FULL SHOW - Thursday, July 16th

Summary

Payne & Pendergast – Full Show Summary
Episode Date: July 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast return for Thursday's energetic episode of Houston's favorite sports talk show, "Payne & Pendergast." Seth and Sean, joined by Cole Thompson, dive into the latest happenings across Houston sports, with lively banter, sharp analysis, and offbeat humor. Core topics include the Lance McCullers trade, Texans training camp hype and position battles, recent sports awards shows (and their awkward or memorable moments), the World Cup, and the Texans' standing in the AFC South. The episode also features a classic “king of the hill” game with Astros pitchers, engaging social media drama breakdowns, and a lively "news you may have missed" segment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Sean Returns From "Load Management"

• [00:45–02:14]
  • Sean discusses missing recent shows due to voice issues following vacation. Seth and guest Cole Thompson sympathize, comparing it to "load management" in the NBA.
  • Quote:
    “I got load managed for the first time in my career. I’d never called in sick before since ever.”
    —Sean Pendergast [01:27]
  • The group reflects on their reluctance to miss work, setting a committed, professional tone for the episode.

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2. The Great Cassowary Banter

• [02:42–04:43]
  • The hosts riff on the obscure and “underrated” cassowary, joking about its potential as a sports mascot and its recent appearance in meme culture.
  • Quote:
    “It’s like a turkey had sex with a Tyrannosaurus Rex. That’s a cassowary.”
    —Sean Pendergast [03:12]

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3. Will Ferrell, the ESPYs, and the "Netflix-ification" of Sports

• [05:20–07:35]
  • Sean and Cole debate Will Ferrell’s recent sports award show appearances, ending with critique and reluctant praise for his ESPYs performance.
  • Discussion of how streaming culture is blending into sporting events, and the trend of promoting shows during sports telecasts.
  • Quote:
    “I watched most of the ESPYs last night. I wouldn’t normally…but it’s the deadest sports day on the calendar.”
    —Sean Pendergast [07:01]

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4. ESPYs Recap: Outfits, Shade, and Social Commentary

• [07:37–10:17]
  • Observations on athlete and celebrity outfits at the ESPYs—Fernando Mendoza’s tux, Pat McAfee’s “Hollywood” look, and Simone Biles’ new appearance post-surgery.
  • They comedic riff on how athletes’ looks play into public perception and brand-building.
  • Quote:
    “She looks fantastic. But this would be the signal that she ain’t coming back to gymnastics.”
    —Sean Pendergast [12:36]
  • Cross-talk about social media’s and negativity's influence on sports events and monologues.

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5. Houston Astros: The Lance McCullers Trade

• [13:02–18:49]
  • In-Depth Analysis:
    Lance McCullers is traded to the Milwaukee Brewers (with Colton Gordon and cash for Jaden Fielder).
  • Sentiment: Relief, surprise the Astros got anything in return, apprehension about McCullers succeeding elsewhere, and discussion of fan loyalty to former players.
  • Financial Angle: Brewers only picking up $2M of McCullers’ remaining salary; most “salary dump” trades see little return.
  • Quotes:
    “If he’s still around doing things in October for the Brewers, that’ll be frustrating.”
    —Sean Pendergast [16:13] “My biggest fear, though, is that he turns into Garrett Cole 2.0…and you’re doing stuff.”
    —Seth Payne [18:22]

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6. 10 Big Questions Until Texans Training Camp: #10 – O-Line Upgrade or Just Aging?

• [19:45–30:48]
  • Each day leading up to Texans training camp, they’ll tackle a major issue.
  • Today’s Big Question:
    "Is the offensive line improved or just older and more expensive?"
  • Analysis of depth, prior health issues among new signings, upgrades in experience, reliance on Keelan Rutledge and other newcomers.
  • Major point: O-line depth matters even more than third-string skill players, given injury attrition each season.
  • Quotes:
    "The sixth offensive lineman on average is playing 75% of the snaps in a season."
    —Cole Thompson [24:26] “I think this will be a second consecutive year of improvement. The question is, is improvement good enough?”
    —Sean Pendergast [25:46]

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7. Headlines: Janice McNair's Passing & Astros Minor League Pipeline

• [31:24–36:33]
  • Heartfelt tribute to Janice McNair, her community impact, the philanthropic McNair legacy.
  • Observations on the proliferation of sons (and grandsons) of professional athletes in MLB/NFL.
  • Reminder of McNair’s influence in restoring Houston pro football, enabling multi-sports radio markets.
  • Quote:
    "She was always involved in that…philanthropically minded from the very beginning.”
    —Seth Payne [32:46]

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8. World Cup Watch & International Vibes

• [39:07–41:00]
  • Recap of the upcoming Argentina–Spain World Cup final; playful banter about American vs. European soccer.
  • The uptick of international fans and potential “anchor babies” in America during these events.
  • Quote:
    "I've been hearing it's now—I've just been waiting for Argentina to do something."
    —Sean Pendergast [22:53]

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9. AFC South: On the Rise? NFL Division Power Rankings

• [46:35–50:58]
  • Nick Shook (NFL.com) ranks the AFC South as the 5th best division, a dramatic rise from its past status as “the NFL’s dregs.”
  • Hosts debate if this is justified, comparing the Texans, Jaguars, Colts, and Titans; examining QB play, schedule strength, and off-season changes.
  • “Debate Court” style assessment of AFC South vs. AFC North.
  • Quote:
    “Is this the highest the stock has been on the AFC South since God knows when?”
    —Sean Pendergast [45:34]

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10. Social Media Meltdowns & Tari Eason Backlash

• [77:03–85:36]
  • Analysis of Rockets’ forward Tari Eason’s viral tweet venting at critics—and his mother’s combative reply.
  • Discussion: Should pro athletes engage haters online?
  • Quote:
    “So many opinions on my game…y’all can’t even be great at the little things at your own jobs. Crying emoji.”
    —Tari Eason (read by Sean) [78:07]
  • Mom’s Defense:
    “…There’s so many kites out there. I really need some of you to go fly them...”
    —Tari Eason’s mom (as read/quoted) [82:50]

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11. NFL Rankings, C.J. Stroud, and League Perception

• [88:02–101:00]
  • Deconstruction of the NFL's Top 100 and ESPN’s positional rankings.
  • Stroud’s "indifference" among NFL execs: once a top-10 post-rookie, now nearly absent from lists.
  • Heavy skepticism about the validity of player-voted lists; recognition that Stroud needs a bounce back year to restore his stock.
  • Quote:
    "The league is indifferent to CJ Stroud."
    —Jeremy Fowler (read/quoted by Sean) [96:41]
  • Trade hypothetical: Would Texans swap Stroud for Bryce Young? Consensus: “No.”

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12. Texans Defensive Stars—Safety Rankings Analysis

• [107:03–115:41]
  • Kalen Bullock (10th) and Jalen Pitre (honorable mention) are highlighted in ESPN’s safety rankings, with commentary on how Pitre’s versatility sometimes undermines his recognition (“Who’s the backup to Jalen Pitre? There isn’t one.”).
  • Recognition of multiple Texans among top-10 at their positions: Stingley, Collins, Edges, LB, S.
  • Quote:
    “Jalen Pitre has his own category where there’s one of them, and his name is Jalen Pitre.”
    —Sean Pendergast [111:21]

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13. Stefan Diggs: Should the Texans Check In?

• [118:24–124:45]
  • Five teams reportedly inquire about Diggs; does Houston belong on that list? Consensus: Only if young WRs falter; otherwise, let homegrown talent develop.
  • Importance of not over-crowding the room with veteran baggage when promoting youth.

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14. King of the Hill: Astros Starting Pitchers Edition

• [137:25–146:44]
  • Fun “King of the Hill” game to contextualize where Lance McCullers Jr. fits among recent Astros aces (Peacock, McHugh, Wandy, Keuchel, Pettitte, Framber, Oswalt, Clemens, Verlander).
  • Lance lasts until Framber unseats him; ultimately, Verlander reigns supreme.
  • Quote:
    “Lance McCullers is going to be buried in the H, damn it.”
    —Sean Pendergast [144:00]

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15. News You May Have Missed: Viral Plates & Strange Stories

• [148:00–152:24]
  • Hilarious tale of a Florida woman issued license plates spelling 'SQUEEZASS' by accident.
  • Discussion of an elderly community in Florida rumored to be the STD capital of America.
  • Quote:
    “I don’t think a woman that lives in a senior community that’s going to be 77 years old next month will be driving around with what this plate has to say.”
    —Nancy Della Streeto (quoted by Sean) [149:12]

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16. Final Thoughts: Running Game = Texans’ Super Bowl Key?

• [158:20–164:10]
  • Jeremy Fowler (ESPN): If Houston can run the ball, they can win the Super Bowl.
  • The group agrees: short yardage woes doomed them in ’25; David Montgomery’s presence should help.
  • Quote:
    “If the Texans’ starting running back has 800 yards but is scoring 12 touchdowns, that means the offense is working.”
    —Sean Pendergast [161:49]

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Other Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Tari Eason’s Twitter rant:
  “Y’all can’t even be great at the little things at your own respective jobs. Only difference is nobody cares about what y’all do.”
  —Tari Eason [78:10]
• On AFC South’s resurgence:
  “Is this accurate—that’s my question. I think it’s accurate in terms of overall competitiveness.”
  —Cole Thompson [46:49]
• Classic mis-saying:
  "Nip it in the butt."
  —Cole Thompson [76:05+; running joke throughout]
• On Cassowaries:
  “We’re bringing awareness to the cassowary.”
  —Sean Pendergast [04:08]
• On Social Media:
  “Dude, it’s such empty calories.”
  —Sean Pendergast [85:34]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Sean returns, load management: 00:45–02:14
• Cassowary banter: 02:42–04:43
• Will Ferrell/ESPYS discussion: 05:20–07:35
• Lance McCullers trade analysis: 13:02–18:49
• Texans O-line deep dive: 19:45–30:48
• Janice McNair tribute: 31:24–36:33
• World Cup talk: 39:07–41:00
• AFC South power ranking debate: 45:34–50:58
• Tari Eason Twitter controversy: 77:03–85:36
• CJ Stroud / Top 100 discussion: 88:02–101:00
• Texans safeties rankings: 107:03–115:41
• Stefan Diggs segment: 118:24–124:45
• Astros pitchers 'King of the Hill': 137:25–146:44
• News/plates/Florida stories: 148:00–152:24
• Running game = Super Bowl: 158:20–164:10

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Conclusion

This episode is a quintessential blend of Houston-centric sports insight, comedic riffing, and real talk about fandom and franchise trajectory. The trio’s breakdown of moves (like the McCullers trade), thoughtful evaluations of where the Texans and Astros stand, and willingness to tackle social media drama and pop culture make this a can’t-miss show for both diehards and casuals seeking lively, informed commentary on H-Town’s sports landscape.

Transcript

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm Ana Garcia, host of True Crime News, the podcast. Every week we bring you in depth

[Seth Payne]

coverage on cases making headlines as well as those that go under the radar.

[Sean Pendergast]

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.

[Seth Payne]

Crime never stops. And neither do we.

[Sean Pendergast]

Listen to True Crime News, available now

[Seth Payne]

on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sean Pendergast]

Sports Radio 6010 presents Seth Payne and Sean Pendergast.

[Cole Thompson]

We coming to eighth time. Let's get the work in, man. Let's go.

[Sean Pendergast]

Great day. Great day. Oh, give me some juice, baby. Oh, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Let's do it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, what's happening everybody? Happy Thursday to all of you. Nice to be with you. I mean that in the most sincere way possible. Nice to be with you. Appreciate you getting up with us. We're with you till 10am this morning.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm so glad you're not dead, dude. I was a little bit worried about it. I know I didn't call and ask you or anything, but, you know, just know checking that I was concerned quietly. I was really, really worried about you.

[Sean Pendergast]

I. It was really unsettling for me to be out the last couple of days, especially having been out on vacation last week.

[Cole Thompson]

You know what you were like, you're like a baseball player that doesn't want to take a day off and like that you get forced into it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, it was. I got load managed, basically.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Because I could have yesterday. For those who don't know. And you know, it's that time of year if you, if you. If you didn't dip in on Monday. I was back from vacation on Monday, but my throat was shredded from dry air throughout the entire vacation. I don't. It was bad. And by like 7 o' clock on Monday, I was having some serious voice issues. They kind of worked out the kinks throughout the show, but not great. So I texted our boss literally at like seven. I'm like, I may have a voice emergency here. And so he was kind enough to schedule subs the next couple of days. I told him, Seth. I told Parker, like on Tuesday, I'm like, I can be back in tomorrow if you need me. He's like, no, no, take another day. I'm like, okay, well, I can't make fun of Kawhi Leonard anymore. Thanks a lot. I got load managed for the first time in my career. I'd never called in sick before since ever.

[Cole Thompson]

And you were. It was forced upon You.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, that's. You know what? And I blame myself because I'm the one that usually, if I have any kind of voice, like, when I get a voice issue, it ends up lasting a week, and I try to fight through it, and it's not good for anybody. The listeners hate it because I sound like death. I sound like they're visiting their great grandmother at the nursing home.

[Sean Pendergast]

You and I. Right. But you and I are kind of cut from the same cloth that way. Like, I don't. I don't like taking days off, man. It was very unsettling. Very unsettling.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, we're glad to have you back.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's good to be back, man. It's really good to be back. And I would like to. If you're watching on the YouTube, I would imagine you're seeing this already. Watching on the Twitch. You're seeing it already. People are looking and going, hey, there's Cole Thompson. There's Cole Thompson right there. Hey, good. How are you, man?

[Seth Payne]

I am great. I do not sound like a cassowary, probably the way that you did a couple days ago.

[Sean Pendergast]

I do cassowary, by the way.

[Seth Payne]

I'm shocked that neither of you knew what that bird was.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no, can. I did.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, I know, I know. I knew. I was vaguely aware of it. I hadn't done the research.

[Seth Payne]

Fighting turkeys, basically what it is.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, it's. Well, it's like a turkey had sex with, like, a Tyrannosaurus rex. That's. It's a cassowary. And people are wondering, like, why are you bringing this up? Why are we bringing it up? Because of the. Oh, the Bison. The Bison, dude, into the air.

[Seth Payne]

The one that turned to test Johnson afterwards on the Tampa Buccaneers social page.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Tampa Bay got in on that. I. Seth. I bounced the whole cassowary thing off of, like, four or five people later that day. None of them had heard of a cassowary before.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, it's a. It's a dramatically underrated bird.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. They were like, it should be on lists of most underrated. Like, if it's not even. You don't find it on power rankings or anything.

[Sean Pendergast]

It should, at the very least be the logo of some minor league baseball team, you know, in. In Idaho, Australia.

[Seth Payne]

Figure someone would get in on that one, wouldn't you?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

At least, like, if you're able to have the. The fighting sandals or if you're able to have the banana slugs. Cassowary's got to be at least in the top five options that are available.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. We're bringing awareness to the Cassowary.

[Cole Thompson]

There's a. There is a. Okay. There are some soccer. Soccer clubs in Australian. Australian League football teams, like some minor league teams that are named the. The Coranda Cassowary.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, okay. Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

That sounds like a cricket club more than anything else.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, I know I'm going to Amazon during the next break to try to find some of their gear. Where are they from, Seth?

[Cole Thompson]

I don't know. The other hemisphere fun part that nobody

[Seth Payne]

goes to because they don't want to die going out there.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, it is. Oh, it's Queensland, Australia.

[Sean Pendergast]

Queensland. Okay. Queensland cassowaries. I'm going to go buy some during the break. So everything went smoothly the last couple days then? Old Sethurs.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, for the most part. You know, one thing. You know, Luke has mentioned this a couple times. So Luke Morrow was in yesterday. And you know, people, I. I've never picked up on this from Luke that he's got a reputation for just crapping on things. And I never really. I had never really picked up on it. And then I realized after the show yesterday when Brandy texted me and said, hey, how come you're talking so much smack about Will Ferrell? You love Will Ferrell. And I was like, you know what? You're right. Luke. Luke got me to crap on Will Ferrell.

[Sean Pendergast]

He influenced you.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because of his introduction at the All Star Game or his little bit that he did at the All Star game.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

But then Will Ferrell pops up again at the ESPYs last night.

[Sean Pendergast]

He was at the ESPY. He was much funnier at the ESPYs last night.

[Seth Payne]

Well, the bar was not that high, let's be real, compared to what it was in the home run.

[Sean Pendergast]

Dude, did you. Did you happen to catch.

[Cole Thompson]

I only saw. I saw a little snippets once. I saw Bryce Harper jumping up on the ropes or whatever at the All Star Game.

[Seth Payne]

You set yourself at least 20 minutes of pure agonizing pain of unfunny Will Ferrell, which is probably the worst version of any comedian.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, he was out there for a long time.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, He. Well, they were this. And I saw you had this topic yesterday, Seth, the Netflix Ification of sports. But he and. And one of the Wilsons, the dark haired Wilson, I think that's Luke.

[Seth Payne]

Luke old school.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. And then. And then a third guy, Jimmy Tatro or whatever his name is, they were out there promoting their new Netflix show. So they had Them doing the introductions for. Or like chiming in on Michael Buffer's introductions for all the Home Run Derby participants. And it was so bad, and it was really awkward. And then Will Ferrell pops up at the. At the ESPYs last night. Oh, by the way, he's gonna be on Good Morning America this morning.

[Seth Payne]

Is he playing the same character? I don't.

[Sean Pendergast]

I have no idea what the show's about. I didn't know there was a Netflix show.

[Cole Thompson]

He's a golfer of some sort.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, it's like. It's like an even dumber down version of the Owen Wilson Apple TV show.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, okay. Yeah. So he was there last night, and I'm like, oh, God, here we go. And he was. Actually. The bit they did was kind of funny last night. I watched most of the. I watched most of the ESPYs last night. I wouldn't normally watch the ESPYs, but it's like the deadest sports day on the calendar, so.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'll pop it on tv.

[Cole Thompson]

That's why it is. When it is.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Do it specifically because of that. Usually do it right after, like, during the All Star break, right?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, they do. Yeah. The day after the All Star game. They do it the. Among. Among my observations, non Will Ferrell. Marcelo Hernandez of SNL was the host. His monologue was pretty. I thought it was pretty good. I'm sure the Internet crapped all over it because they crap all over every monologue, it seems like. Except when Ricky Gervais comes on the. The. The Emmys or the Oscars or whatever it is and just takes a flamethrower to every Hollywood celebrity. People seem to like that. Yeah, they do like that.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Negativity tends to play on social media.

[Sean Pendergast]

Fernando Mendoza won one of the awards. I think it was like, college athlete. It was college athlete.

[Seth Payne]

College athlete.

[Sean Pendergast]

Thank you, Cole. He was dressed like a waiter from a Carnival Cruise steakhouse. He had the dark pants and the white tuxedo going.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So it looked I was ready for him to seat me at my usual table when I saw him on there. I am. I am really looking forward to seeing how his shtick plays on a 3 and 14 football.

[Cole Thompson]

Right. That's where. Well, if anything, I think that's why. That's why Kirk Cousins is there. It's not as much even to mentor him. I think it's to be the easy to be the bullet catcher for that first season. And Fernando Mendoza can kind of come in if. It's almost like a weird situation where I think he's got a better chance of playing if they're winning football games than the classic if Kirk Cousins is playing. And they may still suck. I think Kirk Cousins is the quarterback the entire time.

[Sean Pendergast]

They just don't. Don't even throw him out there, huh?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. But if they feel like, okay, you know what, the rookie can do some things and it looks like this is an okay environment, then maybe they put him in, like, within reason. Obviously, if they're undefeated or something, they're not going to do it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Does the whole hand thing when he's talking, like he's giving me a TED Talk or something.

[Cole Thompson]

Checks off all the boxes, Sean.

[Seth Payne]

Dude, as a future politician, of course he's got to check off all the boxes early in his career.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he does. Like, he's. Boy, if he ever went into politics, though, I mean, it's just. That's immediately. Just abandoning. 50% of the people who love you are going to despise you.

[Seth Payne]

What I thought was so interesting is I saw this on Twitter last night. Somebody said he looks like George McFly at the under the Sea dance party. To fight.

[Sean Pendergast]

That is what he looks like.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, that's a good call.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The white. The white.

[Seth Payne]

Full white tuxedo getting ready. Get ready to sucker punch Max Crosby, who's pretending to masquerade as Biff Tannen.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, that's a good. That's a good visual right there. McAfee was dressed like Woody from Toy Story. If Woody had undergone, like, a heel turn and an image change. Like, he had on, like, the, like, the whole cowboy outfit without the hat, but all black. Like the little, you know, like the little designs that it has at the top of your chest.

[Cole Thompson]

He's wearing a western shirt.

[Sean Pendergast]

Western shirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

He just, like. I'll tell you what, this is, the thing about McAfee that's kind of freaking me out lately is that, you know, he's gone out and said that he wants to be a Hollywood star, at least he's gonna take a stab at it. And, like, Hollywood people tend to be pretty gaunt and emaciated. When you meet him in person, the men are always, like, freakishly skinnier than you thought they were.

[Sean Pendergast]

Shorter. Shorter, too.

[Cole Thompson]

And he's doing that because he goes all in on everything. But he looks a little unhealthy right now.

[Sean Pendergast]

You think?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Ariana Grande level unhealthy or like.

[Cole Thompson]

I think he's headed there.

[Seth Payne]

Is he that bad?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, I'm. I don't. Maybe it's just the Maybe it's just the clips I saw. I'm looking at a still photo right now, and it's just not. It's a gaunt look, which is great for Holly. Remember. You know what this is, though? This is when the Rock, when he went super Hollywood and it felt like, oh, he was gonna try to go, like, be a dramatic actor and everything he looked.

[Sean Pendergast]

He lost.

[Cole Thompson]

He lost some of his, like, on screen Persona and charisma because he was just way too skinny. And he ended up bulking back up and just being what he was. I feel like McAfee. Part of his appeal is he's just kind of like a lovable everyman. And now he looks a little bit like a gaunt Hollywood D bag.

[Sean Pendergast]

He does. I see. I thought he looked. I looked at him like, oh, he looks like he's in pretty good shape. But he. But you think he's. He's hitting dangerous.

[Cole Thompson]

He might be on the Ozempic.

[Sean Pendergast]

That could be. Because it's happened. The transformations happened fairly, fairly quickly.

[Cole Thompson]

He's on the Peptides. Like, it seems like every guy is these days. Anybody in Hollywood. But. Because I think he's open about that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I wouldn't be surprised if he was on the Ozempic.

[Sean Pendergast]

My only other thing on the ESPYs. I was glad I stayed up to see this. I did not realize. Maybe I haven't been on the Internet enough. I didn't realize that Simone Biles has two new friends.

[Seth Payne]

Really?

[Sean Pendergast]

I didn't know that. I didn't realize.

[Cole Thompson]

I don't even know what you're talking about.

[Sean Pendergast]

So I gotta look this up. Her friends are actually inanimate objects. Well, inanimate, maybe. Anyways, she had some work done. Yeah, she had some work done. And I'm like, okay, am I late to the party on this good morning? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I. And I. Turns out I was late to the party. She's made other public appearances with her two new friends.

[Cole Thompson]

See, now she. I'll say with sweet Simone Biles. It's funny. In that documentary they did on her a couple years ago.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Which is an awesome documentary. She. She talked about how, you know, people always criticize the gymnast for their hair and makeup. And she's like. She's like. People don't realize. Like, we have to do that ourselves. We're sweating. We're doing, like. It's just. Yeah. She has her overall appearance. Is she. She opposite of Pat McAfee? Her face and everything looks like she. It's incredible. She's really, like. She's she's positioned herself well for making that transition into either influencer, Hollywood, whatever it ends up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. I want to be very clear. She looks fantastic. Yeah, she looks great. She looks great. I just didn't realize this would. This would be the signal that she. She ain't coming back to gymnastics, I don't think, anytime soon.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, yeah. That messes up your whole and everything.

[Sean Pendergast]

The aerodynamics have been thrown off.

[Seth Payne]

The flip going to be a little bit more challenging. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. It's a little top heavy. Yeah. Yeah. So that's how that goes. Hey, did the. Seth, did the Lance McCullers trade come down while you and Luke were on the air yesterday?

[Cole Thompson]

No, I think only it came down right at the very end. We talked about it at the toss, so we had zero details other than their admitted trade. We didn't know about what this. How the salary was going to be handled, what the Astros were getting back in return. We got none of that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so I've got the details on, and I'm sure people were listening yesterday. They've got it by now. But just in case, if you're just tuning in, Lance McCullers. Amy told. Amy was the one who told me. Like, I wasn't. You know, she goes, hey, did you just see Lance McCullers got traded? And I. And I feel bad saying this because I like Lance. I'm like, who's trading for Lance McCullers right now? Yeah, but the Milwaukee brewers are trading for Lance McCulloughs now. Colton Gordon and Cash are also going to Milwaukee in exchange for Jaden Fielder. And I'm like, oh, is this. This is how. This is where you can tell somebody's in denial about how old they are. Me, for example, I'm like, oh, Jaden Fielder. I didn't know Prince Fielder had a much younger brother. Oh, that's. Oh, that's cool. That Cecil Fielder had another son that plays baseball.

[Seth Payne]

That's a second cous.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no, no. Yeah. It's Cecil Fielder's grandson and Prince Fielder's son, Seth. Which makes you feel older, that Cecil Fielder has a grandson that plays professional baseball or that Prince Fielder, who feels like retired like, two years ago.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

And I know it's been longer. Has a son that plays baseball.

[Cole Thompson]

It's a Cecil Fielder part of it. Yeah. Anything with grand in front of him, a grandson Here. There's a lot. There are a lot more children of major league players and NFL players and everything in their respective leagues. And there used to be.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

So it's not as much of a shock to my system because I now I've got. There's so many guys in the NFL, guys I played with whose sons are now five year veterans in the NFL. The grandson part, though, like, the first time I find out that one of my teammates has a grandson in the NFL, I'm just, I might just go ahead and end it off.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm with you on that. I'm with you on the grandson thing. Now, to the trade itself, the other thing that shocked me is Lance McCullers had a no trade clause in his contract. I'm like, it's. I think that usually gets given to guys. And now granted, when he's.

[Cole Thompson]

You know what, it's not a no trade clause. I didn't realize this. It's because he has 10 years of service time and he's been with the same team.

[Sean Pendergast]

5, 10 rule. Yep. 5, 10 rule. Okay, so that, so that's. That was collectively bargained. All right, so that makes sense. That makes perfect sense. What was your gut reaction when you got the Lance McCullers news yesterday?

[Cole Thompson]

Two things. One, I was, I was actually happy for Lance. Yeah. Because, look, there was nothing, like, there was nothing that was going to probably, most likely be good about anything this year with Lance because even after he came back, if he played, even if he pitched well, probably going to get injured again. But then immediately followed by my own self interest, which is, my God, if he goes to the brewers and he just has an unblemished second half of the season of immaculate starts and plays well in the playoffs and never gets injured, I'm going to be a little pissed. And I can't be pissed at the Astros if it works out that way. This is the, this is the smart and rational thing to do. And yet it feels like that would be the ultimate, the ultimate blow to the head from the.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, dude. If he's good. Oh my God. If he's good. Well, this.

[Cole Thompson]

If he's good and stays healthy, I wouldn't be surprised if he goes in and gives three good starts, but then, yeah, drops a dumbbell on his right.

[Sean Pendergast]

If he's still around doing. If he's still around doing things in October for the brewers, that'll be, that'll be, That'll be frustrating. I was, I'm just surprised they got anything for Lance McCullers. I thought there's a better chance he'd be DFA than they would get something for him in a trade. Just because. For all the reasons you said, Seth, like, he's, he's injured All. He's never available.

[Seth Payne]

See, my first thought was, how much are the Astros paying back on the contract to go ahead and get him off?

[Sean Pendergast]

The brewers are picking up 2 million. The brewers. The brewers are paying him 2 million bucks. His salary is like, 15 or 16, so he's got, like, 40% of the season left. So it sounds like the Astros are probably picking up the lion's share of what's left on that.

[Seth Payne]

I still think it's more so in favor of the Astros, but the fact that somebody's willing to take on any bit of that contract is impressive.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, I think the brewers, for where they are as a team are just like, hey, it's a little bit of a nice little $2 million gamble on a guy that's got upside, and they're a very competitive team.

[Sean Pendergast]

Obviously, playoff experience, too.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Play. Oh, that whole part of it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Maybe as a. Like, the whole. I know people. I know it's overrated sometimes, talking about the mentor facet of it, but going back to Justin Verlander and what guys like Lance McCullers said, how valuable it was to have. Have Justin Verlander as a veteran presence with the pitchers, I think, yeah, the brewers might be looking at that a little bit with Lance, and Lance is

[Sean Pendergast]

one of those baseball junkies that probably does serve a purpose, just sitting in the dugout talking to guys. They could be looking at this as worst case. We're paying 2 million bucks for an assistant pitching coach.

[Cole Thompson]

You know what?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

There is that part of Lance that, you know, people have been loath to acknowled because it's just been all negative in terms of on the field, but, like, he's the rare guy that even when he's injured, even when he's not coming back, all that. He's in the dugout, he's working, he's talking to guys. Like, he's always around. So I think this is one of those instances, kind of like with Alex Bregman, where. No, it's a. It's a real thing. The veteran mentorship part of it is probably a big part of it.

[Seth Payne]

There was a positive yesterday. Dana Brown was talking about it, saying that he believes eventually Lance will be working in a front office somewhere.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Maybe even with this organization in the future. So it's like if you give him to Jacob Mizarowski, dude that's on fire right now, helping him work out the mechanics going into October.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

My biggest fear, though, is that he turns into Garrett Cole 2.0. And with brewers, like a 225 ERA7.7 segment.

[Sean Pendergast]

And you're doing stuff.

[Seth Payne]

I know. I'm already pissing people off.

[Sean Pendergast]

Shut your mouth, man.

[Cole Thompson]

I already brought it. Yeah, but no, that's equally my fear. And it should. I should. I will still be happy for Lance. Yeah. And yet at the same time, there's

[Sean Pendergast]

a whole lot of.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, this. This is when you decide to come in and be. Be completely healthy.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, that. That's a good question for later. Seth, maybe we can revisit this later in the show, because you and I was talking about this. Where does this depart now? Departed Houston athlete fall on the will you root for them elsewhere scale. And Lance is a very complicated one. Not for anything he's done, but just because of the injuries and the money he's made for to pitch very few innings. There's a lot to unpack with Lance McCullers. We'll do it later in the show. Baseball Talk on Sports Radio 610, presented by Xfinity. Score. The most reliable Wi Fi. One price. Five years guaranteed Xfinity. Imagine that. All right, 10 days, 10 radio days until Texans training camp. So we're going to do one big question about the Texans per day. Cole's going to lead Seth and I on this one. One big question per day leading up to training camp. Cole, what is the question for today that we're going to attack? Next segment.

[Seth Payne]

Is the offensive line improved or just older and more expensive?

[Sean Pendergast]

That's a good one. I like that. Okay, little O line talk. We'll do that coming up next. All right, training camp is going to be here. We're under two weeks away from the Texans first practice at 2026 training camp. Seth, I feel like we've said this the last, like three or four years. This is the most anticipated training camp in the history of the Houston Texans. It is for me.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, it is.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, you're sure?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. You. You. You love to. You love to get hyped up. Yeah, I'm a hyperbole at heart.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I think there might other be other people that are feeling like, yeah, this feels like exactly the same as it's been the last three years. And we're wondering exactly if the offensive line is.

[Seth Payne]

Is.

[Cole Thompson]

Is going to be at the very least, average or above average. And can all these other things fall into play?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, because they've tried. They mean they've done the tear down and build up multiple times with the offensive line now. So given that it's. We've got 10 radio days till training camp. The last radio Day that we do this exercise will actually be the first day that Seth and I are out at training camp on Wednesday, July 29th. So we figured 10 days, 10 questions, one question a day. Cole Thompson is in studio with Seth and I today. Just chopping it up with us here on the, what they like to call like the, the, the, like the deadest week of the year and yet I still find it hard. We still leave a bunch of meat on the bone on the rundown every day.

[Seth Payne]

Does it help that you have the World cup to be able to talk about?

[Sean Pendergast]

No, we don't talk about it at all on this show. It doesn't help one bit. Yeah, I mean, we, I, like, I've been enjoying the World cup, but I, I, we, we haven't been like breaking down the games or anything like that.

[Seth Payne]

You know, it's, it's like out of sight, out of mind, but just enough for you to be able to enjoy.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's nice to have on in my living room during the day.

[Cole Thompson]

That's great.

[Seth Payne]

It's great.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I caught myself, Chris Partee on Tuesday asked if, about asked that same question about the World cup. And I, and I started saying, you know, I've tried really hard to get into it. And I realized, like, no, if I had tried really hard, I would, I would be more into it and I would know I haven't tried nearly hard enough. That's the problem.

[Sean Pendergast]

You got one game left, buddy.

[Cole Thompson]

I wasn't more intrigued and now it's like kind of a. I'm waiting to see. I, more than anything, I was just excited to see so many people, foreigners be excited about having a good time in America.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. That was really fun.

[Cole Thompson]

We've already probably been a few anchor babies dropped like in their early stages of those pregnancies.

[Sean Pendergast]

We're gonna spike in international air travel

[Cole Thompson]

like nine months from now.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I gotta visit my kid. I gotta be there for the birth of my anchor baby.

[Seth Payne]

I gotta go hang out in Amsterdam for some reason. What's the, what are you doing out there, Bill?

[Sean Pendergast]

A kid?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, that's a whole nother side topic that we, these international games with the NFL. I mean, there's gotta be, gotta be, gotta be a couple babies out there, right? In England or Germany or something.

[Sean Pendergast]

Gotta be. 100% gotta be.

[Seth Payne]

Now Seth's gonna go though full American style. He'll buy the jersey, he'll buy the kid, he'll have a whole watch party for Sunday and that is when he will get fully invested in a World cup coverage.

[Sean Pendergast]

This Sunday.

[Seth Payne]

This Sunday.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

As he's watching the finale, he'll be like, I've been. This is the greatest singer.

[Sean Pendergast]

Watch. You ready, Seth?

[Cole Thompson]

Ready.

[Sean Pendergast]

Ready.

[Cole Thompson]

I say the first, the first month of the tournament kind of caught me by surprise.

[Seth Payne]

But this last day, but this last day, we are fully convinced.

[Sean Pendergast]

I've been hearing, I've been hearing it's now.

[Cole Thompson]

I was just waiting for Argentina to do something now.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, so let's start with question number 10. And Cole, you came up with this question, so you lay it out and Seth and I'll chop it up and you jump in as well here. So what is the question of the day about The Houston number 10 question about the Houston Texans counting down here.

[Seth Payne]

Is the offensive line improved or just older and more expensive?

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, hopefully all three of those things. We know it's older, we know it's more expensive. Those are just numbers, right?

[Cole Thompson]

I think if. Okay, so there's two levels to it. There's the starting five and then the, the sum total of the offensive line. So if you think about the starting five last year, one, you had Ariante Ursary, a second round pick, Cam Robinson who was to be no more and you, you know, from the very get go Lake and Tomlinson and Juice Scruggs was a doomed experiment. I think that the starting five, even if we just isolated the Ariante Ursary and him not have it like if Ariante Ursary doesn't have to start the season at right tackle all of a sudden instead of left tackle. I think just in addition to having more veterans on the offensive line, Ed Ingram being in the system for one more year, I think it's going to be better at the beginning of the year than they were at the beginning of last year. The big part for me is really as Casterio has said about, you know, you're going to have to have at least 8, 9, 10 guys play at some point during the season. And then that, that new analytics guy on Twitter, Ryan, what's his face. Yeah, he pointed this out the other

[Sean Pendergast]

day that I saw this. This was a really good point. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

The sixth offensive lineman on average is playing 75% of the snaps in a season. So like depth really, really matters. The seventh offensive lineman for most like on the average NFL team plays a really big chunk of snaps during the season because of injuries.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like several hundred snaps.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah. And I think that they've probably addressed the depth of the offensive line way better this year than they have in the last couple of years because last year Sean, during training camp, I mean, when we were in West Virginia, we're watching and you're, you're looking at these interior offensive linemen just get destroyed, and you're thinking, these are the guys who are competing for a starting spot.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Cole Thompson]

Like, these guys, we've got guys who are going to be. Would be backups on a lot of teams competing to be the starter and the backup to a backup. Like, your backup is a guy that should be a. Your starter is a guy that should be a backup.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Then your backup is a guy that might not even make the team on a lot of other places. I think that's a lot different.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's 100%. I saw that same tweet and I actually had it bookmarked. I'm like, this would be a great thing to talk about. Like, and Ryan and I. His last name escapes me. He followed both of us.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

But he, because people were talking about running back depth and he's like, no, no. It's way more important. You got a sixth and seventh old lineman than a third running back. If you're going to use resources for something. The reason I think it's going to be, I, I, I think it's, I think it legitimately is going to be improved.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

A, because it's, it's not like we're working off of a baseline that's really hard to, it's not a high bar to clear. You know, it wasn't a good offensive line last year. I do think it was improved over the year before. So I think this will be a second consecutive year of improvement. The question is, is improvement good enough or do they need to be legitimately, at least average or good? That's a bigger question. And that I think there's a lot that factors into that, health factors into that, all those things. I think the one thing I would illustrate that I feel very confident is going to be an improved offensive line. Blake Fisher was the anointed right tackle at the beginning of training camp last year. Now it's a question, does he make the team?

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, now it's a question, does he make the team? So they've got guys that have taken the guys that haven't been really good performers and kind of push them, push them to the level of the depth chart they're supposed to be at, which is competing, which is competing for their

[Seth Payne]

job to not be on practice squad.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right, right, right.

[Cole Thompson]

The one that, just as a quick clarification, the sixth offensive lineman averages 408 offensive player caps proceed. So almost, almost 50% or so. But like, and then the seventh offensive lineman as well. And we know with the Texans it's been worse than that. It's been, it's been, it's been a lot of injuries and you just have to account for that. And in any given year, you're going to have, you're going to shuffle guys through there.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. Keelan Rutledge factors big into this too.

[Seth Payne]

True.

[Sean Pendergast]

Keelan Rutledge. Keelan Rutledge is going to have a spot on this offensive line. Now. We'll see if he's the starting center or not. That'll be one of the more intriguing position battles to watch when training camp comes around is Jake Andrews and Keelan Rutledge presumably at center. But I think, I think it's, I think it's going to be improved because it's hard not to improve off of what it was last year. Do I think they're going to be average? Because I think that's all they need to be is average. And this is going to be a better running game. I think C.J. stroud is going to be. Be a little more comfortable back there.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

And, and I think that to me, that comes down to health.

[Cole Thompson]

We don't even. That. I just realize as we're talking to Cole here, we'll have to get in through the rest of the show. We don't really know Cole's stance on any of this. Like, is whether he, whether, whether he's a, whether he's a believer in CJ Stroud, whether he despises him. Like, exactly where, where are you on just if, if C.J. stroud gets a competent, good offensive line in front of him, does it make a huge difference this year for CJ Stroud? Personally?

[Seth Payne]

No. I mean, but I also thought that CJ Stroud was overhyped after his rookie season. I want to wait and see what he was going to do from year one to year two. That was the big question mark. And everyone decided to anoint him as the next Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson in that upper echelon of categories. And it was like, okay, let's learn our mistakes from the past. Because then we did it again with Jaden Daniels the following year. And I wasn't that high on Jaden Daniels to come on out. So it's like you throw that together. I agree that the offensive line is going to be better, but Seth brought up a really good point on Monday when I was listening to the show that the most important player could be David Montgomery. And that's because of the fact of if you have better offensive line play, you can run it more efficiently.

[Sean Pendergast]

When we were doing the whole Seth, when we were, you and I were doing that exercise of pick one guy on the offense, that was a one this year. And Seth very, very astutely pick David Montgomery because for the price of one he makes the leap. It means the offensive line has probably made a leap.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, but it's, I mean like so. Which means the offensive line is more important. But yeah, that David Montgomery might be the most accurate indicator of it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Seth had a cheat code basically.

[Seth Payne]

But to me what's so interesting is that, yeah, you bring in Braden Smith and Wyatt Teller and both those guys are damn good run blockers and that's efficient. And what you need for this team to be better in a Nick Haley offense, you also have to take into consideration neither have played a full healthy season in the last three years. And so you're throwing in the fact of, okay, Keelan Rutledge, we're going to try him at center but all we know of him is that he's taken snaps in practice at the Senior bowl and then here. And then you got two injured played guys in the past that were paying not an important amount of money to. But there's a reason why they were on a cheaper type contract when maybe you could have splurged a little bit more to get a more pro prolific name out there that you would trust is going to come on in and be a guaranteed bonafide starter like thank God that the Texans will no longer be saying number 57 has reported as eligible at tight end and.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, that's true.

[Seth Payne]

That. But that's where we are.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's true. No, but to Seth's point, like this year they signed Wyatt Teller and Braden Smith and yet if in week one the starting offensive line has Keelan Rutledge at left card and Trent Brown at right tackle because they won the competition. I'm totally cool with that. You know, I'm totally cool with that.

[Seth Payne]

But you're cool with that as long as they won the job.

[Sean Pendergast]

They won the job. And that Braden S.M. smith and Wyatt Teller didn't look like garbage or got hurt. You know they didn't. Yeah, they won the job legitimately. They didn't get it handed to them because of injury.

[Seth Payne]

Because what I thought was interesting is that you guys were talking about West Virginia last year and there's times when you just watch the Texans defensive line go up against players and you say, you know What? It's the Texans defensive line. Nobody's blocking them. You didn't feel that way? It was good. God, get these offensive linemen off the field. We don't need to see them ever be playing snaps meaningful again.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, more competitive reps at training camp would be a godsend this year. The ones versus the ones, I'm saying. Yeah. All right, headlines. Let's do them. We'll do them. Coming up next. Not a ton of headlines to get into. Cole Thompson in with Seth and I here today, but we will get into those headlines. We'll revisit some of the headlines from yesterday, too. We got a World cup final. We'll dig into Lance McCullers a little bit. I've not had a chance to discuss the passing of Janice McNair as well, so we'll talk about that for a little bit in Headlines as we roll on here on a Thursday. We'll do that coming up next.

[Cole Thompson]

Payne and Pendergast with today's headlines. Here we go.

[Sean Pendergast]

Headlines here on pain and Pender gas. Cole Thompson in with us today. I want to start with I wasn't here yesterday, so I'm going to be a little self indulgent here. Seth, I'm guessing the topic of Janice McNair's passing was something that you and Luke discussed yesterday, especially with you being an original Houston Texan and whatnot, being here when the McNairs actually started the team up back in 2006.

[Cole Thompson]

And you know, everything that you've seen from former players does 100% correct. She's just an awesome lady. And I think just kind of, you know, one thing we talked about yesterday was that as you watch the Seahawks and their fan base kind of, you know, wringing their hands over these last couple years about what the New Orleans are going to look like because Paul Allen was a local Seattle guy that was very philanthropically minded but was also willing to spend on what they needed to do and let the on the football side of things and let the football people do their things. I think that's what, that's what over the course of 20 years, we've seen the Texans, they've always been very philanthropically minded. I think they've become more of an aggressive spending team and it feels very similar to that. And it's a good place to be. Not all NFL teams are like that. Janice McNair was a huge part of that from the very beginning. Most of my interactions with Janice McNair were always with a Texans charity event or, you know, building a youth center somewhere, all of those things. She was always involved in that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. She. She was a huge driving force behind the charitable component of the team. And, and there's nothing in that realm that I can say that hasn't already been said by hundreds and hundreds and thousands of people over the last 48 hours since she passed earlier this week. Tons of good videos from players, tweets go out of your way to find them if you haven't had a chance to do that yet. I the one thing I I will say, and I said this after Bob McNair passed away in 2018. From a personal standpoint, I'm thankful for the McNairs bringing football back to Houston because I wouldn't have a job if they didn't bring football back to Houston. My first four Cal always says that

[Cole Thompson]

to you when he sees you.

[Sean Pendergast]

He said, hey, listen man, I heard you talking about the team the other day and just know I'm my family's the only reason you got a job right now. Very on brand for Cal just to point his finger and poke me in the chest, say, listen, pal. But. But my start in radio was with what at the time was the fourth sports station in town without an NFL team. There's probably not even a need for two sports stations in this town, let alone four. And so the, the presence of NFL football, I think is something that back in the early 2000s led to 6, 10 going from being the only game in town to within six years being one of four games in town. And I'm thankful to be over here now. Obviously been here for almost 13 years, but there's no fourth station for me to cut my teeth. And if I don't get to cut my teeth, I'm not over here.

[Cole Thompson]

So I'm very thankful for that. And you know, with in as far as Janice McNair being a part of all that, that was. I think that was one of those things where I was still a relatively young man. I just been freshly married right when I got married right before the first season of the Texans existence. And I always looked at Bob and Janice McNair as, wow, whatever stereotypes or preconceptions you have about billionaires, they just seem to be a really like happily married. Like you might have found them out in Davenport, Iowa or something.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Cole Thompson]

Just. Just a like a happy like Norman Rockwell version of a married couple. Absolutely. It was, it was kind of. It was refreshing and educational at the the same time.

[Seth Payne]

Iowa is my.

[Sean Pendergast]

Huh.

[Seth Payne]

Just randomly like Davenport, Iowa. Like Seth had that queued on up somewhere.

[Cole Thompson]

Danny, it sounds like a boring place. I don't know. Yeah, it is. I've been there.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, it's. It's. It is.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, it's a real place.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's a real. Yeah. Davenport, Iowa. Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. All right. So. Yeah. So, obviously, thoughts and prayers to the McNair family and rest in peace, Janice McNair. Lance McCullers was traded yesterday. It happened just as you, Seth, and Luke Morrow were going off the air. So it's worth putting in headlines here. Lance McCullers traded to the Milwaukee brewers along with Colton Gordon, who, by the way, I think was just the Astros minor league player of the week last week. Like, he is the ultimate quadruple. A guy, like, every time.

[Cole Thompson]

Every time he's jumping high, Sean.

[Sean Pendergast]

Every time he comes up here, every time he comes up to the major leagues, he. You know, he's got a 5.62 ERA, and they send him back to Sugar Land. And I feel like I get, like, one press release every month about how amazing Colton Gordon is in Sugar Land.

[Cole Thompson]

I've liked that about Colton Gordon, because it feels like it was back in 2013 and 2014. You know, we had all these guys, and the minor league system was so good, and the player development was so good. They had these guys that would be awesome in aaa. And then you get up and you'd realize, oh, they're actually not good major leaguers, but they're doing a hell of a job getting the most out of them. Yeah, I choose to look at that as like, okay, the. The pipeline instructional program is still really good, and it's just a matter of time until we start getting some. Instead of the John Singleton's of the world and everything, you get more Carlos Correas and George Springers.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right? God, I hope you're right. So Lance traded to the Brewers. That ends the Lance McCullers era here in Houston. The Lance McCullers era. I was thinking about this this morning. Like, he's in year 12 with the major league team. Like, Lee came up in 2015.

[Seth Payne]

That's crazy.

[Sean Pendergast]

So he's in year 12, and it just feels like, yeah, I'll give you guys a stat. Since the 2022 World Series, Lance McCullers has pitched 142 and a third innings since the 2022 World Series, so. So in three young, three plus seasons, Seth. Well, you and I talk about this all the time. Has a guy pitched enough innings to qualify for the era title or for the, you know, the whip title or whatever? Lance McCullers in three plus seasons, has not pitched enough innings to where he would qualify for the ERA title in a single season.

[Cole Thompson]

The amazing thing about this, and I think we're going to do something with Cole later, because I'll credit Cole for pointing this out because he's barely pitched since 2022. You're a little bit surprised by how his body of work with the Astros is, is way better than you expect if you just, if you just condense it all down into one chunk.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that's the thing. That's the part that's really been depressing about the last year or so of Lance McCullers. I forget which. I mean, it's been a litany of injuries. But there was a point, probably before this last, like real opening up of his elbow, they had to do. There was a point where he is injured a lot. But you go look at, and go look when he's on the mound, he's, when he's out there, he's really good.

[Seth Payne]

Go back to his first start of the season. He had eight strikeouts at home. He was awesome.

[Sean Pendergast]

He was awesome in that one start. But there was a point like a couple of years ago where he was out and getting ready to come back. You're like, look, when he's been out there, he's been good. That's been the depressing part. About 2025 and 2026 is his era is like seven. He's just not, he's not good anymore, you know. And so I, I hope he gets. He's on the, he is on the strong end of the scale of guys I will root for in other uniforms. I like Lance McCullers a lot and he was huge for that first World Series champion.

[Seth Payne]

Do you guys think that he's had one of the weirdest Astros tenures of all time simply because of what the impact was for us winning World Series 100?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, no, and he's a classic guy, too. Like, if somehow, if he had gotten traded away after, after 2018, I like the way you would feel about him and just what he meant to those early Astros teams and everything. Like, obviously the sum total of how people feel about Lance McCullers would be a lot different. But you can't erase all of that. I think over time. Over time and with distance, you know you're going to forget the hard times and remember the good times.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. World Cup, World cup final is set. Argentina beats England yesterday. Late comeback by Argentina. Messi with a couple of assists. He is now the all time assist leader in World cup history, Spain and Argentina. And Seth is going to be all painted up and wearing his. He's going to wear a kit for each team, each half.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm going to learn Spanish between now and then. Are you going to learn the difference

[Seth Payne]

between Argentinian Spanish and Spanish Spanish?

[Sean Pendergast]

The dialects.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, dialects.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Specifically requesting Babel Argentina.

[Seth Payne]

So we got on the text line, somebody say, it's awesome to see Cole Thompson. Very knowledgeable. However, much like maybe you, Seth, I would much rather watch Mike Burroughs pitch than watch a soccer.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who said that?

[Seth Payne]

Oh, joins in.

[Sean Pendergast]

Mike Burroughs.

[Cole Thompson]

This is what I acknowledge about soccer is that, like, you know, if you actually know soccer and you're watching the set pieces and all of that, that it's not like. It's not just waiting for a goal and waiting for a goal. I just. I need to sit down some offseason. I need to take a week of vacation and just. Actually just watch nothing but soccer.

[Seth Payne]

You need to take a class on studying up on soccer.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

What do you think I'm gonna do if. If you think it's an NHL team? I'm gonna take two weeks off.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Go to a hockey clinic or something. Yep. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I will spend a weekend with you up in Western New York and hang out and tell you everything you need to know about hockey. That's my go to sport, dude.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Oh, good. Oh, cool.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. You gotta. You got a mentor.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, I. Dude, I. I can tell you how much I've been begging for the Arrows to become an NHL team. I've been willing to say vitriol things just to be able to guarantee that we get a team.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

I'm all for the expansion. I will hate Austin if they get it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Is this. Yeah. No, though, that's. That's a give. I think even people who don't care about hockey are like, they better not give it to Austin.

[Seth Payne]

They better not give it to Austin.

[Cole Thompson]

This is what should piss you off, excuse my language, about a lot of the arguments you see for Austin over Houston. They're acting like It's Austin from 1993.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Cole Thompson]

They're saying, like, well, Houston's got really bad traffic.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Have you talked to anybody who lives in Austin lately? They're not all that thrilled with the traffic.

[Sean Pendergast]

No. No. Is this the highest the stock has been on the AFC South? Since when? I don't know. But we've got one article that explains it and also lays out why this could be a better season for the Texans this year even than it was last year in the Regular season. We will do that coming up next.

[Seth Payne]

Hey, what's up, flies? This is David Spade.

[Sean Pendergast]

Dana Carvey. Look at.

[Seth Payne]

I know we never actually left, but

[Sean Pendergast]

I'll just say it.

[Seth Payne]

We are back with another season of Fly on the Wall.

[Sean Pendergast]

Every episode, including ones with guests, will now be on video. Every Thursday, you'll hear us and see us chatting with big name celebrities.

[Seth Payne]

And every Monday, you're stuck with just me and Dana. We react to news, what's trending, viral

[Sean Pendergast]

clips follow and listen to Fly on the Wall everywhere. You get your podcasts. All right, Pain and pender gas with you. Cole Thompson in with us today. Cole, in about 20 minutes or so, we'll have some news that you may have missed. So we'll do that a little later on in this nice long segment that we've got here. We're a couple weeks out from Texans training camp. We'll talk about the the Texans here in just a minute. A couple of texts on the text page here. Streaming a few minutes behind Seth. Appreciate the shout out for Davenport, Iowa. Yeah, this is from Brian in Iowa. Not sure how I want to take that since it's my hometown. So we have a listener, a loyal listener in Davenport, Iowa. Not only is it a real city, it's a real city that loves Payne and Pendergast.

[Cole Thompson]

Trying to point out, you know, like, where you think of just a good, wholesome Midwest place or something.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I didn't meet, like, when I met Bob and Janice McNair, I didn't get like a Mark Cuban vibe, you know, like,

[Sean Pendergast]

or James Dolan vibe.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, Yeah. I was like, oh, these, this seems like these could be the parents of one of my friends.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Cole Thompson]

You know, like, I might as I. You wouldn't be able to tell me that they lived in a mansion in River Oaks versus, like, if I went to their house, they might be in a split level somewhere in Davenport, Iowa.

[Sean Pendergast]

Absolutely.

[Cole Thompson]

That's how Bob and Janice McNair were just so down to earth in so many ways.

[Seth Payne]

You're not expecting them to do a full David Tepper after a loss.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's. No, Exactly. No Bob McNair.

[Cole Thompson]

I don't know if he owned more than two blazers. You know, like, he was just. There was zero. It was just zero flash or glitz about it.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm just picturing Bob McNair walking into the big mansion that they bought and they're being like his and hers gigantic closets being like, what's this big room right here for?

[Cole Thompson]

Like, and he's got 24 of those exact same blazers that he would always wear. Yeah. Oh, my God.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, Pain and pender gas with you here on a Thursday. One more here from Ocho. I appreciate the passion of. Ocho is the one who made the comment, I'd rather watch Mike Burroughs than watch a soccer game. He says, I do appreciate the passion of soccer fans, though. I thought what Argentina fans did during England's anthem was great. I didn't hear the anthem. I'm assuming it was. I'm assuming it was something rude based. Based on it being noteworthy.

[Seth Payne]

So I was driving to the bar to meet up with my dad to watch the game. So I didn't get to hear it, but my buddy was there and apparently they just were ripping into England during the middle of the.

[Sean Pendergast]

During their anthem.

[Seth Payne]

During their anthem.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, man, I don't know if I'm

[Cole Thompson]

a fan of that, man.

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't know, man.

[Cole Thompson]

I like all these countries that show a certain amount of respect for the other team.

[Seth Payne]

Well, are you a fan of the 2024 Kansas City Chiefs? Because apparently that's who Argentina. This year's drawn comp.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, like, because the Chiefs fans do their little thing during the anthem?

[Seth Payne]

Well, not just. No, it's because of every single game that you thought that they were going to be out. They somehow found a way to fight their actual soccer. Yeah, the actual soccer.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, they. They. They have. They've been the Cardiac kids, man.

[Cole Thompson]

That would be the. Well, that'd be more. Well, the 2019 Chiefs were the one that was really like that, right?

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no, no, that was two years ago that they won all those one score games.

[Cole Thompson]

It was okay. I was thinking of the one. No, what was the year when they came from. They came from double digit.

[Sean Pendergast]

That was 2019. That 2019.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, you're right. Two years ago. It was the. It was all these close.

[Seth Payne]

Every single game. Fourth quarter, it's like, all right, official zebras. Where are we? Yeah, gonna give it this one.

[Cole Thompson]

As much as I hate being a part. Look, we did a pregame. Sean and I did the pregame show in 2019 for the Chiefs Texans playoff game at the Rustic and down in Midtown. And we watched the first part of the game and like, before halftime, I was like, well, I'm just gonna go drive home right now. Like, nothing to do but get my triumphant X posts ready. The time we called it Twitter kids. And like, by the time I got home, everything had been flipped upside down, dude. I grudgingly acknowledge, though, that that was one of the Most. One of the freakiest playoff runs ever, that they were down by double digits each of those games on the way to winning a Super Bowl.

[Sean Pendergast]

Every game. Yeah, every game. All right, so is this the highest? The stock has been on the AFC south since God knows when, and I was racking my brain trying to figure out the. Nick Shook of NFL.com has an article where he. He ranks all eight divisions in the NFL, and, boy, the NFC north is number one. Immediately, what pops into my head as well. The NFC west is number one. You got the two teams that are the favorites to win the super bowl this year in that division, plus San Francisco. But Arizona is so bad, it drags it down. The NFC north, the Lions. Well, the Vikings were the worst team in that division last year. They were 8 and 9 or 9 and 8, something like that. NFC north is number one. But just answer the question. The Texans are fifth. And I know fifth is nothing to, like, puff your chest out about, but I feel like we live in a world where, for the last decade at least, I mean, practically my whole time here at this station, the AFC south has been either seventh or eighth. It's the NFC south of the AFC South, Right.

[Cole Thompson]

AFC south is fifth.

[Sean Pendergast]

AFC south is fifth. Yeah. AFC south is. Is fifth.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. It's not like. It's not the. It's. It's not the relegation division anymore.

[Sean Pendergast]

No.

[Cole Thompson]

Or even like, in the conversation of being the relegation.

[Sean Pendergast]

Is this accurate? That's my question.

[Cole Thompson]

I think it's accurate in terms of overall. I think overall competitiveness. The Titans are going to be the huge wild card in that, obviously, but I think you have three teams that you look at and you can envision an avenue for the Jaguars, the Texans and the Colts to be really good teams this year. You know, you power rank those, you know, obviously with Texans and Jags and then the other ones, but. Yeah, because even by virtue of Robert Saleh being in Tennessee and how heavily they spent on the defense, I think there's just a really good chance that no matter what Cam Ward does, they're going to be a competitive. It's going to be a hard win. They might be a bad team, but it's a hard out, you know.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. I think what's interesting about the AFC south is it's fifth. The Texans won 12 games. The Jags won 13 games last year, and the Colts were one of the hottest teams in the league for the first part of the year until Daniel. I'll say until Daniel Jones got hurt. They. They were cooling off even before he was out for the year.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, they started 7 and 1 and they finished 8 and 9. So the. The. The bloom was off the rose to some degree. Once the Texans played him in, in

[Seth Payne]

week 13, weren't they 8 and 2 going into the injury for Daniel Jones, something like that? Yeah. They only had. They were in the division lead when he got hurt.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah. And they were tops of the power rankings. He was an MVP candidate. All those things. And weird year 2025, and then the season fell apart. I think what's interesting about the Texans being fifth is that the. I think the quarterback situation in the division is. Is pretty shaky for a division that's not considered one of the. Her division that's not considered, you know, one of the. One of the drags, you know, like, I think C.J. stroud is very much a coin flip right now. I think Trevor Lawrence is getting a little too much shine right now. And I know he finished last year really strong, but we've seen him finish season strong before, and then it all fall apart.

[Cole Thompson]

And we've seen the Jaguars do nothing to add in terms of free agency while losing their best player, one of their best players on defense, and they're starting running back on a team that couldn't run the ball in the second half of last season.

[Seth Payne]

Yep.

[Cole Thompson]

That's because nobody pays attention to the Jaguars. They just say, like, oh, yeah, things look really good. Yeah, the passing game took off, but it wasn't like they didn't want to run the ball. They were really bad at running the football with. With Achan. And now you're wondering whether. Okay, Tootin and these other guys are going to be an adequate replacement.

[Seth Payne]

It's gonna be so weird hearing him call it a Chan now because all I'm gonna be thinking of is Texas A and M running back Devon Hn.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hn. It's all right. It's so hard the first time somebody brought it up on a clip. The Texas that I played. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

You gave me that look. Like when I say something stupid and you're confused, and immediately I'm like, oh, crap, it wasn't you.

[Sean Pendergast]

You played a clip of somebody pronouncing it H and talking about the Saints.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And I'm like, what? Hn, like, got traded. This person's all confused. Yeah. Yeah. And so that is going to be tough getting used to.

[Cole Thompson]

Real quick. Any of our listeners who grew up in Louisiana. Is it. Is it. Is it a Chan or is it a Chan? Like, is it. I feel like. I feel like a Chan, why are

[Sean Pendergast]

you complicating it even more?

[Seth Payne]

Like these Louisiana Sweeney for this one? Because he going to nip this in the butt when he was at Clemson and he said, oh, etm. We're just going to go by that.

[Sean Pendergast]

This in the butt.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, my God.

[Seth Payne]

I know. I'm old school.

[Cole Thompson]

No, it's nipping in the butt.

[Sean Pendergast]

In the bud, not the butt.

[Seth Payne]

You're going to learn pretty quickly. I say the dumbest things because if I'm off by like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, this isn't. You're an old soul. This is your butchering.

[Cole Thompson]

I kind of, like, nip it in the butt.

[Seth Payne]

I do, too.

[Sean Pendergast]

I just, I just want to make sure that's what I heard.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, no, you heard correct.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like, nip it in the butt.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm in the bud.

[Seth Payne]

Means like one letter in words all the time. I guess you're in trouble sometimes at the FCC if you're not paying attention.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Be careful, man. Yeah, be careful, be careful. So AFC south fifth. I, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm cool with it. I, I, I think the Colts are going to finish in last place in the division this year. I think the Titans, I think spicy is. I think the Titans are going to be better than, than people are forecasting.

[Seth Payne]

I have the Titans finishing second.

[Sean Pendergast]

Second.

[Seth Payne]

I am sold that because Robert Sala is no longer having to coach the New York jets, he will show you why confidence was actually key.

[Sean Pendergast]

I actually thought he did a decent job with the jets, honestly.

[Seth Payne]

They were winning at one point.

[Cole Thompson]

The jets defense was really good with, you know, it was a classic. It's kind of like the Browns these last few years where the defense is really good, but it doesn't necessarily show up statistically.

[Seth Payne]

Sure.

[Cole Thompson]

Because. Because they have no help from the offense. But I think that it was soon as they fired Salah that year, the jets defense had been playing well and it fell off a cliff.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Cole Thompson]

So I. Okay. Let me ask you this, though, Cole. Did you have that opinion before you started watching Quarterback on Netflix? Oh, because on that show.

[Seth Payne]

No. So I'm starting it tonight, actually. Kiersten, I. We always watch, and we do. We binge watch it. So, like, when she gets off of work, we just sit down and we just go through the entire season. Which is kind of why I hate Netflix, because I actually enjoy waiting for something.

[Sean Pendergast]

You and I are like in that respect. I like waiting for. I like waiting each week for a new episode. You've watched it, Seth, right? It sounds like just.

[Cole Thompson]

No, I'VE watched stretches I see. I seeked out like Baker Mayfield and watched some of that and I'm annoyingly liking him more and more. Joe Flacco I already liked. But the clips I've seen of Cam Ward, it kind of jives with what you've heard about Cam Ward is that he's like that classic man. All the stories you want to hear about your quarterback, first in, last out, all of that. He's really mature and yeah. And unfortunately likable. So I got to find some reasons to hate him. Hopefully by the end of the series.

[Seth Payne]

But to answer your question, I got sold on them when they started making really smart moves in free agency on the defensive side, I don't think. Because I think that Jacksonville and like we don't look at them at all this way because of New England had the easiest schedule of ever in the history of the NFL. Who did Jacksonville face off against where their schedule was so daunting last year? They were also a benefactor of having first year head coach relaxed pathway to the postseason. And that fluky win over Houston where if Ariante Ursula gets a block on Josh Hines Allen or Nico Collins doesn't have that fumble, you win that game and that gives you the division title. So like I'm still not sold. Jacksonville is as complete as people want to make it out to be. Terrible off season. And if Cam Ward is marginally better.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I mean we are talking about a team that could go 7 and 10. But. But 7 and 10 may be good enough to fish second place in the AFC South.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, you. It may very well be. Which would mean that all likelihood the Texans would be like 14 and 3.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. You know what, I'm glad you brought up the Jag schedule last year because early early in the season they had some impressive wins. But that didn't look as impressive afterwards where if you look at the like the 49ers, they had a win versus the 49ers. Or excuse me, the. The. The Chiefs game which was a Sunday or a Monday night game.

[Seth Payne]

It was a Monday night game. It was the overtime play.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

That's where he was divided into the end zone.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Where it could have very easily been a loss. That was. That was impressive. But then you realize, okay, the Chiefs were not the same team as the Chiefs games teams of old. The most impressive one for me at the end of the season was the Broncos game on the road in against Denver. Because that was like. That was. I watched that game in its entirety and I thought, okay, this is a real football team right now. But they also like in that win streak that they had at the end of the season, it was they beat the Cardinals, they beat the Titans, they beat the Colts without Daniel Jones. They beat the Colts and the Titans again. Like, okay, great, you had a win streak against some of the worst teams in the league, but you did beat the Broncos on the road.

[Sean Pendergast]

The someone says on the text page the Raiders are horrible. The AFC south should be at least three because AFC west is ahead of the AFC South. Well, we'll see. You know, like I know the Chiefs are a little lagging. Chargers and Broncos are good football teams.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So yeah, I don't know about that. But this is why this in looking at this exercise. And again, if you're just getting in your car, Nick Shook of NFL.com has power ranks the eight divisions in the NFL one through eight and the AFC south is five. This is why I'm enthusiastic more enthusiastic about the schedule this coming season for the Texans than I was last year. Although last year it is kind of fun to open up the schedule and see a bunch of marquee games like that is cool. Yet it's also hard when you face the NFC west and the AFC west as your crossover divisions. Two of the best divisions in football and certainly going into last year, maybe the two best divisions in terms of perception in football this year, they're still pretty high up in this ranking. NFC west is two behind the NFC north and then the AFC west is three. You don't play those two divisions any. You play a team from the AFC west, you're going to play the Chargers this year. But the two divisions you cross over with are the AFC north, which is ranked fourth, and the NFC east, which is ranked sixth. So not dregs, but also not world beaters either. You know, you're going to be facing off at home against the Bengals and the. And then the Ravens. Bengals, Ravens at home, Steelers, Browns on the road. And then in the NFC east you got Cowboys and the Giants. Giants here and then Commanders later season.

[Seth Payne]

Oh yeah, Eagles on Christmas.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Cole Thompson]

The one thing though, or the cold weather, the Texans royally screwed with this or anything. And this is all random chance and luck. But I know that remember when the schedule came out and we started talking about it again. There are a lot of depending on which way you look at strength of schedule. Like if you just go by win loss record, it looks like the Texans have an easy schedule. If you go by the actual Vegas odds and the win totals, the Texans actually have the Sixth or seventh toughest.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's wild. It's bottom quarter by record. It's top quarter by Vegas.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. So the Texans, as of right now, and we know this always changes. They've got a pretty tough schedule, and they have the toughest schedule in the division. The Jaguars, the Titans and the Colts are either right at the median or. The Colts have the easiest schedule of the AFC south team. That's like one just kind of hidden obstacle the Texans have within the division, but in terms of making the division look better overall. Yeah, those. Those other three teams don't have all that tough a schedule.

[Seth Payne]

So let me throw this at you guys real fast because the text line said the Texas. The AFC south should be at number three.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Would you be okay moving them to number four? Because I do think that Cincinnati is going to be interesting this year.

[Sean Pendergast]

All the AFC north is four right now. You're basically asking, is the AFC south harder than the AFC North? Basically, yeah. I'm just going through the AFC north in my head. Cincinnati's got no defense.

[Cole Thompson]

I mean, they added seven starters.

[Seth Payne]

Sexy Dex is there now, too. So, I mean, you got to add that to them.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Dance moves count for something.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. The Ravens are gonna have a healthy Lamar Jackson. This is the Steelers. I. I would be cool. I think it's. I think they're right next to each other. I think Cleveland's gonna stink. I think Cleveland is. Of the eight teams that are the

[Seth Payne]

weakest of all these, I think that

[Sean Pendergast]

if you were to put all eight of those TV were to power rank all eight of those teams.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think the worst team would be in the. In the AFC north in Cleveland. And I. Boy, that's a great question.

[Cole Thompson]

This is the whole thing about. It's gotten to the point with Joe Burrow where I don't. I, like usually when we talk about injuries, you almost don't even want to talk about injuries because it's. Yes, it can happen to anybody and everybody. Joe Burrow, in 50% of the game seasons he's played in the NFL, has missed huge chunks of time due to injury. I mean, he's injury prone at this point. There's no way around it. And like, so there's a, in my mind, there's a 50, 50 chance that they're a non factor. A, because it's not so easy to improve on defense simply because you added a bunch of free agents, and B, that you don't know exactly just how long Joe Burrow's even going to be on the Field.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, the, I would say the AFC north has the better roster of, has the better top tier quarterback talent.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

But I think, I think the AFC South, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't mind going in and debating it in court with somebody and saying you got to argue the AFC South's case because I, the big key for the AFC north will be are the Ravens going to become the Ravens again.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

They were 8 and 9 last year. They got a new coach. They, you know, they got Lamar Jackson back, back healthy. They're still the Ravens. So the culture and everything is in place. That'll be the big key to the strength of that division is, are the Ravens, the Ravens again? Because I think, I think this, I think Cleveland's gonna stink. I think this is the year the clock runs out on the Steelers being a.500 or better team.

[Seth Payne]

So we're finally seeing 7 and 10

[Sean Pendergast]

happen, I think with the Steelers. Yes. So, so I, I, I don't, I don't hate that, I don't hate that argument. And I, I, I believe it when I see it that the Bengals can just A, keep Joe Burrow healthy and B, if he is healthy, ride a bunch of 41 to 38 games to an 11 or 12 win season.

[Seth Payne]

The Bengals for me are like the Florida Gators every single off season. I find a way to buy into them and I know it's buyers remorse. Yeah, I just do it and I'm like, I don to learn my mistake. And it's like, here we go again. 450 bucks down.

[Cole Thompson]

I've been enjoying watching people talk themselves into the Steelers because of this somehow. I like if you had asked me six, seven, however many years ago, like, hey, you know what? Once Aaron Rodgers gets reunited with Mike McCarthy, that's when you should get excited. I'm like, wait a second, wait a second. Okay, wait a second. Because if there's one thing I know about Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy, the reports were not good about what their relationship was. But then the other thing about Aaron Rodgers that people have questioned over the last few years is like, man, he just seems like he wants to do his own thing. Which worked back in the day, but offenses have evolved for 1 and 2. A lot of what he did back in the day was just him improvising and making some incredible throws that he's physically not capable of making anymore. As he was not actually he was, he was running Mike McCarthy's offense but vetoing a lot of Mike McCarthy's play call.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Cole Thompson]

So I just don't understand where you're talking yourself into. Oh, yeah, this. This reuniting is going to be so awesome for both of them. I don't. I don't get it.

[Seth Payne]

Nostalgia. That's basically.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Nostalgia.

[Cole Thompson]

Nostalgia for what, though? It wasn't. It didn't end well.

[Seth Payne]

They won a title, though. You know, we still talk about it, like, we still talk about it 2016, years later. You know, that's the one thing you show for.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's like Sean Payton, 2010. This is what, like.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I think the Rockets should sign Hakeem Olajo on this offseason. That's what they're missing.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Does nobody remember how good he was?

[Seth Payne]

Steve Francis back at the top of the rim.

[Sean Pendergast]

Rudy T. And a Kim Olajuwon. That's the. That's the recipe.

[Seth Payne]

So them. And then KD plays down low with them and we got whatever championship, 55 wins. We got it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Sure. Yes.

[Seth Payne]

Mentality. That's what you're looking for.

[Cole Thompson]

These kd. I would to like to see KD doing some work with Hakeem. There's, you know, I'd like to see

[Sean Pendergast]

him doing work with somebody other than Victor Wimanyama. That's what I would like.

[Cole Thompson]

I'd like to see him doing some work with somebody other than. On his phone.

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you. Did you.

[Cole Thompson]

On the phone, man?

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you see that? I've got the audio for it.

[Cole Thompson]

We'll play Nick Wright and. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no, no, no, no, no. In the spirit of Houston athletes giving advice and guidance to people they shouldn't be. Did you see this? The little anecdote from the All Star Game that Jordan Alvarez gave a hitting tip to Juan Soto, of all people, and it helped him.

[Cole Thompson]

He.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like, they saw each other in the stadium when the two teams were playing each other either earlier this year, maybe last year, whatever it was. And Yordon walked up to Soto, introduces himself, and then voluntarily gives him some sort of hitting tip about how his. I was watching your feet, and your feet should be doing, bup, buh, buh, buh, buh. And all of a sudden, Juan Soto has this. Not like he was bad or anything like that, but it turned out it really helped him.

[Seth Payne]

No, he clicked on for the second half of the season.

[Sean Pendergast]

Is that what it was?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. He had like, an incredible close of last season, and everyone bought in. Oh, my God, we're finally here.

[Sean Pendergast]

Stop helping people, Yordon.

[Seth Payne]

Is Mike Trout gonna help that young little kid turn into, like, the next Lou Gehrig or something?

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't Know, man.

[Seth Payne]

Did you see that, by the way?

[Sean Pendergast]

No, what is it?

[Seth Payne]

So Mike Trout, during the middle of the All Star Game, was given pointers to this kid on the field about swing tips.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, really?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, it was like. Yeah, they had it all set up with, like, different. Like, I was like, almost like a little mini scene for all of these.

[Sean Pendergast]

Made for tv.

[Seth Payne]

It was like a. Yeah. Made for TV movie to where this kid ends up becoming, like, the next great Barry Bonds.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's what we're gonna see. That's what we're gonna see, huh? I don't. He's not giving him any health tips. I don't think. I don't think how to stay healthy. You know, I like to tell kids,

[Cole Thompson]

keep your eye on the ball. That seems to be pretty unib. I feel like Mike Trout would probably give the same advice.

[Sean Pendergast]

You're pulling your head up. That's what I was saying.

[Cole Thompson]

You're overly simple. You're. Just keep it simple.

[Seth Payne]

Just get beamed. You'll get on first base. Problem solved.

[Sean Pendergast]

Just get peeing.

[Seth Payne]

Just get beat. You'll get on first base. You'll have the highest OPB in the league.

[Sean Pendergast]

Let it hit. Let it hit. You. All right, so, news that we may have missed Cole Thompson in studio with Seth and I today and. And tomorrow and Monday. So what did you find, Cole? Because I was, you know, busy watching a little World cup yesterday. Busy getting my throat healthy. I don't get to see everything here. So what are some. Some news items that. That we may have that we. We in the audience may have missed?

[Seth Payne]

Do you believe in prophecies?

[Sean Pendergast]

Do I believe in prophecies, Seth?

[Seth Payne]

Do you?

[Cole Thompson]

Not really, no.

[Sean Pendergast]

I know the answer.

[Cole Thompson]

I believe that. Yeah. Like, statistically, a lot of stuff that people say. Yeah, some of it's gonna end up being accurate, but yeah. No, no.

[Sean Pendergast]

Why do you ask?

[Seth Payne]

So. Because of. Back in 2004, if I'm not mistaken, there was a photo taken of Lionel Messi holding a young baby in Spain.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, okay.

[Seth Payne]

That baby ended up becoming Lamina Mall, the star soccer player.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh.

[Sean Pendergast]

They're gonna face each other on stage.

[Seth Payne]

And they're now playing against each other on Sunday for the World cup final in what will be Messi's last World cup game.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, okay. Are we sure it's his last World cup game?

[Seth Payne]

That he is going to 100 retire after this?

[Sean Pendergast]

From International 36. Right. Is he 39? What is he. He's in his late 30s. I know that. So they're saying that this picture was the. That this is almost like that. This.

[Seth Payne]

This is the passing of the torch.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. This kid's the chosen one.

[Seth Payne]

He just turned 39.

[Sean Pendergast]

Messi turned 39. Okay. This will be his last World Cup. You're right. So that. So they're saying online that this is a prophecy that we're fulfilling a. Basically a book in the soccer Bible here.

[Cole Thompson]

One thing, okay, I do, like, these little things where, like, I don't know, what are the famous. Didn't like Clinton meet John F. Kennedy when he was a kid or something? Yeah, like, stuff like that. But that's always like, okay, yeah, president's gonna meet, you know, shake hands with 100,000 people, whatever, when he's growing, when he's in office. I think that I. This one is different because it was an actual photo shoot. This is where me, without knowing anything about the story, wonders, okay, is this. Is this dude, like the son of another professional soccer player? Like, is that how the photo shoot came to be or anything? Is there anything that just eliminates some of the randomness from all of this?

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't know, man.

[Seth Payne]

No, it looked like. Because they. Because they showed a photo him with his mom afterwards, and it's just like him and his mom and then. And then Messi hanging out.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's a cool story. They should. They should reprise the. The pose from the photo before the game. You know, messy. I don't think Messi should hold him in his arms. Messi should hold. They should. They. They should. They should stage it again. Just the way it looks in that picture that you're looking at.

[Seth Payne]

Cole, have you seen how big Lamina Mall looked like?

[Sean Pendergast]

That's why it would look awesome. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe after the game, you know, you don't want Messi. Messi's 39. Throw his back out, man. Your back starts to hurt when you get to be 39 years old.

[Cole Thompson]

You might flip me upside down on this. This whole prophecy stuff. I might find religion after this happens.

[Sean Pendergast]

It is a really interesting coincidence, if nothing else.

[Seth Payne]

Speaking of coincidences, what else you got? Kim Kardashian had to know what she was doing here, right?

[Sean Pendergast]

What did she do?

[Seth Payne]

She honored her father, or let me phrase that, Khloe's father, O.J. simpson, by getting a custom made Ford Bronco. And the only problem is that the Internet found it and they went crazy on it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so start over.

[Seth Payne]

She got.

[Sean Pendergast]

Chloe and I got distracted.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, so she got a custom made new Ford Bronco.

[Cole Thompson]

No, we're giving her family's ties to the. To the O.J. simpson scenario.

[Seth Payne]

And the only problem is that's not white.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, really? Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

She went with the black.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, she did? Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

She wore the black.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

Well. Pretty cool looking Bronco.

[Seth Payne]

It's a really cool looking car.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Crazy on it.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's a convertible. A convertible Bronco?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Ford makes convertible Broncos.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, they take that there. Looks like a hard top. Like a Jeep has a hard top type of thing.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. I have a theory as to why she did the. The black Bronco instead of when he was in the white Bronco. He was still a baby face, but he's definitely a heel now. O.J. i mean, he may have killed two people. He went to jail. Well, he said he's dead also, but. Yeah, like, right. And he's. And I don't know, you know, still

[Cole Thompson]

not all that well regarded, though.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

That wasn't like, in death. People, like, you know, we need to revisit O.J. simpson.

[Sean Pendergast]

A lot of times when people die, people will put a good face on and say a lot of nice things.

[Cole Thompson]

Remember when O.J. simpson died and all of America was like, you know, it's time for healing. Let's talk about the good times.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right, right, right. So I think he. I think she. She understands OJ Heel. And, you know, when you're heel, you wear black.

[Cole Thompson]

I need to see her driving 45 miles per hour down the LA freeway.

[Sean Pendergast]

All these stories you have, we need to reprise the scene.

[Cole Thompson]

She's got her best friend, like, she's in the backseat, like, laying down on the ground in the back, and her

[Sean Pendergast]

best friend driving to the front. Courtney's driving. You know who I am? Yes.

[Seth Payne]

Kylie sitting in there, called Timmy asking what's going on for the upcoming weekend.

[Cole Thompson]

Yes.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes. I had not seen that. What else you got?

[Seth Payne]

How much are you willing to spend on golf clubs?

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm not a big golfer.

[Seth Payne]

Okay. Let's just say that I get, like,

[Cole Thompson]

a 50% discount from Callaway. So I don't know what's a sport

[Seth Payne]

that you guys like of like that you play randomly or that, like, you stay involved with to stay active?

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, well, like. Like hiking. No, no, no.

[Seth Payne]

Honestly, Sean, you can set this one out.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, no, for me, like, hiking, like. Yeah. I have to talk myself out of buying gear that I definitely don't need all the time. Every time I go to rei, in my mind, I'm about to hike the Appalachian Trail, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't need. I do not need this at All.

[Sean Pendergast]

So Seth is your muse on this question here.

[Seth Payne]

Okay, so a golfer on a British Columbia course. Capt of him of a black bear stealing a pair of golf clubs from his cart and then carrying it away.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, just carrying two golf clubs?

[Seth Payne]

No, whole bag. Went into the cart. Was able to rip off of the. Rip off the bag. The.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like. Did he use his bear hands?

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, he clawed it out and then picked it up with his mouth and

[Sean Pendergast]

then walked away with it.

[Cole Thompson]

Some people call them paws.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, his crazy little bear.

[Seth Payne]

Crazy little bear paws.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And he.

[Sean Pendergast]

He took. And so. So the question is, bear with human hands and everything.

[Cole Thompson]

Okay, so what's your question? Like, would we go after the bear?

[Seth Payne]

How much are you willing to spend to fight a bear cub?

[Cole Thompson]

This is a problem.

[Seth Payne]

Get a pair of golf balls.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

This is what I've learned about black bears because, like, generally black bears are very timid and shy and you don't have to worry about them. Like, if you see one, you're not in imminent peril. And yet there are some bad. Like, if a black bear does decide to fight you, you're screwed.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

So, yeah, I like set.

[Sean Pendergast]

They're like people you're not in imminent danger with. Most people, that's exactly right.

[Seth Payne]

To fight you.

[Cole Thompson]

Most people you meet will not murder you. But every now and then.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, most people are not O.J.

[Seth Payne]

simpson.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's what we're saying. Right, Right.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. So, like, if you see a black bear in nature or whatever, and like, you can scare him away pretty easily, but you still shouldn't, you shouldn't be looking for a fight with one. So, yeah, I would let the black bear take my clubs.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, keep the clubs.

[Cole Thompson]

And now, yeah, like, eventually he's gonna lose interest in the club. Unless he probably had a, you know, he probably had a cinnamon muffin in bun in there or something. He probably smelled some food. The guy probably had some food stashed.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's a good point.

[Seth Payne]

You think he has any beers in there?

[Sean Pendergast]

Sashaway in the bag.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah, he got a beer.

[Cole Thompson]

That's why the bear went.

[Seth Payne]

I say the bear.

[Sean Pendergast]

Alcoholic bears are the worst.

[Seth Payne]

The Miller Light and said, screw it, we're gonna go ahead and take it.

[Sean Pendergast]

So what did he do?

[Cole Thompson]

Did he go after the bear?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. What happened?

[Seth Payne]

He just continued to film him screaming, hey, give me back my clubs.

[Sean Pendergast]

And then just walked away. That's the most 20, 26 thing about back the clubs. And then the bear made sure he had his viral moments, but the bear looked at him and then said, Basically, no.

[Seth Payne]

And then just continue to walk. What would you do if it was under $3,000?

[Sean Pendergast]

Are you a golfer?

[Seth Payne]

No. Oh, God, I suck at it. But if I'm paying three grand for golf clubs, I want to get the most of it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, it's got.

[Seth Payne]

No, it's got to be. Basically, at this point, it's got to be a pricing purpose for me. If it's 500. If it's 500. Skirt, I'm not getting my.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah. No, it's a.

[Cole Thompson]

Depending on what your deductible is on your. Your home insurance, I think for your personal property or whatever, we could claim

[Sean Pendergast]

theft for this one.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, it's a fun one. You just even the submitting it. I bet it gets approved just because insurance people love those weird stories when they video evidence of it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that is true.

[Seth Payne]

Okay, the final one for you guys. Okay. Are either of you into the wonderful hit reality television show Love Island?

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm not. It's get. It gets watched in the same room that I'm in a lot. My wife watches it.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, I'm not into it.

[Seth Payne]

See, that's my token white girl show. I'm totally on board with it.

[Sean Pendergast]

I love it. Token white girl.

[Seth Payne]

I love it. So there was a major controversy because of two characters, two contestants.

[Sean Pendergast]

Explain this to two people who don't watch the show.

[Seth Payne]

There was this couple by the name of Sincere and Melanie, and they got together in the very first episode. And then because of the way that Sincere was treating Melanie, since here's a guy. Since here's a guy. Since here's a guy. He is anything but. His real. What his name is. He's anything but. But. Anyways, so they go back and forth.

[Cole Thompson]

Guy already.

[Sean Pendergast]

Will they, won't they? Like I'm watching this.

[Seth Payne]

Will they, won't they? It's very Ross and Rachel. S version. Nobody wants them together. Well, they end up together at the very end and they pick each other. Well, the Sugar Land space Cowboys have now gotten in on the actual so they have decided we are going full team Melanie. You deserve better. And left a note online on their Instagram account saying, melanie, leave that man and we will give you count him 10 free space cowboy tickets and swag for an opportunity for him to be booed in front of of thousands of people in the big glove. Boxing, actually.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's smart.

[Seth Payne]

Actually. Sincere apostrophe. I mean, close. Closed caption.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

E. Sugarland Space Cowboys closed caption so sincere.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

In. In. In closed captions.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Lee the Space Cowboys.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, like, dude. Oh, I got you. I got you. I got you.

[Seth Payne]

That's good marketing.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's. It's really good marketing. Look, the ultimate is if you get one of them replying to it or retweeting it. It.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, I'll tell you what, if you get dumped because you got eight. Minor league ballpark.

[Sean Pendergast]

Probably wasn't sure what it was.

[Seth Payne]

She has no ties to Houston, no ties to the state of Texas. She's from Philadelphia. But you know what? If I'm going to get dumped for eight free Sugarland Space Cowboy tickets, I know this was not meant.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do I know.

[Cole Thompson]

That is a smart move by the Space Cowboys. That is a whole bunch of free publicity right there. That's awesome.

[Sean Pendergast]

I was about.

[Cole Thompson]

For them.

[Sean Pendergast]

I was about to say, like, is it one of those games where, like, one of the major league guys is rehabbing? Do I.

[Seth Payne]

That's what I'm wondering.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, do a. Hey, do I get to see Brandon Walter throw three or Ronell Blanco throw three?

[Seth Payne]

Neski. Do I get that? Two and a third.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Does she have any tie to Houston?

[Seth Payne]

No, she's from Philadelphia.

[Cole Thompson]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

So, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. This is brilliant by them. The Space Cowboys are getting a whole bunch of free publicity for something that they would love to. They would love it if she took it up on them.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, there was some intern that was in there watching the show that came up with the idea and just got hired on the spot.

[Sean Pendergast]

Absolutely. Absolutely.

[Cole Thompson]

Good for you, Sugar Land Space Cowboys.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, man. All right, coming up next, speaking of, good job, Cole. We like those stories. Keep them coming. Coming up next, speaking of social media, this Houston athlete is very rapidly getting on my bad side right now due to, in most part, social media. We've got that for you coming up next. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies.

[Seth Payne]

Just because we finished rewatching the Office

[Sean Pendergast]

does not mean we're going anywhere. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the Office and our friendship with brand new guests. Plus, you can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode.

[Cole Thompson]

So follow and listen to Office Ladies

[Seth Payne]

on the free Odysee app and wherever

[Sean Pendergast]

you get your podcasts. Davenport, Iowa, love. Still rolling in on the text page from Seth.

[Cole Thompson]

You.

[Sean Pendergast]

Seth used that earlier. Davenport, Iowa is sort of the example of like any town USA Top people

[Cole Thompson]

used to say Peoria.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right, Right.

[Cole Thompson]

That's a Davenport. Just sounds like it just Sounds like a nice, bland middle America Midwest place.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Z trip Dave says I used to live in a split level in Davenport, Iowa. There you go. Shout out to Davenport, Iowa, home of Seth freakin Rollins. Yes. Seth Rollins.

[Seth Payne]

I never would have known that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Davenport, Iowa. Iowa. I'm surprised.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, you know why I probably have it in my head is just because the River Bandits, the, They're a minor

[Sean Pendergast]

league baseball team or something.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Davenport, Iowa. By the way, if you missed it earlier, Cole Thompson's in studio with Seth and I for the next few days hanging out with us. And Cole was talking about something and he said, nip it in the butt. And Seth and I laughed maniacally and hysterically about that. And we explained to Colts, nip it in the bud, not nip it in the bud. Which led to texts like this one. A bird in the hand is worth two in the butt. So we're getting a lot of in the butt text.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, just on board with it. I prefer nip it in the butt as well as for all intensive purposes. Yeah, both roll off the tongue better.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah. Intensive purposes. I give a pass on that. Yeah. I thought it was all into the

[Seth Payne]

way you said though.

[Cole Thompson]

What's that?

[Seth Payne]

I, I, it was sad that that's how I actually thought you said.

[Cole Thompson]

Said it. No, I thought that was what it was.

[Seth Payne]

That's. I've said it.

[Cole Thompson]

I might have been like in my 30s before I realized it was intense. And purposes. Yeah, intensive purposes just is easier to say. So I say go with it.

[Sean Pendergast]

There you go.

[Cole Thompson]

I don't. Because I'm scared.

[Sean Pendergast]

Scared of backlash gonna come at you.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right. So should, speaking of which, should Tar Eason be getting backlash for this tweet that he just put up at 2 o' clock yesterday afternoon? Tari Eason Rockets. Newly enriched rockets. Small forward. Five years, 81 million. Last week he got his contract extensions. They are truly not to go, not to go off on a basket, but an actual sports tangent. They are truly running everything back with this team right now, including signing Tar Eason to a long term deal. Tar Eason just tweeted this out of. No, I say out of nowhere. I'm sure it's as a result of whatever blowback he's been getting about something online. His contract, his game. Tari had a very up and down season. I think we can, I think it's safe to say that this past year he had a, he had one where

[Cole Thompson]

even his mom was acknowledging that he was in a rough.

[Seth Payne]

Yes.

[Cole Thompson]

You know. Yeah. As she was defending him. She was still at least acknowledging that. For those who don't know, his mom's very active on social media.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, even more active. We'll get to her in a second. So Tari tweeted this yesterday. So many opinions on my game, y'. All. I swear to God, you couldn't walk a mile in my shoes. 100 emoji.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, boy.

[Sean Pendergast]

Y' all can't even be great at the little things.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, boy.

[Sean Pendergast]

At your own respective jobs. Crying emoji only no one cares about what y' all do. Shrugging emoji.

[Cole Thompson]

And yet he seems to care about what they think. What's the irony of all of this is that he does seem to care about what the people who nobody cares about say about him.

[Sean Pendergast]

I would rather my athletes not, like, start jousting on social media. Like, as a fan, I wish that, because I don't think it's great.

[Seth Payne]

Sure.

[Sean Pendergast]

As a radio host, I. They love the content. Obviously, Tari took it. Tari took it a little too far with. Tari did that thing that LeBron did back in the day. I think it was during the first finals that he lost with the Heat, and he did a press conference afterwards after the series was over, and he basically. I'm paraphrasing, but he. He essentially said, my life is great. I'm going to wake up tomorrow, and I'm going to have a great life, and y' all are going to wake up to all your crappy jobs in your life, you know? And LeBron caught a lot of Heat for that. This has. This has that same tone to it.

[Cole Thompson]

To me, it's. It's almost. I'm better than you. Yeah. Now this is a problem. And this is where I think some athletes, if they would just go, like, a little bit step further. It's when people read that, they see it as him, like, saying it to everybody in the world, when in reality, he's saying it to a very specific group of online haters. And, like, that's the part where I think just delivering the message a little bit differently might not make it ring so hollow, but it comes off more like, oh, boy, this is a professional athlete saying, I'm better than everybody, because you guys are just normal people.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

And I've got this dream life of being. But also. But also, it's so hard. You guys wouldn't even realize how hard. You know, what he's doing.

[Seth Payne]

He's subtweeting. That's what he's doing. He's calling out, like, that small group of people that probably got into his DMs and told him that he was a terrible player.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, well, that's where what I hate about it usually is. It's players that you like and like this happened with Kareem Jackson. You know, there's a certain segment of Texans fans that were going after Kareem Jackson after he wasn't on the Texans anymore. And sometimes those guys start feeling like the entire fan base doesn't like them anymore and they start like taking it out on the fan base of the former team where no, most of us still loved Kareem Jackson. Likewise with the like, even though Tar Eason's still on the team, it feels like you just, he's raging outward. This is the thing that I don't mind about it though, Sean, is that I think with Tari Eason, like, obviously he's, he runs hot in a certain way, he's got a certain opinion about himself that probably serves him well at times, but doesn't serve him well at other times. The fact that that players only meeting that they had with him last year seemed to have had a positive effect that it's just a matter of. Okay, learning exactly. How do you, how do you tamp down and smooth out some of the rough edges around Tari Eason? They figured some things out last year along the way and I, I choose to believe that this isn't anything more than just a random social media.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, maybe so. And I, I, and I tease into this segment like this guy's rapidly becoming. Getting on my bad side because of the social media. And I guess to be clear, like I'm, I, that's, I was probably overstating it in the tease. Like, I'm coming at this more just from like a PR perspective, especially as a player on a team whose owner made his billions in what is largely a customer service related industry. Hospitality. I mean, hospitality, by the definition of the word is customer service. Yeah, hospitality, food services, things like that. Tilman Fertitta made his billions by making sure that his customers had an elite experience. And I think the both of you are absolutely right. This is not directed at the Rockets fan base at large. It's directed at a few people who aren't cited. It's a subtweet, like you said, Cole. He would have been better served just in terms of tone in picking out one of these jerks and retweeting it

[Seth Payne]

or quote tweeting it.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's what I mean. Quote, tweeting it. Yeah, quote tweeting it. And. But then you're giving attention to. You're giving the oxygen that that person

[Seth Payne]

is looking for that he needs to survive, basically.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I would say. I would. And boy monster Tari's mom, she went off yesterday afternoon. Yesterday evening. Let me read this real quick. Seth. Let me get this straight. You get online with your thumbs, call a man all kinds of bleep, Say he has intellectual disabilities, send death threats. Okay, well, that's. If he's getting those, then that's over the top, obviously. Attack his mom, also over the top. Proclaim him useless in a job only 5,000 men in history have held. And when he gets online, responds, you're a fan, a victim, and he's a soft P. Word. There's so many kites out there. I really need some of you to go fly them. That's awesome.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, thank God that was a T. That's okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

All right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah. Kites. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, I don't care what kind of mom jokes you got. I've been on Twitter 20 years. You better go talk to a tick tock mom. This is my app, and you raggedy MFers are not fans. I've never talked about my team or players like this. This I love the fans. The rest of you miserable MF's in fan clothing, f you disrespectfully. There you go, Momster. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Hey, wait a second. Refresh my memory. Which. With the Kevin Durant alleged burner account, which of his teammates did he say?

[Sean Pendergast]

Jabari.

[Seth Payne]

Jabari.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, that was Jabari.

[Sean Pendergast]

Jabari. Yeah. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Okay, that's. I couldn't keep it straight. No.

[Sean Pendergast]

But people have been coming after Tari with that tone back when he was in his bad phase of the season.

[Cole Thompson]

The. The part about everything.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Because that was the first line when. When she said, say he has intellectual disabilities, I'm like, wait, wait a second. Which. Okay, she's not talking to Kevin Durant here. No. Jabari Smith, jr's mom.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

So Seth brought this up earlier because he still calls it Twitter, and so do I. I refuse to call it X.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Seth Payne]

But, like, the one benefit I think that we all can all agree on is that they gave you more than 240 characters. Because I would not have read the entire premise of that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like, when they. When they went from 140 to 280, I didn't like it because I like the Twitter was forced brevity.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, but I. What I do like. And so when they went to 280, I promptly used up all 280 characters,

[Seth Payne]

of course, as much as humanly possible.

[Sean Pendergast]

When they've gone to that thing now, though, where you can just have as long as you want to. But they cut it off on the timeline. Like, it doesn't stretch the timeline. I'm cool with it. You know, this is the only.

[Cole Thompson]

This is the only things, like, from a, from a Rockets fan perspective. This is what I always worry about with stuff like this. It's that, all right, like, some people just genuinely can be cool and like, mess around on social media and they actually enjoy, you know, stirring it up and everything. I feel like the. That's actually a small percentage of people who, who mix it up online. They all claim that it doesn't bother them whatsoever. The athletes will all say, like, I'm just having fun or whatever. The problem is that, like, I don't know, I never know what somebody's actually trying to accomplish. Like, does Harry Eason or his mom think that somehow you, oh, I'm going to shut the haters down with this post? Like, no, it's. You increase the hate tenfold every time you react like this. This. If all they're doing is genuinely just mixing it up. And hey, maybe they appreciate the support they get from others when. When they, when they make statements like this. All right, cool. I get it. I just think the majority of the time it's people who actually do let it get into their head.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

And it does affect them and it does. For somebody like Tari, who, man, maybe has a hard time keeping it on the straight and narrow path, you need as little of this in your life as possible. And mixing it up with people on social media, it never shuts people. It does the exact opposite.

[Sean Pendergast]

Dude, it's such empty calories.

[Cole Thompson]

It really is.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's such empty calories. Okay. Text message. I once had an HR manager explain to trainees how they were paid. Instead of being paid in arrears, she would tell them, we're paid in the rear.

[Seth Payne]

Nibbling in the buds. Catching on, boys. I'm telling you.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I'm telling you.

[Sean Pendergast]

Nip it in the butt.

[Cole Thompson]

Is there any way I can get paid in the rear on this? I think there was an accounting mistake. Is this. Can I take it in the rear?

[Sean Pendergast]

Right. Be careful how enthusiastically they agree to it. Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

It's funny, though, because that is the exact opposite. Like, you getting paid in arrears usually happens after you've taken it in the rear because there was some kind of an accounting issue or something. Or you're like, hey, you guys missed this commission. I was supposed to get.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm getting paid in the rear right now. Just making it a two next time. Oh, my God. All right, 8 o' clock hour coming up. All right.

[Seth Payne]

All right.

[Sean Pendergast]

I was off the last couple of days, so I've had two days just to sit cross legged on the couch and digest the NFL's top 100. And I've arrived.

[Cole Thompson]

You were not capable of sitting.

[Sean Pendergast]

I arrived. You'd be surprised.

[Cole Thompson]

Sean in the lotus position.

[Sean Pendergast]

I've arrived at a conclusion about the most polarizing Houston Texan. And we'll have that for you coming up next. Hey, y', all, I'm Maddie.

[Seth Payne]

And I'm Poodle.

[Cole Thompson]

And together we host the podcast Reality Gays.

[Seth Payne]

We are two ridiculous homosexuals who love nothing more than talking about reality television and tearing in a new one.

[Sean Pendergast]

So whether it's 90 day fiance love is blind love after lockup or any

[Cole Thompson]

other trash TV show about lonely hearts looking for love, your gay besties got you covered, y'.

[Sean Pendergast]

All.

[Seth Payne]

New shows every week. Follow and listen to Reality Gays wherever you get your podcast love.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, Pain and pander gas with you on a Thursday. Cole Thompson hanging out with us as well here. Okay, so I was gone the last couple days. I was nursing a throat issue. There's a texture that says I was conducting my own all star break. That's not true. I wasn't conducting what you hit in

[Seth Payne]

the home run Derby at home.

[Sean Pendergast]

I was not true.

[Seth Payne]

You were seven. A six.

[Sean Pendergast]

Trust me, I was home nursing throughout. But it gave me a lot of chance to reflect and think. And I think I've arrived at the conclusion that C.J. stroud's not going to make the NFL's top 100 this year.

[Cole Thompson]

What makes you think that?

[Sean Pendergast]

Lamar Jackson getting revealed at number 69. Yeah, nice that that happened right as you and I were going off the air on Monday, Seth. And so. So I needed time to process this. You guys know that I treat The NFL top 100 like Moses is coming down from the mountain with it carved onto it.

[Cole Thompson]

You treat it like it's the most valid thing on earth.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's the only thing we have empirically reflects players opinions on other players.

[Cole Thompson]

That's why even the way you put it in the show prep annoyed me because you said there's no way the players think CJ is better than Lamar. I agree with that part of it. I disagree that this NFL Top Wonder 100 as any kind of reflection about like how players would actually rank the top 100 players in the NFL.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

By virtue of Bryce Young even being on it at all. Like, it just shows you that when they, the way the ballot works, they just have players sit down and they write down who they think their top 20. That means somebody out there ranked Bryce Young as a top 20 player in the NFL.

[Seth Payne]

So it's only the top 20 that they rank.

[Sean Pendergast]

They only. Have you ever seen the ballots?

[Seth Payne]

No, I haven't.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so they, yeah. So the NFL will post on Instagram sometimes copies of players ballots. They won't. They, they'll, you know, they'll, they'll smudge out their name. Oh, but they'll show it. It's literally a handwritten one through 20. You write down 20 names.

[Seth Payne]

See, I just thought that was the start of their ballot. I thought they ranked all 100.

[Cole Thompson]

They rank, they ranked 20 players. So it ends up being especially, especially for like 50 through 100. It's, it's like, okay, if a guy gets a couple people that vote him into the top 20, then it's, then all of a sudden they might end up ranked in the back half or whatever. But it's just so, like, it's so heavily weighted and you end up with things like, okay, so somebody out there, at least one person said that Bryce Young is a top 20 player in the NFL, which is absurd.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is, and we'll get to C.J. here. This is, this also presumes, Seth, that this balloting air quotes.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Is treated as something like hard and fast.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, they may just use it as a guideline to eventually have, have people with, you know, you know, the analysts opinions kind of. Okay, this is what the players sort of think. And now we'll make some adjustments here to it. Who knows? But either way, I do think, I, I, and you've pointed this out, Seth, that we know that the, the balloting takes place before the playoffs. So whatever opinion players, fellow players had on CJ Stroud was based on his regular season. Yeah. So let's just live in a world for a second here where we feel like this, this is actually maybe a somewhat accurate reflection of how players at large feel that Bryce Young belongs in the top 100 based on the regular season and that C.J. stroud, as I am currently predicting, is not in the top 100. How do we feel about basically being back to, I mean, saying you're back to square one with the two of them actually does Bryce Young a little bit of an injustice. He's the one that's actually in the top 100 at number 98.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. I think that you would go, okay, if I'm going to pretend like this isn't just all kind of completely bogus to begin with. The. That it's. It probably most likely if, like, if. If there were any sanity to this, that. Yeah. That C.J. stroud, if people think that that's where Bryce Young is, then CJ Stroud would probably have finished a little bit outside the top 100 or whatever. And, you know, like, it's heavily weighted towards quarterbacks and skill position players on the, on this list. But that. That's probably more realistic and probably like the accurate thing, which is we are kind of back to square one with Bryce Young, where he did some promising things at the end of last season. They're still, like, CJ's sum total is more impressive than Bryce Young, but nobody feels awesome about either of those guys.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right, right, right.

[Cole Thompson]

Other than the jackasses. Like, anybody. Like, for cj, it's going to be the same thing. Somebody. If CJ finishes ahead of Lamar Jackson, it's because probably a handful of people said. Said, I'm gonna do CJ a solid and put him in the top 20.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, probably Ohio State, guys.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Or Nico Collins.

[Sean Pendergast]

Or Nico Collins. Yeah. Yeah. Or Nico.

[Seth Payne]

Maybe Joe Mixon.

[Sean Pendergast]

Joe didn't get a vote.

[Seth Payne]

Joe doesn't get a vote. Okay.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, no, I'm just saying he shouldn't get a vote. He didn't play in any games last year.

[Seth Payne]

Lt still protects him, doesn't he?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, is he going with Jared? Is he going with Jay Daniels at that point?

[Sean Pendergast]

Who?

[Seth Payne]

Lt, Larry.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, he's giving CJ a bond here. Oh, cj, I thought you were talking about mixing stuff. Yeah, maybe. Maybe, Maybe. Okay, I'll pose this question to both of you guys. As long as we're talking about Bryce and cj, the two teams of Panthers and the Texans have conversations, hypothetically, and a trade proposal gets thrown out there. Bryce Young for C.J. stroud.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who says no?

[Cole Thompson]

I think the Texans say no.

[Sean Pendergast]

I agree.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, I agree. I just.

[Sean Pendergast]

I.

[Cole Thompson]

So when I watch Bryce Young, I just still, like, he still has a really hard time with anything over the middle of the field, if there's any taller. Yeah, right. It's like everything has to be so perfect for him to actually, really, genuinely make it as an NFL quarterback. And I don't know if he. I don't know, like. And maybe it works out for him, but it's good. It's going to have to be that he's even. He's even. He's got a better sense of timing and rhythm than. Than Drew Brees. Like all of these things that he's going to have to be able to do to be a genuinely good quarterback. I just have a hard time seeing it physically.

[Sean Pendergast]

I can't tell you how depressing it is that I am even posing this question to the two of you.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, who.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who says no to a br. Like, think about that. Think about after 2023. Right. If someone had told you two years from now, a topic on the show in July will be who says no to a Bryce Young? For CJ Shy, my gut reaction in 2023 would have been, wow, they really got the head coaching higher right in Carolina. And Bryce has taken that leap. Not that the two of them are just sitting in this contractual purgatory, right.

[Seth Payne]

Even keel playing field, but here's how you know that it would be C.J. have you. Do you guys ever pay attention to like, off season content redrafts of like 2023?

[Sean Pendergast]

All the time.

[Seth Payne]

Every single time. It's still a C.J. stroud.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's a better player than Bryce Young.

[Seth Payne]

So, like, it's like, that's not even an argument. Like the argument that you would have at this point if you're Carolina is do you wait it out for Caleb Williams next year and just draft Will Anderson at number one? They would 100%. They redrafted. It would be C.J. and Will versus Bryce and C.J.

[Sean Pendergast]

yeah. Oh, no. No question.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. I think everything this, this entire off season, I think when I would. When I listen and watch people who really like, watch the entire league and they know what they're talking about and they watch film and everything, every one of those guys is in a holding pattern with C.J. stroud right now. And you can kind of sense that the difference between how they talk about Bryce Young and C.J. stroud is still very much that you feel like. A lot of these guys want to believe in C.J. stroud, but there's just this, like, you can't ignore the actual numbers and everything else, and you can bring up the positives and you can make the explanations for his supporting cast and all of that. It just feels like this is the. This year everybody is waiting to see. All right, if the Texans actually have an okay rushing attack and the offensive line is stabilized somewhat, what do we see out of CJ Stroud then? And I think most of them feel like, all right, that's. Then he's going to look Better. But I can't ignore the last two years and act like it's just been, you know, a beautiful, easy, simple path forward.

[Sean Pendergast]

So we know how you feel. Seth, about The NFL top 100, the methodology of it, at least. Where are you on these lists that ESPN has been dropping every day of top 10 at each position? Honorable mention and then also receiving votes in which C.J. stroud, at least it would appear he was in. Also receiving votes and was the last name.

[Cole Thompson]

He got one vote in the top.

[Sean Pendergast]

Is that what it was?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, he was. Yeah, he was like, yeah, he was. He got one vote to make the

[Seth Payne]

list, you have to at least get one vote.

[Sean Pendergast]

And he got one.

[Cole Thompson]

Jeremy Fowler. Jeremy Fowler put out basically how the. All the voting went and put it into tears. CJ Finished behind Mac Jones.

[Sean Pendergast]

So was it Matt Jones or Daniel Jones? It just.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, Daniel Jones. Excuse me.

[Seth Payne]

Excuse me.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm meant.

[Seth Payne]

Yes, I said it was Mac Jones.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, it was Daniel Jones.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Either way, either way, I think about Daniel Jones. I saw Jones and I was like, yeah, Mac Jones.

[Sean Pendergast]

I did too. When I saw Jones, I thought Mac Jones. And then, then somebody did a follow up to. And they're like, hey, even finish me on Daniel Jones. Oh my God. That makes. It. Makes. It doesn't make.

[Cole Thompson]

Thank God I didn't say it. No, I think that. But likewise, Jeremy Fowler did an interview on Dan Patrick and he said he thinks the league is indifferent to CJ Stroud.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, we've got that. Here's Jeremy Fowler. You know, I didn't get enough responses on CJ Stroud to get a ton of feedback because he really just wasn't a factor in the voting. But I think with Stroud, it's.

[Cole Thompson]

And maybe that's the point of it, that you didn't get responses. That says a lot, kind of.

[Sean Pendergast]

I mean, honestly, I think he got one vote. I want to say it just wasn't. He wasn't a factor. But the abilities there, you know, what happened last year, especially in the playoffs, it's certainly a concern. You know, some people wonder like, okay, is that a byproduct of something that was going on behind the scenes all year or just wasn't comfortable in the offense? I know it was raining that day and New England played well, but some of the decisions were odd.

[Cole Thompson]

It's funny, though.

[Sean Pendergast]

He has a chance to be a fast riser because the, the tools and the skill set are there. And you talk about quarterbacks being able to throw over the middle of the field with accuracy. He can do Some of those things where some of the quarterbacks ahead of

[Cole Thompson]

him aren't as good.

[Sean Pendergast]

So I don't, I don't necessarily think like people are really down on him or he's not a starter or he's, his job's on the line. I don't feel like it's that. It's just maybe more of a little indifference. I just didn't get a lot of responses on him. We, we should point out, we should point out CJ Stroud on this very, in this very exercise. We're not talking about NFL top 100 now. We're talking about the executives, the GMs that all voted in this ESPN thing where they're ranking the top 10 at each position. And I think today is the last day. It's. Think they're doing safeties today. That's it.

[Seth Payne]

There is a Texan on that list.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, well, good. We'll get to that in a second. I think that we should point out he was seventh on this list after his rookie year. Yeah. You know, so this isn't somebody who's come out of Ohio State, has all these tools, but his career started with the 2024 season where he's just been kind of mediocre the last couple years.

[Seth Payne]

Years.

[Sean Pendergast]

He, there's evidence of him doing it in the NFL and doing it at a level where the consensus among this voting constituency, these front office people, was he's top 10 quarterback and now he's getting one vote. I think even I, honestly, Seth, I think even the, the one, the, the, the categorization of the league being indifferent towards CJ Stroud in conversation is more insulting than him just getting one vote in a top 10 exercise.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, that part of it was depressing to me. Like, no, he's not even a factor in the discussion. It's like there's nobody, one person that voted up there feels, feels a certain kind of way about C.J. stroud. But that I, what Fowler said there, though, too, is like, okay, these things, look, they change from year to year and you're going to get like, obviously, I think that with CJ My question would be if he goes out next year and the Texans have a good season and CJ Plays better than he did last year, but it still looks like it's a team that's driven by the defense, does he kind of settle in as people, as a guy that people kind of look at like, like a, I don't know, game manager? Who's that?

[Seth Payne]

Game manager.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Game manager. Smith level player yeah, yeah. Like a guy that can. I mean, that can do what you need him to do, but you don't ever expect him to be the driving force for, For. For greatness.

[Seth Payne]

Well, let me ask you guys this real fast, because last year, if you saw CJ was on the list as the first name off honorable mention.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Seth Payne]

So after having a down here.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right. So the three years that he's been part of this exercise, he's finished seventh, presumably 11th.

[Seth Payne]

He was. He was the first name mentioned in the honorable mention.

[Sean Pendergast]

So 11th.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, he was at a Baker, Gino,

[Sean Pendergast]

all those other guys. And then he's one person away from not even showing up on there.

[Seth Payne]

And he was better overall, when you think about it, stat wise.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, and that's exactly what is going on with Jaden Daniels right now. Because, like, Jaden Daniels is. He's 11th in the voting on this after a year where he didn't play all that well. But he was also injured and missed a bunch of time. But people are kind of looking at him as like. Or like, if you use just. If you use justice rankings, it feels the same way people were feeling about CJ going into last year. All right, well, let's wait and see. You know, like, okay, second year slump or sophomore slump, all of that. So, like, if Jaden Daniel, like, so Jaden Daniels could very easily be in the top 10 next year or slide down to where CJ is right now.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, CJ's got some work to do, man. No, no doubt about that.

[Cole Thompson]

Now, the difference between this, this voting and The NFL top 100 is that this voting is all done after the season. Yep. So this or after the playoffs. So this is after people have seen and absorbed exactly what the hell happened in the playoffs.

[Seth Payne]

Do you like one less better than the other? That's though.

[Cole Thompson]

I like. Oh, so I like the ESPN one better because they're voting on a smaller pool of players, you know, and it's also people that watch more of the league. And Jeremy Fowler in that Dan Patrick interview did explain that. Like, look, there's. Sometimes there will be a GM that kind of like, wait a second, like, half your votes are your guys. Like, so he does kind of. He adjusts for it. He feels like somebody's got some bias.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so. And I. And by the way, I know I'm an NFL top 100 sycophant. We joke about it. I like the ESPN one better because It's. It's top 10 by position. Yeah, the NFL top 100 ignores certain positions entirely.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. And Ignores interior offensive linemen. I don't think linebackers make it a whole bunch. So it all comes down to, like, that's a classic. Like, okay, what criteria are you using? It's a lot easier with quarterback.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is the. This is where I'm the wrestling fan on the show. I like how much the players care about the NFL top 100. You know, I like the pomp and circumstance. I love the vignettes that come with it. You know, the. The three minute videos that come with it are awesome. It's. But it's. It's flawed for sure. Sure. It's for sure flawed.

[Cole Thompson]

The craziest thing about this one this year was that Jalen Hurts finished 17th. And I know exactly, like, why people feel that way and that, okay, it was an off. It's an offense. It's one of its best. It's driven by the run game. But I feel like it doesn't surprise me that these are NFL people and executives and scouts and everything that are doing this because they don't know what to do in their brain with a quarterback like Jalen Hurts because he's so far outside the mold of what most good quarterbacks are that they. I do think they discount, like, what impact it has when you've got a quarterback who can squat three times his body weight in short yardage situations and all of that. So, like when circum. But. But it has to be when circumstances are right and you know, it can't. It's not going to be driven by his arm. So they don't look at him as. Okay, conventionally what I want my quarterback to do. But there's no denying that. Yeah, in the right circumstances, you can go to a couple Super Bowls and win one of them with Jalen Hurts.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right, coming up next, speaking of the NFL GM rankings, the final position dropped today. Safety position. There are two Texans on here. Do we feel that? And they're right next to each other in these rankings. Is this particular player getting screwed by his versatility? I want to ask that question. So we'll do that. Do that. Coming up next. Stay there.

[Cole Thompson]

The podcast Campus Files is back with

[Seth Payne]

more stories of scandal, crime and intrigue on college campuses.

[Cole Thompson]

It is not hard to destroy a college.

[Seth Payne]

It's almost like a university on a scene. Listen to and follow Campus files available now.

[Cole Thompson]

Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sean Pendergast]

Hey, do you guys have the Citizen app on your phone? Do you know what that is? Amy got me on the bank. No, no, not Citizens Bank. No, I'm in Philly. No, it's, it's. It's like the police alert. Like you. I get alerts when crimes are happening, when police are getting called within an X amount of radius from where I am and just shout out thoughts and prayers. Citizen hit on some. Some pedestrian got hit on Richmond right now just a couple minutes ago. Right up here. The corner of Cummins and Richmond. Yeah, yeah, it's awesome. They give you a little map where it happens and stuff.

[Seth Payne]

I love how you just transition to thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. These people. It's awesome.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, no, the app is awesome. I, you know, but somebody I know I'd be a little bit more. But no, like they tell you like,

[Cole Thompson]

yes, dude, get a live read in.

[Sean Pendergast]

Seth, get a live read in.

[Cole Thompson]

I think I have to disclose that they I work with.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right, right, right, right.

[Cole Thompson]

But if you're still listening to Mocarim injury lawyer or if you're still listening to Sports Radio 610 on your transistor radio.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Cole Thompson]

Pedestrian call, call them Okarim injury lawyers.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, but like yesterday there were some people, like at the Taco Bell on Shepherd throwing rocks at cars.

[Cole Thompson]

What?

[Sean Pendergast]

Boom. Yeah, they were getting arrested.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I could have maybe used that yesterday. So you heard about the shooting out at the Kroger?

[Sean Pendergast]

I did. I saw it on the news in Cyprus.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I live five minutes away from that Kroger.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do you go to that Kroger?

[Seth Payne]

I used to all the time.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, my apartment sounded scary as hell.

[Seth Payne]

Where Kirsten and I lived before we bought the house. Our apartment was right behind the Kroger.

[Sean Pendergast]

Wow.

[Seth Payne]

So if I was home, I would have heard the pop pop.

[Sean Pendergast]

So what happened? By Seth, you didn't. It doesn't sound like you.

[Cole Thompson]

No, no, no. Was it? Yeah. Like, no. Is this a random crazy person shooting at people or was it like a.

[Seth Payne]

Release the information entirely. But there was just a shooting inside and two people got shot inside. Inside Croter.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, the way I make my feels myself feel better about being out in public anymore is if it like. Okay, was this actually a dispute between specific people or was it a crazy person who is just firing it?

[Sean Pendergast]

Everybody thought, I saw that it was a result of a domestic.

[Seth Payne]

So somebody felt. So somebody got a camera from their car of the arrest happening. So I think that there was. It definitely was something that was premeditated, I think.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. Okay. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

It wasn't a black bear. No, no, no, no. Like, black bears aren't dangerous, but if they have a gun, you know, they just. Yes, they will. You do have to watch.

[Sean Pendergast]

They're holding it with their bare hands. They're tiny little bear hands.

[Cole Thompson]

I'd rather face a grizzly bear with no gun than a black bear with with a gun on the text line

[Seth Payne]

we at least know that somebody is on Richmond and did not hit the pedestrian.

[Sean Pendergast]

So thank good good job.

[Seth Payne]

You were not suspect.

[Sean Pendergast]

We need a citizen vigilante. Somebody said go take care of all these crimes. All right. So we were just talking in the previous segment about C.J. stroud the top 100, the probably more substantive NFL GM poll that ESPN is doing of the top 10 at each position final position drop today. Kalen Bullock, congratulations. You are the 10th rated safety in the NFL according to NFL GMS. I the thing I like that they do about this and we'll get to the other Texan who gets mentioned in here in just a second. I like that they show the highest ranking and the lowest ranking highest ranking. There is an executive out there that thinks Kaylin Bullock is the second best safety in all of football right now.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. And I think that's where Kalen Bullock is a guy that is the people that watch him a lot or you have seen a good chunk of them. I think there's a lot of people that feel about him that way. It's just that he's still a young player and as it happens with defensive backs especially, I mean there's such a first round bias for young defensive backs, especially for corners but even for safeties that this is going to be if he continues to play the way he's been playing at the end of this year, I think there's going to be a lot of people just without thinking about him, put him in the top five.

[Sean Pendergast]

I agree. I agree. Now it says, you know, talk talks about the ball hawk aspect of his game and how he's elite at that. Nine interceptions in two years. Probably could have been a lot more interceptions. He's one of the he's one of the drops. He's culprits on this defense. He's. He's had a few that he could have had. The tackling is the thing they bring up as an issue they call it but they do consider was an issue

[Cole Thompson]

in his rookie year in his rookie

[Sean Pendergast]

year and he's improved his physicality. There's an NFL coordinator that says he's an adequate to average tackler but his range is even I will say this for his frame. He is very willing to mix it up. Caleb.

[Cole Thompson]

Well and a lot of it, a lot of it with his tackling is more the same Thing with a young safety when, when it comes to coverage is understanding the proper angles to take and just kind of some of the anticipation. So he's a really young player who is very green and I like, I expected him to be a two or three year project. When they draft him him, he came along really, really well, which is a testament to Dino Vasso and Adegoke, the defensive backs coaches. But I think the other part of it too is that what hopefully is different this year is that he's going to have another veteran safety alongside him and Reed Blankenship.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Cole Thompson]

So there were times last year where they couldn't do as much of the single high, deep, middle of the field safety type stuff as they would have liked to with Kalen Bullock when they were working in either rookies or guys they'd picked up the off the street with some stability back there. I think you're really going to get to see some of the, some of the more exciting parts of him or, or also not the single high stuff, but when Caleb Bullock's down in the box and they can use him creatively on blitzes and whatnot.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Cole Thompson]

Yep.

[Sean Pendergast]

You get a better version of him. All right. This is the one that I was very anxious to see where Jalen Petrie fell in this exercise that ESPN is doing with these front. It sounds like front offices and coaches. They quoted a coordinator. There's a scout that gets quoted.

[Seth Payne]

Personal memories in every once in a while.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

70. 70 different NFL, different titles. Personality.

[Seth Payne]

Is it that many?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, Yep.

[Cole Thompson]

Now not all 70. Weigh in on all the positions, but that's how many people that he talks to. All of these rankings. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Jalen Petrie first among honorable mention at safety and an NFC scout says he's a nickel but can play safety. Don't think he gets nearly enough credit. Would love to have him on their team. This NFC scout says.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, I think. And what you had asked going into this, going into the break was okay, is he, is he penalized because of the position that he plays? I would say I think that's, that's changed over the last five years because there's just so many more guys that play his role. That star position where you're, you're a nickel linebacker, slash, you know, slot corner slash, whatever we need you to be. And I think that those guys get more recognition for that now. But it is, it's still a little awkward calling him a safety.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

And I wonder if just sometimes. Yeah. In people's minds that when they're filling out A battle, a ballot with the top 10. They might not in their brain have Jalen Petrie classified as a safety. So it doesn't even enter the list.

[Seth Payne]

Do you think that they should add in another category for nickel defenders because of something like maybe.

[Sean Pendergast]

I think, like, I think he just gets in stuff like this. I think the league knows how good Jalen Petrie is right now and how much he's impressed, improved. In exercises like this though I think the fact that they, they kind of pigeonhole it into cornerback safety. It's funny because I, because Jalen Petrie is so many different things. I, when I do my 53 man roster predictions for the Houston Press, I'm on like my third one now and I go like any roster projection, you go by, you know, quarterback, running back, and you got two and four and six wide receivers and 10 offensive lineman, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[Seth Payne]

So you just do full offensive lineman.

[Sean Pendergast]

I do full offensive lineman. I do full defensive lineman. I don't go end and tackle. I just do. There's eight or nine defensive linemen. I get to the secondary and what I started doing this year is I have cornerbacks, safeties, and Jalen Petrie. Jalen Petrie has his own category where there's one of them and his name is Jalen Petrie. That's I. So I think sometimes in these exercises his positionlessness.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Or at least the lack of a label of a position that he does, I think works to his detriment sometimes.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, that's where like, you know, in Derwin James and you know, I would say Cooper De Jean to a certain extent, there are all these guys that are very versatile and can play multiple positions and some of them, this is where, this is where the personal taste comes into it. I think if you're. If what you want out of your nickelback is a guy who's got really good coverage skills is like, okay, then you think about a guy like Cooper De Jean. Yes, that okay, he's versatile, but he's more on the, he's more on the coverage side of things where guys like Derwin James who can do everything and be a Swiss army knife, he's kind of a different position than a Cooper DeJean. Even though they might be asked to do some of the same things. I think people value the coverage part of it more. Whereas Jalen Petrie, like, it's not, it's not his one on one man coverage skills that are his calling card. He probably gets docked just simply because of that. He doesn't see people are Going to look at him and love what he does, but not look at him as a rare an athlete as some of those other guys.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. But there was that Rasheed Rice hit. I was hoping that would get Jalen Petrie all of the accolades this offseason. There was that hit, and he just killed the guy right there on the field. It was amazing.

[Seth Payne]

Well, what's so funny is. Is that they also included nickel defenders in this list because Kobe Bryant, who just signed with the Chicago Bears, a lot of that. Another name that was an honorable mention. But Nicki Min Worry, the rookie safety that played in the nickel throughout the entire postseason for Seattle, shows up at number six.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And I'm like, I have a bigger sample size of knowing what ungodly type of hits we're gonna see from Jalen Petrie.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Than I do on Nicki Manwari.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I feel like if you flip them, then you feel better about this.

[Sean Pendergast]

He. He was a cheat code for them in a Super bowl playoff run, though. You know what I mean? Even worry, oh, dude, he was awesome at South Carolina. That helps him. Yeah, yeah, that. That. I think that really helps me.

[Cole Thompson]

Like, I think most defenses now list their starters with five in nickel. Like, you're right. So, like, so it is. It's kind of still trying to pigeonhole everything into two safeties and two cornerbacks. It's just not an accurate reflection of just the way teams are actually operating.

[Seth Payne]

No.

[Sean Pendergast]

No. So in the end, in this exercise with ESPN, the Texans get. They get their two edge defenders, both finish in the top ten.

[Seth Payne]

William.

[Sean Pendergast]

Top six. They were top six.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Will was three, Daniel was six. Aziz Al Shayer, six rated linebacker. Derek Stingley Jr. Second rated corner, Kaylin Bullock tenth, rated safety, and Nico Collins, eighth, rated wide receiver.

[Seth Payne]

And then the first two off were Kamari Laster at wider at cornerback, and Jalen and Jalen Petrie at safety.

[Sean Pendergast]

And CJ Stroud got one vote, and CJ Style got one vote for quarterback,

[Seth Payne]

and the offensive line got none.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. And Kamari was. Kamari was honorable mention.

[Seth Payne]

Was honorable men.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Well, Kamari. And that's where Kamari and Kalin are both in that same boat. Like everything I said about Kalen Bullock, I think I would add to Kamari, even though he's played, he started off, you know, he was a starter immediately where Kaylin Bullock had to work his way in. But I think Kamari is one of those guys that you almost have to like. The Texans need to play more teams before, especially teams in the nfc start to get A feel for like, oh, oh, it's not just, it's not just Derek Stingley.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Cole Thompson]

And then also, you know, then Kamari Lasseter is the second guy. They're going to start realizing, okay, oh, wow. They've actually got a really good thing going at both spots.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, I know Sean feels this way. Seth, do you think that Kamari is a bonafide top 10 cornerback already?

[Cole Thompson]

Not yet. I think that, I think that that's just. I guess and maybe I'm guilty of this too. I just still need to see more of a body of work. It's interesting. I guess I do think He's a top 10 cornerback, but I also, I don't get offended that he's, he's not listed in the top 10.

[Sean Pendergast]

There's, there's a tenure element to you to, it feels like to you, like, hey, he's done it for two years. Let's see, for three years.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, you know, this is the thing with Kamari that, you know, like the discussion over his 40 time was overblown and the chance that it was inaccurately reported to begin with. But there is an element to his game that's a little bit unconventional in that he's got an ability to be beat by a half step, but because he's so freakishly good at timing the arrival of the ball that there are a lot of plays he makes makes at the, at the, the, the catch point that make him way better than it. He's way better than it might look by the textbook version of playing cornerback.

[Seth Payne]

He benefits from an under thrown ball more than anybody. Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's basically.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. But even when the good. You remember the play in the end zone of the. Against the Chiefs. Yeah. Like that was. I think that's a, I think that's a catch versus a lot of other cornerbacks who aren't as good at the catch points. And I think it's. There's a part of me that's still a little bit like I almost need to see that so consistently for one more year for me to really believe it because it's just a little bit atypical. But it's not. But he's really, really good at it.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is a great. I think this question encapsulates, I think this is middle screen sending in this question that encapsulates perfectly with Jalen Petrie is who's the backup to Jalen Petrie? Yeah, the answer is there isn't one.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, you know, last year the solution was you go play Your base. Four, three.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's right.

[Cole Thompson]

We're not to put five defensive backs out there. We just bring EJ Speed.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah. Henry to a Toa moves over to the strong side.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's exactly right. That's. That's the backup. It's not a backup person. It's a backup plan. Yeah. All right. Pain and pender gas with you. Cole Thompson hanging out with us today. Five teams have checked in reportedly on Stefan Diggs. Are the Texans one of them? Should they be? We'll do that coming up next. All right, Pain and pender gas with you. Here's Jeremy Fowler. We talked about him a lot this hour. But here's Jeremy Fowler on ESPN talking about Stefan Diggs. Says five teams checking in on the former Texans wide receiver. I'm hearing he's going to have a market closer to training camp. I was told that at least five teams that need a wide receiver have been checking in. Now they got to deal with some of the baggage and the headlines. They are what they are, but here's why. Stefan Diggs, I'm told, is confident he had a thousand plus yards last year, really playing on a snap count of around 55% of the snaps coming off an ACL. He feels he's going to be better this time around. I'm looking to the dmv, Laura. That's where he's from. Commander certainly need a receiver. I think they're looking for more of like a speed option at this point. We'll see. There are several veterans they could look at. I don't think it's going to be Brandon Iuk at this stage. Right. And the Baltimore Ravens, they have really made a living at times signing retread receivers. Veterans who are accomplished, who are in their 30s, who can come in and help. I bet. I bet Diggs didn't like being categorized as a retread right there.

[Cole Thompson]

I don't know. You know what, though? Diggs is. Diggs was like, you and I both gave him credit for just. He took an interesting tact in that social media post the other day where he said, hey, you know, name a number two wide receiver who's better than me. And, you know, like, okay, I mean, George Pickens and Devonte Adams or whatever. But it's a good. It's a good way to frame it. If I'm doing PR for myself and I'm Stefon Diggs, I want to be sure teams know that I don't expect to come in and I have to be the alpha and all of this. That Like, I know where I am in my career, but I'm still really, really good. I think that with Diggs, it's. The fascinating part is just you can't deny that he was a very, very effective football player last year for a really good football team. And it makes sense. Usually you would say, okay, well then why were the Patriots so quick to move on from him? Like, oh, okay, well, because they got AJ Freaking Brown coming in. Like, that makes a lot of sense.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, but they got rid of him long before they traded for A.J. brown. Yeah, but we also A.J.

[Seth Payne]

brown, though.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, that's the thing.

[Cole Thompson]

I mean, the reporting was basically forever. It was months where people were saying, yeah, it's a foregone conclusion. Likely, you know, when Dan Arusini was still talking to people, I'm guessing. Yeah, like, I think, yeah, I think the Patriots felt like it was a. They were pretty certain they were going to get A.J.

[Seth Payne]

brown. Not to mention a knock, knock, who's there? A lawsuit filing coming. You're right. Next.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, that's the, that's the whole thing with Stefan Diggs is that, okay, look, he was completely exonerated of his latest legal issue or off field scenario. I don't, I just wonder where's the tipping point on people like, you know, you know, if you're a really good player, you're going to keep getting chance after chance and somebody's going to sign step on Diggs this year. But the price tag for Stefon Diggs, when it has been from the time he left Buffalo, you know, including his last couple years in Buffalo, it's been drama every step along the way, including with the Texan where he was awesome in the build building, you can't deny that. But he was also facing a lawsuit from a couple of women in Houston. Like, there's just, he's always got something going on and some teams, especially at this point of the year, are probably like, if I, if I'm the Texans, I'm thinking, man, I really like, I want to see what I get out of Jalen Noel. I want to see what we get out of Jaden Higgins. These are our young guys. We need to develop them. Not to mention there's Tank freaking Dell. We don't know how they feel about him right now and how optimistic they are. I don't need the extra money spent and everything else that comes with it. Potentially, when the good, smart football thing to do is continue to develop your young guys and the guys you already have on the team to create a really crowded receiver room if Stefan Diggs comes in.

[Sean Pendergast]

So my question for you guys is, is this one of the rare cases? Because I feel like if we played a little game where every report that came out about a free agent and the Fowlers or the Shefters of the world were like, six teams have checked in on this guy. Guess the six teams that have checked in on fill in name of free agent here. I would always put the Texans on that list, always. Because I think Nick Casario flips over every stone. Is this one of the rare instances, do you think, because they've got a history with Stefan Diggs, they may feel like they know everything they need to know. They may feel like they want to develop their young guys in the wide receivers. Is this the rare case where I shouldn't be guessing the Texans are one of the five teams that are calling.

[Cole Thompson]

I think that. No, I think they probably still checked in. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Here's a. Here's a reason why, though. And Seth's brought this up a lot, and I'm in full agreeance with him until I see Tank Dell actually take live refs. He's not a part of the factor for me.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So do you feel good about where you are with the rest of your receiving room? To where, let's be real, if Stefan Diggs came on in, he would be the epitome of what you need in a number two receiver for a team that's trying to contend for Super Bowl.

[Cole Thompson]

I think this is where, like, in building a team like you want your team, ideally, a team is somewhat aggressive in free agency, but not over the top. Make smart decisions in the draft and build from within. If you go back a couple of years after the Texans had drafted Kalen Bullock, that's when Justin Simmons was also out there on the free agency market. And at the time, people are wondering, like, why would they not go after Justin Simmons? They need a safety. Well, all right. Well, because they had. They had Jimmie Ward and they had this young draft pick that they liked, and lo and behold, right now, it would have been the most idiotic thing in the world to sign Justin Simmons. It's not a great. It's not a great comparison because Justin Simmons, he hasn't played.

[Sean Pendergast]

He was kind of cooked at the

[Cole Thompson]

time, but, like, that's the same dynamic of man. It's just so much more appetizing to say, look, you've got that guy out there. Go get him. When the truth of the matter is you draft Jalen Noel and Jaden Higgins for A reason and you like. And it's to build from within and to get those guys producing on a very good rookie contract. And I think that's. That's the smart thing to do right now.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I'd be up for Diggs again. I'd be up for Diggs part two.

[Cole Thompson]

I wouldn't turn it down. I wouldn't turn it down. I just don't think if I'm trying to gauge how the Texans feel about it right now, I think they're looking at Diggs as like, yeah, he's definitely an option. If somebody gets injured or if someone, if one of your young players, like, if Jalen Noel just for whatever reason, they start feeling really pessimistic about him, then, yeah, there's a really good chance that they would think about Stefan Diggs. But I think right now they're very much in a holding pattern with some kind of move like that.

[Seth Payne]

Now, somebody does agree with you on the text line. Jim says, I like the thought of Diggs. However, I agree with Seth. We probably should be developing our young guys.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I can go either way if they, if they bring him in. I do, I do think I'm a little surprised. A little surprised that they haven't gotten a veteran, experienced wide receiver like that. Yeah, exactly.

[Cole Thompson]

Christian Kirk. That was like, let me be clear, a cheap one.

[Sean Pendergast]

One that can actually move the chains for you. And I think that was a playoff

[Seth Payne]

game and call it a day.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right, right.

[Cole Thompson]

It was a. I think Christian Kirk was there as a one year mentor to Jalen Noel.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Because that's a big learning how to play slot in the NFL. It's like one of the more mentally taxing things for young players in the NFL. And I think that was what they planned with Christian Kirk in that by year two, they were hoping that Jalen Noel would be your. Your guy.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, it's just a really young room is all. You know, Nico. Nico is heading into year six, so he's fine. And he, you know, eighth best wide receiver in football, but, you know, you got three Iowa State guys, one's heading into year four, two of them are heading into their second year, and we don't know what Tank Dell is and I don't know what it looks like. Is it Justin Watson after that? Is that the next guy?

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, no.

[Seth Payne]

Lewis. Blonde, apparently.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I think Danny Amendola shows up at some point. Is he living in the Woodlands? No, no, not. Not as a player, but like, I think Danny Amendola makes an appearance at camp or something. Oh, yeah, Kind of like, hey, yeah, pop in. Yeah, this is the way it all.

[Seth Payne]

He'd go back to the Woodlands. I figured he'd stay in Boston.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm guessing either Boston or la. Well, he's married actress, isn't he?

[Sean Pendergast]

Should be. He's a good looking man. Yeah, yeah, he's a handsome.

[Cole Thompson]

He's married to somebody who's as annoyingly good looking as he is, if I remember correctly.

[Sean Pendergast]

And they're gonna make good looking kids and blah. All right, so Pain and Pendergast with you. Cole Thompson in with us. Hey, Seth. I remember the name of the guy now that we were bringing up on Twitter earlier.

[Cole Thompson]

Danny Amendola is 40 years old. His girlfriend, social media influencer and model Grace Montgomery is reportedly 21 years old.

[Seth Payne]

What did they meet? The timelines really important for him.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm sure they have a lot of deep conversations about things.

[Cole Thompson]

She probably wrote him a fan letter when he was with the Patriots because her middle school class there's all wrote letters.

[Sean Pendergast]

There's probably a picture of him holding her as a baby, like Messi.

[Seth Payne]

Who has better conversations? Jordan Hudson and Bill Belichick or Danny Amendola and his girlfriend.

[Cole Thompson]

I would say Belichick, Belichick and Jordan. Jordan Hudson. She's gone through such a transformation. Yeah, like two years of notoriety. She looks like one of those scary rich women.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

You know, the kind you see in River Oaks.

[Seth Payne]

Right?

[Cole Thompson]

You're like some of those women driving around River Oaks. Holy crap.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

This woman. This woman is. She's so angry because she knows that she should have everything to make her happy.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Except she's still miserable. And she will mow me down if I don't kick. If I don't get through this crosswalk before this thing changes, I will get mowed down by.

[Seth Payne]

You can see the fear in her eyes as you're walking across the street. She's ready to come for you.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, my God. Well, she. Well, if all you're saying is interesting conversations, you know, just normal conversations. Yeah, I mean, I got to go. Bella. Checking. Jordan Hudson. I know nothing about this Montgomery. This young lady, I'm sure she's a delight.

[Seth Payne]

I don't even know what she looks like.

[Sean Pendergast]

But I.

[Cole Thompson]

One of my players said that this thing collapsed. Is that good or bad?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I'm just saying interesting like. Like interesting means they could be awkward. And if you can, you know, handle the awkward.

[Cole Thompson]

Jordan, what kind of filter should I use on this selfie? Yeah, Danny already knows which filter you use.

[Sean Pendergast]

Absolutely.

[Cole Thompson]

Bill's. It's all new to Bill.

[Seth Payne]

He doesn't have to use a filter. Look at him. He's perfect already.

[Sean Pendergast]

I know.

[Seth Payne]

That's what pisses me off more than anything else.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep.

[Cole Thompson]

What do you get more pissed off about? Good looking guys or rich guys? Which is any more. Wait. When you have to tamp down the. The envy a little bit.

[Seth Payne]

Good looking, they can be on the same playing field as me when it comes to trying to win over a

[Sean Pendergast]

chill, it's complete envy.

[Seth Payne]

There.

[Sean Pendergast]

Jealous of everybody I got used to.

[Cole Thompson]

My brother was, like a devastatingly handsome man when he was young. Now he just looks like a.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's like, he's got jagged skirt.

[Cole Thompson]

When you tell people that Alec Baldwin used to be, like, a heartthrob, young people are like, what? No, dude. Like, he used to be. My brother was like that, but now he looks like Alec Baldwin. But like, I grew up with, like, I would walk anywhere with my brother and it's like women's heads swiveling, you know? So I got used to that real early in life.

[Sean Pendergast]

Did you? How long did it take you to realize they were looking at him and not you?

[Cole Thompson]

No. Like, from birth. Yeah. There was never any question about it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. I just like to picture you for, like 12 years walking around like you were the cock of the walk.

[Cole Thompson]

No, my brother was like one of those weird dudes. Like, he had the kavorka. Like that. It was. You walk into a bar and there's 10 women who are ready to risk it all. You know, like, all right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Painting Pendergast with you. Cole Thompson in with us. All right. Lance McCullers traded yesterday. I've got some Lance McCullers thoughts. What's the first thing that's going to pop into your head years from now about Lance McCullers? And Cole's got a little game we're going to play. King of the hill with Lance McCullers versus Astros, starting pitchers of this century. We will do that coming up next. Hey there. I'm Kendra Adachi, and my show, the Lazy Genius podcast helps you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. And you get to decide what matters. I'm not here to tell you what to do.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm here to give you a new way to see.

[Sean Pendergast]

Episodes of the Lazy Genius podcast are full of compassionate time management tips and permission slips to do what makes sense for you. New episodes drop every Monday. Follow and listen to the Lazy Genius podcast on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. Right into the 9 o' clock hour we go. I am Sean Pendergast. He is Seth Payne. He is Cole Thompson. Cole, hanging out with us for a couple of days.

[Seth Payne]

Set friends.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, it's a good week to hang out, man. Is, you know, hey, a lot of fill in the blanks going on with the. With this. With the sports world. Kind of in a break right now, so it's great.

[Cole Thompson]

Earlier I brought up Davenport, Iowa, like off the top of my dome, and I had no idea why. And then I remembered, oh, it was because the River Band. Davenport was one of the quad Cities for the Quad City River Bandits. Used to be in the Astros.

[Sean Pendergast]

They were an affiliate. Who they with now?

[Cole Thompson]

What's that? Who they with? The Royals.

[Seth Payne]

Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

Big step down for them.

[Seth Payne]

Big step down for them.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I mean, maybe if you're a fan of the Royals, at least you could see decent prospects.

[Cole Thompson]

It makes more sense geographically, I guess.

[Sean Pendergast]

Probably. Probably. The Astros single is in Asheville, North Carolina, right now. I've been to a game there.

[Seth Payne]

The Woodpeckers.

[Sean Pendergast]

Is it they the Woodpecker? Are they the Woodpecker? Which one? Isn't there one? That's the Volunteers. They are the Woodpeckers.

[Seth Payne]

I know that there's a Woodpecker. Remember that mascot?

[Sean Pendergast]

It's a fun. If you're ever down in the Smoky Mountains there in western North Carolina, go take in a game. Go see the future stars of the Houston astros and their 26th ranked minor league system out there.

[Seth Payne]

Depending on who you ask, you've seen Kylie McDaniel's rankings? No, they're still at 30.

[Sean Pendergast]

They're. Oh, okay.

[Seth Payne]

They're even worse.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, well, I like the ones where they're in the 20s.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Baseball America, we live here.

[Sean Pendergast]

Lance McCullers traded yesterday. What? Yeah. Did you hear. You heard the news? Yeah. Traded to Milwaukee along with Colton Gordon and some cash for Jaden Fielder, who is the grandson of Cecil Fielder and the son of Prince Fielder. So if you're looking to feel old, there you go. He's an outfielder. So. So Lance McCullers is gone. And I guess my. My initial thoughts with Lance McCullers will I try to avoid thinking about the injuries, but it's impossible, possible not to because of how badly it, a, derailed Lance McCullers personally or professionally, I guess. And B, how much money the Astros have paid for so few innings of actual Major League baseball pitch. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. The amount of money per inning pitched. Yeah, that's a. That's a brutal one.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

These with Verland. Verlander had the same dynamic, but obviously with better. Better overall feel about it.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, well, he came back and won a Cy Young after.

[Cole Thompson]

Right, right. Yeah. No, no. I'm not saying they're the same after the apples or anything. It's like with. With Lance, it's the exact opposite. It's just been a steady procession of like, hey, look at. He's coming back. Like, ah, he dropped a weight on his foot. Oh, this year. This year. Cole, you brought up a man. He had a really encouraging start, but remember his first. If I remember correctly, the first medical issue this year was a fingernail. Like he lost half his fingernail or something. So for his spike curve, he couldn't use his fingernail. Like, it just. It was unfortunately always something with Lance McCullough.

[Seth Payne]

Spin the wheel of injuries or ailments for every single everything.

[Sean Pendergast]

He looked like the operation board game guy with the. With all the different, you know, little you got to pick out and if

[Seth Payne]

you touch the side, then you were screwed.

[Sean Pendergast]

You. You were. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

This is the biggest thing about the McCullers trade. Like, before we get into the actual McCullough's legacy and all of that is all right. This is a year where, man, because there's so many contenders, people are kind of wondering how the trade market's going to shake out. And usually what happens with the trade deadline is, man, nothing really happens until 48 hours, 72 hours beforehand when the dominoes start to fall. So to pull off a trade where you're going to get a couple million dollars of salary relief that doesn't, you know, really move the needle, other than the big name involved there are getting out ahead of like, okay, let's. Let's prime the pump and get ready for whatever moves we might be able to make. I like the fact that they did this a couple of weeks before the deadline, that they're. They're going to make some kind of a positioning. Yeah. Like, so it very much looks like they're positioning. And not to mention mention they for the second year in a row, annoyingly, we're almost looking at some of these returning pitchers as some of your trade deadline moves. It's like, okay, well, we got these guys coming back. Let's see how they do. They're going to have to. It's almost like they're going to be trying guys out. Well, and there's too many guys to also include that.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's the. You nailed it, Seth. That the bit my big Reaction to this was he was not in their plans even once he was healthy again. Like, he's just. There's no reason. Room, seats taken, you know, the bus is full and full force Gump aren't. Well, there, there were no. But there's. They, they. There was no room for him. And so instead of when you dfa him, you got to pay him the whole salary.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is at least Milwaukee picking up a couple million of it. I almost feel like. I almost feel like Colton Gordon and the cash are like the second round pick that the Texans had to staple to Brock Osweiler to get Cleveland. It's take to take on the salary like, okay, we'll take on 2 million of Lance McCullers. We got to give us something else. Like, okay, here we go. This guy was. Don't look at how he's done in the majors. This guy was the minor league pitcher of the week last week for the Astros.

[Seth Payne]

Only pay attention to Triple A stats

[Sean Pendergast]

in the last seven days. You're getting a hell of a deal right here with Colton Gordon as part of it.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, yeah, and I think that's where. Okay, so you know, they're, they're clearing some room to be able to do some kind of thing.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Do you feel good, bad, optimistic, pessimistic about the fact that it might also be an indicator that they're not going to be targeting a starting pitcher, but that this is to help clear some room maybe to go get an outfielder and that they think that the pitchers that are coming back from injury or working their way back in, like Christian Javier right now, are going to be the solution for starting pitchers.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I don't know if this move has me feeling one way or the other, Seth, about which. I hadn't thought about that, about which position it is. I just think it, it indicates they're going to do something which, which to

[Cole Thompson]

point out to the people who didn't know or hear like, Fielder's a prospect. They're not looking at him as a guy they're going to plug in.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah. He on the major leagues.

[Seth Payne]

He's like 21 years old. Like, he's got, he's got some time before he makes.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I would say indifferent about this because of. It doesn't defer me from wanting to go target another starting pitcher with the right guys on the market, but it does allow me to feel confident if I'm getting back a Ronald Blanco or I'm getting back a Hayden Wisneski or I'm getting Getting more guys to come up from maybe the minors to where we feel confident on where we are. All right. The money that we're now able to use, we can go splurge a little bit more on maybe getting that left handed power outfield bat. That's so necessary. And Dana Brown's been talking about for, for weeks now about trying to add on it.

[Sean Pendergast]

I got excited about some of the names that I saw rumored to the Astros in the outfield while I was gone on vacation last week. A couple of the other Colorado guys.

[Seth Payne]

Nicki Moniac is awesome dude. Like he, like honestly. And what's so funny is, is that people were laughing at the trade rumor when it came up two years ago.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

And then he goes to Colorado and immediately, even when you throw in the luxury tax that is horse field in the elevation, he still is hitting well.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Like he still has done a good job of hitting for what you want in the six or seven hole of your lineup. And a left handed bat. That would be great to be able to add in as a full time starter. That way you don't have to see a platoon of Jake Myers or Joey Leprfito.

[Sean Pendergast]

That would excite you calling up that would.

[Cole Thompson]

That.

[Sean Pendergast]

That would excite me for sure. I guess from Seth you brought up the word legacy. I guess legacy standpoint. If I'm, if I'm trying to be positive about this with Lance because the injuries just are such a dark cloud over everything. Especially in light of the fact that he got a deal, he got, he got paid the 24 straight curveballs in Game 7. Will that be the thing for. I say the longtime Astro fans.

[Cole Thompson]

You know, every time we talk about this, I can't. I, I still have to. I remind myself that man McCullers was, has been with the organization into his entire career. He was the there from in 2015 when they first became a competitive baseball team again on through, up through this year. But what we remember, yeah, most notably was against the Yankees in that. In the playoffs seven. And he was like a huge part of all of that. But. But because there are so many names and guys that did big things. Dallas Kaikel is almost an afterthought in a lot of people's minds. And I feel like, I feel like he's neglected in terms of people talking about like they should have more emotional attachment to Dallas ko.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

But he also, he's been out of the organization, which means we didn't have to worry about him being a drain on the organization.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. It's not Gone well since. For Dallas. Since he's left here, that's for sure. Okay. So along those lines, Cole, you've got a little exercise for us.

[Seth Payne]

I thought. I thought this would be fun because I see this all the time, like, on social media, and it's a fun way to go ahead and talk about. Where does Lance McCulloch Jr. Rank in the legacy of pitcher for the Astros over the last 25 years? So it's called. It's called king of the hill.

[Sean Pendergast]

King of the hill.

[Seth Payne]

What you're doing is Lance McCullers Jr. Is staying pat every single time.

[Cole Thompson]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

But you can knock him off of the hill by picking this other pitcher,

[Sean Pendergast]

and then once that other pitcher gets picked, it's.

[Seth Payne]

He's now the king of the hill.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's now the king of the hill. This is good. So we'll. And. And. And so is this in sort of an ascending order of how good guys are? Yeah, yeah. You're not going to put him up against Justin Verlander. That would make for a very short segment.

[Seth Payne]

He's like, at number two. Number three. We get at least get one name in here. Lance McCullers Jr. Or Brad Peacock.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so Brad. Oh, Brad Peacock again. Brad Peacock, who got mentioned by name by Donald Trump when they visited the White House because someone had clearly handed him a piece of paper that listed the pitchers by number of wins that they had that year, and Peacock had the second most wins on the team behind, I think, Dallas Keiko that year.

[Cole Thompson]

In 2020, you have the Jose Altuve drop. Is that still a drop? The Donald Trump saying, altuve, Jose Altuve. It was awesome.

[Sean Pendergast]

The best was when they would freeze Altuve in a glare.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, they did them. They did.

[Sean Pendergast]

Else.

[Cole Thompson]

No, they did.

[Sean Pendergast]

They totally did. It was really funny, though.

[Cole Thompson]

Not that I have zero clue how anybody feels about anybody politically, except like, that. It was like a classic still frame moment where it made it look like Altuve.

[Sean Pendergast]

Where is. So Seth Peacock versus McCullers. I say McCullers on that.

[Cole Thompson]

I say McCullers.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, McCullough. Okay, let me add this, too. McCullers finished seventh for the Cy Young in 2021. Like Lance McCullers before, like, the second or third elbow surgery when he pitched was good.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Every time it was until, like, 2025, and then he just. He lost it. So who's Next?

[Seth Payne]

Lance, Carlos Jr. Or Colin McHugh?

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, Colin McHugh is underrated, but a very underappreciated pitcher. Very underrated. Yeah, he had that kind of.

[Cole Thompson]

He.

[Sean Pendergast]

He had the sweeper before. The sweeper was a thing back in the day. Like, he had some weird movement on his pitches.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. But I feel like. Yeah. This is still the preliminary rounds, and this is a pretty easy.

[Seth Payne]

They're gonna get harder, I promise.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, I know. I know. I'm dreading it, Lance. With colors.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, we'll go with colors.

[Cole Thompson]

I don't know if you. I don't know if you ever heard us do Circle of Trust.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, my God.

[Seth Payne]

I've paid attention to it before.

[Cole Thompson]

It's painful for me. If Altuve ever comes up. Oh, my God. I'm missing.

[Sean Pendergast]

Guess what we're doing tomorrow.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, no.

[Sean Pendergast]

I just decided two seconds ago.

[Seth Payne]

Lancer colors, Junior or go back to yesteryear. Wandy Rodriguez.

[Sean Pendergast]

I know. Lance Wandi was underrated back in the day. What do you think, Seth?

[Cole Thompson]

I'll go with Lance.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, we'll go. Lance on that one.

[Seth Payne]

Speaking of which, the former Cy Young winner himself, Lance McCullough Jr. Or Dallas.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. Hey, mister. Hey, Mr. Kaikal. Mr. Kaikal supporter over there.

[Cole Thompson]

You know what I am? I'm like the guy who's like, oh, yeah, I love the Dead. I love Grateful Dead. Oh, yeah. What's your favorite song?

[Seth Payne]

Touch.

[Cole Thompson]

Your concert you've been to. What do you mean? Like, ah, you know, how long did

[Seth Payne]

you travel with them? Well, how many weeks are you on tour?

[Cole Thompson]

Okay. I like the ice cream. I like. I like Cherry Garcia. That's right.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's right. Thank God.

[Cole Thompson]

Boy, I. You know what, Lance? By virtue of him being so devoted to the city of Houston and the organization, and it's a lot easier to be devoted when you've got a pile of money that they're giving you, too. But he. Look, he got Bury Me. Bury Me in the H tattoo as a young man.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, I didn't know.

[Cole Thompson]

At a time when it was harder

[Sean Pendergast]

to remove tattoos, I didn't know that it's a tattoo. I just thought he screamed it at the parade.

[Cole Thompson]

I thought he got. I thought his tattoo says Barry.

[Seth Payne]

I know he has an H tattoo.

[Sean Pendergast]

Fact check us on this.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, yeah, Fact check me on that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

So it's still. Though. As much as I think Dallas Kuykle is underappreciated, I think Lance McCullers is more underappreciated.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is. This is the first one I've really had to, like, give it some time. He. Dallas Keiko won a side Young award for the.

[Cole Thompson]

Dallas Kyle may or may not have been one of the catalysts to Justin Verlander even being.

[Sean Pendergast]

There's no may or may not. He sold him on coming here.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, the first but even the catalyst to trying to sign him was him publicly criticizing the organization for not making a move at the initial trade. That.

[Sean Pendergast]

Good point, Seth.

[Cole Thompson]

So. And then, yeah, the Hurricane Harvey was going on. Kate and Justin were sitting up in their evil and wondering what the hell's going on in Houston and Dallas. Keiko assured him it's not that bad. Did he lie? A little, probably. But that's what you got to do sometimes.

[Sean Pendergast]

Just puddles. It's just some of the streets. You're going to splash some people on the side.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Dallas Kyle, who we know lived in a high rise just up the road, was just fine.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So for the tattoo. He has a Houston based tattoo, but it's the be someone sign over in the skyline of Houston with.

[Cole Thompson]

Even better. That's even better.

[Sean Pendergast]

Houston right there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because bury me in the H could mean any number of things. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

You know the super baller, if he found out who's responsible for painting that be someone's sign and actually had him do the tattoo.

[Sean Pendergast]

But, sir, I'm an accountant. That's okay.

[Seth Payne]

Okay, so you guys are going.

[Sean Pendergast]

We'll go McCullers. Mostly because I want to keep the game going. I'm guessing these are going to get harder.

[Cole Thompson]

I would have chosen McCullers, though.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Yeah. McCullers.

[Seth Payne]

Lance Colors Jr. Or Andy Pettit.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, wow. Oh, you son of a. Oh, crap. Of nowhere.

[Seth Payne]

I. I'm telling you, these are going to get hard.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh.

[Sean Pendergast]

Different eras.

[Cole Thompson]

Home. Literally homegrown. I mean, Pasadena grown.

[Seth Payne]

Because think about this for a second. Think of them as an Astro, not in the longevity of their career.

[Sean Pendergast]

I wasn't here. So for. For me, Cole. Oh, two or like 01 to 06 is a big Houston blind spot for me because I. I was here from 94 to 01.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

I moved away for six years and I moved back here to get into radio. So I was here for zero of Seth's NFL career. I don't even believe he was an actual player. I think he's. But.

[Seth Payne]

But I.

[Sean Pendergast]

So I wasn't. I mean, I can look at the stats and actually. Do you have the stats for you? Yeah, yeah, I was.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. And like here I was playing for the Texans at the time.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Seth was here, you know, and I've always liked and admired Andy Pettit.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, he's one of my favorite pitchers of all time.

[Cole Thompson]

His career is sandwiched by the Yankees and he's He's.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's a Yankee.

[Seth Payne]

Here's what he was. He was 37 and 28 in three years with the Astros. He had a 338 ERA and 519.2 innings pitched.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Seth Payne]

He had 428 strikeouts.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. He's already pitched more innings in three years than Lance did in 12.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

So you know what? For the reasons that we shouldn't have even had to bring up the stats, he was a Yankee on this side of it. He's a Yankee on the other side. Lance McCullers is going to be buried in the H. Damn it.

[Cole Thompson]

All right, we'll take McCullers. I want to. You know what, though? Like, what was he in the playoffs with Houston? I'm having stat cast sort it right. Right now. 4. 26 ERA. No.

[Seth Payne]

24 curveballs.

[Sean Pendergast]

McCullers was a 263 ERA in the world Series.

[Cole Thompson]

I'll tell you one thing though. Like Lance said, bury me in the age. But Andy Pettit, you know, built a compound in Pasadena in his old neighborhood or in Deer Park. Excuse me. The. Yeah, sorry. Excuse me.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm just heading off the Deer park

[Cole Thompson]

people, you know, but Lance McCullers, that was a good one, though.

[Seth Payne]

Lance McCullers Jr. Or from Valdez.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's got to be from. Okay, this is where. This is where Lance gets pushed off the hill. And even though from her felt like he wanted to bury Cesar Salazar in the H, I still got buried in Detroit.

[Seth Payne]

That's the question.

[Sean Pendergast]

I got he from is and was for the Astros. So good.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, Lance never had a season like Robert did in 2022.

[Cole Thompson]

And the opposite of what Lance has been from. Just eat up innings.

[Sean Pendergast]

Eat up.

[Cole Thompson]

You know, just that part of it. He was just an absolute horse. Yep. So a horse and a horse.

[Seth Payne]

Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

It's hard to do.

[Seth Payne]

So. So these were the other four that were listed that we could have gotten to. I wonder just would you pick any of them?

[Sean Pendergast]

Let's play. Let's rapid fire's king of the hill now. Let's rapid fire these.

[Seth Payne]

Okay. Framber Valdez or Garrett Cole?

[Sean Pendergast]

Framber Valdez.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, sorry.

[Cole Thompson]

Sorry. No, no, no. I thought he said. I thought he said Lance McCullough. Sorry. I forgot. I forgot the way the. I forgot the way all worked. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Good job.

[Cole Thompson]

I would go for promver.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

You've made up for not having Trump's thing from. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Valdez or Roger Clemens.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm still actually a little bit scared of Roger.

[Sean Pendergast]

Roger might be listening. Yeah,

[Cole Thompson]

Roger Wouldn't know it. I never show it when I'm talking to him. I'm a little. Roger's one of those guys that's way bigger than. Than you expect him to be.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's a hos. Yeah, he's a hors.

[Seth Payne]

Roger Clemens or the wizard of O. Roy Oswalt.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, boy.

[Cole Thompson]

I would have to go with Oswal.

[Seth Payne]

I go, yeah, I'll go Walt and then Roy Oswalt.

[Cole Thompson]

And don't tell. Don't tell Roger where I am.

[Seth Payne]

Roy Oswalt and future wearing a Houston Astros cap in the hall of Fame. Justin jv.

[Sean Pendergast]

JV is the best pitcher in the history of the franchise. That. That's. That's that.

[Cole Thompson]

I'm a little scared of Roy Oswalt, though, too.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, he's got a tractor.

[Seth Payne]

He can fly you. I can probably.

[Cole Thompson]

The whole thing about Oswald. Yeah. Has nothing to do with size or anything. He's that guy. No, Oswald's classically that guy. They're like, yeah, don't. Don't judge him by his stature. That's a. That's a dude you don't want to tangle with.

[Seth Payne]

Seth, Roy's got nothing to do right now. He can easily find you. Justin's got things to worry about at this point.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, that's true. I would go with Verlander.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's true. All right. Payne and Pender gas with you. Cole Thompson hanging out with us. All right, coming up next, should this lady have to drive around with this as her randomly selected license plate on her car? Florida woman. We will have that for you coming up next. Yeah. People pointing out Fielder, Jaden Fielder, Cecil Fielder's grandson. Prince Fielder's son. The player who came over in the. In the trade. People pointing out he was an undrafted free agent. He's not listed as one of their top 30 prospects. He's got good numbers. He's got no PS over 800. Right. Right now.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, right. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's not even really a prospect. We know, we know. We're not saying he's the future.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, no, no. I have brought him up as a prospect. Like. Yeah, like you just. Just know that he's not gonna likely be part of a World Series.

[Seth Payne]

No. He's joining the squad tonight.

[Sean Pendergast]

This is, this is not the outfield bat that the Astros are looking for right now.

[Cole Thompson]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

The major league level. He's just. Yeah, he's a. He's a low level prospect.

[Seth Payne]

Hey, credible crowds, dude. Dana did draft a power headed left handed bat, so maybe that was.

[Sean Pendergast]

Did. All right, so this I saw this video yesterday. There's a 77 year old Florida woman named Nancy Della streeto and she's 77 years old and she just, I guess just got a new car maybe and got some new plates and you know, I'm. I've never had vanity plates before. Cole, have you ever had vanity plates?

[Seth Payne]

No, but my wife does.

[Sean Pendergast]

She has vanity.

[Seth Payne]

Yes, she has vanity plates.

[Sean Pendergast]

What do they say?

[Seth Payne]

It says I should know this off time.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, it's just a license plate.

[Seth Payne]

It's KLD because it was her former last name. 75.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, so they're obsoleted now. Yeah, because you took her hand in marriage. It is. Okay. Have you ever had a. I said

[Seth Payne]

she hasn't changed it yet because doesn't want to pay the price.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, I don't.

[Seth Payne]

I don't blame her either.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, who cares? Yeah, don't let her know what your

[Seth Payne]

last name is, please.

[Sean Pendergast]

I'm gonna guess a hard no at minus 20,000 on Seth Payne having vanity plates on anything.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, no, no, not a vanity plate.

[Sean Pendergast]

Guy has probably Brandy.

[Cole Thompson]

No.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. No, Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I would have divorced her.

[Sean Pendergast]

Absolutely.

[Cole Thompson]

I think if I. No, if I did get vanity plates, I would do something like, I would try to. I would get like Jordan 23 or something. If people wonder if this.

[Sean Pendergast]

You don't want that.

[Cole Thompson]

Is that Michael Jordan in that Honda

[Seth Payne]

Accord, would you have the A spell with the at symbol? That way it makes it even cooler.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Go full like Wing Ding style.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like the kids. So anyways, 77 year old Nancy Della Streeto the plates that she was randomly given SQZ a 55. Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, okay. It took me a second to realize what this might be interpreted.

[Sean Pendergast]

Qz. In other words, Squeeze ass appears to be an abbreviation for squeeze and then a 55. 5. The two fives are subtle S's. Here.

[Seth Payne]

They look like S's.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah. If you're just glancing at it, it looks like it says squeeze Ass. She will not drive with these plates.

[Cole Thompson]

I don't think a woman that lives

[Sean Pendergast]

in a senior community that's going to be 77 years old next month will be driving around with what this plate has to say. I double and triple charge checked to make sure that this is not AI.

[Cole Thompson]

I kind of like her voice. She can, she can get it. Yeah, this is like a 77 year old.

[Seth Payne]

Right?

[Sean Pendergast]

Then play it. Then play it one more time. I don't think. Oh, a woman that lives in a senior community that's going to be 77 years old next month will be driving around with What? She almost sounds. Wait, that sounds like a grandmother. You do not want to get on her bad side.

[Cole Thompson]

I wonder, though, too. Like, did she realize it herself, or did one of her grandkids say, hey, Grandpa, Grandma, you know, and the way you explain things to your grandma, I wouldn't think this, but some other people. Some other people might think that this says squeeze ass.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do you think she knew at the time when she looked at it, or did somebody have to point that out to her? Like, hey, the other thing.

[Cole Thompson]

Especially when she says living in a senior community, you might think, like, oh, yeah, yeah. Those places are hotbeds for all kinds of fun and frivolity. Man, there are a lot of people that just. So they're. They're widowers or they're widows and they got nothing to lose. Like, they're not looking to fall in love. They're just looking for a good time. She's probably like, I'm not driving around with this thing. I'm gonna have every bastard in a golf cart chasing after me grammy.

[Seth Payne]

Just. Just make sure that you don't have any pineapple sitting in the front seat. We don't need.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, and it's in Florida. Yeah, exactly. Well, there's that. There's that one huge community that retired. It's like a whole town where it's the.

[Seth Payne]

Not the Oaks. I know what you're talking about, though. I'll tell you a second.

[Cole Thompson]

But they've got, like, the highest STD rates in the nation. It's.

[Sean Pendergast]

And it's an old people.

[Cole Thompson]

Yes, yes, Sean, this is what I'm telling you. You see, this is one of those things. You think I'm joking about, like, no, these places are, like. It's Swingerville in some of these places.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I keep trying to get Brandon to move there.

[Sean Pendergast]

I was gonna say, like, I haven't really thought that far ahead, but this is definitely giving me some food for thought. Absolutely. Other than the STD part, that sounds like you'd be fairly miserable at age 82.

[Cole Thompson]

You know what's annoying about this, though, is that the DMV will flag all kinds of things just in case they might mean something dirty and that this is. But then here is the DMV just randomly spitting one out and not catching it on their own.

[Sean Pendergast]

I wonder if the fact that the two S's in Squiz ass are numbers, if that made it kind of fly below the radar.

[Cole Thompson]

Right, right.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

It's not something obvious.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

It's the same, like, yeah, it's kind of like one of those little captcha things.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Cole Thompson]

You know, computers don't pick up on it the way. The way that humans pick up.

[Sean Pendergast]

Exactly, exactly. Exactly. So. So this woman is not driving around with those plates. All right. Florida.

[Cole Thompson]

There was. I don't know if I should say this or not. I will. I was in the Cleveland airport once.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

And I. Let me think about this for a second, whether I should divulge or not. It was a license plate that I was amazed. It had the. It was Ms. Be something else. After that. It was another letter of the Alphabet. And it was. I was kind of surprised, and I felt like I was like. Well, it's definitely. It was definitely miss and not misses because we know what happens. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah. So that was the whole. That was the whole play.

[Cole Thompson]

It was just those four MSB blank space.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay.

[Cole Thompson]

Fill in a letter.

[Seth Payne]

So set. The place you were thinking of is the Villages.

[Cole Thompson]

The Villages.

[Seth Payne]

It is a 55 acre. It is a small town. It has a movie theater, golf courses,

[Sean Pendergast]

actual scorching inferno of herpes.

[Seth Payne]

And the number one version of herpes

[Sean Pendergast]

in the same Florida.

[Cole Thompson]

Does it say that? Is that what it said when you found it?

[Seth Payne]

It's in the herpes.

[Sean Pendergast]

I added that part.

[Cole Thompson]

That was one of those things that I heard once, and then I never, like. I never checked it or anything.

[Sean Pendergast]

Got to be true. Hey, did you guys see the. The Houston woman that went viral?

[Cole Thompson]

Viral.

[Sean Pendergast]

Practicing pole dancing in her apartment.

[Seth Payne]

No.

[Sean Pendergast]

She may be listening. She's from Houston. Her name is Asha Gilbert, and it was on all the. It was on the news everywhere, but obviously here in Houston. So she's in her apartment and she's got a pole. Not permanently installed, like a temporary pole.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

That, like, you. You raise it so it clamps to your ceiling. It's an adjustable. Yeah, it's basically a shower curtain, but like a big plate.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

You know, so. So I. It's in. And it's a pole. Like, it's a legit pole. So she was. She had. She has a big screen TV on the wall, and she's watching a lesson on how to pole dance, which I think that's a good woman right there. Like, learning how to do that for. Either for work or for her man. Either way.

[Seth Payne]

Or for both.

[Sean Pendergast]

Or both.

[Seth Payne]

We're not judging.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. She's enterprising. She's eager. Well, she got to a move where she had to. To essentially wrap herself around the pole with her feet off the ground. The pole tips over.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, God.

[Sean Pendergast]

And the, the, the plate that was supposed to be clamped to the ceiling, like she didn't clamp it, you know, so that, like, so the pole, she was basically getting on a pole that was ready to tip over, it tipped over and the pole hit the sprinkler head on the ceiling and the sprinkler head just exploded.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, wow.

[Sean Pendergast]

And was soaking her apartment. Apartment. She and she. People are probably wondering, well, she was this staged or whatever. I, My theory is she was shooting the video so she could, you know, critique herself with her pole dancing lessons. I don't think she was trying to damage her apartment with the sprinkler. But it's, it's a pretty incredible visual. And I get nervous every time I see stuff like that.

[Cole Thompson]

Well, it's like one of those, those doorway. Those doorway pull up bars.

[Sean Pendergast]

You're talking about the pole? Yeah, yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

No, no, no. Yeah. Like. No, I'm saying you get nervous the same way when you. Oh, those pull up bars that you put in a door.

[Sean Pendergast]

Stay there.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, it never seems like it's quite right.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, yeah, I didn't try that anymore.

[Sean Pendergast]

The pull ups. No, no, no, no.

[Seth Payne]

I'm going. If I'm doing it, I'm going to the gym. Oh, by the way, Seth, we have a comment on the text line that is confirming what we already knew. The Villages. I used to work there. My wife and I ran a few of their entertainment venues.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, my.

[Seth Payne]

Hundred and thirty five thousand residents. It literally takes 50 minutes to drive from one side to the next. And the STD thing is very.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, so all the preconceived notions about this are all accurate.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

If you're in a 55 plus subdivision, you ain't just hanging out and going to play play bingo.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, no. You're going to get in the gonorrhea.

[Cole Thompson]

Doesn't mean everybody there is there for that reason. But there's just a lot of people that are just like, hey, let's like, what do I got to lose?

[Seth Payne]

You know, nobody's judging me here.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sean Pendergast]

All it takes is a few people though, man. That's, you know, it's. If you get the most promiscuous one. Now I can tell you right now, Nancy Del Estrido is not spreading any of the herp or the gonorrhea at all. I can promise you that.

[Cole Thompson]

Hey, but I just found the. I've found the picture on my phone. I definitely, I didn't want to. I wanted to be sure I didn't misremember that the License plate. It's a Cleveland license plate on a Mercedes S300. It actually is Mrs. BJS. Like. Like that gets through. That gets through the DMV.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, but this.

[Cole Thompson]

This other one. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

Maybe it was a vanity plate.

[Seth Payne]

Oh, that's close.

[Sean Pendergast]

Maybe she wants her business out there. Man.

[Cole Thompson]

I felt like her husband should have sprung for the S500. If that's. What

[Sean Pendergast]

if she's married and that's who she is, she's not driving a nice enough car.

[Cole Thompson]

This is an unappreciative husband, I'll tell you that much.

[Sean Pendergast]

A business.

[Seth Payne]

Put the QR code right in the corner. You know where to stand.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, yeah, no, but it's Mrs. It's Mrs.

[Sean Pendergast]

Does she have a pineapple in the front seat?

[Cole Thompson]

I guess that's the bigger question. Yeah. Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right. Pain and pender gas with you, the other voice you hear, that's Cole Thompson. Final segment coming up. Let's circle back one more time to. To C.J. stroud and. And Jeremy Fowler. The one thing, if the Texans do this, you can win with CJ Stroud. Did you have something you want?

[Cole Thompson]

It was a Mercedes C300. I wanted it for the sake of accurate.

[Sean Pendergast]

Where is. Is that. Where is that on the spectrum of Mercedes?

[Cole Thompson]

Well, it's not. I don't know. I think that. I don't know. I think it's like a higher. The number with Mercedes, the nicer car.

[Sean Pendergast]

She deserves better. If that's her.

[Cole Thompson]

I threw out S500 like I knew something, but I don't know.

[Sean Pendergast]

Coming up, final segment, we'll find out what the guy's got going on on in the loop as well. We'll do all that coming up next.

[Cole Thompson]

I want to tell you about a

[Seth Payne]

new podcast from Odyssey called Family Lore. It's about interesting family stories and the truth behind them. It's available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify

[Cole Thompson]

or wherever you get your shows.

[Sean Pendergast]

All right. Pain and pender gas with you. Final segment, we'll find out what the guy's got going on on in the loop. Jeremy Fowler was this when he was on with Dan Patrick Seth the talking about the Texans running the football and whatnot?

[Cole Thompson]

Yes.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay. Gotcha. Yep. Jeremy Fowler on the Dan Patrick Show. If the Texans can do this one thing, I just spoiled what it was. They'll win the Super Bowl. I think the offense he's had changes.

[Cole Thompson]

You go from OC Bobby Slowik to Nick Kaley. Like they need to be able to

[Sean Pendergast]

run the ball and simplify some things for him. And once they do his arm talent and his ability can take over. But let's be honest, Dan, I mean Houston and I'm doing this top 10

[Cole Thompson]

series, they have the best defense in the league.

[Sean Pendergast]

They have talent on offensive, rebuilt their offensive line. If they can run the ball, they probably, I mean, I think they'll win the Super Bowl. Like, I think they have that kind of team and if they do that, then that changes things for C.J. stroud in a big way.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, that was like kind of pretty straightforward. Just like if they can run the ball, I think they'll win the Super Bowl. I. And that, you know, that's along the lines of what we've been talking about with the Texans in that offense is just. Man, the simple ability to run the football changes a lot of things. Whether, whether it makes CJ Stroud markedly a better quarterback or not. If you just take last year and add in the ability to run the ball in the red zone, I think that CJ doesn't have to be an all pro caliber player or anything. That's a much different offense. If they could just, just if they get gained. There's so many instances, like remember when they ran it three times in a row down on the goal line in the red zone that like if they can get an extra 6 inches on one of those plays, then between the combination of a better offensive line and David Montgomery, that's a much different offense. They were, they, you know, they finished 13th and scoring, which is a little fugazi because of some of the blowout games and everything. But they also had one of the worst red zone offenses in the league. Being able to run the ball like an average football team would have made them a much better red zone offense.

[Sean Pendergast]

Well, the short yardage is the big one and you kind of touched on that. That's, that's to me is the value in David Montgomery, right. Is the short yardage stuff, you know, the third and fourth and shorts in between the twenties. The, the, the fact that you. We won't. I'm guessing when we come in on Monday day, we shouldn't. It's assuming health for David Montgomery. We will not be debating should they have given the ball to British Brooks twice in that series in gold to go. Remember that? Remember that? So I think that's. That to me is the biggest value in David Montgomery is in these short yarded situations. Now naturally I think they're, they're expecting him to be a lot more than that. He's going to be their bell cow, but I think that's that to me is where the biggest thing Montgomery brings is the short. Is a. Is a good solution in short yardage. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I don't know, you know, like I don't have any need to see David Montgomery get a thousand rushing yards. I would just. If it works out well where he and Woody Marks and maybe every now and then a George Jordan or something can. Can platoon it. You can be a much better offense without having to have a stud like even, even a Pro bowl caliber running back on that offense.

[Seth Payne]

Okay, I have a question then for both of you. Would you rather see David Montgomery get a thousand yards and be a Pro Bowler? But he only finishes with six rushing touchdowns or him finish with under 800 rushing yards but 12 rushing touchdowns.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, is that a no brainer? That's. And I would love for David Montgomery to be able to go to a Pro bowl because he probably got a bonus or something in his contract for that. But I would love. But. And I think fantasy players, especially Houston fans who tend to draft their own,

[Seth Payne]

had him on his team for three years.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. Right. And he's. And so that's the kind of guy you want. But I'm independent of fantasy football and Pro bowl accolades and everything else. If the Texans starting running back has 800 yards but is scoring 12 touchdowns, that means the offense is working.

[Cole Thompson]

That's the running back equivalent of Devonte Adams on the Rams last year. You know Devonte Adams had 14 touchdowns like he was just a red zone machine.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yes.

[Cole Thompson]

And yeah, if David Montgomery is that guy that can punch in some of those, I would like Kymi Fairbairn. I don't want to see Kami Fairbairn as much as I did last year. No, I'm sorry, Kaimi, it's. But it's out of a light, you

[Seth Payne]

know, disrespecting the mvp. I see how it is.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

I know the.

[Seth Payne]

At times he was like, let's be real. He was the MVP at times last year for Houston.

[Sean Pendergast]

You're bringing in the kicker for the MVP as the final is your finishing move on the show.

[Cole Thompson]

That's how down bad we were though. I agree with.

[Seth Payne]

That's how down bad the offense was.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's true. That is true. But I just think that I like, I love the question. I think the correlation of having a lead running back with 800 yards and 12 touchdowns to me is that that just means like that that he only had 800 means one of two things. Either CJ is cooking for like 4200. Cause you got to get it down in position for him to get touchdowns, which means you're likely moving the football a lot.

[Seth Payne]

Right.

[Sean Pendergast]

So that means one of two things or both. Either that CJ is cooking way more than he was last year and. Or Woody Marks has settled in as a nice number two. Who's getting you 550 yards on the ground, getting you your 450. Or you know, 350, 400, 450 through the air. That's the. That's one of the other biggest ripple effects I'm hoping David Montgomery, is that we get to see this version of Woody Marks that we heard about the day he was drafted out of Mississippi State where he's catching a bunch of balls and things like that. He didn't get to do that last year. They had to lean on him to do regular running back.

[Seth Payne]

Usc.

[Sean Pendergast]

Usc. He was at the station before that. Yeah, Mississippi State and then usc. Yeah, he was catching all the balls with Lincoln Riley.

[Seth Payne]

But like, think about it like as you talk about how important it is for those touchdowns, you have guys who were average who finished with. If I'm not mistaken, the leader in touchdowns last year was Jonathan Taylor. But Josh Allen was number two in rushing. In rushing touchdowns, how many did he have? 14.

[Sean Pendergast]

Jeez.

[Seth Payne]

But Josh Jacobs had 14 rushing touchdowns last year. Only 900 yards.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's it. See that, that would be.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh good.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's a home run year for David

[Seth Payne]

Montgomery because John Robinson had 1400 yards but only seven touchdowns.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So it's like, what would you rather have?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. And the reason I brought up Devonte Adams was because he had 789 receiving yards. So you might like when. When Stefan Diggs said, hey, I'd be the best number two receiver out there. Like, okay, cool. You might get a thousand yards, but I'll take the 16 touchdowns 100%.

[Sean Pendergast]

Dude, if. God.

[Seth Payne]

Is that all.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's all Devonte Adams had for yardage. Huh?

[Cole Thompson]

He was just a red zone maniac.

[Sean Pendergast]

Every, every Rams game I watched, it felt like he caught two touchdowns in those games.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's wild. That is wild.

[Seth Payne]

He won me fantasy last year.

[Sean Pendergast]

I appreciate devontae.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, devontae did. Single handedly.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah. One more from Jeremy Fowler on what C.J. stroud himself needs to do for the Texans to win a Super Bowl. Stroud just needs to do just enough so that. That's what's crazy about these quarterback rankings is the strength from 10 to 20 is as good as it's ever been

[Cole Thompson]

since I've been doing this since 2020.

[Sean Pendergast]

Like, you can be the 20th best quarterback technically, and you can win a Super bowl, and Sam Darnold just did, and he's 11, and Jalen Hurts just

[Cole Thompson]

did and he's 17. So.

[Sean Pendergast]

But people, when they were doing the rankings, they were feeling that, like, there's good depth now at quarterback. He's talking about. Yeah, yeah, there's. There, there. There is good depth. That, that was just so disapping to see CJ with the one vote in that. In that exercise.

[Cole Thompson]

But that part, and that's something people have been talking about this offseason. You know, you never want to just overly generalize based on recent results or anything, but, man, just by virtue of the fact that the rushing, the, the run game has come back into vogue and become all of a sudden so important. It comes again. It's that, yeah, like a more balanced team, you might be better served these days by having a really balanced football team than by having one of the top five quarterbacks. Or at the very least, it's a lot easier to envision winning a, winning a Super bowl with a simply a balanced football team that you've got a shot. And we're, we're not saying anymore, oh, my gosh, we just have to get a Patrick Mahomes. You got to get. You got to. To get one of these types of quarterbacks. I don't think people feel that way anymore.

[Seth Payne]

Talk to yourself five years ago and say, Sam Darnold, super bowl champion, while Josh Allen is yet to be in a Super Bowl.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, 100%. That's what I was just thinking the same thing. I'm like, this is what the Seahawks

[Cole Thompson]

did, you know, like going to like the whole. Kaimi, you know, you had mentioned we had to see Kymi Fairburn. That's again, the big tragedy about the Texans being so ineffective in the red zone. Last year they were 28th, 29th in red zone efficiency.

[Sean Pendergast]

But.

[Cole Thompson]

But they were 18th in terms of overall trips to the red zone.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

So, like, just if you just, if you had just converted some of those into touchdowns at an average rate, it's. You're a top 10 offense in terms of scoring. It's just. That's how bad it was. And so much of that comes back to short yardage rushing and just rushing in general. Your ability to run the ball down in the red zone makes. Opens up. That's where you get those wide open Dalton Schultz touches. You want to. If you run the ball really effectively, that's when linebackers and safeties are so dialed in versus the run that they completely forget to cover a tight end.

[Sean Pendergast]

Ah, so there's a correlation. The Texans improve the running game to Dalton. I feel like we're turning it into fantasy football. Yeah. That's all I'm thinking about right now is like, huh. I like to cut a Seth's jib right there. Get eight touchdowns out of Dalton Schultz and get him for $2 in my auction Nick year. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

That cheap.

[Sean Pendergast]

No, I'm so. Well, yeah, because you did.

[Seth Payne]

Because we do auction too, so.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, don't look at the. Don't look at the Texan skill players other than Nico Collins fantasy rankings right now. Oh, it's depressing.

[Sean Pendergast]

It is.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Is Montgomery that low?

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, yeah, he's out. I want to say he's.

[Seth Payne]

He's not in the top 32. I saw that.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I can't believe he's out. If he's outside the top 40, that's malpractice.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, you got to take him.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, no, I think, no, he's going to be your red zone guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

He's. There will be value. And I. And at all the drafts I go to, I'll get accused of being a homer when I take him, you know, with a pick that nobody's thinking of taking him with. But he's. He's going to get. He's going to get all that workage down there.

[Seth Payne]

The dude has as many touchdowns in three years as the entire Texans have in three years.

[Sean Pendergast]

Really?

[Seth Payne]

He had 33 rushing touchdowns during his tenure with Detroit. The Texans had 33 rushing touchdowns without in the last three seasons.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, my God. Tied with everybody. And he had Jameer Gibbs on his.

[Seth Payne]

And he had a split carriage for Jabir.

[Cole Thompson]

The other thing about it, too, is that I think he's a better receiver than people realize because always you're always going to be chat. Like when they got Jameer Gibbs on the team, that's going to be the guy that gets the highlight reels and everything on that. But yeah, I think. I think that they. I think that they like the dynamic of. Okay. Yeah, it's easy to think of it as, okay, David Montgomery is the hammer and Woody Marks is, you know, it can be your receiving back, but Montgomery can be a rhythm changer when used as a receiver, too. If teams are loading up versus the run.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yep. I know John Harris. If he's listening, I know we'll nod his head. And I say this every time you bring that up. Both of them out there at the same time. Montgomery. Montgomery. And Woody Marks out there at the same time. That's. That's. That's what Johnny Harris. Johnny Harris loves putting the two. Both of your running backs.

[Seth Payne]

Are we going Woody and Buzz with that nickname now? Is that what they decided upon today? I don't know. He's just. I think he's retiring Knuckles because he doesn't want to do it without something.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Seth Payne]

So they got to find a new nickname.

[Sean Pendergast]

Woody and Buzz.

[Cole Thompson]

I will tell you one thing. I've done a couple of videos on my YouTube about David Montgomery. I am always, always so impressed by the number of Lions fans show up in the comments and just gush about David Montgomery. Like they love. They love David Montgomery.

[Sean Pendergast]

I like that trade, man. Someone pointing out on the text page the. The viral video that we were talking about in the previous segment of that Houston woman that was practicing pole dancing in her kitchen. And the poll. Reggie's nodding his head. He's seen the video. The. The poll hitting the spring sprinkler, the text message. The poor dog got soaked. The woman had a beautiful. Looked like a black lab, really, just sitting there, very docile, Just. Just watching her do her pole dancing. Then the sprinkler hits, and the dog's running around like a. Like a maniac. What is it?

[Seth Payne]

Is it because of the sound that goes with the sprinkler, or is it just the water?

[Sean Pendergast]

Probably the suddenness of all that water in a place that he's never gotten wet.

[Seth Payne]

I honestly like to think that the

[Sean Pendergast]

lab was really concerned about the property

[Seth Payne]

damage and the cost. Oh, yeah. She didn't get back in cost, that's for sure.

[Sean Pendergast]

Call guys. Psycho. What's up, fellas?

[Cole Thompson]

Welcome back, big dog.

[Sean Pendergast]

Thanks, man. It's good to be back. It's good to be back. Reggie Atatula. John Lopez. Yeah. Great to be back, man, and just having a good time with our friend Cole here. Yeah, man. How about that? Yeah. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

I already feel the college football. I'm telling you, if I ever get to come back in with you and get talks. Talk smack. I promise you, nobody in the city knows more about the sport than me.

[Sean Pendergast]

College football.

[Seth Payne]

College football.

[Sean Pendergast]

You're putting yourself up against anybody.

[Seth Payne]

I will go up against anybody.

[Sean Pendergast]

You got good content. I'm not even.

[Seth Payne]

I'm not even going to worry about it. I can do this in my sleep or hung over and still be better.

[Sean Pendergast]

Who's your team?

[Cole Thompson]

You versus John Harris in college football. I like it.

[Seth Payne]

He and I actually have gone to Big 12 media days before, and we've. We've shoot the breeze about it. So I, he is somebody I have an immense amount of respect for, for his knowledge.

[Sean Pendergast]

Do you shoot the breeze or do you try to like one off each other? Do like a, you know, a measuring contest?

[Seth Payne]

No, no, I is, I like FCC regulations. So shoot the breeze is a fun.

[Sean Pendergast]

Shoot the breeze.

[Seth Payne]

I already said nip it in the butt twice today. We can go with that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, nip it in the butt. I did hear that.

[Seth Payne]

I did hear that.

[Cole Thompson]

Please don't say that anymore.

[Seth Payne]

It's a, it's a fine phrase saying it, actually. Great phrase.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's not even close to fine. John's in English, of course. Don't worry about it.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah, but no, Alabama is where I went to college.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, okay. Crimson Tide, huh?

[Seth Payne]

And Kaylin Bohr, let's see what you do this year, buddy.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, man. Yeah. All right. You're listening to KLT AM, KLT FM, HD2, Houston An Odyssey Sports Station Crosstalk brought to you by DNM Auto Leasing. Gentlemen, question of the day. Very simple one. Okay, what's dumb could be sports. How much time do you got aside

[Cole Thompson]

from nip it in the butt, but

[Sean Pendergast]

damn, I disagree with that.

[Cole Thompson]

It could be sports.

[Sean Pendergast]

What is the, what is the genesis of this question?

[Cole Thompson]

France and England have to play a

[Sean Pendergast]

third place game in the World Cup. They've always had that. They used to have that in the NCAA AAA tournament and they did.

[Seth Payne]

I didn't know that.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, late 70s. And then they realized it. Then they realized that's dumb. That's just dumb.

[Cole Thompson]

You know?

[Sean Pendergast]

So I'll give you some examples that just kind of popped into my head. CVS receipts. CVS receipts are dumb. Oh, yes.

[Cole Thompson]

They're like got some good deals. They've got some incredible deals. Have you ever looked at them? No, no stuff.

[Sean Pendergast]

You actually use town crier to open it like a scroll.

[Cole Thompson]

My console is full of them. I always forget to use them. I forget to use them. But I've got my console as loaded. It'll be like, you know, three for one on like the actual deodorant that you use.

[Sean Pendergast]

Okay, well, that's mine.

[Cole Thompson]

It's mine. And also for sports, I did one

[Sean Pendergast]

non sports just to kind of get my thought process going. College football calling it the two minute timeout instead of the two minute.

[Cole Thompson]

No, this actually, it's actually. So we have to go with the

[Sean Pendergast]

anachronism the NFL has just because it's there. It's ominous. It's a timeout and it happens in two minutes. The warning tells You. The half is ending. Yeah, man, the half is ending.

[Seth Payne]

But like, at the same time, what makes college football so great is that it's not the NFL. So when you steal stuff from the NFL, it feels like you're just doing a carbon cop.

[Sean Pendergast]

They steal everything from the NFL.

[Seth Payne]

That's the point. I hate the Twilight. I hate the Pl.

[Cole Thompson]

I was. And I think. And honestly, John, I think the NFL steals more from high school. Maybe. Yeah, maybe.

[Sean Pendergast]

I like 2 minute warning as well. I think it always felt like they were doing it to be politically correct for some reason. Like, warning is too ominous. Oh, yeah. Like when they have a post game press conference. Now stepping up the student athletes from. Blah, blah, blah. Student athletes.

[Cole Thompson]

That was a.

[Sean Pendergast]

That was a legal thing that they were doing. Now stepping up the merchant from North Carolina.

[Cole Thompson]

I would say mine. And I think a lot of people share this. The dumbest thing in sports is that fumbling through the end zone is an automatic turnover.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's a good one. That's a good one.

[Cole Thompson]

That's a good. Like, yeah, I. I'm cool with it even being a huge. Like, you got to go back to your own 20 or something. But like, that being a turnover just. I. It's never made sense to me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Correct. I. I'm. I'm gonna read the list of things that annoy me that I keep on my phone.

[Seth Payne]

They're all dumb sports them listed.

[Sean Pendergast]

That's sports related. Yeah, I've got them listed right here.

[Seth Payne]

This spends a lot of your time,

[Sean Pendergast]

the sports related ones. Well, I need to be reminded why I'm angry all the time. This helps. So guys who intercept passes on fourth down. Oh, yeah. Instead of just knocking it down when

[Cole Thompson]

they've got no real chance of a

[Sean Pendergast]

30 yards downfield, they, like catch it like they're going to the ground. Screw that 30 yards.

[Seth Payne]

I'm looking at my stats and my money.

[Sean Pendergast]

What are you talking about? It's dumb. I don't like NFL quarterbacks who go to press conferences still in their packs. Ads. Stop being such a. Try hard. Yeah, yeah. I'm so mad I haven't even showered yet. Now, Daniel Hunter did that last year in the post game show. I was not gonna say that. I just said quarterbacks. That's all quarterbacks. You know what? I don't like analysts who compare football players to quarterbacks. Particularly to Steph Curry. Oh, he's a lot like Steph Curry. And he distributes. He's not anything like Steph Curry. Steph Curry's a basketball player. Stopped it already. Have you got, have you gotten that feel if you've been I know you've

[Seth Payne]

been watching some World cup like Darren

[Sean Pendergast]

Fletcher on on the play by play has been doing a lot of this is like when the Atlanta Falcons and the New England Patriots. You know that's funny. I wonder if that was I wonder if that was part of not the marching orders per se, but I wonder if like when they were related. Like do you guys like when you guys are. Because they have meetings galore before these war Cups obviously. Like do they try to encourage you guys to like Americanize it a little

[Cole Thompson]

or just make it really relatable? Yeah, relatable.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, relatable. I'll only do a few more.

[Seth Payne]

The only a few guys see in

[Sean Pendergast]

10 minutes he got a scroll. I'll only do 26 more. The NBA inseason tournament check and mate. Dumb dumb strong.

[Cole Thompson]

Do you like I for, for trying to seem like I'm like a sophisticated I'm, I'm in favor of it.

[Sean Pendergast]

You are?

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah, yeah. No because I like, I like I want to act like one of these people that are like no, you got to understand the elegance of this.

[Sean Pendergast]

I, I, I. Okay, I'll say this. You can have your in season tournament. I don't, I don't like and maybe it's an old man take. I don't like the floors that they use for it. Fair. Those look, those feel like I would play worse basketball on these floors. The only I I think that they

[Seth Payne]

are atrocious to look at. They're hideous.

[Sean Pendergast]

The re.

[Seth Payne]

The thing that I appreciate about them

[Sean Pendergast]

is if you're going to do this thing in the course of the regular

[Seth Payne]

season, you have to make it very clear that it's different. And so that is an instant way

[Sean Pendergast]

for you to know it's a visual way to do it. I would like it to look better.

[Seth Payne]

Like can we get better designers here?

[Sean Pendergast]

But I understand that feeling and that's

[Seth Payne]

to the same degree of the NBA cup itself. Yeah, I feel like it's we, we've talked about how the regular season doesn't matter anymore and I appreciate you putting

[Sean Pendergast]

something in that understandably is not necessarily

[Seth Payne]

going to be an instant fix, but over generations you hope that it latches on and that it creates some level

[Sean Pendergast]

of of you know, meaning for this middle of the season because otherwise like we're just sitting here and saying we need to find a way to make

[Seth Payne]

the regular season work but not actually

[Sean Pendergast]

doing anything to that end. How many seasons have they done it? Are we three seasons in on it

[Seth Payne]

at least three season. Three.

[Cole Thompson]

Yes.

[Sean Pendergast]

I will say this about it. I don't like. I'm not a big fan of it. I just think it's superfluous. But it's not going anywhere. No. And it does seem like it's. I would say it's picked up steam more than lost steam. The in season tournament.

[Cole Thompson]

Yeah. But it's one of those things. It's like, yeah, it'll pick up steam and people start to care about it. But like this is one of those things. Things that in Europe it's part of like they've been doing it forever.

[Sean Pendergast]

It was like a part of the soccer. Yeah.

[Cole Thompson]

I was like making me like enjoy this food that you don't actually like.

[Sean Pendergast]

Right.

[Cole Thompson]

I didn't grow up with it. I'm not gonna eat snails.

[Seth Payne]

But the next generation of fans will.

[Sean Pendergast]

It'll just have been a thing that they knew.

[Seth Payne]

Yeah.

[Sean Pendergast]

And then at that point, like, are you then. So this is a play in my mind for 10, 15 years from now. Yeah.

[Seth Payne]

Which not.

[Sean Pendergast]

Not everybody has the. The audacity to do. You know, last one. The whole Mr. Irrelevant Escapade.

[Seth Payne]

Agreed.

[Sean Pendergast]

That whole thing. Agreed. Oh, is the last guy draft Mr. Irrelevant. Oh, you know what? This group, this group of old folks in Florida are going to fly you down to go to Disney and you're going to go to dinner and you're going to do. Man, if I was the last guy drafted, especially if I was a guy who was good in college, I would refuse that trip. Yeah. And I would hope that Brock Purdy did. If Brock Purdy went on that trip. Trip, I think he should have to give back half of his contract that he signed. That's pretty boring.

[Seth Payne]

I think San Francisco Francis want to

[Sean Pendergast]

give back out the contract maybe. You know who I always feel bad for? Who? Pick 256. Right.

[Seth Payne]

Like I'm just here. Oh, so I'm choplitter like this guy's picking the driver.

[Sean Pendergast]

The only benefit you get is you make like $256 more than the worst part of it.

[Cole Thompson]

The worst part of it is that Mr. Irrelevant typically his signing bonus is way less than a lot of undrafted rookie free agents. You know, like James Neal III got like a this year for the Texans undrafted rookie free agent. His. He got like 250,000 in guaranteed money where like the seventh round pick isn't that much. You're like, you're get. I'm getting down to the seventh round pick and if I know some teams are interested in me, I'm going to be like, yo, please, I don't want to be. I can buy my own damn trip to Disney with the extra 100 grand ago going on.

[Sean Pendergast]

Lael Collins.

[Cole Thompson]

Don't draft me.

[Sean Pendergast]

Don't draft me.

[Seth Payne]

Mine is really quick. It's simply if you don't use your directional when you're driving and then get. And then afterwards about how you were getting cut off by somebody. That drives me. I can't stand that there was a wreck.

[Sean Pendergast]

And then sports like that.

[Seth Payne]

The one that drives me crazy right now is you're trying to grow the game and you have it on streaming services. It's dumb in my opinion. Why are you trying to say, oh, let's watch the field of dreams get game. But you can only have it if you have peacock like, no. Like nobody is going to be interested in trying to get that game out there if you're trying to gross. Like the NFL gets away with it because the NFL will always have fandoms. When you're not as big as a sport, you need to have it on the highest level for productivity. That way you're able to go ahead and get as many eyeballs on.

[Sean Pendergast]

I was told there were more Netflix subscribers than. Yeah, I strongly disagree with that. I think these days boxes all pop up right on previews of what's happening on those channel.

[Seth Payne]

Here's one of the text line that I actually agree with. Jinxing and no hitter by talking about.

[Sean Pendergast]

It's dumb. It's dumb. Have some damn whimsy.

[Seth Payne]

No, screw you.

[Cole Thompson]

I'll throw in on top of that. Just like how meager performance has to be to get a save. As a reliever. For the life of me, I remember as a kid when I was. When it was explained to me what a save was, I was like, for that. For that what? Well, you can't that a save.

[Sean Pendergast]

You threw two.

[Cole Thompson]

No, but it's all. It's like three. Like, no, like give me a one run margin or something. Like, how am I calling that a save? Like not blowing it isn't the same thing as saving something.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, quality start. Six innings, three earned runs. We don't like that either. That's a 4.5 er.

[Seth Payne]

Yes. Quality light.

[Sean Pendergast]

Yeah, yeah, right. Soft quality stuff. All right, gentlemen, have a great show.

[Seth Payne]

Thanks, man.

[Sean Pendergast]

Seth. Antibodies to you, my friend.

[Cole Thompson]

Oh, antibodies to you and I. I look forward to Cole winning his argument about Ennis Haywood with John Harris.

[Sean Pendergast]

Oh, wait. Let's go. Debate time. All right, we're done. We are out of time. Crosstalk brought to you by DNA motto leasing.

[Seth Payne]

You've built a killer sports podcast.

[Sean Pendergast]

You bring the heat every week, and

[Seth Payne]

you have a loyal audience. But when it comes to monetizing, you're

[Sean Pendergast]

still leaving too much on the table.

[Cole Thompson]

That's where the Odyssey Creator Lab comes in. We host your show for free. No fees, no catch.

[Seth Payne]

You focus on delivering the play by

[Sean Pendergast]

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