
- [183:48]
Seth Payne
So I was like, I was worried I was fanboying a little bit too much, but he ended up actually being. He actually ended up being, like, genuinely interested in the story.
- [183:55]
Luke Morrow
That's really cool. I'm jealous of that interaction. We. I saw Dave when he opened up his tour here in Houston and I was like, ah, maybe Seth could get me backstage to go see his buddy Dave.
- [184:04]
Seth Payne
Yeah, you know, it's one of those things, like, I never want to. If Farragher would. Yeah, yeah. Next time that happens, let me know. Would help me out. Farragher would help me out with that. But I always feel weird asking.
- [184:14]
Ben (Producer)
Yeah, of course.
- [184:14]
Luke Morrow
I know. That's why I didn't even bother, like texting you. I feel weird asking.
- [184:17]
Seth Payne
No, because we've got a. Farrak is my high school friend. And there's another kid in our high school friend group who has no issues asking anybody for anything at any time. And I know he's done it. Like, he's gone to like five different Dave Matthews concerts and sat backstage.
- [184:29]
Luke Morrow
Oh, nice. Very cool. Yeah. You were like, you were thinking, like, man, I didn't even realize this was Dave Matthews. And he's thinking like, oh, I just spoke with Trent Dilfer. This is really cool. He's telling everyone.
- [184:43]
Seth Payne
He's out there telling everyone story right now. Trent Dilfer used to listen to my
- [184:48]
Luke Morrow
song before he won a Super Bowl. He listened to it before the Super Bowl.
- [184:53]
Seth Payne
He listened to Two Step before he won the Super. Before he single handedly won the Super Bowl.
- [184:58]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [184:59]
Seth Payne
He was such a down to earth guy, this Trent Dilford. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. I was talking for like two minutes before I realized it was Trent Dilford.
- [185:05]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly. One of his buddies comes backstage at all my shows. Yeah, that's. That's funny and envious. My answer wouldn't be about me exactly, but I was there. So similar to, I guess your original story with Dave. But it's funny, I've never. I don't think I've told this story on air, but like Jerry Seinfeld is. You asked me earlier about Colin Cowherd, but Jerry Seinfeld is like one of those heroes. And I love Seinfeld. As you could tell by the random mention references I always shoehorn in. But we. I was lucky enough to meet Jerry when I was in high school and we were in. I grew up in Connecticut and so we pulled up to this, this little hole in the wall pizza place that had great sandwiches and we went in there to, to go get A sandwich, and there was a limo. It's. There's only three parking spots in front of the store because it's in Hartford, which is a city. There's a limo across all three spots. And we're thinking, like, who is this jerk taking up the only parking spots at this place? So we go inside, we order our sandwiches. Someone's ordering behind us, they get the pizza. This place is known for their sandwiches. So we're thinking, who's this guy coming in here getting the pizza? Everyone knows you gotta sandwiches from the shop. Of course, they sit down next to us. It's Jerry Seinfeld with two. Two ran. One was like a security guard, and one, I think, was his opener. He had a show that night in Connecticut. Oh, all right. So my father went up to him. He was wearing a Mets hat pulled down, sunglasses on. Inside. They had a TV on the wall. He's obviously a known Mets fan. The Mets game's on the tv. My father has the great idea of an icebreaker. He goes up, chains the channel, and leans into Jerry and says, hey, this is Red Sox country. And Jerry, I don't think like that.
- [186:44]
Seth Payne
He didn't like it.
- [186:45]
Luke Morrow
No.
- [186:45]
Seth Payne
He couldn't go along with it?
- [186:46]
Luke Morrow
No. So my father said. My father said, you mind taking a photo with my son? And Jerry said, no, thank you. And my dad said, really? And he said, yeah, no, thanks. And so my dad came back to the table, and I was so embarrassed. Secondhand embarrassment.
- [186:58]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [186:59]
Luke Morrow
And we're sitting there, and Jerry's sitting right there. And so my dad said, how far
- [187:02]
Seth Payne
away for how far away were you?
- [187:04]
Luke Morrow
Oh, like five feet. Next table. Next table over. So my dad said, eat. Eat real slow. We're going to try to milk this. We're gonna wait around with Jerry as long as we can. So we're over there, like, nibbling on our sandwiches, waiting for Jerry to finish a whole pizza.
- [187:19]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [187:19]
Luke Morrow
And just waiting. And I'm thinking, like, let's not bother the guy. I'm so embarrassed. Anyways, long story longer. When Jerry gets up to leave to go to the limo, apparently my back was turned. Apparently he gave my dad the nod to, like, hey, go outside.
- [187:32]
Advertisement Voice
Oh.
- [187:33]
Luke Morrow
So my dad said, oh, let's go. He just told me. He just signaled me to go meet him outside. And I was like, come on, we already bothered him enough. Like, let's let him go. I thought we were gonna go harass. Anyways, we walk outside, and Jerry was waiting there, and he was very friendly outside. And we got the photo, and then he Hopped in the running limo.
- [187:48]
Seth Payne
I can, you know what, though? I, I can appreciate that. That's because he probably as soon as, as soon as he takes a picture with you guys inside the restaurant, and all of a sudden he's like, got to do a 15 minute bit, like, for everybody. That's. And then we're. Yeah, so, like, waiting until after he ate, he could enjoy his meal, and then he gets outside and does that. Yeah, that was a. That was a. That was a celebrity. A hole story turned good. Yeah, it's true. As I was expecting. I didn't expect it to end that way. That's a good story.
- [188:15]
Luke Morrow
And when we walked back in, there was another table of a woman with her mom and her kid, and she was like, was that Jerry Seinfeld? And we were like, yeah. And she like, you know, slapped her mom on the shoulder. Like I told you, that was him. So, yeah, to your point, if he acknowledged his celebrity to us, then everybody in there would start bothering.
- [188:31]
Seth Payne
Would have opened the floodgates.
- [188:32]
Luke Morrow
Exactly. So, hey, Astros have a big series starting with the Rangers tonight. Hunter Brown on the mound. Hopefully he pitches well. He's kind of our last hope in this rotation, but. Crosstalk sponsored by DNM Auto Leasing. As we welcome in the. The fellas of in the Loop, let's exchange questions for questions. We'll get to the question of the day.
- [188:49]
Ben (Producer)
Hold on. Before we do any of that.
- [188:50]
Luke Morrow
Okay. Yes.
- [188:51]
Ben (Producer)
What the hell? Kind of disrespected that to Peter Lambert only.
- [188:54]
Luke Morrow
Oh, come on.
- [188:55]
Ben (Producer)
Peter Lambert's been.
- [188:57]
Seth Payne
I didn't want to interrupt him, but, yeah, we got it. We gotta.
- [189:00]
Ben (Producer)
We gotta espouse the honor of Peter, not Paula, Mary Lambert.
- [189:04]
Seth Payne
Listen, I didn't want to get on the wrong side of a good friend of Jerry Seinfeld, so I just let him run.
- [189:10]
Ben (Producer)
Honestly, I'm surprised that Jerry Seinfeld gave y' all to nod and it was nice on the back end. Notoriously, he is the type of dude that is okay with being a jerk in a moment, right. If he's just like, you have crossed me.
- [189:19]
Seth Payne
No, let me. Okay, let me. Before we, before we get off of Jerry Seinfeld for the next several weeks, let me ask you this, Luke. I like, like, yeah, like most people in my generation, I've watched a boatload of. Of Seinfeld episodes. But, like, one thing that I've noticed, and it gets worse every single year, is that stand up comedy usually doesn't age all that well. It just gets less and less funny as it gets less and Less current. And, man, when I watch reruns now, the older episodes where they. He does the stand up at the beginning, at the end, it's. It's the cringiest thing I've ever seen. I can't believe that he's still like, if I were Jerry Seinfeld, I would have a deal with Netflix. Like, listen, don't. Don't put those bits up there anymore. They're. They're awful. I'm sure they were great at the time, but there's not. There's nothing funny about them now. They're awful.
- [190:05]
Luke Morrow
Seth, it's Raheel.
- [190:07]
Ben (Producer)
What's up, buddy?
- [190:07]
Advertisement Voice
How are you?
- [190:07]
Seth Payne
Hey, what's up, Raheel?
- [190:08]
Ben (Producer)
Hey. Hot. Hot take.
- [190:10]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [190:11]
Luke Morrow
I hate the Seinfeld show.
- [190:14]
Seth Payne
No, but I get that.
- [190:15]
Luke Morrow
Have a good show, you guys take care. I love Curb.
- [190:18]
Seth Payne
I think Kirby, which is incredible because,
- [190:21]
Ben (Producer)
like, it's exact same sensibility because Jerry Seinfeld is not likable.
- [190:24]
Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
- [190:26]
Seth Payne
Larry's like, I think the whole idea
- [190:28]
Ben (Producer)
is Larry David is not likable, but he becomes likable. Everything he says, you're like, yeah, he makes a good point.
- [190:34]
Seth Payne
There's. I'll show you that. You know, the danger of Seinfeld is that when you grow up and you're a young. You're a teenager or you're a young adult watching it. I realize this as I got older. You don't realize that. No, the whole. The whole thing is that they are awful people.
- [190:47]
Advertisement Voice
Yes.
- [190:47]
Ben (Producer)
And they are not growing at all.
- [190:49]
Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
- [190:49]
Seth Payne
But when you're. When you're 20 years old and you're watching it, it. You're like, I guess this is the way adults operate. Like, all of this deplorable behavior in the way they treat their friends and lie and all that. Like, no, that's actually not cool. When you're. You're young and impressionable, you don't know any different.
- [191:06]
Luke Morrow
And also, because you got to go back when I was a kid, when
- [191:09]
Ben (Producer)
it was on, it was either watching
- [191:11]
Seth Payne
Seinfeld show or Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And I'm taking Fresh Prince.
- [191:15]
Ben (Producer)
They're not winning that one.
- [191:16]
Seth Payne
I'm not.
- [191:16]
Ben (Producer)
I'm sorry. I'm not watching that show.
- [191:18]
Seth Payne
And I still, to this day, I'll
- [191:19]
Ben (Producer)
go back and watch it because people get mad.
- [191:21]
Seth Payne
They have the same reaction. Like, what?
- [191:23]
Advertisement Voice
How could.
- [191:24]
Seth Payne
It's a Seinfeld.
- [191:25]
Luke Morrow
Joe and I go back and watch
- [191:26]
Ben (Producer)
it, and like you mentioned, Seth, it's so cringe.
- [191:29]
Seth Payne
Well, no, the show is. I still love the show. It's The. And that's what's so interesting about it is that it's the stand up at the beginning and at the end it's just atrocious. It's really, really bad by modern like, because that's how a lot of stand up just doesn't age well and it's hard to like, I would have a hard time convincing somebody, oh yeah, you should go watch Seinfeld knowing that they've got to watch 30 seconds of awful stand up.
- [191:52]
Ben (Producer)
Well, you tell them to skip to season two because like what you're saying, I think it's actually kind of an issue. Season one did not find its way.
- [191:59]
Seth Payne
Yeah, no, no. But again, now you're talking about the show versus the stand up. He kept doing the stand up through the first, through the first several seasons.
- [192:05]
Luke Morrow
I think the first four seasons they
- [192:06]
Ben (Producer)
did kind of walk the back a little bit.
- [192:08]
Seth Payne
The other thing too. Well, this is the other thing about Jerry Seinfeld that bothers me though. Sorry, Luke.
- [192:12]
Ben (Producer)
I love this.
- [192:13]
Seth Payne
I don't think, I don't. He acts like he's the greatest stand up comedian of all time. And I don't. That's not why he's rich. He's rich because of the show.
- [192:21]
Advertisement Voice
Yeah.
- [192:22]
Seth Payne
Like, I think he tries to, he tries to act like, oh yeah, I'm known as one of the best stand ups of all time. And I don't, I can't imagine that's how he's viewed because his stand up sucks. He's not even as good as Nate
- [192:33]
Ben (Producer)
for Gazzi right now.
- [192:34]
Seth Payne
Come on, let's preach
- [192:38]
Luke Morrow
today, man.
- [192:38]
Ben (Producer)
You can't do this.
- [192:39]
Seth Payne
Luke, Luke, you cannot honestly tell me that you watch those stand up bits
- [192:43]
Luke Morrow
and you're like, I like, I've seen him live. I like his stand up. I watched the specials. He's not my number one.
- [192:49]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [192:50]
Luke Morrow
But there are a lot of comedians that always do put him number one. Like he is regarded as maybe the greatest or certainly one of the best.
- [192:57]
Ben (Producer)
Yeah, Jerry, Jerry's a legend of comedy, man. Just the legend of it. Like he, he, the observational comedy is. I mean, he's one of the grandfathers of it and he's very, very.
- [193:06]
Seth Payne
Well, he's a little bit of a victim of this. The same way it happened with Jim Rome and Colin Coward. I'll concede this. It's that they end up having so many imitators that when you watch the original stuff, it just, it gets blended in with all. Like, you've seen this so many times. Like for, for every Jerry seinfeld. There were 200 comics that were, like, basically a rip off of Jerry Seinfeld. So, like, you'll kind of lose sight and of the, like, how original it might have been at the time.
- [193:33]
Ben (Producer)
Yeah, Carlin gets that. That problem, too. I think people that come to Carlin now without knowing, you know, where he was, they go, oh, man, I've seen this. Like, yeah, no, because he started this. He's an originator. In a weird way, it's. I've had to figure out my relationship with Kobe Bryant as a player because of this, because, like, everybody was trying to become Michael Jordan, and I knocked him for, like, wanting to be Michael Jordan so bad, but at the same time, I have to give him respect for being the only one that did that was close enough to actually make it look like something. Because, I mean, like, like, you know, the Harold Minor baby Jordan. There's a number of dudes who never even got close to trying to looking a little bit like Jordan. He was not Jordan. Kobe Bryant. But he did it well enough and better than anybody else. And in that same way, if you're talking about the imitators.
- [194:11]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah. If you're gonna be an imitator, might as well be the best one, right? Crosstalk sponsored by DNM Auto Leasing. And let me also get this part out of the way. You're listening to K I L T AM, K I L T FM, HD2, Houston, An Odyssey Sports station saying that all week it's finally gotten a little easier to get through that. That question of the day.
- [194:28]
Ben (Producer)
It's actually funny because it kind of ties into what we're talking about in greatness, whether it's comedy or music or whatever. In soccer, we're seeing Killian Mbappe put on an absolute show and display of greatness. And that got myself from Rahil thinking, what was the moment that you realized that there's just levels to this, right? There's some. In some instances where you see a player or someone perform or just something, you go, oh, wow. There's a whole nother level that I had not considered as possible here.
- [194:54]
Luke Morrow
Good question. I'll start one off for you. Yeah, please.
- [194:56]
Ben (Producer)
This is my pick, but this is just to get the conversation going.
- [195:00]
Luke Morrow
Texans Patriots Letterman jacket game.
- [195:02]
Seth Payne
Yeah, that one was like, Texans were
- [195:05]
Ben (Producer)
feeling high and mighty, and I hate bringing it up and all that stuff. But that was a moment where you're like, yeah, there's levels to this. There's levels to this, man, that changed the trajectory of everything.
- [195:19]
Seth Payne
Especially painful because that's pretty much been the Texans playoff experience every year too. Like. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. There's teams that make it out of the divisional round and then there's teams that don't. Yeah, I would say, you know what, for me, this is a little bit different. I guess when I used to live on the beach in Jacksonville. Jacksonville is not a huge surfing area. You know, like, it's, it's not like, known as a hot spot, but they have surfing competitions and everything. And I never really paid much attention to it other than I would watch the surfers out from my balcony. And there was one day I went out to the beach and I kind of. I looked up towards the walkway that comes from the parking lot and these two kids ran up and they started looking at the waves and then they ran back to their truck and grabbed their boards and before they even hit the water, just like the way they were running out to the water, I was like, all right, these guys are different. And then they got out there and then these little four foot waves, they were just shredding it, you know, they were doing. But I could tell even before they hit the waves and started, like clearly being really good surfers. And it turned out there was a surf competition somewhere in North Florida that week. And like, these were a couple of the best guys in America or wherever. But it was just like, oh, wow. Compared to like the like the guys who are known locally as good servers and everything, this is just something that I, I can't even comprehend how good these guys are.
- [196:38]
Ben (Producer)
Yeah, that's such a good, good point. Like there, there are some things where you don't even have to see the actual performance. You just see him set up and you go, okay, like here we were just talking about basketball because we both like love playing pickup basketball. There's times where you walk into a gym and you go, okay, that guy's good. Right? And it's not even just like he's tall or whatever. He's just like. You can see by the way that, you know, he holds the ball, dribbles. You're like, okay, that guy's going to be a problem before we even get to it. Yeah, just a, just a swag of everything. You're like, that guy played somewhere and there's love.
- [197:06]
Seth Payne
Yes.
- [197:06]
Advertisement Voice
There's levels.
- [197:08]
Ben (Producer)
He played D2 and so he's just humble enough to like pass the ball. But he's bad enough where he's gonna end my life today.
- [197:13]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny. You shouldn't judge a book by Its cover. But usually you're right in those cases in the gym when somebody walks in and you can tell, like, oh, yeah, this was a player. I would say it's a good question. That would require, I think requires some thought. And so for me, just off the top of my head, I mean, there's like the obvious ones, kind of like Seth said of, like, I play instruments, I play the guitar. But to actually get to a point where we were just talking about Dave Matthews, like, to be that, Are you kidding me? That takes a lot of work. But the one I think I would jump to is a lot of people think it's easy to become a college athlete. And I went through it where my brother was fortunate enough to play college basketball, but I saw it, I guess, secondhand of, like, how tough it was with the recruiting process of he had a great high school career, and yet still to try to find, like, a good opportunity at the collegiate level. And most people, especially parents growing up, think, like, oh, my kid, you know, he's a good athlete. He'll. He'll get a scholarship or something. It's really hard with the amount of high school athletes there are. And then you cut down to the amount of college athletes at that sport, especially at the Division 1 level, especially. That's something that's really challenging that I think people still underrate how difficult that is and think that they'll be able to play college sports. And obviously Seth did, but, yeah, that's one that I think is a lot tougher than people maybe realize.
- [198:23]
Ben (Producer)
Yeah, it's only gotten more difficult, too. That's the thing. It's like, now there's a whole industrial complex around it. Whether you talk about the clip. Farming of sorts, when it comes to highlights and in real rankings, the listing, you got to pay to be in them. Now the different, you know, training camps that you have to go to in order to be seen.
- [198:41]
Luke Morrow
It's sick. Yeah, for sure. And okay, it's time to go because the Seinfeld slander is coming in.
- [198:50]
Ben (Producer)
You're going to leave me with the king of the slander.
- [198:53]
Luke Morrow
That's true.
- [198:54]
Seth Payne
On.
- [198:55]
Ben (Producer)
On the text message, Jerry Seinfeld, stand up is straight up Dumpster. Thank you, Rudy. No, objectively.
- [199:02]
Seth Payne
All right. You're going to have to find me the good clip. Clip this weekend. I don't know. I don't know what else you have.
- [199:07]
Ben (Producer)
My homework is to find you the good. The good.
- [199:11]
Seth Payne
I still watch a lot of Seinfeld. That's my go to if I start getting tired. But I'm fighting bed and everything. I'm gonna watch a Seinfeld. Yeah. And I just. I cannot stand. I have yet to. Every now and then they'll be like, all right, I can see where this is. This, this has the makings of a good stand up comedy bit. But what the hell are you doing with your. With your corny voice and everything?
- [199:28]
Luke Morrow
No, I am with you on the stand up bit, specifically in the show. But I'll send you. I'll send you a clip.
- [199:31]
Ben (Producer)
Let's go.
- [199:32]
Luke Morrow
We'll find something.
- [199:32]
Ben (Producer)
Put me on that chain.
- [199:33]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, please send it to me. Okay, sounds good.
- [199:36]
Ben (Producer)
We're just gonna do this.
- [199:37]
Advertisement Voice
I want.
- [199:38]
Guest or Contributor
Maybe I'm.
- [199:38]
Ben (Producer)
I'm watching the wrong episodes or something.
- [199:42]
Luke Morrow
Crosstalk sponsored by DNM Auto Leasing before I do get out. I haven't said this all week. There was a couple texts that came in. We are starting weekend programming. So I probably should acknowledge that.
- [199:50]
Seth Payne
Yeah, yeah.
- [199:51]
Luke Morrow
That tomorrow and Sunday. If you haven't gotten enough of me this week, God bless. I'd love to meet you. But I'll be on the air 12 to 3 tomorrow and Sunday. Tomorrow, Chris Partee Sunday with Zach Gelb. So we're starting weekend program. We're bringing it back.
- [200:05]
Ben (Producer)
Nice.
- [200:06]
Luke Morrow
That's right. Bringing it back here to see.
- [200:07]
Ben (Producer)
You gotta lock it on a 610
- [200:09]
Seth Payne
all week long, baby.
- [200:11]
Luke Morrow
So come hang out with us this weekend. 12 to 3, Saturday and Sunday. Seth, it's been a pleasure all week. We'll do it one more time on Monday.
- [200:17]
Seth Payne
We think. We're not exactly sure. We're pretty sure you're going to be in on Monday and Sean's not back yet, but. Well, you got guys will just have to tune in.
- [200:25]
Ben (Producer)
What is he. Is he lost in Idaho?
- [200:27]
Seth Payne
No, we've just had conflicting messages.
- [200:29]
Ben (Producer)
Okay. Like, I was afraid that we need to go, like send a recon team to go find our guy.
- [200:34]
Seth Payne
Sean tweeted that he was going to be back on Monday. As far as Luke and I know, he is not. So I'm going to text Amy and find out what the deal is.
- [200:42]
Luke Morrow
So. Yeah, otherwise, you know, I'll just come in at 4am and just. Just figure out for myself what three man show. Yeah. There you go. Okay, time for us to get out of here. Enjoy the week and enjoy the next four hours.
- [200:54]
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- [201:16]
Luke Morrow
Rally the crew.
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- [201:54]
Luke Morrow
Hey y', all, Poodle and Maddie here from Reality Gays, grab your favorite thong because for the first time we're heading to the villa for the new season
- [202:02]
Seth Payne
of Love island usa.
- [202:04]
Luke Morrow
I can't wait to watch Ariana babysit
- [202:06]
Advertisement Voice
these shiny, oiled up adults who I'm
- [202:08]
Luke Morrow
pretty sure aren't there for the right reasons.
- [202:10]
Ben (Producer)
From the home wrecking bombshells to the
- [202:12]
Luke Morrow
absence of absolute wreckage of movie night, pull up a day bed and join us every Wednesday for all the Love Island USA drama. Find Reality Gaze wherever you get your podcasts.