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- [00:00]
Luke Morrow
I'm Serena Williams and I'm healthier on row.
- [00:03]
Seth Payne
I've lost 34 pounds in a year. With GLP1's diet and exercise on row
- [00:08]
Luke Morrow
you can access GLP1 options including the
- [00:11]
Seth Payne
first FDA approved GLP1 pill for weight loss. Go to Rourney to see if you qualify.
- [00:17]
Luke Morrow
14 to 20% average weight loss in one year in non diabetics with obesity or overweight with a weight related medical condition versus 2.2% to 3.1% in placebo arm RX only.
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Seth Payne
To stay informed about serious side effects,
- [00:29]
Luke Morrow
go to Ro co Safety. Hey, what's up flies?
- [00:32]
Seth Payne
This is David Spade.
- [00:33]
Luke Morrow
Dana Carvey. Look at. I know we never actually left, but I'll just say it. We are back with another season of Fly on the Wall.
- [00:40]
Seth Payne
Every episode, including ones with guests will
- [00:43]
Luke Morrow
now be on Vimeo. Every Thursday you'll hear us and see
- [00:48]
Seth Payne
us chatting with big name celebrities.
- [00:50]
Luke Morrow
And every Monday you're stuck with just me and Dana. We react to news, what's trending, viral clips follow and listen to Fly on the Wall.
- [00:57]
Seth Payne
Everywhere you get your podcasts.
- [01:01]
Luke Morrow
Sports Radio 610 presents Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast.
- [01:05]
Seth Payne
We coming to ace time. Let's get the work in man. Let's go. Great day. Great day. Oh, give me some juice, baby. Oh yeah. Let's do it.
- [01:17]
Luke Morrow
Yes, sir. Happy Monday. Appreciate you starting the week with us Payne and Pendergast, but Sean's out. I'm Luke Morrow in for him alongside Seth Payne. Hope you had a great holiday weekend. Seth, good morning. How was your July 4th weekend?
- [01:31]
Seth Payne
It was great. It was absolutely incredible. We did all the stuff you're supposed to do. Yeah. Just did hot dogs and fireworks and lawn work. That was the try the trifecta for the things our forefathers would have wanted us to do.
- [01:46]
Luke Morrow
That's right. Right. Very American. Well, glad you had a good time. I was. You know, we went out to. I live in West U. We went out to a damn.
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Seth Payne
No.
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Luke Morrow
Well, let's take it easy.
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Seth Payne
I didn't know you were a West University in.
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Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah. I love telling people because it's a lot fancier than our reality.
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Seth Payne
That's like Sean claiming that he lives in River Oaks. Technically. Yeah.
- [02:12]
Luke Morrow
In our neighborhood. It's like Mansion, mansion, mansion. Oh, there's our shack. Mansion, mansion, mansion. But we do live in a nice area at least and. But so we went to the local pool. There's a community pool. That's the best part about West U. Or some of just the perks in the, in the neighborhood. But we went to the pool on July 4th because they were having a whole pool party. And there was a guy there that looked like he had to have either have been or is currently an athlete. And he looked like a football player. The dude was built. He was about 6ft, muscles on muscles, great shape. He. He was in the pool, like, with a long sleeve shirt on. He had the hat on, glasses on the whole time. Like, he was trying to keep a low profile. And you've probably had this experience too, Seth, but I spent the second half that we were there, I spent the whole time just like staring at this guy, trying to figure out like, who is this? This has to be somebody. And I imagine in your life as a former NFL player, people have probably looked at you trying to figure out like, this has to be a professional athlete, who is this guy? And I don't know if he knew that my eyes are on him for a long time, probably, you know, making his wife uncomfortable. But I was trying to figure out, like, this has to be. And I never figured it out, but I was like, this has to be either a former player or a coach or somebody that this dude is too built to just be a regular guy walking.
- [03:25]
Seth Payne
Yeah, no, that's. I don't get it. As, as long as I'm not lifting weights, I don't get it that much. As soon as I start lifting, it's like I could lift for two weeks and then immediately I start getting those questions. But I, I like, I look more looking like a beefed up librarian these days. So there's lots of tall guys, especially in a city this big. So I, I don't. And I'm old now, so I don't, I don't get that as much. But yeah, that's. Well, it's one of the things about being in Houston. There are. There's so many professional athletes, not just from the local teams, but from guys that retire and live here that I do. I find myself a lot of times kind of walking past somebody my own age in the grocery store and we kind of eyeball each other and we're pretty sure that we used to both play in the NFL, but, you know, like, who's got room for more friends, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [04:14]
Luke Morrow
And I'm not the type of. I'm not going to go up to this guy and just make small chats. So I was like, I was like creeping over towards the pool, trying to, over, you know, trying to eavesdrop and hear if I could catch A name or something? Or like, what is this guy? Is he talking about the Texans? Is he talking about the NFL?
- [04:27]
Seth Payne
Well, do you get credit for this now, though? Okay. If you're. If you're an athlete, if you're a professional athlete at the public pool and it's in some, you know, it's like in a. In a normal suburb or out in the country or something, I feel like you get extra credit for being a man of the people I don't know of in West U. That applies as much.
- [04:46]
Luke Morrow
It's true.
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Seth Payne
I don't think as much of, like, that you get. You know what's weird? When I lived in Jet, when I played for the Jaguars in Jacksonville, there's just gated golf communities all over the place, and most of the people, like, who have the means or a lot of them end up living in gated communities. It's almost just the standard. And I never. I always felt weird about that. So I lived like, you know, like in a normal house on a normal street. And people would always. People would always act like I was like I was a saint walking on the earth for just living in a normal neighborhood. And I was like. I was like, yeah, I feel like you're kind of calling all the other guys jerks. I didn't think anything of it. But, like, in Houston, it's not. As the gated community thing isn't as big a deal, at least, you know, inside the loop and everything, obviously. So you see a lot more just commingling in the public.
- [05:39]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I went to a couple of weeks and maybe months ago now, I went to Starbucks and Cal McNair walked in to pick up his order, and I was the only person in there that recognized him. And look, I don't have. We know the McNairs, obviously, they listen, they pay attention. I don't have the ego to think that he knows who I am. I'm only here occasionally. But we locked eyes and I think he knew that I knew who he was. And we kind of like acknowledge each other, but I wasn't going to say anything. Nobody said a word to him. He came in, grabbed his coffees, went back out, and I was like, oh, that's cool. Like, that was just the owner of the Texans popping in here. Nobody even realized. So to your point, you can't exist around here as a celebrity or a star or an athlete or whatever without a bunch of people noticing. Nobody else went up to this guy. So I don't know. They were all busy with their kids, obviously. I said, Go play over there. I'm trying to figure out who this guy is.
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Seth Payne
Yeah.
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Luke Morrow
But yeah, I never got the answer.
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Seth Payne
You should have. Yeah. You just have a casual walk up and could have dropped your hot dog in front of him or something. The last place I ran into Cal McNair in nature was at academy and he was buying grilling supplies. He is about as down to earth just the low key billionaire as you'd expect to see.
- [06:56]
Luke Morrow
That's how, that's the dream. I want to be Adam Sandler just walking around in baggy gym shorts. Yeah. You know, and people think like you look like a schlub, but really you're just, you're a millionaire and you're just like, you're an everyday guy. That's, that's, that's the American dream here. Coming off July 4th weekend. Hey, the Astros are coming off. Let me not bury the lead. The Astros are coming off a big weekend as well. They take two out of three against the Rays, getting that win yesterday to nothing. The Rays third best record still as we wake up today, third best record in Major League Baseball. They entered the series on an eight game winning streak. To me, that was, I've always still have been like one foot in if that with these Astros. So I still been skeptical, but that was the biggest series victory of the year. To me. It wasn't the Royals, it wasn't the Twins, the teams they've been beating recently. This was a really good race team. And the Astros, even though they didn't get a good performance from Hunter Brown on Saturday, still found a way to win two out of three. It felt like a really big prove it series, at least for me. I don't know how you felt, Seth, but for me, I came away thinking like, okay, maybe I can start to take this team seriously in the Al.
- [07:57]
Seth Payne
No, I 100% and I think, I mean so much of it revolves around the pitching and what are they going to, what are you going to see from them? And the, we know the bullpen is, has really come along in the last month or so. But I think getting those performances out of Arrogetti and Lambert are probably the most promising developments. And like Lambert has been pitching well. But I also think you're at a point now where, you know, Espada at times I think has left Lambert in too long. He's left a lot of pitchers in too long and a lot of that comes from earlier in the season when man, they just didn't have, they didn't have enough guys in the Bullpen, the starters weren't giving. Weren't. Weren't. Weren't eating up enough innings that he was really in a fix where now I would say both, arguably with Araghetti and Lambert, you might say, man, you could have left them in a little bit longer, but they were both, like. He was in a good position with both of those guys, to where I understand. I understand why he would. And it worked out like with Lambert yesterday. You know, you bring Oakhurst in to face a lefty, and they. They end up swapping him out. And it was. But. But it all worked out, and they, like, they have the relievers. When you can line up Okert, King, and Hayter, you feel just awesome about that compared to whatever the hell we felt like in the first couple months of the season when we might have to see a Breu out there in a clutch situation.
- [09:19]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No, the bullpen handle their business again yesterday. And this bullpen has been really good, as has the team. I mean, the bull. Over the last six weeks, the bullpen, I believe, is still number one in ERA, and the Astros are number one in the American League. They're 25 and 16 in their last 41 games, which is a quarter of the season. If you played like that all year, you'd win just about 100 games, which is pretty remarkable. So they have the highest winning percentage the last six weeks. So if you're an Astros fan, you're probably thinking, like, how come you're only buying in now? But. Because on the flip side, and we know this, with baseball, you can always find stats to make your argument. But on the flip side, the Astros still, despite this run, have the fourth worst run differential in the American League. And I'm a big run differential guy. You know, the run differential tells you that they've overachieved by six games so far. They have the. They're still only in third place in the worst division in baseball, and they're also four games under.500 against winning teams, even after this weekend series. So they. They've been playing really good baseball the last six weeks. But then for me, there's. It's still hard for me to settle some of those bad numbers that I usually look for over the course of an entire baseball season to tell me how good a team truly is.
- [10:27]
Seth Payne
Yeah, no, you're exactly right to care about run differential. You know, the. The stat heads try to tell you it's like it's some kind of. It's a Pythagorean theorem of, like, whatever the win loss ratio, points for and against. It's like, yeah, okay, no, we don't have to. We don't have to attach. We don't have to attach any lingo to it. It's better to score more runs than you allow. And like, over the course of the season, you can. Those things tend to balance out. I think that the biggest. The biggest and craziest thing is that this series that you feel best about, or at least you know, I think you and I both feel a lot more confident after winning a series versus the Rays. Is. It is. As you're also sending Jake Myers and Joey Lo Profito down to Triple A and just continuing this. This whatever the hell's going on in the outfield to the point where, I mean, you know, yesterday they pinch hit disenzo for Taylor Tramel, and I find myself, like, wondering, like, how am I getting angry about this? And yet I am because I feel like Espada is just trying to get too clever too quick, and then disenzo ends up doing well out there. But, like, these are the options. Like, there's just. There's no options that you feel awesome about for really giving you any kind of offense in the outfield.
- [11:45]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, for sure. And I think it's. I don't know who it's an indictment on. Like, I didn't like at the time. You could go back. I don't tweet a whole lot, but you could find the tweet. At the time of the trade deadline last year, I thought Jesus Sanchez was the best addition for the Astros. It obviously did not work out last year here in Houston, but then I hated that trade for Joey Loafer Feto. And so far now, as we sit here on July 6, I don't know what Sanchez, his numbers currently are. I haven't checked the last, like, two weeks, but he was having a really good year.
- [12:12]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
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Luke Morrow
And Lopez, he was playing a lot
- [12:14]
Seth Payne
better than he had in Houston. Remember. Remember also that the. The Blue Jays hitting coach up there at the beginning of the season had basically said that the Astros ruined Sanchez.
- [12:24]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [12:25]
Seth Payne
I'm paraphrasing, but.
- [12:26]
Luke Morrow
Right. So maybe it was never going to work in Houston. Although, of course, they did change hitting coaches. But yeah, like, that was a career low OPS he had for his half a season in Houston. That's not norm. That's the outlier. I like Jesus Sanchez, and he's having a really good year. Meanwhile, Lo Profito goes down to aaa, and so I don't know if that's like, more of an indictment on Dana Brown, where you look at the Dubon trade, you look at that trade, neither one has worked out well for the Astros or if it's more of an indictment on Jim Crane for forcing those like, money saving moves. But here we are on July 6 where lo profito, one of the big additions of the offseason, is now in AAA along with Jake Myers and. And you have lamonte Wade in the lineup. And then to your point, the Zenzo, who in Dana Brown's defense, DeSenzo, got a big, you know, had a big at bat to tie up the game there yesterday or Saturday rather. But. But yeah, that's just. To me, it's another sign of just some of the holes, I guess on this team of that Lo Profito, Jesus Sanchez would be a big help. Instead you have low Profito now he's in Triple A. And you look at this lineup, there's only three guys with an average ops, a league average OPS on this team. But they have the pitching right now and they keep finding ways to win here the last six weeks.
- [13:32]
Seth Payne
Yeah, somebody asked me about Lamont Wade this weekend. About like, so is he. Is he a rookie? And I'm like, I'm pretty sure. Let me check. Yeah, he's 32 years old. Like, whatever. I know his numbers are promising so far, but it's a very small sample size and it's. He likely is what he is at this point in his career.
- [13:50]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly. Big series coming up, though. Well, first, before I get to that, let me put you on the spot here already 6:12 in the morning. Who do you think was. What was. Who had the bigger pitching performance, Spencer Arrogetti or Lambert in terms of like trying to take that and move forward? Like, who do you think that was bigger for? Arrogetti and what he did Friday or Lambert yesterday? Because.
- [14:13]
Seth Payne
Oh God.
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Luke Morrow
Well, I was just to set it up like Araghetti had the great start to the year then had really been scuffling and we thought like now, you know, he's regressed to the mean. But then pitch really well Friday. Lambert, meanwhile, we're waiting for the other shoe to drop. And yet the guy just keeps dealing. I don't know if it's ever going to drop.
- [14:27]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I think that. I think with Eric Eddy, because we've seen this. Eric Eddy has acknowledged it himself. Like, man, he tends to be pretty streaky. He'll have this awesome month where you feel like he's the, he's the next Hunter Brown. He is. And then he just has a month like the previous month, and I think for Eric, Eddie and especially right now, you know, as a. As you approach the All Star break, whatever he's figured out or whatever he's had to do, hopefully this is just back onto that stretch where he's done in the past. You know, have a great second half of the season. I think it was a bigger day for him. Lambert. Yeah, I'm growing kind of maybe a little too casually comfortable with Lambert. And I just part of it is he just does it with, you know, attacking the zone, a variety of pitches, just changing up his velo and everything. He just feels like. He feels like a true craftsman, you know, he understands his craft.
- [15:20]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. And he was like, look, he was a first round draft pick, went to Colorado where all pitchers, you know, go to fail, and then now here in Houston has been given maybe a better opportunity and things are certainly clicking for him this year. So he's always had like the ability and the talent. Just hasn't been able to put it together at least to this season. But yeah, he's been pitching really well as a pitcher.
- [15:40]
Seth Payne
Going to Colorado. Just think about what that must do your psyche in terms of like your career. This is in Baseball Almanac for the rest of your life, no matter how well you pitch, it's not gonna look that good. And that's the, that's the high, like, that's a high standard. You just. There's people gonna have to explain. You're gonna end up being a Hall of Fame pitcher, but people are gonna have to explain to future generations exactly why the first five or six years of your career didn't look that impressive.
- [16:07]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it's like in the office where Ryan says that Pam is like a Scranton 8, but a New York 5 or something along those lines. It's similar where it like, well, you know, he has a five ERA in Colorado. That's like a four and a half era somewhere else, or maybe a four ERA somewhere else. Like, it's not bad. You got to use. You got to grade it on a. On a scale.
- [16:25]
Seth Payne
I feel like if you're like, you've got aspirations of being a great novelist or something, but you're forced to take a job at buzzfeed and you're just like, this is the. This is the crap I'm going to be putting out. I'm going to be writing listicles for the next six years.
- [16:38]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly. Big still. Big couple of days coming up here. Starting tonight. No rest for the Astros. 545 first pitch against the Nationals. And I know we haven't really had to care about the Washington Nationals for a few years really since that World Series, but they are over.500 and they have one of the better offenses. Their pitching is lousy, but they have one of the best offenses in the league. And Seth, as you pointed out before we came on the air, you had the three good arms over the weekend. And now you get Mike Burroughs tonight ima tomorrow against one of the better offenses in the league on the road nonetheless. So now let's see if you could keep this momentum going with these guys the next two nights.
- [17:17]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I'm, I am excited for what hangs in the balance in terms of my own psyche over the next three days. That's the, I mean like Burroughs and Imai immediately just give us something to feel really good about headed into the All Star break and. Except we'll probably see Burroughs again. Right? Yeah. So there's a, like there's this, this next couple, this next couple series before the All Star break where Jordan will also be for those you didn't know, he's not going to be doing the Home Run Derby. So you don't have to worry about any of that.
- [17:49]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Screwing up the swing.
- [17:50]
Seth Payne
Yeah, they talked about it was Cameron. Oh they were talking about with Cameron Arrow yesterday about you know, like the perceived that sometimes guys go into a slump or just don't do as well after they do the Home Run Derby. I don't. I could go either way on that debate. I'm just glad to not have to be a part of it.
- [18:08]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I don't like it. I wouldn't want my guys like Jordan in the Home Run Derby. I think they've tried to crunch the numbers before. I think people have done the quote unquote studies and found that it really doesn't have a huge overall on average. It doesn't have a huge impact on these guys second half of the season. But there are enough cases we can point to where maybe it's just coincidence, but it's like, ah, that guy, you know, he didn't do so hot second half of the year or at least the weeks that followed the Home Run Derby because it is a, you know, it can be a tiring experience. It can we believe, alter your swing. I just also don't want you down
- [18:37]
Seth Payne
there even just for, from an injury standpoint. I like it's, it's like going out. It's a different sport almost doing a Home Run Derby even though it looks very, very similar to the thing he does every single night, it's still, you're taking all these monstrous hacks in a row and like, for whether it messes up your swing or it could, you know, tweak your oblique or something, I just don't, like. I don't want Jordan Alvarez going out and splitting a bunch of firewood during the All Star break either. You know, it's a similar motion. Ah, yeah, but it's. It's that. That can be dangerous sometimes. The similar motion where it feels comfortable to just go all out. It's. You feel it the next day.
- [19:17]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it can be dangerous. Ask Chris Hansen and Jack Del Rio. Ever.
- [19:21]
Seth Payne
Do you ever, like, you ever go to the gym and you haven't done legs in a long time and you decide to do legs or like, even if you have been doing legs, but you decide to do some kind of groin exercise or something? Something. You think, oh, I'm in great shape and everything. Sure. I'll just get on that adductor machine and do six sets there. And then you can't walk for three weeks afterwards.
- [19:40]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly. No, I know. I know it too well. Baseball talk on Sports Radio 610 presented by Xfinity. Score the most reliable Wi Fi 1 price 5 years guaranteed. Xfinity. Imagine that. By the way, yeah, Jordan's also the same guy that got injured like stepping on home. So let's not have him swing a bat any. Any more than he really needs to. Coming up. Hey, we have a big soccer game tonight and. Or match, I should say. You could tell I'm not a soccer guy. Big soccer match tonight and we also got big news over the weekend that a red card suspension was actually suspended. Are we happy or should we be embarrassed? We'll talk about it next year on Pain and Pender Guest. Should we feel happy or are we feeling a little embarrassed? Based off of the news yesterday with the World cup where they have suspended the suspension for that red card that was given out to Flo Baligan. Hey, it's Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow, in for Sean alongside Seth Payne, of course, and you can always join the conversation. I should have mentioned this earlier, but. 713-572-4-610 to text the show at any time. Yeah, so the big news over the weekend is that he'll be able to play in the match tonight with Belgium. 7pm start here Central time. Big match. And Seth, I don't know how you feel, but I was surprised by the reaction of a lot of the. Obviously a Lot of fans happy.
- [21:03]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [21:03]
Luke Morrow
And I'm not even getting political here. We're not even talking about the political side of this because, you know, as the stories go, that's what led to the suspension of this quote unquote suspension.
- [21:12]
Seth Payne
The US And Donald Trump himself reached out to FIFA and had conversations with the FIFA president and this ends up getting revoked, which. Or suspended the automatic one game ban to revoke the red card. They suspended. Suspended the one game ban?
- [21:26]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. It's pushed off a year. So he will like serve a suspension, but not for a year.
- [21:30]
Seth Payne
This is, this is one of those all too easy situations. You know what we've gotten really good at America at doing? Luke is saying, hey, let's separate politics from this. Nobody's better at it than us as of late. But especially when it comes, when it involves the President, especially. I do feel like you can. I am, I am really, I'm ambivalent about this to an extreme degree. So I would say whoever the president is, whether it was Trump or Obama or Clinton or Bush or Bush, I feel a little bit uneasy about the president reaching out to FIFA and putting in a position where FIFA doesn't have the best reputation for running things on the up and up. America's got a reputation as a bully and I feel like it's the perfect storm of a whole bunch of crap that I've gotten myself all geared up for. Okay, man. If the US Wins this game without their best player because of an unjust red card, that'll be the story of all stories. And now I feel like that it's, it's tainted any potential victory regardless of where you stand politically. And at the same time also, I, it was an unjust red card or at least the suspension feels excessive after the red card. I'm cool with. I understand the red card part of it, but it just, the, the, the fact that you do get suspended for the next game feels extreme and heavy handed.
- [22:55]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it does. You know, we were talking about it in the group chat yesterday and I feel like there should be a sliding scale and same thing in college football with targeting where like let's have a yellow card, a red card, and then in soccer in between, like add an orange card where that's the end the rest of, of that current match. Yeah, but you don't have to miss any other time afterwards. Which similar in college football at targeting where I think we need a little more judgment involved instead of like once you get a targeting penalty, you're out for the next game as well. If it happens in the second half where it might just be incidental. I think similar with some of these red cards too, where I haven't found anybody who has agreed that, like, oh, yeah, that was a good red car red card. That was the right call. It was a bad call. I don't think it should mean you automatically miss the next match. But I also don't think it should mean that we, we bend the rules, which for those that aren't are unfamiliar and curious why this is such a big story. It's because, like, this never happens. They don't ever reverse this to allow a player to play.
- [23:50]
Seth Payne
It's. It appears to be the first time since 1962 that a red card during a World cup didn't result in a suspension. That's the, that's the. So it's. And this is, this is one of those things where it's impossible now that because Trump called the FIFA president, it's impossible to not connect dots. And yet I just. Is there any world in which FIFA would have come by this decision without the US exerting pressure, intervening somehow or some way? It's hard to imagine that would be the case, given this is the first time it's happened since 1962?
- [24:30]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't expected. And that's why I was saying, like, the embarrassing part is because it just feels like classic us of like forcing, you know, forcing him back on the, on the pitch. And it's reminiscent again, like you said, regardless, like who the president is or even whoever made the call, it feels like you didn't make the baseball team growing up and your parent calls the coach and is like, hey, you got to put them back on the team. What are you doing? And you know, and then that's how you get your spot on the roster.
- [24:54]
Seth Payne
You're the rich kid on the team that, like, you're the starting pitcher and you're self aware that you're not the best or you're like, you're the, you're the best. The number one pitcher and on the team, despite being like the fifth or sixth best pitcher on the team. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [25:10]
Luke Morrow
When, you know, like, it's embarrassing when you're like, I shouldn't be here. I'm not supposed to be here.
- [25:14]
Seth Payne
This is where, this is where I am with it. I think I'm gonna go based on the fact that the US players themselves, I think from everything I saw, I thought they handled it all with grace. I, you know, I think they did. Like, they weren't happy about it obviously, but there wasn't a whole bunch of bellyaching about it and everything. They'd kind of put their heads down and gone about their business. And the other thing too is you have to remember us is an underdog when it comes to soccer. That listen, this isn't like the, this isn't like the Yankees outspending everybody every year or the Dodgers or somebody like that. It's. This is a little bit different. You know, we're. We're the lovable underdogs. That's how I choose to look at it.
- [25:53]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that's true. We're fixing an injustice to the underdogs.
- [25:57]
Seth Payne
The part of it. Okay, so there's these two things. First, there's the jingoistic side of me that says screw what anybody else thinks around the world. Usa. Usa. Damn it. And we believe that we will win it and such. The other part of it, man, it's been so nice the last few weeks getting all this love heaped on us from all these countries saying, no, America's, America is different than what we were led to believe. These people are so friendly and they're so awesome and they're so nice. And now, bam, we got this. This potential for huge divisiveness and all the goodwill from the last few weeks feels like it's just going to dry up and blow out the window as people are driving at breakneck speeds down our open rural highways and amazed at how big our cars are and how cheap the gas is compared to a lot of European nations.
- [26:42]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, it's true. It's true. And if you're looking at the odds, by the way, us, we were, I think a slight underdog previously and then once this news came out, became a favorite and then actually overnight for whatever, it's not a good sign, but we've been bet back to even. So money's been coming in on belgium the last 24 hours and now we're about even. Both teams have about minus 110 odds. So it's like a 50, 50 toss up for the match tonight. But from a betting perspective that did have at least an initial impact that it certainly helps the US in this match tonight. I have a few friends that are really like they played college soccer. One one of my buddies, coaches now, in fact, I can be a name dropper and so to name drop and I'll, I'll put his business out there. But one of my best friends is, is Nick DiCicco, whose father, Tony Dechico was the Coach of the women's national team. When Brandi Chastain did the sliding, you know, she had the winning goal, slid on her knees, took her top off. Back in 99, he was the coach of that. That national team. And we were texting over the week, and I was surprised that my soccer buddies, they all hated the red card, but it's, you know, it's soccer. They call it like, the beautiful game. And I mean, they hated breaking this tradition of, like, even though it helps us as us, you never put a guy back out there after getting the red card. And it feels a little tainted already.
- [27:58]
Seth Payne
Yeah. I didn't see if it was like they said, since 1962. I don't know if there was a rule change before then or after in 1962 or something. And the article I had seen didn't. Didn't paint it out any more than just saying, first time since 1962. I don't know. I think. I think this is the kind of thing that because I'm a. I'm the most casual of casual soccer fans, I'm just going to shove it to the back of my brain and pretend. Pretended it never existed.
- [28:25]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [28:25]
Seth Payne
This is just the way. This is the way it goes. That's. Them's the breaks, man.
- [28:29]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yeah. It's true. My grandfather was once a commissioner of a soccer league. And so in his honor, I'm going to start this push. Like I said, let's create orange cards where you can get kicked out of that match, but you don't have to get suspended for the next one.
- [28:44]
Seth Payne
Yeah. Because of this whole situation, is there no getting suspended for the first half or anything in soccer the way we have it in football sometimes?
- [28:52]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I. Honestly, I don't know. Soccer ball.
- [28:55]
Seth Payne
Is that just what coaches do? Sometimes? I feel like. Sometimes there's like. You know, I always admire the coaches that bench their star player for one series.
- [29:06]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [29:06]
Seth Payne
Like that is. That is just giving token acknowledgment of something right there. Yeah.
- [29:11]
Luke Morrow
Especially when it's in college and it's like Michigan doing it when they play, you know, whatever Howard or somebody, you know, like some. Some FCS school and listen for the first series.
- [29:21]
Seth Payne
Yeah, you're. Listen, buster, if you thought you were going to get more than 350 yards rushing today, good luck. That's your punishment.
- [29:28]
Luke Morrow
Going to show you. Hey, by the way, speaking of officiating and whatnot, I do love that. I. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but we've had seven Umpires over the weekend accept buyouts from Major League Baseball to retire at the end of the year.
- [29:41]
Seth Payne
Oh, I missed that. Oh, okay.
- [29:44]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I should drop it in the rundown. I don't have the list in front of me. I can go find it. But they were all ranked. They've all been ranked towards the bottom of the league in terms of, like, you know, proper strike zone this year. And so finally, after all this time where we had Angel Hernandez forced upon us, like, finally, there is some accountability here where seven of the worst umpires are, quote, unquote, retiring at the end of the year, essentially, I guess, being forced out. I'm going to credit this whole challenging system for. For. For that.
- [30:13]
Seth Payne
Is CB Buckner one of them?
- [30:15]
Luke Morrow
He is, yeah.
- [30:15]
Seth Payne
Because. But, you know, because, remember, CB Buckner had that horrendous series of events early in the season, and then, remember, he got hit by. He got. Well, I can't even remember the circumstance. It was ugly, though, right? He got hit by. Did a ball carry him off the glove into his face or something?
- [30:31]
Luke Morrow
Something like that. I think he missed some time.
- [30:33]
Seth Payne
Yeah, well, you know, I don't know if he's. And I don't think he's been back. Cause he's on the. Yeah, he. He must not. I'm looking at the ABS tracker right now, and I don't think he's been back since he got injured because he's only had nine. The success rate against him was a 77.8% success rate in nine challenges. Seven of nine challenges were successful. The Astros. The Astros, in facing the ABs, have been awesome. As batters, they're number one. Even with Cam Smith dragging them down, they're number one amongst batters, but then they're 27th when it comes to catchers and pitchers, and that matches the eyeball test. We dread the. We dread the Astros catchers challenging a pitch. Or not. Or not. I feel like Vasquez. I get more frustrated with the pitches he doesn't challenge. More so than some of the ones that he challenges. He lets a lot of. And I think he does an awesome job calling the game, and I think that's obvious. Pitchers love him, but that part of it, he just lags in.
- [31:30]
Luke Morrow
That I saw over the weekend, Randy Rosarina used both of the team's challenges, like, unsuccessfully. I think it was the first inning as well for the Mariners. He just burned through them. Yeah. Some guys. I know you guys have talked about it all year, like Cam Smith. Some guys just, you know, take. Take it away from them. To be able to challenge. By the way, real quick, the list of umpires. CB Buckner's on that list. He's ranked. Now, as Seth mentioned, he hasn't umped in a while because he suffered a concussion from a foul ball, but he's ranked 91st out of 91 this year. He's the worst of the umpires. He accepted the buyout. So did Laz Diaz. That's a big name. Brian Onora, that's another big name. Lance Barksdale, Marvin Hudson, Tony Randazzo and Andy Fletcher are all quote, unquote, retiring at the end of the year.
- [32:11]
Seth Payne
So I hope they get a fake gold watch on their way out. Yeah, just get some of they go down and buy them down on. On the street in New York City or something.
- [32:20]
Luke Morrow
That's right. See you guys later. Baseball will probably be better for it, all due respect. Have a great retirement. Hey, coming up, time for headlines, including, you know, we were just talking about us. They play Belgium tonight. It's a big match. But I do have a thought on sort of, I guess, the irony of their success. We'll get to that along with the other headlines going on in the sports world. We'll do it next year on Pain and Pendergast.
- [32:42]
Seth Payne
Pain and Pendergast. With today's headlines powered by Men's Tea Clinic.
- [32:51]
Luke Morrow
Let's get to the biggest headlines from over the weekend. We started the morning with it here on Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. We started the morning with it, but of course, circling back, the Astros winning the series over the weekend with the Rays winning yesterday, two nothing to take two out of three against the Rays. As I said, biggest series victory of the season to this point for the Astros. But Seth, what'd you think? I don't know if you had the chance to sit down and watch a lot of it yesterday, but, you know, Major League Baseball tried this thing with these Peacock broadcasts. Every game was on Peacock and they combined broadcasters from both teams. Did you get a chance to listen to the combination of the Astros and Rays broadcast yesterday?
- [33:35]
Seth Payne
I did, and I honestly, I can't remember which inning I started watching yesterday, but I was kind of. I was surprised that Todd Callis seemed to have a great rapport with the color commentator, Dave. What is it? The Doug Wachter or Dave Doug Wachter.
- [33:48]
Luke Morrow
Doug Wachter, yeah.
- [33:49]
Seth Payne
Who had been a pitcher for the Rays back in the day. So I figured, okay, that makes sense that Callis and he and him know each other from their days with Rays, but it would. I hadn't heard this on the broadcast, but Brandy told me that they had played high school football together or something. So it just. I felt like it was a pretty. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. But it was also nice because we had a more familiar face because Callous and Julia were both still on the broadcast. So that, that part of it, that part of it was cool. I, I thought I would be sick of people talking non stop about Junior Caminero by the end of the series. Maybe it helps that Jordan was such a hero in the second game on Saturday and that the Astros won the series, but I don't, I don't hate Junior Camino yet. I just, I was, it was, it was cool to be able to get to a critical situation yesterday where, man, you gotta. Okay, Camino's up at the plate. Okay. We navigated our way through this. We're okay. Haters gonna be fine. I like him for now. I'll despise him. If the Rays continue to, to. To be a good baseball team, obviously.
- [34:50]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah. And. Or if he winds up somewhere else because we know the Rays typically don't keep their starts shoes. Maybe he'll. He'll wind up in Houston a few years from now.
- [34:58]
Seth Payne
Oh, yeah, yeah. Astros will be the first to dole out that 10 year contract.
- [35:01]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or the Yankees or the Dodgers or one of those typical teams. But yeah, he's a, He's a heck of a player. In fact, I think I heard on the broadcast yesterday, I think it was. Or maybe Saturday. He's the first somebody. Fact check me if I heard correctly, he's the first Ray to start multiple All Star games. And he's already done it now at age whatever he is like 22. Yeah, it's crazy. It's never happened before in that franchise. Even though they're only, whatever, 30 years
- [35:25]
Seth Payne
old, but kind of. But it speaks to that dynamic you're talking about. They have a great ability to trade away their most promising young players because they refuse to ever spend anybody but Alvarez like Alvarez having the night he did on Saturday, the day he did on Saturday. Well, also being, you know, named the starter at DH in the All Star game and getting the MVP chance going in the stadium and everything. That, that felt like the culmination of the weekend for me was just Jordan being such a hero on Saturday.
- [35:55]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that was a remarkable performance. Then the walk off and. Look, I'll be honest with you. I'm not the biggest Todd Callis Guy. But I did think he had a good walk off call Saturday with a segue. Something about referencing fireworks with the walk off on July 4th. It was good. But, yeah, that was a heck of a performance from your on Saturday, and that was a huge come from behind victory. And it's the. It's the difference. We talked about winning that series against the Rays. I was getting ready after they lost Friday, and then Hunter Brown, or I should say after. Yeah, they lost Friday. Right. And then Hunter Brown's getting knocked around and they're losing. I'm thinking, see, this is the Astros I was expecting. I was ready to go, Dennis Green here this morning and say they are who we thought they were. But then they pull off that great rally because of Yordon. They win yesterday and now, you know, maybe they're rolling again.
- [36:38]
Seth Payne
So, yeah, for those of you who are completely checked out on the season or just on this weekend, because it was fourth of July weekend, Jake Myers and Joey Lo Profito both sent down
- [36:48]
Luke Morrow
to Triple A. Yep, there's a revolving door in that lousy outfield. Just trying to mix and match. Find something in that outfield. Hey, elsewhere, we just talked about it last segment. US and Belgium tonight, Flow, as they call them, will be eligible after getting the rogue the red card. He'll be able to play tonight. They've pushed off his suspension till a year from now. I'm not a big soccer guy, but I did have one thought on the irony of the success. This is like the best team we've had in over two decades. The last five coaches were all American. I feel like there's some sort of irony that the team is now good, where the head coach is from Argentina. And it kind of reminds me of almost like the World Baseball Classic, where, like, I'm aware I'm wearing an Italian shirt today, and I jumped on the Italian team bandwagon, but it was like it was a bunch of Gibrons from, like, Paramus, New Jersey. And everyone's like, yeah, team Italy. There's just something. We have great pride behind this, this national team this year. And then, I don't know, I'm just tickled a little bit by, like, well, maybe the difference is that they hired an international coach and now they're having more success.
- [37:50]
Seth Payne
There is sometimes there's a. You see this in some of the sports that are, like, kind of trying to claw their way up, that there's a feeling that, all right, we're going to do as much homegrown as possible. And sometimes I want to grab Those people and shake them and say like, you know, you're not there yet. You just. Okay, use all resources available to you and just get the best people out there. We don't have to, you know, you don't have to do everything homegrown. Right. Just yet. You're just not there yet. You're not a mighty world power like Belgium is.
- [38:22]
Luke Morrow
Yes. Yeah, that's fair. We'll see tonight 7pm start about even odds. Both teams minus 110. It's essentially a toss up US and Belgium tonight, obviously a big one. Trying to advance to take on what I think Portugal or Spain. Hey, Rockets. This is a little bit older news, but we had the radio thon, which was great on Friday. The fellas raised a ton of money. Obviously, Seth, you hung out for the first two hours Friday morning. And then later on on Friday we got the news that the Rockets traded Dorian Finney Smith and three draft picks to the Hornets for really nothing. It's just to clear a roster space and money. I think it's like saving them $20 million.
- [39:00]
Seth Payne
So it's a. It's a salary dump on a mistake.
- [39:03]
Luke Morrow
Yes.
- [39:04]
Seth Payne
And we'll all remember Finney Smith as that guy that. Oh, yeah, was on the roster that year. Oh, yeah, that's. He's a. He's a Trivia question for 20 years from now.
- [39:15]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. That was such a disappointment. People point to that as an example of the poor job Stone's been doing lately. That move didn't work out. But it is
- [39:25]
Seth Payne
the biggest thing about Atari. Eason contract re upped with the Rockets. I think that a lot of people were really upset about that just because it felt like, okay, boy, now they are just doing the extreme and running it back.
- [39:37]
Luke Morrow
I.
- [39:39]
Seth Payne
That's a very tradable contract. I think from the team perspective, that's a. That's a smart team contract. And I know it doesn't feel awesome or anything because it doesn't seem like Tari Eason was happy being here or with his role. But I like on the. The sheer maths side of it, that contract makes sense. The overarching umbrella of man, they really are just going to run it back. I'm simultaneously kind of uncomfortable with that.
- [40:06]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I'm with you there. And that was also news that has come out really since, you know, the last full show here of Pain and Pendergast. So by the way, the Dorian Finney Smith reminds me of in Moneyball. I always love the line where it was who David justice got traded to the Oakland A'S and he's being a bad teammate. And then Billy Bean, Brad Pitt says, look, the Yankees are paying you to play against them. That's how little they think of you. So, like, drop the whole ego and reminds me of Dorian Finney Smith that the Rockets sent three draft picks and a player for nothing. They just wanted to get you the hell out of here. And if I'm Dorian Finney Smith, I don't know, it might be a little shot to the ego of, like, dang, they really didn't want me. They just traded me for nothing. Along with draft. It took draft picks, too, for another team to take me. That's how bad he was this past year.
- [40:54]
Seth Payne
Yeah. And that's like the market is spoken to, you know, that's okay. That's the haul you could get. You got to just. I don't know if you can even use that as a chip on your shoulder as much as a wake up moment. They're like, oh, okay. Yeah, this is. This is actually what my value is right now.
- [41:12]
Luke Morrow
That's demoralizing. Real quick. Joey Chestnut, one on July 4th, the hot dog eating contest. He ate 66 hot dogs. Seth, you ever. Are you into the hot dog eating contest at all?
- [41:21]
Seth Payne
Did you watch it? I just casually. I'm always impressed, like, obviously, but. And it's in 10 minutes. Right. Is that. Is that the time they have to eat?
- [41:30]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I guess so. I don't. Honestly, I don't. I haven't watched it in a few years.
- [41:33]
Seth Payne
I ate. I ate 10 hot dogs in two innings.
- [41:36]
Luke Morrow
I heard.
- [41:37]
Seth Payne
Yeah. And that. That felt like no big deal. I didn't do the beer. The beer would. If I had to do the whole nine hot dogs and nine innings with nine beers, I think just the volume of liquid, whether it's alcoholic or not, is what would do me in. Like, that fills you up quick. Kudos to anybody that's pulled off that challenge.
- [41:56]
Luke Morrow
I've been saying that. I think the hot dogs is the easiest part. I'm with you. I feel like I could shovel down nine hot dogs real quick. It's the drinks that fill you up.
- [42:05]
Seth Payne
Yeah. If I ever try it again, I might. I might front load the hot dogs. Like do nine hot dogs in the first inning and then focus on the beer in the second nine innings or not in the second. The remaining. The remaining eight innings. Yeah.
- [42:19]
Luke Morrow
By the way, and I only really bring up Joey Chestnut because some people were texting. He's the goat. I've had some people deal with Joey Chestnut. I'm Told he's a pretty big jerk diva. Oh, very much so. There's some stories. So I always. I haven't watched the hot dog eating contest in a few years. I'm boycotting the guy. I always root against him. I don't like Joey Chestnut, so congrats on eating him. It's a party trick, really, to show somebody, like, hey, I can eat food really fast. This is not a sport. It's. It's not even a competition. I don't care. I couldn't care less about Joey Chestnut. Congrats. You can eat a lot of hot dogs. So can Seth at an Astros game.
- [42:56]
Seth Payne
So he's like the Bill Murray character in Kingpin?
- [42:58]
Luke Morrow
Yes.
- [43:00]
Seth Payne
Does he conduct himself like that?
- [43:02]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, from what I've heard, he demands to be paid for, like, radio appearances. Even just when he got banned. I think that was what. Like, he tried to hold his own hot dog eating contest. People didn't. No one cares. It's not about you, Joey. It's about the whole Nathan's hot dog. Anyways, I feel bad for bigger than the game.
- [43:19]
Seth Payne
I feel bad for competitive eaters because they take something that should be one of the basic joys in life, and all of a sudden, when it becomes your profession, it's harder to love it. It was like when I was a gigolo for a while. I was like, just. It's. No, this is all becoming work for me.
- [43:32]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [43:33]
Seth Payne
I just want to get back to enjoying this part of life.
- [43:35]
Luke Morrow
That's true. We'll get into those stories coming up. Plus, which celebrity would you want to officiate your wedding? Let us know 713-572-4610, because we have to talk about that coming up. Plus, acknowledge me, it's pain and Pendergast. The GLP1 pill you've been waiting for is now on Roe. Yep, it's finally here. With the same clinically proven ingredient now in a pill. And now on Roe. It's the first FDA approved GLP1 pill for weight loss at the lowest price available.
- [44:07]
Seth Payne
That's one daily GLP one pill for
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Luke Morrow
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Seth Payne
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Luke Morrow
Listen to see if you qualify RX only go to RO Safety for serious side effects and boxed warning associated with GLP1s. Life can feel overwhelming. But on my podcast, from the Heart with Rachel Brathon, we're in it together. Every Friday, a new episode brings you a new story with topics on motherhood, wellness, self love, and more. Listen to from the Heart with Rachel Brathan. Wherever you get your podcasts Happy Monday, Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow, in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. Of course, we'll get to acknowledge me coming up, as always, here in just a little bit, about 15 minutes from now. Plenty of things to get to, but we do have to acknowledge Seth. Look, I'll be honest. I know a lot of people are tired of, like, Taylor Swift coming into the sports world, but we have to acknowledge what transpired over the weekend with this absurd wedding between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey at Madison Square Garden Friday night.
- [45:07]
Seth Payne
I'm so confused. I'll acknowledge it. I'm so confused about all these things. So it started surfacing last week that the wedding was going to be at Madison Square Garden. And immediately I'm thinking, wow, okay. How'd they. They kept that under wraps for quite a while. And I'm guessing there must be some kind of concert or something surrounding the nuptials. And as far as I can tell, there wasn't. There was a whole bunch of celebrities that showed up to this thing. I'm guessing most of the celebrities were there because of some association with Taylor Swift. But it doesn't. I, I don't like. Why would you have your wedding at Madison Square Garden for just, you know, a few hundred people or something? I don't like what. That's what I'm confused about. I know it doesn't seem like I kept waiting for there to be news that, oh, yeah, all the people from her fan club had been instructed to assemble in New Jersey and then they drove in on buses or something and there was going to be a concert, but there was nothing like that, I feel like. So if anything, I want to be critical of them squandering our national, our precious resources, which includes, you know, time. Time at Madison Square Garden.
- [46:15]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. I guess we were talking about this over the weekend in our, in our home, I guess, because a few things like there is a roof to it, so you can't get any, like, aerial photos.
- [46:24]
Seth Payne
Okay.
- [46:25]
Luke Morrow
It obviously, because it is New York. It's the Knicks. Like, they have VIP entrances where you could get people in and out without anybody knowing. You can drive into the arena and drive up to park and get in. That's true.
- [46:36]
Seth Payne
If they found out that it was at some country club somewhere or something, then all of a sudden there's paparazzi stocked outside and there's no way to control them and everything. Okay, well, I'll tell you what.
- [46:44]
Luke Morrow
When there was originally, everyone thought it was in Rhode island because she has a house in Rhode Island. And she apparently paid somebody to move their wedding date because she, you know, she's all about numbers and she wanted a specific date. And my parents have friends who live across like the water where they can use their telescope and see into this venue. And so they were planning on throwing a party where people could come over and like use the telescope to watch the wedding.
- [47:08]
Seth Payne
They should have gotten those little, like those, those ones that you put a quarter in, you know, they have in some places where you can.
- [47:14]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, they would've made a killing. So I do get the idea of like this needs to be inside. Nobody can infiltrate, no one can get in. Even if it was just going to be a small thing, let alone the fact they had like a thousand celebrities show up to this event for this wedding Friday night at msg.
- [47:30]
Seth Payne
So that makes sense, I guess. Yeah. Cuz they've got all the resources and like the protocols for handling all this type of stuff.
- [47:36]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [47:36]
Seth Payne
Especially like with what the Knicks have to do with maybe with some of the celebrities for Knicks games and all that.
- [47:41]
Luke Morrow
Right, okay, exactly. That's the weird thing though. So supposedly there was over a thousand people. And when I googled it this morning, like they said, it became a thing in the wedding where people were. The running joke was like, hey, how do you know them? Yeah. And because they were just like, they just invited celebrities. A bunch of people admitted, like, yeah, I've never said hi, I've never spoken to either one, but I got an invite.
- [48:01]
Seth Payne
Oh, that's off putting.
- [48:03]
Luke Morrow
Right?
- [48:03]
Seth Payne
It's weird. And you know what? A lot of those celebrities that, that probably went despite not having any connection to either of them. That's probably. They only went because their publicist said it would be a good idea.
- [48:15]
Luke Morrow
Not true.
- [48:16]
Seth Payne
That like, okay, you got a. I feel for some of these Hollywood celebrities that they do. They get invited to stuff all the time that you know, if you didn't have a busy schedule and everything, it'd probably be a lot of fun. But they probably. There are probably a lot of people there that just specifically because their publicist said, you should go, there'll be some photo ops, she's a big deal, etc. Etc.
- [48:35]
Luke Morrow
I saw Mike Vrabel and his wife went and there was a video. New York Post had a video of them getting into the car to go to the wedding, coming out of their hotel. They were both dressed very nice, but
- [48:44]
Seth Payne
they were hopping into the car well ahead of his wife.
- [48:47]
Luke Morrow
Yes.
- [48:48]
Seth Payne
Walking alongside his wife on the way out. And then just hops in. Doesn't wait and hold the door for anything.
- [48:54]
Luke Morrow
And neither one seemed, if we're just judging body language, neither one seemed like they were in a good mood. I mean, Frable never really looks all that happy to begin with, but neither one looks very pleased as the people were taking photos and videos of them.
- [49:05]
Seth Payne
If you had to guess which of the two thought that that was a good idea for them to go to, I'm guessing it was his wife. I bet his wife was probably like, listen, listen, all right, we're gonna do whatever the hell I want for a while now. And. And I want to go to Taylor Swift's wedding. That's. That's. That's all there is to it. Braves. And this is what. This is happening. He's like, okay,
- [49:30]
Luke Morrow
yeah, and they dragged him out there.
- [49:33]
Seth Payne
He can't do anything for a long time of his own choosing.
- [49:36]
Luke Morrow
Right? I wouldn't think. Yeah. So there was. But there was a bunch of random people. Like, I saw. All due respect, of course, like, Kevin Burkhart was there, the broadcaster from Fox. There were some sideline reporters from Fox, I guess, just from, like production meetings with Kelsey. They invited everyone. Dean Blandino was there, which, you know, I get.
- [49:57]
Seth Payne
Dean Blandino, the official. Yeah, I get. Well, you know what? Jason Kelsey knows a lot of these people now from his work in broadcasting, so that might be a big part of it too. There's probably a lot of NFL people there that might have a connection to Jason Kelsey. That not Vrabel's connection is what? They both played for the Chiefs.
- [50:15]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, they weren't.
- [50:16]
Seth Payne
Oh, they're both from Cleveland, I guess, or they're from Ohio. There's probably some kind of Cleveland connection there. Yeah.
- [50:21]
Luke Morrow
But do you invite, like all the NFL, like all the NFL coaches or. Yeah, it is. I see. It does seem weird that Vrabel would be there and you have these broadcasters, like Greg Olson was there. I saw all the broadcasters were there. It seemed. You would think you'd invite all the coaches. It just. It's weird.
- [50:37]
Seth Payne
My favorite was Bo Allen, who probably knows the Kelsey's because he played in Philadelphia. Bo Allen is a nose tackle for the Eagles. And, you know, he played with Jason Kelsey and probably knows them, you know, Travis well enough, but Bo Allen was. He's out there and he's just a big former nose tackle. Looks like a former nose tackle. But a couple paparazzi mislabeled him as a quarterback, so he's showing up on all these. He was showing up on all these huge accounts as NFL quarterback. Bo Allen. And I was happy for him. I was happy that Bo Allen was getting the star treatment, sir. Erroneously.
- [51:13]
Luke Morrow
So I guess with that said, do you. Do you think. Or do you know. Do you know anyone that you think was in that building or do you. Would you have a guess? Do you think you knew multiple people, like, personally, do you think you knew anyone that was there at the wedding?
- [51:24]
Seth Payne
That's a good question. I don't think so. Vrabel's the only guy my age or older. I think that we. That we saw out there. Right. That was. There might have been a. There might. There's. There's probably definitely. In the NFL, there's always like, you know, two or three. You only need to go two or three links before you find somebody.
- [51:44]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [51:44]
Seth Payne
But I didn't see anybody that I recognized as a personal relation.
- [51:47]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. I wonder if, like, Tom Coughlin was there. Oh, no, definitely Dom Capers. Yeah.
- [51:51]
Seth Payne
Yeah. No, not all your coaches.
- [51:54]
Luke Morrow
Robert Solomon.
- [51:55]
Seth Payne
Well, you know what? No, no, no, no. You know who might have been there is Jeff Stoutland.
- [51:58]
Luke Morrow
Ah.
- [51:59]
Seth Payne
Former. He was. So Jeff Salon's the offensive line coach who was in Philadelphia forever through multiple different head coaches. The first time he was ever an offensive line coach was at Cornell University when I was there, and he didn't know what he was doing, but he was up. But his players loved him because he just worked his butt off and he loved his players so much. That was his. That was my first. It didn't surprise me necessarily that Jeff Stoutland became the O line coach that he did because he was. He's one of those guys that. I knew him when he was a young coach, and he was just wired different. You could just tell the way he felt about his players and the amount of work that he put in that he was just a. He was like. Robert Sala was like this when he was a GA with the Texans or a quality control guy with the Texans. You just kind of identify guys. You can tell by their.
- [52:46]
Luke Morrow
Oh, yeah.
- [52:46]
Seth Payne
Their whole. The whole way they operate in their energy and everything. Okay. This guy's a little bit different. This guy's probably going place, right?
- [52:52]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah, I'm sure he was there, so. So there you go. We're gonna have to try to get the inside scoop. I actually, as I said, I'm a name dropper. I actually, I do text with Dean Blandino. I'm sure they sign like, you know, non disclosures, but I'll text Dean, see if we can get any dirt on the wedding Because I don't think they can bring in their cameras. I'm just. Just. Just from being in radio. He's. I've had him on my show a bunch over the years, and he's always been a great guy. And, yeah, I don't know. We've gotten on a text. Somewhat of a texting relationship.
- [53:24]
Seth Payne
So was Adam Sandler. He was the officiant, supposedly.
- [53:28]
Luke Morrow
Those are the rumors, so that's why I asked. And we've gotten some answers on the text line. But who would you want. Which celebrity would you want to officiate your wedding? Because, by the way, Sandler, I'm sure he did a great job. He. I love Sandler. He's obviously funny. He's. He seems to be smart, but he also always does these, like, goofy, silly voices. So the joke on Twitter was that, like, he probably did the wedding in one of those little, like, baby voices that he used to do.
- [53:50]
Seth Payne
And I think Travis Kelsey or. Yeah, I think Kelsey probably specifically requested something like that. Like, do it as the water boy or as Billy Madison or something. Yeah, yeah. Sandler. I would like, if he had to get up there and kind of do it straight. Like, if he was just taking it really seriously and it wasn't anything comedic to it, I think he might be one of. One of the worst choices because he's kind of a bashful guy. You know, like when. When he's just being himself. That's not. Like, he's. You. You wouldn't guess. He's a Hollywood movie star. He's just, you know, he, like, he just seems like a normal guy. I would have had Louis. Louis ck do it.
- [54:30]
Luke Morrow
That's.
- [54:30]
Seth Payne
I know Louis ck would have crapped on the notion of marriage for 10 minutes and. And then said, like, all right, kiss her, I guess, or something like that.
- [54:39]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. I love Louis. Obviously, he had that whole scandal. He was, I thought, the best stand up. Before all that, I was thinking something similar. I would probably go like Dave Chappelle, because I think Chappelle. He's not even doing so much comedy anymore as he is just, like, commentary.
- [54:52]
Seth Payne
So philosophizing. Yeah. Comedy added to it.
- [54:55]
Luke Morrow
Right? I.
- [54:56]
Seth Payne
You know what? He. Chappelle, too, is. He is. He either got older or went on male hormone replacement. His voice got, like, so much more deeper and impressive.
- [55:07]
Luke Morrow
I think it's all the smoking.
- [55:08]
Seth Payne
He has kind of a commanding voice now that he didn't have when he was a younger comic that in a situation like that, he could probably blend the comedy and the actual official duties. Pretty well. That's a good one.
- [55:19]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yeah, I think he'd be good. Now, you. You had a whole list. You had a best man.
- [55:24]
Seth Payne
Best man would be Morgan Freeman, just specifically for the speech.
- [55:27]
Luke Morrow
That's good.
- [55:28]
Seth Payne
And I would. I would have somebody write a speech for him, and he would just deliver an awesome speech about all the good times we've had together. And then for the ring bearer, I would have. We. Man. The guy from Jackass.
- [55:39]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [55:39]
Seth Payne
Because we had him in studio once and he was awesome.
- [55:42]
Luke Morrow
Really?
- [55:42]
Seth Payne
Yeah. He was the best. He was really. He was really fun. And then. And then I would choose my wife's maid of honor, too, and it would be Kristen Wiig, because she would do something funny for her speech, too.
- [55:53]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yeah. Those are all good ones. By the way, did you see they're coming out with a new Jackass movie?
- [55:57]
Seth Payne
Yeah. Is it out already or.
- [55:59]
Luke Morrow
No, I think it just came out maybe this weekend. Because I saw a lot of promotion for it over the weekend.
- [56:03]
Seth Payne
Is it out just in theaters or is it. I just. I don't know how things work anymore.
- [56:08]
Luke Morrow
I think it's in theaters to begin. And I'll be honest, anything they put out, it's still. I guess maybe the juvenile and me, like, I'll watch it. I'll watch that movie when it's on streaming. I've always. That stuff always makes me laugh.
- [56:18]
Seth Payne
So do the j. I get to. I. It's like, I don't like movies where people are in height situations, like, where they're on a high wire.
- [56:30]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [56:31]
Seth Payne
Or just like, even the video of those two people that climb the Empire State Building.
- [56:34]
Luke Morrow
I'm with you.
- [56:35]
Seth Payne
I can't handle the vertigo. And like, likewise with Jackass, it's just. I cringe too much. I can't. I don't enjoy it the way other people enjoy it.
- [56:43]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I always fast forward through, like, the cringe stuff where they do, like, nasty things to their bodies. But I like seeing people. I don't know what it says about me. I like seeing people get hurt. That stuff. That's.
- [56:53]
Seth Payne
When was the last time you took a serious nutshot? Like, seriously think about. Remember, like, that's. For me, the memory of just. You know, when you're in high school and somebody just lines you up and kicks you square in the nargs.
- [57:08]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [57:09]
Seth Payne
The stomach ache, everything that goes along with that, it just comes right back. I can't. I can't do it. I can't watch a nutshot. I was never a big fan of America's Funniest Home Videos. Because it was, like, 25% groin shots.
- [57:23]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. I just always thought the show is so corny. I never got into America's Funniest Home Videos. Some of the videos are just. They didn't do it for me. I got to go to the Johnny Knoxville territory.
- [57:33]
Seth Payne
Right.
- [57:34]
Luke Morrow
Really make me laugh.
- [57:35]
Seth Payne
You know what it was? You know what's coming out again? That was Faces of Death. There's, like, a documentary about Faces of Death.
- [57:42]
Luke Morrow
I don't like that stuff. That's where I'll draw the line.
- [57:44]
Seth Payne
Well, so, kids, there was this. It was a VHS tape that, if you're usually your sketchiest buddy when you're in high school, had this dubbed copy of Faces of Death, which was people supposedly getting killed in real life. But a lot of it, I guess, was fake or augmented and everything, so it was kind of bogus. But that was the kind of stuff that we did before the Internet was around, and you could find, like, you could watch 20 in a 20 and 10 minutes of similar videos. You go find it on a dubbed VHS tape.
- [58:17]
Luke Morrow
There's also. There's somewhere, I think, like, a death museum. I. I am not into that stuff. I don't want to revel in other people's tragic passings or whatever.
- [58:28]
Seth Payne
Did you. Getting back to the Taylor Swift wedding, did you recognize. Are you at an age yet where you didn't recognize, like, half of the people walking in? I don't like that. I don't know who half the celebrities are. I only found out who Timothy Chamberlay was, like, two years ago. Okay. That's how behind I am on stuff.
- [58:47]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I'm. I'm not good. Honestly. I'm not good with a lot of faces. I mean, going back to my story this morning, where I thought I saw a celebrity at the pool on Saturday, but I'm not good at, like, recognizing people. My brother is really good. We were walking down the streets of New York last year, and Jordan Clarkson, who's on the Knicks, we walked. He was standing on the street. My brother's like, oh, there's Jordan Clarkson. I'm like, face blind. I don't know who anybody is.
- [59:09]
Seth Payne
You know where we were? Sean and I were both like this at the. At the. At the Super Bowl. We were staying in the same hotel as the AFC Pro Bowl. Pro bowl participants or no, AFC and NFC Pro bowl participants. And Sean and I were both discussing with ourselves, like, how few of those guys we recognized by their faces.
- [59:28]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [59:28]
Seth Payne
Because you just don't see them all that much. Even then, like, I was standing next to Trey McBride in the elevator, and it took me a while to figure out if it was Trey McBride or Aiden Hutchinson. I like. And I mean, and ultimately I realized that just based on body size, and I don't think Aiden Hutchinson was actually at the Pro Bowl. The combination of those two things, it was like I had no clue. I really. I really couldn't tell just by looking at him. Oh, yeah, that's Trey McBride. Yeah.
- [59:52]
Luke Morrow
You just try to ask a vague question to figure it out, like, oh, some year you guys had, huh? And if it's a good. A positive answer or, like, a negative answer, like, oh, he must be on the Cardinals.
- [60:01]
Seth Payne
J.J. mcCarthy, huh? What do you think about that? J.J. mcCarthy. Trey McBride is like.
- [60:07]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, exactly. On the text line, by the way, because I did ask, who would you want to officiate your wedding? We got Christopher Walken. That's a good one.
- [60:16]
Seth Payne
Oh, yeah.
- [60:18]
Luke Morrow
Will Ferrell. I like that one, too. Larry David, obviously, is a big Seinfeld guy. Curb guy. I would love Larry David might be my number one answer.
- [60:27]
Seth Payne
He would be kind of in line with Louis CK he would crap on the marriage for a while. I like. I like kind of you. You kind of be getting roasted, like a different type of roast, or they'd be roasting the notion of marriage and that this is even going to work out, right? You know?
- [60:41]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. No, he would be good. Jameis Winston. Jack Black came in.
- [60:46]
Seth Payne
James Winston would talk about a renaissance in, like, public popularity and everything. It's been. We've been seeing it on a, you know, on an NFL scale for the last decade, really, since he quit drinking. Whenever he quit drinking and got his life in order, he's been a completely different, like, more embraceable guy. But the World cup has amped his status up incredibly. People love him now.
- [61:10]
Luke Morrow
I haven't even been paying attention, but I know obviously, he's.
- [61:13]
Seth Payne
He's just. Yeah, he's doing all this stuff. Like, I didn't even know what the Norwegian row thing was, where they all sit on the ground and they do their rowing together. But he led the Norwegians in a bunch in that over the weekend or last week. And he's been doing all this stuff where he's just immersed down in the crowd and people love him.
- [61:31]
Luke Morrow
And somebody said, Norm MacDonald, hands down, that's a good one. Obviously, rest in peace. But if you could pick anybody of all time, Norm McDonald's another good one, for the same reasons we mentioned any of these top comedians I imagine would do a great job.
- [61:43]
Seth Payne
Norm's a tough one, though, because a lot of Norm was. You either got him or you didn't.
- [61:48]
Luke Morrow
That's fair.
- [61:49]
Seth Payne
And I feel like, and especially in a mixed crowd, if there's not a lot of stand up comedy fans, I would say the majority of the people there might just not get Norm MacDonald. They just, you know, when he does his intentionally horrible jokes. Yeah, there'd be a lot of people that were just like, who is this? But they couldn't afford a guy that could actually tell a proper joke. It's true. Like, and then you're explaining afterwards the whole wedding like, no, that's actually. That was the joke. Yeah, yeah.
- [62:12]
Luke Morrow
It's like the joke was that the
- [62:13]
Seth Payne
joke was no good.
- [62:15]
Luke Morrow
It's like when you go to a regular wedding and the bridesmaids. The bridesmaid, when in their speech, they'll tell inside jokes and they're laughing so hard they could hardly get through it. But everyone else is sitting there like, I don't get this. I don't.
- [62:27]
Seth Payne
These are the most annoying women alive. How are you married? Marrying into this friend circle. What the hell are you doing?
- [62:31]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I don't know what you're talking about. Real quick. Somebody asked if you were invited to this wedding and everything was paid for, would you go?
- [62:37]
Seth Payne
Seth, I would have. Out of duty. I don't generally like things, but I hate going to events. And yet you always have a good time when you're there. It is a wedding. I don't think I've ever not had a good time at a wedding. Yeah, right. So I would have gone based on that. I turned down. I turned down a lot of events that other people would be really excited to go to just because I don't. I don't like being committed to something for 12 hours. You know, like when it comes to just. And I just. I hate the thought of it. But. Yeah, I would have reminded myself that you always have a good time at a wedding. You're gonna run into some people that you actually do either admire or that you, you know, know from something back in the day. And we would. Had a good time.
- [63:20]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah. It's. It's. If nothing else, just for the experience, uh, we'll get to acknowledge me in just a moment. Somebody said on the text line, though, why do you consider this wedding to be absurd? Because not often. They said people get married all the time by having friends or other people they know. Yeah. Not often do people get married with over a thousand guests there in what is called the world's most famous arena. That's why I think the wedding is absurd.
- [63:43]
Seth Payne
Only a whole bunch of people that they just don't. They don't. They don't know, like, they have no connection to or anything. It's not. Like, if it's one thing, if it's a friend of your. Like, there was. There's some NFL people there that I'm guessing were more friends of Jason Kelce than Travis Kelsey. Okay, cool. That makes sense. It sounds like there are a lot of celebrities that neither of the people had a connection to.
- [64:03]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [64:04]
Seth Payne
That's the part that's weird.
- [64:05]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. And only Sly Stone has ever been married in MSG before, and that was during a concert. So this is like a one. You know, this has never happened before, that a celebrity rented out MSG for their wedding and filled it with a bunch of celebrities. That's why it's absurd. Stan Lee coming in. Chris Farley, Robin Williams, Kevin Hart. All good ones for officiants of the wedding. Last.
- [64:24]
Seth Payne
We were at a. We were at a wedding a couple weeks ago. Yeah. My wife's cousin was getting married, and they have. You know, they live on a farm, and they had cleared out a bunch of space next to a creek that runs along their farm. And it was an awesome, beautiful setting. But people do canoe and kayak down this creek on the way to the Allegheny River. And so it's this beautiful setting and everything. And they put signs up saying, hey, we're having a wedding. Please, you know, just try to keep quiet as you're going past this. And it's kind of nice, because as we're doing the. As they were doing the ceremony, there were a few people going by on canoes. And all of a sudden, like, in the middle of the officiant doing her thing, one of these guys, all of a sudden, you hear off to my right on the stream, I was sitting near the stream, a guy go, don't do it. And it was. It could have gotten really ugly. Like, I'm kind of, like, wondering I'm closest to it all. And I kind of look over, and I'm like, am I gonna. Am I gonna have to intervene here? And Clinton, the kid who's getting married, he did. He handled it perfectly. He actually turned back to the guy, like, gave him a big smile and waved at him. And the guy. The buddy of the guy who was canoeing and yelled, said, look, I'm sorry, man. Good luck. And it was perfect. That was. That was a perfect amount of weirdness. That's where I feel like. Like the officiant being Adam Sandler or somebody. Like that is the perfect amount of weirdness.
- [65:55]
Luke Morrow
Right? That's what I always say. I've officiated a bunch of weddings. I'm doing another one later this. Yeah, yeah. I'm doing another one later this month, too, for a friend of mine. And that's why I always tell everyone you have to have a mix of, like, humor and funny, but you also still have to keep the seriousness of the moment because it's their big day. Some people I see try to be too funny, and it's like, this is still a wedding and other people might be a little too stiff. You have to try to find that balance.
- [66:16]
Seth Payne
You got to figure out, like, what the actual people are getting married. Want to.
- [66:20]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, for sure. So, yeah. Anyways, it's fun. Last thing I'll say in this wedding, because we did spend more time than I. Than I thought we even would, but Paul McCartney performed, which is that. That's fine. But he played I want to hold your hand for the first time live since 1964 for this wedding. And I know you guys have talked about Freddie a lot this whole, you know, this World cup fan, but. But it's the same issue I had with him as I have with this, of, like, he hasn't played it for anybody. And then Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, they already have everything else. They're the ones that get Paul McCartney playing this song for the first time in, like, over 60 years. Whatever. It's been. That annoyed me, too.
- [67:00]
Seth Payne
You know what? That one doesn't annoy me because I'm guessing. I'm guessing they paid him a boatload of money.
- [67:05]
Luke Morrow
That's fair. That's fair.
- [67:06]
Seth Payne
I know. That's just good old fashioned capitalism right there. I wonder, do you think they paid him a million dollars to sing that song if he hasn't sang it since then, since the 1960s?
- [67:16]
Luke Morrow
It's a good question. I would be surprised.
- [67:18]
Seth Payne
In dollars.
- [67:18]
Luke Morrow
They apparently donated like 26 million to charities on the backs of this wedding. Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey.
- [67:24]
Seth Payne
So they really.
- [67:25]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, supposedly.
- [67:27]
Seth Payne
How were they making. Were they making the money from the stuff that was going on at the wedding? I know. It wasn't publicized.
- [67:32]
Luke Morrow
I know.
- [67:32]
Seth Payne
Well, somebody probably paid for exclusive rights and everything. There's gonna be a video.
- [67:36]
Luke Morrow
Oh, that's true. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. I didn't.
- [67:38]
Seth Payne
Why?
- [67:38]
Luke Morrow
I didn't. Typical millennial fashion. I didn't read the story. I just saw the headlines. So I'm going to take it as truth. All right. Better late than never. Let's get to acknowledge me where we acknowledge certain people from over the weekend and then you'll hear the Sounder and explain why. But let's start it off. We already referenced it earlier, but what a Saturday for. We need to acknowledge Jordan Alvarez.
- [68:02]
Seth Payne
This was everything that you would want on a day that Jordan Alvarez gets named to the All Star team is that he came through like an absolute MVP on Saturday with a walk off in the ninth inning with a two run homer earlier and with a. With as of Saturday night, his OPS at 1 1.078 was 100 points ahead of anybody else in the majors. Like he's just, he's been incredible, you know, leading every category, the Triple Crown. It's just been, it's been so cool to watch him play on this team the entire season. But especially now that the team looks like they've got a shot at being a much better team than they looked like in the first quarter of the season where it looked like, okay, great, there's going to be like a Mike Trout type of MVP race where he's awesome, but it's on a lost cause of a team. Now it feels even better that the Astros have a pulse.
- [68:59]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, and he's the heavy favorite. I checked this morning. He's like minus 180. Next closest is like plus 2. 250. He's having a remarkable season. That was an MVP performance on Saturday. And it's, it's pretty crazy. As I said earlier, you look at this lineup, only three guys, if we exclude my boy Taylor Tramell, only three guys have a OPS above league average. So I know this lineup was great early in the season with injuries and whatnot. It's, it's not as strong now. But Jordan is just, I mean he's, he's been so good, so much better than everybody else, including on his own team. Big performance Saturday. By the way though, with that said, this might be an ironic acknowledge me but we have to acknowledge Major League Baseball continuing to screw this stuff up. I think no sport does a worse job marketing themselves to Major League Baseball. They announced the all star teams at 7:30 on July 4th. Who's watching that?
- [69:51]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I, I don't know, man. I think just. They try to find the worst possible time to announce so many things, including half their awards don't get announced until a month after the season anyway. I just, I guess kudos to them for. I think they're trying to force they're trying to force it into being a thing that. Yeah, no, this is what you do on the 4th of July as you're getting ready for fireworks and whatnot. This is. This is when you try to send your headlines off into a black hole. Yeah, right.
- [70:28]
Luke Morrow
It's like. Yeah, it's exactly. It's like a Friday news dump. Friday at 5pm they did it Saturday night during the fireworks on July 4th. Hey, by the way, here are our all star teams. Major League Baseball always fumbles this stuff. Hey, we need to acknowledge Overall, the Astros nine straight wins on July 4th. Somebody on the text line earlier said they were there Saturday. The environment was electric, the atmosphere. Longest July 4th winning streak since 1941. Does this make the Astros. Are they America's team?
- [71:01]
Seth Payne
This is. I mean, the Cowboys, last I checked, have never even won a game on July in their entire existence.
- [71:08]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [71:08]
Seth Payne
And yet they call themselves America's team. I think. Yeah, I think this is. This is George Washington looking down on us and saying, this is.
- [71:17]
Luke Morrow
This is.
- [71:18]
Seth Payne
This is the team that should win consistently on the 4th of July. Yes.
- [71:21]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I guess so. Nine straight wins. Longest winning streak since 1941. And then, as we've already talked about, I mean, they were trailing in that game. It wasn't looking good. Hunter Brown gets shelled. They still find a way to win. Jordan's the hero. If you were there, as we heard from a couple texters earlier, I mean, what. What a game to go to. I imagine it was a lot of fun. Plus, the fireworks show afterwards.
- [71:41]
Seth Payne
And the first time all season that there have been large scale MVP chance for Jordan Alvarez in the stadium, which I wouldn't have believed Alice hadn't confirmed it, because usually, I mean, people jump on the MVP chance, you know.
- [71:54]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [71:55]
Seth Payne
All the way too early, way too often. I appreciate Astros fans discernment, knowing, okay, we're at the midpoint of the season. It's the Fourth of July. This is when the MVP chance start.
- [72:07]
Luke Morrow
You kind of just touched on it a moment ago. But do you think if the Astros say they finish 80 and 82, they missed the playoffs? Do you think Jordan, if he continues on this path, will he still get the MVP or they hold it against him that the team, you know, it's not a winning play?
- [72:19]
Seth Payne
No, I think it'll be. I mean, it's just such a commanding lead right now that I guess the only thing holding him back might just be that he's a dh, but that, like, by and large, he'd get the Mike Trout treatment. I Think it's. I'd feel confident in that. If they, if they completely fall apart, that's a different story. But as long as they're hovering around.500, I think, I think he gets it.
- [72:42]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it's true. You know, baseball's always done that. Like, I think a Rod won the MVP on a last place Rangers team, you know, 25 years ago. Baseball usually doesn't care as much about the record as some of the other sports.
- [72:51]
Seth Payne
And you're done. Never gets the, the blowback from the, from the being better than everybody else scandal the way some others do.
- [72:59]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. We need to acknowledge Junior Camino. Youngest player. I believe I saw this stat. Youngest player to have 11 homers in 11 game stretch. He had, what, a couple over the weekend. The dude is on a roll. And funny enough. And you sang his praise earlier, Seth, but what's also funny is we got this story earlier this year that the Angels turned down a trade request for Ohtani that would have given them Junior Caminero, and instead they wanted to keep Ohtani. He ended up leaving that off season. So it was the trade deadline before he, Camino could be on the Angels right now, which I'm not telling you. The Angels would be good, but as an Astros fan, you'd have to deal with this guy all year long every year. Fortunately, he's still at the race.
- [73:45]
Seth Payne
Yeah. This is the last time I think we'll probably acknowledge Junior. I wanted to get it in and actually look like I'm a good dude or something. But I did, I enjoyed. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that part of this series. And I probably wouldn't feel that way if the Astros had lost the Series. But I love, I love having somebody like that, that we haven't been. We haven't just been inundated with talk about him. So, like, on Friday, they wouldn't shut up about him on the Apple broadcast. And you're not watching your home broadcasters and everything. So that could have been annoying. But I. I was cool with it. I was cool with it. By next year, this time I'll probably despise him. But right now it's fun to watch a young guy like that and to get the better end of that series.
- [74:26]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yeah, certainly. Right. That's, that's the thing. If you lose the series, he's probably a little more annoying and you can't
- [74:31]
Seth Payne
appreciate those efforts, but he's a cocky young jerk. I hate him.
- [74:35]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. So it's easy to be, like, magnanimous. Yeah. When you Win the series. It's easy to heat praise on others. This is a little self serving, but humor me here for a moment. We need to acknowledge collective soul. I was very pleased to see collective soul was the headliner of the July 4th celebrations here in Houston. Keith Urban went on first and then collective soul at the Houston July 4th party and at the Sam Houston part, whatever it is, one of the parks downtown we went last year. But anyways, I didn't get to see it. We were out this year. I didn't get to watch it on tv. We did not go there in person. But I saw a lot of praise for collective soul on social media, which I love because I've always said, and Seth, I don't know, you know, how big of a music guy you might be or what bands you might be into, but I've always said collective soul, to me is the most underrated band of the 90s. And so I was happy to see them get some, get some shine here in Houston over the weekend. Pun intended.
- [75:35]
Seth Payne
No, that's. I don't, I don't know. How have they been relevant since we knew they're like big songs and everything, December and whatnot.
- [75:43]
Luke Morrow
Not really. Not in at least. Like, they still tour, but not really. They haven't had like a popular song in probably over 15 years.
- [75:49]
Seth Payne
Yeah, no, that's. That's right in my wheelhouse then. Yeah, I approve of that choice. I've had too many. I. Listen, listen, kids. We get inundated with these, you know, streamers that we've never heard of that are a big deal and everything. You can make room for our collective soul.
- [76:07]
Luke Morrow
That's right. Yeah. You know, they're classic. It's kind of like a lot of the rappers are doing it now, but collective soul, they've. They've survived for the last 20 years on these nostalgic 90s tours where they tour with like, I don't know, Counting Crows is too big of a name. But you find like three, like live collective soul. You find three bands that were popular in the 90s that people haven't really thought about in 20 years. And you put them all together and that's what collective soul's been doing. But they were. They're a really, really underrated and really good band outside of their obvious hits. If you listen to a lot of their other songs from the 90s, really good band.
- [76:40]
Seth Payne
You know what? I was, I had to talk with Bun B about this once. It was cool about like those hip hop, Hip hop artists and groups from like the 90s, they didn't really know what the market was going to be for, you know, like that what the nostalgia was going to be for their songs. Because there wasn't, you know, classic rock. It's, there's an established template. Yeah. Like people show up for these concerts and, and everything for guys who are rock stars in the 70s and the 80s and all that. But there was kind of a period where like Bun B and some of those guys weren't really sure if they were going to have a career, you know, in their 40s and 50s and so forth.
- [77:20]
Luke Morrow
So.
- [77:20]
Seth Payne
But that's why Bun had. Bun kind of got his fingers in a lot of different pies and, you know, got into different business ventures and everything. But then along the way. And that worked out well for him. But then along the way it turns out, oh yeah, there's a market for, there's a market for 90s rap out there still in concert.
- [77:36]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, right, right. Yeah. Which is good. So anyways, acknowledge acknowledgments to collective.
- [77:42]
Seth Payne
Acknowledge old musicians.
- [77:43]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that's right. Except Paul McCartney who played that song for the first time in 60 years just for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey.
- [77:51]
Seth Payne
No, none for him.
- [77:53]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah.
- [77:54]
Seth Payne
Get out. Paul McCartney.
- [77:56]
Luke Morrow
That's right.
- [77:56]
Seth Payne
Trash.
- [77:57]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Seriously, that's acknowledged me here on this Monday coming up. I heard this audio last week, so I do want to bring it back. Is one of the biggest offenses we're making for CJ Shroud actually part of his fault? We'll talk about that next year. Pain and Pendergast.
- [78:13]
Seth Payne
I'm Hannah. I've lost 75 pounds in 20 months with GLP1s diet and exercise on row.
- [78:19]
Luke Morrow
I've gone from struggling to run a
- [78:21]
Seth Payne
mile to running farther every day. You can access FDA approved GLP1s online,
- [78:26]
Luke Morrow
get the support you you need to
- [78:27]
Seth Payne
reach your weight loss goals. Go to RO Co Weight to see if you qualify. I'm a paid RO partner. 20% average weight loss in one year in non diabetics with obesity or overweight
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Luke Morrow
with a weight related medical condition versus 3.1% in placebo arm Rx only to
- [78:40]
Seth Payne
stay informed about serious side effects. Go to RO Co Safety.
- [78:43]
Luke Morrow
I'm Jenna Fisher.
- [78:44]
Seth Payne
And I'm Angela Kinsey.
- [78:46]
Luke Morrow
And together we have the podcast Office Ladies. Just because we finished rewatching the Office does not mean we're going anywhere. Every Wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the Office and our
- [78:57]
Seth Payne
friendship with brand new guests.
- [78:59]
Luke Morrow
Plus, you can revisit all the Office Ladies, rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. So follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. I heard a piece of audio here on these airwaves last week and I'm curious if one of Stroud's biggest defenses is actually his fault. We'll get to that here on Pain and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. Appreciate you hanging with us here on a Monday. Hope you had a great holiday weekend. You can always join the show via the text line. Join the conversation 713-572-4610 at any time or also in the YouTube and Twitch chats as well. Appreciate some of the love for collective soul coming in on that text line. Thank you Seth. You guys got into this last week, this Greg Cassell audio of him talking about CJ Stroud, and as I heard him talking about it, I'm curious if it almost reflects worse on CJ Stroud based off of something we keep defending him on. Now you obviously know you have forgotten more about football this morning alone than I'll ever know, so I do want to get your opinion or your thoughts on my takeaway from this. But first, let's just go back to the Cassell audio, the first cut talking about CJ Stroud and this new scheme that he's running here in Houston. CJ Stroud the last couple of years has been up and down.
- [80:30]
Seth Payne
Now keep in mind, his first year in the league, he was in a
- [80:34]
Luke Morrow
Kyle Shanahan type offense with Bobby Slowik. Now in that offense, the quarterback has nothing to do with calling protections. And then they got off to a slow start his second year and they fired Slowik and they made a fairly significant change in approach, which has now continued.
- [80:51]
Seth Payne
And they went more with a New
- [80:53]
Luke Morrow
England Patriots style of offense. And in the New England style of
- [80:57]
Seth Payne
offense, the quarterback is responsible for setting protections. That's a major, major adjustment for a quarterback.
- [81:04]
Luke Morrow
It adds to the mental part of playing the position. And I've met CJ Stroud, he's a very intelligent young man.
- [81:11]
Seth Payne
But when you have to make that
- [81:12]
Luke Morrow
change and it's a process and he'll
- [81:16]
Seth Payne
get better and better at it, but
- [81:18]
Luke Morrow
I think it slowed down just his whole processing and I think there were times where I thought he was indecisive playing the position and therefore was not as anticipatory as we saw him in his rookie season. So Seth, tell me if I'm being unfair or if I'm just straight up Wrong. But we always say so often like the offensive line wasn't good enough, which I agree with. But if Stroud is also the one handling the protections, and as Greg Cosell said, like, I didn't really do a great job of it, then doesn't the fault of the offensive line kind of fall into the responsibility of Stroud? Like, we excuse some of his play because while the offensive line is very good, but isn't that also on the quarterback shoulders to. To try to figure some of that stuff out along the way?
- [81:59]
Seth Payne
No, no, no. I think it's 100% it is. I think that what Cassell's point would be is that that's it. But it's a lot for a young quarterback. And even though, you know, Stroud had said he had more command at the line of scrimmage when he was at Ohio State than he did in the first couple years of the offense, it's just different doing it in college, especially when you have a dominant offensive line. I think the part about it though too, that you can't lose sight of is that it's not just Stroud that has to make a bunch of decisions based on the fronts he's seen and the coverages he's seen. It's the receivers themselves and all the skill position players. And when I went back a couple weeks ago, I was looking at the Texans versus the blitz, and there was a clip from that first Jaguars game where Woody Marks was in protection, was supposed to chip the defensive end and then seep out. I'm guessing he was supposed to seep out as an outlet for CJ and you can see CJ Kind of like looking, waiting for Woody Marks to be there for what would have been an easy dump off. But Woody Marks stayed in pass protection. Then you fast forward a few weeks later and I was watching the Titans and it was when Davis Mills was in there. Woody Marks was in the exact same situation, very similar blitz. He seeped out and Davis Mills dumped it to Woody Marks for, for like a 12 yard gain. And that's a. Okay. A rookie running back had a better feel for what he was supposed to be doing in the offense. Guys like Jaden Higgins got better at where they were supposed to be in the offense. Over time, some of the offensive linemen got better at understanding their, their role. So, Yes, I think C.J. you know, needs to be better at that whole process than he was last year. But it's, it's him being command of all 10 other guys on the offense and having them in the right spots. And some of it last year might have been youth, some of it. How much of it was. CJ Needs to be a better orchestra leader in all of that. It's the kind of stuff that you're going to get. Like going into last season, we had so many people say, all right, listen, if they're going to be running more of a New England style of offense, there's going to be some hiccups along the way. The quarterback, no matter how smart he is, is just not going to pick up all this stuff immediately and make it look good, especially when he missed all of OTAs. That part of it. It's one of those things that if this season just sucks offensively, then all right, none of that, none of this discourse right now matters at all. If the offense takes a step forward, I think then it becomes a reasonable explanation for why it took. Why did it take a full season for all of this to come together? Oh, okay. Because you're putting a lot of different moving parts together. Yeah.
- [84:34]
Luke Morrow
And so with that said, and makes total sense, like, how much do you expect it to be better this year? Whether it's because some of those guys are older or just Shroud has another year, should we expect a big leap there?
- [84:46]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I think. Well, just to go back to Woody Marks, you know, another situation later in the year that I don't think they could have pulled off in the first half of the season was in the Chiefs game, where down in the red zone, CJ Adjusted the protection, moved Woody Marks over to the left side of the formation, and then Woody Marks seeps out for a wide open touchdown. Like, that's the kind of stuff that I don't think you would have seen. Like, you wouldn't have seen the whole operation look like that for any. On any given play in the first part of the season. I think they were figuring it out as the year went along. The big, I mean, the big thing, again, just to make more excuses and. Or explanation, whatever you want to say, is that you get into that final game of the year and they had to reshuffle their offensive line. They didn't have Nico Collins. They still couldn't run the ball effectively, really, at any. They got better at running the ball in the second half of the season, but the offensive line figured things out, but it still wasn't as good as it needed to be, especially when they lost their left guard or when they had to move Titus back to right tackle. The other thing that I think people kind of forget or lose in the Shuffle of everything was that the Texans offensive line in CJ's rookie year was actually. They were ranked like 16th or 17th on PFF's final O line rankings. It wasn't a good offensive line, but it was a more functional, functioning offensive line than he's had the last couple years. Like, so where it just gets too easy to always go back to the offensive line, always go back to the offensive line. And I think it's, I think it's important to put it into context that the offensive line did operate better as a unit in that first year of Stroud and then the last couple years he just, he hasn't had that, that type of performance.
- [86:28]
Luke Morrow
Let me ask you this because I am curious. You know, this year we're assuming that the center very well will be a rookie who's making a change to that center position. So when we talk about Stroud having that command and the offense at the line and trying to improve and do better in year two, how big of an impact do you think that would have? If his center is a rookie who hasn't necessarily played a ton of center before, certainly not in the NFL, you know, how big of a role could that play?
- [86:52]
Seth Payne
That's where I think that's the one of the biggest tests for cj being the genuine leader of the offense and really just, you know, being more Peyton Manning, like really. And just even more so than Tom Brady. Just because I was on the field with Peyton Manning and I used to get embarrassed for offense defensive lineman when he would, when he would reprimand them. Not that, not that CJ has to do it in the same style or fashion or anything, but like just being a completely psychotic, you know, control freak. There's that like there needs to be a little bit of that in you if you're going to be. If you, if you want to operate in this offense the way that like Tom Brady or Peyton Manning are the ultimate control freaks. Did you hear the story that Sean told about Peyton Manning? Oh, no. We played the audio of Eli saying that basically at Eli's own birthday, Peyton Manning gave him what he was supposed to talk about.
- [87:45]
Luke Morrow
Yes.
- [87:45]
Seth Payne
Like Peyton gave Eli notes for. That's the kind of control freak you need to be when you're leading an offense like this.
- [87:51]
Luke Morrow
Well, I heard the story where didn't you like MC an event with them and they made.
- [87:54]
Seth Payne
Oh yeah.
- [87:55]
Luke Morrow
They gave you like strict talking points, right?
- [87:57]
Seth Payne
Yeah, they. Yeah, Peyton. Peyton had very strict things about what I was and was not supposed to talk about. And I veered from it. And I got the. I got that look. I got that look from Peyton Manning when I asked. When I was basically like, they gave me this. They basically wanted me to ask like a list of pre canned, like, canned questions. And I'm like, I can't do this. I'm not gonna. I'll use it as a guide.
- [88:21]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [88:22]
Seth Payne
But we're gonna. We're gonna free flow a little bit.
- [88:24]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [88:24]
Seth Payne
Yeah. And he gave me the look that he used to give Jeff Saturday when Jeff Saturday screwed up the snap. But he doesn't. He didn't have any power over me.
- [88:30]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [88:31]
Seth Payne
I was doing. I'm doing this event for free, Peyton. Yeah.
- [88:33]
Luke Morrow
You're like, sit down, nerd. Yeah, that's. That's.
- [88:36]
Seth Payne
I'm doing this for charity. Are you.
- [88:37]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [88:38]
Seth Payne
Are you doing it for the kids? Are you accepting a fee for this, Peyton? I should have asked them that. How much was your fee for this event?
- [88:43]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly. How much would you. Since you were on the other side there, like, what percentage would you say Peyton was actually calling the offense during those games? Was he doing, like, all of it?
- [88:54]
Seth Payne
He was. Well, okay. So, I mean, like, usually what will happen and. Because when you can talk of different types of systems and everything, the Colts did something that was different in a lot of ways than what the Patriots were doing. But I think that. Think about Peyton going to Kubiak in his system. Like, by the time a guy's a veteran quarterback, it doesn't matter what system you're in. Like, guys are going to tweak things and they're going to modify routes and they're going to. They're going to make their. Their calls at the line of scrimmage to where it becomes more of a matter of, all right, depending on whatever the nomenclature is and everything. Like, the quarterback is calling the shots. The thing about the. The. The thing about the Colts, I would say, compared to maybe Tom Brady is their offense was simpler in a lot of ways, but a lot of it was predicated on Peyton just kind of understanding the look and knowing the tendencies and getting into a different pre checked call or what. Like, he was doing a lot. That was why the. You know, one of the things I got excited about them talking about this preseason was d' Ameco talking about the snap count and the hard counts and how much that matters. Because what Peyton would do is he'd come up to the line of scrimmage and you have 15 seconds left on the play clock, and then he would. You get everybody lined up. He would make an audible. It was probably a dummy call. And then he would have a hard count where he'd try to get a safety or somebody to just to show a little bit of something. And then that's when he would step back and he would make his real audible and his real change based on what he thought the defense was going to be. And that was the worst feeling is like a defensive lineman because for one you get tired like being in your stance for that long. But then when you know you got a safety blitz called and he gives a hard count and then steps back out from under center and changes the call, you're like, oh, we're screwed, we're screwed. On this play. He knows exactly what we're doing. Because I know the safety, the safety like took a little stutter step forward or something like that's the part where regardless of whether you're running more of a McVeigh system or a Belichick system or whatever it might be, it's the quarterback just diagnosing pre snap what the look, diagnosing what the defense is trying to do. And then however you get into the right call, getting into the right call. And it was just impossible for the Texans to operate that way in a lot of ways last year because they just didn't, they didn't have enough, they didn't have enough real estate on the play clock to do it. They were just, still, they were just trying to get the snap off more so than really diagnose things.
- [91:21]
Luke Morrow
I got a follow up question. I'll ask you on the other side about all that. By the way, on the text line, they, a couple texts came in saying they blew up the offensive line. They must think that's a big part of their struggle. Someone else said they couldn't run the ball. That, that is not on CJ So I get the idea. I acknowledge that the offensive line was not good enough. But it's almost like I never understood in baseball where if a pitcher commits an error, the runs become unearned. Where it's like, well, it was still your responsibility as a pitcher.
- [91:49]
Seth Payne
It's similar. What it is, is, I mean, it's almost like to make a rough pitching analogy, it's like a, if a reliever comes in and there's, you know, guys on base, those aren't his runs. If he gives, gives them up, that there's, there's a dynamic when you're in second long all the time or third long all the time. It's just a harder environment in which to operate no matter who you are as a quarterback, nobody's actually really good at third and 10. They're better than others at converting third and 10. But the overall numbers don't look great compared to their other numbers, their overall third down conversion percentage. So the lack of the run game where it really hurts the quarterback is just that. It puts him in tougher and tougher situations more often.
- [92:34]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, which is fair. 713-572-4610 on the text line Coming up, let's get back to the Astros after this big series victory over the weekend. How are we all the way back? Are we all in on the Astros at this point heading towards the All Star break? We'll talk about it next here on Pain and Pendergast. I'm Serena Williams and I'm healthier on Roe.
- [92:54]
Seth Payne
I've lost 34 pounds in a year with GLP1's diet and exercise. On Roe you can access GLP1 options including the first FDA approved GLP1 pill for weight loss. Go to Ro Co Journey to see if you qualify.
- [93:09]
Luke Morrow
14 to 20% average weight loss in one year in non diabetics with obesity or overweight with a weight related medical
- [93:14]
Seth Payne
condition versus 2.2% to 3.1% in placebo arm RX only. To stay informed about serious side effects go to Roe Co Safety History that
- [93:23]
Luke Morrow
Doesn't Suck is a legit, hard hitting American history podcast told through entertaining stories. Join me Professor Greg Jackson for History that Doesn't Suck an Odyssey podcast available on Apple, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Astros are coming off the biggest series victory of the season. Can we buy all the way in on them? At this point it's Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. You can always join the conversation as well. 713-572-4610 on the text line or YouTube and Twitch chats as well. Before we do get to the Astros though, Seth, I was asking you about Peyton Manning and whatnot last segment. Yeah, so I was thinking, but we were already running running long. Who would you say is the most frustrating? Because I love talking to former athletes about their careers. Who would you say is the most frustrating quarterback that you had to game plan for or go up against? Was it Peyton?
- [94:17]
Seth Payne
Yeah, it was Peyton. Just because that whole dynamic of him just feeling like it felt like you were being probed by aliens the entire game and it would usually be that, man, you feel like you got a good game plan against Them. But then all of a sudden, there's a point in the second half where he's just got you figured out and you could. You could just sense it and feel it almost that like, oh, crap, so you, like. Vic Fangio is our defensive coordinator at the time when I was with the Texans. And Vic was really, really smart, as he obviously remains so today. And a lot of times we'd have almost like two separate game plans, one for the first half, one for the second half. But even then, it's just if you don't have the horses that to. To do anything with it, like, there's. He's going to figure you out. He's going to find the weak spot in what your game plan is. I know talking to Wade Phillips, Wade told me that Tom Brady was the. The hardest when it came to him figuring it out. And I didn't play against Tom Brady, so I didn't. You know, I never got to experience that. But it feels. It sounds a whole lot like with Peyton Manning, but with even more so with Tom Brady, that there was just whatever your best laid plans were for how you're going to confuse Tom Brady or disguise things. He. He figured it out somewhere along the way.
- [95:33]
Luke Morrow
And let me ask you this. And you don't have to answer if you, if you don't want that, that's fine. And then we'll get to the Astros. Was there a quarterback that you enjoyed getting to the most, like physically getting to did. Was there a quarterback you liked when you were able to lay a hit on somebody?
- [95:47]
Seth Payne
Yeah, like Peyton Manning, just because he was. He was hard to sack. He was really good at getting rid of the football. So, like, anytime you could actually get a clean hit on him, it was fun just because it was hard to do. And two, because then he would have a temper tantrum about it. You know, he complained to the refs or he'd be yelling at his offensive line or whatever. I only, I think I only had. I had, like, I was a run stuffer. I had 17 and a half sacks in my career. But one of them, one of them is. Was Peyton Manning. So. Which I, to this day, I don't know how it happened because he usually. I think it was because he wasn't expecting it. He figured that. He figured that they had the big fat guy handled up front, and all of a sudden I just appeared in his face.
- [96:27]
Luke Morrow
That's right. Hey, that's a good one. That's one of the better of those 17 and a half, I'm sure. Let's talk about the Astros. They won the series over the weekend, and as I said just a moment ago, I mean, I would say it's the biggest series win of the season. But part of me still thinks back to last year, same time they swept the Dodgers, July 4th weekend. And at the time, the Astros were 20 games over.500. They were seven games up on the division. And then we know how the rest of the season went, where they were on the outside looking in. So I guess I'm still, you know, they're still under.500. I guess until I actually see them, like, hold on to first place, build a lead. I guess I am still, to this point, even after what we saw this weekend, a little skeptical because it is a long season. I think it happened. They always have so many injuries here in Houston that I'm still delaying my full buy in. I guess on this, it is.
- [97:18]
Seth Payne
There's something about, okay, you're one game out of the wild card, except that it's in, in an AL that's so decrepit that I, there's like a little bit of an ego reset. You need to have I. Since May 31, they've got the best record in the AL. They've been, they've been operating like a much different baseball team. And I think that just like you have kind of, you know, Sean and I reset the season at May 15th. They've been a, you know, a 90 plus. They've been on basically playing like a 95 win baseball team or so since then that I'm, I'm not too worried about the circumstances. And I just more, I'm more watching. Okay. If they make the playoffs, they look like a team that could actually make a push for a World Series in the playoffs. And I feel like they're right there teetering on the brink right now based on a couple of different things as to whether. Okay, all right. Making the playoffs, making the wild card is one thing, but can we get genuinely excited about their ability to pull this off? And I think, like, starting pitching is obviously the biggest and most imminent concern. And the thing that they've given us, they've given us the most, I guess, just shots to the ribs or guts when you feel like, okay, boy, they're really coming along. Okay, yeah, look at, look at how they've been, how good they've been since we cherry pick a date or whatever. And then Imai comes in and doesn't make it out of the first or doesn't go more than two innings. Like, that's the that's what we'll get to see in the second game of this upcoming series is just how. Wait, is he my first up or second? Oh, it's he my first, right?
- [98:53]
Luke Morrow
No, he's tomorrow. Burrows is tomorrow.
- [98:55]
Seth Payne
It's Burrows tonight. And then he might. That's right.
- [98:57]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [98:58]
Seth Payne
And Burroughs also as Javier. Javier returns to the bullpen, looks good in the bullpen. At some point he's going to be an option to move into the starting lineup if you don't feel great about these other guys.
- [99:10]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. I'm curious how hot the seats are because I'll be honest with you, I thought Javier was going to go right back into the rotation upon his return. I'm curious how. How hot the seats are for a few of those guys. I think as a gm, you know, you could be stubborn. I don't know if Dana Brown would want to admit fault with Mike Burrows or even Imai, but at the same time he also just sent down Joey Lorfito over the weekend, which was one of his acquisitions over the off season. So I am curious, at what point does Javier actually work, if ever, does he work his way into the rotation?
- [99:40]
Seth Payne
No, I mean the timing of it right now based on just him coming back with a week before the All Star break. You know, they cited his workload and his rehab assignments and everything, but he's going to come in. He's in the traditional bullpen role. They're not going to piggyback him or anything. I wonder if the transition after the All Star break is at the very least, yeah, you're going to see him a little bit more of either a piggyback or a long release type of mode and they transition him that way. But I mean, that's back in 22 when that was his best season. That was the route they took then was working him into a full time starting role. And even though it's because of injury this time around, you kind of get that benefit of, okay, yeah, we don't have to. We can maybe just gradually ramp him up and then in September and October when it really, really matters, then it might be as long as until then before they really make him a full time starter. Depending on what else is going on with the other starters.
- [100:35]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, because I'm also curious how long you can keep that stretched out arm for Javier, like if he's in the bullpen for just say another month, do they then have to stretch him out again where he was pitching an inning or two and now you want him to try to go five or six. I'm curious, like, how long that lasts before you have to build the guy back up.
- [100:51]
Seth Payne
This is the Astros pitching staff. You know, even in asking that question, you've aired already, which is like, okay, like, at some point, I feel like it's going to be by necessity, more so than either because of an injury or because of all horrible performance by. By Mike Burroughs or somebody that. That. That kind of. That their decision, their. Their hand is forced just by circumstances. But so to kind of. To have a strategy for exactly how you're going to do it feels like you're like. Like we'd have to pretend that there's a stability there, that there isn't.
- [101:25]
Luke Morrow
It's a good point. On the text line, someone said it's hard to be all in on a team that's not even over.500. Yeah, that's the part where you laid out the numbers. Best team in the AL last 41 games, which is. And that's a big sample size, but then still, like, they're in the worst division in baseball, and they're still in third place in the worst division of baseball. It is hard, I think, if you're outside Houston or even if you just looked at the standings, to be like, what's everyone talking about? The Astros, they're in third place in a terrible division. It still feels weird to try to wrap your head around, like, hey, this is a really good team. When you see they're. They're in the middle of a terrible division.
- [101:58]
Seth Payne
They're doing. And they. They feasted on some bad teams and some mediocre teams in there on that streak of series that they'd won series in a row that they'd won. That's a part of it where, if you look at it and say, hey, over the course of the last, you know, month and a half or so, they've been the best team in the al, then. All right, then if that keeps up, they're not going to. If they could keep that up in a bad. In a bad Al, then, yeah, it's not going to be a.500 baseball team by the end of the year, I don't think. If they end up as a.500 baseball team at the end of the season right now, and they're just one game in the. You know, they're the last team in the wild card. Yeah, I'm not going to feel awesome about it. But if they continue doing what they're doing, then they should. They should have a chance to either win the division or be a more formidable looking wild card team.
- [102:48]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that's also true. On the text line. Someone said, hey, I feel good that they won a shootout on Saturday and then won a pitchers duel yesterday. That's fair. They won different styles against a good
- [102:57]
Seth Payne
team and that's where. Yeah. And the, the Rays are really smart at the plate and they don't chase a whole lot and Lambert had him chasing a whole bunch. That was a really good performance by. By Lambert.
- [103:08]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, sure was. Another texter said, I'm with you on the Astros. They just have too many holes to make me a believer. They're too feast or famine.
- [103:16]
Seth Payne
I think that this is what is. I was trying to figure out, okay, what would get people the most buy in and what would make this team look like a substantially different team in the second half of the season. Yeah, if you told me that nothing changed, including that every now and then Imai's going to go out and give you two thirds of an inning. If, if Paredes and Walker just go on a tear in the second half of the season, then that alone would be enough for me to feel like, okay, yeah, you get into a, you get into a series here in the playoffs, anything can happen. I'm going to any of these that you might. You're going to have a couple of whiffs and from starting pitchers at various points. But as long as these guys are hitting the way that they can. If that were to happen, if Parades and Walker were really looking at their best and Jordan keeps doing what he's been doing, that's what would. That was what. That's what would give me the biggest shot of confidence going into any given series.
- [104:09]
Luke Morrow
So stabilizing the starting rotation, get some more help outside of Yordon and then that might lead to the third point of view. Bring in an outfielder with a trade or something. That could help bolster this lineup as well. Because he's.
- [104:23]
Seth Payne
Yeah, Dana Brown's just been awesome at trading for outfielders like he's due. Right. If that's your stroke of confidence that you need. You got rid of Sanchez for low profito and then now you've gotten rid of low profito in the short term. That if they pull something off at the deadline, I'll. I'll be duly impressed if I see it.
- [104:45]
Luke Morrow
Well, speaking of the deadline, a few texts came in about. Someone said, I saw a report the Astros are going to be on Sonny Gray. Be in on Sonny Gray or Tariq Skubal. Another person said, I think they trade blue ball for McCarthy or Moniac couple of outfielders in the NL blue ball, by the way, is pitching really well. I guess this is when you sell him at, like, his highest, but honestly, I'd be a little sad to see him go at this point. Yeah, but the other part, the Sonny Gray and Scubal look, look, some people might not like me saying this because he's on these airwaves a lot. He goes on to Area 45 a bunch. The report came from Bob Nightingale. I take anything Bob Nightingale reports with a huge grain of salt. So when he says that the Astros are going to try to get Sonny Gray or Scuba, I don't buy into it whatsoever. I don't think they have the assets to. To acquire those guys. Sonny Gray has the second best ERA in the AL right now. Yeah. Imagine it's going to take a pretty good package. And the Astros have one of the worst farm systems, Right?
- [105:42]
Seth Payne
Yeah. And that goes against the grain of everything that they did in the off season, where they tried to do it on the cheap and they brought in, you know, like, even the Imai. The Imai thing. We're in. We're in a precarious situation with Imai, where what we're really hoping for is that Imai pitches so incredibly well in the second half of the season that there's not a chance in hell that he's going to be here next year because he'll exercise that option and get a big contract somewhere else. That I just. I don't know if. I don't think they have the assets that they're willing to part with and that. It also just doesn't. It kind of flies in the face with the way that Dana Brown's been operating as of late.
- [106:22]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they'd be willing to take. Sonny Gray has a pretty sizable contract, too. And Scuba, of course, you're gonna have to pay the guy. That's why Detroit might trade him, because they don't want to pay him.
- [106:32]
Seth Payne
So the quote from Bob Nightingale was that the Houston Astros, badly needing an outfield, are showing strong interest in Mickey moniac and Jake McCarthy of the Colorado Rockies. They also plan to be in the Tariq Screwball and Sonny Gray sweepstakes. So I would. That would be a bold move.
- [106:51]
Luke Morrow
It would be. And with that wording. Okay, I get it. They plan to be in the sweepstakes. I think they'll get outbid by a number of teams for either of those guys.
- [106:58]
Seth Payne
It feels like back when the Astros were trying to make it look like they were trying to be aggressive back like in 2014. 2000 ain't even going into 2015 where they'd put in a bid on one of these free agents. That would be. They'd be like 20 million per year short. But they were trying. They were trying.
- [107:17]
Luke Morrow
That's like a friend of mine, the biggest friend in our friend group. Like the strongest guy or the tallest guy. Whenever like a scuffle would break out, his line would always be like, man, if one more punch was thrown, I was about to jump in. And that was always the like he didn't want to fight at all. He was just trying to cover himself, waiting.
- [107:35]
Seth Payne
His hands are registered weapons. He has to be careful and select when he jumps in.
- [107:39]
Luke Morrow
If it just went one step further. I was there. Hey, coming up are the 2026 Jaguars. Have we seen this version of the Jaguars before and is it actually also a bad thing for the Houston Rockets? We'll connect all those dots next here. Pain and Pendergast I'm Hannah.
- [107:57]
Seth Payne
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Luke Morrow
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Seth Payne
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Seth Payne
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Luke Morrow
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Seth Payne
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- [108:27]
Luke Morrow
I'm Susie Welch, the host of Becoming
- [108:30]
Seth Payne
youg, a podcast where I help you
- [108:32]
Luke Morrow
stop living by default and start living by design. Listen to Becoming youg wherever you get your podcasts. Have we seen this version of the Jaguars before and is actually a bad thing for the Houston Rockets? We'll get to that here on Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. You can always join the conversation on the text line 713-572-4610 or the YouTube and Twitch chats as well. Are the 2026 Jaguars like the 2018 Jaguars? If you hop into the time machine and think back, that was so in 2017. That's when they get to the AFC title game. Should have won but you have Blake Bortles as the quarterback.
- [109:17]
Seth Payne
Yeah, the interception that was rolled down, that was nullified. The pick six, right?
- [109:23]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Right. And it was that they led that game. I Think in the second half. And the offense just didn't do anything. And Patriots snuck by, so they should have been in the Super Bowl. Sounds familiar to what we've been saying here in recent months, but they had a really good defense. You had Blake Bortles, different style of team. Obviously, I would take Trevor Lawrence over Blake Bortles, but my point being, after that 2017 season, it was so good, they said, let's just run it back. And that's when they gave Bortles a new contract. And they made the biggest addition that off season was adding a guard to their offensive line. They let Alan was Allen Robinson. They let him walk in free agency. Somewhat similar to ETN or hn, the running back who left the Jaguars. And they felt like, hey, we were so close to getting to the super bowl, let's keep this team together. And the following year they went 5 and 11 and, you know, blew up that team eventually. Somewhat similar to this year, where the Jaguars had a very good season last year. Surprise. Kind of like 2017 of just truly how good they were. And now they feel like, hey, we already had the look at what we did last year. Let's just run this thing back. But we find so often, Seth, that it seems like that it was almost like lightning in a bottle. Like, that doesn't work to just try to redo what you found worked last year.
- [110:36]
Seth Payne
Well, and especially, you know, and if you. If you go to Trevor Lawrence and the one really impressive stretch that he had with Doug Peterson in. What was that, 2022 or whenever it was, they had a good surge in the second half of the season and people thought, oh, yep, this is it. Trevor Lawrence has finally figured it out. And lo and behold, no, he had not figured it out. And the defenses caught up to what was working for him and took away his first read, and he just ended up being the same inconsistent guy. I very, very much agree with you that it looks like it's going against the grain when the old wisdom is that, man, you don't just all of a sudden, like, discover something, and then the next year you just keep doing the same thing and you just keep getting better. The offense for the Jaguars clicked when Trevor Lawrence just looked like he'd figured out how to operate that offense. But also, they brought in Jacoby Myers on that trade, and they were different. They were a different offense completely. You looked like you got a better version of Brian Thomas Jr. Because he could do the things he's good at. Jacoby Myers could be the guy taking the stuff over the middle instead of Brian Thomas Jr. But it was like it was one half of a season of impressive offense. But their running game also is decrepit in that time, which shouldn't be as big a deal, except you get into the playoffs and, man, if you can't lean on your run game, it's a lot harder to beat a steady slate of good football teams. And they just let. So even unable to run the football, they let go of Travis Hn and just figure that, okay, this committee of Tootin and whomever else is going to be an adequate replacement. I feel like that's a. That's a big leap of faith for a team that just couldn't run the ball in the second half of last season.
- [112:25]
Luke Morrow
Certainly. Yeah. And I think it's a big. On paper, I think it's just a big drop off. Obviously, they. They know more than me. They're in the building. They know those guys. But I was surprised by that move. And again, to take it back, like, you know, the offense wasn't all that strong for the Jags in 2017, and then they let their best receiver go and the. Chris Ivory was the running back and they were just about defense and running the football. And it didn't work so well the next year. And Bortles was quickly gone. It's the cliches of if you're not getting better, you're getting worse.
- [112:49]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [112:49]
Luke Morrow
And then also either like the Adapt or die where teams. I say this a lot, coaches in the first year can catch the league by surprise. The easiest example that always comes to my mind first is Brian Dable won a playoff game his first year in New York, and then they didn't have a winning season after that. Like, a lot of times, coaches come in, they have a good first year, but then you have to, as you know, Seth, you have to keep up because defenses will figure out or offenses will figure out, whatever it is, you have to say one step ahead. And if you're not adapting, you're falling behind. And so those would be. If I was a Jaguars fan, those would be my concerns of like, are we actually getting better or are we setting ourselves up to take a step back?
- [113:27]
Seth Payne
Right, right. And I guess the danger is also, though, if you look at it from the other side, it's it, man. Whenever anybody's operating like they're smarter than everybody else, you feel like, oh, you're setting yourself up for a big fall. But then every now and then, they actually are smarter than everybody else. So if you go to, you Know Epstein with the Dodgers or Jeff Luno with the Astros. Yeah. Boy, these guys think they're smarter than everybody else. Young whiz kids gonna reinvent. Ah, crap. They did it. Ah, crap. They actually followed through on it, and they were smarter than everybody else. I don't know if. I just don't think that it's that possible anymore to get that big of a jump through analytics or others, because every other team. Every other team is using analytics to a pretty extensive degree. So that all of a sudden James Gladstone, the GM of the Jaguars, is all of a sudden going to be the guy that really understands and knows how to use analytics, and that's why he's doing so many things outside the grain. I'm just. I'm just even more skeptical because I don't know if it's. I don't know if it's possible in this day and age to get as big an advantage as teams. Didn't baseball back when they started getting in analytics?
- [114:36]
Luke Morrow
Right, right. Yeah. I would agree. On the text line, somebody says, aren't we doing the same thing with our defense, just simply running it back the.
- [114:44]
Seth Payne
No, they're not. Because they added. So that's the biggest thing. Like, that's exactly the counter to what Luke was talking about, because they. They drafted a defensive tackle that addresses a weakness or perceived weakness that they had in their inability to stop the run in critical situations. In certain situations, they added Reed Blankenship, which was the other huge concern, especially when it comes to that defense allowing too many explosive plays. The rest of it is they brought back a bunch of starters who are good starters. You know, that's the. They're not just saying, okay, we'll have to. We'll hodgepodge it together and we'll see what happens. And I would argue because immediately as I say that, people are going to say, well, what is Henry Towa Toa, exactly? They drafted two linebackers, and they traded for Marte Mapu in the offseason, and that was before E.J. speed got injured. So, no, I don't. Now, they don't have to be as aggressive on the defense side of the ball, but there's. They definitely don't look like they sat on their hands and figured, like, oh, yeah, we were awesome last year. We're going to be awesome again this year. I think d' Ameco understands exactly what we're talking about here, is that you never just say, well, we're good, and it's just going to be a prepackaged product and we'll roll it out again next year. So, yeah, I just, I would. My answer to that question would be no, that's not what they're doing on defense.
- [116:07]
Luke Morrow
Also, I would say the defense clearly for the Texans was maybe the best defense in the league, certainly top three. Where I don't think the Jaguars, if we're talking about them specifically here, I don't think they're on that level in any of the areas. It's not like, hey, this run game's so good. Hn can leave, we'll be fine. Or you know, this offense is so good, we don't need one of our best skill set players, we'll be good. Like, I think they still have more questions to figure out. Kind of like I was comparing to 2017 where they thought Blake Bortle was like, ah, he seems fine, we'll give him a contract and run this thing back. I think there's still more for the Jaguars to figure out than specifically the Texans defense, in my opinion.
- [116:42]
Seth Payne
Well, you brought up a great analogy or a comparison which would be just, yeah, are the current Rockets operating a little bit like the Jaguars are this offseason where there was a glimmer of something that you saw last year, but you know, hey, now, once we get, well, Fred Van Vliet, which he thought was a certainty coming back now, we just don't know. But just in running it back, are they, are they looking at what? This is what I would fear. I would fear that last month of the season when it actually looked like they figured some things out offensively, that it looked like Kevin Durant had a better plan and mode of operation and figuring out where he was going to go with the ball when he got attacked. And then when Durant gets injured in the playoffs, is it too easy for them to say, well, you know what, we actually did have it kind of figured out and now with Fred Van Vliet coming back, that where it's that simple and then we'll, we'll have the absolute best version. I'm as, I'm not as comfortable thinking that it's as simple as that.
- [117:45]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I get all of the anxiety, I suppose, for Rockets fans this offseason, especially when you see other teams making all these moves, like specifically in the Hornets. I know Dorian Finney Smith was just traded there and he was lousy this past year, but the Hornets have just acquired like four different good three point shooters here this offseason alone. You see these other teams making moves and you wish your team would. And I am Concerned of this idea of like, ah, let's just get Fred Van Vliet healthy, Stephen Adams healthy, run it back, we'll be fine. Going back to what we were just saying about the Jaguars, I think that anytime a team fails to try to take a step forward, you're actually taking a step back. And so to think Stephen Adams, another injury and another year older. Fred Van Vliet, 32, whatever, he is now coming off this knee injury where his knee exploded. Whatever phrase he used blew up. And your star Kevin Durant's now another year older who's 38. I think the idea of like, yeah, let's just run this group back, we'll be fine. That's, that's something that I can understand the anxiety because I don't know how improved they'll be on paper or even from a win total this year by simply trying to do the same thing.
- [118:51]
Seth Payne
Can we just reflect on Dorian Finney Smith for a moment? And like that he had, he had a 27% 3 point percentage this year, which is by far the lowest he's had in his entire career. Like it's from, from since 2016. He's the lowest he ever was, was 29.3% in his rookie season. And since then he's been up in the 30s, you know, and well into like into the 40s at points. And he's 27% this year in the 37 games that he played. Just, just, just, just a remarkable, remarkably disappointing addition last year.
- [119:30]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it really was. And it took three draft picks just to foist him onto the, the Hornets over the weekend, they said, you don't need to give us anything. Just take him away from us. Take him out of here. That's how disappointing he was this past season.
- [119:42]
Seth Payne
33% field goal percentage, like drastically, ridiculously lower than anything he's had before.
- [119:48]
Luke Morrow
It's just a. Yeah, yeah, it didn't work out. I wonder if there's some sort of, I wouldn't say curse, but the idea that the Rockets just, they still need shooting year after year and they bring in these guys and they just, they, they just can't shoot it well enough. Bodanovich is going to be the next one of just like, yeah, we just can't figure this out.
- [120:05]
Seth Payne
If you have a kind of offense that creates catch and shoot opportunities, then that, that goes a long way towards that. I mean, that's a. Yeah, the idea of that. And that was what's in the hodgepodge of whatever the hell that offense was last year. There's just there's so many guys that just weren't even getting close to being in the position to do what they do best, either by design because you're asking non point guards to play point guard or just because guys like that should be, you know, catch and shoot. Sharpshooters aren't getting those same opportunities either.
- [120:34]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah, it's true. Someone on the text line said the Jags kind of operate like Jim Crane does with the Astros. Yeah, I could see the similarities at least after 2017 this offseason.
- [120:44]
Seth Payne
But they're especially, I think, where they really look like they're they think they're smarter than everybody else is with their free agency strategy this offseason where they hey, we're going for the compensatory picks. You know, we're going to let our running back go, we're going to get let Devin Lloyd, our linebacker go and we're not going to be aggressive in bringing anybody else in because we want to be sure we get those third round picks a couple years from now. They're playing the long game and I appreciate that. That's a good strategy to have. But at the same time, there's also like, you know, Gladstone, you got to, you got to prove that you deserve your job in these first couple years, too.
- [121:15]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that's true. The lesson, the takeaway from all this is to continue to grow and try to take a step forward. I don't think the Jags have, and I worry that the Rockets are in that same trap as well heading into their next season. Hey, coming up was the Andre Johnson Cortland Finnegan fight. Premeditated. Talk about that next year pain. And Pendergast was the whole Andre Johnson, Cortland Finnegan scuffle almost premeditated. We'll talk about that here on Paine and Pendergast. Guest I'm Luke Morrow, in for Sean alongside Seth Payne. You can always join the conversation. 813 no, pardon me. 7135-7246-1071-3572-4610. On the text line. You can always join the conversation on YouTube and Twitch.
- [122:01]
Seth Payne
813 is Tampa's area code. Oh, really? I'm glad you corrected yourself. Some poor, some poor Tampa resident was going to get a an angry tank.
- [122:10]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it's like when we get the random text from the station in like Kansas City, people are texting us about the Royals or Mahomes.
- [122:17]
Seth Payne
Similarly, it's the weirdest thing for those of you listeners that don't know what we're talking about. There's a sport, used to be Sports Radio 610 in Kansas City, and it would be the most confusing thing in the world because all of a sudden there would be somebody irate on the text line with like, some take about Travis Kelsey or something, and you're like, what? Why are you shouting at me? Me, bro. What's going? And then you realize. And then the funniest thing was a lot of times when you would correct those people, they would keep texting at you, right? Like. Like they still needed to vent. And there was somebody that. They were just happy that somebody was acknowledging that they were venting.
- [122:50]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, exactly. So at least that doesn't happen really much anymore. So instead we'll send it to Tampa. So this audio, I guess Seth looked into it. I guess this is from like a year ago.
- [123:01]
Seth Payne
Yeah. This was from Ande Johnson on the Nightcap podcast when they were in Houston. Houston. They were doing it. Chad Johnson and Shannon Sharp were interviewing Andre Johnson. And we had played some clips from it at the time. I don't remember this clip. I don't remember playing this clip. I don't think this went viral, but it's like a year old. But it was one of those things that just regained virality or became viral for the first time this weekend. So this is the first time I can remember hearing this clip. Yeah, it had been going on for about three years, man. I never shared this story with nobody, but because we all night. Cap up and give it to us. There you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That what I'm talking about. Yeah, there we go. So, Chad, you remember club play? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Old Cristal.
- [123:51]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah.
- [123:52]
Seth Payne
So, man, this is no lie. Like, they're driving up to the club. It's my little brother and Rudy. My brother's sitting in the passenger seat. Rudy's in the back seat.
- [124:05]
Luke Morrow
And
- [124:08]
Seth Payne
where I'm pulling up in valet, and they jump out the car while the car's moving, right? And I'm like, what the hell y' all doing? They was like, there you go. So I'm like, what are y' all talking about? It's Courtland. He's standing at the front door of the club, right? I didn't even see him. They wanted to get on them right then. And I'm like, nah, like, we not doing that. You know what I'm saying? So that happened like a. A year prior. So I don't know, man. Like, we was up 20 to nothing. And I told Cool. But I was like, hey, man, I'm finna beat his. Normally coaches call plays for the player. The player called a play. Coach, I'm gonna beat his ass on one. Ready? Break. So that was just. That was just it, man. Like, I just had enough of, you know, the stuff he was doing.
- [125:08]
Luke Morrow
So.
- [125:08]
Seth Payne
So it was mainly cheap shots, not so much talking. It was the chief dirty. No, no, the talking. You could talk all day. I don't give a damn about talking. Right. But it was the cheap things he would do at the place. Okay. Yeah. Y' all cool now?
- [125:22]
Luke Morrow
Y' all cool now?
- [125:23]
Seth Payne
Y'. All. I don't know. I don't know. It sounds like they're not cool, and they probably don't run in the same circles.
- [125:32]
Luke Morrow
No, I don't think so. I think so. I think this went viral because I just saw this other video from the weekend where there's a video of him signing an action figure of his.
- [125:40]
Seth Payne
Oh, that's right.
- [125:41]
Luke Morrow
With Caitlin Finnegan. So I think that's what brought it back.
- [125:44]
Seth Payne
Yeah, he was in an autograph event or something. So somebody brought that back to lend a little context. Everything. No, it's cool here. And Gary Kubiak tell that story, too, because Kubiak was. The game was over. The Texans had basically. They were just running the clock out, and all of a sudden. All of a sudden, Andre's standing next to him, ready to go in on the next play. And I think. I think that way Kubiak told. It was something along the lines of him saying, like, I just got to do what I got to do. I gotta go do what I gotta do, coach. And he went up and whooped up on Cortland Finnegan. There. There wasn't a single person in the NFL that thought Andre Johnson was in the wrong for that.
- [126:18]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, right.
- [126:19]
Seth Payne
Everybody hated Cortland Finnegan. She was that little. Just. He's a gnat, you know, that would just. Just be. Always doing that stuff that. That it was trying to bait people. You know what? Honestly, he was like Travis Kelce, except that, you know, like, Travis Kelce does all that stuff that he gets away with where he tries to bait people after the play and everything, and. And people just got. Got sick and tired of it.
- [126:42]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I was. Anybody.
- [126:43]
Seth Payne
Nobody's ever like, actually gone out and just whooped up on Travis Kelsey, though, because I think that's the other thing. Like Travis Kelsey still. He's still too good of a player. Where. With Cortland Finnegan, I don't think there was a Single part of Andre Johnson that worried that, like, you know, why poke the bear? Like, no, I'm gonna. This is a little bear cub and I'm gonna beat him down.
- [127:00]
Luke Morrow
Right. Well, this might be the time now to get Kelsey. As he slows down, you know, wait. Wait for him. It's almost like waiting for him in an alleyway. Now he's slower. Can't get away. Beat the crap out of him on the field. But yeah, no, I. So I do love, though, that a lot of times we see these scuffles on the field, but they don't necessarily make their way off the field. It's just in between the lines. I do like that at least from this story that, you know, they were ready to go at a nightclub a year prior. I like that this was a genuine, like, off the field. We don't.
- [127:28]
Seth Payne
Like there was. Yeah, this wasn't like anything like, I'll leave it on the field or anything. That was enough. Again, that tells you everything you need to know about, like, how annoying Cortland Finnegan was that it was. It was to the point where you might. There might be a chain snatching involved there or something at some point. You don't usually hear about it bubbling off the. Off the field. Credit to Andre Johnson for understanding he had to rein in his younger brother there, because a lot of times that's. Remember. Do you ever hear Charlie Murphy tell the story about when he was his brother's bodyguard? So, like, Charlie Murphy was Eddie Murphy's older brother. Brother, but was like, he wasn't taking no crap from nobody to the point where it was. It was a bad idea for him to be security for his brother because, like, there was. He was just jumping in way too aggressively on stuff that an actual security professional would know to just kind of move things along and get. Get Eddie out of the building. Charlie was. Charlie was all about settling things right there, right then and there.
- [128:23]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. And he. According to the Chappelle show, he got what slapped by. By Rick James.
- [128:29]
Seth Payne
So, yeah, that was a whole different scenario. That's. That wasn't even, like, him acting as a bodyguard or whatever. God, that's the funniest skit in the history.
- [128:37]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it's great.
- [128:38]
Seth Payne
Oh, so my brother. So my brother was my older brother, and my brother was really good. He lived with me my second year in the NFL.
- [128:44]
Luke Morrow
Okay.
- [128:44]
Seth Payne
And he was awesome because my brother's my brother. Just he was older. I mean, he wasn't. He still was a little bit like Charlie Murphy in this regard. We were out At a bar one night. It was me and a few of my friends and one of them was an offensive lineman. He's like a practice. Practice squad guy. Awesome guy. His name was. Oh, Dave Kempfert. And. But he was a practice squad guy, but a big guy. Probably the biggest in the. In the group of guys that we had out with us. And there was some. There was some guy that just didn't like that his girlfriend was looking at Dave or something and, and just came out of nowhere and like cold cocked Dave Kempfer.
- [129:20]
Luke Morrow
Oh, wow.
- [129:21]
Seth Payne
And immediately my brother, because there was about to be a scuffle, my brother grabbed Dave and the rest of us and he like, like he was a professional bodyguard, like, ran us all out to my car they were driving and got us all loaded into the car and then. But this is where he got unprofessional.
- [129:42]
Luke Morrow
He.
- [129:43]
Seth Payne
He went back into the bar and he found the guy. And the guy was basically telling the story to one of his friends saying like, yeah, did you see that guy thought he was big. I just like. And he just like, he cold cocked him, like blindsided him out of nowhere. Yeah, like, Dave never saw it coming. So this guy's telling the story to my brother and my brother's like, oh, that was awesome. And my brother cold cocks this dude and, and runs back out to the car and his knuckles are all bloody and everything. There might have been a tooth stuck in one of his. And then he's like, we gotta go, we gotta go. We gotta get out of here. But he, but he kept us off of espn. Yeah. All about keeping you off. Keeping, keeping the guys that would be on ESPN in the police or on the police blotter, keeping them off of it.
- [130:27]
Luke Morrow
That's right.
- [130:27]
Seth Payne
He understood that.
- [130:28]
Luke Morrow
That part of his response, hey, always got to have a fall guy, and if not a fall guy, at least somebody to throw the punches for you at the bar and then. And then run out into the getaway car. That's a funny story. Also ballsy by the first guy to even try to. Well, as you said, cheap shot. But he.
- [130:42]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I shouldn't say. Yeah, he didn't cold cock him because he didn't get knocked out. But he, but he got cheap shot it. Yeah.
- [130:47]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Oh, man, I wouldn't want to mess with a dude that big whether I knew he was in the NFL or not. Hey, Coming up.
- [130:55]
Seth Payne
So.
- [130:55]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, in case. By the way, in case you haven't heard that audio. There you go. Andre Johnson and his buddies already fed up at Courtland Finnegan before that scuffle on the field. Coming up, a lot of audio that we want to get to from Aaron Shots. Even Kevin Clark had some audio. But I've been if you've been listening to other shows, I've made this case elsewhere and we'll talk about it with Seth coming up. I think the Texans medications actually should probably be the favorite in the afc and I don't think they're getting their respect in the afc and I'll explain why coming up next here on Pain and Pendergast want $1,000 weight loss medication for $50. It all starts with Roe's free GLP1 insurance check. Just upload your insurance card to see if you have coverage, then relax. Over 200,000 people have qualified for a $50 copay through Roe. Go to roe.comroco health Half of covered patients have a $50 per month copay or less for medication plus $145 monthly RO membership fee. Deductible costs may apply and final cost varies by insurance plan. For safety information about GLP1 medications including boxed warning go to Roe Co SafetyRxOnly
- [131:57]
Seth Payne
the Second World War is the largest event in human history. A 20 part series with Tom Hanks.
- [132:05]
Luke Morrow
No part of the globe was untouched.
- [132:07]
Seth Payne
No life untouched. Change experience. The ultimate account of World War II.
- [132:13]
Luke Morrow
Every single person had a story. These are the stories that make us who we are. Listen to World War II with Tom Hanks on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I continue to say I think the Texans should be maybe the favorite of the afc. I don't have as much concern for them as a lot of other teams. Most people seem to disagree, but we'll talk about that here on Pain and Pender Gas. I'm Luke Morrow for Sean alongside Seth Payne. You can join the conversation anytime. 713-572-4610 on the text line or in the YouTube and Twitch chats. By the way Seth, we talked about it earlier, this whole red card controversy with the with the World Cup USA plays Belgium tonight. Apparently from what I saw they're going to allow Belgium to now appeal that today. So. Oh, so we're not done yet.
- [133:04]
Seth Payne
This is going to be a down to the wire situation I guess.
- [133:08]
Luke Morrow
I how can you go back on the app? You already changed it once. You can't change it again now on an appeal. That would be ridiculous.
- [133:16]
Seth Payne
This is just. This is so much turmoil surrounding surrounding something that I feel so inept in like actually I I know my judgment of Whether or not it should be a red card is. Carries no weight whatsoever. And then when it comes to overturning the suspension, it's, it's just, it's. It's a way murkier feel than I want to have this morning. I just want to be able to enjoy it and, and watch people try to kick the ball into the goal.
- [133:43]
Luke Morrow
That's right.
- [133:44]
Seth Payne
Typically do.
- [133:44]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Well, it starts at seven tonight.
- [133:46]
Seth Payne
We'll see.
- [133:46]
Luke Morrow
We'll see what happens.
- [133:47]
Seth Payne
So what's so. So there's a chance that they might end up, like, coming onto the field and pulling him off right before the.
- [133:53]
Luke Morrow
I don't know. I don't know when the decision is going to be. Have to be made, but I don't know how you can go back on it now after changing and, you know, you can't snip, snip. This thing keep going back and forth.
- [134:02]
Seth Payne
I wonder what, like, are there any theories about what. I guess I'm just trying to figure out a. So Trump, Trump called the president of FIFA. If, like, if, if whatever he said had an influence on FIFA, what exactly would it have been like? What's the. What are the different avenues that the US could put pressure on FIFA or whether it was. I mean, there's a chance that FIFA might have done this independent of whether or not Trump called them, which at that point. Imagine, imagine if you're the FIFA president and you get. And you're like, okay, you know what? I'm pretty sure we're probably gonna overturn this thing. And then all of a sudden, the president of the United States called like, ah, crap, this is gonna. Nobody's gonna believe me for a damn second Nobody's gonna believe me for a damn second that this is what we were gonna do anyway.
- [134:50]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Yeah, we were going to do it anyways. Yeah. Now it's. I swear we were. Yeah, now it's a much bigger, Much bigger story. Well, we'll see what happens there in the meantime. And you know, the fellas coming up after us here in the Loop, they're big soccer guys, so they'll keep you all up to date of anything that might come out between now and then. So I've been saying for the different shows I've been. Been in on here in recent weeks, I keep making the case, and I'll make the case again here, that I think the Texans should be, if not the favorite of the afc, one of, I would say, top three. And yet in the betting odds, they're tied for six right now. And if you had if you poll, I don't think they're putting the Texans in the top three best teams in the AFC going into this year. And so I bring all this up because the Athletic put out an article last week at the end of the, at the end of last week of the biggest remaining questions for all 32 NFL teams. And I don't know, Seth, if you and Sean had gone through this on air. But then the Athletic doubled down by coming out with another article of, okay, of these biggest questions, what are the biggest concerns for the upcoming year? And they chose four teams or four concerns as the biggest. And one was the Houston Texans was one of their biggest concerns of if the offense is going to be improved enough this year. So of the teams the Athletic was most concerned about, they put the Cardinals, the commanders, the Dolphins and the Texans. It's almost like a Sesame street question where one of these things is not like the other.
- [136:18]
Seth Payne
Yeah, yeah, I was really well and even the commanders, though, the commanders are in that conversation where you could see it going, you could see it being better than, you know, way better than expected if some things work out or whatever. But throwing like the, to act like the four biggest questions have anything to do with the Dolphins or the Cardinals. I don't, I don't get or understand that at all. When it's not on anybody's mind really, other than when they have to compile articles about 32 teams that. Okay, this. All right. Like is this, how quickly can the Dolphins rookies contribute? Cool. Will the turnaround be two years or three years? We don't know and nobody really cares. Can the Cardinals defense be any better? Maybe it's not going to make them a good football team. They can't, they can't get their starting quarterback, Jacoby Brissette to report to OTAs.
- [137:09]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, yeah. And as they said, the phrasing alarmed about these four situations listed in order of severity and the Texans are number one. So at least for the athletic or this writer, his biggest concern heading into the season is the Texans and if the offense is going to be good enough. And this is the point I've been trying to make on these airwaves here in recent weeks is I don't get this whole idea that when you look at the afc, I think there's far bigger questions or concerns for some of the other top teams in the afc. And just, just to run through them real quick, the Ravens and the Bills both have not only new head coaches, but first time head coaches. And we have not had first time head coaches win a Super bowl since the 1980s. It's only happened twice and it hasn't happened since 1989. So when we talk about the Ravens and the Bills are the two favorites right now, betting favorites at least to win the afc, they would do something that we don't see very often of first, not first year like of Mike Rabel, but first time head coaches having that much success.
- [138:10]
Seth Payne
Well, and I think with the Bills too, it's. They're almost. They're in that category where when people talk about him, I feel like they kind of just fly by some of the issues that they've had for the last couple years and make it all about Josh Allen and whether or not he has the support and his, you know, the receivers to make something happen. They like they have one of the best running backs in the league in James Cook. But you do have like your offensive coordinator becoming the head coach for the first time. It's not like the offense was. It's not like the offense felt like, okay, yeah, this is what makes it through a playoff run. This is the kind of just the grind it out. We're going to destroy you no matter what because we have so many different options. It was still largely a lot of hero ball by Josh Allen that was going to determine whether or not they were good as an offense. And I don't, I don't feel like just adding DJ Moore all of a sudden just flips the script that much. I, you know, I don't think it's the same as getting a younger Stefan Diggs in there and all of a sudden completely transforming the offense. And then the, the fact that they've got a brand new defensive coordinator with still a lot of questions in their secondary that they've had for years now, but also losing some of their best pass rushers like the, it like there's a good chance that the Bill's defense is actually worse this year than they were last year.
- [139:34]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, for sure. There's a good chance Joe Brady doesn't know what he's doing or even that the offense suffers. If he's going to continue to try to call plays and now be a head coach. There's just, there's a lot of questions. I think that's a bigger question than the Texan scenario. I think even the Ravens new offensive coordinator, first time head coach. Those are bigger questions elsewhere. Go ahead.
- [139:54]
Seth Payne
The Ravens. The Ravens are kind of. I noticed this with the Saints when Peyton left, people kept talking about the Saints like they were the same organization. You would see people write two years after Peyton was gone, they would write things like, well, it seems like the Saints always have a way of figuring out how to may be relevant at the end of the year. I'm like, yeah, but yeah, under shot. What the hell are you talking about? Sean Payne was a huge part of that, not to mention Drew Brees. So I don't know what you're talking about with the Ravens. I feel there's a little bit of that going on where people are talking about the Ravens organization as if, as if like Harbaugh is still there and that they're going to operate the same, that they're always going to have that, that same blend of competitive type players and everything. Maybe out of respect to the Ravens personnel department, but, but having a new head coach is, is kind of a big deal. And it's not as simple as, oh yeah, the Ravens will just operate the way they've always operated.
- [140:50]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you. I like the comparison to Sean Payton and the Saints. So those are the two teams that are considered the favorites. I'm surprised because I think they have bigger questions. Meanwhile, if you look elsewhere in the afc, the Chiefs should always be up there in the conversation. I get that. But we do have Mahomes coming off an entry for a team that hasn't been top 15 in offense the last three years. And I know the idea here we're talking about like, like the top teams in the AFC are winning the afc. But I would also taking it a step further, tell you that no quarterback has ever won a Super bowl coming off a torn acl. And you have Mahomes doing that. Now, look, there's ever a guy to do it, it's Mahomes. But my point being, if you want to talk about who has the greater concern or who has the bigger question, maybe I'm being a homer. But I think Mahomes coming off this injury and what you're going to get from him this year might be a bigger question or concern than whatever we're talking about with the Texans and their offense. Maybe I'm crazy. I don't know.
- [141:46]
Seth Payne
Well, no, and I think that's. This is one of those scenarios where if you pull the Chiefs fan base, I feel like the, the, this might be one of those scenarios where the Chiefs fan base feels like national media is being too nice to the Chiefs, that they're ignoring the fact that, okay, depending on Rasheed Rice to be your, your bulwark at wide receiver has been kind of a D Dicey proposition over the last few years. Xavier Worthy hasn't really turned into what they hoped and that it doesn't feel like they've done a whole lot to address all of that. That, that there's. There's a. There's a certain amount of just respect for Mahomes and the Chiefs logo that just seems to assume that. Of course. Well, yeah, with a, with a relatively healthy Mahomes, they'll be just fine. No, they weren't. They weren't just fine when Mahomes got injured last year. They haven't been just fine for a while now. They've like, they've been kind of scrapping it together and relying on their defense as much or more so than their offense for the last couple of years. They were in the Super Bowl.
- [142:47]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I'm, I'm with you. And so, you know, I think there's some concerns. There are some bigger questions there. Again, this all comes from the idea that the athletic athletics said their biggest concern is with the Texans. The Texans are, is the number one team in the league where they're most concerned about when it comes to a specific issue for that team elsewhere in the afc, the Patriots. I'll be honest, the Patriots might be my weakest argument, but it's just the fact that it seems like they overachieved last year. They had the easiest schedule. They had a pretty easy walk in the playoffs. Teams oftentimes might struggle to get back there the following year. Plus, you throw in the Rossini and Rabel things, schedule is going to be tougher this year. Teams might figure out Drake may a little bit more. It might not be my strongest argument, but I think most people are expecting the Patriots to take a step back. And yet right now, currently they have better odds in the AFC than the Texans.
- [143:39]
Seth Payne
They have. The Patriots are an interesting one because they had by a lot of respects and DVOA and everything, it was one of the easiest schedules in the history of football.
- [143:50]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [143:51]
Seth Payne
In the history of modern football. And yet they did, they did have some good offensive performances versus some of the good defense defenses on their schedule. And that it almost, it feels so much like, like we're in the college football rankings argument. You know, where you're talking about like, I don't ever remember talking about strength, strength of schedule as much as we did with the Patriots last year in the NFL. It felt, it felt like college football. I think the, the biggest thing for the Patriots would be that one like, okay, you bring in A.J. brown. Great. But let's not Pretend like Stefon Diggs wasn't a big part of what they did last year and that A.J. brown is. He's not old at all, but that it's been. He's, he's, he's a couple years removed from when he was at his scariest. That I don't think it's as simple as saying, oh, well, A.J. brown is a clear upgrade over Stefon Diggs, especially when you're dealing with a young quarterback. But that also, like, you know, it's not. We don't know for sure that Will Campbell is actually a good left tackle. Like, he had injuries that were an excuse for last year, but he was just, he was disgustingly bad in the playoffs. And whether it's his tiny little elfin arms or whether it was because he was injured or whatever else it might be, if they don't get their own line figured out and operating better, it's real hard. We've seen this with CJ Stroud. It's hard to replicate some of that early success if your offensive line is getting worse year by year.
- [145:16]
Luke Morrow
Absolutely. Yeah. I have a lot of questions about the Patriots trying to duplicate their success this year.
- [145:20]
Seth Payne
Year.
- [145:20]
Luke Morrow
Other teams that are right now considered better than the Texans who I think might have bigger questions. The Denver Broncos is another one where new offensive coordinators never called plays before. Now, granted, Sean Payton's there to look over his shoulder, but then you also have a quarterback coming off an injury. And I just told you a moment ago, no quarterback has won a Super bowl coming off, you know, an ACL or the, the lower leg injuries like that that caused them to miss eight to nine months. So you have a quarterback who I still have questions about Bo Nix. Now you throw in the injury. Now you throw in a new play caller. I put them right there, if not higher than the Texans of teams in the AFC that I think I have more concerns about or more questions.
- [145:59]
Seth Payne
You know, what's funny is it's not funny for Bo Nix, but it's funny for me. During that Broncos game, he, when he got injured early in the game, they'd run some, you know, some design QB runs in, some genuine zone reads type stuff like that. And I was texting with one of my friends who coaches high school football now, but he was in the Drew Hodging. He was an NFL offensive lineman. And I said, you know, like, why is it these NFL coaches will, they'll have a lot of success with designed QB runs early in the game and then they just move so drastically away from them in the second half. And, and he was like, I know it's frustrating. And I guess he's like, the only thing I can guess is it really is. They're just genuinely worried about. They want to get as much. Much bang for the buck out of it, but they're worried about the quarterback getting injured. And then lo and behold, Bo Nix gets injured running the ball. And did he get injured at the end of the fourth quarter or in overtime? It was on that overtime series that they ended up scoring. Whatever it was. Yeah, he gets injured now. He's still, still a relative question mark. Even though he participated in OTAs and everything, that people don't feel rock solid, 100% confident that he's. That he's going to be 100%.
- [147:08]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that was such a weird one. Honestly, I don't remember. Because they won the game. You had no idea that it was an injury like that. And then as you're celebrating this win, Sean Payton at the podium's like, oh, by the way, bro, Bo Nicks just whatever. Broke his foot. Whatever. It was like he's out for the rest of the playoffs. It's like, wait, what? It was such a roller coaster of emotions. It was so strange. I didn't, you know, you didn't realize watching the game that he suffered such a severe injury.
- [147:29]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [147:30]
Luke Morrow
And wasn't going to be available the following week. The final team I'll reference here that is considered, considered to be better than the Texans on paper is the Chargers. And look, Mike McDaniel might be a home run, but they have two new coordinators. I still have plenty of questions about Justin Herbert myself. I put him in the same category as CJ Stroud, plus new coordinators. And Mike McDaniel call me a hater. I think he's still kind of living on the whole Shanahan thing of, of he wasn't calling the plays with Shanahan, but just because he was with Shanahan in San Francisco, he's considered this like mad genius.
- [148:01]
Seth Payne
You know what I think with him, I think the post mortem on Tuatanga Violoa's career, and I know he's still. He might be a starter this year, but I'll say the postmortem on his Dolphins career is really now it's turned into. Okay, you know what, that early success was all a whole lot of Tyree kill and Mike McDaniel and them scheming him to be the best version of the two at UNGA Violet. It could be. So that's that's going to be really interesting because you just don't like. That's the only instance you've seen with him as a, as an offensive coordinator on a new team that is he going to add something to the mix that makes Justin Herbert the best version of himself? I think it's very, very possible. But Justin Herbert also like that. Who is making, oh, I saw Quincy Avery making this point. Somebody like, hey look, you know who had four interceptions and a really, really bad playoff performance on the road? It was Justin Herbert. And yet here we are three years later and people aren't clamoring for, you know, Justin Herbert. People aren't talking like Justin Herbert's the, the biggest disappointment in all the league. And that does put things into context a little bit. As bad as CJ's performance was that, yeah, okay, yeah, Peyton Manning threw four intercepts and a playoff performance once. You gotta, you gotta try to temper it a little bit and see what happens this year.
- [149:27]
Luke Morrow
I said Friday during the radio thon. Yeah, I think Herbert, for whatever reason, he's just like Teflon. People still say he's like a top five quarterback this and that. He's been lousy in the biggest games of his career. If you look up the numbers, he's not good when trailing in the fourth quarter or two minute drills. Like he's not a clutch quarterback.
- [149:43]
Seth Payne
He loses the last couple years he's been managed and just not even throwing the football all that much for large stretches.
- [149:51]
Luke Morrow
And yet people are still like ah, top five quarterback or certainly at least top 10 just based off like potential and skill set. So anyways, my point being I was surprised that another publication, in this case the Athletic, ranked the Texans number one on their list. And maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill here, but they race. They ranked the Texans number one on their list of, of situations that they are most concerned about. And for the Texans it was about their offense. And as I just tried to lay out now, I think you can make the case for just about every other team that we think or people think is better than the Texans in the afc. I think they have larger if not equal concerns than the Texans.
- [150:28]
Seth Payne
It's, I mean so much of it revolves around C.J. stroud. It's this time of year where people are writing so many articles about all 32 teams and it's a lot of stuff like this biggest question, biggest X factor, biggest that. I mean it's, it's all C.J. stroud.
- [150:41]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [150:42]
Seth Payne
And I mean understandably in Japan, justifiably so. But it just, my God, we can't get to real football soon enough. Or at least that first, that one series that CJ plays in the first, first preseason game, if that where we read everything into it based on that one series against vanilla defenses and a bunch of backups. Yes. Does he look like he could win a Super Bowl?
- [151:05]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that's going to be the Stroud super bowl himself. We'll see. So yeah, that's, that's, that's my point. This team was the Texans should have been in the super bowl last year if they just got average quarterback play. And yet everyone's talking about, you know, we're putting them in the same conversation here in this article as the the Dolphins and the Commanders and the Cardinals. Let's relax. So there's some audio too that I wanted to get to. We'll try to get to it next, including from Aaron shots who might agree with with the case I was just making. But also I want to get to this when we come back. Andre Ware was on the Radio thon. He was on these airwaves Friday with Reggie and Rod helping them raise a bunch of money as they did. But he had he gave his thoughts on CJ Stroud, the struggles for Stroud in this offense. And so we'll hear from the quarterback Andre Ware next here on Pain and Pendergast. What did Andre Ware have to say about CJ Stroud and the Texans offense? We'll find out here in just a moment on Payne and Pendergast. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean Seth Payne's alongside, of course. Appreciate you starting the week with us. 713-572-4610 on the text line and join the conversation anytime or you can get to us in the YouTube and Twitch chats as well. This audio that we're gonna play from Andre in a moment comes from the Radio thon on Friday, the Reggie and Ron Radio thon benefiting the Houston Food Bank. And so props to those guys for the great work they did on the air for 12 hours to raise a bunch of money. I believe I didn't see a final number. I believe close to the third to $30,000. So.
- [152:34]
Seth Payne
Okay, yeah, I couldn't, I didn't, I wasn't listening at the end of the show so I didn't know how much and they were waiting for maybe some of the auction items and everything to finalize.
- [152:42]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I didn't hear the end either, but I believe it. It was nearly 30,000.
- [152:47]
Seth Payne
So they started out last year in the inaugural one. Their. Their goal was $5,000, I think. So the listeners have done an incredible job.
- [152:59]
Luke Morrow
Absolutely. Yeah. Both years. And I was just trying to look online. Well, first, by the way. So I came in in the afternoon, and I hung out with them for a little bit, and they said, man, you know, I asked, like, how you guys holding up? Because at that point, it was like, after two o'. Clock. They'd been on the air for eight hours. And they said, well, you know, it was a pretty easy start. We had Seth for two hours, and we had John Harris for an hour. Like, it didn't feel like we had to do anything until the fourth hour of the day. So they. They got quite a head start. And they meant that, of course, in the best possible way of hopping on with you fellas in the morning. So. But I was just trying to look online. I'm curious what the final bids were for the dinners. I know.
- [153:38]
Seth Payne
Oh, I know. Sean and I went for, like, $4,700. I think we were the high watermark on that.
- [153:44]
Luke Morrow
You guys were the leaders.
- [153:45]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [153:46]
Luke Morrow
Okay. That's what I wanted to see, because I know Sean was talking about that, wanting to be number one. So I was curious.
- [153:51]
Seth Payne
I enjoy these dinners that I do for charity because I get to text my mom and say, hey, I'm doing something. Sorry, Mom, I can't talk tonight. I'm doing a charity event for the Houston Food Bank. I'm really going. I'm gonna go out and have dinner bought for me and drinks bought for me and by people that donated a bunch of money to the. Well, Krava's donates the. For us. It's gonna be Krava's donating the meal and the drinks and everything. But I. But I do it for. You know, I do it because I'm a good person. That's. That's how I. That's how I give.
- [154:23]
Luke Morrow
Absolutely.
- [154:24]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [154:25]
Luke Morrow
I get it.
- [154:26]
Seth Payne
It's like, Kirby, seriously. I know. Thank you, everybody who donated. That was for sure.
- [154:30]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. On the text sign, somebody said it was 24,000. So, I mean, I should know, being in the building, I should have the exact number. But I'll be honest with you. I apologize. I don't know the exact number. Either way, it was a ton of money, and it goes to a great cause with the. With the Houston Food Bank. So I. Yeah, I hung out with them a little bit in the afternoon, and they're like, oh, Andre Ware's coming up. And I was like, okay. Well, then I better get out of here. I don't, it's. I don't need to linger when you have a star like Andre Ware hanging out. But they asked Andre about CJ Shroud and the offense and what he thought about everything we've seen from the Texans offense. So here's what Andre Ware had to say during the radio thon on Friday about the Texans quarterback and offense.
- [155:07]
Seth Payne
I think it's the offensive scheme change and with that, bear with me.
- [155:13]
Luke Morrow
I went through three, I think it was three offensive coordinators in four years when I was at, when I was in Detroit.
- [155:21]
Seth Payne
You talk about a young player that, that's tough.
- [155:24]
Luke Morrow
And so I think he's experiencing some of that.
- [155:27]
Seth Payne
Yeah, he's a pro. Yeah, he said. But he hadn't been in it long
- [155:30]
Luke Morrow
enough to have played in a couple of offenses where you say, okay, this matches with this.
- [155:36]
Seth Payne
I think under Slowik the first two
- [155:39]
Luke Morrow
years they made
- [155:42]
Seth Payne
an effort to get
- [155:44]
Luke Morrow
him some of the stuff that he
- [155:46]
Seth Payne
was comfortable with at Ohio State. And so we saw arguably his best
- [155:50]
Luke Morrow
season his first year there. And then when you start the changes and the switching of terminology, it's like starting all over again. And so it's like starting a job for most listeners where you don't have a lot of experience in that job and you're kind of learning on the,
- [156:08]
Seth Payne
on the job, so to speak. And I think that's exactly what he, what he went through last year at times.
- [156:13]
Luke Morrow
There were times even early in the season when the team started rolling on
- [156:17]
Seth Payne
that nine game winning streak that he
- [156:19]
Luke Morrow
just didn't look himself.
- [156:21]
Seth Payne
And I think it's the offensive scheme
- [156:23]
Luke Morrow
and until he gets comfortable in it and until they give him some stuff
- [156:28]
Seth Payne
that he wants, then you might, you might, the struggle may continue a little while. And that's I think where again, going back to having a first time offense coordinator working with a young quarterback, there can be drawbacks and there can be benefits. I think you don't always see the benefits all that quickly necessarily because the offensive coordinator is figuring things out alongside the young quarterback. You know, if it does work out, then over time they'll have kind of built up this common knowledge base between the two of them. Them. But if you, if you think about what the Patriots were able to do last year with Drake May young quarterback, new offensive coordinator, but the coordinator is Josh McDaniels and Josh McDaniels did a lot of what Andre Ware was just talking about. Okay, like what can we do that Drake May is comfortable doing now? We're not going to try to have him, you know, learn the whole syllabus right off the bat that you know, presumably Josh McDaniels has more experience doing that with more young quarterbacks and I'm not just talking about Tom Brady. And that it stands to reason that it would be a smoother process because a guy has some experience with Kaylee. The like, you got to gain that experience somewhere. But like all the. I think as it is with CJ A lot of the excuses for Kaylee being a first time coordinator last year, you can't. You give him a one year grace period and okay, now you're in my eyes, you're a veteran, veteran quarterback and you're a veteran offensive coordinator. Figure it out. And please, I don't want to hear any about any more of these growing pains.
- [157:58]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Which, which I think is fair. And by the way, Andre told the a good story about when he was in Detroit and they had the offensive line coach would call the run plays and he was like down on the field, I think it was. And the wide receiver coach would call the pass plays and he was up in the press box. So whenever the coach wanted a run play he'd go to this coach. Pass play, this coach. And Andre was like I, I, I. There was no wonder we struggled. Like I don't, I've never heard of a team doing that else. And Andre was obviously a young quarterback at the time and he said it was a ridiculous setup. So obviously he comes from a place of experience and expertise and, and knows what it's like to change these different systems and whatnot. But I, I think that's fair for this past year.
- [158:38]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [158:38]
Luke Morrow
But I still wonder if like what about the drop off from year one to year two where that was the same system. I feel like this only answers there's half of the concern because I feel like Stroud's been on a decline since year one and Kaylee hasn't been here for, you know, this was just the first year with Nick Haley. So I get why that would be challenging this past season of changing offense and learning on the fly and all that sort of stuff. But wasn't, wasn't some of these concerns already starting even before Kaylee came in?
- [159:05]
Seth Payne
No. Yeah, you're, it's, you're, it's, it's 100%. One of the things that kind of gets lost in the wash is that I, right now I'm seeing a lot of people that, that are making arguments for Stroud and like good arguments or solid arguments for Stroud. But they do kind of just gloss over as they, as they'll talk about, I'm not talking about Andre, I'm talking about some of the other people. Like they don't kind of gloss over this last year by saying, well, there's a lot new and there's a lot of change and everything. But without bringing up that, okay, yeah, in year two of being in the same offense, he didn't look as good. I think a lot of that going back to having a young offensive coordinator going into the second year. Both CJ and Bobby Slowik talked at the beginning of that year about how they're probably going to start seeing a lot of coverages that are trying to take away the deep shots. And we got to have answers for that. The problem was they didn't have any answers for it. And one of the things that you're supposed to be able to do when teams are trying to take away the deep ball is that you should be able to run the ball pretty, pretty consistently. And they weren't able to do that. They couldn't do it versus light boxes. They certainly couldn't do it versus heavy boxes. Like they just, they, they were incapable of taking what the defense gives them. And that's where on Slowik, whether it was slow expaults or the offensive line's faults or CJ's faults or whatever, they just, they weren't going to be able to operate going into year two. I kept telling Sean I would have to keep stopping. Whenever anybody would say like, hey, everybody thinks that the offense is going to be good this year, I say, no, I don't. I need to see that they can run the ball. If they can't run the ball because they couldn't run the ball effectively in the first year. If they can't run the ball effectively in year two, it's not going to be a good offense. And that's a huge part of what the issue was in year two. Even with Joe Mixon sometimes having hundred plus yard games, those hundred yard games were still not good rushing attacks. Like they weren't, they weren't, you know, continually just moving the sticks methodically. It was a whole lot of feast or famine. So I mean that's the. But you're also, you're in year four now and like nobody's got an appetite for after this year saying like, oh yeah, but it was only a second year in the offense. Yeah. Or hey, the offensive line wasn't adequate. Like they've gotta, they've gotta figure it out this year or heads will roll.
- [161:25]
Luke Morrow
Luke Morrow it's true. It's true. I'm with you 100%. I liked when I heard you in on Friday on the with the radio thon. I heard the point you making of and I would now use it to ask you a question of like what if they are able to run it early in the season but then the offense is still struggling or not quite clicking like then what do we say or where do we go from there?
- [161:47]
Seth Payne
Yeah. No, and that's exactly how like a lot of the people that I respect that watch a lot of film in that still are bullish on CJ Stroud. If you talk about like Nate Tice or Robert Mays, some of these guys that they cover the whole league and they watch a lot of film and they know what they're talking about, they'll routinely bring up the lack of a run game for CJ and that's what the Texans did this year. They addressed that very heavily. They want to have a better rushing attack. Everybody's kind of talked their way into an either or scenario here where it's that, hey, if they have a good rushing game, then we're predicting that C.J. is going to look like the best version of himself. If they have a good rushing attack and CJ doesn't look like a better quarterback, then that's where the real like the real hardcore doubt and skepticism is going to come in from outside of Houston. There's plenty of healthy skepticism inside of Houston right now. I think there's a lot of people on the outside that are kind of just in wait, wait and see mode with CJ Stroud. But I think it's all built up to this being the year that man, if they actually did get everything in place and you don't look more like you did your rookie year, then we got to have some super serious conversations.
- [162:59]
Luke Morrow
I referenced earlier some Aaron shots audio. We'll save that for tomorrow because I think there's some good stuff there and even from Kevin Clark. So call that a tease. We'll get back to that tomorrow. And also just to do a little housekeeping as people pointed out. Yeah, I saw the photo. I didn't even look at the number in terms of I was wondering earlier how much money was raised for the radio thon. They have posted the photo, the big check online and I saw that photo but I never zoomed in. So they did raise 24,000 for the radio thon. So great job done by certainly Reggie, Ron and everyone else that Chipped in to help out the Houston Food Bank. Coming up, we'll catch up with the fellas from in the Loop. And also, we have to get to this story before we run out of time today, but Brandon I use continues to cause mayhem over the weekend. We'll talk about that next year. Pain and Pendergast. The GLP1 pill you've been waiting for is now on Roe. Yep, it's finally here with the same clinically proven ingredient now in a pill. And now on Roe. It's the first FDA approved GLP1 pill for weight loss at the lowest price available. That's one daily GLP1 pill for big
- [164:04]
Seth Payne
results now on ROE, go to ROE CO.
- [164:07]
Luke Morrow
Listen to see if you qualify RX only go to ROE CO Safety for serious side effects and boxed warning associated with GLP1s. I'm Anna Garcia, host of True Crime News, the podcast. Every week we bring you in depth coverage on cases making headlines as well as those that go under the radar. Tune in for murders that defy explanation, mystery seeking exploration, and shocking secrets that will leave you breathless. Each week we honor the victims by going beyond the salacious in our search for justice.
- [164:38]
Seth Payne
Crime never stops.
- [164:39]
Luke Morrow
And neither do we. Listen to True Crime News, available now on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Payne and Pender gas with you here wrapping up the Monday morning, getting set to hand things off to the fellows of in the Loop, which today is Brandon Scott, Chris Partee. We'll catch up with them in a few moments. I'm Luke Morrow in for Sean alongside Seth Payne here on this Monday. Hope you had a great July 4th weekend, Seth. I know you guys have been tracking this Brandon Iuk story as it's been unfolding.
- [165:09]
Seth Payne
Yes. Yeah. Unraveling whatever the hell's going on with Brandon Iuk. Yeah.
- [165:15]
Luke Morrow
And he poured, I guess more gasoline onto the fire with some sort of video over the weekend.
- [165:22]
Seth Payne
Yeah. So the latest video, which I think this was after our show on Friday. I think this was on Saturday or something. It's Brandon Iuk drinking, drinking from a drinking glass that has some kind of red drink in it. Is it grape juice? Is it wine? It wasn't quite purpley necessarily, but it was. I don't, I don't know what the drink was, but the play this clip, the very beginning, what he says was five. Five gonna text me talking about something. He's presumably talking about Jaden Daniels since he has Jaden Daniels tagged in this Instagram post. Probably gonna text me talking about something. You on my team now you follow my rules, boy.
- [166:04]
Luke Morrow
I'm a grown ass man, boy.
- [166:07]
Seth Payne
You have to start running behind your mama. And I might believe what you talking
- [166:10]
Luke Morrow
about, but until then,
- [166:15]
Seth Payne
nah. So, yeah, calling, calling Jaden Daniels a mama's boy. I don't know. But the Jaden Daniels had a couple things that happened this weekend. Somebody said something disparaging and it caught Jaden Daniels out in public. Said something nasty about Brandon Aiuk and Jaden Daniels laughed at it. Brandon Aiuk released this post. Jaden Daniels unfollowed Brandon Iuk on Instagram, then also gave a thank you thumbs down meme. At some point is my zoom just put a rain cloud over my head.
- [166:49]
Luke Morrow
I haven't seen that one.
- [166:50]
Seth Payne
Thumbs down. So this has got.
- [166:54]
Luke Morrow
This is.
- [166:54]
Seth Payne
This seems to be the moment where Brandon Iuk has been acting like it's a foregone conclusion that he's going to end up with the commanders at some point. The commanders have said nothing about it. Jaden Daniels has said nothing about it. Nobody. Nobody. The 49ers can't even cut Brandon Aiuk until he files his reinstatement paperwork. So he's the Brandon Iuk is the one who's holding all of this up by just not even cooperating with the process whatsoever. It felt like this weekend was the first time where I saw a lot of people say, oh, wow, he just actually doesn't even want to play football. Or he's so. He's so far gone in whatever his mental state is right now that it's hard to envision him playing for an NFL team this year.
- [167:36]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that's, that's, that's my thought it might be unfair, but like, I had thoughts like, it almost reminds me like Antonio Brown of just like self sabotage. And you're wondering like, what is going on with this guy or what is he thinking and whatnot. And I don't know what the, the future will hold for IUK at this point, but it's, it's almost like someone trying to ruin their relationship to go be with somebody else. Like, I'm talking romantically.
- [168:00]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [168:01]
Luke Morrow
And then that other person, you get to the, like, you see it play out in movies all the time where somebody might have an affair and then they like, they leave their significant other and then they go to the other person like, oh, like, no, I'm not interested. I don't want. You want a relationship and you just ruined everything. Yeah. And you got nowhere to go. And like Auk is burning this bridge with the Niners. And now apparently for whatever reason, with the commanders. He was college teammates, right? With Jane and Daniels.
- [168:24]
Seth Payne
They were, they were supposedly best friends, except Jaden. Like, you know how this goes. You've got, you got friends from high school or friends from college, and then all of a sudden, for the first time, they pop up on Facebook or something and you're like, well, whoa, this, this has taken a. His life has taken a turn. And boy, I did. I wasn't expecting to have to read his 4000 word manifesto this morning on Facebook. I feel like he's like, Brandon Iuk is your, your buddy from college that is now writing manifestos. And you, you just, okay, we might not have the same relationship we used to. I don't. I think, honestly, I'm glad you brought up Antonio Brown because Antonio Brown is the, the classic scenario where you'd say, well, gosh, he, what did he do? What did he say to the gm? What did he say to Mike Mayock with the Raiders? And then, then he gets cut by the Patriots and you think, all right, well, this has got to be it for, for Antonio Brown, right? Nope. He goes and wins the super bowl with the Bucks. The. So I'm, I'm always hesitant to say, well, a guy can't come back from this. If a guy has talent, there's going to be teams that are going to entertain the notion Brandon Aiyuk isn't as good as Antonio Brown was. But I think that, I think that he would have an opportunity regardless of everything that's happened right now. If all of a sudden today he started cooperating with the 49ers, he took care of the outstanding warrant that he has in California, like if he cleared the path. I don't, I don't. My guess is that he actually doesn't want to play football. Like, if he is. Unless he's completely out of his mind right now, everything that he's doing is conducting himself in a way where it feels like he just, he's done with football and he's been kind of just having fun with this commander's dynamic. But that nothing that he's been doing or saying publicly should make the commanders feel good about bringing him into their organization.
- [170:16]
Luke Morrow
No, certainly I would be hesitant if I was any organization of dealing with him right now. It's. It's a strange situation. And you laid out three scenarios earlier off air of like, you know what's going on? Is this just Ayuk. Being crazy? Is this being crazy with a scheme in mind? Or like you just said, is this simply a Guy that doesn't want to play football anymore.
- [170:40]
Seth Payne
Yeah, I think that. Okay, so those are the three. The three possible scenarios are, A, he's crazy. B, he's crazy like a fox, or C, he just is done with football, and this is how he's acting out and doing it. I think it's hard to separate, number one, he's just crazy, and number three, he just doesn't want to play football anymore because it's Even. Even if he didn't want to play football anymore, there's better ways to go about it than what he's doing right now. I mean, there's a chance if he keeps pushing this any further, the 49ers could start trying to claw back, you know, money they've already paid him that he might end up being responsible for paying back. So I. I think he's just. I think he's in a. I think he's in a rough place emotionally somewhere, because nothing. Nothing that he's doing, even if he's trying to force the 49ers hand, really makes a whole lot of sense right now.
- [171:30]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. I don't get it. I would take the first option of those three scenarios. I think he's just crazy, and I use that term loosely, but I just think, like, he's not in the right mindset. I don't know if he realizes the exact scenario or situation or who holds the cards and what he needs to do and whatnot. I think he's just. Just kind of out of his mind, so to speak.
- [171:49]
Seth Payne
Yeah. I mean, the. The biggest and the weirdest part about it is he's just gone MIA from first the team and then, I mean, even him. In claiming that he'd fired his agent, like, that the paperwork hadn't been filed at that point, that he had fired his agent. I don't know if, like, are we aware. Had he even been in communication with his agent to tell him he was fired? We have no idea. Because most of the people involved, from the 49ers to the commanders, are just. They're trying to stay as hands off as possible and just say, look, man, whatever he's doing, whatever he's doing, we're gonna just try to handle our business internally.
- [172:25]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I know you guys have mentioned it before, but, yeah, if I'm the commanders, I'm like, leave me out of this. We have nothing to do with this. We're not associated with this guy.
- [172:32]
Seth Payne
That's a whole. I mean, because even. Even if they signed them, if they. If the 49ers caught him and they signed him. There's going to be some kind of an inquiry or some kind of investigation about tampering. And then is it. Or like, so as an organization, be the commanders, you can say if you're the gm, okay, look, I haven't tampered with them, we're fine. But you don't know what other people in your organization may or may not have done. So now you're put in a situation where you almost have to do if you want to bring like let's say Jaden Daniels hypothetically still wanted Brandon IU Duke on the team. You got to do an internal audit before you can even make that, make that move. Because if, if one of your assistant coaches ended up having a text conversation or something with Jaden Daniels about something that's going to come under scrutiny. All this stuff that you just, it makes it really, really difficult for the commanders to operate. Like, oh yeah, we're just picking this guy up off of waivers or not off of waivers.
- [173:27]
Luke Morrow
As a free agent, say IUK becomes available, would you have any interest in him coming to here, Houston?
- [173:31]
Seth Payne
I'd take him in the bill. I would, I'd have a meeting with him. I just thought, yeah, who knows? You just never know until somebody puts their side of it out there. I guess I would, I would have a meeting with him. But then the other thing is, are you like, what's the contract gonna look like? Because I don't want to give him any guaranteed money whatsoever. It's got to be all incentive laden. It doesn't like, does anything that Brandon Iuk's been doing as of late look like a guy that, that's, that's ready to say, oh yeah, I get, I get, I get the damage that I've done and I'm going to sign nothing but an incentive laden contract.
- [174:03]
Luke Morrow
So. A good point. Yeah, I don't think that would probably be likely. Some of the feedback coming in, somebody said, I think he's done with football. I just don't think it matters whether he wants to play or not. Another person said, I don't think IUK or they said, no way I you plays another down of football. Also saying, we don't have a Tom Brady who can vouch for him like an Antonio Brown or let him come in and move with him him so he might not get the opportunities that Antonio Brown got.
- [174:29]
Seth Payne
The most annoying thing that I've seen and just looking at the replies to some of these posts and everything is that there's a lot of people out There for one. Commander's fans. Commander's fans for a long time were saying that it's. This is all the 49ers fault. They don't know what they're doing with them. Us, the Washington Commanders Avera, a much more. A much more prestigious organization as of late where we know how to handle Brandon IU and Will. He's. This is all just maneuvering because they've treated him unfairly. Those guys have kind of fallen by the wayside. There are a lot of people that are saying, oh, no, this is just Jaden Daniels and Brandon Iuk playing with each other, like, kind of just putting up a work on social media.
- [175:09]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [175:09]
Seth Payne
All right, cool. Is that. Is that really the way. Do you really want your quarterback to be engaging in stuff like this a month before the NFL season? Because begins your. Your explanation for it isn't the explanation you should want to be given. I don't. I would highly doubt that Jaden Daniels is just saying, like, yeah, let's have fun with social media in this highly volatile personality right now.
- [175:32]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, that's fair. It's fair. That would be interesting if this was almost like a wrestling. Yeah, wrestling work. And they're just trying to drum up attention. Hey, I tell you what, this time of year, as, like, radio hosts, we would appreciate it, but it doesn't seem like something Jaden Daniels, a franchise quarterback, would concern himself with, because I don't know if there's any winners in this whole scenario.
- [175:52]
Seth Payne
That's all. And if you think about Stefan Diggs, when he came in, you know, people had all kinds of speculation about what he was as a player and everything. I think, like, we saw man from a football context inside the locker room, on the field and everything. He was everything you would want from a veteran player. And that's what a lot of people that knew Stefon Diggs told us we should expect. I. With Brandon Iuk, you're not gonna. Nobody's saying that, you know, like, nobody's saying, like, oh, yeah, he's gonna come in and he's gonna remember early in his career, Kyle Shanahan had to have some conversations with him about his work ethic and how he practiced and all of that. Like, that's not. He doesn't have the reputation Stefan Diggs does as being a workaholic and guy that, you know, operates a certain way as a receiver. So bringing a veteran guy like that into that room of young receivers, it would. It would have to be only under the. The perfect scenario for me to be comfortable with them doing that with, with the Texans.
- [176:47]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, it makes sense too. I'm with you on that.
- [176:49]
Seth Payne
We can bring mentioned, you know, like again, he's another guy that's. He's played in Shanahan system and having to transition into a different way of operating and everything, that's might be more of a leap for him than, than you realize at the beginning.
- [177:04]
Luke Morrow
We can bring in the, the fellows of in the loop as crosstalk sponsored by DNM Auto Leasing and today that's Brandon Scott. Chris Partee. What's up, Fel?
- [177:12]
Seth Payne
I feel like the guy needs an intervention first.
- [177:14]
Luke Morrow
Right.
- [177:14]
Seth Payne
Like I want, he needs something. I don't want any parts of Brandon Iuk. Like I, I'm actually, if I care, like if I was somebody in his life who cared about him, I would be really concerned about his mental health and stability.
- [177:25]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [177:26]
Seth Payne
But as a football fan or as the fan of a team, I don't,
- [177:29]
Luke Morrow
I don't want any parts of that.
- [177:30]
Seth Payne
Well, we've talked about this before the show. I think that's part of the issue. He doesn't have the right people around him talking to him.
- [177:34]
Luke Morrow
I don't.
- [177:35]
Seth Payne
You know what, Chris? I always, I'm always reluctant to say that because. Yeah, because some people just, there's no talking to it. Yeah. You know, have you ever been asked to talk to a young family member? Like, hey, can you talk some sense into him?
- [177:48]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [177:49]
Seth Payne
And I'm like, probably not, but I'll try. It's like he's a 17 year old boy. What was my response to you, Chris, when you said that? I was like, that's true. He seemed like he don't listen. And here's the thing. I may have been that young family member at one point in my life. So I get it, Seth.
- [178:04]
Luke Morrow
I get what you're saying.
- [178:05]
Seth Payne
I totally understand. It's kind of like the, it's the Johnny Manziel dynamic where he's railing against all the people who should have been helping him. Like, I don't know, these, the, those people found ways to help a lot of other young men that listen to their advice. Yeah.
- [178:19]
Luke Morrow
So.
- [178:19]
Seth Payne
So we don't know if he listens.
- [178:20]
Luke Morrow
Is he still good?
- [178:22]
Seth Payne
Can he still play? George Kittle says he still looks impressive physically. But then he also said have fun with all of that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's. That seems like one you want to stay away from. He, he sounds like he's talked himself
- [178:36]
Luke Morrow
out of the league. Like I believe that.
- [178:39]
Seth Payne
I don't see a place for him really Talk, talking and acting as erratically as he has on top of the, you know, the health and, and production situation like he does, it just doesn't seem to be a lot of upside. Right. You know what I mean? A similar situation would be, hey, the Texans brought in CJ Gardner Johnson, and they did that with their eyes wide open. They, they knew why he hadn't spent more than a year with anybody so since, since he left the Saints. And I think the key there is always that you got to know when to, to pull the cord, you know, on, on an experiment like that. And it's got to be for the right amount of money. I'm open for any and all experiments when it comes to character issues. I mean, within reason. You know, it's not like, it's not like he's accused of a violent crime or anything. No. So if you can get him in at very, very low risk, as long as you're willing to pull the cord, the moment that you realize you have to bail on the thing, I'm. I'm always cool with that. I'm very skeptical that this would be the situation, that the Texans would do it. I. That and I'm not eager for it or anything, but I'm open to it.
- [179:42]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [179:43]
Seth Payne
For as many doubts as I have about the Texans offense and I think that even their weapons have something to prove, at least the pecking order outside of Nico Collins, like, I'm still trying to figure out. I asked this question every time I come on the radio almost where are the explosive plays exactly going to come from? Are they going to have to scheme them up? Is there going to be a, A, a player that's going to step up and sort of emerge in that role with.
- [180:05]
Luke Morrow
Even with all those questions, man, I
- [180:07]
Seth Payne
don't really have a whole lot of interest in this. Like, I feel like they got enough guys that are reliable enough, that are dependable enough, that can make plays, that can make plays to where I would, I just would not be. Now, could it be one of those
- [180:19]
Luke Morrow
found money type of situations where, you
- [180:21]
Seth Payne
know, a depreciated asset and. Maybe. But I, I just, I don't see the juice being worth the squeeze there for me.
- [180:27]
Luke Morrow
Yeah, I'm with you. I think there's questions about him to begin with, as you guys already kind of touched on, just based off of performance in recent years, let alone all this off season nonsense. So, keeping the tradition alive, guys, what's the question of the day today?
- [180:41]
Seth Payne
So I want to know from the
- [180:42]
Luke Morrow
audience and y' all text in 713-57-2,
- [180:44]
Seth Payne
4, 6, 10 and get involved on the YouTube and Twitch. In the spirit of the president stepping in for the U.S. men's National Team, I want to know your biggest, most memorable phone a friend moment. It could be a time where you phoned a friend on your own behalf, or you had to be that friend to have to be phoned a memory that you have your biggest phone a friend memory.
- [181:11]
Luke Morrow
I got a couple.
- [181:12]
Seth Payne
I got a couple of them. But I want to hear from the
- [181:13]
Luke Morrow
audience and hear from y'.
- [181:14]
Seth Payne
All. What y' all think my by far, a pivotal moment in my life was when I was in. I think I was in sixth grade after a pee wee football game. We were going through the handshake line or the slap, you know, slap five line. And there was a kid from the other team who was, like, being a real jerk, like, kind of like shouldering people and everything. And I saw it coming. So when he got to me, I just. I clocked him and just went to town on him. And they were. I was gonna be booted out of the league. Oh, wow. It would turn out, except that my best friend's father was. That was the commissioner of the league. So you weren't gonna be booted out. Yeah. He kind of talked everybody off the ledge and everything, but who knows what. Who knows where. Where the fork in the road might have led me if I hadn't. If I'd been excluded from playing football. The only outlet for my. My tendencies, such as pouncing on that stupid little bastard that. Yeah, who knows what would happen? Happened.
- [182:16]
Luke Morrow
That's a good question. I'm looking. A great story is a great story.
- [182:20]
Seth Payne
He flipped that switch. He's like, man, real fast. I'd like to follow up with that kid. I still hate him. I'm going to go track him down at his place.
- [182:29]
Luke Morrow
Part two.
- [182:31]
Seth Payne
Hey, that's the rematch. Finish this now. Yeah.
- [182:36]
Luke Morrow
Do. Do you remember who it was? Like, you know his name. You can look him up. Okay. Yeah.
- [182:40]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [182:41]
Luke Morrow
Curious to try to Google him, see what he's up to. Was he anywhere as large as you
- [182:44]
Seth Payne
or, like, was he. Was it. He was like, my same size. Yeah. Like, we were probably the biggest kids on the team. Oh, it was. It was left to me to handle the business. Yeah. Somebody had to do it. I'm picturing that guy. It's good to know that y' all are the same size or a similar size, because I'm picturing that guy on the other side telling this same story. Like, you Won't believe who clocked me in the sixth grade. This guy that played a decade in the NFL and is 64 in Arabic. Yeah. I'm probably gonna get sued after this show. Somebody's gonna send this to him. He probably tells that story of parties. Yeah.
- [183:18]
Luke Morrow
Yeah. Except in his story, it probably went a little better for him.
- [183:20]
Seth Payne
Yeah. He might not have known it at the time. They wouldn't have. Because I wasn't really a good football player, like, a really, really good football player until my senior year in high school. So I, like, nobody really knew me all that much. Yeah.
- [183:32]
Luke Morrow
Which is wild, the fact that you say that senior year of high school and then you had the NFL career.
- [183:36]
Seth Payne
Right. I was. I was a late bloomer. I grew. I grew 2 inches between my junior and senior year, and then I grew, like, another inch or inch. An inch and a half in college. Wow. So I was kind of always. It was cool, because when you're a late bloomer, the advantages. Yeah. That you. You learn to scrap. You know, like, you really. You're not. Nothing's handed to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, all of a sudden, you learn to be scrappy, but then by the. But then all of a sudden, you get to the bully size, and you're the. You're the perfect beast. I'm just picturing this guy watching Seth Sack, Quincy Carter back in 2002, and he's like, man, that guy looks familiar.
- [184:15]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [184:15]
Seth Payne
Is that tall, skinny kid?
- [184:19]
Luke Morrow
It's. It's a good question. I don't know if I have a great answer for you. I mean, being on the receiving side, it's always nice when you can, like, set up somebody with tickets because you know somebody. Since we work, like, in the sporting world.
- [184:30]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [184:31]
Luke Morrow
That's always a nice feeling if a friend or a cousin or someone's like, hey, any chance you could score me tickets to this? Or whatever it is? And that's always nice, but I grew up in a pretty small town, and my parents knew everybody in the town and, like, surrounding towns, they know everyone. So it's not an exact answer to your question, but the first thing I thought of was my driving test. I get in the car, and the guy says, oh, Luke Morrow. And he says, are you related to Ted? And I said, he's my father. And he just checked off all the boxes. Wow. And he said, okay, you're good. And I'm like, all right, cool.
- [185:01]
Seth Payne
While you run over all the cones. Exactly.
- [185:03]
Luke Morrow
Hey, I can drive. Don't worry. But, yeah, that's. That's I guess that's. I didn't phone it in, but it, it came up organically. That's pretty good. Yeah. So it's nice. I look forward to those answers though. Coming up in about 35 minutes.
- [185:15]
Seth Payne
Mine I'll just as a tease. Mine also involved my father who was a 30 year Houston police officer.
- [185:21]
Luke Morrow
Oh, I. Wow.
- [185:22]
Seth Payne
Houston Police Department, 30 years. So kind of take for that.
- [185:26]
Luke Morrow
Take that what you will.
- [185:27]
Seth Payne
But I had quite a few phone a friend moments and it's actually my dad and I'm glad that he's my dad.
- [185:33]
Luke Morrow
Right. Yeah. Right.
- [185:34]
Seth Payne
That's also glad that your dad was probably a pretty solid dude within the department. Yeah. It's like if your dad was like the cop that everybody hated, that wouldn't be fun at all. Perhaps, you know, Mr. Scott, like. Oh yeah.
- [185:48]
Luke Morrow
In which case you don't want to let them know.
- [185:50]
Seth Payne
Right. You want to distance yourself from dude. So no relations.
- [185:54]
Luke Morrow
Yeah.
- [185:54]
Seth Payne
Yeah.
- [185:55]
Luke Morrow
Right. Not at all.
- [185:57]
Seth Payne
But your head and your face looks just.
- [185:58]
Luke Morrow
Nah, that's not, that's not.
- [185:59]
Seth Payne
That's not my dad. Not my dad.
- [186:01]
Luke Morrow
That's a great phone. A friend to have. Certainly. Well. Hey Seth, we'll do it again tomorrow. Good hang? Yes, sir. How we Made your Mother is a rewatch podcast that looks back episode by episode at the hit TV show How
- [186:15]
Seth Payne
I Met yout Mother Mother.
- [186:16]
Luke Morrow
It's hosted by me, Josh Radner, along
- [186:18]
Seth Payne
with series co creator and my friend Craig Thomas.
- [186:21]
Luke Morrow
Follow how we made your Mother wherever
- [186:22]
Seth Payne
you get your podcasts.